EIGHT
Well, wasn’t that a pretty sight. Garrick admired his handiwork from his vantage point at the foot of the bed. His bed. Where he’d brought Ginger after deciding she’d have too many people who might come to her aid when her screams became too loud.
Yeah, she’d be screaming, and it wouldn’t only be because he was giving her the best sex of her life. Which he would. Ginger had made it clear on multiple occasions between the strip club and clubhouse that she planned to put up a fight, so he’d made a call, let the prospects know there’d been a change of plans and to inform Quick neither of them would be back till morning, then turned the car around and headed in the opposite direction.
His home was a two-story cabin in the woods, separated from the city by a few good miles and positioned in such a way that the landscape would absorb her screams.
A devious smile crept across his face as Garrick observed his little devil. She was wild, untamed, and stunningly beautiful. He’d always thought so, even as a kid when she’d hang around like all the other kids, hoping to be noticed; and like a fine wine, she’d only gotten better with age.
“Release me, and I’ll suck your cock so good, your eyes will cross. I promise I won’t even try to bite it.”
“Well, how can I say no to an offer like that?” The short answer? Easily.
The instant she’d realized what he had planned for her, Ginger had lost her mind. She’d fought him with surprising strength, rivaling some of the men he’d known over the years. She punched, kicked, and even bit to get free. By the time he’d managed to get her inside and tied to his bed, spread eagle—because that was the only way he could keep her somewhat under control—he’d been covered in angry red welts, some places even beginning to turn colors which would later be a bruise.
Now, she was flipping the game, playing nice. He’d almost buy it if she didn’t look like a lunatic. Red hair matted and sticking out in every direction, pieces of it clinging to her face. Her cheeks were flushed, her bottom lip showing signs of swelling from where she’d banged it against his shoulder, and there was no mistaking the gleam in her eye. This calm was a trick, like the eye of a storm.
Her hands, tied to the bedposts at the wrists, motioned him over, but Garrick just smirked and shook his head. “I’d have to have been born yesterday, Red.” He had to admit, though, seeing her spread out like a buffet made his mouth water to crawl up her thighs and bury his face between them.
“Oh, ye of so little faith.” Ginger sighed as if truly put out. Turning her head, she inspected her manicure. “Probably for the best.” Her brown eyes shifted toward him. “I would have bit.”
“I know.”
“Well, let it never be said you’re stupid.”
Thanks? He wasn’t sure how to respond to that. Actually, he did. “Since you’re not ready to play nice, I’m going to grab myself a beer and catch the game.” He turned and headed for the door.
“You’re going to leave me here, like this?” Ginger called after him.
Continuing, Garrick said, “Yep.”
He heard her thrashing around, the mattress springs giving protest. “Get back here, dammit! You untie me right now, Garrick! Right-damn-now!”
Pausing in the doorway, he looked over his shoulder and gifted her with a smile. “Is that any way to speak to your captor? You catch more flies with sugar, honey.”
“FYI, flies eat shit. Also, a bit of helpful information, vengeance runs deep in my blood, so I’d advise you to think carefully about what you do next.”
Pursing his lips, Garrick pretended to think on it. “The game should only be a couple hours. I suggest you use your time wisely and think about your behavior while I’m gone.”
And that’s when the screams began in earnest. Laughing to himself, Garrick shut the bedroom door to dampen the worst of it. Tonight promised to be even more fun than he’d planned.
***
Did women ever get tired of hearing their own voice? If it wasn’t nagging and complaining, it was…well, screaming. Over an hour had passed, and Ginger was still going strong. She wasn’t even hoarse yet, which was puzzling. She should have lost her voice by now. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking. Hell, she had more stamina than a toddler.
Garrick had tried ignoring it, then roared along with her just for shits and giggles, which only seemed to piss her off more. He tried pretending it was just background noise, even fitting it to some of the plays on the TV. That’d helped for a short time, but now he was back to trying his damnedest to ignore the banshee in the next room. Hell, much more of this and he’d just cut her ass loose. If this was indicative of what he had to look forward to once he tamed her—which he would—then he wasn’t sure he had the wherewithal to survive. He had to hand it to the woman, though. She had fight, and he respected the hell out of her for it.
It was one of the reasons he wanted her. A man like Garrick Stone needed a strong woman by his side, someone who knew her own mind, knew how to hold her own. He also needed a woman who knew how to let her man lead. That was something they were going to have to work on, clearly.
But first, he had to make her realize he was her man. Once she accepted that she belonged to him, they could work on the rest.
“Fucking bullshit,” Garrick barked in response to the bad call by the ref. “No way was he out of bounds.” With a huff, he clicked off the television and tossed the remote on the table and ran his fingers through his hair. Maybe he should check on the little wench and see if she was ready to chill the fuck out before she had an aneurism.
Or maybe she needed an exorcist. Surely, she was possessed. Sometime in the last few minutes, she’d switched from screaming and issuing threats to laughing maniacally. He wasn’t sure which was worse.
Blowing out a breath, he stood and headed for the bedroom, stopping just outside the door. What was the plan? He didn’t have one. It was probably too much to hope that she’d accept an olive branch. Maybe a drink of water and a bite to eat? She had to have worked up an appetite with all the calories she’d burned. Then again, maybe her hunger was for blood. His blood. He’d been around enough angry women in his time to know a murderous one when he saw one. At least she was bound, so he was safe from attack.
Steeling his jaw, Garrick pushed his way inside…and paused. “Oh…babe, really,” he breathed, holding back the laugh that begged to be let free.
“Shut your mouth,” Ginger growled.
“What did you do to yourself?” This time, he didn’t bother holding back. Laughing so hard his vision blurred, he strode to the bed and began untangling her from her self-imposed prison of linens. It looked as though she’d thrashed around so hard she’d somehow managed to get the sheets wrapped around her ankles and one of her legs in such a way that one of her feet was twisted around, her knee turned in toward the other. Her torso was in the same condition, and she’d managed to get herself stuck in such a way that her top half was facing down, her bottom half sideways and up toward the ceiling, with her head tucked beneath her arm so she could shoot daggers of hate at him.
“This is your doing, Repo. I wouldn’t be in this predicament if you hadn’t kidnapped me and tied me to your bed!”
As he freed her of the blanket prison and righted her on the mattress, Garrick sat down beside her and shook his head. “If you hadn’t been acting like a psycho, you wouldn’t be in this predicament. If you had the sense to stop fighting me every step of the way, we’d be having amazing sex right now instead of arguing.”
“Typical,” she said with a lift of her chin. “Blame the woman. It’s always the woman, is it?”
“When the woman is batshit crazy? Yeah,” he said, softly touching one of her legs. She didn’t appear to notice.
“What makes me crazy? That I don’t want to be a prisoner, or that I refuse to bow down to your ridiculous demand that I give up my freedom and turn myself over to you? Or am I crazy because I don’t jump on the chance to ride the Great and Powerful Repo’s cock at the snap of a finger?”
“Do I have to pick just one?”
She was not amused. “You might be a nice guy, in general, Repo, but you’re not the settling down type.”
“You don’t know me well enough to make that judgment.”
Her brows shot into her hairline, and she jerked at her restraints. “I know the only crazy person in this room is you. And I also know that I’ve worked long enough with the Spartans to learn how each one of you ticks. You, Repo, are not a man who settles down.”
“I was married once,” he pointed out.
“And look how well that turned out.”
He resented that. It wasn’t his fault it didn’t work out—not entirely. “You have a lot of room to talk.” Pushing off the bed, Garrick began shedding his clothes.
“Okay, so she was a bitch and did you dirty, but even as young as I was, I saw how you acted. I see it now too,” she said to his back. “You want a woman who will sit pretty and clean your home and raise up the kids while you ride around the country, taking off whenever you please, no questions asked, no answers provided, and expect dinner on the table when you return. You want the homemaker, doting wife who will keep her mouth shut and get down on her knees on command. In case you haven’t noticed, Repo, I’m not that woman.”
Jaw tight, Garrick ground out, “Garrick. I told you to call me Garrick.”
“And I told you to call me Ginger, but all I’ve been hearing is Red and babe. Fair’s fair, old man.”
His fists clenched on a pair of plaid pajama bottoms. Yanking it off the shelf, Garrick jammed his legs into them, the waistband snapping against his hips. “I’m barely ten years older than you. Therefore, not old.”
He bent down then to pick up his dirty clothes. Both knees crackled and popped, sounding like a box of Rice Krispies.
Ginger giggled. “Riiiiight. If you say so.”
Carrying his clothes into the adjoining bathroom, he ignored her. He was not going to play into her insults. “Are you hungry?”
She thought for a moment. “You know, now that you mention it, I have this inexplicable craving for cereal. Do you have any Rice Krispies by chance?”
The tendon in his jaw jumped, and his eyes narrowed on her. “I’ll see what I can find.”