Mystery Man

by Kristen Ashley

  But this wasn’t going to happen to me again. Not again. He wasn’t going to think he could start this up again. Taking what he wanted and holding everything back.

  No way. No fucking way.

  So I fought him. I fought his mouth and his hands and his body.

  He was too strong and he knew what he was doing. But he also knew he was a lot stronger than me so the one advantage I had was that he didn’t want to hurt me.

  I didn’t share the same desire.

  So I didn’t fight fair. I was vicious and I was determined and I used everything I had.

  Unfortunately, when I was biting him, I tasted him and smelled him. Then, also unfortunately, somewhere along the way he quit trying to contain me and started doing other things to me. Therefore, somewhere along the way, I lost my nightshirt. Then I lost my determination. Then my fighting became something just as strong and overpowering and that something was hunger.

  I had him on his back and I didn’t jump away. Oh no, not me. Not stupid, stupid me.

  I used my hands, lips and tongue to touch him, taste him, his chest, his nipples, down, his abs, down, I wrapped my hand around his hard cock and circled the tip with my tongue.

  Mm.

  Then I was in the air a brief second before I was on my back, my panties were gone a second later and my knees were lifted high with Hawk’s hands at the back of them, then they were spread wide. Then his mouth was on me. He wasn’t feeling insatiable. He was feeling in the mood to savor. So he did. He savored me and I not only let him, I slid my fingers over his hair and held him to me, it felt that good.

  He took me close, God, so close, unbelievable and I was about to come, whimpering and whispering, “Baby,” when his mouth went away, he turned me to my belly, spread my legs again, positioned between them and yanked up my hips so we were both on our knees.

  Then he was inside me, pounding deep. Beautiful.

  I arched my chest into the bed and stretched my arms out in front of me, palms into the headboard as I reared back to meet his thrusts. God, I loved this. Fucking loved it.

  “Touch yourself, baby,” Hawk ordered, his voice thick and one of my hand moved from the headboard and slid between my legs. “That’s it,” he growled, “help me out.”

  I helped him out, whirling as he thrust, my moans drowned by the pillow, it didn’t take long before I came and I did it hard.

  It took Hawk longer, his grip tight on my hips, he pounded in as he pulled me back and, even coming down, I loved the feel of him.

  Then he groaned as his thrusts magnified, driving deep, he kept taking me as he climaxed.

  Then the power of his movements gentled but he kept moving inside me, gliding in and out slowly, an intimate caress, the most intimate there was. His fingers stopped gripping my hips and slid soft against the skin of my ass, my lower back, hips, down the sides and back of my thighs and it felt nice. Sweet and nice.

  I closed my eyes, my face still in the pillow.

  I was such… a… slut.

  How humiliating was this? There was no degree. It was off the charts. They had to make new charts to measure this kind of humiliation.

  Finally he slid out and started to drop to his side at the same time I felt his hand curl around my waist to take me with him but, quick as I could, I slid away. Jumping off the bed, I bent, snatched my nightshirt off the floor and I pulled it on while I raced from the room.

  I went to the bathroom and locked the door. Then I turned on the light and stood there shaking.

  What was wrong with me?

  The tears threatened but I beat them back by deep breathing. Then I snatched a washcloth out of my bathroom closet, turned on the faucet until the water was hot and then I cleaned him from me.

  He would leave. He would leave. He always left.

  Then I needed to move. Not houses, to a different state. I could work anywhere. I was free to go. It would suck, leaving everyone behind but I was up for the adventure. Dad had taken us to Boston when I was a kid, we toured the Constitution. We went to Lexington Green. We ate clam chowder and I loved it. We had lobster and that was still my most favorite thing. I was into history. I was into lobster. I could do Boston.

  I sat on the toilet, thinking of Boston and I listening but I wouldn’t hear him leave. But he’d leave. He’d go. I knew it.

  I waited and listened to silence.

  Then I sucked in breath and went to the door. I had my hand on the light switch when I opened it but I stopped dead because Hawk was in the hall. He was wearing nothing but his cargoes, his ass was to the wall, his legs slightly out in front of him, his head bent, he was contemplating his feet.

  Shit. He didn’t go.

  He kept his head bent but twisted his neck and his eyes came to me.

  “You need to go,” I announced, flipping off the switch and entering the hall.

  Then I found my back to the wall and I was pinned there with Hawk’s body. One of his hands was at my neck, thumb in my jaw to force me to look up at him, the other one was at my hip. Mine went to his waist and I pushed, to no avail.

  “You need to go,” I repeated.

  “I was in the middle of an operation, an important one, they needed me. So when my wife and daughter died, they couldn’t tell me, they needed me focused. They were dead two days before I knew I’d lost them.”

  Oh God.

  “I don’t want to hear this,” I told him. “I have no interest in this,” I went on but I said this in an effort not to convince him but to convince myself.

  Hawk ignored me. “I was thousands of miles away. Thousands of miles away when I lost my family, Gwen.”

  “You need to go,” I said again with another push of my hands.

  “I loved her,” he announced and I stopped pushing.

  “Hawk, really, I don’t –”

  “But I was fuckin’ pissed at her. Jesus Christ, so fuckin’ pissed. How fuckin’ stupid could she be? Not only goin’ there herself but taking our daughter?”

  I closed my eyes and turned my head away.

  “You should talk to someone about this,” I said, looked back at him and suggested, “Elvira. She’s a good listener.”

  He ignored me again. “I was at base when Lucas, Darla and their crew entered your house. I was in the surveillance room and one of my boys whistled to me and I looked at the screens. I called the order to mobilize on your house, got my shit sorted and started to go myself but before I reached the door, I saw Lucas carrying you out over his shoulder. You weren’t moving.”

  “Lucas?”

  “Brock Lucas, you know him as Skull.”

  “Oh,” I whispered.

  “You weren’t movin’, Gwen.”

  “They’d stun gunned me,” I told him.

  “I didn’t know that,” he told me. “All I knew was that 911 had received a call from one of your neighbors, shots fired at your house and you were carried out not moving. That’s all I knew.”

  “They’d stun gunned me, Hawk,” I repeated.

  “I didn’t know that, Gwen,” he repeated back and continued. “I was in the car when the call came in that Brett was down, three to the chest. I knew the players. I could see the play. They took your body as proof of death, the beginning, you first, then your stepmom or your Dad. They’d go through all of you and Ginger would need to step up to stop that happening.”

  “It didn’t happen that way,” I informed him of what he already knew.

  “Yeah, but for two hours, I didn’t know the state of you. Lee got a lock on your location, we went in and I had no idea what I’d face when I walked into that room.”

  “I was fine,” I lied.

  “You were bound and gagged, Gwen.”

  “Yes,” I returned, “but otherwise fine.”

  He kept going. “Days earlier you were caught in a drive-by. Your car at the curb, your purse on the couch and you were gone. For fuckin’ hours, babe. The only thing I had to hold onto, seein’ as another woman of mine had been caught in a dr
ive-by, was that no blood was at the scene and my boys saw Tack drag you out. Camera angles weren’t good so we couldn’t see for sure you’d not been hit but at least you were standing.”

  Shit, that hadn’t occurred to me. Why hadn’t that occurred to me?

  “I was fine then too,” I reminded him.

  He pressed in deeper. “Yeah, Gwen, but I… didn’t… know that.”

  All right. I had to give him that.

  Still.

  “You’re telling me all this because…?” I prompted.

  His hand left my hip and went to cup the other side of my jaw as he said, “Jesus, Gwen, I’m tellin’ you this so you’ll know where my head was at.”

  “Okay, now I know. Thanks for story time, Hawk, now are you going to go?”

  His hands tightened and he whispered, “Don’t do that, babe.”

  “Do what? Be an unfeeling bitch in the face of your pain? Sorry, is that not okay? Because, see, the day I was kidnapped and a man was shot protecting me, after a week of dealing with a bunch of really bad shit at the same time you came at me and got me to trust you, you ripped me to shreds Hawk. Firm and unwavering. You tore right through me, leaving me in tatters and you didn’t even fucking blink.”

  “And now you know where my head was at and why I did that shit.”

  “No, now I know that you saw Tack playing with your fuck toy and you don’t feel like sharing.”

  His body froze and his fingers flexed. I could feel his fury but I didn’t care. I wasn’t done. The hurt he inflicted went too deep and I had to protect myself at all costs.

  “That’s okay, baby,” I whispered. “There’s plenty of me to go around. But, rules are, you come, you make me come and then you go.”

  He didn’t move and I felt his anger beating against me as he held me pinned against the wall. Then suddenly his body relaxed, the anger vanished and his thumbs swept my jaws.

  “I cut you,” he murmured.

  “Nothing a little cookie dough can’t cure,” I returned.

  “Bullshit, Sweet Pea.”

  It was then my body went still.

  “Don’t call me that,” I snapped.

  He ignored me again. “We were us for a week, a fuckin’ week, and I cut you deep.”

  “God!” I exclaimed pushing against his waist again. “Are you ever going to go?”

  He surprised me by moving back. Then he surprised me again by bending and putting a shoulder in my belly and then I was lifted up.

  “Hawk!” I cried, pushing against his hips and kicking with my feet as he walked me into my room. “Put me down!” I demanded.

  He did. He bent, bumped his shoulder, I flew through the air and landed on my back with a bounce on my bed.

  I got up on my elbows and opened my mouth to speak or more accurately yell but I saw in the shadows that his hands looked to be at his cargoes.

  Shit!

  I turned to escape and nearly got to the other side of the bed when I was caught with an arm at the waist and hauled back.

  “You’re not welcome to spend the night here,” I informed the room because my back was to him.

  He let me go just long enough to flip the covers over us but not long enough for me to make good an escape. Then he curled into me, deeper than normal, pinning me to the bed with his torso, his leg hitched in mine, keeping me secured to him with his arm tight around my belly.

  Then he lifted his head and his mouth was at my ear. “Go to sleep, Gwen,” he ordered.

  Oh my God!

  “Are you high?” I screeched.

  His response to my query was to touch his tongue to the skin at the back of my ear then he settled into the pillows and further into me.

  He was. He was high. Totally.

  “I can’t believe you,” I hissed.

  “Go to sleep, babe.”

  I strained against his arm but it got super tight so I gave up and repeated, “I… cannot… believe you.”

  “Baby, go to sleep.”

  I stilled at his use of the word baby because I had to. The slightest movement I knew would shatter me.

  When I fought back the pain, I announced, “I’m moving to Boston.”

  He chuckled, deep and manly, and I felt his face in my hair at the back of my head where he said, “Babe.”

  God!

  I tried again. “You can’t stay here, Hawk.”

  His arm gave me a squeeze, his head lifted and his mouth came back to my ear. “You’re livin’ in Badass World, baby,” he whispered in my ear. “Fair warning, until I fix what I cut in you, you’re there to stay.”

  Oh.

  Shit.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  I Was Wrong

  I woke pre-dawn, I could see a bit of light in the sky and I could feel Hawk’s heat at my back.

  Damn.

  I scooted out from under him, carefully but quickly, successfully made it off the bed and I grabbed my undies and rushed to the bathroom. I put them on, used the facilities and then walked out, going to my thermostat. It was on a timer and went down way low at night. It wouldn’t kick in for awhile. I turned it up and went to my office. I arranged the toss pillows on the armrest on the couch, lay down and then pulled my chenille throw over me. It would take awhile for the house to heat up. The chenille was snuggly soft and nice to cuddle under while watching TV but it wasn’t exactly ultra warm.

  I lay there and my mind was filled with possible strategies of how to get out of my current predicament. I could go to Tack but that might send mixed messages and, anyway, I needed to sort myself out. I could report Hawk to Lawson but I might have difficulty explaining why, after Hawk broke in, I let him fuck me.

  Hmm. Not good.

  Hawk told me he’d come after me even if I stayed at Leo and Cam’s. Meredith and Dad were back home but Hawk had already proved he could infiltrate their house and would. Troy lived on the seventh floor in a secure condo building but I figured Hawk could beat a security system or scale walls.

  Hmm. More not good.

  Then, totally against my will, my mind slid to Simone Delgado dying because she loved her brother and was excited to be there when her niece or nephew entered the world.

  I could see that.

  I could also see Hawk’s grief swinging to anger because she let love veer her away from caution and she dragged their daughter into it, something as a mother she should never do. I could also see that would make him feel guilt, the extreme kind, loving her, his grief at her loss mixing with anger. An innocent decision, but he knew the danger and warned her against it, she didn’t listen and that happy, beautiful family in that photo he showed me was gone. Poof! He had the memory of their farewell and left to do his job not knowing it was the last memory they’d ever make.

  And he was thousands of miles away. Simone and Sophie dead for days and he was thousands of miles away. Hawk, who controlled every nuance of his life, completely removed, powerless and thousands of miles away.

  I tried not to think of this. I tried to force my mind back to ways to keep him out of my life, stop him from hurting me again, but all I could see in my head was that picture.

  You weren’t movin’, Gwen, he had said.

  Firebombs. Drive-bys. Kidnappings. He’d been through it all with me.

  And he saw Brock Lucas carry my immobile body out of my house and he decided he wasn’t going to go there again and, damn it all to hell, who could blame him?

  “Shit,” I whispered into the room, tucked my hands under my cheek, curled my knees to my chest and felt the heat seep into my house.

  Then I fell back to sleep.

  * * * * *

  My knees were gently pushed down and this woke me up.

  My eyes opened as I felt Hawk’s hips fit into the curve of mine then they slid up to look at him sitting on the edge of my couch.

  His hand came out and he shifted the hair off my shoulder then his hand curved warm against my neck.

  “Not a big fan of bein’ the reason you’re c
urled into a protective ball, babe,” he murmured as a good morning.

  He was fully dressed, his face unhappy.

  I had no response. I was still sleepy and having trouble getting my guard up.

  He held my eyes as I mentally struggled. Then suddenly he moved, I was plucked out of the couch, planted in his lap and his arms went around me.

  “Hawk,” I whispered.

  “You could have anything, babe, anything in the world, what would it be?” he asked.

  I blinked. “What?”

  “Anything you want, it’s yours. What would it be?”

  “Um… I don’t –”

  His arms gave me a squeeze. “Anything, Gwen.”

  “Ginger out of trouble and safe,” I answered.

  His eyes studied my face for awhile after I answered. Then he said, “Next up.”

  “Next up?” I repeated, confused.

  One of his arms left me so his hand could bunch the hair at the side of my neck. “Next up, Gwen, the next most important thing you could have if you could have anything.”

  “Hawk, I don’t understand.”

  “Anything, no matter what it is.”

  “Hawk –”

  “Answer me, Sweet Pea.”

  “Hawk, I don’t –”

  “Gwen, answer me.”

  “Simone and Sophie alive and you with them and happy like you were in that photo,” I blurted and his face froze into that blank mask.

  Staring at him, sleepy and confused, I suddenly understood that mask. It slotted into place when he was hiding something important from me.

  “Which would mean, of course,” I kept blurting, “that you would never darken my door.”

  The mask fell away instantly and he grinned, huge, his dimples popping out and dang, it killed me, but I had to admit I really missed those dimples. Then he twisted his torso and I was on my back in the couch, his upper half on top of me, my hips in his hips, my legs dangling over the back.

  His fingers trailed my hairline and tucked my hair behind my ear as he went on. “What’s next?”

  I felt my eyes get squinty. “Why are you asking me this?”

  “What’s next, Gwen?”

  “I’m still sleepy,” I dodged.

  His face came closer and his thumb stroked my jaw when he whispered his demand, “Baby, what’s next?”