Checkmate: Checkmate, #8

by Finn, Emilia

  “What fucking promise?”

  “You promised you would come back for me!” She struggles in my arms and tries to fight me away. Her chest lifts and falls with silent sobs. “You promised! You said you would find me. You’ve been alive this whole time, you knew where I was, but you left me to rot while you were living it up in the city. No room for me, huh?” She throws an elbow back and catches me in the ribs until I release her. She spins around fast and slams her back to the wall. “You were just another person in my life that never wanted me.”

  “Never wanted you?” I stride forward until the breath explodes from her lungs and my leg rests between her warmth. “I want you, Elizabeth. How are you getting mixed signals about this?”

  “Because wanting sex and wanting me are two different things! I can find sex anywhere. I can get that fix anyplace. But I can’t find that connection I had with a boy. I can’t find whatever it is that makes my heart race whenever you’re around, and every guy that looks at me for more than two seconds is an instant strike out, because instead of thinking of him, I think of you. Not one of those men ever stood a chance, and it’s all your fault.”

  “I’m right here,” I growl. “I’m right fucking here.” I slam my lips over hers and swallow her gasp. Her lip splits, but the taste of her blood on my tongue does nothing to deter me.

  On the contrary, it makes me hungrier for everything she has to offer.

  I pick her up the way I’ve wanted to since I saw her in her bed. I bruise her thighs with my hands, I hurt her face with mine, but I still slam her against the wall and crush my cock between us. “I’ve wanted you, Libby. I’ve never wanted anyone more than I want you.” I let my lips trail over her jaw, down her neck, and bury my face in her hair. Her jeans are still undone, so I slide my hand inside and take her mouth when I push inside and she cries out.

  My gaze shoots to the door that leads into the club hall. The music is still loud downstairs, the bass heavy enough to feel it in my chest, but we still risk the door swinging open. I pull Libby away from the wall and walk toward the door, only to slam her back again and swallow her cry. I’m being rough, and she’s fighting a head injury, but I can’t stop.

  “I’ve never not wanted you.” I set her back on her feet and accept the pain in her eyes when she thinks I’m rejecting her. But then I drop to my knees when she’s stable, tug her jeans down, and hiss when she fists my hair. “I’ve wanted you. I’ve wanted to taste you more than I wanted to eat. And I know hunger.”

  “Don’t tell me that. Don’t tell me you were alone and hungry!” Her cry is that of grief, but it turns animalistic when I bury my face in her pussy. “Oh my God! Fuck.”

  “I’m never hungry anymore, Lib. But money can’t buy everything.” I tug her jeans off and force her legs wider, and when that’s not enough, I pick one leg up and place it over my shoulder. When she’s stable and our eyes meet, I cup her ass and bring her second leg up so she’s straddling my shoulders and presenting me with the perfect feast. I ignore the pain in my knees, choosing instead to focus on the flavor on my tongue and the way she pulses for me. “You want me too.” I pull back to catch my breath. “Elizabeth. You want me too.”

  “Yes.” Her chest races to fill her lungs. “I want you too.”

  “You’ve wanted me since the moment you saw me in the gym.”

  She shakes her head. “I’ve wanted you since I was a teen, old enough to know my body wanted a man. So then I grieved you all over again, because I wanted that boy. I wanted him to have lived, to have grown along with me, and for him to take all of my firsts the way he was supposed to.”

  I groan with pleasure and pain. “Not your firsts, but your lasts.” I bury my tongue deep inside her pussy and let my hips jut forward with need. Soon. I’ll take her soon. I eat her up while she vibrates in my arms, and when she’s wrung so tight she might snap, I pull away and let her fall to my lap. She cries out when she crashes down, and a small part of my brain worries about her injuries. No doubt she has a hideous headache, and all of the jostling hurts, but I can’t stop this any more than I can stop a train. My shirt remains in place, the buttons fastened but for the top one. My pants are still on, but I push Libby back until she kneels on the floor between me and the wall. I sit taller and unsnap my belt and button, then our eyes meet and I await her permission.

  She is the only thing that could stop this. She’s the only thing that can bring reason to my fevered brain when all I can focus on is having her.

  “Okay.” Her eyes flick between my hands and my eyes. “Yeah, okay.”

  “Will you regret this?” I release my belt for a moment and instead dig my fingers into her hair to bring her closer. Her lip is bleeding and sore. Her face bruised and growing darker with every minute that passes. She’s a fucking mess, and remembering how she got that way makes me furious. But then she nods again.

  “I think I will.” She brings her hands to my pants and begins tugging them down for me. “I’m almost certain I’m going to regret this. Most of me is convinced this is a concussion dream, and tomorrow, you’ll still be dead. But I want it. This office is Switzerland.” My heart tumbles when her gaze comes up. She remembers. She remembers it all. “Switzerland. And for as long as we’re in Switzerland, it’s okay. The rest doesn’t matter.”

  She tugs my pants down to my knees, then she pushes me back to sit on my haunches and climbs on. “You’re clean?”

  I eagerly nod and help her climb closer until her bare skin and mine touch. “I would never hurt you, Lib. I literally couldn’t do it.”

  “Okay.” She fists my cock and squeezes until I throw my head back on a roar. “I’m clean, and I’m on the pill.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay.” She lines me up with deft movements and begins sliding down. Confidence and rush quickly turn to a squeak of pain and tightening hands as she slows her movements. “Jesus, Gunner.”

  “Theo.” I wrap one arm around her hips to help hold her weight, and use the other to control her face and bring her closer. “Please use my name. You make me panic every time you say Gunner.”

  “But it’s your name,” she whispers. “That’s the name I thought for all of these years. It’s the name I thought when I first touched myself.” Her single open eye rolls back in ecstasy when I roll my hips and tap her most pleasurable places. “Jesus.”

  “Practice, Libby.” I lift her light frame and help her slide back down. “Practice saying Theo. Gunner doesn’t exist anymore.”

  “He does in Switzerland.” Her eyes water from pain, from emotion, from a concussion, but her pussy squeezes me tight and her hands grip my shoulders. “We’re in Switzerland when we’re in here.” Her thighs bulge and strain as she basically maintains a permanent squat and rides my lap. There’s no slow and steady for us. There’s no foreplay or time to get to know each other’s body. From the moment we met, we’ve been intense and all-consuming. From nothing to a flash fire tearing through dry bushland. I’ve never given her a chance to be half in. To know me, to know Gunner, means to be all-in and loyal. “Jesus, Gunner.”

  “Mmm.” I push her hair back. The hat she wore into this club is long gone, knocked off when that prick hit her, but now I have the perfect canvas to nibble her warm flesh and bruise her hips as I lift and control her body. “I didn’t know you could be so delicious.” My blood – like us – is a wildfire. It burns me from the inside, leaves my fingertips tingling, and my heart pumping faster than it ever has before. “Jesus, Libby. I’m back now. I did keep my promise, because I’m back now.”

  “Oh God.” Her pussy flutters and grips my length. Her lips come back to mine, tongue, teeth, breath and desperation. Her nails score my skin, and her breath scorches my lungs. She found the page I’ve always been on. From zero to sixty, she caught up and is holding on, and though tomorrow might kill us both, she rides tonight with me, fearlessly, unrepentant, until my orgasm draws up, and her panting becomes a cry when I hold her down and trigger her release. My teeth
clamp down over the uninjured side of her lip, my hands bruising as I hold her down, and as her pussy crushes and holds me prisoner, I come hard enough that my lungs struggle to draw a breath.

  More than twenty years of longing. Of hoping. Of fighting simply to live.

  Twenty years of wondering, of hunger, of tears and grief.

  And then a week of danger, of desperation, of nearness, but rejection.

  I hold on to her trim body and surge to my knees as jets of cum escape my body with an almost violence, only to enter hers and claim her for my own.

  This was a certain outcome, decided forever ago. And finally, finally, we close that chapter, only to open another just as the universe intended when a boy and a girl met in a dark club.

  14

  Libby

  Busted

  My world has exploded. My past as I knew it has been erased, and this new reality has slammed into place where Gunner Bishop was never dead at all. Now he’s here, and he owns the eyes that have haunted me for so long. The eyes that I couldn’t let go of, the eyes that drew me in and ensnared my heart in spite of the cautions my brain was throwing down.

  We remain on the floor of Club 188’s main office so my back presses to the wooden door and Gunner’s – Theo’s! – lips slowly move over my shoulder. His fingertips touch me everywhere, not sexually, but as though he wants to memorize my every dip and line. He’s like a blind man trying to see with his hands.

  I wish we were home in bed, if only to have the luxury of silence, of comfort, and of the chance to talk through the way he’s completely fucked everything up.

  Gunner Bishop ruined my life when he made promises to a little girl. And now Theo Griffin is here to continue that path of destruction.

  I wanted that boy. I would still take that boy. But this man who has kazillions in the bank, questionable morals, two decades of missing history, and zero respect for other people’s personal space or homes – add in that Bishop blood, and he’s a boiling pot of terrible choices at this point in my life. He’s certain to be my undoing. Everything I’ve worked for, the distance I’ve created between my version of Tate, and my father’s version, the modest life I live, the respect I’ve earned in my work and personal relationships; it’ll all blow up when I bring Theo Griffin home and declare him mine.

  And I will; he’s been mine since I was a child.

  The people in my world will question how he came to be the business magnate he is, and when they question, my heart will break.

  Their questions are as inevitable as death, but we’re not afforded the luxury of a minute to talk and prepare ourselves, because someone knocks at the door and sends me into a tailspin.

  “Hey, Tate, you in there?”

  My heart stops dead when Alex’s voice registers on the other side of the door.

  “Oh God. Oh my God!” My voice is barely a whisper, but a screech too, and sends me scrambling off Gunner’s lap. Gunner. Theo. Bishop. Griffin. Whoever he wants to be known as, both are bad for me. But put them together, and it’s an explosion waiting to happen.

  I jump to my feet and thank the universe for the music downstairs that hides the noise I make as I trip into my jeans and tug my shoes back on.

  Theo watches me in silence for a moment, as though shocked I’d run just because someone knocked on the door.

  I toss his shirt at his face and tug him to his feet. “Get dressed! Right now. No.” I push him toward the window instead. “Just get out.”

  He stops and spins with a snarl. “Are you fucking kidding me right now?”

  “Get out!” I hiss. “My boss cannot know about… anything!”

  “I’m not Bishop.” He grabs my flailing hands and tugs me to a stop as X rattles the door handle. “I’m not Bishop. That’s why I have Griffin, that’s why I have this identity. It’s clean.”

  “It is not!” I push him toward the window and yank it open. “Bishop blood fills your veins, and Griffin money is too damn much to be attached to my name.”

  “What?” He swings back around and stops me. “What the hell are you talking about? Griffin is completely legitimate.”

  “And I’m the daughter of a crooked cop, sleeping with a man whose last name is either that of a bad, bad man, or a man with lots and lots of cash. This looks bad no matter which way we slice it.”

  “You can’t be serious right now.” Despite his arguments, his leg still swings out of the window when I push. “I worked my fucking ass off to build Griffin Industries, and now you’re ashamed to be seen with me? The Bishop thing, sure! Be afraid of that one. But he’s dead. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

  “I’d rather the Bishop boy was still alive! His daddy would be a prick, but he’d still be here.”

  I push him out onto the fire escape and ignore the wounded expression in his eyes as I shut the window. I snap the curtains closed and cast a glance around the room as Alex’s knocking becomes panicked.

  “Shit. Okay. Ugh!” I push a hand through my hair, but ignore the mess when my palm passes over dried blood. I’m allowed to look like a mess. I was knocked the hell out tonight. I sprint across the office as the door literally rattles on its hinges, and swing it open before Alex can break it down.

  “Shit!” My chief pulls himself up before accidentally bowling me over. Clutching me to his chest, he allows his eyes to roam over my face and slow on the spots I know firsthand hurt. “Jesus Christ, Libby. How many shots did that asshole take?”

  He walks into the office, leading Oz and Drake, and behind them, Sophia and Jay loiter by the door. Soph pokes her head in and looks around, and when she doesn’t find Theo, she lifts a brow and bites her lips together.

  She knows. She knows my secrets!

  “Just one shot.” I pat Alex’s hand as it rests on my cheek and he takes stock of my injuries. “It was just a super shitty backhand that he didn’t mean to make. He had momentum on his side.” I meet Drake’s eyes for backup. He was there. He saw it happen.

  But then Theo’s semen slides along my inside thigh, and I can’t maintain eye contact anymore.

  That brings Drake’s brows up, because I’ve never broken eye contact with him before.

  It’s all unraveling. One single time with Gunner, and all of my hard work is unraveling.

  “Why were you locked away in here, Lib?” Holding my chin, Alex tilts my head from one side to the other. “I thought you passed out or some shit. You can’t do that if you have a concussion.”

  I step back out of his reach and let his hand fall. “I wasn’t asleep, just resting for a moment. And I don’t think I have a concussion. Luc didn’t seem to be worried.”

  Sophia knows differently, so her lips remain clamped between her teeth in a dangerous threat. It takes just one word, one syllable to blow my world open.

  “You can come back to my place tonight,” X declares. “The baby is still up six hundred times a night, so when we get up to check on her, we can check in on you too.”

  “Alex, no–”

  “It’s not a big deal.”

  “She can stay with us.” Soph walks into the office with a cute smile and waves Alex off. She hooks her arm in mine and pulls me away. “We already organized it. She graciously accepted our offer when Luc was in here fixing her split lip… which looks worse now than it did before,” she murmurs. “We’re heading out now. Can she clock out, Chief?”

  “Yeah.” Alex turns and follows us with his eyes. “Luc said no hospital?”

  I shake my head and stumble forward as Soph pulls me along. “No hospital. Luc said it’s fine and left me to rest for a minute.”

  “Okay, well…” Alex seems lost as I’m pulled away. “Rest up, okay? Scared the shit out of me when Drake called it in.”

  “I’m okay, X. Takes more than a drunk asshole to put me on my ass.”

  “I’m not okay,” he murmurs. “You were off shift, I pulled you in. I should have brought you in to babysit Doyle while I came here. Now you have a black eye and a massive b
ruise on your face.”

  “I’m okay, X. Everything is gonna be fine.”

  “You’re off tomorrow, okay?”

  “What?” I stop on a dime and pull Sophia to a screeching halt. “Why? I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “You got knocked the fuck out while on shift! What do you mean why? Take tomorrow and rest. Actually, no.” He waves me away. “It’s the weekend; you’re off tomorrow and Sunday. Report on Monday, but if you’re still messed up, I might push through more leave for you.”

  “I don’t need special treatment, X. I’m a squad member just like everyone else.”

  “Right, and that time Oz knocked himself out when he forgot to duck to climb into the cruiser?”

  I burst out in the kind of crazy laughter that proves my head isn’t as right as it normally is. “He’s so dumb sometimes.”

  Alex’s lips twitch. “Exactly. He took the next day off and needed to be babied by his wife because he had a headache. This isn’t special treatment, Lib, this is me taking care of my squad. Go home and eat your cookies. You earned the right to sleep in.”

  “Okay.” I let Sophia lead me into the hall and away from the office I had sex in. Oh my God! I had sex with Gunner-friggin-Bishop in that room. “I need to use the bathroom.” I swing away from Soph and push into the ladies’ room to my right.

  The door swings closed as I rush to the toilets and heave, but nothing comes up. I want to spew. I want to purge my body of the worry, the grief, the anxiety that Gunner Bishop creates in my soul, but I can’t even have that. My body refuses to bring anything up, so instead I dry heave and send a splitting ache tearing through my head to pulse at the temples.

  “Elizabeth Tate.” Soph closes the bathroom door and flips the locks as tears stream over my face. “You need to talk to me, girlfriend.”

  “I don’t know anything.”

  “I didn’t even ask yet.” She’s still in that mini skirt and high heels that make her tower over me. “Who is Theo Griffin to you?”