Heat - Book 2 of the Bad Boy Vibes series

Chapter 7

Chapter 7

"So, Eric is leaving?"

"Yes," muttered Anna shortly. She was still wrung out from the night before. So much was said, but there was still so much more left unsaid. Perhaps it was better that way.

"So are we going to kill him before he leaves or after?"

Anna had to turn to face Pat at that. Her brow lifted in an incredulous query. Had he just said what she thought he did, or was it her imagination playing tricks on her? Anna wasn't sure, as she'd had a mostly sleepless night. Rafe's nightmares had returned with a vengeance early that morning. He had been all but hoarse shouting out her name, tormented by the demons of his nightmares. No prizes in guessing just who those demons were.

"That's not a bad idea."

Rafe's tone had hair-raising chills shivering down her spine. Every time she thought she'd seen Rafe at his deadliest worst, he went all out to prove her wrong. But there was no mistaking the menace behind his words. Menace and vulnerability were opposite sides of the same coin. Flipping either way did not bode well for Rafe. It was apparent he was still tormented by his earlier nightmares.

Anna lifted her own pain-filled eyes to catch Pat's. He visibly shivered at the hard edge of Rafe's tone and fixed his own concerned eyes on hers.

"We don't really need to kill him. We could just..." Pat attempted to backtrack.

"Shoot him? That would be too easy."

Anna exchanged a frantic look with Pat, worried Rafe might actually head out to do something as brutal, if not worse. It was that worry that had her calling Pat over first thing that morning with a promise of breakfast. They were gathered around plates full of pancakes, which were chilling even in this stifling heat.

"In the kneecaps?" Pat offered sheepishly what had to be his poor attempt at defusing the situation.

Her disgusted grimace spoke clearly what she thought of that idea.

"Alright, you decide what should be done to him," offered Rafe generously. If Anna even thought for a minute he was serious, that he wasn't just looking for an excuse to shoot down her ideas with verbal bullets, she might have actually told him. But she knew better. He was still too riled up. He had too much pent-up anger to have any of it defused so easily with choice words. Rafe needed action. More specifically, he needed a fight... with the Pillar. But Anna crossed that idea out just as soon as it was formed. There had already been one too many fights. Rafe had already been battered up too often to suit her tastes. Sex wouldn't be of any help this time. She was still a little worn out from the night before. She would probably need another means.

And Pat Cash would be those means.

"Well, I'd love to stick around for that, but Pat and I have plans for today," said Anna, successfully distracting Rafe from his sudden fascination with blood and gore to focus his eye with jealous intensity on Pat. No matter what she said of Pat's sexual proclivities, Rafe refused to believe Pat could not share his own infatuation with Anna. Jealousy hovered persistently close whenever he caught sight of the two of them close.

"Where are you going?" Rafe demanded an explanation from Pat with steel in his voice.

"We're going to visit his parents if you must know." Anna was the one to offer the quick reply. Pat was still busy trying to draw in a breath, facing down the clear violence in Rafe's dark gaze. There were no hints of melting chocolates in their depths now, only coal-black, violent swirls.

"My parents?" squeaked Pat unsurprisingly. He had a more morbid fear of his parents that Rafe Brown could not possibly hold a candle to in all his smoldering anger.