Sinful Like Us

by Ritchie, Krista

  5

  THATCHER MORETTI

  Her baby blue Beetle is nowhere in sight. I push forcefully out of the sports bar. Rain pelts the cracked sidewalk and the umbrella that Tony is holding. He guards the door of a black stretch limo, parked against the curb.

  Her dad’s limo. For the past week, Jane has been borrowing the limo, just so she can block out Tony with the screen divider.

  She’s in there now, and I don’t waste a fucking second. I jog forward, surrounding paparazzi yelling my name.

  “THATCHER!”

  “THATCHER! THATCHER!”

  “WHAT CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT YOU AND JANE?” Cameras click and flash.

  I stay deadlocked on my objective: the limo.

  Jane.

  Jane.

  Jane.

  I reach Tony, and his thick eyebrow rises with the most fucking annoying self-importance. His slicked back, dark-brown hair accentuates his jawline and short stubble. He postures himself in his expensive suit like he’s somehow better than me, and I hate how he tilts the umbrella away from my head just so I stand soaking in front of him.

  I hate how he smiles smugly.

  And I fucking hate how he’s keeping me from her.

  “Move,” I order.

  “Move? No, hey, paesan’?” He puts a hand to his chest in mock hurt.

  I wouldn’t call him my paesan’ if someone paid me five grand. I use that Italian term for men in my family that I love, and he’s not one of them.

  “Move,” I repeat, rainwater dripping off my eyelashes.

  He cocks his head. “Is that really how you’re gonna treat your uncle?”

  I love that my mom married Nicola. I hate that Nicola is his older sister, and I can’t stand that he’s related to me on paper. Thank fucking God it’s not by blood.

  Under my breath, I growl, “I’m going to treat you a lot worse if you don’t move your ass.”

  Tony rolls his head back like I’m a joke and he’s some kind of king. “You sure you don’t want a progress report on your girlfriend first? I’ve been with her all day. Want to know how many times she mentioned you?” He mouths the word, zero.

  I grit my teeth.

  Don’t grab him. I force myself not to shove him. Not with cameras flashing, not with paparazzi in view, and I stare at this piece of shit. Blistering inside out.

  I tap into the last sliver of fucking willpower I have just to suppress a hotheaded reaction.

  Don’t deck him.

  “Move,” I order again. I’m not playing around. “Or else I’ll radio your lead and let him know you’re disobeying a direct command.”

  His mouth forms a line. “You’re not my superior, Moretti.”

  “No, but I’m the boyfriend to your client.” I glare through sheets of rain. “And I’m allowed direct access to my girlfriend, so I’m telling you one last time. Move.”

  Tony lifts his chin like he thinks I’m bluffing.

  I touch my mic almost instantly, and I open my mouth to speak into comms—and just then, Tony finally sidesteps.

  Jane is all I care about, so I don’t even acknowledge him again as I grab the handle and open the door.

  6

  JANE COBALT

  I hug a messy binder that contains budget spreadsheets and vendor information for Moffy and Farrow’s wedding, and my heart patters at an uneven, queasy speed as the limo door swings open.

  I need Thatcher—no.

  No, I’m an independent, self-sufficient woman, and I don’t need any man for affection and love and emotional support. I can still provide all of this to myself now that we’re together.

  Do not fall into his lap like a bird without wings, Jane.

  You’re born from lions.

  I lift my chin, holding breath, and I watch as Thatcher slides his long legs into the limo and shuts out the thunderstorm behind him.

  “Thatcher.” My face falls. “You’re soaked.” I couldn’t hear much outside with the raucous storm or even see with Tony’s body obstructing the tinted window.

  Thatcher’s black shirt suctions to his abs. Rainwater drips from his hair and soaks his shoulders, and after he locks the door, he pushes the damp strands out of his face.

  “Do you need…?” I begin to ask, but he’s already shaking his head.

  His strong gaze tunnels through me, his grave concern like a safety net that I could so effortlessly collapse into.

  How easy it can be—to be swallowed by all of what Thatcher offers me, and I claw for equal ground where I can engulf him just as fully.

  I open my mouth, but words stick for a second.

  “What happened, Jane?” He tries to edge closer to me on the leather seat, but with my binder to my breasts, I shift back against my door, further away from him.

  Air vacuums out of the limo. As quick and powerful as a shotgun blast.

  He goes rigid.

  I inhale but can’t exhale. My knee-jerk reaction of adding distance between him and me causes an unbearable amount of strain. I’m making a terrible mess out of this, and I don’t mean to.

  “Wait,” is all I manage to expel as I gather breath and courage.

  Thatcher grips the top of the seat and rubs his mouth with his other hand. His protective gaze never abandons me.

  In our silence, I hear the ping, ping, ping of rain on the limo’s roof.

  I glance down at my lavender tulle skirt, my arms hot beneath a rainbow blouse and leopard faux fur coat. I’m not supposed to cower or unravel this way. “I’m not unraveling,” I whisper to myself, but he surely hears.

  “Just talk to me, honey.” His deep voice practically cradles me and pushes me to a metaphorical stance.

  As I raise my eyes, I linger on the stretched leather seat we share. “I was born right where you’re sitting,” I realize aloud, and my cheeks heat.

  He looks at the seat, very briefly, then back to me. He’s so stoic; I can’t even begin to guess what he’s thinking.

  “It’s just a fact,” I mention unhelpfully. “My birth.” I roast from head to toe and waft my blouse. “And I’m sure this is what my parent’s pictured twenty-three-years later,” I quip. “Their daughter struggling to talk to the man who she…”

  Loves.

  I withhold the word, even though I’ve said it once before. My body floods with the sentiment that overwhelms my senses, that rips breath from lungs and pricks my eyes.

  Love is a violent emotion. Full of fortitude and might, and I’m going to be destroyed under ours, aren’t I?

  I clear a ball in my throat. “Now you’re probably thinking about my limo birth.”

  He takes the earpiece out of his ear. “No, I’m thinking you might regret that I moved in with you.”

  My eyes widen. “No,” I say quickly. “No, not at all. That’s not what I feel.” I set my binder aside. “I’m glad that we’re living together.” Panic creeps into my bones. “Do you have regrets about it?”

  “No.” He never pauses, so assured that I ease a little. Thatcher keeps his eyes on me while he unclips his radio and tries to dry the device. “Something happened?”

  Yes.

  I tuck a piece of frizzed hair behind my ear. “I tried to text you that I was on my way to the bar, but none were going through, and I thought I’d just tell you in person.”

  His brows draw together. “Tell me what?”

  Usually I bask inside the intensity of his gaze, but in this moment, I can’t meet him head-on. I blink and look down at my lap like a cowardly lion. “I’ve never been good at diffusing two sides of conflict—I never could with Moffy and Charlie, and I shouldn’t be surprised that I can’t now.” I speak in a rush. “This past week, I’ve just kept awful things Tony has said to myself, and I thought it’d make your job easier. I wanted to give that to you. I wanted to give you something. But I feel like I’m hoarding secrets from a ride-or-die, and it’s made me quiet around you, and I think you can tell.”

  He nods, his muscles tensed.

  I
ramble on. “And whatever I tell you now could cause friction between you and Tony. It feels selfish to share. But maybe you don’t even want to know; and in that case, we can ignore this conversation and just go about our days—”

  “No,” Thatcher cuts me off, which is rare. “Whatever Tony said or did, I need to know. You’re not dealing with that fucking tool alone.” His South Philly lilt fights through. “I hate that you already have been.” He clips his mic to his collar, like he’s seconds from reporting Tony to a lead.

  I want to tell him absolutely everything. I want inside his head, and I know he wants inside mine, but in the same breath, what I have to say will just stoke his anger and aggravation towards Tony.

  Tell him.

  “Okay.” I try to take a readying breath. You can do this, Jane.

  Nervous heat builds, and I slip off my leopard coat.

  Thatcher stares so hard at my movements, I think he’s going to pop a blood vessel in his eye.

  My heart races. “What is it?” I ask.

  His gaze darkens on my coat. “Tony shouldn’t have been anywhere under your fucking clothes.” He grips his radio, about to kick into action.

  I hold up a pointer finger. “I’m removing a coat. A single article of clothing that is nowhere near a shirt or a bra and has absolutely nothing to do with Tony other than I’m sweating… a lot.” I ungracefully tug and tug at my sleeves to free myself from this heat trap.

  Thatcher rubs a rough hand over his face, then he edges closer to help me.

  I jerk backwards. I go deadly still, elbow sticking out of my coat.

  He stops suddenly.

  We both breathe hard. We both stare at each other in binding silence, every inch of space between us slashing at my lungs and heart.

  He raises his hands to show me he’s not nearing. “Can you answer me something?”

  “Anything.”

  “Are you afraid of me?”

  I shake my head fiercely, a lump in my throat. “God, no.” I long for Thatcher in ways I’ve never longed for a man. With one more tug, I finally free myself from the fur coat. Cold air barely washes over my burning limbs. “It’s the very opposite.”

  He threads his fingers through his wet hair.

  I can’t read his hard features. My pulse won’t slow, and I have to ask, “What are you thinking?”

  He looks me over. “You keep me on my toes.” He lets out a laugh. “And it’s driving me nuts, and it’s un-fucking-real how much I want you.”

  “You have me,” I remind him.

  Thatcher nods a short nod, and in a long beat, he looks deeper into me. “When I was your bodyguard and we were fucking, you’d let me help you no hesitation, and now that I’m your boyfriend, you’re frozen.”

  My eyes flit down.

  Thatcher shifts uneasily. “You’re confusing the hell out of me, and I want to walk with you through this, honey. But I don’t know where you’re going.”

  “I want you to hold me so badly,” I admit. I want you to swallow me whole. Fear pinpricks me, and I hate that I’m unwilling to drown in his comfort right now and yet I hate that I want to be completely and wholly consumed by him. “But I feel like I have to stand on my own first.” I cling onto my autonomy by my fingertips, and he’s there, reaching a hand out and asking me to grab hold, to pull me up.

  And I won’t let him.

  Not entirely.

  I glance out the window. “And I feel so guilty.”

  “Why?”

  “You sacrificed everything to be with me, and I can’t even let you help me take off my coat.”

  His gaze narrows in severity, and he shakes his head over and over. “You owe me nothing for what I did. If you’d rather not be touched, I’d rather not touch you, Jane.”

  I love him.

  It chokes me. It throttles me. I don’t want it but I want it, and that is my tragedy.

  He adds, “I’m going to match whatever pace you set.”

  I breathe in. “What if I pull you at a million different speeds? What if I slow and speed and stop and speed and slow? Are you prepared to grow exhausted of me?” My eyes burn.

  Thatcher doesn’t recoil. “I’m prepared to be with you at every speed, and there’s no way you’ll exhaust me.”

  I arch my brows. “How can you be so sure?”

  He is all confidence and man. “Because I don’t tire that easily.”

  I exhale, face flushed, and I rest my shoulders on the limo door. We hold each other’s gaze for some time, and I try to squash some of my insecurities. I smooth my lips together, and then I say, “You keep me on my toes too, you know. Quite literally.”

  He almost smiles. With his forearm, he wipes a droplet of rainwater that glides down his temple. “About Tony—you don’t need to mediate any shit between him and me.”

  I nod. “I’m glad not to play that part,” I admit.

  Maybe there is good in sharing the bad with Thatcher. Nothing strengthens a bond like a common enemy, and we both dislike Tony very much.

  “What I say will just fuel your hatred,” I warn him. “It has little to do with me and more to do with you.” If it were about me, I could run to the Tri-Force and have Tony fired, but mostly, he’s been a decent bodyguard. I haven’t feared for my life in crowds, and he’s deescalated more than one rowdy fan interaction.

  This is just bad blood between them. What they’d consider security in-fighting.

  “I want to hear it,” Thatcher confirms.

  I lace my fingers. “I, um…” I unlace and reach for an expensive champagne bottle in an ice bucket. “Maybe we should drink first.”

  He grips his knees. “I can’t.”

  I remember and shake the cobwebs out of my head. “Right. The break-in.” He’s wanted to stay clear-headed and focused. “I probably shouldn’t drink either. It’s a bad distraction tactic, drinking alcohol. That can go awry quickly.” My eyes grow. “Not that I’m trying to distract myself from you, from this—I mean, I am, but…”

  Merde.

  Thatcher brushes a hand along his unshaven jaw and nods to me. “It’s okay.”

  “It’s not,” I wince. “I’m being unfair to you.”

  “Because you can’t get the words out? Welcome to the fucking club.”

  I want to smile, but everything I need to say weighs on me. I put the champagne bottle back in the ice bucket. “It’s been hard this past week hearing Tony say things about you, and the more aggressively I defended you, the more he’d smirk like he got a rise out of me.”

  Thatcher glowers out the rear window, and when he looks back at me, he says, “He’s a piece of shit.”

  “Je suis d'accord.” I agree.

  The corner of his mouth lifts a fraction. He leans his side more into the seat, already fully turned towards me. “What else?”

  I rehash the past week to my boyfriend. All the little biting comments. Tony restrained a heckler from approaching me, and afterward, he said, “Bet Thatcher would’ve struggled with that. Probably would’ve broken a sweat.”

  I snapped back, “He never has.”

  Tony had that grating conceited smile and haughty swagger.

  Every day, I heard:

  Moretti can’t do this.

  Moretti has half a brain.

  You realize no girlfriend has ever wanted to be with him. That’s why he’s been cheated on a hundred times.

  I tell Thatcher, “If there’d been a ‘shut up’ button on Tony, I would’ve risked touching him and pressed it a thousand times by now.”

  “I would’ve decked him,” Thatcher says plainly.

  I scrutinize his left hand that clutches his knee, tiny scars mar his knuckles and his ring finger is crooked like the bone shattered and healed poorly. “Is that how you fractured your finger?” I wonder. “Hitting Tony?”

  He opens his hand and rubs his knuckles. “I’ve punched him before. But this is from bar fights and protecting Xander.”

  I scoot nearer, the air winding around us as
I do, and he looks down at me and I look up at him. Our breath coming heavier.

  He holds out his hand, knowing why I moved. Gently, I take his palm in mine and inspect the healed wounds. Thatcher has been through grief and war. His hands have carried the body of his brother and my badly beaten cousin, and if he could, I’m sure he’d carry more.

  “What he’s said, it gets worse,” I murmur.

  His jaw hardens and he nods me onward. “I’m ready.”

  I explain how I overheard Tony talking when he was on a break. I had stopped by my dad’s office in Center City, which is a secure location. Bodyguards aren’t required to enter.

  “I was about to leave,” I tell him, “and Tony was waiting for me in the lobby just outside the women’s restroom. Through the door, I could hear him talking on the phone.” My stomach roils, and I shift closer, my knees knocking into his leg.

  I freeze again.

  He assesses me in a sweep, and I clutch my elbows, looking at his lips more than a few times. Once he notices, our breathing switches tempo. Desire pulses between my legs, and I imagine his large hands knowing exactly how to please the aching, building need inside me.

  Wrong time.

  The body wants what the body wants, and I suppose so does the soul. I’m just struggling with feeding the latter.

  Thatcher keeps us on track. “You heard Tony talk on the phone?”

  “Oui.” I straighten up and tuck a flyaway hair behind my ear. “He mentioned you and your brother.”

  Lines crease his forehead. “Which brother?”

  “Skylar.” I shake my head hotly and cringe. “He said, Thatcher never even visits his dead brother’s grave, and he wants everyone to be sympathetic about that shit.”

  Thatcher mumbles an Italian curse word and almost rolls his eyes. “He’s unbelievable.” He looks back at me. “I visit Skylar’s grave.”

  I bristle. “So he’s inaccurate and cruel.”

  “He got us confused,” Thatcher clarifies. “Banks is the one who never goes to the cemetery.”

  I wonder why.

  If I could classify my relationship with Banks Moretti now, it’d be filed under new. Simply, he’s been more of a bodyguard to me and I’ve been more of a famous client to him. Whatever we know personally about each other has been what Thatcher has shared.