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“You have five seconds to tell me who the fuck you are and why I shouldn’t gut you.”
6
GAVIN
Some days drag on for what feels like weeks.
This week’s been full of those days. I’m worn down and strung out. My job has always taken its toll, to the point where I’m numb to the gore, the bodies.
Because I deal in blood.
I always have.
From the first time I fought off the group of older boys in juvie trying to beat me down and rape me, putting four of them in the hospital and one in the morgue, to the notches I put in my helmet for my country, even more when my country turned on me, and the multitude of bodies that piled up under the cash in the private sector.
Money or orders, the true currency is always blood.
And it carries its own price on my soul every day. What’s left of my soul, anyway.
So, when I get home after cleaning up another gang hit and find someone skulking around my garage…well, let's just say they’re lucky I didn’t stab first and ask questions later. I’m rattled, shaking from sleep deprivation, and running on six cups of coffee and an Adderall.
But even my wavering double-vision can tell something’s off in the shape of the silhouette, the way the person moves.
Training ticks off the facts, assesses the situation.
Smaller frame.
Too short.
Long hair.
Might be a crackhead, a hobo who wandered onto my property. Happens occasionally.
No. Too clean.
It’s their smell that hits me first, takes me off guard. Subtle, cinnamon sweet, and soothing.
I’m taken off guard again when blue-gray eyes, wide with shock, look me straight in the eye. More than the surprise at the bold gaze that doesn’t shy away from my glare, it’s the fact that I know those eyes that really has me shaken.
Where have I seen those eyes?
I don’t, however, know the soft, round face that goes with them, the flowing, waving dark hair framing that face that curls down to her waist. And I don’t know what to do now that I’ve got her pinned to the metal siding, becoming more and more aware of her cushy curves pressing up against me.
What I do know is that I should back off before a part of my body lets her know exactly what her scent and the feel of her hips are doing to me.
Fuck. It’s been so long since I’ve been this close to a woman.
“Well?” I grind out. It takes me a few seconds to realize she can’t answer around the grip of my hand at her throat. Whoops.
I step back, releasing her but keeping my guard up. She’s just been attacked, and you can never predict how someone’s going to react.
“Who are you?” I ask again, trying my best not to growl like a deranged grizzly bear. It’s difficult to focus beyond the thoughts of scrubbing the blood and sweat off my body and collapsing into my bed.
A fleeting image of her lying sprawled across my sheets naked flashes through my head.
I’m losing it. A deep breath helps clear my head.
She’s flushed, her hands quivering, probably from adrenaline. Most people aren’t used to what it does to you. She’ll get sick to her stomach soon from it.
