Page 11 of Rent an Enforcer

Everything stalls.

“What’s wrong?” Stella’s lips are swollen when she lifts her head, eyes filled with concern. “Did I do something wrong?”

“You’re perfect. It’s not you.”

“Then what—” She follows my gaze and sees the rabbit on the coffee table, bearing witness to all of this. “Oh. Gotcha.”

Then she looks at me and shrugs. “He probably just wants attention.”

“He has my full attention. That’s the problem.”

She presses her face into my thigh and starts laughing. I feel it vibrating through me, and under any other circumstances, the feeling of her laughing against my lap would be the opposite of helpful. Right now, it’s the only thing keeping me from losing my mind.

“Bedroom,” I decide. “Now.”

I stand, pull her up with me, and carry her down the hall. She’s still laughing against my shoulder when I kick the bedroom door shut with my foot, but the laugh dies when I put her on the bed and follow her down, settling between her thighs.

“Where were we?” she whispers with a wicked gleam in her eye.

I answer by pushing into her hand, which she wraps around me without hesitation this time. Her mouth follows, and now the angle is better and the privacy is complete. I last about ninety seconds before I come so hard my vision whites out. “Stella...” I groan with her hair wrapped around one of my fists and my heart in my throat. She takes every drop, too, then grins at me like she’s proud of herself.

She even curls against my chest afterward like she’s been doing it for years. What’s more interesting is that I let her. That I wrap my arms around her and hold her close while her breathing slows. Her hand finds mine in the tangle of sheets.

“Tristan?” she whispers, already fading out. “Socks is going to be weird with you now.”

“Socks was already weird with me.”

“Fair enough.” She yawns. “That was...”

“Yeah, it was.”

“I’m sleepy now. Are you sleepy?”

“A little,” I admit.

“Take your clothes off. Get comfortable.” She offers a sleepy smile. “You earned it.”

She’s not wrong... though something tells me I haven’t come close to earning her.

Though as I settle back down, and she melts against my bare chest, a small voice in the back of my head wonders if I’m already on my way.

5

STELLA

I wake up with my head on his chest and absolutely no desire to move. Ever. For the rest of my life. I might just pick this exact spot to live out the rest of my days.

It takes a second for everything to come back. The movie we didn’t finish. The way his hand found the back of my neck. The way one thing became another thing and that thing became us stumbling into my bedroom. My cheeks go warm at the memory of what happened after that.

His arm is heavy across my waist, like even in sleep, he doesn’t want me going anywhere. I’m not going anywhere. Just in case that wasn’t already clear. I have no plans to go anywhere ever again.

The light coming through the window is warm and golden thanks to the fact that we took a long nap and missed the rest of the afternoon. For a minute, it’s enough to lie here and breathe, keeping track of the heartbeat under my ear. Slow and steady. His chest rises and falls, rises and falls.

And his face? I wish I could paint it. He looks different when he’s asleep. Softer around the edges, like all the things that make him sharp during the day have been put down for a while. His jaw is still ridiculous, obviously. That jaw does not take a break. But the tension is gone from it now, and his mouth is slightly open. He looks like a man who isn’t carrying anything for once.

That’s when I start noticing the scars.

They’re everywhere. Some of them are thin and white. Old, healed over so long ago they barely catch the light. Others are thicker, raised, the kind that didn’t heal clean. A lot of them are hidden by tattoos, which I’m now realizing might be the point. The ink doesn’t just decorate his skin. It covers it. It tells a story over the top of another story, and the one underneath is the one I’m not supposed to see.