Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
SIRE
This woman is giving me signs everywhere, desires I can’t handle, and dreams I never want to wake from.
But I do.
The sun hasn’t risen, but something startles me awake—a noise. From under the empty pillow beside mine, I grab my Glock.
With my gun held low, I open my bedroom door. Across the hallway alcove, I spot hers is closed, so I peek around the corner into my living room.
Who the fuck is in here?
The pendant lights over my kitchen island glow. I left them on in case Wren woke up. There’s a rustling by my front door. So help me God, if it’s one of my father’s soldiers with a note.
It draws me nearer…
My finger on the trigger…
My vision, tunneling…
The moment she steps into view, I heave an exhale, “Goddamn, it’s you.”
Wren looks my way, not even startled. “Of course, it’s me. I’m cooking you breakfast. Oh, and doing your laundry.”
No, she’s barefoot and wearing my shirt with her hair twisted in a messy bun, tendrils falling. It’s a ravishing sight that pisses me off.
“It’s six in the morning.” My stomach growls with me, “I’m not hungry. And stop doing my laundry.”
“It’s just your underwear.” She shrugs. Grabbing a spatula by the stove, she points to a barstool at the island. “Sit. Your eggs are almost ready.”
“If you’re out here, why is your bedroom door closed?”
She looks away.
It’s odd, so I follow my instincts. Pushing her door open, I find her bed made, her room immaculate. Her suitcase is open on top of it, with her clothes neatly packed. She’s even washed the bath towel she used and left it folded on the closet shelf.
I storm back her way. “Why is all your shit packed? You going somewhere?”
She wears an innocent face. “No, I just never unpacked.”
“Why?”
“Lesson learned the hard way. Several times.”
It never ends with her, the falling I feel. “You can unpack. I won’t make you leave. This is your home now.”
“It is until I make you mad.”
“Too late. I’ve been royally fucking fuming since you returned, but you don’t see me kicking you out because you won’t tell me who’s after you.”
“Yeah.” She waves her spatula at the gun in my hand. “I won’t tell you because you’ll go all gangster on him.”
“Who?” I seethe, and she rolls her eyes.
“Like I’ll crack like an egg. Speaking of...” She points at the barstool again. “Sit or yours will get cold.”
I don’t know what it is, but I’m drawn her way. I take a seat and set my gun down, waiting for my pulse to lower, but it won’t.
No, everything rises around her, so I’m thankful to hide it under the marble countertop.
First, her scrambled eggs are the best I’ve ever tasted.
Then, she hits me with bacon that I never eat, so I devour seven pieces.
Finally, she puts a nail in my culinary coffin with a warm muffin, a pat of butter melting where she sliced it open.
It goes great with the perfect cup of coffee she brewed for me, too.
“Zucchini muffins with shredded carrots and organic, dark chocolate chips,” she shares with a bite of muffin in her mouth. “That’s healthy, right?”
“It’s fucking delicious.” I spew crumbs before using the napkin she hands to me. “Nannie’s recipe?”
“Yeah, but I added the carrots for you.” She peers at my loaded gun on the island, not afraid, curious.
“Nannie teach you to shoot?”
“No. She kept a loaded shotgun but hated it.”
“So, who taught you?” Taking my empty plate, she won’t look at me. “Wren.” Gently, I grab her wrist. “Who taught you how to shoot?”
“What makes you think I can shoot?”
The way her skin is so goddamn soft in my grasp sends a hot jolt through me.
“You said you could.” So, I let her go. Sliding my gun her way, I command, “Clear the round in the chamber, release the clip, then reload it.” Her eyes narrow. “Show me you know how to handle a weapon, and I’ll answer a question.”
Lightning fast, she sets my plate down and grabs the gun. I’ve never been so aroused in my life watching a woman handle a weapon as well as she wields a spatula, too.
Holy hell, she’s fast, deft, and smiling as her hands pop the round out of the chamber, her trigger finger releasing the clip. Checking it, she slams it back in before racking a fresh round and setting the ready weapon before me.
“There.” She smiles. “Now … how did you lose your virginity?”
Laughter explodes before I can stop it. “That’s what you want to know about me?”
She flits her hand at my Glock. “You’re a man of God and a gangster. A good gangster, and so is your brother. Mystery solved. I want to know about sex. Your sex.”
“Where did you learn how to handle guns?”
She puts my plate in the sink. “Answer my question first, and I’ll tell you. Oh, and tell me both. Your first with a woman and a man.”
God, you’re laughing, aren’t you? It’s amusing she wants to know this. That she has the lady balls to ask. That I’m getting even harder telling her.
“I was sixteen, and it was at the same time.” She blinks, confused. “I mean, it was the three of us together. They were a couple. He was my best friend, and she was his girlfriend.”
She needs to stop chewing her lip like that.
Covertly, I adjust myself.
“She came on to me,” I continue, “and he didn’t get mad.
They’d talked about it. They were seniors and eighteen and had more experience than me.
We were at her house, her parents weren’t there, and she started making out with me.
It got me hard and he started giving me a hand job, so I started kissing him, too, and—”
“Did you know you were bi before that?”
“Tough to say. If you knew my life before, I didn’t have time to think about sex. I was too busy surviving.”
The way she nods, understanding. These surging feelings for her swell my heart even bigger.
“So, I had my first with her, and an hour later, my first with him. Honestly, I was so excited just to have the chance to fuck, I didn’t question why I wanted both of them; I just did.”
“Were you top or bottom?”
I chuckle. “How do you know about that?”
“How can I not? That’s the difference between our generations. I’m not uptight about sex. All sex. It’s everywhere online. I’m used to it.”
“I’m not uptight, either. Never was.” I point between us. “But there’s a big difference between watching a screen and sharing something real.”
“Okay, so do you top or bottom when it’s real? I mean… with a man?”
“Funny, how people always want to know that, and… that’s sounding like a second question when it’s your turn to answer mine.”
She starts washing the dishes. “The home I was placed in before Nannie; they were preppers. They believed only God, guns, and canned goods could protect them from Armageddon or the Russians.”
I snort. I can’t help it. If she only knew.
“So, we homeschooled, hunted, and went to church. Every day.”
“How long were you there?” I want to help her wash up, but Dick won’t deflate. He sees her hard nipples under my shirt.
“Five years.”
“Huh.” I pull back. “All that time, and they didn’t want to adopt you?”
She shakes her head. Now, I’m the naive one. “If you’re lucky, you get a family like that. For the rest of us, it’s about the state’s check and the free childcare we provide. I was the babysitter of four in that house until…”
She cuts herself off, putting the iron skillet back in the cabinet.
“Until what? Why did you leave?”
“My turn.” She turns around. “Have you ever been in love?”
You mean other than now?
That has to be the name for this avalanche of emotions. Care tumbling with awe, admiration colliding with lust, warmth and want sliding into protection, possession, passion: I don’t want to feel them, but I do. I don’t want to call it falling in love, but goddamn, I think I am.
“No, not really.”
She tilts her head, not believing. “Forty-three years and you’ve never been in love?”
“I love God. I love my family and my flock. I fuck people, and I don’t hate them, but no. I’ve never been in love. I’ve been busy.”
I’ve been cursed.
“Busy helping women like me?”
I nod.
“Have you ever been with one? A woman you rescued?”
“Fuck no,” I snap. “Damn, why would you think that?”
“Why else would you risk everything to help us?”
I don’t confess this part about me. It’s not only my past and secrets. It’s my family’s lives at risk.
“My turn.”
“Fine,” she sighs, turning to fill her coffee mug. Then, she gives me way too many feelings, pouring me another cup, too. “Your turn. Ask away.”
I spot them on her wrists as she’s pouring. “Why did you get stigmata tattoos?”
It’s been taunting me. The reason why. The way she appeared in my life.
Is it a sign from God, or the Devil, because I get visions of holding Wren’s tattooed wrists, bound above her head while I fuck her so hard I make her bleed, with her marked feet, digging into my pumping ass, my dick filling her with every inch, every drop I have. Over and over.
Now I know why people need exorcisms.
I knew I could be evil, but with her, I feel possessed.
She falls quiet. Like something dark possesses her, too. “If I tell you,” she pauses, “will you promise to answer my next question?”
“Yes.”
She sets her mug down. “The last home I was in before Nannie’s: the preppers.
The father started giving me that look. When you’re a teenager, you know it.
I’d seen it before and knew I was in trouble.
And I knew there was one thing that’d protect me, one thing he feared above all—God.
” She swallows. “He wouldn’t touch me if I had his marks. ”
I clench my teeth, certain plans for that man’s death forming in my mind.
“There was a woman in our town who owned a tattoo parlor,” she explains.
“She gave me the tattoos, no questions asked, except she asked if I needed help. I told her I needed a safe place to go, and she told me to go to the library, to ask for Nannie, that she’d help me, and she did.
After two weeks, I was placed with her.”
There’s so much to unpack, but I ask, “Do you regret the tattoos? Why you got them?”
“No,” she says flatly. “I have two parents: Jesus and Dolly.”
I fight my smile. “Dolly?”
“Dolly Parton.” I knew it. “She’s like my mom. I listen to her songs every night. I love butterflies like Dolly does. I even got one tattooed right here…”
Nonchalantly, she starts to unbutton my shirt she’s wearing. “I get the idea.” But I stop her. I worry. “Wren, if Nannie’s home was so safe, how did you wind up where I found you?”
“My turn.” She lifts her chin, controlling this game of truths, too. “You said you have dark needs when you lie with men and women. What are they?”
Hey, God. You win.
Because I won’t lie to Wren, she’s earned my respect. Yes, I’ll lie to protect my family, but myself? I’m not worth protecting. If I can be saved, it’s up to you or someone else.
I open my mouth to tell her, but my gaze falls on her lips. Lush, soft, pink lips. I suspect they’ve never been kissed, and I can’t.
“You’re too young to know.”
She braces her fists against the countertop, her shoulders drawing up. Like a young lioness, she practically growls, looking ready to pounce and rip my throat open.
Fuck, I’m falling.
“We had this fight last night, and I won,” she says. “I’m a virgin, but not innocent. I’m old enough to know the difference. Are you?”
“Why are you still a virgin? Are you waiting for marriage?”
Her gaze burns into mine. “No, I’ve been waiting for a man I can trust. I’ve been waiting for you. And you feel it, too. I know you do. God. Fate. Destiny. Whatever you want to call it, it put us together.”
“You’re too young to know your fate. How can you be so sure?”
“Joan of Arc was seventeen when she led the French army to victory. She was my age, nineteen, when she was burned at the stake, and she’s a saint now. You want to tell me she was too young? That she wasn’t sure God had a plan for her?”
Damn, I don’t know yet who hurt her, but I won’t be like him. I won’t be like any man who’s preyed on her.
I’ll protect her.
She’s right.
God’s telling me to do it.
“Wren, you can trust me, and goddamn, I’m honored you’re asking me. You’re brave, but you don’t want me to be your first.”
“You’re right.” She rests her chin in her palm. “I want you to be my whole lot of times, too.”
Dick firmly agrees. He’s aching to take care of her, but my mind argues. “You can’t know that. You need more experience with a guy your age.”
She smirks. “A guy my age who lives with his parents, plays video games all day, jerks off all night, and then wants to mansplain how, in his sheltered world, he knows more about life than me? No, thanks. I’d rather experience death by masturbation. Which, by the way, I heard you again last night.”
I suppress a laugh because it’s maddening how right she is, how wrong this is supposed to be, and how refreshing it feels that we can talk about it.
“So when I jerk off or mansplain, it doesn’t bother you?”
“No. It turns me on because I know you’ve had sex, I bet you’re good at it, and you’ve lived a lot more than me. You’re a grown-ass man, but I’ve lived, too. Way too much for my age, actually, so let me shesplain...”
She leans even closer. I can see the smart wheels turning behind her eyes. I can feel the chains holding me back, snapping free.
“You’ve met your match, gangster, and yes, I’m much younger than you.” She narrows her mesmerizing eyes. “So, tell me. Are you mature enough to handle it?”