Kiss Kiss Bang (Iron-Clad Security)

by Sidney Halston

  She looked up as if thinking. “I didn’t really have a plan. I was going to ask you to come with me to your room.”

  He stood up and began to walk to his room. He looked over his shoulder to where she was still standing. “You coming?” He winked at her and proceeded to his room, hoping she was following right behind.

  He sat on the edge of his bed and a moment later she walked in. She closed the door and he heard the click of the lock behind her. His heart hammered in his chest.

  “You are so fucking beautiful, Livie.”

  She walked to him and stood between his parted thighs. He looked up at her and gripped her ass while he waited for her to make the next move.

  “This isn’t just a one-time thing, right? This is me and you trying for something more?”

  “Darlin’, this is me and you trying for everything.” If she hadn’t “gotten” it before, he hoped she got it now. He saw how her shoulders visibly relaxed. He pushed some hair from her face. “I’ll tell you a secret, Livie. While you’ve been working yourself up as to how I felt and you felt and Sophie felt and what the entire fuckin’ world felt, I’ve made you mine. Livie, like it or not, you and me, we’re already in a relationship. You just didn’t want to see it.”

  “Hmm . . .” She closed her eyes and then smiled. “Damn you and your ninja relationship skills.”

  “We all have our super powers, baby.”

  Her face then became serious. “Joey, I haven’t done this in a long time.” She didn’t sound nervous or scared, she sounded honest. Like she was diving in the deep end but needed him to know she wasn’t the strongest swimmer.

  “Show me your body, darlin’.” His voice came out in a raspy tone he hadn’t expected. Shit, maybe she wasn’t the only one who was nervous.

  She reached for the hem of her shirt and pulled it up and over her head. Ignoring the scar, he pulled her close, his face eye level with her soft navel. He placed a kiss on it first, looking up at her, seeking permission to keep going. Trailing a line of kisses and small nips from hip bone to hip bone, he tucked his index fingers on either side of her black panties and slid them down her legs. She held on to his shoulder as she stepped out. He leaned back on his elbows to look at her. She was long and lean and damn . . . his cock stirred. “Gorgeous.”

  He cupped the non-injured breast with one hand, watching her reaction. She had her eyes open and was staring at him. He moved closer and put the pink nub into his mouth, just as he’d been dreaming about.

  She moaned and her body shook with anticipation under his touch. Looking up at her through his lashes, he trailed his tongue down and down to the bare area between her legs. She ran her hands through the scruff on his mostly-bald head, not at all shy about what she wanted or what he was about to do. He surprised her by stopping, standing and then swooping her up and carrying her to bed. She crawled back and he laid down, parting her thighs with his shoulders.

  “I want you so much, Joey,” she whimpered. Her head fell back against the headboard with a thump when he parted her pussy with his fingers and trailed his tongue up and down over and over, burying his face and tongue as deep as he could get it. She writhed underneath him but kept quiet, except for soft moaning, her arms pushing his head to her and his palms grabbing her thighs firmly and spreading her wide. It was the quietest sex he’d ever had—the only sign that she was coming was the way her pussy contracted and grew wetter against his face, and how her thighs shook.

  Wiping his face against her thigh, he moved up her body, not giving her a second of reprieve, and then kissed her hard, again, keeping his weight off of her with his forearms against the bed. “I can eat your pussy every day, all day, for the rest of my goddamn life.”

  Not stopping what he was doing, he reached blindly for the bedside table, the lamp wobbling in the process as he pulled the drawer open, tossing things out until he felt the condom. He took it out and sat up, ripping it open with his teeth.

  She scrambled up and took it from his hand looking desperate and then surprised him by pushing him onto his back, grabbing his throbbing cock and stroking it up and down firmly but slowly. He was about to lose his goddamn mind.

  “Put the condom on me, Livie. No more fucking around. I need to be inside of you.”

  She bit her bottom lip, concentrating on sliding the condom down. Once he was sheathed, he lifted her up a little, and she grabbed him again, positioning him at her entrance and slowly sliding down. The only sounds were soft moans and groans from the sheer bliss they felt from him being inside her.

  Not wanting to sound cliché, he didn’t say how tight she was or how good she felt, but fuck . . . she was squeezing the life out of his dick and if she didn’t start moving he was going to flip her over and fuck her senseless. Lucky for her, she began to rock, tentatively at first, but then a little more confidently until she lost herself to pleasure, which was such a beautiful sight that he almost came just from watching her.

  He held on to her waist, pushing her down and helping her up. He felt the spasms of her orgasm right on his cock as she dug her nails into his shoulder, shuddering and squeezing over and over. “Baby . . . baby . . . arghh . . .” he grunted into her neck as he came hard and she collapsed on top of him.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Since the attack, gubernatorial candidate Olivia Russo has been staying clear of the media. Her whereabouts are unknown. Her Facebook Live post tomorrow is still scheduled to happen. The man who attacked her is still at large. For her safety, her camp has refused to comment on where she has been staying.

  Oh. My. God.

  What the hell had just happened? Was that how people were having sex these days? Why hadn’t she been doing this all along? She felt relaxed and sated and . . . just wow.

  Joey was rubbing little circles against her bare back, his still semi-hard dick twitching inside of her. “I need to get you a babysitter soon. Very soon.”

  She pushed up a little, her forearms on his pecs. “What? Why?”

  “Because, darlin’,” he said, wiping her hair from her face, “I want to do it again and if this is how you do it when you’re trying to be quiet, I need to know how you do it when you let go.”

  She laughed and collapsed back on him.

  “I’m not loud, normally.”

  “Is that a challenge?” He kissed the top of her head, pushed his heel down, and flipped them over. Sliding out of her, he padded to the en suite bathroom to clean up.

  “Was that good for you?” she asked him, cuddling into one of his pillows which smelled just like him.

  He chuckled. “Is that a serious question?” He pointed to his dick, which looked like it was getting hard again, as he walked back to the bed.

  “Good,” she said, feeling giddy. “Because I want to do it again, a lot. Not now, though. Now I want to sleep.” She stretched, feeling like a fat lazy cat, wanting to rub herself against him and fall asleep. “But later . . . let’s do it again.”

  He nodded his head with that sexy dimpled smile. “I’m all in for that plan, baby.” He kissed her cheek. “I hate to have to go back to the couch.”

  She sat up a little. “I’m sorry. I know it’s probably not comfortable.”

  “Not because of that. Because I’d rather sleep here with you. Maybe slide inside of you at some point in the middle of the night. You know . . . if the spirit moves me.”

  She smiled, but then a loud, “Mommy!” made her jump off the bed. “Where are you, Mommy?!”

  She grabbed her shirt and threw it on as she ran to the next room. “I’m here, sweets. I’m here,” she said as soon as she saw her daughter on the bed crying. It was another unfamiliar house, and with all the events of the last few days, she was amazed Sophie had even fallen asleep alone. Joey stood by the door in the shorts he’d been sleeping in when she’d woken him up. “She okay?” he asked, looking concerned.

  “Yeah, she’s a terrible sleeper.” She rocked Sophie. “I’m going to sleep here with her. Take your bed.”
<
br />   “No. my bed’s bigger. Both of you go there.”

  “I don’t want to stir her too much.” She got comfortable bringing the covers up to her neck. “It’s okay, really.”

  “You sure?”

  “Positive.” She looked down at her daughter and then back up at Joey, who looked sexy as sin and who just moments ago had been inside of her. “Life of a mommy.”

  This is how it went with kids. They came first and moments would undoubtedly be ruined by tears, fevers, vomit . . .

  At least they’d gotten to finish before she’d had to run and comfort Sophie. She hoped—really hoped—that he understood and would be okay with it. Because every day she grew to like him more and more.

  * * *

  The next day, while Olivia sat outside working from her laptop while Sophie played in the pool, Joey spent the day working. It was a little after one when he got the call from Annie telling him that the cops had stopped a man in a red Jeep who’d been circling Olivia’s house that morning and had been able to confirm that he’d been seen around Sophie’s school the day before. The cops had stopped to question him and when he became aggressive they handcuffed him and took him to the station. The guy did not have the same car as the one seen on the camera at the gym, however. But that could mean anything, and Joey wasn’t worried about that. After booking him, they ran the facial recognition software on him and against the blurry photo from the camera and they had a match.

  His heart pounded with relief. “Olivia, we have a match.” He gestured for her to come inside the house.

  “Sweets, stay by the steps, I’ll be right over here,” she told her daughter. Olivia came around to look at the computer screen as Joey read from the email. “Caucasian male, Five-eleven, Two hundred ten pounds. No identification on him. He had been driving around your house and Sophie’s school. We need to go to the station and ID him.”

  “I didn’t get to see him, but if I could hear his voice or even see his arms, I could probably tell you for sure.” A shudder ran down her spine.

  Joey picked up his phone and called the detective handling the case. The photos were too blurry and even though the facial recognition was really accurate, with just that alone, it wouldn’t be enough to hold him. But if Olivia could positively ID him then the charges could stick.

  After he hung up, he turned to her. “Get dressed. We’re going to take a little trip to the police station.”

  “I hope it’s him.”

  “Me too, darlin’. Me too.” He kissed her cheek and went outside to get Sophie while Olivia got ready.

  * * *

  In the car, Joey suggested that Annie watch Sophie at ICS while they went to the police station. He wasn’t comfortable with Sophie being in that “environment” and Olivia wasn’t comfortable answering the thousands of questions Sophie would undoubtedly have, so she agreed. It was such a thoughtful gesture, she fell a little bit more in like with him.

  But now, as they waited behind a one-way glass window, just like on television, for the detective to bring out the perp, she began to panic and felt nauseous. She thought herself a strong person and was surprised at how scared she actually was, even knowing full well that she was safe behind glass, in a different room, with Joey, in a police station—how much safer could she possibly be?

  “Okay, Ms. Russo, you ready?” Detective Smith asked.

  She took a deep breath and nodded.

  “We’re going to bring out five different men, facing away from you since you saw the blurry photo from the camera. We do this so that you’re not prejudiced by what you saw earlier or by having just the one guy we arrested here. They’re all going to say: ‘Pretty little thing, that Sophie.’”

  It was the sentence that she kept replaying in her head over and over again. The words that she most clearly remembered him saying and would never, not until she took her last breath, forget the sound of. The thought of hearing it again sent chills down her spine.

  “You okay?” Joey asked, but again she just nodded. Words had escaped her and she thought if she opened her mouth she’d throw up.

  The door in the room was opened and five men who looked relatively similar, at least from the back, entered. All Caucasian, around five-eleven, about two hundred or so pounds, all wearing blue hoodies and a baseball cap.

  “Anything recognizable, other than what they wore?”

  “No.” She shrugged. “They all look the same from the back.”

  “Okay. Number one, say the line.” Number one walked forward, pressed an intercom button, and spoke the words. She shuddered at hearing them said.

  “Number two,” the officer said, and the second man repeated the process. She squeezed Joey’s hand when he spoke those words.

  “Number three,” the officer said. And the third guy took the step forward and repeated the process but this time, as soon as the first word had left his mouth, with the cadence of his voice, something passed through her. A memory of a long time ago. She jolted out of her seat. “Tell him to say it again. Slower this time.” The officer pressed the intercom and instructed the guy to repeat the statement slower. There was something with his voice, something that she couldn’t pinpoint, and a weird feeling overcame her.

  “It’s him.”

  “You’re sure?”

  Was she sure? She didn’t want to send someone to jail on a hunch.

  “Why don’t we finish with the other two, Ms. Russo?” Then he called number four and then eventually number five. Joey and the detective stared at her and she was chewing her nail. “You sounded confident about number three for a moment.”

  Her leg bobbed up and down. “His voice sounds familiar. Remember I said the guy’s voice sounded familiar?” She looked at Joey. “But I . . . I don’t know.”

  She needed to think, quietly. But Detective Smith had the five men repeat the sentence. He asked her to close her eyes and really concentrate but again, when they got to three, her hair stood on an end again, the way he drawled out the syllables and there it was a slight New York accent.

  “You still okay, Ms. Russo?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Baby, are you sure?”

  “Positive. I still feel like it’s number three.” She ran her hands up and down her arm. “Well, number three, the one you ID’ed, is the same guy we caught this morning.”

  This was good. That meant that it was a match, according to what Joey had explained. “Now we need a motive. Any idea who he is? What’s his name?”

  “He wasn’t carrying any identification on him and isn’t being cooperative. We’re checking all the databases.”

  “Maybe it’s just a random man who wants money,” she said.

  “Maybe. But it usually doesn’t work that way. Why you? Why someone with so much security? There are much richer women who’d make easier targets.”

  “That’s true.” She bit her nails as she wondered why he would single her out. The detective pressed the intercom and asked the men to turn around and face the glass. “Does he look familiar?”

  She had been looking down and when she looked up and turned her attention to the third man, her face paled and her knees buckled.

  “You okay?” Joey asked, alarmed.

  “I—I know him.”

  And then the sonofabitch smirked into the mirror and winked. She knew he couldn’t see her, but he did that all-too-familiar wink she hadn’t seen in twenty years.

  She reached behind her for the metal chair and sat down before she collapsed. “His name is Colin Mathers. He’s from New York. I grew up next door to him and his brother. He was always a troublemaker. His brother was my best friend.”

  “What’s his brother’s name? Do you know anything else? Date of birth?”

  “His brother is Connor Mathers. And his date of birth is May 8, 1979.”

  Her answer had been fast, and the detective furrowed his brows. “You sound very certain about that.”

  “We were very close.” For years she was the only one wh
o remembered that date, just like he was the only one who remembered hers.

  “Can you please grab her some water?” Joey demanded as he knelt in front of her.

  The detective told an officer to clear out the suspects. “Be right back. I’m going to check on both of the Mathers. Hang tight.”

  “Who are these men, Livie?”

  “I grew up next door to them. But I didn’t really know Colin that well. He was always in and out of juvie. But his brother, Connor, he was my best friend. There’s no way he’s behind any of this. His brother’s bad news but Connor is a good guy.”

  The detective came back a few moments later. “There was a warrant out for Colin Mathers’s arrest. The prints and photos in the database match.”

  “Great,” she said. “So he’ll stay in jail, right?”

  “At least for the time being, yes.”

  She sighed in relief. “Good.”

  “Yeah,” Joey agreed, “but this doesn’t sit well with me.”

  “I know. We’ll question him and let you know what we find.”

  “Did you search on Connor?” Joey asked.

  “He was in prison for the last six years, here in Florida. Has been out for about six months. He has a long record. Stay clear of him. Bad news. Armed robbery, drug possession, battery on a law enforcement officer. He’s on parole up in Ocala, and has been checking in, but I’ll contact his parole officer.”

  The detective stretched his arms and shook Joey and Olivia’s hands before escorting them out.

  Once in the car headed to ICS to pick up Sophie, Joey let out a breath. “I’m so glad he’s behind bars. But I feel like we’re missing something big. Why you? Why all of a sudden? What about his brother?”

  “He probably saw me on television and thought I’d be an easy target.”

  She laid her head back against the car seat and closed her eyes, trying to regulate her breathing. Connor Mathers. Talk about a name from the past. A name she didn’t particularly want to think about. At some point Joey took her hand in his, but he didn’t speak and she was glad for the silence because so many things were swirling through her mind—relief being the uppermost.