Chapter 13
Hemlock
I wagered she'd be pissed that I just got up and left without a word. I wanted her to be feral and angry, but her face lights up the second she pulls into her driveway and sees me sitting on my bike as if I've been waiting for her for hours.
That smile, the real one that I haven't seen her share with many other people, does something to me. I feel lighter, like my burdens are being carried by someone else, and I know just how fucking dangerous that can be.
If someone warned me a month ago not to get too close, that the woman in the bar is nothing more than a mark, a means to get information, I would've scoffed in their face. Getting close to anyone has never been a problem for me. I don't form bonds and connections with others the way normal people do. Other than Hound, I wouldn't even consider anyone else walking this earth to be a friend. Connections aren't my thing, but I can't deny the way my body responds to this woman.
Her smile shouldn't affect me in any sort of way, but I find myself fighting my face's instinct to mirror the grin. I curl my lip instead, needing to maintain some sort of control over this situation.
I have to question what the hell is wrong with her to smile when she sees me. She should be running for the hills rather than climbing out of her car and approaching me as if I'm some tame animal who will lick her hand rather than bite it when it's offered to me.
I've read the file on her that Ace provided more times than I can count, and other than having a piece of shit drug-dealing, cheating husband, she's had a pretty uneventful life. Her financial records indicate she didn't go out much before her divorce. There were no receipts for drink purchases at bars. Hell, further research showed they didn't even sell alcohol in the small town in Kentucky that she lived in. She should be cautious of me, not so willing to jump in feet first with a dangerous stranger after living such a subdued life.
But, hell, maybe that was the thrill. Maybe she's tired of being safe. Maybe she wants a thrill or two to liven up her monochrome world.
If it's a thrill she's seeking, then a thrill I can give her.
"You coming in?" she asks, her eyes drifting down my body as I climb off my bike.
I'm not exactly upset with the hunger in her eyes when they drop to my thighs. There's a lot of power in them, and my muscles flex in anticipation of using them tonight.
I follow her up the short driveway and onto the tiny stoop that's too small to even be considered a porch, waiting right behind her as she unlocks the door. I resist the urge to bury my nose in her hair, but just barely.
I step inside, waiting to look around until she flips on the living room light. I glance all around like someone is supposed to when first entering a home, as if I wasn't in here just ten minutes ago.
I found nothing among her belongings to indicate that she's involved in any other business with Wilkinson other than covering shifts at the bar, but a good criminal isn't going to leave out ledgers and proof for anyone to find. She also doesn't have a safe or any form of valuables. She doesn't have a box of stuff in the back of her closet with secrets.
The minimal recon I've been able to do on Tommy Wilkinson is leaning toward a small-scale prostitution ring rather than actual sex trafficking, but even if the girls are willing to work for the man now doesn't mean he isn't up to even more dangerous shit. I've seen how some pimps will turn on their women if they have a change of heart on any given day. What we think he may be doing is still very criminal and illegal, and it's something we need to shut down.
I wanted to move on from this case and call it like it is, but I've been instructed to wait and see. There's always a chance we'll catch him with a down-on-her-luck, underaged girl who ran away from home.
"You want a beer or a bottle of water?" she asks, and I shake my head in response.
I stare at her as she pulls off her thick coat, revealing arms already covered in goosebumps.
"Are you afraid of me?" I ask, sincerely wanting to know.
"No," she whispers.
"That's a mistake," I return, watching as she keeps her eyes on me while she kicks off her shoes.
The woman doesn't dress the way I've seen a lot of female bartenders dress. She doesn't wear revealing, tight clothes, as if she's trying to entice the customers to tip better. With it being mostly locals here, I imagine her wardrobe plays a very small part in how much money she makes on any given night.
When her tongue skates out over her lips, I read her body's reaction to what it is, arousal. She's turned on, not afraid.
I risk fucking this all up with my next words.
"You said you weren't fucking Wilkinson, but he can't seem to keep his hands to himself when he's around you."
The memory of him pressing a kiss to her temple makes me want to drag her into the shower and scrub her body clean, and he didn't even show his face at the bar tonight. The man shouldn't have the ability to slip into my head the way he does.
Zara pulls in a deep breath, as she stares at me, and I can tell she's giving me an opportunity to change the subject, but I won't back down. As much as I want to sink inside of her tight cunt, I have a job to do.
"You really want to talk about Tommy right now?"
I cross my arms over my chest, raising an eyebrow in response.
She looks disgusted, and I like it, but I also need any information she may have.
"Tommy is my brother-in-law. Well, he's my ex-brother-in-law. I recently got divorced from his asshole brother. He offered me a job when I didn't have anywhere else to land."
I know all of this. It was in her file.
"The temple kisses?" she asks with a look of disgust on her face and an all-over shiver as if she's completely repulsed by the idea of him. "I don't know why he does that."
"He shouldn't touch you if you don't want it."
"And I should be able to find work where I don't get hit on by every other man, including the married ones, but life isn't as simple as being happy and doing something that you love."
Instead of staying to talk to me, she turns and leaves the room, walking down the short hallway that leads to the only other two rooms in the house, a bedroom, and a bathroom.
Of course, I follow her. I'm not going to leave without getting the information I need.
Hell, her ass looks too good in her jeans to just walk away.
She's stripping herself naked as if she doesn't have a care in the world. When all of her clothes are tossed in the direction of her dirty clothes hamper, she turns to the side and walks right past me, heading into the bathroom.
The sound of the shower turning on meets my ears, and I find her behavior nothing short of fascinating. It's clear she's annoyed with my line of questioning, but she hasn't told me to leave the way one would expect her to do.
I stand in the doorway of the bathroom, wishing her shower was a little more updated and had a glass door rather than a cheap curtain that reveals nothing as she bathes.
"Billy left me with nothing," she says, startling me. "When the cops went through all of his bank shit, they froze all the assets. Said that the only thing I could keep was the last check I had deposited in our joint account. They seized the house and took the cars. They didn't give a shit that they left me homeless with no other options."
I look up to meet her eyes when she pulls back the curtain so I can see her face. She pulls in a long breath, releasing it slowly before pulling the curtain back into place and speaking again.
I understand what she's doing, talking about something painful for her while not having to face anyone when she makes her confessions. A hint of guilt swims in my gut for forcing her into this position, but like every other emotion I don't want, I shove it right back down into that place I never want to access again.
The water turns off, and a second later, she pulls back the shower curtain as if she walks out naked in front of me every day of her life.
My eyes drop to her tits, the heat of the water making them red and flushed. Her skin glistens with droplets of water, nipples peaked to mouth-watering perfection.
"See, the thing with Billy—"
I hold my hand up, stopping her words.
"You're going to suck my cock, and I want you to choke and gag on it."
I watch her eyes drop to the front of my jeans, and the woman might as well have me in her hand, mouth inching toward my cock for how hard I am for her.
She chews on her bottom lip as her eyes skate back up to mine. "You want to use me."
I don't answer her, and I can tell that she reads my lack of response as my answer. Instead of telling me to fuck off and get the hell out of her house, she shifts her weight on her feet, thighs rubbing together.
My fingers ache to unzip my jeans, but I want her to do that for me. Slowly, she makes her way across the room, pulling a towel from the rack and tossing it at my feet before she begins to lower herself in front of me.
She looks up as she sits back on her calves, eyes full of desire .
"I want to be used," she whispers, and it feels more like a confession than a means to turn me on even further, although it leaves me with a craving I have no doubt she'll be able to satisfy. After having her last night, I know just how dangerous this woman is, and how stupid I am for letting something as simple and mundane as sex control any part of me. But it doesn't feel that way with her. She wants me as much as I want her. It isn't a manipulation on her part. She needs to be fucked good, and from what I can gather, that's all she wants from me.
It leaves me feeling as if she has somehow managed to turn the tables on me, as if I'm the mark instead of the other way around.
I snarl, the sound coming from deep inside my chest when she runs her hands up my thighs on their way to my zipper.
Her small hands skirt over my throbbing length, one finger tracing the outline of the head, and my cock jerks behind its denim restraint.
"Quit fucking around," I growl. "Pull me out."
Although she obeys, her movements aren't rushed, and I like that she doesn't scramble to comply. She's doing exactly what I want, but at the speed at which she feels I deserve it. It's torture, absolutely brutal, and I fucking love every prolonged second of it.
As slowly as she works down my zipper, her mouth is around the tip of my leaking cock the second it's free, forcing an uncontrolled groan from my throat.
Her face angles up, and I feel trapped in her eyes as she watches me all the while taking my cock as far down her throat as she can manage. Without any effort on my part this miracle of a woman gags when my tip hits the back of her throat, and then she takes me an inch or two further, her throat closing around me, reminding me just how tight her fucking cunt is.
I squeeze my hands into fists, resisting the urge to tangle them in her wet hair until the drops of wetness on her cheeks are tears rather than water from her shower. One of her hands presses against my thigh, fingernails digging into my skin, while the other grips the base of my shaft, stroking the parts her mouth can't reach.
I nearly come on her face when she pulls back for a second, unconcerned with the spit that dribbles from her chin. She's messy, sloppy while sucking my dick, and I'm in fucking bliss watching the way her pupils dilate as if she's enjoying this just as much as I am.
I want her like this every fucking day, on her knees, looking up at me with flushed cheeks as my cock disappears down her throat.
Three more dips of her head, mouth working my shaft and I fucking swear I'm going to blow my load down her pretty little throat.
But I don't get to wish and hope for things like that, and I'm a fool for even letting those types of thoughts enter my head. She has too much power right now, despite being on her knees.
I shift my hips back, needing to regain authority over this fucking situation. She nearly falls forward, barely catching herself on her hands before face-planting on the bathroom floor. Her eyes narrow when she looks back up at me, but I don't offer her an apology.
I growl my disapproval when she reaches up to wipe the spit from her chin. "Don't."
Instead of listening to me, she narrows her eyes and wipes it anyway.
I inch forward again, this time grabbing the back of her head and forcing her mouth back down my cock until I’m satisfied with the way the spit dribbles down the underside of my balls, telling me that her face should be just as messy.
When I allow her to pull back once again, she wipes the spit away a second time.
I drop my eyes further, seeing her arousal glistening from the tender slit between her thighs.
"You're fucking filthy," I hiss, realizing just how much my show of force turns her on .
She doesn't deny my observation, but then again, how could she? I don't know that I've ever seen a woman so turned on before in my life, and it thrills the shit out of me.Fear turns me on, but then it usually leaves me feeling like I've done something wrong, like the lovers I've had in the past only fucked me because they were scared of what would happen to them if they turned me down. It always left me feeling like one of the pieces of shit traffickers I took much pleasure in slicing up.
Zara is different. I'm sure I can push the boundaries and scare her some, but she wants exactly what I have to offer. There's no doubt in her eyes when she looks up at me with my cock cutting off her airway. If anything, she's going to use the only breath I allow to beg for more.
I grind my teeth when my balls pull up in warning, using a handful of her hair to pull her mouth from my cock.
Instead of forcing her mouth back down my shaft, I urge her to stand, her hand covering mine when I lift her by her hair.
"You fucking love being mistreated," I growl, keeping her at a distance when her eyes drop to my mouth.
I'm down for a lot of shit, but letting this woman kiss me isn't on the list. The intimacy of that isn't something I've ever been able to handle. It gives her too much power, and I'll never allow it.
Instead of my pulse pounding the way hers is in the hollow of her neck, calmness, and peace come over me. I stare at her, wondering how she's the only person in the world that makes that sense of calm wash over me. It feels as if it's a way to manipulate me. It's as if she has a power I'm not willing to give anyone.
I walk from the room, pulling my shirt over my head as I turn left toward her bedroom rather than right toward the front door like I should be.
Leaving feels more like defeat, and I opt to stay and regain my control.
I pull my wallet from my back pocket as I kick my boots off, shoving down my unzipped jeans and kicking them away.
"Hard no," she snaps .
I turn to face her, condom in hand, to find her scrunching her nose at the sight of my socks.
"I'll choke on your cock all night long, but you are not fucking me while wearing socks."
I stare down at the white socks, wondering when something so innocuous transitioned into something that could put a stop to this night.
"And if I refuse?"
"Then you can get dressed and get the fuck out."
"Of all the fucking things," I growl as I reach down and tug my socks off, dropping the damned things on my discarded jeans.
That beautiful smile is back on her face when I look at her, and I can't help the way my head tilts in confusion. She doesn't seem to have an issue standing up for herself when she feels the need. For some fucked-up reason, that turns me on too.
"I fucked you last night with my socks on," I growl, unable to give up on her ridiculous demand.
"That's different. It would be uncivilized to fuck in the freezing cold completely naked. The gravel would dig into your feet, but we aren't fucking in the wild right now."
"We aren't fucking at all," I say, stepping so close that my cock nudges her naked stomach.
Her hands immediately wrap around it.
"I like the way your voice sounds, like you don't use it very often," she whispers, pressing her lips to my chest. I swear my body would react the same way if I were struck by lightning.
My heart kicks in my chest, the heat of her lips radiating outward to every inch of my being.
"On the bed," I snap, needing to be both inside her and have some distance between the two of us.
She doesn't move immediately as she pulls her face back. Instead, she runs her hand up my bare chest, leaving a fiery path in its wake, and then she obeys, climbing onto the bed and crawling to the headboard. I watch her ass sway back and forth, her pussy wet and swollen with need.
I resist the urge to grab her by the hips and slide into her with her exactly like she is, but there's a part of me that's curious about how things would go if she were calling the shots.
When she falls back onto her pillow, I climb onto the bed after her, straddling her body and sitting back on her thighs, using enough pressure to hold her in place but not so much that I'm likely to hurt her.
As I expected, her hands start to roam, and there's this melding of sensations, ones I both love and hate as she touches me.
What's glaringly absent is the warning bells and the voices telling me that this is the last fucking position I should've put myself in.