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Roan
“You and I both know a locked door wouldn’t keep me out.” I sense her squirm next to me, a shudder traveling her body, so subtle I almost miss it.1 I wonder if, like me, she’s picturing me making my way past any locks in a useless attempt to keep me out.
My eyes are fixed on the navy van, but my mind is elsewhere. In a dark hallway, on my knees as I pick the lock to her bedroom door. The apartment is quiet, but the street and city outside still bustle with sounds of life. The swoosh and thump of a trash bag being thrown into a dumpster. A distant siren. The unintelligible chatter of a couple stumbling home drunk.
But here, everything is still. After I creak the door open, the only sound is Reggie’s slow and deep breaths and the faint padding of my feet across her floor.
Her room is somehow both messy and tidy, the floor is clear, but there's a pile of clothes hanging over a chair and a couple pairs of shoes lay on the floor in front of it, as if she simply kicked them off in that general direction. Her furniture is clear of dust, but her desk has papers stacked haphazardly around her closed laptop. As I silently approach her bed, I can nearly taste her screams on my tongue, feel the way her yells will vibrate against my lips. My hands buzz in anticipation of feeling her silken skin under them as I pry her legs apart and force my way in. She’ll resist and fight, but it won’t stop me from taking what I want. The closer I get to the bed, the harder my dick gets, desperate to hear her protests muffled by my kiss, her moans of pleasure when her body finally gives in and accepts how good I make her feel, how wet and hot—
“He’s leaving!” I’m pulled back to reality by the object of my daydream nearly bouncing through the goddamn sunroof. Sure enough, the man who picked up the cooler is closing the backdoor and walking toward the driver’s side.
“Pero, where is he going?” She curses when our target keeps walking without getting in his car.
“Into that bar,” I nod as we watch him disappear into Mike’s Bar and Grill.
Reggie collapses back into the seat as if she’s been mortally wounded. “I cannot sit here for another hour.”
“You’re not a very patient person, are you?” I ask, jotting down his license plate, make, and model—actual helpful things other than complaining.
“I never claimed to be.” She shoots me this look out of the corner of her eye, like she stole a fry off my plate and was seeing whether I noticed. Her teeth dig into her bottom lip as she holds back a grin, and I’m a second too slow to press the child lock.
She’s ripped the car door open and is already halfway across the street before I can even blink. “Goddammit, Cortez.” I slam the door behind me as I chase after her. Dark lashes of hair whip across her face as she looks over her shoulder at me, a devilish kind of delight lighting up her features.
I’m not the least bit surprised to find her sidling up to the bar, two seats away from our mystery man. Things would be a hell of a lot easier without her stupid no-touching rule. I could just throw her over my shoulder and carry her out of here. Fuck, I was already on a hair trigger after my little fantasy, and now the thought of her annoyingly tight ass swinging in my face has my dick growing uncomfortably hard in my pants.
I sit down next to her and tug her stool close so I can growl in her ear, “This is not how it works.”
She leans closer, meeting me toe for toe. “Is there some kind of criminal manual I don’t know about?”
“Yeah, it’s called How to Not Do Stupid Shit and Get Yourself Killed.”
“Good thing I have you to make sure that doesn’t happen,” she says flippantly, then waves down the bartender.
He’s one of those dudes trying to bring back the mullet with a dopey smile that instantly makes me want to punch his teeth out. “What can I get you two—”
“We’re not staying.” I stand and am about to grab Reggie’s arm when her eyes sharpen, flicking between me and my hand, reaching out for her. Her face is stony and fierce, and I find myself falling back onto the stool. “Fine. A Stella.”
She orders a paloma and sits back with a giggle, clearly pleased with herself. You know, maybe punching that kid’s teeth out isn’t such a bad idea…
Reggie’s done nothing but push my limits and make everything about this job ten times more difficult. Add in that I haven’t had a good fuck in days spending all my damn time watching her, and I’m liable to put the next guy that breathes on me wrong in a coma.
A featherlight touch on the top of my hand makes me jolt. “Dude, chill. You look like you’re about to have an aneurysm.” Reggie’s delicate fingers burn my skin, sending electricity up my arm, and I realize I’ve balled up a cocktail napkin so tightly my fist is turning white. As soon as I relax my hand, she removes her fingers as if she hadn’t realized she’d been touching me.
There’s an odd tension that hovers after her touch that makes my throat scratchy. So like anything that makes me uncomfortable, I deflect by being a dick. “Seem to think the rules don’t apply to you much, huh?”
Her mouth flattens. “The deal is you don’t touch me. But don’t get your panties in a twist, Fox. I’m not stumbling over myself to get my hands on you. Just act like a normal fucking person for once.”
“Mhmm,” is all I say, taking a big swig of the beer the bartender just dropped off. I try to hide my smug grin with the bottle because, unlike every other time she’s told me off with nothing but honest conviction, this time, she doesn’t look me in the eyes.
She twirls the cocktail straw in her drink between her fingers mindlessly while she watches the horse races playing on big screens behind the bar. My own drink goes down a tight throat when I watch her soft lips wrap around the straw. Luckily, she doesn’t notice my attention, her own on the man two seats down nursing a Bud Light.
She does a good job of discreetly watching him, her eyes bouncing between the different screens and just barely stopping on him as they do. He, on the other hand, can’t seem to keep his grimy eyes off her, and I catch myself gripping my bottle until my knuckles hurt. I’m strung too tight. He can look all he wants and it shouldn’t bother me unless he tries to hurt her. That’s all I should care about—her safety. Not the way he’s groping her with his beady little eyes. If he doesn’t touch her, I don’t touch him. That’s my job.
“Take off your watch,” Reggie hisses in a whisper.
“What?” I ask, a little too harshly.
“Take. Off. Your. Watch.” She enunciates each syllable under her breath, her eyes daring me to refuse.
