Under Locke (14 page)

In the middle of hoisting a bag over my head to throw into the trash, two bikers with buzz cuts and hard glares drove by slowly. Their eyes were on me and the house. They didn’t stop, but as soon as they’d crossed the driveway, they picked up speed and zoomed out of the neighborhood.

Weird.

~ * ~ *

The worst part of going to work on Tuesday was not knowing how to act around Dex. It shouldn’t surprise me that he was hanging out with Sonny if they were in the same club, but still. Sonny was warm and sweet—though he had been specific and said it was only to me—while Dex was a temperamental
bag of beaver dung
. Maybe it was that whole “opposites attract” thing they had going on.

Maybe.

Luckily, it was Blake that came in and opened, leaving me to wonder where The Dick was. I sure as hell wasn’t going to ask Blake or anyone, but I let myself think about it in my head. It was like mentally preparing myself for an incoming hurricane.

Business was pretty steady right from doors opening when Slim showed up. There was tattoo after tattoo for the first couple of hours, then a nipple piercing—which made my own nipples hurt—and a guy who wanted an eyebrow pierced. It was closer to eight at night when Dex finally showed up, looking mildly annoyed as usual, and striding directly to the back without a wave or a nod to anyone.

Once again, no one said anything. Blake and Slim didn’t even look at each other. I didn’t understand that at all because I was
annoyed
when he walked in.

In hindsight, I should
ha
ve just gone to the back and lived with a tongue lashing from Dex for simply living so that I could order supplies for the month instead of staying in the front, talking to a customer’s girlfriend about getting her nose pierced. But I didn’t. In my quest to keep being a bitch because my feelings had been hurt, I stayed up front.

Mistake? Uh, yeah.

~ * ~ *

“Sweetie.”

I looked over at the man standing in front of the reception desk. A man with a full beard and glassy, red-rimmed eyes, who smelled like rubbing alcohol. It was disgusting and it made my nose burn.

But this was my job and everyone had been nice up until then, so I didn’t think anything of it. “Yes?”

“Need to get a tat.”

I gave him a little smile without looking at the appointment log. Even if both Slim and Blake weren't busy and Dex had come out from the back, he still couldn't get tattooed. Whoops. "I'm sorry, but we can't help you if you've been drinking.”

“Sweetie, I need a tat. Now,” the guy slurred, smacking his lips so roughly spittle flew out.

Gross. The smell of alcohol got even stronger. Yuck.

I cringed a little. “I'm sorry but we really can't—,” I tried to explain to him.

Alcohol Cologne grunted. “Get Dex.”

“Dex isn’t scheduled right now.”

“Sweetie, get Dex.”

Oh boy.

I took a deep breath and nodded, pushing away from my chair. “Let me see if I can get him.” Years of mottos that highlighted “The customer is always right” was engraved into me. The music was so loud it wasn’t a surprise that Blake and Slim didn’t hear what was going on. They blasted it. Metal and heavy rock pounded through the speakers
most
nights after seven.

The office door was closed when I came up to it, but I couldn’t hear anything from inside. I knocked a couple of times but there was no response. The light from the bathroom was on, and I wasn’t about to go bother a man when he was on the toilet regardless of whether it was my asshole boss or not. Toilet time was personal time, I thought.

“Dex isn’t available right now,” I started to tell the guy who, with another look over confirmed that he was blitzed out of his mind. “But if you wait a few minutes, I’ll try to get him to talk—“

He snapped.

I wasn’t a drinker, and the couple of friends I’d had in passing weren’t much either. They were occasional drunks. Funny drunks. Silly drunks. Loving drunks. I was okay with that. But a mean drunk was something I couldn’t handle at all.

“Look, bitch, I don’t have time! Get fucking Dex right now before I—“

The arm swiped at my waist from out of nowhere. Way too distracted, I realized it was Dex who had an arm wrapped around me, pulling me to his side. His fingers clenched the material of my cardigan
.

I couldn’t see his face but I didn’t need to.

Dex The Dick was pissed. Enraged. I half expected him to shed his clothes and turn into a green skinned monster ten times his current—already tall and broad—size.

His wide shoulders were tense and the big man, well over six feet tall, seemed even more intimidating then. I think everyone could sense that unsettling dangerous mist of pissed off biker in their bones.

“Rick,” was the only thing he grunted out.

Alcohol Cologne sensed that raw, crazy energy too because he took a step back. His face, as red as a lobster’s cooked shell when he’d been yelling, blanched.

“I was looking for you,
bro
,” the man exhaled.

Dex pinched my cardigan between his fingers. “Get out.”

“Dex—“

His shoulders stiffened beneath the bright white t-shirt he had on. “Rick. Get. The. Fuck. Out.”

“But—“

His hand squeezed my shirt so tightly it made me lean forward as he yelled, “Get the fuck out! Now!”

Holy shit
.

Rick took on a shade of white formerly only seen on a sheet of college ruled paper, throwing up both his hands. “Dex—“

Dex let go of my sweater taking a step toward the drunken fart. “You know damn well you don’t come into my shop demandin' shit, callin' my girl a bitch.”

In the words of a rap song my neighbor used to play on his boombox when I was a kid:
Hold up, wait a minute.

He closed the distance between them, making me ignore the fact he'd just called me his girl. I swear Dex grew three inches taller as he lifted his hands and pressed them to the drunk guy’s chest. “Get the fuck out before I do something you’re gonna regret,” Dex notified him, shoving the man back so hard I’m surprised he didn’t hit the glass.

The guy stumbled, righting himself slowly after one last withered plea. “Dex.”

All he got in return was silence. Heavy, electric silence.

Rick opened his mouth to say something else before thinking twice and turning around to walk out. As soon as the door swung shut, it was like a rubber band of intensity snapped in the room. My heart was pounding from the sheer volume of the words that were tossed around.

I was so stuck in my own little world that I didn’t sense Dex’s presence inches away from me until his fingertips were on my chin, tilting my face up.

“You okay?” he whispered, so close I could feel his warm breath on my nose.

My hands shook. I swallowed hard and nodded a partial lie. “Yeah.”

Dex’s gaze flickered over my eyes, nose, mouth, and even throat. His expression was soft.
He reached up to circle one of my free hands in his, his features tightening as my fingers trembled in his palm.
“Your pulse is poundin', babe.”

“I’m fine.” Being freaked out fell into the same category as being fine. As long as I hadn't peed on myself, then I could still be fine.

He didn’t speak as he pulled on the hand he was then holding, leading me toward the hallway. In a daze, I noticed that Blake and Slim looked worried as I passed by them, and I tried my best to give them a smile but it was shaky. It felt like I'd just gotten off a roller coaster.

Dex shook his head on the walk passed his office, passed the private rooms, clasping my hand even tighter as he pulled us into the break room.

“Come here, Ritz,” he ordered, stopping us right next to the kitchen counter. Before I realized what was happening, his hands were on my hips and he was settling me on top of the counter. Dex’s
palms
grazed my knees as he stepped back to the soda vending machine in the corner. “Wait a sec.”

Like I could go anywhere, but I sat there silently, sliding my hands under my thighs so that I wouldn’t feel them twitching anymore. He pulled out a bill from his wallet and put the money into the machine, getting a Coke in return. Holding it in one hand, he moved to the opposite end of the long counter and started fishing through the overhead cabinets. He pulled out a loaf of bread, withdrawing two slices before retying the knot and stashing it back into its hiding spot.

I wasn’t sure what the heck was going on. I couldn’t help watching him tenderly hold the slices in one hand and the Coke can in the other as he walked toward me, stopping so close his hip brushed against the side of my thigh.

“Here.” Dex tried to hand me one of the slices, setting the soda down between us.

“What?” I was looking at the seeds in the bread.

“Eat it, babe.” He held the piece of bread up higher.

I shook my head, darting my eyes back up to his. “I’m not hungry.”

Dex lifted the slice even higher so that it was in line with my mouth. “I don’t care if you’re not hungry. It’ll calm you down.”

The urge to argue with him was
right there
but by the look he gave me, a hard, uncompromising glare, I figured it was useless. That wasn’t the right moment to pick a fight with him. I plucked the bread from his hand and ate it slowly, watching him out of the corner of my eye the entire time. As soon as I finished, he was handing me the second slice. I gave him another look but got the same no-nonsense glare
in return
.

So I ate it because otherwise, he'd probably shove it down my throat by force.

He watched until I had about a quarter of it left, when he then popped the lid on the soda and handed it to me the minute I swallowed the last bite of nutty bread.

“I should've kicked his fuckin' ass for talkin' to you like that,” he murmured when I was taking my first sip of Coke.

It was a miracle I didn’t cough it up. Hadn't he talked to me like I was stupid at least three times before this moment? I know that I must have had a what-the-hell face plastered because the expression on his face darkened.

All right, maybe I wouldn't point out how much of a hypocrite he was.

Even if Sonny had said he was harmless, that didn't mean his words were anything that resembled soft and caring. He was probably just dealing with me out of guilt. Whatever.

“It’s okay,” I warbled out.

“No, it’s not.” He ducked his head close, eyes searching mine again. “He scare you?”

I sucked in a ragged breath, sensing for the first time that my heart wasn’t pounding as
forcefully
as it had been at first. “
He caught me off guard
,” I breathed out. Two men making me feel like a piece of crap in less than a week must have been a world record.

Dex tensed up before shifting his body over so that he stood in front of me, placing his hands on either side of my legs. He stayed quiet for the longest
, his eyes flashing a multitude of emotions I couldn’t recognize under a tightly controlled mask. For a split second I wished I would have known him better to understand what was going through his brain, but as quickly as the urge came, it left.