Hearts of Winter (Bleeding Angels MC Book 2) (13 page)

Everywhere between the tops of my toes and my head is drowning in bliss.  Reality starts to seep slowly back into my brain and I look down at Jake, both of us still a little dazed.  I’m sure my dozy smile is a reflection of his and the look that passes between us says more than any words could.

“I love you,” I murmur, pressing my forehead against Jake’s.

“I love you too, Aimee,” he replies, and he swipes a strand of hair off of my face so tenderly that I feel my heart expand even further.

We stay like that for a while, listening to the silence of the night only broken by the sound of cicadas.  I get that familiar feeling of not wanting him to ever come out of me.  I want to stay like this, joined together, always.  I feel whole when he’s inside me and like I’m closer to him that I am to anything else.

“So that was a home run,” Jake says eventually, looking at me cheekily.

“That’s not what’s supposed to happen on a first date, is it?” I ask innocently.

“Only under very special circumstances,” Jake agrees, pausing to kiss the tops of my breasts. Automatically I feel my pussy clench at his touch.  “Fuck, Aimee, how do you do that?” he asks, shaking his head.

“Do what?” I ask naively.

“Make me so ready for you again.  Do you know how rare that is?” he asks, looking up at the sky.  “I should be laid out on the ground flat on my back after coming as hard as I did,” he says, kissing my swollen mouth.

“But?” I ask mischievously as I wriggle on top of him, rocking gently up and down as I feel his cock twitching and hardening inside me.

“But all I can think about is how much I want to make love to you again,” he whispers against my lips. 

“Well, if that’s all you can think about,” I purr, “I always say that you should go with your instincts.”

“You’re going to be the end of me, Miss Winters.” Jake manages to flip me over onto my back so he’s above me without breaking the contact between us.

“And that’s a bad thing, Mr. Summers?” I coo, lifting my hips up to take him inside of me even deeper.

“There are worst ways to go.” Jake shrugs before he leans down and goes back to work.

Thoughts of the night before with Jake spin around my head and stop me from being very productive at work the next day.  It had been the perfect night, from the way that Crystal’s makeover had made me feel, to the location that Jake had chosen for our date, to the fact that he’d managed to gather together all my favorite foods—despite the fact that none of them go together—to the amazing sex we had under the night sky.  But it doesn’t stop there.  We also managed to keep to all of Jake’s ground rules.  We didn’t mention the Angels once, nor did we talk about our fate at the end of the month.  For one night at least, we managed to be a normal couple in love, just enjoying being together, enjoying each other.  I can’t imagine a better date. 

“Yoo-hoo, Aimee, order up.” Big George waves a hand in front of my face to bring me back to the present.

“Right, order, sorry,” I say quickly, grabbing the plate that has been sitting on the pass for too long.

The diner is more or less dead, as is normal on the graveyard shift.  There is only one customer there and I’ve still managed to deliver his order late. 
Good job, Aimee
, I think to myself.
Working those tips
.

When I head into the stockroom in the back to get some more of the mini packets of sugar, salt, and pepper, George comes up behind me and nearly scares the living daylights out of me.

“What the hell, George?” I ask, jumping out of my skin and holding my hand to my chest as if that will stop my heart from beating out of it. 

“Easy, Aimee, easy,” he says calmly, talking to me as if I’m a horse that he’s just spooked.

“Sorry,” I breathe in, trying to get my heart rate back to normal. “You just startled me is all.”

“I noticed,” George replies, frowning.  “What’s up with you? Something happen?” He jumps to the typical conclusion that any resident of Painted Rock would—that something bad has happened.

“No, nothing.” I wave away his concern as I try to lift the massive box out of the store room and fail miserably.

George ushers me out of the way and lifts the box as if it were light as a feather, carrying it through to the front of the diner.  “So why are you all over the place tonight?” he asks, folding his arms as he watches me refilling the little metal bowls we use for the sachets.

“Nothing, just daydreaming, I guess,” I say, and can’t help letting a smile escape me as I stack the sweetener in a neat pile.

“Daydreaming, huh?  About a certain young man?” Big George smiles knowingly and winks at me.

“Maybe.” I smile back at him.

“Well as long as you’re off your game for a good cause,” he says cheekily, heading back towards the kitchen, when the bell over the door tinkles and two men walk in.

“Evening gents,” I say as I walk around the counter. “Let me show you to your seats.”  I walk towards the second booth along and gesture for them to take a seat.

The two men look between each other and they both shake their heads at me.  The taller man points at the booth at the back that gives almost a 360 degree view of the diner and the street outside.  “That one,” he says.

“Sure thing,” I reply, frowning at the strange request.  I take them to the seats, leave them their menus, and take a look at them from the safety of the counter.

They’re dressed in the same style as most of the truckers that come through here.  They’re both wearing baseball caps slung low on their heads.  One has a beard and the other looks like he hasn’t had a shave in a while.  They’re in loose T-shirts, and low-slung jeans, and heavy-toed Timberland boots.  But there are a few things which don’t fit.  Whereas most of the truckers that come through here are overweight and have that unwashed look about them, these two men are completely the opposite.  Although their clothes are ill-fitting, they don’t conceal the fact that their bodies underneath are muscular.  They look a little rumpled, like they’ve spent some time shut up in a car, but they don’t have that perpetual look of boredom that you see on a lot of the truckers’ faces.

It doesn’t take long for me to put them together with the comment that George had made about the Feds the night before.  It may be difficult to believe, but since yesterday afternoon I had been walking on a cloud and hadn’t even spared a thought for what might happen tonight.  Under normal circumstances I would have planned for this moment down to the last detail, making sure that I got as much out of it as I could.  But, instead, I’m kicking myself for having let myself be distracted from helping Jake by dating him.

I slip into the kitchen, trying to keep my pace slow and not draw attention to myself.  I know that I’m about as subtle as a hammer, so being under the radar takes all of my concentration.

“I think they’re here,” I say to George without any preamble.

He turns around from the grill and takes a look at me, taking in my expression of excitement and anticipation and then sticks his head out of the kitchen to take in the two men seated at the booth.  “Yup,” he confirms when he sees them and turns back to his crossword puzzle.

“That’s it?” I ask, struggling to keep my voice to a whisper.  “
Yup?
” I mimic his nonchalance.

“Well, what do you want me to say?” he asks, putting down his crossword and looking at me wearily.

“I don’t know.” I throw my hands up.  “You were the one that told me they would be here tonight.  What did you expect to happen?” I ask, frustrated.

“I didn’t expect anything,” George admits.  “I thought you’d figure it out. You’re smart, Aimee. A damn sight smarter than me, that’s for sure.  Use it,” he suggests.  “But first you may want to take their order before they start wondering where the only waitress in the place has gone.”

I take a deep breath and head back out into the diner and make a bee-line for the two men at the table.  Now that I’m closer, they do sort of have an odd couple look about them.  One of them is much taller than average and looks skinny as a bean-pole, but you can tell from his arms that he’s full of sinewy muscle.  The other is short—shorter than average—bearded, and he’s wider, built like a football player but in miniature.

“What can I get you both?” I ask breezily as I reach their table.  I had hoped to overhear something of interest as I approached their booth, but the men can see me coming a mile off.  Besides, they don’t even seem to be talking to each other at all.

“Two coffees, black, two omelets with cheese, and green salad on the side,” the tall man says, not looking at me and instead keeping his eyes trained on the front door.

“Sure; anything else?” I ask, looking between the men.

It’s the tall man that pipes up again, “No,” he replies sternly.

“Does he ever speak?” I joke, motioning towards the shorter man.  Both men turn their heads to look at me and I wonder why I don’t wear a muzzle.

“Sometimes,” Mr. Tall says without a hint of irony, and then he goes back to looking at the door of the diner.

“Okay, coming up for you,” I tell them both, getting away from the table as quickly as I possibly can without actually running. 
Well, that went well
, I tell myself. 
Great job, Aimee
.

I hand over the order to George and stand there tapping my foot and chewing on my bottom lip.  “They don’t talk to each other.  How am I supposed to find anything out if they don’t speak to each other?  One of them doesn’t talk at all,” I say, throwing my hands up in frustration.

“When they were giving out patience, you really were at the back of the line, weren’t you?” George asks, looking over the order and starting to break some eggs into a bowl.

“You say this like it’s news,” I grumble, folding my arms and trying to come up with some kind of a plan on the fly.

Before there’s time to even arrange my thoughts, the bell rings again.  “Duty calls,” I mumble as I head out into the entrance. But as soon as I see who’s standing there leaning over the counter, I stop dead.

Her hair is greasier, her skin more sallow, like she’s barely seen the daylight.  Her eyes are heavily made up but it looks like she may have put the make up on a couple of days ago and then slept in it.  Her tight, mostly leather clothes don’t do anything to hide the fact that she’s clearly lost a serious amount of weight.  She’s worryingly thin.  It’s only been a few weeks since I last saw Suzie and she’s become even more of a shell than she had been then.  This is what being with an Angel does to you.  It destroys you from the inside out, until there’s nothing left that resembles the person you used to be.   I should know, because the person that she was before would never have betrayed me the way that she did.

“What are you doing here?” I ask, unable to keep the coldness out of my voice.  I’m angrier with her than I can put into words.  I know that I’m supposed to be the bigger, better person. That I should be able to forgive and forget. But I can’t.  Maybe I’m not such a good person after all.  Maybe I don’t want to forgive her, maybe I don’t want to let her off the hook that easily.  She’s been let off the hook again and again, too many times to count.  Now she’s got herself in a situation that she can’t get out of.  She refused my help again and again, so maybe she doesn’t deserve it anymore.

Suzie doesn’t reply immediately. She just looks at me with her bleary, red eyes. 

“You have a lot of nerve coming here,” I tell her, my voice low.

“Oh no, is perfect little Aimee Winters angry with me?” She waggles her head like a puppet.  “Whatever shall I do?” she cackles, her voice sounding harsh and broken.

“Miss, could I get the check?” the customer at the back of the diner pipes up, waving in my general direction.

“Don’t move,” I hiss to Suzie.

I signal that I’ve heard the customer and start ringing his order up on the till, keeping Suzie in my peripheral vision the whole time.  I walk over to him briskly and stand there with itchy feet while he settles the bill.  He leaves a teeny tiny tip—which I can’t blame him for—and leaves.  I have to walk past the “truckers” to get back to the entrance where I’ve left Suzie, and I notice that their attention is trained on her.  They look like they’re taking in every move, every gesture, like nothing is getting past them.  Mr. Short notices me looking at them and I swing my head away from their direction as quickly as possible, but I’m sure it’s not quickly enough.

As I get closer to Suzie, I see that she’s playing with something in her hand and it doesn’t take long before I recognize it as a wallet.  It’s the wallet of the customer that just left. 

“You swiped it?” I ask, shocked.

“No, he dropped it and I found it on the floor,” she replies sweetly. Or it
would
have been sweetly if the image wasn’t marred a little by how yellow her teeth are.

“Is that what you came here for?” I ask.  “To steal from our customers?”

“Oh don’t get all high and might on me, Aimee,” she says.  “You act like you’re so much better than me. Well guess what,? You’re not!” Her last words are virtually a shout, but she clearly doesn’t care who hears her.

“What do you want?” I repeat the question again, just wishing that she would turn around and leave and never come back.  Seeing a former close friend under these circumstances is awful, and I’ve had enough awful to last a lifetime.  “Do you have any other bullshit information to pass on to me to ‘help’ Jake?” I challenge her.

She has the decency to look a little sheepish, but the contrition passes over her face as quickly as it has appeared.  “You’re still a little priss, aren’t you?  Even though you’re getting some now,” she hisses at me.

“Where’s Elvis, Suze?” I ask, looking behind her and then under the counter as if he might be there.  “He cut you lose once you did what they wanted?”

“What do you know, Aimee?  You don’t know anything!” she shrieks, and for a moment I wonder if she might launch herself at me.  She seems to be thinking the same thing, but the red mist dies down in her eyes after a few moments.

“So why are you here?” I ask, desperate to just see her turn around and go.

“I came to see how you were doing,” she says, shrugging as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

“Just like that,” I breathe, unable to contain my surprise that she could be so naive. 

“Yeah, can’t a girl check on her friends every once in a while?” she asks, looking around the diner for support. Finding none, she turns back to me.

“Friends?
Friends?
” I repeat, feeling myself getting spitting mad.  I grip onto the counter to stop myself from shouting.  “We stopped being friends that night when you proved that you have no loyalty and no love for anyone but yourself and whatever drug they’ve got you hooked on.  We’re not friends anymore, Suzie.  I thought that would have been pretty clear.”  The words come out through gritted teeth but I’m proud of myself for being able to keep on more or less an even keel.

“Ah, Aimee, don’t be like that,” she says in that whiny voice of hers.  There was a version of that voice that she used to use when she was trying to get her own way. But there wasn’t as much desperation to it as there is now.  “What happened to ‘friends forever?’  All that crap we used to say to each other.  Didn’t it mean anything?” she asks, winding her finger around a strand of greasy air and trying to look innocent.

“So you just came here to check on me, to see how I’m doing, because we’re such good friends, is that it?” I ask.  “Well, that’s real sweet of you, Suzie.  I’m just fine, thanks for asking, so you can go now.” I know I’m being harsh but I have a pretty good idea now of what it is that she’s driving at.

“Good, good, I’m glad you’re fine,” Suzie nods and reaches over to pat me awkwardly on the shoulder.  As she moves, her smell makes me gag.  She stinks like she hasn’t had a shower in weeks.  “So, I wanted to see if you’d be able to help me out at all. You know, like old times?” she asks, looking down at the floor instead of at me.

“Help you out?” I ask, realizing that my suspicions have been confirmed.  “Help you out how, Suze?  You need a place to crash, I can help you with that. You know Sal would take you in despite everything.  You need food, I know George would be happy to give you a good meal. You look like you could use it.  What is it that you need, Suzie?” I ask, still gripping onto the counter, knowing what’s coming next.

“No, I got a place to crash.” She waves me away. “A real nice place,” she emphasizes.  I’m about to say that I can tell from the way she looks and smells that she’s been staying in a palace, but I keep my mouth shut, waiting.  “I just need some cash to settle a few debts, get myself sorted, you know.” She nods, looking at me out of the corner of her eye.

“You’re asking me for money,” I state matter-of-factly.  “That’s why you came here, to see if I would give you money.”

Suzie shakes her head and her doll-like frame looks so frail I’m worried her head might come clean off.  “No, not
give
, just
loan
it to me for a little while,” she says, and I have no idea how she manages to keep a straight face, but she does. 

I take a deep breath and say the word that I know that I have to say:  “No.”  Suzie’s expression of shock would have been priceless if this entire conversation didn’t cut me to the quick. 

Historically, whenever Suzie got herself into trouble, I would help her in any way that I could and, sometimes, that involved lending—or more likely
giving
—her money.  She had clearly expected things between us just to continue in that vein no matter what she did, no matter what our relationship degenerated into.  Or maybe she just didn’t have anyone else to go to. 

“Like I said, you need somewhere to crash, I can help. You need a good meal, I can help. It’s more than you deserve anyway.  But I’m not going to give you money so you can just buy whatever junk it is that you can’t live without,” I say. 

I grab hold of her arm and pull up her sleeve to show a line of track-marks, some of which look pretty nasty.

Suzie struggles to pull her sleeve back down and cover up her emaciated, damaged arm.  She snarls at me like a wild animal and turns to go. 

“You think you’re so high and mighty,” she says, shaking with anger.  “But you’re just like the rest of us—you’re a useless little slut.  You’ll see,” she says ominously, and runs out the door, slamming it so hard behind her the window-panes rattle with the force of the impact.