by Paula Cox
“What do you mean, about the car accident?”
Gunner stood up, too fast; the chair rocked on its legs just a bit. “I can’t do this again, Laurel. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes. Be done with the story.” He stalked out of the apartment, his face stony and cold in a way Lola had never seen before. She glanced back at Laurel who was watching him go, a similar coldness in his eyes.
“Am I missing something important here?” Lola asked.
Laurel shrugged. “Probably, but it’s about time he faced it,” she said. “Sam didn’t die randomly. I don’t know why he won’t face it. She’d just gotten a new job, was ready to help him get his life straightened out, and had a beautiful new baby to take care of. And then something went wrong. She got scared. She wouldn’t tell me what was going on. She told Gunn to leave the club and to take her and the baby out of the state. He wouldn’t. And then she was dead. I came up here to take care of the baby while Gunn got straight, but he never got straight. He never got out of the life. I don’t think he ever will. Even though it killed the woman he loved, he won’t get off that fucking bike.”
Lola’s stomach was a tight knot as she stared at the other woman. What was all of this about? She forced herself to sidestep the comments about Gunner and listen to what Laurel had said about Sam. “What do you mean, that something went wrong? At her new job?”
“Yeah. She was like a girl in the first act of an action flick, you know? She was sure someone was coming for her. She wore big sunglasses out in public and was convinced everyone was talking about her. Complete ridiculousness. Until it wasn’t.”
“But you said — Gunner said she died in a car accident.”
“Yeah. She stepped out of the car to go get a gallon of milk, and a driver hopped the curve, drove straight into her. The paramedics said she was dead before they even got there. It took an hour for someone to hear the baby crying in the car.” Laurel shook her head. “If she had been holding the baby, they both would be dead. And maybe Gunner would have lost enough to listen to someone or something other than his dick.”
There wasn’t anything to say to that, and after a moment, Lola decided not to try. She just sat quietly, her hands in her lap, waiting for Gunner to get back.
Chapter Twenty-One
Gunner didn’t go far. He didn’t want to leave the women behind, but hearing the story of Sam, yet again, was more than he could handle. The two of them had been something special, but they’d also been kids. Sam getting pregnant had been a mistake, and they’d followed through with it for all the right reasons and some of the wrong ones. There was never a single moment when he regretted Grace being in his life, but if Sam hadn’t died, he sometimes wondered. It was easy to imagine the three of them as some kind of perfect little family, but things had been tense between him and Samantha throughout her pregnancy, and it had gotten worse once the baby had arrived. She’d thought that once they had a child, she’d be able to tell him to walk away from everything he’d ever considered important. If she’d asked, maybe things would be different, but she’d just handed it down, without a single conversation.
He knew that she’d called Laurel, in tears, after that last fight. He’d never asked what Sam had said about him. He just knew that Laurel was already on the way when he called her to tell her that her sister was gone. He knew she blamed him. He could hardly be upset with her about that; he blamed himself as well.
But it had also been years now. While he still missed Samantha and wondered what their life might’ve been like together, he’d also moved on. He couldn’t shackle himself to a dead woman and spend his entire life trying to fulfill a promise that had been unacceptable when she was alive and was even less acceptable now. He’d never particularly bothered putting words to the sensation before. After all, he hadn’t met anyone he wanted to spend more than just occasional time with. Lola, however, was something entirely different. She made him want to work things out, and find a way to let go of the baggage of his past and move forward with a more settled mind.
So, he walked out of the apartment, closing the door behind him, and hoped that Laurel would somehow avoid poisoning Lola against him. She could do it, he was sure. After all, it wasn’t like he and Lola had some deep connection based on years of experience and understanding. They were barely even friends. But he knew he wanted more.
He circled the floor twice; it was as much as he could manage. He went back, ready to tear the door off its hinges. He forced himself to take a deep, slow breath before he twisted the handle. In front of him, as he opened the door, he saw a surprising tableau. Lola and Laurel were exactly where he’d left them, but both of them wore expressions that blended horror and fear.
“What? What’s happening?”
Both women had their phones in their hands, he noticed. Laurel was holding hers like it was about to bite her, and Lola was frantically typing before she saw him in the doorway. She put her phone down and gestured frantically at him. He blinked before walking in. He watched as Laurel tapped something on her phone screen and lowered it, with a shaking hand, towards the table.
“What is it?” he asked again.
“Daddy?”
The small voice came out of the phone’s speaker, and he dropped down to his knees where he was. He tried to say the words, say her name, but his throat was closed so tight that all that came out was a small whistle. Tears were streaming down Laurel’s face as well, and she squeezed her eyes shut. It was Lola who saved both of them.
“He’s here, Gracie,” she said. Her voice was shaking, but it worked, which was more than he was able to say for himself. “I’m here, too — this is Ms. Sykes — and so is your mom. We’re all here. Where are you?”
“He says I can’t tell you, or he’ll take the phone away,” Grace said. Gunner felt the fury he’d managed to keep banked for the past few days beginning to surge. Some man had his baby girl, and maybe he hadn’t exactly been a model parent, he was still her father, and he was going to get his daughter back. He was going to figure it out.
“Okay, that’s fine,” Lola said, and he wanted to throw something at her, even as he understood what she was doing. “We want you to do what he says. We want you to stay safe. Understand? We’re going to find you, but you need to listen and stay safe. How’s your breathing?”
“He gave me my medicine,” Grace replied, and Gunner felt something start to loosen up inside of him. “It was bad before that, but it’s better now. Ms. Sykes, I wish you guys would come and get me soon,” she started to say, and then there was a shift. Another person on the line, a man. He didn’t recognize the voice, but when he glanced over at Lola, her eyes were wide, and her complexion was drained and ashy. It wasn’t too much of a leap to guess that it was the man who’d taken her from the park.
“So glad you could all be together,” the man said, and whatever had loosened tightened up again. Gunner’s hands clenched into such tight fists that he could feel his knuckles creaking. “Right now, I’m just letting you all know that the kid is okay. I’ll be in touch soon so that we can figure out the next steps.” And then Laurel’s screen went dark as the call ended.
***
Laurel screamed. Gunner punched the wall hard enough that he left knuckle prints in the plaster. Lola felt tempted to do something equally dramatic, but she couldn’t quite decide what the right move was. In her own house, she would’ve thrown something. Shattered a mug and left a nice coffee stain on the paint to always remind her of how much this moment hurt. That would be a good place to start. But with it not being her mug or her walls, she wasn’t sure how that would go over.
She’d never been a screamer, not like that, and the last time she punched a wall, she broke a knuckle and almost needed surgery. So, she settled on mostly sitting still and clenching her hands into fists until her nails threatened to split the skin on her palms. And she memorized the numbers she’d seen on the phone’s screen. She repeated them, over and over, until they were carved into her heart. She had a funny fe
eling about those numbers, and what they would mean. But if the man had meant to talk to all of them, really talk to all of them, he would have. She glanced out the window and wondered. Could he see us right now?
There was shouting, and she could just barely tune into it. Laurel wanted to go to the police; Gunner still thought that was a mistake. Every so often they would look at her like she was destined to be the tie-breaking vote. She couldn’t find a word to say. She loved Grace to pieces, but she was a teacher, they were her parents. This wasn’t her decision to make. She knew she’d be in trouble if they called the cops, but she also trusted Gunner to do everything he could to protect her. Even now.
She didn’t know what to do, not really. She just tried to stay still and quiet until the fighting was done. If it was done.
When Gunner snapped her name, she was pretty sure that it was not the first time. His face was lit up with fury, and his shoulders were a line of pure tension. She glanced at Laurel, who had retreated back into her blanket fort, and was clutching her phone as she hit redial again and again. No one picked up, but she just kept redialing and letting it ring.
“Lola,” he said, and this time his voice was softer. “We need to go. I need to find Horse.”
“Okay,” Lola replied and pushed herself to her feet. She recited the numbers one more time, making sure they were securely lodged in her mind, and then looked back at Laurel. “Sue will be back soon. She’ll take care of you, okay? We’re going to find Grace. Somehow, we’re going to get this figured out.”
Laurel nodded, and Lola followed Gunner out the door.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Gunner was moving so fast that Lola had to half run to keep up with him.
“Wait up,” she called out, but he didn’t respond. She put on an extra burst of speed and caught his arm. She didn’t really think she’d be able to physically stop him — she had a quick mental image of being dragged along like a little kid in a cartoon, puffs of dust squirting up from her shoes — but she hoped that the touch of her hand on his arm would snap him back into the real world.
She didn’t expect him to spin so fast, and she let out a little scream. He pressed into her space, pushing her back against the wall, pinning her there with his arms on either side of her shoulders.
“Why are you following me?” he snarled, his face twisted into an emotion she didn’t recognize. Not on him.
“Gunner, I—”
His lips crashed down on hers with more force than was entirely comfortable, but the twist of pain lit something deep inside of her that she had buried for years. A little cry slipped past her lips, and she locked her arms around his neck, pulling herself up onto her tiptoes to deepen the contact between them. His tongue slipped past her lips, teasing into her mouth, and she met him stroke for stroke. One hand came off the wall to crush her breast in his hand as he tore his mouth free for a moment.
“Why are you still here?” he asked again. “Why haven’t you given up on me yet?”
There weren’t any words. None that would’ve worked anyway. They were all empty lines from movies or romance novels, nothing that was true and real and existing between them in the moment. She could’ve told him about how she loved that little girl too, or how there was something between them now, and no matter how it had started, she wanted to see what it turned into. She could’ve told him that he was a good man, and she’d seen evidence of that, and she wanted to see more. She could’ve said any number of things, and she was quite sure he would’ve heard them, nodded, and walked away.
So, Lola didn’t say any of those things. She took his hand from her breast and led it down, under her skirt and inside her panties, where she was slick and wet for him, just as she’d been since she first saw him, before her life was turned upside down. She spread her legs wide, watching his eyes as he reacted to the intensity of her arousal. His fingers, more tender now than they’d ever been before, were exploring her as if they hadn’t touched each other ever before. His eyes were wide with something not unlike wonder. He flickered tenderly over her clit, making her gasp. He played farther back, teasing at the opening of her, making her hips arch towards him, begging for more contact. He laughed then, soft, not giving her what she needed.
“Right here?” he asked. “Anyone could come along.”
She caught his gaze and held it, her arms tight around him, and hooked her leg around the back of his thigh, giving him plenty of space to play. “I don’t care.”
Heat rose in him then, and he choked back a sound that had wanted to be a growl. “It’s not going to be my fingers you take. You know that.”
“Fuck me, Gunner. Please.”
“Jesus Christ,” he murmured, opening his jeans and pulling out his cock. He was hard, so hard, and Lola heard a little humming sound in her throat of anticipation. He was going to split her wide open. As wet as she was she still wasn’t ready for him, and she didn’t care. She didn’t care who saw, she didn’t care if she got arrested. She just wanted to show him that this meant something. It meant something important.
He teased her with the head of his cock for a moment, finding her opening, lining her up, adjusting her hips. He kept his thumb on her clit, setting up a light tapping rhythm that made her bite her lip and twist her head from side to side. He hiked her leg up just a little bit higher, giving himself a little more room, and starting the slightest burn on her thigh from the stretch and the strength necessary to hold her leg in that position. She thanked whoever wanted to listen for the dance classes she’d gone to over the years and let him shift her and move her until she was exactly where he wanted her to be.
He entered her in a smooth motion, hitting half of his depth in that first stroke. She hissed with the intensity of it, not the pain, but the desire that was contained in his pressure and motion. He had to pull back, making space, before he could slide forward again, fully seating himself inside of her. They groaned in unison, and his hands came to her ass, lifting her up just a little bit higher. Her toes weren’t entirely on the ground anymore, and her heart beat a little faster at the loss of control. The shaking need that boiled through her frightened her, and drove her forward, doing her best to wriggle her hips and pinion herself on his cock as he began to thrust into her.
“God, so dirty,” he muttered, leaning forward and nipping at her chin, her neck, any bit of her skin that he could reach without losing the angle and depth of the coupling. “Not going to last,” he grunted. Already, his thrusts were ragged, his thighs and arms shaking.
“I don’t care,” she replied, but he pulled free from her, setting her down and laying his cock along the soft flesh of her cleft. His fingers at his base, he thrust down along her; her clit dragged over his shaft, and the sheer wanton need of him left her even more desperate.
He came hard, vicious, grunting. She could feel his cock twitching against her thigh as he spent, felt the hot splash of liquid on the inside of her thigh. Some part of her was disappointed, maybe even frustrated. She wanted more of him than this, but the sagging relief in his body was worthwhile.
He fell to his knees, and she thought he’d just lost his balance, but his hands nudged her thighs open wider.
“Would have come right inside,” he murmured, “but licking up my own cum is not a kink of mine.” And then his tongue was on her pussy, and her hands were in his hair, and Jesus God in Heaven this boy knew how to devour her.
There was something different. Him fucking her up against a wall was just garden-variety dirty, but she’d had her face well hidden in his neck, and if someone walked by, it was him that would’ve been caught with his ass quite literally hanging out of his pants. Now, his tongue lapping furiously at her, she felt infinitely more exposed. There was nowhere to hide, nowhere to turn away. She was the wanton girl in the hallway, someone who couldn’t take another twenty steps to fuck in the car.
She expected the shame and nerves to shut down her reactions, but instead, she spiraled higher. Her fingers tightened in Gunner’
s hair, and it seemed to drive him to greater heights. He jammed two, then three, fingers into her cunt and fucked her, pressing at the inner spot that made her vision darken as he took her clit between his teeth and tugged at it. She thought she’d hate it, she’d always thought the sensation would make her scream and want to hit the guy who took such liberties. She was sure no nice girl would like what he was doing to her body right now. But she wasn’t a nice girl because she could feel the orgasm coming for her like a truck barreling down an icy road, and she had no intention of getting out of the way.
She thought she’d scream when she came, but there wasn’t any air left in her lungs as her entire body spasmed. She ground down onto his face, and he responded, moaning up into her and pulsing his fingers and nursing her into the highest possible level of pleasure. When the wave broke around her, she cried out, shivering and shaking as he pressed the flat of his tongue against her, savoring the last of her release as she pulsed down around him.