Under Locke

by Mariana Zapata

“You know damn well you don’t come into my shop demandin' shit, callin' my girl a bitch.”

In the words of a rap song my neighbor used to play on his boombox when I was a kid: Hold up, wait a minute.

"You walk out, and I'll go get you."

"Babe, I've handpicked everythin' and everyone in here. I know what I want, and I get what I want," he breathed. "And I keep what's mine."

"He's pissing all over you." He shrugged. "It was about time." Things went from bad to worse when Blake piped in from behind the divider. "Boy's probably got blue balls by now."

"I tried all night to think of somebody I trust as much as you, and I could only come up with one. One fuckin' person out of everybody in the world, babe," he let me know. The sudden urge to cry and smile had me making some kind of stupid face. "My ma," he said. "The only person who knows me better than you do is Ma, and that's cheatin'. Not my sisters or my brothers, babe. Just. You."

“Look at you. I never stood a fuckin’ chance.”

“Baby, there’s nothing wrong with my judgment. I know exactly what I’m doin’, and I know damn well that if I ever see you smile at somebody like you did at Trey today, I’ll kill the poor bastard.”

"I suck at pretendin', babe." He brushed his mouth over my cheekbone, making my spine tingle. "You suck at it, too."

He bit down again before nuzzling the line of my jaw. "You're mine." His lower body pressed into my stomach. Hard, he was so hard. "Your mouth, your face, your ass, your pussy, Ritz. You're all mine."

chin. "But I'm not a good man, and I'm gonna take everythin' you want to give me and everythin' you don't."