Control: An Everyday Heroes Novella

by K. Bromberg

  How you gonna handle that one, huh?

  “Then it seems someone is going to have to figure out how to satisfy themselves somewhere else.” She lifts a brow and folds her arms over her chest.

  Looks as if someone just got their feet beneath them.

  “You’re the first woman who’s told me I should sleep with someone else instead of them.” I laugh and take a step toward her as she takes one back.

  “That just goes to show I’m not like everyone else. I have my quirks. My flaws. My no-go zones.” She puts a hand against my chest and pushes me back. “And you are a no-go zone.”

  “That’s not what you said the other night.”

  We wage a visual war as the sexual tension thickens in the air between us.

  “That was then, Reznor. This is now.”

  “What, without lust clouding your judgment?”

  “Exactly.”

  “You’ll want me back,” I murmur as I move closer, and thank fuck for her obstinance because she doesn’t move, which means her chest brushes ever so slightly against mine. But I see her body flinch—much like mine does.

  “Nice try,” she says quietly as she swallows the desire she’s denying.

  “Mmm.” I lean in so my lips are so close to hers that we’re breathing the same air. Her perfume fills my nose, and the shudder of her breath tells me I’m right. She wants me, she’s just scared. “Late at night, when you’re sliding your fingers between your thighs...you’re not going to be satisfied with it. You’re going to wish your fingers were me. You’re going to want it to be me.” I move my lips and murmur against her ear. “You’ll come back.”

  I take a step back. She stands there frozen in place, nipples hard and pressing against her tank top, lips lax, and eyes heavy with desire. “Like hell I will,” she says, but the conviction is lacking.

  She knows it.

  I know it.

  “We’ll see.”

  And with my dick screaming in protest, I nod and walk out the back door. Fuck. This girl. I’ve never had to fight this hard for someone, but somehow, I know this fight is worth something. God, I want her...She’ll be back.

  Let’s hope I’m right.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Reznor

  The gym was packed tonight.

  Every single woman signed up for the class was there...all but one.

  Damn it.

  Where was she?

  “Good class tonight, Reznor.”

  I look over to svelte Sandy and give her a subtle nod, the suggestion in her voice not fazing me in the least. “Thanks.”

  Her eyes give me a once-over as a slow smile spreads on her lips.

  I ignore the open invitation and climb into the cab of my truck without another word.

  A crazy man would turn that down...well, fuck if I’m not feeling crazy right now.

  I dig my phone out of my center console where I locked it to see if she texted me.

  Fucking nothing.

  Shit.

  I read the one from Grant: No update. No closer to finding who he was. I’ll keep you updated.

  I type off a quick thanks for the update he technically shouldn’t be giving me about Desi’s nameless, faceless suspect, rest my head on the seat and blow out a breath.

  The woman is way more trouble than she’s worth...but I still want her.

  I startle when the phone rings and am even more surprised when I see Harry’s name as the caller.

  “Captain? What’s up?” I ask, the smile on my face automatic.

  “Just calling to check up on you and see how you’re doing.”

  His words take me by surprise. Warning alarms sound off in my head. He’s going to ask me to come back. Proceed with caution.

  “I’m good. You?”

  “Same ol’ shit, different day.” His chuckle fills the line. “That’s good to hear. Has the time been good for you?”

  “Yeah. I think so.”

  “That doesn’t sound convincing.”

  “Nah. It’s just...it’s different.”

  “You miss it?”

  I hesitate to respond and it shocks the hell out of me. “Parts of it. Yes.”

  “Bear said you’re doing a killer job at the defense academy. He says women are lining up to be moved into your class...not like that fucking surprises me.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” I laugh. “It’s been a good change. Knowing that what I do might matter someday for someone.”

  “There’s no adrenaline rush though, is there?”

  Get to your point. I know it’s coming.

  “Nah.” And he’s right. There isn’t. I’ll give him that much. “But I needed the change of pace.”

  “The guys miss you,” he says quietly, and the line falls silent as I figure out how to respond.

  “I hear ya.”

  I miss them too. I do. But I also don’t miss the constant pressure of having lives balancing on my decisions. Being here, I haven’t felt that once.

  “So you’re coming back early, right?”

  This time I give a half-hearted laugh. Took him long enough to ask it. “It’s only been three weeks, Cap.”

  “Yeah, but Mars is in retrograde or some shit and all of the crazies are out.”

  “I think you mean Mercury.”

  “It could be marshmallows for all I care,” he says, and I can hear the smile in his voice. “You’re missed, Mayne. I know you’ve got three more weeks coming to you, but know what you contribute here. Experience, knowledge, leadership…”

  “Thanks, Harry.”

  Before he ends the call I hear the laughing in the background, and that’s when the pang of home hits me. The camaraderie.

  I start the truck and put my arm on the windowsill, staring at the valley around me. The dark greens on the hills and terracotta-color buildings of downtown Sunnyville are nothing like the glass high-rises and steep hills of San Francisco. My home.

  Then what the fuck am I doing here?

  I shift into gear knowing damn well why this town has charm to me, and it has nothing to do with the town itself.

  And everything to do with the brown-haired, blue-eyed, sassy woman living fifteen feet from me.

  We may have only had sex one time, we may have sparred more than kissed...but sometimes, when you know someone might be worth the trouble, you know.

  But well worth the trouble for what?

  For me to want to stay? For me to want to have a fun-filled fling while I’m here? For me to pursue whatever this attraction is and see where it takes us?

  My mind stutters over the answer. Not because I don’t know it’s true, but because I’m typically not one to think in these terms.

  Terms that have intentional possibilities.

  But I know.

  The question is how do I make her see it too?

  Chapter Sixteen

  Desi

  I shock awake—heart racing, pulse thumping, face beaded in sweat.

  It takes me a second to orient myself to the fact that I’m in my room and not in Reznor’s bed.

  Because that was my dream.

  Not a dark shadow standing over my bed. Not the paralyzing fear of what am I going to do.

  Just the ache between my thighs of an orgasm denied.

  I shove out of bed and walk to the kitchen to get some water, anything to clear the unsated desire owning my body so I don’t march across the grass at two in the morning and break my own rules.

  The dogs’ collars jingle as they scratch and figure out if they want to raise their heads and watch what I’m doing or if they’d rather stay snuggled in their beds.

  They choose beds.

  Smart dogs.

  I flick on the lights, grab a water from the fridge, and just as I turn mine off, I notice across the yard that Reznor’s light is on.

  Two damn peas in a pod.

  Curiosity has me glancing his way.

  His usually closed curtain that faces my direction is pulled back. He’s facing me,
the light at his back highlighting his silhouette, and the moonlight above casting enough light on his face that I can see his eyes. And they are looking right at me. His chest is bare, and I can’t see anything below the sexy V of his hips, because just about at his hairline, the fence blocks my view.

  He knows I’m here. He knows I’m watching him. He doesn’t acknowledge me in any way, but I can feel him.

  It makes no sense, and yet I can feel his awareness, his presence, and I can more than see the intense desire burning in his eyes when his hand slides over his stomach and below. I can’t see his hand or his fingers, but I know they close around his shaft. It’s in the bend of his elbow. The movement of his arm. The way his eyes close ever so slowly and his head falls back for the briefest of seconds.

  I can’t hear his groan but know he’s emitting one. I can’t hear the sound of his hand working over his cock, but I know he is.

  And when he brings his head forward and locks his eyes on mine, teeth sinking into his bottom lip and his shoulders tense, my fingers find their way between my thighs.

  It’s my moan I hear now. It’s my ache he’s created that I’m trying to sate. It’s him I’m thinking of as I slide my fingers down the seam of my sex until I find myself already wet, already wanting, already needing him.

  My eyes close as I imagine it’s Reznor’s fingers in me. On me. Pleasuring me. And when I open them up, his eyes own mine. Like me, he’s imagining the things he can’t see.

  His face is tense, his lips are lax, and everything about him oozes sex. But all I can do is remember his touch. All I can do is try to replicate it. All I can hope for is the same satisfaction.

  But I’m as transfixed on him, on watching him come, as I am in bringing myself to climax, because there’s something so intensely erotic and intimate in this unexpected moment. The mind-fucking. We can’t hear each other, but we’re forced to watch so we can see what we do to the other.

  When he comes—head thrown back, arm jerking feverishly, the tendons in his neck taut with pleasure—I can all but feel the rumble of his groan and jerk of his hips as if he were standing between my thighs. And it’s that thought, the one of me getting him off, that brings me to my own peak.

  My breath grows harsher as my fingers move faster until the wall of pleasure slams into me.

  And it does hit me...a soft wave of sensations I can sink into, but it’s nothing like how Reznor made me feel. It is less intense. Shorter. Less pleasurable.

  I’m far from sated.

  But I show none of it to him as our eyes hold across the distance, because he was right.

  I’m not satisfied.

  Not in the least.

  I still want him.

  But when I move to pull my panties up, he’s gone. His curtains are drawn, his light is off.

  Goddamn you, Reznor Mayne.

  This was never supposed to happen. Not you. Not me.

  But God, how I want it to.

  I want him.

  Now.

  Tomorrow.

  That’s all I’ll allow myself to think about.

  Because I don’t deal in anything after that.

  I can’t.

  I won’t.

  Then why is my mind wandering there?

  Chapter Seventeen

  Desi

  Knock-knock. Knock-knock-knock.

  “I don’t want any,” I yell over my shoulder as I bend to pick up Disco from where he’s barking and wagging his tail in his kennel.

  “I’ve heard that before,” Reznor murmurs as he walks in the back door without being invited and rests a shoulder against the doorjamb.

  It’s much easier keeping my attention on Disco and the collar I’m putting around his neck than looking at Reznor.

  We haven’t talked since the other night. It’s been a few days, and yet I fear if I look at him, defeat will be written over every part of my body. The kind of defeat that tells him he’s right, I’m wrong, and oh yeah, can we have sex right now to make up for my stupidity?

  “What do you want?” I ask without looking at him while I coo over Disco and head toward the front of the house. “Here you are,” I say when I enter the main area of the grooming shop. Jeff is texting someone on his phone. He looks up when I enter, a smile wide on his lips when he sees Disco. I turn, surprised to see that Reznor stayed in the other room.

  “Thanks. Ah, you look handsome as ever, Disc,” Jeff says as he takes him from me.

  “He was great per usual. That hot spot under his front arm looks better too.”

  “I thought it looked better so that’s good to hear.” Jeff hands a check to me, and I place it in my drawer. I half expect him to have one foot out the door when I turn back around, but he’s standing there staring at me like he has more to say.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “You’re beautiful.”

  “Ah, that’s sweet.” But I’m suddenly uncomfortable. When Reznor said the same comment, I swooned. But with Jeff, there is no swooning. No nothing.

  “I’m telling you, the offer still stands.” A warm smile. “We were—”

  “Good luck with that,” Reznor’s voice says from behind me, making both Jeff and me jump.

  Jeff’s smile fades as he takes in Reznor with his shoulder against the doorway, eyes burning a hole into him. Jeff gives Reznor the fuck you lift of his chin in greeting. “Hey.”

  Reznor doesn’t say a word, but rather waits with a slight smirk—perhaps saying fuck you right back.

  “Reznor, this is Officer Jeff Nelson—”

  “Reznor Mayne,” Reznor says, cutting me off and making his own introduction. “SFPD Swat Commander.”

  And the gauntlet has been thrown down, the pissing match commenced. But Reznor doesn’t move from his spot against my wall, and Jeff stares at him for an uncomfortable space of time before he realizes he’s the odd man out in this situation, when I’m more than certain he thought this whole interaction might go the other way. After all, Reznor is in my house and clearly isn’t a client.

  “Well, uh,” Jeff says with a quick shake of his head before looking back at me, “thank you. Disco looks great as always. I’ll uh...I’ll talk to you later, Des.”

  I smile softly at him. “Talk to you later.”

  I wait for the door to shut behind him before I reprimand Reznor for his testosterone-laced claim that I never gave him the right to make.

  “Really?” I ask, voice escalating as I turn and face him and his goading smirk.

  “What did I do? I just told him good luck.” He shrugs innocently. “He’s gonna need it when it comes to you.”

  “Stop being an ass.”

  “An ass?” He takes a step toward me, body tense, posture telling me he’d welcome the fight I’m all too primed to give him. “You said I have no claim to you”—he throws his hands up as if he doesn’t care—“so you’ve slept with him. I guess that means I need to go sleep with someone else to make it fair that—”

  “No!” The word is out of my mouth before I can stop it. A simple knee-jerk reaction I wish I could take back, because I hate that I just gave him the upper hand.

  His chuckle is low and grates on my ruffled nerves. “So there is something there then.”

  Gritting my teeth, I walk past him without responding. I find things that keep my hands busy—sweep the dog fur off the floor, dry the inside of the basin with a towel, realign the products on my shelf—all while he’s standing behind me watching.

  “I’ll tell you what, Desi Whitman. I think you’re a chicken. I think you hide behind your preconceived notions out of principle—or at least that’s what you label it, but fear is fear. You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.” My hands still and my eyes meet his in the reflection of the window in front of me. “The question is, how bad do you want it? How bad do you want to see where this might go between us? A few nights of sex? A few dates? Anything. Something. When will you push yourself to think that it’s okay?”

  “I al
ready told you, I know who I am, and I know what I want out of life.”

  “You did...but that’s before you met someone who changed that.”

  I spin around and glare at him. He’s thinking too much into this. “Down, boy. It’s sex. One time. That’s it.”

  “Two times,” he counters and lifts his eyebrows.

  “Two?”

  “Sweetheart, we may not have been touching, but you can’t deny we fucked each other across this space.” He points to his house and back, but his eyes never leave mine. “You can call it semantics. You can say it didn’t happen, but I’ll fight you on that. Watching you was hotter than hell. You came for me. And next time you do, I’ll be buried in you.”

  His words evoke too many things I don’t want to think about but can’t seem to avoid thinking of late.

  “That’s presumptuous,” I say simply, because I have nothing else to say.

  His chuckle is back and so is that look in his eye that’s part challenge, part predator. “You’re only pushing me away because you know it’s good—we’re good—and you’re afraid you’re only going to like it more.”

  “Why are you here, Reznor?” I shove my hands on my hips so I don’t reach out and touch him.

  I can see him question which answer he should give. The one we both know—that he wants to sleep with me again—or the underlying reason. “You didn’t show up to class again.”

  “And I called Bear ahead of time and let him know that something came up. That way you knew, he knew—”

  “Why not walk across the yard and tell me?”

  “Because I was...” avoiding you. Wanting you. Needing to keep my distance from you.

  His smile is half-cocked. “That’s what I thought.” He takes a step toward me. “You want me as much as I want you…”