The Deep End--The Honey Series by Kristen Ashley
Olly glanced at Barclay, who was staring at Delia with a look of unhidden digust on his face.
Barclay had arranged the whole thing with subs who were totally okay with having their video disbursed if Delia called their bluff. Something Aryas was not good to do even if he had a ton of tape starring Delia, seeing as he’d have to ask his members to out themselves for him to do it.
Enter Barclay and he’d delivered.
The subs on that video lived the life and were open about it. Hell, one was the kitten Olly met who worked for the Bolt.
All the participants knew Delia’s thing, not only the blackmail but also what she did to Leigh. So they were all down with crippling her.
“First, the name of the person who gave you intel about what was heard at the Honey,” Branch demanded.
“Julie,” she bit out, obviously not giving a shit whoever Julie was was next going to get it because Aryas was going to lose his fucking mind he had an employee who fucked any of his members over.
Especially Leigh.
Branch didn’t even nod before he kept at her.
“Now, tomorrow, you go into your office and tender your resignation,” he continued. “You also contact a real estate agent and put your house on the market. It sells or not, I don’t give a shit. You’re out of Phoenix by the end of the month and I’ll throw in here, by out of Phoenix I mean you land nowhere in the south-fucking-west.”
“I can hardly—” she began.
“Shut up, I’m not done talking,” Branch barked.
Olly straightened from the window and turned watchful eyes to his partner, because he’d never seen the guy show much emotion at all and it sounded like he was losing it.
At the burning fury suddenly blazing out of Branch’s usually emotionless light-blue eyes, Delia wisely shut her trap.
“You will be watched,” Branch told her, snapping right back to calm in a way that was completely focused, straight-up badass, and totally fucking eerie.
Delia didn’t miss it. She got visibly wired.
Branch kept going.
“You will be watched in the short time you’ll remain in Phoenix and you’ll be watched wherever you go. You try to fuck with anyone who has anything to do with the Bee’s Honey, the consequences you’ll face … advice, and I suggest you listen carefully … they’ll be consequences you do not want to face. You think this retaliation is a pain in your ass, trust me, you don’t demonstrate with every move you make from the minute you leave this room that you get the message I’m right now sending, you will know pain.”
Olly looked from Branch to the bitch and saw that her bravado was cracking. She wasn’t reeking of fear but she sure the fuck was leaking it.
Dillinger wasn’t done.
“And just so you know, there will never be a time when you’ll be safe. Someone will be checking in randomly. Not for months, but for as long as Aryas feels necessary to make sure you don’t fuck with anybody in the life. Not just associated with the Honey, but in the life. You’re not a bitch. You’re not a cunt. You’re a fuckin’ waste of space. And the reason I know that is because you’re so goddamned stupid, it’s mind-boggling. And the reason I know that is you are what you are and you didn’t take care of the beauty that was handed to you. But the bigger reason I know that is you fucked with Aryas Weathers and it is known wide he does take care of the beauty that’s under his protection and he does not fuck around in doing that.”
Olly watched her swallow but she didn’t say anything.
So Branch prompted, “Now, confirm you’ve heard me.”
“I heard you,” she spat.
“Resignation tomorrow,” Branch returned on a sharp nod. “Trailing your slimy path to whatever unfortunate destination you choose by the end of the month. And please, don’t be any more fuckin’ stupid. We nailed your messenger and we nailed you in three days. I report to Aryas you’re not bein’ smart, look in my eyes, woman, and see I’ll enjoy every fuckin’ second of the next message I get to deliver.”
She didn’t spend a lot of time looking into his eyes.
She read his eyes. She couldn’t miss it.
“Are we done?” she snapped.
“We are,” Branch replied.
She glanced to the TV. “Is there a time when I’ll get those DVDs?”
Olly felt a shiver feather up his spine when Branch whispered, “You’re bein’ stupid.”
At that, on a glare that was meant to save face and a hilariously graceless ascent from her chair, she took her feet, lifted her nose, and stomped to the door.
It opened and one of Barclay’s bouncers was standing in the narrow space outside it.
Undoubtedly told by Barclay to make her exit as unpleasant as it could be, the bouncer grabbed her upper arm, and with a controlled push, shoved her down the stairs with him as her escort and her leash.
Barclay slammed the door and shouted at it, “Boo-yah!”
Olly started chuckling.
Barclay looked to Branch. “You’re the fuckin’ shit, man.”
“I’m somethin’,” Branch muttered and the words were not only bizarre, the way he voiced them was the same, so Olly felt his brows draw together as he studied the man. Branch looked to Olly. “Julie gets the Aryas treatment. You and me are done.”
“Yeah, we are, brother, and you got my thanks,” Olly replied. “Any time, beer’s on me.”
Branch nodded. “Now that, Ol, I might take you up on.”
Olly gave him a grin and jerked up his chin.
“Dealing with that trash, letting me have a hand in it, same’s on offer from me, Dillinger,” Barclay put in, moving from the door into the room.
“Thanks,” Branch murmured, looked to both men but said to Olly, “Later.”
“Later,” Olly replied.
“Later, man,” Barclay called after him as he was going down the stairs. When Branch disappeared, he turned his attention to Olly. “Dude’s got it going on.”
He did.
Olly only nodded.
Barclay gave him a huge smile. “Offer you a beer but I’m thinking you’re this close to sprinting to your truck.”
Olly smiled back. “You’d be right.”
“Go to her, brother,” Barclay urged quietly.
He didn’t go to Leigh. Not immediately.
He went to Barclay and they grasped forearms before they let go, moved in and lifted them, bumping them up the length.
“Means a lot, all you’ve done, buddy,” Olly said low as they moved apart.
“I know it, Olly, so you don’t have to say it.”
Olly kept giving his friend a look before he muttered, “Later,” and turned away.
“Later,” Barclay called to his back.
Then Olly was gone.
* * *
He’d called to tell her he was coming so Olly wasn’t surprised, even though it was late, when the door to her ranch opened as Olly was shifting his truck into park next to a BMW SUV.
He also wasn’t surprised it was Leigh’s girl Mira who was standing in the lit doorway.
He grabbed his bag, hauled his body out of the truck and was again unsurprised she didn’t offer him a greeting or get out of his way when he made it to her.
He stopped and looked down at her.
She looked up at him.
Women talked, Leigh and Mira were tight, so he knew his woman’s friend knew. Probably everything.
Or mostly everything.
“There won’t be a strike three,” he assured her quietly.
She continued to study him for a beat, two, before she stepped aside, murmuring, “There better not be.”
Olly fought back his grin, moved in, and dropped his bag by the door Mira closed behind him.
Cleopatra came calling, slinking with her slightly hitched feline grace down the hall.
“She’s in the living room,” Mira told his back.
He glanced over his shoulder at her, gave her a nod, and then moved that way, bending to scoop up
He saw Leigh wrapped in a throw on the couch in the great room, firelight dancing on her, as Mira called down the hall, “I’m going to bed!”
“All right, chérie,” Leigh called back, her eyes on Olly. “Sleep well.”
“You too,” Mira yelled back, her voice retreating.
Olly kept moving through this, taking Leigh in.
The swelling was down but the bruising had come up, dark and angry.
As much as that burned through him, he focused on doing the only thing left now to do.
He approached, dropped her cat in her lap, and then entered the couch with her, carefully pulling her in his arms so they were side to side, turned slightly into each other.
Cleopatra split the scene, apparently not feeling like cuddling.
Olly took one arm from around Leigh, lifted a hand, and with fingers curled, he moved them to within an inch of her battered, beautiful face.
He thought better of touching her but as he was dropping his hand, she caught it.
She inspected his scabbed knuckles and looked to him.
“Do I want to know?” she asked.
“No,” he answered.
“So I know,” she whispered.
He figured she did, but he didn’t confirm it.
Instead he sat, his body still, his mind filled with good things, as he watched her kiss his knuckles one by one.
Done with that, she laced her hand with his and rested them in her lap.
“How you feeling?” he asked.
“Every day it gets better,” she told him.
He searched her face for a lie but he couldn’t see that anywhere.
“Good,” he muttered.
“You look tired, darling,” she observed.
He was. He’d been amped for days but suddenly, in her space, sitting in front of her fireplace, with Leigh in his arms, he was exhausted.
“I am.”
She made a move to get them up, saying, “Let’s get you to bed.”
He didn’t move with her. Instead, he gently gave her a squeeze with his arms telling her he didn’t want them to go anywhere.
She looked to him, saw something in his face, and cuddled closer, whispering, “We can talk tomorrow, Olly.”
“Dad knows what happened to you,” he announced. “He also knows I’m takin’ time off but he thinks it’s so I can look after you in a way that’s not how I’ve spent the last three days lookin’ after you. And he knows I got two more days off before I gotta go back to work. And he knows that I’m bringin’ you back to the city when I go back and you’ll be stayin’ at my place until you’re all good. He’s givin’ us that. After that, though, he wants you at his table and, babe, he says he’s makin’ his brisket so, trust me, serious as shit, you’ll wanna be sittin’ there.”
He’d kept talking even as her face changed, churning through alarm, surprise, astonishment, marvel, and finally it melted, her eyes getting wet, as she stared up at him with lips parted.
When he was done talking, she asked immediately, “You talked with your father about me?”
Olly nodded but didn’t get further into that.
He gave her more.
“Chad, my best bud at the firehouse, says that his wife says that if you’re not ass to their couch watchin’ a game first Sunday you’re up for it, she’s gonna get pissy. At me. And Annie’s a good woman but she’s hell on wheels when she’s riled so I’d appreciate you savin’ me from that.”
While he gave her that, it wasn’t her face that melted but her body into his.
“Olly,” she said, and that was all she said, but his name in that sweet tone was all she needed to give him.
She didn’t need to say more.
His name was weighty, there was so much feeling dripping from it, and it might have been the prettiest thing he ever heard.
“In between all that, you’re takin’ me out for beer and wings,” he declared. “But once you’re all good and you can get dressed up for me, I’m takin’ my woman out for a fat, juicy steak at an uppity place where they know how to make her cocktail. Donovan’s, maybe. But I’m thinkin’ Durant’s is more your style.”
She let his hand go to rest hers on the side of his neck when she replied, “I love all this, Olly. I really do. You can’t…” She swallowed, he let her work at it, find it and when she did, he was quiet as she kept going. “You can’t know how much. But the things you said, they need to be discussed.”
He fought his mouth getting tight, angry at himself at the reminder of his own stupidity, while he told her, “Dad set me straight.”
She did a slow blink.
“You … you … you talked to your father about—”
“About what was really fuckin’ with my head,” he cut her off to say. “What we got between us, Leigh-Leigh, it is what it is or it was vanilla, none of his business. That wasn’t what was holding me back. You took that from me and I told you that was all good and I didn’t lie. You gave me that freedom. That was all good. I gave him what was holding me back when I’d think about our future. And he set me straight.” He grinned at her. “Made me feel like a moron doing it, but that’s his way.”
Her hand gave him a squeeze. “You aren’t a moron.”
And that was Leigh. Even when he was a moron, she didn’t make him feel that way.
In return his arms gave her a squeeze, but cautiously. “My dad’s the shit, Leigh, and fortunately for him, he’s got a daughter who has her shit together and can do no wrong, no joke, which is annoying.” She gave him a slight grin and he kept going. “But he’s got two boys who have no problem shoving their heads up their own asses on more than the rare occasion. So when he has to pull one out, he doesn’t fuck around.”
“It’s as easy as that?” she asked skeptically.
“I don’t figure it will be,” he answered truthfully. “I figure I’m gonna hit roadblocks but that isn’t this. Us. That’s life. Life always has roadblocks. Just can’t keep bein’ the dick who doesn’t negotiate them the right way. You get blocked, eventually you gotta learn to get smart and figure out how to navigate past it. Bein’ an asshole and blowing my stack clearly isn’t the way to do that. So I’m aware of that, of the consequences that might bring, it’s better than rammin’ my head against the obstacle until I’ve hammered my own self senseless. So I’m aware, I work like fuck not to do that again and make you watch me do it, slammin’ you right along with me while I do.”
“It’s good you have a handle on that, darling, but there was a great deal more to what you said.”
“Yeah, there was,” he agreed readily. “And Dad made it crystal just how deep my head was up my ass about that too.”
“He seems to have significant powers,” she noted hesitantly.
Olly gave her another grin but that grin faded and his next was said softly.
“Yeah, baby, ’cause, see I told you he had it all with Mom. And he did. He had it all. Just what he needed.”
Her lips parted again, she got what he was saying, which was exactly what he was saying, and Olly gave the rest to her.
“But there was a time when he didn’t know. He didn’t know if she was the one who would give him everything. He had to take that risk. And I don’t know what obstacles they faced but they’re human. They didn’t live in a magical world where everything was glitter dust and carefree. He just had a gut feeling, went with it, and had the woman by his side who could help him clear those obstacles. A woman he felt everything for so he busted his ass helping her clear hers. And in the end and all along the way, he was proved right, listening to his gut and taking that risk.”
“Are you saying you want to take that risk with me?” she asked, more wet in her eyes, hope there, too, and fuck him, banged-up face, she was never more beautiful.
“Where I’m at right now is knowing I want that and hoping like fuck you want to take that risk with me.”
She slid up his chest, her hand sliding into the back of
That.
Felt.
Great.
He closed his eyes and dropped his forehead to hers.
“Olly?” she called.
He opened his eyes but didn’t lift his head from hers.
She kept talking.
“My part in that…” She paused before she went on, “I was wanting, very much, what we’re discussing now. And I’d allowed myself to…” She paused again and seemed unable to figure out how to get back to it.
“Lay it on me, gorgeous,” he urged gently.
“There were … I…” More hesitation before she rushed it out. “It never got very far because I learned in ways that were more than a little unpleasant precisely what I was, what my use was, the place I had in their lives with two other men that I’d hoped…”
She trailed off then she got it together and finished it.
“I want a man in my life, sweetheart. Not a sub. A man to shuffle around the kitchen with and argue with about whiskers in the sink and,” her hand at his neck tightened, “make babies with. I’d allowed myself to hope before and got burned. I mistakenly assumed that you … all you wanted from me was what I’d been giving you in the playrooms and you’re correct, I do have an ice-cold temper, as you said. I need space and I think deliberately and—”
“Leigh-Leigh, it’s okay,” he cut her off, getting where she was coming from now, too, hating that happened to her with those other guys (at the same time, in a way, glad it did because it meant she was free for him) and hating more he did one fucking thing to put her in that place in her head.
But now that was over. They both had to let it go and move on.
To get her there, he reminded her, “We’re learning about each other and just as long as we actually pay attention and learn, we’ll get there.”
“All right, Olly.”
He smiled into her eyes. “But, just sayin’, I’m not real good with rinsing my whiskers out of the sink.”
Her eyes smiled back. “It may take time, darling, but I have a feeling I’ll learn to live with that.”