She smiled at him, wondering what he was up to, but unable to turn him down. She’d tried, and failed miserably, and he’d shown her she didn’t really know what she wanted anyway.
His hands on her back were a decadence, and she melted and purred as he massaged her muscles down to her butt. These bathing suits left them totally exposed, and even as she wore the one-piece today, it only covered her belly, leaving the rest of the suit held together with straps and strings.
Massaging the cheeks of her ass, he shifted the material to the side, exposing her fully. She arched her back in expectation of whatever pleasure he had in store, letting out a moan of agreement when she heard the rustle of fabric as shifted his own suit.
A suckling noise met her ears, and she realized he was wetting something to put inside her. Amelia relaxed her body, and allowed his thumb to breach her forbidden entrance. Up to the knuckle, he twisted and rubbed inside her, before pushing it all the way in with a groan. He lowered himself over her back, and whispered in her ear.
“I can’t wait to put more in this tight little hole.” His cock was between her cheeks from this position, and he thrust his hips to slide it back and forth. She couldn’t stop the wriggle, pressing herself into him. From this position, he wasn’t inside her, he simply rubbed against her folds and crevices, pumping back and forth. “I’m going to fuck your tits, too.” His breaths turned ragged, but his words held a dark promise of a future with him. They were leaving this afternoon, so she knew he meant to do these things back home.
The only question for her was, would she be his dirty little whore at home?
As he took his pleasure from her body, the tightness of his thumb gave way to a slick pleasure. The taboo aspect of everything, the people on the beach not too far away, the fact he was in her ass, the public nudity, such as it was, all compounded to have her own breathing ragged and fast. She turned her head, and his hand was there, supporting him as he dove his hips across her skin, faster and faster.
It was pleasurable, but more because her body was making him lose his tightly reined in control. She opened her mouth, moved her head, and sucked his thumb into her mouth, grazing her teeth along the edge.
“Fuck,” he moaned as he removed himself from her. Had she done something? “I need my cock in your mouth.” She rolled over and leaned to where he was sitting, his cock poking out of his shorts.
She took him, using the same motions on him she had on his thumb. He grabbed her head and pushed it down and Amelia sucked for all she was worth, hollowing out her cheeks with the effort. He thrust his hips up so he was at the back of her throat, and his fingers stung her hair as he pulled with the effort to push her down.
She used her teeth as much as her tongue, scraping him on the way up, to give him that pain he seemed to need.
“Jesus, that mouth.” The harsh, guttural utterance was more of a plea and it served to make her redouble her efforts. “Shit, fuck.” Two hands on the back of her head. “Swallow. Work that throat.”
He hadn’t left her throat, and she gagged around him, sending moans and guttural curses to the sea. She couldn’t breathe, and tears streamed down her cheeks as slobber spilled out of her mouth, wetting his shorts.
“Open wide.” She did as she was told, and he pumped her face over his cock, until he roared his release into the back of her mouth without warning. It was actually sweet, with a salty tang, probably from the massive amounts of fruit they’d consumed all week. It was so like him, the walking contradiction of salty and sweet, although he didn’t show the sweet in conventional ways.
When he let her up, he tugged her face up to his and kissed her hard. This was new. He kissed her plenty, but this was a kiss of gratitude, and as he swept his tongue inside her mouth, she felt like she’d made him the happiest man alive, if only for a brief moment.
Breaking the kiss, Charlie tugged her body into his lap. She enjoyed the physical closeness after their interludes. He would clutch her as if to make sure he was dreaming, his hands roaming and squeezing, massaging her body into a listless stupor. He was still breathing hard, but his dick was softening under her. Sweat stuck them together, in an intimate embrace, and she snuggled her head under his chin.
“I am wordless when it comes to you, Miss Flores. You make me do things that I’ve never done before, and it’s fucking terrifying.”
She giggled, because his words were making her uncomfortable. “You’ve never forced your cock down a woman’s throat before?”
He chuckled at her response, but when he spoke, it was a whisper. “I’ve never fucking cuddled a woman before.”
Shocked into silence, she simply let him. He’d cuddled with her after every single interlude since the first night after the bank. Even when they’d fooled around on the beach, they’d sat just like this, her in his lap, sharing a lounge chair.
Why did that make her feel absolutely giddy? Again, the giddiness faded into questions of what would happen when they got back to their respective homes.
She would soon find out.
Chapter Sixteen
Exhausted, Amelia managed to thank Luther before opening her door to get out of the car. Before she could leave, though, Charlie grabbed the back of her neck and tugged her into him.
“Thank you for this trip. It was … unexpected.” Then he crashed his mouth into hers in a quick, harsh kiss that left her breathless.
A small smile graced her lips as she let herself into the house. It was almost dark, save for the one lamp in the living room. A woman sat in the easy chair, the nurse, but what was surprising was that she wore a long, heavy muslin skirt in a charcoal gray, with a long-sleeved button-up shirt. A mass of crochet sat in her lap.
Amelia cleared her throat to wake the woman.
Her eyes snapped open, and she jerked awake with a start.
Nancy was a retired ER nurse in her sixties, and Amelia had liked her from the start. She was kind, had an easy laugh, and a smoker’s rasp, but she was efficient and knew what she was doing with Gram.
“I thought I said you could sleep in my room while I was gone?” Amelia had cleaned it and put all of her personal stuff away for the nurse to stay over while she was jet-setting with Charlie.
“You did, and I have, but I knew you would be home tonight and didn’t want to get comfortable in your bed. I washed the sheets and everything this afternoon, so their fresh and waiting for you to pass out.” The woman eyed her up and down. “You look really good. Sunshine agrees with you.”
“Thanks. What are you wearing?”
Nancy laughed. “This old thing? An old costume when I was a WWI nurse for Halloween. Matilda seems to like it, so I’ve been playing along. She’s sweet.”
It was odd hearing Gram referred to by her given name, but Amelia appreciated the effort nonetheless.
“Is she doing okay?”
“She’s fantastic! Her pickles are amazing. If it’s alright, I can pass them around to some of my friends and bring back the jars for you. It would keep all of her hard work from going to waste.”
A pang of guilt hit Amelia hard. “Yeah. I always wanted to do something with them. But the farmer’s market can only sell so many, and the neighbors have all had their fill. I don’t really have people I work with who would want that many of them. I’ve been at a loss as to what to do with them.”
“Your gram really is amazing. I’ve seen several patients like her since I retired from the ER, and I’ve got to say, she’s managed to build a world to live in that’s positively lovely. Not a lot of dementia patients do that. You’re lucky.”
A small smile flitted across Amelia’s face. Yeah, she was lucky. It had been a while since she’d thought of the reality of the dementia. Like Gram, it was preferable to just believe she lived in a completely separate world. Without Edwardian England, Gram didn’t exist.
Nancy leaned forward and patted Amelia’s knee as she rose from her chair. “We’ll figure something out about the p
ickles. I’m going to go ahead and head home. Her chart’s on the kitchen table if you want to see exactly what we’ve been doing. I’ll be back Monday morning, bright and early. You have a nice weekend.”
Amelia watched the woman bustle across the room and pick up her bag before waving her way out the door. She was enormously grateful for the lady. Wherever Charlie had found her, she was competent and friendly, and Amelia trusted her with Gram.
It was a nice break from worrying about her all day while she was at work.
Truth was, she’d said something that had Amelia thinking. The pickles were Gram’s only remaining piece of reality. She’d told her long ago that the refrigerator pickles were her own mother’s recipe, something she’d developed when they’d gotten their first-ever ice box. Even if it was a way to relive her past, it was a real past, not one that was made up to comfort her as her brain delved into whatever madness she lived in.
Amelia tiptoed down the hallway to her gram’s room to find her sleeping soundly. A strange thankfulness she didn’t have to make up something about where she’d been flitted through the disappointment at not getting this moment of her own normalcy with Gram tonight.
Chapter Seventeen
Amelia had just shut the door to the car, and Luther had gotten back on the road again, when he started in on Charlie.
“Unexpected weekend, huh?” The laughter was clear in his comment.
“You’re not supposed to be listening.” Okay, he sounded like a petulant child. He didn’t mind, though. Luther had been by his side since foster parents number six or seven. Granted, they’d spent some time apart, but they’d managed to keep in touch, and as soon as they’d both been sent to the group home until graduation, they’d escaped together.
“I like her.” Luther said it quietly, but it meant more from Luther than anyone else. Charlie trusted his friend’s opinion.
“Yeah. Me too.” And he wasn’t sure he liked it. “What place does she have with me, though? I can’t really see myself settling down with kids and a dog, can you?”
Luther was quiet for a while. “No. Not the settling down part. You are who you are, and a woman’s not going to change that. But she can soften it a little bit, yeah? It can’t hurt things to have a conversation. See what she wants.”
They had made it back into the city, and Charlie leaned back and thought about Amelia’s life. It was so incredibly different from his. For her, he was a job she went to every day. The house he’d just dropped her off at was her home, her life. For him, his job was his life, his office his home. His apartment was the place he went every day.
What would it be like if Amelia was living with him?
“Hey.” Luther got his attention in the rearview mirror. “You’ve done a lot in your life. You’ve risen from something dirty and impossible. I’ve seen you come back from some shitty odds, and actually do something with your life. You and Adam have done something incredible. You have been beaten, abused, all those clichés, but you’re not where you came from. You have more money than you know what to do with. Who’s saying you can’t buy a fancy beach house and let her decorate it for you? Let her be your fucking partner and help you.”
For the first time in his life, he imagined a woman in his kitchen. Stainless steel and black marble, it was cold and rarely used. Would her gram make herself at home, making those damned pickles? Would his cabinets be covered with Mason jars and cucumbers?
Amelia’s glossy black hair would be a lovely contrast to the stark white of his bedroom. Her pale skin would be a complement to the monochromatic color scheme of his bed.
He imagined her draped over the arm of his leather couch, her skin heated and flushed from his spanking, sticking to the cold fabric of the furniture.
She’d probably put flowers everywhere. He found the thought not totally distasteful, as long as they were real, and not the plastic ones in her planter boxes.
“Yeah, I can see what she wants,” he mused to himself, but Luther gave a grunt of approval.
**
Charlie showed up at Adam’s warehouse at eight on the dot Saturday evening. Adam had this warehouse for the artwork he brought in from overseas, an occupation he’d inherited from his late wife. Adam’s story was long and complex, and Charlie didn’t want to dwell on it, even though up until now, it was way more interesting than his.
When he let himself in, Adam and Mack were there, with Luca standing off to the side. Adam had an office of sorts near the front of the building. The rest of the building with its crates and sheet-covered sculptures gave Charlie the creeps.
Dean knocked as soon as Charlie arrived, probably waiting for him to go in before he showed up in a room full of strangers.
They all sat around in the leather-bound chairs Adam had in his office, until Charlie got the ball rolling.
“Okay, we are all here for a mutual purpose, yeah? We can help each other accomplish it; we just need to be on the same page. That’s what this meeting is for.”
Charlie leaned back in his chair, crossing an ankle over a knee. Luca spun a high-backed chair backwards and straddled it. Mack leaned his back on two legs. Dean just sat in his stiffly. Charlie, the only one with a desk, leaned on it, resting his chin on one hand.
“We’re ruining Forrester,” Adam spoke with finality. Charlie knew this was on his mind at all hours of the day, and the dude probably had a plan in place. He was only modifying it to let these other guys in, hoping for a more dramatic resolution.
“Yes,” Dean agreed on a hiss.
“Okay, so what do we want to do to him?” Charlie needed specifics so he would know how to steer the guys, since he was the facilitator.
“Utterly and publicly humiliated. Everyone in the city needs to know what he is,” Mack spoke fiercely, and Charlie wondered idly how deep his hate was.
“He needs to be left with nothing. And no one.” Dean spoke with a quiet intensity that was chilling.
Luca spoke up. “No money. No power. No self-respect.”
Adam had a vague smile on his face, and it had grown bigger with each man’s words. “In the end he’ll have nothing. He will have time to reflect on the nothing he has left. And then we kill him.”
None of the men flinched at the words, which told Charlie they were all on the same page.
Excellent.
“Okay. What is the skill set we’re dealing with?”
“He’s an investor at the local bank. On the board and all. It just went public and he has a shit ton of shares. I can take the bank down and drop the shares into an abyss of nothing.” Mack spoke while smiling.
“How?” Adam asked idly.
“I’ve been working on a program that can siphon money out of bank accounts and put them into mine. It’s subtle and gradual and nobody will know the difference.”
“Okay, then what?” Charlie prodded.
Luca spoke up. “I’ve worked with him before. I know how his system works. I can hijack his shipments of drugs, women, and contraband. Resell them. Flush them. Whatever. He will lose his contacts that way if he’s no longer a trustworthy distributor.”
Charlie flinched at what was about to come.
“What the hell will you do with the women you steal from him?” Adam’s voice was deathly quiet. It was his calm before his storm and Charlie knew he had to deflect this before he exploded.
“I can give them to Lola and help her get them back home.” Charlie spoke up, giving Adam a name he trusted and helping him calm the fuck down. This was on the right track and didn’t need a derailment. “Okay. Dean, what are your skills?”
“I don’t really have many skills that don’t involve brute force.” Dean admitted, cracking his knuckles as he spoke. “I’m a vet who can’t really talk to people, but I’m strong as an ox.” He shrugged as he spoke.
“Okay, here’s an idea. So far, we’ll be hitting him where it hurts, his bottom line. If we cut him down at the knees, by hijacking his shipments,
we can resell the stuff and take out his profit. If Mack’s plan to drop the bank’s shares works, he’s losing money there. But what about this? His real estate development business is his daddy’s bread and butter. He inherited that business when his dad died, and that is the legit face of his business.” Luca stiffened as Charlie spoke. “He just made the business a publicly traded corporation last year. The shares still aren’t that expensive yet. What if we bought out fifty one percent?”
They were all silent as they thought about that.
“Doesn’t his daughter own ten percent?” Mack spoke up, and Charlie stiffened again. This was going to get hard with Adam on board.
Surprisingly though, Adam only smiled. “Leave that part to me. She won’t be an issue.”
“I don’t have enough money to buy fifty-one percent,” Dean said, obviously frustrated.
“Few of us do,” Charlie replied. “But Mack can siphon off enough, and we can all put in money in various ways.”
“I can start up some poker tournies in my back room,” Luca said thoughtfully. “I’ll have to make it a high buy in, but I think I can do it, if someone has any contacts with the cops.”
“I do, even though Forrester’s brother is the chief of police. There are enough that hate the two of them that it shouldn’t be a problem paying a few to look the other direction.”
“I can rob a few of his banks,” Dean mused aloud. “Would that be enough for my part of things?”
“Not sure about financially, but you can help out with security at some functions and help with logistics of things.”
“What about cleaning the money?” Mack asked. “You said we could do that.”
“I’ve got some accounts overseas. Here’s what we do. We put the money in those accounts, use the money to buy repossessed buildings at auction. Go to the bank and have them refinance the buildings so we can “fix them up,” and voila! That money is clean. It’s simple. Me and Adam have done it all before. Also, Luca can use his restaurant for some of the money. There are thousands of ways to clean it.”
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