Page 63 of Lawless in Leather

“Sounds fun.” He grinned at her. “So what do you think? You have permission to call me out when I’m being ridiculous. I’ll do the same for you if you refuse to listen to perfectly reasonable suggestions. And we’ll see what happens.”

Her head was tilted, her wild red hair sticking up in all directions. She smoothed it down and studied him. “I think … I think there’s something else I need to tell you.”

He felt himself go alert, tried to still the reaction. “Okay.”

“I had an email from my ex. The wall-punching one.” Her expression was wary.

He kept his voice calm, with an effort. “Does he email you often?”

“No. No, I haven’t heard from him in a long time. I think he must have seen one of the news stories about the Angels.”

“And what did he have to say?” He didn’t like coincidences. Someone was harassing Raina and here was her ex popping up. Then again, he didn’t like solutions that were too neat.

She shook her head, looking frustrated. “It wasn’t anything bad. Not overtly. More like he was just letting me know that he was still out there.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” he said. “When was this?”

“Earlier today.”

“Before I called?” Why hadn’t she told him?

“Yes. And before you get mad, I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to distract you from Baltimore. And there’s nothing really to tell.”

“A potentially violent ex is not nothing.” This time his voice wasn’t quite as calm as he would have liked.

“I was going to tell you when you got back. And if he’d emailed again I would have told you straightaway.” She studied him, green eyes serious. “I was handling it.”

Her definition of handling it was apparently different from his. But he remembered what she’d said. About not wanting to be controlled. So he couldn’t just take over and do things his way. Not if he wanted to keep waking up next to her. He took a breath. Pushed back the worry and anger. She was safe. And she had told him. She’d given him that much. He could respect her boundaries in return. “Okay.” He nodded once. “Okay. Let’s see what happens.”

A delighted smile spread across her face. “Really? You’re okay with it?”

He shrugged. “I’ll deal.”

“Good.” She leaned forward, kissed him.

Relief made him go boneless again. He hadn’t screwed it up. Then he remembered there was something he needed to tell her. “While we’re sharing, there’s something else you need to know.”

Raina drew back. “Oh?”

“Yeah. I told Alex that we were … considering our options.”

“You did?”

“I had to tell him I was leaving,” Mal said. “It was pretty hard to explain why without that part.”

She chewed her lip. “Did he?—”

“He was fine. It’s fine. He’s happy about it. And he won’t tell anybody else until I say it’s okay. Okay?”

“Okay. I just wasn’t expecting it.”

“Well, your friends know. Or suspect. So it’s fair that mine do, too. Eventually.” He smiled and pressed a kiss to her hand. “So what do you think?”

She bent forward to kiss him again. Longer this time. Slower. “I think it’s okay. And I think you’re about to get lucky.”

Chapter Fourteen

The next week passed far too quickly for Raina’s liking. Mal left again and then came back and left again. The footage from outside Madame R’s showed a dark truck driving past, but whoever had thrown the firecrackers had been clever enough to cover up their plates first, so other than the make and model, it wasn’t much help. She hoped that it meant that the firecrackers had been unrelated to anything else but she knew that Mal—even though he wasn’t pushing the issue—wasn’t ready to let it go. He’d had another conversation with Luis, and the club was now practically bristling with security cameras. Even a cunning one that scanned the IDs they were checking to record them.

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