Chapter 7

Reeve

I COULD TOLERATE A lot of things. I was immune to nasty words and thought very little of the people that slung them around carelessly. I had grown used to hearing that I was a rat. I often heard the word backstabber mumbled as people walked by. I had been labeled a sellout, a traitor, but even worse was the disappointment I saw in Titus’s eyes every time I got just close enough for him to realize exactly who it was that had her hands on him, what kind of woman it was that made his eyes bleed all their color and burn white hot with craving and need. It stripped little pieces away from what was left of my dignity when he looked that way because the disappointment wasn’t directed at me but inward. He struggled with the way he wanted me, fought against big, powerful things that rose up inside him when we touched, and it hurt that he wouldn’t give in to them. I wasn’t sure he even knew they were there, but I could see them shining out of him and hear them calling to me louder and louder the harder Titus tried to quiet them down. The cop had more going on than his duty to serve and protect, and I wanted to dig into all of it.

Apparently the situation between me and the handsome detective bothered Honor as well. I knew Keelyn Foster and her glittery stripper skin outside of Spanky’s. She was one of my regular clients when I worked down here in the District doing hair. She was tough as nails, spoke her mind, and if there was ever a reigning queen of the Point it was her. She was tough and unbelievably beautiful. She was also unabashedly honest and had no problem getting right up in my face and telling me that Titus was a good man, too good for the likes of me, and that I should keep my bloodstained paws off of him. It should have been ridiculous. The words were trite and obvious and she delivered them dressed in nothing but a sparkly G-string and a pair of platform heels that almost made her the same height as me. But it was there in her frosty gray eyes. She really thought Titus was above me, thought I was somehow going to dirty him up and drag him down to the level she and I were at, and she didn’t approve. It rubbed me the wrong way, maybe the truth in it, maybe the way I knew she was honestly concerned about what being associated with me would do to Titus’s reputation. I only wanted to help him and every time I turned around someone was shoving it in my face that I was going to hurt him whether I wanted to or not.

I told her to back off. I told her Titus was a grown man and could make up his own mind about who he wanted to spend his time with. Key’s eyes had narrowed speculatively and she crossed her arms over her naked boobs. She should’ve looked ridiculous and trashy . . . she didn’t. She looked fierce and protective, like an ancient Amazonian warrior, and that just made my hackles rise up even farther. I was worried about Titus just as much as she was. Hell, I was stupidly and hopelessly infatuated with the guy, had a crush built on first impressions that was growing into something so much bigger as I learned more about what was behind his drive to take care of the innocent and good. No one had a bigger stake in how this charade played out with him than I did.

She proceeded to tell me she knew something had to be up, that there was no way the handsome detective would willingly piss off his brother by hanging out with me, that he also wouldn’t be so handsy and affectionate because he wasn’t that way with anyone. It was the presumption that she somehow knew Titus better than I did, that she had intimate knowledge of how he operated, that sent me over the edge. Without thinking, I poked her in the center of her naked chest and told her that obviously he was that touchy-feely, was that hands-on with someone he really wanted. Her eyes had gone predatory, and before I could stop myself I reacted, lunging for her, taking her to the ground before she could get a shot in. The first rule in the Point was to never show any kind of weakness, so I attacked before I could be attacked. It was simple street logic.

There was no hair pulling. There was no delicate screeching. Nope, we went after each other with closed fists and powerful punches. She even caught the inside of my thigh with the edge of one of those lethal heels and the resulting scratch had blood spilling down my leg. It really hurt but so did all of her pointed accusations, which was why I threw myself at Titus as soon as the bathroom door clicked closed behind him.

I wasn’t thinking straight. The heat of his hands when he pulled me off the stripper, the blazing silver in his eyes as he looked at my now bloody face . . . it all scrambled my brain. All I could think was that I did want what was best for him, and that despite himself, he wanted me. I locked my hands around the back of his neck where the short brush of his hair tickled my fingers, and sealed my mouth over his as soon as I told him he was right about things never being fine.

I held on tight because I expected him to shake me off, to tell me this was too much and there was no one to put on a show for in here. I expected him to pull away with something haunting and hollow in his too blue eyes.

What I got was completely unexpected from the serious and intent Titus King. Instead of distance, I got backed into the sink so hard that the edge of the counter bit hard into my thighs. Instead of blank space, I got a man returning my kiss just as ferociously as I was giving it to him. I got a rock-hard thigh pressed between my own as my legs were forced apart and an erection that was impossible to ignore even between the layers of clothes pressed up against the tender parts of me that were suddenly every kind of achy and wet.

I jolted as a paper-towel holder got whacked hard enough with an elbow to fall off the wall as Titus lifted one of his hands and clasped it around my neck while the other dived under the hem of the simple T-shirt he had just bought for me. The bathroom was tiny and Titus was really, really not. There wasn’t a lot of room to maneuver and yet he still managed to get me up on the counter and my shirt off over my head without breaking anything else or causing either of us bodily harm.

My chest was heaving and I was sure my eyes were wild as I clung to him like he was the last lifeline I was ever going to get and without him I would inevitably drown. I leaned forward and kissed him again, tasting the copper bite of blood and the warm cleanness that was somehow simply Titus. He tasted like he looked, strong, sure, and potent. He tasted like righteousness and honor. Redemption and repentance. He tasted like goodness, and I didn’t think there was ever any way I was going to get enough of it.

I twirled my tongue around his. I sucked him in and let him fill me up from the inside. My nails dug into his skin when I felt him tug impatiently at the cups of the new bra I had just bought. The black fabric was no match for his questing fingers and I thought I was going to pass out from pleasure when the pad of his thumb swept over the crest of one suddenly puckered nipple. I gasped into his mouth and he just pulled me closer to that ridge behind his zipper and settled even more firmly into the kiss that was making me see stars.