“Sex, work, food, beer then you’re back to Arizona, partner,” I reminded him.
“I’d move here. I’d move to the goddamned, fucking moon to wake up to you in my bed.”
Holy shit!
“Just came inside you, Sylvie, no condom. That was just you and me, nothing in between. Nothing. And you know exactly what I fuckin’ mean,” he remarked and I blinked.
Shit. How did that happen?
Shit!
He pulled out, rolled off and I closed my legs, turned to the side, curled my knees up and tried to sort out the ten thousand thoughts crashing in my head. The priority of which was Creed’s badass sperm, likely Olympic-class swimming with pinpoint accuracy, inside me and whether I was up-to-date on my birth control pills.
Fuck!
Letting my mind wander to heretofore, unknown unsafe sex was a mistake. I was doing that and therefore not processing the fact that he was prowling to my mirror. I also didn’t process the fact that he snatched a long scarf I had dangling on it and was prowling back, twisting it and doing something with it in his hands.
But I processed his knee hitting the bed and his hand capturing my arm.
I shot up and tried to pull away.
“What the fuck?” I clipped as he looped the scarf over my hand, it tightened at my wrist and, even as I pulled and struggled, before I knew it, he’d tied the other end to my headboard.
My eyes shot to him and rage shot through my system.
“You fucking fucker!” I screeched.
“Look at my hand, Sylvie,” he ordered, calm as could be, the fucking fucker!
“Fuck you!” I yelled, my other hand going toward my wrist tied to the bed but he batted it gently away. My eyes shot back to him. “Let me untie it!”
“Look at my goddamned hand, Sylvie,” he bit out, calm a fleeting memory.
“Fuck you!”
He moved. My eyes moved to where he moved and I saw his fingers tug at the end of the scarf, a slight yank and my wrist was instantly released.
I froze and stared.
Then I wasn’t frozen anymore but not because I moved. Because Creed’s hand wrapped around the back of my neck, he pulled me to him and both his arms closed around me, plastering me to his body.
“That’s how you do it,” he growled in my face. “You do it so, you get tweaked, you still got control and you can get yourself loose any fuckin’ time you want. You do it and you have a safe word so, it goes places you don’t like, you say it and it… fuckin’… stops. The guy who did that shit to you, Sylvie, he was a goddamned animal, takin’ from you what you didn’t want to give. Not all men are. In fact, most men aren’t. And I’m a man who’s not.”
“Let go of me,” I snapped.
“I gave it time. Your mouth on my tat, I’m done with givin’ it time. You’re not gonna dig deep, I’m diggin’ in there for you.”
“That is not gonna happen.”
“It is. You don’t wanna talk. I will. He promised me, Sylvie.”
My body went solid before I tried to jerk away but his arms only tightened so tight I could barely breathe.
His face got close and his voice got low. “He promised me. I would never, ever fuckin’ leave you to him unless he promised me.”
I glared into his eyes.
“He lied,” he whispered.
“We’re done,” I hissed. “You’re out. We partner but you’re gone. Outta my life. Outta my house. Outta my bed. Outta everything but the job.”
“No fuckin’ way and you know what?”
“I don’t care what,” I clipped.
He ignored me. “The way I know it’s no fuckin’ way is because you won’t be able to let me go. I can leave. I can be gone. You can try to make it just about the job but you won’t be able to do it. I know that because you didn’t kick my ass out, Sylvie, not completely. You’re keepin’ it about the job and that shit is not about Knight. It’s about finding a way to stay connected to me. You’re foolin’ yourself, baby, but you sure as hell aren’t foolin’ me. I been dead for sixteen fuckin’ years, suckin’ in air and not gettin’ any oxygen until I sat down with Knight Sebring and he told me the names of his team. Then, finally, fuckin’ finally I was breathin’ again. And you know, don’t fuckin’ bullshit me, you know you been dead until you woke up that morning, rolled off your bed and aimed your gun at me. Try to deny it, Sylvie, but your tongue traced your name on our pier on my skin because you needed that. You need me. You won’t stay away and you won’t let me go because, baby, you can’t breathe without me.”
Then he let me go. I fell to my hand in the bed and watched as he moved through the room, bending and tagging his shit before he walked right out.