Love Like Cyanide - ch 9
Chapter 9: Natalie
Thankfully, the panic is only internal. But the way Valentine shifts gears so smoothly on the little loaner of a company car should be criminal. My mind keeps flashing back to the way he’d caught me, saved my ass from falling in the treatment room. His arms felt so natural wrapped around me, his thick muscles tensed up as I whacked against him, the subtle earthy scent of his skin so close to mine…
It was absolutely ridiculous to be so worked up about it, since I’d literally had my hands all over his body for an hour prior to this. But between that and the way he’d gently set me on the counter like I was something precious… If I wasn’t a goner before, I was definitely over the edge now.
“Nat?”
Shit. He was talking to me and I was totally spaced out. “My stomach was growling so loud it blocked my ears. What was that, Val?” Good cover.
I look over at him, his eyes focused on the road. That perfect jawline is accented in the dim lighting of the interior of the car, full lips curving up in a smirk. I’m not fooling him, but I don’t care.
“I asked if you have any food allergies, or anything. Preferences?”
I shrug. “Nah. I’m pretty sturdy. As long as it’s carb and protein heavy, anywhere is fine. I might live here, but I don’t go out for food much. I’ll defer to your expert opinion.”
“Sturdy?” he laughs a little. “You’re too tiny to be sturdy, Nat. Are you even five feet tall?”
I’m overcome by a stab of guilt, his words so similar to what Dante said to me on the night of our little tryst when I was in heat. I rest my chin on my fist and look out the window with a wistful smile. “I’m five foot two, I’ll have you know,” I snark back, taking in the lights of the city coming to life as the sun starts to dip below the horizon.
“That’s over a foot shorter than me. You make up for it with attitude, though.”
I shake my head. “I can’t tell if that’s supposed to be an insult, or a compliment.”
“Nothing wrong with being fun-sized, Doc.”
“When I’m surrounded by you giant-ass alphas all day, it definitely drives the petite reminder home.”
The car slows to a stop at a traffic light and he glances over at me with dark eyes full of heat that even the most oblivious person couldn’t miss. “You could always wear heels.”
I snort, crossing my arms over my chest. “And fall and break my neck? No thanks. I accepted being nothing more than warmup weight a long time ago. Height isn’t something I can change. I just have to take threats out at the knees.”
The engine revs back to life as the light changes. “You shouldn’t have to worry about threats, Nat. I hope when you’re with us, you feel safe.” The conviction in his voice hits me like a blow to the chest.
“I’ve never not felt safe around you all. I’ve been working for the company for about eight months, now. If something was off, despite the money being better than any job I’ve ever had, I wouldn’t still be around.”
“Fair enough,” he agrees. He pulls into the parking lot of a little dive bar that proudly proclaims “Billiards!” on the dark brick wall in a retro, scrolling script. It’s buried back amongst some high-rises that put my apartment building to utter shame, and I don’t live in the worst part of town.
“Best brick-oven pizza and fries you’ll ever get your hands on. Here on the North Side, anyway. And their burgers are alright.”
As Valentine kills the engine, I fight the urge to internally panic. Something occurs to me that my dumbass hadn’t even considered. “What if someone recognizes you? We don’t have a security detail or anything, and you could get mobbed—”
“By a bunch of horny fans? At a place like this?” Valentine cuts me off with a smirk. “We’ll be fine, Nat. I wouldn’t have brought you here if I was worried about this place.” His hand settles on my shoulder, the heat of his skin on mine almost hot enough to scald.
I turn my face to meet his gaze and his easy smile melts me into my socks. He gives my shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “We’ll be fine, Doc. And besides, half the fanbase wouldn’t recognize my face without stage makeup on, anyway. So… Let’s go! I’m starving.”
Inside the place, the atmosphere is warm and homey. There’s a good amount of people milling around, their conversations blending together with an occasional spike of laughter rising above the mass. The décor is what you’d expect, with random neon signs advertising the types of alcohol they serve adorning the walls. The lighting is low, but not totally dark like a club would be. It’s actually comfortable.
Val’s hand settles on the small of my back, bringing me through the crowd to the bar. Standing next to him like this, it hits me how the pair of us must look to an outside observer. The quirked eyebrow of the large, bald man polishing a glass behind the bar only confirms that it doesn’t look good.
“’Ey! You know we don’t allow minors in here.” His gravelly voice has a thick Jersey accent and I find myself bristling at being judged for my size.
Val’s hand slides over, so his fingers wrap around the edge of my waist. “Come on, Gio. Just this once?”
“Well… I dunno…”
My neck cranks sideways to stare up at the alpha with my jaw agape. He looks down at me with a shit-eating grin and the two men burst out laughing. I crack the back of my fist against Valentine’s abs hard enough to make his breath stutter for a second, before he goes back to snickering.
“Asshole,” I say loudly enough to be heard over the music and voices that fill the room.
“Yeah, he certainly can be. Don’t mind him, though. He’s got a good heart.” He sets down the spotless glass and gives me a warm smile that makes my urge to murder my client greatly reduce. Wouldn’t say it totally disappears, but maybe just maiming him would be an acceptable substitute.
“You want the usual, Val?” Gio grabs an order pad and starts scribbling a few things down.
He nods. “And whatever the lady wants. She said carbs are in order, so I figured there was no better place to drop by than here.”
“I’ll have whatever he’s having, and a root beer. No ice, please.” I chime in.
Gio nods and scrawls on the scratch pad with an unexpectedly elegant script that makes me think even better of him. “That’s a glowing endorsement, honestly. The others not coming along, tonight?”
Valentine shrugs. “If they do, it’s on their own. We just got back in town a few days ago. They might still be visiting with family.”
Gio nods his understanding. “Fair enough. It’ll be about twenty minutes on that food.”
“Thanks, Gio!”
I nod my head to the older man respectfully, and Valentine leads me over to a trio of pool tables that lurk in a back corner of the room. I grab a pool cue from the rack and scuff the little blue cube of chalk over the surface of the tip. While Val collects the balls and sets up the table, I lean nonchalantly against the stick and watch him. The way his hands move and arrange everything with practiced precision is far more attractive than I want to admit to myself.
Everything about Valentine is planned and ritualized, like he has a crystal ball and is prepared for any and every situation that might arise. And if he doesn’t have quite the right materials, he can probably MacGyver that shit. He strikes me as the sort of man who lays out his clothing the night before, every piece immaculately folded and placed just so.
As if I wasn’t already in over my head with thoughts of Val first thing in the morning, coming out of the mental fog to see those umber eyes of his focused on me from where he’s leaned over the pool table makes me press my lips together. The urge to lick them is strong, but I’m already fighting to keep my decorum. And we’re in public.
Rein it in, Natalie. Fucking chill.
“You want to break?” He asks, stretching to his full height so my gaze has to travel up to maintain eye contact.
…he has no idea how much I’d love him to break me. And I apparently have zero fucking chill.
My brain short-circuits at his words, so I cover with snark. I cluck my tongue and shake my head a little. “No issues being bolder when the others aren’t around, eh? Or is this just a distraction tactic to throw me off my game?”
Valentine smirks. “We’ve both got an expected way we have to act when certain environmental factors are at play. But out here, in this place? We’re just two people, about to set some stakes for a game of pool.”
I roll the pool cue back and forth between my fingers, enjoying the sensation of the smooth wood against my palms. “Oh? A wager? Hmm… I don’t recall agreeing to gambling, but you can go first.”
He sets the cue ball down, lines up his shot, and there’s a resounding crack as the triangle is broken and the balls scatter in all directions. Nothing manages to roll into any pockets on that shot, so he gestures to me.
I take in the layout with a quick assessing glance and say aloud: “I’ll take stripes.” I lean my hip against the edge of the table, lining up my shot with the stick behind my back. I play the cue ball from where it sits, managing to knock two balls in at the same time.
Valentine whistles low. “You about to hustle me, Doc?”
I give him a grin from my leaned-over position. “Depends on what your wager is, Val.”
“It’s a little game we call Spicy Hate, Sweet Love. Sink a ball, you get to choose spicy or sweet. The one being asked gets to choose love or hate, and you have to ask them a question they can only answer truthfully, related to your interpretation of the categories.”
I purse my lips together in contemplation. It seems harmless enough. “So, I get to ask you two questions?”
He nods, expression unreadable. “Word your questions carefully, because you might not like what you hear.”
“Fair enough. First one: sweet. Second one: spicy.”
“Love, then hate.” He lines up a shot and three solid-colored orbs lovingly nestle into pockets beneath the pool table.
I can’t help but laugh. “And you tried to say that I was gonna hustle you. That’s fucking rich.”
A sly smile in his only response.
“Fine. What’s something a partner’s done for you before that was so adorable that you’ll never forget it?”
He tilts his head a bit, eyes halfway closed as he ponders his answer. “Before I was in the group, I had a guy I lived with for about a year. I love dogs, but we weren’t really serious enough to care for something together. At least, I thought we weren’t.
“Anyway, he took me to the animal shelter as a birthday surprise. Said I could pick out any dog I wanted. I was so stoked… Until he brought out the one I’d chosen, and there was an engagement ring tied to its collar with a little blue piece of ribbon…”
“What happened after that?” I asked softly, the world before my eyes definitely not wobbly with unshed tears.
“…I laughed at him and told him there was no way in hell we could get married. So, I let him keep the dog. Moved out the next day. It obviously didn’t work out, but I’ll never forget that. And sometimes I wonder how things would have been different if I was still living with him, and our dog.”
Val’s confession is a gut punch, in more ways than one. “I’m sorry,” is all I can manage.
“It was a long time ago. Feels like a lifetime ago, really. But yeah... Super sweet.” He crosses his arms over his chest and I valiantly manage to maintain eye contact. “Nothing to say about me mentioning a male partner, huh?”
I shrug. “With the way you and the guys are always playing grab-ass, I figure you’ve all probably given one a taste a time or two. For science.” He laughs, and I chuckle at the relief on his face. “But you do still like women, too, right?”
The heat in his eyes as he slowly rakes his gaze over me makes my cheeks flame. His voice drops and there’s a hint of a rumbling growl behind his words as he asks simply, “Why so curious, Nat? Wanna find out? For science?”
A disinterested waitress drops off our food at the table nearby and I clear my throat, glad for the distraction. “Does that count as your first round of questions, despite it being three? And I still have one?”
“You’re not off the hook that easily, Doc. But for now… Food.”
A sexier word was never spoken. I’m glad the general ambient noise of the bar muffles the starved roars coming from my empty stomach.
We settle at the table, and I’m almost stunned at the quantity of food laid out before us. And the root beer is so huge they may as well have just unscrewed the lid on a two liter for me. Some sort of chicken and bacon pizza, a bacon and blue cheeseburger so thick that I might have trouble getting my mouth around it, and a larger-than-life basket of rough-cut fries with skins on half of them.
Val’s already starting to dig into the pizza, and I’m hit with a pang of guilt stronger than the hunger pains. “Jesus. I can’t let you pay for this, Val.”
He pauses with a few fries dangling half out of his mouth, covering it with a fist as he tries to stifle his laughter. “You’re not serious, Nat.”
“But I am.” I take a sip of the root beer, the earthy flavor the epitome of perfection. I open my mouth to say something else, and he holds his hand up, asking for silence. I dunk a few fries into some ketchup and nod for him to continue, happily munching away.
“Firstly, I asked you to come out for food. We didn’t make any agreement about splitting the bill then, so you’re out of luck. Next time, if you want to be stubborn, that’s fine. I usually pay for all seven of us and half the staff to eat, Doc. You’re not gonna bleed me dry with a little bar food. I promise. But it’s cute that you think it would.”
Next time? …Did he just say next time?!
“Fair enough. And thank you, Val.”
He waves his hand at me, too focused on eating to talk. Following his lead, I devour everything portioned for me. The soda is another matter, entirely. I’m going to sip at that for the rest of the evening and barely make a dent in it.
All the food is gone, but he doesn’t seem surprised that my appetite matched his. “So, Nat… what was your second question? Remember, I’ve got three waiting for you.”