“Anything?” I asked.
There was a flash of hesitation as, I imagined, he pictured things like spending six months in an ashram or going to a public tantric workshop.
He had no idea what was coming. And I was going to use that to my advantage.
“Yeah, anything,” he agreed eventually.
“You promise?” I demanded, needing the words.
“Yeah, baby, I promise. What do you want to do when you can leave here again?”
I tried hard to keep the smile in.
And failed miserably.
“I want to drive one of your fancy sports cars.”
Judging by the look of pure dread on his face, he would have preferred the ashram and tantric sex in front of a bunch of strangers.
“Gemma…” he tried, trying to think of anything he could use to entice me. “Of all the things in the world you could do, why would you want to drive one of my cars? You hate sports cars.”
I did.
I thought they symbolized an alarming amount of shallow capitalism, that they were bad for the environment, that they could reinforce toxic masculinity to many people, that they were ostentatious and unnecessary.
But they were a part of Lincoln’s life, something he was passionate about, something he loved.
In respect to that, I would learn to find enthusiasm about them as well.
I figured one great way to do that was to drive one.
Besides, if you didn’t get off a teensy little bit on tricking your partner into doing something they wouldn’t normally do, were you really even in a relationship?
I mean, walk into any brunch place on a Sunday morning and you saw a dozen beaming, self-satisfied women dancing around as they dug into their pile of French toast with their dazed partners desperately clutching their coffee cups, still not sure how they were out of bed and dressed in a polo at ten a.m. on a Sunday morning instead of sleeping in.
“You said we could do anything,” I reminded him, failing at holding in my smile.
“You are loving this, aren’t you?” he asked, small-eyeing me.
“I really am,” I agreed.
“I’m gonna get you back for this,” he told me. Which was all the answer I needed. He was going to let me do it. He, someone who never let anyone drive his cars, was going to let me–an admittedly wholly mediocre driver–behind the wheel of one of his precious babies.
I felt that told me all I had to know about how serious he was about this.
As serious as I felt.
“Oh, I am counting on it,” I agreed with a smile.
“Let’s see if we can wipe that self-satisfied smirk off your face, shall we?” he asked.
Then he did.
He really did.
Two more times.
And it was still absolutely perfect.
NINE
Lincoln
I didn’t want to leave her.
It was stupid, really.
On a rational level, I understood she was perfectly safe. Hell, she was probably safer than normal. Since normal meant that I was the only one there with her.
Like I wanted.
Like she wanted.
Everyone else just went along with it because they had other shit to do.
Since I was leaving, though, and was experiencing an almost overwhelming sort of paranoia and protectiveness, I had called in both Finn and Bellamy.
Finn might have struggled with life in his own way, battled his demons on the daily, come off as a bit distracted, focused only on his compulsions, and the relentless need to exercise them. That said, he was an incredibly observant man with a strong background in the service just like me. He could be trusted to single-handedly protect Gemma in my absence.
Now Bellamy was possibly not someone that others would look at and think of as strong and capable of fighting off attackers. If I were being perfectly honest, he wouldn’t have been my first pick. Smith would. But Smith wasn’t around. Everyone else had shit to do.
Despite outward appearances and the carefully crafted persona that he showed the world, I knew Bellamy to be smart and capable. And lethal. Very, very lethal. The man could make a weapon out of a paperclip. Maybe he didn’t have the training most of us did, but he had a passion that the majority of us were lacking, a bloodlust that the military had leeched from us long ago.
She was safe.
But I hated leaving her.
I hated crawling out of the bed we’d been sharing for the past two nights, sneaking off into the room I normally stayed in, showering, dressing, meeting with the guys, then making my way out of the building before the sun even got a chance to come up.
She was going to be mad at me for going behind her back when she got up too. But I was comforting myself with the knowledge that of all emotions, anger was the one Gemma was least adept at. She couldn’t hold onto it. Even when she really should have, when she was well within her rights to do so.