Reeve (The Henchmen MC 11)

"I got it," Rey insisted as she planted her hands and pulled herself up onto the floor on her knees. Her cape was gone, taken by Sugar. Mine wasn't in her hands either. She was in another of her impractical getups - bright purple leggings under a pair of thin floral shorts and some giant pink sweater left open over a silky white chemise.

Did I mention that Rey seemed completely opposed to wearing bras?

A man could get behind that.

Especially in such slinky, thin material on one of the coldest days of the year.

"Hey," she said, not bothering to move off the floor, simply folding her legs out in front of her, and reaching to close the trap door. "So I met Suga," she said, dropping the 'R' sound like he always did. "He was wondering if you'd 'claimed' me."

It was a statement, but also a question.

And it was clear that Rey might have been a bit breezy in general, but she was also not someone for guessing or games. She was here to return my coat, sure, but also to confront me.

I found it was another piece to her puzzle that I really liked. It was shaping up to be a nice picture.

I didn't know how to respond to this as I leaned back against the wall as far away from her as I could get, not trusting myself if I got too close.

So I said nothing.

Luckily - or unluckily, depending on how you were looking at this - Rey was not the kind of woman who was intimidated by a little silence.

"I told him that I don't know what constitutes claiming," she told me, head cocked to the side a little, making her usually side-swept bangs slide over her brows, the ends getting caught in her eyelashes until she reached up to brush the strands away. "He told me that if I wasn't sure, then I wasn't claimed. You know what I think," she said, but stopped there, demanding a response this time.

"No, babe. What do you think?"

"I think you think I need something from you that I don't."

"And what's that?"

"Your story."

My heart was hammering in my chest, wondering how the fuck it was so obvious to her so soon that I even had a story.

"What story?"

"The one that put that sadness in your eyes," she told me bluntly, not bothering to let it drop when I visibly jolted at her words. "Don't get me wrong; I would be honored if you wanted to share that with me. But some stories aren't for sharing. At least not this soon."

I swallowed past the fist in my throat, forcing myself to speak. "What is it you want from me then, Rey?"

Her body slowly unfolded at that, making mine tense from my toes to the top of my head, knowing that her getting up meant that she was coming closer, and that when she got too close, I found my control more a wish than an actuality. But I couldn't help but watch as she got to her feet and moved across the floor confidently, stopping when just a breath of air was between us.

"I thought we could..." she trailed off, looking for the right word. "Hang out," she decided on, lifting her chin a bit.

"Hang out?" I asked, feeling my brow raise at the turn of phrase. "Buddies hang out, Rey."

Her smile spread just enough to warm up her eyes as she shook her head a little. "Fine," she conceded. "I thought we could go out," she clarified. Her body swayed closer, her breasts brushing across my chest, something that set my cock to hard faster than a fucking teenager. "Or stay in," she added, offering up casual.

"Don't think you're a casual fuck kinda girl, babe."

"I prefer to know someone," she agreed, her hands moving out to rest at the crooks of my elbows for a second before sliding downward, pointedly closing over my curled fists. "That would be the point of the going out part."

My chin tucked slightly so I could keep her eye contact. "Babe, why me? Go find yourself an easier man."

"Why not you? And I know you don't know me that well yet, but easier is not what I am after," she assured me, somehow loosening me up enough to allow my fingers to uncurl, letting her own delicate ones slide in. Not smooth. Because she worked with her hands as much as I did. Hell, maybe even more. There were rough patches of callouses on the pads under her fingers and raised lines on the tops of her hands I guessed were from bites or scratches in varying stages of healing.

"I'm fucked up, Rey," I warned her, my last ditch attempt to make her save herself and turn around.

Truth be told, I wanted this too much to keep turning it down.