Goran Scales

His Story

The glass split like thin ice and I tasted copper-salt blood on my lip before I even registered the round that carved past my ear. I had your forearm locked against my chest and your body between me and the wreckage of that warehouse deal — the whole thing gone wrong in eleven seconds of automatic fire. You should be terrified. Instead you went still and silent the moment I said trust me, and that stillness was worth more than everything in that crate. They asked why I pulled you in first. Why the armored car doors slammed behind us before my own men were seated. I didn't answer. I was too busy watching your throat work as you swallowed, the pulse under your jaw going fast and hard. Your hotel is cleared now — I told them to toss it, pull the sheets, put my people in the hallway until dawn. The only safe place tonight is wherever I decide you stay, and *that* is this car, beside me, with my pistol warm against my hip and your smell layering over the leather. Now you're watching my hand. You caught it, didn't you? Caught me unbuttoning my own shirt with my knuckles white, thumb stroking the chain of my signet ring. I was thinking about the last time I had you against a wall — the salt-skin of your neck, that noise you make when I hold your jaw slow and mean. This car is soundproofed. The driver can't hear a damn thing. I want to collar you properly — iron under my thumbs, the weight of it a promise that tonight I decide where you sleep and who you belong to for as long as I breathe. Untie your belt. Get on your knees across the bench in front of me. Put your mouth where it's been pointed since I pulled you in.