Maybe she had a doll collection.
In which case, I was happy never to walk in there, getting stared at by a thousand sets of creepy ass eyes.
Or maybe she kept an arsenal in there.
Though me of all people wouldn't begrudge her a gun or fifty.
Who knew.
But one day, she would fill me in on whatever it was.
Now that I opened up the possibility for secret-sharing.
As I dealt with the condom, and cleaned up, I realized I felt lighter, making me aware for the first time of how weighted I had always been.
Life did that to you sometimes, piled little bits on your shoulder, toughening you up, forcing you to become stronger, then repeating the process over and over again, until there were boulders there, but you'd become so strong that you never even noticed until the weight was shrugged away.
It was cathartic.
I wanted to give her that, show her how freeing it was. To be able to drop your burdens, have someone else help you carry them.
We'd get there.
We had nothing but time.
TEN
Lou
"This is hardly helping," I told him, voice an airy sound because his hands were sliding over my nipples that were pressing hard against the material of my tee.
Standing at the counter, knife in hand, nearly slicing off my finger when he moved in behind me, pressing his hardened cock against my ass, making me almost miss the tomato I'd been slicing and paint the cutting board with red of a different kind.
"I think I am helping plenty," he countered, hand sliding down my belly, getting dangerously close to the only place he was helping right that moment.
"I meant with your dinner," I informed him. "You know... that thing you have been begging me to make you since you woke up this morning. Making me get pants on and go to the food store for ingredients. And now you are going to distract me from making it?"
"But distraction can be fun," he suggested, hand pressing down between my thighs, making my knees slam forward into the cabinets.
"You're not the one who almost sliced off a finger."
"Grumble grumble," he told me, turning his head to press a kiss into my neck.
"I already have the garlic and onions browning," I reminded him as his finger did a swipe of my clit.
"Mmhmm," he agreed, nipping into my flesh. "And that is exactly why I am gonna keep doin' this, and ya are gonna keep doin' that."
"You expect me to cook you a meal while you finger me?"
"Nah," he told me, shaking his head. "While I fuck ya," he went on, pulling his hips back before pressing forward, his cock sliding between my thighs, rubbing against where I needed him most.
"I can barely remember to breathe when we fuck," I admitted, having found out through experience. Lots and lots of experience. Over the past week since we finally did it the first time, since he had given me his secrets. I still had a stubborn grip on mine. But those were matters for other times. Like when his hands weren't on me, when his cock wasn't rubbing against me. "How do you expect me to cut up and cook anything?"
"By tryin' real hard," he told me, hooking fingers into my panties to drag them down my legs. "Like I am gonna try real hard to keep distractin' ya," he promised just as two fingers thrust inside me, stroking with a hurried, almost frantic pace. "Nuh-uh," he said when I put the knife down, his fingers stilling inside me. "Ya stop cookin', and I stop making ya come."
"You're an ass," I decided, hand shaking on the knife as I picked it up again, as he started working me again.
"Aye," he agreed, fingers curling, tapping against my top wall, making the pressure on my stomach get heavier, harder to try to ignore.
There wasn't much talking after that, just sounds - the thump of the knife on the cutting board, making mush of the tomatoes I was supposed to just be quartering, but I couldn't have cared less as my ragged breathing became pleading whimpers.
He didn't give me what I had been shamelessly demanding, though.
His cock.
No.
He just continued to torment me with his fingers, dragging an orgasm out of me faster than I could even prepare for it, making my hands slam down on the counter, crying out the pleasure.
"Gotta keep workin' if ya want this, duchess," he told me after I had come back down, having freed his cock, sliding it against my slick pussy, somehow rekindling the desire, proving yet again just how ravenous I was for him, how it didn't matter how many times I had him, I was always hungry for more.
My hands grabbed the cutting board, scooping the contents into a pot, adding the onions and garlic to the mix, letting it start to simmer. There would be things I needed to finish making it, things that required moving around the kitchen, but I was hoping he'd be inside me before I got to those parts.
"There ya go," he added, reaching down to snag my inner thigh, spreading it slightly, then I felt his cock press against the entrance to my body. "Good girl," he added when I reached for the spoon to mix even as his cock pressed inside me.
"Fuck," he growled, like he did every time since we talked tests and birth control and ditched the condoms. A first for me, something I had been too shy to tell him. I couldn't say where the urge came from, the idea of having someone raw inside me before never filling me with anything but distrust and uncertainty. But with him, all I had been was eager. To see what it was like. To have nothing between us.
I wiggled against him, unable to take it when he stayed stubbornly still inside me.
"Greedy pussy," he rumbled, hand pulling back then striking out, slapping my ass hard enough to smart, the pain only succeeding in making my walls clench hard around him.
His hands sank into my hips, using them to yank me back against him as he thrust forward, claiming every inch as he fucked me, hard, fast, relentless, not an inch of the slow sweetness we had shared the first time.
But there was a time and a place for lovemaking; this was not it.
By the time I felt the orgasm starting to crest, my hand was up above my head, braced on the cabinet over the stove, trying to hold on as he thrust harder, faster, as his breathing got as ragged as mine felt.
"Come," he demanded, hand moving between my thighs to stroke my clit.
And I fucking crashed, crying out his name as he hissed out mine, his cock surging inside me, filling me, a thought that made another wave move over me.
His teeth nipped into my shoulder after, bringing me out of my post-orgasm dreaminess.
"See?" he asked. "Wasn't doin' that better than not doin' that?" he asked, making a smile pull at my lips.
"Well, I can't fight that logic."
A little less than forty minutes later, we sat down to eat at a dining set that had appeared in my apartment out of nowhere one day while I was out with Peyton and Rey - all of us walking our dogs in what we decided was going to be a weekly practice so long as I was in town.
I hadn't told Adler this, but I had turned down a job two days ago when Geoff called, wanting to spend more time with Adler, deciding at the time not to overthink it, just go with it.
I didn't regret it either.
"This is my favorite."
"You said that to the French toast for breakfast yesterday."
"Meant it then too," he agreed, nodding.
While I was practically a competitive eater, I didn't much care where the food came from, usually sustaining myself on whatever restaurant or fast food joint was closest. But in Adler's case, he had a healthy appetite, but had no reaction whatsoever to food outside the house. It was only food that I cooked that he raved about, that he ate with relish.
And I understood it.
Because I understood him so much better.
He'd never had a home-cooked meal.
He'd shared a holiday dinner at Addy's family's house, even had dinner Addy made. But never a meal cooked solely with him in mind, for him to enjoy.
It was a gift he didn't take for granted.
And because I understood that, I cook
ed for him any time he wanted it.
It was then, as I watched him take the plates to the sink to wash them - as was our ritual - I realized I wanted that.
I wanted to be understood.
I wanted him to understand me.
To see the things that made me who I was, that made me act the way I did, that made me fight him so hard, that made it hard to be soft with him outside of sex when I simply didn't have the control to do it.
The fear had subsided while I listened to his story. It wasn't shocking per se. I knew how the world worked. I knew how people were bought and sold into labor, into sex. It was more common than anyone wanted to believe. He'd been alone and vulnerable, had been an easy target for those who meant to take advantage of that fact.
My heart ached for him, for the boy he'd been, for the lack of love he had known, for the hopelessness he must have felt by the time he was sold for the second time. And I felt an odd surge of pride for him when he told me of how he had escaped, how he had gotten free of that, and made a new life for himself.
Sure, that life was full of contract killing.
But I was not one to judge.
"Hey Adler," I called, watching as his head half-turned over his shoulder.
"Yeah?" he asked, his hair down around his shoulders, blocking some of his face from view.
"Come with me," I demanded, voice faint, but steady as I rose to my feet, as I took a few steps in his direction, watching as he rinsed and dried his hands before turning.
"Come where?" he asked, head ducked toward his shoulder, watching me with drawn together brows as I walked the last few steps, my feet feeling oddly weighted as I came to a stop at the door.
"In here," I told him, watching the recognition register.
"Ya sure? I'm not demandin' anything, Lou," he told me, giving me an out I didn't want.
My hand closed around the knob, turning, pushing.
"I'm sure. It's time," I assured him, flicking on the light, moving in and out of the way, leaving space for him to follow me in.
He did, brow raising a bit as he looked around.
At the walls. At the ceiling. At the whiteboards set up on easels. At the surface of my dresser and nightstands that flanked my queen sized bed with the neat gray comforter that I hadn't mussed in as long as I had known Adler, crashing on the couch with him, or over at his apartment.
His gaze finally went to me again, blank for a second before his lips curved up ever-so-slightly.
"Fuck Lou. What kinda serial killer shit is this?" he asked, making a hysterical little laugh burst out of me as my hand raised, raking through my hair, internally admitting that he had described the room perfectly.
Serial killer shit.
That was what it looked like.
Like the house of a serial killer, a madman.
I guess one could call me that.
Especially after all these years.
I had to be mad. At least a little.
Hell, maybe a lot.
It had been such a long time since I had stopped to think about the rationality of it, the sanity of it, that I wasn't even sure anymore.
And, what's more, I wasn't sure I cared that it might be crazy, that it might make me someone worthy of a straitjacket.
My gaze moved around the room, taking in the papers plastered to my walls and ceiling, mugshots, surveillance shots, handwritten notes I had taken, newspaper articles. There were even strings connecting things, color coordinated, so I never got confused.
Though confusion was the least of my worries. I was too obsessed with it to fuck things up, even after all these years.
His hand reached for the stack of pictures on the dresser, flipping a bit carelessly through them. "These crime scene photos?" he asked, but I didn't answer because he already knew. Dead bodies and blood usually spoke for themselves. "What? Ya into solving cold cases or somethin', Detective Lou?"
"In a way. But not really."
"Am I supposed to guess?" he asked, head ducking to the side.
"No," I told him, moving toward the bed, carefully climbing up, patting the space next to me. He came across the floor, slipping into the spot at my side.
I couldn't quite bring myself to look at him, moving down until I was laying flat, staring up at the ceiling above my bed, looking up at their faces staring back at me.
"Where do I start?" I asked, never having given someone my story before, not knowing how to go about doing it.
"Usually best to tell a story from the beginning," he suggested.
The beginning.
I could do that.
My first vivid memory was at four years old when I told my mother I didn't want to be called Louell anymore, that I was Lou. And that Lou wore jeans and t-shirts, not the frilly pink and purple dresses that Louell was known for.
At five, I had the bone-deep desire to fit in with my brother and his friends more than play with my sister who was closer to my age.
The boys did the cooler things - skateboarding, tree-climbing in the park, baseball in alleys, tackle football. The stuff that made your heartbeat speed up, made your belly feel funny, but in a way that was both bad and good at first, then just good at the end.
My sister just liked having tea parties and playing with dolls.
I hated tea.
And no matter how many times I played with dolls, they never gave me that swirly good feeling in my tummy.
So I was going to be Lou.
And I was going to hang out with the boys.
The only flaw in my plan, of course, was that Monty was nine. And nine-year-old boys didn't want their five-year-old little sisters playing with them and their friends.
His rejection was a stabbing, burning betrayal because, after all, this was the boy who came home at night and played cops and robbers with me in the house. When his friends weren't around to see and judge him.
I had been a stubborn kid, though.
Just because he told me he didn't want me didn't mean I didn't keep trying, didn't keep barging my way in.
By the time Monty was a teen, though, he managed to hand me the slip more easily. Being older, being trusted more by our parents, allowed to wander out into the big, bad world in a way I wouldn't be allowed to do for many years.
I was fourteen when my parents pulled me and Sammy into the kitchen.
We knew before we even walked in that this was one of those serious talks.
That kitchen table with the scratched surface from us carving in it with forks as kids, covered with a brown and white plaid tablecloth to hide the sins, was the place all our serious talks took place.
The peer pressure, no drugs talk.
The sex talk.
The playing with matches is dangerous talk.
The your grades have disappointed us talk.
I remembered searching my mind for a possible screw up, for something that could mean the talk would focus on me and my punishment. I was sure Sammy was doing the same.
"Sit girls," our father had demanded, a tall, thin man who was too kind for the world he was born into beside our mother, shorter, stockier, but equally as soft. It was a quality Sammy inherited, but Monty and I had avoided somehow.
"This is very important," our mother added, wringing a dish towel between her hands.
"We're just going to get right to it," my father launched into it. "Monty is not going to be living here anymore," he told us, the words like a punch straight to my core.
We hadn't been close as of late, him staying out all hours with his friends, being shorter with me, but I still had a childish idolization of him.
"Why?" I asked, hearing an accusation there, sure the only reason was because they had kicked him out.
I hadn't been wrong.
"You know how your brother has been out with his new group of friends," our father went on. "Day, night, when he was supposed to be in school."
He'd been flunking out for months, having finally decided to drop out just two weeks before. I remembere
d being awoken by the fighting about that.
But me, naive, a hater of school as well, had loved the move, had wished I could pull it off myself.
My parents - of course - were of a different mind on the matter.
"Yeah," Sammy answered when they paused, waiting for one, needing the confirmation that we had noticed.
"Well, those new friends are some very bad people," our father went on. "They're part of a street gang. And Monty wants to join."
Gangs were a prevalent thing in our lives, our parents keeping us apprised of all the turf wars going on, wanting us to stay clear of bad areas.
"We know this is hard to hear," our mother chimed in. "But we want you to understand why we have done what we have done, why Monty can't be around here, why we think he is a bad influence for you girls. He could put you in danger."
I held my tongue at that.
Monty would never put us in danger.
He loved us.
Well, me more than Sammy.
And not so much recently.
But we had a bond.
He wouldn't let anyone hurt me.
I was sure of it.
Too sure.
It would eventually be the biggest mistake of my life.
Not heeding their warning.
Not understanding that people I thought were good could be bad.
"It's okay, Lou Lou," Sammy told me in our room that night, a room we had shared since I was born, a room that we would no longer have to share since Monty was gone, and Sammy could have his bigger room all to herself.
She needed it, too.
The space.
Sammy had gone the complete opposite direction than me.
Where I was still holding onto my tomboy 'phase,' dressing in baggy clothes, keeping my hair tucked into baseball caps, flattening out my new, unwelcome and - in my opinion - unnecessarily large breasts with an elastic bandage I had found in the bathroom medicine box. I refused to make myself pretty, to dress as society expected.
Sammy, though, Sammy loved all the trappings that came with being born with an innie instead of an outy.
Her dresser - and the three-fourths of the closet she took - were bursting at the seams with outfits I wasn't sure I had ever even seen her wear, had accused her of such more than once. To which she had told me that half the fun of clothes was shopping for them.
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