Bounty (6 page)

L
iam puts
his hand to my cheek, and I think my heart has melted into molten glass, ready to be reformed, shaped.

This is like torture — he showed up here, yeah. Flirting. Brought me a gift, even, something thoughtful. But he’s such a mystery, and I, like an
idiot
, told him my real name. If my dad knew, he would be furious.

He cradles my face in his hands as he pulls me in for a searing kiss. His lips on mine are fire, agonizingly intense, as his fingers flutter across my ribcage, just grazing gently across me. He’s utterly in control of this kiss and it’s hot sweet honey. My hands roam across the broad planes of his back, the thick, corded muscles, the places under his tank top I know he must have more tattoos. Tattoos that I want to see.

His hands move to my ass as the kiss intensifies, and I find myself pressed against him. I can feel his cock, rock hard, straining through his jeans, pressing into my low belly. Heat begins to pool at that point of contact, and in my core, tightening and throbbing.

I’m insanely attracted to this man, even though I’m still not sure if he’s the bad boy, trouble with a “T” type of guy I thought he was at first.

I really don’t know anything about him. I don’t even know what he does for a living, how he has so much money, why his hands — now brushing up under my shirt and stroking my back, eliciting a fluttering in my nipples — are so rough and callused.

Liam Copperhead is a mystery, and maybe that, more than anything, is what’s turning me on.

It’s dangerous. He’s dangerous.

I shouldn’t be letting this happen.

And yet I can’t help but try to curl around him tighter, press my hips into his more tightly. I can feel his erection growing, twitching from beneath his zipper. I want to feel it, but I don’t know if we’re there. We’re just kissing, after all, even if it’s massively clear that we’re both aroused out of our minds.

I pull back for a moment. His face is
flushed
, and my heart is beating out of my chest.

I shouldn’t be doing this.

I’m in no place, emotionally. God, in the middle of my
shop,
too? And I told him my real name. My father will be furious. I’m not even sure how much Liam likes me, and it’s clear I like him
way
too much. I’m not ready for another rejection, my heart just can’t take it. I’ve already started to latch onto the small details that make me feel possessive — his one dimple, the way his canine teeth are just a little too pointy, the jagged arcs of vascularity across his forearms. His scars. Little things that make me think
mine.

I thought Alan was mine. At first, anyway.

This is dangerous.

“Liam…” But my voice fails me. I’m not even sure what I was going to say.
We can’t do this,
maybe?
I want to fuck you
, more like.
I want to lick your tattoos. Too much.

“April,” he says back, his voice throaty and low, and then my lips are crashing back into his almost without my permission, my hands wrapping around his belt, his hands in my hair, and then down my shirt, then up
under it
.

Nodding, moaning, and kissing is all I can manage. The room is hot from the now-late-afternoon sunshine, the hot glass, the welding tools, but more than anything, the fire that’s been lit deep in my core.

My palm presses against his cock through his jeans and it feels unbelievably huge. My clit is tingling just thinking about his size and I can feel my pulse pounding between my legs. Hovering my fingers right at the zipper, stroking along it, I can feel him getting harder and harder. A sharp intake of breath hisses from his teeth, and the sound makes me suddenly even more aware of my own desire. I’m so wet and he hasn’t even touched me.

“Mmmm,” he rumbles, and for a split second I thought he was going to say
mine.

I really am crazy.

So why not? I’m already in over my head, setting myself up for more heartbreak. Why not go for broke?

I unzip his pants and let his cock spring out, tenting his boxer briefs. The sight of the bulge turns me on like nothing I’ve ever felt before. I reach into his fly and pull him out, and he is fucking
glorious.
I’ve never had a man so huge, so rock hard. I can just imagine his girth filling up my tight pussy, stretching me to accommodate it. How full I would feel, how overwhelming it would be.

His eyelids have dropped, giving him the most insanely sexy bedroom eyes. His button-down is rumpled, untucked, the front of his pants undone, his erection standing at attention, the tip leaking precum. He looks fucking
gorgeous.

“I want you so bad,” I tell him plainly. It’s true. I’m aching for him, my arousal is so intense it’s nearly painful. I’ve never felt anything like it. “I want you to take me. Please. Can you feel how much I want you?”

I take his hand and pull his fingertips to my wet pussy. I’ve soaked through my panties and my yoga pants. His fingers on my mound make me buck involuntarily into his hand.

He presses his palm against me more firmly, and I start to moan.

“Oh god, yes.”

Before I know it he’s lifted me up by my ass, grunting only slightly as he presses his hard length into my throbbing clit through the thin fabric of my clothes. He staggers back onto the table until we’re both pressed against it, and I respond by grinding myself along him as his hips buck up to meet me.

“More.”

“Fuck.”

He pulls at the waistline of my yoga pants, and I drop off him a second so he can tug them over my bottom and down my thighs to pool on the floor. As I step out of them, he picks me back up and places me back on his lap, and god his cock feels even hotter through just the thin layer of my lacy, flowery underwear.

“The panties?” I ask.

“I like them,” he says, and stretches them to the side to reveal my lips, flushed hot pink, poised just over the leaking tip of his cock. I’ve never been this wet in my life, I’ve never looked at an erection so hungrily, been so aroused by the mere sight of a cock, wanted it so badly inside of me.

He rubs his thumb against my clit and I feel another deluge, hips bucking, inner walls clenching. I’m on fire.

“Please fuck me,” I say. “Please. You’re so hard, I want you in me. I want you to hold me down and fill me up. Please. I’m begging for it.”

His reaction is intense – his cock leaps against my outer lips, I can see it pulsating, and the moan that escapes him is animal. The deep, guttural sound makes my pussy twitch in anticipation, clenching around nothingness, just waiting for his sweet, thick, hard cock to stretch me. I want to milk him dry with my cunt.

He positions the tip of his cock over my entrance, and feeling it there, just inches from plunging in, is sweet torture.

“Please,” I moan.

W
ith this tiny
, capable, sexy-as hell woman in my arms — no, bent over, actually
begging
for it — I’ve lost it. I’m hard as a rock for her, inches from her sweet depths, the tip of my cock just brushing against her wetness, her rocking back into me,
begging
for me to spear through her hot folds…

But I can’t do it. As badly as I want to plunge forward, pump into her over and over until we’re both screaming in ecstasy, I can’t do it.

I’m using her. This is wrong. There’s no need for me to have sex with her to get the information I want — I’ve already learned so much just flirting and hanging around her shop, bugging it. I’ll soon know the details of how her father funnels “patrons” to this establishment, how much money is flowing legally and how much is being laundered back out. I could get in touch with some of her clients, trace them. I will most certainly be able to get closer to Sullivan through her. I even know that April isn’t totally innocent – whether she’s actually in on it, or just barely cognizant that something’s wrong, I know she’s not 100% in the clear.

I can get ahold of her cell phone no problem. Probably get her to invite me to her home, bug it, get my hands on her laptop.

There’s no need to have sex with her to accomplish my goals.

But with her tight lips pressing against my tip, wet and ready for me, with her moaning my name… how can I say no? I’d be lying if… I’d be lying.

Her face swims before my mind’s eye, tears in the corners of her eyes. How would she look at me, if she knew I was only here to arrest her father?

I pull back.

“April…” I say, and she turns around, and yeah, that’s the face.

Heartbroken.

But if I fuck her over as well as fucking her, it’s just… it would be fucked up. My gut twists at the thought. I can’t examine those feelings too closely but I know I’ll feel like a sack of shit if I tap that booty today, and tap her phone tomorrow. I just will. Not because I’ve never done it before, but April is different somehow. Naïve. Or maybe it’s because I have feelings for her. Actual feelings.
Shit
.

My breath leaves me in one whoosh.

“I’m sorry,” I say, and pull further back, tucking myself back in, painful as it is.

“Oh,” she says, and straightens up, pulling her panties back into proper alignment. “God, no,
I’m
sorry, I’m an idiot –“

“Don’t be, it’s my –“

“So embarrassing –“

“No, you were —“

“I misunderstood,” she says, putting up her hands. She steps back into her pants, hitching them up around her hips. Wincing. At what I imagine must be the aftermath of arousal, at least in part. I know my balls are gonna be blue. But I’m sure she also feels some level of embarrassment at being rejected. “I’m sorry that I… I appreciate you, um, clarifying. Rather than taking advantage.”

You’re a sack of shit Liam. Lying to her, and she’s
thanking
me? I don’t know what she thinks — that I’m just not into her? Yet I’m a good guy for not fucking her anyway?

She said I was good people.

She couldn’t be more wrong.

“It’s really not a problem. Please don’t feel bad,” I say. I don’t normally try to talk women
out
of having sex with me, so I’m not sure how. I want to tell her that she shouldn’t get involved with me. That I’m bad news and only going to hurt her. “It’s not you at all. It’s me, I’m just –”

“Oh,
God
. Please spare me.” She buttons up her shirt with furiously efficient motions, starts righting things on the table, keeping her hands busy. “Please just leave.”

I wish I could explain.

“April…”

“It’s fine, but please just go now.” She still doesn’t look up at me.

I linger a moment more.

She turns her back on me and starts slamming wood blocks into place, putting on work gloves, grabbing a face mask and a power drill. Fiddling with the different bits.

“I was on a good roll, and I’d like to keep working. Thanks for the materials, Liam, it was a good idea.”

A dismissal.

I watch her hunched shoulders and the back of her mussed up ponytail, the little dangling straps of her goggles flying as she checks back and forth between different pieces of her power sander.

I guess that’s my cue to go.

“I’m sorry.”

I leave.

I
feel utterly pathetic
.

Tears blur my vision as I work the materials, build out my clocks. Stained glass pieces, wood, and curling black iron. A whole new line, more colorful, but less ostentatious in shape and size. The cage Liam brought me really was the perfect catalyst to make this come together.

Liam.

Twice in a row, I’ve been desperate for this guy, who I
know
is trouble, and twice he’s shot me down. This has got to end.

My dad would know just the right thing to say to snap me out of this. He’s always been a great listener, always knows how to urge me towards being true to myself. I want to confess to him everything about Alan (which seems almost ages ago already, and it’s only been a little more than a week), that he was right all along.

He never liked Alan all that much. I thought dating a lawyer would be good enough, but that didn’t seem to impress dad. It’s probably time to give him a call and let him know that Alan and I are done, for good. Whether I get into telling him about Liam, though… he’ll be furious if I mention how I told him my real last name. My mother’s name. I don’t know why he’s so touchy about that.

At least I didn’t tell him anything other than that. Nothing about dad. That’s an absolute cardinal rule — don’t talk about dad if dad isn’t there. He has to control the message, he’s very particular about his brand, his business reputation. I’ve never spoken about him to a third party, not since I was six and told my teacher all about my cool, world-traveling businessman father, and he lectured me in such an intense, quiet voice that I cried silently for days.

But he’s been so out of touch lately. I haven’t much heard from him lately, which usually means he’s out of the country again. The only time I hear from him now are about orders, and cash flow, and stupid parties that I don’t want to attend. Why
should
he be in the loop about my life? He’s always keeping me out of the loop on business. Just tells me what to do. I don’t get to see under the hood.

Liam asking me about funding, about customers… about where all the revenue goes, if not to me…

It’s not like I haven’t ever thought of these things. But it was only trying to explain it out loud to Liam that it suddenly sounded… wrong, somehow. I feel like I’m missing something.

And the fact that I’m never, ever meant to talk to anyone about it…

Well, I can start with telling dad about Alan, looping him back in, and then maybe he will loop me back in.

I grab the old red handset, the special line we use to reach each other for urgent situations, and punch in the number I always call to get routed to him.

It rings and rings, and I hear a click on the other end.

“April?”

It’s his assistant.

“Can he talk?” I ask.

“Just a second,” Bert’s voice is low and drawling as usual.

There’s another click, and then it’s my Dad’s voice.

“Hey kiddo,” he says, but his voice sounds strained. Distracted, maybe. “Everything okay?”

That comforting, rumbling bass voice is so familiar that I can’t help but choke up a bit, a block in my throat that makes it impossible to speak.

“April? You’re worrying me.”

“Dad,” I croak out. “The wedding’s off. Alan cheated.”

And then I’m sobbing, and telling him the whole story with the waitress and her being in our
bed
, and how humiliating it was, even though he was right all along and Alan and I were never right for each other, but that I was worried I would never find someone who is right.

“Oh honey, why didn’t you tell me when we talked the other day?”

My shoulders give a shrug, but he can’t see me. He interprets my silence correctly — he knows I hate trying to talk when I feel like I might cry.

“You know you can always talk to me about this stuff.”

“It’s just hard,” I say, voice small as I struggle to keep tears away. “It’s humiliating. And we’ll have to call all the contractors and vendors and –” I suddenly feel overwhelmed again, thinking about all these little things that I’ve been avoiding. Here I’ve been cavorting about with a bad boy with tattoos, mooning over him like an
idiot
, instead of cleaning up the mess I already made.

Dad is great though. He comforts me, promises to get Bert to take care of all the wedding details so I don’t have to, and really lets it rip on Alan.

“He was a pansy, weak, and didn’t deserve you,” he concludes. “I always disliked him, and this just proves what a selfish moron he is. Do want me to have him killed?”

A giggle pops out of my throat at the outlandishness of that suggestion. Dad trying to make me laugh as a way to push away my tears. “Nope, that’s okay. Thanks Dad.” Most of what he said about Alan is true. I wonder what he would think of Liam.

But I don’t mention him.

I’m not sure why, but some part of me wants to protect Liam, or the idea of him, from my father. More importantly, I
definitely
don’t want him to know I was ever talking about him, even in the abstract, to a stranger.

“Is there anything else, April?”

And now I’m not sure how to bring up the money questions.

“No, Dad. Thanks for listening.”

Maybe I’ll talk to him more about it later. There’s enough to deal with, with a cancelled wedding, for now.

“I started on that new order of clocks. I think you’re gonna like them.”

“That’s great honey. Keep at it. I gotta run.”

“Okay, Dad.”

“Bye, sweet pea.”

“Bye.”

We hang up. I still can’t shake the weird feeling that I’m missing something. That there’s something I forgot to say, or ask. Something about the questions Liam was asking me, something about Liam and Dad…

I do wonder what Dad would think of Liam Copperhead.

Doesn’t matter, I should be working anyway. Now that I have a direction for this new collection, it’s time to sketch out my ideas. I love using watercolors and colored pencils, and it’s as good an activity as any to take my mind off of Alan, and Liam, and now my dad.

Why are all the men in my life such a disaster?

Only art supplies understand me.

I
spend
a solid week immersed in the shop, working off the ideas that Liam’s gift sparked, the mixture of delicate colored glass, swirling iron, and blank but beautifully-grained wood. The ideas are flowing better than they have in months — I guess heartbreak is good for more than just writing country songs.

Every time I feel my mind wander to wedding cancellation problems, or my dad’s business choices, or tattooed bad boys, I just snap a rubber band around my wrist and get back to work.

As each piece begins to create itself, I notice a pattern emerging. Stars. Color blocks, and sibling stems and scraggly flowers that are technically weeds, but add depth and detail. A motif begins to emerge, first with fluttering black shapes, then feathers. I find myself sketching, then painting, then etching the outline of dark birds.

On a rainy Friday afternoon, I find myself completing the delicate details of a wood-etched black bird.

A crow.

It’s Liam. I’ve been so immersed in what is essentially an ode to Liam’s gorgeous neck and shoulder blade tattoos.

“Arg!” In frustration I swipe across the image, burn it black.

I need to get out of the shop.