SEBASTION
SHE CAN’T AFFORD FOR ME TO BE NICE
“She ate Frosted Flakes for breakfast at around eight. Had a shower and blew out her hair after. Didn’t come out of the bathroom till around nine-thirty.” I sit on the back porch, keep my voice low, and watch her through the security feed I’m not sure she knows exists in the shed.
It’s freezing out today, but in there, she’s down to yoga pants, a sports bra, and a complete waste of forty-five minutes doing her hair, because she beats the absolute shit out of a boxing bag and has long mahogany strands stuck to the sweat on her face.
The picture quality isn’t like the kind we have back at home, which means I don’t get to zoom in and study the pulse pounding in her neck, or follow the lines of sweat on her chest. It’s a damn shame.
But Ryan Nichols wired this place up, which means I get to see the branding of her criss-cross-strap bra, and the furious lines of frustration fanning away from her eyes.
She’s not bad with a heavy bag. She’s no Evelyn Kincaid, and if she finds herself in an actual street fight, she’s so little that all of her practice might be for naught against a larger enemy.
But she’s got a handle on good technique, and she’s been going long enough, I’ve started to predict her combos.
“She’s working out in the shed right now.”
“You watching her?” Lincoln questions, then, “She’s letting you?”
“I’m not in the garage with her.” I’m just using the tech my buddy thought to leave behind before his demise. “She’s safe. I can hear her, and if some motherfucker felt like today was a good day to breach the property, I can have her in a football hold and outta Dodge in five seconds flat.”
He releases an unhappy grunt. Closes a fridge. “People die in five seconds, Jameson. That’s four and a half too long.”
“Yeah, well, I doubt she’d be thrilled if I went in there and pulled up a seat. Either you want her to expel her energy in a healthy, productive way, or you—”
“If you suggest fucking might be a decent alternative, I’ll slit your damn throat.”
I choke out a barking laugh. “You’re thinking about my dick, Castro? Again?” I wrinkle my nose and look toward the shed for the two seconds, three, four, it takes for the sounds of Scarlett’s powerful strikes to start up again. “It’s weird how obsessed you are with me.”
“Jameson!”
“I was actually gonna say, either she works out, or she starts doodling on the fuckin’ walls.
” I want to chuckle, but just thinking about that tiny woman climbing the walls to avoid the things that drive her anxiety makes me wanna smash something.
“She’s got a problem,” I grunt. “It’s an unhealthy compulsion. ”
“It’s drawing,” he scoffs. “She’s fine.”
“She needs help.”
“Drawing is the help!” he snaps. “She talked to the shrinks. She explained how she gets all wound up when she’s nervous.
She used to chew her nails to the quick, and when she ran out of nail, she’d chew the skin.
When her fingers bled, she’d tear at her hair, and when all that was done, she’d lie in bed and cry.
All fucking day. All night. She was a mess, but now she’s a functioning member of society, so don’t come at me about how often she draws. ”
Bleeding fingers?
“She’s fine,” he grits out. “When she doesn’t have some prick leaving notes on her door, and when she’s not forced to live across the hall from an asshole obsessed with his own dick, she’s actually pretty fuckin’ happy.
This note was a setback. It’s another taste of the psychological bullshit Roy used to throw at her, because instead of coming at her head-on, he’s scaring her halfway across the country and doesn’t even have the courtesy to leave his name.
She’s drawing more because her entire life is on its head, but once we figure this out, she’ll go back to normal. ”
“I don’t—”
“Your job is to keep her alive, not lecture me on her coping mechanisms. Just leave her alone, stop picking at her, stop talking about your dick, and if she starts chewing her nails, put a damn pen in her hand. That’s it. Everything else, I’ll take care of.”
Scarlett’s fist glides off the side of the bag, slippery because of her own sweat, so what should have been a deep, satisfying thud is actually a cry of frustration and her delectable body crashing against the eight-foot-tall hanging bag.
Exhausted, she wraps her arms around the leather and hugs it while her long, brown hair curls from sweat and her chest lifts and falls with every rapid exhale.
“Are you listening to me, Jameson?”
“Yeah, I heard you.” I push off my chair and study my screen for a moment more, narrowing my eyes because her back bounces in what looks suspiciously like a fucking sob.
She’s crying? Because she missed the bag?
“Tank?”
“I’m hanging up now. I’ve got shit to do, and I have no interest in being your little gossip buddy. You do you, I’ll do me. She’s safe, she’s secure, and she needs you to focus more on your mission and less on micromanaging me.”
“Tank—”
I end our call and stare down at the security feed of a woman in crisis. A woman whose brother loves her so much that he needs her to be okay. But in his quest to hear her say those words, he completely missed the part where she was lying through her teeth the whole time she spoke them.
Her ex stripped her to the fucking bone, peeling bits of her soul away for fun, and if that wasn’t bad enough, she turned back around and helped kill the motherfucker.
Even if he deserved it, even if she swears she feels no remorse, that kind of thing imprints itself on a person. Especially when that person is her.
To take a life, no matter how righteous, is to kill a small part of oneself, too.
Scarlett Castro is attending her own funeral, but she’s intent on pasting on a pretty smile and pretending she’s having a great time.
Locking my phone and cutting my view of this woman, sweaty, sexy, and primal, I slip it into my pocket and jog down the steps.
I move onto snow-covered grass and follow the white clouds of my own breath.
Across the yard, verge to the left. I slow at the shed door, quiet so the gap she left for fresh air doesn’t give me away.
But I guess my footsteps were noisier than I intended, because she’s already back to pretending.
To wiping her face and slamming a vicious roundhouse kick into the side of the bag.
I move into the shadows and take a moment for my eyes to adjust, for the scent of Scarlett’s sweat to filter all the way to the bottom of my lungs.
I fuckin’ like it.
“I’m in here.” She circles the bag and bravely gives me her back, all so she can avoid revealing puffy red eyes. “I’ll be done in twenty minutes, then the place is all yours.”
Such a silly girl. How could she think turning from me is a good idea?
I stalk forward and fist her ponytail, holding on so tight that a banshee scream rips along her throat and treacherous tears splatter against the dirt.
I pull her in until her back presses to my chest and her scrambling feet stop moving, then I tug her ponytail just a little harder. “Hair like this, Princess? So long and pretty and smells so fuckin’ good?”
She trembles violently in my arms.
I was coming in here to piss her off, to trick her into sparring with me. But the fear pulsing from her pores makes it feel almost like she’s stuck back in Colorado with her abusive ex, and I’m the asshole who put her there.
“W-what are you doing?” she whimpers. “Why are you—”
“How do you escape this hold, Princess? A man’s got you pinned like this, he’s controlling your head, because even if you wanted to, you can’t possibly tear all of these pretty locks out without seriously hurting yourself.
He’s probably bigger than you. Stronger.
And he’s already decided he wants to fuck you up.
” I place my free hand on her belly and hate how her breath stutters and stalls with panic. “Tell me how you get out of this.”
“Is it because I swore at you?” she cries. “Is it because I said I wouldn’t sleep with you? Because I—”
“Don’t do that,” I grit out. “Don’t run back to that weaker version of you. She’ll let your fear get you killed.”
She chokes out a desperate sob. “I don’t know what you want from me.”
“I want you to show me that bad bitch you’ve been parading around for three weeks already. I saw you in here beating the shit out of the bag. I saw your kicks, Princess. Somebody trained you.”
“I…” She gulps. “I…”
“Go back to those lessons. Revisit them in your head. Whoever taught you that sexy axe kick absolutely taught you how to escape a pair of grabby hands. So…” I lick my lips and taste her in the air. Fuckkkkk. “How do you escape this hold?”
“I don’t know.” Whimpering, she collapses forward so my hand on her belly is the only reason she doesn’t drop to her knees. “I don’t know how—”
“Yes, you do,” I croon. “You know, Scarlett. Stop being a victim and start being a fuckin’ winner. I’ve got your hair, which means my arm is my control. So you…?”
Her panting breath fills the shed, bouncing from wall to wall. Her heart-wrenching cries follow and make it so I’m almost tempted to let her go. Almost. Her thundering pulse is like waves in the air. But slowly, so fucking achingly, she claws her way back from the edge of a panic attack.
Pride blossoms in my chest. Growing and pulsing.
There you go, beautiful. You made the right choice.
“I-I have to break your arm.” Her voice crackles and aches. “Break your control.”
“Good.” My lips curl into a lonnnnnng fucking grin. “How?”
She twists, hurting herself because of how I grip her hair, but the fact that she’s so much smaller than me works in her favor as she turns easily and peeks into my eyes.
Hers are soaked and swollen. Grieving and so damn pitiful, I kinda wish I could go back ten minutes and leave her the hell alone.
But the way she takes a deep breath and strengthens her resolve?
That’s the shit that keeps me exactly where I am.
Bolstering her bravery, she brings her elbow up and aligns it with my arm. But that same size she benefited from a moment ago lets her down now, because she can’t even reach me. Not really.
I lower my stance, bend my knees to provide her with a platform, then with my free hand, I slap my leg.
“Use the momentum of what we’re doing, use my size against me, Spiderman your way up, then bring that elbow down.
” I grab her thigh and surprise a delicious gasp from deep in her throat, then I drag her leg up and force her to set her foot on my thigh.
“Doing it slow makes it tricky. But—” I release her leg and trade it for her hips instead.
I lift until her second foot digs into my thigh, then I let her use my restraining arm as a kind of seat belt.
“In a real-life situation, you’ve gotta react instantly.
You spin, run at him, climb him like a tree, and then you bring that elbow down over his arm.
Or—” I point at my nose instead. “Here. Shatter his face and knock him out.”
She stands over me, her pulse pounding in her throat a mere foot from my tongue. Hesitantly, she carefully brings her elbow to the bridge of my nose.
I’ve been such a prick the last three weeks, I wouldn’t even get mad if she went for the kill shot. But she’s gentle, just as I’m gentle.
And she doesn’t cry anymore.
“Better yet, carry a knife with you everywhere you go. Instead of using your elbow to make him hurt, you try this same move, climb him, and then sink that blade right here.” I tap the inside corner of my eye and grin. “Give it a wiggle and make soup of his brains.”
Horrified. Curious. Cautious. A little fuckin’ turned on. She gulps and drops her chin in a nod.
“Good.” I pat her hip. “Hop off. Then I’m gonna wrap my arm around your throat.”
Her cheeks pale and her pulse stops dead against her neck.
If she and Lincoln had never ended that prick’s life, Scarlett’s reactions today would be enough to send me on my merry way.
I don’t mind trading a little of my soul for retribution. Not when the kill is justified.
Not when his existence left her terrified of every fucking man on this planet besides one.
I’m not that one.
“Relax.” I help her down, steady her on her feet, then I turn her around and yank her back against my chest. I show her rough, when I know she wishes I wouldn’t. Crass, when I know it bothers her. But if a man wants to hurt her, he’s not gonna be careful, and he’s not gonna be kind.
“Get ready, Princess.” I snake my arm around her neck and pull her in tight enough that I know she’ll feel the sharp edge of my forearm against her windpipe. “How do you escape this hold? I want you to show me. And next time, I want you to have a blade in your pocket.”