by Vivian Lux
But then, she sagged a little. And that was almost worse.
The look of defeat that slid over her face was more terrifying than her fury.
"Okay," she said sadly, and headed back in.
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Okay," I said, trying to gather my thoughts. Jackson was watching me closely. "So. We'll talk about all this later," I said, gesturing to him and his plastic sheeting loincloth. "Right now, you need to put on pants, before the police you're about to call arrest you for public nudity.”
"What? I'm covered!" he protested. Then he looked down.
The sheeting was completely transparent, and left absolutely nothing to the imagination. I wrinkled my nose and looked away.
He let out a short laugh. "Oh, I see. I guess you seen enough of my dick for one evening?"
"Fuck off," I laughed, some of the tension draining out of my shoulders as I did.
Jackson grinned. "You can look again. One more time. If you need to."
I shook my head. "You are such an asshole," I said.
He shrugged and looked over his shoulder back into the restaurant. "Yeah," he said. "At least that much hasn’t changed."
I heard the meaning in his words. That hadn't changed.
But everything else suddenly had.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Jackson
The police officer introduced himself as Officer Abbott and acted like he and Bee were old friends. He was also completely in love with her. That much was apparent from the dumbstruck look on his face as he watched her speak and the furious nodding he did as he wrote down what she said.
Can't say I blamed the guy at all.
Officer Abbott had taken photos of the graffiti first and then asked if we could head inside so he could get a statement. I gently steered Bee away from her damaged store and back into the restaurant, sitting her down so her back was to the window that faced the worst of the vandalism. I couldn't keep myself from brushing her arm, sweeping her hair back from her shoulder and pressing my palm to the small of her back. Just touching her. Just so she knew she wasn't alone. That I was here — fuck — that we were here. Outside of the window, Finn was furiously scrubbing away the graffiti. He looked like he was ready to scour the walls back to the studs if that's what it took to get it right for Bee.
We were here. She didn't have to do this alone.
"So," Officer Abbott said. "It happened again, huh?"
Bee was perched on the edge of one of our tables. Her back was straight and tall, and her hands were calmly folded in her lap. She looked perfectly poised and composed. But I liked to think I knew her well enough to recognize the signs of agitation. The high spots of color on her cheeks. The bloodlessness of her lips, and the biting clip to her voice as she said, "I guess so, Jerry," with a tight smile. "I guess it did happen again."
"Well you know, I promised to get to the bottom of this," Jerry said, looking rueful. "But I have to say, whoever is doing this times it for when our patrol car isn't going by."
"Seems that way," I interjected angrily
Bee shot me a look, and gave a slight shake of her head.
I grimaced, and looked down. It hurt like hell to hold my tongue, but I did it for her sake.
"So, I've been meaning to ask you," Jerry asked. "Have you any idea about who we should be checking out? You told me there was nobody who had it out for you."
Bee squirmed a little, leaning back and drumming her fingers against the surface of the table. "Well now, Jerry," she said with a sigh. "I'm afraid that's not entirely true."
Jerry leaned forward. "You have an idea who might've done this?"
I could see her swallow, the rise and fall of her delicate throat. "You mean who do I suspect?" she asked with a heavy sigh. "Well, there are a lot of people angry at me, I guess."
I sat up a little straighter, leaning forward. She caught the motion, and ducked her head looking reluctant. "Go ahead," I whispered.
"Well," she said. "There's my dad."
"Your own father?" Jerry asked, sputtering.
She laughed tightly. "Yeah, he's probably pissed at me for wasting the money he spent on my wedding," she said. "But spray paint isn't really his style."
Jerry looked completely dumbstruck. Just like how I felt. Bee looked down. "Then, there's my mother. She hates the fact that she has a divorced daughter. Totally ashamed of that failure."
She sniffed. "But she'd never risk getting her hands dirty. Or staining her clothes with black paint."
"Who else?" Jerry asked, furiously scribbling in his notepad.
She darted another look at my direction. "It's okay," I told her. And I was telling the truth. I didn't give a shit about her past. I only cared about being part of her present.
She looked down again. "Well, there's my ex of course." She pressed her lips together and looked so sad for a moment that I wanted to gather her up in my arms and hold her tight. "But I don't think it's him."
Jerry was leaning almost off of his chair. "Make sense to me," he said with a knowing nod. "Bitter ex-husband, wanting to intimidate his wayward bride."
Bee looked up sharply. "No. That's not his style at all," she said fervently. "Zach, he likes to pretend that this whole thing — the leaving him, the divorce — is all me just being irrational. That I'll realize my mistake, and come home to him any minute now." She spat her words out with such venom I was almost afraid for the guy. Almost. "Honestly?" she went on. "I think he cared so little about me that he wouldn't even notice that I was gone."
A flash of anger struck me, and I sat back in my chair. My hands curled around the arms as if they were her ex-husband's throat. I wanted to shake all of these people and scream in their faces, demand to know what the hell they were doing. Didn't they know who she was? Didn't they understand what they had?
At the same time, as I watched her with her head still held high, I was in awe of her. This was her family, her husband. And she'd left them, all of them, and struck out on her own.
This girl was incredible. There was no denying it.
Jerry asked another couple of questions, seeming to wrap up his investigation. He stood up, and Bee shook his hand, lifting her chin fiercely and looking him in the eye. "You're gonna fix it, right Jerry?" she asked, and her voice was clear and commanding, and I swear I was ready to join the police academy just so I could take care of it for her.
"I'm going to do my best, Beatrix," he said, and I sincerely believed that he was. "You take care now," he said, looking between me and her. Then his eyes rested on me. "You take care of her," he said seriously.
"Oh he's not..." Bee started to say...
But I cut her off. "I will," I said, looking her in the eye.
Her lips parted, and I saw her tongue flick out nervously twisting around and around and I had to strongest desire to kiss her right there in front of Jerry.
I got up from my chair and went to her, sliding my arm along the small of her back. At that moment, Finn came in from outside, reeking of solvent and looking royally pissed off. When his eyes landed on Bee, and me with my arms around her, I held my breath, wondering if I'd misread things. When I said she was our girl, I didn't realize how serious a claim that was until just now.
"Goddammit." Bee slid down into one of the chairs like all the wind had gone out of her sails. "I can't keep doing this."
A little ripple of fear went through my body. "Doing what?" I asked.
"Cleaning off my store!" she half-laughed, half sobbed and a small, mean part of me was relieved that that was all it was. "I mean look at it! Someone clearly doesn't want me here. Someone is trying to send me a message." She looked up and bright tears gleamed in her big brown eyes. "Maybe I should actually listen to them?" she asked.
"No," Finn growled.
She looked at him wildly. "Why not? I can't fucking do this anymore. Maybe I should just go home."
"To who?"
"My husband?"
"The guy that stepped out on you?"
"The police will find them," I promised her.
"Yeah but then what?" she asked. "I mean, what's keeping me here? Pride? I'm all alone..."
"No you're not," I interrupted.
Finn nodded and stepped to her. "No," he repeated, tilting her chin up with his fingers. "You're not."
"We'll help you," I said, squeezing her a little tighter. "We're here."
She swallowed and then something inside of her broke, I could see it. Whatever tension that had been wound way too tight suddenly snapped, and she collapsed against my chest.
"I've got you," I whispered, stroking her hair back as she sobbed against my shirt. "We've got you."
"You're okay," Finn echoed, rubbing her back. "You're not going to let this stop you."
"You're too talented," I added.
"And too damn smart."
"And fuck if you're not stubborn enough to make it happen just by sheer force of your own will," I observed.
She laughed through her tears and looked up at me and then down at my shirt. "I got you wet," she mumbled, dabbing at the soaked patch on my shirt.
I kissed her forehead. "Consider it payback for when I got you wet," I said with a grin.
She laughed and then sniffled and looked up at Finn who silently handed her a tissue. His eyes bounced from me to Bee. He stepped forward, and slid his arm around her back so that it rested just on top of mine. "Come on," he said, slipping right into mother hen mode. "You're exhausted, sweet girl." He looked over the top of her head, and caught my eye. I nodded, he nodded back.
Right. Got it. She was our girl.
"Come on sweetheart," I said. "We're taking you home."
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Bee
No one spoke as we walked through my front door.
And I didn't stand in the entryway and welcome them into my home. I didn't give them a guided tour of the rooms, chattering aimlessly about my decorating scheme and how hard it was to find a couch small enough to fit in my shoebox sized living room. I didn't rush to the kitchen to slam open cupboards and drawers.
I felt no need play hostess. No drive to pour drinks and lay out something for them to eat.
Finn and Jackson were guests in my home. I felt that on an instinctual level. But I had no thought about treating them that way. It went against every fiber of my upbringing, but I somehow was able to see them as...
Belonging there.
Finn's hand rested at the small of my back, and I leaned into it, needing to feel that gentle, warming pressure as he guided me upstairs. I felt like it kept me from falling. I was suddenly so goddamned tired.
"Which room?" Jackson asked in a soft murmur. I gestured to the door on the right, and he opened it. My habit of keeping all the doors closed in my house was a holdover from growing up in a bed and breakfast where privacy was never guaranteed. I still kept it on, even though I now lived alone.
But right now, I wasn't alone.
Jackson walked into my bedroom, looking for all the world like he belonged there, and pulled back the sheets on my bed. I let out a grateful breath, and felt myself pulled, almost as if it had its own special gravity dragging me towards it.
I slid in and rolled over, and looked up at Jackson. "Are you going to tuck me in?" I asked, grinning.
"You want me to?"
"You know?" I exhaled. "Nobody ever has before."
Jackson winced a little, and then gave a soft smile. "Here," he murmured, grabbing the covers and tucking them up under my chin. "Okay?"
I closed my eyes. I'd never felt more snug or more protected in my entire life. I let out a deep sigh. "Okay," I replied.
Jackson leaned over and brushed his lips across my forehead, still so gentle, still so caring. My eyelids fluttered a little, and I opened them wide before I fell asleep with them still standing there.
"Okay?" Finn said softly, perching at the side of my bed.
I nodded.
He leaned in, reaching to press his lips to mine.
And it was at that moment, the most tender, most caring moment in my life thus far, that Mitzie Jenkins decided to begin her nightly performance.
"Oh my God what the fuck is that?" Jackson cried, running to the window.
I clapped my hands to my face and started laughing. What else could I do?
"There's some lady in the middle of your street playing the bugle," Finn observed dryly as he looked out of my window. "Wait a minute, isn't the same woman from the store?"
I nodded behind my hands. "The very same.”
"Does she do this every night?" Jackson asked, completely bewildered.
"Every Tuesday night. I think. I'm not always here at this time."
"Oh my God. She's terrible," Finn observed.
"She's good at Taps," I said, feeling the perverse need to defend my neighbor.
I pushed back the covers and slid to the floor, padding over to join them at the window. "She doesn't have talent, but you gotta give it to her, she certainly has style," Jackson said, watching my caftan-clad neighbor, today dressed head to toe in shimmering emerald green, sway her hips to the beat.
Hysterical laughter bubbled up on my lips, pouring out of me like a waterfall, and suddenly I couldn't stop. All the attention, all the weirdness, all of the feelings I'd been trying to keep inside of me bubbled up to the surface, and suddenly, without even really meaning to, I was kissing them.
Both of them.
Jackson's lips curled against mine, the shape of his smile burning into my skin as he pried my mouth open to twine our tongues together. I tangled my hands in his hair, wondering how it was that I'd ever thought his hair was too long. It was the perfect length, just right for raking through my fingers as I kissed him, the strands more silky than they had any business being. I felt Finn's lips trailing upward against my neck, and suddenly I needed him too. Whirling around, I found his lips, and his hard, insistent, possessive kiss laying claim to my mouth. I loved how differently they both kissed me. I loved their differences, how they played off each other, parts of a whole.
They completed me.
Finn backed up, guiding us towards my tiny twin bed. I wrapped my legs around him, still kissing him, as Jackson lifted my shirt from my head. "I don't need any direction," Jackson growled to Finn, as he kissed a trail down my spine, making me shiver against Finn's lips. "I know exactly what I want to do to her, and I'm doing it right now."
"Not if I get there first," Finn snarled, and I yelped in surprise, as he whirled me around and laid me flat on my back. "It's going to be a shame not watching your face while I make you come with my mouth," Finn growled sending a shiver through my body. "But it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make in order to taste that sweet pussy."
He yanked down my jeans, sending them flying, I gathered a fistful of my bedspread, certain that if I didn't hold onto something tightly, I'd fly away. Jackson knelt up on the bed, cradling my head in his lap, and I could feel his growing bulge, pressing against my cheek as he watched what his friend was doing to me. We both looked down, and the sight of Finn kissing a trail up my thighs, his blond head gleaming in the late evening sun that spilled from my window had me so worked up with desire for him, for both of them, that when his tongue found my center, I fucking exploded.
"Oh my God!" I gasped, arching up, already right there, right where he'd had me ever since I first saw him — needing him, wanting him. It was so much, so much more than I ever dared to hope for, to dream of, and when I looked up and saw Jackson looking down at me, his face rapt with attention as he stared in wonder, it was so fucking perfect it made my head swim. I snaked my hand upward, grabbing ahold of him like a drowning man grabs a life vest, and pulled him down to kiss him as my world exploded.
No sooner had my c
ries subsided than I heard the jingle of Finn's belt buckle. Jackson growled against my mouth, and he pulled back up. "Yes," I told him. "Please. You too." I was almost begging.
Jackson rumbled something very profane, the kind of talk that would have made me blush before, but now only made me feel cherished. And as Finn slid his impossibly hard cock inside of me, I opened my mouth to fit my lips around Jackson's cock.
"Oh shit," Finn growled as he started to move in slow, delicious strokes. He circled his hips, touching each one of my secret places. "Oh shit. Fuck. If I'd known you felt this good Bee, I would never have let Jackson be the first one to fuck you."
"If I'd known how good her mouth felt," Jackson retorted, in a snarl, "I would've never let you fuck her mouth first."
I mumbled something, but my words were stifled when Jackson slid his hand in my hair. I moaned my approval as he began to move my head, testing, sliding himself further and further down my throat. I pushed myself, wanting to take him all in, and when my nose jutted up against his base, I inhaled sharply, filling my lungs with the scent of him, that herby, clean fragrance that clung to him. "Holy shit. Girl your mouth is amazing," he growled, pulling back.
I gasped, looking up at him, eyes stinging, and he kissed my swollen lips. "Again," I gasped.
"Shit," Finn growled. "You should see her face right now."
"I do," Jackson rasped. I could feel him thickening in my mouth. I had no idea how it was that he could get so hard, but it felt so good against my tongue that I became a wild woman.
"Goddamn, Bee. You're amazing," Finn declared, and at that, he reached down, pressing his thumb to my clit as he pumped himself inside of me. I shrieked around the shape of Jackson's cock, feeling that white-hot coil gathering in my core again. "That's right, moan with his cock in your mouth. Holy shit, this is the sexiest fucking thing I've ever seen." Finn's voice was tight, and as he pumped himself against me, I could feel him getting harder and harder inside of my pussy, and what was left of my inhibitions fell away. I grabbed ahold of Jackson's cock, propping myself up, so I could suck him more deeply, pumping my hand down the slippery length of him. "Shit Bee, I'm going to..." Jackson's voice hitched.
