23. Avery
AVERY
PLAYLIST: DON’T DESERVE YOU – PLUMB
“I’m sorry I made everything about me,” she says. “You wanted to tell me something, and I—“
“Shaw,” I say. “Shut up.”
“But—“
“This is not a competition; things happen when they happen. You needed the moment.”
“I feel horrible,” she says.
“I know. It’ll get better,” I say and pull her even closer into my arms as we stand in the house that holds the memory of the most horrible moment of my life. “We can feel horrible together.”
“Okay,” she says.
We stand there for endless moments.
“I sent Hoboken and Emmett to L.A.,” she suddenly says without looking at me. “They checked the address.”
My heart starts racing.
“You didn’t tell me,” I say.
“No,” she says. “I wanted to know first.”
“Did they seal it?”
“No,” she says. “It was sealed the entire time; no one lived there. I confronted Hedda, offered her a deal.”
I thought it would do something with me. Make me feel something. But all I feel is the love for the woman in my arms right now.
“The hat is back where it originally was,” she then says. “26 Federal Plaza, 23rd floor, evidence storage, row 45, box 17.”
“Why are you telling me all this?” I ask.
“Do with the information what you want,” she says, pushes herself out of my grip, and holds Cleopatra’s bracelet I gave her for me to take.
“Take it,” she says. “All I know is it is lost.”
“Shaw,” I say.
“I’m not saving you,” she says, a weak smile on her face. “I’m saving myself. I am saving us, because there is no us without you.”
I look at her for another moment.
Take the bracelet.
“Come,” I say as I grasp her hand and walk out of the house.
I close the door.
Close the gate.
Close the chapter.
We sit back in the car.
She drives.
“We could leave everything behind,” I say out of the blue.
“I have a job,” she says.
“You don’t have to work when you’re mine.”
“But I love my job.”
“Okay,” I say.
I have this need in me to leave everything behind and start a fresh life with her. Somewhere where our past can’t catch up with us. But that’s easier said than done when you’re wanted in almost every country in the world.
“Let’s get back to the office,” I say.
“Why?”
“We have criminals to catch, don’t we? And you love to work late, don’t you? I mean, I could book us a private jet that brings us to this beautiful island in the Mediterranean—”
She eyes me.
“We could also grab dinner, eat at your place fuck all night,” I say, and grin.
“Dinner and sex,” she says. “Hello, who cares about a Mediterranean island when she can have five orgasms in a row?”
“You could have both,” I say with a grin, and she bumps with her fist in my arm.
“Mhhhhm,” I say, “I like when you hit me.”
“You do?” she asks.
“I love many things you don’t know of,” I say. “I might show you one day, the day you are ready to let go of control.”
“Nah, won’t happen,” she says.
“Is that a challenge?”
“A promise.”
I laugh.
“You know I always win, yes?”
“Not always.”
“Not?” I ask innocently and unfasten my seatbelt.
I lean over.
My hand wanders between her legs, up and into her pants. I slide my fingers over her clit and circle around it.
She gasps.
I grasp her pussy and press it in waves.
She gasps more.
She rolls her hips.
“I told you, you’re mine,” I say, and the moment I do, a shiver runs through her. I knew she was into it the moment we started bickering. She loves to be called names, loves to be challenged, to lose control, and to be forced to do things outside her comfort zone.
“Tell me,” I say, “Who has the control now?”
And with it, I grab and rub her pussy.
She moans out, and I know I have won.
Only it’s not about winning.
It’s about her.
About her trusting me enough to guide her to the most vulnerable parts of herself, and thereby granting me a gift I don’t deserve.
So no, I don’t control her.
She is giving it to me.