20. Kai #2
Her hips move forward again, subtle enough that another person might miss the shift but clear enough from where I stand to tell me she wants more pressure from her own hand.
My mouth goes dry. I picture replacing it.
The thought has been somewhere in my head since Sunday, but tonight it grows teeth.
My fingers between her thighs instead of hers, close enough to hear what happens to her breathing when she stops trying to control it.
My mouth near her ear while I tell her exactly what I want and know that the second she says stop, everything does.
That last part matters more now. Julia told me she likes giving up control when she knows she is the one who handed it over.
She likes the intensity because it keeps her present, because surrender does not feel like surrender when she knows she can take it back whenever she wants.
Ghost takes that information somewhere considerably less clinical than the office ever allowed me to.
She wants somebody who knows what to do once she gives it to him. I know exactly what I would do.
The sound of running shoes reaches me before that thought has a chance to go any farther.
At first it blends with everything else around me, nearly swallowed by the faint movement of leaves overhead and the distant sound of cars somewhere beyond Julia’s neighborhood, but within seconds the steady rhythm against pavement becomes unmistakable.
Someone is coming along the path near the edge of her property.
I shift deeper into the trees automatically.
A man appears beneath one of the streetlights, probably somewhere in his thirties or early forties, dressed in running shorts and a lightweight jacket with wireless earbuds in his ears.
His pace is steady and his breathing controlled enough that he has clearly been out for a while.
There is nothing unusual about him being here, people use this path. He will pass. At least, he should.
When he reaches the portion closest to Julia’s property, his head automatically turns toward the light spilling from her living room, and my stomach tightens before he even slows.
Keep running.
His stride shortens as he looks toward the window, toward her.
No.
For a second, I tell myself it means nothing.
Anybody passing a brightly lit window at night might glance over, especially when there is movement behind the glass, and an accidental look is not the same thing as deliberately standing there.
Then he stops. Every muscle in my body goes tight.
Julia doesn’t notice him because her attention is still directed toward the trees, toward the place where she believes the only man watching her is the one she chose.
The jogger keeps staring. A wave of anger goes through me hard enough that my jaw locks.
He does not get to see this. The hypocrisy of the thought is immediate and ugly, because I watched her before she knew I existed.
I stood in these same trees and took something private simply because I wanted it badly enough to ignore the fact that she had never given it to me.
Tonight is different, though, and that difference suddenly matters more than anything else.
I give the jogger a chance to correct the mistake on his own because a glance is one thing and what he does next will decide everything else.
All he needs to do is turn his head and keep running.
Instead, he reaches up and pulls one earbud out.
My patience starts disappearing. He shifts his body more fully toward the house and steps closer to the edge of the property.
That is fucking enough.
I leave the trees. The earth beneath my shoes is damp, and a fine drizzle has started falling without me noticing it while my attention was fixed on Julia.
Wet leaves soften the sound of my steps as I move behind him, and because his attention is still completely locked on the window, I am almost within reach before he senses anything.
His head starts to turn. Too late.
I grab him before he can finish the movement, hooking one arm across his upper chest while the other locks around him, then pull him backward off the path before he has enough air in his lungs to shout properly. His hands fly up immediately and one catches my sleeve.
“What the fuck?!”
His foot catches on an exposed root, and when I release him with enough momentum behind the movement, he stumbles forward and lands hard with one knee and both hands against the wet forest floor.
For a moment there is nothing between us but his harsh breathing and the quiet tap of rain gathering in the leaves overhead.
Then he twists around. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
Anger gets there before fear, although judging by the way his eyes move across me as he pushes himself upright, that confidence isn’t nearly as solid as he wants it to look.
I step closer.
“Lower your voice.” Something in my tone makes him hesitate, but only briefly.
“You just fucking attacked me.”
I don’t bother answering, and apparently the silence irritates him even more because he straightens and brushes mud from his palms.
“This is my neighborhood. I’m out for a run. Who the hell are you?”
“Walk away.” The instruction could not be simpler, and he can still take it if he has enough fucking sense left to understand what I am offering. But instead his eyes move past my shoulder toward Julia’s house as realization slowly changes his expression.
“Is this about her?”
My hands curl at my sides. “Leave.”
He gives a short laugh that sounds more embarrassed than amused. “She’s the one doing it in front of a fucking window.”
The anger sitting beneath my ribs sharpens.
He keeps talking. “If she doesn’t want people looking, maybe she shouldn’t put on a free show where half the neighborhood can see…”
I hit him. There is no thought in the space between his sentence and my fist connecting with the side of his jaw.
His head snaps sideways from the impact, and he staggers backward until his shoulders strike the trunk behind him.
I’m on him before he recovers. One hand fists into the front of his jacket near his throat while my forearm pins him against the tree, and the confidence finally starts slipping from his face.
“What the fuck, man?”
“Listen to me.”
He shoves at my shoulder, but the movement barely shifts me. “Get off me.”
“You had the opportunity to leave.”
“Fuck you.”
My hand moves beneath my jacket. The second my fingers close around the grip of the pistol, I know exactly how far this has gone.
My permit gives me the right to carry it.
It does not give me the right to pull it because a man looked through Julia’s window.
He isn’t threatening my life, there is no weapon in his hands and no possible version of this ends with me explaining to a police officer that drawing a gun seemed like a reasonable response.
I know all of that while I do it anyway.
The cold barrel settles beneath his chin. Every bit of resistance leaves his body. His hands rise slowly beside his shoulders, palms open now that fear has finally reached him. Good.
“Now,” I tell him quietly, “you are going to listen.”
His throat moves against the barrel. “I didn’t do anything.”
“You stopped.”
“I was just looking.”
“That was enough.”
He stares at me, trying to see past the tinted visor of my helmet, and I can practically see the question moving behind his eyes as he tries to decide whether the man holding the gun is actually crazy enough to use it. Fair question.
“I’m sorry.” The apology comes quickly now, and whether he means it or not, doesn’t matter to me.
“You’re going back to the path, and you’re going to keep running.” He nods. “You will not stop near this house again. If you happen to see something through that window, you turn your head and mind your own fucking business.”
“Fine. I understand.” The answer comes too quickly, so I tighten my grip on his jacket and watch his eyes widen.
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“If I see you standing near her property again, looking through her windows or deciding that anything she does inside her own home is an invitation for you, we will not be having this conversation twice.” I don’t need to explain the threat. He understands perfectly.
“I said I understand.” He wails.
For several seconds, the part of me I keep calling Ghost wants to keep him there long enough that this path becomes something he never thinks about using again.
He wants Julia’s street permanently tied to the memory of cold metal beneath this man’s jaw, because apparently fear feels like an appropriate solution when possessiveness is doing the thinking.
Then I actually look at what I’m doing. Not at the man who stopped to stare at Julia.
At me, at the terrified stranger pressed against a tree while my hand crowds his throat and a gun sits beneath his chin because he did not obey me quickly enough.
The picture hits somewhere painfully familiar. My father would understand this.
That is enough. I lower the pistol. The jogger’s knees almost give when the pressure disappears, and I tuck the weapon at the back, stepping away from him.
“Go.”
He doesn’t need to be told twice. He turns toward the path, nearly loses his footing on the wet ground and then breaks into a run the moment his shoes reach pavement, disappearing down the pathway without looking back. I remain where I am until the sound of his footsteps fades completely.
The drizzle has become steadier, cold water slipping through the trees and finding its way beneath the collar of my jacket, while my right hand throbs hard enough that I finally look down and see blood mixing with rain across two split knuckles.
For a while, I simply stare at them. Henry would’ve hated what I just did. My father would’ve approved it.
Fuck.