by Finn, Emilia
He collects some with his finger, then with his left hand, he takes my wrist and pulls my arm away from my body. When the scar on my arm is exposed, he grins and rubs the moisture in, ignoring my shocked gasp. “It’s good for your skin, babe. I’ll happily supply you with more any time you’d like.”
I’m too stunned to do anything but watch his eyes. He concentrates on my arm, and I concentrate on him.
“I came here to apologize for scaring you away from the wedding you earned a seat at. You worked hard, and just when you get a chance to sit and relax, I was a dick.” He continues massaging my arm, but his eyes come back to mine. “I came to apologize, and maybe ask for a truce. Instead, I got you in the tub, and now I have a pretty little plaything, because we both know you want what I’m offering.”
“I want nothing from you.”
“You think feelings need to be involved, and I mean, you aren’t completely wrong. I feel a deep, heated, pulsing fucking desire to claim your firsts for myself. And you feel curiosity, temptation, and a little daring when you think of accepting my offer. I’ll take care of you, Priss. I promise you won’t feel lacking for anything.”
“I want a man who I can love. I’ve been saving myself for him.”
“And instead, you get me. Sometimes life ain’t fair, but when you look past what you thought you wanted and see what you’ve been given, you’ll realize that life doesn’t completely suck.” He leans forward and slides his tongue over my bottom lip. “First, your hand. I’ll teach you, Abigail. You don’t have to be scared. I’ll show you how to pleasure me with your hand.” He nibbles on my bottom lip and grins when I whimper. “Then your mouth. I’ll guide you through sucking me off, and you’ll like it. You’ll be happy when I come in your mouth as reward for your hard work.”
“Spencer…” I shake my head and try to escape him. “No.”
“Yes. And then I’ll claim you. First time will be gentle. First time will be for you. But after that, it’s for us. I’ll show you things you never would have guessed were possible, but you have to trust me to lead.”
“This isn’t…” I can’t catch my breath. I can’t keep up. “Spencer, you have absolutely no clue what you’re suggesting. I’m not the person you want me to be.”
“Yes you are.” He brings a strong hand to my jaw and pulls me back around. “You just have to stop worrying about what people think. You have to stop thinking altogether, because what a man and woman do in private has nothing to do with our heads, and everything to do with our instincts. Stop condemning yourself before you even try it. Now, are you going to be okay?”
“Hmm?” Dazedly, I lick my lips and try to focus. “What do you mean?”
“If I walk out of this bathroom right now, will you be safe in the tub? Or should I help you out?”
“I’m fine.” I clear my throat and try to ignore the cold chill that overtakes my body when his hand leaves my jaw and he stands tall. “Where are you–” I bite my words off. I don’t care where he’s going. I want him to leave.
“Come to me tomorrow, Priss. Come to my home. I’ll be waiting for you.”
He turns away and shows me his back as he dries his hands on a towel that remains rolled on the vanity. The muscles in his shoulders roll with his movements. He’s so broad up top, and tapers down to a trim waist, only to turn wider again around the thighs. He’s all muscle. No fat. So much power. And far too big for me to even consider matching myself against.
I drag my hand along my towel, over my chest, and stop just below my chin. “I can’t do this, Spencer. I can’t be your… your….” I gulp. “I can’t be your plaything.”
He turns to me when his hands are dry and chuckles. “You’re not paying attention, Priss. You’re already mine.”
9
Spence
I didn’t sleep a fucking wink last night after leaving Abigail’s apartment without her tucked under my arm. It would feel more natural to me to pick her up and bring her home, rather than leave her dazed and angry in her bathtub.
Why did I tell her to come to me, when I’ve already decided I don’t do virgins? I don’t do innocent. I don’t do feelings.
And she admits; she doesn’t do anything but feelings.
Do I think I can change her mind?
Does she think she can change mine?
What the fuck am I thinking when it comes to this chick? And why can’t I walk away when we both know I damn well should?
Gunshots ring out through my bunker-like place of business. The shooting range I busted my ass to build and get up and running. The place I double insulated, so my friends could shoot freely and not worry about intruding ears. The place I personally laid the foundations to, knowing it would be my new base once my friends took up residence in the town just a few minutes away.
The whole place is open to the public to come and learn, but my clientele is mostly my friends, and surprisingly, the local PD. They don’t advertise the fact they come here, but they take up my lanes every single day. Sometimes it’s the chief, sometimes it’s his deputy, and when they’re not here, it’s their chick cop making me want to slam her against the wall and fuck her out of my system.
Put a girl in uniform in front of me, give her a gun and twenty-twenty aim, and I’m like a rabid fucking dog wanting something to claim. But I never did. Not with Libby Tate. Because she was in uniform, she had a gun and twenty-twenty aim, and I don’t have a death wish.
Sometimes, off-limits is fun. Temptation makes things more exciting, and the payoff is sweeter. But other times, off-limits is just off-limits, and it doesn’t take a genius to know when something is a bad gamble.
Abigail is… walking a razor wire between a good and bad gamble. I don’t know if she’ll be my greatest conquest, or the beginning of my downfall. I don’t know if we’ll destroy each other, or if we’ll create something neither of us could expect.
She has fire in her heart. She has the attitude that turns me on and suggests that she’s not quite as delicate as I sometimes think. She’s still tiny, breakable, mild. But her fire bolsters her, it builds her up and makes me think she could be my equal.
I have the physical strength.
She has the mental.
And maybe between us, we might spark a wildfire that neither of us could have predicted.
I close my privacy door, the door that leads from my shooting range and into my private home and headquarters. I have an apartment built within my bunker, a one-bedroom space with all of the living essentials, but without the pretty little knickknacks I saw on the way through Abigail’s home last night.
She had a leather couch not too dissimilar to mine, but on the ends, she had fancy lamps and fluffy throw blankets.
I don’t have any of those.
She has a large screen TV not different from mine, but beneath hers, she has little decorations on display. Ornaments, souvenir shop bits and pieces that tell a man at a glance all of the countries she’s visited.
I’ve visited half of the world’s countries in the last ten years alone, but I have no souvenirs to show but a jagged scar on my left ribcage, and a slight limp when I’m exhausted and don’t want to walk anymore. Abigail has trinkets, pretty things, dust collectors that would annoy the shit out of me if they were laying all around my entertainment system.
But I asked her to come to me anyway.
Gunshots grow louder as I cross my building and head toward the firing lanes. I know who’s here; I always know who’s on my land. So I don’t bother slowing as I approach the couple who stand side by side.
Jay wears camouflage pants and heavy boots similar to mine. His broad chest stretches a plain black shirt, and a dark beanie molds around the shape of his head, despite the fact it’s not cold in here. He chooses to wear hats around the clock, as a kind of defense, I think, and a way to cover up the injuries that should have ended his life a little more than year ago.
Sophia stands beside him in jeans that fit like a second skin, combat boots that
always look out of place on her ballerina feet, but in the same breath, they look exactly right, because she might be the most badass chick I know. She wears a tight shirt with sleeves that go to her elbows, and at the ends of her hands, a shiny silver Glock that Jay demands she know how to use.
Sophia was never inept to start with, but she’s more of a mental and technological warfare kind of girl. She’ll take you down without leaving her desk, and though she knew long before she met Jay how to use a gun, it was never her first port of call. But since being back in town, he brings her down here several times a week to make sure her skills are honed. He’d prefer she knows how and not need it, rather than need it, but have no skill and no hope of getting out of a situation.
Jay isn’t the type to tell her to cower in the corner while he takes care of business. He teaches her his strengths, just as she teaches him hers.
They stand side by side now, with earmuffs covering their ears, glasses over their eyes, and a kind of silent competition going on between them as they aim and fire at a single target hanging fifty feet away.
Jay shoots, and then Sophia shoots and tries to place her bullet in the hole Jay created.
I stop at the entrance to their lane – a lane built for one – and cross my ankles while I wait. I have nothing to discuss with them, no news to share, no questions about Checkmate or the guys. But I also have nothing better to do right now, and if I spend another second thinking about Abigail, I might send myself insane.
Leave her alone, she’s off-limits. Or run to her, and bring her back to my bed until I no longer want her so bad that it makes me sick.
I don’t know the right answer. All I know is that she barely weighs a hundred pounds, she’s way too skinny for her own good, her freckles make me wanna pat her head, but her fire and her eyes make me want to hear her cry while I fuck her.
This has been the single most frustrating week of my life while I battle through what my body so clearly craves, and what my brain says fuck no to. And because my brain swears, even when it’s just an internal thought, I circle back around to thinking about my non-swearing, virginal church girl who wears too many clothes and refuses to show her body even when in the tub and coming on my hand.
My life has taken a fan-fucking-tastic turn.
When Jay and Soph’s shots slow, and then stop completely, they turn to me with wide smiles and zero surprise to find me here. I wasn’t noisy when I approached, but these guys are trained in the world of fight or flight, so they would have known I was here before I even crossed my ankles.
“Spencer.” Soph studies me with her pretty eyes, and makes me smile despite the fact I don’t want to. “You snuck out last night.”
I shrug and lower my eyes to study my boots. “Had business to attend to.”
“Hmm.” Jay removes the spent magazine from his gun and pushes in a brand new lot. “Business to see to. Does your business have fire for hair, and cool eyes that I wanna stare into to make sure the colors don’t swap back and forth?”
“Don’t stare at her eyes, fucker.” I push up straight when the couple move past me and out of the booth. Those lanes are made for one person at a time, but we have three bodies in there, and only one of them is small. “I had to go find her.”
“Did you apologize for scaring her away?” Soph makes herself at home as she crosses the room and pulls out a chair at the fold-out table we often play cards at.
As men, as military men, we should be playing poker, but seeing as most of those men are whipped little bitches, and their girls don’t know how to play poker, we play Go Fish and pretend we still have balls in our pants.
“I know you made that girl cry, jerkoff. I could see it in her cool eyes.”
I scrape my chair along the concrete floor and pull it out. Dropping down opposite Soph, I fold my arms again, which only reminds me of Abigail and how she covers herself up when she’s feeling vulnerable.
“I went to find her. I told her I was sorry.”
“Did she accept your apology?” she scowls. “Because there’s a difference between telling someone you’re sorry, and actually getting that message across so they believe you.”
Mad about something I don’t know about, Jay throws his hands into the air. “I said I was sorry, okay! A guy fucks up one time, and he has to grovel for six years before she stops bitching about it.”
“Right, because calling it bitching and rolling your eyes is the perfect way to earn forgiveness.”
“What did you do?” My eyes flicker from Soph to Jay. Back and forth between her sour expression and his exasperation. “What did you do to your sweet ballerina, Bishop?”
“Sweet?” He scoffs, but quickly locks it up again when Soph glares. “She’s a tyrant, man.” He leans across the table and practically pleads. “Save me.”
“Jay thought it would be clever to make a copy of Jess and Kane’s marriage certificate.”
I narrow my eyes. “Okay…”
“He then proceeded to mark their names out and add ours.”
My lips twitch. Of course he did. “Okay.”
“He thinks asking me to sign a photocopy of a scribbled-on certificate is the same thing as getting married.”
“We got married, Sugar Plum! No take backs.”
“We did not get married, dummy. You shoved a wrinkled piece of paper in my face and demanded I sign. When I said no, you signed for both of us. That’s not marriage, that’s delusion.”
“You said ‘I do’!”
“You asked if I’d like a fresh drink from the bar. I said I do.”
“That’s ‘I do’! Those are the magic words, Sophia!”
“We are not married,” she growls. “There are no magic words. This isn’t a genie deal! What you have is a useless piece of paper and an empty glass of merlot. Pull your head out of your ass, and think with your brain.”
“It could be real,” he pouts. “All you have to do is change some digital files. It ain’t like you haven’t done that shit before. We could be married and on honeymoon by now. But noooo, you think because I signed for us both, it doesn’t count.”
“It doesn’t! Jesus, Jay. I would marry you if you asked properly. I would say yes if you actually tried, got down on one knee, pledged love and loyalty. I would fabricate files and backdate it if it meant so much to you, but I want my own proposal. I want love, not your brother’s leftovers. Why is that so hard to understand?”
“You would marry me?” Jay’s eyes soften. “Really?”
“Yes, really! I love your stupid face, and plan to keep you around. I know I act like I don’t need the romance sometimes, but I’m only getting married once. Forgive me for wanting my own fucking proposal!”
“Would you wear a tutu, Soph?” He leans in close enough that I know they’re going to be fucking on our card table in just a few minutes.
If Abigail was here, she’d be blushing and running away. Instead, I sit and watch the train wreck that is Jay’s entire relationship. It’s pure luck that Soph likes trains, I guess.
“Instead of a regular gown, would you wear a tutu for me?” He tugs her a little closer and presses his lips to hers. “I just want the yes and the dress. Everything else, I’ll do for you. I’ll propose.” He nods, as though that’ll help him convince her. “I can do it up big. Maybe we could go on a hot air balloon ride? Or I could take you to Paris and propose at the top of the Eiffel Tower.” He turns to me. “Right?”
“Right.” I sit back and smile. “That’ll do it.”
He turns back to Soph. “I could propose with a sky writer. Or I could climb the outside of the Empire State Building.”
“That’s illegal, dummy.”
“I would do illegal things for you, Soph. You know this about me. I’m your ride or die, and we’ve done both together.” He pecks her lips. “Marry me, Soph. Let’s make a family.”
“I’ll marry you,” she whispers. “But I want a real proposal. You don’t get shit signed until you make me swoon.”
“Swoon?” His top lip curls back. “Are you serious?”
She nods. “Make me fall in love with your proposal. But there are rules.”
He lifts a brow. “Since when do we do rules?”
“Since now. You can’t do anything illegal, unless it’s something we can easily cover up.”
“Well that’s no fun.”
She purses her lips. “You can’t do anything dangerous… at all. I’d never get over it if you hurt yourself while trying to make me swoon.”
“There’s that word again.”
I roll my eyes and stand, since I’m completely redundant right now. I turn and head toward a mini fridge shoved under one of the counters that line the wall, snatch a Gatorade from the door shelf, and turn back to find Jay practically in Soph’s lap.
“You guys need a minute?”
They whisper together.
Their lips move together.
They whisper some more.
I fling my bottle cap across the room and ping Jay on the back of the head, but he remains completely absorbed in his bastardized proposal. He’s already got the yes. All he needs is a ring and to take a knee, but I know how his brain works, and I know with absolute certainty he’s planning to swim with the sharks or kidnap the president or some shit. He invented go big or go home, and now that Soph has laid down the gauntlet, we’re all going to bear witness to his arrest and incarceration.
