Lock You Down

by Gadziala, Jessica

Because she was important.

  "We will pick up a bottle of Devil Tears when we get there."

  "Why would I bring your father his own whiskey?"

  "Because you would tell him that it is the best you've ever had. Blowing smoke up people's asses is always a good way to make them like you."

  "Well, it wouldn't be a lie," I told her, stepping into the kitchen space, spreading my arms to the island and counter, preventing her from passing.

  "What?" she asked, brows pinching as she looked up at me.

  My hand lifted, going behind her neck, sinking into her hair, turning, curling, pulling just to the point of pain, her air gasping inward as I exposed her neck to me, leaning down to trace my tongue up the skin, peach hitting my tastebuds.

  "Oh," she said, voice airy, hands resting on my arms, holding herself upright as her legs went to jelly when my fingers tugged a little harder.

  "What?" I asked when my head lifted again, finding her eyes bright, her smile amused.

  "Who'd have thought peaches could be so erotic? Well, I guess that band. You know?"

  "That band? No, probably not without more than that to go on," I told her, my own lips curving up.

  "No, you know them. Everyone knows them. They did that song about peaches. Like it was a couple dudes. Their name had numbers in it. Or was just numbers. Oh, this is going to drive me crazy..."

  "You done blabbering about music?" I asked, smirking as my hands sank into her hips, yanking her up off her feet, planting her down on the counter. "I'm in the middle of something here," I added as her head angled back, smile going flirtatious.

  "Well, by all means," she said, planting her arms on the counter behind her, leaning back, "proceed."

  My hands snagged the hem of her tee--my tee--and pulled it upward. Reagan rarely dressed down. Her fucking pajamas--when she wore them--looked like she could wear them to a club. But she'd taken to grabbing my shirts off the floor in the morning, slipping into them. She said they smelled good, and I actually did find her sniffing them sometimes. It was weird, but that little action always made my chest feel off. Tight, almost. I didn't know what that meant, but, yeah, I liked her in my shirt.

  The only thing I liked better was her out of my shirt.

  My hand fisted the material up by her clavicle as my lips closed around her nipple, sucking hard, making her breath hiss out, making her back arch, pressing her harder against my mouth as my tongue started to trace over her slowly.

  "112!" she yelled.

  "The fuck?" I asked, jerking backward, looking down at her, her eyes bright, her smile triumphant.

  "The band. 112."

  "Never heard of them."

  "Sure you have! They had like that one hit. "Peaches and Cream," she clarified. "Which is not about peaches or cream," she added.

  "Yeah, babe, I know what it's about," I told her, eyes rolling even as my smile curved upward. "Are you done?" I asked, brow raising. "I was about to taste your pussy, but if you'd rather give me a musical lesson..."

  She didn't want that.

  In fact, she grabbed the nape of my neck as her back went flat, dragging me between her thighs, a place I never tired of being because I'd never heard anything in my life that sounded half as good as her begging me to let her come.

  It never took long.

  Sometimes, I was generous, I let her come against my mouth.

  Other times, like now, I didn't let her. I got her to the brink, then eased her away. With my mouth, with my fingers. Over and over. Until her entire body was shaking with the need for release, until her sounds were cries instead of moans.

  Then and only then did I slam inside her, work her clit as I fucked her--hard, fast--until her pussy spasmed around my cock, as she cried out my name, her entire body going taut before going completely boneless, spent.

  When I walked back into the kitchen after hitting the bathroom to deal with the condom, she had music blaring, her hips moving around to the beat about fucking peaches that weren't peaches at all.

  It was a strange moment to have the revelation I did right then. While she loaded silverware into the dishwasher, bumping her ass outward as she did so, singing about getting freaky in a limousine.

  But that was the exact fucking moment that I fell in love with the woman.

  ___

  Exactly one week later, we were ushered into a plane, first class because her parents had insisted and because Reagan listened to my rant about how it wasn't necessary and promptly ignored me. And I had to admit, it was nice to have some space, to have a complimentary drink, to not have some asshole leaning back into my lap because he couldn't stay awake on a five-and-a-half-hour flight.

  "If it's possible, it looks deader," Reagan declared as she unpacked the pothos houseplant I had brought to her mother, the plant she had first seen and declared that it was damn near impossible to kill them and that she was suddenly worried about my ability to properly care for Mal when she wasn't around.

  "You're just pissy because your pussy loves me," I declared just loud enough for the group of twenty-somethings standing outside the airport to chuckle as Reagan's cheeks flushed ever-so-slightly.

  I found it was damn near impossible to truly embarrass the woman. I guess with outgoing, crazy people in her life like Luis and Krissy, she had long since overcome any such thing as social embarrassment.

  "Okay here we go," she said, leading us over to the sedan where the driver with our names on a board was waiting.

  "They sent a driver." I said it more to myself than her, but she sent me a smile as she slid her arm through mine.

  "You'll get used to it."

  I highly doubted that.

  And that was even okay with me.

  "Jesus Christ," I hissed when the car turned into a driveway. "You can't be serious."

  "I explained it," she insisted.

  She had. Described it. Even in a lot of detail. But I didn't think it was possible for me to grasp the size of it until I was face-to-face with it.

  This was what a twenty-six-million-dollar mansion looked like.

  Enormous.

  Ostentatious.

  But undeniably impressive.

  "Walk now, gawk later," Reagan suggested, handing me the plant and the whiskey as she grabbed her purse and the bag full of electronics she'd made me carry on. "Okay. Deep breaths."

  "Are you talking to me, or yourself?"

  "Yes," she answered, stabbing a finger into the doorbell.

  She didn't bother to ring the bell at the Mallick house anymore, already comfortable with that familiarity. I thought it was interesting that she didn't feel that way about the home she had mostly grown up in.

  "Honey!" her mom greeted, throwing open her arms, pulling her daughter against her body, dragging her inside the door as she did so.

  Her father and I looked at the two of them then each other, both nodding.

  "Mr. Hoffman," I greeted, tucking the plant against my body so I could offer him my hand. "Nixon Rivers."

  "Nixon, nice to meet you," he told me, giving me a hard shake, the kind I imagined all fathers gave the men their daughters brought home to meet them. The kind of handshake that said he might be twice your old, but he would fuck you up if you gave him a reason.

  "You too, sir. I wanted to bring you some whiskey. Yours is the best I've had. I can't say I ever had it before Reagan, though."

  "A connoisseur."

  "You could say that," I agreed.

  "What was your objection to ours before?" he asked, calm, casual, genuinely wanting an honest answer as he welcomed me into the foyer.

  "Honestly, the price-tag," I told him, shrugging. "I make a good living, but I would consider that a 'special occasion' bottle, not the kind of bottle I would always have stocked in my bar."

  "Our Reagan has been telling us to cut the price-tag," he said, nodding. "I think we need to give that some serious thought."

  He would soon get to see the results of doing so, but I was biting my tongue on that.


  Again, his gaze went to his wife who was still holding onto Reagan like she was afraid she'd disappear if she let go even an inch.

  "How is she really?" he asked, eyes suddenly losing their spark, face going dark. His job as the patriarch was to protect his family. It couldn't have been easy to accept that he had not been able to protect Sammy. And then Reagan too.

  After a lot of discussion, all involved parties had decided that it would be best if her parents and brother and friends at work weren't privy to all the facts involving the Michael situation. Namely, the fact that Reagan had set out on a mission to take down Michael, to catch him in the act.

  "Some days she is better than others," I told him honestly. "The memory loss nags at her," I added.

  "It's interesting," he said, voice dipping lower, making sure it didn't carry to the women who were finally breaking apart, tears being swiped off cheeks.

  "What is, sir?"

  "The fact that she knew what had happened to Sammy. And at whose hands. And yet she got close and alone with him at a party. And that she is dating someone in private security."

  He knew.

  If not everything, enough.

  "That is interesting," I agreed, nodding.

  "Another girl came forward this morning," he said, blindsiding me. I hadn't checked the news. "The Schmidt's daughter," he went on, clearly knowing the parents, likely the woman as well. "When she was seventeen," he bit out, jaw tight.

  "It's good he has ended up behind bars," I said carefully.

  "It would be better if he ended up in a grave," he said, not a hint of dishonesty in his voice. "But I am glad my girl was strong enough to make sure he never did this again."

  "It's not over yet," I reminded him. There was a trial to come. A jury of peers. People could be incredibly stupid when you threw them in a room day after day while they worried about their kids, their jobs, the events they were missing while being forced to try to pay attention to the often boring details of a trial.

  "It's over," he said with the confidence, the finality of someone who had the money and power to make sure something went the way he wanted. Mr. Hoffman by himself did. But he and all the fathers of all these girls? There was very little they couldn't influence should they want to.

  "Oh, dear," Kitty declared, red-rimmed eyes going wide as she looked at me. Well, not at me, at the half-dead plant in my arm.

  "It was a housewarming gift several years back," I told her. "From a well-meaning relative who didn't know I don't know anything about plants. I was hoping you could save it," I added, holding it out toward her.

  From there, I was given a tour of the house. The kind of tour of the kind of house that left my fucking legs sore afterward. Their home was like Reagan explained--sun-soaked, full of neutral shades, impossibly clean, lacking knick knacks or personal items. Beautiful, but like a catalog, not like a home.

  The entire back of the building was windowed, giving endless views of the ocean and clean sand.

  The beach was private, so no ugly multi-colored towels or umbrellas interrupted the view.

  The Hoffmans had a built-in pool and a separate sauna in addition to the beach backyard. They had, by my count, three rooms that served no actual purpose except to hold more carefully chosen furniture.

  While Reagan, Sammy, and Luis all had their childhood bedrooms in the house, we were led to the "second master suite" at the other end of the house from theirs, told to settle in, then meet them downstairs for lunch.

  "I am pretty sure this room is bigger than my house."

  "I'm pretty sure you're right," she agreed, giving me a smile.

  She hadn't spent a lot of time at my place. She always had to be home to check on Mal, so we tended to just go there instead, but she had done a walk through. She'd smiled over the picture of my siblings and me with our mom, and she helped me break in a few surfaces.

  "I'm surprised they put us together."

  "Really? We're adults."

  "Still. Aren't parents usually weird about that sort of thing?"

  "I guess some can be pretty prudish. But my parents were never that way. Sammy's high-school boyfriend lived with us while his parents toured Europe one year. He stayed in her room. They've just always been liberal that way."

  "Did you and your mom have a good talk?" I asked, watching as she put her bag on the bed, as she started to unpack it. She was one of those people. A vacation unpacker. I was a live-out-of-a-suitcaser.

  "We mostly cried all over each other, and apologized for not being closer in our grief. What did you and my dad talk about?"

  "How you were. And the whiskey."

  "What about the whiskey?"

  "He's softening to the idea of slashing the ticket price."

  "Really?"

  "I may have implied it was too steep. He probably thinks I'm a cheap-ass now, but at least he is seeing that it's not just you who thinks the brand could be doing better. You're going to do great things with that company, babe," I assured her, snagging her around the waist, pulling her down on my lap at the edge of the bed.

  "I'm trying to unpack," she insisted, but didn't put up much of a fight.

  "You realize you're only going to re-pack in a couple of days, right?"

  "Yeah, but when you live out of a suitcase, things end up all over the floor when you look for an outfit."

  "Babe, have you seen this floor? I don't think dirty would dare to land on it."

  Then, well, we broke in the bed, my hand on her mouth, even though I very much doubted the sound could carry through such a sprawling space.

  Then we got dressed, went downstairs, and ate lunch with her family.

  Then dinner.

  Then breakfast.

  It turned out she was right.

  Her mom liked me because of the plant thing. A plant that was looking a lot better already with all its brown bits chopped off, moved into a new spot, watered, and placed near some light.

  Her father had liked hearing about Kingston building his own business, about all of us working there on occasion. I think he liked the steadiness of that even though he knew that should Reagan decide tomorrow never to work again, she would still never need someone to take care of her financially.

  It was just a dad thing.

  Something I could respect.

  She and her parents had tripped a long a little the first day, trying to find their connection again as a family.

  By the time Luis came parading through the door, they had finally found their groove again as a family. Luis, with all his light and fun, only seemed to add to it.

  "Now that we have everyone here," Kitty started that night at dinner, reaching for her husband's hand.

  Reagan's shoulders tightened, making my hand reach for her thigh under the table, giving it a squeeze.

  "Dun dun dun," Luis mumbled under his breath.

  "This family has been through a lot these past few years. The tragedy that has struck this family is... it's unfathomable," she said, closing her eyes tight for a long moment as her husband squeezed her hand. "It has made your father and I have a lot of long discussions, some real heart-to-hearts. And, as you know, we have been trying to downsize our properties. But your father and I have decided that instead of selling the property in the Hills, we are going to take it, and slowly turn it something much more useful."

  "We are going to open a women's shelter," Richard piped in.

  "Sammy's House," Kitty finished. "We wanted to tell you guys sooner, but there are a lot of legalities involved. We wanted to make sure we worked out all the kinks with the local governments, find employees, all that. We wanted to make it real first. But it's real now. We're moving forward. We thought... we thought that Sammy would have liked her trust money to go to helping other women. We just... we wanted to honor her correctly."

  There was more crying that night.

  At dinner with her parents, later when she talked with her brother, their legs kicking in the water as they sat off the side, a
nd in bed with me.

  I knew it for what it was.

  More healing.

  Pieces of the family being sewn back together.

  And I suspected that it meant something that I had been allowed to be a part of it, that I was invited to the opening of the shelter at the beginning of the next year.

  "Babe," I called, walking through the empty house, her parents having already said goodbye to us that morning before catching a plane of their own.

  "Down here," she called back, making me turn direction back to the "kid wing" as her parents had called it, the part of the house where Reagan's, Luis's, and Sammy's rooms were located, where none of us had gone for the whole week we had been there.

  "Is this your old room?" I asked, finding the bright pink walls in contrast with the woman I knew. But time made women out of girls. Who knew what she had liked all those years before.

  "No. This is Sammy's old room," she told me, sitting on the top of a lacy bedspread, a small floral pillow clutched to her chest. "I left in such a rush, I never got to bring anything of hers with me," she told me, eyes moving around the pictures, the trophies, the knick knacks lining a small white desk. "Now, I don't know what to take," she admitted, sounding lost.

  I moved over toward her, sitting down at her side. I remembered a moment much like this. After our mom passed. We all tried to find one thing of hers that we wanted to keep with us always. Scotti had earrings and a necklace, Kingston had her camera, Atlas got her passport that she'd never gotten any stamps in, Rush had her old keychain.

  They'd all made their decisions so easily, without needing to give it much thought.

  I'd been crippled by the options, unable to decide.

  Until Kingston gave me a speech that I would now give to Reagan.

  "Close your eyes," I suggested, repeating myself when she didn't immediately do so. "Now, think of a time you spent with Sammy. Not just any day. A really special day. A day that still makes you smile."

  "We went to the beach. Not our beach. A normal beach for normal people. We were twelve and we'd never been to a normal beach. We never walked a boardwalk and we never squished in between other blankets, listened to someone else's radio blaring music we hated. We never rinsed off in a public outdoor shower that sprayed dirty sea water all over us, leaving us dry and itchy. But we loved it."