Chapter Forty Creighton
Chapter Forty
Creighton
I was the shark swimming, and Marshall Finch was the surfer who didn’t know he was bleeding as he was swimming in my waters. I only got time to start circling him when Blake and Beauregard came down in a tizzy. Both were worked up.
Blake declared we were going to Octavia the same time Lassiter strolled in through the back door.
“Awesome. You’re here.” Levi whooped.
Heath’s head reared back. “What the fuck? I locked that door the last time I went to get another drink.”
Lassiter shrugged. Levi, Lassiter, and I each had our own fob for Blake’s house. None of her housemates needed to know that information.
Blake took my hand, laced our fingers, and dragged me away as she shoved Lassiter in front of her. Levi was amused by the whole thing. “Right on. What’s happening?”
“Normally we’d take the subway, but since you’re here and you have all your guys, we can get a ride. Right?” the Beauregard roommate rambled as we hit the sidewalk. She took charge, directing Blake and me to one of my SUVs, and she, Levi, and Heath went to Lassiter’s vehicle.
Finch followed to the door, but Beauregard had an exchange with him before she shut the door in his face. My gaze slid to Blake, who was looking out the window away from me. She was drumming her fingers on her knee, and I knew that if I reached over to feel for her pulse, it’d be racing.
She lifted the gate for me to go after Finch. Now she was trying to prevent that from happening. She’d changed her mind.
Oh, Blake.
She thought I would get distracted and change my mind.
He hurt her. Therefore, he was mine to hurt.
She would need to do better than this. Putting physical distance between me and her housemate would not work.
Twenty minutes later, she had kept with her mission.
She maneuvered us away from the rest of the group, and we were in a private booth in the far corner of the nightclub.
It was set in the back of a short hallway with only two other booths before us, and both of them were empty.
If Blake was behind that part, then I would be extremely impressed.
As it was, I was still impressed because if she was still going for the goal of distracting me, it was working. For tonight.
She moved to straddle me.
I reached for her legs and felt the press of something sharp against my stomach.
She’d pulled a knife on me.
She was my soulmate.
Not that I ever questioned Blake’s place in my life, but she just signed, sealed, and delivered that fact into my brain.
She told me that I didn’t have the capability to love, but whatever this intense burning inside of me, the feeling that would take me to my knees for her, if it wasn’t love then I couldn’t imagine how powerful that was because right now, she was my reason for existence.
She regarded me with determination and settled more firmly on my lap, sinking down on me.
I moved my hands to her waist, moving my fingers underneath my hoodie that she’d worn every night to bed until I peeled it off of her.
There was a clean laundry smell from it, so she must’ve washed it today.
I liked that she wore my clothes. It made me purr inside, and I waited for her to start whatever she was going to do.
I didn’t think she was going to pull my dick out and sink down on it, but I wouldn’t stop her if she did.
She had picked this booth to give us the utmost privacy.
No one could see us unless they specifically walked over to see who was in this booth.
No cameras were mounted on the wall, but knowing Mauricio and knowing how I had surveillance in my own places, I was sure a hidden camera was pinned on us.
When we first approached, the bouncer held up a hand to halt our progression.
Barely a second later, another man came out from the door and leaned in to share something with the bouncer.
Both gazes went to me with a warning in them.
I stepped away from the group and lifted my shirt.
Knowing we were coming here, I’d already handed my gun to Lassiter.
Now, whatever he ended up doing with it wasn’t on me.
Just as long as I didn’t have a weapon and I wasn’t recruiting within the nightclub.
I gave orders to Lassiter and Levi. Lassiter was supposed to get something from Spence, Octavia’s manager, for me. How he did it was up to him. Levi’s order was to keep an eye on the rest of Blake’s group.
She was starting to let them in, and I didn’t want anything to happen to them. For her.
I reached up to cup the side of her face, halting her in the mission she had in mind when she brought me to this private booth.
She went still in my hand. Her eyes lifted, finding mine, and whatever she saw in my own eyes, I didn’t know, but she licked her lips before her mouth opened slightly. “What are you doing?”
I gave her knife a pointed look. “I could say the same to you.”
She bit down on her bottom lip, folding her head down, and rested her forehead to my chest.
My hand returned back to her waist, pushing up underneath my sweatshirt. It was warm in Octavia, but sometimes girls had different internal thermometers. As long as she was comfortable.
I felt her entire body draw in some air, as if she needed courage, and tipped her chin to me. Blake was giving me the feeling that we were two adversaries facing off across a boardroom.
I tugged her hips closer and rocked up into her.
She bit down on her lip again, one of her hands falling to my chest and her fingers splaying out.
“Don’t.” Her voice caught as I moved her over me again, slower, intently.
She could ride me like this. We could grind against each other until both of us came.
Making out as if we were in high school would be fun.
She groaned and leaned back a little. “Creight.”
I stopped.
Her eyes grew hooded, which I didn’t like. I tipped her head up again, needing to see her. My thumb smoothed over her cheek softly. “What is this, Quokka?”
Pain flared over her features. “Don’t. Don’t call me that, Eight.”
I didn’t like that. “Why does that name bring you pain?”
She didn’t grimace when I used it in the past. Once upon a time, she used to love it. Now it brought pain? I didn’t like that. I shouldn’t have pushed the endearment, but she called me Eight. I wanted my own name for her.
She shook her head. “I don’t want to get into that now.
I—” She raked her teeth over her lip again, bracing both of her hands on my chest. She pushed herself as far back as the table allowed.
Her eyes were still hooded, but at this distance, she was more shadowed.
I tried drawing her closer, wanting to be able to read her if we were going to hash something out, but she resisted.
She gave a slight shake of her head. “No. I need this.”
As I waited, I contented myself with pulling down the side of her leggings, just enough so I could smooth my thumb over her hip bone.
She shuddered, lust swimming in her gaze. She cleared her throat, and tried blinking away the desire. I repositioned my hand so my thumb tunneled lower under her leggings, but pulled it to cover my palm.
Her lips tugged down. “I know that you’re going to go after Marshall.”
I paused. That’s what all this was about? For him? I wasn’t a fan.
The hand still holding her knife to my stomach trembled. “I made Lassiter promise not to hurt him on your orders, so if that’s what you were intending to do to get around what I made you promise, you can’t. I’m going to make Levi promise too.”
“I’d never give that order to them.”
“Yes, you would.”
I would. She knew me well. I grinned faintly. “Someone else, maybe. Not your housemate. His suffering is my Christmas present. Thank you ahead of time.”
She huffed out an annoyed sound. “Don’t thank me for that.” Her grip tightened on the knife. She pressed it harder against me, and I knew it broke through some of my skin. I didn’t think Blake was aware. “We came to an agreement once before.”
She wanted to save people’s lives. I remembered that with fondness.
“I want to do that again, but for Marshall instead.”
The fondness vanished. “He’s that important to you?”
“No.” She held my gaze steadily. “But I don’t like when you hurt people because of me. I can’t live with that, Creighton. If we keep going how we’re going, I need to compromise on some things, but so do you.”
My hand shook as I tried to rein in my anger. “You would ask that of me? To not protect you? To not avenge you if someone hurts you?”
“You take it to the extreme.”
“You can’t put a leash on me.”
“Compromise.” She rolled her hips over me.
I stopped her and fixed her with a cold look. “Don’t do that.”
Her bottom lip fell open. “What?”
“Use your body to manipulate me.”
“I’m—” She snapped her mouth shut and stewed. “That’s not my intention.”
I smoothed both of my hands around under her leggings, dipping down so I could cup her ass. A surprised sound squeaked from her as I lifted her up and then repositioned her, higher on me, right on top of my dick. “This entire exchange has been a manipulation.”
“I—” She wanted to argue.
I waited, interested in how she could protest.
She closed her mouth. “I wasn’t thinking of it in that way. I just knew that I needed to get you alone, and I don’t want you to leave, so sitting on you seemed the best option.”
I gave her knife a pointed look. “At knifepoint?”
She gave me an embarrassed look before closing the knife.
I palmed it from her.
She gave me a questioning glance.
“It’s better if they find it on me than you.”
Understanding flared. She leaned in, nipping at my lips. “But they’re more likely to search you than me.”
I growled. “They wouldn’t dare.”
Her smirk was triumphant. “Exactly.”
I was enjoying this. This banter between us. I wanted more of it. I wanted to bicker with her until the day my heart stopped.