“Are you gonna leave it at that?” Olly pushed.
Weathers’s glance was longer before he looked at the road.
“No.”
“I’m on that,” Olly stated.
“Man, I get you and Leigh are tight but you let my man work. He knows what he’s doing.”
“I wasn’t asking.”
Weathers waited until he’d stopped at a stoplight before he looked to Olly and spoke.
“You gonna do something stupid if I don’t partner you up with Branch?”
Olly had no idea who Branch was.
And he wasn’t going to do anything stupid.
He was going to do what needed to be done.
He said none of this and didn’t need to.
Weathers read it.
“I’ll partner you up with Branch,” he murmured.
Olly faced forward.
The light changed and Weathers drove.
* * *
She was asleep when he arrived.
Olly didn’t go anywhere, not even to get coffee to stay awake after being up all night.
Didn’t matter. He didn’t need caffeine.
He wouldn’t fall asleep.
But her friend Mira, giving him close looks he decided to ignore, brought him some anyway.
Olly drank some of it but only to be nice.
Mostly, he sat in the chair beside her bed, exploring new boundaries of controlling his hot head.
She’d had a number done on her, a small cut under her eye that was taped together being the worst of it, if you didn’t count her ribs, which Olly was absolutely not allowing himself even to consider.
He actually didn’t let himself think of anything but what he’d say when she woke up or he knew he’d lose it.
Right then he didn’t need to lose it.
He needed to keep his shit so he could do what needed to be done.
He’d been there twenty minutes before the halls getting noisier with the day’s activities woke her.
The second he saw her eyes fluttering, Olly stood and leaned over the bed.
She saw him; her one eye not swollen shut widened then she shut it and turned her face away.
He gently pushed his hand under the healthy cheek she was pressing against the pillow but he didn’t force her to look at him.
He bent to her ear.
“Fucked up again. Fucked up, you called me when you needed me and I didn’t—”
“Please don’t,” she whispered. “Just go.”
His gut twisted.
“Leigh-Leigh.”
Even with her swollen eye he could see her squeezing it shut.
“Go.”
“Can’t, baby, you know that. I’m a jackass with a bad temper but you gotta know no way I can leave this room with you in that bed.”
She pressed her face into his hand but did it to get away when she whispered, “I don’t want you to see me like this.”
Olly relaxed.
“Leigh, you got jumped. It’s not your—”
She turned and opened her good eye. “I didn’t fight back. I couldn’t. He was suddenly there and on me and I didn’t even get a single—”
“Please, baby, I wanna hear this if you wanna give it to me, but for right now, you gotta stop talking.”
She closed her mouth and stared into his eyes.
Then she whispered, “I’ll stop talking.”
She was learning.
He bent closer. “Last night, I shoulda shut my trap and listened to you.”
“Well, all you were saying was quite lovely and I did fully intend to tell you why I called once you shut up but I’m afraid I blacked out in the middle of it.”
He felt a muscle jump up his jaw right to his temple.
And she watched it, stating hurriedly, “I’ll stop talking again.”
“Good call.”
She pressed chapped lips together.
Olly watched and felt another muscle jump.
He turned his thoughts and asked, “You goin’ to the ranch?”
She nodded.
“I’m gonna be doin’ something with some guy named Branch.”
She clearly knew who Branch was because her one eye got wide again and she opened her mouth. “Olly—”
Olly cut her off. “Your girl, can she stay with you?”
She nodded. “She’s taking time off.”
So was he.
He was also going to talk to Weathers about what they could do to cover her. Two women at that remote ranch, they needed more protection until shit was seen to.
That was for him and Weathers. Leigh didn’t need to worry about that.
“Get to you when I can,” he told her.
“I wouldn’t possibly be able to talk you out of doing something foolish with Aryas and his private investigator, would I?”
So this Branch dude was a PI.
That’d be useful.
“No,” he answered.
Her good eye rolled to the head of the bed.
“Leigh-Leigh,” he called.
Her eye rolled back to him.
Olly bent even closer.
“We’re gonna work it out, all of it, Leigh,” he promised. “I’m gonna apologize for bein’ a dick to you again and I’m gonna do it in a way I make you believe how fuckin’ sorry I am that I was. But I’m gonna state right now that all that shit I spewed was shit. I was feelin’ down deep a load of crap I should have talked out with you. It was huge, I couldn’t see my way past it, I really fuckin’ wanted to get past it because beyond that was you, and I took all of that out on you. My mom warned me if I didn’t check my temper, it’d land me in hot water. And I cannot say after her givin’ me that for years and me not takin’ good advice that I can turn that on a dime. What I can say is actin’ like that and nearly losin’ you is a lesson I’m not gonna forget. Not ever, Leigh. So we’ll work things out, we’ll figure out where we’re goin’, that bein’ somewhere together, and along the way, I’ll do my fuckin’ all to check it.”
When he was done talking, she asked, “How do you do that?”
He didn’t understand the question. “Do what?”
“Make it all okay just like that.”
Olly’s relief was so great he dropped his head and nearly didn’t stop it before he hit hers.
Instead, when he got close enough to touch his mouth to hers, he did it.
“You’ve a very foul temper, darling,” she whispered when he’d moved away half an inch.
“I’ll do my fuckin’ all to check it.”
She looked him in the eyes.
Then she nodded and said softly, “We’ll talk more later.”
That was when he nodded.
“Please be careful with Aryas and his PI.”
“It’ll all be good.”
She studied him dubiously, mumbling, “Mm-hmm.”
“You do what the doctors say you can and no more,” he ordered.
“I have no desire at the present juncture to tiptoe through any tulips, Olly, so don’t worry about me.”
He grinned at her, bent in, and touched his mouth to hers again.
This time, she touched hers back.
Thank fuck.
“I’ll call,” he promised as he pulled away.
“I’ll answer and not black out this time.”
“Right,” he grunted. “Time to joke about that will be around two, three decades from now.”
Something shifted in her eyes, he caught it and he got it.
What he said indicated they might have decades.
And it further indicated he wanted that.
He’d said it and he’d meant it so he just stared into her face that was still beautiful, even with half of it mottled and swollen.
“So noted,” she murmured.
“Be in touch.”
She nodded again.
“Mean the world to me, Leigh-Leigh,” he whispered.
Her face got soft, her good eye got wet and she lifted a hand to c
up his jaw.
“I know how that feels,” she whispered back.
Christ, he wanted to kiss her.
But Olly couldn’t kiss her the way he wanted to.
So he kissed her nose, her forehead, her good eye and her bad one before he touched his lips to hers again.
“Later, Leigh.”
“Later, Olly.”
He ran his thumb along her jaw, straightened, gave her a grin, and then turned around and walked out of her hospital room.
twenty
I May Already Have Landed
OLIVIER
“Yo!”
At the sound, Olly quit beating the absolute shit out of the man who was barely conscious, held up by one of Olly’s hands fisted in his shirt, the left side of his face, just like Leigh’s, having taken a pummeling.
His was not swollen and mottled.
It was annihilated.
“Think that does it, man,” Branch called out.
Olly looked from the man he held to the guy leaning casually against a wall, eyes on Olly.
He lifted his chin, dropped the man, delivered two kicks from his boot into his ribs then bent over him.
“Some cunt wants you to deliver a message again, brother, think twice,” he advised.
The guy replied with nothing but a noise of pain.
“You with me?” Olly pushed.
He barely heard the mumbled, “With you.”
“Be happy to do this again, you think twice,” Olly shared.
“Won’t,” the guy forced out.
“Smart,” Olly muttered.
Then he hocked as much phlegm as he could get up his throat and spat it in the man’s face.
He straightened, looked back to Branch, and as he moved to the door, said, “Let’s roll.”
They left the apartment building, swung up in Branch’s GMC SUV, and Branch set them rolling.
It had been two days since it happened. Aryas put Branch on it the minute he’d been called by Mira and told Leigh had been attacked.
Before and after Weathers shared with Branch that he had a partner, something the other man made no comment to and just worked with it, Branch did not fuck around.
He wasn’t a big talker. He was also the most focused guy Olly had ever met. He saw to the job, shared what needed to be done, was so diligent, intent, and intuitive it was uncanny, so he never lost a lead, and Olly went with his flow.
This all meant now, in a short expanse of time, they’d dealt with the first issue and Olly knew not to hash it out with Branch. Not that he’d want to.
It was done.
He pulled out his phone, engaged it, saw the time was late and still called Leigh.
“Darling,” she answered, sounding sleepy.
He had not been keeping her up to date with what they were doing.
But he had been calling her frequently, not to have long chats, just to check in to make sure she was okay.
“Did I wake you?” he asked.
“It doesn’t matter.”
It did. She needed to rest. He shouldn’t have called.
“Let you sleep. Just wanted you to know, things are on course and I’ll be at the ranch, latest, tomorrow night.”
“That’s good, Olly,” she replied then asked, “Are you good?”
“I’m fine. It’s all gonna be fine, Leigh-Leigh. Just go back to sleep.”
“All right,” she murmured. “Talk to you tomorrow.”
He grinned at the phone. “Yeah, you will.”
“You get some sleep too.”
That, he probably wouldn’t do until this was done.
“I will, baby,” he lied. “Call you tomorrow.”
“Okay, Olly. Tomorrow, sweetheart.”
“Later, Leigh.”
He hung up and shoved the phone back in his pocket.
There was silence in the cab until Branch told him, “You need ice on your hands.”
“They’ll be fine.”
Branch was silent again before he asked quietly, “She good?”
“Woke her. Sleepy, but she sounds stronger.”
Branch had nothing to say to that for long beats until he amended, “No, brother, what I mean is, is she good?”
Olly turned his head to look at the guy.
“Sorry?”
“You’re hers.”
Fuck.
He knew. The way he stated that, he knew exactly.
He had to know Weathers’s business since he worked for the dude but somehow he also knew what Olly and Leigh had.
“Not sure that’s your business, Dillinger,” he returned, forcing back his irritation and looking again through the windshield.
There were more moments of silence, now loaded, before Branch spoke again.
“You got it all, Hawkes, don’t fuck it up.”
Although his comment was surprising, including the fact he even made one, the guy was so taciturn, Olly turned his way impatiently.
“Thanks for the advice,” he said tersely. “And no offense, but it isn’t needed.”
“She gives it to you like you like it and gives you what you both got that I keep hearing when you talk on the phone, I’m meaning no offense either. Just sayin’ that’s hard to find. You got it and you can get lost in the easy and not work to keep the good.”
“Nothin’ about what we got has been easy,” Olly told him.
“Reckon that’s the fuckin’ truth,” Branch muttered.
Olly stared at him closely.
Fuck.
Fuck.
What he was thinking couldn’t be right.
But Branch’s words, he was right.
“You’re a brother,” he noted carefully.
Branch didn’t confirm verbally and it took some time for him to confirm at all. When he did, it was an almost-not-there lift of his chin.
Christ, Olly felt that. Looking at the man, he felt it, sitting next to someone like Branch Dillinger who was a brother in a lot of ways.
And it was then he understood precisely why Barclay took Olly’s back and made time for him, even when he was being a dick.
“It was hard to find, Branch, but I found it, which means it’s out there,” Olly shared.
“You’re a good man, Hawkes, know it the way you’re doin’ what needs to be done for your woman. Glad you got that. But that shit’s not gonna happen for me.”
Olly guessed where he was at.
“You go lookin’?” he asked.
“No.”
Shit.
“The Honey’s got goods on offer, brother,” he gave him something the man had to know.
“Aryas sets me up. Private. I get what I need. That doesn’t mean I’ll get what you have. But I get what I need.”
There was something awesome about this, an open conversation about shit that was real that was hidden day to day but out there in the dark cab of an SUV, two men cut from the same cloth in a number of ways were connecting.
And the way Branch introduced it, it was clear he needed that connection.
Olly would never have thought he’d be on the Barclay side of things, offering advice to a brother who needed it.
But being right there, it felt fucking good.
That said, what was coming from Branch was all bad.
“Leigh and me found our way. While doin’ that, another Domme at the Honey, friend of Leigh’s, gorgeous, works her man sweet, they found it too. So Leigh and me are no glitch.”
“No good woman deserves the shit I got festering inside of me.”
“I know that shit, Branch,” Olly said quietly. “And it isn’t shit. It’s who you are and you are far from alone in that. Any woman you find worth the effort to look toward a future is gonna know that shit, too, and help you through it.”
“No, you don’t, Olly. You don’t know my brand of shit. I get you think you do but I’m totally cool with what I like to get off. Take that, walk away. It’s going the distance that isn’t going to happen for me and I’m down with that too. M
y point here is, glad to know good men like you find what you need, but it’s not gonna happen for me.”
“Not sure what that’s about, but what I am sure is that I always got cold beer in my fridge so if you wanna talk it out, door’s open.”
“Gratitude, and not throwin’ that offer in your face ’cause it means something. Just sharing that that’s not gonna happen,” Branch replied.
“Door’s still always open and not just for that chat.”
There was again silence before Branch murmured, “Gratitude, Olly.”
Olly got that Branch needed to let it go.
So he let it go.
But for a man he’d learned to respect in about five minutes, the man who was marking the course for Olly to do what needed to be done for his Leigh, he wanted something more for him.
Aryas set him up privately?
Olly was going to have a word with Leigh.
Then they’d see what Branch would get next.
* * *
The next evening, Olly stood with his shoulders against the window in Barclay’s office, his arms on his chest, his eyes not on the TV screen playing the video, but on the bitch sitting, looking just as ridiculous as she just fucking was (by the mere fact she was breathing) as she was trying (and failing) to do it with dignity in one of Barclay’s absurd chairs.
Barclay was in that office with him, standing close to the door.
Branch was there too.
Delia had her focus on the TV, her face pointy with anger, her body held tight as a bow.
Olly turned his attention from the woman to the TV but he didn’t keep it there long because it turned his stomach, what he was seeing.
Multiple partner play, all at Delia’s command, her all done up in Dominatrix gear, though her bodysuit was crotchless so her subs had access when she ordered it.
None of it was extreme. No blood play, torture, mutilation, anything like that.
That didn’t matter.
When Dillinger switched it off and got Delia’s and Olly’s attention, he gave to her what mattered.
“Turnabout is fair play,” he said quietly.
Delia didn’t reply.
“Courier waiting,” he announced. “DVD of that ready to be dispatched to your boss’s home. He’s got an open mind, another one ready to be dispatched to his boss’s home. To be thorough, two more, one to the president of your company and one to your ex-husband. You lost your kids to him and the divorce wasn’t a walk in the park for you, but you ever want anything or to get your kids back, he’s got evidence of your kink, it ain’t gonna happen.”