And so begins what I now see is Miah’s very well-thought-out plan to ingratiate himself with me.
Chapter Eight
Miah
She’s not too happy with me at the moment thanks to my less-than-glowing assessment on her choice of clothing, and though I stand by my words, I still feel a little shitty for making her blush.
I did it because I could not talk about that shit that went down last night without losing it and breaking my fists on the steering wheel.
Jared and Jace have yet to report back with anything meaningful, and though Roman and I spent a good part of the day alternately swinging by the school to check on Clari and running leads, I found absolutely nothing to back up my suspicion that one of these assholes tried to terrify my girl in her home.
At this point, we’ve got nothing to go on and it’s making me antsy.
I’d almost refused to let her go to work this morning, I’m so unsettled by the thought of her being anywhere else but safely at home and protected by the legion of security Pop has running the place.
I can’t do that to her, though, because I know just how independent she is and how much she loves her job. So instead of starting an argument I know I will never win, I’d ground my jaw and smiled while she insisted on going to work and making herself a target for any lunatic willing to run an attack on a school.
It’s happened before, too many times for anyone’s peace of mind, and that’s the shit that kept running through my head all day. Gonzalez, of course, has been recruited to keep watch when I can’t be there. Call it his punishment for letting it slip to Dobson that I’ve had him patroling Clari’s neighborhood more than is normal for one cop.
I’m frustrated and pissed at the circumstances and doubts plaguing me, and to make matters worse, my damn dick hasn’t gone down since I woke to see her smiling at me this morning.
There are a lot of things that turn me on hard and heavy, but I have yet to experience anything that feels better than waking to her and knowing that that glorious smile is for me and me, alone.
Damn, the woman packs a punch that hits all the right spots.
“Dude, you’re foaming at the mouth.” Jace chuckles, coming to stand beside me where I’m having a much needed drink while Ma and Ellie keep Clari distracted with talk of the upcoming charity drive for underprivileged kids from poorer neighborhoods.
“Shut up, asshole.”
“Dude, seriously, just do something already, or by the time you unleash on the poor woman you’ll be an animal.”
“Shut the fuck up, Jace. I can’t do that yet, not after what she just went through.”
“Miah, bro, honestly, I think you’re taking it all worse than she is, and it happened to her,” Jace points out, taking a long drink of his beer.
“Me? I’m rock solid,” I snarl defensively, giving him the beady eye.
“Yeah right. You were wearing two different shoes when you tore out of here last night, and you haven’t shaved today. You look like shit, bro, no offense, and you’re about to go rabid from the looks of things.”
He’s right, damn his hide, I am on the edge and ready to explode, but I won’t allow myself to make an advance until Clari is ready. I’d die before I did something to hurt her.
Wyatt warned me about this, and also said that there’s nothing quite like making love to your woman after a dangerous event. I’m chomping at the bit to get her under me and prove to my beastly side that she’s safe and belongs to me.
Not yet, Miah. The girl is still fragile.
“You hanging around to work on my nerves, or do you have something to tell me?” I snarl, changing the subject and looking away from my greatest temptation.
She laughs at something Ma says and I almost let it all hang out and snatch her up for the claiming I’m dying to do.
“So here’s the thing, that asshole she was with before is all kinds of nuts, man. I called Case last night and convinced him to do a little recon on Grimes’s place. He’s got a whole room dedicated to photos of your girl, and that’s not even the creepiest part, man. Case found an unsigned marriage license with both their names on it and a wedding dress hanging in the bedroom.”
Well, that certainly puts a different spin on things, doesn’t it? If this guy is that nuts about Clari, he’s going to be a problem whether it was him behind this mess or not.
“Keep Case on him. If he so much as sniffs in Clari’s direction, I want to know about it, you got me?”
“Dude, done and done, man. Case is going to personally oversee this one, and he’s even looking into Grimes’s financials to see what the man has going on. As for Jared, he was making noise about just killing all the Lanes and Conrads to eliminate any threat from that avenue.”