FIFTEEN
Enzo
They needed to talk about it.
He knew it; she knew it.
He knew that she knew it.
But after they both came back down, as he pulled her to his chest, and she didn't object, but instead settled there like she belonged, her fingers tracing over the scar of the bullet wound Paine had given him so long before, he didn't want to bring it back up again. Not with her silky hair spread over him. Not with her heartbeat against his chest. Not with her sated body heavy on his.
There would be another time to bring it up, to make her admit what he was sure she needed to admit, what he also needed to admit as well.
This wasn't some fling.
This wasn't some 'we need to fuck to get the sexual frustration out of the way' thing.
This wasn't some competition being a great aphrodisiac situation.
No.
It was infinitely more than that.
He had a sneaking suspicion of that for days.
That was why when Atien showed up, he took it as another sign of what was happening.
And being that Atien Locklear was, well, Atien Locklear, Enzo knew that if he walked in to find her with him, he was going to go right back to the city and look into him. Sure, his actual criminal record was pretty clean - men with resources such as his could easily find out the other shit.
He wanted to clear the air before he found out on his own.
As his mother would say when he was little and trying to lie to stay out of some kind of trouble: I'd rather you tell me yourself than have to find out from somebody else.
Integrity, she would call it.
A man like him, who hadn't always been quite as squeaky clean as his current reputation implied, understood that pasts were just that - pasts. They didn't define you. They didn't determine your future.
Not having ever had a male role model in his life, someone he felt the need to answer to, Atien's approval meant a surprisingly lot to him. So when he clamped a hand on his knee and told him that his daughter had been needing a man such as him, he finally had that last little something he had been waiting for before he moved forward.
If she needed some time to come to grips with what was going on, he had it to give to her.
As for him, well, he was willing to call a spade a spade.
He had never been one to try to fool himself.
He was falling for her, plain and simple.
He should have been shitting himself, fighting it, denying it.
He wasn't someone who fell, well, ever.
He enjoyed women, casually, and occasionally, a little more than casually. But it never got to what he would call serious. And it definitely never got the the point where he was thinking words such as 'future,' and 'relationship,' and - dare he say it - 'love.'
All that being said, however, he knew himself well enough to know his attachment to Espen wasn't hollow. It wasn't professional. Hell, it wasn't even just his natural protectiveness about hurt women. It was more. She was more. Hell, even when he went out to the goddamn grocery store, he was excited to get home and tell her about the shit he got to make dinner, insisting that maybe her non-cooking ass start to take some basic lessons at his side.
He didn't know what it would mean when they got back to the city, when they got back to their lives, when things settled down and they became competitors again. What would happen when one of them got the job, and the other was out on their ass?
They were all things he - and she - needed to think about.
Just not right then.
Not when she was being soft and sweet, not when he was still riding the high that was getting to be inside her, to feel her nails on his back, her thighs tightening around him, her hips rising to meet him, her voice pleading, pained, and elated somehow all at the same time, when he had felt her warm, wet, tight walls squeeze his cock as she came, crying out his name as she did so.
This wasn't the time for thoughts.
It was the time for settling into the sensations.
So that was what he did, and what she did, until they both slowly drifted off to sleep.
His phone screamed out in the kitchen, jerking both of them awake seemingly simultaneously.
There was a second of surprise before he realized Espen had pretty much climbed over him in her sleep, and was creating a soft, warm, woman-shaped blanket over him. Her head had been nestled in his neck, one of her hands gently fisted on his shoulder.
His low, deep chuckle made her push up on him so she could look down. "What's funny?"
His hand slapped down on her ass, the sound reverberating through the empty apartment, making her hips jump against him. And - oh fuck - her nipples start to harden against his chest.
"Got myself an Espen blanket. I hear they are very rare," he declared, giving both her asscheeks a squeeze. "Pretty hot too," he added, charmed by the way - while she wasn't a blushing woman - she shied away from the compliment. "Mmm, gonna need you to stop doing that," he demanded softly as her hips moved against his hardening cock.
"Doing what?" she asked, face going mischievous. "This?" she asked, lifting up just slightly and shifting so her hard nipples brushed across his chest.
"Yeah, that too," he agreed, lips tipping up.
"Or this?" she asked, head tipping down to trace her tongue up the column of his neck.
"That either." Even to his own ears, his voice sounded rough.
"Maybe this isn't great either," she went on, pressing up to balance on her hands and knees, moving a path with her lips down the center of his abs. "Definitely shouldn't do this," she mused just a second before she sucked his hard cock into her mouth.
"Fuck," he growled as she worked him hard and fast for a moment before releasing him suddenly.
"And I guess I really, really, really shouldn't do this, right?" she asked as she moved up to straddle him, lowering down so his cock slid against her hot, slick pussy, begging him to plunge inside and take her hard and rough until they both lost their fucking senses.
"Espen..." his voice held a warning that she in no way heeded as she ground her hips against him, crying out when the head hit her clit, making a shiver course through her body.
He grit his teeth, taking a deep, steadying breath, trying to hold it the fuck together.
"I'm on the pill," she announced as her hips did another swipe. "Oh my God," she ground out, then tried to shake her head. "What was I, oh yeah, pill. I'm on that. Have been since I was fifteen. I get tested twice a year - at my gyno then at my check-up. Haven't had sex since my last one. I'm clean. Your turn," she said, pushing up to look down at him, hips still, because no matter how hot and heavy shit got, there were some matters that required focus.
Though how he was able to focus with her sitting up, her perfect tits on display, her pussy getting more and more slick against his cock was beyond him.
His hands moved to her hips, sinking in, enjoying the way her hips dropped lower still, like she couldn't get enough of the feel of him.
"Got tested at the beginning of the year."
"Have you had sex since then?" she asked, all business even if her clit kept swelling with need.
"Yep. But I haven't fucked without a condom in years."
"Okay," she said, finally letting herself do another swipe, but this time, as soon as she got the feel of him against her clit, she lifted up, reached between then, and grabbed his cock, holding it up so she could lower down onto him.
He expected slow.
Why, he wasn't sure.
She had made it more than clear the night before that slow and sweet wasn't exactly her default speed.
So he felt the head of his cock slide into her warm, wet, impossibly fucking tight walls for all of a split second before she slammed her hips down, taking him to the root so fast that he was unprepared, having to fist his hands and take a deep breath from coming right then and there.
Her head fell back, her breasts rising as she too took a deep breath, adjusting for a second, before her eyes found his again, and she started riding him.
And his Espen, well, she liked to ride hard and rough, loved it when he reached up to torment her nipples, pinching, tweaking, twisting them until they were almost bruised and oversensitive. She was almost there when he folded upward to be close, one of his hands moving between them to work her clit as his other hand sank into her hair, twisting, and pulling back viciously, making her let out a pain/pleasure cry that he felt right in his balls just a second before she finally came, her tight pussy squeezing his cock over and over.
The pulsations barely stopped before he knifed up, tossing her down on her back, lifting her legs up, and fucking her harder, faster, rougher, almost violently, the bed slamming so hard against the wall that he was sure there would be damage to the plaster, but couldn't have given a fuck less.
She screamed his name through her second orgasm, and this time, he came with her, slamming deep, and coming inside her, finding the action somehow symbolic, somehow right in a primal way, liking it in a way that he couldn't understand, that she was full of his cum, like he had claimed her in all the ways he possibly could.
She was his.
"Oh my God," Espen gasped when she had her breath again.
He dropped her legs, wincing slightly when his eyes caught sight of her still blue, green, and yellow ribs. His hand moved out to touch them gently. "Too rough?" he asked, looking into her dark eyes.
The worry lasted point-two seconds though, because her smile when it spread, threatened to split her face.
"I won't walk right for three days," she announced. "So... in other words, it was perfect."
He smiled back, pressing her legs wide so he could lower down and claim her lips, still buried deep, having the strange compulsion to stay there as long as possible.
But then his phone started screaming again.
He pressed up, checking the time on the nightstand.
"Ah, yeah, that makes sense."
"What does?"
"That's Gina. She's probably about ready to smack Kenzi and her kitchen-Nazi schtick, so she is calling for reinforcements."
"You?" she asked, brows drawing together.
"No, honey. You."
"What? Me? Why? She doesn't even know me."
"Yeah, but the cooking thing is a women thing with the family. Don't look at me like that. It's not some sexist shit. Me, Paine, Breaker, and Tig can all cook for ourselves. Shooter, well, not so much. But we get booted out if we try to step in. I figure by this time, Kenzi and Alex are butting heads, Reese is tired of the drama so is hiding in a corner with a book, Amelia is trying to help out as much as she can, and Gina is ready to pull out her hair. She needs some new blood in that kitchen."
"Um, yeah. Sure. If, you know, she's cool with actual blood being in the kitchen. I really can't be trusted around kitchen instruments. I once nearly sliced off a finger in one of those round things with the spinning blades?"
Enzo chuckled, shaking his head at her. "A food processor?"
"Yeah, those."
"Gotta brush up your kitchen skills once we're back in the city, woman," he said, pulling out of her with no small bit of regret.
"I'm sure your first aid skills are good," she said, moving to stand as he did, "but I don't think you're at the point where you can reattach severed appendages."
With that, she rushed off to the bathroom to clean up, leaving him to fetch clothes, then go and check his phone to see four texts from Reese begging him to come early.
He smiled down at the phone, the warmth in his chest telling him just how much his family did mean to him, especially with how easily they welcomed him back, like he had never been absent to begin with, like they held nothing of his twisted past against him.
"All yours," Espen declared as they met at the bathroom door, making him almost drop his phone.
Because there she was, still blissfully, confidently, comfortably stark fucking naked. Hell, even he had tugged on some cotton pajama pants before he went walking around.
Not Espen.
Add that to the ever-growing list of shit he appreciated about her.
"Is this a dressy thing?" she asked, looking a little concerned, something he wasn't used to seeing on her face.
And he realized that she wanted to make a good first impression.
"Nah, honey. This is a casual thing. Jeans and whatever shirt."
"I don't have any makeup. I hardly own any makeup," she said, gesturing toward her face.
"'Cause you don't fucking need it," he agreed, then reached out to touch the skin under her eye, still black and blue, but getting better every day. "Don't worry. We've all been at Gina's table banged up before. So long as we aren't openly bleeding, she doesn't give a fuck."
With that- and the small, thankful smile she sent him - he disappeared into the bathroom to clean up and came out to dress. He walked out of the bedroom to find Espen in the kitchen in black jeans, her combat boots, and a simple white tee.
"Take off the bra," he demanded, leaning against the doorway.
"I'm not going braless around your family in a white t-shirt," she objected with an eye roll he found almost obnoxiously adorable.
"Fine. Good point. Let's get a move on."
He knew she was, but he wasn't worried about his family liking her. Gina was a mom and, as such, had a wish for all her kids - both biological and otherwise - to settle down. She loved Paine's woman, Elsie. She also loved Breaker and Shooter's - men she viewed as sort of adoptive children thanks to how tight Paine was to both of them - women as well. While it was new, he also knew she was a huge fan of Tig.
The only ones left to hook up and settle down were him and Reese. And, well, Gina might have been giving up on Reese who seemed perfectly happy with her fictional book boyfriends over the real life, flesh and blood ones.
That really just left him.
And he had been getting ribbing texts from Kenzi mostly since she even heard the name Espen when he started at the office.
They would welcome her with open arms.
But even as they pulled up in front of one of the townhouses - all almost identical to the ones beside it - and parked behind one of the many cars already there, indicating that Gina had been sending out SOS messages for a while already, Espen was tapping her fingers on her thigh in nervousness.
He parked, and put his hand down on top of hers, slipping his fingers between hers. "It's just dinner, not an audition. Take a breath."
She did, and they got out, him taking her hand again to try to keep her grounded as they made their way up.
"Johnnie Walker Allen!" Kenzi's voice called as soon as they walked in.
"That'd be Kenz," Enzo explained at her questioning look and half smile. "And Shooter is Johnnie."
"I didn't do it, sugar, honey..."
"Don't you 'sugar, honey, darling' me, Johnnie," Kenzi cut him off as they walked over toward the kitchen where everyone seemed to be assembled. "I know it was you," Kenzi declared, pointing a wooden spoon at the man in question.
Shooter was, well, a reformed shameless flirt. He was also the most skilled sniper most people had ever seen. Yes, as in he killed people. For money.
They had an interesting cast of characters at their family gatherings.
Shooter was tall and lean with a shitton of ink, most of which was from Paine's gun, slicked back hair, piercings, light eyes, and a fashion sense that ran toward punk, complete with skinny black jeans and creepers.
He was also a fan of pissing Kenzi off for some reason.
"There are fifteen other people in this room," he went on, lying through his teeth, and everyone knew it. "Plenty of other incompetent people to blame. I mean, Alex is standing right there!"
Half of the room snorted as the woman in question shook her head. "Gee, way to throw me under the bus, jackass," she declared, reaching up to run a hand through her shoulder-length dark brown hair.
Alex was a firecracker, a hacker who specialized in cheating husbands, and, well, a Godawful cook.
"I mean, it totally could have been me who burned the rolls, but since I was put on 'watch the pot until it boils' post since the mishap with the curtains last week, it wasn't me."
"The mishap with the curtains?" Espen asked, looking up at him with amused eyes, already much more relaxed than she had been a moment before.
That was, until all eyes turned to them.
Then she went stiff as a board.
"Angel face," Shooter started, making Espen jump slightly, having no way of knowing that was just how he was; he sweet-talked everyone. "Thank God you're here. Save us from the Wrath of Kenzi," he implored moving over toward her, and taking her free hand between both of his. "She'll have my balls for this, I know it," he whispered at her, looking grave. "Quick, grab me a pan to protect myself with."
"Espen, this is Shooter. Shooter, Espen," Enzo supplied when she looked up at him with pleading eyes, unsure how to respond to him. "And the one angrily scraping black rolls off the pan that Shoot totally did burn," he went on, "is Kenzi. Kenz, leave the fucking rolls. They're not getting any blacker. Say hi."
"What do you do?" Kenzi asked instead, pointing at Espen.
"Do? Um... I do computer forensics? And private invest... what?" she asked when Kenzi laughed.
"She meant what do you do in the kitchen," Alex supplied. "Like me, I burn things. Including the curtains. I also wilt things apparently. I can't be trusted around lettuce."
Espen laughed. "I slice off fingers on kitchen appliances then. That's my specialty."
"No. Not another one of you," Kenzi said, shaking her head.
"Well, if you would stop being a pain in the ass and let me pitch in," Breaker butted in, waving a hand out at the end.
Breaker was about every bit as big as Paine and Enzo, but lighter skinned with blond hair, a full blond beard, and light eyes. For a living, well, he was pretty much hired muscle. Though word was, he was trying to go a bit more legit now that he was settling down. Breaker was Alex's man, and the one who did pretty much all the cooking for the couple thanks to the aforementioned superhuman ability of Alex's to set things on fire and make them die.
"No," Kenzi, the stubborn ass she was, said immediately. "Look what happens when one of you 'helps out,'" she declared, waving at the rolls.
"Oh good lord, Kenz. Have a glass of wine or something," another female voice called, making eyes turn to find Gina standing there behind her elder daughter with a bottle of wine in her hand.
"I don't need wine," she said, shaking her head.
"Honey, this isn't about what you need; it is about what the rest of us need to be able to put up with another hour of this." She tempered the chastisement with a pat to her daughter's cheek as she pushed forward to stand in front of Enzo and Espen. "So, you're Espen," she said with a warm, motherly smile.
"And you're Gina," Espen said back with a nod. "I've heard a lot about you."
"Well, I wish I could say the same about you, but Enzo here has been trying to act like the two of you aren't a thing. As if we can be fooled," she said, putting an arm around Espen, and leading her away.
"Okay. Men. Out," Kenzi called.
It was right about then that he saw Reese in a corner, looking right at him, mouthing 'don't leave me with her' to him.
He smiled, chucking her under the chin, and following the other guys out into the main room. This was mostly because Kenz had picked up the wooden spoon again and started whacking them with it.
Didn't matter if you were a grown ass man, wooden spoons still stung.
"Looks a lot better already," Paine said as they moved outside, the living space feeling cramped and hot to so many large men.
"That looks better?" Tig asked, voice tense.
Enzo might not have known Tig too well, but after some conversations with him and Kenzi, he learned about the shit that happened to his little sister, and how he had become over-protective of women since then.
"She's got that freshly fucked glow to her skin too," Breaker said with a knowing grin.
"Her old man was over yesterday," he told Paine, both of them sharing a look.
"Aw man, yeah," Paine said, nodding. "Elsie's dad is, ah, a piece of work. I feel ya."
"He's a good man. They were just on the outs, and she didn't tell him about getting worked over."
"Who'd put their hands on a face like that?" Shooter asked, shaking his head.
"That's what we all want to know," Enzo said, shrugging. "They've been on this for a week, and they don't have a name yet."
"What case was this?" Tig asked, intrigued. Part of it was his protect-the-woman thing, but another part was the fact that Tig was one of the best private investigators in Navesink Bank. Enzo gave them a quick recap. When he was done, Tig was still watching him. "What company was this again?" he asked. The second the answer was out of his lips, Tig was reaching for his phone and storming off.
"The fuck was that?" he asked the other men.
"Damned if I know," Paine said, shrugging. "Don't know him that well yet, but that wasn't exactly a normal reaction."
"He has to know something about the case," Enzo insisted.
"Yeah, and he's likely calling Rhodes," Paine agreed.
"Should..."
"Where you going, kid?" Breaker asked when the front door to Gina's slammed shut and Reese appeared in her usual clothes - black yoga pants, some t-shirt that Enzo was pretty sure was a book reference, and an oversized, especially long, burgundy sweater.
Reese responded with a sound that was suspiciously like a growl. "The Creamery for five freaking scoops," she huffed, going to steer past them, only to be snagged by Shoot as he threw an arm around her shoulders, stopping her.
For anyone else, her outburst might not have been a big deal, but for quiet, bookish Reese, slamming a door was tantamount to a fistfight, and using a word such as 'freaking' was practically a battle cry.
"How is my first love doing?" Shoot asked, and no one was sure if they meant Reese or the girl who worked at The Creamery who had surely flirted with Shoot at least once or twice before.
And because there was confusion, Reese turned a deep shade of red. Because Shoot had known Reese since she was hardly even a teenager, he gave her a squeeze. "Had my heart the first time you stuck your finger through my ear gauge and informed me that heroes in books don't purposely put extra holes in their head. What were you then, eleven? Fucking cutest old-lady-kid I ever met. So, I have to ask, the woman who holds the oldest part of my shriveled little heart, what has you off to go binge overpriced ice cream?"
"My sister needs Xanax. Or or... one of those tranquilizers they have for animals. But she needs one of the ones meant for elephants to put someone with her rage-out down. Also, you have the biggest heart of anyone I know," she said, giving him a happy little-sister smile. "And The Creamery is not overpriced. It is independent and organic. You know... real food."
"What is she raging about this time?" Paine asked, giving her a smile.
"Something about women these days being able to do it all, and that includes being able to feed themselves. And, of course, Alex, Elsie, and Espen loved that. It's like Wild Kingdom in that kitchen. I swear food is about to fly soon."
"You'd think she'd calm down after this being a weekly event since for-fucking-ever," Breaker said with a smile. He liked spirit in women, as evidenced by the sarcastic-as-fuck, picks-arguments-for-the-hell-of-it woman he chose. So even when Alex or Kenz was being a royal pain in the ass, he was at-ease. Hell, he was two seconds from charging in there and throwing some fuel on the fire just to laugh while it burned. That was his way. "Maybe I should go and, you know, diffuse the situation," he suggested with a devilish grin.
"With some TNT?" Enzo asked, shaking his head. "Nah, I got this. I should check on Espen. She's, ah, not used to being around so much estrogen. This might not be pretty."
With that, he walked back in toward the house to hear a raised voice - Alex's, of course - yelling at, one would imagine, Kenzi.
"And furthermore, just because I have the vagina in the relationship does not mean I have to do the cooking, cleaning, and wash! What next, Kenz? Should I be doing those things in six-inch heels with a full bell skirt while my husband talks down to me about how his underthings aren't pressed like he likes them?"
"How you holding up?" he asked, walking up behind Espen, wrapping his arms around her stomach, and pulling her back into his chest.
"I need popcorn for this. It's freaking hilarious," she admitted, and when he turned his head, he saw the huge smile on her face. "I have such a small family," she went on, "there was never any crazy drama at gatherings. This is awesome."
"It's not a woman thing," Kenzi said with an eye roll. "It's a 'you're a human being who should be able to sustain herself even if the Chinese takeout is closed' thing."
"First, there are always chips and canned soup. Second, if it's not a woman's thing, then why aren't the men allowed in here?"
To that, Kenzi smiled, all the frustration gone. "Have you seen all of our men? I swear to Christ they suck up every last bit of air in a room as well as the space. Mom's China would be splintered everywhere."
"Well," Alex said, her own rage gone in a heartbeat, as it often went, "yeah, I can't fault that. Breaker and I once tried to get ready in the morning at the same time in the same bathroom... yeah, he might have gotten a knee to the groin. You know... accidentally on purpose," she added and the women laughed. "He doesn't understand the concept of personal space!" she added, trying not to look like a monster.
From there, crises averted, things went as they always did. Food finished, was served, everyone sat to eat. And you pretty much needed earplugs when they all got to catching up.
"What's going on in there?" he asked on the car ride back to his apartment later.
There was a long moment when she simply kept staring out the window, making him think she wasn't going to give it to him. But then she turned when he stopped at a light, a strange, dreamy smile on her face that somehow reached her eyes, and told him, "Even if this doesn't work out," she said, meaning them as a couple, "I'm keeping the rest of them. You'll just have to deal with me."
His smile was warm as he took her hand, sliding his fingers between hers, and pulled it up to kiss the back of her hand.
"Honey, I think I am going to enjoy the fuck out of having to deal with you."