by A. J. Downey
“Thank you,” Mr. Parnell murmured. “That will be all for now,” and he set me down and punched in the alarm code. I stood, a trembling, shaking mess, knees burning and aching, and he turned to me, pushing aside my hair that was sticking to my tear- and, admittedly, snot-soaked face.
“Are you okay? What happened?” he demanded, and I crumbled. I couldn’t make the tears stop; I couldn’t make the shaking stop; I couldn’t make my racing heart or the fear stop.
He pulled me into his arms and led me over to the kitchen counter and helped me hop up onto the edge. He stood in front of me and pushed all of my hair off my face, murmuring, “You’re okay, it’s okay now. I wouldn’t let anything happen to you. You believe me, don’t you Ally?”
His dark eyes were both empathetic and intent, silently demanding an answer. I nodded, not trusting my voice, and he nodded with me, saying, “Good, that’s good. More help is on the way; I’m right here, I’m going to get a cool washcloth. You’re safe, right? Nothing can hurt you here, right?”
“Right,” I echoed carefully, but I still couldn’t stop shaking.
17
Yale…
I was scrolling through my phone when the cabbie slammed on his brakes yelling, “What’re you doing you crazy bitch!?” and I looked up to see Ally’s wide and frightened eyes through the windshield. Of course, by the time it registered that it was her, she was gone, and a young man was doing a slide across the hood in pursuit. I scowled as the cab driver threw up his hands and yelled at the man as another streaked by my window.
“Pull over! Now!” I bellowed over the cab driver’s griping, and he looked in his rearview mirror, startled. I glowered at him and he said, “All right, all right, we’re almost there.”
He pulled up to the curb and the locks disengaged; I threw open the back door and dropped my briefcase on the sidewalk.
“Ally!” I bellowed and she looked up from where the two men had her pinned to the sidewalk, one holding her down, the other with his hand around her ankle. I ran up the sidewalk and poured every ounce of rage into the kick that I sent over the first assailant’s head into the other’s face. He let go of her ankle, hands to his face and sat there, stunned on the sidewalk.
The other got up, off of my woman’s back, and took a swing at me. I dodged easily, and he brought out a knife with the other hand. I heard Ally scream something, but I was intent on her attacker. I disabled him and when I turned she was gone.
Now I had her in my condo, sitting on my kitchen counter, and she was a bleeding, sobbing mess. I should have ‘accidentally’ killed them. I soaked a washcloth in the kitchen tap under some cool water and wrung it out, bringing it over to her. She went to take it and I jerked it out of her reach, grumbling, “Stop!” at her like she was a child. She didn’t understand, it was my place to take care of her, now. My duty, my responsibility.
She put her hands down, gripping the edge of the counter, shaking so badly with the aftereffects of trauma and adrenaline. I smoothed her hair back from her face and gently wiped it off with the washcloth.
“Are you okay?” I asked her again, gentling my tone.
“I… I think so.”
A double tap fell on my open condo door, and I said, “Yes?” without taking my eyes off of her.
“Yale, it’s me. We got two in custody downstairs; Angel’s on the way. Can she give a statement?”
“Yeah, Poe, get in here.”
“I don’t understand,” Ally said helplessly, fixing me with green eyes swimming with unshed tears, “Yale?”
I chuckled and said, “Later, I promise.”
Poe came up next to us, his partner lingering just behind him, and asked, “Ma’am?”
Ally looked his way and said, “Blaylock, my name is Allison Blaylock, but you can call me Ally.”
“Right, it’s nice to meet you, Ally. Can you tell me what happened? Why those men were chasing you?”
Her story was the same as a thousand other girl’s statements I’d read. Assault victims, rape victims, it all amounted to the same. Young, idiot, entitled males.
I growled and turned with a hand over my mouth to stop myself from saying something unfortunate. I didn’t want to upset Ally any more than she already was.
“Okay, we’re going to take some pictures before these guys have a look at you, okay?” said Poe’s partner, an officer by the name of Hartnett.
“Oh, okay…” she nodded and he quickly snapped pictures of her knees and her chin.
While he was doing that, Angel sidled up to me and asked, “She okay?”
I glowered at him, “That’s what you’re here for.”
He chuckled and said, “You know what I mean.” I glared at him and his face lost its easy smile. He held up his hands, purple gloves in one of them and said, “Sorry. Didn’t realize it was that serious.”
“It’s not,” I growled defensively.
“Right, let me get in there.” He pulled the purple gloves onto his hands and stepped between Poe and Hartnett.
“Hi, I’m Angel,” he said.
“Ally.”
“You comfortable if I take a look at you, Ally?”
She nodded, and he pulled out a pen light and shone it into her eyes. His partner came up and took her blood pressure. I watched with concern as he went through everything, asking what hurt, checking out her chin and her knees.
Poe and Hartnett interviewed me while I watched as Angel cleaned Ally up. She flinched when he applied an antiseptic cloth to her chin and I barked without realizing it, “Be careful!” Angel turned and gave me a scowl.
“I know how to do my job, counselor. You don’t see me coming down to the courthouse trying my hand at yours.” I bowed my head and pulled on the back of my neck.
“Of course, my apologies.” I could admit when I was wrong. I didn’t enjoy it, but I could admit it and apologize when it was called for.
Angel shook his head and turned back to Ally who was staring at me, eyes wide, like she’d never seen me before ‒ which made me scowl even harder.
“Dude, Yale, what is the deal with you?” Poe demanded, under his breath. “I thought she was just the maid.”
“She’s a nice girl, a hard worker, she doesn’t deserve this,” I answered, but it sounded half-baked even to me.
Poe shook his head, “Whatever, man. It’s your business, don’t go griping Angel’s or my ass for it, though. We didn’t do it. We’re your brothers, remember?”
“Yeah, sorry, I’m sorry…” I muttered. Ally’s eyes were squeezed shut as Angel knelt and cleaned up her legs, patching up her knees with antibiotic ointment and fat, square Band-Aids.
“Yale,” Poe said forcefully, and put his hand on my shoulder. I swung my gaze to his. “She’s good, man. It’s Angel.”
I nodded, “You need anything else from me?”
“No, I think we got it. Uniforms are downstairs with the doorman. Perps’ve already been taken to Oz’s tender brand of loving care.”
“You should radio ahead, give him a heads-up,” I growled and Poe laughed.
“Yeah.”
“They from the Point Side?” I asked.
“No, Bitterman projects.”
“At least there’s that,” I said.
“Yeah, she the one from the Point Side that the guys helped move last month?”
“Yeah.”
“Shame she lives there seems like a nice girl.”
“She is.”
Angel came over, stripping off his gloves. He said to me, “Might want to get her something to eat. It’ll help with the post-adrenaline shakes.”
“Don’t have anything around here.”
“Take her to the 10-13. It’ll give Reflash something to fuss over in the kitchen.”
“Yeah, I might just do that; I don’t expect she’ll want to stick around here.”
“Have her take some Advil or something soon, she’s all right now, but she’s going to be sore in the morning.”
“Okay.”
<
br /> “Cool, we’re out.”
“Have the bill sent to me, and, Angel?” He looked up and back over his shoulder at me from where he was collecting his aid kit. “Thank you, brother.” He nodded, dropped his eyes and sighed, hauling the heavy tote up onto his shoulder. Everyone who was not me or Ally piled out my front door. My briefcase and her belongings had been set inside the threshold at some point and were sitting beneath the alarm panel.
Poe gave me a meaningful look and shut the door behind them, and it was suddenly just me and Ally. I turned to her, my hands resting on my hips and the look on her face was enough to thaw even my cold, dead heart.
“Hey, Bright Eyes,” I murmured softly, and she hugged herself.
“I am so sorry,” she reiterated, and hid those beautiful orbs from me, her eyelids drifting shut.
“Not your fault,” I said and went to her, nudging her knees carefully apart so I could stand between them and hug her close. She sniffed but didn’t cry, and folded into my arms like she was meant to be there. I stroked her long hair where it lay against her back and asked faintly, “Are you hungry?”
“I could eat,” she said, her voice feeble.
“Okay, then. Let me take you out to dinner.”
“Okay.”
I held her a moment longer and let myself come to grips with how badly seeing her on that sidewalk, two men on top of her, had scared me.
I felt like I narrowly escaped losing her and it troubled me, exactly how many feelings I had about that. However, it would seem, the danger wasn’t quite over yet.
“I was afraid you didn’t care…”
I let her go, placing my hands on the counter to either side of her hips and stared at her, but she wouldn’t raise her eyes from where she clutched her hands in her lap after relinquishing her hold on me. I huffed out a frustrated sigh and told her, “I’m not a mind-reader, Ally. You’re going to have to tell me why you would think that.”
She looked up sharply and said, “I did what you asked, wrote everything down, then nothing. Nothing at all…”
Ah.
“I see,” I said plainly and searched her face. “You know that I am a busy man.”
“Yes.”
“And that we rarely cross paths here, outside the public eye.”
She gave me a flat look, and I pushed back, giving my shoulders a bit of a stretch and bowing my head. She was right, of course, it hadn’t been fair or even very clear of me, my expectations. Of course, in my defense, I didn’t even know what my expectations were… Which was even more wrong of me, when I stopped to think about it.
“Look, I know that this isn’t, like, a relationship or anything…” she said gently, and I sighed again.
“Correct,” I grated, and tried to ignore it when she flinched.
She sighed this time and covered her face with her hands. I patiently waited her out and she dropped them back to her lap and said to me, “Do you like me?”
“Of course I do.”
“Enough to want to get to know me?” she asked.
I didn’t think about it, I didn’t even blink, I told her the truth: “I want to know the deepest parts of you, Allison.”
“Then could you please talk to me? I mean, I can understand that you don’t want a relationship, that you don’t have time for it, but…” She struggled to find the words and I waited. Finally, she let out a frustrated breath, her eyes sinking shut and her shoulders dropping, but she didn’t have to say anything. I already understood.
“You can’t handle that level of detachment. You can’t just have sex, enjoy the pleasure, without intimacy.”
“Yes, that! It takes all of the joy out of it, doesn’t it?”
“No… at least not for me,” I said even as my mind said, liar. It’s not as good and you know it. “But I can understand and respect that it’s that way for you. Of course, I care, Ally. If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t have come to the rescue, would I?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “You’re a very confusing man, Mr. Parnell. You have ‘heartless’ tattooed on your body like it’s some kind of badge of honor yet you’ve helped me so much. You’ve admitted you’re attracted to me, have had sex with me, yet you won’t kiss me…” She looked hurt, and I rubbed a hand over my mouth, trying to figure out what I should tell her when it came to that.
To me, you didn’t kiss your toys. You kissed your lover, your partner, but not someone you had no intention of going further with. I wasn’t ready to give little innocent Allison Blaylock more of me. To do so would be corrupting her absolutely. I wasn’t prepared to be the instrument of her fall.
“You need more from me than I am prepared to give you,” I said finally and she surprised me. She nodded, and while hurt clouded her clear green eyes, there was understanding there, too.
“You make me feel good,” she whispered. “You make me feel pretty and desirable. I’ve never felt it like the way I feel it with you. It’s not like those two men. They saw something pretty and wanted to hit it and quit it, you know? You… I don’t know. It’s like when you look at me, you see past the window dressing and it’s like you go soul deep.” She drew a shuddering breath, and her raw honesty made me still. I watched her waiting and praying silently for more.
“It scares me, but I like that about you… you make me feel dirty, but you make me feel clean at the same time.”
Her choice of words was both fascinating and haunting. I cupped her face in my hands and met her eyes with mine.
“You’ve been such a brave and beautiful girl,” I said and I meant so much more than just the way she had kept cool and collected during her attack earlier. I kissed her forehead and her eyes drifted shut, her breath leaving her in a sigh. I swallowed hard and murmured against her warm skin, “Such bravery should be rewarded.”
Before I could change my mind, or talk myself out of making the mistake, I lowered my lips to hers and I kissed her.
18
Ally…
I met the unexpected kiss with a mixture of excitement and confusion which melted into a sweet, calming, bliss. His lips were warm and soft against mine, his beard lightly tickling my face. He plunged his tongue into my mouth possessively, and I melted even more. I loved how it made me feel. How I didn’t feel so much owned as I did safe. Protected in a way that made me feel nigh on invincible.
I felt my chest loosen, the tension draining out of me, off the countertop, to pool on the floor, forgotten, as I gave myself over to him completely. To the feel of his mouth on mine, the feel of his hands at my throat and in my hair. He pulled back and his dark eyes were liquid and deep and I felt like I could topple down them and fall, fall, fall, forever and never get tired of the sensation.
“I’m going to take you to dinner, and then I am going to take you home, but first I’m going to change. Do you feel up to playing?”
I nodded mutely, everything about me crying silently: Yes! I’ll do whatever you want, whatever you say…
“Stay here,” he ordered, and he disappeared up the hallway to his bedroom. I swallowed, hands shaking for a completely different reason this time. He was just so overwhelming, so magnetic, so gorgeous and confusing. I think that was part of the appeal… He wasn’t shallow. Far from it, he was something complex. Made me wonder, kept me wondering, and the attraction I felt was overwhelming in all the right ways.
I waited impatiently, trying not to fidget, wondering just what he had in store for me, and the elation that brought was nice. It was a pleasant sort of excitement, as opposed to the upset of earlier. If he were trying to make up for the unpleasantness, he was off to a fantastic start.
My heart leapt at the heavy tread of his booted step returning up the hall and promptly fainted and plummeted into a barrel roll when he came into view. He’d gone from gorgeous to ruggedly handsome with a simple change of clothes. I don’t remember a time I had ever seen him dressed casually and truthfully, even dressed as he was, it was still in a refined sort of way.
He w
ore scuffed motorcycle boots and light jeans the way they were supposed to be worn by a man (with his gorgeous ass in the seat of them and not with the seat around his knees.) Tucked into those belted jeans was a form-fitting, faded black tee shirt, comfortable and soft looking. Something he had owned for years but couldn’t part with was my first thought, but as faded and broken-in as it looked, it had no holes or parted seams.
In his hands, he held a small bundle, like the one he’d had me bring to him from his nightstand last time and I felt a lump develop in my throat. He came to me and stepped between my knees, his eyes boring into mine.
“What’s in the bundle?” I asked breathlessly.
“Wait and find out,” he shot back, setting it aside, his fingers going to the button and zipper in the front of my shorts. I had put together an adorable outfit for today. It was hot out, the height of summer, and I had paired my short olive-drab shorts with a white tank top under a cropped, matching olive-drab denim sort of jacket. Both the shorts and the jacket had been Good Will find’s a couple of summers apart, but paired with low ankle socks and my black Chuck Taylor knockoffs, it had become one of my favorite heatwave outfits.
Now he was tugging insistently on the shorts and I put my hands flat on the counter, raising my ass so he could skim them down my legs and off. He repeated the motion with my white cotton thong panties and, careful of the bandages on my scraped knees, pushed my legs apart.
“Scoot closer,” he demanded. “Head back and stare at the ceiling.”
I did as I was bid and he went to his knees, hands smoothing up and down the outsides of my thighs, tongue flicking against my pussy lightly, fingers pressing against my opening. I closed my eyes and gave myself over to the sensation.