“Yes,” I said softly. “Please...yes.”
“Then stand.”
It took me a couple of tries to get my feet under me without being able to use my hands. Once I was up, I turned and rested my body against the wall. I arched my back and stuck my ass out, glancing over my shoulder.
Hawk had been staring at my offering—I felt his attention on my wet folds like a touch—but his gaze lifted, locking with mine as he stepped closer. His hands settled on my hips, grip tight enough to force the air from my lungs.
“I dreamed about this,” he admitted, voice rough, heavy with rage both old and new. “About having you at my mercy. About breaking you and tossing you aside once I was done. It’s what your betrayal deserves.”
Maybe I should’ve defended myself, but what would be the point?
He was right.
“Why, Jasmine?” He positioned himself at my entrance, a battering ram about to break down the last barrier between us. “Why didn’t you just delete the fucking video like I asked?”
I thought about that night. The bum I hadn’t noticed following me on my walk to the precinct. His hot breath when he’d pushed me against the building before I could get inside. My relief when Hawk showed up moments later.
He’d beaten the other man to within an inch of his life, and every second of it had been caught on camera.
After making sure I was okay, all he’d asked me to do was get rid of the evidence. That was it. But I’d been flustered and panicked, thrown off by an encounter I’d never expected. When the dominos fell, the evidence was right there for them to point to. Because of me.
My chest constricted. My shoulders shook. My eyes closed, unable to meet his for a second longer.
“I’m sorry,” I choked out. “So, so sorry. I swear I deleted it all, Hawk, even the backups. I don’t know what happened!”
I waited for his weight to crush me. At any second, the brutality flowing through his veins and tight grip was going to explode and I’d be the receptacle for it all. The thing he’d break and toss aside, shattering the same heart that had never recovered from seeing him in that courthouse, eyes filled with hate.
But the burning stretch of his body filling mine never came.
A question did.
“You didn’t hand it over?”
“Of course not!” I spun so fast I went light-headed. Once my vision cleared, I could see the furrow between his brows, the disbelief overwriting the harsh lines of anger. “Why would you even think that?”
His hands landed on either side of my head. “Because that’s what I was told,” he spat.
“By who?”
That muscle in his jaw jumped. “By the same man that had no problem handing you over to me.”
“Captain Holt? But...why?” I scrunched my nose up. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“Unless he wanted to shift the focus away from himself. He made sure to tell me right after the sentence was declared. That means something. I just don’t know what yet.” He glanced to the side, mind churning. “But you can be damn sure I’m going to figure it out.”
Hawk pushed off the wall, his focus elsewhere, at least until I stepped into his path. A shift was happening inside him. I could see it in his eyes, and I didn’t know what it meant. What I did know was that he was putting distance between us and that I wouldn’t survive another three years of silence.
“Do you...” I cleared my throat and tried again. “Do you believe me? I never meant to betray you. I wrote you so many letters trying to explain, but you have to believe me when I say that’s the last thing I would’ve ever—”
His frown deepened. “Letters?”
“You didn’t get them?”
“No,” he growled. “And I think I know why.”
“What—”
His lips covered mine, snatching my sentence from thin air. He cradled the back of my head as he kissed me slowly, like we had all the time in the world for him to taste my mouth. I melted into his embrace, barely aware that he was undoing the belt looped around my wrists until my hands were free to flatten against his chest.
I lived on the taste of him and the strong, sure beat of his heart beneath my palm.
And when he released me to zip himself up and collect his shirt in a bunched fist, I held onto that tingling feeling in my fingertips, praying it wouldn’t be the last time.
He grabbed my hand, brushing his thumb over my knuckles. “Do you trust me?”
How could I not? I wanted to say. I think I’ve been in love with you since the day you ignored a crowded bar full of beautiful women and pulled out a seat beside me.
“Yes,” I told him instead.
“Then believe me when I say I’ll be back. For three years I’ve thought about nothing but you, Jasmine Gates. There are things I need to tell you once I’ve figured some shit out, but this”—he waved back and forth between us like I’d done earlier—”isn’t over by a longshot, woman. And the next time I have you bent over in front of me I’m going to make you scream. That’s a fucking promise.”
He gave my hand a quick squeeze and left me like that, body aching, heart beating so fast I could hear the blood rushing in my ears.
Was I imagining things, or had that sounded a lot like...commitment?
Don’t put the cart before the horse just yet.
Great advice made harder to grab hold of when I was still wet and needy. So, I pushed those thoughts away and let logic dictate my next steps. I needed to retrieve Lucille from my neighbor who watched her while I was gone. But first, and equally as important, I needed a long, freezing-cold shower before I burst into flames.
Chapter Eleven
Hawk
The urge to find Jasmine’s captain and rip his head from his shoulders with my bare hands was a difficult beast to fight. She got me through it without even being near me. All I had to do was think of how goddamn lucky I was that I hadn’t found out too late.
She would’ve willingly let me do whatever I wanted to her because she felt guilty. But as I returned to the simple, two-bedroom I considered home and started placing calls and sending messages, I breathed easier knowing that the revenge I’d held onto for so long had been directed at the wrong person entirely.
Of course, then it pissed me off all over again to know how much time I’d wasted that didn’t have to be. If I hadn’t been so mad at her, maybe I would’ve questioned why she never once reached out. Instead, I’d been content to sit and stew in my fury until it was all I knew. Meanwhile, Captain Holt had waved her in my face like a red flag to a bull.
He’d put my woman at risk, and I’d been too blind to see it.
My doorbell rang early the next morning. Sleep had eluded me the entire night, but a sense of purpose kept my limbs energized as I stomped to the door and threw it open. The emissary on the other side grinned at my appearance—wrinkled shirt, baggy eyes, permanent snarl—and stepped inside without being invited.
“I knew it was about time for you to show your face,” Collin said, swinging a backpack from his shoulder and adjusting the collar of his leather jacket.
I’d never met a man more likely to smile in your face while he pulled the trigger than Collin Brandt. He had to be the most happy-go-lucky criminal in existence. Then again, what did he really have to worry about? As long as he wore that jacket—the bloody number seven sewn into the back with a barbed letter S wrapping around it—he was untouchable.
No one in the Carolinas was dumb enough to get on the bad side of the Seven Sinners. That was a one-way ticket to the grave, and if there was one thing most criminals could agree on, it was that they liked breathing. I fell into that same category.
I’d met with their Prez once to negotiate how we’d split our interests around the city, and once had been fucking plenty.
I knew hard men. I’d fought them, killed them, worked alongside them. At this point, I was convinced that Creed wasn’t a man at all, no matter what they claimed about him settling down with some girl.
He was pure war distilled into a heavily tattooed shape that just so happened to pass for a person.
I closed the door behind Collin and looked him up and down, noting the sweat beaded across his forehead. “Do you ever take that damn jacket off? You’re going to give yourself a heatstroke one of these days.”
He shrugged. “If I do, make sure you bury me with it. It’ll definitely get me into the VIP section when I arrive at hell’s gates.”
“That’s...not something to brag about.”
“You’re just saying that because you don’t know what it’s like. You could’ve joined, you know.”
“I said it before, and I’ll say it again.” I headed toward the kitchen, leaving him to follow. Yesterday was catching up quickly, and I needed coffee if I was going to get my other business done. “Hard pass. I’m not interested in living in anyone’s shadow.”
And that was exactly what he and the others in his position were doing. I didn’t fault them for it, but it wasn’t my jam. I was unapologetically me, and attempting to curve that in order to answer to the higher-ups in a club would do nothing but put me on a head-on collision with immovable objects. Which was why we had an arrangement in the first place. They handled the vast majority of the city’s underbelly, and I wined and dined the working class into arrangements that would be favorable for all of us.
That was a nice way of saying that I provided the assurance they wouldn’t find any Sinners knocking on their door. Better the devil you knew and all that.
“Never hurts to ask,” Collin said, leaning against the countertop between us while I got the coffee going. “Although when you didn’t call me to get you out, I figured you still had your head up your ass about the whole thing.”
“Three years in a cage versus being in debt to Creed?” I shook my head. “Not even a question.”
“Hawk, you are one stubborn motherfucker.”
“Yeah, yeah, kiss my ass later. Did you bring what I asked for?”
“Like you even have to ask. You know the C-Man always delivers.”
My eyelid twitched, but I knew better than to say anything about him referring to himself in third person. I settled for letting a frown form as he opened his backpack and pulled out several folders, arranging them across the counter.
I grabbed a few and flipped through them quickly, pulse speeding as I found everything I needed to put a certain someone in a bad position. “How the hell did you get all this so quickly?”
Collin lifted a dark brow. “I’ve had it. We started digging the moment you got put away. Something didn’t smell right.”
A vein in my forehead throbbed and I dropped my head to my chest, forcing my breathing to steady.
Do not murder him. He’s being helpful. He’s—
“You knew this motherfucker was dirty?” I hissed between my teeth. “And you never thought I might want that information?”
Collin lifted his hands, flashing another gigawatt smile. “Hey, don't get all pissy at me, man. Since your memory seems to be on the blink, let me remind you that I tried to talk to you about this when you started seeing that desk jockey chick.”
“Jasmine,” I barked, doing my best to glare a hole right through his fucking face. “Her name is Jasmine, and she’s not just some paper pusher. Not to me.”
“Yeah, I kind of figured that since I bumped into you coming out of the jewelers that day. You still got the ring?”
Fuck, I had forgotten I saw him. Now that I was thinking about it, I could remember his grin being twice as annoying as usual, but I didn’t recall anything about the conversation. Probably because I’d been too busy having an internal meltdown over the fact that I’d just bought a ring for a woman who had yet to spend an entire night sleeping beside me. Talk about skipping every step in the book and then some.
Except I hadn’t been able to help myself.
The idea of having her at my side for the rest of our lives was intoxicating. I’d gone through most of that month in a joyful blur. The only thing that had interrupted it was later that same night when I’d hung in the shadows near the precinct to surprise her, and stumbled upon that drunk-ass bum who put his hands on her.
It was a miracle I hadn’t killed him, and the miracle was named Jasmine. I’d needed to know she was alright, so I’d stopped laying into him. Cleaning up the mess and everything else afterward had stolen the shine from the night and turned it into a blur. I barely remembered the ring in my pocket until we’d parted ways. I never got a chance to do more with it because the very next morning I’d been arrested.
“Yeah,” I said. “I still have it.”
“Then why haven’t you given it to her?”
I poured a pot of coffee and took a sip so I wouldn’t bite his head off. Collin was nosey by nature, but he wasn’t a bad guy. I’d hesitate to call us friends, but that didn’t mean he had any ulterior motives for this line of questioning either. After all, he’d delivered everything I needed barely twelve hours after I asked for it. Those weren’t the efforts of an enemy.
And let’s be real. If I’d made an enemy of the Sinners, I wouldn’t be breathing.
My fingers tightened around the mug. “It would look insane; that’s why. I’d known her for a month before all the other bullshit went down. We’ve never even been on a real date.”
“So?”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “What the fuck do you mean, so? Women want candlelit dinners and roses and slow dances to their favorite songs about a thousand times before the suggestion of marriage gets brought up.”
“Right.” He nodded slowly. “Chicks in general dig all the romantic shit for sure. But you just told me she’s not just some chick. So, instead of sitting around ruminating on what she might or might not want, how about you get off your ass, find out, and then go for it?”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“Convenient, but aren’t you forgetting something?” I waved a hand down my side. “Violent, ex-con, active criminal, etc.”
Collin laughed. “Man to man, you’re being a total fucking pussy right now.”
I rose to my full height. “Excuse you?”
“Callin’ it like I see it is all.” He snapped his fingers. “Holy shit, that’s it. I’ve been thinking about doing a talk show on my life, but I didn’t have a catchy title. Guess you’re good for something after all. It can be Callin’ It with Collin.” It should’ve been impossible for his grin to widen any further. It wasn’t. “Yo, the women are absolutely going to love this.”
“Why did I let you in my house again?”
“Because you needed my info before you got your girl back. That’s the plan, right? To keep her?”
I didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
“Then follow through, Hawk. You’re right, maybe hold off on the ring for a bit so you don’t scare her ass away, but that doesn’t mean get rid of it. Just give things some time.”
“I can’t believe I’m listening to advice from you of all people.”
He grabbed his backpack and threw it over his shoulder once more. “Don’t worry, I’ll put a bill in the mail. I also take cashapp, paypal, and standard debit and credit cards.”
I put the coffee down. “Don’t push your luck.”
“Worth a shot. You know how eager people are to part with their money these days? I hardly need to do illegal shit at all.”
“Good for you?”
He patted himself on the back with his free hand. “I know. Admittedly, I impress myself more than I probably should. So”—he nodded to the folders—”are you going to need some of my guys on clean up?”
The casual statement was sobering, and my focus returned to where it should be. The piece of shit who almost cost me the woman I never wanted to be without.
Despite our jokes and bluster, this was who we were. We lived by our own rules and decided who lived and who died as we saw fit. Holt’s death would be well-deserved. I wouldn’t lose sleep over putting him in the groun
d, that was for sure.
“Nah,” I told Collin. “I have something else in mind for him. Appreciate the information though.” I cleared my throat. “It means a lot.”
He licked his fingers and smoothed his brows. “Don’t go all sappy on me now. Save that shit for after the job is done. And if you need anything else, call this time, will ya? I had a little bit of fun hearing about the name you made for yourself behind bars, but it was still boring as fuck out here. I don’t know how you deal with all those prim and proper cunts.”
“If you fucked up any of my deals...I swear to God.”
He raced for the front door, a clear admission of guilt if there ever was one. “See you around, Hawk!” he called over his shoulder. “Since you’re so fond of desk jockeys, I recommend not letting that one get away from you.”
“You mother—”
The door slammed as he dashed through it, leaving me to shake my head at his absence. His delivery needed work, but he was right, much as I hated to admit it.
There wasn't a chance in hell I was letting Jasmine slip through my fingers. She was it for me. My number one priority. The only woman I wanted to close my eyes holding and wake up to again and again and again.
We'd already wasted too much time, and I wasn't inclined to waste any more.
So, I'd deal with Captain Holt.
Then I'd put all my cards on the table and claim her as mine. God spare the fool who got in my way, because I damn sure wouldn't.
Chapter Twelve
Jasmine
“Is your vagina made of pixie dust?”
Those were the first words out of Rachel's mouth as I opened the door for her and Gina. It was our bi-weekly girl's night where we got together, drank wine, and laughed at movies until we about peed ourselves.
Since two of us—Gina and I—were on the force, and Rachel had a demented mind anyway, we usually ended up watching a string of gory horror marathons instead of the soapy romances most people would probably expect.
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