Epilogue 3. Sort Of.
A sneak peek back in time.
“I don’t like this.” I fucking hate this. I want to go on a rampage and kill him, and she literally hasn’t even approached him yet.
Kari looks up into my eyes; part smirk, part apology. “We need him, Luc. Do you have any other suggestions?”
“Yeah. How ‘bout I just knock him the fuck out and drag him away from the file room? Same results.”
She giggles softly. “Not quite the same results.”
“We’re literally, finally, finding a place where you’re not running from me, and now you’re expecting permission to go flirt with the fuckface who’d whisk you away in a heartbeat?”
She bats her lashes. “I promise to come back to you.”
A snarl literally works its way up my throat, and pressing her up against the wall we’re hiding behind, I squeeze her hip and press my lips against hers. She lets out a soft squeak of surprise, but when her arms come up around my neck and her chest presses against mine, then when her tongue snakes out to touch mine, we both groan in pleasure. She’s exactly like I thought she’d be.
Perfect.
Responsive.
Mine.
I pull away quickly, breaking our kiss and forcing a gasp from her lips, then I spin her and pat her ass. “He touches you, I’m taking his handy dandy flashlight and I’m shoving it up his ass.”
She snickers and peeks around the corner. “Can I watch?”
“Yup. Then I’m taking my handy dandy dick and shoving it up yours.”
Her eyes flash wide and her cheeks flush crimson, but she bites her lip and her eyes turn liquid warm.
I groan at the want in her gaze. “Don’t do this to me now.”
“What are you doing later tonight, Luc?”
“Probably drinking bleach so I can forget that I’m giving you permission to flirt with that tool bag.”
She smiles and turns back toward me, reaching up and tracing my bottom lip with her thumb. She’s so close, I could count every single one of her freckles, and I’d take my time and enjoy it.
“I love jealous Luc. It’s adorable. And a nice change.”
I roll my eyes, but she just pats my chest patronizingly. “Lets go. We have a job to do.”
“Remind me why we’re doing this.”
“Because we love Scotch, and we suspect Sammy has been looking out for me since I was a kid. It was misplaced responsibility, but it was there nonetheless. And I don’t like seeing my brother hurt, and at the moment, he thinks Sammy is the devil.”
“Fuck. That’s hardly a reason for me to watch you flirt with someone else.”
She laughs softly. “You’ll be fine. Consider it a character building exercise. Get your lock pickin’ fingers ready, Luc.”
“I want it on record that I’m not happy about this. And that I don’t normally pick locks for fun.”
“Noted. Now get ready.”
She peers back around the corner of the intersecting hallways, then straightening the uniform that was created purely for functionality and blandness, but somehow shows off her ass and tits in a way I hate when it’s not just me looking, she struts forward just as planned.
“Hey Roy.”
I close my eyes at her perky voice. I can’t see her. I can only hear, but I fucking know he’s leering at her right now. “Hey Kari-- woah!”
Kari squeaks out in surprise, and I know she’s just tripped into his arms – as planned – and I find my cheek twitching in response. We need him. We need him. We need him.
“I’m so sorry! I’m such a klutz.”
He laughs softly, and though she told me a million times to keep my shit together, I still peek my head around the corner and grind my teeth at the sight of him holding her close to his body.
“It’s fine, Kari. I’m always ready and willing to catch a pretty girl when she falls.”
She smiles beautifully, glaring at me quickly when she spots my snooping. When his head begins to turn, she cries out and takes the weight off her foot. “Oh no, I think I must’ve sprained my ankle.”
“Oh no.” Roy pulls her into his side and wraps his arm around her waist, taking her weight and practically grabbing her boob in the process. I’m gonna fucking kill him. “Here, let me help you, Care Bear.”
Kari’s eyes jump to mine in alarm as I come tearing around the corner. Fuck this! I’ll fix her fictionally sprained ankle, and we’ll try this another day – but she points at me and glares. Roy goes to follow her gaze again, but being some kind of award winning actress, Kari cries out and drops her weight completely. Roy scoops her up into his arms, cradling her until all I can see are her legs on one side of his broad body, her hair on the other, and a single arm as it hangs around his back. She continues to give me hand signals that roughly translate to ‘take care of fucking business, dumbass.’
I groan as he walks away with her in his arms, but I move silently in their wake until I reach the file room door. I look toward both ends of the long hallway, but with no one around once Roy turns the corner and takes my reason for living with him, I get to work on the door.
I attempt to turn the handle, just in case the universe decides to smile down on me, but it’s locked up tight and I swear under my breath. I was hoping to not have to break in.
I don’t know how long I’ve got. It’s going on two a.m. and Roy is our only security tonight, and right now, he’s busy with a pretty girl, but if someone else happens to wander down here, I’m fucked. And I’m probably out of a job. And going to jail.
I dig into my pocket and pull out my tools, then stepping in close to the door, I finger the wrench inside the cylinder and begin counting pins. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six.
Sliding the rake in after it, I turn the lock and murmur to myself as I slowly feel the pins releasing. “We need him. She promised to come back. You love Scotch and Marcus and they deserve happiness. If Roy doesn’t take his fucking hands off her, he’s going to lose them.” I literally develop an eye twitch as I imagine what Roy and Kari are doing right now, but when the lock finally clicks open, I swing inside the room and slam the door shut behind me.
Pocketing my tools and switching on the lights, my stomach drops. Fuckkkk. I don’t know what I expected. Perhaps six large filing cabinets and a Dewey Decimal system. But what I find is essentially a warehouse filled floor to ceiling with shelved archive boxes.
I stride along the rows and work my way back. At least they’re alphabetical. I move through ‘A’ and ‘B’ quickly, cursing when I realize we have way too many people with a last name starting with ‘C,’ then I jog toward the back in search of ‘T.’
Tabian. Tack. Tadiello. What the fuck does Taetzsch even mean? Talbot. Tate. Tennon. Thomas. Toby. Toda. Motherfucker! I need Ricardo, not Turner.
I shout under my breath and jog back a couple rows until I find the ‘R’s’, then I begin again.
I scan quickly over box after box until finally, I find the one I’m looking for. I stand on the edge of one shelf and reach up to the one above, then pulling Sammy’s file down, my eye tick turns to a full-blown stroke as time moves by and Kari doesn’t come back.
I drop the box on the concrete floor and rip the lid off. Flicking through file after file, guilt and disgust wash through me that I’m even looking. If she says she’s had a miscarriage, then she has the right to be believed. But still, I continue to flick, because I’m not risking Scotch’s happiness. He deserves so much more than he’s got, and if I can help, I’m doing it.
I flick until I find the exact file I need, then pulling it out, I read the loose sheets of paper as I scan for keywords.
Samantha Ricardo. Female. Eighteen years old. Positive pregnancy test.
My hands sweat and my stomach cramps when my eyes finally lock onto the words I need. Five weeks, two days. HCG levels elevated. Administered morphine and fluids. Admitted overnight. Authorized by Frederick Ricardo. Discharged seventeen hours later. Advised to rest and recuperate.
She miscarried.
For nearly fourteen years we’ve blamed Sammy. We’ve ostracised her. Hated her. Bitched about her in front of Scotch. Bitched about her behind Scotch’s back. We’ve used her name as a curse word and we’ve thrown girls at Scotch in an attempt to spite her and help him move on.
And all along, she was alone and sick and terrified, and she lost her baby while her folks bullied her.
I rip the sheet of paper from the top of the stack and shove it into my leg pocket. Pressing the lid back on, I stand and push the box back into place on the shelves. So long as no one pays attention to the disturbed dust for a week or so, no one will ever know I was here.
I stand and jog toward the exit, but adrenaline surges through my body as the handle turns and the fluorescence of the hallway sneaks in. I plaster my back to the wall and curse that I didn’t use a flashlight instead of switching the lights on, but it’s too late now, so I slow my breathing and I watch and wait.
“Luc?”
I dash out from behind the shelving near ‘A’ and snag Kari’s hand in mine. She squeaks out in surprise, but I don’t stop. I drag her back into the hall and flip the switch on the storeroom, then pull the door closed and wait to hear the snick of the locks reengaging.
“Did you get--”
“Shh.” I drag her along quickly and escape the hall our crimes were committed in. Down another long hall, I search for the storeroom I’m always collecting supplies from. We don’t pass a single soul in our travels, but I keep her hand clasped securely in mine and keep us moving.
“Luc, wait.”
“Shh.”
I swing the storeroom door open and shove her in.
“Luc!”
I slam the door shut, then spinning, I rush forward and slam her against the wall as medical supplies rain down around us. Bandages and syringes in protective packaging hit the floor. Boxes of gloves and sick bags smack us in the head, but I don’t care. I latch my mouth onto Kari’s and palm her breasts and squeeze.
She groans and presses closer to me, darting her tongue out to play as intensely as I do.
“He call you Care Bear often?”
I tug her shirt up and off and throw it to the floor, then I drop to my knees and pull the cup of her bra down. She cries out as I take her nipple in my mouth, but she shakes her head and pulls me closer. “No. This was the first time.”
“Did you tell him to never say that again?”
“No--”
I bite down on her peaked nipple, and she cries out in pain. “We needed him. I wasn’t gonna scold him.”
“I’ll tell him tomorrow.”
“Okay,” she pants. Her hips jut forward in search of friction, so I dig past the waist strap of her scrubs and push my fingers deep inside her. She cries out and rides my hand, panting so loud, I’m sure anyone in the hall could hear if they walked by. “You’re mine, Bear?”
“Yeah.”
“Always?”
“And forever.” She moans as she speaks, pushing herself down on my hand and asking for more. I stand up quickly, spinning her as she cries out. I yank her pants down, and when I unbuckle my belt, she purrs at the sound.
I pause and study her bent over in front of me, with her pants at her knees and her ass in the air. I drag my own pants down until my dick springs free, then palming her ass, I rub along the succulent globes of her creamy white flesh.
“Ready for me, Bear?”
She braces her hands on the shelving in front of her, pressing back and rubbing her moist pussy against my dick. “I’m ready.”
My heart thunders in my chest with the knowledge that she’s here in front of me. It took so long, and a lot of hurt, for us to get here.
I take my dick in my hand and rub it along her pussy, collecting her juices and spreading them up to her ass. She whimpers and pushes back against me, but then I lower my dick and when I’m lined up, I slam inside her. I take her shoulder in one hand to keep her from falling forward, then I trace her ass with my other hand as I slam inside her so deeply, I want her to feel me in her stomach. I trace my fingers along her ass crack, then over the tiny puckered hole. My mouth waters at the sight. I take my fingers in my mouth and lubricate them, then place them back on her ass and tease the hole, pressing a fingertip in and taking it away again.
She whimpers…
To be continued…