5
Spence
Isit in the boardroom of Checkmate Security with my harem of women and imagine them naked and dancing in my lap.
Well, that ain’t true.
What I actually do is sit in the boardroom with Sophia, our evil genius, and Andi, our pig-toting, smart-mouthed artist extraordinaire and the love of Riley Cruz’s life. I get no actual harem, because all the women that walk through here are already taken, but still, I get to hang with them and practice not fucking every chick simply because she’s a chick.
Andi sits with her head bent over a sketchpad, while Soph does the same over a laptop. We’re at the tail end of designing a new prosthetic leg for Andi’s man, since he was taken down in the line of duty a little more than a year ago. He stood in front of Jess and Laine Lenaghan, which means he’s ours to keep, even when he’s being a grumpy prick about every little thing. When he woke in the hospital a little over a week after he was injured, he was missing a leg, but had gained a fuck ton of bad attitude that Andi has worked tirelessly to beat out of him.
She’s the perfect salve, and hopelessly devoted to her cause, even if she acts like a goofball that can never take anything seriously.
I approached Andi with my idea a month ago, after a sleepless night in my bunk. I couldn’t fall asleep, which isn’t uncommon, so I lay awake and worked a plan through my brain until the sun rose and what I had was… passable. I had the general design idea, but I needed the girls’ help to make it real.
Andi drew up the initial sketches and helped me turn the shit running through my head into something tangible, then Soph added the technology that I didn’t know existed for regular folks like us. Now we have access to a 3D printer, a computer software genius that’ll create it, and an artist who can make it look cool.
I’m the munitions expert, the one who decides how to make the leg multifunctional, while Andi draws pretty designs, and essentially tattoos herself onto her man’s limbs.
“Knife compartment here.” I lean across Soph and point at the 3D image she rotates on the screen. “Slide it in, slide it out.”
“Good idea.” Soph’s hands fly over the keyboard faster than my eyes can keep up. She adds my suggestions in live time, so I see the prosthetic take shape. “What size will he want?”
I shrug. “Five inches, maybe. See how it can slide down the back of the calf? Clip in, clip out. We’ll make the leg titanium. He won’t even be stopped at airports.”
“Gun on the side?”
“Gun built into the shape,” I correct. “Like, I want it to be built into the leg so when the piece is in place, he could walk around in shorts and no one would actually know the gun is there unless theyknow.”
“I get it.” She continues working, adjusting, molding the shape on screen, while Andi sketches with steely focus.
She’s designing machine pieces onto what is already a machine piece. Rose vines weave through and look badass, but the roses only serve to remind me of the flower shop I visited yesterday. And the woman who owns it.
Abigail, who looks way too young for me to feel okay about. Abigail, who visited me in my dreams last night.
Snotty little rosary-clutching woman with her perfect hair and mesmerizing eyes that have somehow burned themselves onto the backs of my eyelids.
She’s not the first woman that has intrigued me, but she’s definitely the first that I didn’t just take to another room and fuck to get her out of my system. This is all brand new for me; she got under my skin with nothing more than a dislike for swearing and ink.
I’m not a romantic. I don’t even have to like a woman to hook up with her. Tits and ass are tits and ass. I take what I want, grab their tits, smack their ass, then show them out to the cab that collects them and removes them from my life.
It really is that simple in my world.
So if a girl intrigues me, it’s not a grand, romantic thought where I might get nervous or excited for a date. It’s literally a case ofthis chick makes me wanna look twice.So I look twice, I do what I have to do, then I send her away like she’s just another tick on my to-do list.
But Abigail isn’t my typical itch. She’s a fuckin’ nun. She’s a virginal prissy girl who can’t handle cussing or bad manners. She’s absolutely not someone who might agree to take a minute with me in another room so I can scratch that itch. She’s… different.
And I don’t mean that romantically. She’s not ‘different’ in a good way, she’s not ‘different’ in a way that makes me want to stuff her in a bag and keep her for myself. She’s not ‘different’ like I might like to get to know her.
She’s different like a fucking tumor on my back.
“Spence?”
“Hmm?” I come back and find Soph’s face just inches in front of mine. “What?”
The brunette beauty flashes a cute smile that speaks nothing of the savagery she’s capable of. She vacillates between innocent ballet teacher who controls a troupe of five-year-olds five days a week, to the psycho avenger beneath the surface who personally took out, or had taken out, gangsters who did her wrong. She’s a contradiction of herself, and terrifying with how quick she can switch roles. I guarantee her students’ moms have no clue who is truly teaching their babies. But if they did, they might even applaud such a strong, female influence in their lives. Homicidal tendencies and all.
Soph watches my eyes and nibbles on her bottom lip.