all mine

He should’ve thrown the windows open every time Dolly slipped away from him, trying to air the scent, the sense of another woman out of their apartment. Should’ve. As Doll had left that first time, as tiny splinters of hair had continued to itch at his neck the same way his conscience itched with his infidelity, he had basked in the air of perfume Doll had left behind. Every breath tasting of her, the phantom feeling of her fingers in his hair as he’d sat there in torment. Joel was sure it was still lingering the day after, when the taste had turned to ashes in his mouth the moment Jo had pushed open the apartment door and shuffled inside with barely a word.

Anxiety had knotted tight in his stomach that night as he’d lain awake beside his wife. Jo hadn’t so much as twitched. She’d unpacked her bag, protested a long journey – as though she would’ve stayed up with him otherwise – and had retreated to bed. No comment about his hair cut. Her hands would’ve once wandered through it the same way Dolly’s had, the pad of her thumb brushing that blunt ends idly, sensation drifting warm fizzy down the back of his neck until that soft contact had become something else.

Days later his own hand been there, nails raking lightly over his scalp as he’d sent Doll a message, asking her to come again. If Ricky had noticed anything about the way he’d spoken of his old friend, or the haircut, he hadn’t said much either. It was as though there was a veil over it all, obscuring it from the outside world, leaving the two of them as isolated as they’d have been up in the hayloft back home. A sweet smelling cocoon that felt a million miles away from Vaughn, from his pa’s expectations or that gaping hole their ma leaving had torn through their lives.

Meetings stacked up – the normal where he pretended he didn’t want to press his face against the softness of Doll’s stomach, or get lost in the lush curve of her hips, where he wasn’t cheating on his wife – the ones that raced across the line before suddenly it shot back up in front of him and he was left there, shivering on the edge, trembling with a need that he couldn’t shake or fulfil.

His fingers trembled faintly on the handle of the cup of coffee that had gone cold over the last hour. Too much caffeine? Not as much of a problem as other intoxicants. Joel drained the last gritty dregs before he set the cup down in the sink. Taking the case home would’ve pissed Ricky off, but he’d spent the afternoon there anyway, the files he’d started to compile of his own spread out across the kitchen table. Jo had sworn she’d be back for dinner – a promise that had wrung a laugh out of him, and a frown out of her – but she wouldn’t have noticed a damn thing about the faces, or the names littering the files. The line between her job and his had been drawn a long time ago and now he couldn’t have named a single case she was dealing with.

Standing with his hands braced against the edge of the sink, he wondered how long Ricky was going to leave it before he considered he had enough of a case. Hector still had his shackle on Dolly’s finger. He’d felt it there, an echo of the ring on his own left hand. Tracing the line of that rock, he’d wanted to tear it away, to lay his claim where it had once been, the break Doll away from everything that would eventually drown her. Without it Doll would see what she had escaped, she wouldn’t hesitate to turn against them all then and once they were sealed behind bars she would finally be free. They would be.

The heat was back, turning his throat into a desert, popping like a bubble as there was a frantic beat of knuckles against the door. Not Jo, not Ricky. There wasn’t anybody else in town except Doll and she was the only one…

Joel scooted across the apartment, tearing the door open before it came again. Doll was right there, gripping onto him, a gleam in her eyes that twisted at his stomach. Glancing past her, he checked the hallway for some sign of what was wrong – for Jo. Nothing, but something had happened. Doll was moving slow, stepping inside finally. He shook his head, closing the door behind her. ”She’s at work,” he told her hoarsely. ”She won’t finish til six probably. You don’t gotta worry. What’s happened?” He turned his arms in her grip, fingers circling just below Doll’s elbows in turn, drawing her in. If Dacre had laid a hand on her…

Throat going tight, Joel frowned harder. If he had the investigation would explode now whether his partner wanted it to or not. Doll would be safe here and he’d raze the club to the ground if he had to. ”Then we don’t,” Joel growled, dipping his head down, his lips close to her temple. ”We can go right now. I told you, Doll. You don’t have to stay with him.” Would Jo even blink if she came back to find the apartment empty?

God. His gaze had dropped as that deep breath had shuddered through Doll’s chest, straight through his and down. Joel lifted his head as Dolly pressed close again, her exhalation hot against his throat. ”You don’t have to feel bad. Doll, I can’t stop thinkin’ ‘bout you there with him. I wanna tear him away. Can’t you let me do it? Let me save you, baby.” The hero complex burned inside of him hot enough that the doc could probably sense it from across town. He hadn’t stopped Doll from leaving that first time, because of that she’d ended up in Dacre’s grasp, he wasn’t gonna make the same mistake this time.

His fingers tightened on Doll’s hips, need and determination singing in each muscle and sinew, bleeding through to Doll maybe – if he held on hard enough. The universe had conspired against them enough, hadn’t it? Not again. His pale eyes met hers, honesty shining in them as Doll’s question wrung a head shake out of him. ”Not about wantin’ to get you of there,” he breathed. Not as bad as he should’ve done, although guilt had tugged had tugged at something deep in the pit of his stomach every time Doll had scrambled away from him. Could it be considered cheating if your marriage was nothing but dust in the first place. ”We’re not stoppin’, Doll. Not this time. I need this and you do too. I need you.” His hands curled in the fabric of her dressing, pulling her in close enough that she could feel his determination not to let all of this slip away.

Tagged: HANNYA * Word Count: 1165

”Don’t matter, neither one of them … not compared to you, Doll.” Joel waited for the wrenching sensation in the pit of his stomach, for his wedding ring to start burning on his finger in a reminder of the vows he’d made to Jo in front of both their families and a man of God. Hell, Ricky’s ears were probably burning hard enough that he’d know his partner had just taken another step towards the door.

If they hadn’t been standing around with their thumbs up their asses while Dacre had consolidated his empire here. If he’d taken off with Doll the first night he’d seen her at the club. If it had been any other way then the ring wouldn’t be gleaming on Doll’s own hand and there wouldn’t be this tug of war between his conscience and his heart. They’d have gone already and there wouldn’t be anymore reasons for those tears to be welling up in Doll’s eyes.

They could. He should.

Dacre’s operation had grown too big while Ricky had huffed and puffed about what he was doing. If he didn’t get Dolly out now, he wasn’t sure he would be able to before the whole thing swallowed her up. He’d failed to stop her from walking away once, Joel wasn’t sure he could live with doing it again. He pressed his lips to her temple again, retaining that feel of warm, silky skin against his lips as he pulled back to look into those hazel eyes that still glistened with tears. ”I’m sure, baby.” The promise didn’t catch in his throat like he’d thought it would. Maybe if Jo had still been a part of this marriage it would’ve been different, but his wife had been the one with a foot out of the door for months now.

Doll had seen that. He’d told her about the way things had started to fall apart between the two of them, but not that his marriage was beyond being held together anymore. Joel was sure if he cupped his hands together now, he'd see the crumbs of what it had been falling from between his fingers. One corner of his mouth rose in a crooked, wry smile as he looked down at her. ”Do none of the stuff I want you to,” Joel admitted hoarsely. ”Half the time she ain’t even here, Doll. It’s not like you and Dacre. He’s there all the time, puttin’ his hands…” Bile burned its way up his throat, leaving him gritting his teeth against it. It was likely Dacre’s hands were the ones with paint on them, his fingerprints coating every one of those curves in a way that left him wanting to scrub them away.

The feeling built in his throat until it could’ve boiled out in a plume of fire. If Dacre was there he would’ve incinerated the son of a bitch, not stopping until there was too little for them to scrape into court. As though he could hold himself back from it, Joel tightened his grip on Doll. His fingers dug in, the small voice in the back of his head warning him he was no better than Dacre if he hurt her, but he’d only ever done that once and all of this was about making up for it.

Sandy brows furrowed, Doll’s question biting deeper than anything else had since she’d walked in the door. Did he feel guilty for finally admitting his marriage was over? About not opening his mouth to tell Jo he was done before he … No. The doc would’ve told him to advocate for himself, but that was only gonna work with one part of his life. Joel shook his head, his lips pursing. ”Not ‘bout anythin’ to do with you, Doll. I feel bad that Dacre’s still struttin’ about, I feel bad that I took so long to find you, but not about this.” And that steeled something inside of him, leaving him pulling Doll in. She’d suffered at that son of a bitch’s hands for too long, all because he hadn’t stopped her from running that day.

This time they did it all together. This time he wasn’t going to leave Doll to be a fly in some spider’s web. He’d tear the web apart and crush the spider beneath his heel. He’d…

Joel felt the heat rush through him again, down, down, until it felt like it was scorching between them. The sun that the two of them had been orbiting practically since birth. Doll made a sound as though she felt it too, clutching onto him, moaning his name in a way that dragged a needy sound from his throat.

”Fuck ‘em,” Joel growled. The word was a sharp slap in his head, spurring his need into action like snap of a crop against a horse’s flanks. He lifted her, hands curling around the lush hips, turning them as Doll kissed him. For a moment Joel was sure he could feel the sun on his face and smell hay in the air, but then Doll’s bag with buzzing with the sound of her phone. ”Maybe he should come,” Joel growled as he grabbed Doll’s bag and flung it back at the door. The thunk of the phone against the door, against the floor, didn’t stop the buzz but the pounding in his ears did. He bent his head, dragging his teeth over her throat, up to close around her earlobe. ”There won’t be enough left of him to put in a cell. You’ll finally be free, baby.” And he could tear the ring from her finger the way he had done the phone, crushing it with the power that sang in his body along with his lust now. Turning the two of them, Joel tumbled them across the couch, his hands already pawing greedily at the fabric that covered Doll – God, he was more grateful than ever that there wasn’t much of it.

Tagged: HANNYA * Word Count: 997

He wasn’t his brother. Vaughn might’ve been light on self-control, but he never had been. Reliable, honest, hard-working, a good man, all the praises Jolene had sung when they’d exchanged vows. He thought things through, planned for every contingency he could see – or he had until they’d reached Mystic Falls and he’d realised that so much of what he’d believed about what was going on around him was bullshit. He didn’t have a marriage anymore, all those solo sessions with the therapist was proof of just how little Jolene thought of it, he barely had a career. The only thing he could hold onto now was right there in his arms. Years might’ve passed where he’d imagined Dolly was out there, living some incredible life somewhere, but now he knew exactly where she’d ended up and he knew what he had to do to rescue from that trap.

Shaking fingers gripped at her, tearing away any grip Hector had on her like he could peel each fingerprint away and replace it with his own. The little voice in the back of his mind warned him that maybe it would’ve be enough, men like Dacre were insidious, but if Doll could see she didn’t need him, that he needed her, it might just work.

She’d spurred him on, panted words slipping out on an invite to take. He could almost feel her bare heels against his ribs, spurring him on the way she’d once done her horse, an echo of what to come. With Dolly begging him for it, Joel gave her what she pleaded for, what he needed just as badly. Control slipped, every reason they shouldn’t vanishing with a shuddering breath as Dolly touched him and the world seemed to right itself. Finally.

Would Dacre see the fingerprints on her skin? Joel’s gaze slid down Dolly’s throat as she lay half on top of him, watching her pulse and breathing steady, dragging a hand up to settle there just above her collarbones. Jo wouldn’t, the nail marks on his skin, the flush Dolly had brought to the surface, it would all be invisible to her the same way their marriage had been for months. Dacre would give a shit about his property though, probably throwing a fit over the thought of having it taken away from him. Joel smiled faintly, pressing curved lips into the damp hollow beneath Dolly’s jaw.

He felt his name as much as heard it. Lifting his head, Joel looked up into Doll’s eyes, their hazel depths hazy. His brows drew together faintly, his hand slipping to the back of her neck, his thumb sliding over the side of it gently. ”It’s alright, darlin’…” There was nothing to worry about. Dacre wasn’t a problem anymore. He’d freed her.

The corner of Joel’s mouth lifted before he nuzzled at her temple. He hadn’t seen that future with her until it had been too late. With that last kiss a different world had opened up, but then Doll had been gone and the whole thing had been left empty and hollow. It was the only reason Jo had been able to slip into his life, because there was a vacuum there at the heart of him. He’d thought it was love, had seen a future in it, until Jo had slipped through his grip the same way. How the fuck had he been so blind?

An apology for not seeing what had been right there in front of him burned on his tongue. ”I wish I’d realised,” Joel murmured, his voice a low rumble. ”I didn’t know until too late. You were gone and …” He’d been left with the imprint of her feelings on his lips. ”Darlin’…” Shaking his head, he drew her down as she moved, losing himself in the kiss again. ”I’m never gonna regret this. We just had to wait until the right time. It’s alright now, we’re gonna get away. I’m gonna keep you safe, I promise.” The words stuck in his throat though. Just three little ones that he’d whispered time and time again to his wife, even when they’d stopped meaning what they should’ve done.

Trying to swallow them away, Joel kissed her again, pouring what he was sure he felt into it. The possessiveness had dulled, although he still wanted to stamp his claim there. Let Dacre taste it when he tried to take her back. His hand slid down her back, moving softly over her skin. ”We should go and get your stuff out of there. You can move in here ‘til I can get us cut free. I don’t want you back there with him when we finally take that son of a bitch down. You hear me Doll? You can’t go back now.” Ricky might fight it, but it had to happen. Doll was the only important thing in all of this and this time around he was gonna keep a hold on her.

Tagged: HANNYA * Word Count: 828