Chapter 12 #2
It has to be big, and it can’t have my fingers all over it.
These days, that’s gonna be hard to come by.
The bastard pulls me into everything from his product drops to body cleanup.
I’m his errand boy, janitor, whatever the hell he wants me to be.
Another insurance policy, maybe. He’s gotten me in so deep, I literally can’t betray him.
My intention isn’t to put him jail. I’d rather get the same thing he’s got on me, the same thing I have on Grace. Leverage. I have that, I’m off the hook. No more business with the Sinners. No more looking at Donovan’s dumb fucking face. I won’t have to compromise my morals over and over again.
What’s left of them, at least.
I push out of my cruiser and tug open the back door. Dipping inside, I release Grace’s seat belt. Then I lightly grab her arm and help her scoot out of the seat and onto the road.
“Happy?” I ask as I prop her against the car.
“I will be when you remove the handcuffs.”
My chuckle is low and dark. “No, Gracie, you earned those cuffs tonight. Fair and square.”
She purses her lips. “This is why people don’t like cops. You’re all a bunch of bullies. You, Murphy, Sergeant Allen. You’re all the same.”
I cock a brow. “If you believe that, then you haven’t spent enough time with those dicks yet. Trust me, you’re much safer with me even on the darkest of roads than you are on a busy street with one of them.”
Pushing off the car, she closes the distance between us, scowl in place. “That what I am with you? Safe? Was I safe when you held a gun to my head? When you threatened me?”
There’s no stopping my eye roll. “You wanna be pissed about that, then fine. Be pissed. But don’t play the victim.
You brought that on yourself. You started this.
” I angle closer, ducking so we’re eye to eye.
“Let’s be honest here. You’re not mad I pointed a gun at you, you’re mad because your little scheme didn’t go as planned, and now I’ve turned the tables.
Got you by the balls, or… tits, or whatever.
You wanna play, Gracie, then let’s play.
But don’t dish out what you can’t take. All I’m doing is matching your energy.
Can’t help it if I’m better at this than you are. ”
Her jaw tenses, fire igniting in her eyes. “I’m not playing . My life isn’t a game.”
“Should have thought about that before you barged into my life tossing around threats. Before you took a knife to my favourite pillow.”
“That what this is?” She nods towards the road. “Bringing me here, getting me alone, hands locked behind my back? You threatening me? Trying to prove a point?”
I hover in close, voice low. “Could be. Or maybe it’s like you said. Maybe I just like seeing you in handcuffs.”
She tilts up her chin, the move drawing my attention to the smooth ridges of her collarbone, the delicate slope of her neck. “And how else do you like seeing me?” she whispers. “Maybe… with your hand around my throat? You bring me here so you could rough me up a bit, Linc? You like doing that?”
Dark humor threads its way through me. “Almost as much as you like taking it,” I say as I move my lips to her ear. “Last night, when I had you pinned against my bedroom wall, how wet were your panties?”
Her swallow is audible, but she stands her ground, angling her head so her eyes are locked with mine, lips so close I could take a bite out of them. “Give me my shit back, and I’ll tell you.”
“Mmm. No.”
“The money, then.”
I huff a laugh. “You think I’d give up that much cash just to know the state of your panties after a bit of light choking? Give me a little more credit.”
A little smirk tugs up at the edge of her mouth. “What if I tell you what I did after? Once I was alone and tucked into my bed wearing nothing but those panties. Want me to describe it to you?”
My dick jumps, pressing against my pants. It’s a hell of a temptation. If I were a simpler man, I might actually take her up on it. A dirty, detailed retelling of Grace getting herself off, thinking of my hand around her throat, imagining it’s my fingers making her feel good instead of her own.
It’s how I imagined it too. Despite the holes in my walls, the bullet casings and the shit strewn across my floor, Grace coming on my fingers is all I’ve thought about.
It’s a fucking problem.
Grace lets out a breathy laugh. “Did you lose your tongue, Decker?”
“Just trying to figure out why you think I’d pay for that, when I can witness it in real time.” Hand clamped around her throat, I tug her into me.
When her breath catches and her expression turns heated, I tighten my grip. Fuck, she’s pretty. Dark eyes, soft lips, that little smirk curling up her face, encouraging me.
With a step forward, I back her against my cruiser and pin her there. “I’ll bet you, oh, I don’t know, twenty grand or so, that I can make you just as wet as I did last night.”
Grace says nothing. Rather than give me the satisfaction of a response, she looks at me with defiance.
Provoking me.
But there’s trust there too. It’s misplaced, but it’s there.
Trust I shouldn’t take advantage of. She’s miles from town.
Handcuffed on a dark road with a man she barely knows.
If she had a clue about the shit I’ve done, the people I’ve hurt, she’d probably be a little more apprehensive about how close I’m standing to her right now.
With one hand firmly at her throat, I use to other to explore the expanse of her midriff, down the curve of her hip and then lower to the bare skin below her skirt.
In seconds, her breath is hitching and her chest flushing.
My touch is light at first, feathering up her thigh, testing her, seeing how high she’ll let me go. Goose bumps chase my fingers, the pulse at my thumb kicking up as I move higher.
She swallows, trying to tilt her head, to focus on my wandering hand.
But I keep her how I want her. Locked in place, eyes staring into mine.
Tightening my hold on her neck, I tread my fingers up, meeting her hemline, then trudging past it.
As I hit the apex of her thighs and flirt with the edge of her panties, her eyes widen and her pupils blow out.
“Linc,” she rasps, squirming against me, edging closer.
I’m right there. One small shift, and I’ll slip under the thin barrier of material, my fingers finding the warmth of her pussy, the wetness I know is soaking her panties.
“Now would be the time to tell me to stop.”
I’m about to cross a line. I’m in uniform, on duty, and she’s handcuffed and in my custody.
Not to mention my history with her family.
That I’m related to her brother. That my biological father raised her.
The blackmail, the leverage, the gun she pointed at my dick.
That she fired into my ceiling. The fact that, in the short time I’ve known her as a grown woman, I’ve seriously considered strangling her. On more than one occasion.
Despite all that. I’m thinking I might want to fuck her.
“Grace,” I say again. Tell me to stop. Just fucking say it .
She opens her mouth, but when no sound comes out, I lean in, squeeze harder, toy with the elastic of her panties.
“Was I right? Is your sweet little cunt dripping for me?”
The edge of her mouth tilts up. “See for yourself.”
With a grunt, I kick open her legs and slide my fingers into her panties.
And fuck. Fuck.
Grace is wet.
Dripping. Fucking. Wet.
A quiet gasp escapes her, her eyes darkening further.
“Shit, Gracie.” I trace over her slit, parting her lips, relishing the way she drenches my skin.
She swallows, throat bobbing against my palm.
I tighten my grip and study her expression, the desire painted across her face. The fire in my veins rages as I take in every detail of her. Wound up, restrained, wearing my hand like it’s her favourite necklace.
It’s a beautiful fucking thing. The submission, the vulnerability.
It feeds the darkness in my soul, a blight that’s been growing inside me since that night, since I first took a life.
It’s who I’ve become. A man who takes . I take dirty money without guilt, I take lives without thought.
And now Grace. In this moment, she’s mine to take.
Easing the pressure on her throat, I tilt up her chin. “I’m gonna need you to come on my fingers, Grace.”
I plunge inside her, and a ragged gasp slips from her mouth.
“And if I don’t want that?” she whispers.
Brows raised, I break into a slow smile. “Don’t you?”
When she doesn’t answer, I pull out from the grip of her cunt and tease her entrance while pressing my palm lightly to her clit.
“Tell you what. I’m gonna leave my hand right here, and you can decide what you want to do with it. You don’t move, and I’ll back off. Or you can take what you want and use my hand as your personal fuck toy until you make a mess in your panties. How’s that sound?”
For a moment, she’s still, the rapid rise and fall of her chest the only movement on this entire stretch of road, her eyes trained on mine as she considers my offer.
More time passes, her pulse battering against my thumb. But Gracie doesn’t move.
And it’s a damn shame.
As I start to pull away, though, she rocks her hips, grinding on my hand.
I chuckle. “Good girl. Just like that.”
She’s slow and steady as she adjusts to the angle of my palm, testing what feels good. Hesitant, almost. Like she’s not giving herself permission to let go of whatever’s in her head telling her to ease off the gas.
Dipping closer, I increase the pressure I’ve got on her throat. “Take what you want from me, Grace. I said fuck my hand, not make love to it.”
Maybe it’s the tone of my voice or the threat at her throat, but she follows orders beautifully. As she picks up the pace, quiet moans escape her lips, heavy, breathy, her exhales matching the steady rhythm she’s keeping.
I loosen my grip and let her take a full breath. Then I press down again, clutching the sides of her neck, restricting her blood flow.