Flint

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SIX MONTHS LATER

The red Sharpie marker I’ve been using for the last four months, marking off every day since I got out of jail, is now starting to dry out. I lean back in my desk chair and reach toward the calendar on the wall to my right. My dick is hard as stone, even after two rounds of jerking off in the shower to thoughts of her just an hour ago. And that’s another thing, as I count down the days, tugging myself off just isn’t doing it for me anymore.

I mark the faded slash across the square for today, my anxiety pitting a hard spot in my chest as the days click away. It shouldn’t have gone down the way it did, but I knew before the cops even got there that justice wasn’t going to be the order of the day. Lucas Dillon’s father is the sheriff, and they’ve both had a rod right up their collective asses when it comes to me since I won this patch of land in that lottery. Lucas may have pulled a knife on Wren, but if I’d made any of that public knowledge, she would have been hauled in herself for having no license. So, it was my word against his, and I knew how that would end.

As far as Lucas is concerned, I’m well aware that his life has always been a barrel of shit. I may not have been around during his early years, but Danny was, and he’s as bad as a church knitting circle when it comes to gossip. Ever since grade school, Lucas has been a complete fuck-up. And that wasn’t made any better by his mother treating him like a spoiled princess and his father protecting his ass at every turn.

Only fourteen more days until I’m free, though, so fuck him and his dirty-cop father. Of course, I could have used my family name and brought my parents’ leverage to bear, then I wouldn’t have this damn strap around my ankle. My family may be better known on the West Coast, but their reach is pretty long. But I’d rather take my chances with the court than bring them into any of this.

And unfortunately, in Emmetsville, the Dillons hold sway. So, justice or not, it was me who ended up with an assault charge, some time in the county jail, and then this tether when I was finally released.

Of course, this isn’t my first conviction. I was in prison back in LA when I left the military, ended up with two assault charges on a pretentious dick friend of my parents who thought the young domestic help at my parents’ estate were his private dick servants. I walked in on him forcing his cock down one of their throats during a posh party my parents had thrown to celebrate the end of my service to my country. They always thought it was below me to serve and further below them for me to serve as a non-officer.

They threw this party, I walked in on this asshole, took him down to the ground. Then as quickly as I turned around, his private security guard was on me, and I did the same there. I’d do it all again, too, even with knowing the felony record and six months I served were waiting.

That sentence nearly killed me. All I could do was look out at the forest around the prison house with the kind of longing that a man has for water in the desert. Soon as I was out, I left LA and any thought of returning behind.

Fuck, I could have had that sentence reduced too if I’d have let my parents take a hand in things. Probably got it dropped down to a slap on the wrist. But there are just too many strings attached to anything my family might hand out. I broke out of that world and never looked back. I’m about as far from LA living as you can get up here, and even if we were on friendly terms, I doubt I’d ever get them here to the backwoods for a visit.

My phone buzzes on the desktop, and I look down to see Danny Wilson’s number pop up.

“About damn time,” I answer, swiping the back of my hand down my left eyebrow. Sweat is still dripping from my forehead from the last of the cord of wood I chopped this morning. I came inside to refill my coffee, and of course, couldn’t pass by my office without logging on to see if Danny had wired in the new camera on the security system.

“Hey, it’s fucking seven in the morning, you freak. Most people don’t even consider this a civilized hour for communication.” He laughs then coughs into the phone, and I hear the click of the lighter and the sound of him drawing on a cigarette.

“I thought you quit?” I grit my teeth as he coughs again.

“I did. And I will again. Don’t get on my ass about smoking this early in the morning. You’re not my fucking wife.”

Sitting at my desk, the calendar on the wall to my right filled with red slashes, sends my mind spinning. As my dick throbs and my heart races, my fear of hurting her rises. I’m hardly aware of my own strength anymore. All the work I’ve done on this cabin. The swinging of the ax day in and day out for years. Not to mention, and it’s been years, but I’ve been less than successful at between-the-sheets activities in my past because of the monster that hangs between my legs. As much as I fantasize about sliding deep into her sopping wet cunt, in the back of my mind, I’m terrified I’ll tear her apart and she’ll run screaming.

Not that I’d let her go. Fuck no, every thought of her running is immediately followed by the next thought which is me chasing her ass down and dragging her right back to my bed. I’m so close to the end of my house arrest and the start of my new life.

Our new life.

Hers and mine. She just doesn’t know it yet. But she will. So very soon, she will. It’s all I’ve thought about for so long I barely remember my life or my dreams before her. I want to give her everything sweet and wonderful in this world. And, at the same time, the burning desire I have to defile her, to use her, to fill her with my cum and leave her spent, trembling, and helpless... Those thoughts fill my dreams night after agonizing night.

But then, as always, the other fear rises inside me, pulling the muscles in the back of my neck taut with stress. Hell, part of me still lives in the real world.

My fear of not being the man she needs.

It pulls at me. That I’m not the man she deserves.

Who am I, anyway? A two-time felon who chops wood for a living? Who built this cabin in the middle of nowhere? I don’t have much to bring to the table for a beauty like her. I’m not some hotshot, and even if I once could have been, I never wanted that life. If I caved to the life my parents would have chosen for me, maybe I’d be more of what the world deems a successful man. Money. Power. I know for most that’s the bar by which men are measured but not me. At my very core, that shit has always made me sick. I’ll take my chances on my own. I’ll love my parents; I’ll just never be them.

I’ve saved almost every dollar I’ve ever made besides what I’ve spent building this cabin. My grandparents also left me a trust which I inherited at eighteen. I have rarely touched that money except to pay for this land in full. That was the investment in my future I’d hoped they would understand. My grandfather was a lumber baron back in his day, and I’m sure that runs in my blood from him.

Still, despite knowing I wouldn’t starve even if Rickson’s had let me go when I had to take all this time off, I know I may not be what most in this world would regard as a successful man.

I shake away the doubts and refocus on my phone call with Danny.

“The camera, Danny?” My voice thickens, both because I’m clicking through the thousands of pictures I have of her on my computer, but also because I sent Danny last night to install a new camera I ordered online and integrate it into the other surveillance on her house.

“Yeah, yeah, okay, keep your pants on. I was having an issue getting the signal to connect last night, so I rebooted the system then I fell asleep. Let me see if it’s up, and then I can get it on to your feed.”

I click on the one picture I’ve looked at for more hours than I can count. The picture I snapped of her in the first minute of our life together. The first time I saw her, the first time I knew my life had changed because of her.

I fucking knew right then that this girl was meant to be in my life. I just didn’t know I’d end up spending sixty-eight days in county jail then four months under house arrest before our life would be able to start. Thank fuck my employer is local and knows exactly how this bullshit went down, that the whole arrest and charge was a total fucking setup. Rickson’s is ready for me to come back to work as soon as I’m able.

“There, now try.” Danny’s voice breaks me away from staring at her impish smile and those moon silver eyes that have me drowning in dreams of what she will taste like.

With a few clicks of my mouse, the new camera icon pops up on the security software, and I double-click. Danny owns a security company, so he knows how this stuff works. He also warned me that what I was asking for wasn’t legal, but I don’t care about that. I’ve had him right on her ass since I was staying in county lockup. I couldn’t watch her then, but every phone call I made was to Danny getting surveillance set up on her and then having him fill me in on everything he could in the fifteen minutes I got every day on the phone.

I had to know she was okay. I had to know no other man was sniffing around what was mine.

Another few clicks and I’ve got the zoom and scan features working, and one of my six monitors fills with the stream from the new camera.

“Wow.” I arch my brows and run my free hand down my face, gripping the length of coarse beard that hangs from my chin. “Fucking nice! So clear I can see right in her windows. You’ve outdone yourself on this one, Danny.”

“Yeah, well, it’s your dollar. And I know I’ve said it before, but you know this is all fucking illegal, don’t you? The cameras, the tracker on her car... I’m breaking the law for you. But the shit would get traced to you not me. Anyway, what’s with you and her? You’d think she was some sort of celebrity or princess or some shit.”

“Shut up, Danny. You don’t talk about her. Your job is to do what I tell you and leave out the editorial.”

“Hey, if I’m breaking the damn law so you can get a view of some piece of ass, then I get to editorialize. Not sorry. Besides, what you gonna do, cut that tether off and come kick my ass?” He chuckles then coughs again, and I hear the distinctive sizzle as he takes another draw on his cigarette.

Red clouds my vision at his reference to Wren. Friends or not, I’ll kick his ass. “If you call her a piece of ass again, I won’t take the extra time to cut this off. I’ll cut out your fucking tongue.”

Another chuckle comes through, but I’m done with him. The camera catches movement through the picture window on the front of her little bungalow, and I zoom in.

“Sitting back there in the woods, chopping your trees, building that fucking monster of a house is making you grouchy. I can’t wait for you to get that thing off your leg and get back out in the world. You and your fellow antisocialites back there on the island need to join the rest of us out here in the world every now and then.”

“I do. From one until three, Monday through Friday.”

“Yeah, well, that may be so, but you wouldn’t know it from looking at you. You look like you’ve been living off the land your whole life. No one would ever know you come from the silver-spoon society.”

“Danny.” My voice hardens. “Even before I was tethered here, how fucking much did I get ‘out in the world’? Jesus, I get out more now than I ever did.”

It’s true. Before that day I saw Wren on that damn ladder at Fresh Cut, I probably ventured into town maybe twenty times a year. And now? I’m standing at my front door waiting for the little green light to flash on the box that tells me I’ve got two hours of freedom. And I use every minute of that time to be close to her.

Well, as close as I dare, anyway. Until I have this thing off my leg, I can’t be with her the way I want. I accidentally bump into her a couple times a week. So, on the days I think she may be feeling like I’m turning full-on stalker, I hang back. Watch her from my car, or wherever I can hide. Then, outside of that, I’m here. Working on the cabin or in front of my computer, tracking the movement of her car, watching how she loves that crazy ugly damn dog or studying the cameras when she’s home just to be sure she’s safe.

Fuck, yes, it’s unhealthy; I know that. But I also don’t care. I’ve got a sickness, and she’s the only possible cure. But until I get this tag off me, I can’t be the man she deserves. So here I sit with my monitors and my cameras, waiting for the day I am free.

Then I’ll show her who I can be for her. For us.

“I gotta go,” I snap. She’s standing in the front window, looking directly into the camera, and my dick fills and aches at the sight of her smile. If I didn’t know better, I’d say her eyes were giving me the invitation to take what’s mine. It’s getting harder and harder not to do just that, even in the small bits of time I spend stalking her during the two hours I’m allowed away from the cabin every day.

I reach over to end the call as Danny’s voice hisses through before I can cut him off. “I’d hit that.” His signature phrase.

The next click of my mouse cuts off his feed from the cameras, leaving her all to me yet again. I scroll through her pictures for a while, hit the coffeepot again, then spend some more time watching the monitors, hoping to catch her moving inside the house again.

When my phone rings again, anger bubbles up. My mind immediately assumes it’s Danny fucking with me, but when I see the number on the screen, my head starts spinning. What can she possibly want at this time of the day?

“Felicia?” My voice barely hides my surprise.

“Hi, Flint, how are you doing?” Felicia Murray is one of the few cops in this town that isn’t as dirty as a cesspool. I wouldn’t exactly say that I trust her, but I know the way Sheriff Dillon runs things has never sat right with her, and she has no love for Lucas either. And those two facts make us allies of sorts—the enemy of my enemy and all that.

I ignore her question because how I’m doing is pretty obvious. “What do you want?”

“Don’t be like that, Rendell, I have good news for you. Something I think you’ll be glad to hear.”

“And what could that possibly be?”

“You’re getting your jewelry removed today. Couple weeks early. Judge just signed off on my push. Told your P.O. I’d call and give you the good news. What do you think about that?”

My head feels light. The room starts to shift and move around me as I imagine the first thing I’m going to do when and if what she is saying is true.

“What do you get out of it?”

“Are you kidding, Flint? Sheriff is pissed just knowing you’re not rotting in a cell. Imagine how he’ll feel when he knows you’re free to do as you please, even just two weeks early. Let’s just say it’s my passive-aggressive way of getting a little pleasure seeing my asshole boss not get his way for once.”

I consider that for a moment. “Okay, so what time will they be here?”

“Nine a.m. You’re free to move around as you please after that. But you are still on the docket for another six months. Once a week, Wednesdays at ten a.m., your parole officer will still be expecting you. You better be there next week, Flint. Don’t do anything stupid.”

I look at the clock on my monitor.

It’s eight o’clock straight up. The next sixty minutes will be the longest time I’ve served in my life.