by Emilia Finn
“How much did you watch?”
Shrugging, she sniffles and tries to hold on to her tears, so to give her privacy, I turn away to grab a fresh bandage. “I don’t know how much; a couple minutes. You were on the bottom, then the top. Your fists were going so fast. But then Abel was watching and the big guy was on top, and he–” She chokes on her breath. “I thought you died, Kane. Your head snapped around and I thought you died.”
“Hey.” Leaning forward, I press a gentle kiss above her stitches. I’ve never in my adult life kissed to soothe. Kiss to fuck; sure. Kiss to dominate; yeah. But never to soothe. “I didn’t die, Blondie. It’ll take a lot to get rid of me.”
“They picked you up off the ground.” As soon as I lay the bandage over her skin, she twists and sits up. Surprising me with her deft movements, she faces me and crosses her legs. Patting the towel down to cover her body, she frowns and studies my face.
My brow.
My swollen eye.
My lips.
I get the feeling she isn’t looking to kiss me, but to tear my heart apart a little more. “They picked you up, and you were bleeding everywhere. I followed your blood until they threw you outside like trash.” She reaches out with a shaking hand and strokes beneath my swollen lip. “You work there. You’re willing to go to prison for them, but they throw you out like trash?”
“I never said I was willing to go to prison for them, Blondie.” I fight to keep my hand away from hers. I want to bring mine up and cup hers. I want to touch her the way she touches me. But I don’t. No more touching without her permission. “You make a lot of assumptions about my life. About my job. About me. But I assure you, I’ll never go to prison for him.”
“But you will.” Tears well in her eyes as she turns and reaches for my first-aid kit. “You killed a man for me. You admitted to it. You…” Her breath hitches as she flicks through my case, messing up my organized supplies. “You killed a man tonight.” Her eyes come up to mine. “You did, didn’t you? You killed him?”
I nod.
I speak no words, because a murderer’s still a murderer, even if I think my reasons were valid. Even if that man was scum who deserved to die, the law doesn’t work that fluidly.
People like Alex Turner will say he deserved a fair trial, that the law should take care of it. That there’s no room in his town for guys like me who’ll make the decisions outside the courtroom.
And I’ll simply sit in front of the judge in silence, because I’ll know I did the right thing. It was his life or Jess’.
I chose.
I chose right.
“You can’t just get away with that, Kane! You can’t kill people. That means prison. It’s my duty to report you for that. My civic duty to do something about it.”
“No, Blondie. I was simply taking care of a pest problem. I didn’t hurt a man that didn’t deserve it. And I will not go to prison. You refuse to hear me when I tell you I won’t be locked up. I’ll die first. I promise.”
She snatches up my antibacterial wipes with more attitude than you’d expect from the broken woman in my shower, and tearing one out of the crinkling plastic, she brings it up to my face.
I brace myself for the sting.
She’ll clean me up, but she’ll do it in a bad mood to teach me a lesson for making her cry. Tensing my muscles, closing my eyes, popping my lip to give her access, my eyes snap open again at her quiet giggle.
“What?” I look around the room. “What are you laughing at?”
“You think you’re so badass,” she snickers. “But you’re ready to cry at a woman wielding a baby wipe.”
“It’s gonna hurt! You’re gonna be mean about it. And it ain’t a baby wipe. It’s antibacterial. That shit stings.”
Laughing, she pushes me back until I lie flat. She maneuvers around my head and pulls it into her lap so I look at her upside down. “Want me to pour some peroxide onto your face? Payback for how you helped me.”
“No.” I’m not a soft man. Not an easy man. And I’m not a man accustomed to pouting, but that’s what I do when this teasing girl smiles down at me in nothing more than a towel and a halo of light framing her face. “No peroxide. I’m feeling a little tender right now. That Russian beat me to shit.”
“I’ll be gentle.” Bringing two fingers to my brow, she smooths out a long wrinkle that’s been lining my face since before high school graduation. “I promise to be gentle. You were very kind to me the other night. And since I don’t intend to be in debt to anyone with ties to the mafia – seeing as how it wouldn’t be good for my health – I’ll repay my debt, and I won’t even use needles.”
She thinks she knows everything about me. She thinks she’s got it all figured out.
“No stitches?”
“No. I’d have no clue what I’m doing, but I promise I’ll buy a medical textbook when I go to the store next. I’ll shove it under my pillow and get rich with knowledge.” Gently, so very carefully, she brings the wipe to my lip and works to clean me up. “Or I could call my brother. You wanna lay your head in his lap? He kinda looks like me, so it wouldn’t be so weird…”
“Fuck no.” I hiss at the sting in my lip and glare when she grins at my pain. Bringing my arms back to circle her hips, I hold her close. I shouldn’t hold her. I promised I wouldn’t touch. But I can’t help myself. “No, I don’t wanna put my head in your brother’s lap, Jessica. Freak.”
Laughing, she leans in close enough her sweet breath fans my cheek. “I could call Kari. But if you put your head in her lap, my brother will probably get mad. Next time you need real medical care, he might put peroxide into your IV. He’s petty like that.”
“I don’t wanna put my head in her lap, either.”
Just yours.
“I’d probably get mad, too, to be honest.” Like her quiet confession annoys her, she frowns as she works on my face.
“You’d get mad if I put my head in your friend’s lap?”
Her towel covered breasts rest against the top of my head as she hunches in close to work. “Yeah. You’re a criminal. You’re probably gonna be in prison before our next birthday. And I probably shouldn’t even bother sitting the bar, since I’ll just have to hand my license straight back; what, with the whole harboring a criminal, perversion of justice, keeping pertinent information from the police about a man who died tonight. But I still get this proprietary feeling, ya know? I don’t get it.”
I get it.
“Anyway.” I grunt with pain when she gives a jerky shrug and bumps my lip. “You don’t want my brother. You don’t want Kari. So, you’re stuck with me and my pillow theory. I’ll use some of those Band-Aid stitches if you think we need them.” She leans closer, so close her chin almost touches my brow. “I think it’s okay. The lip is split through, but I don’t think there’s anything you can do with it but let it heal. But I’ll show you once it’s clean. You can decide.”
“So you think your theory really works? You think you’re onto something really smart?”
She cups my jaw with one hand, absentmindedly brushing her thumb over my cheek, and runs the wipe over my lip with the other. “My theory won’t cost you a thing. It doesn’t hurt to try. And then there’s the whole Babysitter’s Club miracle. It was more amazing than that virgin mother story. So, who knows.”
“I know.” I wait for her eyes to meet mine. “Your plan is so flawed and full of holes, dog shit leaks through and stains your expensive shoes.”
“Not true,” she snaps. “You’re just jealous you didn’t think of it first. One day, they’ll label it something. Like how Marie Curie got a name for her research in radioactive science, I’ll become somebody for this. The Jess Lenaghan Dream Theory.”
If you say so, pretty girl.
She brings a fresh wipe up to my eye and sighs. I squeeze her hips just to remind us both I’m touching her, that she trusts me to hold her; that I trust me to hold her.
“Why are you here, Jess?”
Pausing, she studi
es my swollen eye. “You brought me here. You literally carried me here.”
“But why were you at the club? I told you to stay away. It’s dangerous. Surely, you must believe me now.”
“I do believe you.” With new tears in her eyes, her back arches to escape me when my finger strokes her hip. Hands off. “I went there searching for you. And it was working great. I had my phone up and pretended I was talking to you, I said your name a bunch of times, which worked. People stayed away. I went inside and looked around. I found…” She bites her lip. “I found rooms that people were… well…” She clears her throat. “They were having sex. They were doing things – with ropes, and chains – all sorts of stuff. People were standing outside the room, watching, but I didn’t see anywhere you have to pay to watch.” Searching the bed for the ointment I used on her, she unscrews the cap and takes a little onto her finger. “Someone asked me if I wanted to move to a room of our own. I said no and kept moving into the club. Then I found you.”
Shoot first. Deal with the mess later.
“Who spoke to you, Jess? Who asked you to go to a room?”
She shrugs. Leaning back over my face, she slides a gentle finger along my lip. “I don’t know. I didn’t stick around to chat, I just left. Didn’t see him again. I walked into the main room, and it was kind of exciting, because you were on top. You were winning.” She swallows. “But then you weren’t. And when he hit you that last time, it scared me. So I followed you outside. You know the rest.”
“Why were you there, Jess? Why were you looking for me?”
She runs an angry finger over my swollen lip until my toes curl. “Because I still have a job to do and men to build a case against. Seven years of school, a shit ton of school tuition, six months of cramming for my upcoming exam, and several more months to go. I’ve worked hard to become a lawyer – to become the best lawyer – which means following you is my job. My boss is trying to take Abel down, and it’s really shitty luck that you are you, because I kinda like you. But you’re on the wrong side of the law.”
I open my mouth to respond, but she cuts me off. “It sucks you’re the bad guy, Kane. I want you to be the good guy. I want freedom for you. But you make it so I have to choose between right and wrong. I was raised to know right is right and the law is the law. There’s no gray area.”
“There’s always a gray area, Blondie.” I push her hand away and turn to sit on my haunches. From looking down into my eyes, to now arching her neck back, Jess watches me take her hand and hunch my shoulders to minimize my size. “There’s always a gray area. You don’t see it yet. Hopefully you’ll never see it. If we’re lucky, you’ll meet a real estate agent soon and marry up and be safe.”
“Marry a real estate agent?” She snaps her hand from mine. “You’re arranging my marriage like I’m worth a goat?”
“You’re worth a hell of a lot more than a goat. And trust me, it makes my dick soft to think of you and that real estate agent together, but I’m trying to save your life, Blondie.”
11
Jess
What Do You Want Me To Say?
“I’m not asking to be saved!” I snap. “I’m asking you to stop doing illegal shit so I don’t have to send fruit cake to the prison once a year. I met you only a few days ago, and I already feel like we’re on a sending fruitcake and ‘I’d feel bad for convicting you’ basis.”
With a scoff, he sits taller and wipes a tattooed hand over his jaw, but stops again when he remembers his split lip.
“Why do you keep saving me, Kane?”
His head snaps to the side when my question surprises him. “Huh?”
“Why did you lose that fight tonight?”
“I–”
“Why’d you bring me here instead of the hospital?”
“We–”
“Every single thing we do comes only after we make a choice. Some people might say things happen to them, like I didn’t choose for Lance to touch me, but I did choose to go out, which put me in his path. You chose to save me the other night. I saw you.” I meet his sparkling black eyes. “I saw you just before he grabbed me. Then you were gone for ages. I thought you ran away. I thought you chose to leave me. But you didn’t. You came back. You chose to come back.”
“I couldn’t leave you.”
“Why? You don’t know me. I was a dumb woman dressed like a call girl. You said he’d hurt other women this month. Why’d you save me?”
Clearly unaccustomed to being on the receiving end of questions, his forehead wrinkles with displeasure.
“You could’ve walked away. I thought you did. Then you chose to come back. Why?”
He shrugs. “I dunno. You looked in my eyes. You asked for help. So I helped.”
“This is more than carrying my bags to the car, Kane! You killed a man. It might’ve been a heat of the moment thing, but I know you think things through. You risked a lot by doing that for a stranger. For a call girl.”
He offers nothing more than a careless shrug. I’ve gotten under his skin. Kane Bishop has answers for everything.
Except me.
“I know your world, Kane. I didn’t grow up there. I don’t participate in your clubs. But I know Abel made you fight tonight. He gave you an impossible task… to punish you.”
Again, he nods.
“The day after I was hurt, after Lance, you had cuts and scrapes and bruises you didn’t have the night before. Were you punished?”
Another nod.
“So why?” I’m tempted to move onto my knees and slap the side of his head. “Why? You’re risking a lot for a woman you don’t know.”
“What do you want me to say, Blondie?” An equal in rage, he moves forward. “What do you want me to tell you? I couldn’t leave you because you’re beautiful. I couldn’t let Lance touch you, because your eyes latched onto mine and it felt like we knew each other. You’re more dangerous to me than I am to you. You create this instinct in me, like a fucking pet I have to protect. I live a solitary life, Jessica. I’m a man with nothing to fear, because there’s nothing anyone could take from me, nothing they could do to me that would truly hurt. But then you walk around in your slut shoes and pretty eyes, and suddenly, I have a huge fuckin’ liability.” He throws his hand up. “Are you proud of yourself? If I die, it’ll be because of you. If I go to prison, it won’t be because of a case you built on me, but because I’d kill anyone for you. Soon, that gray area will turn to straight black and white, I’ll kill the wrong person, and I’ll be sent somewhere not even my boss can get me out.”
“So stop killing people! I can’t believe I have to say that. Stop. Killing. People. Even bad people. Call the cops. Call Alex. He’ll take care of shit, then you can be free.”
“Right, so next time someone’s got you by the throat in a dark alleyway with his pants down and you’ve got fear in your eyes, I’ll just ask him to hold on a sec so I can call the cops? You want it to go on ten minutes longer than it did tonight, to give your big, brave, hero cop brother time to get dressed and haul ass?”
The reminder of that man tonight – of his fingers touching me, of filth crawling on my skin like bugs – has tears rushing to the surface.
I’m not a crier.
I’m not weak.
But ever since I met Kane, I’ve been nothing but a weakling that needs saving and a shoulder to cry on.
“No. Don’t cry.” With tortured eyes and gentle hands, he winds his fingers into the back of my hair and pulls me forward. I sit on my knees and bury my face in his chest. My vagina throbs, but not in a pleasurable way, and my heart bleeds in the most tragic way. “I’m sorry.” He presses a gentle kiss to the top of my head. “I shouldn’t have brought that up. I shouldn’t have thrown it in your face. I’m sorry, Jess.” He lifts me into his lap and shuffles along the bed. Pulling the covers down, he helps me slide in and pulls me on top of his muscular body the way I was two mornings ago.
“I care, because I care,” he whispers. “I care because you�
��re beautiful and smart and so fucking set on putting me away, it’s almost endearing. I care… because you’re the first person in my life to take a wet wipe and clean my split lip. That means something to me, Blondie. So even when you’re married to your real estate agent, you’ll still see me around. I’ll always protect you, because once I swear my loyalty, you’ve got it for life.”
“Kane…” Resting my head over the script tattoo on his chest, I sigh when our naked legs slide together. “I don’t wanna marry a real estate agent.”
His broad chest lifts when he snorts. “Marry whoever you want, Blondie. But stay safe. For the love of all that’s holy, stop going back to that fucking club.”
“Will you stop going, too?”
“No. It’s my job. I have to.”
“I could help you find a job somewhere else. I know loads of people. Do you know motors? One of my closest friends owns a garage. He’d get you a job, and he speaks fluent thug, too. My life isn’t full of corporate slugs. I know real people. People who sometimes don’t eat, because they ran out of money. I have friends who own a gym. You work out.” I squeeze the ball of his shoulder. “You could get a job there – they enjoy adopting misfits and talking smack. I know people who own a club – a different kind of club – so you could tend bar. Every cent the club makes goes to helping women in domestic abuse situations. You wanna help women? You could do it that way.”
“I don’t wanna help all women.” He lets out a deep sigh and rests his hand over the curve of my hip. “Just you.”
“I know cops. You ever consider the police academy? That’d be a fun one-eighty. I won’t tell anyone about Lance. I won’t mention the man tonight. He deserved it. I won’t tell, and everything we already have about you is only speculation. We want to catch you dealing firearms or drugs, but we have no actual proof. I could bury everything and help you get a real job.”
“You think I’d make a decent cop, Blondie?” Chuckling, the deep bass beneath my ear lulls me. “You think I can stay on the right side of the law?”