by Emilia Finn
“Let’s just go to breakfast, Kane. And put your dick away.”
“I asked for breakfast ten minutes ago, woman. But I’m glad to see you’ve come around.” Switching on the ignition with a wolfish grin, I catch her hand when she goes for a second strike. Yanking her across the cracked vinyl bench seat, I smack a noisy kiss to her lips and consider my work done when she simply stares in shock.
“Every time you hit me, I’m gonna taste a new part of your body. Eventually I’ll get to your pussy, at which point, you’ll slam your fist into my gut as fluidly as I’ll slam my cock into you when you give me the green light. It’ll be mutually fucking delicious. But until then, pick somewhere for breakfast.” Before I’m tempted to be a deviant and take you in my truck.
“Umm…” Pushing away from me in shock, she rights the dress that flipped up her thighs. “We could go to Paddy’s. It’s a truck stop on the interstate, about twenty-five minutes away. Strangers pass through there every day, so they won’t know either of us.”
“Alrighty. Let’s go be all incognito.” I watch her profile. Her stubbornness and determination not to look at me. Her pursed lips as she fusses with the seatbelt. “It would be embarrassing for the church girl to be seen with the thug.”
Her eyes narrow. “I’m not a church girl.”
“And yet, your first thought when trying to escape me is a nunnery…”
“No.” She turns with a glare. “My first thought when wanting to escape you is to smack you over the head with your security pans. They make a satisfying sound when used against a skull.”
“You’ve done it before?”
“Yup.”
I pull out of the parking lot and start moving along the rundown street. “Yeah? Did you report it? Did you go to the police and confess your crimes?”
“No.”
“To church, then? Ask for absolution? Drink some wine and call it a day?”
“Wine, yes. Church, no.”
Laughing, I press down on the accelerator and move toward the interstate. “Not as pure as I thought. You’re just a regular little criminal, aren’t you? I can see it.” I throw my hand over the back of the bench seat and stroke her neck. Not only doesn’t she shoot away, but she leans into it. “You pretend to be innocent. You bake cookies sometimes, too, don’t you?” Before she can deny, I push on. “You’re the Miss Goodie Goodie everybody loves. But one day, you’ll be on the news. Your husband will have died from a poisoned pie, and when the media interviews your neighbors, they’ll all claim ‘But she was so quiet. This just doesn’t seem like something she’d do’.”
“Do you always do the breathy, girly voice when you’re trying to mock someone?”
“Oh, you mean that time I was being you? Oh, Kane. Yes, Kane. Fuck me harder, Kane. Nah.” I squeeze the narrow column of her neck. “That’s something new I discovered since meeting the world’s most sexually repressed woman. I dunno, Blondie. You bring these things out in me.”
Helping her onto a stool at the counter that looks like it belongs in the nineteen-forties, I brush my chest along her back and chuckle as she arches away.
She wants me so fucking much, she’s going to give herself a hernia in an attempt to deny it.
I push my stool close enough that our thighs touch from hip to knee, and sit down with a grin as she revolts away from my broad shoulders.
Game on, Blondie. Let’s see who gives in first.
“What can I get you fine people?”
Fine people?
I glance up to find a buxom woman with bright green eyes and a smirk that screams trouble. Reaching out for the plastic menu that’s sticky with leftover grease and soda, I quickly scan the list, but before I can rattle off my order, Jess straightens her spine and pushes her chin out. “A job?”
The woman – Dolly, according to her tag – tilts her head to the side. “A job for you, Miss Fancy?”
I’m in love with Dolly already.
“No, ma’am. For him. He’s unemployed, but he’s good with his hands and knows how to work hard. Don’t let his looks fool you; he’s sweet as pie.”
Dolly leans on the counter and pushes her voluptuous boobs up until she almost smothers herself. “Did you punch yourself in the face, boy?”
I clear my throat to stop the laughter that bubbles up at being called boy. Snaking my arm around Jess’ hip, I pull her closer. “No ma’am. Someone else did it. But don’t fret; I got him back.”
She clicks her tongue with pride. “Good for you. I’m happy to hear that. But unfortunately, we don’t have any jobs going. We don’t get a whole bunch of business in here to warrant you.”
“That’s okay. I’m not actually unemployed, she’s just being sassy because she’s hungry. Can she get some of that sweet pie, please? And pancakes. Maybe draw a smiley face on them with berries and cream; she needs a pick-me-up. And bacon on the side.” I turn to Jess and force her stubborn chin around. “You want a milkshake, Blondie? My treat.”
“No.”
I turn to Dolly. “She’d love a chocolate milkshake. We gotta put some meat on her ribs. Life is dangerous, and she needs a little fuel in her system to outrun the bears.”
Nodding like I make perfect sense, Dolly’s sharp green eyes watch me. “What about you? Did you put antiseptic on your face after the bear attack? You’re so handsome, I’d hate for it to get infected and rot off.”
Jess’ stomach bounces, not with laughter, but with something that looks like pain.
“Yes, ma’am. My girlfriend patched me up last night. We’re here for breakfast, then we’ll head home and work on our battle wounds some more. It’s been a rough week, but things are already looking up for me.”
She looks to Jess. Then back to me. Then to Jess. “She’s your girlfriend, right? You don’t have another packed away somewhere?”
Jesus, as if I’d want two of them. It’s already proving hard enough keeping one of them alive.
“No others, Miss Dolly. This is my girl. She’s the love of my life. Ain’t she pretty?”
Eyes sparkling, Dolly watches Jess seize against my side. “Yeah, handsome. She’s a beauty. Pancakes, bacon, milkshake, and pie. And for you?”
“I’ll have everything she ordered. But double. I’m a growing boy.”
Laughing until her breasts bounce, she stands tall and slaps the counter with her hand towel. “You got it. I’ll bring ‘em back as fast as I can.”
“No rush. We’re young and in love. We have all the time in the world.”
Snickering at Jess’ red face, the woman wanders off to put our order in with the cook.
“Can you stop?” Whipping around fast as a snake, Jess digs her elbow into my ribs and almost buckles me where I sit.
I cover up when she cocks her arm back for a second strike. “Can you stop hurting me? Seriously. I know I act kinda tough, but that son of a bitch actually hurt me last night.”
Face draining from red to white, her pale hands come to my stomach before she can stop herself. “Shit, Kane, I’m sorry. I know you’re hurt, I saw what he did. I didn’t mean to hit you; it’s a reflex. We hit a lot in our family – my brother almost died because his best friend beat him to shit. My sort-of brother pulled a gun on his best friend a billion times, and he even pulled a gun on my real brother once. My best friend’s husband got in a fight with his sister’s husband; like, a real fight. It’s violent as hell at our place on Christmas morning.”
Twining my fingers with hers for half a beat, I picture this girl in her pyjamas on Christmas morning in a standoff with her brothers. I imagine them standing in a circle, arms outstretched, guns pointing, fingers sliding along the barrel ready for the trigger. I imagine someone claiming the last of the eggnog, and one of the gun-toters deciding that he was thirsty and more in need.
Jesus.
“How many guns has your family got?”
Shrugging, she accepts an icy cold milkshake that Dolly slides along the counter. A second tall cup slides along right behind it, and catching i
t like they’ve been practicing this their whole lives, Jess passes it to me with a flirty grin. “Just the cops, I think. Alex has some. I don’t know how many, though. Oz has some, since he’s the deputy. His wife Lindsi shot her last husband, so she definitely has at least one.” She nods. “And lethal aim. There was that time Meg went Babe Ruth on her husband and his car. But that was a baseball bat, not a gun. And I don’t know for a fact, but Jules seems the type who’d carry. But I don’t ask; I just tell her she’s pretty a lot.”
This other chick shot her last husband. And her boss seems like the type… “Your family is weird as fuck, Jess. Seriously. To think I was worried for you, but you have breakfast with psychopaths every single day… maybe you should never go home.”
“I have to go home.”
“I’ll buy you new panties. And a shower cap, too, if you insist. But I draw the line with those stupid-expensive shoes. You can go to Payless like the rest of us.”
“I mean, I definitely want my shoes and panties, but I have to go home because I love those psychopaths. They’re weird. They’re trigger happy. But I haven’t been shot yet. They’re quick to hit each other, but they don’t hit us girls.”
“Do the girls hit each other?”
“Yeah. My best friend, Britt, popped me in the face last week.”
“She… what?” I grab her jaw and search for the bruising. “Why would she do that?”
“Her husband, the fighter, insists we learn how to defend ourselves. Fat load of good that’s done me so far,” she grumbles, “but we try. I go to these women’s self-defense classes that Oz’s murderous wife runs.” Her lips quirk up. “I think Britt’s cheating or something. Maybe she’s getting home lessons with Jack, because she beat me up last week. Then when I was on my back and crying, she kicked me in the leg and laughed.”
“She what?” I spin her stool so her legs sit between mine, and uncaring that we’re in public, I lift her skirt and check her legs. “Why would she kick you when you were already down? Is there no code between fighters? Even criminals abide by some codes!”
She scoffs and pushes my hand away. “I wasn’t actually crying. We were practicing flips. Like, jab, jab, hook, flip. Her first jab went wide like it was kinda supposed to. Her second jab got me. Then laughing like a fool, she grabbed my arm, spun, and tossed me over her shoulder.”
“She tossed you?”
“She did. I nearly sharted.”
“You nearly…” I run a hand over my eyes, forgetting one is swollen, and hiss as the pain radiates into the back of my brain. “Sharted? Jessica!”
“What?”
“Your name is Miss Fancy for a reason!”
She rolls her eyes and turns back to the counter. “One person called me Miss Fancy. One time. Three minutes ago. That doesn’t make it my name. And whatever. The point is, I’d miss them.”
“Even though they hit you?”
“Especially because they hit me. Only a real, true friend would stand over you and laugh. Because when she’s done laughing, she helps me up. A fake friend would be all ‘oooohmygosh, I’m sooooo sorry,’ then she’ll bitch about me.”
“Your friends never bitch about you?”
“To my face? All the damn time. Behind my back? No.”
“Never?”
“Never ever. I’ll take the gun toting psychos over the fake ass bitches any day.”
I shake my head. “Your sense of safety is so fucking warped, Jess. Stay away from the guns. Stay away from the criminals. Stay away from dangerous shit.”
“Dangerous… Criminals… like you?”
“Exactly! Jesus, finally, you catch on.” I shake my head. “It took you fucking long enough. The blonde hair messing with your brain again?”
Jess picks up the wrapped set of silverware resting by her elbow, and slowly, meticulously unwrapping it, she uncovers the knife. As she runs her thumb along the blade, she looks up at me through her lashes. “Call me dumb again, Bishop, mention my hair one more time, and I might put this between your bruised ribs.” She bites her bottom lip. “That’d be a fun role reversal, huh?”
“You’re a damn psycho! You’re unhinged. Fuck me, that’s why you keep coming back. That’s why you go to a club that’s clearly already called your number. That’s why you continue to end up in my bed – you have no sense of danger; no clue what’s bad for you.”
“Are you bad for me, Kane?”
“Logically, yes! But in reality, the Reaper has become the stupid fucking protector.”
She tilts her head to the side with a small smile. “Why did you tattoo the Grim Reaper on your back?” She casts a glance around the diner before leaning in close. “How many men have you killed?”
I’m not answering that. “Why do you continue to end up in my bed, but I never get laid?”
She shrugs and leans into my shoulder. “You keep putting me there. Not once have I climbed into your bed on my own, so your blue balls are your own fault.”
“Here you go, sugar.” Dolly stops in front of us with a smile and two heaping plates of food. She slides the smaller plate to Jess. “Pancakes to cheer the sassy girl up. Blue balls… ah, that is, blueberries for the smiley face eyes.” Winking, she places a much fuller plate in front of me. “And extra bacon for the growing boy who never gets laid. Let me know if you need anything else. Otherwise, y’all just keep being cute and I’ll watch from over there.”
I return her wink and watch her ten-gallon ass sway as she moves away. “I love Dolly. She’s nice.”
“You’re watching her ass!” Balling her fist like she’s going to hit me, Jess swings out, but pulls her strike when she finally remembers our new rules. “Crap, no hitting. Kane!” Hissing, she shoves my knee with hers. “Can you stop watching her ass like a freak? You are not that hard up for women.”
“She’s really nice.” I pick up a strip of bacon and bite off the end. “Not many people are nice to me. They see my ink, they see a thug, and they rarely ever make eye contact.” Placing the end of the bacon between my teeth, I lean forward in offer. “Have some breakfast, beautiful. You owe me some sugar, since you hit me.”
Swinging around to argue, her eyes flash to the slice of bacon protruding from between my smiling lips. “I didn’t hit you.”
“You were gonna. Then you hit my knee. You have two options.” Leaning forward, I pull the strip from my mouth and lick my lips. “Let me taste those, or…” I place my spare hand high on her thigh. “Or let me taste that. You choose, beautiful. Either way, I wanna taste you on my tongue.”
“What if I say no?”
Drawing circle patterns with the tip of my finger, I grin when I find the bottom of my underwear loose on her leg. “Then you’d be missing out on something good.” Leaning closer, I bury my face in her hair and breathe her in. Sliding my tongue along her scar, I chuckle quietly when she shivers. “See how my tongue makes you feel?” My words are barely more than a whisper. Dolly doesn’t need to hear this. “See how my tongue on your neck makes your pussy throb?” I slide my thumb over her thigh, but I don’t touch; I’m still inches away. She’s been traumatized and victimized twice in a week, and I won’t be like them. I won’t touch without permission. But I’ll tease. I’ll make her aware of her needs. “That bass drum in your clit, the thump, thump, thump, thump… now imagine my tongue on that.”
Whimpering, she falls forward until her forehead rests on my shoulder. “Kane…”
“Wanna see if I can make you come with words only?”
“No.”
“Want me to touch you?”
“Yes.”
Chuckling, I continue drawing my name into her leg. “Will you scream my name, Blondie? I’d come so much fuckin’ harder if you screamed my name and begged me to fuck you harder.”
Panting in my ear, she rests her hands on my thighs for support, pushing all of her weight onto me so she doesn’t slide to the floor.
“Imagine if we were alone right now… would we be fucking?”
“I do bad shit all the time. But you wouldn’t be wrong, Jess. You’d be so fucking right.” I inhale the scent behind her ear until goosebumps race along her skin and pucker beneath my fingertips. “Imagine my cock inside you – you know what I’ve got, you know how big I am. And I’ve had my fingers in your pussy, so I know how tight you are. Put those together, beautiful.” I slide my tongue along her scar. “I want your nails on my back, holding me down, demanding more. Harder.”
“Kane… stop.”
“Faster.”
“Kane…”
“Come.” I bite her neck and catch her when she jolts forward. I could make her come with words. I could do it, and she’s powerless to stop it. “Ever been fucked by someone like me before?”
“Someone like you?”
“Mmm. A thug. A criminal. I’m not your prince, beautiful, I’m the bad guy. Did you ever watch Aladdin and wonder why Jafar turned you the fuck on when he made Jasmine his slave?”
“No.”
“Yes.” I nudge her face with my nose. “I’m not the guy you’ll find your happily ever after with. I’m the bad guy tempting you with something forbidden. Ever done that before, Jess? Ever fucked someone just because you could, not because he might be Mr. Right?”
“Mr… No.” Rolling her head, her breath saturates my chest. “No, I haven’t.”
“It’d break you. For the rest of your life, you’ll compare other men to me. And you’ll never find that same kind of fulfillment. There’s no one on this planet that’ll fuck you like I would.”
“You’re so sure of yourself?” Her breathy voice ruins the intensity she’s going for.
“Uh-huh. I’m sure of myself… with you. I’m not saying I’ve ruined all women. Because all women aren’t you. But you and me… we’d make a fuckin’ firestorm. Thunder and lightning, Jess. I’ll go boom and you’ll light the skies.”
“Kane…”
My phone chirps in my pocket. Loud, obnoxious, mood ruining music that makes Jess snap to attention. Like a bucket of water was tossed on her head, her spine snaps straight as her eyes wheel around like she forgot we were in public.