Chasing Gunner (Chasing Series Book 2)

by J. M Stoneback

  “Gunner, make sure you give her my number.”

  “Sure,” I answer gently. I grab her arm and usher her to the front door.

  Ma stops at the door, holds the bowl with one hand, and taps her index finger on her chin like Alana does when she’s thinking. “You really like Gia?”

  “Do we have to talk about my love life?”

  She gives me that you-better-answer-me look.

  “Yeah. But we’re not serious.”

  “You should be. You need to marry her.”

  I shake my head. Yeah, right. I’ll never get married. No one wants a person who has enough baggage to fill an entire room. Ma kisses me on the cheek and says her goodbye.

  I stroll back to the living room, sit next to Gia, and pull her into my lap. I inhale and exhale as I stroke her shoulder.

  “I like your mom. She’s nice and quirky.” Gia lays her head on my chest and traces the fine hair sprouting from my hand.

  “Are you serious about coming to our family cookout?”

  “Y-yeah, of course.” She pauses. “Are you okay with sleeping with only one woman?” she asks out of the blue.

  “Yeah, why do you ask?”

  “You like to bone different women, and I want to make sure I’m enough.”

  “I’m loyal, Gia. We might be casual, but I’m capable of keeping my dick in my pants. I’m not a sex addict.” I lean forward, nipping the shell of her ear. She smiles, but I didn’t miss that she frowned when I called us casual. She might not like that we are, but that’s the only thing I can offer her.

  “But I’m not pretty,” she blurts out, and I tilt her chin to look at me and her whiskey eyes meet mine.

  “Don’t ever say that shit again. You’re beautiful.” I wish she could see what I see in her. I wish she could see that she’s beautiful on the inside and out. More beautiful than any woman I’ve fucked. “There is no one who measures up to you. I would choose you over anyone.” She smiles at the words. “You want me to show you how beautiful you are?”

  She nods her head and I lay her on the couch and spread her legs, eating her pussy until she can’t take it anymore.

  Gunner

  I hate August twenty-eighth.

  The day I was born. The day I did something I’m not proud of.

  Today is that day.

  Guilt and shame slices through my belly a million times, and the urge to drown myself in a pool of whiskey is as strong as the urge to drown myself in water after baking in the sun.

  I’ve been sitting on Hannah’s leather couch in her office for a whole five minutes, and I’m ready to haul my ass out of here. My feet tap against the carpet, and I want to vomit all over my expensive loafers.

  I don’t tell her the nightmares are back, and I don’t tell her I relive this very day. If I tell her everything, she’ll encourage me to join a fucking support group, and I’m not about to showcase my demons to a bunch of people I don’t know.

  “Let’s take a stroll down memory lane. Do you remember what happened today?”

  She smacks her gum loudly as she taps her black ballpoint pen on her notebook. Her jet-black dreadlocks fall down her shoulders, and she has on a creamy blouse and yellow pencil skirt.

  “Will it help my PTSD?” I murmur.

  “Yeah.” She writes something down on her pad. “Sometimes walking yourself through the event can help you remember. Some people who suffer from traumatic events only remember bits and pieces.”

  “Blood everywhere, the smell of gun residue, Rylee banging on the door begging for Ellis to open up, and me . . .” I close my eyes as tears tickle the insides of my lids. “Fleeing the scene.”

  I grind my molars so hard that they throb, my chest tightens, and my heart beats rapidly as if I downed twenty drinks of Red Bull.

  “It’s normal to experience the exact same emotions all over again.” Calm flickers through her eyes.

  “I want to fucking drink until I’m unconscious,” I blurt out. “I want to sleep this day away.” I’m so fucking pissed I want to go apeshit on this furniture and punch a hole in the wall.

  “Do you need a minute?”

  I shake my head.

  “If you want to go to sleep, then by all means do that, but don’t drink. It isn’t a good coping mechanism. How often are you drinking?”

  “Four to five times a week.”

  “Every week?”

  I nod my head.

  “You’re experiencing dissociation again, aren’t you?”

  I finally admit to it and nod.

  “How often?”

  “More frequent than usual. Maybe two to three times a week.”

  Last week, I had one moment of dissociation in the middle of a conference call with Darien, and I had to end it early because I just couldn’t tell what was real and what was my imagination. When will this shit stop? My soul weeps, and I’m so fucking exhausted.

  “You’re following in the same pattern as when you first started our sessions. You need to take your anti—”

  “I’m not taking that shit again.”

  “Fine.” She rolls her eyes.

  I get up from the couch and tell her I’ll see her next week.

  Once I’m in my car, I beat my hand against the steering wheel until it burns and scream at the top of my lungs to let off some steam. I feel better for a whole two minutes, then I’m back to feeling shitty.

  When I pull onto Fifth to go through Central Park, I glance at the dashboard. The blue neon light flashes twelve forty-five. Gia took the day off so she can go on a job hunt. Last night I helped her with her résumé as we finished watching The Office.

  Thirty minutes later, I park at my building. As I open the front door, the smell of chocolate fills the air, and rock music blasts through the speakers. I swagger through the living room and head to the kitchen. Flour decorates Gia’s small frame from head to toe. Her brunette hair is piled on top of her head and a touch of batter stains her pale cheeks. She head-bangs as she tosses dishes into the dishwasher.

  Since we decided to date, we’ve been all over each other like white on rice. I fuck her all over my office, even on the tacky-ass bubblegum-pink couch she talked me into buying, every chance I get. And at night I take her out on dates to different restaurants and movies.

  Simple stuff. She isn’t interested in my expensive lifestyle, and I dig that about her.

  She scoops batter from the glass bowl and licks the wooden spoon, and my dick twitches to life and throbs against my zipper.

  I grab her phone sitting on the counter and hit the pause button.

  She twirls around, and a smile spreads across her face.

  “Happy birthday, Gunner!” she shouts, wrapping her hands around my waist, standing on her tippy toes as she plants a kiss on my lips and my body winds up.

  How the fuck did she know it was my birthday?

  “I got you something.” Stepping back, she reaches into her purse and shoves two tickets in my hand. “Two tickets to the Fall Fling car show.”

  “Gia,” I say.

  She’s too excited she can’t tell I’m tense.

  “And I baked your favorite chocolate cake. I’m breaking my rule today about eating sweets on a weekday.”

  “Gia,” I say louder.

  “I saw your birthday on Google calendar, and you haven’t mentioned it the la—”

  “Gia!” I yell, tossing the tickets on the counter.

  “What?”

  “I don’t want to celebrate my fucking birthday. Get this shit out of my face!”

  Her face looks like the calm before a storm, and I regret my words. Can this day get any shittier?

  Without responding, she slides oven mitts on her tiny hands, opens the oven, removes the cake, and places it on the counter. She grabs her purse and slings it over her shoulder, leaving me in the quiet apartment. I take the birthday cake and toss it against the glass wall and watch it slide down to the floor, leaving a streak of chocolate.

  “Fuck!” I scream
at the top of my lungs, then head to my room and slam the door behind me. I unleash my rage and go apeshit by tossing crap off my dresser, kicking the nightstand. All my shit rattles to the floor.

  The smell of iron crawls up my nostrils, and all I see is blood painting the fucking walls. The horrified look on Rylee’s face when she found Ellis, and the screams at the top of her lungs. Like a goddamn coward, I stood in the rain, watching as Rylee went into a state of shock.

  I go to my walk-in closet, snatch a bottle of Jack Daniel, unscrew the lid, and down it like I’m dying of thirst. My demons want to come out and fight. With every sip I take of my favorite brand of liquor, I fight back harder.

  It isn’t real. It isn’t real.

  My sanity is hanging by a thread, and I want to put a bullet through my head so I can end it all.

  Gia didn’t come home last night, and I don’t know where she stayed. But knowing there wasn’t music blasting as she made a cheeseburger for breakfast, and the bathroom wouldn’t smell like an orchard full of fresh apples, hurts my soul. When I checked her bedroom, the bed wasn’t made, which isn’t surprising though because she never makes it.

  We don’t sleep in the same bed on weekdays because she says she wants to be by herself at night.

  After I clean up the disaster I made last night, I shower and throw on a black Armani suit. I need to kiss Gia’s ass figurative and literally, so I stop by Molly’s Cupcake’s on Bleecker Street and buy her two dozen vanilla cupcakes with apple pie filling. I also head to Happy Socks on Broadway to buy her bubble gum knee-high socks decorated with music notes. Maybe, she’ll accept my gifts as a peace offering, and I won’t be in the doghouse for too long, or maybe she kicks my crazy ass to the curb.

  Who knows?

  Either way, I won’t blame her. Who wants to deal with someone who’s fifty shades of fucked up?

  When I open the glass door to her office Gia is typing on her iPad.

  As I clear my throat, she twists around and glares at me in a way I’m not used to. The normal glares she throws my way say, “I hate you, but I’ll let you fuck me. This glare is I’m about to rip your dick off and feed it to you.

  She jerks her chin toward my office, and her eyes soften as she speaks. “Your coffee is on your desk, and you have a conference meeting with Darien. Oliver’s lawyer sent over the draft of the contract for American Banking. Troy from the IT department wants to go over some software he thinks will be better for the customers and employees. Mrs. Donna called in sick.”

  Her voice cracks like an egg. She eyes the gifts I bought her but doesn’t even acknowledge them and turns back around in her chair.

  I take long strides toward her, spin her chair to face me, and shove the gifts in her hands. Sadness colors her face and she gulps loudly. “These are for your ass, so stop staring at me like you’re planning to murder me in my sleep.”

  “I’m not, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t thought about it,” she admits, examining the cupcakes like they have rabies. “Is this your way of apologizing? By buying me my favorite cupcakes and knee-high socks?”

  “Yeah. Does that mean you’ll come home and let me fuck you until you’re sore?”

  “No. But I’m willing to talk.”

  “Then will you come home?”

  “It depends on how the talk goes.”

  She’s lucky I adore the fuck out of her ass because if she was any other woman, I’d toss her out of my life faster than Speedy Gonzales. And I wouldn’t even care how bad I fucked up. She would be another woman I don’t have to explain myself to. Well, color me shocked and fuck me sideways scissors-style. I’m actually digging Gia. I don’t know when I started to like her in a romantic way, but it snuck up on me like a thief with a knife. Darien was fucking right for once in his life.

  This is not good for us. I need to call off the experiment, but I don’t want to.

  “Deal.”

  And I stand there like a sad fucking puppy waiting for her to spit out what she wants to say to me. Is she waiting on hell to freeze over so the devil can go ice-skating to tell me I’m off the hook?

  “So are we going to talk?”

  “No, not right now. After work. At my hotel room.” Then she licks her lips, eyes her cupcakes, grabs one, and devours it. “I’m only breaking my eating sweets rule because they look too good to waste. Just because you buy me a bunch of gifts doesn’t mean I forgive you for acting like a class-A jerk.” She frowns. “Does the word ‘sorry’ hurt when you say it?”

  I fold my arms across my chest. Gia knows she’s got me wrapped me around her tiny finger.

  She. Fucking. Knows.

  And that thought alone scares the shit out of me because she can break me, and if she did, I’d still come back to her like a dog with its tail tucked between his legs.

  I’m not the apology type of person, so that’s all she’s gonna get out of me. “As much as putting my dick through a grinder.”

  Because I don’t give a fuck if she’s pissed off at me, I give her a quick peck on the lips, getting frosting on my mouth. I dart out my tongue to lick the frosting off my bottom lip, then I head to my office.

  Gunner

  After work I head to the hotel she’s staying at.

  Once we are inside her room, she takes off her oxford shoes and sets them by the door.

  I lean against the white wall with my hands shoved in my pockets. She stands in front of me with her hands on her hips, tapping her foot.

  I have to give it to her, she might be quiet around other people, but she doesn’t let anyone use her as a doormat. I like the fire that blazes in her eyes as she stares me down like she has the match to burn our relationship down. In a way she does.

  “Start talking.”

  “I hate my birthday, Rainbow.”

  “I figured that out, but why?”

  “I did something too shameful to talk about.” I rub the back of my neck. I plan to go to my grave with this secret. “It’s the main reason why I see a therapist.”

  “And the reason why you drink as well, right?” I nod my head. Then she looks me up and down, like my secret is written on my body. “I’ve never seen you this angry.” Her voice is soft.

  “I’m good at hiding it until I’m ready to fucking explode.”

  The tension builds between us, suffocating me, so I loosen my navy tie and unbutton my cufflinks.

  “The guy I was with used to explode a lot. He used to take his anger out on me.”

  My blood fucking boils. I clench and unclench my fist a few times. I stride toward her, and she puts her hands up to stop me.

  “I need to tell you this.” She pauses for several beats. “He isolated me from people, and I was only allowed to go to my dorms and class. We moved in together our sophomore year, and he got worse. I’m sorry. I’m rambling. My point is . . . those anger outbursts scare me, Gunner. I live in constant fear of being abused. Yesterday brought on a lot of emotions I didn’t want to face.”

  I close the gap between us by pulling her into a hug. I want to gut that jackass like a fish. If he wasn’t caught, I bet he’s still doing it to someone else. I wish I could suck all the pain from her and toss it into the middle of the ocean. “Gia, I might be a dick at times, but I swear to you, I’ll never hit you. Those thoughts never crossed my mind.”

  “I believe you,” she says. “We’ve lived together for two and a half months. You had plenty of time to hurt me, and you haven’t.”

  Warmth surges in my heart, and I kiss her on the lips as I rub my calloused thumb over her cheeks. Her face turns red.

  “Is that the reason why you dropped out of college?”

  Pulling away from our embrace, she shakes her head. “No. I-I dropped out because he raped me.”

  “What?” My rage is back full throttle, and I squeeze her hand. She watches my reaction closely, clearly debating if she should tell me more.

  “He went out of town for a wrestling match and was supposed to be gone for a whole weekend, so I s
nuck out and went to a party with Izzy. He got back home early because it was canceled. We got into an argument about it, and he accused me of wanting another guy. I denied it. He got angry and punched me in the gut with his brass knuckles—it’s what he used every time he beat me. And after I fell to the floor, he climbed on top of me and… you know.” Her words are detached, like she isn’t talking about herself but someone else. “After he fell asleep, I called Izzy to pick me up and told her everything. I moved in with her until I got back on my feet. He tried to get me back by sending me flowers and putting on this good-guy act like he did when I first met him. But I started therapy and my psychologist helped me to see that it was all an act. He’s a narcissist. I took out a restraining order on him to leave me alone, but he didn’t stop. Ryan never gave up. He tried to throw acid on me but missed. I ran to the next-door neighbor and called the cops. He was thrown in jail for a few months, and I moved upstate for three years before I came back.” She breathes in through her nose and out her mouth. “People think that it’s so easy to walk away from an abusive person, but it isn’t. They get worse when you try to leave because they have a fear of losing power.” She wraps her arms around my waist, and I kiss her hair.

  I know that all too well. Every time my ma tried to leave my sperm donor, he would beat her so bad, and the only reason why he left us was for his younger mistress.

  Then realization hits me like a ton of bricks. When I first fucked Gia, I didn’t think about her needs or what she wanted. I was being a selfish bastard. I thought she didn’t fuck because she was practicing celibacy.

  “Wait a minute.” I take my index finger and thumb and rub my eyes. “I’ve been rough on you when I fuck you. I didn’t kn—”

  She places her index finger on my lips. “Shh . . . it’s fine. I li—love how we . . . do it.”

  “Are you sure?”

  She nods her head.

  Guilt yields in my fucking chest. If I had known what happened to her, I would have been gentle. I would have tried to be a gentleman at least. Made our first time extra-special. I’m not a romantic type of guy, but I’ve watched enough chick flicks with my ma to know women think sex is special.