by PJ Friel
Except Bryn, when you treat her like a piece of meat.
I ignored my conscience. I already had enough voices in my head to worry about.
“I can wear gloves around you if you’d like.” She didn’t look at me, just played with the condensation on her glass.
She looked so vulnerable in that moment that my protective urge rose up with a vengeance. Conflict twisted in my gut and I lashed out at her again instead of pulling her into my arms, like I wanted.
“A few minutes ago, I threatened to snap your neck. What makes you think I ever want to see you again?”
Bryn blushed and shot me a look that I couldn’t quite decipher. “A few minutes ago you didn’t know that someone was plotting to kill your boss. I want to help you find out who.”
I traced a finger over her heated cheek. “Actually, I did, but if that’s the only reason you’re here then you should leave now and not come back.”
I was fucking crazy, but I meant it. I could have just listened to what she had to say and sent her on her way, but I wanted Bryn Ullman and I was done fighting the attraction.
I wasn’t stupid enough to think this desire would lead to anything special. I might satisfy my physical needs when the opportunity arose, but I hadn’t pursued a woman in centuries. Not since Caitlin.
Maybe there was a little revenge twisted up in there, but I didn’t want to examine that too closely, lest the Monster started to rattle his cage again. It was satisfied that I’d decided to give in to my physical attraction to her. I could feel it.
No, I would just take whatever this was between us and enjoy the hell out of it while it lasted. And when it was over, well...she was a big girl. She knew the score.
“I’m not going anywhere, Trygg. Do you have to work today?”
“No.”
She reached up and gripped my wrist as she looked into my eyes. “Maybe we can—”
My stomach growled right at that moment and Bryn laughed.
“Sounds like you’re starving,” she echoed my words from the day before.
“Yeah.” My gaze held hers. “I really am.”
“Let’s go feed you and discuss things.” She stood and headed for the door.
“Remember to wrap it before you tap it,” Jack quipped as he walked towards me.
“Fuck you, Jack.” I muttered, unable to take my eyes off Bryn’s ass.
“I think you have your hands full enough with that one.”
I scoffed. “She has her hands full with me.”
Jack patted my shoulder. “Sure she does, buddy.”
“Again...fuck you, Jack.”
“You keep saying that, but you never give me the goods.” He bit his bottom lip.
“I’m a power bottom. You couldn’t handle me.”
Jack nearly swallowed his tongue and I snickered while beating a hasty retreat. He was right, I more than had my hands full with Bryn Ullman.
CHAPTER 18
BRYN
The Chinese restaurant down the street was quiet. We’d rendezvoused at my office and dropped off our cars so I could change into more comfortable clothes, then we’d walked the few blocks to the restaurant.
If I was going to do battle with Trygg Mackenzie, I wanted to be on familiar ground. I knew every exit in this place and had a half dozen escape routes planned out in my head if I needed them. Hopefully, I wouldn’t.
I twirled my pork lo mein around my fork. Across from me, Trygg ate General Tso’s chicken with chopsticks.
Show off.
So far we hadn’t discussed Mordechai and the reason that I’d sought Trygg out at his work.
He closed his eyes and groaned. “So good,” he said. “Want a bite?”
I wrinkled my nose. “It’s spicy, isn’t it?”
“Nope. Here, take a bite.”
He selected a chunk of the sauce-covered chicken from his plate, blew on it for a moment, then held it out to me. I wasn’t sure if it was irritating that he was treating me like an infant and cooling my food to room temperature or if it was sweet that he wanted to make sure my mouth didn’t get burned.
Whatever. Don’t overanalyze.
He pushed the bite between my lips. As soon as I closed my mouth, spicy fire ate my face.
“Ack!” I choked it down, then grabbed my water and guzzled half.
Trygg frowned and cocked his head, looking puzzled. “Are you serious?”
“That was terrible! Do you even have any taste buds left?” I growled.
“My taste buds are fine.” He shoved another bite into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully. He swallowed and shook his head at me. “You’re a wimp.”
Maybe. But screw him. I jabbed my fork at his smug face. “Come jogging with me and I’ll show you who’s a wimp.”
Trygg laughed. “Oh, you think you can take me, huh?”
“I know I can take you.”
“Time and place, little girl. How about tomorrow?”
My smile faded. “I’m going to be busy for the foreseeable future.”
“Right.” Trygg put down his fork. “Ready to tell me how you found out that someone is trying to kill Mordechai and who you think it is?”
“I spoke with Gideon’s mother a few hours ago. Something she said led me to believe that there’s political unrest in the Devourer community and somehow her son was involved in it.”
“What kind of political unrest? Mordechai is fair and loves the community. I can’t imagine anyone having a problem with that.”
“She seemed to believe that he was repressing true Jotun nature.”
Trygg scoffed. “He’s not repressing anything. He’s offered our people a way of life that doesn’t involve drugs or war.”
“I’m not accusing him of anything,” I said, holding up my hands. “I’m just telling you what she said.”
“Is she leading this group?”
“Definitely not, but I think she knows more than she admitted. I couldn’t get much out of her because I’m not Jotun.”
Trygg smirked and sat back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. “Now the truth comes out.”
My eggroll became very interesting in that moment. “What do you mean?”
“The reason you came looking for me is you need a Jotun to squeeze information out of a suspect. Otherwise, I never would have seen you again.”
“That’s not the only—”
“Save it. I really don’t care.” He shot forward and took my hand. “Let’s stop circling each other and playing games, shall we? You want to use me. I want to use you.” His thumb rubbed against my madly throbbing pulse point. “We want to use each other...in every way possible.”
I shivered. He was not at all wrong and the confidence it took for him to put it all out on the line like that turned me on.
Trygg motioned for the waitress. “Can we get the check, please, and some To-Go boxes?” The woman scurried off and he focused back on me. “We’re going to go talk to Gideon’s mother and then we’re going to your apartment.”
I arched a brow at him. “That’s pretty presumptuous of you.”
It really wasn’t, but I had the sudden urge to make him work for it.
“No, it’s expedient. I’m tired of dancing around this. I want to fuck you and I know you want to fuck me. Let’s take care of business, then get down to business.”
I blinked at him.
Well, now.
I barely held back a needy little moan. Bonus points for honesty, Mr. Mackenzie. Dating wasn’t for me and it never had been. I hated all the getting-to-know-you crap. My past was a minefield. My clients, business acquaintances, and work friends never felt the need to give me the third degree about my past. There were other, more important, things to discuss.
I couldn’t say the same for people I went out with on romantic dates. Those people had data-gathering checklists to go through. They needed to ferret out all my favorite things and my hobbies and my family stuff and then bump it all up against theirs to check for outliers tha
t might cause the whole relationship to crash and burn later on.
Who needs that?
A hookup didn’t care how many secrets I kept.
Do you think I’m hot?
Are you single?
Do you wanna screw?
That’s it. My answers to those questions, if Trygg did the asking, were yes, yes, and oh my god yes.
“Okay.”
“Okay?” He looked surprised in spite of how confidently he’d thrown out his proposition.
“Mhmm. That’s what I said.”
He released my wrist, pulled out his wallet, and handed a fifty to the returning waitress. “Keep the change.”
As I watched, he took my plate and scraped my leftovers into a box. “I can do that, you know.”
“I got it.”
“Okay...well, I need to look up Abigail’s address back at my office. She and David are divorced, so I don’t know where she lives.”
“Fine. We can drop this stuff off and do that.”
“Sounds good.” I felt like I should say something more, but what else was there to say?
“Too bad they’re divorced. Marriage should be forever.” He dumped his food in the other box.
I shrugged.
“You don’t think so?” He paused in his scraping and gave me a puzzled look.
“I think it’s naive to enter into a relationship believing that it’s going to last forever. They rarely do.”
“That’s pretty cynical.” he murmured. “Someone hurt you?”
Talk about a loaded question. “No. I’ve never had a serious romantic relationship. I’m too busy with work.”
Besides that, I’d have to take a Xanax to actually enjoy an evening out.
“What about your parents? Are they still together?” He finished scraping his food into his box.
I glared at him. I’d specifically said that I didn’t want to talk about them.
“You get one freebie from me because of what I did to you in my office. You really wanna burn it on asking about my parents?”
“Tell me about your parents.”
Grrr. “I mean it. One freebie.”
“Tell me.” He stared until I rolled my eyes.
“Whatever. My adoptive parents separated when I was a sophomore in high school. They’ve never reconciled. As far as I know, they’re still separated, but not divorced. It’s been ten years.”
“As far as you know?”
I nodded, but didn’t offer an explanation.
“That’s a long time to be separated. Why didn’t they ever divorce?”
“Not my marriage. I stay out of it.”
“Do you know your birth parents?”
“I said one freebie.”
“I said parents. Not my problem that you didn’t narrow the scope.”
“I don’t have to answer any of your questions, you know.”
He pinned me to my seat with a glare. “Are you saying that I can’t trust your word?”
I glared back. Lesson learned. Mr. Mackenzie was literal. “Fine. I don’t have a relationship with my birth parents and I don’t have any desire for one. I’ve never seen my birth father and my birth mother had me dropped off at a hospital when I was seven.”
The shock and anger on his face surprised me.
“It’s fine. I’m over it.” That was a lie. “Mostly.” I smiled.
He reached out and squeezed my hand. “I didn’t mean to open old wounds.”
“You didn’t. The scar tissue is thick enough to withstand one poke.” I laughed. The sound was brittle and I wished I could pull it back and swallow down the pain instead of releasing it out into the air between us.
“Bryn—”
“Hey, it could have been worse, right? She could have thrown me in the trash.” I swallowed down the bile scorching the back of my throat.
“That’s not funny. No child deserves that.”
He looked ready to give some speech about how maybe my mother just couldn’t take care of me and sometimes people had to make hard choices. I didn’t want to hear it. Maybe that was true or maybe people just sucked.
“It doesn’t matter. That was a long time ago. I don’t let people hurt me anymore.” He opened his mouth again and I just couldn’t deal with whatever he was going to say. “If you want to have sex with me tonight, we need to get a move on.”
That shut his mouth and we powered towards the exit.
Mission accomplished.
We walked in uncomfortable silence. He carried the bag containing our food, which irritated the heck out of me. He’d snatched it up off the table when I’d reached for it, like I was too delicate and weak to carry a darn takeout bag.
I reminded myself that he’d said he was “old-fashioned.” He was probably just being nice. Not sure why he cared. We’d just agreed to use the heck out of each other, not build a lifelong friendship. I guess I’d just have to feed him some rope and hope he didn’t hang himself with it.
As we strolled down the sidewalk, he rested his free hand on the small of my back. The first brush of his fingertips made my stomach flutter and my nipples tighten. I couldn’t help fantasizing about his hand drifting lower, squeezing my butt and pulling me against him.
The spell broke as he used his touch to guide me, tugging me left and nudging me right. Once he even pulled on my shirt to slow me down. I clenched my jaw so tightly my teeth ached.
Dodging pedestrians was a way of life. I’d been doing it for years. I didn’t need someone steering me like a shopping cart. He controlled my movements, manipulated my direction like he knew better than I did where and how fast I should walk. I’d had enough of that from Frank and Eugenia Ullman. I didn’t need it from some guy I barely knew.
His thumb slipped under the bottom of my shirt and traced a circle. Twin bolts of desire raced down the backs of my thighs, and my brain short-circuited until we came to the next red light.
He swung his arm out in front of me to keep me from crossing. I gave him a disgruntled look, but either he didn’t see it or he ignored it. When the light turned green, he made the colossal mistake of offering me his hand to help me off the curb.
I lost my ever-loving mind.
“Are you kidding me right now? I can step down off a curb without breaking my neck, Dad. I’m not five.”
Trygg arched a brow at me. “Really? You’re acting like it.”
“Wow...”
His husky laugh followed me the remaining twenty feet to my office. Calmly unlocking the door was hard when what I really wanted to do was kick it down. Eventually, I succeeded, then slammed it shut behind me. A moment later Trygg sauntered in.
“Are you done with your snit?” He walked into my office and tossed the takeout bag on my desk, wicked lips curled in a grin.
“If my lo mein spilled, I’m going to be so angry.” I poked him in the chest.
“I’ll buy you some more.” He leaned into my poke, his face inches from mine.
God, he smelled delicious. Spicy and earthy and all male.
“I don’t need you to buy me anything. If I want lo mein, I’ll buy it myself. And newsflash! I can even feed myself, too. No bib required.”
A vision of him feeding me flitted across my mind and I stomped my foot rather than give in to the electricity sparking down my spine.
“Oh, yeah? Well, what if I want to buy you lo mein? What if it makes me deliriously happy to buy you a whole trough full of lo mein?”
Huh?
“Why would it make you happy to—”
“If I do buy you a trough full of lo mein are you going to throw it at my head to show me what a big strong girl you are?” He squeezed my biceps and winked at me.
I swallowed hard. “Not a bad idea.”
“Or maybe you could just take the goddamn lo mein and appreciate the fact that I cared you might be hungry.”
I stared into his eyes, panting, as his fingers slid up to my shoulders. “Are you finished?”
“Not even close.”
His hands cupped my face and I moaned. “We’re not actually talking about lo mein, are we?”
“We never were.”
My lips twitched. “Just don’t expect me to eat General Tso’s.”
“General Tso isn’t getting anywhere near you.” Trygg growled and dragged me against him, his gaze a heavy-lidded smolder. “You’ll eat only what I feed you, woman.”
“Keep telling yourself that.” I gripped his biceps, my short nails digging into his skin.
A hand gripped the hair at the back of my head. The other moved to my butt and pulled me against his rock-hard cock. His head lowered and he took my mouth like it was his due.
My reaction was immediate, without thought. Every part of my body strained towards him. My arms wrapped around his neck, nipples peaked against his chest, toes lifting me so I could press my mouth harder against his.
The kiss in the parking garage had been hot, exploratory. It spoke of a man who was confident in his skills and considerate of his lovers. That man gave more than he received. His partner’s pleasure was paramount to his own.
The difference between that Trygg and this one was both terrifying and thrilling.
This Trygg wanted to own me, wanted to bend me to his will, make me beg for all the things he would have given me freely before. All I had to do now was the impossible...let him take the reins.
For a moment I considered it, allowed my senses to be overwhelmed by his taste, his touch, the way he smelled. I’d never given a man control of my body before. Previous lovers hadn’t ever dared try and I certainly hadn’t expected a power play from Trygg. He was the old-fashioned gentleman who carried me into a dark parking garage and kissed me just long enough to leave me wanting more.
The man devouring my mouth was no gentleman. After the way he’d laid everything out in the restaurant, I wasn’t sure why I expected him to be, but I was thankful he wasn’t.
If Trygg was tempting before, now he was irresistible, but for an entirely different reason. Before, he’d made me feel safe. There had been a light in his eyes offering me sanctuary, a place to hide from the darkness that drained my courage every time the sun set. That Trygg would have let me curl into his arms for the rest of my days, never forcing me to reveal the corruption eating away at my soul.