“What! Bella calls you that!” Rex huffed.
“She’s five, she’s allowed to call me fucking twinkle toes all she wants.” Nikolai raked his fingers through his sweaty hair and brushed the salty droplets away from his eyes. Waggling a damp finger at Rex, he warned the kid with a glance to watch himself. However, as they started climbing, Rex spoke up again and nearly knocked the wind out of the bugbear’s lungs.
“I think I want to be a magical engineer,” Rex confessed as they stepped out into the frosty, hollow shop. Nikolai spun to face him with his eyebrows in his hair. Rex shrugged shyly. “I don’t know, man, I think I’m good at it. It’s like it just makes sense to me and I feel like if I had the chance to learn more, maybe I could make stuff.”
“Yeah, okay.” Nik eyed him suspiciously.
“I think I want to go to Ark-U for Magical Engineering. I keep looking at these pamphlets about going in for the master’s program. Not just the night classes I take for fun or the one-off courses offered at the community center. I think I want to do this, for real, Nik.” Rex let all the words out like they physically weighed down on his shoulders. Nikolai’s lips curled around his tusks a smidgen before he nodded again.
With a hum of acknowledgement, he turned on his heel. “Then do it for real, kid.”
“You really think Jessie will let me?”
Nikolai stopped at the fence, glancing over his shoulder at Rex with an incredulous look.Jessie let you? If you told him you wanted to learn to fly tomorrow, he’d buy you fucking wings.But, then again, Nikolai knew the real complication between the boys. Jessie was older than Rex, and now king of the castle. Elliot was oldest but so far removed it was like he was unreachable, but Jessie was a second dad now…and Rex was the reason all this happened. If Rex never got sick as a kid, the shop might not exist. If it weren’t for what Titan Bonesaw was willing to sacrifice to keep his family afloat, Nik might just be a regular mechanic.
But then again, who knows if Titan wouldn’t have done it on his own. If there wouldn’t be some other reason? If there wasn’t a breaking point that if it wasn’t Rex, maybe next it would have been Jessie or Elliot. Maybe this was always bound to happen.
Who knows.
Nikolai raised a brow. “Gotta ask him.”
“Yeah…yeah I am.”
Nikolai jabbed a thumb at the office and Rex scurried off to open up.Let’s get this figured out, kid…find out who’s messing with the family, then I’ll drop hints to your brother on what you want. Help you along…cause that’s my job.
Chapter Twenty-four:
~Katarina~
Jessiesatbehindthewheel, tapping his heavy fingers against it with exhaustion painted all over his face. Katarina worried if asking for a ride was the wrong move, but he practically begged her. There was something weighing on him. So, she had him help her pack Isabella’s bag while her child worked oatmeal into her sleepy maw. Then wrangled the car seat while Lailee brushed and styled the kiddo’s hair. With a few fake airplane movements from Jessie, Isabella was in high spirits and babbling the whole drive to school. Something that seemed to ease the tension in the tense man’s shoulders. Katarina studied him from her seat as he kept his focus on the road but answered every one of Isabella’s questions from ‘where did you go last night’ to ‘Did Barnibus have to fight any monsters’. He had an answer, child safe, for all of them. And when they parked, he waved goodbye to her. It wasn’t till Katarina threw herself back into the cabin that she saw the real pained look he hid from Isabella.
“What happened last night?” Katarina cocked a brow.
He sighed. “Bobby’s gone. Don’t know where. Looks like he was in bed with some dangerous people, and when they came to get their device back from him, he booked it. Now they probably think I have it, or know about it, or worse.”
Katarina put a hand on his arm, rubbing it tenderly. He sagged to the right, his gaze still locked on the school, his horns clinking against the open top window he had closed. She wouldhave suggested to open it, now that Isabella wasn’t in the car.She hates the wind beating her in the face.But she didn’t want to risk anyone hearing either. Instead, she leaned toward him and pressed a kiss to his cheek. He hummed in appreciation.
“What can I do to help?”
Jessie shook his head. “Just you being here helps, baby girl. But I gotta head back into the shop. The bank deposit needs doing and I gotta balance the books and…”
Katarina beamed as he slowly straightened staring at her. She cocked her head to the side with a wicked glimmer in her eye. “Money, you say?”
A light bulb turned on. “Well, youarean accountant.”
“A freelancer too! And I think my rates are rather reasonable,” she smirked.
“How reasonable?” His gaze dropped to her mouth and a spark of desire ignited in her belly.Look at me, the mere thought of him and my stomach growls.He pulled away to put the truck in reverse and back out of the spot. Throwing an arm behind her headrest, her skin prickled immediately as his hand wrapped around the nape of her neck. He appliedjusta squeeze and she was a puddle in the seat.
“Jessie, you sure you want to play these games?” She breathed as he kept his hand there, like a delicious threat. “You’ve had a rough night.”
“Nothing better to recover from a rough night than by playing some games,” he chuckled darkly. His eyes were blown wide but glued to the windshield. Katarina caught him shifting in his seat and she saw the front of his jeans were tented. There were still grass and oil stains all over them, and she knew he hadn’t gotten a shower in yet, so they were going to be playing dirty games.Somehow that’s even hotter?She sucked in a sharp breath through her nose.
“Well, let’s see…” she trailed off with a hum, raking her hands up her legs. They’d, thankfully, swung by the townhouse to snag actual clothes. She’d gone for ease instead of practicality that time, throwing on a sundress.I thought if I actually got to workon stuff in the yard this time, I’d just run back home or borrow some shop overalls.Suddenly, she felt like a fucking sexy genius as she gathered up the hem of her dress. Jessie’s grip on her neck flexed and she didn’t even have to look to know he was holding onto his sanity by the daintiest fucking thread. “There’s bank deposit, an account overview I’ve got to do, general upkeep. Balancing books. Payroll. All thatplusa fee for taking care of that knot? Mmm, that’ll run you, oh, I’d say about two orgasms and a pretty please.”
“That’s all?” Jessie choked on his own laugh as they flew through amostlyyellow light. She shouldn’t play with fire. It was aterribleidea. Yet, she couldn’t help the shit-eating grin that crawled up her lips. Katarina hooked her fingers into her panties and wiggled them off her hips. She heard him suck in a breath as she bucked her hips, shoving the fabric off her thighs in a single move. Dangling them off a finger, she popped an inquisitive brow at him.
“Tell me I’m pretty and I’ll let you breed the fuck out of me,” she blurted out. Jessie slammed on the brakes a little harder than necessary. She dropped her skirt and her panties fell into his center console, not to mention the car behind them honked angrily. All that was forgiven by the smoldering gaze he threw her way.
