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  “Not really, but when you’re in this house, you better eat.”

  “Is that a rule?” I asked, stroking his arm.

  “Yes, my safe word is ‘mac-n-cheese.’”

  We laughed a little.

  His finger traced small circles on my hip. “So, am I going to see you again?”

  My body stiffened, and I knew Luis had felt it. Suddenly, it was as if all the heat had left the small room and I wanted to pull a cover over my naked body.

  The truth was, I wouldn’t have minded seeing him again. I wouldn’t mind lying here for the rest of the day. But at some point, I had to get on with my life. And if he was in an MC, well, I didn’t need another man controlling me.

  “I like you,” I said slowly, “but maybe we shouldn’t plan on anything.”

  He shrugged. “I’ll give you my number, and if you want me, you know how to find me.”

  I nodded as my phone buzzed. It was probably Felicity. She had planned on picking me up at the station, but I hadn’t called her yet. It was rude but I’d needed this. Andrew’s name flashed on the screen. I’ll text him later and tell him to stop calling me.

  I didn’t feel like cuddling anymore.

  “Luis, I need to call my friend,” I said staring at nothing.

  “Sure, we can get dressed, get more to eat,” Luis rose up and leaned over me. He kissed my cheek softly and whispered. “After that, you can tell me your safe word.”

  Chapter Five

  JANE

  No strings attached, but that agreement didn’t stop Luis from holding my hand and glaring at the men who checked out my curves. That set off all kinds of alarms in my head, reminding me how Andrew had acted after we officially started dating.

  I pulled my hand out of his, and Luis glanced at me. At least his face wasn’t hard and possessive like Andrew’s had been. Luis just looked confused as to why I didn’t want to hold hands. His face was so sweet as he cocked an eyebrow.

  “Baby, you want something,” he asked.

  I giggled like a stupid girl with a crush.

  His voice was so smooth and deep.

  “I have to call my friend. Remember?”

  Luis smiled and led me into the dining room. It was set up like a buffet in there. Plates of tempting, hot food covered the entire surface of the wide oak table, and I almost put off the call again so I could grab another dish.

  Luis walked over to the group of women with paper plates on their laps. One of the women pointed her fork at me and said something in Spanish, but I didn’t know what she said. I feared the worst. She was probably asking if I was a slut. But Luis laughed and answered in English, no doubt for my benefit.

  He said, “No, she’s new in town and I gave her a lift. She’s calling her friend now.”

  I had braced for the worst, but now my body relaxed. It was infuriating that men could have sex and still be seen as the same people they were, but once women have sex, they’re claimed or sluts.

  I turned my back, pulled out my phone, and tapped on Felicity’s number. Holy boy, was she pissed when she heard my voice. I hadn’t told her to wait at the station, and hadn’t even expected her to. Who’d want to wait there? But Felicity had.

  “Jane,” she said. “Where are you? Are you on the bus?” “No, I’m down the street. Hold on.”

  I wanted to calm her down, but Luis had snuck up behind me and put his hands on the spot on my waist he’d discovered was ticklish.

  “Is that your lover?” Luis purred in my ear.

  I giggled again. I really needed to quit doing that. I was a grown woman; I didn’t giggle.

  “No,” I said to him. “It’s my girl...friend. She’s at the bus station waiting for me.”

  Luis perked up and gave me a full-on smile. “Invite her over. There’s plenty of food.” The women behind him laughed as they nodded their heads and filled their plates a second time.

  The woman Luis had been talking to was at the table. She winked and said with a smile, “She’s pretty, and you’re Romeo. You make the ladies scream.”

  “Listen,” I said to Felicity, “I met a guy at the bus station. They’re throwing a party for his cousin. Come over.”

  Felicity didn’t respond, and I knew why. She hardly went out and never partied. I wasn’t sure if she drank and I knew she had been the ‘last virgin standing’ in our dorm.

  Her response was shrill. “Why didn’t you call me? I’ve been waiting here for you for over an hour.”

  “I tried to call…” my voice trailed off. I really didn’t have an excuse she’d accept, and I was feeling embarrassed explaining myself in front of Luis, so I did the lame thing and lied. “Oh, sorry. I’ve been calling your parents’ house.”

  “This is the only number I call you from.” She knew I was full of it.

  Luis touched my waist again and I laughed when he told me to pass him the phone.

  “I’m sorry, Fee," I replied though I didn’t sound it. "Why don’t you come to the party?”

  “I should go home,” she said. “You know where I live. Call an app and get a ride to my parent’s house when you’re through.”

  “Oh, Fee,” I sighed. “Don’t be that way.”

  I didn’t hear her verbal explosion as Luis slipped the phone out of my hands. He looked at the screen and read Felicity’s name.

  “She doesn’t sound like happiness,” Luis said to me before he spoke into the phone.

  “Hello. Who is this?” Luis asked. “Hello?” He waited a moment then spoke. “Hello, this is Luis. Come to the party. 116 Mission Avenue. Take Salta Boulevard. You coming?”

  He waited for a response, but I knew she was upset. When Felicity was upset, she withdrew. That was where we were different, even though we were best friends. When life gives me the middle finger, I pin it to the ground until it knows who is boss.

  “I think she hung up.” Luis handed me the phone and I checked the screen. The call had ended.

  I’d make it up to her later.

  Luis was determined to distract me and fed me a quesadilla from his plate. The fresh corn salsa on top dripped down my bottom lip. He leaned in and kissed it off. Soon, I was pressing against him, not caring if the ladies were watching.

  Abruptly, Luis stopped when Momma hit him with her oven mitt.

  “You two, upstairs,” she chuckled. “The children are too young for a demonstration.”

  “They can learn where they come from right here,” said one of the ladies.

  “Not today,” said Momma. “Upstairs.”

  We went back to his room and jumped into bed for another round. It was better than the first. Luis learned my body and leisurely he explored it, memorizing what made me squirm with desire.

  His phone buzzed on the bedside table, and he glanced it.

  “You’re friend’s here.”

  That had me shocked. Felicity would never come here. I had to give her credit for showing up and getting out of her shell. My thoughts snapped back to Luis as he playfully nipped at my bare hip. I was tired of being teased. And soon we were at it again as I rode on top of his body. I knew the whole house heard us, but that’s what Luis wanted. He made the ladies scream.

  It was early evening when I woke up still in Luis’s bed. The great sex, the abundant carbs, and the long bus ride had finally caught up with my tired body. Luis slept; his breathing was soft and regular beside me. His dark, thick lashes lay against his smooth cheeks.

  Yeah Jane, I thought, the way a leopard looks sweet as it sleeps. Don’t cuddle an animal with claws.

  I liked Luis, but I hadn’t escaped one relationship with a possessive man to enter another. Andrew had been sweet at first, too. But once he knew he had me, and I was into deep to say ‘no,’ he changed and showed me how grimy his soul really was.

  Nevertheless, I couldn’t resist Luis’s serene face, and my fingertips stroked his cinnamon waves. His deep brown eyes fluttered open and that lazy smile crossed his lips. If I wanted to fall in love again, I’d fall
in love with his handsome face.

  “You had a good rest?” he asked.

  I nodded as I continued to stroke his hair. He took my hand and planted kisses along the underside of my wrist. I sighed and I knew I had a goofy love-struck puppy-dog look on my face. Common sense was losing the battle, but it was hard to be logical with a naked hunk in the bed.

  Loud, rapid blasts filled the quiet bedroom, and bright lights flashed outside the dark window that faced the street. It wasn’t lightening or thunder. I knew what gunshots sounded like when I heard them, and someone was outside, firing right at the house. Another round hit the outside wall of the building as people in the rooms below us shouted and screamed. I squealed and drew my body into a tight ball.

  Luis rolled over on top of me, his muscles tense as he covered my body. Uncertain, I clung to him and listened. Gunshots rang out again, but they sounded closer, as if they were coming from the house.

  Quickly, Luis rolled both of us off the bed. I lay on top of him panting. I knew how to shoot a gun. I grew up around them, but I’d never been ambushed. At least, not with guns.

  “Are you okay?” he whispered.

  “Yes, what happened?” I shook against his calm body.

  “Get dressed.” He let me go, and I almost grabbed him back to me. He crawled toward the window and looked out; his eyes searched the darkness then he shouted to someone below. Satisfied with their answer, he stood up and moved toward me.

  “Sure you’re okay?”

  He watched me in the moonlight that came in through the window. I nodded. Hastily, he pulled on his clothes. Someone knocked on the door and I jumped. The person tapped out in Morse Code, ‘shave and a haircut.’

  Luis answered with, ‘two bits.’

  I knew the signal from Dad; we had used it at home as a warning. It meant the ‘same here.’

  “The police are coming,” he said. “We have to go.”

  Dressed, Luis grabbed my pack, and we hurried in the opposite direction of the front staircase. I caught up to him as he held the bathroom door open. He walked swiftly to the closet door and opened it. In what should have been the closet, a narrow staircase led down to the kitchen. We ran down.

  The men who had been sitting around the table were gone as we hurried out the door into the backyard. My heart beat fast and despite being scared, I craved the excitement. My adrenalin spiked as we fled the house and headed for Luis’s bike. Several of the motorcycles were already gone. But the large man named Hector sat on his while it idled. He eyed Luis as Luis hung my backpack on his bike and handed me his helmet

  “Heading for the clubhouse?” asked Hector.

  “After I drop her off,” replied Luis.

  Holy crud, I sucked as a friend. I didn’t remember Felicity until after we were on the road and Luis asked me where I was going. He wouldn’t go back. He told me it wasn’t necessary.

  “She’s with Oscar, Jane. Your friend is safe.”

  Chapter Six

  JANE

  TWO AND A HALF MONTHS LATER

  “Jane, you coming down for dinner?”

  “No, Rosa, I’m going to stay in tonight.”

  I tossed my plastic bag from the drugstore onto the couch and locked my apartment door. Rosa Perez, my landlady, invited me to her apartment almost daily, but tonight I needed a break. I hardly spent any time in my new place as it was.

  My modest one bedroom was located just over the border in the Northside. Felicity’s mom, Francine, had had a fit. The Wests had adopted me as their fill-in daughter since Felicity ‘ran away’ to New York with Oscar. But how can a twenty-three-year-old woman run away from her parents? My father loved his children, but he expected all of us out of the nest by nineteen.

  Despite her initial trepidation, Francine had come by and helped me decorate. We painted the bedroom lavender, and the living room a silver grey. The kitchen was a wild green. It shouldn’t have worked, but it did. We painted my secondhand table and chairs white. Francine splurged at the mall and bought new linens, throw rugs, and framed posters. She had good taste. She also reminded me after each visit that I was always welcomed to move back in with her and husband.

  Tonight, instead of Rosa’s delicious cooking, I ate leftover Thai heated in the microwave. The neighborhood must have been changing. There was Thai take-out on the Northside now.

  I turned on my television monitor and flipped to the local news channel for the election results. Mayor Pryor’s smiling face appeared on the widescreen. Of course he’d won.

  My gaze wandered over to the drugstore bag sitting on the couch. I knew what I had to do. I went into the bathroom, did it, and then I sat back down to my cold dinner. Mayor Pryor was still on the screen, spouting off about crime in the Northside.

  A soft tapping at my apartment door drew my attention, and I got up to answer it.

  “Rosa, come in.” I greeted my landlady with a big hug. I had known Rosa would be a good friend the day I first met her, and truth be told, really did want company.

  “No, my dear. I respect your privacy. I just wanted to drop off a desert.”

  The fresh scent of lemon bars arranged neatly on a dinner plate wafted up to me, even through the plastic stretched out over the top of them. I sighed as I took them out of her hands, knowing I’d inhale them all the second I shut the door.

  “I’m putting on weight,” I said. “You have to stop feeding me.”

  Rosa laughed. “Oh, the men don’t mind a little backside. They like something to pat.”

  We laughed as she sat down at the kitchen table. Rosa took one look at my leftovers and made a face as if she might faint.

  “This is dinner?” she asked. “Leftovers? I could’ve brought up a plate.”

  “This is enough.” I unwrapped the lemon bars. “I’ll make some tea.”

  Our eyes drifted to the monitor, and Pryor had the crowd outside City Hall applauding and cheering over his practiced rhetoric. He’d sleepwalked through the campaign.

  “Everyone knows Nieto is a crook,” said Rosa, “but he did get a third of the vote.”

  “Still, I couldn’t imagine Nieto running a government office.” I handed her a napkin and a plate. “Sheriff West would have had a fit.”

  “Have you heard from your friend and Oscar lately?”

  “Felicity and Oscar are doing okay. She’s so appreciative that your cousin helped them out. I saw her mother a few days ago.”

  Rosa startled and gave me her full attention. “Does her mother know that you know where her daughter is?”

  “Francine knows, but we pretend like I don’t. It’s a game we play. She’ll wonder what Felicity is doing now, and I tell her what I think Felicity might be doing. Besides, we both know if Felicity contacted her mother directly, her father would drag her back.”

  Rosa snorted. “Sheriff West has enough problems of his own. There are some crooked people in his department, and he’s going to take the blame if he doesn’t clean it up.”

  I nodded. As kind as the Wests were to me, they had enough to worry about in their own dysfunctional lives.

  “Do you still help out at the soup kitchen?” Rosa asked as I served tea.

  “Yeah, I’m going over there later. But work keeps me busy.”

  “You like your job then?” she asked.

  “It’s good. I never thought I’d do medical billing but it’s okay. I’m grateful to Valerie for getting me the job. It’s nice to earn my own money and not rely on my dad’s.”

  Rosa paused long enough to finish her lemon bar and take another. “Your father sounds like a good man.”

  “He’s a good man,” I replied, “and I’d probably be back East if I hadn’t married a psycho nutcase. Andrew’s lucky Dad didn’t shoot him. But I told him not to ‘cause I had first dibs.”

  Rosa didn’t laugh until I cracked a smile. She swatted me with her hand. “You know I can’t tell when you’re playing.”

  “Sheriff West actually suggested I sign up for the force, but the
re’s a big difference between hunting wildlife and keeping the order.”

  “You don’t want to do that here. The people are loco. But the sheriff must have high regard for you?”

  “Yeah, they took me to the family cabin in Whiterock Lake to fish and relax.”

  Rosa looked impressed as she nodded her head. “Nice to know the right people?”

  We laughed but we sobered again when Mayor Pryor started pointing and shouting at the camera. He was on a full blast tirade about the crime on the Northside.