Perfect Chaos(6)

Then Connor died and shit changed.

I hated that Deck saw me break that day. I hated that he lived and my brother died, and I hated that I’d wanted him to hold me and take the pain away. Then I hated him more because he didn’t. Deck was everything I wasn’t that day—strong, controlled and unafraid.

Then he left and my life catapulted into the same darkness I’d seen in Deck’s eyes. There was no question I was completely fucked up after that. My parents had been so caught up in their own grief they assumed I was just grieving, as well, and I was, but it was much more than that. It was the hell I suffered for months after Connor’s death. Deck didn’t know it, but it was thoughts of him which gave me the strength to survive what I went through. He was my solid.

The door swung closed after Tristan, and I watched him fold back into his car then drive away. Deck hadn’t moved, and I felt the heat in my belly burn as he watched me. After all these years, he still unnerved me. The man could be standing on the other side of a football field and still make me quiver. I just wasn’t sure yet if it was quivering with nerves or quivering because I was turned on. I was going with a blend, and that could—and would—destroy me if he got too close.

I glanced over my shoulder for Rylie, but she had snuck away to clean tables which didn’t need cleaning. Tanner, an old friend of sorts, sat at a table tapping away on his laptop with his earphones in, hat pulled down low over his face. He glanced up at me, then at Deck, frowned and went back to typing. Tanner didn’t really like Deck, although they’d never formally met and never would.

Deck approached me. He was my only weakness and no matter what I did, I couldn’t get him out of me. And I’d tried.

I smiled. “Hey, baby, when did you get back?” He hated when I called him ‘baby’ and I knew this by the way the muscles in his arms tightened. “Kill anyone this trip?” I was gambling he had.

“You planning on dating him?”

Straight to the point, as always. I raised my brows. “Who?”

Deck scowled. “Georgie.”

“Come on, Deck. You don’t know already?” His brows lowered. “Well, he’s been coming here for three weeks.” Deck’s security cameras would’ve told him that. When I’d bought the coffee shop, he’d had them installed, said they were a deterrent for burglars. I knew it was another way for Deck to keep his eye on me.

His men came and collected the footage randomly and I was betting Deck had them research every regular customer who walked in my shop. Last week, I gave them all a treat. After I closed, I blared the music and did an erotic dance standing on the counter right in front of the camera. My guess, Deck hadn’t seen that yet or I’d have heard about it.

“You know who that guy is?” he asked.

I crossed my arms, more to cover my nipples, which I knew were erect from the shivers coursing down my spine. “In what context? Because my guess is who he is in the bedroom is entirely different than who he is when he walks in here.” I let my voice trail off at the end, which was probably a good idea because Deck’s scowl was pretty menacing. “Guess I’ll find out now that I have his number.” I pressed the button on the till, and it dinged and popped open. Then I took the five-dollar bill Tristan gave me and smoothed it out. “Maybe a threesome would be—”

“Not in the mood, Georgie.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re never in the mood.”

He knew exactly what I was referring to as I teased him all the time about us having sex. Of course, I was off the menu.

He went to grab the bill from me and I quickly shoved it in my pocket. “That’s this week’s one-nighter.”

“You don’t have one-nighters and if you did, I’d be stopping them.”

True, sorta, kinda. I’d never had a one-night stand, but really that was my choice, not his. But I let him think what he wanted. I scrunched my nose then went and poured him a black coffee. “Vagina blocker,” I mumbled, but he heard because I saw the corners of his lips twitch when I looked over my shoulder at him. Nice to know he liked some of my humor.

I’d dated several men over the years, and Deck did his overprotective thing and checked them out. He probably knew more about the guys I dated than I did. The thing was I had to be careful about the men I didn’t want him checking into. Tristan … well, as far as I knew, there was nothing on him except he owned Mason Development and dated a lot of women.

Deck placed a five on the counter when I came back with his black coffee. I never took the money. Well, I did because he insisted, but I placed it in a pink elephant piggy bank I kept under the counter. There was no reason why I did this except I didn’t want his money and he refused to take free coffee. So, I put it in the piggy bank and saved it. He knew I did it—shit, Deck knew just about everything I did … except what was the most important. What bothered me was being bothered in a way I couldn’t ease except with a battery-operated device named Deck.