by Emilia Finn
She bites her lip. Nods. Shakes her head. “Um… I can feel it. But it doesn’t hurt.”
“Okay. Good.” I go back to work and rub the sterilized gauze over her cut. Leaning closer, I study the wound. It’s not all that deep, maybe a quarter of an inch. He slid it over her, but he didn’t do too much damage.
Infection is her enemy, not the actual cut.
“Stupid woman,” I murmur. “Coulda gone to the ER and had it fixed in an hour. Coulda gone home and rubbed antiseptic on it and had it fixed in half that time.”
“I can hear you.”
“Good. I don’t like subtleties.” Picking up the needle, I set the sutures and meet her eyes. “Get the belt, just in case. Are you ready?”
“No!” Clumsily, she shoves the leather between her teeth and scrunches her eyes closed.
It almost feels like a sin, piercing this woman’s beautiful flesh, but when I push the needle through and she doesn’t flinch, I release the breath I was holding.
Jesus fucking Christ, I’m a million times less nervous when I’m doing my own than I am right now. “Okay, first one’s in. Didn’t hurt. The Lidocaine did its job.”
She spits the belt out and swipes away an errant tear. From taut and panicked, to a lazy passivity, she lies on her side and plays with a single loose thread in my bedspread.
It’s weird, the anxiety that crawls through my gut at the sight of that thread. In my father’s house, it would’ve gotten my ass kicked.
Tying off each stitch, I work hard to get her skin together as neatly as possible, but I’m not a doctor. I don’t have plastic surgery credentials. “This will scar. I’m sorry.”
She shrugs and plays with that thread like it’s her only lifeline in a really shitty fucking storm. “It’s okay. It’ll be hidden by my clothes, so it’s not a big deal.”
“These stitches will eventually just dissolve, so you don’t have to do anything. Just keep them clean and dry for a few days.”
“How do I shower?”
Naked. “Just gotta contort your body, I guess. Bend, keep ‘em dry.” I count out each stitch as I go. Each time I slide the needle through her flesh, I hold my breath and pray the Lidocaine hasn’t worn off yet.
What I thought wasn’t a bad cut turns into twelve stitches. Twelve ugly knots, like tiny little spiders on her otherwise perfect skin.
Marking her tonight is a far greater sin than slicing Lance’s throat open.
“What were you doing at the club last night?”
With jerky movements, she slides her face around until our eyes meet. Hers are round, larger than they should be. Her pupils dilated. Shock. “Working. Sorta.”
“You’re a lawyer. But you were dressed like a working girl.”
Almost like she’s flying on drugs I didn’t give her, she smiles and extends her legs until her toes point. “It was a nice dress, huh? And those shoes. I spent nearly three-hundred dollars on those shoes.”
“Three-hundred dollars?” I look up from my work. “Are you fuckin’ insane? Why would you spend that much on shoes?”
“Because they were marked down from twelve-hundred. I was practically making money.”
“No, Blondie. You were making a damn mistake.”
Pouting, she forces that tiny V between her eyes. “You didn’t like them?”
Oh, I liked them. I dreamed of them resting over my shoulders. “Three-hundred dollars is too much for shoes. You could get the same thing from the local Payless. No one sees the brand on the heel, anyway. Just you.”
Scoffing, she releases my eyes and goes back to the loose thread. “Whatever, grumpy cheap-shop-boots man. I loved them so much, I was too scared to wear them. They sat in my closet for a year. Untouched. I fought my sister for them more than once. I fought Kari, too. But she’s dating my brother, and no way was I letting her wear them. We all know why she wanted them… and with my brother.” Her nose scrunches. “No way was I letting her ruin my shoes.”
“Kari is your brother’s girlfriend?”
“Yeah. She was my best friend first. I have three best friends. Kari was mine before she was my brother’s. Then he smiled at her, and bam!” My needle jumps when she claps. “Now they’re in love. Which is fine. They can be in love. That means she won’t meet someone else and move away and leave us. But she can’t have my slut shoes. Not allowed.”
“Slut shoes?” Glancing up, I watch her wheeling eyes. She’s officially stoned on shock and adrenaline. “If a man called them slut shoes, he’d get his dick ripped off. But when a woman says it…”
“Well, the slut wearing the slut shoes is allowed to call them slut shoes. But a man says that, and I rip his dick off.”
“I love the double standards of today’s society.”
She ignores her half done ribs and shoots up. “Get the fuck outta here, Bishop! Double standards? I was nearly raped last night because I wore a short dress. I was called a brainless cunt in court last week, because I’m a woman, and my boss is a woman. You’ve mentioned the color of my hair more than once, and I only met you yesterday! Don’t ever talk to me about double standards.” Lying down again, she shoots a finger in my direction. “Keep sewing. I have places to be, and I’m scared the numb’s gonna wear off in a sec.” She pins me with a glare one last time, as though she forgot she already did it once. “Next time someone calls you a vulgar C word, discusses your hair color, or tries to fuck you against your wishes, then we can talk about double standards. Hell, once they close that gender pay gap, we can discuss it. My boss is a rich ass woman, so my pay is higher than the norm, but just about everyone else I know in the same field can’t afford slut shoes… Why? Because she works for a man. Take your men have it so hard bullshit, shove it up your ass, and sew your butthole closed. You can borrow my needle, I don’t mind.”
Well, alright.
Appropriately told-off, I bite my lip and go to work tying off the last stitch.
She’s weak.
She’s badass.
She’s injured.
She’s a fuckin’ warrior.
Taking out a large bandage, I lean close and study my work. It’ll heal, but it’ll scar like a bitch. I said I’d do it up right, and I did. She won’t die – I hope. But I never said I could make it scar-free.
Every day for the rest of her life, she’ll look at her ribs as she dresses for her days as a badass lawyer locking up assholes like me, she’ll run her hand over the bumpy skin, she’ll bite her lip and remember that time the thug brought her back to his shitty apartment.
She’ll remember me.
When she wakes next to her rich lawyer husband who probably pays his female assistant seventeen-percent less than he’d pay a man, she’ll run a hand over her ribs.
And she’ll think of me.
Peeling the plastic backing off the bandage, I lay it out over her stitches and hide my mark. Hopefully tomorrow, she’ll be smart enough to take it off and look. Make sure it’s healing. Make sure there’s no infection.
“Alright.” I peel my gloves away and toss them into the little green tray. I look up and study the blonde hair covering her face. “All done. You need to make sure it stays clean. Dry. Go to the hospital if you start to feel hot. I don’t care if your brother will get mad; he’ll get more mad if you die…” I frown at her non-response. “Jess?” I move closer to her head. “Jess?” Brushing her silky hair aside, I study her pale cheeks and puckered lips.
I tuck locks behind a sneaky glittering piercing at the top of her ear and sigh. “You fell asleep. I was sticking you with a needle, you were telling me off, then you fall asleep.”
I glance around my tiny apartment and consider my life. I already kidnapped her. I sewed her up, and though she gave me permission, the chief and her smart rich boss might argue she wasn’t of sound mind when she gave that permission.
I can’t take her home and knock on the door. I can’t hand an unconscious girl over and I can’t leave her on the stoop. It’s too fucking cold to sleep outside
.
Basically, as I study the beautiful, half naked woman curled up on my bed, I realize I’m fucked.
4
Kane
Girl Talk
Un-setting my alarm system, I step onto stained carpet and narrow my eyes at the rattling walls across the hall. My neighbor’s throwing his missus against the wall – in rage, or in ecstasy, I’ll never know.
Closing my door, I look to both ends of the dark hall to make sure it’s empty. With a mental ready, set, go, I push off and sprint the five flights to my truck to collect Jess’ handbag and files.
I’m not an idiot, I know what’s in the files. Just like I know how she knows my name. She’s not the only person that knows my name.
She’s definitely not the only person studying me.
They want Abel Hayes. They want to turn the key on his cell and lock him away for life, but to get to him, they have to get through me.
I’ll fall long before he does, not because of my loyalty to him, but because I’m a pawn in the Inferno game. He’ll throw me to the wolves long before a single cop gets within a hundred miles of him.
Juliette Turner and her chief husband are teeny tiny fish in Hayes’ pond.
I tuck the files under my arm and eye my dark apartment window from the parking lot. What the fuck have I done? How did I get to this point that I have the blonde lawyer unconscious in my bed?
I should’ve dropped her off at the hospital.
Or the fire station.
Anywhere but my bed.
Already gone for too long, I sprint back into my building and up the stairs. If I leave my post for more than a minute, my neighbors will help themselves to the unconscious woman on my bed.
I stop at my apartment door and ready myself the way I have to everywhere I go. Laser focused, with one hand at my back, I push the door open and glance into the bathroom to make sure no one snuck in while I was gone.
When I find it empty, I close the front door, reset my kitchenware alarm, and kick my cheap shop boots off.
I drop Jess’ fancy leather handbag on my couch and stop at the contrast between the red leather and my shitty blue and yellow sofa. They’re as different as Jess and I. They contrast in much the same way a guy like me would stand out at a Lenaghan Thanksgiving dinner.
They’re all so pure, so squeaky clean, so Barbie-ish, and then there’s me, more ink than skin, more attitude than I can afford.
Poking around inside her bag and risking another scolding from Miss Equal Opportunity, I search for her cell, but stop when a bolt of electricity shoots through my chest.
Last night, I stood by with barely a reaction while this beautiful girl was being attacked – if you don’t consider the slitting his throat thing a reaction. But now, when a shiny, black metal object rolls toward my hands, I stop and shoot my eyes toward the innocent woman taking up half my bed.
Picking up the… object between finger and thumb, I eye the contraption and try to place a different use to it. I know what it is. But it’s not something women usually carry around in their purses.
Definitely not something the likes of Jessica Ann Lenaghan would carry around.
Moving back with an explosive exhale, I glance at her lean body, her legs, her ass, and those fucking panties she insists on flashing.
I’m just a man, alone in a dark apartment, with a beautiful, half naked woman on my bed, and an ass plug in my hands.
What’s a man to do?
Tossing the plug back in her bag before my cock breaks through my jeans and I turn into Lance, I swipe up her cell and push the bag and files aside.
Sitting on the couch – less than a foot and a half from the enticing sex toy – I press the home button on her cell and grin at an image of herself and the man I know to be her brother.
They look so similar, the Lenaghan folks must both be blonde and blue eyed.
Perhaps siblings.
I mean, she’s into ass play. Maybe she’s into other freaky shit.
Stopping at the lock screen, I type in her birthday and shake my head at the easy access.
So fuckin’ obvious.
I don’t want to give in to her stereotypes, I consider myself a new age kind of guy, but fuck. Get a different passcode, woman!
Sparing a glance toward the pale woman whose bandages are already spotting with blood, I bite off a curse and flip to Jess’ text app.
Pulling up the woman who, surprise surprise, is at the top of her messages, only below a group chat that has forty-three unread messages, I grit my teeth and open the chat for Juliette.
Hovering a thumb over the keyboard, I consider what to say.
Me: Hey, Juliette. I’m not feeling so great. Is it cool that I take a sick day tomorrow?
It takes only minutes before the speech bubbles flash and make my heart thrum wildly. Don’t call. Don’t call my bluff.
I don’t have the time, nor the asshole to go to prison today.
Jules: Juliette? Jesus, girl. You haven’t called me by my whole name since my first day. You must be super sick.
Fuck.
How do chicks talk in text? Should I add kissy faces? Should I talk about the butt plug?
Me: Sorry, Jules. I’m spacing. Feeling weird. I’m just gonna sleep it off. Is that cool?
Jules: No problem. I’ll make it work. You owe me.
Me: I’ll lend you my slut shoes.
Jules: Your slut shoes? LOL. Who calls them that? We’re classy, Jess. They’re called fuck-me shoes. Or Alex’s back scratchers, but not slut shoes.
She tricked me! She said women call them that!
Me: I don’t wanna know about you and Alex’s time in the bedroom. That’s actually true. I’m gonna crash now. I’ll text you tomorrow night and let you know about work.
Jules: No problem. Be good. Don’t put the pot up your nose. Drink lots of water.
Tempted, so fucking tempted to check the still blowing up group chat, I toss her cell aside when the banner comes down and mentions movies and tampons. The chat isn’t in panic. Had the banner mentioned something about SOS or call the cops, I might’ve checked it, but since it doesn’t…
Peeling my socks off and undoing the button on my jeans, I stand from the couch and lean over Jess’ prone form. Prying my belt from between her tight fingers, I slide my thumb along the teeth marks that might never come out.
I’m an asshole for hurting her. But letting her die from infection would be unforgivable, even for me.
Walking away with my dick still standing – stupid fucking ass plug – I walk into my bathroom, but leave the door wide open. I’m not going blind and deaf and leaving her all alone, so I leave the door open and flip the taps on. Undressing and folding my clothes into a neat pile, I step into the lukewarm spray and work fast to clean another shitty fuckin’ day off my body.
Need to shower. Need to get the stench of bad choices and bad people off my skin, then I’m crashing about as hard as she has.
And hoping I don’t wake in the middle of the night with my cock in my hands.
Or worse.
In her.
Sliding body wash along my skin, I watch the suds run down the drain as the tepid water chases it.
I didn’t know this woman twenty-four hours ago. I didn’t know she’d be in my bed tonight, but fucked if I can get my dick to stand down. Sliding a hand over my hip, my cock twitches with the knowledge that I have a pretty good memory, a matching bra and panty set of baby pink at the forefront of my mind, a pretty girl just feet away, and soap.
Two minutes, then I can go to bed and not worry that I might fuck her against her will.
Maybe.
Sliding my hand along my aching cock, I chastise myself for thinking about a bra and panties – what am I, fuckin’ twelve? – but childish or not, my cock throbs and seeps with want. Circling my dick and squeezing, I fight to keep my eyes open as pleasure zings through my blood, the warm water sliding over my neck and dripping off the end of my nose.
Biting my l
ips closed to stop any noise that might wake her, I slide my hand to the tip, then down to the base until my pinky slides along my balls.
Eyes open, eyes on the door, groaning, I slide my hand back to the tip, then with the imagination my father tried to beat out of me, I imagine Jess walking into my bathroom. Her shocked eyes. Her matching fuckin’ bra and panties. I don’t think of the stitches I’d hurt by slamming her against the wall. I don’t think about the limp in her walk; it won’t matter, anyway. I’ll pick her up. I’ll carry her weight. I’ll control her movements.
Fuck me, she was a stranger yesterday.
Today, she’s a stubborn little shit who got in a knife fight and told no one. She’s an attorney with files full of information on me. She’s waiting to take me down. To run to her big brother the chief and have me arrested. To have me fall in their quest to take Hayes.
And yet… that butt plug comes to my mind, the thought of her asshole stretched wide just for me.
By me.
Leaning against the wall, I watch the door and slide my fisted hand along my cock. If she wasn’t injured, if she wasn’t so damn innocent, I’d beg her to come to me.
Slide inside her pussy.
Stretch her wide and fill her up.
Faster than the first time I touched a woman, my release steamrolls to the surface and in jutting spurts, forces me to bite back my groan as it slams against the shitty tiles. I watch as the milky white liquid rolls down the wall until it hits the floor, the shower spray funneling it down the drain.
Shutting off the taps no more relaxed than when I started, I snatch a ratty towel from the rail and work it through my short hair.
Her innocence, her allure pisses me off.
Why can’t she be easy? Why does she have to be so respectable?
Anyone else, and I’d have already fucked her and sent her on her way.
Anyone else, and I wouldn’t have given her a second thought after she bolted from my alleyway last night.
But no. She had to look at me with innocent eyes. She forces me into the hero role, and as payment, I’m now whacking off in the shower all alone.