Dannika Dark - Six Months

“Have a sandwich to tide you over. We’ll do a late dinner. I need a few hours.”

“Wait a second!”

Trevor swung around and cupped my head in his hands, giving me his crazy-sexy smile. “Don’t be mad, babe. I’m just looking out for you. Sometimes I can tell things about a person that you may not see because you’ve got blinders on.”

“What blinders?”

He tickled my eyelashes with his thumbs. “Those long lashes you bat around. There’s an invisible thing that all boys can see that girls can’t.”

“And what is that?”

Trevor backed away and walked out the door, glancing over his shoulder. “Intentions.”

Since it was late afternoon, I put the meat in the fridge and chopped up the lettuce and tomatoes, thinking about what had happened at the grocery store. I’m not sure what had come over Trevor or why he took off, but whenever he got moody, he needed his alone time.

After I cleared off the counter and put the toppings for the tacos in the fridge, I went in the bathroom and scrunched my hair, staring at myself in the mirror. I briefly wondered what Reno thought of me. My natural blond roots didn’t look that bad against the platinum, but still.

Platinum was more stylish, especially with my long bangs. I had an experimental dark streak of dye that was fading. Maybe my natural color was more of a perception thing; I hated the idea of being called the dumb blonde . Some girls just rolled with the jokes or blew them off, but I didn’t want a label on me that said I was the party girl who would get drunk and sleep around. Maybe because of my mother, I’d become more sensitive to that kind of thing than most girls.

Trevor was the one who suggested platinum because it had a tough image that most guys thought was more badass than sweet ass. When I threw on my dark eyeliner and mismatched clothes, men didn’t know what to think about me.

I wondered what Reno’s impression was.

The air conditioner cooled my neck and I opened up my laptop and tried to look him up on the Internet.

Jeez. Stalk much?

After closing the search window and choosing not to become one of those women, I opened up a few files that Lexi had given me. There were so many miscellaneous documents on the flash drive, and I hadn’t even begun to sort through them all.

Then I thought about how arresting Reno’s eyes had been when I’d lifted his sunglasses. How strong his arms felt when they’d crushed around me, and how close our bodies were when they’d molded together like a piece of art. I’d felt every solid thump of his heart beating against my chest. He had a strong heart—like a banging drum. He also hadn’t shaved, and I thought about how sexy it made him look. Something had altered from my first impression of Reno when he’d scared the wits out of me with his formidable presence. It’s something I could sense without explanation. Behind the façade of a tough guy was a devoted man. Devoted to what, I couldn’t be sure. But I felt it just as sure as I’d smelled his skin and felt his arms encasing me.

In fact, I sat at my table creating a romantic scene in my head of our interlude at the grocery store.

Instead of Trevor coming up and starting a fight, I slide Reno’s glasses away from his head and drop them on the floor. Then I run my fingers through his short hair and he mumbles something about kissing him, so I do. I plant my lips on his mouth and at first, he’s uncertain. Not wanting to appear needy for his touch, I pull away, and that’s when he turns me around, knocks the items from the shelf with a swipe of his arm, and sets me down on it.

My legs are spread and he moves between them. Everything about him is smooth and unrushed. No groping. Just the feel of his strong hands barely resting on my hips, and it makes me want him even more because of his remarkable restraint. No one else in the store exists because… well… there was an evacuation. A tornado. Yeah, and we’re all alone because everyone ran into a ditch for cover. The wind is roaring outside, but it doesn’t match the sound of my heart. He kisses my neck softly, trailing his mouth across my clavicle and even lower until I softly moan…

“All right, fantasy time is over,” I said aloud, cracking open a can of soda. “I think all these books are going to my head.”

My time with Sanchez was running out. The marks around my pinky finger had made it difficult to sleep the night before. It’s not what I imagined him doing to me—it’s what I couldn’t imagine. I didn’t want to guess what guys like that did to terrorize clients who didn’t pay up. The sooner I could get him out of my hair, the better.

So I dialed the number on the business card.

“Sanchez.”

“It’s April. I have your money.”

“Ah, Vanilla Frost. You got every penny? I don’t deal with people who cut me short.”

“I got it. How do you want to do this?”

I heard a bristly sound on the other line as if he were rubbing his chin. The only hair I remembered on his face was a square patch below his bottom lip. “That was quick. How did you come across that kind of money so fast?”

“I won the lottery. Tell me how you want me to pay you. I can wire it to an account, or—”

“Cash,” he quickly replied.

Somehow I knew that’s what he’d say. “Okay. We can meet at the mall in the food court.”

Laughter cackled on the other end of the line. “You are one dumb vanilla. How about I come over to your place?”

“No,” I said firmly.

“Fine,” he said, his voice getting dark and serious. “Meet me tonight at eleven. We’ll do it close to where you work so it’s quicker. You know where the railroad tracks are?”

“Uh-huh.”

“There’s an abandoned building with graffiti just south of your store. You know the one?”

I could hardly miss it. I walked by it on the way home every day. “Yeah, but I’d rather not. Look, why don’t I just wire it to you?”

“Because this is the only way I do business,” he said in a curt voice. “You think I want someone around to snap a picture on their cell phone? Or an electronic record of the transaction? I spent enough time in prison and I’m not going back. So skirt your little ass up there no later than eleven. This isn’t negotiable, little girl. I call the shots, and you don’t want to know what the consequences are. Feel free to call the police. They won’t do a damn thing about it and all you’ll end up doing is pissing off Delgado and wasting my time. And don’t even think about bringing someone with you. All you have to do is pay the money and I’ll go away.”

I hung up on him and panicked. I needed to haul ass to the bank and make a personal withdrawal from my account if he wanted cash. My wine-stained tennis shoes were going into the trash anyhow, so I just kept them on and ran out the door.

“Now you boys behave yourselves.” Lynn brushed a speck of lint from her dark slacks. Reno chuckled to himself; he loved the way that woman kept them in line. “I don’t want to come back and find any of my new curtains torn down.”

Lynn had become the matriarch in the pack despite her human status. Lexi’s mom could be a little controlling of what went on in the house, but women were the lifeblood of any pack and they all knew it. She loved taking care of them, but over the past few months, Lynn had begun to take notice of how different Shifters lived from humans.

Jericho smirked from his leather stool at the bar and patted out the butt of his cigarette. They had converted an upstairs room into a lion’s den with alcohol, a television, video games, and a stereo. Jericho had hung up the dartboard from the old house, and rumor had it Denver was buying a pool table. God knows the boys were all for that. Shifters loved billiards because if you could get a woman to play, it was one of the most erotic wonders to behold.