I'd made Tabitha cry.
A sour lump formed in my throat and I cursed my own idiocy.
Slipping off my aviators, I tossed them into the glove box. The Bugatti's door scissored up and I ducked out, rounding the sports car quickly. Tendrils of steam rose from a manhole, and the sidewalk was a blur of faces while traffic lights blinked in the distance. The blasting sound of car horns pierced the creeping dusk, along with bellowing—all directed at me. A few people openly stopped on the sidewalk to gawk, curious to see what the hold up was, including a short stocky man who held a tiny toy dog in one arm while taking a bite from a falafel, unashamedly staring.
The line of vehicles my double parking had brought to a standstill idled with rumbling engines and enraged drivers. A few of them poked their heads out of car windows and hurled abuse, much like the corporate asshole directly behind my Bugatti. The air stirred by cars crawling past in the opposite direction lifted his comb-over to wave at me.
So I was holding him up from getting to a bar for pretentious overpriced drinks and a lapdance—big fucking deal.
"Move your fucking car, asshole!" the asshole screamed.
"Fuck you!" I roared, slamming my fist on the shiny hood of his white BMW and almost punching a hole right through the metal.
He gulped at the impressive dent I'd left behind. Jerking back inside his car, he quickly rolled up his window and locked the door for good measure. He slunk down so low all I could see above his steering wheel was his balding head.
Shaking the pain from my knuckles, I hurried to Tabitha, feeling like a right bastard. Autumnal twilight was descending upon the city and turned the exhaust fumes even dirtier, the city even grimier. Stores were either shutting down for the evening or opening up for night-time trade. As the day's warmth bled away, the air carried with it savory smells from street vendors hawking their meals—hot dogs slathered in mustard, pungent coriander sprinkled over fat noodles, and steaming bowls of polish potato dumplings. All of it reminded me I was starving.
I crouched down beside Tabitha's little shoebox car so I was at eye level with her. Her fingers clutched the open window as briny tears stung her cheeks a blotchy strawberry. "My c-car won't st-start..." she sobbed. "I want t-to g-g-go home."
My heart clenched painfully and I mentally kicked myself. It hadn't even crossed my mind she'd have reacted this miserably to her car not starting. Running my gaze along the length of her bright chili-red car, I feigned innocence. "What seems to be the problem?"
I stole the spark plug cables, that's the problem.
Tabitha was going to kill me if she learned her car didn't work because I'd disabled it.
Her rosy lips curled downward, glistening with distress. "I don't know. It's n-not going. It's not even t-turning over." Her eyes had puffed right up and were as crimson-rimmed as the tip of her nose, and as she bawled her eyebrows were doing this strange caterpillar thing.
I belatedly realized that she'd noticed me staring.
She fished a tissue from her pocket to blow her nose. "What?"
"You're kind of weird looking when you cry," I blurted.
Her eyebrows slashed up. "Are you c-calling me ugly?"
Shit.
"I didn't say that," I quickly shot out. "You said that, not me."
Fresh droplets of wretchedness spilled down her cheeks as she wailed, "I-I-"—hiccup—"kn-no-ooo-ow...this is my s-sad face."
Unfolding myself, I opened up her door since she seemed incapable of doing anything but choke out sobs. I leaned in, unsnapped her safety belt, and took her hand to assist her out. I went to pull her in for a comforting hug which was the least I could do when she slid a hand between us and shoved me away. "Are you c-crazy?" she cried.
At first, I wasn't sure why the hells she'd pressed herself up against her car, glancing furtively around with worry widening her blood-shot eyes until it dawned on me she was looking to see if anyone was nearby that was from one of the Houses.
"No one's about," I reassured her.
Her bottom lip wobbled. "How d-do you know?"
I grinned. "Crowther super senses."
A huffed laugh burst from her. "Show off."
The large black button of her peacoat was cool beneath my fingertips when I pinched and used it to draw her in. Part of me expected Tabitha to resist but she melted against me and I wound my arms around her slender figure, engulfing her in a hug. When she pressed her face into my chest, I buried my face into her golden hair, breathed in her wild floral scent, and mentally sighed. Everything about Tabitha just felt right.
It was the building crescendo of distant car horns that forced me to peel my body from hers. My hands were gigantic and swallowed up her heart-shaped face when I cupped her cheeks to tilt her head upward. Her perfectly pouty lips curved into a small tentative smile. "I'm so sorry. I had a really bad end to my day," she whispered.
Salty tears wet my thumbs as I wiped them gently from beneath her eyes. "We all have them." I lifted an apologetic shoulder. "Listen, I know jack-shit about cars." True. I liked driving them and the odd thing about engines—enough to either disable or boost them to steal. "I'll call my mechanic in to come fix it. In the meantime, I'll give you a ride home since we're both heading that way."
Tabitha slid her upper body sideways to look behind me and check out my car. She bit her lip while she contemplated my offer. Straightening, she shook her head and the tendrils of hair framing her face shivered with the movement. "That's a really kind offer but I can't... I shouldn't..."
I went to protest when she gestured with the hand holding the balled-up tissue toward the sidewalk and the late-night coffee house behind us. "It's fine. I'll wait in there until one of my friends can come and get me."
"That's at least two hours away," I replied. And I knew she hadn't phoned anyone yet. "Giving someone a ride home is what any one of your friends would do."
Her tear-dew eyelashes glistened as she blinked up at me. "Friends?"
"Sure." Because what else were we right now? It wasn't what I wanted, but I could be a friend. An asshole friend who ruined the end of her day. I tugged gently on the end of her ponytail. "Come on. It'll be fine. My mechanic will have it fixed in no time. We'll meet him just outside of the estate and you can drive your car into the Deniauds' and no one will ever know you hitched a ride with me."
My decision made, I turned to my Bugatti and opened up the front seat's passenger door. However, when I twisted back around to face Tabitha, she still looked dubious and stubborn enough to say no.
I hooked a thumb over my shoulder and ground out, "Get in the car, Miss Catt."
If I was going to have to pick her up and shove her into my car, that's what I was going to do. Maybe my intention blazed brightly because she answered as if she'd read it on my face. "You wouldn't dare," she hissed, canting forward.
"Try me," I gritted back.
She threw up a hand and made an ugh sound, the one she liked to use when she was annoyed. For a moment I thought she was going to fight me on this, but she spun around to her dinky car, opened up the back seat door, and bent over.
First I checked out her gloriously perky ass because it was right fucking there and I couldn't wait to take a bite out of it. Next, I peered around her bent figure and spotted the navy-striped beach bag lying on the seat. It was collapsed-looking and definitely empty. I rubbed a hand across my chin while I pondered on the road kill she'd scooped up this morning, wondering what she'd done with it.
Tabitha retrieved her handbags. She locked up her vehicle and turned back to me. The brightly colored fibers poking out the top of the smaller black bag caught my eye. I was right, I had seen a feather duster earlier. "Is that a bag of cleaning stuff?"
She frowned, briefly glancing at her bag before returning her gaze to me and replied airily. "I'm sure you take your weapons with you wherever you."
Well, yeah, I did.
"I don't leave home without my tools of trade either. You never know when a mess might happen or if something needs a quick clean." She breezed past with her chin tilted haughtily and slipped into my car, placing the handbags down beside her feet.
For a moment I considered whether Tabitha had a slight cleaning obsession or she was lying!
Swiveling down her door, I rounded my car, ducking inside and pulling shut the scissor door. Shifting gears and sliding between the clutch and the accelerator we glided forward, allowing the backed-up traffic to progress and the asshole behind us to get to his shitty lapdance.
We caught up to the congested traffic and as we edged along I darted a glance at Tabitha and my stomach sank. She seemed small and deflated as her wide-eyed gaze inched along the sports car's sleek dashboard and lingered on the high-end walnut finishings.
My thumb tapped against the steering wheel with irritation as I cursed myself out for choosing the Bugatti. It was just a stupid fucking car, but once again it highlighted the differences between us.
I adjusted the heat setting and pumped hot air down by her feet to warm her toes laid bare in those Jelly shoes of hers, and turned up the music in the hope it would relax her. However when we left the red-brick market district behind and picked up speed, I felt her fleeting sidelong glances on my clean-shaven profile, and the mood in the car grew heavy with despondency as she fidgeted nervously with the frayed threads on the cuff of her peacoat.
The thick and unwanted silence that had settled between us was broken finally when she asked quietly. "Mr. Crowther, what about my car and your mechanic friend?"
All taken care of, but she didn't need to know that part.
Reaching across Tabitha, I made a dramatic show of pulling the Brick out of the glove box because it was pretty fucking fancy and seriously cool. "Fucking magic," I told her with a wink before dialing a number.
Tabitha watched me beneath her eyelashes as I talked to my mechanic which was really my younger brother Sander. I had to talk over the top of him really fast and really loud because he was confused as to why I was calling him again about something I'd already asked him to do just before Tabitha had arrived at her broken-down car.
After ending the conversation, my gaze slid to Tabitha and my spine stiffened. For some strange reason her shoulders were quaking and she had her hand splayed over her mouth, looking as if she was trying not to laugh.
"What's so funny?"
"It's just," she said, sputtering a little with a burst of suppressed laughter. She swallowed down a deep breath while tapping the flat of her fingers against her chest, getting her amusement under control. Scrunching her nose, she gestured toward the Brick with a flick of her fingers. "So 80s."
"Says the girl wearing a scrunchie and yellow Jelly shoes."
Tabitha frowned down at her lattice shoes and wiggled a foot for me. "They're cute."
"For a ten-year-old...in the 80s."
She eyed the Brick and said coolly, "I mean, it's pretty outdated, Mr. Crowther."
What the hells was she talking about—outdated?
Tabitha shifted in her seat so she faced me. "Surely you're aware there's a new phone so small you can fit it in your pocket."
I scoffed, shaking my head. A phone that fits into a pocket. Laughable.
Except Tabitha didn't laugh. Her eyes rounded and something in between bafflement and pity shone in their depth.
The word cracked from my throat. "Really?"
She nodded enthusiastically. "It's a flip phone—"
"A what?" What the fuck was a flip phone?
"It flips open," she said, making a little gesture with a hand as if she were flipping an imaginary cell phone open. "It's designed in such a way to make it smaller so the phone fits into your pocket. That way you can carry it on you wherever you go, in a pocket rather than..." she jutted her chin toward the glove box.
Oh for fucks' sake.
I threw the Brick back into the glove box and scowled. My fingers clenched around the steering wheel so hard I heard a creak of metal. So fucking shit. Why the hells were we the last House that got supplied with new technology?
Still, Tabitha mocking me was worth it. She was much more relaxed, grinning and shaking her head while murmuring, "Freaking magic."
It had grown darker since we'd left her car and I flicked on the headlights joining the stream of neon colors streaking through the night, as I turned onto the thoroughfare that rounded the silvery lake.
"What are you doing in the city anyway?" she asked.
I had been worried she was going to ask me this. Somehow by some miracle in this big sprawling city of Ascendria, I'd turned up at the exact moment when she needed a friend the most. I'd already worked out an alibi that was close enough to the truth. I'd come down to this part of the city to hang out with my twin, and I was just about to voice it when Tabitha suddenly sat up ramrod straight. She angled her nose upward and sniffed. "Oh my..."— a pause—"What is that delicious smell?" she breathed.
"Hungry, Miss Cat?"
"I'm starving," she groaned, slumping back into her seat and rubbing her stomach. "Starving... The last time I ate was around lunchtime."
Reaching down, I lifted open the large console between us, and robust smells of spices and herbs floated on a wave of steam and heat. "Help yourself."
Tabitha's eyes bugged at the console stuffed with small takeaway boxes striped in the colors of the Italian flag. "There's so much food."
"I'm a big guy, Miss Cat." Big in all the places that matter. "I eat a lot."
"Are you sure?" she asked, even though she'd fished out a plastic fork from the paper bag settled on top of the takeaway and had already selected a box.
I hadn't known what she liked to eat so I'd ordered every single starter on the menu at the Italian bistro halfway down the block from the red-brick district.
She popped the box open and the comforting smell of melted cheese filled the car. "Gnocchi!" she gasped. "I love gnocchi so much." Scooping up a forkful of hand-rolled pasta with thick gooey cheese sauce she popped it into her mouth and made an appreciative hum as she ate. "They're so pillowy and soft and scrumptious," she sighed. She savored another mouthful, sinking back into her seat and enjoying the delicious taste of pasta and cheese, loosening a moan every so often as she chewed.
My gaze flicked to hers.
Hellsgate.
Her expression had softened and she'd closed her eyes, golden eyelashes fanning her upper cheeks. It was the same rapturous face and low soft moans she made when I'd slowly unraveled her in the glassware cupboard.
She pried her eyes open. "Are you hungry, Mr. Crowther?"
"Ravenous." And not for pasta. My cock was paying hard attention to those seductive moans she was making.
"Both hands on the wheel, don't let your eyes stray from the road, and no speeding," she informed me with a sharp bite to her tone.
I was actually driving to the speed limit which was rare for me. Though I did it for her, there was no fucking way I was going to do her self-imposed speed of 5 miles less than stated.
Tabitha leaned over and fed me the last forkful of gnocchi. I moaned as the taste sensation exploded over my tongue. Rich and decadent and so fucking good.
Even though I was supposed to be concentrating on the road I couldn't help but sneak a look her way. The highway lights we passed below cut her into fragmented moments of darkness and pulses of yellow light, and she looked staggeringly beautiful in the simplicity of enjoying good food with a sweet smile curving her lips and the waves of her hair curling over a shoulder.
My gaze hungrily lowered to her mouth as she flicked her pink tongue out to slowly lick up a dash of glossy sauce from her lips.
Hellsgate, hellsgate...holy hellsgate...
She caught me staring and her nose crinkled with her perplexion. "What?"
Clearing my throat, I flicked my gaze back to the highway and the tail lights of the car ahead. "There's ravioli stuffed with roasted rabbit in there, some carpaccio, and eggplant parmigiana, linguini too."
In my periphery I watched her mouth purse into an excited O. "I adore carpaccio."
As do I with you, Miss Catt, especially those O-faces you're making.