by Faye, Carmen
So, he corrected, he knew she was a call girl. That was what he knew. He knew that the manager, Antonio, who talked to Cole on the phone periodically, placed high value on her safety.
That was it! Nothing more.
Except that she was vulnerable and deeply human, and felt amazing to him during every drive. There was a connection between them, something nearly visible and almost tangible.
"A grown man or not, you are fucked before you even start. Better hide some money some place for the time she screws you over," he said to himself with a defeated voice and meant every word.
Once inside, he bought ten grand in Google stock just to keep the money safe, but available, and then removed his investment software from his computer and ran the safeguard to remove any sign that it had ever existed.
After that, he went to bed.
CHAPTER SIX
"Hope you are available to ride until at least six-thirty," Cole said to her as Nicole skipped up to him from her apartment building door.
"Oh? I'm good with that, even longer. What's up?"
"I have something to do up north while we are there. I can't talk to you about it, can't tell you why, where, who to, or who from. That's just the way it is. Still want to ride?"
"Am I going to be in danger?"
"No, not at all. I'll leave you at a café I found. The wait should be less than an hour and then we are off again for whatever you choose."
She gave him a mischievous smile, "Whatever I choose? I just get to say, do this and we do that?"
"You should be used to that from me by now," he pointed out.
"Hmm," she mused, "I suppose you are right, but I pay you for that privilege and this is personal time. Very personal. I won't be naïve and say it won't affect the other, but in my head, this day is just you and me, nothing else -- except for that thing you can't talk about, which doesn't exist for me anyway, right?"
He nodded his head, searching her eyes and she swore she saw hope laced with fear.
"Agreed," he finally told her.
"So do I just get on?" she asked with a smile, pushing their conversation past that awkward moment where she witnessed her driver and protector suddenly displaying signs of vulnerability.
Cole got her helmet on and strapped, then onto the backseat, which felt comfortable. Then he gave her very brief instructions on what to do back there. She snuggled around, got comfortable, and then wrapped her arms around him. He gave the bike some gas to wake it back up and, right after revving the engine, he put it in gear, sending them flying from the parking lot.
She clung to him with excitement and fear, outrageous emotions swirling around, which were churned up by tactile stimulation based on the degree of muscle definition she discovered in his abs.
"Holy Christ!" she hissed, but the wind carried her exclamation away from Cole's ears.
All right, she admitted to herself, his physical attractiveness is very high and getting higher. Fine.
Then Cole put his left hand flat across hers, as if giving her a focused but meaningful hug, as they blasted up the on-ramp to the freeway. Then his hand was gone, returning back to control the bike.
That touch, that warmth from his hand, which was large enough to cover both of hers, she noted, touched her in a way she had never been touched in her life. For a brief moment, she was real and she knew what she wanted out of it now, as clearly as if it were branded on her forehead.
I'm fucked. I'm well and truly fucked now.
She wanted Cole. That's what she wanted out of life and she felt a welling of passion and energy inside of her, powering her commitment to achieve those ends. Nothing else mattered. If she were Cole's, she was fulfilled.
As they roared north, she held him tight, pressing the side of her face to his back, and felt more alive and whole than she ever felt before. Her mind was drained of all its tedium and useless questions about the future or her current employment. Her vague visions of retirement and travel, which were somehow never quite able to sustain a level of appeal for her, were washed away.
Occasionally, he would casually rub her left thigh with his marvelous hand and send blazes of desire rippling through her. When he did that, all of those belonging thoughts and warm desires would rush through her again.
Was this what she caused in her clients? Was this the lust they paid so dearly for? Her bubble, she realized, was definitely popped. She was just Nicole -- nothing else, no one else -- with no bullshit between her ears humming around. If this was what she gave her clients, she needed to raise her rates. But now that she found Cole, her clients were screwed, because she was certain that she was leaving the show.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Cole pulled into a marina area as the time was nearing three o'clock and then walked her into a café. After doing that bodyguard-scanning thing he did with his eyes, he asked her if she was going to be all right there for an hour.
"Sure," she told him and gave him a shrug. "See you soon." Then, as if she had been married to the man for the last ten years, she lifted up on her toes and gave him a quick, intimate kiss on his lips, then turned away to approach the counter. Two steps away from Cole, the previous action played back in her head, highlighting several points of interest she might wish to review.
Whipping her attention back over her shoulder, she saw Cole standing where she left him, helmet in hand, his eyes hidden behind sunglasses, but radiating confusion very similar to her own.
She turned fully toward him again and said, "Shoo. Get your thing done,” while making sweeping motions with the backs of her hands toward him. “Shoo!”
He smiled, shook his head with bemusement, and walked out of the café. Then she allowed her trembles to surface as she inventoried the very familiar, relaxed, display of mature affection she spontaneously performed with Cole. Her first reaction was stark terror and embarrassment. She might as well have confessed to him all of her dreams and desires for him right there in the middle of the café! She liked those dreams and desires, and even believed in the possibility of them, but she also believed in the type of life she would have to live to achieve them. But she had not achieved them yet! To just act-as-if with them? In public?
"I have to get a grip," she chided herself. "Or by the time I get back to my apartment, I'm going to have three kids with the man and a fucking PTA meeting to get to."
It was too fast. It wasn't mature at all. It was wild, unpredictable, and would flip her if she let it. With him absent, she was thinking clearer. Thank God for whatever it was he was doing, because she needed a breath. She needed space.
Her passion to have him remained unaffected by her embarrassment or awe. She felt it was there, solid and passionate.
"All right, fine," she told herself, coming clean with her libido, "But not like this. Not just bam! I could ruin it this way,” she reasoned. I could cross a line, never seeing the warning signs. I could overwhelm him and scare him off. Any number of irretrievable moments could happen doing it like this. Seduction is not a thing to take lightly or treat as a defunct formality,” she recited to herself.
It was one of her points of her philosophy about sex. “So, I want three kids, and a PTA meeting. All right, good. Good to finally have a goal I can get behind. Perfect. But how about we start with some talk, maybe some shared values, so we have something to teach those three kids later on, right? Right. Okay."
She quietly sat down at a back table with her order, waiting for the man she was willing to own an SUV for to return. The man for whom she was willing to work herself senseless with aerobics to fight a losing battle against a fat ass -- that he gave her -- with three fucking kids.
She rubbed the side of her ass, missing its firm sexy cuteness already. "This is fucking insane," she hissed.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Cole found that he honestly wasn't shocked by her sudden, relaxed display of affection at the café. Part of him felt it was natural. That part of him even felt it was expected. That part of him was the thing Cole was sho
cked at. Where the fuck did he come from?
He suddenly submersed into a vision of being ten years married to Nicole and they were out taking advantage of a rare day for a ride. Their destination didn't matter to either of them, not in the slightest. Just riding was enough. They had everything else. Just sometimes, having it all was a little much and they needed to get away for a while. Just the two of them, together, to refocus, to tell each other, even though they knew, that this was still what they wanted. Everything was still exactly what they wanted.
Put into that scenario, Cole mused, her actions were perfectly within the bounds of expectation, including the "Shoo…" and the cute little hand gesture at the end. The only trouble, of course, was that this scenario was eight miles deep in bullshit and he had no idea where it was coming from.
In that daydream moment of illusion he was briefly but deeply immersed in, Nicole was older, her hips were wider, though her ass was still firm and her breasts were matured. Her hair was short, cut up off her neckline. He had studied her body so deeply that he knew every curve, every warm seducing inch, and remained bewitched.
Most of the flaws on her skin, which she frequently seemed to worry over in the mirror, he knew intimately. He accepted them, knowing they had no chance of blemishing her allure. In fact, some of those blemishes across her skin he was particularly fond of, frequently kissing their marks and blessing the day they were created.
"You have to be fucking joking," he snarled into the wind, slamming the vision's replay into mental dust. "Kids? Can you be any more fucking pathetic? Shit!"
The marina area was coming up fast. He checked the time on his watch, saw it was five minutes after three and drifted the Lowrider into the parking lot. He spotted the pier number he was looking for moments later.
As he set the bike on its stand, he forbade his mind to even recognize the existence of a blonde woman in the area, let alone return his thoughts to Nicole. Thus decreed, he got off his bike.
Hiding his actions by using the parked cars on either side and in front of him as blinds, he took his 9mm from his left saddle bag and put it into the small of his back, securing the clip of the holster. He checked his draw, felt it was adequate, and then resettled the gun.
With the hat tip due to caution observed, he took a breath and relaxed. He reached into the right saddlebag, and removed the large package. He put the package under his left arm and scanned the parking lot, then the marina, spending more time in areas where he felt they would hide in order to observe him.
"Whoever they are, they’re good," Cole murmured to himself, not spotting a single watcher.
Their skill level increased his nervousness. If something went down, he may not be good enough to escape, gun or no. That's why I'm being paid the big bucks. he thought with half-felt humor. He walked to the pier and then down its length where three yachts were lashed and secured. His black steel-toed boots tread down the black traction covered pathway making slight gritty sounds. The yacht on the left, the one moored by itself, was where he was supposed to go.
When he reached the back side of the yacht, a man wearing a loose fitting, light colored beige suit and three days growth of black beard on his face stepped out of a full-sized sliding glass door, brushing aside a very light, white cotton curtain.
This man made eye contact with him and then nodded. After, he stepped back inside, leaving the door as it was.
Cole gathered that meaning of the man’s actions indicated he should follow, but Big Jim said nothing about boarding the yacht during his rundown of procedure this morning. Jim said the men in the yacht would meet him on the dock. Cole hesitated, the hairs on the back of his neck bristled.
He checked around once more, noting to himself the uselessness of that gesture and then stepped solidly onto the patio area of the ship. Once there, within the momentary cover of the door’s white curtain, he adjusted his gun once more and walked in through the glass door with the package in his left hand.
There were three men inside this room. The room was much larger than Cole expected. There was even a dining table down the center that was designed to seat a party of eight.
One of the men was close to the sliding glass door and to his right. This man wore a light green suit similar in style and cut to the first man's. The other new man was almost directly in front of Cole, also wearing a similar suit, though his was light blue.
The one who stepped outside was to Cole’s right, but back into the room with the man in blue. They looked and felt European. They had not spoken yet, so he couldn't verify that, but the feeling was strong. They also felt military. The spacing between these three was wide and also felt planned.
"You have not opened the package? It remains inviolate?" The man asking the question was the one in the middle, between his friends, the one who motioned him inside. His Slavic accent was heavy. Cole believed it felt Prague-ish, but he didn't possess any experience beyond watching action movies to make a better guess.
"Yes, and here," he said, offering the package with his left hand.
"No, curiosity? No interest?" the same man asked.
"No. I couldn’t care less," he said honestly.
Cole caught movement to his right as the middle man began to say, "I wish I could believe…"
All three of the men felt and acted military or ex-military. Whatever they were, Cole had no trouble believing they were well trained in combat and maneuvers. He thanked whatever god was watching over him that they lacked some ability to think in all three dimensions.
Cole was standing in a kill box.
The distance between the three men was so Cole couldn’t get an easy shot at all three of them. It also protected themselves from each other’s line of fire. The setup was for a man who would either come farther into the room or attempt to run out of the room, or, of course, stand there in shock long enough to be executed.
Instead of going for the man drawing to his right or attempting to outdraw and get one of the men in front, Cole fell backwards, through the white curtain and opened door, rolling as he hit the ground. As his roll reached mid-point, he heard the first gunshot explode inside while he began to draw his 9mm and used his abs and momentum to increase his speed. When his gun came free into his right hand, he was well out past the sliding glass door and laying prone on the deck with his weapon in a two-handed grip.
A second shot rang out from the same source as before, which sounded and felt fired by the man in the green suit.
The package was inside. They had their delivery. Why kill him? What was so important?
Since the value of his life was now deemed less than the contents of the package, his curiosity was piqued.
CHAPTER NINE
Cole was not military nor ex-military, but he did grown up in Chicago in neighborhoods where is wasn't safe to play in the street, where people didn't sit on their porches at sunset or any other time, where it did matter to every child above the age of five what colors he was wearing and on what street he intended to wear them, where gunfights were heard as a matter of course and knife fights were waiting for you after school, instead of something as domestic and suburban as bullies. Cole grew up in a world where just about every violent situation he encountered resulted in him being alone while pitted against three or more assailants.
At age nineteen, he joined the Chrome Horsemen, which he felt was a solid and respected club of men who were tough as they come and just as mean if pushed. Some of those men didn't need to be pushed all that hard either. A good strong exhale might be enough.
Cole became an enforcer, then an outrider, and then, five years later, he was placed on the security list. No, he wasn't ex-military and he wasn't trained, but he did have over twenty years of practical experience with close quarters combat against brutal and overwhelming odds. He also had a sharp mind and a vividly clear recall memory.
He mentally pictured the men inside as they were when he did his backward somersault performance out of the kill box they had waiting for him.
He visualized where each man was and where he was moving his center of gravity – which direction was the man moving toward? At the speed of thought, he encouraged his mind to logically progress the movements. If the man on the right, in the green suit, was stepping forward, which he was, visualize him doing so and visualize where he was now if he didn’t change direction.
In a blur of mental speed, less than a half second, he used these estimations to adjust his aim and then fired blind three times into the stationary glass side of the doorway. Then he rolled to his left, came back to a prone position, and fired three more times into the open area of the door, burning black holes through the white curtain.
Both attacks were answered with gunfire and shocked screams of pain. Again he rolled, back to his original position, and waited a breath, feeling and listening to the movement inside the room.
Cole was sure he wounded two of the men, the one to the left, directly in front of him when he walked through the door and the gunman to the right in the green suit. The first barrage of bullets might, have caught number three, the talker, but Cole counted him as uninjured, armed, and highly pissed off.