Page 23 of Breaking Conviction
“Dean, she’s been kinda goin’ there an awful lot lately—”
“And whose fault is that, Naomi?” He huffed out a breath to try to calm himself. But the fucking nerve of her to bring it up now that she’s decided to spend her time away from home. “I work all the damn time right now, tryin’ to provide for this family. If you don’t want her bein’ away from home, then stay at home.”
She snapped her mouth shut and nodded once. He was almost grateful she’d listened to him for once until it registered in the back of his mind that his chest was heaving from raising his voice at her. The damn woman was more skittish than a rat. She used to have a fucking backbone, for crying out loud.
After a few calming breaths, he put on his best show to apologize, once again refraining from pointing out that she’d been the one to irritate him in the first place.
“Fuck, I’m sorry, sweets. I didn’t mean to light into you like that. It’s just like I said. I miss you. I feel like you’re never home and now I’m tryin’ to do somethin’ nice for you and it’s like you don’t even want it.”
Understanding finally washed over her face, although it was tainted with something else he couldn’t quite figure out. Damn booze. He read this woman like a book when he was sober.
“You’re right. And I do appreciate it. I-I’m excited. It should be fun. Thea will be fine at the church.”
He felt his lips lift at the corners in a smile and watched in awe as her whole body relaxed.
“Come ‘ere, sweets.” He held out his arms and waited for her to slowly make her way to him. When she did, he wrapped her up in an embrace and felt a sharp stab in his chest when he realized he couldn’t remember the last time they’d hugged like this. It was surprising how fucking good she felt in his arms, even when they weren’t having sex. The thought immediately made his dick jump against her belly and he felt her tense against him.
Goddamn prude.
He sighed against her soft auburn hair, frustrated she was still on the fence about him. His apology tour was taking a while this time, but she was worth it. At least she had been. If she put him off for too much longer, she might be too much of a hassle to put up with.
But he couldn’t stand the thought of letting her go. She was his and he was going to do everything in his power to keep her.
Chapter Nine
“Can you believe those Neanderthals? I don’t know how you can sit through meetings with all that BDE swinging around.”
Nora scoffed and perched her combat boot heels on top of Wes’s computer desk in the BlackStone facility war room. For the third time. He casually pushed them off and she dramatically allowed them to land hard onto the ground, as if they weighed a thousand pounds, but she never ceased texting.
“BDE… big dick energy?” Wes kept his eyes on the screen but raised an eyebrow.
Nora snorted. “Usually, but your crew is full of Big Dumbass Energy.”
He could tell she was determined to get on his nerves today, but he grew up with a little sister and Nora’s brand of torture was actually kind of fun. He’d be able to handle whatever the little pixie threw at him with ease and a smile. But first he needed to figure out how the fuckinghellshe bypassed his security...again.
“It was just Jaybird and Devil acting like cavemen,” he replied. “The rest of us were just innocent bystanders. Did you hack my phone or something? How’d you use the temp code without me giving it to you?”
She raised a freshly dyed black eyebrow. “Do you really want me to tell ya, Superman? You know if I do, we’ll be 1-0.”
Wes grumbled and settled back into his chair before scanning over his wall of computer screens, his mecca. There was nowhere else he felt more at peace.
Except when Naomi smiled at me.
Fuck, he was such a sap. He was starting to sound like the romance novels his BlackStone Security teammate, Phoenix, was obsessed with.
Ever since Wes had seen Naomi again a week ago, he’d been hooked. Naomi’s healthy, unbruised light ivory skin was flawless and highlighted by her striking eyes and dark auburn hair. When his willpower had broken and he’d stroked down her sleeved arm, it’d taken everything inside him not to continue on down to trace her curves. He’d finally been able to see the depth of her chestnut eyes, with warm orange undertones that seemed to spark every time she got sassy with him. Which was a lot. Fortunately, he liked to see her fire.
“Anywho, weren’t they the absolute worst? When Hawk asked me to come to this meeting, I didn’t know Assistant District Attorney Marco Aguilar and Officer Henry Brown were going to be invited too. That’s damn near errbody. Gods, if Ellie ever finds out she’s the only one left out because Jason and Devil don’t want her to know anything about the party, she’s gonna flip her lid.”
Stifling a smile, he responded in a bored tone. “Yeah, man. I don’t know what their problem is.”
He had an idea actually, and it had something to do with the steamy self-defense training videos he’d been deleting from the BlackStone server right and left.
The first time he’d seen Devil and Ellie in a…compromising… position, much closer than any training session Devil had ever givenhim, Wes had nearly spit out all of his coffee. Hawk had come in at just the wrong time, smiled, said ‘Good for Devil’ and then ordered Wes to delete all evidence. But hell, if they didn’t start using a damn bedroom, he was going to have to intervene.
“I know they’re worried about her,” he continued, keeping the gossip to himself. “But at some point, you gotta trust people to know what’s best for themselves. Taking away that agency is only gonna perpetuate the problem.” Naomi popped into his mind, reminding him that he needed to take his own damn advice. She obviously didn’t want his opinion, no matter how much he felt the need to give it.
“Couldn’t agree more… speaking of problems. Do you really think the same guys who…” Nora swallowed, “kidnapped me and Ellie are gonna try to pull the same stunt this year? Like, reallyreallybelieve it?”
