Chapter 37: Chapter 37

Beck

Cricket was asleep on the couch when we arrived. I scooped her up without a word, as Misty quietly spoke to Valentina. I didn’t really care what they had to say to each other. I wanted my  girls within the safety of my dominion, which was Misty’s apartment. The place where I could control and ensure their safety. Tonight had been too much for both of us. I cradled Cricket to my chest as Misty pushed open the door. She helped me tuck her in but her eyes had lost the war of that carefully placed facade she always wore. The sight of it made my heart falter as she watched her daughter’s sleeping face and brushed a curl out of her face. A thing I thought was dead outside of the beats that kept me alive sparked. I pushed it back, focusing again on Misty. The events of tonight were catching up with her. She had pulled a gun on a man tonight. Her carefully kept secret was revealed.

I guided her by the small of her back out of Cricket’s bedroom. She didn't object as we walked down the hall. She escaped my grip to round the counter. I follow, my hand flexing at the loss of her warmth. She hopped up on the counter and reached for the cabinet she keeps the whiskey in. I step into her and reach up to the cabinet, our hands both grasping the handle and touching at the same time. Her breath hitches and I stifle a groan due to our proximity as I pull out the bottle of whiskey I knew she was reaching for. I still for a millisecond. She exhales as our eyes meet. The heat that rises to meet her gaze is something I haven’t experienced in so long it takes me off guard as I catch myself studying her mouth. I shake it off, stepping away so I can take a full breath. What's going on with me? I wonder, as she slides off the counter and I pull out two mugs from another cabinet.

I swallow trying to find words to mask the tension as I pour the liquid into coffee mugs. I tell myself I’m too close to them. Too old for her and I hope it tames the heat rising in my veins. The problem is, that the thirst doesn't quell. I push a mug over to her, knowing she needs the dissociation only the alcohol will create to deal with the events of tonight. She takes a sip and my hand trembles around my mug, a tell to my control. One of us has to stay sober, ready to fight, just in case. I push the feeling down. I could never treat this woman as just a fuck. She wasn’t a random woman in a bar, a release for instincts. She was a mother and Adelaide’s friend. I realized I respected her. I also couldn’t tally the multitude of tiny moments that lead up to this primal charge churning within me. Over the last several weeks I had watched her carefully, as a protector should and learned a lot about the woman who ‘allowed’ me to sleep on her couch as I offered her what protection I could. The thing was she constantly awed me. In her moments of motherhood, how she did every fucking thing she could at her own expense for her mental well being to ensure Cricket grew up as normally as she could muster. Adelaide had been a big part of that. With her gone, I had also seen the vulnerable moments, and the ones where she about took my head off. I swore at a game the other night and she chucked a shoe at me and cussed me out in Spanish. Ah, fuck that sexy image of her all riled up in sweat pants and an oversize tee like the little demon my baby girl was. Heck I had to stop saying that, I said it out loud today. I needed to keep those thoughts inside, cuz the things I wanted to imagine had Misty in more positions than on her back. I didn’t go after younger women, but here I was unable to get the plethora of images my mind had created over the time I’ve been here, out of my fucking head. Tied up, bent over the arm of the couch, on her knees, with my cock pummeling in and out of her. I took a long sip of whiskey at that thought.

“It’s all been fucked, what do we do now?” she asks as she plops unceremoniously into her computer chair facing me. I set the smidge of whiskey left down and looked at her.

“You let me deal with Negan and his crew, I don’t want you anywhere near them,” I said pointedly.

She rolled her eyes. “Do you think he’s going to be a problem?” she asked, taking a sip.

“There is no telling,” I said, truthfully. I didn’t know Negan or the bears of this city. If the wolves here said anything about the shifter population, they were all corrupt. All it would take is the right offer and Negan would abandon his morals and sell them out. Now it was my job to remind them that crossing me had consequences; deadly ones. “Thats why you have to let me be the big bad bear I am and do what I do best,” I pointed out.

She bit her lip as she studied me, her eyes narrowing. “His cousin is going to sing like a fucking Christmas tree, he’s a pussy,” she let me know turning around and waking up the computer, which was in sleep mode. I walked over with the bottle and filled both mugs. I’d cut myself off after this one. She cursed looking at her cart with the cameras. They were backordered for a few weeks. That wouldn’t bode well for either of our peace of minds. We both sighed as she clicked over to the window with the running bit of code. A few strokes of the keys and several camera views popped up. All in black and white. She studied them before clicking on one. The image came up and the male I knew to be Creedon sitting at a desk, came expanded.

“Motherfucker,” Misty cursed under her breath. A full figured dark haired woman came into view. The way she touched his shoulder and turned the chair was familiar as her back blocked Creedon from view. Misty clicked a few more keys and the static of audio came through the speakers. The woman dropped to her knees grasping for his belt and Misty turned to me, unable to watch.