Page 22 of Beautiful Savage
Then she turns and walks back across the garden, and I'm left alone with the flowers and the strange sense of having been scolded by someone who hasn't decided whether to hate me.
I sit on the warm stone bench again, processing what she said. Years of ghosts. Don't become another one. Leave now if you're leaving at all. And the question she led with: why are you in Gunner's garden?
I look closer at the garden itself. The jasmine trained on nearly invisible wire supports. The citrus tree's soil dark with recent watering, not a single pest on the leaves. The bougainvillea pruned to frame the bench without overwhelming it. Every detail shows the same careful hand, the same patient attention.
The lie from days ago surfaces with new clarity. "Various staff" don't create gardens like this.
Gunner tends this garden.
The recognition floods through me, sweet and slow and impossible to stop. The man who kidnapped me, who bruised my ribs when I tried to escape, who grabbed my breast last night like he owned it. He comes here in the dark and makes things grow. The garden my father painted is Gunner's sanctuary.
I stand, touching one bougainvillea bloom with my fingertip before I go. The petal is soft, real, nothing like paint on canvas or skin. This is what Papa was trying to capture. This living thing that keeps growing regardless of who watches or who turns away.
The realization comes in waves. My body has been making the decisions all along. It decided when I didn't run in the alley. It decided when I painted myself with his garden's flowers. It decided when I pressed my painted hand to his chest. It decided when I kissed him this morning.
And my body is always a step ahead of me. The slick heat that gathers when I so much as think of him. The way my nipples tighten against his soft cotton shirt. The ache that's been building since last night when he watched me dance. Every cell in my body turns toward him the way the garden turns toward light.
Fine. I will satisfy my body before I leave. I will seduce this man who refuses to look at me. I will let the ache between my thighs be sated. And then, after that, I will go back to Pristine like a good little girl and live the life I am meant to.
10 - Gunner
She danced for me. She kissed me. She looked me in the eyes with hunger while I felt the rise of her perfect little breast beneath my palm. And now she invades my every thought.
Tonight, La Sirena thrums with its usual crowd, and I'm back on duty, pretending the world hasn't tilted off its axis.
Bass pulses through the floor. Crystal chandeliers cast dancing shadows across burgundy leather booths. The expensive whiskey behind the bar glows amber in the low light.
A drunk at the back door swings wild.
All fury and no finesse. His haymaker catches my left ribs as I duck back, and my temple clips the door frame. Not hard, but enough to split skin above my right eyebrow. Blood wells immediately, warm and metallic.
I catch his wrist, twist, and he's eating concrete before his next breath. My guys are already moving. They know the drill. Within seconds, they're hauling him out while the floor manager apologizes, wringing his hands like this is somehow his fault.
I touch the cut. Small, but bleeding more than it should. My ribs throb. Bruised, not broken. I could clean this downstairs in the security office bathroom.
I climb the back service stairs instead.
The bare bulb on the second landing flickers. Still needs replacing. Two flights up, down the hallway where the sounds of La Sirena's revelry fade to a distant thrum. I push open the apartment door.
Daphne looks up from the desk where she's been reading. Her face changes when she sees the blood at my temple. Not fear, but something sharper. Purpose. She's already moving before I'm fully inside, crossing to the bathroom alcove.
She returns with the first-aid kit. Sets it on the kitchen counter. Studies my temple.
"Sit."
Her voice carries that dry command I've been hearing since she stopped performing politeness. No uplift. No question.
I pull the wooden stool from against the kitchen wall and sit. The geometry puts me slightly below her eye line when she stands in front of me.
She opens the kit efficiently. Alcohol swabs, gauze, butterfly closures.
She steps between my knees, and her scent hits me. I can't identify it, but it is clean and feminine, purely her. She's wearing a white t-shirt and jeans, dark hair swept back in a low knot. Her left hand finds my right shoulder for balance. The alcohol swab stings against the cut.
She danced for me last night, almost naked. Pressed her palm to my heart. This morning, she kissed me. And now her small hand on my shoulder is enough to make my cock stir. I fight to keep my breathing steady.
She works methodically. She cleans the cut with precision, then steps back. Her eyes track down my body, registering how I am sitting at an odd angle. The assessment makes my skin burn, makes me wonder what she sees when she looks at me.
"Take your shirt off."
