Broken Wings (A Romantic Suspense) (76 page)

What the
fuck
is going on here?

I slip into the line and start inching my way towards the hot dog cart. Alexis glances my way once or twice but her eyes slide over me. She keeps looking around, like she's expecting to see someone.

Cold fear punches into my gut and tightens into a fist. Maybe she
is
looking for someone. A boyfriend. Maybe she moved on, let me go, forgot about me. I should turn back. I should do what I came here to do and leave her out of it.

I can't now, though. I have to find out why she'd be helping my father, what the hell she'd be doing here, doing this. It's weird that May is here, too. Both of them, serving hot dogs.

Two more people, then it's my turn. One.

I step up to the cart, and Alexis mechanically slaps a hot dog into a bun with a pair of tongs and halfway holds it out to me, only to stop and stare, her eyes going wide as her gaze moves up my chest and settles on my face. Her hand trembles.

"Make me one with everything."

Alexis herself taught me that one. She loved dumb cheeseball jokes like that.

What did the Zen master say to the hot dog man?

Her mouth falls open, and she pulls the hot dog back. A red flush spreads on her face, and her mouth pinches shut, her expression hardening from slack boredom to anger. Very slowly, she lays a thin strip of mustard on the hot dog, then a thin strip of ketchup, and then a wide layer of relish down the middle, then onions. It looks like a TV hot dog, an advertisement. She holds it in her hands reverently.

"Here you go, Hawk."

Then she mashes it into my chest with both hands and grinds the heels of her hands into the mess, smearing it all over my shirt, turns, and bolts.

I blink a few times and look over at Alex's sister.

"Well?" May says. "Go after her."

The hot dog plops to the ground as I skirt around the cart and run after Alexis.

I can see her ponytail swaying in the air as she darts and weaves between people. I'm not so nimble, I almost knock someone over as I close in on her. She spares me a brief glance and leans into it.

She can still run like the devil.

Then she veers off, turning quickly down an alley, moving so fast I stumble and have to stop and change direction to catch up to her.

She's waiting for me, facing me. I skid to a stop on my newly bought sneakers and Alexis rises to her tip-toes, grabs my head in her hands, and kisses me. Hard.

Her lips are soft and warm, and just to kiss her is like swallowing a spoonful of warm honey. I almost pull her against me but I don't want hot dog fixin's all over her shirt, so I settle for holding her by the hips instead.

She breaks from the kiss and pulls back, an unreadable look on her face, somewhere between regret, nostalgia, and anger.

Then she cocks her arm and punches me in the face.

Hard.

Alexis

Now

I turn and duck into the alley. I have to get off the street. I know he's right behind me, and he'll be on me any second. He's so
big
. Hawk was always a big lummox but he's huge now, a real man monster, and those tattoos! What the hell happened to him? Where did he go? The questions make my eyes burn as I catch my breath and he rounds the corner, comes at me with a big green, yellow and red stain on his shirt from the hot dog. I don't even know why I did that, it just sort of happened. He made that stupid hot dog joke (that I taught him) and then I was shoving it into his shirt and running.

He moves down the alley, draws closer to me. I stand my ground, but my knees shake.

It's him, it's him, it's
him
.

I dreamed of this for four years. When I was in deep, dark places I prayed, pleaded, begged for him to walk back into my life, pick me up and save me. Now he's here and he smells like pickle relish and he's
real
, he's standing right in front of me. Instinct takes over before I really think and my lips are on his, his skin under my palms. I almost throw myself at him, but pull back at the last second before I smear condiments all over my chest. His hands fall on my hips, his grip tight, his thumbs pressing slow circles into my sides. When he kisses me, something inside me twists up into a tight ball and my heart flutters.

I never kissed him before.

He never gave me a chance.

That's the other side of the coin, the other end of the equation. I pull back with a sharp breath, cock back and crack him right in the face. I think it hurt my hand more than it hurt him, even if he staggers and clutches his jaw while he stares at me. I shake out my hand, trying to stop my knuckles from throbbing, and keep shaking until my fingers feel loose. Then I fold my arms over my chest to stop from rubbing my hand, trying to make it stop stinging. I feel like I just punched a sandbag with a brick in it.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"I live here."

I'm not sure if he's just dazed or that was his trademark charming wit. I scowl at him.

"Four years, Hawk. Four. Years. Where’ve you been?"

"I joined the Navy."

I blink a few times.
"What?"

"You know, the Navy? Boats, uniforms, anchors aweigh my boy?"

"What the hell for?"

He shrugs. "My options were limited. Alex-"

"Don't you ‘Alex’ me," I shout, then lower my voice.

God, I don't know who might be listening.

"Hawk,
four years
. Not a word. No text messages, no post cards, nothing. You fell off the face of the planet after-"

After what? What am I going to say? What actual obligation did he have to stay? At any point were we more than just friends?

It's not a question I want to answer, because I've been pining for him all this time. Look at him now, muscled like a Greek god, and good Lord those tattoos are hot. I feel a weird urge to lick his arms and see what they taste like. There's more under his shirt- I can see a bird or something where the relish juice soaked through. Knowing him, it's probably a hawk. He starts towards me and I take a step back.

"What are you doing?"

"Alexis, can we try talking? Thanks. Look, I-"

"You what?"

"Stop interrupting-"

"No."

"Alex!"

"Say what you came to say, Hawk."

"Okay, I-"

"Go on."

"Damn it!"

He scowls at me but he's starting to laugh, the way he always used to when he was trying to act serious and I made him crack up. His chest jerks up and down and his shoulders tense as he tries to bite down on his laugh and keep it from escaping. Like an idiot, I smile in spite of myself and all but flutter my eyelashes at him. Hell, maybe I just
did
flutter my eyelashes at him, I'm not completely sure. The way he's looking at me makes me feel lightheaded, almost. He's different but the same, and when he smiles at me his eyes have the same mischief I remember but behind it there's something darker, haunted, like his eyes have seen too much.

Do I have that same look?

"Alex," he says, "I have… I have a lot to explain I just… what's up with that?"

He points at my chest. I glance down and grit my teeth.

"Oh, this. My stepfather has me working for his campaign."

"Your who? Your mom got married? Why would your stepdad have you working for…"

I watch it dawn on him. His face goes slack, then twists in rage.

"He married
your mother?"

I just look at him and nod, sadly. "Didn't anyone tell you?"

"No. I haven't talked to anyone from home."

"Why?"

"I had my reasons."

I glare at him. Harder.

"You had your reasons. You. Had. Your. Reasons."

"Yeah."

I pace closer to him and thrust my finger in his face. He doesn't even flinch.

"You just fucking disappear, pop back up
now
and say 'I had my reasons' and you expect me to accept it?"

"I… yes."

Fury snakes down my arm like a hot wire and before I realize what I'm doing, I slap him.

"I waited for you," I snap, my voice strained. "Every day I hoped and listened and watched, waiting for you to come back. I knew you wouldn't leave me, but you
did
. Four years of waiting and waiting and waiting."

"I did come back."

His words twist something in me until it snaps.

"Now. You come back now. When it's
too fucking late
."

"What do you mean?"

There's a bruise rising on his face, but he just looks at me and asks me what I mean. The longer I stay silent the deeper his gaze feels, the more the tension in his body grows. I never felt afraid of Hawk, and I don't now, but there's an intensity in him that makes me nervous, sets me on edge, like a faint musical note on the edge of hearing. He's changed.

I open and close my mouth.

What am I supposed to tell him? It would take hours, and I doubt he'd believe half of it. I don't believe half of it. Here I am, so close, and he comes crashing into my life again at the worst possible time. I know him. He's going to make a huge scene and just ruin everything.

"I don't need you anymore."

The cold in my own voice almost impresses me. Hawk flinches, more now than he did when I hit him. Both times. He moves closer.

"You don't?"

I take a step back. "No, I don't."

"I need you."

"That's great, Hawk. Maybe you should have needed me for the last-"

"Did you miss the part where I joined the military? We don't get vacation."

"Sure you do. They call it leave, or something."

He's moving closer. I'm back up. There's a wall behind me.

"Besides," I go on, "Even if you couldn't come home, you could’ve looked me up. I'm not hard to find. Sent me an email, something, anything. A text message. Wrote a note and stuck it in a bottle."

"No, I couldn't."

"Well why the fuck not, Hawk? Don't feed me some bullshit about being a CIA assassin or something, I swear-"

He surges forward and grabs me by the arms. He's so
strong
. As soon as he touches me, I'm completely in his power. It feels like he could lift me off my feet and it would be as effortless as lifting a feather. I freeze, and stare at him. That intensity is there, stronger than ever. He moves forward, pulls me towards him, and I push on him to stop him.

"You're covered in goop."

He looks down at his chest, lets go of me, and whips off his shirt in a single smooth motion. I gasp in spite of myself, my mouth falling open. Okay, he's big, and he's
ripped
. I swear his veins have veins, and there's more tattoos than I thought. He's covered in them, intricate patterns that wrap around his whole torso and disappear into the waistband of his jeans. Before I realize what I'm doing, I drag my fingernails over his skin, tracing the patters and outlines in the ink, my heart pounding in my chest. I look up at him and swallow, and tuck my lip under my teeth.

Hawk pushes forward and pulls me against him.

"We can't do this."

"Why not?"

"I'm your stepsister."

"Like I care."

"Tell me why you left?"

He kisses me. Hard.

It's good. I slip my arms around him.

Holy shit, if somebody looks down this alley -say, somebody that saw us chase each other through the crowd- they're going to see Hawk's back and my arms wrapped around him.

Also, my legs wrapped around him. Because I'm up against a brick wall and I just lifted my legs and hooked them around his hips. He bears the weight like nothing and his arms crush me against him. I squeeze back, digging my knees into his sides. I can feel his ribs expanding against me as he breathes. It's like being held by a castle. Slowly, I lower my legs and set my feet on the ground- barely. When he holds me around the waist and stands up straight, my toes barely scape the ground.

"I had to go. I had to."

"You could’ve said something."

"There was so much I wanted to say."

His fingers tickle my side, but more than that, they bunch up the cloth of my top, tugging the hem loose from my jeans. His fingers are warm on my skin as he pulls my shirt loose, and yanks at my belt so hard, it shakes my whole body. I breathe faster, heat spreading through my body as I glance towards the end of the alley and he pops the top button on my jeans and draws the zipper down. I'm not wearing hip huggers, or anything like that. A simple jerk and they slide down to my knees with a soft metallic sound from my belt buckle and the air is hot on my legs, but gooseflesh rises anyway.

His hand moves over my thigh. His palm is rough, calloused from hard work, his touch harder than I remember. His hand touches inside my thigh and I go very quiet as his palm slides up, his fingers moving towards me. He kisses me again as his fingertips trace over my lower lips, heat in my mouth as he presses the fabric against my slit and the wetness soaks through. For a moment I just drink in his scent and his warmth and the soft touch of his lips on mine and then his hand dives into my panties and slips under me, first his fingers and then his palm sliding over my mound, wetting themselves from my arousal. He holds his hand there and presses a little and I feel myself throbbing.

Hawk pulls back and looks me in the face. I'm angry with him, but I give him a tiny nod, a little whisper of permission, and his finger slips inside me slowly, bigger than I thought it would feel, and my hands clench on his shoulders. I want to make a sound, but someone will hear. With all the chatter and carnival noises and shouting and revelry outside the alley someone will still hear my cry of pleasure.

"Fuck that's tight," he growls in my ear, and I feel a weird flutter of pride and smile, and my smile melts into a slack expression of pleasure.

His other hand starts roaming. Through my shirt he cups my breast and squeezes, and his mouth moves to my throat. His lips and tongue are hot and wet and his breath cools the heat on my skin and heats it again and all of a sudden he kneels and tugs my underwear down, keeps his finger inside me and brings his mouth to my pussy, looking up at me as he buries his face in my mound. When he takes a long, dragging lick, I stifle my cry by covering my mouth with my hand and my eyes dart back and forth from Hawk to the end of the alley and back again as he tastes me.