104. Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter one hundred four
Reid
I’m angry with Carrie.
I don’t realize just how much until I’m kissing her, standing here in the foyer of our apartment with her and that damn adorable little cat, now like my family. We’re good, really damn good together, and that means she needs to fucking stay safe, not poke the bitch of a bear that is anything Elijah, or tonight, Tabitha.
I press her against the door, my legs caging hers, hands at her waist. “You, woman, need to learn to listen. I didn’t even want you to be down there with Tabitha and what did you do? You pushed her.”
“She deserved to be pushed.”
My hands slide up and down her waist and under her shirt until I pull it over her head. I unhook her bra, shoving it open, my gaze raking over her breasts and lifting to her face. “You deserve to be punished.”
“Punished? Careful, Reid. You might be the one who gets punished.”
“I don’t think so, baby,” I say, turning her to face the door, and stepping into her to pull her bra away. “You put yourself in the line of fire with Tabitha.” I cup her breast and drag her against me. “I told you not to let her get to you.”
She twists around to face me and grabs my shirt, her eyes blazing hot now, her temper burning in their depths. “You got to me. You grabbed her. You—”
I cup her head and kiss her. “Don’t give me reasons why, Carrie, or I swear I’ll spank your pretty little ass.” My voice is low, rough, my mood darker by the moment with a flashback of her confronting that crazy bitch. “I do not want you hurt.”
“You can spank me all you want. I’ll come and you can do it again, but you won’t do it like it’s punishment. Who’s going to save you if I leave you?”
“No one,” I breathe out. “That’s the point.”
“Stop being so paranoid. You’re suffocating me with worry.”
My anger spikes all over again and I tangle rough fingers in her hair. “You want me to ease up? You want me to stop worrying so fucking much?”
“Yes,” she declared. “Please. Yes. Now.”
“Then listen to me when I tell you someone is dangerous. This isn’t paranoia. My gut is right. This is dangerous. Blake feels it too, so you need to fucking listen to me, Carrie. Do not poke that bear. Do you understand?”
“Reid—” My mouth closes down on hers, and that need to just feel her is back, expanding, clawing even.
My hands are all over her, my mouth on her mouth, her neck, and while her anger has her holding back, it’s a fast snap before she’s right there with me, kissing me, touching me, feeding off my emotions, because that’s Carrie. She’s always right here with me, always all the way in. It’s a wild rush of heat and fire, on the verge of desperation and it’s not long before we’re both naked and she’s pressed against the door, one leg at my hip, and I’m pressing inside her. The feel of her around me, all warm and tight, centers me right here in this room, in our apartment, our home. This is all I want to think about, all I want to feel, all I need and that all comes back to her. I cup her backside and lift her. Her legs wrap my waist and it’s a pure eruption of need that follows in the form of ten shades of grinding and fucking against the door that doesn’t stop there. It’s not enough.
I carry her to the couch and take us both down, side by side, facing each other, kissing, my hand cupping her backside, pulling her tighter against my cock, even as I pump into her one final time. It’s raw and real like nothing has ever been with anyone else before her, like nothing ever can be with anyone else, ever. When we both relax into the cushion and each other, we suddenly have a cat on the cushion above us, meowing in our faces and it’s as if all that tension from downstairs, vanishes. Carrie and I are laughing, and we’re both stroking Kesha’s head.
“Just think about when we have a dog too,” Carrie teases after we make a few necessary adjustments and I pull a blanket over us where we now sit on the couch.
“Maybe they’ll occupy each other when you’re occupying me,” I suggest, stroking her hair from her eyes and laughing. “You and that mouth of yours.”
“Are we talking sex or what happened downstairs?” she asks, and there’s a lightness to her voice that quickly hardens. “Because Tabitha’s lying, but seeing her waiting on you, I can’t quite figure out why and I wanted everything we could get recorded, recorded.”
“Her agenda is herself. It’s always about her. She proved that when she pitted me against Elijah.”
She turns to face me. “Talk to me. What’s happening here? Because we recorded her, if we really got the audio—”
“We did,” I insert.
“Okay, then we got the audio. We got proof this wasn’t your doing. Why aren’t we celebrating right now? Elijah should be happy or not happy but appeased, and redirected elsewhere.”
“Something doesn’t feel right and maybe that’s just my keen sense of Elijah’s bad side that Blake is picking up on as well.”
“Blake doesn’t even know him.”
“He’s studied people,” I say. “He’s studied him. He’s expressed the same concerns I have.” My hand comes down on her knee. “I get that I have a history that makes me protective. I get that I’m over the top about that need to protect you, but I also have a strong instinct in battle. If I tell you to back off, I need you to listen to me.”
“Says the man who grabbed her? What was that, Reid? What did you think you were going to do?”
“Let her know I’m not fucking around with her,” I say. “She needs to know that crossing me has consequences.”
“I’m not sure I want to know what consequences grabbing her indicates.”
“Whatever it has to mean,” I assure her.
She studies me for several beats. “What’s next? Do we send the audio to Elijah? That at least keeps him from being able to smear you. He’ll know if he slanders you, you not only have proof he’s lying, you can sue him and win.”
“We’ll do that, yes, but Blake and I need to sit down tomorrow and dissect everything he’s gathered together because, a) the more I think about it the more that Tabitha thing felt like bait, and b) I don’t know if Elijah has it in him to back off. He hates me. I still fucked his wife. There’s no way around that.”
“Even if Tabitha was baiting you, we have the recording.”
“I know. I do, but something is off, baby. I need to think. I need to analyze.”
“What if—” she considers a minute. “What if Mick and Tabitha are using you to ruin Elijah? That has to be it. They’re using you. They’re using us.”
I consider that a moment. “I think that’s a real possibility. Blake’s already looking into Mick’s location, but let me give him a nudge.” I stand up, walk to the front door and pull my pants on before I dial Blake. He answers on the first ring. “That meeting with Tabitha felt like a set-up.”
“Agreed,” he says. “And Mick isn’t in Europe. He’s in Brooklyn.”
“Isn’t that something,” I say, as Carrie stands up, wrapping the blanket around her.
“What?” she asks.
I hold up a finger. “Call me if you find out anything else, Blake.”
“I’ll be there in the morning,” he says, “but yes. I’ll call you if there’s more.” We disconnect and I cross to stand in front of Carrie.
“Mick is in Brooklyn, not Europe,” I say.
“They are plotting against you,” she says. “Tabitha got busted. They’re afraid of Elijah and don’t know how to take him down themselves. Can you turn him into a friend?”
“Elijah?” I give a laugh. “No. Never. He won’t align with me. The sad part about this is I might actually have to ruin him and save them to save us.”
“What if I talk to him?”
“No.”
“Reid.”
I pick her up and throw her over my shoulder, and start walking toward the bedroom, my hand settling on her naked ass that clearly needs my hand. Of course, in pleasure, but this stubborn woman is going to be the death of me. “Reid, damn it,” she says. “Blood is running to my head.”
“And to your ass,” I assure her, plopping her down on the bed and leaning over her. “I’ll handle Elijah. We’ll assess how in the morning, you, me, and Blake, but I’ll handle him. You find us a dog and a place to get married.”
“But—”
I kiss her and make sure she’s too occupied with my tongue to argue the rest of the night.