by Emilia Finn
You know what they say about nice guys…
Picking up a little extra attitude because her unintentional emasculation enrages me, I step out of the bathroom with my towel slung over my shoulder, and absolutely nothing else on.
I want to be an asshole.
I want her to wake and see me standing over her with my still standing cock. I want her to want me, then I’ll tell her no. Or better yet, I’ll tell her yes, fuck her, get that incessant fucking need from beneath my skin, then send her on her way.
But of course, none of that happens, because she doesn’t wake.
Standing at the end of my bed, naked as the day I was born, I watch her plump lips smack together while she sleeps. Her delicate shoulder blades pop, and her toned stomach extends forward with a tiny paunch as gravity once again does its job.
Her skirt rides up and her ass cheek teases me – if she were awake, her ass would be in my hands. Palming the creamy flesh, I’d lift her up and slam her over my cock.
But she’s not. She’s asleep. Injured. Defenseless.
And her bandaging is already blood stained and aging me.
I care that she lives.
I’m a fuckin’ sucker.
Stepping back to the bathroom and hanging the towel so the corners align, I move back into my living space and pull on a pair of silky boxer shorts before she wakes up and freaks the fuck out.
Moving around the bed, I eye the tiny couch – four feet too short for me – then I pull the covers back.
Fuck her.
If she wants to fall asleep like a stupid little lamb in the lion’s den, then she can risk it all. Lifting her up, but careful not to hurt her stitches – because I’m a sucker – I maneuver her body and give her my only pillow.
Climbing in next to her, I scoot her across the bed until she touches the edge, then I do the same on my side.
For a small bed, I still manage to force a full foot of space between my standing cock and her creamy flesh.
Go the fuck to sleep, Bishop. Don’t touch.
Leaning over her, I flip the light switch and try not to focus on the goosebumps her tickling hair creates on my chest.
Go to sleep. Take her back to the palace tomorrow.
The sultan will be searching for her.
5
Jess
Double Standards
Sweating. Shaking. Grinding.
In that order.
I feel the sweat beneath my body. The moisture in my hair. The way it sticks to my skin and half strangles me in my sleep.
Without opening my eyes, I know it’s light outside. Red washes through my eyelids and sears my brain.
It feels like the morning after a Club 188 night. Like the girls dragged me out and poured tequila down my throat. Like maybe we ran down to the lake and skinny-dipped before finally dragging our soggy asses back across town and throwing ourselves into bed.
All of the above has happened before.
None of the above are the actions exclusively delegated to silly teens or twenty-one year olds.
All of the above happened as recently as last month after a family wedding.
Oscar ‘Oz’ Franks, this town’s deputy and second only to Alex, married his sweetheart, Lindsi.
Alex got drunker than I’ve ever known him, got into a verbal beatdown with a sixteen-year-old, announced his wife – Juliette – is pregnant, then went on to spew everything back up again into the potted ficus in the corner of the reception room.
An hour after that, my sister – by blood, not extra – ditched her boyfriend for the first time this year and dared us to go to the lake.
My pleasure!
I woke the next day to similar sweating. To the shaking that promised a ficus-like ralphing session. Even to the weird grinding.
Hungover me is horny, I guess.
But unlike that time, today, the way my hips move, the pulse in my blood, the pulse between my legs finds temporary relief each time I slide forward.
With a smile on my face and screwed-shut eyes, I stay in my dream world and pleasure myself because, why the hell not?
I haven’t been laid in months.
I’m busy, I rarely go out anymore – skinny dipping and Inferno club attempts, excluded. I haven’t been out on a date in I don’t even know how long. I was one of few single people at Oz’s wedding.
My brother is dating Kari.
My sister is dating that asshole that no one likes.
Everyone had a date, then there was me, waiting for Lindsi to throw the bouquet just so I could catch it and pretend it was an accident I was front and center.
I’m a feminist. A capable woman of the twenty-first century. I don’t need a date, I don’t need to catch the bouquet, and I sure as hell don’t need a boyfriend.
But a little grinding action in my sleep wouldn’t go astray.
“Mmm.” Smiling like a fool, I slide my hands along the body my dream conjures. So much muscle. Smooth and tempting.
Attagirl, Jess. Build him up. Give me a damn Adonis.
My breath explodes out when I tweak my ribs, but then my clit rubs along something that sends out-of-this-world pleasure racing through my blood and suddenly, the pain in my ribs is forgotten.
Why must I only have nice dreams when I’m hungover?
Why must I trade my liver for a sex dream?
“You rub your pussy along my leg one more time, Blondie, and I won’t be able to stop myself from fuckin’ you.”
“Mmm.” My Adonis’ voice is dark and delicious.
Coming closer to the surface, blood roars in both my ribs and my clit. Sliding against the body I’ve conjured to perfection, I plead my consciousness to leave me alone for just five more minutes.
Five is all I need.
Gripping to the muscled chest beneath me, I experimentally slide my tongue along the saltiness I knew I’d find.
If I’m sweating, then so is my Adonis. “Mmm.”
“Blondie!” A heavy hand slams down on my ass and sends pleasure zinging through my blood. The firm hand doesn’t slow me. The opposite; I grind harder against a muscled leg and absorb every second of pleasure before my dream fades away. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Growling, my Adonis slaps a second time and drags a whimpering almost-orgasm through my body.
The weirdest sensation, pressure on my eyelid makes me frown. Dreams aren’t for frowning. A thumb, calloused and rough, squishes my eyeball for a beat, then slides it up and forces my eye open.
“Stop fucking my leg!” My heart slams in my chest when glittery black eyes glare. “I’m not saying I don’t like it, but I swear to God, you slide your pussy along my leg one more time, I won’t be held responsible for my actions.”
“Oh my God.” Pushing up, I tent the covers and look around the unfamiliar room. Looking down, I find my hands splayed across his tattooed chest. My body on his. My legs tangled with his. My core tingling with disgust at an almost orgasm. “Oh my God!” Shooting back, I tear the covers off the bed and wrap them around my almost naked body as I fall into the gap between the mattress and the wall.
I cry out at the tear in my ribs. At the way I roll my already rolled-ankle. At my sweaty hair officially strangling me.
“What did you do to me?”
“Me?” He sits up and pins me with an angry glare. Shirtless, with black boxers that stand obnoxiously tall, he makes my poor little heart whimper with mortification… and need. “I did nothing! You were trying to fuck me without my permission. Let’s discuss those double standards again, shall we?”
“No! Why were you in my bed?”
“This ain’t your bed. It’s mine!
“Why am I in your bed?” Standing, rolling my stupid ankle a third time, I tie the blankets around my body and frantically shoot my eyes around the room in search of my clothes. “Why am I naked?” I open the blankets an inch and peek in, just to make sure. Snapping them back into place, a sob tears up my throat; mortified, shocked, in pain, scared out of my damn brains. �
�Why am I in your apartment? Why am I naked?” The rough blanket I hold tight around my abdomen painfully catches on my skin. Opening it again when warmth oozes along my ribs, my hands shake at the sight before me. “Why am I bleeding?” I meet his eyes. “I don’t want you to hurt me. It’ll hurt my family the most.”
Sighing, he pats his shorts down and climbs across the bed. Completely naked except the single pair of boxers, he reaches out and tugs the blankets from between my tightly clasped fingers. “Fuckin’ hell, Blondie.” Hooking me around the ribs more intimately than any man should, considering we don’t know each other, he pulls me down onto the bed the way a couple might moments before sending each other toward a blissful orgasm.
But I get nothing of the sort.
Instead, he lays me out beside him and turns me to my side.
Gently, so very slowly, he pulls tape from my tensed side. As though he’s diffusing a delicate bomb, he pulls the red stained bandaging away and hisses his disapproval. “You tugged on your stitches, Jess. It’s already angry. You’re testing the Reaper by not being more careful.”
“My stitches?” Doing a side crunch the way they try to make us do at that godforsaken gym, I’m not even embarrassed at the way my belly skin rolls as I crane my neck to look. “Stitches? You gave me stitches?”
Nodding, his nose almost touches them, that’s how close he inspects. “You gave me permission. I asked a bunch of times. I woke you up. I offered the hospital, but you said–”
“No hospital.” Lying flat, I let out a grunt of exhaustion. “I said no hospital. Because my brother will dob me in for being hurt.”
“Dob you in?” His dark eyes study mine. “What’s dob mean?”
“Like… snitch?” I shrug. “I don’t want my family to worry.”
“Right, well, I didn’t take you to the hospital, just like you asked. I stitched you up myself, and I did a good job of it. It should be fine, but you keep hurting yourself.”
“Did I ruin them?”
He goes back to studying my naked ribs, but my throat turns impossibly dry when his large hand rests on my hip and his fingers splay along my mostly naked ass.
This man, this man I don’t know – the man whose reports I’ve been reading for months and images I’ve dreamt of – now has his hand on my ass, my naked body on his bed, and my ribs within half an inch of his nose.
Within half an inch of his lips.
It’s ridiculous that I want to sigh.
Oh dear God, I was humping his leg. I forgot.
“I’m just gonna go home–”
“Keep still,” he murmurs. Reaching out for a large plastic kit beside the bed, he brings it to the mattress beside my thighs and flips the top open. “You didn’t tear them open. Just tugged a little. I’ll clean them up and redress.” His eyes come to mine with a strange intensity. “I’ll add some antibiotic ointment, but you’ve gotta be more careful. You make me worry for you.” He shakes his head seriously. “I don’t even fuckin’ know you. I have no room in my life for a weakness like that. I met you twenty-four hours ago, and you have a tendency to end up in compromising situations with dangerous men–”
“Lance was–”
“I’m talking about me, too! You’re at my mercy right now, under my hands, in my bed. My cock is thrumming because you’re horny, and my leg is glistening with something I wouldn’t mind getting a closer look at. You’re lucky I didn’t fuck you already. Not like I didn’t have the chance.”
“You can’t just fuc–”
“Wanna bet?” His eyes snap to mine. “I could’ve done it already; with your permission – let’s face it, you were asking for it five minutes ago – or without. I’m bigger than you, have plenty of cable ties and duct tape, and my neighbors don’t give a fuck if women scream. You put a ton of trust in a stranger last night. A dangerous stranger.” His thick brow quirks in dare. “You expecting to live long? Because if not, I’d like to fuck you first. I bet you’d feel good.”
Shocked, embarrassed, still-fucking-horny, I turn away and hide my flaming face as he takes out a bottle of clear gel and squeezes it into his hands. I wrinkle my nose at the repugnant scent of alcohol disinfectant as he rips open the small packet that almost reminds me of a condom. Pulling out the small wet wipe, he slides it along my skin and I jump – both because of the cold, but mostly because of the searing pain that slides through my stomach.
“I’m sorry,” he rumbles. His warm breath contrasts with the cold the wipe left behind, creating tingles that soldier beneath my skin. “Your stitches are fine. You tugged them a little, but nothing tore. The pink from last night seems to be receding, so I think I poured enough peroxide to clear any infection.” His dangerous eyes come up to mine. “The pain was worth it. You’re welcome.” Going back to work, he finds a tube in his kit and slides the clear gel over my sort-of-painful and sort-of-numb wound. “You were out of it last night; do you remember my instructions?”
I close my eyes and enjoy the glide of his rough hands over my sensitive skin. It makes me think of a couple making love, which is ridiculous, since men like Kane Bishop don’t make love.
“You said to keep them dry. To shower and bend weird. That they’ll dissolve.”
“Yeah.” He goes back to his kit to take out a bandage. Peeling the plastic from the dull brown covering, he bites his bottom lip and studies my ribs carefully. “Take my peroxide. And the antibiotic gel, too. You shouldn’t need the peroxide, but when in doubt, pour the fucker in and save your own life. The gel…” He shrugs. “I dunno. I’m not a doctor. But maybe put it on twice a day? Get new bandages. Redress the wound each time you do the gel. Should only be a couple days and you’ll be in the clear.”
“How do you know this stuff?”
“Knife wounds?” His eyes come back to mine. “That shit you saw two nights ago, that once in a lifetime shit? Happens five nights a week for me. Sometimes I win. Sometimes I don’t. Every time I get cut, I add ink to cover it up.” My eyes snap to his tattoo covered chest. There’s a lot of ink. “I’ve been tempted to just drink the damn peroxide, sometimes it’s that bad.” He presses the bandage over my ribs with precision. So careful, I barely feel it.
Sitting up and somehow letting all my teenage insecurities go, I fold my legs the way we do in elementary school and let my stomach rolls hang over the waistband of not new, not fancy panties. Narrowing my eyes, I study the lines of script scattered all over his body. “That’s a lot of ink.” My eyes flick between his broad chest and his dark eyes. “You’ve been hurt a lot?”
He shrugs. “It’s my job. I don’t sit in a cushy office all day. Someone’s gotta be the garbage man.”
“Garbage man?” I narrow my eyes. “What’s your job?”
Playfully, he nods to the couch almost butting against his bed. “I think you know my job. I think you know plenty about me.”
I follow his gaze and stop on the pile of manila folders. Pursing my lips, since there’s no point jumping up and freaking out, I bring my gaze back to his. “You’ve been looking through my work? That’s confidential information, Bishop. You could get in a lot of trouble for reading that.”
“A lot of trouble,” he scoffs. “It’s about me. About men I know. It’s only confidential for everyone else. Why are you taking reports about me home for the night, Jess? Is that how you have your wet dreams? Have I slept with you more than I know?”
He’s trying to be crass. He’s trying to annoy me. But the pulse still jumps in my throat. His eyes drop to my core – covered only by a miniscule scrap of lace – and his tongue darts out to moisten his bottom lip.
Good lord. Take my ability to practice law away now, because I wanna fuck the man I know to be a criminal. The man Jules assigned to me to keep an eye on.
“Jess?” He waits for my eyes to come back to his. “You’re thinking about fuckin’ me, aren’t you?”
“No! I don’t have time for dating.”
He scoffs. “I never mentioned dating. Fuck that. A ma
n dates a woman, means he cares. Means he has a chink in his armor. I have no room for broken armor.” He slides his tempting tongue along his bottom lip and almost turns me into a whimpering mess. “But fucking is something else entirely. I fuck women all the time. There’s no connection there, thus, no weakness. Wanna fuck, Jess?”
Yes.
“No!” I turn away to escape his glare before my panties turn to smoke and his boxers become breakfast. “I’m all better now. Thanks for looking after me.” Snatching the antibiotic ointment from his grasp, I throw my legs over the side of his bed. “I’m outties.”
“Wait.” Lurching forward, he grabs my bicep and halts my movements. Moving behind me the way he was behind Lance the other night, his silky boxers – and everything inside them – slide along my back until the oxygen clogs in my lungs. Calloused hands, gentler than they appear, come to my neck and brush my long hair back. He leans forward enough that I see his nose in my peripherals. I see his frown. “He cut your neck, too?” Moving closer to inspect, he breathes on my flesh and sends goosebumps rippling along my skin. “Jesus, you’re a fuckin’ menace to yourself, Jess. He cut your neck, but you didn’t say anything.”
I shrug away the scratch I saw in the mirror earlier. Yesterday? The day before? “It’s nothing. Just a scratch.”
“It’s enough to bleed. He marked you, and that pisses me the fuck off. Your life was that close to over, Jess, and you don’t seem to get it.” Sliding his rough hand along my arm, the other around my neck, the friction of his calloused touch on my sensitive skin sets my blood on fire.
Like he feels it too, like he knows the warring instincts inside me, his hardened cock shamelessly presses against my back. “You licked me already.” His deep breath bathes my shoulder. “I’m a man whose life depends on payback. An eye for an eye. In our case, that would mean a lick for a lick.”
Before I can form a response, before I can guard up and run away, he slides his tongue along the mark Lance left on my neck.
My eyes snap shut, and my toes curl against the floor. “God…”