by Finn, Emilia
Abigail chews on her bottom lip in thought, and her hair falls forward so it covers a little of her face. “You didn’t do anything to it?”
“Jesus. No!”
I snatch the glass from in front of her and chug half of it in one go. Wine isn’t my thing, so I grit my teeth and swallow down the fruity concoction, then I place the glass by her hand and lift a brow.
“See? It’s safe. I’m not gonna fucking drug you and take you back to a cave against your will.”
“You don’t have to swear like that.” Scowling, she takes the glass stem between her fingers and slowly spins it. “I don’t understand why people feel the need to cuss so much.”
“Get the fuck outta here!” Jay throws his head back and laughs at something Sophia says.
Nobody at the table is paying attention to anything Abigail and I are doing, but Jay’s impeccable timing makes Abigail’s face burn hot.
“It’s just not needed,” she murmurs. “That’s all I’m saying.”
“You said ‘coconuts’.” I wait for her eyes. “It’s not a swear, but it’s the same feeling behind your need to say it in a huff. You have anger brewing in your belly, so you need to let it out on a word. Your word is coconuts, mine is fuck. That doesn’t make you superior to me.”
“You could say coconuts too.”
I lift my beer, and wash the taste of fruit and sugar from my mouth. “If I said coconuts when I mean to say fuck, my own brothers would gun me down for being a pussy.”
“Gah!” Abigail literally plugs her ears and shakes her head. “That word is so much worse. Stop it!”
Her snobby behavior should annoy me, but mostly, it’s endearing and tempts me to push her boundaries as far as I can.
Moving in closer so our thighs touch and her breath catches on a gasp, I pull her left hand away from her ear and lean in. “Can I ask you something important?”
She furiously shakes her head and scrunches her eyes closed. “What?”
I laugh, because she’s such a contradiction, and the goosebumps that rush along her flesh intrigue the hell out of me. “If ‘fuck’ bothers you, and ‘pussy’ is so much worse, I wonder, Abigail…” I’m tempted to lick her neck. She’s officially moved from too young and delicate, to straight-up conquest, and it’s all because of a dress. “How would you react if I said cunt?”
“Oh my gosh!” She shoots back with a ghostly white face, and draws the attention of everyone at our table. “You are absolutely despicable. Why would you say that?”
“What did he say?” Soph asks.
“It was an experiment.” I inch back, run my tongue over my front teeth, and grin. “I’d say I got a strong reaction and good data. Now I know where your line is.”
“What line?” Jay questions.
“My line was way back at the front door.” She thrusts her open hand in that direction. “That’s where you should have stayed! As in, far far away from me.”
“But this is my friends’ wedding. I’m wearing the pocket square, which means I have an invitation etched in stone.” I shrug, and turn back into the asshole I usually pride myself on being. “You’re just the help.”
“Spencer!” Katrina angrily growls beside Eric. “Don’t say that shit, you pompous douchebag!”
“Stop saying everything,” Abigail cries. “Stop swearing, stop calling names, stop trying to collect data on me like I’m a lab rat you can play with.”
She stands with a huff and tosses her napkin to the table. She’s yet to take a sip of her wine, but she squeezes between me and her chair, unintentionally brushing her tits over my face, and cries out again when she knows what she’s done.
Kane and Jess are still in their first dance, and everyone in this function room, except those at table one, pay them complete attention.
Abigail gives her snooty little huff as though to take back her dignity, shoves her chair in until the silverware jangles on the table, then lifts her head high and storms away.
Jay snickers and sips a glass of soda. “What did you whisper to her?”
“A very naughty word.” I grab a long-stemmed flower from the expertly arranged centerpiece and bring it to my nose.
It smells like Abigail, or perhaps Abigail smells like her shop. Whichever it is, it’s fucking delicious, and when she’s snapping at me, she’s no longer delicate in my eyes, but a challenge I’d like more chances to spar with.
I stand from the table, and grab her half empty wine glass. “I’ll go fix it.”
“Call her the help again, and I’ll knock you out,” Katrina growls. “I’ll straight up put your lights out.”
I look to Eric and lift a brow as though to ask Really? I could be a prick and ask him to put his girl on a leash, but I wouldn’t mean it, and I’d end up with a messier face if I did. So I keep my asshole retorts to myself, and knock Jay’s head forward when he won’t stop laughing.
“I said I’ll fix it.”
I weave around the outside of the room, past overflowing tables, and wink at the local chief of police as he watches me like I’m their resident criminal. I mean, I guess I kind of am, but so is everyone else at table one. I clap his deputy’s shoulder as I pass, and flash a wide grin at his bombshell wife just to be a dick, then I keep moving so I pass the bar just as Kane’s song is ending.
I saw Abigail dart through the double doors and into the quiet lobby, so I follow the scent of flowers like a bloodhound on the hunt. I catch sight of her dress as she moves around a corner. Holding her wine and flower in one hand, I use the other to rearrange my cock.
I don’t care what it says about me, but her steel spine makes the hunt a hell of a lot of fun.
I turn down the next hall and pass waitstaff as they move around, and though I don’t see Abigail, I catch sight of the ladies room door swinging closed.
I take just half a second to consider how inappropriate it would be to follow her in, then toss that thought aside and push the door open.
“Abigail?”
I smile at her gasped squeak, and then at the crash that follows as I round the final wall and find her slamming back against the stall door.
“What the heck are you doing in here?” She clutches at her heaving chest. Her eyes are dilated and flitter between anger and humiliation. “This is the ladies room, Spencer!”
I swagger in with slow steps. There are a dozen stalls, and though all of the doors are closed, none of them are locked or show the occupied sign.
“Is there anybody in here, Abigail?”
I slow halfway across the room and study her sexy heels that give her a few inches and turn me the fuck on. Most women take themselves out to get a fake tan when they have a formal function to attend, but Abigail stands here in all her pasty glory.
“Hello?” I duck a little lower to glance under the stall doors. “Anybody object to the big bad wolf being in here?”
“I object!” Abigail pushes away from the door and stands tall. She might be the proudest person I’ve ever met. “You shouldn’t be in here.”
I look around and meet her gaze through the reflection in the mirror. “But I really want to be here, Abigail. And there ain’t a single soul in this room that can remove me.” I hold the wine and flower in my left hand, and dig the right into my pocket as I meander forward. “I guess I’ve come to apologize for being crude.”
“You guess?” She reaches up and fixes her hair. It does things to my gut, that she does that without any clue she’s doing it for me. “The fact you start that with ‘I guess’ means you don’t mean it. I don’t want empty apologies.”
I shrug and turn back to continue toward her. The bathroom is forty feet from door to far wall, and Abigail stands about halfway along, so it doesn’t take long for me to be close enough to touch her.
“I would mean it when I said I was sorry for upsetting you. I don’t actually want to hurt you. But the thing I did, the cussing, I’m not really sorry for that. It’s just a word.”
I stop when her fist ju
ts out and presses against my stomach to keep me away. Her fist is closed, it shakes, and when I push against her, her eyes widen when she realizes how muscular I am.
“Words are just words, Priss. A swear word can only hurt you if you let it, and you are the one who gives me that power. If you’d just stop caring, then I’d move along and stop tormenting you.”
“No.” Her eyes flicker between fear and intrigue. Concern and challenge. But her lips plump every time she brings them between her teeth in a nervous habit. “Words are powerful,” she murmurs. “They might be the most powerful entity in the world.”
I tilt my head to the side. “I’ve lived a pretty physical life, Priss. In my world, a word is nothing compared to a bullet. Only one kills me.”
“Kane and Jessica exchanged vows today. Just words.” Her voice shakes. “That means something to them.”
“They also exchanged rings and a signed contract. They coordinated an event, and had people show up to be with them. That, in my mind, is what means something.”
“But… Words can announce a birth,” she stutters. “They say ‘I do’. They deliver good news, or bad. Words are the ‘I love you’s said between parent and child. Or the phone call when someone you love is stateside again after being sent far away for work. Wars have been fought because of words. Families have been created because of words.”
I lean in closer, an attempt to seduce, to claim. An attempt to taste. But she turns her face away and denies me access to her eyes.
“Words might be the most important thing this world has,” she whispers. “And you freely admit to using them to torment me.”
“Torment, yes. But not to hurt you, Priss. I’m just playing.” I’ve always been the guy that’ll take a chance; I was never the guy who asked for permission. I never took a woman against her wishes, but I don’t spell shit out either. So I lean in and risk my balls when I run the tip of my nose over her temple. “What words do you want from me? What words will end with you and me spending the rest of the night together?”
Her head smacks against the stall door when she shoots back in surprise. “What? None! Are you insane?”
I shrug and trail the tip of my finger along her sharp hipbone. I still have the wine and flower in my left hand, so I’m limited on how much I can touch. “Some have accused me of insanity. Some have said worse. But if you’re looking for certifiable, then nope.” I grin. “I’m all here.”
“Oh!” The bathroom door opens and reveals Laine’s surprised eyes. They’re round and border on fear for just a beat, but when her gaze comes to mine and I smile, she reverses her ass out and slams the door as she goes.
“Oh my gosh!” Abigail tries to push me back. “She’s going to think the worst!”
“She has bigger things on her mind than what you and I do in this bathroom, Priss. Don’t let it worry your pretty little heart.”
I pull back only far enough to sip the wine. Abigail’s eyes follow my movements, and power swirls in my blood because I know – I fucking know! – she’s intrigued. She’s terrified, scandalized, horrified, and a million other emotions. But she’s interested, and the fact that she is bothers the fuck out of her.
With slow movements, I press the lip of the glass to her glossed lips, and watch as her pupils dilate. I think maybe I’ve scaled a wall of some sort when her fist on my stomach turns to a flat palm, a caress rather than a hell no, but when I try to lift the wine and tip the liquid into her mouth, she shakes her head and turns away.
“I’ve wondered about you, Priss. I’ve laid in bed at night the past week and wondered about you.”
“You…” She licks her lips. “What?”
“Mmm. Women are so… copy and paste for the most part, right? The same fashion, the same hair, the same makeup with the smoky eyes and fat lips. It’s not that that’s a bad thing, because they look good while they’re cloning each other, but the only women I don’t consider a genetic bore are either in love with my friends, or…”
She greedily gulps air as her eyes flicker between mine. “Or…?”
“Or you, Priss. Fucked if I can pinpoint what keeps me interested, but it might literally be as simple as…” I shrug. “You’re not the same as them.”
“Right, because they are double Ds and beautiful. They wear fashionable clothes and have beautiful hair. They don’t roll their ankles when wearing nice heels, and they know how to talk to men.”
“Babe…” I flash my widest grin yet when our chests touch, and her body shivers beneath mine. “You’re wearing heels, and I haven’t seen you stumble yet. Your tits may not be double Ds, but they look good in that dress all the same.”
It bothers me how starkly her hipbone juts out beneath my hand, but it doesn’t slow my gentle caress as I move lower.
“Your dress tonight stands up to every single woman’s inside that function room. It’s stunning, and second only to the bride’s. You’re beautiful, Abigail, and you don’t need to do anything with your face to show it off. The clones wear makeup to enhance what they have. You’re just you, and you’ve got my attention.”
“But my–”
“And you want hair like theirs? You want jet black or snow white? You want perfectly straight, or tight curls? Do you want, seriously want, to be a copy and paste?”
“You wouldn’t understand,” she whimpers. “I’ve always stood out, but for all the wrong reasons. My hair–”
“Is the first and only thing I see for a full minute after you walk into a room. I don’t mean that in a bad way. Your hair is beautiful, shiny, soft, and so fucking tempting to run my fingers through.”
“Don’t…” She swallows. “Don’t say the F word. Please.”
“Your eyes…”
They shoot up to mine.
“When I’m finally able to look away from your hair, your eyes are the next thing that nearly strangle me. Why the fu–”
And this. Right now. Right this second, as I censor myself because the pretty girl asked me to, this is a moment I’ll look back on and know it all went to shit.
“Why the hell do you have two different colored eyes? That ain’t fair, Abigail. It’s not fair that with everything else you have going on, you also get those eyes.”
“I’ve said that a million times,” she whimpers. “But not because I like them.”
“I like them.” I lean in closer, and when her body is nothing but a mass of nerves in my hand, I snake my tongue out and tap her earlobe.
She shoots into the air exactly how I predicted, so I hold on tight and use my teeth next.
“I can smell you, Abigail.”
“You… you can… what?”
“I can smell your fear.” I slide my hand along her ribs with the intention to touch her tits, but when she angles away and practically sobs, I keep moving and instead cup her jaw. “I can smell your desire. I can smell your reluctance, but underneath it, I know I smell your acceptance.”
I bring her wineglass up a second time, offer it, and slowly pour when she opens her lips.
“Please tell me someone has touched you before. Please tell me this innocence thing you have going on is an act.”
Swallowing the fruity wine down, she stares at my jaw and shakes her head.
“No?” I bring the last of the wine up and swallow it in one go. I’m tired of holding it and being unable to touch her.
A plastic trashcan sits in the corner by the sinks, so I toss the glass and pray for the muffled thwump, rather than shattered glass on tile.
When it lands on used paper towel and doesn’t shatter, I turn back to Abigail, and grin. “No, you haven’t been touched, or no, you’re not going to tell me?”
“No, I don’t want to talk about it.”
I bring the delicate flower to her jaw and slide it over her sensitive flesh. “You’re like a playground for me, Priss. Shiny and new, unspoiled ground, and proper enough that when you finally relax and accept we’re gonna be explosive, it’ll be like I won a war.”
; “A war you started with words.” She’s breathless and probably wouldn’t be standing if it wasn’t for my body pinning her to the stall door, but she’s still stubborn enough to push her point home. “Words are powerful, Spencer.”
“Okay.”
I slide the flower over her neck, over the hollow above her collarbone, and then smile when she gulps and her skin breaks out in new goosebumps. My brain spins out of control.
Leave her be, she’s too pure for you. Take her, claim her, own her. Leave her be, we don’t touch the innocent. Fuck her, and forever be the guy that took the thing she can only give away once.
“I’m going to touch you now.”
“You’re…” Her eyes change from mellow and all sex to full-blown panic. “What?”
I slide my right hand down and drag her skirt up to reveal silky soft thighs. I don’t lean back to look, because if I give her space, I have no doubt she’ll run, so I look with my hands. I grin when the skirt finishes bunching, and then I walk my fingers to her apex and tap at her clit until she jumps and slams her head to the underside of my jaw.
Any other chick, any other time, and I’d walk away. I don’t do innocent, and I don’t do clumsy. She’s both, and I want someone in bed that won’t be terrified to let me touch her. But we’re not in bed, and she’s panting so hard, I worry she might drop if I let her go.
Most women would wear lace lingerie beneath a gown of this caliber, but Abigail wears cotton that covers her up completely. I slide my hand around her hip to give her a moment to breathe, and cup her barely-there ass. Her undies aren’t even the cheeky kind, but full bikini briefs that should be a turn-off.
But she’s captured me, for tonight at least.
“Spencer…” She gulps. “We… I… I don’t think…”
“Let me try something, Priss.”
I bring my hand around the front again, and slip my fingers beneath the waistband of her underwear.
Abigail practically melts in my arms, and I don’t mean the good melt, but the kind where her brain short circuits, and she probably loses consciousness.
I lean back a little to catch her eyes, but they’re scrunched closed so little wrinkles fan out from the corners, and her eyebrows practically meet in the middle.