by Finn, Emilia
I feel the pulse in my panties just from the promise of screaming sex. He just has to look at me with hunger in his eyes, and my body reacts.
Fuck him for knowing how to blow my mind.
Turning, he heads into the kitchen and deposits his bags on the floor. “I need you to find a tutu; that’s all I’m saying. And I need you to work on getting us a new sound system, because I want you to be able to dance any time the mood strikes. Day, night, weekends, whenever. If you feel a twinkle in your toes, I want to know about it, then I’m gonna watch you. I’ll probably stroke my cock while I watch.”
“You’re disgusting.”
“I’m honest,” he counters. Picking up the bags of meat, he turns and tosses them into the large freezer with no care for stacking or organizing. “Two bags of meat?” He pokes his hands into all the bags to make sure. “Anything else that needs to go in the fridge or freezer? Or is everything good to stay out for a bit?”
“Um…” I grab a bag that contains ice cream and pass it to him. Then I grab the cartons of milk and set them in the fridge door. “That’s all the perishable stuff. Why?”
Instead of answering, he grabs me around the hips and drags me against his chest until the breath bursts from my lungs. His cock is rock hard and presses against my belly, his lips hard and insistent as they force mine open and his tongue slides in.
Kissing me but leaning lower, he unsnaps my jeans and pushes them down with a rough shove. Then, picking me up off my sore feet, he deposits me on the counter and frees his dick from his jeans.
Mere seconds pass from when we’re packing groceries away to him slamming home and drawing a shocked cry up my throat. Just seconds, from no contact, to something where he’s all-consuming, touching me, body and soul. Then time is lost to us as he pushes in and out, thrusting until he can’t go any deeper, then pulling out until the tip of his dick slides along my nerve endings and drives me crazy with want.
“Thinking of you dancing turns me the fuck on, Sophia Solomon.” His lips cruise over my face and leave me breathless. “Thinking of you, full stop, turns me the fuck on.” His hands bruise my hips, but they don’t hurt. He consumes me, fills me, and makes me yearn for the life he spoke of.
Forever isn’t a reality for a girl like me, but for now, for today, in this house, in this kitchen, I can pretend.
* * *
It was nine in the evening on a regular Thursday in April when we arrived in this small town and pulled up to the home I used while Jay was still alive and living across the street.
Just like I stayed in the apartment above Jay in the Benson building, I stayed here in this house while he was working for Abel. I have homes anywhere I need to go, and they were all purchased using money I stole from bad people.
I have no regrets, and no intentions to give it back.
By Saturday, I delivered on my promise of internal surveillance of Kane’s home.
We eat; we make love, and we work. That’s our life now while I sit on the couch and search for CAB on my laptop.
With only one laptop between us, and my needs far outweighing Jay’s, he sits at the front window with his binoculars most of the day, sneaking to my laptop to get an eye on his brother while I take pee breaks.
He wants to snoop and find a little home, and while I sympathize with his need to make sure Kane is fine, I need my computer more. So he makes do with my pee breaks, and I order a new laptop online for him so he doesn’t have to keep making me coffee in hopes to make me pee more.
I run searches on everything I know up to this point, and I add Trenton’s cell data to the mix. I follow his GPS tracking; I plot his every move before he died in an attempt to find a pattern – where did he re-visit most? Who did he call the most? Who did he email the most? – and all the while, Jay works out to help regain his strength from before he was hurt. He builds up his lung capacity so he doesn’t have any more moments while running from assholes with guns, then he watches Kane’s house.
April turns to May, and though Kane is here, and word is getting out, no one comes for him.
May turns to June, and the sad girl across the street smiles a little more often when Angelo arrives to work on the old Buick he drove up in that first time.
June turns to July, and finally, I let Jay out in the dead of night because he wants to visit with Raya Cruz, a woman who suffers from dementia, and to whom Jay swears he owes his life.
He’s been cooped up for months, forced to work out in the backyard or the spare bedroom, forced to watch the neighborhood kids play in the street while the child in him wanted so badly to join in on the games.
The cold that haunted us in our last city has turned to sweltering heat, and if I have to listen to him bitch once more, I might tie him to a tree and beat him with the stick the kids use to hit a baseball.
So I let him go for a midnight run; I demand he take his phone and gun, and when he arrives home at two with a goofy grin and a tale of how the forgetful Raya Cruz remembered him, hugged him, and told him he was welcome back anytime, I felt my heart unclench for the first time in months.
Jay Bishop is not a solitary man; he’s not a hermit, and he was not built to hide away inside a home for months at a time.
Staying in is killing him just as fast as Abel and the cocaine were, and though I’m only trying to protect him, I can acknowledge at least part of my insistence is to protect my mission.
I’m trading Jay’s happiness for my sister’s peace.
I have a powerful tool in my arsenal, a dangerous weapon that no one knows exists. I have Jay Bishop, the ghost, and I don’t want to risk losing that.
Ace doesn’t want to lose that, because of Ellie’s suffering.
And the woman in me, Sophia, doesn’t want to share him, because my heart beats faster having him here. He jokes of love, but I feel something each time he walks through the room and shoves gummies in his mouth. He jokes of forevers, but my heart insists forever can’t be a reality if he shows himself to the public.
So I hoard him and drive him a little crazier with each day that passes.
I’m so unbelievably selfish.
“Babe. Babe. Babe! Babe!” Jay bounds from his single chair by the window and races toward me.
Glancing up from my laptop and a military record that looks kind of promising, I meet his eyes and lift a brow. “Yeah?”
“Road trip!”
“Hm?”
He spins his laptop and shows me an image of four people sitting in Kane’s home. Kane sits with his blonde, Jess, and Angelo with the long hair watches the other blonde. The girls sit in the middle of the living room and write in a notebook, but the guys share stares that communicate something we’ll never know without words.
“They’re going on a road trip! They’re leaving, so we can finally get in.”
“Why do you wanna go in?” I drop my eyes back to my computer. “What’s inside that you want?”
“Apart from a giant cache of weapons, I just wanna go in. The heat is turning up on this shit, so getting him out of town is a good thing. You gotta order up some of those GPS dots, Soph.” He drops down onto the couch beside me and smiles when his weight has me falling into his side. Despite my work, he pulls my leg over his, then sets his laptop on top.
Kane Bishop smiles and watches his girl. His smile is similar to Jay’s, so unbelievably similar it makes my stomach clench. They’re not twins; they’re easily distinguishable. Jay’s face is a little rounder, his lips just a little thicker. Kane’s hair is a little shorter, though both men wear it short. But the things that matter, the things that make up their souls – their eyes and smiles – are the same.
On the screen, Angelo slams his water glass down and shoots to his feet, indicating for Kane to follow. Jay and I watch while new cameras are activated as the duo move through the kitchen and into the garage just like ours.
Stepping onto the concrete floor and closing the door, Kane turns with a smirk. “Feeling a little put out, Ang? I saw you
humping her in the yard; your balls a little blue? Don’t fret, brother, at least you have a set.”
“Shut up,” Angelo replies in the same moment Jay flinches. It hurts Jay to hear Kane call him brother, to see this new friendship in the house across the street. Angelo isn’t just a guy who hangs around because of a girl. We’ve watched this family of misfits via camera for months; they have a bond, a brotherhood that cuts Jay deeply. Seeing his brother this happy is both a blessing and a curse; he feels replaced and redundant.
“Turn the cameras off,” Ang demands. “And the sound, and whatever else you got in here that feeds right back to the girls.”
Chuckling, Kane moves to the discreet power box I know hides and controls the surveillance on his home. He works the buttons, and while he does, his system fights to kick me out.
He doesn’t know we watch. He’ll never know. But deep in the dark backstreets of his surveillance system, the bots know we’re here, and they’re trying to kick us out.
He presses a code into his screen and shuts the girls out, and in the process, glitches our end for just a moment. Jay panics beside me, afraid of losing sight of his brother, but I know what’s happening, so I take his hand in silent reassurance and wait for the screen to clear up.
“Done.” Kane steps back around with a filthy smirk. “We’re in the cone of silence, Ninety-Nine. What’s up?”
I turn to Jay. “Get Smart fans?”
“Yeah.” He presses a hand over my mouth to shush me. “They’re talking.”
“You’re going on this road trip with them?” Angelo asks, only to be met with the exact kind of scoff Jay gives when I say something stupid.
“It’s insulting you think otherwise. No way in hell am I letting her go on her own. Plus, I wanna go to the beach too. Picture it,” he raises his hands to make a frame, “blonde hair, itty bitty yellow polka dot bikini, smackable ass, and sass for days.” He flashes a Bishop grin and makes Jay do the same. “And I didn’t even get to Jess yet.”
“Dude!”
“He’s funny,” Jay chuckles. I don’t comment on the fact his voice cracks or his hand squeezes my leg unbelievably tight. He can have his secrets, and later, when we’re in bed, I’ll try to soothe some of his hurt.
“I’m kidding,” Kane laughs. He jokes the way Jay jokes – it’s always wildly inappropriate, but in the same breath, is endearing when it really shouldn’t be. “I don’t look at yours; you don’t look at mine. But seriously, bonfires, the beach, days and days of driving. Sounds like fuckin’ heaven to me.”
“I wanna come,” Ang demands. “Make it so I can come.”
In the top right corner of Jay’s screen, my eyes are drawn back to the living room as the twin blondes start bickering. Kane and Angelo can’t see or hear them, just as the girls can’t see the guys, but Jay and I see everything. And when Kane’s girlfriend pushes Angelo’s, we both smile and fling our eyes from one surveillance box to the other.
“Just tell them, dumbass. It’s really easy – clap your hands and say ‘Road trip!’” Kane says. “They have no clue I bamboozled them. I already told you at Greg’s place – attitude is half the fun. Act like you already have an invitation, and they won’t question it.”
“Who is Greg?” Jay turns to me. “I don’t know that player.”
“Greg is actually Graham, but your brother likes to disrespect people by screwing up their names.”
Jay snorts. “It’s fun being a dick sometimes.”
“Graham is the blonde’s ex, the one who made her a club whore.”
“Motherfucker deserves to be neutered.”
“Well…”
“It’s not so easy for me, Bish,” Angelo pushes back. “You’re with Jess, but I’m just a friend. I can’t demand shit.”
“Yes he can,” Jay mumbles. “She hangs out with you every day, dumbass. She’s yours; you gotta demand everything.”
“She chooses to hang out with you every damn day, idiot.” Kane says exactly what his brother says. Unknowingly, and only twenty yards apart, their thoughts are still in sync. “Why wouldn’t she want you to come on this trip?”
The girls draw our attention back to the top right corner when their tussling turns to full wrestling, and a tall lamp smashes to the ground just by their heads.
Panicked, Kane and Angelo shove at each other to be the first through the door, to be the hero who saves the blondes from themselves.
Shaking my head, I close Jay’s laptop lid and cup his jaw. “They’re going out of town. They’re going to have a little fun.”
“That’s our fishing spot,” Jay pouts. “I wanna go to the beach with my brother.”
“After.” Pushing his laptop to the side, then setting mine on the coffee table, I move into his lap and cup his cheeks. “Soon, babe. Soon you’ll be free again. You’ll have your brother back; then you can shove that other dude aside.” I press my lips to his slowly, a single peck here, another in the corner, and a third on his jaw. “We’re going to make it all better soon.”
“Get me some GPS dots to put on their car. I need to know where they are on this road trip, since I can’t go.” His strong hands massage my ass, but then he stops and catches my eyes. “I can’t go, right?”
“No.” I laugh. “You can’t just hop into their car and go without some kind of prelude that you aren’t deceased.”
Mockingly, he sighs and leans in to nibble on my neck. “Get me GPS, and sound. I wanna hear them while they’re gone.”
“Okay.” I groan when his teeth pull the skin behind my ear.
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
“Good.” Reaching between us, he pushes his sweatpants down so his hardened dick jumps free, then he reaches back and pulls mine down. “Sit on my cock, Sweet Sophia. My heart hurts.”
“I can make it better.”
15
GPS Trackers
Jay
“Okay.” Grabbing my hand, Soph turns it palm up and drops miniscule tracking devices in the center. It’s the middle of the night, and my neighbors are leaving for their road trip in a matter of hours. I have to move now, or I lose them and pray they come back safe. “Put one in the tire well. Somewhere they won’t find it. They’re magnetic, so it’ll adhere so long as you don’t try to attach it to a particularly dirty spot.”
“Okay.”
“Second one has to go inside the car if you want to hear them. Put it somewhere discreet but unobstructed.”
I laugh. “Roger that. Has to be hidden—but in plain sight.”
“Exactly. Just like us.” She flashes a flirty smile. “I’m in your ear, so listen to me if I screech mayday. If I say ‘move your ass,’ it means move your ass. He’s got surveillance on his yard, so–”
“Jericho.”
She stops and brings her eyes back to mine. “Huh?”
“‘Jericho’ means the world is burning down. It means I have to move. Only say ‘Jericho’ if it’s life or death.”
“Okay.” Curling my fingers back, she encloses the GPS devices in my closed fist. “I’m going to shut his surveillance down for a few minutes. If I don’t, you’ll be picked up before you even step up to the Buick. He’s a shoot first, ask questions later kinda guy, so don’t get shot by your brother. He’d feel bad.”
I laugh. “He’s set up on sensors, right?”
“Right. You get three minutes before he notices his tech is down, so get in and out. Move fast, then come straight home.”
“Okay.” I pull my ski mask low and smile. “I feel badass again. I’ve been a housewife for too long.”
“You’re an idiot.” She smacks my chest and steps onto her toes like a good little ballerina. Pressing her lips to mine, her long lashes flutter against my cheek and make my heart throb. “Go. Be quiet, be fast.”
“Okay.” I smack her ass and race away before she hits me back. With the GPS dots clasped in my hand, I dart to my front door and wait for her go.
Turning, she goes back t
o sit in front of her computer, taps at the keys the way she does, then looks up with a sly grin. “Go. Your timer starts now. Be careful.”
“Okay, see you soon. Love you.”
I race out the door before my words catch up with my brain. Soph’s face drains white, then I come to a screeching halt on the front steps for a beat. “Go,” she hisses into my ear. “Now. You have three minutes.”
“Soph…”
“I’m Ace right now. This is Ace and Hamilton,” she hisses. “Jay and Soph are for bed. Move!”
I glance across the street to the pitch-black house and swallow my nerves. We’ve been here for months, but I’ve yet to go over. He’s so close, so accessible, but at the same time, he’s not.
He’s too busy bonding with his new brother.
Dashing into the dark with the cold steel of my gun at my back and Kane’s blade in my hand, I duck low and sprint across the smooth road. There are no potholes on this suburban street, no trailers, no beat-up junker cars. This is the kind of street that families are created on. The kind that men aspire to have a home on.
Stopping at the side of the now restored Buick Super, I reach under the back wheel well and nod when the magnet of the first GPS dot clips into place. “One down. One to go.”
“Good,” Soph whispers. “I have eyes on you. One more.”
Staying low, I move toward the front passenger side and pull the metal rod from the back of my jeans. Pushing it between the window and doorframe, I glance back to the dark house and grit my teeth when I pull it up. The lock snicks free, and no alarms sound. “Opened.”
“Good. You’re still clear. Lights are out. They’re asleep inside. Get in and get it done.”
Cracking the door open, I pray the old car doesn’t squeak as I pull it open enough to slide in. Letting it close again, but not snick, I search the dark car and, against my will, allow myself to be impressed by the remodel of what was once a rotted car. It looks like it’s just come off the showroom floor.
