Chapter Forty Creighton #2
“I—” She cut herself off, then regrouped. Her shoulders rose and fell back. She straightened on my lap. “I need you to tell me what you’re intending to do to Marshall.”
I grew cold.
“Don’t do that.” She touched my mouth.
“Don’t do what?”
“Look at me that way. With that icy smirk.”
I blinked, shifting it away. She flinched again, and I cringed internally because I knew that instead I was giving her my “dead” look.
“That’s even worse,” she murmured under her breath.
My hand tightened on her ass. “You keep bringing up another man’s name when you’re sitting in my lap. And you don’t want me to murder him?”
“Yeah. Okay. I get that, but please answer me. What are you intending to do with him?”
I toyed with my answer.
“The truth, Creight. Do that for me.”
“I would do anything for you.”
She scoffed, but the corner of her mouth tugged up. “Would you carry me over a mountain if it were in my way?”
“I would blow up the mountain for you.”
She went still in my lap. “You’re serious.”
“Of course.”
She remained still, holding my gaze for a longer beat. I didn’t know what she was looking for. Whatever it was, a softness came over her, and her mouth gentled. “Where are my lines with you?”
“What do you mean?”
“I keep pushing and pushing, and you always let me. Everyone has a line. Where’s mine with you?”
My gaze fell to her mouth. “It continues to surprise me that you don’t get it.”
“Get what?”
My hand returned to her throat, and I traced a finger up to the tip of her chin, raising it so I could see into her again. As our eyes met and held, her entire body trembled. “You challenge me. I never want you to stop challenging me.”
I’d surprised her. “Why?”
My hand splayed out over the side of her throat before moving to the back, where my fingers sank in, anchoring her in a grip.
“Because I need it. You stand in front of me, and you have a hook growing through my chest. You keep pulling me toward you. With each challenge and each yank, you are daring me to become a better man.”
“A hook? Sounds bloody.”
“The bloodier the better.” I pulled her head back, knowing I hadn’t given her the answer she wanted. “You told me I couldn’t physically harm your housemate. My plan is simple. I’m going to torture him until he harms himself.” Beautiful. Simple.
Physical pain would heal. Emotional pain could endure forever.
She blanched, and her mouth dropped open. She fisted my shirt in her hands. “God. No.”
I leaned to her, my mouth grazing over hers. “He hurt you.”
She flinched, turning away. “Only for a moment.”
“No.”
Her gaze returned at my vehemence.
I almost snarled at remembering. “Being called trash wouldn’t hurt me.
Or Levi. He knew that. He used that word to hurt you.
You’re the easier way to get to me. He knew this.
He miscalculated, and he will learn that truth.
Do not take that from me. I will never stand aside and let someone hurt you. ”
“Eight—”
“You wouldn’t stand aside for me.”
She stopped. Her eyes held mine. Those words got through to her. She was wavering.
Her hands lifted, taking hold of my shirt again.
Higher up. They sunk in, fisting once again.
“Yeah. Okay. I get that, but I can’t handle that.
I can’t. Knowing you would beat him down until he harmed himself?
I will not have that on me. Do not put that on me.
You don’t want me to ask you not to protect me or hurt back for me, then return the respect. ”
“What are you asking for?”
“Scale back. Don’t go to the extremes you do. Not everyone is the same. There’s a difference between someone robbing me and someone who said a word that hurt my feelings.”
“Not to me.”
She quieted, playing with her hands between our bodies for a moment before her shoulders slumped.
“Yeah. I get that you don’t see a difference, but there is one.
In normal people world, there’s a difference.
A big one. In Creighton world, I get that harm is harm.
You don’t see the difference, but . . .” She took hold of my shirt and fisted it again.
“I live in normal people world. I’m affected by what you do in normal people world.
Not just for—my housemate, but for everyone that you would hurt on my behalf.
You don’t feel it, but I do. Everything you do to them, I feel.
I carry that weight. I’m not saying never avenge me, just scale it back.
Compromise. I can live with that. Learn the difference between a small slight and someone who’s going to rob me, or do something worse. ”
A growl left me at the thought of either of those happening to her, but she was trying. This was important to her.
I angled my head to get a better read on her.
Then I saw it. This was the big obstacle for us.
I shook my head. “You are lumping two separate items together. A compromise on everyone who harms you versus scaling back on your roommate.” I wanted to tell her she couldn’t ask for both, but I couldn’t go that far.
I would lose her. “What you are asking is for one favor and then another bigger favor from me. What are you giving for both of them?”
She cursed under her breath, glaring at me. Her hand turned inward, and I could feel her nails through my shirt. I grunted, my hand pressing down on her thigh as I bucked up underneath her.
She expelled an annoyed growl. “How do I give you permission to hurt a friend of mine?”
“I’ll run it by you.”
“What?”
I let go of the back of her neck and skimmed my finger down her throat. She shivered in its trail. “I will present you three options, and you can approve one.”
“And if I don’t like all three of them?”
“I’ll present three new options, but you will have to approve one.”
She cursed again, her entire body beginning to shake in my arms. She had begun to move her hips over me. I could see she didn’t know she was doing it. “Fine. What do you want from me in exchange for that?”
I considered her. I couldn’t push too far with this request, but it would need to count. “I want to know why you don’t want me to call you Quokka. You used to like the name.”
Panic flared from her before she blanketed it. “What? No.”
I caught the back of her neck again, but my touch was soft. “I am scaling back, for you. Give me this in return.”
Her next curse was whispered, but she jerked her head in a nod. “Fine. Yes. I’ll tell you.”
The darkness in me shifted aside, knowing the void that was in me, the one that she seemed to fill when she was near me, a flicker of something good sparked there. That was her. Her tiny ray of sunshine that had somehow lodged itself in me and refused to leave. It was doing a little dancing jig.
I’d never tell, though.
She grinned at me, blowing out some air upward over her own forehead. “You make me sweat something fierce.”
“Stop,” I taunted. “You’ll make me preen.”
Laughter burst from her, and that dancing jig inside of me quaked before it exploded, growing triple in size. She was so goddamn beautiful, in every way that mattered to humanity. I loved her. I was sure of it.
I wanted to tell her my feelings.
They were there, pushing to escape, but I kept them locked up. She wouldn’t believe me. I was obsessed. That’s what she would say as she rolled her eyes, but then she’d stare at me as I was always staring at her, and I’d feel the connection between us grow once more.
It was only with her that I felt this link.
She made a mewling sound and moved for me at the same time I lifted my mouth.
She panted against my lips. “I need you.”
“Then take me.”
Her hand moved between us, and her hips lifted up enough so she could palm my dick through my jeans. I was ready to go. This entire exchange had been foreplay for me. I needed to be buried deep in her slick heat.
“Eight,” she whimpered.
If this was my nightclub, I’d strip her bare in a heartbeat, but it wasn’t. I didn’t mind fucking on camera, but I knew Blake wouldn’t want that. Scowling at where I guessed the camera was located and pointing at us, I stood from the booth, clasping Blake easily to me.
She made a surprised sound, but wound her arms and legs around me.
I began walking us out of there.
“Creight.” She tried to look where we were going.
I recaptured her lips. “No. Stay here. I want your mouth.”
As I came down the hallway, two of my men were waiting.
Both straightened at seeing me. I said to them, “Home.” They jumped to comply.
I used one eye to keep track of our movements, and as I fell in line behind them, I saw Levi looking my way from where he stood with Blake’s people.
He’d been leaning against the side of their booth, but flashed me a grin and folded into the booth.
He was reaching for Palma as we turned another corner.
My men turned down a side hallway. They were going to take us out through the alley door.
Lassiter was exiting a closet door as we went past, a hand going through his hair to fall back to his side.
He jerked at seeing us, then relaxed and lifted his chin to me.
It was a signal that he’d gotten what I’d asked him to get for me.
Right before we stepped outside, he waved his phone to me.
I pulled my mouth away from Blake enough to give him a nod back.
“What?” Blake had given into the pleasure between us, and I saw now that it had woven a spell over her. She let it. I was loath for her to clear it away and gently tugged her back to me. I nipped at the corner of her mouth. “It’s nothing. Come back here.”
A shiver trailed down her spine. She sank back into my hold.
Climbing into the waiting SUV, I growled at my men in the front. “Privacy divider. Now.”
A buzzing sound came next, and fucking finally.
Blake kneeled on the seat, lifting up as I made quick work opening my jeans. We both pushed our clothes aside long enough for me to find a condom and put it on. She sank down over me, and I let out a hissing sound because this was perfection.
She was perfection.