Page 42

Fallon

T here would not be an end in sight for my insomnia and nausea. The internet would say I’m either pregnant or dying. I was neither. The third option: traumatized.

Reality wasn’t far away anymore. It was all too real and too close for comfort.

I still saw—and heard—that poor schmuck hitting the ground. The concrete by the pool. The whispers about him afterward fueled my insomnia day in and day out. Murdered in cold blood for seeing and saying things he wasn’t supposed to.

My second dead body was the man I interrogated and ultimately killed by proxy. He was in my company, and he betrayed me , my dead mother, and my company. The sound of the knife stabbing into his leg echoed on repeat like a busted record. Brent tried to save me from the sight of him in the sheet, but I looked at him nonetheless. Asphyxiated, he turned blue underneath the clear sheet. They didn’t hide him well enough from me.

The toilet bowl was my only solace at night. The cold porcelain kept me numb enough while I dry heaved again and again.

The knocks on the bathroom door didn’t even bother me anymore.

Knock, knock . “You’ve been in there for twelve hours. You have to come out at some point—even for some water.”

He was right. I looked at my empty water bottle that I hadn’t bothered to refill. Instead, I locked myself in overnight and took what sleep the bathroom floor would give me. It wasn’t much, but I’d take what I could get.

Knock, knock. “Are you even alive in there?”

I heard faint whispering behind the door, and someone fiddled with the doorknob. The lock wasn’t an impossible task to pick. The key was even above the door frame. They probably didn’t want to bother me until morning.

When I didn’t come out, they started knocking.

A new, twisted part of myself wondered if they thought I killed myself in here.

What would they do if I did?

The door opened, I didn’t turn to see who came in. It wasn’t Kelly—she had been gone for a while, and we all knew why. All my texts were unread and unanswered. What I wanted to know was why and what was going on with her. I saw the suspicion on everyone’s face when she was brought up or when they knew I was awaiting a call or text from her.

There were only four regular people that frequented my house: Dave, Brent, Reaper, and James. None of them knew what to do with me, how to help me cope, or come to terms with my new reality.

I thought fighting dirty business was the worst of it, but I felt like I was dealing with some secret society. In a sense, I was. I never knew about the international black market trade deals or how close to home they were.

“She’s alive,” Reaper announced.

I looked at him from the floor in a fetal position. Must have been a sight to behold.

“Two more rats are gone. You can stop throwing up now.” He left the bathroom, muttering about how it was a bad idea to involve me to Brent.

Dave concurred in the hallway.

They’d been hardened from their years working like this. It made me scared that I would end up that way.

What I’d give to have things like they were a few short months ago.

“Blondie, have you showered yet?”

I didn’t respond.

Instead of antagonizing me again, he entered the bathroom and closed the door behind him. He knelt down and slowly stroked my hair.

“Can I run you a bath?”

No words would form for me to accept or decline. The water was turned on and the rushing of water sounded like a waterfall escape.

He left and came back with items I’d need for bathing. Along with bath salts and a candle—I assumed for calming me.

“Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.”

Two hands scooped me up off the ground and I was cradled to Brent’s chest. His heartbeat was an even, calming tempo. He placed a kiss on my head as he sat me down on the edge of the tub.

Silently, he stripped me out of my clothes and kissed each of my shoulders before helping me into the warm water.

I looked around and noticed he added bubbles.

He carefully placed a candle in the corner of the tub and lit it. The flame flickered alive, it was one of my favorite candles I bought multiples of and hid them in my closet. Water rushed over my hair as I sat there holding my knees to my chest.

Shampoo was scrubbed into my scalp and rinsed.

Then conditioned and combed.

Soap was scrubbed into my back.

“How’s my Blondie doing?” He kissed my shoulder again.

“More clean,” I managed a small smile through my fog.

His hands were gentle as he continued to clean me up. If I let him, he might have even brushed my teeth for me.

“Question for a question?” he asked, scrubbing one of my arms with a loofah.

I scoffed at him. How was he trying to play these games right now? “What kind of questions?”

“Easy ones. What’s your favorite color? If you tell me it’s pink, I’ll be excited that my guess was correct.” He handed me a toothbrush.

“I like pink, but my favorite is the deep purple of a sunset. What’s your favorite color big, bad Brent Vaughn? Black?”

He swapped arms to scrub and placed a kiss on my hand. “The golden light that comes off your hair in the sun. The bright blue of your eyes when you tell me you hate me. The soft pink of your lips before you kiss me. And my number one? The reddish tint of your cheeks when you’re so close to me you can’t help but blush.”

My mouth fell open and toothpaste dripped out. “That’s not something I’d expect you to say.”

“What did you expect?”

“The black of your motorcycle.”

He splashed me and I flicked water back at him. For someone so serious and so bad boy-ish, he had some soft spots hiding under there.

“You used your question. It’s my turn.” I looked around the bathroom where he brought in the pajamas he knew I’d want to wear. My favorite candle he knew I’d want to use. He added bubbles and salt to my bath to relax me.

“Why do you hate waffles so much?”

He would turn down waffles every time they were available, saying he hated them with a passion. I never knew someone to have something against food like that—unless it was Brussels sprouts.

He took my leg in his hand, scrubbing starting at my foot. “When I was a kid, I refused to let my babysitters cook for me. It got so bad that I wasn’t eating what anyone else would make, so I started trying to cook in the middle of the night because I was so hungry. I attempted to make myself waffles and burned them every time. I continued to make them because it was the only thing I knew to do and ate burned waffles at one in the morning for months.

“Then my grandfather hired Miss Martha, and she really gave me the what for. But instead of forcing me to eat what she made, she taught me how to make pancakes. Little by little, I started trusting her enough to make me small items, so long as she promised me she would never make me waffles ever again. The burned taste is etched in my brain, and I will never eat another waffle again. I’d probably puke like you.” He teased me with a smile on the last part, rinsing off the loofah in the water.

“I’d be traumatized by waffles too. I also didn’t realize Martha was a long-time person in your life.”

His eyes fell to the water after finishing with my legs. I’d never seen his face get that look on it. He had a mix of sadness and introspection on his face—which he never showed either. “She took care of me like a mother. My grandfather told me about my mom’s suicide before I stopped eating, and she could see what it did to me. So, like any good mother would, Miss Martha took me as hers and raised me until I became a hellion that wouldn’t listen to her—like any son would do.”

Miss Martha was his mother. And he brought me around her for our first ‘date’ to the diner? It made sense to me why she was so shocked to see him with a girl. That was her son, and he brought along a girl to basically meet his mother on a first date. Did she even know that I basically just met him that night?

He changed subjects. “The water is getting cold. Do you want me to help you out and into your pajamas?”

I wanted to tell him no and to leave the bathroom out of my own depression so I could be alone, but it was futile since he’d sneak in and fall asleep with me later.

I nodded.

Pulling the drain on the tub, he lifted me out of the water and into a towel. I wrapped my hair after he sat me back down on the edge and waited for him to retrieve my warm clothes.

The oversized sweater was the first to come. He slipped it over my toweled head and pulled each of my arms through after making sure they were dry. He got onto his knees to help me into the oversized shorts.

I didn’t give him my feet. My heart was in my throat. He undressed, bathed, and dressed me again. “Give me your feet so I can make sure you’re warm enough for bed.”

He looked up at me, wondering what I was doing.

Before I knew what I was doing, I kissed him.

And he kissed me back.

“I thought you said we couldn’t,” he whispered into my mouth.

My core heated up instinctively around him. I didn’t know why I couldn’t rip myself from this man’s body, but all I knew was that I wanted him again.

“We can’t.”

Our mouths never parted.

“Definitely.”

His hands found their way up my sweater, gripping onto my sides.

“Nope.”

My legs wrapped around his waist.

“We’re just associates.”

Teeth grazed my neck.

“Strictly business.”

He picked me up and pushed his way into my bedroom, hands firmly grasping my ass while our tongues danced together in a full-blown make out session.

I ripped the towel from my hair before he threw me onto the bed and started pulling off his shirt. The want in his eyes while he took in the raw version of me was more intense than it had ever been. I was the moon in his sky.

“If you kick me out again tonight, the next place I’m coming for you is bending you over that big shiny table in your boardroom. Then your big CEO desk. Then in the lobby where everyone can see you deny that you’re mine.”

Wetness pooled between my legs at his threat. I bit my lip and shivered from the thought of him fucking me over and over again. It might have been winter, but my room was fully heated up and every word of his made my goosebumps form and intensify.

“I’m not yours. We’re just associates.” I spread my legs open for him to get a full view of me.

He bent down with no hesitation and licked me up and down. “You say you’re not mine, but how’s it you drip for me and me alone?” He snaked his hands under me and yanked me by my legs to him.

Half moaning, half yelping, I knew I was done for.

He licked. He kissed. He sucked. He drove me wild without even giving me so much as a finger to enjoy.

He pulled me even closer. “You say you’re not mine, but I’m the only one to ever touch you. To taste you. To fuck you.”

I was speechless. He was claiming me as his, but we were working together. Everything was so complicated.

“Tell me it’s not true, Blondie.”

I met his gaze, his eyes daring me to tell him no one more time. If I did, he’d just prove to me that he was right. If I told him I was his, it would be my undoing. I kept silent.

Eyes wild with the fire that burned within him, he crawled up and positioned himself above me. His gaze softened just by a hair as he took in my face and kissed my forehead.

“Tell me something.”

“What?”

“Anything,” he whispered.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet.”

He slipped out of the rest of his clothes and lined himself up with my entrance. The tip slid up and down and my hips followed it, silently begging him to be inside me. He cocked his head and smiled at me, knowing full well what I wanted.

“Put it in,” I groaned.

“Ask me nicely.” Another graze upward.

“Please,” I gritted, “put it in.”

He wasted no time pushing his cock completely into me and we both sighed in relief. Small, slow thrusts started us off with him still on top of me. Moving my legs, he wrapped them around his waist. “Do you know what you do to me?”

I panted, trying to keep pulling him in. The way he felt made me feel feral. “I think I can relate.”

In response, he thrust into me harder, letting me feel the entire size of his cock before thrusting again. “Do you? Because I imagine being inside of you for the better part of my day. Associate or not, I’m addicted, and I won’t stop.”

“Then don’t.”

As if that was some magical phrase, it set him off. He thrusted harder into me and moved his hand down to place his thumb over my clit. “I won’t stop until you’ve at least given me a puddle. Until you come so hard for me that your little legs shake for me again. Until I’ve satisfied myself with drinking you up.”

He traced circles until he watched me react to every movement he was making, learning my body in every position he possibly could. Massaging my clit as he thrust into me was another new for me. He knew that. He wanted me to come with him inside me this time.

Fuck, I definitely would. He knew everything because it had only been him. He learned me quickly and used it as a weapon, forcing moans from me and building up my orgasm to a point where I couldn’t take it anymore.

It was faster this time. Stroking my clit and thrusting into me was a double whammy that I wouldn’t come back from. The heat and electricity built up to my climax.

“I’m gonna—fuck!” The pulsating was filled up by his cock buried deep inside me and he watched me, knowing that I was coming. His eyes flickered—he felt my orgasm.

“Yes, baby. Yes. Come all over my cock. That’s it...just like that.” He kept on with his thumb on my clit. “Fuck, yes. I feel your pussy pulsing on me.”

Was it possible to bottle up this intense orgasm feeling? Because holy shit I think I exploded into a million pieces. He shattered me over and over and he had no plans of stopping.

He slowed his thrusting just a little, savoring the feeling of my walls throbbing around him. If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought he was trying to kill me with pleasure.

“Fuck. Brent!”

“Yes, baby. Let it all out. Scream my name. Look how wet you got for me.”

He maneuvered me face down after my legs failed me and propped me up on a pillow. My ass was on full display in the air. I felt myself dripping down my leg before he lapped it up and spread me open like he was going to feast on me.

I whimpered. “Brent.”

Sucking on my clit, he moaned, and it sent electricity through me. I was so fucking sensitive it wasn’t even funny. Never in my life did I think this is what sex would feel like.

“I need another one, Blondie. Will you come for me again?”

Again?

No response was necessary because he curled two fingers inside of me, pressing right where he knew I would respond. Since my legs were useless, I had to sit there and take it. His fingers thrusted in and out right where he knew it would bring me back to my boiling point before using his mouth on my clit again.

“Just one more,” he cooed.

It was easy to get me there a second time with his expert hands. And that fucking mouth. I should have known from that cocky ass smile that he’d have me orgasming far too quickly for my own good.

I bit down on the pillow as the wave hit me, groaning something completely incoherent into the pillow. My body gave up completely because I slumped over like I was hit by a train.

A sexy train?

Clearly my mind was useless at this point, and I felt like I was vibrating.

“Goddamn,” I muttered and flopped myself over. My chest was heaving like I ran a marathon, and he was smiling at me. “What?”

“Just you.” He smoothed out my hair and laid next to me. “I may have imagined bending you over that desk, though.”

“If we can pull off my transition to CEO, sure.” I slapped at him playfully.

His thumb grazed my bottom lip. “If that’s all it took, I’ll get you ownership of any company you want. You name it and I’ll make it happen if I can fuck you in your office.”

I let him cozy up next to me; it’s not like I was going anywhere. He wore me out in the best ways. He pulled me to his chest and put his lips to the top of my head.

We sank into the bed together and I sighed.

“What’s rolling around in that head of yours?”

“I just don’t know what I do from here.”

He pulled me as close as I could get. “Sleep. Continue as normal until we can figure it all out.”