Kristen Ashley - Mystery Man

“Okay, now I know. Thanks for story time, Hawk, now are you going to go?”

His hands tightened and he whispered, “Don’t do that, babe.”

“Do what? Be an unfeeling bitch in the face of your pain? Sorry, is that not okay? Because, see, the day I was kidnapped and a man was shot protecting me, after a week of dealing with a bunch of really bad shit at the same time you came at me and got me to trust you, you ripped me to shreds Hawk. Firm and unwavering. You tore right through me, leaving me in tatters and you didn’t even fucking blink.”

“And now you know where my head was at and why I did that shit.”

“No, now I know that you saw Tack playing with your fuck toy and you don’t feel like sharing.”

His body froze and his fingers flexed. I could feel his fury but I didn’t care. I wasn’t done. The hurt he inflicted went too deep and I had to protect myself at all costs.

“That’s okay, baby,” I whispered. “There’s plenty of me to go around. But, rules are, you come, you make me come and then you go.”

He didn’t move and I felt his anger beating against me as he held me pinned against the wall. Then suddenly his body relaxed, the anger vanished and his thumbs swept my jaws.

“I cut you,” he murmured.

“Nothing a little cookie dough can’t cure,” I returned.

“Bullshit, Sweet Pea.”

It was then my body went still.

“Don’t call me that,” I snapped.

He ignored me again. “We were us for a week, a fuckin’ week, and I cut you deep.”

“God!” I exclaimed pushing against his waist again. “Are you ever going to go?”

He surprised me by moving back. Then he surprised me again by bending and putting a shoulder in my belly and then I was lifted up.

“Hawk!” I cried, pushing against his hips and kicking with my feet as he walked me into my room. “Put me down!” I demanded.

He did. He bent, bumped his shoulder, I flew through the air and landed on my back with a bounce on my bed.

I got up on my elbows and opened my mouth to speak or more accurately yell but I saw in the shadows that his hands looked to be at his cargoes.

Shit!

I turned to escape and nearly got to the other side of the bed when I was caught with an arm at the waist and hauled back.

“You’re not welcome to spend the night here,” I informed the room because my back was to him.

He let me go just long enough to flip the covers over us but not long enough for me to make good an escape. Then he curled into me, deeper than normal, pinning me to the bed with his torso, his leg hitched in mine, keeping me secured to him with his arm tight around my belly.

Then he lifted his head and his mouth was at my ear. “Go to sleep, Gwen,” he ordered.

Oh my God!

“Are you high?” I screeched.

His response to my query was to touch his tongue to the skin at the back of my ear then he settled into the pillows and further into me.

He was. He was high. Totally.

“I can’t believe you,” I hissed.

“Go to sleep, babe.”

I strained against his arm but it got super tight so I gave up and repeated, “I… cannot… believe you.”

“Baby, go to sleep.”

I stilled at his use of the word baby because I had to. The slightest movement I knew would shatter me.

When I fought back the pain, I announced, “I’m moving to Boston.”

He chuckled, deep and manly, and I felt his face in my hair at the back of my head where he said, “Babe.”

God!

I tried again. “You can’t stay here, Hawk.”

His arm gave me a squeeze, his head lifted and his mouth came back to my ear. “You’re livin’ in Badass World, baby,” he whispered in my ear. “Fair warning, until I fix what I cut in you, you’re there to stay.”

Oh.

Shit.

I woke pre-dawn, I could see a bit of light in the sky and I could feel Hawk’s heat at my back.

Damn.

I scooted out from under him, carefully but quickly, successfully made it off the bed and I grabbed my undies and rushed to the bathroom. I put them on, used the facilities and then walked out, going to my thermostat. It was on a timer and went down way low at night. It wouldn’t kick in for awhile. I turned it up and went to my office. I arranged the toss pillows on the armrest on the couch, lay down and then pulled my chenille throw over me. It would take awhile for the house to heat up. The chenille was snuggly soft and nice to cuddle under while watching TV but it wasn’t exactly ultra warm.

I lay there and my mind was filled with possible strategies of how to get out of my current predicament. I could go to Tack but that might send mixed messages and, anyway, I needed to sort myself out. I could report Hawk to Lawson but I might have difficulty explaining why, after Hawk broke in, I let him fuck me.

Hmm. Not good.

Hawk told me he’d come after me even if I stayed at Leo and Cam’s. Meredith and Dad were back home but Hawk had already proved he could infiltrate their house and would. Troy lived on the seventh floor in a secure condo building but I figured Hawk could beat a security system or scale walls.

Hmm. More not good.

Then, totally against my will, my mind slid to Simone Delgado dying because she loved her brother and was excited to be there when her niece or nephew entered the world.

I could see that.

I could also see Hawk’s grief swinging to anger because she let love veer her away from caution and she dragged their daughter into it, something as a mother she should never do. I could also see that would make him feel guilt, the extreme kind, loving her, his grief at her loss mixing with anger. An innocent decision, but he knew the danger and warned her against it, she didn’t listen and that happy, beautiful family in that photo he showed me was gone. Poof! He had the memory of their farewell and left to do his job not knowing it was the last memory they’d ever make.

And he was thousands of miles away. Simone and Sophie dead for days and he was thousands of miles away. Hawk, who controlled every nuance of his life, completely removed, powerless and thousands of miles away.

I tried not to think of this. I tried to force my mind back to ways to keep him out of my life, stop him from hurting me again, but all I could see in my head was that picture.

You weren’t movin’, Gwen, he had said.

Firebombs. Drive-bys. Kidnappings. He’d been through it all with me.

And he saw Brock Lucas carry my immobile body out of my house and he decided he wasn’t going to go there again and, damn it all to hell, who could blame him?

“Shit,” I whispered into the room, tucked my hands under my cheek, curled my knees to my chest and felt the heat seep into my house.

Then I fell back to sleep.

My knees were gently pushed down and this woke me up.

My eyes opened as I felt Hawk’s hips fit into the curve of mine then they slid up to look at him sitting on the edge of my couch.

His hand came out and he shifted the hair off my shoulder then his hand curved warm against my neck.

“Not a big fan of bein’ the reason you’re curled into a protective ball, babe,” he murmured as a good morning.

He was fully dressed, his face unhappy.

I had no response. I was still sleepy and having trouble getting my guard up.

He held my eyes as I mentally struggled. Then suddenly he moved, I was plucked out of the couch, planted in his lap and his arms went around me.

“Hawk,” I whispered.

“You could have anything, babe, anything in the world, what would it be?” he asked.

I blinked. “What?”

“Anything you want, it’s yours. What would it be?”

“Um… I don’t –”

His arms gave me a squeeze. “Anything, Gwen.”

“Ginger out of trouble and safe,” I answered.

His eyes studied my face for awhile after I answered. Then he said, “Next up.”

“Next up?” I repeated, confused.

One of his arms left me so his hand could bunch the hair at the side of my neck. “Next up, Gwen, the next most important thing you could have if you could have anything.”

“Hawk, I don’t understand.”

“Anything, no matter what it is.”

“Hawk –”

“Answer me, Sweet Pea.”

“Hawk, I don’t –”

“Gwen, answer me.”

“Simone and Sophie alive and you with them and happy like you were in that photo,” I blurted and his face froze into that blank mask.

Staring at him, sleepy and confused, I suddenly understood that mask. It slotted into place when he was hiding something important from me.

“Which would mean, of course,” I kept blurting, “that you would never darken my door.”

The mask fell away instantly and he grinned, huge, his dimples popping out and dang, it killed me, but I had to admit I really missed those dimples. Then he twisted his torso and I was on my back in the couch, his upper half on top of me, my hips in his hips, my legs dangling over the back.

His fingers trailed my hairline and tucked my hair behind my ear as he went on. “What’s next?”

I felt my eyes get squinty. “Why are you asking me this?”

“What’s next, Gwen?”

“I’m still sleepy,” I dodged.

His face came closer and his thumb stroked my jaw when he whispered his demand, “Baby, what’s next?”

God!

Okay, he wanted to play this game, whatever. I’d play.

“Meredith being my real mom not my stepmom.”