Page 26 of Bullet
“Was that a comment on me?” I asked with a smirk.
She just shook her head but there was amusement on her face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I made us a couple of omelets for breakfast, after which point Celia went to go and take a shower. With her in the bathroom, I went out to my backyard where all of my workout equipment was setup so that I could get a good workout in for the day before I got distracted by the beautiful woman hanging around.
“Ah, so here’s your personal gym.” I was bench pressing when she walked out and stopped so I could sit up and look at her. The way her eyes flared at my bare, sweat-covered torso left an excited feeling in the pit of my gut. I was right to plan for her distracting me again. “I knew you had to have one withthosemuscles.”
“It always surprises the guys at the club when I tell them I have a gym at home. Just because I’m an accountant, they see more of the intellectual side of me than the physical side.”
Celia put her hands on her hips and shook her head. “Doesn’t it suck when people see you for your brain and not your body? It’s like, come on, be a little more shallow please.”
With a snicker, I grabbed a towel to wipe my face, and Celia walked over and straddled the bench of the bench press, facing me. She let her fingers dance along my pecs for a moment before trailing them up my shoulder and eventually behind my neck. With a little tug, she pulled me to her, and I relented, leaning in to bring our lips together. My hands slid under the base of her dress, exactly as they had the night before and she laughed against my mouth.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing,” she said. I squeezed down on her thigh and she yelped. “Okay! I was just thinking it’s kind of crazy how quickly you get me going. I have to leave for work, so I was like ‘Don’t let him get you, Celia,’ but here we are.”
I frowned. “Work? It’s a Sunday.”
“Yeah, and it’s a homeless shelter,” she replied. “They don’t stop being homeless on Sundays.”
“I guess. Still, don’t go to work. Stay here.”
“What? Just ignore my job and stay here with you all day?” she asked. “Even if it weren’t about the job itself, I need the paycheck.”
“Eh, I’ll take care of you, it’s fine.” It was meant to be a joke, but Celia’s face got a serious expression all over it and her eyes blinked a few times. At first, I was afraid I’d gone too far, but then a smile crossed her face. “What?” I asked. “Sorry if that joke was too much.”
“No, it…” Her smile grew a little. “I’m always telling the kids at work, ‘It’s okay to let people take care of you. It’s okay to let people take care of you,’ but I’m kind of a control freak.”
“I never would have guessed,” I said flatly.
“Hush,” she snipped back. “Anyway. I take care of my godfather, and I take care of the kids at work. I don’t really let anyone take care of me. I thought I didn’t like it, but when you said it just now, I don’t know, I felt like I could really let you.”
“If you’d let me, I’d do it. Not in that intense, drop-everything-you’re-doing-and-let-me-take-care-of-you kind of way, but I’ll make sure you’re happy. You know, I’m not a romantic, but at the end of the day, when you’ve exhausted all your energy caring about everyone else, then I’ll care about you.”
Celia didn’t respond. She sat staring back at me, and the expression in her eyes was searching, if not a bit scrutinous, like she either thought I was lying or wanted to think that I was. Whatever she’d been through that led her to such a place of mistrust, I wasn’t sure, but I liked her a lot and found myself hoping that she’d let me break that barrier down.
Eventually, after about five minutes of just looking at me, she pecked my lips and said, “So you don’t work weekends? I’d have thought a motorcycle club is on twenty-four-seven.”
“Well, technically it is,” I responded, allowing her to change the subject, “but all of the business Nick likes to take care of is during the week. Weekends are mostly for hanging out with the bar regulars, running the prospects, fellowship.” Nick also reserved the drug runs to the weekends mostly, but that wasn’t information Celia needed. “I’ll probably go by the bar later. You’re welcome to come, although if I’m being totally honest, I’d welcome an excuse not to go.”
“You don’t want to go there? How come?”
“It’s not that I don’t want to, but Nick’s trying to promote me, and I haven’t really thought it out yet. I know he’s looking for an answer, I just don’t have one yet.”
“He’s trying to promote you?” Celia said overdramatically. “How dare he!” I squeezed her thigh again and she giggled. “Seriously, though. What’s to consider with a promotion?”
“It’s not accounting. He wants to make me VP.”
Celia’s eyes widened. “Wow. That’s a huge responsibility.”
“Exactly.”
“So that’s it then? You don’t want the responsibility?” she asked. “No offense, but you seem like the responsible type. That’s probably why he wants you.”
“Maybe, I just don’t know that I’m the man for the job. There are other guys who have been there longer.”
“Do you not care about the club that much?”
