by Robin Leaf
She takes a deep breath. “Okay, so who then?”
“Well, Crissy, this seems to be personal,” Fionn says as he lays out folders on the coffee table in front of us. “The way your clothes and other items were destroyed, someone has a lot of anger directed toward you.”
“Can’t it be some deranged Ignacio fan?” she asks, biting her thumbnail.
“It’s possible but unlikely. First of all, how did they know you were back in town? And secondly, remember when you left, the record company changed the name on your lease to its holding company to protect you and so it could pay your rent while you were gone, so your address is not public record.”
Why didn’t I know they’d done that? I run my hand over my head. “I wish they’d moved your stuff into storage.”
She turns to me, still biting her thumb. “But I wouldn’t have had anywhere to live when I came back.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to say she could have stayed here with me, but she’s right. When she left, I thought she was with Ignacio, and because of my investigation, we couldn’t have been together even if I knew she wasn’t with him.
Fionn clears his throat to break our staring contest before he gets us back on track.
“According to the lieutenant, the Taurus is registered to a seventy-six year old man named Wilbur Smith, who told Dan he gave the car to his granddaughter, Shawn, eight years ago. We ran her name and got nothing.”
“Wait, Lieutenant Dan?” She giggles. “Oh come on, guys. Forrest Gump? Lieutenant Dan?”
I shrug, having no idea what she’s talking about, but Fionn smiles. “We’ve razzed him about it a lot.”
She leans to me and whispers, “We’re watching that movie soon.”
I place my arm around her and smile to myself, making a note to find that fucking movie so we can watch it tonight like a real-live couple. Our first coupley act. I like that.
Fionn pulls a picture out of the file of a thin girl in a purple graduation robe with glasses, braces, and brown hair in braids. “The most recent picture he had of her was this one, which he says was taken the day he gave her the car.”
I look at the picture, feeling in the back of my mind that there’s something strangely familiar about the girl, but that may be because I really want it to be that easy.
“Do you recognize her, Cristiana?” I ask, pushing the picture in her direction.
Her mouth twists to the side as she studies it. “No… maybe. If I could see her eyes better… I just don’t know.” She sits back against the couch. “This picture is from eight years ago, and she probably has changed a lot since then.”
“Wilbur reports Shawn went to UCLA as a business major and graduated, but he didn’t know where she worked, just that she has been out of town on a business trip for a while, so it’s possible the car was stolen without her knowledge.”
Cristiana rubs her hands down her face and throws her hands out to the side. “Then why are we even discussing her if she is out of town?”
“Because the grandfather said she was due to return home this week, but he hasn’t heard from her in a couple of weeks. He’s actually worried about her.”
“What about the car?” I ask.
“Nothing much but a glove with red paint on the fingertip was left in the car. It hadn’t been hotwired, so whoever used it likely had a key. But there was a smear of blood on the steering wheel.”
“Fingerprints?”
Fionn shakes his head. “No hits.”
“And in her apartment?”
“They collected a piece of glass from the window with blood on it. Whoever broke the window cut their hand and probably didn’t realize it, which is why they didn’t wipe the steering wheel when they got out of the car. We’re waiting on the results to see if the blood matches what was found in the car, which it will. DNA takes a while.”
Fionn flips through the folder again, producing more pictures. He lays them out in front of us carefully. Most of them showing the destruction I expected to see, all the clothes and torn-up furniture. The words “Back Off” blazoned across her living room are pictured as well, but I since I didn’t get a good look in her bedroom, I’m kind of taken aback by the word spray-painted on that wall. “Slut.”
Cristiana turns pale, and her breasts start to rise and fall quickly. I’ve seen her like this once before, years ago in my car on the way home from that beach when she was freaked out but tried to act brave. I grab her hand like I wanted to back then, massaging it with my thumb.
“Nana,” I begin, trying to say it soothingly so I can ease into what I’m asking, “can you think of anyone you’ve had negative interactions with? Anyone who might know where you live?”
“Santa mierda, Noah, do you want a fucking catalogue of all the people I’ve ever negatively interacted with in my life, because there are probably more people I’ve forgotten about than I remember, and I remember a lot. How about we start with the second day of kindergarten when I smacked that puta, Ashley Carson, across the back of the head when she stole my paste.”
That sass, God I love it.
I smile, “She clearly deserved what she got, but can you think of anyone lately?”
She puts her free hand to her head, rubbing her temple. Her eyes widen and move back and forth, searching her brain for sense to all this.
We spend the next forty-five minutes going through anything she can remember about the last few months. Nothing seems like anything that would provoke this kind of angry response. At least not from someone sane.
“So we are back to a crazed Ignacio fan,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest, irritated that we spent almost an hour going through what she thinks is pointless information. “Which means it could be anyone.”
I scoot over, wrapping my arm around her and pulling her closer. She lays her head on my chest, but keeps her arms crossed, not entirely letting me in.
“We are not ruling anything out, cariño,” I whisper, dragging my fingers through her soft hair. “So for now, I want you to stay here where I can keep you safe.”
I feel her tense before she blows.
“No!” Throwing my arm off of her, she pushes off me to stand. “I am not staying here.” She punches downward, pointing her finger at the floor. “There is no fucking way I’m going to go back on lock down because another pinche machismo pendejo wants to, quote, keep me safe. I just got out of one situation like that.” She points her finger at me, trying to shoot machetes through her eyes. “I am not doing it again.”
Under normal circumstances, I would get her point, but for some reason, the fact that she lumped me in with that controlling asshole, Ignacio, not to mention the blatant disregard for her safety, pisses me the fuck off. I stand, stepping closer to her, lowering my voice to a growl.
“No. You are not leaving here with some crazy, knife-wielding psycho who’s fixated on you.”
She points to the center of her chest. “I can take care of myself. I’ve been doing a good job of it for twenty-six years.”
“Have you forgotten what happened when we first met? And how about the fact that you were associating with a drug dealer right under your nose at the strip club? Or that you got sloppy drunk on a job with me? Oh, and how about sneaking out of a secure hotel room so you can go get drunk with some stranger at a bar in the middle of the night?”
She steps back, widening her eyes almost comically. “Joe fucking tattled on me?”
“Point is that in twenty-six years, you simply got lucky when you made stupid mistakes. I’m not letting you take any more chances like those.”
“Stupid mistakes?” She screeches. “They weren’t stupid. Things just happened.”
“Well, since things ‘just happened’ while you are left to take care of yourself, you definitely need me to protect you.”
She stomps, balling her fists and slapping them against her thigh on every word. “It’s not your job to protect me.”
“Yes, it is. It is literally my job.” I take
a deep breath. “And even if it wasn’t, I would protect you. God knows you need someone to.”
She reaches up and pulls on the ends of her hair. “I don’t need anyone. I’m a grown-ass woman and can take care of myself.”
“You’re not acting like a grown-ass woman right now.” Lowering my voice, I add, “You can throw your little fit all you want, but you will be staying here.” I bend down to her eye level. “That’s final.”
Her chest heaves. Her nostrils flare, and her fists remain balled at her sides. I’m pretty sure, based on the murderous look on her face, she is contemplating either scratching my eyes out or punching me, aiming either at my throat or at my junk.
Holy shit, a mad Cristiana is fucking hot.
I feel all the blood rush to my dick. I just want to fuck that look off her face.
I wanna provoke her more just to see what she’ll do.
Stepping closer to get right in her face, I poke the beast within the beauty. “You think you wanna take me on, little girl? Bring it. You won’t win. Even if I have to tie you up, you’re not going anywhere.”
Thirty One
Cristiana
“Vete a la chingada!”
As I shout “fuck you” in Spanish right in his stupid, smug, handsome face, I really wish the spit flying out of my mouth was fire. How fucking dare he! I know my face is enflamed, and I have to stop myself from stomping my foot again like the little girl he just called me.
It’s hard to ignore his tying-me-up comment, especially since it made my clit throb.
He sneers a sinister smile. “Careful what you wish for, babe,” comes out of his mouth lowly, and holy fuck, why is it so fucking sexy?
When he stands tall, with his narrowing eyes and his arms crossing over his puffed-up, muscled chest, I notice it. Those sexy, low-riding pajama pants, with his underwear-less state, do nothing to hide the fact that he’s hard… like hard, hard. It’s pointing at me, bobbing slightly with each fast breath he takes, taunting me… daring me. Part of me thinks about ripping the judgmental appendage off his body, but the larger part of me, the part that I’m having major difficulty controlling right now, wants to jump on it and ride it angrily until I come, squeezing it off with my vagina. That’ll show him.
Thank God Fionn’s still here, otherwise I’d lose all restraint of that part of me. I look behind me for some backup from my best friend’s husband. That best-friend code should be bequeathed to her spouse in the event of her death, right?
Wait, where’d Fionn go?
Mierda.
“You are not keeping me here,” I declare with all the seething venom I can muster.
I mean, I am seething, but it’s mostly because I’m so fucking turned on.
His arms hitch higher on his chest, causing his heaving abs to ripple in my face. “Oh, yeah? Why?”
“Because I don’t even like you.” And the lame comeback award goes to me.
He laughs. Laughs. Oh, that’s the last straw, because now, I’m just simply livid.
I fly at him, jumping, ready to rip his perfect beard off of his pinche gorgeous face, but he catches me easily, walking three strides to the wall like I weigh nothing, and pins my arms above my head, shoving his thigh between mine to hold me up, feet dangling, while he thrusts his hard cock into my lower stomach.
“See, I think that’s the truth. You don’t like me.” His mouth descends close to my ear, and my traitor head tilts, letting him have access. He licks a trail up my neck, sucking my lobe into his mouth, not gently either, causing a flood of wetness to soak yesterday’s underwear. “You more than like me, Nana.”
I shake my head, but he adjusts his grip on my wrists to encase them both in one of his thick, meaty paws. The other slides down my arm slowly, across my collar bone, to my right nipple. He circles it with his fingertip. “These hard little nipples don’t lie.”
Fuck, I arch my back into his touch, trying to get him to move his finger where I want it, but no. He just circles around it. I growl. Yes, I fucking growl in frustration.
“I bet your pussy wouldn’t lie to me, either, cariño.”
“Don’t fucking call me that,” I pant.
He bites my neck gently. “I’m about two seconds away from fucking that sassy mouth of yours.”
He pinches my nipple between his thumb and forefinger, rolling it around in his grip. My hips start to move on his thigh, seeking friction without my expressed, written permission.
“Güero, it’d be real stupid to put your dick anywhere near my mouth right now.”
God, why can’t I sound threatening instead of like this lusty, thigh-humping hussy?
He smiles against my jaw. “Hmm, you’re probably right.”
Latching onto my neck, he sucks, letting go with a slurp, and I might have moaned. Okay, I definitely moan, dammit. What is wrong with me?
“Where should I put my dick then?”
“How about you try your own hand, güero?”
He smiles against my neck. “As I seem to recall, you rather liked watching that earlier. It made you come faster when I was licking your delectable pussy.” His nose moves up and down my jawline, lowering his voice to a whisper. “Or are you going to try to lie about that, too?”
I shake my head and try to focus on a way to get back to the matter at hand, if I could only remember what that was. And since I just thought the word “hand,” I’m vividly picturing his hand gripping his dick, his thumb caressing the tip, which isn’t making the situation any better.
“Here’s my plan,” his sexy, deep voice rumbles against my neck. “I’m going to rip off your shorts, lift you up, wrap your luscious legs around me, slide inside you, and fuck you against this wall. I’m not going to be easy. I’m not going to be gentle. I’m going to fuck you hard until you scream while you come so hard around my cock.” He pulls back to look in my eyes. “Then I’m going to fuck you some more.” His finger runs across my panting lips. “Do I need to explain the plan again?” I shake my head. “Good. Now. If you don’t want this to happen, you have about three seconds to stop me before I follow through on it.”
God, do I want this. I just don’t want the cocky bastard to know how much I want this. I want him to sweat it out, to make him work for it a little harder. It’s just that the ability to form the word “stop” has been robbed by my raging pussy and its need for Noah to execute his perfectly well-thought-out plan.
“Do what you need to do, güero.”
Santa mierda, soy estúpida.
If I had access to my hands, I’d slap my forehead.
Before I can say anything, he moves his thigh, and I drop to the ground as he continues to hold my wrists against the wall. His free hand unbuttons and unzips my shorts in record time, maneuvering them and my underwear quickly around my ass and letting both fall to the ground. His free arm wraps around my back, and as he lifts me, my traitor legs help him by jumping and wrapping around the tops of his hips.
It’s like his cock has a homing device, its own instinctual knowledge of my pussy, because less than a second later, he enters me without guidance. His head falls back, and the look of pure rapture on his face as he takes a second to feel every inch of his cock inside my slick walls is glorious. I mean, I feel it, too, but I can’t take my eyes off how it affects him. I can only gasp and moan.
Then, he begins. I’m slammed against the wall repeatedly, desperately, each thrust more punishing than the last. He releases my wrists to get a better grip on me, and I clasp his shoulders, digging my fingers in to hold on tight.
“You’re gonna feel me for days, cariño. Every step you take, you’ll be reminded who fucked you like this up against this wall.” He bends his knees and adjusts his angle, hitting a different spot that causes me to whimper. “Is that it, or do you like it here.”
With another slight angle change, he finds it, the spot, the one he was manipulating with his fingers this morning. It feels so much more intense with him slamming into it with his cock, especially sinc
e at this angle, his cock drags along my clit every time he moves. Two more of his ruthless thrusts, and the edges of my vision go fuzzy. My body wracks uncontrollably, my head tilts back against the wall, my thighs turn into vibrating vices against his hips, and I erupt in noises that can only be described as howling. He pulls me closer but keeps up his pace, hitting the same spot, making my orgasm go on for what feels like ever.
I bury my head in his neck and go limp, unable to command my body to do anything right now. I feel us move, but I’m too out of it to care. All I know is he’s sitting, I’m straddling his lap, and he’s still inside me.
His hands move up my back soothingly to my neck, and he moves my hair out of my face so he can pepper kisses on my cheek, over my eyelids, and down my nose.
“Hey,” he croons in my ear. “You okay?”
“No,” I croak. “I think you just killed me.”
He chuckles. “You have thirty seconds to revive.” Finding my lips, he swipes across them slowly. “According to the plan, I still need to fuck you some more.”
His hips rock upward, and I moan, reflexively squeezing my pussy around his cock.
“God, babe, do that again.”
I smile, loving my plan.
“I will,” I push off his chest to sitting with my hands on his shoulders, settling down fully on his cock and swiveling my hips in a circle. “If we can talk for a second.”
Narrowing his eyes, his hands grip my hips, trying halfheartedly to get me to stop. I smile, leaning forward and kissing him fully, but quickly.
“This is how it’s gonna go, güero.” I lift, letting his cock drag out of me slowly. “I’m going to be allowed to come and go as I please. You can either escort me yourself or assign one of your goons to go with me everywhere, but I am not,” I slam myself down on his cock, causing him to moan, “not, going to stay locked up here.”
Sitting back, I remove my shirt and bra in one step, and lean forward, settling my skin against his. It’s heady, feeling his warm chest grazing my nipples.
“Do we have a deal?”
He grabs my hips and thrusts upward, circling his hips like I did mine, finding the spot again, which is honestly pretty sore right now.
