by Rucker, Shay
“Do you think he’s the one who left the photo?”
“I wouldn’t bet on it. He doesn’t seem the type to taunt. Looks humorless. I’ll upload a few pics, and maybe Reed will be able to identify him.”
“Do you think he can be paid off?”
There was a pause. “All things are possible,” Eddie said. “But anyone who approaches better be ready to battle. If you want me to, Boss, I’m ready.”
Maxim tempered his rage. This man, this bodyguard had the unfortunate idea he could keep Sabrina away from him? Maxim would not allow any man to interfere with what lay between him and Sabrina.
“No negotiation, Eddie. Get rid of him.”
“Will do, Boss.”
There was another pregnant pause.
“What?” Maxim snapped.
A frustrated hiss of breath met his question. “This chick is hot—and I don’t mean looks. She’s got cops squatting out in front of her house, and they ain’t slackers. They seem to accept the big guy’s place at the woman’s side. Could be he’s her man, and we just didn’t—”
“He’s not her man.”
“Course not. But I’m just saying, the way he touches her don’t fall in the realm of what’s professional. The cops haven’t questioned him or approached him since they got here. Makes me think they’ve already checked him out, accepted his place in the woman’s life, professional or not.”
The woman’s name is Sabrina, he wanted to correct. His. His only pure thing in this world, who was to be respected and worshipped as avidly as any goddess. Yet some ham-fisted thug thought he could interfere with what they had created. She was his. Meant solely for him. Now that he’d found her, Maxim would dedicate every moment to letting Sabrina know she was his as much as he was hers. He would let the world know.
“Has a police report been filed?” he asked Reed.
“More than likely. Our guy at OPD is off today. I put a call in to him. He’ll be on shift first thing in the morning and give us what he knows as soon as possible.”
“Eddie,” Maxim said, feeling impatient. He needed to go downstairs soon. “Continue to watch, observe, and when the opportunity is right, take her. You get a bonus if you go through the guard to do so.” He inhaled and counted backward from twenty. It was his burden to contain the emotions that sprang up when he imagined another man touching Sabrina, stroking her, fucking her.
It wasn’t rational, was probably even more foolish, but he wanted to do it, be the one to torture the bodyguard, make him realize and repent his mistake on broken knees as he begged Maxim to take his life.
The image tempered Maxim’s anger. “Eddie, new deal. I’ll give your men a bonus if they have to put him down and a bonus times three if they are able to subdue him and save him for me to take care of. I want you to do what you need to do to keep the police busy.”
“Bonus times three?” Eddie asked.
“Times three.”
“We’ll get it taken care of, Boss.”
“I have faith you will,” Maxim said before disconnecting.
“You plan to bring the bodyguard here,” Reed noted. “I must ask—”
“I know it’s an impulsive decision, but he touched her. That can’t go without punishment. He needs to learn a lesson before dying. Never touch my woman and think you can survive.”
“You do realize—”
“I do.”
Reed nodded and slipped the cell phone Maxim returned to him back into his pocket. Walking across the sparsely furnished living room, Reed sat at the sturdy cherrywood table in the dining room. Maxim walked up as Reed laid his tablet on the table. Reed pulled up the photos Eddie had sent over.
“That’s the guard?”
“Yes, sir.”
Not one to be impressed with another man’s physical presentation, Maxim could appreciate qualities in this one. Of indeterminate racial origin, the male in the picture had cold metal-gray eyes and an inflexible jawline. He was large, taller than Eddie, but where Eddie’s muscles were bulky, this man’s were thick and tight. He had a menacing, predatory look about him. If circumstances had been different, Maxim wouldn’t have hesitated about hiring Sabrina’s guardian for his special team, just for the intimidation factor alone. Circumstances being what they were, however, demanded the man’s death.
The next photo to dominate the screen made his heart fumble around in his chest. It was Sabrina, badly bruised, beautiful, and nestled in the false safety of the big man’s arm.
Maxim walked away from the table. He would not put his fist through Reed’s beloved tablet. He would put it in the woman waiting for him in his basement bedroom. From experience he knew she would scream with release and pleasure.
Stepping through the hidden passageway that led down the stairs, he unknotted the belt of his gray silk robe and let it slide off his body as he made his way down the hall to the bedroom. He was already hard with anticipation when he unbolted the door and opened it to find the woman bolted to the wall, conscious and in sore need of his attentions if her body, trembling with desire, was any indication. She was not nearly as bruised as Sabrina had been in the photo, but if she was to be Sabrina’s temporary stand-in, he would have to make do. The substitutes loved his rough treatment. Always, they enjoyed the violence and the pain, liked the way it increased the intensity of their fucking.
He walked to her and unchained her from the wall before walking to the bed and laying her upon it, face forward.
“Please don’t hurt me again. I’ll do whatever you want,” she whispered.
Maxim’s fingers skimmed the mocha-brown skin from the back of her ankles, up her calves and thighs, and rested as they cupped the mound of her rounded ass. He stroked and kneaded until he could feel her trembles of desire increase. He loved how she allowed him to worship her body. His dick compelled him to take her from behind. He climbed onto the bed and straddled her, the tip of his dick pressing slightly against the seam of her ass. She trembled more violently and sobbed.
“Soon,” he promised, finding he liked her in this position.
Reed had done well.
* * * *
Sabrina and Randy watched in dazed disbelief as Zeus and Bride ate with silent determination. They fed with the kind of rapt focus of people who’d been starved most of their lives, yet she had witnessed Zeus eat the very large meal Mama had provided this morning.
Randy, who shared the futon with her while Zeus and Bride sat on the floor in front of the table they were eating on, leaned over and whispered, “Bree, I’m not sure it’s safe to reach for my food. Will you pass it to me?”
Sabrina knew Randy wasn’t a coward, nor was he one to run from a fight. She frowned at him and shook her head. She was only halfway certain Zeus wouldn’t bite her hand off, but with Bride she was far less so. Zeus growled when Randy reached for his still-untouched beer.
Hell no, she thought, folding her hands on her thighs. She definitely wasn’t hazarding a limb for Mexican food she could go right down the street for, even if her small living room table was full of food. Zeus had told her to order everything she liked, and with the way he had eaten earlier, she hadn’t limited herself. There were only four of them, but she’d ordered four super steak burritos, two super carnitas burritos, each the thickness and nearly the length of her forearm. She’d asked for two orders of chicken quesadillas, two enchilada orders, a large serving of pico de gallo, two orders of homemade tortillas, and just in case, chips and guacamole.
Zeus and Bride had already consumed a third of the food, and she and Randy were too intimidated to nibble on the broken piece of tortilla chip that had fallen near their feet.
Damn, Sabrina thought as she watched Bride. How could someone so tiny eat so much?
“I’m getting hungry,” Randy whispered to her.
She nodded toward the food, indicating he should be brave. Eat.
He shook his head. “You first.”
This was ridiculous. It wasn’t like they were trying to steal food
from a starving pack of wolves.
Yet it was.
What was the safest way to get food from a starving wolf?
A bitch has to make nice with the alpha, she thought.
Sabrina slid from the futon and crawled until she sat on her knees at Zeus’s right. Bride was on his left. Sabrina looked over at Randy, and he nodded at her encouragingly. She leaned into Zeus’s upper arm and rested her temple close to his shoulder. Zeus froze for an instant, watching her out of the corner of his eye.
“Hey, Zeus. What does a girl have to do to eat a meal at her own table?”
He didn’t hesitate as he placed a salsa-dipped chip in his mouth and mumbled, “Kiss me.”
Her stomach growled. She rose on her knees and kissed him on the cheek.
He snorted and pick up another steak burrito, peeling back the foil. Was he really not going to allow them to share in their dinner? “Okay. I promise to give you a proper kiss good night when our company leaves.”
Zeus looked over at Bride, who shrugged with indifference.
“What do you want?” he asked as he picked up a plate and loaded it with the items she indicated until Bride held her fork perilously close to his Adam’s apple.
“Touch the quesadilla and I will hurt you both.”
Randy chose that moment to fill his plate, smartly avoiding said quesadilla. When his plate was filled with food, and after he’d dug in, he turned to Sabrina. “And exactly how long do I have to have the emo chick cooped up in my place?” he asked, brave now that he was sitting out of Bride’s reach with a plateful of food settled on his lap.
She shrugged. Hopefully they’d have them out sooner than later.
Zeus held a piece of burrito close to Sabrina’s mouth, and she bit. She moaned as the cholesterol-laden goodness filled her mouth. She tried to steer Zeus to the enchilada next, but she was forced to grab her plate when he ignored her to feed himself.
“Well…” Randy said after a while. “Isn’t this cozy?”
What it was was tight. Zeus alone seemed to take up half the space in her living room. Add three other bodies and it was almost too tight to breathe.
“We haven’t had a party like this since you moved in, Bree. I think you were past due.”
Bride looked at Zeus and pointed a forkful of quesadilla at Randy before eating it.
Zeus nodded at her. “Duct tape works,” he muttered, low.
Randy raised an eyebrow at Sabrina as if to say, What the hell’s wrong with your boy?
“Duct tape works for what, Zeus?” Sabrina asked.
“He talks too much,” Zeus clarified. “That’s my solution.”
Sabrina looked from Zeus to Bride. “You two are guests in our homes.”
“And I don’t talk too much, bitches,” Randy said. “I conversate. Learn the skill.”
“I’d rather use my eyeballs as pincushions,” Bride mumbled around a mouthful of food.
“Don’t worry,” Randy said to Sabrina. “By the time she leaves here she’ll be saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ and speaking in full, grammatically correct sentences.”
Sabrina silently wished her friend luck because Bride seemed to have more disdain for human interaction than Zeus. But if anyone could wear down a person’s defenses, it was Randy. He had a way of breaking through walls, sandblasting them with the force of his unwavering attention until he created a space big enough for him to crawl inside and eventually pull you out. Grateful for him choosing to be in her life, she leaned over and kissed his food-puffed cheek.
He tsk-tsked. “Don’t thank me just yet. That one is going to be a piece of work. I make no guarantees; I can only work the strongest magic in my bag and pray it works.”
“You try working anything on me, pretty boy, and I’ll knock you unconscious and tat and pierce your body as I see fit.”
Randy smiled that demon-possessed, Cheshire cat smile.
“She’s workable. At first I thought she was kinda slow, but with a bad attitude and weapons. But now…” He waggled his eyebrows.
At least Sabrina had the distance of a whole floor and locked doors to protect her from Randy’s mothering. With Bride staying in his home, things could turn tragic.
Sabrina shifted her gaze to Zeus when he mumbled something while focusing on eviscerating a second burrito down the middle. His gaze glinted toward Bride as he lifted the knife from the abdomen of the crammed-together ingredients. “I can make him disappear,” he told Bride. “Permanently.”
Sabrina felt a spike of fear and protectiveness for her best friend.
“Day I can’t handle some normal, you got permission to disappear me. Permanently.”
Zeus nodded, his gaze taking on a faraway look as if he imagined that in Bride’s words he’d been gifted with a double-sided blade that allowed him to stab Bride with the right side and Randy with the left, and never the two blood flows would meet.
“No disappearing anybody,” Sabrina said. As if she had any influence over him. “No killing.”
“There’s always killing. Thou shall not be the one being killed. That’s a commandment I live by.”
After about twenty minutes of them eating in near silence, Zeus took the remains of the meal from the table and walked toward the kitchen. Sabrina and Randy settled back on the futon in their usual spots and quietly debated over which DVD they would watch.
Zeus returned and waved a hand at Randy and Bride. “Get out.”
Bride stood while Randy crossed his arms over his chest and pulled his legs into lotus position, looking up at Zeus like a defiant mystic.
Zeus’s face became blanker. His fingers tapped a quick rhythm against his thigh.
“Uhm, Randy, it has been a long day for us. Let’s let Zeus get some rest, and I’ll see you in the morning,” Sabrina said.
“He’s ruining movie night,” Randy said as he unfolded his body and stood, following Bride to the front door. He paused to kiss Sabrina on the forehead and whisper, “Don’t give him none, Bree. We’ll never get rid of him then, and I can’t have him hanging around messing up our groove.”
“Don’t worry. I’m not giving up anything but a space on my futon.”
“Good girl,” he praised as he left the apartment.
After locking the door, Sabrina turned to see Zeus standing behind her. His hand wasn’t empty anymore. His fingers were engaged in a rapid dance with a blade she was coming to recognize as one of his favorites. “You promised me a kiss.”
“Calm down. You’ll get your kiss.” The pace of his fingers slowed. “I was just trying to get through the night without bloodshed.”
He gripped the blade and stared at her for over a minute before he blinked and resheathed it behind him.
“Go take a shower. I’ll get the futon ready.”
“You should come with me.”
She squelched the image of them soaping each other’s bodies in the shower. “Don’t think so,” she mumbled, turning to the basket next to the arm of the futon. She pulled out the bed linen, regretting that she only had the limited space of a studio. “Towels are in the upper closet,” she said as she avoided looking at him.
Her heart was beating rapidly in her chest at the idea of sleeping with him. As she let out the futon, she realized Zeus’s body was possibly longer than her mattress. He’d either have to sleep with his feet dangling over the bottom, or he’d have to draw his legs up.
The image of him spooned behind her, large hand reaching over to her front, stroking her breasts, abdomen…lower. She groaned in frustration as she snapped the sheet out over the mattress.
By the time she was finished, he walked into the room wearing only a pair of white boxers. She quickly averted her gaze from his body and slipped silently past him as she went to take her shower, hoping she could wash away all the indecent thoughts and images of him playing through her mind.
The warm spray of water only intensified the responsiveness of her body. She hung around the bathroom well beyond the time it took
to shower, groom herself, and put on her nightshirt. She had to achieve a sense of calm before she dealt with Zeus; otherwise there was no hope.
Walking back into the living room, she realized what a fool she’d been to waste her time fretting over how she would deal with the sexual energy between them. Zeus was propped up on all three pillows with an arm behind his head watching a rugby match. While she had been in the bathroom agonizing over what could happen between them during the night, he had assembled the flat-screen television, placed it on her wall, hooked up the illegal cable box, and forgot she existed.
I am an idiot, she thought as she turned out the hallway light and crawled onto the mattress, snatching one of the pillows from behind Zeus’s fat head. She settled on her side with her back to him and closed her eyes, refusing to acknowledge her disappointment.
Not sure if it was Zeus’s calm silence, the drone of the television, the weight of the day’s events, or a combination of the three, she found herself lazily sinking into the world of sleep. It wasn’t until she felt her body being pulled from her side to her back that she realized how deeply she had fallen asleep. She opened her eyes to find all the lights turned off and only the faint light from the side window filtering into the room, creating shadowed spaces in the dark.
Zeus’s body shifted on top of hers, his forearms planted near each shoulder as he held his face only inches from hers. His warm, mint-tinged breath fanned across her right cheek as he inhaled and exhaled rhythmically. Sabrina reached up and stroked her thumb from his jawline to the fierce cut of his cheekbone. His gray eyes gleamed freakishly, almost iridescently, in the dark of the room.
“I want my kiss,” he said.
She lifted her head and pressed her lips to his once, twice, three times in precious touch and retreat. The gentleness of the encounter ended quickly as Zeus lowered his head and pressed hers deep into the pillow as his kiss devoured her. He shifted against her, forcing her legs wide and sinking his lower body into the space between. He molded her trembling inner thighs against his outer thighs. It was both the wrong spot for him to be in and the perfect spot for him to be in, as the length of his hard flesh, separated from her only by her thin cotton panties, stroked against her clit. Sabrina groaned and spread her legs wider. They ground into each other with a desperate need that couldn’t be satisfied with anything less than him burying himself deep inside her over and over again.