Mister Monster: A Hero Club Novel

by Desiree Lafawn

  So heavy. So hard.

  So damned good.

  Instead of our normal skin slapping action, he entered me gently from behind, one hand slipping in the front between me and the cushion, somehow finding the space to work me from the front as he slid into me from the back, pinning me down in more ways than one.

  And then he thrust. My mouth opened only to be filled with the fabric of the couch cushion as I was weighed down by his massive body. I whimpered and the hand he’d been bracing himself with on the couch slid to my neck, pulling me up slightly so I had room to breathe. I arched into him as much as I could, but I barely had space to move with all of his weight on me. But still, he thrust, and with each push the fabric of the sofa grated against my sensitive skin. The hand on my throat moved and his thumb pressed against my lips. I opened my mouth instinctively.

  Another thrust. I took his thumb into my mouth and ran my tongue against the blunt tip as he picked up the rhythm and I matched it. Sucking against his thumb as he rode me into the cushions. Thrust, suck, thrust, suck—we made our own cadence, the only sound in the room was our harsh breathing and the creaking of the furniture.

  My orgasm caught me by surprise. Mostly because I didn’t feel it coming. One minute I was enjoying being slammed into the couch cushions and the next my world was exploding in a sea of shining lights. I bit down on his thumb as I came.

  12

  Ash

  Two weeks had passed since I’d taken her like an animal and she’d let me, damn near demanded more of it actually. Anyone else would feel like an asshole for treating a woman that way, but she loved it. At least it seemed that way when she pulled me into her bedroom, sleepily dragged the covers over both of us and passed the hell out, her back snuggled against my chest and her feet tucked under my legs. Didn’t even ask me if I was going to spend the night. If I ever had a thought about leaving it was dashed when she grabbed my arm and wrapped it around her middle. That’s one of the things I liked so much about Church, she knew what she wanted and she didn’t ask for it. She took it.

  Early in the morning hours I took her again, slower and softer this time. She’d rolled over to face me and without even opening her eyes ran her hands over my shoulders and chest, almost like she’d forgotten I was there. Then, still with her eyes closed, she’d smiled. And damn if I could let a woman smiling at me like that go unloved.

  Even after we were done, we still didn’t get up. She’d yawned, like she hadn’t just exerted herself, and asked, “Want to tell me what happened last night?”

  She wasn’t talking about the sex, and I wasn’t going to insult her intelligence by acting like I didn’t know what she meant. And for once, I did something that I never did with another soul, besides idly conversating about life and the universe while naked in the sheets. I talked to her about my Gigi. About the sickness ravaging her brain. About how I had to move her so far away from her home to keep her near me, and while the proximity helped me keep an eye on her, it was clear she was missing her home and the child she helped raise. The one who wasn’t me.

  I felt her flinch when I talked about the reasons I hated the rich. About why I didn’t like him in particular, and why it sent me right over the edge when Gigi had called me by his name. I couldn’t say it out loud, but Church didn’t ask any intrusive questions. She just let me get it all out, and somehow, during the course of me talking, our roles reversed, and it was me with my head on her chest and her arms circling me, giving me comfort.

  By the time I left her apartment I knew—professional was a pipe dream. There was no way I could ignore what was going on between us. That’s why, when I picked her up for work Monday morning, I brought flowers. And asked her out on a dinner date. She’d seemed surprised, but said yes quickly. While we’d managed to keep it out of the office so far, people were beginning to notice the change. Probably because we weren’t sniping at each other anymore. Ruby especially was giving me a funny look every time she saw me.

  “You know, there’s no clause in our company policy that prohibits inter office dating.”

  Shit, I’d been lost in my thoughts and completely forgot Gabe was sitting in my office, but there he was, grinning like an idiot, just watching me stare into space like a dumbass.

  “I know that, and I didn’t ask.”

  “Didn’t have to, everyone can see it. You know, who would have thought meeting a strong-willed woman would be enough to turn you into a moon-eyed idiot.”

  “A what eyed what?” I couldn’t even be mad at him, mostly because he was outright laughing and not just because he signed my paychecks. Also, I saw him when he started getting serious with Angel. There was no bigger dingus than Gabe Anderson swooning over a woman. “Church is definitely strong-willed, though.”

  “You even have a cute nickname, it’s so special.”

  I threw a notebook at him but he dodged it easily. “But seriously. There isn’t any clause about not dating a coworker, so you guys don’t have to act like it’s some big secret.”

  I didn’t think we were acting like it was a secret. What we were doing was exercising self-control so we didn’t rip each other’s clothes off and christen my desk, her desk, and all the file cabinets like we wanted to. I could barely watch her climb into the BMW in those tight pencil skirts she always wore to work without my dick getting hard. And I knew damn well she liked it when I rolled my shirtsleeves up to my elbows. It had recently become my favorite way to wear shirts. Forget keeping it a secret, we were just trying not to turn it into a circus.

  I couldn’t remember the last time I felt anything but lust for a woman. That was something easily assuaged and forgotten about. But Church, she was so sure of herself and in control almost all the time. She didn’t need me around at all, but she wanted me, and damn if that wasn’t intoxicating as fuck.

  “Okay, put it this way, would you drop her if I told you it was against company policy?” Gabe raised both eyebrows and slouched in the chair on the other side of my desk, his long legs slung out in front of him. At least he had jeans on today and not basketball shorts.

  “I’d tell you to go fuck yourself. You put her here, I’m keeping her.”

  Gabe laughed and shook his head, then stood, pausing to flick my nameplate until it toppled over. Because he was such a little kid, he always had to be touching something. “Okay then, be two adults and don’t make trouble for other people. Problem solved. Also, I had sex with Angel all over my office before you took over, so there.”

  “I know. That’s why your old office is a storage room and I use the receptionist area for my office. You nasty mother fucker.”

  A light tapping on the wall grabbed both of our attentions and we turned to see Caroline standing in the doorway with a notebook and a pen. That notebook, I’d since learned, was a big fat lie. Her mind was a steel trap and she memorized everything. The notebook was a prop that she used to make it look like she was listening to me when she was really drawing stick people and making grocery lists. The fact that she had it right now meant she probably overheard our conversation and wanted to be a busybody. She looked so damn beautiful standing in the doorway, her hair pulled away from her face and her eyes sparkling. I couldn’t help but poke at her.

  “It's not polite to eavesdrop, Caroline.” I thought I heard Gabe cough into his hand but I couldn’t be sure. I didn’t bother to look at him. She grinned in response.

  “You left the door open, Mr. Sugarbaker.”

  “Oh, God.” Gabe all but ran for the door. “Get a room.”

  “This is my room, you get out.” I yelled at his back as Gabe brushed past Caroline and into the hallway. I didn’t miss the shoulder bump he gave her, or the smile she gave him when he winked at her on his way out the door. I liked that smile. It was a real smile, not something she put on for others to see. I also liked that I was the one who put it there, even though it might have been cocky to think so.

  “Nice to see he’s the same weirdo I met when I was five.” Church shut t
he door and sat in the chair Gabe just vacated. Thankfully she didn’t prop her feet on my desk like he did. Although I might have liked that . . . I stared at her spiky heeled stilettos.

  “I really did come in here for a reason.”

  “Hm?” Well hell, she came in about work stuff. That’s what we did here at Anderson Investments. Work. I shuffled the papers I hadn’t bothered to look at since I’d placed them on my desk that morning. “Is something wrong?”

  “We had a new hire not show up for work today.” Okay, that sounded like an HR issue and not something Church needed to be involved in. Especially not to bring it to my attention. “Okay?” I waited for a little more explanation.

  “Ruby thought you might want to know, so she asked me to tell you about it and see what you wanted to do. Apparently, it was one of your new hires.” Church didn’t say anything else after that, just pursed her lips together and waited.

  Oh. One of my new hires. I guess it was time to explain some things to Caroline. But before I could say anything, she slid something she’d been holding on top of her notebook and let it plop on the stack of papers on my desk.

  A badge. An Anderson Investments badge.

  I had to stare at it a full thirty seconds before I understood what I was seeing. I didn’t recognize the face on the front at all. Until it hit me. The scraggly half beard was gone and the swelling and bruising had gone down around his face. He wasn’t wearing that ratty red sweatshirt anymore, thankfully, and it was clear he’d made an effort to bathe. He’d looked mid-thirties when he was standing in that dirty alley, trying to relieve Church of her purse. The photo in the badge was of a guy who could not have been older than twenty-three.

  He was still gaunt, and the angry red lines still crept up his neck in some places in the picture, but his eyes were clear and earnest. Dennis Bradley. The words typed under the picture were shown in bold type. Dennis Bradley. Mailroom Assistant.

  Shit. To be honest, I’d been so preoccupied with Caroline over the last couple of weeks I’d forgotten I’d worked something out with the halfway house. If he went through detox and kept clean, I would give him a foot in the door. That’s all I gave him; it would be up to him to do what needed to be done to get his life straight. If he wanted money, he had to work. And if he wanted to work, he had to be clean. I didn’t think he was going to be starting so soon. I wanted to talk to Caroline about it beforehand. I wanted to get her feelings before she ran into the guy in the hallway on the way to the cafeteria or something.

  I wasn’t worried about him hurting her—on the contrary—I wanted to make sure she didn’t drop kick him into oblivion while he was training. I opened my mouth, “Church, I . . .”

  “Why is it such a secret?” She didn’t let me explain before she was asking her own questions.

  “I didn’t want you to be upset, and I wanted to talk to you before he started, I just honestly forgot. It’s a shit excuse, I know. I don’t want you to ever not feel safe, I would never put you in harm’s way. I want you to know that.”

  “I’m not talking about that. I don’t need you to keep me out of harm’s way. I handle myself.” That she certainly did. “I mean, why is it a secret? That you hire people down on their luck? Why do you hide that from everybody?”

  She said everybody, but I heard what she didn’t say out loud. Why did you hide that from me? That’s what she wanted to say. That’s what her expression was screaming. I could say something dickish to make her mad at me instead of looking disappointed. Instead, I sighed.

  “Some people see kindness as weakness, Church. I am not a weak man, and I won’t be taken advantage of. But just because someone is at the bottom doesn’t mean they have to stay there. I’m a big fan of self-made people. All I do is offer a hand to get people off their knees. It’s their effort that gets them walking again.”

  Church sniffed and looked down at her lap. “Ruby doesn’t think you’re weak.”

  So Ruby was the one who was talking. Don’t know why I was surprised. “Ruby barely needed a hand. She popped back up on her own.” That wasn’t a lie. She had a couple of college credits, an abusive ex-husband, and two small kids when I met her. All I did was tell her to submit an application and use my name as a reference. Everything she’d done since then had been her own blood, sweat, and tears. Now I didn’t know what I’d do without her. Certainly not be able to figure out my fucking expense reports properly, that’s for sure.

  “You’d rather everyone think of you as some sort of monster?” She looked up at me then, her eyes bright with some unexpressed emotion.

  “Newsflash, Church, you’re pretty much the only person who thinks that.”

  “You wish I was the only person that thought that. There’s a reason you have a whole floor to yourself, you demon. Also, you deliberately left that impression. I’m never going to forget my new employee hazing. I moved every damn file up here folder by folder, you jackass.”

  Yeah, I’d been real rough on her since day one. “If you’d like I can make it up to you, starting with you coming over to this side of the desk.” I smiled, showing lots of teeth, letting her see just how much of a demon I could be.

  Her laugh was cool rain on a hot summer day, instantly refreshing. “Absolutely not. Professional at the workplace—we both agreed. Or at least, you mandated and I agreed. Anyway, there’s two hours left in the work day and then you have to drive me home. Then you can make it up to me, and we can see if you can use that mouth for anything other than giving orders.” Since we were on the topic of people I tried to help get on their feet, there was something else . . . more like someone else I should mention. A nagging feeling told me if I didn’t bring it up soon, it was going to cause a problem in the future. But that redhead hadn’t shown her face in a while, and Church was pretty much giving me permission to do terrible things to her in T-minus 120 minutes. I could talk about something irritating or I could plan all the ways I was going to make Caroline Gower submit to me in just a couple short hours.

  It wasn’t even a contest.

  13

  Caroline

  The drive was too quick, over too fast. I’d wanted to wear some of my old clothes, but Ruby assured me she would do a better job picking out my clothes than I could.

  “You ever meet your man’s grandmama before?” There wasn’t any judgement in her tone, just a question in her soft brown eyes. Before I’d abandoned my NYC life I didn’t need to meet anyone’s family. In my family’s social circles, I knew the family before I picked the man. That’s how it worked. But this wasn’t my family and it wasn’t my social circle. This was Ash’s Gigi and I was wholly out of my element. So I let Ruby pick my outfit, but I did my own hair.

  Now, as I sat in the passenger seat of Ash’s steel gray BMW X7, I questioned my decision to leave my look in Ruby’s hands. I smoothed my palms down the legs of my artistically faded jeans. Was denim okay? It seemed so…I don’t know…informal. This was his grandmother, for crying out loud. His only living relative and the person whom he held on high over any other living soul. I mean, I wasn’t even jealous, I was damn scared. I wanted to make a good impression, but was denim the right choice? My pale pink sweater was classic enough, but I didn’t even have heels on. I wore a pair of flat beige boots, and while cute, they didn’t give me the air of confidence my heeled shoes usually did.

  “What the hell are you worrying about now?” While I was running over the possibilities of how I might have insulted a woman I hadn’t met yet with my poor clothing choices, we’d arrived at the facility and Ash parked the car. “Whatever it is, it’s too late now. We’re here.”

  Oh, God. I’m not ready. My nervousness must have shown in my expression because he leaned over and cupped my face between his big hands and squeezed until my nose wrinkled up and my lips pooched out. “Stop it. She’s going to like you just fine. I talked to the nurses and she’s having a lucid day. I want to take the opportunity to introduce you while I can.”

  While I can. The fi
nality of what he said hit my stomach like a punching bag. His Gigi was sick and she wasn’t going to get better. While I was worried about her not liking my clothes, Ash was worried about finding a moment to introduce someone he cared about to a woman who she might not remember the next time we met. My priorities were shit.

  So I grabbed his hands in mine and pulled them off my face, smiling as I blew a raspberry before turning to get out of the car. I wasn’t afraid. Heels or flats, I was Caroline Gower and I was going to make a good impression on his granny.

  The facility was very nice, not that I’d been in many. I’d organized fundraisers, of course, but mostly for organizations that benefitted research, not assisted care facilities directly. But it didn’t smell of chemicals or funeral home flowers. It smelled like cinnamon in the entryway, and the lobby and front desk area looked very much like a warm and cozy common area. It had a distinctly welcoming feeling, and the friendly lady smiling behind the desk was almost enough to calm my nerves.

  “Hi, Brenda.” Ash waved as he passed by the desk, obviously familiar with where he was going. She smiled politely and waved to us both, nodding at me as we passed. I watched her write something down in a logbook at her desk; keeping track of people entering and leaving the building. What a smart, and non invasive way to do that, I thought to myself.

  We rounded a corner and took an elevator to the fourth floor. I didn’t ask, but Ash filled the silence of our walk with an answer anyway. “They thought a higher level would be better for Gigi, so if she has one of her episodes they can catch her before she wanders outside. It’s actually happened once, so I guess I’m grateful for the foresight.”