Maybe for love, you could.
Maybe.
It was still asking a whole hell of a lot. More than I was willing to give up. How could I expect that from another?
But this wasn't love.
Not yet a little voice in my head said.
And likely never.
Eventually, and I hated to admit this, she would have to leave. I would need to let her go.
Chernev wouldn't be on the run forever.
We would ferret him out.
I would make my men hold him so I could make my way to whatever rock he was living under, and exact my justice myself.
And then, I would have to tell her.
That it was safe.
To go home.
To leave me.
I didn't want to, of course. I wanted to find some excuse to keep her here where I had her within reach at all times.
I couldn't do that, though.
I remembered once when I was a boy. My father took me to a colleague's house in Australia. And there were these brilliant-colored macaws that would come up on the back deck to beg for food because he had been feeding them since they were babies. I asked why he didn't take them inside, turn them into pets.
He said something that had always stuck with me.
When you love and respect something, you never cage it, you never shrink it, you never force it to fit into your world just because you want it there.
I'd never had a pet after that.
And I couldn't make one of Melody.
She had a life. By all accounts, a big life. Full of adventure and intrigue. She had people who loved her.
It wouldn't be right for me to ask her to give any of that—let alone all of it—up because I liked seeing her across from me at the dining room table.
It would be like clipping her wings.
Like sticking her in a cage.
Like breaking her spirit.
I couldn't do that to her.
Much like my father's friend and his birds, I respected her too much.
"That is a grim face," Melody said, breaking into my swirling thoughts. I looked over to find her head cocked to the side, looking at me with curiosity. "What were you thinking about?"
"Parrots."
"Parrots," she repeated, brows scrunching. "That is, ah, strange," she decided, putting down the fresh herbs she'd gathered, going to the sink to wash the dirt off her fingers.
"Have you ever seen them?"
"Parrots?" she repeated, shooting me an almost worried look. "Of course I have."
"In cages, or in the wild?"
"Both," she said, shrugging. "Why?"
"It's wrong to cage them, isn't it?"
"Well, I mean," she started, eyes going considerate. "I guess that depends, doesn't it?"
"On what?"
"On if it grew up in the wild? Because taking something from the wild, no matter what it is, is wrong. I think we can all agree with that. But if the bird was bred and hatched in captivity? I don't know. I guess I don't see it as any different than a Guinea Pig or cat or dog. They were all wild once. But they are happy to eat your lettuce, knock your glasses off the counters, and lick your face when you get home from work."
"You think they're happier?"
"I think there are different kinds of happy. There is wild happy and there is domestic happy. They're both different, but they're not necessarily better than the other. What is this about? This is a very philosophical discussion to have before noon," she told me, shaking her head. "I was just remembering these wild parrots that ate nuts off my father's friend's porch when I was young."
"I had a goose bite me on the ass once," she told me, surprising me enough to get a choked laugh out of me.
"What?"
"Yeah. Right on the ass," she declared, shrugging. "I mean, I laugh about it now. But those fuckers are vicious. And it hurt."
"Hm," I said, stalking closer to her, hands going around, sliding down, sinking into her ass. "This ass?" I asked, squeezing.
Her eyes went from amused to molten in a blink.
I never saw a woman come alive with the smallest of touches the way she did.
But I damn sure wasn't taking it for granted.
"Mmhmm," she said, head tilting to the side, smile going devilish as my fingers gathered her skirt, pulled it upward, fisted it as my other hand grabbed her, turned her, pushed her up against the sink, face staring out the window, back to me.
Her arms shot out, hands bracing at the back of the sink as my hand grabbed her panties, yanked them down, exposing her ass to me.
My fingers palmed the soft round cheeks for a second before one hand slipped forward, between, stroked up her clit, thrust inside her pussy, feeling her walls tighten immediately, begging for more.
There was a time and a place for slow and sweet and explorative, for divine torture, for lingering builds to multiple orgasms.
With Collis just forty feet away, with Alexander and Laird eventually making their way back, this was not the time or place for that.
This was the time and place for fast, hard, desperate.
Judging by the way her hips rocked against me when my fingers turned and raked over her top wall, she was game.
My fingers pulled from her, grabbing one of her wrists, pulling it up, pinning it on the window frame to brace her, then taking the other wrist, guiding her hand between her legs, pressing it against her clit.
"Don't stop," I demanded when my hand moved away and her fingers stilled.
With a shaky inhale, she kept working her clit as I grabbed a condom out of my wallet, then unbuttoned and unzipped my pants, protecting us, then moving in behind her, my cock pressing against her ass cheek for a second until she went up on her tiptoes, arching just right, inviting me inside her slick tightness.
One hand anchored to her hip, the other moved around her face to clamp over her mouth so as not to alert my guard as I slammed inside her.
Even muffled, the sound she made was loud, desperate, nearly making me lose it and come right then and there.
A shudder moved through her as my hand pressed against hers on her clit again, as my hips started withdrawing, then slamming deep again. And again. Again.
Until every thread of control snapped, making me fuck her harder, faster, her hips slamming against the cabinet, likely leaving bruises. My palm caught her whimpers as her breathing got ragged on the front of my palm. Her pussy got tighter and tighter until her entire body went taut, teetering on the edge.
My hand pressed against hers.
My hips thrust.
And she cried out her orgasm against my palm as I took her as deep as her body would allow, feeling her pussy milk my orgasm out of me, seeming to sap every ounce of my strength in doing so, my body half-folding over hers as I struggled to get my breath again.
Eventually, I came back down into my body, my hand releasing her mouth, my other sliding from between her legs as I slipped out of her, giving her ass one hard slap as I retrieved my pants.
She let out a choked squeak at the contact, arms bracing wide on the sides of the sink, taking slow, deliberate breaths, not even bothering to try to retrieve her panties as I discarded the condom, and got my pants back in place.
There was something more than a little endearing in the way she seemed to forget everything when I made her come.
Even as Alexander and Laird came back up the path, likely making their way in our direction.