by Stacey Lynn
His eyes glinted and he lifted the gun. “Come over here so we can do this talking you wanted.”
I practically saw cogs turning inside his head. Planning. Plotting. Dreaming.
Always dreaming.
I listened, too afraid of what he would do if I didn’t. “Timothy—”
“All the way here, Hales. I want to hold you.”
My steps faltered. “What do you want?”
He reached for me with his other hand and lowered the gun to his side.
“We were good together, weren’t we?” His hand slid to my back and pulled me against him.
It wasn’t all faked. I looked down to see his grip strong and firm on my gun. The safety was still engaged. Knowing the gun wouldn’t go off if he tried to pull the trigger calmed me.
“I love you. I always have. We can do better this time, honey. I promise you. I’ll help you out around here, we’ll build this together. Travel the world.”
Tears burned the backs of my eyes but I refused to let him see them. It was all I had wanted ever since I was a little girl—a family like my parents, working this resort side-by-side. I had been swept away in all of Timothy’s big dreams and desires and now he was once again offering what I’d wanted.
As soon as I gave him what he wanted, like I had dozens of times before, he’d renege the minute he had it.
“You just need the money, don’t you?” I asked, stiffening in his hold. “You either haven’t gotten a job, or haven’t been able to keep one, and that’s why you’re coming after me. You’re probably losing the apartment and instead of taking responsibility for your own actions, you’re still blaming everyone else.”
A muscle jumped in his jaw. “You left me. I couldn’t function.”
Excuses, excuses. He had as many as a beach had sea shells.
I pulled away from him, tried to jerk out of his hold only to have him pull me tighter against his chest. He pressed the gun against the back of my head. His knuckles brushed against my scalp and I froze.
He bent his head and kissed me.
My hands flew to his chest and I struggled against him, pushing, but it was no use. He was bigger and taller than me, and when I lifted my knee to hit him in the groin, he moved away quick enough so I missed.
His mouth pressed against mine, forcing mine to open and his tongue slid inside. I cringed, tasted vomit in my throat as his fingertips on my back pressed harder against my skin.
“What in the fuck is going on here?”
Jensen’s voice broke through the disgust and struggle, and I shoved against Timothy.
His surprise at another man’s voice jerked him back. He pushed me to the side, but still held on to my arm and raised the gun.
“Jensen—” I gasped, staring wide-eyed at him, still in his suit shirt and pants but looking rumpled and tired.
He took a step inside, leaving the door open behind him. “The door was open, and there’s a car parked on your front lawn. I got worried. Like I suppose I had the right to be.”
His gaze set on Timothy next to me. I struggled, knowing the way he gripped my arm would leave bruises. I didn’t care.
“You can’t steal her from me,” Timothy drawled, the gun in his hand raised and pointed at Jensen. “She’ll always come back to me. Always has. We were meant to be.”
“Then you shouldn’t have thrown her away,” Jensen said, looking like he didn’t have a care in the world. “You should let her go, now, again before this ends up worse for you.”
Timothy scoffed. The gun shook in his hold as his grip tightened around it.
Not that it mattered.
“Leave,” Timothy snapped. “Leave now and I won’t shoot you.”
“You won’t shoot me anyway,” Jensen replied, still so calm. Did anything ruffle this man? “That would involve being a man, and protecting what’s yours, but from everything I’ve heard, you’re not a real man, but a loser. And she’s no longer yours to protect.” His eyes flashed to mine and gleamed. “She’s mine.”
Despite the circumstance, a shiver rolled through me, heating me.
Jensen had come back to me. In the middle of the night. And he’d just declared me his.
My smile was tremulous and shaky but I managed to mouth the word yours.
He visibly relaxed before looking back at Timothy. “Let her go, man. You have no money, no job, no woman and doing shit to me won’t help you any. You’ll end up with a new home in a blue, one-piece suit sweeping the halls of Kent County Jail for the next sixty years.”
“You don’t know shit,” Timothy said, sneering at Jensen. But he was shaken, unstable.
He might have sobered up enough to talk, but he still wasn’t thinking clearly.
He was unraveling quickly, but I couldn’t do anything to calm him. His entire focus was on Jensen.
“I know she’s not yours. You’re not getting shit out of her resort, and I also know the way she screams my name when I make her come. You ever heard that sound?” He took a small step forward, putting him not more than six feet away from a drunken asshole with a gun. “The way she goes wild, the way her whole body trembles right before she lets loose and then when she does, she digs into you hard enough to leave fucking nail marks down your back?” he said, poking the bear, further proving Timothy wasn’t a real man because I’d never actually screamed Timothy’s name during sex. My ex-husband’s grip on the gun tightened.
Jensen had pushed too far.
Timothy steadied the shaking gun and put his finger on the trigger. “Fuck you, asshole.”
Jensen grinned.
I screamed and shoved at Timothy. “Jensen!”
And Timothy pulled the trigger.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Jensen
Nothing fucking happened.
My heart pounded against my chest like a thousand elephants stampeding straight over me. I looked up from my crouched position.
The gun hadn’t gone off.
I leapt from the floor, rushed Timothy, and pushed him over the back of the couch. I slapped the gun out of his hands and landed a right hook to his face.
“Fuck!” he groaned, his head snapping the side.
I wrapped my hand around his throat. Not hard enough to mark him, forceful enough he’d know I could take his life, and bent down inches from his face. “You fucking piece of shit loser. That’s what you are.”
“Plus,” Haley said, grinning, holding the gun relaxed at her side. “It helps if you take the safety off before you shoot.” She flashed me a nervous smile.
“Where’s your phone, Haley?”
She tilted her chin up, gesturing behind her. “Upstairs. Forgot it.”
Jesus. I wanted to spank her for it.
Disciplining her for answering the door at night to a drunken prick would have to wait.
“Come here and take my phone from my pocket.” I shifted from my position over Timothy, his eyes wide and on me. “Don’t fucking move,” I growled at him. I shifted my thighs where I’d straddled him and Haley took out my phone. Then I rolled him to his stomach beneath me and wrapped his arms behind his back. With my necktie that I’d stuffed into my pocket earlier, I tied it tightly around his hands.
“Yes, this is Haley Portsmouth,” she said into the phone. The gun was still in her hand as she calmly rattled off her address and the situation. After a pause, she responded, “Yes ma’am, I’m armed and have a loaded weapon. Permit to carry as well.”
Fucking hell. The gun was hers? I didn’t know whether to be impressed or spank her.
She rattled off more responses, answering questions and agreeing to following whatever directions the operator gave her. When she hung up, she grinned at me.
Fucking grinned.
Like me walking i
nto her house, seeing a man kissing her, her obvious struggle and the lunatic holding a fucking gun at the back of her head was actually fun for her.
Yeah. I was tanning her ass.
“Cops will be here in ten minutes. Said to keep him restrained but don’t hurt him.”
“Too late,” Timothy muttered, his face pressed to the side. A drop of blood dripped out of his nose and I smiled wickedly down at him.
“I can kick your ass, say it all happened in the struggle. You want that?” I shifted my hold on him, moved and pressed my knee into his back, making him grunt.
“Fuck you,” he snarled.
Haley giggled. She was crazy. “I think we’ll leave that for your cellmate.”
“You were supposed to love me.” He grunted through the pain of my knee at his back, perhaps at the thought of what he’d just done. “I just came tonight to talk to you.”
Haley rolled her eyes, took a step back and gestured for me to climb off him. “They want him where they can see him from the door.”
Haley went to the doorway and made sure it was open as we heard the first shrill of sirens in the distance.
I shoved Timothy into a chair they could see from the door and Haley stood in the doorway, still keeping her eyes on us, her gun at her side.
As flashing lights pulled into her drive, I stayed close to Timothy to make sure he didn’t do something stupid. Officers exited their cars, guns drawn, and shouted commands.
Haley handled the entire situation with grace and strength that I had never thought possible.
She didn’t once tremble or show fear as the first responders ordered her to lower her own weapon. With a practiced ease and finesse, she emptied the clip from the gun, held both up before setting them down on the deck and moved inside her house, away from her weapon.
Then while Timothy was hauled away, I stood as close as I could get to her while she answered the police officers’ questions.
“If that’s all you have for her,” I said, sliding a card out of my wallet and holding it out for the police officers. I had already declared myself her lawyer when the cops started asking her questions, but she’d insisted on sharing what happened. “We’ll come by the station in a few hours to make a full report and decide about pressing formal charges for assault then.”
Timothy locked in the backseat of a police cruiser was the only thing that kept him safe as she’d reiterated what I had seen when I first showed up. He had held her at gunpoint and tried to force himself on her, all in some drunken, misguided loser way to get money out of her.
“Very well, Mr. Rhodes,” the officer said. He looked fresh out of the Academy and excited about what had gone down tonight. Perhaps he was jittery from too many cups of coffee working the night shift. I imagined that work couldn’t have been easy, but he needed to tone down the hopefulness in his voice.
“Good night,” I said, narrowing my eyes and deepening my voice. I wanted him gone.
I needed to get Haley to bed. Make sure she was all right.
Then we needed sleep.
And after, there would be a very long session where I spoke, she obeyed, and then I’d fuck her brains out so there was never again any confusion as to what was happening between us.
Haley stood in the doorway as we watched the police officers climb into their cruisers and pull out of her driveway with Timothy handcuffed and shoved into the back of one of them.
“Bed,” I said, before she had the door closed. “You need to sleep.”
She turned to me, her eyes heavy with exhaustion, and yet there was no fear.
That had long since disappeared.
“You came over.”
I moved toward her and reached for her hand, pulling her inside. “I did. We’ll talk after you sleep.”
“But—”
I slid my hand to her cheek, cupping her face in my palm, and pressed until she looked me in the eye. “Haley. We’ll talk once you’ve slept.”
Her lips parted as if to argue but then she pulled them together. I tugged her closer and pressed my lips to her forehead, whispering, “Good girl,” against her soft and warm skin.
She was always so beautiful. So perfect for me.
Yet I had neglected the one thing she’d needed most, out of fear.
Tomorrow—or later this morning since the sun was now rising—once we’d slept, that would end.
* * *
I sat in a chair I’d brought to her bedroom from the dining room while Haley still slept. The cool wood was uncomfortable, and I’d been sitting in it for hours already, but every second was worth it when Haley shifted in her sleep.
She moved again, trying to stretch, and her eyes fluttered open.
Tugging on her arms, she twisted her head and her eyes widened.
“What the—”
“Be careful,” I warned from my spot in the corner like a fucking creeper. “Pulling too tight on the bindings could hurt you.”
She was tied to her headboard with scarves I’d found from her closet. It hadn’t been easy tying her up and then waiting for this moment, but when she looked at me and awareness overtook her surprise, it was worth every moment.
“Jensen.” She breathed my name and the soft, muted sound went straight to my dick.
I rubbed my erection through my boxer briefs and smirked. “Good afternoon.”
Her eyebrows rose. “What time is it?”
“Ten.” At her concern, which I understood, I told her, “You’re taking the day off. I called Claire shortly after you fell asleep. After I explained what happened last night, she assured me that she and Maria can handle everything today.”
She shook her head only to stop when she again tried to move her arms. “I...there’s checkouts today. And cleaning.”
“And I’m more important. We’re more important.” My tone left no room for argument.
Her lips parted and her tongue darted out, swiping her bottom lip. Beneath the sheets, her legs shifted. Her cheeks flushed with heat and I stood from the chair.
“You’re naked,” I said, walking toward her and stripping out of my underwear on the way. “Completely naked. Bound for me. For my pleasure.”
Our pleasure, actually, because I’d make sure she’d enjoy every damn second. But I would get my fill of her first.
I would spank her today because she needed it.
I would fuck her because we both did.
I would take her ass because I needed it.
I needed to claim this woman who drove me absolutely mindless and give her all the pleasure she’d shown me was possible for us to have.
“Okay...” she drawled, slowly relaxing. Her hands went slack in her bindings and her chest rose a bit more rapidly.
“It occurred to me last night that I have neglected you. That while I was certain of where I wanted us to head, it left you with doubts on what exactly I wanted.” I stroked my hard cock as I walked toward the edge of the bed. Her gaze dipped to where my hand was wrapped around my thick shaft and she licked her lips again, her eyes glazing over. “That’s my fault, as your Dom, to not communicate clearly. I should have. When I told you that I wanted us to be in this bedroom, and I was in charge and the rest we’d figure out, it left too much unknown. Do you agree?”
Her nod was hesitant and too slow. I pushed the sheets down and pinched her nipple until she gasped.
“Answer me, Haley.”
“Yes, sir. I agree.” Her nod turned frantic and pink rose on her cheeks. I released the pressure on her tit and moved to the other one. I played with both nipples, alternating until both of them were hard, pink tips and her breath came in needy little pants. Her hips lifted, already seeking relief.
“Last night, you manipulating me, and trying to get me to go to Luminous was unacceptable. D
o you know why?”
She chewed her lip before answering. “Because I didn’t speak to you first?”
“No.” I slapped one of her breasts. A pink hue spread from her cheeks down her neck to her chest. She squirmed and it was then I frowned. I needed a spreader bar, something to keep her from pressing her thighs together.
I wanted the ache she experienced to grow until it was unbearable. Until she needed me with desperation.
“Because you topped from the bottom, and yet, I had never specifically outlined those boundaries. I muddied those waters so to speak, so today, we’ll clarify them. Do you understand?”
My hand trailed down her abdomen as I spoke, teasing her flesh. Pleasured bumps trailed my wake. “Stay still and answer me, Haley.”
She sucked in a breath, flattening her abdomen as I continued to tease her. “I understand sir, please...”
“Please what?” I grinned at her as I slid one finger through her wet center. She swallowed. The tightness in her abs, in tendons at the sides of her neck, showed the strain it was taking for her to stay still. I loved when Haley responded like this—so greedy, so quickly. Always ready.
She was not only the perfect sub. She was just perfect. Everything about her from her confidence to her body to the way she looked at me.
It hit me suddenly, like a flare shot into the darkness. I would do anything I could, anything possible to ensure I’d never lose her.
“I need you, sir,” she whimpered. Her fingers dug into the bindings at her wrists, pulling on her metal headboard. “Whatever you want to give me.”
“I know. I love that you want this so badly. Like you were made for me.” I kept my eyes on her while I gathered more of her moisture and then drew circles around her already swollen clit.
She was hot, slick with desire, and the scent that filled the air made my nostrils flare.
“But you weren’t a very good girl last night, were you?”
She immediately shook her head. Given that she was biting her lip while I teased and tortured her, I allowed her not to answer a direct question.