Page 100 of The Ones We Fight For

“Not just this planet. You know those crazy sci-fi smut books with weird alien sex? You’re hotter than them, too.”

“I’m familiar.”

“How familiar?” Walker narrowed his eyes at her, and Talia blushed instantly, feeling horrifically embarrassed. “No way, you read those?”

“Maybe?” her voice cracked, and Walker gaped at her.

“Is now a good time to tell you that I don’t have a double-headed dick? If you’re expecting mind-blowing blue alien sex, I’m afraid I might disappoint,” Walker teased. Talia’s fist flung out and socked his shoulder. He flinched, but his shit-eating grin was unwavering. “Who knew you were so freaky?”

“Do you want to get laid or not?” Talia warned.

“Oh, I definitely do. Even more so now. I’m eager to show up every fictional man and extraterrestrial in your books.” Walker’s eyes swept down her body as she pulled into the apartment complex, and Talia felt a pang of heat bloom between her legs. “It’s apartment one-sixty-nine.”

“Nice.” Talia laughed.

“I know, right?”

The excitement in her chest was spiraling out of control when she finally pulled the car into a parking spot in front of the building. Walker read her mind, and the second she threw the car in park, they frantically unbuckled their seatbelts and his lips were back on hers, his hand cupping her face as his mouth took possession of hers. It was intoxicating. Talia couldn’t move, didn’t want to move, trapped in a limbo where all she could do was kiss Walker back.

You can’t straddle him in the car, Talia berated herself. They had to get upstairs and into a bed at some point.

“We should go inside.” Walker upped the pressure of his fingertips into her back.

“Or we could do it here,” Talia suggested, abandoning herearlier plan. Hoe Talia has entered the chat, apparently?

“Too restraining,” he snorted, sliding his hands down her sides. “I need to be able to move.”

“Then stop kissing me,” she countered, dipping her tongue out of her mouth to toy with his.

“I’m trying,” Walker groaned.

She didn’t want to stop, she really didn’t, but the idea of tangling in bed with Walker was even more enticing than taking him in a parking lot. Car sex, from what Talia recalled, was not as fun as it was cracked out to be. It would definitely be fun with Walker, but he was right; she didn’t want the constraints of an enclosed space their first time. Summoning every ounce of self-restraint she could, she pulled away from him and threw her car door open. Taking the cue, Walker got out and met her around the front for one full-bodied kiss before entwining his fingers in hers and pulling her toward a staircase.

The apartment complex looked to have been newly painted a light gray color, given the cans of paint and tarping laid carelessly on the ground by the dumpster in the parking lot, but was as cheap and as basic as they came. The apartments themselves seemed just big enough for one person to live in. It was exactly the type of seedy place Talia expected Walker would have lived in before he took guardianship over the kids. Concrete slab steps and black metal railing led them up past two landings to the top floor before Talia could see the silver one-six-nine on the red door to Walker’s apartment. He had a plant, or what used to be a plant, sitting in a big clay pot on his porch. This plant looked like it had had several mid-life crises only to finally give into the elements, withering away into a crumbly dust. Talia had a feeling if she bought Walker a cactus, he’d kill it. Paisley and Cole had hired a landscaper that maintained the yard at the house, and Walker had smartly chosen to keep that going instead of trying to take it on himself.

“Walker? You’re back?” a weathered voice called out from the bottom of the steps when they made it to the top. Walker closed his eyes with a pained grimace before turning around to face whoever it was.

“Just for a night,” he stated, glancing down at the stranger, who looked to be at least seventy years old with skin like worn leather.

“Just don’t be too loud,” the crotchety old man grumbled.

“I don’t think it’s me he’s going to have to worry about,” Walker said under his breath, the hint of a smirk on his lips. Talia glared at him, her cheeks burning at the insinuation, but she knew that he might technically be right. Walker looked over at her with an attempt at innocence but utterly failed at it. Raising his voice, Walker called back down to the old man, “Why? You gonna call the cops on me if I walk around in my apartment? For someone so old, you have the hearing of a freaking bat.”

“Walker!” Talia protested, her jaw falling open in shock.

“Your boyfriend is a menace to society,” the old man frowned his wrinkly face and pointed at Walker with one crooked finger. The confrontation probably should have made Talia nervous or angry, but instead, her heart fluttered at the sound of someone referring to Walker as her boyfriend.

“That’s a lot of heat coming from someone whose main contribution to society is being a homophobic hoarder. Wear some ear plugs. I’m going to be as loud as I want to be tonight. My friend at the police station says that you call routinely with noise complaints anyway, regardless of me not being here. I hope you got a bunch of fines for making them come out here for absolutely no reason.” Walker’s nose wrinkled in frustration, and he tightened his grip on Talia’s hand. “And if you so much as speak to my girlfriend in any other way than with the utmost politeness in the future, there will be hell to pay. You can be a jackass to me all you want, but the second you say a word against her, I’ll finally have a good enough reason to show you some manners. How’s that for menacing?”

Damn.Talia bit the inside of her lip. Why am I so turned on by this?

Without another word, Rumplestiltskin hobbled back inside his hole of an apartment, grumbling to himself. She couldn’t hear him, but she assumed it was something resembling “my precious” as he stroked a replica of the Ruling Ring.

Talia was still reeling from how attractive Walker had looked defending her and the fact that he’d called her his girlfriend, so by the time he unlocked his door and pulled it open, it took her nose a second to catch wind of the god-awful smell inside. When it did, her arm flew up to her face in hopes of blocking out the fumes.

“What the—” Walker plugged his nose and gagged, backing out of the entryway.

“You haven’t been back here at all?” Talia asked, trying to think through the fog of the rancid smell that was setting off every alarm bell in her head.

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