Hate Fuck Part Three (12 page)

The punching bags are a big draw, too. My gut tugs at the haunted look at the new kid’s face as he unleashed himself on one tonight, ineffectively whacking away at it. By the time we were done, he was powering it into my shoulder as I held it on the other side.

I’m not the guy who invites confidences. Nobody ever spills their guts to me unless I’m making them, and those days are behind me—for the most part. But I can teach kids how to punch right. How to channel that fury and harness their own power.

Elijah’s face as he promised to come back again—that’s why I go back.

And the woman inside this apartment gets the credit for me going in the first place.

She’s in the kitchen, cleaning up, still in the tank top and shorts she was wearing when I left. She gives me a slow, appreciative up and down, then flicks her gaze to the oversized clock on the wall.

“You’re all sweaty,” she says, licking her lips.

“It’s hot out there.” I prowl toward her, pulling off my shirt. I maybe flex my abs a little—anything for my girl.

Giggling, she turns her back to the counter and hoists herself up. “It’s getting hot in here.”

“We’ve got some time?” I fit myself between her bare legs and tug down her tank, baring her lush tits.

She nods, leaning back on her hands. “Gonna get me dirty?”

“Filthy.” I lean over her, almost kissing her before dodging to the side and tasting her neck.

“Get back here,” she demands, sliding her hands into my hair. She’s not the only one who likes to be tugged around. She drags our mouths together, our kiss suddenly desperate and slightly clumsy as I knead her breasts, the rub of her nipples against my palms making me rock hard.

I drop one hand to tease at her waistband, and she lifts her hips.
Get me naked
. The order is clear, and I’m happy to comply. I strip her bare, settling her ass right on the edge of the counter. She leans back again, her pale, luscious curves begging for my touch, the trim brown curls above her pussy pointing to the pink lips I never get enough of.

I drop to my knees and run my nose up her thigh, breathing her in. She spreads even wider as I get to the good stuff—shiny, pink, and warm, her cunt is beautiful.

“We do have an engagement party to get ready for,” she whispers, and I lick her for being silly. I know we do.

“Pretty sure the party starts when we get there.”

“You—ahhh!” The argument ends with me sucking her clit, then it’s just warm moans and panting little breaths from her as I wind her up until she’s begging for my cock.

Fuck, I love that.

Shoving to my feet again, I notch the fat head of my cock into her soft, wet folds and ease into her tight channel. I love this, too, the way her pussy clutches me, like I need to be a little rough to get all the way in.

The way she claws at my back when I get there and doesn’t let me go.

“So hot, so tight,” I growl, wrapping my arms around her waist, sliding one hand up her back as I press the other against her pelvis, low in her back, holding her in place as I set a blistering pace.

It doesn’t take long. Her legs tighten around me as she humps back against me, rocking her clit where we join each time I slam into her. As soon as she seizes up, trembling in orgasm, I let myself go. Three thrusts later, I’m spilling myself inside her, my come spurting out so fast it almost hurts.

We’re both breathing fast, dragging ragged breaths into our lungs as we cling together. I press my forehead against hers and whisper that I love her.

“I love you too, more and more every day.”

“We should do something about that—like get married.”

She grins at me. “Sounds like a plan.” Taking a deep breath, she slides her palms down my sweat-slicked chest and pushes me away from her. “And now I’m sweaty too, so let’s have a shower, yes?”

Once we’re clean again, Hailey sits at her dressing table and starts putting on her makeup. I slowly put on my boxer briefs and dress pants, but I keep getting drawn back to my fiancée, perched on a stool in a black slip.

I quietly come up behind her, leaning over to kiss her shoulder before she can stop me. “You’re breathtaking,” I tell her under my breath, and she smiles.
 

“I’m not even wearing my dress yet.”

“It’ll be stunning, too.” I want to kiss her again. There’s nothing I like more than seeing Hailey breathless and aching. She licks her lips, and I get it—I want more, too. “Come on, beautiful, we’re going to be late.”

“You’re so mean,” she says with a smile, turning her attention back to the mirror.
 

I cross our new bedroom to my closet and pull on my shirt, buttoning it neatly before sliding on my jacket. “Tie? No tie?”

“Tie,” she calls out. “Let’s pretend we’re civilized tonight.”

Overrated, but maybe I’ll use it to tie her up when we get home.

We’re going to a restaurant with her friends from work—she’s now a full-time junior employment counselor at the agency she did her internship at—as well as my partners, and her younger sister and brother.

Her older sister has moved to Los Angeles, but they’re slowly rebuilding a relationship of sorts. I’m not sure Hailey and Taylor will ever be close, but everything is different now.

Almost normal. It’s weird and kind of wonderful.

“What are you thinking about?” Hailey asks as she hands me her necklace. She’s wearing a dress now, black silk, and my diamonds flash on her left hand. The necklace is a hand-crafted twisted metal piece she bought at Eastern Market a few weeks earlier for twenty bucks. That’s Hailey in a nutshell.

“How lucky I am that I have no will-power when it comes to resisting you.” I kiss her cheek, and offer her my arm.

When we get to the restaurant, we run into her friend Tegan at the entrance. There’s some squealing and ooohing and ahing over outfits, then we head inside, where everyone else is gathered. Everyone except one of my co-workers.
 

Once I’ve shaken hands and accepted congratulations from Hailey’s friends, I find Jason and Wilson at the bar. “Where’s Ellie?”

Jason’s clenching his jaw so hard I think he might crack a tooth. Wilson’s the one who finally answers. “She quit. Left a resignation letter on her chair at the end of the day today.”

“What?” Well, shit. That puts a damper on things. “Any clue why? Can we get her back?”

Wilson opens his mouth, but Jason interjects before our hacker can say anything else. “Leave it alone.”

“But I don’t want to get a new receptionist if we can woo her back. Is it money? When was the last time we gave her a raise?”

“That would just make it worse,” Jason mutters, shoving his hand through his hair. His top button is undone and his eyes are a bit wide.

“Are you drunk?” I don’t mind, as long as he doesn’t make a scene, but Jason rarely drinks, and never to excess.
 

He pins his gaze darkly on me for a minute before reaching for his glass again. He raises it in the air. “Only a little bit, my friend. We’re celebrating.”

I exchange a look with Wilson, but there’s a limit to how much digging I’m going to do at my engagement party. “As long as we do it safely.”

He gives me a look as if to say,
yes Dad
. The role reversal isn’t lost on either of us.

Tag joins us next, and we have a more genuine toast to my future bride, but even as we all sit for dinner, I can’t shake that look on Jason’s face. I know that look. I’ve worn it before.

Things for Jason are going to get worse before they get better.

— —
 

One week later, Tag and I are standing together just off the dais at the Washington Club. He’s going to give a keynote address to a monthly luncheon put on by the Chamber of Commerce. A pretty regular event, but Tag’s no public speaker. Jason was supposed to do it, but he’s such a fucking curmudgeon again, he can’t do it—when he flew to Dallas for work, we all let out a sigh of relief.

I should do it, I’m more comfortable up there, but I just don’t want to anymore. I shrug at Tag as he stands in front of me. He looks older. We all do, I’m sure. “It’s a good speech.”

“You should know. You wrote it. You sure you don’t want to deliver it?”

I nod. “Never been more sure of anything in my life.”

He gets it. Maybe if things had gone differently with Kendra, he’d be doing the same thing.

I pat him on the shoulder. “This was never the life for me. We probably should have seen that from the beginning.”

I’m not quitting. I’m just stepping back—into the shadows. Most of the time I’ll be looking for clients. Sometimes I’ll draw on my old skills, and strike when I’m needed. I’ll do it anonymously, and I’ll do it for good.

The rest of the time, I’ll be Hailey’s.

I'm no longer a gladiator. I’m not sure what I am, yet, but my battles aren’t for public consumption.

Tag makes his way to the podium and I slowly walk to the back of the room, listening to the words I know by heart. I look at the faces of Washington’s business people, watching them react. And when Tag pauses before delivering the last line, I stop watching them and I zero in on him.

His shoulders are square, his head is tall, and he looks determined as fuck. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. We’re all in on this.
 

He looks around the room, then finds me and nods. His voice rings loud and clear, hopefully striking fear in the hearts of our former clients. “The Horus Group is no longer for hire by the wealthiest and most powerful. We're no longer in the business of making excuses. We're here to make things right.”

THE END

(for now…)

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—
also by ainsley booth—
 

contemporary military romance

writing as

— ZOE YORK —

PINE HARBOUR

Pine Harbour is military small town romance, full of angsty history and secret desires. Each book is a standalone story about a different couple, but two families—the Minellis and the Fosters—weave through-out the series. And for the summer of 2015, the first book in the series is FREE!

I hope you enjoy!

~ Zoe York (Ainsley Booth’s contemporary romance alter-ego)

PINE HARBOUR

Love in a Small Town - Rafe & Olivia

Love in a Snow Storm - Jake & Dani

Love on a Spring Morning - Ryan & Holly

— LOVE IN A SMALL TOWN —

Six years. Two break ups. One divorce. They should be over each other.

Police officer and army reservist Rafe Minelli knows better than to tell his wife no, particularly since they aren’t married anymore. She can’t hightail it out of town, though, not when they’ve finally broken through the post-divorce cold war status quo.

Olivia Minelli needs to leave Pine Harbour. It’s just too hard to see Rafe moving on without her—even if he says he doesn’t want to. But when a new and exciting job falls into her lap, she needs to choose: protect her heart, or take the new job and risk getting emotionally entangled with her ex-husband. Again.
 

— AN EXCERPT —

It was bad enough that after going through a
very public divorce from the man Olivia still loved, she had to serve him breakfast four times a week. That she looked forward to those mornings…well, that wasn’t great either. But Rafe worked two jobs and lived in a tiny one-room apartment. And the other option for eggs and bacon was his mother’s café.

Liv shuddered at the thought of spending even one morning a week with her ex-mother-in-law. So she couldn’t fault Rafe for keeping his regular stool at the diner she worked at, even if it didn’t help the official party line held by all six hundred people in their small town of Pine Harbour—that their split had been her fault and Rafe was completely innocent.

The former point was true. The latter was not. Parsing the difference with the town busy-bodies was a futile effort though, so she let the whispers slide. They just added to the steaming pile of crap that was her life.

But the absolute worst was that today, Rafe had brought a date to breakfast.

And she’d serve him eggs and paste on a smile, but then she was calling a real estate agent. Whatever cosmic joke had made her fall in love with Rafe Minelli had delivered its final punch line.

He wasn’t in uniform today—either of them—but he still looked achingly good. Faded blue jeans that she recognized from the irregular rip on one of his solid thighs. Old enough that she’d washed them many times. The denim would be soft, and when he turned around, his wallet would be clearly imprinted in his back right pocket. And even though she wanted to grab a butter knife and gouge his heart out, first she wanted one more look at his magnificent ass.

Because she was a glutton for punishment, and Rafe delivered in bucket loads. Tall, dark, and handsome didn’t do him justice. Olivia grabbed a washcloth and wiped down the counter as she watched him guide his date to a booth under the window.

No!
She wanted to shout.
You sit at the counter and ask me if it’s been busy. I bug you that you need a haircut and we both remember that time I gave you a trim in the bathroom. How you slid your hands under my shirt and teased my nipples while I squealed for you to hold still.
The walk down memory lane cut sharper than usual because it wasn’t shared. Even though she knew she needed to move on, let go of Rafe and start dating again, she wasn’t prepared to see
him
do just that. And the pretty blonde woman sitting across from him twisting the shit out of a sugar packet was wearing one of his plaid shirts, so Olivia couldn’t even pretend it was a breakfast meeting—not that Rafe would ever have business that needed to be discussed in a diner.

He was a full-time police officer and a part-time soldier. Had been a full-time son and a part-time husband, too. No room for a wife, definitely no room for a side job. No, this was definitely a morning-after-a-sleep-over breakfast and Olivia had to serve him fucking coffee. She wrenched the carafe from the warmer, grabbed two menus from under the counter, and pasted on her sweetest eat-shit-and-die smile before squaring her shoulders and approaching the couple.