by Lola StVil
“But it’s what you meant, right? You think I’m weak?”
“Wait, what?”
“That’s what Monica said—you love a pet project. Someone who is weak and needs to be rescued.”
He nods slowly as it all begins to sink in. “So, that’s what she said to make you think you had to hide your bruises from me?”
“Yes. I don’t want you to think I’m weak.”
“I don’t think that,” he counters.
“Then how come you are suggesting a class instead of a firearm? Admit it; you think I’m some damsel in distress.”
“Babe, I want you to take the class because I want you to start to gain back some of the control you feel you lost. I’ve sent other people we’ve rescued to the same class, and it really does help. That’s all I’m trying to do here, babe—help.”
“Okay,” I reply as I look out the window, unable to shake all the feelings coursing through me.
“Sky, what are you thinking? Tell me.”
I bite my lower lip and try to keep my voice steady. “I want to be…brave and strong. I felt like such a victim, and I don’t want to carry that around.”
“That’s why this class would help.”
“You didn’t take the class, and you’re brave. That’s because you’re confident with guns and you know you have a weapon.”
“Sky, look at me,” he orders. I turn from the window and face him. “Having a gun doesn’t make you brave. Firing a weapon is not the first impulse; it’s the last resort. And the fact is, if we are out in the field and we don’t fire one bullet, that’s a successful mission.”
“Really?”
“Yes! And I promise you, while there are places that can teach you to shoot, not one place on Earth can teach you how to deal with the aftermath of having taken that shot. I’ve killed before, and in the line of duty or not, that shit tears at your soul. I don’t want that for you.”
“I never thought of it like that. It just seems easy. You get a gun, learn to shoot, and you are never afraid again.”
“No babe, it’s not like that at all. Brave has nothing to do with a weapon. It has to do with putting yourself in harm’s way for someone else. The exact thing you did for that little boy by not letting him go with his dad.”
“I couldn’t. There’s no telling what could have happened,” I reply.
“That’s what makes it a brave act. And just so we are clear, I don’t give a fuck what Monica or anyone else thinks. You are one of the strongest women I know. You lost your child, and instead of letting it eat you up and make you bitter, you surround yourself with kids. And you treat them like they were your own. There are a lot of things I would use to describe you, Sky; weak isn’t anywhere on that list.”
I reach out and take his hand. “You don’t think I’m…some cat stuck in a tree that needs help getting down?” I ask, only halfway joking.
“No, I think you’re fucking amazing. And for the record, you save me all the time. When I spend my days looking at the worst that mankind can offer, I come home to you and just like that, you save me. And you don’t even have a gun.”
I laugh, and he grins back at me. I feel a warm tingle all over. He holds my fingers up to his lips and kisses them softly.
“I’ll tell you what, try the classes, and if they don’t help, I’ll take you to the gun range myself. No one else is gonna take you. It’s my job. Not Logan’s or anyone else’s job,” he says protectively.
“Cash, Logan is your brother!” I scold.
“Yeah, I know that. And I promise you if he found me huddled up talking to his wife, Shay, one time too many, we’d go a few rounds.” He laughs.
“Stop it; Logan wouldn’t do that,” I reply, playfully pushing his hand away.
“Well, we’re brothers, but men are men, babe. No guy wants to watch the woman they love go to another guy—regardless of who that guy is—instead of coming to them.”
“That’s exactly what I did—twice, huh?” I ask.
“Let’s just forget about it.”
“Cash, what can I do to make it up to you?”
“You don’t have to do anything, babe; we’re good. I’m just…I keep hoping you’ll let me in. I mean, really let me in,” he says softly.
“I have.”
He’s about to say something but thinks better of it. He remains silent. I know what the issue is—I have yet to say I love him back. He knows I do, but there comes a point where that is not enough.
“Cash, you know how I feel about you…”
“Yeah, I know, babe.” He kisses my hand again and we get ready to brace for the rain outside.
Once we make it back to his place, we are soaked, thanks to a gust of wind that turned the umbrella inside out. But I don’t care about the bad weather. The dark, thick air that existed between us has lifted. And although I haven’t said the words, he knows exactly what he means to me.
I stand in the middle of the living room on newspapers, trying not to drip water on the floor. Cash manages to get to the bedroom and brings us both towels to dry off. His eyes are glued to my curves as he takes me in. We strip the clothing off each other, and although we long to speed it up, we silently dare each other to slow down the pace.
When we’re naked, he gets a condom, and we begin to get reacquainted with each other. He greedily marks every inch of me with his tongue. We get into bed and make love. It’s insane how quickly he can make me climax.
“How do you do that? How do you make me come so hard?” I ask as I roll over to him.
He doesn’t reply right away. Instead, he positions me on my hands and knees. He leans over and whispers in a deep, almost menacing tone, “I know your body like I know my gun.” He grabs a fistful of my hair, pulls my head back, and says, “I know where to grip.” He embeds his cock deep inside me, and growls. “I know where to apply pressure,” he says as his relentless, all-consuming thrusts threaten to split me open.
He slides his finger up and down my clit and repeats, “I know where to apply pressure.” Using his thumb pad, he presses down on my hardened tip, and I scream as my body bends to his every will. He shatters me from the inside with orgasms too powerful for my body to comprehend.
Oh shit!
He sinks even deeper into my pussy and growls possessively, “You’re mine. You’re fucking mine.”
I surrender to wave after wave of pleasure. “Yes! I’m yours, baby. I’m—I’m yours…” I plead.
But he’s not done. He yanks on my hair, causing me to arch my back and push my chest out. He sucks my nipple and tears spring to my eyes. It’s so good; too good. Too many sensations. Can’t think. Heat spreads through my body causing every inch of me to tingle and vibrate. I’m overstimulated; everything he does causes me to tremble.
“I can’t…can’t come anymore…” I pant.
“You got one more in there…”
“No, I can’t…”
“Yeah, you can. Give it to me.”
“No, no, no, no…” I beg. But it’s too late. He’s already inside me. I moan as desire threatens to overwhelm me again.
“That’s it, baby, that’s it,” he says thickly as my walls hungrily take him in. It only takes a few strategic strokes and a kiss on my neck to set me off again.
“Oh my god!” I beg as he pulls me into him—hard but not enough to send me over the edge. He’s teasing me.
“CASHPLEASEPLEASE!”
He has mercy on me and hits my spot; every fucking thing in the room goes dark. I hear his voice in my ear. “Breathe,” he says.
I can’t process anything. “Breathe!” he commands. And finally, the room begins to come back into view. I welcome air back into my burning lungs.
He clings to me as he reaches his own all-consuming climax. He growls and calls out my name. He shakes and groans in my arms. We are both too exhausted to speak, let alone get up and turn off the lights.. As sleep takes our weary, sweaty bodies, the only thing I know for sure is that I belong to Cash Hunt
er. And Cash Hunter belongs to me.
In the following days after Sky and I make up, we fall into our usual pattern. We try to balance work and being together. It feels so easy and so damn natural; it’s like she’s been in my life forever. She spends most of her time at my place, and we have our routine down.
In the morning, breakfast duty is on me. I get up early, go down to the bagel shop on the corner, and bring her back way more than she needs—or at least that’s what she says. I know enough not to point out that when I don’t bring more than one bagel, she usually ends up eating mine. I actually find it adorable; I like her stealing off my plate. I like anything that requires her to stand close to me.
Dinner duty is on her. She picks the place we order from, and I am good with it as long as it’s not Greek, my least favorite. She actually has this strange rating system. According to her, she can judge how much I like the food by how quickly I nod my head after the first bite.
“If it takes you a full ten seconds to nod in agreement, we never order from there again,” she informs me.
I’m not sure she’s right, but I do know I’m usually very happy with her food selection. The fact is, I don’t really give a fuck what we eat or where we go, I just want to be with her. The other day, the woman behind the counter of the bagel shop said she had never seen a customer smile as often as I do. She’s right. I’m happy.
But that happiness doesn’t take away the other things that are going on. While Sky and I are good, she’s still holding back. She still hasn’t said the words “I love you.” I never placed that much stock into saying it, because I didn’t think I’d ever really fall in love. But now that I’m here, it would really help to hear it back.
Sky being somewhat closed off isn’t my only issue. Banshee contacted me and let me know that Tyler has been missing school and going places he has no business. I called his mom, but she won’t pick up. I’ve left messages, and she refuses to return my calls. There’s some part of me that really wants to just say “fuck it” and tell Tyler the truth. But if he’s acting this way now, how will he act when he learns the truth? That kid will go off, and who knows what he’ll do.
I have been agonizing over this for a while now and the decision to tell him or not continues to weigh on me. But this morning, the decision is taken out of my hands.
I’m standing in my boss’s office, and he’s giving me an ultimatum.
“As of now, the case is officially closed. You have the go-ahead to discuss what happened in Mexico. It’s at your discretion. They will hear everything eventually. Best it comes from you.”
“You know this was never about what we could legally say and not say—this was about keeping a family from an awful truth that could do more harm than good,” I remind him.
“I’m not here to protect that kid’s feelings and neither are you. I can’t have one of my best fucking agents guarding backroom, low-level dealers while there are bigger things happening. There’s a joint task force being assembled, and I want you to take the lead on our end.”
“What’s the assignment?” I ask.
“I’ll tell you what it’s not—it’s not babysitting a fucking teenager,” he snaps.
I hold my tongue because I really want in on a new assignment. I am getting so frustrated with these small-time dealers. I’m itching to go out of the country and aim at the heads of cartels again.
“Where is the task force going?” I ask.
“Middle East,” he says.
“You wanna be more specific?”
“No.”
That’s his way of saying if I don’t resolve the Tyler issue, he’ll block me from knowing anything about the assignment, even the fucking location. Goddamn it!
“Agent Hunter, are you ready to take the lead on this or not?”
***
In the next few days, the only thing I can think about is what to do about Tyler. There’s no putting it off anymore, and I know that. But finding the fucking words isn’t easy. It would be better if I could speak to his mother, but shit, she might lose it too. How the fuck did I get here?
I’m having dinner with Sky and I guess she’s called my name a few times because now she’s damn near shouting.
“Hey! Are you okay over there?” she asks.
I look down at her; she’s sitting across the table, her colorful pasta dish in front of her. Unlike me, she’s actually eating.
“Oh, sorry, babe,” I reply as I try to get out of my head. “What were you saying?”
“Never mind that. What’s going on, Cash?”
“Nothing, just stuff at work.”
“Oh, anything I can do?”
I look at her; she’s so damn earnest in her desire to help. I smile back at her. God, she’s beautiful.
“No, babe, but thanks for asking. Now, tell me about your day,” I offer.
She’s about to object to us moving on, but thankfully she doesn’t. Instead, she tells me that she has figured out what new thing she will be doing this week.
“Kenzy and I are getting tattoos!”
I laugh. I did not expect that. “Wait, you want a tattoo?”
“Yeah. What do you think?”
“Ah…okay. What will it be a tattoo of?”
“That’s the exciting part. I won’t know. Kenzy is going to pick what I get tattooed and where it goes. And I will do the same for her.”
“Wait, are you sure you want Kenzy to pick out your tattoo? Babe, that’s crazy.”
“Yeah, I know. But what the hell? I get to pick hers out too. So, we’re even.”
“Do you know what you want to have inked on her?”
“Well, she hates anything having to do with Gwyneth Paltrow. Seriously, Kenzy can’t stand that woman. So, I was thinking I’d have dear old Gwyneth’s face tattooed on Kenzy’s ass.” She laughs, and I join her. Seriously, these two women are not well in the head.
“Okay, all jokes aside, what are you going to have tattooed on her?” I ask once we catch our breath.
“I don’t know yet.”
“Why can’t you two just go to strip clubs like normal, decent women,” I tease as I lean over and kiss her.
“Because normal, decent woman don’t do this at the table,” she says as she slides into my lap and begins to stroke my cock. I sigh deeply and thank God I’m not with a normal, decent woman.
***
I’m in a dark series of tunnels. I hear screaming. I hear begging. I try to get to the voices, but I can’t tell which way they are coming from. I reach for my weapon and try to follow the sound. Suddenly, the tunnels become a room, a room with bodies on the floor. Everyone is dead; no, not everyone. She begs. She pleads. I rush to her. He grabs her and tells me he’s sorry. Blood runs down the walls of the room. Everything begins to spin. Shots ring out. She falls to the ground, he yells and yells.
“KILL ME! KILL ME!”
I bolt upright not sure where the fuck I am. My hands form a fist; I’m ready to fight, though I’m not sure what it is I will be facing. My heart is pounding against my chest; beads of sweat make their way down my face.
“Cash, it’s okay. It’s okay,” Sky pleads.
I look over at her. And it all comes back to me—I’m home. I’m in bed. I’m home in bed with my girl.
“Honey, what is it?” she begs.
“Nothing,” I reply as I try to slow my pulse and breathe normally. She gets up and goes to the kitchen; she returns with a bottle of water. I take it from her, and she disappears again, this time to the bathroom. She comes back with a towel and pats my forehead. I manage to regain control.
“Thank you, babe,” I say as I tilt my head back and down the water.
“You want some more?”
“No, I’m good. I’m sorry to wake you. You have a field trip in the morning; let’s get back to sleep,” I reply as I reach out for her.
“Cash, it’s obvious something is keeping you up. This is the third night this week. Please tell me what it is, what’s bothering you?
”
“It’s nothing.”
“No, it’s not nothing.”
“Babe, it’s late and you have to—”
“Stop it! Stop trying to act like there’s nothing wrong. If it’s something you can’t tell me for security reasons, then say so, but don’t act like I’m crazy. I know something is happening with you.”
“I’m not trying to make you feel crazy. There was something that I couldn’t tell you because I was not cleared to talk about it. But now I am, and the truth is I can talk about it but I choose not to…”
She shakes her head in disbelief and gets out of bed. I wanted this thing to die down, but now that she’s standing, I’m pretty sure it’s about to escalate, and that’s not what I want.
“Babe, can we please just go back to bed?”
“How do we do that?”
“Get under the covers and close our eyes.”
“That’s not funny, Cash! Before you couldn’t share what was happening, but now you have the permission to share.”
“At my discretion, yes.”
“Okay, then talk to me.”
“It’s in the past, babe. It doesn’t matter now.”
“Seriously? That nightmare you just had wasn’t in the past. When I held something back, you were pissed. And now you are holding things back from me?”
“Babe, it’s not the same thing,” I reply.
“What’s the difference?”
“Well, for one thing, I’m being honest with you and telling you that I don’t want to talk about it even though legally I can.”
“You are holding back from me.”
“Yes, I know that. But I’m not lying to you. I will admit that yes, something is troubling me, and yes, it’s bad. But no, I don’t want to talk about it.”
“You want me to be open with you, but you won’t open up to me—about anything.”
“That’s not fair. I have opened up,” I remind her.
She reaches over to me and takes my face in her hands. “Cash, I don’t want to keep score. You have been there for me, and I want to do the same for you. Please, let me know what’s wrong.”