Anything You Say: An Enemies to Lovers Standalone Romance

by Chloe Finch

  “Last one,” he said. “I’m going to have to flip you over.” He rolled her onto her stomach and started working on the ropes around her arms.

  “Was it good for you?” She asked. He had checked in with her after they hooked up every time so far, and she hadn’t ever even asked if he enjoyed himself. How inconsiderate.

  He laughed. “You just blew my fucking mind, baby girl.”

  “I’m not sure how much I can take credit for. You did all the work. I just kind of lied there.”

  “You did more than that, trust me.” He kissed her on the shoulder. “You were amazing. You are amazing.”

  He pulled the last bit of rope off her arms, and the release was a sweet pain. Before she even bothered to stretch, she rolled over onto her back and threw her arms around his neck. She’d been longing to put her arms around him, and the fact that she physically couldn’t was both frustrating and sexy. Either way, she was elated to do it now. It felt so good to have her arms around him, feel the solidness of his body against hers.

  He laughed at her enthusiasm and tumbled onto the bed, rolling over so she was lying on top of him. She rested her head on his chest, and they were pressed together head to toe. Their bodies were damp with sweat—it was going to be a hot summer day—and the potent smell of sex and sweat and Zach’s cologne hung in the air. It was the most intoxicating scent in the world. If it were possible to bottle it up and keep it, she would.

  She stroked his arm, still amazed at his muscles. His body that was usually so hidden. There were a couple faded bruises left from Big L’s thugs, the sight of which made her heart pucker. She still felt awful about it, though he seemed remarkably unaffected by the whole thing.

  She took his hand in hers and inspected it. The pinkie was still swollen and mottled purple, though not as bad as before.

  “Does this hurt?” She said, referring to the finger.

  “Not much.” He watched her examining his hand with the other one tucked behind his head on the pillow.

  “Do you think it’s broken? It looks kind of…crooked.” She held up her own pinkie next to it for comparison.

  “Probably.” He shrugged one shoulder.

  “What happened?” She asked, gingerly.

  He frowned. “Do you really want to know the answer to that question?”

  She set his hand down. “Only if you want to tell me.” In truth, she was morbidly curious to know what exactly happened when Big L’s goons visited him.

  He considered that for a moment. “I think it’s better you don’t know.”

  She was simultaneously disappointed and relieved. Did he not trust her enough to tell her? Or had it been that bad, he didn’t think she could stomach it? She didn’t push the issue. On his bicep near the elbow, there was a bright white slash of skin, a long ago healed wound. “What about this on your arm?” She said. “That doesn’t look new.”

  He lifted his arm to look at it. “Ask all you want about that. It’s from when I broke my arm skateboarding.”

  “You skateboard?” She said, skeptically. “I can’t picture it.”

  “I was twelve, for the record.” His lip curled up in a half smile and she was overcome with the urge to kiss him. “And I shouldn’t have—I got hit by a car.”

  “Oh, how awful.”

  “Don’t feel too bad. It was my own fault. I was a little shit and would always ride weaving back and forth across the middle of the road like I owned it, in the middle of rush hour. I thought I was sticking it to the man or something. Instead I got hit by a taxi. Landed on the elbow. It was gnarly.”

  “Gnarly,” she repeated, contemplating it. “You’re right, you wouldn’t make a very good skateboarder. It sounds weird coming from you.”

  “I’ll have you know I was actually pretty good other than that one time,” he said, pretending to be offended.

  “I’ll believe it when I see it,” she said, teasing back. Outside, a duck quacked right under the window. It reminded her of the duck phone in the living room. She wondered if it worked.

  “What about you—do you have any scars?” He asked.

  “None that come to mind,” She could only come up with one rather unimpressive one. She hadn’t led a life with a lot of physical risk. “Just this one.” She pointed to her knee, sticking her leg out to the side.

  “What is that?” Zach grabbed her leg and pulled it closer, swiveling her around. She fell off his chest and onto the bed and erupted in giggles. “I can’t even see it,” he said.

  “It’s right here.” She twisted around to sit up and pointed to a tiny black dot next to her kneecap.

  “That’s microscopic! What did you do, get attacked by a chipmunk?”

  “It’s even more pathetic than that, unfortunately. I stabbed myself with a pencil.”

  “On purpose?”

  “No, of course not. I was in elementary school, and I was doing my homework on the floor. I needed something out of my backpack, so I crawled across the floor to get it and the pencil was in my hand, and I accidentally stabbed my knee.”

  “That’s got to be the most badass story I’ve ever heard,” he said reverently. “I didn’t even know you could get a scar from a pencil.”

  She hit him playfully on the shoulder. “For your information, graphite stains skin permanently.”

  She snuggled up close to him once again, her skin covered in goose bumps even though it was hot outside. The window didn’t have curtains on it, and outside the sky was a brilliant blue, not a cloud to be seen. Somewhere far away, there was the sound of a lawnmower. It was the type of day she’d usually feel guilty for spending inside. This didn’t count as inside though. Here in the cabin with the open window and no air-conditioning, it felt more like a beautiful summer day than it ever did in the city.

  He stroked the top of her head. “God you’re beautiful,” he said. His voice was thick and sincere.

  She lifted her head to look at him, her chin digging into his chest. “Don’t tell me you’re going soft on me.”

  He rolled over her in a flash, straddling her on his hands and knees. “Don’t you worry about a thing, sweetheart. I’m still the worst guy in the world for you.” His voice was suddenly hard, back to the familiar, cocky asshole she loved to hate.

  The aggression took her breath away and turned the mood from playful to totally arousing. It must have been written all over her face because he smiled a wicked, predatory smile. “You know what I think? You’re so used to everyone praising you all the time, all you really want is someone to be mean to you.”

  She flushed. He may have been right.

  And then he flopped back over on the bed, as if the energy had drained entirely out of him.

  * * *

  Zach

  Zach was floating on a cloud of post-sex bliss. He didn’t know it could be this good. It was the happiest he could remember being in a long time. He wasn’t usually much for cuddling after sex. He usually finished and then was ready to move on, getting dressed and hinting at calling a cab.

  Not with Grace though. He wanted to keep Grace naked and pressed up against him all day, wrapped up in her.

  Everything else seemed so faraway and inconsequential. Work, Derek, Big L/Carl. Why was he ever worried about those things in the first place? Could he and Grace just stay here forever? Why not? They could disappear. No one actually knew where they were. He didn’t need anything left behind in the city. Nothing important at least. The cabin was paid for outright. They could plant a garden and sell vegetables at the farmer’s market and have sex ten times a day until they were old and exhausted.

  He hadn’t been this relaxed in months. Years, maybe. Sure he’d had a few casual hookups here and there, but nothing that made him actually feel better. The last time he took someone home, a woman he met at a club, there had been no connection. She must have felt it too, because after a fast and passionless fuck on the couch, she said, “You don’t have a Lyft discount code, do you?” and went home. She didn’t even both
er giving him her number. Not that he asked. In the end it just made him feel worse. And then there was Grace. Fucking her was like finding the meaning of life.

  Right then, she was sitting on a stool sipping coffee and wearing a Beastie Boys T-shirt he scrounged up in the bedroom dresser, and nothing else. He was making pancakes, since the mix was the only food in the pantry.

  He wanted to show her everything. Wanted to share everything with her. He wanted to share his secret to perfect pancakes (sacrifice the first for the good of the others). He wanted to introduce her to all his friends. Show her the spots in the city where he and Derek used to hang around. The diner Debbie used to take them on their birthday. Have her listen to all his favorite songs. What the hell had gotten into him?

  “I’m surprised you cook,” Grace said. Her coffee mug had a cartoon elephant on it.

  He made a sound like he was offended. “Of course I cook. I’m a grown man, how else would I eat?”

  She shrugged. “Takeout?”

  “You don’t get to look like this eating takeout,” he said, gesturing to himself and flexing. He was wearing pajama pants with no shirt.

  She rolled her eyes and looked out the window, embarrassed.

  “Don’t think I didn’t see you staring.”

  “Careful, your head’s getting so big you might tip over.” She was smiling and a tendril of brown hair fell in front of her face. She tucked it behind her ear. Her cheeks were pink, though if it was from the sex or the heat, it was hard to say. If not for the half-cooked pancakes, he would have hauled her back to the bedroom right then.

  Instead, he asked, “Do you know that Anderson .Paak song, the new one?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  He pulled his phone out and queued it up. The room came to life with the sound.

  “Woah,” Grace said, looking around the room. “I didn’t realize there were speakers.”

  “I had them put in when I bought the place. I didn’t upgrade much, but I had to have the sound system.”

  The song started, and she bobbed her head in time. “I like it,” she said.

  They ate breakfast on the deck, sitting at the old glass patio table. Because of the slope of the land, even though the cabin was only one floor, the deck was on the second floor. The land around it was wooded, situated on a small lake. There were a couple of other camps, but they were far apart and quiet this afternoon. There was a woman in a kayak across the lake with her feet up, paddle balanced across her lap, reading a paperback. He loved it up here.

  Zach kept the playlist going after the Anderson .Paak song, and now they were listening to the sweet sounds of Kendrick Lamar.

  “Do you always listen to hip-hop?” Grace asked.

  “Mostly. Growing up I thought my life was unfairly difficult. Rap made me feel understood.”

  When he was a kid they moved often, and at various apartments all over the city, he’d lie on the floor with his Walkman next to him, memorizing the rhymes. He started with Eminem in elementary school and quickly graduated to other artists. It felt like someone besides Derek finally understood him. More than understanding, they articulated what he felt better than he could.

  A few times he got tickets to see his favorite childhood rappers on victory lap tours through the Garden or the Barclay Center. Each time Zach threw down big money on tickets in the pit just because he could. But the tracks about how hard life is, about being young and angry, they didn’t resonate anymore. They sounded hypocritical coming from these old, puffy, rich guys. They got rich and famous and lost the fire that made them so good. Zach realized that in some ways, the same thing had happened to him. He wasn’t a poor, powerless kid anymore either. It didn’t feel as good as it should have.

  “I’ve never gotten into rap, really,” Grace said. “But I like this song.”

  “If you like this, I’ve got a ton of others for you. I’ll send you a playlist.” He was already mentally compiling it.

  “Yes, definitely.” She was positively beaming. The track changed. “Who is this?”

  “Frank Ocean.” He drummed his fingers in time to the beat on the edge of the table. “This is one of the best albums of the decade.”

  She nodded, concentrating on the song. Her knees were pulled up to her chin on the plastic arm chair, the empty plate abandoned on the table. She still wasn’t wearing any pants and her hair was all tangled, like she’d spent the morning getting fucked. She was gorgeous.

  * * *

  Since they were upstate, he dropped her off at her parents’ house on the way back to the city. When she went to get out of the car, he grabbed her wrist.

  “Monday, 10:00 a.m. meeting, my office,” he said, all business.

  Her eyebrows shot up. “Seriously?”

  “Yes, I’m serious. It’s for a very important project.” He leaned in close and growled in her ear, “I’m going to bend you over my desk and fuck you.”

  She blinked at him skeptically. “During the day? With everyone at the office?”

  “Everyone else is usually there at ten on a Monday, aren’t they?”

  She nodded.

  “I have ways of keeping you quiet, don’t worry. I won’t let you scream in earshot of the CEO.”

  She was quiet for a moment before clearing her throat and adopting the same businesslike tone he was using. “Okay. Yeah, perfect. Ten a.m., your office.”

  He kissed her and bit her lip, resisting the urge to sink his teeth in all over her, take her away and ravage her again. He let go and she stared at him, breathless, lips parted. He let go of her wrist. She gathered her things and opened the door.

  Over her shoulder, there was movement behind the sheer curtain on the living room window and he was reminded that she lived with her parents. She was barefoot. When they left the cabin, they hadn’t been able to find her work heels and realized they must have been lost somewhere along the way yesterday. She was still wearing his Beastie Boys shirt and the dirty suit skirt she had been wearing when Big L took her. Dropping their daughter off in this state, her parents would definitely hate him.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  The polite thing to say would have been something about how sorry he was that she got kidnapped, or that she had nothing to thank him for. Instead, he said, “You’re welcome.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Grace

  Grace and Jessica were out to lunch at Chipotle. It had become their go-to, since it was guaranteed they wouldn’t see anyone else from the office there. Too pedestrian. Grace was recounting the story of being kidnapped.

  “I’m sorry. Are you telling me he bought you Indian food?” Jessica said. She was the most fun person to gossip with. She had these big reactions, which she chalked up to being Italian and from Long Island.

  “Mhmm,” Grace said with a mouthful of burrito.

  “Don’t tell me you ate it.” She had barely touched her food.

  “I was hungry!” Grace said, defensively.

  “Stoooop,” Jessica said all long and drawn out, clearly meaning the opposite. She held her hand up like a stop sign and looked down, shaking her head.

  “And that’s not even the weirdest part,” Grace said.

  “Fucking A, how can that not be the weirdest part?” Jessica leaned back in her chair, as if she wasn’t sure she could handle any more.

  “Well, okay, Zach showed up with the money and the guy gave me back or whatever—”

  Jessica interrupted. “Hold on. So now you’re just all casual about getting kidnapped? ‘He gave me back or whatever.’ Jesus Christ.”

  Grace laughed. “That’s not the important part.”

  “Wait, so Zach paid fifty grand to this guy?”

  “Yes, but let me get to the good part!” Grace said.

  “That’s not the good part! She says that’s not the good part.” She looked around, as if addressing an audience. “Okay, sorry, I’ll shut up.” She stuck her fork in her salad and took a bite to prove she was serious.

 
“Afterwards, Zach took me back to this cabin he has upstate, and well, we did it.”

  “It?” Jessica said, through the bite of food. “You mean you fucked him?”

  “Shh,” Grace said. She looked around to see if anyone had heard, but no one seemed to have noticed “Yeah, we, um, had sex. It was actually my first time.”

  “Wait, wait, wait.” Jessica did the hand stop sign thing. She set her fork down. “Okay. You’re telling me you fucked Zach for your first time?”

  Grace nodded.

  “Your first time?” Jessica repeated, as if this would somehow change Grace’s answer. “You lost your virginity to that asshole? Was it any good? I hope to fuck he’s not as awful in bed as he is at work.”

  Grace suppressed a laugh. She wasn’t sure how to explain that he kind of was an asshole, but not the same kind of asshole as at work.

  “It was actually really great.” She tried to find the words to convey that Zach broke her wide open, showed her things she never knew about herself. Took her to a place she didn’t even know existed, but it was a place she wanted to go back to again and again. “It was…really, really good. I didn’t know sex could be that good.”

  Jessica picked her fork back up and stabbed another bite of salad. “Good. I’m glad. I’m happy for you.”

  “What is it?” Grace prompted. There was no way Jessica wasn’t going to say whatever she was holding back. Better to just get it over with.

  “He’s such a dick to you though.”

  Grace again struggled to articulate how things were different. She understood him, at least to the extent that somewhere under the layers of armor against the world, he was a good person. And he respected her.

  “Trust me when I say it’s different in bed. He’s actually very…considerate.” Then, because she knew it would distract Jessica from this line of conversation, she added, “Plus I mean, he’s really hot.”

  “Amen to that, sister,” Jessica said, taking the bait. “Does he have a big cock?”