367 Days

by Jessica Gadziala

  She got into a seated position first, her gaze going to the dumpster for a long time, likely thinking what I had thought- that she was tossed there like trash. That idea couldn't have been lost on her either, even disoriented and scared.

  She slowly got up onto her feet too, swiping at her pants, a habit anytime anyone got up off the ground, but again, the movement was slow. So was it when she took a few feet toward Famiglia, likely thinking to go there for help. But then she looked at the lot and her shoulders slumped.

  There was nothing in that area and she had to climb a steep hill up toward town where I knew she hit the police station next. I watched as another camera angle popped up, likely something Barrett had done- cropped the images together. And I watched her obviously painful ascent up the hill, having to stop several times. By the time she got to the top, she stopped, falling down on her knees and cradling her head in her hands for a long second.

  Right fucking then, I wanted to rip the dick off the bastard who left her like that- alone, scared, confused, in pain.

  But Riya, being the strong woman I knew her to be, slowly got up on her feet, lifted her chin, and kept walking.

  Right out of our view.

  "Take a breath," Barrett said, drawing my attention. "And uncurl those fists." He was right, I had them curled enough to turn my knuckles white. "I was as pissed as you were when I saw it, but that won't get us anywhere."

  "Neither will this shit," I growled, waving my hand as the camera showed the people start pulling into Famiglia.

  "That's what I thought until I realized something..."

  "Spit it out. I'm short on patience right now."

  "Look," he said, coming around the desk to look at the screen, rewinding the video until he caught the van just starting to drive away, then freezing it.

  "What am I looking at?"

  "Look at the side of the van," he said. I leaned closer, squinting, not seeing anything. "Yeah, it's hard to see. Let me just adjust..." he said, hitting a couple buttons and the picture got more clear, higher in contrast. And I saw what he saw.

  "What the fuck..."

  "This isn't some typical rape-van. This is a work van. There is a decal on the side that they have tried to cover up for some company. If we find the company, we can find who drives it. Or, if it was sold, we can find the records for it." He paused, sensing my frustration. "Sawyer... it's something. It might take another couple days, but it's something to go on finally. No one has spotted the ex. No one is following Riya. No other cases like this are popping up. It sucks, but this is all we got."

  "You think you'll be able to figure this out?"

  "If I can't, I know some people who can. I mean, it will cost..."

  "I don't care what it costs. I want this shit figured the fuck out already."

  "So," he said, moving back to his side of the desk. "How did her re-do year go?"

  "Seen a lot of shit in my life. Never seen someone light up like that."

  "It led somewhere, didn't it."

  "Not your fucking business."

  "Maybe not. But that reaction tells me everything I need to know."

  He was quiet after that, but there was something in his shoulders, in his jaw, that told me he wanted to say something. "Say it."

  "Don't fuck it up," he said easily. "You're my brother and I know I should be on your side, but that woman needs someone who isn't going to fuck her over or get tired of her or just can't get his head out of his ass. And, bro, your head is pretty firmly stuck up there."

  "Am I really getting advice from a guy I have literally never seen with a woman?"

  He reclined back in his chair, pulling off his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose before giving me an almost uncharacteristically cocky smile. "I do alright."

  "Sure. But getting around isn't settling down."

  To that, his brow rose. "Settling down? You're settling down?"

  I shrugged. "I can't say what's gonna happen. But she's in my house. She'll be in my bed from now on. That's pretty fucking settled already."

  "She know that? I haven't known her too long, but I know her history and I think a girl like that might need things laid out pretty clear."

  "I recreated a year for her, complete with gifts that made her cry. And I told her I am taking her out tomorrow night and..."

  "And that maybe you are serious about her and plan to stay that way so she doesn't have to worry."

  "I might not have gotten that far."

  "Sawyer..."

  "Marg showed up to clean and I had to meet you. It was a busy morning."

  "Since you don't have to meet up with Alex, can I suggest making it a not-so-busy night where you let her in on this shit."

  "Alright, Dr. Phil, had about enough of this," I laughed, getting to my feet. "I want a call as soon as you have a name... before you start tracking down the vehicle itself."

  "Got it. Talk to Riya."

  "Jesus Christ. I liked you better when you were piled under endless sheets of paper and old coffee cups."

  After Barrett's, I headed to the office, knowing Marg was still up in my place and not wanting to get in the middle of whatever chick talk they might have been having. Marg had a lot of shit on me. I had no delusions about myself. I was a demanding boss. I expected a lot from the people who worked for me and didn't accept excuses. That being said, I never screamed at them and I didn't slave-drive them, I paid good salaries, and I provided an expensive (to me) as fuck, all-inclusive medical plan. Partly because Tig and Brock put their well-being on the line anytime they went on a job, but mostly because it was just the right fucking thing to do.

  I caught up on some of the cases I had been neglecting until I went to look out my window and noticed that Marg's car was gone.

  I finished up what I was doing, locked up, and made my way upstairs.

  It was almost disappointing to see everything back to normal. I wanted to watch her looking at the Christmas tree with wonder again or sipping out of her champagne flute or wearing the fucking birthday crown I bought for her.

  But, if I played my cards right and didn't fuck things up, I could see all that again. It was October. I could take her pumpkin and apple picking. Then we could carve them. On Thanksgiving, we could take it over to Marg's. Or, if she liked cooking, we could have Barrett over and do a small holiday ourselves. We could put up the tree again and open presents. We could watch the ball drop and drink too much champagne and ring in the New Year with some tipsy fucking.

  I wasn't someone who generally thought in the long-term. It wasn't that I was anti-commitment; it was that I just never really found someone who inspired me to look forward to sharing events with them. That didn't make me a dick, it just made me unwilling to settle for someone who didn't make me feel that way.

  So now that I found a woman who did, I was thinking about it.

  It really was that simple.

  But Barrett was right; I needed to make my thoughts clear to Riya. Granted, like I had told her, I was always someone to confront things, it was simply that I was somewhat unused to doing so about relationships.

  It was something I was going to get good at quickly.

  Slim was situated outside the bathroom door which was all I needed to see to know she was inside. And judging by the open bottle of Cosmo mix on the counter, she was using the bath bombs I bought her. Whatever the fuck those were.

  She looked positively shocked that I walked in without knocking and maybe it was a little bold of me, but I had literally touched every inch of her the night before and she hadn't shown any shyness, except maybe when I complimented her.

  "You've heard of knocking, right?" she asked, putting a hand over her breasts despite the bubbles being impossible to see through.

  "Yep, but where's the fun in that?" I asked, sitting down on the edge of the tub, putting the file I was holding in my lap.

  "Why didn't you tell me that you called Tig and Brock off their other cases to work on mine?"

  Marg had been
talking. I had expected nothing else.

  Her finally seeing a woman she approved of in my apartment must have been tantamount to an early Christmas to her.

  "Because it didn't seem necessary to."

  "It's my case. It's my lost year..." she insisted. A piece of hair slipped from the clip she had it up in and slid down to frame her face.

  "You're right," I agreed, reaching out to tuck it behind her ear. "It's your case and you have a right to know what we're working on." I guess I had just been trying to protect her from it all until I had answers for her.

  "So what have you been working on?"

  "Taking turns watching Michael's apartment building. That's gotten us nowhere. Mostly since no one has spotted him yet. The video from Famiglia gave us a van, but it had blackout windows and covered plates. We never saw who was driving it. But Barrett has a lead about some kind of covered up logo on the side. So that's where our focus is now. Well," I said, giving her a small smile, "that's where his focus is. Right now my focus is on you."

  "On me?" she asked, her cheeks getting just a tiny bit pink.

  "Yep. We got some shit to talk about."

  "Some... shit?" she asked, smiling a bit at the phrasing.

  "Yeah some shit. You and me shit. Starting with- there is a you and me, in case that wasn't clear between last night and this morning."

  "Ah... okay," she said, looking almost confused, like it was so foreign for a man to be upfront with her that it almost didn't make sense.

  "I get that the situation is strange and that this is all still new. But you've been in my place for a week and I'm not sick of you. I think that's a good sign. I actually fucking like all your girly shit laying around and I like coming home and seeing you there. I think that's about all I need to know at this point. Oh, and you're the best fuck I've ever had. There's that too." To that, she laughed a little, shaking her head at the bluntness, but seemingly completely not offended by it. "Speaking of," I said, reaching for the file on my lap and tapping her forehead with it.

  "What is that?"

  "This would be our test results."

  "I'm sorry... what?"

  "Well, Ashley ran tests on you- the full range from vitamin levels to an STD check. All clean, obviously. But that night after we kissed, I figured it was time for me to get checked out too. So mine are in here with yours. Negative. But I will give this to you."

  "No, it's okay, I..."

  "No," I cut her off, shaking my head. "You're going to take the file and look at it because that's the responsible thing," I said, reaching for her towel and drying her hands then handing it to her. I watched as she shrugged and opened the file.

  "Like you said- negative."

  "I like that you trust me, but on shit like this, you want to see for yourself."

  "That's true," she agreed with a nod.

  "So, real quick, know pregnancy isn't an issue, but are you at the point where you're comfortable not using condoms or you want to wait it out?"

  She looked almost taken aback at that. "Well, um... if all our tests are clean, I really don't see why we can't..." The rest of her sentence broke off on a squeal because as she was talking, I was stripping. And once she got to the point, I climbed in with her, the water sloshing up around the sides of the tub. "Sawyer, the floor!"

  "It will dry," I shrugged, reaching for her and pulling her against my chest. "Know what's good about this decision?" I asked, sliding her slippery body toward mine, putting her legs over mine so I could press my already-hard cock against her pussy. "We can have sex in the tub. Condoms and water are no fun."

  The second my cock pressed against her, her hands slapped down on my shoulders, her head falling back slightly, her lips parting on a silent moan.

  "Good, right?" I asked and she nodded, her eyes landing on mine, heavy-lidded, already hot for me. "You wanna take me in?" I asked and her hips raised up to do just that. I reached between us, grabbing my cock and holding it still so she could slide down on me.

  Her tight, hot, wet walls slowly grabbed me and pulled me inside. I took a deep breath as she took me to the base, holding still as she let out a low whimper.

  "Wanted you since the minute I woke up this morning, babe. I'll give you slow and sweet later. Give me hard and fast now."

  Her smile was slow and heated as she started grinding against me, as hard and greedy and needy as I felt. The water kept sloshing all over the sides as she arched backward a bit, letting my cock rake across her G-spot as she rode me, her moans getting louder, more frantic, her movements getting less controlled, more erratic as she got closer.

  "Sawyer..." she gasped, her pussy grabbing my cock harder than seemed possible as she paused. I slammed my hips upward and her walls started pulsating hard around me as she collapsed forward, crying out my name against my neck.

  I rocked through hers before I found mine, liking it a bit more than I thought I would to come inside her.

  She clung to me afterward, her body shaking slightly in aftershocks. I reached up, pulling the clip out of her hair and letting it fall around her shoulders so I could run my fingers through it. Never felt hair like hers- it ran through my fingers like silk.

  A while later, her arms and legs still around me tight, I finally broke the silence.

  "So what the fuck is a bath bomb?"

  EIGHTEEN

  Riya- 8 days

  He declared after that quick, hard, slippery sex we had when I dropped a bomb to show him what they did, that bath bombs were some 'crazy chick shit' that he just didn't understand.

  I found I kind of like that. It was masculine.

  Michael had more hair products than I did.

  It used to drive me up a wall when it all toppled off my counter when I put my hair dryer down.

  After the bath, Sawyer shooed me out of the bathroom, insisting on cleaning up his mess himself. I went into my room and got into panties and an oversize tee. When I walked back out, he was in low-slung black sweatpants in the kitchen, carving meat off the turkey.

  "Hope you like sandwiches and nuked sides."

  "That's the best part of the holidays. No real cooking."

  "What's your feelings on mayonnaise?"

  "About the same as my feeling on those squishy little disgusting things called avocados."

  "Right," he said with a smile. "What do you want on the sandwich then?"

  "The turkey and some salt. I'll heat up the sides," I said and we continued to work around the kitchen in harmony making dinner.

  Afterward, we took our food to the couch and ate while watching some cheesy made-for-TV Halloween movie.

  He grabbed a shirt and took Slim for a walk.

  Tired, I went off to my room to lay down.

  Only to realize that when Sawyer said there was a me and him, that meant that my ass belonged in his bed. A fact I learned when he walked right into my room with Slim on his tail, scooping me up, and dropping me down on his bed.

  A while later, I woke up to him running a hand up my thigh.

  After that, he did as he promised and he gave me slow and sweet.

  Then I fell asleep on his chest again.

  Sunday morning, I woke up in his arms and quickly learned that Sawyer was a very light sleeper. Because while he definitely was passed out when I first woke up, the second I shifted, he squeezed me and said in a groggy voice, "Another twenty."

  So I gave him another twenty.

  Then he gave me twenty minutes that had me seriously worried we would break not only the headboard, but through the wall, and topple to the ground below.

  "Okay. I need to go for a run. Do you run?"

  "I think I would if perhaps I was being chased. But even then, not likely."

  To that, he chuckled, shaking his head. "What'd you do at the gym if you didn't hit the treadmill?"

  "Mostly, I read a book on the stationary bike," I admitted, not embarrassed because I always worked up a sweat doing so. "Though, I really should get my membership back. Regain what I lo
st of my muscle tone."

  "For what it's worth, think you look great the way you are, but if you want to harden up, I'm for that too. Maybe we can stop over at Shane's gym this afternoon before you hole up to get pretty to go out tonight."

  "Sounds like a plan," I agreed. "Go get your sweat on. Slim and I will be couch potatoes."

  "Alright," he said, lacing up his sneakers. He stood, walked toward me, leaned down, and kissed me hard. "Be back in an hour."

  When he got back, he showered, we both dressed in bum-around clothes and hit the gym where I signed back up. Then we went back home and I spent way too much time holed up, trying to look perfect.

  The dress he picked was clinging with a square-cut neckline, but modest. The hemline was a tad shorter than I would have picked for myself, but I figured we would spend most of the night sitting down so I wouldn't have to worry about dropping things or someone seeing up my skirt.

  In the end, I put on mascara and some eyeliner, left my lips bare save for some lip balm, kept on Sawyer's necklace, slipped into the dress, got into the heels, wincing a bit at the sensation of high heels my body obviously hadn't been accustomed to in over a year.

  I put on a small amount of perfume, grabbed a clutch with my fake ID just in case, and stepped out into the hall, nearly falling over Slim in the process. Luckily, Sawyer was waiting in the living room and missed the clumsy almost-fall and I got to sashay out so he could look me over.

  And he did. Slowly.

  I looked him over too, never having seen him in anything but jeans and tees or workout clothes. Sawyer cleaned up, yeah, it was a sight to see. He had on dark gray slacks and a black dress shirt, both tailored to fit him perfectly. There was what looked like an expensive silver watch on his wrist and his hair was a bit neater than usual. Thankfully, he was still a little scruffy. I had a soft spot for his scruff.

  "Come over here," he demanded, patting his knee. I moved toward him and he reached up to grab me and pulled me to sit down on his thigh.

  "Thank you for this dress. And the shoes."

  "Looks better than I pictured," he said, fingers sliding up my thigh toward the hemline of my dress. "You know, we have about..."