Chapter 17
Hemlock
This is how people get shot , I think as I easily pick her front door lock.
Zara got home from work over an hour ago, and I waited in the shadows until I guessed she was asleep. It took less than thirty minutes from the time she opened her front door until her lights went out, but I still waited another half an hour.
I want to crawl up her body, run my tongue along every inch of skin from her ankles to the top of her fucking head. I've ached for days with the need to touch her, and those pains have made me fight harder and harder with each second that has ticked by because needing anything from anyone is a weakness.
I already have enough of those simply by being human.
But I haven't been strong enough to resist her, to resist watching her from the shadows as she leaves the bar, to following her home every night. Hell, I leased a fucking truck because I know my bike makes too much noise.
The first night I told myself I was working. The second night I couldn't even lie to myself.
Ace was right. Zara-fucking-Hailey is going to be a problem. She was already a problem, and that's why I'm here tonight, to prove to myself that I can touch her and still walk away when it's over.
Fuck staying away completely. That shit is impossible .
Silently, I make my way to her bedroom, anticipating the sight of her sleeping peacefully in her bed only to be met with the glint of moonlight off the barrel of a fucking gun.
I wonder if she can see the smile on my face. I never thought anyone could ever surprise me, but here we are.
"Zara," I say, awe in my tone.
I checked her house before she came home that night, and I was in here again last night while she was finishing her shift at the bar. There's never once been a hint that she had a fucking gun.
"I'd feel a little more comfortable if you lowered that thing," I tell her, leaning against the doorframe with my arms crossed over my chest. She could do some real damage with the weapon, and since I don't know exactly where her head is, I shelter my heart the best I can without looking like I'm scared.
She's near, so even with the gun pointed right at me, that sense of calm I needed is already washing over me.
"Why?" she snaps. "It's not like it would be the first time you were shot."
She traced every scar on my torso that she had access to the other night, and although I could see the questions in her eyes, she never once opened her mouth to ask me about them. Bringing them up now meant she wanted to know rather than deciding I wasn't worth the wasted breath like I'd assumed then.
"True," I agree. "But every one of them sucked, and I'd rather bury myself inside of you than deal with another bullet wound."
"Are you a drug dealer?"
"No."
"A criminal of any kind?"
I hesitate with my answer on this one because, honestly, is it ever legal to slice people to pieces in order to get information?
I push off the doorframe and take a step closer to her, the sound of the gun cocking making me freeze in place with my hands near my ears in mock surrender.
"I'm not a criminal," I answer, believing my words.
What I do is for good. I don't go around and hurt innocent people. If anything, I get an ounce of retribution for the evils the men I do hurt have caused in the world.
I'm not a vigilante. I don't go around seeking evil-doers just so I can hurt them. What I've done has always, well, mostly always, since the Marine Corps, been sanctioned and expected as a job duty.
It isn't until she lowers the weapon that I notice the shine of tears on her cheeks.
I rush to her the second the gun is sitting on the bed near her hip.
"What the fuck happened?" I growl as I grip her shoulders.
It's an effort to keep her at arm's length as I fight the urge to pull her to my chest and tell her everything will be okay. I have no business making this woman any sort of promise, especially considering this might very easily be the last time I see her.
"Nothing," she lies as she lifts the back of her hand to wipe away the tears from her face.
"Don't lie to me," I growl.
"S-something just freaked me out at work today," she confesses.
This could be it. I could finally get the information that I need from her, but I struggle with making sure she's okay and digging for more answers.
"With that asshole Jersey?" I hedge.
She shakes her head. "It isn't important."
"It's important enough that you're sitting in bed with a gun pointed in my direction."
In the moonlight, I see her eyes narrow. "You break into my house in the middle of the night and then try to gaslight me into believing it's my fault?"
She shoves at my shoulders, but the woman would have to triple her strength in order to get me to move.
"I needed to see you," I confess, knowing there isn't a hint of a lie in my words.
My first intention with her was to use her, walking away without remorse when I got what I needed, which was Tommy Wilkinson behind bars. I was willing to do whatever it took to make that happen, including getting into a sexual relationship with her and telling her what she needed to hear. I made that decision the second I spotted her smiling face that first night at the bar, but then I got near her. Then she spoke, her voice sounding like that of an angel. She smiled at me when most people were cautious and refused to even make eye contact.
She was different. She made me feel different, and that wasn't something I could ignore after decades of feeling completely out of control.
She gave me some of what I was missing. Like cocaine or heroin... how was she any different?
That initial decision included the knowledge that I didn't have to hurt her, and it makes it glaringly clear now that there's no way to keep that from happening. Rather than standing up and walking away, I pull her to my chest, unconcerned about the way her tears soak into my shirt and dampen my skin underneath.
I run my hand over her hair as she cries. Jesus, what did this woman go through tonight?
Is this her response to only tonight or has this been building up for a while? Although she didn't seem to live through much excitement, she did go through a divorce after finding out her husband was selling drugs out of the garage he was working for. Not to mention the countless women he confessed to having affairs with to prove to the judge and jury that his wife wasn't involved, not that the cops working his case even thought that of her.
I lean back on the headboard, moving her until she's lying damn near on top of me. Her cries transition from sobs to sniffles, and before long, she's completely still in my arms, asleep.
This isn't even close to what I came here to get from her tonight, but I don't move a muscle, afraid I'll wake her when it's clear she needs the rest. When the sun starts to peek out from behind the mountains, I'm still in her bed, my arms still wrapped around her, my hand still stroking her fucking hair.
I don't know what wakes her, but when she slowly comes to, she startles as if she doesn't remember that I'm here with her. She pushes herself back off my chest and stares down at me like I'm a science experiment she didn't expect to work.
As if it takes a moment for her brain to come back online, she jerks away from me, eyes wide and hand covering her mouth.
"Morning breath," she mutters behind her hand as she climbs out of the bed.
Her eyes dip down the front of me, getting frozen by the gun still on the bed. I never moved it last night, and she doesn't seem the least bit scared when I pick it up, pop the clip out, and slide the barrel back to make the chambered round pop out. I lean over, pull open her bedside table drawer, and drop all three things inside before closing it again.
She backs out of the room, not turning around until she's more than halfway to the bathroom.
I should probably go. Holding this woman while she cried and then staying with her in my arms all night was never my intention. I have no fucking clue why I strip out of my clothes, chuckling when I reach to pull my socks off and grab a condom from my wallet before following her to the bathroom.
I roll the latex down my thick cock a mere second before I shove open the bathroom door. She's at the sink gargling with mouthwash when we lock eyes in the mirror.
"Shower with me," I grunt.
She looks over her shoulder, her eyes roaming down the front of me until they land on my hard cock. I swear if this woman licks her lips one more time, I'm not responsible for how hard I take her.
Instead of arguing, she turns and pulls her t-shirt over her head before hooking her thumbs into her panties at her hips, letting the fabric fall to her feet before stepping out of it as she crosses the small room to the shower .
My eyes lock on her ass when she bends to reach for the knobs, and I fight the urge to slide into her right then and there.
She lifts her hand, holding it in the stream of water until she deems it an acceptable temperature to step into, and I follow right behind her, not wasting another second. I turn her to face the water, my lips on her neck. The dream I had last night when I managed to fall asleep for a few minutes felt like torture, but not in the way I've always thought about when struck with the idea of kissing a woman. I was turned on. My cock stayed hard longer than it did last night just with the proximity of her body, despite my resistance to waking her up and getting what I needed from her. For some reason, her getting rest was more important, and I know just how fucked that makes me.
Probably just as fucked as I feel when I think about tracing my tongue along every curve of her lips before dipping it inside her mouth. Just the idea of her sucking on my tongue makes my cock threaten to blow, but when I turn her to face me, her eyelashes glistening with droplets of water now instead of tears from last night, I just can't seem to pull the trigger.
Instead, I drop to my knees, lift her leg over my shoulder and suck her clit into my mouth, relishing in the way she practically rips my hair out of my head before she comes. Then I dive in and do it all over again.