by Abby Knox
I hiss up at him, “Unfuckingbelievable.”
He pins my wrists to the mattress and lowers his head so his voice vibrates against my neck, just below my ear. He speaks calmly but lethally. “Hey, I could have installed a camera through our shared wall but that would have been an invasion of your privacy.”
I swallow. Fuck him for stalking me. And fuck him for making me angry and yet still feel him in my bones.
That deep voice has a vibration that reaches down into my most secret places, calling on my body to drench itself.
“Lars, you have issues,” I say.
“I got news for you, darlin’, we’re in the same fucking issues club. You like the risk as much as I do. Why else would you be living in that shit hole? And don’t give me the poor little girl sob story.”
I struggle against him, but it’s futile.
“Why do you care what I do?” I spit out.
“It’s my job,” he grunts.
“Not really, though, is it? More like your job has perks that you used against me, right? If you’re stalking me so hard, how come you didn’t know about the Craigslist ad?”
“I’ve had about enough of your sass, little one,” he says. And with that he crashes his lips against mine.
He’s devouring me with his mouth and pulling at the jersey that I still have on.
“Off, get it off,” he commands.
“No,” I say in challenge.
He yanks once and the jersey is across the room. He cups my face a little roughly in his hand. “Little sass-buckets don’t get to wear Sweetness,” he says.
He hasn’t answered my question, but it’s hard to care when I’m finding myself enjoying every little bit of roughness this man is giving me.
It feels like my small, hard, gray world has cracked open and revealed something huge, soft and vibrant inside.
In my younger days, I had shared a dry kiss or two under the bleachers at my high school. There was some clumsy groping too, but nothing that set my world on fire. And then Ma fell ill. After that, boys and dating were on the permanent backburner.
Lars is nothing like that boy under the bleachers, that boy whose name I can’t even remember now.
His hands reach down, spread my thighs wide and he thumbs my pussy.
I suck in my breath because I still can’t believe anything is allowed to feel so good.
Lars was so tender last night, but now I’ve awoken the beast.
I’m splayed open, and his thumb is stretching my walls, and my juice is coating his fingers.
He rumbles against my chest, “You’re even wetter when you’re angry at me.”
Lars takes one nipple into his mouth and teases with his tongue until the hard bud is on fire with pleasure. He switches to the other one. I reach down, wanting desperately to grab his cock, but he’s so tall I can’t reach while in this position.
His thumb in my sex is about to drive me over the edge.
“Lars, break me.”
He laughs. “Oh, I’m gonna break you in real good. I’m not done having my way just yet.”
The next thing I know, his thumb is on my clit and his face is between my thighs.
I moan in anticipation because I know what’s coming next. But I am unprepared for what it feels like.
“Oh god. Oh Lars. Holy shit!”
Chapter 13
Lars
I wanted to do this slowly, but she drove me to the breaking point.
I devour her sweet, delicate folds with kisses and I hear my Wendy’s breath catching. I remember, again, no man has ever been here before and it makes me feel like a king. Her king.
I plunge my tongue into her depth and she moans.
My teeth rake over her hard little clit and my baby squirms underneath me.
I’m ravishing my woman, and she tastes extraordinary. She is sweet honey in my mouth and I want all of it. The more I lap up, the more she gushes for me.
I’ve forgotten anyone and anything that came before this woman. It’s like time has stopped, rewound, and given me a do over.
And I aim to do her over and over…and over.
I’m a big, bad boy and my mischievous tongue finds her sweet spot inside her wall. At the same time, I work over her clit with my thumb. She cries out, “Yes, Lars!” as her orgasm hits her.
When she comes, the honey flows from her even more and I take all of it in. Every last drop.
Wendy is still shuddering when I kiss her mouth, sharing her taste with her.
All the sass and fight has gone out of her and she looks like my sweet Tink again.
“Oh no, we aren’t done yet. Lars is coming for you, baby.”
I hover over my woman, and I wait for her to wrap her legs around my hips.
“Condom?” she asks weakly.
“No, ma’am.”
“Lars.”
“What? I’m clean.”
“It’s not that, I’m…not on the pill.”
“Good,” I say.
“You don’t want a baby,” she says.
“Well, that’s where you’re wrong.”
“I’m in college,” she says.
I smile and slip the tip just inside her entrance.
She doesn’t protest.
“And?” I ask. “What’s your major?”
“International relations,” she replies.
I smile. “That’s hot,” I say, and sneak in another inch deeper.
She closes her eyes. “Lars, oh my god, you’re so hard…”
“Girl,” I say, “I’ve been suffering for days because of you. My blue balls are beyond blue…they’re purple.”
“Hmm,” she murmurs.
“What’s your favorite course?”
She smiles. “Pashto.”
“Pashto? Woman, I can teach you that. You know how much time I spent in Afghanistan?”
She scoffs, but she also squeezes me tighter between her thighs and pulls me in a little bit deeper. I can feel her stretching to fit me and she’s so nice and taut it takes all my strength to keep from thrusting all the way in.
“I can’t just throw away an education. I want this, Lars. And I want you. And…I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I do want to have your babies. I can do both, right? Will you help me?”
My heart is about to detonate at her words. I slide in until I feel her cherry give way. I pause when she grits her teeth briefly, and then a smile spreads across her face.
“Of course you can do both. Look around you, do you think I’m going to spare any expense to make sure you have everything you need to be the greatest mom and the greatest…international relations…person?”
She laughs, and it’s such a sweet and endearing laugh that I feel the pre-cum slicking my tip. “Interpreter,” she clarifies, gripping my hips harder, the backs of her heels pressing against my ass to bring my shaft all the way in.
I sheathe myself in her all the way to the hilt.
“You’re so fucking tight and warm. I love you, you know,” I say, hovering over her on my forearms so I don’t crush her with my size.
“Good to know,” she says with a wicked smile, rocking her hips up to meet me as I thrust, again and again.
I burst into her, coating her walls with my sweet release. Wendy comes again when she feels my hot jets of cum filling her up.
I fill her so full that my seed is spilling out of her.
As she shudders through the aftershocks of her climax, I roll her on top of me and bury my hands in her hair, inhaling that sweet orange blossom that belongs to me now.
“You may be half my size, but I’m going to keep filling you up until I get you pregnant. And then I’m going to keep at it until every room in this house is filled with kids.”
She smiles and catches her breath. “We’d better find more things to argue about, then. What were we arguing about anyway?”
“Me stalking you.”
Suddenly, she sits up. “Oh my god. Your phone. The surveillance cameras, they hit on so
mething, remember?”
I sit up and grab my phone off the mattress where she had tossed it.
I open it up and I see the notifications. There has been movement detected at her apartment. And at mine.
This is not good.
Chapter 14
Wendy
We run every red light on the way back to our apartment complex.
Part of me wonders why we even bother. It seems like a distant part of my life now. It’s not like there is anything in there from my old life that I want to salvage, except maybe my college course notes and a few books.
For real, though. Those college books are friggin’ expensive.
When we arrive, we expect to find both our apartments ransacked. It’s even more creepy, somehow, that nothing seems out of the ordinary.
His spartan studio is tidy.
“Looks like you didn’t get robbed,” I offer, but Lars’s brows are knitted together in worry.
“The floor has been vacuumed,” he mumbles, wandering over to his desk. He shines a pen light on his computer. “Everything is too clean. Somebody’s been in my stuff and then wiped the whole place down. I don’t like this.”
I shrug. “But why would they be in here? It’s not like you keep evidence in your apartment.”
He looks at me. “Unless he’s looking for something to incriminate me. Something that might make me look unethical at trial.”
I nod. “Oh, you mean like searching the Wham Bam without a warrant, based on planting surveillance on me without my consent?”
He waves me off. “They can try, but everything about this case is dripping with probable cause.”
He speed dials somebody at the department.
While they carry on their conversation, I decide to go check my place.
“Wait for me,” he warns, interrupting his phone call. But I’m itching to see what’s been done to my place by Slate’s thugs.
My key goes in the lock and I hear Lars barreling toward me.
As soon as I push the door open, a hand reaches around and yanks me inside by the wrist.
My stomach leaps into my throat. Not again.
But I’m not half as afraid as I was the last time Slate had me pinned from behind.
I still believe what Lars said yesterday. If they want to get to me, they’ll have to get through Lars.
“You’re such an idiot. Do you know what he’s going to do to you?”
And that’s when I feel the cold steel against the side of my skull.
Lars bursts through the door and then stops short when he sees the gun on me.
“Take another step, cop, and I’ll blow her brains into next Christmas.”
Lars puts his hand on his sidearm.
Slate cocks the gun and I feel it press into my temple.
I can’t help letting out a whimper.
With my eyes I tell Lars that I love him.
My lover has one hand in the air and he’s speaking calmly, trying to de-escalate the situation.
“Your people got you out on bond pretty fucking quick, Slate. I’m impressed. Did you even stay one night in County?” Lars asks.
Slate snarls next to my skull and his arm tightens around me. “The money I make dealing dope alone could make you question your whole noble career choice, my man. It’s not too late. I could use a big truck like you on my team if you get the DA to drop charges. Get my assets unfrozen. Or, you can say goodbye to your pretty little whore.”
I barely register what Lars and Slate are saying to each other as this scene plays out. All I know is my lover’s eyes never leave me and that’s enough to keep me calm.
I hope he knows I love him, and I regret not saying it directly. I hope he knows I want to have kids and grow old with him. I hope he knows…
A shot rings out. I gasp and close my eyes, waiting to see what the afterlife looks like.
But when I open my eyes, Lars has me in his arms. I look down and Slate is on the floor in a pool of his own blood.
I scream.
Lars hushes my mouth with his.
“Baby. Wendy. Tink. It’s all right. It’s over. Baby, I want you to meet somebody.”
I get control of myself and give Lars a puzzled look. “What? Who?”
I study his face and he nods toward my outside window. I let out another small scream as I see another man in black entering my space from the fire escape, carrying a rifle.
“Tink, meet Fletcher.”
I look down at the human garbage on the floor and then back up at the wiry but solid man crossing the room toward us.
My mouth falls open. “It was you?”
He nods and gives me a curt smile. “At your service.”
I turn to Lars. “I thought he was your butler!”
Lars shrugs like all of this is no big deal. “Fletcher and I served in Afghanistan together. He saved my ass on a number of occasions. So I gave him a job looking after me.”
Fletcher nods, “Yeah this one likes danger too much. I run his properties all over the world, and sometimes I back him up when he gets into a jam. Which is more often than you would think.”
I shake my head. “I have no problem believing my watcher needs a watcher.”
Chapter 15
Lars
It’s Christmas Day, and Fletcher has really pulled out all the stops.
The grand foyer is festooned with brightly lit garlands running up and down the double staircase. Every vase is spilling over with Christmas baubles. The biggest tree ever allowed inside of a private residence is standing proudly at the center of the house, piled up with dozens of presents, wrapped in glittering packaging. All for my girl.
It’s Christmas Eve and we’ve just finished a delightful, festive dinner with my family. Fletcher is there too, and I couldn’t help but notice him looking cozy with my sister. Wendy noticed the same thing and gave my knee a squeeze under the table.
She was nervous before meeting my entire family. They are a loud, crazy bunch. But they instantly embraced Wendy and more than anything were happy to see I’d finally decided to settle down. They were so happy, in fact, they didn’t even protest having tacos for Christmas Eve dinner.
After everyone says goodnight and retires to their family suites, Wendy grabs my hand and starts to lead me upstairs, chattering about whether we should do it in her suite or my suite tonight.
But halfway up the stairs, I stop her.
She turns and looks down at me. She’s two steps up from me so we’re at eye level.
“Hang on a minute, babe. I need to ask you something.”
She looks at me with her questioning eyes and it makes me feel warm all over. And excited. And nervous about what I’m going to say.
“Tink…do you know why I call you Tink?”
She laughs and rolls her eyes. “Yeah. Short jokes. I get ’em every day of my life.”
I nod and swallow. Being eloquent is not my forte.
“There’s more. See, everything about being an undercover cop, and everything in my head, is cold, hard and dark. I’ve seen a lot of shit. I didn’t just call you that because you’re small. I called you that because you’re beautiful, fierce, and magical. You light my way in the darkness. You are magic to me. You make me feel warm. And that’s why I call you that. Do you understand?”
My girl is nodding and biting her lip. Her eyes are starting to leak. I’d better get on with it.
I take a little blue box out of my pocket and open it toward her. “Tink, my little light in the darkness, will you marry me?”
She’s not even looking at the box. Which is odd considering this diamond is about to blind me even from this angle.
Instead her eyes are only on me.
“Lars, what’s your middle name?”
That was not the response I was expecting, but it’s fair enough; she wants to know my middle name if she’s gonna be my wife. “Logan.”
Suddenly, Wendy leaps off the stair and, startled, I catch her. She lands on me, her legs straddl
ing my ribcage. My Wendy holds my face and punctuates every phrase with a kiss to my forehead, eyebrows, cheekbones, nose, and each of my scars.
“Lars Logan Anderson. That Is. The most. Beautiful thing. Anyone. Has ever. Said to me. Of course I’ll marry you.”
I’ve heard of hearts feeling broken because of sadness, but is it possible mine feels broken because of happiness? Because that’s what it feels like to have Wendy love me so completely. It feels like my heart has cracked in two pieces inside my chest. My heart has shed its old, hard shell and been replaced with a whole new thing.
Epilogue
Lars
One year later
The trial is finally over. Slate’s thugs, including Claudia’s brother, get put behind bars for a long time. Morty reaches a plea deal in exchange for singing like a bird.
Fletcher is cleared of any wrongdoing in the shooting of Slate, because it was obvious he was defending Wendy.
When it’s all said and done, I do exactly what I swore to Brian I would do. I buy the strip club, and I agree to give it over to the local fire department to do a practice burn.
As long as they let me start the fire.
Which they do. Because I’m a firefighter now.
Did I not mention that? Yeah, this is my next adventure in my lifelong pursuit of running toward danger.
Oddly, Wendy feels better about me being a firefighter than a cop.
My wife is watching the motherfucker burn to the ground, from a safe distance, and she’s got that wild look in her eye.
Getting to know her over the past year has been an incredible, exciting and erotic adventure. We’ve grown accustomed to each other’s signals. And when I see her watching me work the fire hoses, I know exactly what she wants.
I turn to speak to my captain.
He rolls his eyes and pats me on the back.
“By all means, go take care of your wife,” he says.
