by Maren Smith
Heaven.
She was heaven, perfection, and he didn’t stop fucking her with his hand until he’d wrung every last convulsive twitch from her bucking hips.
His turn.
Her legs were like jello. He had to support her, even just for the short time it took to pick her up off his lap and bend her over the dining room table. Had they not already eaten all the pizza, it would have been on the floor where he sent the box flying when he slapped it out of the way. He didn’t bother undressing. Who the hell had time for that? Shoving his pants down out of the way, he grabbed the back of her hair and slammed up into her like, well… a man who’d been in prison for two years.
Her cry was all pleasure with only the slightest twinge of guttural discomfort—if discomfort it could even be called. She was tight; but she took him. Every inch. He made sure of it. Over and over again, he thrust hard and he thrust deep, and he didn’t stop. Not until they were both shaking, both coming, both crying out, and in a rush of hot ecstasy that he felt pulling all the way down through his balls, he drained every drop of fluid he had into the beautiful heat of her.
She collapsed, limp and panting, still bent over the table.
She was still perfection. She was still heaven.
And he wasn’t just thinking that because she was the first woman he’d been with since Dana.
She deserved a hell of a lot better than a thirty-two-year-old ex-cop turned Birthday Boson for a fast food restaurant where he wasn’t even qualified to operate the fry machine.
He pulled out of her body with no small reluctance.
He never should have taken this job. He never should have had her call him Daddy. She was his now. How in the world was he ever going to let her go?
Running his fingers through her golden hair, he pulled her head back far enough to kiss the top of her bangs, and then he pushed off both her and the table. “Come on, babygirl.”
On wobbly legs, she followed him to the bathroom. He cleaned her up. No condom, damn it. Automatically, the potential consequences of his actions doubled in his head. Tripled. What the hell was wrong with him?
She leaned up against the sink while he washed the stain of him from out between her legs. Drowsy as she was, she smiled the whole time as he helped her back into her pajamas. That smile killed him; his will crumbled.
Just one night. It was okay to have one night. Tomorrow, they’d talk about it, put things back to rights. He’d do what he should have done when she first approached him about this job and he saw her bed cut to shreds—he’d call every friend he used to have at the station and see if any of them still cared enough about him to do him a solid. He’d pass her over into their care and he’d bow out, because while physically, mentally, and sexually he could love her, take care of her, and protect her, he couldn’t do a damn thing for her financially. He was a felon. That stigma would follow him for the rest of his life. He didn’t have a home of his own anymore. He didn’t have a car. He couldn’t buy her coloring book or a stuffed animal, or even an ice cream cone.
He couldn’t be a Daddy in the way he wanted to be, and that she deserved to have him be.
He was pretty well useless to her.
So yeah, tomorrow was soon enough to admit all that out loud to her. For tonight, though… tonight he could still pretend. And since they were pretending, it was perfectly okay for him to lower himself onto one knee, lean forward and kiss the soft, bare skin of her mons, where the smell of him still mingled with hers.
“Let’s go upstairs,” he said. “Daddy’s going to kiss you in special places, and he wants you one more time before we go to sleep.”
Slipping her fingers through his short, dark hair, she nodded. Her desire was naked in her eyes when he took her hand and he loved that she fell so sweetly into step alongside him, letting herself be led from the bathroom.
Which was as far as he got before he felt the whisper of a breeze that did not belong in a house where all the doors were locked and the windows were bolted.
The front door was standing wide open. Every hair on the back of his neck stood straight up on end when he saw it, but he never had a chance to react.
In retrospect, getting clubbed over the back of the head by Gopher was just what he deserved for allowing himself to have something he shouldn’t and for being more concerned about ‘pretending’ than in keeping Scotti safe. And contrary to popular belief, his world did not go instantly black just before he hit the floor. It exploded into stars first.
Chapter Twelve
Kurt came to lying on his back in the hallway between the bathroom and the stairs with a warm, comfortable, coconut-scented lump lying on top of him: Scotti, grunting softly as she wriggled back and forth on his chest.
He took a deep breath of her, a slow smile drawing across his lips as he felt the heat of her hips squirming over his, the pillowy softness of her breasts mashed against him, and the tickling caress of her hair against his neck and cheek. Not yet awake enough to wonder how they’d got this way, he was still a red-blooded convict fresh out of prison, and he didn’t need awareness to have a red-blooded physical reaction to the nearness of a very attractive woman
“Oh, wow,” Scotti said and abruptly stopped wriggling. She drew back a few inches to look down between them, no doubt at the erection rising up to prod at her. “Oh… oh, wow!”
He smiled. “Good morning, beautiful.”
Glancing up at him now, her eyes were as wide as dinner plates. “Kurt?”
“Want to get frisky before work?” He wiggled his eyebrows.
“Seriously?” she asked, not looking the slightest bit amorous. “Snap out of it or I’m going to hit you, and it won’t be in the head!”
It wasn’t until he moved to hold her that he became aware of something being wrong. There was an uncomfortable lump under the small of his back. His hands, he suddenly realized, were tied tightly at the wrist. And he’d been lying on them for quite a while, because not only were his fingers numb beyond the point of tingling, but fire-hot agony stabbed up through his shoulders when he tried to move his arms. That’s when it all came flooding back to him.
“Oh, hell,” he groaned, closing his eyes again. “Where’s Gopher?”
“Finally, you get my name right.”
Heavy clumping footsteps came into the dining room from the kitchen, and Kurt opened his eyes in time to see Scotti’s ex, a butcher’s cleaver dangling from one hand, crossing the floor to them. Dark hair, dark eyes, tall and lean as a scarecrow, he started down the hallway toward them.
Scotti froze, flinching when she saw what he carried, but Gopher wasn’t looking at her. His jealous stare was locked on Kurt, and he continued to adjust his grip on the cleaver even as he circled all the way around them once before stopping above his head. Kurt had to tip his head back to look up at him. Which put him right at eyeball level with the tip of the cleaver when Gopher hunkered down, arms draped over his knees, to look at him.
“You,” Gopher said, tipping his head and finally looking at Scottie, “promised faithfulness and loyalty when you signed yourself over into my care as your dominant.”
Kurt could feel her slight trembling, but it did not show in her voice when she replied, “You were supposed to be loyal too, but you had an affair.”
“That doesn’t mean I loved her.”
“You threatened to kill me when I said we were over. You have threatened me so many times no one believes me when I tell them anymore. You slashed my bed with your knife.”
“That doesn’t mean I don’t love you,” he cautioned.
“Gopher.” Scotti grunted softly as she tried to rise up far enough to meet his eyes instead of his knife. “It’s over. I don’t love you anymore. Not like a devoted submissive should love her Dom. Please get it through your head, because we’re done.”
The cleaver wavered as Gopher gripped and re-gripped the handle, and Kurt had to turn his head to one side as the blade dropped an inch, almost close enough to touch his forehead.<
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“Uh, Scottie,” he said, not entirely sure if bringing Gopher’s attention back to him was a good idea right now, but… “Ix-nay on the ear-Day ohn-Jay.”
Jaw clenching, Gopher shifted his angry stare back to him. “Would you like to be on the top or bottom?”
“Of?” Kurt asked, fairly certain that he wasn’t going to like the answer.
“The shallow unmarked grave I’ve been digging in the backyard.” Gopher stood. “Excuse me, I need to get back to work if I want to be all cleaned up by dawn. Call me when you’ve made your decision, will you?”
He turned and walked back to the kitchen, and a moment later Kurt heard the sliding glass door open. “He’s really very polite for a man named Gopher.”
“He’s also a very fast digger,” Scotti said, throwing herself back into her warmish wriggles against her bonds.
“How are we connected?”
“Around the waist, but only once,” she panted. “He didn’t have enough rope.”
“I feel it now.” Ignoring the pain in his shoulders, he lifted his hips, trying to get his bound wrists under his butt. He stopped when she said, “Hang on, don’t do that.”
He lay still, listening to her soft pants of pain as she strained.
“He may be a fast digger,” Scotti puffed. “But he’s not very good at tying knots. Ow!” she whispered, but just as suddenly, her hands were free. She shimmied right out of the single twist of rope that circled their middles, sliding off his stomach and down between his legs, and damn if his cock simply was not getting the message about their being in a life-threatening situation right now.
“Roll,” she said, helping to heave him onto his side despite the pain that lanced his shoulder. She bit the knot to get it loosened, and in two quick yanks of the rope, he was free.
He sat up, hissing and rubbing his wrists as the circulation rushed back into his hands and aching shoulders. She had to help him shrug out of the phone cord because his hands refused to work right away, but the minute he was back on his feet, he hooked his arm around her and whispered, “Grab the rope.”
He patted through his pockets, finding wallet, keys—Gopher hadn’t even bothered to rob him—and, bingo, his cellphone. Scrambling as far as the doorway to the dining room, he peeked through to the kitchen, but he couldn’t see the sliding glass doors much less Gopher from here. He could, however, just make out the metallic chink of a shovel head stabbing into dirt and rocks.
“Where’s Gopher?” Scotti whispered.
“Still digging,” Kurt said, tapping his phone on and flipping open to his most recent contacts. He wasted no time calling. “Hey, mother fucker,” he said, before the DA could even say hello. “You want my ass? You come and get it.” He gave Scotti’s address, rattling it off twice, just in case. “Also, I’d appreciate it if you hurried, because there’s about to be a murder.”
“What?” Emerson Davis said, the only word he was able to get out before Kurt hung up the phone.
His second call was to 911, at which point he didn’t bother saying anything. He just stuck the phone in his pocket and let it run so they could trace it.
He grabbed Scotti’s arm and pulled her down the hallway, away from the dining room toward the living room. “Do you know any of your neighbors?”
“If you think I’m leaving you here, you’re out of your mind,” she said, in anything but her Little voice.
“What makes you think I’m not going to run too?” Which was when he turned and saw the front door. It wasn’t yawning open anymore. Gopher had closed it. He’d also nailed a two-by-four across the threshold, preventing their easy escape. “Son of a—”
Why couldn’t he hear digging anymore?
Holding up a silencing hand when Scotti opened her mouth, he was still listening intently when the sliding glass door slid open again.
Grabbing her arm, he hurried her upstairs as quickly and quietly as he could. They were halfway down the hall, when he heard Gopher sigh.
“You’re only making me wish I’d cut your head off when I had the chance,” he called out. The front closet door opened, then closed. “You’re also pissing me off,” Gopher said. “There’s only so many hiding places in this house.”
Pushing Scotti down the hall ahead of him, Kurt stopped at each door—the spare room, the bathroom and finally, her bedroom—pressing the lock on each one and closing the doors behind him.
“That won’t confuse him for long,” he whispered, as soon as they were locked in her bedroom together. He went to the window next, throwing it open as wide as it would go. He stuck his head out, leaning well out over the eave of the decorative roof that shielded the window directly below them. There was only about two feet of shingle space to stand on, and he didn’t like the slant. Still, beggars could hardly be choosy at times like this. “Out you go,” he said, ducking back inside and reaching for her arm.
She folded them across her chest and shook her head.
“We are in serious trouble,” he told her. “Pick a neighbor you trust, get them to call the cops. They might have your address flagged as a troublemaker, but I guarantee if they get two calls from this street, they will send police.”
She shook her head, but for all that she might not want to leave him, her expression was already waffling.
“I can move faster and make decisions better if you’re not with me,” he said, giving her shoulders a gentle shake, “and if I know you’re safe.”
That convinced her, but reluctantly. He helped her crawl out onto the roof, and held her steady while she leaned out over the edge.
“Do you see him?” he whispered.
She shook her head, and they both jumped when they heard the loud bang of a door being kicked in down the hall. Wood splintered, and Gopher called, “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”
He was at the spare room. He would be at the bathroom next, and they were running out of time.
“I’m going to lower you as far as I can, then I’m going to drop you and you’re going to run,” he told her. She shook her head again, but stopped when he said, “Yes, you are. Tuck and roll, babygirl.”
Holding onto the windowsill for his own balance, he took firm hold of her wrist while she got down on her belly and slowly lowered herself over the edge. She squeaked and grabbed his hand with both of hers when gravity pulled her down, but Kurt held on and didn’t let her fall. He lowered her as far over the edge as he could reach.
“Ready?” he whispered.
One of her hands let go. Just before he let her drop, down the hall, the bathroom door was kicked in.
“I’ve got you now, motherfucker,” Gopher said, his voice growing louder as he came down the hallway to Scotti’s bedroom.
Kurt crawled out the window, but he didn’t go down. He didn’t know how late it was, but it was dark. In the glow of the evenly spaced streetlamps, he caught a glimpse of Scotti in her pink bunny pajamas racing across the road to the neighbor across the street. Unlike the neighbors to either side of them, that house still had lights on.
It took two kicks for Gopher to break through Scotti’s bedroom door, and Kurt made sure Gopher caught sight of his dangling legs a half second before he pulled himself up onto the roof.
“You fucking monkey,” Gopher mused, leaning out the window after him.
Kurt ran along the edge, looking for an escape route. He found one almost directly opposite of the way he’d come up.
Gopher knew where he was heading almost before he did. When Kurt dropped onto the back-porch roof one story below, he only just caught a glimpse of the other man’s shadow racing past the bathroom window, heading back downstairs. Lowering himself off that roof next had Kurt dropping into Scotti’s azaleas. He stumbled over the decorative rocks that ringed her flowerbed and promptly fell right into his own impromptu grave. It was so dark he hadn’t even seen the hole until he hit the bottom of it. It wasn’t even; it wasn’t even deep.
“Half-ass idiot,” he said, scrambling to his feet
just as his opponent ran out of the house through the sliding glass door. “I thought Gophers could dig!”
Gopher launched himself over the deck railing, tackling him back into the bottom of the grave. Kurt was bigger and stronger, but Gopher was faster. He was also driven, and it took every ounce of strength Kurt had to kick, thrash and wrestle his way to the top of their two-dog dog pile.
Gopher grabbed him by the throat. Unable to pry himself loose, Kurt grabbed him the same way. The wrestling match became a choke-off, and just as Gopher was gasping, wheezing, and starting to loosen his grip, stars exploded through Kurt’s head once more. A shower of dirt, flowers and broken pottery shards from the clay pot that had hit the back of his head rained down over Gopher’s at-once both dazed and surprised face.
Vaguely, Kurt heard Scotti’s startled, “Oh no!” just before, for the second time that night, Kurt slumped unconscious.
* * * * *
“You both are very lucky that I got here when I did,” District Attorney Emerson Davis told Scotti and Kurt, as they sat side by side on her front porch steps.
Hunkered in front of Kurt, an ambulance medic ran a finger back and forth, making him track it as a way of checking his responses. Scotti had never felt more guilty as she watched that, or more relieved when the medic said, “I don’t think there’s any serious damage, but I do recommend you go to the hospital, just to be sure.”
“I’m fine,” Kurt grumbled, shifting the cold pack over the massive goose egg her pot had left on the back of his head. In the dark, he’d looked like Gopher. She’d thought he was Gopher, and she’d just reacted, grabbing the first heavy thing she could find.
She could have hurt him.
She had hurt him; she could have killed him.
Holding one of his hands in both of hers, she rubbed his fingers and felt quietly horrible while several police officers tromped out of her house, leading a handcuffed Gopher past her down the steps to the three patrol cars now blocking the end of her driveway. Their flashing red, blue and white lights splashed her house, her lawn, the entire street. Every house she could see had neighbors standing on their porch, watching and talking amongst themselves.