Convict: A Bad Boy Romance (50 page)

* * *

I
t takes a long time
, but I start feeling like I have my life back. I get another job as a junior architect at a firm that designs eco-friendly schools. I join an adult kickball league, and after games we drink beers together. I think some of them might actually be my friends.

I go to a lot of therapy, and while I don’t tell my therapist the whole truth, I think she guesses. We talk a lot about grief, a lot about trauma, and the phrase
Stockholm Syndrome
comes up more than once.

She doesn’t think I had it.

I go on coffee dates with men who wear knit hats and have tattoos of deer, men with names like Mark and Harrison and Patrick. They’re nice, decent young men who would probably make good boyfriend material.

They don’t do a
thing
for me. I turn down second dates.

Six months go by as I float through life, every day getting a little brighter, a little more in-focus.

* * *

A
nd then
, I see Alex.

I’m walking home from work and he’s sitting in a car at the end of a block, and even though he’s far away and I know better, the very deepest part of me is
certain
it’s him.

I walk toward the car, but then it starts, makes a U-turn, and drives away.

I’m left standing there in the northwest drizzle.

It wasn’t him
, I tell myself.
Don’t be stupid.

I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and let it out slowly.

Alex is dead
, I think.
What you’re experiencing is a normal part of trauma and grief and adjusting to new things and whatever the fuck else is going on with you right now
.

I look at the road where the car disappeared for another moment.

Then I walk home.

G
oddammit
, I think, speeding over the bridge. I don’t know where I’m going, I just know that I
have
to get away from Tessa.

She saw me. She
recognized
me. I could tell just from the look on her face, and peeling out like I was heading to a fire didn’t exactly make it less suspicious.

I’m dead
, I think.
She knows I’m dead. She’ll think she was seeing things.

I hope I’m right.

I drive aimlessly for a while before I finally go back to the apartment I’m renting. Well, technically, the DEA is still putting me up, since I’m still
very
much in the trial period of my employment.

I head inside, lock the door, turn on the TV and sit on the couch and think about Tessa, walking down the street wearing heels and a pencil skirt. Even though she was wearing an ugly fleece jacket she looked fucking
good
, like moving to Portland has been healthy for her.

Then I do the thing I’ve been doing twice a day since I got to Portland a few weeks ago: I jerk off, imagining my face between her thighs, my tongue in her pussy, Tessa
screaming
my name.

I think my dick is starting to chafe.

* * *

I
give
myself another week of torture, watching Tessa from afar. I feel like a fucking creep, like one of those men who can’t approach women, so they just lurk and beat off.

Technically, that’s what I’m doing.

Really, I’m not watching her. I’m watching to see if anyone
else
is watching her, anyone who might actually be looking for me. As far as I know, they’re all dead or in jail — you’re welcome, America — but I did rat out a massive paramilitary drug operation, so it’s hard to be too careful.

I lurk. I watch Tessa. I jerk off thinking about Tessa. It’s not exactly glamorous.

Finally, I decide it’s safe. There’s no one here, in Portland, trying to get me. Figuring that out was the easy part.

Now
I have to tell Tessa I’m alive.

What happens after that I have no idea. I haven’t seen her in eighteen months, not since I stormed out of that cabin in Yosemite. For most of that time, she’s been under the impression that I’m dead.

She’s probably going to be pissed. I can’t blame her.

I still want her so much I’m almost in physical pain, but it’s more than that. I want to hear her laugh again, I want to see the way her eyes glitter when she teases me.

I want to
hang out
with her.

I never want to
hang out
with women.

* * *

T
he day comes
. There’s this upscale market near her house, and she’s gotten into the habit of stopping there on her way home. I figure I should do this in public, so I head into the market and wait.

And wait. I pretend to look at organic quinoa, but really I’m glancing at the doors every few seconds, waiting to see if she’s come in yet.

I make my way slowly down the aisle, faking interest in all sorts of things. My thick-framed, flat-lens glasses are starting to get on my nerves, and I push them up again and again. I don’t need them to see, but I figure it worked for Clark Kent so it’s a good enough disguise.

I look at gluten-free pasta. I watch the doors.

She walks into view, and my heart jumps to my throat. I’m holding this pasta and just staring at her, but she stops in front of the doors without seeing me and frowns.

Then she shakes her head and walks on.

In no time flat I’m past the registers, gluten-free pasta on the floor, through the automatic doors and she’s walking along, maybe twenty feet in front of me. I jog a little to catch up, and then I’m behind her.

I didn’t plan this part. I’ve thought about it a million times, about her squeal of joy before she jumps into my arms, but I don’t actually know what to
say
.

She stops at a crosswalk. I stand behind her.

I take a deep breath.

D
o
I really want leftover chili again?
I think.
I could get delivery. I shouldn’t, but I could, if I really don’t feel like eating chili again
.

I walk toward home, wishing I hadn’t made so much chili. Now, if I don’t finish all twenty servings, I’ll feel guilty for wasting food. How much chili can one woman eat, though?

I stop at a crosswalk behind a few other people and wait for the light to change, still debating.

Maybe I could make nachos
.

Then I hear a familiar voice right behind my ear.

“Hey, tiger,” it says.

I feel like a trap door just opened underneath me. My heart slams into my ribcage.

In the split second it takes me to turn around, I think:
someone knows.

I don’t know how, but someone found out, and now they’re mocking me
.
All that keeping quiet I did, all those months that I didn’t tell anyone, it didn’t work.

But it’s not someone else. It’s Alex. Just goddamn
standing
there.

He’s grinning, his hands in his pockets, casual as fuck. He’s got glasses now, and he’s wearing jeans and a plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

I feel like reality is somehow sliding out of whack because it sure
looks
like Alex is standing on a street corner in Portland, but Alex is dead. He died. There were
dental
records.

I stare. People jostle me a little when the light turns green, but I don’t move.

I
can’t
move because Alex is standing
right the fuck in front of me
and Alex is
dead
.

“Surprise?” he says, giving a little shrug and raising his eyebrows.

I close my eyes and open them. He’s still there.

“You could say something,” he suggests.

What the
fuck
am I supposed to say?

Maybe
do you know you’re a ghost
or
actually, you’re dead
, or the simple, elegant
what the fuck!?

I don’t say any of those.

“You have glasses?” I say.

He laughs that deep, throaty laugh that he has and in that moment I
know
it’s him, I can feel it in my bones.

“That’ll do,” he says.

“What the
fuck
,” I say.

“The lenses are flat,” he says, taking the thick frames off his face and looking at them. “But I think they make me look smart.”

“I didn’t mean the glasses that time, asshole,” I say. “I meant
this,
” I say, windmilling my arms around to indicate
you’re alive and in Portland
, and I nearly hit a middle-aged woman walking down the sidewalk.

“Dental records aren’t hard to fake, especially when the CIA is interested in keeping you alive,” he says with a shrug. “Or was that the DEA? Something in that alphabet soup.”

I put one hand on my forehead and just stare at him. He looks like he thinks that explained everything.

We’re still standing right in front of the crosswalk, blocking foot traffic, so he takes me gently by the arm and we cross the street. I feel like an invalid being led, but I’m too baffled and shocked to protest right now.

We stop in front of the plate glass windows of some salon. The women getting their hair cut look at us, but it’s the last thing on my mind.

I take a deep breath. Then I take another one.

“Okay,” I say. “Start at the beginning. Or something. Start
somewhere
that makes sense, please.”

“I stole a car, drove to San Francisco, and walked into the regional headquarters of the Drug Enforcement Agency at eight the next morning,” he says. “They were pretty interested in what I had to say. One thing led to another and I single-handedly took down one of the most powerful drug cartels in the world.”

He shrugs. I stare.

“Most people are impressed,” he teases.

“Being a DEA informant isn’t exactly single-handedly bringing down
anything
,” I say, because even now my first instinct is to argue with him.

“I was instrumental,” he says. “And it sounds good.”

“You’re still a cocky jerk,” I say, and he laughs.

Then he steps closer and leans down a little, and all of a sudden this sidewalk is
intimate
.

“I’m still a
very
cocky jerk,” he says, his voice going low and teasing.

I turn
bright
fucking red, and he grins the exact same rakish grin that I remember. I try to ignore him and swallow, hard.

“What are you doing in Portland?” I ask.

“I got a job working for the DEA office here,” he says, casually, like it’s not a big deal.

“You have a
job
?” I ask.

“I’ve always had a job,” he says. “This one just comes with a retirement account.”

“They hired
you
?”

“Who better?” he asks. “That’s not the
real
reason I’m in Portland, though.”

There’s a knot in my stomach and it tightens.

“It’s got the most strip clubs per capita of any city in the US?” I ask, my voice sounding feeble even to my own ears. “Great food trucks?”

He reaches down and takes my hand, the look in his eyes absolutely
wicked
. Fuck
everything
, my body’s responding like someone took a match to it, a wild surge rushing through me that I haven’t felt in over a year.

The ladies in the hair salon are
all
watching, and I realize that we probably look like he’s about to propose.

He’s about to propose
something
, that’s for goddamn sure.

“Because it’s been a year and a half since I was inside you and I
still
think about it every day,” he says, and not very quietly, either.

A girl walking past gives me a
very
surprised look, and I hope the salon windows are at least a little soundproof.

He kisses my knuckles while he stares into my eyes, the kiss long and slow and sensual, even though I’m sure it looks terribly chivalrous to anyone watching.

“I want to taste
every
inch of you, tiger,” he says. “I want to feel your body under me. I want your lips on my cock and I want to lick you and make you come until you can’t come any more.”

He flips my hand over and presses his lips to my palm and then to my wrist, and it feels like an electric current is running from him to me.

I wonder, very seriously, if I’m dreaming. It wouldn’t be the first dream like this I’ve had. It wouldn’t be the fiftieth.

“We should talk first,” I say. I’m breathing hard, and I can’t look him in the eye. “We should talk somewhere
public
because I’m still not really sure what’s going on, and I’ve been to a lot of therapy and my therapist says—”

He cups my face in my hand and kisses me, and I shut up instantly. The kiss is slow and languorous, his lips moving gently against mine, and I give in to it completely.

He slides his hand around my waist and I think I
whimper
, pushing back against him, one hand on his hard, muscled shoulder.

The kiss doesn’t end. I feel like time has stopped and I open my mouth against his, delicately darting my tongue inside his mouth, inviting him in. Our tongues wrestle and before I know it, my body is pressed against his, the thick rod of his erection pressed against my belly as we make out in public.

This isn’t a kiss. This is foreplay.

When we finally break apart I’m breathing hard. A middle-aged couple shoots us a disgusted glare.

A woman inside the salon bursts into applause, and then a couple others follow suit. Surprised, I give them a little half wave, and the woman closest to me gives me a thumbs-up.

Alex slides his hand over my ass and gives it a gentle squeeze through my dress, and the woman whistles.

“Where do you want to talk?” he asks.

“My apartment’s two blocks away,” I whisper, dropping my eyes.

“Sounds good,” he says, and he finally lets me go.

As we walk, he takes my hand in his and holds it tight. It feels so
strange,
but I think I like it.

We don’t speak as we walk, because I can’t think of a thing to say that isn’t either stupid or too dirty to say in public. I unlock the front door of the building and as I do, he steps up close behind me and his hand slides up my dress from below.

“Public,” I growl, jamming my key into the lock.

“Hurry up, then,” he says.

Inside, I glance at the elevator but I know it takes forever, so I pull him into the stairwell and before the door has even shut, I’m up against the concrete wall, his mouth rough on mine, his hands already under my dress.

“My apartment’s on the next floor,” I gasp. “It’s another hundred feet.”

“I can’t wait that long,” he growls.

Now my dress is around my waist and he kneels down and actually takes my panties in his teeth and pulls them off so they puddle around my feet.

Then he slides his fingers between my legs and rests his forehead against my lower belly, exhaling
hard
and squeezing my thigh with one hand.

“You’re
dripping
wet, tiger,” he says, his fingers exploring me gently. “All I did was talk a little dirty, you know.”

“Shut up,” I whisper, and he chuckles. He pulls his fingers out, looks up at me, and licks them while he
groans
.

“It’s almost like you haven’t been properly fucked in a year and a half,” he says.

“Well, are you going to sit there and talk about it, or are you going to do something about it?” I ask, but before the question’s even out of my mouth he’s lifted me up, carried me to the stairs and sat me in the middle of a flight, my ass against the cold concrete, my skirt still around my waist, one leg on the bannister, his face between my legs.

He licks me fast and hard, a low rumbling sound coming from deep in his chest. His tongue flicks back and forth over my nub as I bite my lip and moan. The sound echoes through the staircase, but I couldn’t care less.

He moves slightly and then his tongue’s inside me, fucking me hard and I arch my back.

“Fuck yes,” I whisper, and he groans again in response.

Fingers slide inside me and I grab onto the bannister.

“You’re gonna make me come right here on the stairs,” I half-moan, half-whisper.

“Good,” he says, moving his fingers in a way that makes me gasp.

He licks me again, the strikes slow and hard and exact, and just as I’m about to go over the edge and possibly alert the entire building to the fact that I’m currently getting tongue-fucked in the stairwell, a door opens.

Footsteps echo.

I gasp and pull my dress down as Alex stops, looks up, and winks at me, but at least he’s enough of a gentleman to pull me to my feet, even though I’m shaking.

I grab his hand and take the stairs two at a time, and just before I reach my floor, there’s Mrs. Ennis, who lives on the third floor and writes a lot of stern notes that she tapes up around the building.

She nods at me, then looks at Alex suspiciously.

“Hi,” I say to her, then pull the door open and bolt through before she can respond.

I’m breathing hard and shaking when I get to my door, only two down, and fish through my bag for my apartment keys.

Alex is behind me again, my dress hoisted, and I hear a
zip
noise and then I know his cock is out because he’s sliding it between my legs, brushing it against my swollen lips and over-sensitive clit.

“We can do this here,” he murmurs. “I don’t care.”

“We are
not
fucking in the hallway,” I hiss, finally getting the key into the deadbolt on my door.

I cannot
believe
he’s doing this, practically in public, but there’s also a big part of me that wants to give up on unlocking this door and just fuck him right this second, pressed up against the wall.

The key goes in, the knob turns, and then we’re practically falling through the door and I slam it shut behind me.

The front door opens into my living room, and I’ve got this little side table right by the door, for keys and mail and shit. Alex shoves everything off it with one hand and then lifts me onto it, my legs wrapped around him, my back leaning against the wall.

I grab his cock in my hand and squeeze, a shock of excitement going through me.

“Condom,” he says, his breath quick and fast.

“I went on the pill,” I whisper. “Are you clean?”

He just nods.

“Good, because I want you inside me
right now
,” I say.

His puts his hand over mine on his cock and guides it, letting the head rub past my clit. I gasp with pleasure and then he’s there, at my entrance, and I have never wanted
anything
more than I want his cock right now.

“Tell me again,” he says.

I try to push him in but it doesn’t work.
He’s
in control now.

“What if I say no?” I ask.

“I swear to God you’re the most difficult woman I’ve ever met,” he says, leaning forward.

“That’s why you came all the way here to fuck me,” I say. His hand is still closed around mine, closed around his cock, and he’s staring into my eyes and even though we’re both still dressed, I feel the most exposed I’ve ever felt.

“So
fuck
me,” I whisper. “Fuck me hard and fast and
bare
because that’s
exactly
how I want you right now.”

He takes his hand off mine and slides inside me with a single, hard stroke and I moan out loud because it feels so good it nearly brings tears to my eyes, but then he doesn’t move again for a moment, just stays buried inside me to the hilt.

“Your cunt still fits me like a glove,” he says, right into my ear. “I think you were custom-made for me, tiger.”

He’s dirty as hell and I
like
it.

“
God
I wanted this,” I moan.

His cock feels incredible, like it’s filling every space inside me perfectly, like my brain might short-circuit from pure sensation.

He leans his forehead on mine, pulls out and eases himself back in, like he’s just barely in control.

“I almost forgot how hot it is when you talk dirty,” he says as he fills me impossibly deep again.