by Skye Warren
My breathing slows. “I know you’re trying to figure out your piece for the journal. But I had to fuck you.” The simple truth.
She sits up and shoves her hand in my hair, looking at me with those brown eyes. “I know.”
“I don’t want to stop you from finishing.”
Her gaze softens. “It’s okay. I know the piece I’ll put in now.”
“You were thinking about the journal while I was fucking you?”
Her smile is a little wicked. Full of fire. My favorite kind of smile on her. “Just a tiny bit.”
Her glasses are still on. Sometimes I like to take them away. Sometimes I like to break them, and we have to get new ones. But other times I like her to wear them. They’re tilted after what we just did. I straighten them, the same way I arrange her hair and her body. I like moving her around. I like touching her. “Which piece?”
“This part I wrote of us in the car, right after the break out, when you touched my cheek. You touched me because you wanted to. Because you could.”
“Always,” I say.
“That’s the one I’ll put in. The day you escaped.”
I feel her words on my skin, touching every nerve ending, lighting me up. “The day I made you mine.”
“I escaped that day too. I just didn’t know it yet.” She smiles. “Look at you all hot on the journal.”
I trace the line of her jaw with my knuckle. I’ve never let a person this close before, where what they want and need is more important than anything. It’s scary sometimes, how deep I feel that. “Remember what you said? When a person tells their story, it helps to heal them. To make them whole.”
She raises her eyebrows. “And right after, you said that some people can never be healed,” she teases. “Can never be whole.”
“Maybe I was wrong. Not about the healing part, but a person can always be made whole. I know that for a fact. I know it personally.”
She looks up at me now, caught by the seriousness of my tone. She knows I’m not talking about stories anymore, just like she knows she’s mine. Just like she knows I’ll always protect her, even as we move to take down bigger assholes than the governor.
She shifts around and snuggles against my chest. I wrap my arms around her like a wall against the world.
* * *
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Stone
“You need something to eat,” I say. “That’s your problem.”
She gives me this incredulous look. “That’s my problem? Really?”
“It sucks to be hungry. That’s all I’m saying.”
“It does,” she says.
“You should eat.”
“Got any fries?” And then she laughs. It’s the way you laugh when things are fucked up beyond belief.
There’s this buzzing in my head. I’m staring at her like an idiot because she’s beautiful when she laughs. Her laugh, her smile, it all gets me by the throat. And the exit to Big Moosehorn River is up ahead, but I pass it by.
Her laughter turns into sniffles and sobs. She leans her head against the passenger-side window. Hopeless.
“We’re gonna get you something to eat,” I say. “There’s a Burger Benny up at the next exit. Okay?”
“Okay,” she whispers, trancelike.
I’ll feed her before I kill her. It’s the most messed-up thing I’ve done in a long time.
I shove a caterer’s cap low over my head as I pull up behind the truck in the drive-through line. “I don’t have to tell you to act right when we go through here, do I? Do I need to remind you how many people will die if you don’t act right?”
She just watches me with this wounded, piercing look that’s a little bit hot. Her light brown eyes shine with tears.
Doesn’t matter how wide and brown her fucking eyes are, though. “Tell me you get it.”
“I get it.”
I stare at the lit-up menu. You’d think I’ve never ordered a fucking hamburger before. There was a time I hadn’t. I didn’t grow up with goddamn Happy Meals. The first time I experienced a drive-through, I was fifteen and fresh out of the basement after six years. Fresh from our violent escape.
I mostly remember the strangeness of it. How tinny and mechanical the voice on the other end of the machine sounded. Like a robot or something, rushing me to pick. Like a fist around my throat.
“Burger combo,” I say because the fist never really eased up. Because she should know how it feels, taking what you can get. That’s all she’s doing now—taking what she gets.
“Would you like a drink with that?” the voice asks.
I consider asking what she wants, but that feels too personal. What kind of soda does she drink? Or maybe she’s too rich and fancy to drink soda.
“Two colas. Anything,” I say into the speaker, and then I drive forward before I get the total.
“Don’t I get to pick my last meal?” she asks, real quiet. She’s looking straight ahead, her face in profile.
I study her nose and her chin, the slope of her neck. I suddenly want to know what she smells like up close. I want to press my face into the vulnerable skin of her neck and breathe deep.
My body gets hot just thinking about it, and I hate that. I hate that feeling that rushes through me, that thickness in my dick. I hate that she makes me feel this way.
There’s a part of me that wants to tell her this isn’t her last meal, but I won’t do that. And anyway, she should find out what it’s like to scarf down what’s in front of you, knowing there might not be more. Knowing you might not be alive even if there is. I want her to understand where I’m coming from.
“You want to die hungry, die hungry,” I say.
The window slides open, and some punk kid reads the total without even looking up. I dig the cash out of my wallet and hand it over.
It’s when he’s passing back the change that he sees her. His eyes fasten on her tits, pushed together by that fussy dress.
“Ketchup?” he asks, voice pitched high.
“Yeah,” I growl because I don’t like the way this horndog’s looking at her. She’s just a fucking kid. And she’s in the passenger seat of my van. Mine.
Mine. The word comes out of nowhere, but it’s true.
She stays quiet, staring ahead. She might as well be a mannequin in a store window. All except for the t
ear tracks shining in the moonlight.
I grab the food and drinks when the punk hands them out, shove the stuff into her hands, and pull away. No one else gets to see her. It was stupid letting anyone see her, linking us together—a fucking witness. She knows I killed Madsen, and now that punk saw me with her, a daisy chain that leads to me in jail.
Even so, even knowing how dangerous she is, I’m mostly mad that another guy checked her out.
The van bounces on the speed bump, and she lets out a small sound of alarm, clutching the bag like it’s a damn roller-coaster bar. And then we’re on the freeway, heading back to the Big Moosehorn Park exit.
The ride smoothes out. “Open it,” I tell her.
Paper crinkles as she unpacks the food and holds it out like I might take it from her. Her hand looks small, especially holding the big wrapped burger. And she’s trembling.
Fuck. What am I doing with her? Why isn’t she dead?
“Eat it,” I tell her. I’m ruining her. That’s what I’m doing with her.
Her life was charmed—a pretty little rich girl at her sweet-sixteen party. Then she got a glimpse of me. Now she’s facing death or whatever the fuck I want to do to her. Which is a lot.
She’s this pure thing in my control, and I want to devour her. I want to press my face to those pushed-up tits above the edge of that dress and fuck her hard and fast.
Skin smooth and pretty like an egg.
But here’s the thing about an egg: when you break it, you get everything you want, but then it’s not smooth or perfect anymore. It’s just this dead thing.
This is something I know a fuck of a lot about, let’s just say.
And yeah, you can put yourself back together, but you’re never right afterward, not really. You’re cracked and misshapen and definitely not smooth and nice like this girl.
There should be some smooth and nice things left in this world.
“I’m not—” Her voice cracks. “—hungry.”
I know she’s thinking about what I said, about her dying hungry. Maybe she’d rather go that way, all focused on it. People like to think they’d be prepared for death. They don’t want to be caught off guard. Me, I’ve always been the opposite. There’s no honor in death, no clean way to go. It’s always messy. Always painful.
Catch me by fucking surprise. Fight me.
I think it at her, as if she can hear. As if she’ll suddenly learn how to use my gun, to take it from me. But she can’t. She’s completely defenseless.
“Did I ask what you want to do?” I say, nice and soft. “Open the wrapper and eat.”
I only get to see the flash of her eyes, the light of anger, before she looks down. She puts the burger in her lap—I imagine it warming the tops of her thighs. She unfolds the paper slow—a small act of defiance.
It gets me hard, the way she’s fighting with the only weapons she has. The way her small hands fold around the messy burger and pick it up.
The way her mouth opens wide.
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Wind whips around my ankles, flapping the bottom of my black trench coat. Beads of moisture form on my eyelashes. In the short walk from the cab to the stoop, my skin has slicked with humidity left by the rain.
Carved vines and ivy leaves decorate the ornate wooden door.
I have some knowledge of antique pieces, but I can’t imagine the price tag on this one—especially exposed to the elements and the whims of vandals. I suppose even criminals know enough to leave the Den alone.
Officially the Den is a gentlemen’s club, the old-world kind with cigars and private invitations. Unofficially it’s a collection of the most powerful men in Tanglewood. Dangerous men. Criminals, even if they wear a suit while breaking the law.
A heavy brass knocker in the shape of a fierce lion warns away any visitors. I’m desperate enough to ignore that warning. My heart thuds in my chest and expands out, pulsing in my fingers, my toes. Blood rushes through my ears, drowning out the whoosh of traffic behind me.
I grasp the thick ring and knock—once, twice.
Part of me fears what will happen to me behind that door. A bigger part of me is afraid the door won’t open at all. I can’t see any cameras set into the concrete enclave, but they have to be watching. Will they recognize me? I’m not sure it would help if they did. Probably best that they see only a desperate girl, because that’s all I am now.
The softest scrape comes from the door. Then it opens.
I’m struck by his eyes, a deep amber color—like expensive brandy and almost translucent. My breath catches in my throat, lips frozen against words like please and help. Instinctively I know they won’t work; this isn’t a man given to mercy. The tailored cut of his shirt, its sleeves carelessly rolled up, tells me he’ll extract a price. One I can’t afford to pay.
There should have been a servant, I thought. A butler. Isn’t that what fancy gentlemen’s clubs have? Or maybe some kind of a security guard. Even our house had a housekeeper answer the door—at least, before. Before we fell from grace.
Before my world fell apart.
The man makes no move to speak, to invite me in or turn me away. Instead he stares at me with vague curiosity, with a trace of pity, the way one might watch an animal in the zoo. That might be how the whole world looks to these men, who have more money than God, more power than the president.
That might be how I looked at the world, before.
My throat feels tight, as if my body fights this move, even while my mind knows it’s the only option. “I need to speak with Damon Scott.”
Scott is the most notorious loan shark in the city. He deals with large sums of money, and nothing less will get me through this. We have been introduced, and he left polite society by the time I was old enough to attend events regularly. There were whispers, even then, about the young man with ambition. Back then he had ties to the underworld—and now he’s its king.
One thick eyebrow rises. “What do you want with him?”
A sense of familiarity fills the space between us even though I know we haven’t met. This man is a stranger, but he looks at me as if he wants to know me. He looks at me as if he already does. There’s an intensity to his eyes when they sweep over my face, as firm and as telling as a touch.
“I need…” My heart thuds as I think about all the things I need—a rewind button. One person in the city who doesn’t hate me by name alone. “I need a loan.”
He gives me a slow perusal, from the nervous slide of my tongue along my lips to the high neckline of my clothes. I tried to dress professionally—a black cowl-necked sweater and pencil skirt. His strange amber gaze unbuttons my coat, pulls away the expensive cotton, tears off the fabric of my bra and panties. He sees right through me, and I shiver as a ripple of awareness runs over my skin.
I’ve met a million men in my life. Shaken hands. Smiled. I’ve never felt as seen through as I do right now. Never felt like someone has turned me inside out, every dark secret exposed to the harsh light. He sees my weaknesses, and from the cruel set of his mouth, he likes them.
His lids lower. “And what do you have for collateral?”
Nothing except my word. That wouldn’t be worth anything if he knew my name. I swallow past the lump in my throat. “I don’t know.”
Nothing.
He takes a step forward, and suddenly I’m crowded against the brick wall beside the door, his large body blocking out the warm light from inside. He feels like a furnace in front of me, the heat of him in sharp contrast to the cold brick at my back. “What’s your name, girl?”
The word girl is a slap in the face. I force myself not to flinch, but it’s hard. Everything about him overwhelms me—his size, his low voice. “I’ll tell Mr. Scott my name.”
; In the shadowed space between us, his smile spreads, white and taunting. The pleasure that lights his strange yellow eyes is almost sensual, as if I caressed him. “You’ll have to get past me.”
My heart thuds. He likes that I’m challenging him, and God, that’s even worse. What if I’ve already failed? I’m free-falling, tumbling, turning over without a single hope to anchor me. Where will I go if he turns me away? What will happen to my father?
“Let me go,” I whisper, but my hope fades fast.
His eyes flash with warning. “Little Avery James, all grown up.”
A small gasp resounds in the space between us. He already knows my name. That means he knows who my father is. He knows what he’s done. Denials rush to my throat, pleas for understanding. The hard set of his eyes, the broad strength of his shoulders tells me I won’t find any mercy here.
I square my shoulders. I’m desperate but not broken. “If you know my name, you know I have friends in high places. Connections. A history in this city. That has to be worth something. That’s my collateral.”
Those connections might not even take my call, but I have to try something. I don’t know if it will be enough for a loan or even to get me through the door. Even so, a faint feeling of family pride rushes over my skin. Even if he turns me away, I’ll hold my head high.
Golden eyes study me. Something about the way he said little Avery James felt familiar, but I’ve never seen this man. At least I don’t think we’ve met. Something about the otherworldly glow of those eyes whispers to me, like a melody I’ve heard before.
On his driver’s license it probably says something mundane, like brown. But that word can never encompass the way his eyes seem almost luminous, orbs of amber that hold the secrets of the universe. Brown can never describe the deep golden hue of them, the indelible opulence in his fierce gaze.
“Follow me,” he says.
Relief courses through me, flooding numb limbs, waking me up enough that I wonder what I’m doing here. These aren’t men, they’re animals. They’re predators, and I’m prey. Why would I willingly walk inside?