by Jenn Hype
After I figured out a way to get Dan out of my apartment.
“I-I’m sorry, Dan. Just…just tell them all that you changed your mind. I’ll go along with it. You can tell them I accepted your proposal but then you decided I wasn’t worth it or something.”
He laughed, a dark, stomach churning laugh. My back hit a wall, but before I could move in a different direction, he closed in on me and wrapped his hand around my neck.
“And look like the asshole who dumped you right after asking you to marry me? No. The only way I don’t come out of this looking like a fool is if you accept the ring.”
I would have laughed in his face if I’d been able to breathe. His hand was squeezing my throat so tightly, I knew it was a matter of seconds before I’d pass out from lack of oxygen. I couldn’t speak, so I couldn’t even pretend to accept just to get him off of me.
Turned out, it didn’t matter. One second Dan is halfway to killing me, the next I’m sputtering and coughing while heaving as much air back into my lungs as possible. My eyes blurred and the room spun, but when everything cleared, I saw CJ standing with his back to me. His whole body was tense, and if the situation weren’t so fucked up, I would have taken a second to admire just how perfect he was. Solid muscle, each one of them coiled tightly while he held Dan up in the air with one hand wrapped around his neck.
Oh, how the tables had turned.
Dan’s feet dangled in the air. His legs kicked and his nails scratched at CJ’s forearm. Neither even phased CJ who continued to grip Dan by the throat effortlessly. Even when Dan’s face turned beet red, then blue, CJ didn’t let go. He was going to kill him.
I raced over to put an end to it. Not to save Dan’s life. Fuck Dan. I just didn’t want CJ to wind up in prison over someone so insignificant.
“CJ, let him go,” I urged quietly, my voice hoarse, my throat sore.
His head whipped to the side. He looked at me incredulously, like I was insane.
“He was going to kill you, Blake. I’m not going to just let him go.”
I put my hand on the arm he was using to choke the life out of Dan, making sure to keep my touch gentle and my eyes trained on his. “He’s not worth it, CJ. Put him down. We’ll call the cops and let them handle it. Don’t do something you can’t take back.”
Without looking away from me, he relaxed his grip and Dan collapsed to the ground. He laid in a heap on the floor, gasping for air, while CJ and I continued to look only at each other. Slowly, I watched him start to unwind. It started with his eyes, the skin around them smoothing out. Then his jaw unclenched, he swallowed, and his shoulders unbunched. When his hand cupped my cheek tenderly, my eyes closed and I leaned into his touch.
The sounds of rustling snapped my eyes back open. CJ’s hand dropped from my face and both of our attention turned to the man trying to lumber to his feet while clutching his neck. Dan fell back to the ground in a heap of pathetic human waste with CJ’s big, black boot pressed against his chest, holding him in place. While he had Dan pinned down, I grabbed my phone off the kitchen counter and called the police.
Part of me felt bad and even considered letting him go. The side of me that always wanted to see the best in people was trying to give Dan the benefit of the doubt. He probably was humiliated, and though it wasn’t intentional on my part, if he for some reason thought we were much more serious than we really were, then he was probably hurt, too.
But then I thought of Michelle. Of the way her boyfriend had started out so sweet and caring and even docile. It wasn’t until much later that he showed his true colors and slowly became violent. What if Dan was the same way? What if this was a warning sign and my reporting this incident could help protect any future women from being hurt by him? I had no doubt that he would have hurt me even worse if CJ hadn’t showed up when he did. Whether or not it would ever happen again was not my problem, but I knew the guilt would kill me if he ever did hurt someone and I had done nothing.
An hour later, Dan had been hauled off in cuffs and CJ and I had given our statements. By the time it was all over, I was exhausted. I’d changed out of my sexy lingerie and into sweats before the cops showed up, and a sleepless night of hot sex no longer sounded appealing. Before I could even consider climbing into my bed though, I needed to call my parents. My mom had been leaving me voicemails for weeks and I’d been avoiding her, opting to send apologetic text messages where I promised to call but never did. Them not knowing about Michelle’s ex was eating me up with guilt, and avoiding them had been easier than having to lie. With everything Dan said I needed answers, though, so the avoidance had to come to an end.
Mom answered on the first ring, despite it being fairly late. “Blake! Honey!”
The worry and relief in her voice covered me with a heavy blanket of guilt.
“Hi mom, I’m so sorry. I-“
“Nonsense,” she cut me off. “No apologies.”
That was my mom for you. She forgave without having to be asked.
CJ had gone back to his place to shower and give me some privacy. My man was thoughtful like that. Mom spent a few minutes catching me up on the happenings at home. I didn’t want to dive right into my own melodrama. With how long it had been since we’d talked, my manners wouldn’t let me talk about myself without spending some time letting mom share.
Unfortunately, there was never a shortage of gossip back in Stark Springs, Tennessee, so I had to aim us in the right direction or the conversation would take all night.
“So Dan showed up unexpectedly today.”
“Oh?”
Mom’s coy tone suggested she really had known he was coming. My heart sank. I’d kind of hoped he’d made that up. I knew mom was going to feel guilty and blame herself now for what happened.
“He said he got my address from you and dad, and that dad had given him permission to ask me to marry him.”
“What!?” She shrieked so loud I had to pull the receiver away from my face. I could still hear her yelling for my dad, demanding he get in the room. His deep tenor grumbling carried through the line, making me smile.
“Honey,” mom said in a volume safe enough for me to put the phone back to my ear. “I’ve got you on speaker. Tell your father what you just told me.”
I did. Then I went on to tell them the rest. To my mom’s credit, she only interrupted a few times. Mostly she gasped and tossed in a few well-I-nevers and Lord-have-mercys once in a while.
When I finished, mom immediately launched into threats to call Dan’s mother and tattle on him while dad asked if I needed him to fly to New York and kick Dan’s ass. I assured him the jailers - or whatever they were called - could handle him. Being an ex-cop, dad would likely do a lot more than just deliver a beating.
“You keep us updated, ya hear?” Dad demanded gruffly.
After promising to call more often, I finally ended the call. CJ had returned from his shower and while I’d been talking, he’d pulled me over to my couch, forcing me to sit and then pulling my feet onto his lap. He turned on some sports channel that was recapping an NBA game while he mindlessly rubbed my feet. Several times I’d had to bite back a groan when he dug into the arch of my foot. I didn’t want to have to explain the strange moaning on my end to my parents.
Even after I’d tossed my phone to the side, he continued on with his massage. When he made his way up to my calves, I let my head fall back on the armrest of the couch. Briefly I wondered if Dan had actually killed me and I was sitting in heaven. CJ’s hands were magic and the way his calloused fingers skimmed over my skin as he kneaded my tired muscles had me sinking so far into the couch I thought I might never be able to get up.
I wanted more than just his hands on my legs, though. I wanted to ask him to take me to bed, wrap me up in his strong arms and just hold me. For some reason, outright asking him to hold me made me feel vulnerable. It wasn’t often that I felt vulnerable, even more rare when I let that vulnerability show.
Turned out, asking wasn’t an issue.
CJ took the decision right out of my hands when he scooped me up into his arms, carried me bridal style out of my apartment and over to his before carefully lowering me onto his bed. I laid there, propped up on my elbows, watching as he slipped off the jeans he’d put on after shower. He stepped into a pair of loose-fitting sweatpants that hung low on his hips. After ridding himself of his shirt, he climbed into the bed with me. Wordlessly, he tugged me over to his side, covering us with the blanket and snuggling into my backside.
We’d laid in that very position several times, but it had never really felt like spooning. Or maybe it had just never dawned on me to look at it like that. I giggled at my thoughts, and CJ’s arm pulled me tighter against him. His hardness pressed into my lower back. My humor died off on a gasp.
“That laugh has a direct line to my dick. Unless you want me putting him to use, you might want to cut that out.”
I wiggled my ass, enjoying the way he sucked in a sharp breath, his body tensing.
“Go to sleep, Blake,” he warned.
So I did - with a ridiculous smile on my face.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CJ
“Love is a state of temporary psychosis.”
- Sigmund Freud
Leaving Blake asleep in bed this morning had been torture. I’d have preferred to stay there with her all day, making love and holding her close until the memory of that asshole and his hand wrapped around her neck was nothing but a distant memory.
The fucker was lucky to be alive. When I’d walked in and seen his hand wrapped around her neck, everything went red. I’d taken lives before when I was in the line of fire and it was kill or be killed. It never got easier, and knowing you didn’t have a choice didn’t lessen the guilt. But I could have killed Dan without an ounce of regret. I wanted to choke the life out of him like he’d been doing to Blake. To show him what it felt like to be helpless.
If Blake hadn’t stopped me, it would have been me walking out of that apartment in cuffs while Dan was carried out in a body bag.
It probably should have worried me that I would so easily have taken his life, but when it came to Blake, there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do. The instinct to protect others, to put my life on the line, was ingrained in me so deeply it could never be reversed. With Blake, though, it was something else entirely. My need to keep her safe couldn’t be credited to my training in the military, or even the values instilled in me by my parents through years of watching over my sisters.
I loved Blake. I knew that with a certainty now, and my protectiveness of her was primal, innate; something completely beyond my control. There wasn’t a damn thing I wouldn’t do for her. I prayed that one day the image of another man’s hands on her would fade away. Every time I closed my eyes I saw her feet dangling while her eyes bulged out of her head and her face started to turn so red it was almost purple.
My fist connected with the punching bag over and over as I imagined it were Dan’s body. I unleashed all my rage and aggression with crazed, sloppy punches, not stopping until my lungs screamed for air and my arms became weak.
Maybe realizing I was in love with Blake would have freaked me the hell out if I hadn’t already been too full of murderous anger to process it, but if anything it felt freeing. Like the part of me that still tried to lock all of my emotions inside a steel cage had been completely decimated. My life was changing, I was changing, and it was all because of Blake. Funny that for so long I’d lived my life in such a regimented way that I never had to worry about surprises, only to find that Blake’s unpredictability was one of the things I loved most about her.
A smile tugged at my lips, just thinking about Blake and how there was never a dull moment where she was concerned.
God, I was turning into a fucking sap.
“You look happy,” Liam said, startling the shit out of me when I walked into my office a half hour later after showering and getting ready downstairs. He had his feet propped up on my desk as he reclined back in my chair. After a few seconds of me glaring, he rolled his eyes, dropped his feet and walked around the desk to sit in the visitor chair. “I’m assuming Blake put that smile on your face. Are you here early so you can doodle “Blake + CJ = Forever” on all your notebooks?”
“You’re such an ass,” I grumbled. Liam shot me a shit-eating grin.
“I know.”
He propped his feet up on my desk again, to which I promptly shoved them off hard enough to make him teeter in his chair.
“What are you doing in my office?”
“I was dropping off the Peters file and heard you come in. Annoying the shit out of you first thing in the morning was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.”
The fact that Liam was at the office at six in the morning to finish up paperwork didn’t surprise me. All my men were as dedicated as I was to the job. It was the reason I’d needed to hire Blake in the first place. We were all so fucking good at our jobs that we couldn’t keep up anymore, and of course, organization and things like paperwork were the first aspects to take a hit. Not that I was complaining. If we hadn’t been doing such a shitty job of keeping up then we wouldn’t have needed to hire Blake in the first place.
“You know, I gotta give Mamma Rose credit. I never thought her hair-brained scheme would work, but look at you. All love sick and pussy whipped.”
I threw him a glare before I registered the first part of what he’d said.
“Why would you give credit to my mom?”
He laughed. “Dude, your mom orchestrated all of this. That first day when Blake came for the interview and they disappeared to talk? She told Blake if she’d continue screwing with you and getting under your skin then she’d ensure her job was safe. We all thought she was starting to lose her mind or something. I mean, why would she bribe someone to piss you off? But obviously she knew what she was doing.”
I stopped listening about two sentences in. My mind started feverishly recalling every interaction, every moment spent with Blake. In my gut, I knew it wasn’t all fake. If my mom did her usual meddling thing in the beginning, her motives would have been to help, not hurt. And I knew for a fact she’d never bribe anyone to sleep with me, so the physical aspect of things were indisputably genuine.
Still, the sting of betrayal and nigglings of doubt wouldn’t go away. How much of what happened between Blake and I was real, and how much of it was part of a ruse?
I’m not sure how long I stood there, my thoughts warring with each other, but by the time I found my way back to the present Liam was gone. I hadn’t noticed him leave. If he’d said anything else, I hadn’t heard it. I was too busy trying not to let my thoughts run away with themselves. Overreacting wouldn’t help anything, nor would throwing out accusations or making assumptions. The best course of action would be to sit on the information, give myself time to fully digest it and then talk to Blake about it later when I was calm.
Two hours of mind numbing paperwork passed by in a blur, and before I knew it, there was a knock at my door. I didn’t even have a chance to respond before Clarissa came bursting in. Every time I was forced to deal with the biggest pain the ass client I’d ever had, I had to hold back a groan. Clarissa was the epitome of the kind of spoiled entitlement that came with growing up with more money than God. Her dad owned a lucrative software company before he retired and went into politics. The man was arrogant as hell and treated Clarissa like she walked on water, which made her behave like a brat.
“Christopher, darling,” Clarissa cooed, sounding like an elderly British woman returning from her afternoon tea instead of a twenty-nine year old Manhattanite. I plastered on as much of a fake smile as I could muster and bit the inside of my cheek. Honestly, I couldn’t stand the woman, but schmoozing was part of the job. It was the part I hated the most, but a necessary evil I couldn’t avoid. Pissing off a rich and powerful man in the city of which I did business wasn’t high on my priority list, so if enduring her annoying company once a week was what it took to keep myself from g
aining an enemy, then so be it.
“What can I do for you, Clarissa?”
She took the time to gaze lustfully at my body, being so blatant it bordered on pathetic. I fought not to shift uncomfortably.
“Do I have to have a reason to visit?”
Fucking loaded question. Of course she needed a reason. We weren’t friends, and in the months I’d been forced to work with her, I’d managed to politely turn down her advances mostly successfully. Once a week she scheduled a meeting with me under the guise of it being business, but all that wound up happening during those meetings was me dodging her grabby hands. I knew it was only a matter of time before I had to come out and actually reject her, but I’d been holding out hope she would somehow move on before it came to that.
Her carefully manicured nails started trailing up the buttons of my dress shirt. I gently grabbed her wrist and ignored the flare of heat in her eyes. The woman could not take a hint.
“I’m sorry, but I have another client I have to meet with soon and I don’t want to end up rushing you, so why don’t we get started?”
Clarissa stuck out her bottom lip in an exaggerated pout. She was gorgeous, I’d give her that. Her long, blonde hair was shiny and full of waves. Bright blue eyes framed by long, black lashes, a pert nose and lips that were pouty even without the exaggeration. Perfect sized chest, tiny waist, flared hips and legs for days. She was every man’s dream. Admittedly, if she weren’t a client, I would have given in to her advances a long time ago, but I didn’t screw clients.
And now there’s Blake…
Naturally, the second Clarissa decided to make a grab for my dick, the door swung open and Blake came rushing in.
“So sorry I’m late. The police called to tell me-“