Explicit Detail
By: Scarlett FinnRushe was selective. In describing what he did, Rushe had told her he was “...the guy people come to when every other avenue has been exhausted.” Being with Rushe gave Flick confidence and he offered her a security that she’d never had in her life before. Rushe hadn’t had the acceptance that she gave him. She’d never tried to change him, and she wouldn’t want to.
But he’d been out in that living room for an hour with whomever had been battering down their front door. Flick had known she wouldn’t sleep with them out there – strangers, and unknowns, weren’t conducive to slumber. It had been wishful thinking on Rushe’s part when he told her he’d wake her, and it was also his way of telling her to stay out of things. But he should know her better than that.
Flick punched the mattress to push herself into a sitting position. Being here helped no one, and she didn’t want to be out of the loop. Rushe would take care of her from a distance forever if she let him, but she didn’t want to be treated like glass. From the moment they met he treated her as a woman, he didn’t handle her with kid gloves. Flick didn’t want Rushe to change, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t.
With her decision made, she tiptoed out of the bed and swept his tee-shirt from the floor. Tucking her head and arms into the material, she went to the bedroom door and opened it a fraction. The bass of Rushe’s voice carried to her immediately.
‘I don’t know what you expect me to do about it,’ Rushe said.
Flick crept out the narrow gap and pulled the door almost closed behind her. Staying in the shallow hallway, she pressed to the wall and skimmed along it.
‘You going into retirement?’ a male voice Flick didn’t recognise asked.
‘Maybe,’ Rushe said.
‘I don’t believe it.’
‘I don’t give a fuck.’
Flick moved around as her curiosity increased; Rushe didn’t have friends. In the time she’d lived here with him, the only person she’d seen at the door was the pizza guy. Rushe didn’t even own a phone, but he apparently did own a pager.
‘Rushe, you’re the guy for this... the only guy.’
Inching closer, Flick turned her front onto the wall and peeked around the hall wall to see three men seated in the leather couches arranged in a U shape next to the living room side of their outer bedroom wall. Rushe was in the couch closest, with his back to her. One man sat opposite him on another couch, and at the top of the table in the armchair with its back to the window was a second man.
‘You haven’t—‘
The man opposite Rushe stopped, which made the man in the armchair look up. ‘What?’
‘You got company?’ the man who had spotted her asked.
The guy in the armchair followed his attention, and Flick ducked back. ‘This about some whore? You want us out so you get your money’s worth? Shit, what did you pay her? I’ll give you double to get the fuck out of here, Darlin’!’
The last sentence was for her, and any shame at being caught spying evaporated into outrage.
‘I beg your pardon!’ Flick retorted, and came out of her hiding place to march toward the men.
‘You shut up,’ Rushe said, getting to his feet faster than Flick had seen him move in a while.
‘I’m not a whore!’
‘Yes, you are,’ Rushe said.
Flick had thought he was telling the guy to shut up, but he skirted the couch to head in her direction, making Flick re-think that assumption.
‘What is going on here?’ she asked.
‘Bedroom,’ Rushe commanded.
‘No,’ she replied, looking him in the eye when he bore down upon her.
‘Now.’
Flick knew that snarl and those bullet black eyes. The thunder that emanated around him had flared in the past too. She had seen it intimidate men into humiliation... but Flick was immune.
‘I’m not—‘
‘Now!’
Rushe got hold of her. When she tried to resist him, he swung her up into his arms to take her off her feet. Flick fought because she always did, but she kept her mouth shut until he got them back into the bedroom and tossed her onto the bed.
Flick scrambled up to her knees as Rushe slammed the bedroom door. Her intention had been to get back on her feet, but Rushe closed the space between them and blocked her from leaving the bed.
