K. Bromberg: Hard Beat

I’ve been through the seven stages of grief. You name each one of them, and I’ve fucking done them more times than I care to count. But when all is said and done, I’m here and she’s not. Guilt is a goddamn vise squeezing out of me every ounce of emotion I never wanted to feel.

Plain and simple, I miss her. The easy banter, how we could sit comfortably in silence, that I could predict her remarks before she made them. We were a team and now I feel lost, wondering why I pushed so hard to get back here. So focused on getting out of my house, I didn’t think about how many damn memories were here waiting to haunt me.

I just need to get back in the game. Meet my photographer tomorrow and get back in the swing of things, use the hunger I feel deep down to propel me through the flashes of sadness that still come. Then I’ll be better. Besides, it’s not like I have any other option.

Plug and chug.

The memories continue to come, the good, bad, and horrific, and who knows how long it’s been when I lift the bottle to find it empty. Suck it up, Thomas. This will be the only fucking rooftop pity party you’re allowed to have. You wanted back; now you’re here.

“Fuck,” I say into the emptiness around me as I rise on unsteady feet and let my buzz filter through my limbs. Once the mattress is covered up by the tarp to protect it from the dust that blankets everything like an irrevocable stain, I make my way back downstairs.

I smell her before I see her. That subtle scent of hers, which seems so out of place in the air heavy with spices, fills the stairwell when I hit the eighth floor. She’s coming up as I’m coming down. Our eyes meet and hold across the dimly lit concrete landing.

Anger fires within me. She’s stupid for being here alone. Does she know how much fucking danger there is in this country? The disrespect that’s shown to women simply because of their gender? Add to that, she’s American. I think of how many times Stella and I went round and round on this topic before she just gave in and allowed me to be at her side most of the time.

And I don’t want to care about this loose cannon of a woman, but my feet are glued to the floor as an indescribable current shoots through the empty space between us. I try to deny it, want to deflect it somehow, but we stand there, gazes held, and remain silent.

“Did you want something?” I ask, eyebrows raised, impatient.

“Hmm,” she murmurs. “No. I thought I did… but now? Not hardly.”

She starts to brush past me. Something about that haughty tone of hers with a subtle accent I can’t place pushes buttons I don’t want pushed, and I reach out and grab her upper arm. The force of my hold pulls her body into mine so that our chests touch, and the sharp inhale of her breath is unmistakable since it presses her breasts further against me.

Our eyes lock, breaths mingling over each other’s lips, and that straight shot of lust spears to my lower gut and takes hold. We stand in a silent battle of wills. The same woman I was irritated at for wanting me earlier, I’m now pissed at for wanting to walk away.

Talk about a confirmation that my head is a cluster fuck of emotions. Jesus Christ. Let her walk the hell away, Tanner. Bygones.

But my fingers don’t relax. They hold tight just like the invisible grip she seems to have over me.

The air thickens, and the sexual chemistry that I felt earlier at the bar – the zing I tried to avoid by leaving the festivities – sparks and lights up the space around us like an exposed live wire. The sad fact is I know I’m about to get burned but don’t let go.

“Just for the record, Loose Cannon, I would have bought you a drink.” I grit the words out, angry at myself for even saying them.

She eyes me with caution, trying to figure out what the hell I mean by Loose Cannon. “It’s BJ, and I prefer to stay off the record,” she says with that little fuck-you lift of her chin as she asserts her obstinacy despite her quickened pulse beneath my fingertips.

And fuck… I have to bite back the laugh on my lips because isn’t that a fitting name for a woman with lips like hers. Images flash through my mind of what she’d look like staring up at me while her mouth is wrapped around my dick.

She pulls me from my lewd but damn fine thoughts when she tries to jerk her arm from my hold. My spine stiffens some because hell if I’m up for resistance right now. I’m emotionally drained, exhausted, and as much as I don’t want to feel that grenade of desire sitting low in my belly, I still want to pull its pin so I can lose myself for a bit in the soft curves and sweet taste of a gorgeous woman no matter how fucking insolent she is.

I clench my jaw. A fleeting show of resistance before I give in to my need and the sexual tension. She gasps when I release her arm only to bring it up to her neck at the same time I crash my lips to hers.

And fuck yes I’m a dick for not letting her push me away, for letting my own need for this woman who will most likely move on by the week’s end control my actions, for taking without asking, but goddamn her small display of independence turns me on something fierce.

I brand my mouth to hers, press my tongue between her lips as she parts them. Her hands push me away, but the movement of her tongue tells me she wants more. She’s a clear contradiction in all meanings of the word. Soft and supple body, but I can feel the toned muscle beneath. Between kisses she tries to pull back, but a soft moan in the back of her throat when my free hand cups her ass tells me how much she wants this.

Her hands fist in my shirt at the same time my hand takes hold of the loose bun at the nape of her neck to tilt her head back and look into her eyes. But her mouth stays right where I want it because I’m nowhere near done with her yet.

“I don’t like you,” she claims through gritted teeth. Our hands run possessively over each other, but derision laced with defiance glimmers in her eyes.

“I beg to differ.” I laugh at the ludicrousness of her statement, considering the predicament we’re in. She tries to step back, but when she doesn’t release my shirt, I know she still wants more.

And fuck, I’m definitely all in. I need this outlet more than I ever realized until I was in the thick of it. I’ve kept to myself at home, fought with my sister when she attempted to fix me up with one of her friends, punished myself, and now with the heat of a woman’s body pressed up against me and the taste of her kiss seared in my goddamn brain, there is no way in hell I’m walking away now.

“I don’t like you,” she reiterates.

“Too bad,” I tell her as I go in for the next kiss. One that’s full of angry desperation and irresistible need with teeth nipping and tongues meeting and that ache deep in my balls taking hold of me. My hips pin her against the cold cinder-block wall behind her.

Her fingers dig into my shoulders as she tears her mouth from mine, our chests heaving. And then just when her protests stop and her tongue starts to dance with mine again, I pull back.

“You’re arrogant and —”

“You don’t have to like me to fuck me,” I say, cutting her off. “You just have to want me.”

She protests, and I cut her words off with my mouth on hers at the same time my hands grab her wrists. Even as I gain the advantage, I feel like she’s pulling out the ground from beneath my feet. “Fuck you!” She manages to get the words out between fervent kisses.

I chuckle against her lips before pulling back and looking straight into her desire-laden eyes. “That’s the plan.”

Chapter 3

Thank Christ we’re actually on my floor, because the minute the comment is out of my mouth it’s like our desire overwhelms all sense, and we launch ourselves at each other, caught up in kisses tinged with greed. Her hands are in my hair while mine are fumbling with the door at her back as the need between us escalates to volatile levels.