Chapter 12
“You’d better not be playing with anyone tonight.” Loke’s lilting accent interrupted Atlas’s train of thought, which was probably for the best, considering. He was looking pointedly at Atlas’s glass.
“No. Not tonight. I’m avoiding her.” Although he’d just seen her yesterday, he already missed her. Stupid.
“Why come here to get drunk instead of doing it at home?” The club owner hitched one of the table’s stools out with his foot and settled into it as though he was in no hurry.
“Fox is there, and I’m tired of listening to him bitch.”
“Trouble in paradise?” Loke asked, his eyes gleaming with amusement, like they usually did. Sometimes it made Atlas wonder if the man was somehow a direct descendant of the god he was named for.
“Luke is leaving, and Fox isn’t taking it so well.” Atlas finished off his whiskey just as the server arrived to ask if Loke wanted anything. Loke ordered two glasses and the bottle.
“Of course he is. He can’t leave Ophelia and those babies on their own. Your work comes with risks, and those aren’t the kind of risks a family man should be taking, no matter what Fox thinks. He’ll come around sooner or later. He’s afraid your family is falling apart.”
“I know.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. He was tired and irritated and he wanted to drop by Mila’s apartment and make her sit in his lap for a few minutes so he could feel her in his arms and maybe smell her. The problem was, although he knew exactly where she lived, she still hadn’t told him.
She hadn’t told him several things.
He still felt like an asshat for letting her leave without giving her any aftercare. He’d been angry she hadn’t admitted she was a cop when he’d basically asked her to, but that was no excuse for not taking care of her afterward. Whether or not she was being dishonest was irrelevant when it came to his responsibility to her as a Dominant after he’d administered a punishment
And he deserved honesty from her because he was being so fucking honest?
He groaned inwardly, and when he looked back at Loke, the Norwegian was pouring him a drink. The servers at Fitte were so good at being unobtrusive.
“That face is about Mila.”
“Of course.”
Loke pushed the half-full glass at him and poured another for himself. “You knew who she was the whole time. She doesn’t just wear the job, like some cops do. She was raised to it. She breathes it. It’s her bones and her blood.”
“Like my work is for me?”
Loke tossed back his whisky and thumped the glass back down on the table.
“Maybe that’s what people have been telling you for years, but you’re not like Fox and Addison. You have other passions that mean more to you. Like computers, and maybe the girl.”
“Oh, like you’d give up who you are for a woman?”
He snorted and held up a hand. “Give up who you are? I see you, Atlas. I listen. What you do with Fox and Addison isn’t who you are. It’s what you were raised to do, yes, but you don’t feel it like they do. Your passion is in circuits and networks and hacking. The other work was expected of you, just like I was expected to take over my father’s farm.”
Atlas grinned and shook his head. It was hard to imagine Loke as a farmer. Easier to picture him razing a farm, rather than tending one.
Was Loke right though? Probably. It had been years since he’d felt that stealing cars was his real calling—ever since he’d grown up and his brother and cousin started treating him as an equal. The interest had waned after that. Sure, stealing could be exciting and a challenge, but he got more enjoyment from setting up complicated networks and hacking into systems to show corporations where their weak points were. He also got a much bigger rush from being with Mila, even if they were just talking.
Loke laughed quietly to himself. “What did you do?”
“What are you talking about?” Atlas drank what was in his glass, letting the burn and growing buzz settle his agitation.
“To Mila.”
“Quit reading my mind.”
“Oh? But you left the book open for me to read.” He poured Atlas another drink.
Atlas eyed the glass, which was brimming this time. “Are you trying to get me drunk so you can take me upstairs?”
“I wouldn’t need to get you drunk for that.” Loke flashed a dazzling, sinister smile. “You are going upstairs later, but I regret my dance card is already full for the evening.”