by Emilia Finn
“I don’t have a condom.” I rest my elbows on each side of her head, lean forward and press a kiss to her lips in apology for my rejection. “Cam.” Another kiss. Another. “I don’t have any protection.”
“I’m due for my period the day after Christmas.” She nudges me a little closer. “It’s okay.”
“Your pe—” I shake my head. “What?”
“It’s okay, Jamie. The timing is all wrong.”
“Cam!” Kill me now. Smite me down. “I don’t want to do anything that would hurt you.”
“I won’t get pregnant or anything.” She shakes her head and swipes a stray tear on my shoulder. “I give you my word. The timing is all wrong, I promise.”
“I don’t…” I stare into her eyes, but I don’t stop my gradual slide inside her vise-like heat as she pulls me in. “I don’t understand what you mean with timing and stuff.” Stall. Stall. Fucking stall! “I don’t get it.”
“You didn’t pay attention in sex ed,” she gives a watery snicker. “You’re gonna have to take my word for it.” And then she throws her head back and moans, because her slickness makes my journey inside much too easy. “Jesus, Jamie.”
“Does that hurt?” I press a kiss to her cheek. Her jawbone. Her throat. “Cam, does it hurt?”
She nods. But she continues to drag me in. “It stings. It’s like you’re pushing against a brick wall, but it stings too.”
“I’ll stop.” I use my strength and halt my slow slide in. “I don’t wanna hurt you.”
“No, don’t stop.” She puts more strength into her legs. “Keep going. I need you to finish this.”
“Cam—”
I stop when her eyes snap to mine with a potent fury. No longer scared. No longer sad. There’s not insecurity or worry or pain. Just a deep, venomous demand.
“Do this with me, Jamie Kincaid. Show me what forever could look like.”
“Fuck.” I drop my brow to her chest and breathe through the orgasm I’m already toeing the line of. “Cam. Fuck, you’re so tight.” I slow when the brick wall she speaks of grows stronger. “It’s so hot and tight. I’m so sorry, Cam. I’m sorry.”
“Call me Quinn,” she whimpers.
I wake with a raging hard-on and a racing heart. But worse, so much worse, my hands are on Quinn’s hips, digging in and branding her, even while she grinds over my cock.
“Q?”
Sunlight streams through the cheap curtains, and reflects off the TV that is still going, playing some news piece.
“Quinn?”
On top of me, Quinn’s movements turn more frenzied, her hips grind and make us both groan, but her eyes aren’t how they were in my dream. They aren’t full of love or innocence, but frustration and determination.
I finally crack my eyes all the way open when she says nothing, only grinds harder, faster. I glance around the room, and to her free hand, holding my jeans that she somehow collected from the floor. She’s searching the pockets, searching for the keys to the cuffs.
“Fuckin’ hell.” I snatch the jeans with a fast sweep of my arm, and shove her off my lap until she lands on the bed with a thump. “Fuck, Quinn. Dammit.” I toss my jeans to the floor, then push up to sit so I can wrap my arms around my knees and rest my forehead on my kneecaps.
My cock burns from how full of blood it is. My heart races so fast that it must surely be dangerous. Waves whoosh in my brain, and my mouth is desert dry. Because for just one single second, I thought the world was back on its axis, and I had her back.
“I ought to beat your ass for that stunt. Dammit, Q.”
Laying on the bed beside me, Quinn’s breath comes fast, her chest rising and dropping with heavy pants. “Do it,” she breathes out. “Beat me up. I don’t even care.”
“Shut up.”
“What?” she taunts. “Can’t hit a girl?”
“Shut up.”
“How about spanking? You’d get the same satisfied feeling of hitting me, but I might even like it.”
“Shut up!” I roar. I push off my knees and turn to her with a feral glower. “Shut the fuck up! Just shut it, Q.”
“Maybe I’ll spank myself.”
She turns to her side and shows me her ass encased in nothing but a string thong. Looking over her shoulder and into my eyes, she brings the hand that’s bound to mine up, swings it down, and slaps her ass so hard that the clap echoes through our room, and a red handprint presents itself on her creamy white skin.
“Oh…” Her eyes hood, her pupils grow larger. “Fuck,” she whimpers. “Maybe I do like being hit. Maybe I like it rough.”
“Quinn…” Closing my eyes, I shake my head and turn away from her before I lose my fucking mind.
“It’s been a long time since I was the virgin in your gym. I’ve learned new things since then, Jamie. I’ve got skills that would blow your mind.”
“Shut up.”
“There was this one guy.” She tears the heart from my chest. Rips it to shreds. Then tosses it to the floor and stomps on it. “He was huge. Huuuuge! And he was all, ‘Let’s stretch you out, baby. Let me show you what it’s really like to come.’”
“Cam…”
“He did this thing with his fingers.” The bed shakes as she gives an exaggerated shiver. “Oh man. Two fingers, and I was going off like a bottle rocket. I’d never felt that before. That explosion inside my body. It was like…” She pauses to consider. Pauses to drag out her torment. “Like popping candy on your tongue. Jamie?” She taps my arm to grab my attention. “Have you ever felt that before? That kind of orgasm? I know I hadn’t, but damn… this guy…” She brings our hands up and fans her face. “If you were into dudes, I would totally recommend him.”
I suspect the metal-on-metal screeching my heart is making inside my chest is so high-pitched, only dogs can hear. I’m certain that if Quinn could hear it, she would stop hurting me. She would show me mercy while I die a long, drawn-out death.
“There was this other guy,” she continues as I lean back over the bed and fetch my jeans. “Jeremy. Holy hell in a handbasket. His tongue. Jamie! His tongue.”
I snag the keys from my jeans pocket while Quinn drivels on about her past conquests, and unsnapping the cuff from around my wrist, I catch her briefest smile of victory, but that quickly turns to a scowl when I snap the cuff over the metal frame of the bed.
“Wait, what?”
“I’m going to have a shower.”
She rattles the cuffs, yanks them in an attempt to go free, then her fiery eyes come back to mine. “Jamie! I’m not done telling you about my life. There was also this dude, Derek. He was a fighter.”
My eyes snap to hers.
She grins. “I guess I have a type. But this guy, Derek, he’s a heavyweight. He liked my ass…” She lifts a challenging brow. “And I don’t just mean how it looked in jeans.”
“Yeah? Awesome.” I cross the room and stop at the doorway to the bathroom. “I’m glad you’ve had fun in our time apart.”
“Wait!” she calls out when I go to slam the door shut. “Aren’t you gonna tell me about your last four years?”
I stand in the doorway for a moment and pray she can’t know how her words hurt me. How her callous dismissal stings, and how the way she freely gave her body away over the years breaks me.
“There’s nothing to tell.” I meet her eyes. “I fell in love with a girl when I was eighteen.”
“You—” Her eyes soften. “What?”
“In my world, once we know, we know. So there was no point in me looking elsewhere.” I shake my head. “But since you found Derek and the guy with the tongue…” I turn into the bathroom and slowly close the door. “I dunno. I guess I had it wrong.”
Quinn
Okay, That Was Mean
“She’s not talking to me. Oh, and she’s on a food strike too.” Jamie drives along the freeway one-handed, uses his knees to help him steer, and uses his other hand – the one joined to mine – to stuff fries into his mouth. He yanks my
arm up and down with no care for the burn in my torn ligaments. “She’s stubborn. And more annoying than I remember.”
“Bubbles…” Will’s deep voice echoes through the car speakers. “You need to stop being an ass. Eat before you pass out from low sugar.”
Jamie glances across to me with a lifted brow.
He’s waiting. He expects me to break for my brother. But of these two men, I’m more angry at Will than I am at Jamie.
I turn away from him, lift my feet to the chair, and watch the world fly by my window.
“She’s not talking to you either,” Jamie finally says. “She’s grumpy as fuck. Did McGrady come looking for her last night?”
“Yeah. He had some dude knock on our door around eleven. Maxim. Victor. Igor. Something Russian and annoying. The guy asked where she was. I said she was at work, then I closed up and went to bed.”
“You’re relocating today, right?”
“Yup.”
I know I’m not talking to Jamie, or to Will; I know I’m angry at these men who think they get to control my life, but that doesn’t mean I don’t listen and absorb every single morsel of information Will gives.
“Your Sophia called me last night and said she has a place set up for me. Not so far from here, still living in squalor,” he laughs. “But at least I won’t be in bed when McGrady’s people turn up and put a blade to my throat. He won’t know where I am when he realizes Bubbles is officially outta here.”
“And Soph is working on the Nate stuff?”
“Yeah. She said all the same stuff you did. And she gained access to the computers at McGrady’s M.E. pal’s office. Those remains were definitely Nate’s.”
So he’s really dead.
“He’s really dead. Which means my charges will be raised to murder in the first. There’s a bullet hole in the guy’s forehead, and a broken neck, like they wanted to make sure, so…”
“Damning,” Jamie jokes. “Definitely not an accident.”
“Soph said she’s piecing some shit together, so for now, I’m to keep going to work. I have to watch my back, but she’s sending a friend up to help keep me alive.”
“Kind of her,” Jamie drawls. “Whichever side Sophia is on in any war, wins the war. You have an ally now, Will.”
“Yeah…” He clears his throat. “Thanks for that. I appreciate it.”
“Coulda told me four years ago. This might have been over by now.”
My brother scoffs. “Next time. Where are you guys headed today?”
I feel Jamie’s shrug. Then he dives back into the paper bag for fries, even as my stomach rumbles from starvation. I haven’t eaten since lunchtime yesterday, and my plans to strike are starting to feel like a bad choice. “We’ll go however far we can go today. Stop when we have to stop.”
“You’re driving safe, right?” Will’s words are a threat, dangerous and low. “You’re watching the road? Not tired?”
“Yeah, I’m being safe. Don’t worry about it. Except for the food thing; I can’t force her to eat, so…”
“Bubbles…” Will sounds like the parent from my childhood. When I was three and didn’t want to eat vegetables. When I was five and wanted my ears pierced. When I was nine and wanted so badly to go to the ballet. “Eat something. If shit goes bad and you have to run from danger, how are you gonna do that if you’re low in blood sugar?”
Jamie looks across to see if Will’s words have convinced me. “Nope.” He noisily chews his fries. “She’s holding strong.”
“Bubbles,” Will tries again. “If I’m in danger and need your help, how are you gonna get to me if you’re weak?”
Again, Jamie looks to me.
This time, Will’s words mean something. For my own safety, my own well-being, I don’t really care. But for his…
I reach into the bag and take out a cheeseburger.
“There it is,” Jamie huffs. “The ultimate fucking martyr. Why am I not surprised?”
“She’s eating?”
“Yeah.” His words are a verbal eyeroll. “She’s obsessed with you. It’s weird.”
“It’s a brother-in-arms thing,” Will murmurs in reply. “When you’re at war, and you only have one single ally…”
“You do what you have to do to keep that brother alive. I get it. She’s eating, so you did good.”
“Stop talking about me like I’m not here.”
“Oh shit!” Jamie cheers. “Fuck me. She speaks.”
“Bubbles.” Will’s words are a hug. A declaration of love. “Jesus, it’s good to hear your voice. I was starting to wonder if he lost you, and was just saying you weren’t talking so he could get away with it. How are you?”
“I’m in a war on my own,” I reply in a flat tone. “I had a brother in arms. But he sent me away, so now I’m just a prisoner in a stranger’s car.”
“Bubbles…”
“All of those years, you said no boys allowed. And now you send me away with one?” I shake my head. “Awesome parenting.”
“He’s not just a boy, Bubb—”
“Isn’t he? Because we’ve already fucked a dozen times.”
Jamie’s eyes flare wide and shoot back to the screen in the dash. “We have not. She’d be in a better mood if we had.”
“I’ll kill you,” Will rumbles. “I will murder you dead if this was all because you wanted to get laid. You said it was to make her safe. You said it was because you wanted her to be free. But if by free, you meant yours, we’re gonna have problems.”
“I’m here to make sure she’s not McGrady’s next wife,” Jamie grits out. “That motherfucker has a taste for innocent dancers. He fucks them, marries them, and then he disposes of them.”
He wipes a salt and grease-covered hand on his jeans, then sighs. “I’m not gonna lie and say my heart doesn’t bleed for your sister, but if she walks when this is all over, well…” He lifts our joined hands and shakes them until metal clangs against metal. “I’ll probably unlock the cuffs. Free and clear. At least then I’ll know she left because she wanted out, and not because the cops had you in their sights.”
Hours pass after Will hangs up. Freeway stretches out ahead of us. And when I need to pee, Jamie pulls over and lets me squat on the side of the road… while his hand remains attached to mine.
I guess we’re zooming straight past that stage of privacy.
Morning turns to early afternoon, which turns to evening, and along with it, my stomach grumbles anew.
“There’s something coming up in a little bit,” Jamie speaks in the dark. “The GPS shows some fast food places, so we’ll stop in there and grab something to eat.”
“I don’t want fast food,” I murmur. My body is stiff, my hips ache, my feet alternate between numb and shooting pain. And my shoulder… I suspect when this is all done and my brother is exonerated, the doctors will just have to amputate. “I can’t deal with fast food this many meals in a row.”
A car passes us going in the opposite direction; headlights move across Jamie’s face, and illuminate the melted chocolate brown of his eyes. In the dark, his eyes simply look black. Dangerous. Mean. But when light flashes across them, I see the chocolate. The compassion. The pain.
“We could probably grab subs or something, if you want. Get a little lettuce into your diet.”
I turn toward the road and study the vast darkness. “That’ll work. Thank you.”
“Yeah,” he murmurs. “No problem.”
Not twenty minutes later, he pulls off the exit when the GPS instructs him to do so, drives through a small town that consists of a few houses, a gas station, and a fire station, and beside that, a sandwich shop sits nestled behind large trees, illuminated under the red light coming from the fire station’s sign.
Smiling when he finds it, Jamie pulls up to the curb and cuts the engine so the soft music and headlights die and leave us sitting in the dark.
Electricity crackles in the silence, a warmth that makes my face hot and my heart race faster. My palms t
urn sweaty, because despite being alone with Jamie for the last twenty-four or so hours, the majority of it has felt routine; drive x number of miles, pee, eat, keep driving, try not to kill each other.
But then there are the moments when the silence feels oppressive, when the darkness seems almost comforting. Just like in dance, when the stage lights are out, even with thousands of people sitting right in front of you, the world seems empty. Steps aren’t as important, and actions don’t come with consequences.
Now, in the darkness but for the red glow from the fire station and a little illumination coming from a streetlight that sits fifty or so feet away, sitting in this car feels private, loaded, electric. The soft light glows across Jamie’s face, highlighting the stubble on his jaw. The muscle in his shoulders. And… well… his two black eyes.
Oops.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” he says. His eyes stray lower – not to my boobs, like so many other men’s do, but to my chin. My fucking dimple. “Just stay put, and I’ll be back in—”
“Can I get out too? You can go in and get something to eat. I just wanna stretch my legs a little bit.” I’m one-hundred-percent, unequivocally, without a doubt bolting the second he turns his back, but I flutter my lashes. “Please?”
Jamie stares into my eyes for a moment and considers.
I was once a girl he trusted. I was once a girl he loved. But now he wears a lot of bruises that I caused.
And yet, he sighs and opens his door. “Sure.” He climbs out slowly so our arms stretch across his seat, then poking his head back into the car, he meets my gaze. “Climb across. It feels good to be standing again.”
Unsnapping my seatbelt, I start crawling across the space while using my shoulder as little as possible. In tight jeans and heavy shoes, I walk all over the middle console, and then Jamie’s leather chair, stopping in his seat for a moment to breathe.
Because I’m about to leave him again, and I need a moment to say goodbye… even if I’m not actually going to say goodbye.
