Checkmate: Checkmate, #8

by Finn, Emilia

  “Gunner?”

  His chest lifts with a grunt. “I literally went twenty-two years without hearing that name, and now you won’t shut up about it. You make me panic every time, so quit it. My name is Theo. Get on board.”

  I fix my pillow, plump it a little, and snicker at the annoyance in his voice. “Never gonna get on board with that. It feels weird.”

  He rolls his eyes, but continues with his task. “You’re weird. Keep still.”

  “What are you doing? Why are you drawing?”

  “Because you’re beautiful.” He stops for a moment, studies his work, and with furrowed brows, continues on. “You’re all I draw. Ever. I used to draw all sorts of shit before that day I met you, but other than Griffin logos, or the lion on my back, I’m not sure I’ve drawn a single thing other than you in twenty years.”

  “Really?” I slide my leg along the bed and hover in that perfect space, the place between awake and asleep where everything is comfortable, everything is perfect, and everything Gunner says speaks directly to my heart. “You drew your ink? It’s the first thing I noticed when I walked into the gym the other week.”

  “Yeah?” The corner of his lips quirk up into a small grin. “I had no clue if you’d recognize me that day, so I started out with my back to the door.” He stops drawing, looks up, and lifts a daring brow. “I recognized you, Elizabeth. So what was your excuse?”

  I pull my bottom lip between my teeth in a contemplative nibble. “I was mostly looking at your body. My hormones took over and fried my brains.”

  “Terrible cop,” he scoffs. His eyes drop back to the paper as he restarts his work. “I snuck into your home and watched you sleep. Nothing. I went through all your shit. Nothing. I stared into your fucking eyes, and still nothing.”

  “Shut up. I was coming off a week of night shifts. That first night means I sleep like the dead.”

  “And tonight?” he argues. “I crawled out of bed, opened my bags to get my sketchpad, dragged a stool in here, put pants on, and switched the lamp on. I’ve been awake for an hour, Elizabeth. You might be the least observant person I know.”

  “And you’re still an asshole.” To annoy him, I drag my legs up the bed and tuck them into my chest, so instead of being long and languid, I curl up into a ball and ruin everything he’s trying to achieve. “You don’t deserve me. You have a bad attitude, Gunner, and I refuse to be your Rose Dawson. Draw from memory.”

  He purses his lips, but continues to draw. “I have a very good memory. And now your ass is better. Stay there, I can work with this.”

  “Ugh!” I shoot out straight, but when his chest bounces with muted laughter, I find it difficult to hold on to my faux anger.

  Tossing my sheet away with a huff, I sit up tall and watch the way his laughter cuts off on a choke, and his eyes follow my every move and warm my skin. It’s like I can feel the heat pulse from the corner he sits in, like it welcomes me in, draws me closer, and tempts me with something I probably shouldn’t accept.

  But I can’t stop myself.

  No longer huffing, no longer mad, I slowly make my way to the edge of my bed and enjoy the way his intense stare makes my blood run faster. Ever since we were children, he was a starer. He has never apologized for it, and doesn’t give a single shit that society considers it rude.

  His hand no longer moves, his eyes have lost all interest in his sketchpad. The only movement is from his broad chest as it fills with air, and his eyes as they watch me move.

  “Gunner…?”

  “Mm…” His tongue darts out to moisten his bottom lip. He seduces me with that single movement, and has no clue.

  I climb off the bed and stand in the tiny space between the boxspring and the wall, then I gently pry the pencil from his grasp, then the book, and place them both on the bedside table. I catch a quick glimpse of myself on the page… myself, but better.

  He draws me exactly how I am. The details are perfect and lifelike, like a photo in black and white, but he makes me glow somehow. Like I truly am the most beautiful woman in the world.

  He humbles me. He builds me up.

  Turning back, I find his hands balled in his lap, his ankle still resting on the opposite knee, but as I come closer, he drops his ankle, opens up, and draws me in to stand between his thick legs.

  His eyes wage a war with his brain; tits, face, tits, eyes.

  Power swirls in my blood, because Theo Griffin is known all over the country for his amazing willpower and ability to never fold in business. But here he is, shirtless and right in front of me, and he can’t control a damn thing.

  “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met, Lib.” He slides his hands over my hips and around to cup my ass. “This thing with us… everything we are… it’s always frenzied and somehow out of our control. There’s always a deadline, there’s always an axe over our heads. There’s always something, even if…” he hesitates, swallows. “Well, even if that something is me and my inability to let things go.”

  “Gunner…” I bring a hand up and stroke a thumb beneath his eye.

  “But now we’re here. There’s no trouble chasing us, no deadline, no threat. I’ve spent the last hour looking at you, and I didn’t once think about tomorrow. I didn’t think about work, or cops, or the Bishop wedding happening just across town. I’ve spent a week processing the fact I kinda have brothers – and though they may not like me, they’re not my enemies either. But for the last hour, nothing. I haven’t thought about any of that. I absorbed myself in you, and I was able to live in the moment when I rarely can.”

  “So… what you’re saying is… you need me?”

  Chuckling, he draws me closer until our chests touch, and leaning in, he nibbles on my neck and does things that make my toes turn warm. “Mine now, Lib. We’re finally here.”

  When I say nothing, he pulls back and looks at me with furrowed brows. “Right?”

  My heart races. It pounds. It aches, but then it soars when I nod. “Right. All yours. We’re going to work this out, I promise.”

  “I’ll come here.” He leans in to continue tasting my neck. “It’ll take some adjustments, but I’ll move my office here. Then you don’t have to leave work, you don’t have to do shit except be with me.”

  “I want to be with you.” Goosebumps race along my skin as he nips. “Wherever we are, whatever we’re doing, I choose you. If I couldn’t let go in twenty years, then I think we know this is important.”

  I feel his smile against my skin. “You were in love with a memory. In that one hour, we were able to hang out and have fun. So that person you fell in love with, he was the memory of something kinda perfect.”

  “Mm. I know.”

  He chuckles. “I’m gonna annoy the shit out of you, Lib. I’m real flesh and bone, and I do annoying things. And I don’t even care that my memory effectively catfished you. You’re in now, and there’s nothing that will undo this.”

  “What annoying things?” I arch my neck to give him more room. “Gunner? What annoying things do you do? Let me make a list, so at least I won’t be surprised by it.”

  He scoffs. “I eat ground turkey.”

  “Nope.” I pull away with a loud huff and toss my hands into the air. “I cannot do turkey. I’m sorry, but I think I’m gonna go back to my relationship with a sweater.”

  “No chance.” I’ve already turned away from him, so when he moves off the stool and grabs me around the waist, I scream as he tackles me to the bed and crushes me between his body and the mattress. “You’re staying, and on the nights I cook, you’ll eat the fucking turkey. Then you’ll eat my dick and say thank you.”

  And just like that, I find myself being pressed beneath Gunner’s strong body as he pulls his pants down and slides inside my waiting heat.

  He doesn’t even call me on my manipulation. We both knew where this was leading, and there’s not a damn thing I’d do to change it.

  22

  Gunner

  One Bishop, Two B
ishops, Three Bishops, More

  I sit on Libby’s ratty couch wearing gray sweats and holding a coffee in my hand.

  A coffee Libby made.

  With one eye on her ass, and the other on the TV, I watch the news.

  Griffin. Griffin. Griffin. It’s always on loud, always on repeat.

  I love the empire I’ve built, and worked myself close to death to achieve what I have, but it annoys the shit out of me that people feel entitled to my business. I am not a publicly listed company. I do not have a board of directors or a fleet of corporate assholes to report to. Griffin Industries is not a company made up of stocks that are for sale, I am my only boss, and I am the only person that will make decisions for Griffin.

  The world thinks my aversion to the media is a ploy for more attention. But in reality, I just want to be left the fuck alone.

  Women claim relationships with me every single week. Women I’ve never met, influencers who want screen time, models that want attention, or decoys who’ve been hired by other companies.

  It’s insane that people go after my private life, but it’s gratifying that they interview my current ‘mistress’ right now. Live and on the front steps of Griffin Plaza, she tells them of our night together… last night. She tells them how she’s an aspiring model, and knowing me has helped her.

  It would normally be annoying, but Libby bangs around in the kitchen and laughs. “I wonder how she knows you were a good lay last night? I didn’t text her the pictures yet.”

  “She’s assuming. You’ve seen my body, right? You can tell just by looking that I fuck like a champ.”

  She snickers and tosses a pan onto the stove. She made me coffee. And now she’s making lunch. I feel like a king.

  “And you’re so humble about your… prowess. It’s truly sexy how humble you are.”

  I bring the coffee up and sip, while Kylie – the chick on the TV – avoids the more detailed questions the interviewer is asking. Things like; what does the inside of my apartment look like? She wouldn’t know, she’s never been inside. Or, how long has she and I been friends? We aren’t. Instead, she plugs her own interests, and when she has absolutely nothing worth listening to in regards to the elusive Theo Griffin, they pan away and speak about my net worth instead.

  Steak sizzles on the stove in the kitchen, and the smell of clean protein wafts through the small apartment and makes my stomach jump with hunger.

  We’ve done nothing today but lay around and enjoy this thing we have. We bask in the promises we’ve made, and the comfort that we’ve both agreed to compromise. No decisions have been made yet, neither of us will relocate or change jobs right this second. We’re going to take a minute to discuss our options, and when we decide our next move, we’ll make it together.

  It’s the weekend, so though Annaliese is back to providing me with hourly updates, none of them are urgent enough for me to open a laptop. My phone is enough for now.

  “So, I was thinking…” Libby leaves the steak to cook, and winds her way out of the galley kitchen in the sexiest pair of skintight gym shorts. They’re the kind women wear to cross-fit classes, because they’re easy to move in, and they’re like catnip on a man’s brain. Her ass – as Dolly so eloquently spoke of mine – sits like a shelf. Her tank top is baggy, but tied in a knot at the side, so it rides up and shows off one and a half abs. “Gunner?” She waits for my eyes to leave her stomach. “Wanna get away for a bit?”

  I hit mute on the TV and set my coffee down. She surprises me, so I turn and give her my full attention. “Huh?”

  Her cheeks burn as she drops down on the couch opposite me. Bringing one leg up, she leans forward and makes her stomach roll. “I don’t mean away away. I don’t mean traveling somewhere foreign. I mean, can we agree to take a week or two together? It’s just…” She hesitates. “We don’t really know each other. We skipped a whole bunch of the stuff we’re supposed to do. We haven’t dated, we haven’t eaten a real meal together. We haven’t done laundry together, or showered at the same time. We haven’t spent time where we do absolutely nothing, so how can I know that you don’t chew weird while I read?”

  The red sweater that is always present in our world is tucked half under the back cushion of the couch, and as though in natural reflex, Lib grabs it and begins fussing with the zipper.

  I can picture twenty years of her doing that without thought. She has no clue she’s even touching something that once belonged to me. She has no clue that she reaches out for me without thought.

  “We can stay here if you want,” she continues, “or we can go to your apartment in the city. I can put in for time off at the station. In eleven years, I have never taken leave, so X won’t mind. I want it to just be us. No work, no one else. Here, or there. At the beach, or a cabin in the woods. Absolutely anywhere, but there must be rules.”

  I lift a brow and grin. She wouldn’t be Libby Tate, a cop’s daughter, and a cop herself, if she didn’t have rules. “What kinda rules?”

  “Like, it has to be just us. No one else is invited. Not an assistant, not a driver, not a chef or personal trainer or whatever other weird staff you have because you’re too lazy to organize your own life.” Her eyes drop to my phone. “You can have email communications, since obviously Griffin still needs their CEO sometimes, but you have to limit how often you check. We can head to the city first, you can organize your people and tell them you’re on honeymoon or something. Then we’re out, and you’re exclusively mine for at least long enough that I can get annoyed with how you chew.”

  “You want to find something to hate about me.”

  She snickers. “I won’t have to search hard, I’m sure. It doesn’t have to be an extended time, but… a week minimum. I know a week is a long time to you, but I’ve waited a long time for this, so I think I’m entitled to that, no?”

  “Okay…” Swallowing, I act as though I’m giving her request genuine thought. “So in exchange for my week with no one to cook or clean for me, I get…?”

  “Me.” She smiles. “You get me.”

  We spend the rest of the day how we began it; with her in my arms, her body pressed against mine, with the news on, but no other intrusions on our lives.

  Bar one.

  Around two in the afternoon, a call came in.

  The call I think we were both waiting for.

  “The babies are here,” Libby whispered. With one hand pressed to her heart, and the other wrapped around her cell, she sat on the end of her couch with flushed cheeks and a pounding heart as she gently told me the story her chief told her. “Two girls, one blonde, and one with black hair.”

  “Kinda like their parents, huh? One Lenaghan–”

  “And one Bishop,” she finished. Sliding off the arm of the couch, Lib scooted closer until eventually, giving up on trying to sit close, she climbed into my lap and wrapped her arms around my neck. She laid her ear on my chest and stroked the side of my face. “There are two more Bishops, and word is that one of them looks Bishop. How does that make you feel?”

  I shrugged and let my eyes stay on the TV. I didn’t want to talk about more Bishops, because no matter the decisions I made and the promises to walk away, it doesn’t come that easily to me. The kind of hatred I possessed… the kind I still possess… doesn’t wash away overnight because a dude tells me he’s good people. “Let’s hope they don’t turn out like their grandpa.”

  I literally felt Libby’s eyeroll. I felt it in the air seconds before she flicked my neck so hard that the sting made me hiss. “I meant, how does it feel to be an uncle? Despite all the politics and feelings and all the weird shit going on, you are a Bishop. You are Kane’s brother whether you like it or not. Which makes those little girls your nieces. Put aside your anger for a minute, put aside the prejudice against their surname, and instead… tell me how it feels in your heart.”

  It feels good.

  In my head, those were the words that flashed by every time she asked.

  “I hate that I�
��m related to them through Bishop rather than my mom. Because a small part of me wonders if either of those girls will look like my mom.” I swallowed, and held Lib tighter when she went to sit up. “I know that’s not how that works, but it doesn’t stop me from hoping for something impossible.”

  “Ya know…” Despite my wishes that she wouldn’t sit up, Lib did, then she turned in my lap so her legs straddled mine and her hands held the sides of my face. Dirty green eyes flickered between mine and made my pulse throb. “It doesn’t work that way for them. You already said it, they’re not related to your mom. But…” She hesitated. “But you are. Jacintha Ellis’ blood pulses in your veins too. You always focus so much on the bad, but you forget the good. Ellis blood makes your heart beat. So when you have a baby, that baby will be a direct relation to your sweet mom. That’s exciting, right? You could make a baby that looks just like her.”

  I took Libby’s face and pulled her in closer until our lips feathered together. “That sounds nice and all… But I’d rather make one that looks just like you.”

  Now it’s Monday, Lib has requested time off, and despite the fact she did it with no notice at all, her chief allowed it. I might have a problem with the police in general, but Libby swears he’s one of the good kind. She swears he’s family, and if she’s my family…

  No. One cop in my family is enough.

  “Good lord, Theo.” Despite Libby’s gaping mouth and wide eyes as she moves around my office, she remains in character. Here, my name is Theo, and there will be no exceptions. She understands this, so she does as she’s told and uses the name that surely tastes like lemon on her tongue.

  She was speechless as we boarded my plane.

  She was wide-eyed as my beautiful stewardess served us drinks.

  But then she was terrified when the engines began and we started rolling forward.

  Turns out, Lib is scared of flying, and as I held her hand and brought her body closer to mine in comfort, she forgot about the leggy stewardess she was ready to tear strips off of.