She didn’t deserve tainted versions of me because of Oscar.
She did deserve the guilt of her playing a role in his now broken face for not coming to me sooner.
She deserved a lot of things… too bad the only things I could give her weren’t the ones she wanted from me.
I had only ever been to her apartment or even this side of Venice a dismal amount of times, but I had all her information burned into my head since the minute I signed the papers making her my secretary. I needed it filed away in case I was the one who had to put an end to her contract with the Clave.
Venice was chaotic, messy, colorful… all the things Abigail wasn’t on the outside. It was hard to picture her living amongst all this life.
The one level, condos, bright yellow with white shutters and window plants, like it wasn’t Venice but a piece of wine country I just stepped into. I remembered the number of her apartment wasn’t insane or even two digits from last time: 8—an even number for an even keel kind of girl.
Knocking on the door feeling déjà vu engulf me, still on display outside, I winced at my knuckles colliding with the hardwood. I kept my head down, trying to hide in plain sight from any onlookers, like the people passing by and the people inside their apartments.
“Abigail, I know you’re in there. Your car is outside,” I added, with a quick wrap of my busted knuckles once more.
The door swung open to Abigail wearing barely anything and dipping an Oreo in a full glass of milk that was too discolored to be actual milk. Probably oat or almond. As much as she didn’t think she fit into LA’s lifestyle, Abigail was the epitome of the LA lifestyle: the body, the tan, the self-care bullshit, and the health nut routines. I grew up in LA and was less LA than Abigail.
“What are you doing here? What happened to your lip? Are you okay?”
Just when I thought you were ordinary… I expected her to know exactly what happened in my absence and ask me how bad it was.
She sounded shocked when only hours ago I stormed out of the office after I learned about what her ex had done, and now I was showing up battered, only slightly bruised.
“No, what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be chained to a certain desk in a certain building near my office?”
Two can play that game.
With an extreme show of emotion, I watched her eyelashes flutter and her Oreo disappear between her lips.
Fuckkk. Focus.
“I took a sick day. I’m sick. You’d know you were actually in the office for a few days.” She faked clearing her throat like a professional trying to fake being sick when she showed up to work with every inch of her polished mask in place, hiding it all but her eyes from everyone. Windows to the soul—in this case, it was a peep hole straight to her heart.
“Sure. Sick. Justice home?”
Pushing past her, I walked into her apartment. The boho accents must have been the Jus touches to the taupe, white, and slate—all neutral, all outlining a kind of truth that went unblemished while the bad sides of truth lived under the rug.
“No… She’s out protesting or something. Why?”
After finding her room, she followed me into there, and I started looking for how Oscar was getting in, how he was drugging her, or any kind of evidence.
“Excuse me, what are you doing in my room?” Setting her glass of milk down, I watched another Oreo fall apart on her lips, and her mouth seductively captured the fall out.
“Evidence. He said he was drugging the girls in the photos.”
Her eyebrows flew up, and her hand went over her mouth while she chewed her mushy Oreo. “He said that? Why would he admit it?”
Inspecting the open water bottle on her nightstand, the clear plastic looked fogged up.
“Yes, Abigail, he did. You were his ticket into the Clave. You don’t get in the Clave by solving world peace.”
Lifting the water bottle to my nose, I smelled the sour scent coating the rim: roofies. That’s how the piece of shit was doing it.
She was digging into me, claws and all, watching me, seemingly unconcerned as to why I was examining her damn water bottle and more concerned with my hands all banged up. Taking my hand in hers, she brushed her thumb over my sore knuckles. “What happened to you?”
“Oscar happened to me. Piece of shit was using you for his little project to get in good with the Clave, and then blew up pictures of you on a big screen in front of me.”
“What did you do?”
She tried to stay neutral, but I could hear it in her voice. She was on my side of things. She hated him just as much as I did.
“He’s handled. He isn’t going to bother you anymore, Abigail.”
She stiffened, letting my hand drop down, with her hand still holding mine. “Is he dead?”
I expected more push back or disgust when it came to the truth of me being death. I killed people, and she knew it. Her question wasn’t that far out of reach with zero hint of sarcasm.
Capping her water bottle, I tossed it in the trash next to the nightstand. I then twisted to face her even more when my hands cupped her face. “I would kill anyone who hurts you, with or without your permission. I knew you wouldn’t want him dead.”
With me still cupping her face, she asked me, “Where did you go? You vanished, then texted me to get you a mask for some girl.” Her words were full of hate, yet she softened in my hands.
“I had to take care of some shit. It’s fixed now. I don’t control Clave shit, Abigail. I don’t get to decide who I go with or what I can even skip. It is what it is.”
“What’s fixed?” I felt her fingertips sneak between the band on my pants and my hot flesh, only the tips, not moving any further.
“He got out early for good behavior. Did you know that? He was walking around, living a normal fucking life after what he did to you. That required fixing.”
Her hands tucked in further, letting me know she was there, like my dick didn’t already pick up the sexual tension between us enough to stiffen in my pants.
My hands dropped from her face to sliding around the back of her and grabbing her ass to push her into me. Our chests touched, and our hands teased. I spoke again making my intentions clear: “No one hurts you and gets away with it.”
Leaning into me, her head tilted up, her lips found mine, and the cut on my bottom lip stung against her full lips. The sting I could handle. Oscar blowing up her tits on a projector during a brunch? That sting crossed a line.
“What if you hurt me? Then what, Grimm?” She pushed me back on to her bed, catching me off guard.
“If you kill me before all this bullshit, I’ll write you a check for a million.” Crawling onto the bed on the side of me, I watched her hand cup me through my sweats, smiling behind her puppy dog eyes.
“Is that all my heart’s worth?”
I licked my lips, feeling my abs tighten as her hand found my length and she teased her hand around me with fabric obstructing really feeling her the way I wanted.
Skin to skin.
Heart to heart.
If I had my way, I would only ever feel her the way I wanted to: raw.
“It’s worth my life. Not the money, babe.”
Her hand slipped past the band, and with her fingers wrapping around me, she repositioned herself on her knees next to me. My hand smoothed up the back of her thigh and grabbed her ass, waiting for her mouth.