Explicit Detail

by Scarlett Finn

  ‘I can’t get you off my cock, can I?’

  The knock sounded again, and Rushe sat up.

  ‘Is this it? The danger coming to us?’ she asked.

  The drawer in the nightstand on Rushe’s side began to buzz, so he reached past her to open it and retrieved a small black pager Flick had never seen before. She also couldn’t see the glowing screen that Rushe now read, but the knock distracted her again.

  ‘Should I get dressed? Do I need a weapon?’

  ‘You don’t need to do anything,’ Rushe said, and with an arm around her waist for support, he dipped her back to kiss each of her nipples. ‘Don’t touch. I’ll finish you off when I get back.’

  Rushe lifted her body away from his, but Flick snatched his neck. ‘Back? You’re not going anywhere without me. What’s going on?’

  ‘No time to explain it, Kitten.’

  ‘But—‘

  ‘No,’ he said without nonsense, so this time she let him remove her hands from his body.

  Still with the pager in one hand, Rushe retrieved his jeans from the floor and climbed into them. Flick sat alone and naked in the middle of the bed, feeling hollow now that he no longer occupied her body or her bed.

  ‘I love you,’ Flick said, as he clipped the pager onto his belt.

  His eyes flicked to hers. ‘I’m not gonna die. I’m going into the living room, that’s it.’

  ‘You’re inviting them in here?’

  Flick caught the corner of the sheet they’d slept on and held it to her chest. The knocking continued to come intermittently, so either the person didn’t know not to piss off Rushe by hurrying him, or they were frantic.

  When Rushe observed her action and her position his brows clamped down.

  ‘You think I would let anyone hurt you?’ He approached the bed again. ‘Do you think I would let people into our home who had the intention to hurt you?’ Rushe snatched the sheet from her hands and tossed it toward the end of the bed, where it fluttered off to the floor.

  ‘I—‘

  ‘Up!’ Rushe demanded.

  ‘But—‘

  ‘Up!’

  Flick pushed up to her knees and walked on them to the side where he stood. ‘They’re still out there.’

  ‘They’ll wait,’ he growled, without moving his lips. ‘This,’ he said, and grabbed her breasts, ‘is mine.’

  ‘I know.’

  One hand began to work her nipple, while the other glided down her sensitive waist to her hip, and then it moved aside to cup her crotch.

  ‘No one touches what’s mine. You’ll always be safe here.’

  ‘I know,’ she said, hooking her hands into his jeans pockets to rest her weight on his. ‘But I still love you.’

  ‘I know,’ Rushe said.

  At the same time Flick kissed his jaw one of his fingers jabbed into her up to his knuckle, taking her by surprise.

  ‘I’ll wake you up when I’m done,’ he said, and as he departed, he took his invading finger into his mouth to clean her taste from his digit.

  Flick knew to trust Rushe’s instinct. He regularly told her to obey commands too... though she didn’t always concede them.

  They’d known each other for less than half a year, but with the gravity of what they’d experienced together, Flick was content that she knew who Rushe was; she knew the essence of him. But tonight reminded her that she didn’t know all of what he was; she didn’t know everything about him.

  Flick would trust Rushe with her life; she had done so in the past. Moreover, he’d always been up front about his life; she hadn’t been sold a bill of goods. Questions zoomed through her mind in the same way they hung in Rushe’s aura. But she wouldn’t push, through time all would be revealed.

  But this was the part she struggled with the most. It wasn’t so much that she was left out, though she didn’t like that she was. Lying here in their bed alone listening to the distant murmur of voices drifting through, Flick grew curious. Being separate from whatever was now going on made Flick feel helpless, and she wanted to help Rushe, to be there for him. He’d spoken about them working together, but so far he hadn’t had the whisper of work. At least that was what Flick had thought until today, when he told her he’d turned jobs down.

  Rushe was selective. In describing what he did, Rushe had told her he was “...the guy people come to when every other avenue has been exhausted.” Being with Rushe gave Flick confidence and he offered her a security that she’d never had in her life before. Rushe hadn’t had the acceptance that she gave him. She’d never tried to change him, and she wouldn’t want to.

  But he’d been out in that living room for an hour with whomever had been battering down their front door. Flick had known she wouldn’t sleep with them out there – strangers, and unknowns, weren’t conducive to slumber. It had been wishful thinking on Rushe’s part when he told her he’d wake her, and it was also his way of telling her to stay out of things. But he should know her better than that.

  Flick punched the mattress to push herself into a sitting position. Being here helped no one, and she didn’t want to be out of the loop. Rushe would take care of her from a distance forever if she let him, but she didn’t want to be treated like glass. From the moment they met he treated her as a woman, he didn’t handle her with kid gloves. Flick didn’t want Rushe to change, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t.

  With her decision made, she tiptoed out of the bed and swept his tee-shirt from the floor. Tucking her head and arms into the material, she went to the bedroom door and opened it a fraction. The bass of Rushe’s voice carried to her immediately.

  ‘I don’t know what you expect me to do about it,’ Rushe said.

  Flick crept out the narrow gap and pulled the door almost closed behind her. Staying in the shallow hallway, she pressed to the wall and skimmed along it.

  ‘You going into retirement?’ a male voice Flick didn’t recognise asked.

  ‘Maybe,’ Rushe said.

  ‘I don’t believe it.’

  ‘I don’t give a fuck.’

  Flick moved around as her curiosity increased; Rushe didn’t have friends. In the time she’d lived here with him, the only person she’d seen at the door was the pizza guy. Rushe didn’t even own a phone, but he apparently did own a pager.

  ‘Rushe, you’re the guy for this... the only guy.’

  Inching closer, Flick turned her front onto the wall and peeked around the hall wall to see three men seated in the leather couches arranged in a U shape next to the living room side of their outer bedroom wall. Rushe was in the couch closest, with his back to her. One man sat opposite him on another couch, and at the top of the table in the armchair with its back to the window was a second man.

  ‘You haven’t—‘

  The man opposite Rushe stopped, which made the man in the armchair look up. ‘What?’

  ‘You got company?’ the man who had spotted her asked.

  The guy in the armchair followed his attention, and Flick ducked back. ‘This about some whore? You want us out so you get your money’s worth? Shit, what did you pay her? I’ll give you double to get the fuck out of here, Darlin’!’

  The last sentence was for her, and any shame at being caught spying evaporated into outrage.

  ‘I beg your pardon!’ Flick retorted, and came out of her hiding place to march toward the men.

  ‘You shut up,’ Rushe said, getting to his feet faster than Flick had seen him move in a while.

  ‘I’m not a whore!’

  ‘Yes, you are,’ Rushe said.

  Flick had thought he was telling the guy to shut up, but he skirted the couch to head in her direction, making Flick re-think that assumption.

  ‘What is going on here?’ she asked.

  ‘Bedroom,’ Rushe commanded.

  ‘No,’ she replied, looking him in the eye when he bore down upon her.

  ‘Now.’

  Flick knew that snarl and those bullet black eyes. The thunder that emanated around him had flar
ed in the past too. She had seen it intimidate men into humiliation... but Flick was immune.

  ‘I’m not—‘

  ‘Now!’

  Rushe got hold of her. When she tried to resist him, he swung her up into his arms to take her off her feet. Flick fought because she always did, but she kept her mouth shut until he got them back into the bedroom and tossed her onto the bed.

  Flick scrambled up to her knees as Rushe slammed the bedroom door. Her intention had been to get back on her feet, but Rushe closed the space between them and blocked her from leaving the bed.

  ‘When the fuck are you gonna do what you’re told?’ he roared.

  ‘Did you hear what he said? He thinks I’m a hooker!’

  ‘Good!’

  Again, Flick was somewhat taken aback. ‘You love me. You’re happy with him disrespecting—‘

  ‘First off,’ Rushe started. ‘There’s nothing shameful in being a hooker. I know some damn fine prostitutes; there are women who do it by choice. Others are forced into it, but... don’t generalise, every situation has its own circumstances.’

  ‘You’ve slept with hookers?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, and from his relaxed expression Flick knew he was entertained by her naivety, so she smacked his chest.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘A guy has needs, Kitten; the only thing better than a decent fuck is a woman who doesn’t ask questions. Hookers don’t fall in love with their clients, and they don’t give a fuck who you are or what you’re doing. They fuck and run, perfect for guys like me.’

  ‘You paid for sex?’

  ‘Sometimes yes, sometimes no.’

  ‘I’m learning that there are few absolutes where you’re concerned. You had relationships with these women?’

  ‘We don’t have time for this,’ Rushe said. ‘When I tell you to stay, you stay.’

  ‘I don’t,’ Flick said. ‘When have I ever done what I’m told?’ Rushe’s attention flitted to the bed behind her. ‘Apart from in bed.’

  ‘If I tell you it’s a sex game, will you stay?’

  Flick wasn’t convinced, and she hoped her blank expression conveyed that. ‘It arouses you to have me out of the loop?’

  ‘It arouses me to have you safe,’ he said, and Flick knew all teasing was over. ‘If you’re dead, who’s gonna screw with me every chance they get?’

  ‘I do not!’

  Rushe took her hands and stuck them in his jeans pockets. ‘If they think you’re a whore then they won’t look twice. It’s nothing to have a hooker in my bed. But if they think... I don’t have relationships. I sure don’t form long-term commitments.’

  Conceding some, Flick formed fists in his pockets and leaned forward, tucking her head under his chin. ‘I’d be expensive.’

  The single bob of his chest released one low bassy note of a laugh. ‘Yeah, Kitten, I pay for you every day.’

  Flick knew he wasn’t talking money but she pressed her cheek closer, turning her face to kiss his chest. While still kissing him, her fists relaxed just enough to find the length of him, still imprisoned in denim. He was already hard, she hadn’t established yet if that was because of her actions, or just because of her presence.

  Kissing up to his throat, Flick was surprised when he lowered his chin to urge her away enough to allow his mouth to meet hers. His hands cradled her face to control the merging of their lips in a calm but insistent kiss.

  Rushe had to be aware of those men in the living room, and to be doing this now he had to trust them. If they had sex with others in the house, they’d be vulnerable. But this wasn’t a sex kiss, or rather it wasn’t a regular sex kiss. The devotion he showered her with increased when his hands slid around and down her back. On him lifting her up, Flick moved her hands out of his pockets and wrapped her legs around his hips.

  ‘Rushe,’ she whispered, when he trailed kisses to her throat.

  The heat of bliss circled her brain, making her heavy, and Flick could do nothing when her head fell back under its own weight. But that gave Rushe a larger area to work with. He took her to the bed, his weight still in control of hers when they landed in the soft cocoon of their nest.

  Once again, his mouth kissed its way up to hers, and with the sweep of his tongue on her lip Flick opened wide. Torn between snatching his hair to keep him in place, and freeing him from his jeans, she didn’t notice one of his hands leaving her body because the other snaked under her tee-shirt to fumble with her breast. Arching closer into that caress Flick craved, she went for the belt buckle.

  Rushe’s hand caught hers, delaying its journey, he’d direct it to exactly where he wanted it. Flick clinched her legs around him and let Rushe stretch her arm above her head. His other hand took her wrist, and something cold and metallic touched her skin, which made Flick’s eyes open.

  But it was too late. On the familiar grating snick, she tried to tug her hands free but they stayed put. He’d locked the handcuffs to her wrists around one of the metal bars of the headboard.

  ‘Rushe!’

  The rogue told her that she tormented him, and then there was this. Fastened in place, bound, kept prisoner, in what had become her own bed!

  He conveyed no apology, he just pulled her legs away from his hips. When Rushe sat up he raised her tee-shirt to expose her body, he kissed one nipple, then the other.

  ‘Stop that!’ she said but he continued to tease her breasts with his mouth.

  ‘You gave me a free pass, Kitten,’ Rushe said, burying his face in her cleavage.

  She couldn’t argue with the point because she had done exactly that, just as he had. Their open consent was the reason she took the liberty of using his erection without asking for permission when he was still asleep.

  Rushe made such a huge deal of consent when they started sleeping together. Even after they’d been having sex for quite a while, he still asked her for consent every time. So Flick had made an exaggerated plea of granting him full and permanent access. She knew why it was important to him. But after a long discussion, and constant reassurance on her part, they’d agreed that consent would be presumed, and they had established a safe word to use if they wanted the other to stop what they were doing.

  Flick had never experienced such trust, and she’d never seen Rushe so unsure about anything. But it was important for him to know just how she felt, how comfortable she was with him, how much she trusted him.

  When Rushe claimed her as his, Flick knew it was true. She wanted to be owned by him. There may come a time later on that Rushe would have to rent out his body to be away from her, but Flick knew he belonged to her just as much, even if neither of them said it regularly.

  ‘This is not ok,’ Flick said, but didn’t use the safe word, neither of them ever had, and she knew it was unlikely that they ever would. ‘I’m not having sex with you for a month.’

  ‘Seems like that’s up to me right now,’ he said, insinuating his finger inside her, and following it with another.

  ‘You’re going to leave me here and go back out there,’ she said, gritting her teeth to try and ignore the warmth of his mouth on the underside of her breast, and the pressure building where his fingers moved within her.

  ‘You’re safe in here,’ Rushe said, licking his way up to her nipple.

  ‘I’m safe in any room you’re in.’

  Flick felt the curl of his lips around her breast and she sighed. Rushe never smiled. He just didn’t. Well, he did, and she’d seen it around the apartment on a somewhat regular basis. But outside, or in situations with others, it was gone, locked away in a place she hadn’t found yet.

  ‘Good girl.’ Rushe pressed into her clit while drawing her nipple deeper into his mouth and his other hand gave a squeeze to the other and she yelped out.

  The slope of orgasm was long, and Rushe kept working his mouth and his hands until he’d milked her through every aftershock.

  Then his body leapt away from hers, and Flick panted through the haze marring her vision. ‘You’re a real
bastard.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Who are those people?’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Rushe said, perusing her still exposed figure.

  ‘You expect me to trust you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You don’t trust me?’

  His perusal halted. ‘Explain.’

  ‘If you don’t let me in... you don’t trust me to understand? Or you don’t trust me to accept it?’

  ‘You don’t need to know.’

  ‘No,’ she said, her body sank into the bed. ‘A whore is only good for one thing.’

  ‘Kitten—‘

  ‘Go to work,’ she said.

  Rushe wasn’t a man of many words and though she saw the frustration in his gaze, he turned and left the bedroom. He closed the door, leaving her alone, restrained, exactly where he wanted her.

  He’d been putting off work to avoid this, Flick realised that now. If he took a job there would be questions. She didn’t know how involved he would want her to be, but if Rushe expected her to let him walk out the door and disappear for months, then he had another thing coming. He may have worked alone for years, but he hadn’t had a choice then. What he didn’t understand yet was that he had no choice now either.

  Flick didn’t sign on to this life merely to sit at home and be the dutiful little woman. Rushe could need back up, and she’d been there for him in the past. Both of them had nearly lost their lives, and their unity was the only thing that saved them.

  She had been an information gatherer all of her life. Her work in the National Library research department had whetted her appetite for investigation. When she left her life to come here and be with Rushe, a time she considered her third life, she did it to be of help. Yes, they loved each other, but she had told him straight that she wouldn’t simply be a female for him to fuck. She wasn’t going to be a hooker: live off his money and be here to service him when he demanded it.

  The last three months had been spent talking, and learning each other. There had been a lot of sex, an awful lot of sex, and some laughs too. Rushe might not be a smiler but he occasionally let her make him laugh, and his ultra-dry sense of humour had often left her in stitches. Flick had asked him to show her some combat techniques, but he’d insisted that she would never need them. After a lot of persuasion he had shown her a couple of moves, but it quickly became a naked workout session on the gym mat, which was probably his plan all along. But at the time Flick hadn’t cared enough to push the issue.