by Asia Marquis
He was nearly to the door when the feeling hit. He had gotten a bad reaction before, predicted plenty of attacks that turned out to happen only minutes or hours later. But it had never hit quite like this, never so hard and never so fast. He turned toward Jacqui.
It all seemed to happen at once, though he saw it all, like it was slow motion. She saw him, and her eyes narrowed just the smallest amount. She didn’t know why he had turned. Then realization dawned, and her eyes widened, as she saw something. Noah didn’t take the time to wonder what it was. He didn’t wait to see her reaction either.
He had already started pushing against the floor, lunging toward her. He didn’t feel his shoulder catch against her chest, though his mind registered it.
The sound of the bullet shattering the window and thudding into the wall couldn’t have been separate sounds, but Noah could almost make them out individually, among the chaos. And then, as if to balance out, as he hit the ground time sped back up. His breathing wasn’t just hard, it seemed like he needed to suck all the air down for the rest of the day, to get ready for whatever was to come.
Noah edged back over in sight of the window, looking out cautiously. Nothing happened. He hoped that whoever it had been, was gone now. He slumped down onto the stairs, trying to stop his heart beating a million miles an hour, steady his shaking hands, catch his breath. He turned around just in time to catch Jacqui running back into his office.
He let her have her space for a minute. Everything had happened so fast, so unexpectedly. A voice in the back of his mind told Noah he had done right by the girl, that he’d done everything he had to do.
But his pulse pounded in his ears, and the adrenaline was pumping. He barely registered that he was clenching his hands tight, tighter than he had thought possible. It took a very real force of will to pry them open again. His nails had dug into his palms, leaving four round red indentations in the skin of his palm.
Finally he got back up. He could see the door was still slightly ajar. Jacqui must not have been paying close attention when she closed it, and who could blame her. The bodyguard pressed the door to his office open.
Jacqui Jones was sitting on the broken couch he hadn’t gotten around to replacing, sobbing and hyperventilating. He sat down at his desk again and reached into the drawer. He pulled out a cigarette with one shaking hand, trying to light it. He dropped it twice before he managed to hold it still long enough to get the light to catch.
He pressed it between his lips and dragged. The smoke burned his throat. It had been a long time since he’d needed a smoke so badly. He had been telling himself that the pack was just there for old time’s sake, and before now he’d believed it. Now it seemed like the only thing that could stop the sick feeling in his stomach and the shaking in his hands. His teeth chattered.
Jacqui finally looked up at him, wild-eyed. Her expression was hard to read, mixed as it was between so many different directions. There was the fear, and the ‘I told you so’ that would never quite come. She was too smart for that. There was no helping her case by pissing off the man she had come to for help. Yet there was more, still, behind it. Emotions that Noah couldn’t place.
“Mr. Walker, please. I… I can’t leave the house, I can’t leave my room. I don’t know what this is about, and this is the first time I’ve known to a certainty. Please.”
Noah took another long drag on the cigarette between his lips. He took the pen back out. He scribbled, drawing nothing in particular. It seemed to him that the right thing to do would come to him eventually. He let the breath out he hadn’t noticed holding.
“Alright, then, miss Jones.”
She looked up, her face as white as a sheet. Whatever she had expected, it seems it hadn’t been acceptance. She got up, opening her mouth to say something. But she didn’t speak. Finally Noah decided to wait no longer.
“I’m not going to recharge you, got it? If you want to retain someone else’s services then I won’t make a fuss about it. But if you need someone to deal with this problem of yours, someone to keep you company? Someone to deal with that?” Noah gestured toward the hall. “I can give you the same service I give normals.”
Jacqui’s face screwed up in disappointed confusion. Then her face dropped. She reached into her purse and pulled out a pad.
“Very well, if that’s the best you can do. What’s your day rate?”
Noah could feel the box of cigarettes in his pocket. The bulk of them had been gone long enough that it felt new again. He sighed and tried to think about something, anything else. It had to have been this roof, he knew. But if he was going to do a real job of this protection he needed to know what he was up against.
Sure, the girl had to have some money, but he couldn’t figure that for something like this. It had to be for some sort of personal reason. A reason he hadn’t figured out yet. The only thing he was sure of was that nobody went after girls with the gift for unrelated reasons. It’s never a coincidence, and that meant keeping the cops out of it.
The stress was eating him up. There was nothing here, he knew. But in the back of his mind he kept thinking that if he just stood there, looking at the balcony, he’d notice it: the thing that would make everything that much simpler, the clue that would tell him what he needed to know. The cigarettes called out to him, telling him that they’d calm him down.
Finally Noah’s determination broke and he pulled the pack out. It was so easy to pull one out, put it between his lips, and light it up. He leaned against the waist-high wall that surrounded the roof of the building across the street from his office. The sun was high in the sky and he looked down, examining his shadow.
The only answer, he supposed, was to try to work through everything in his mind. He’d looked, and nobody had been here, or anywhere else for that matter. That meant that the shooter had either ducked down, or he’d bolted as soon as he saw the shots missed.
That, Noah thought, was the hint. Could the shooter have taken the casing? Did he have time? Noah squatted down, checking cracks all around the wall, but there was nothing. He did find a fairly recent-looking ring from a cup that had been placed on the wall. He guessed that must have been where the shooter had been firing from.
With that on the table Noah tried to look closer. He found a half-smoked cigarette, smashed into the concrete. He picked up up and slipped it into his pocket. He tried not to think too hard about what sort of havoc it would wreak on the inside of his jacket.
Finally he stood back up. It was almost nothing to go on. That was when he saw it. Across the roof, a flash. He had his casing, after all. Noah guessed that the wind had caught it, but either way it was something. He smiled to himself. Things weren’t going well, he reasoned, but they could go a hell of a lot worse.
He looked it over briefly, but he knew that guns were not his area of expertise. It would take someone who knew a little more about this sort of things to get any useful information about any of this. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his cellular.
The number wasn’t speed-dial, but he punched a few numbers and picked a name from the list that his phone offered. The man on the other end answered after four rings.
“Yes?”
“Dave, I need a favor.”
Noah picked up on it right away: Dave was not happy to see him. He spied his onetime colleague from across the room, though the lighting wasn’t especially good. It gave him plenty of time to prepare himself for the frustration that he knew was going to come, that he’d brought on himself.
He decided to stop at the bar, and when he walked over with two bottles of beer Dave’s eyes narrowed just so. He had an unusual way about him, and Noah knew that he was pleased, in his way. And angry, at the same time; he’d been looking forward to reading Noah the riot act, and now that wouldn’t be happening.
Noah was beginning to calm down a little bit. It had been a few hours since he’d dropped her off at his house, the safest place he could think of on short notice. He might be back by da
rk, and with some good news to offer while he was at it. That would be the best way to handle things. Get her started solving her problems, out of his life as soon as he could. It wouldn’t be ideal for his paycheck, but it would be preferable to handling a live situation like an attractive young girl who was gifted and incompatible.
Noah set the beers down, and then the casing in the middle of the table. Dave picked it up, making a face. He put it back down and took a drink.
“You called me out of work for this?”
“I need to know everything I can. I don’t much about guns, really. I figured if anyone would know something, it’d be you, David.”
Dave’s lips tightened at the entire thing.
“Don’t call me that; you know I hate it when you call me that.”
Noah didn’t apologize. He wasn’t sure why he’d decided to turn the screw, but it was done, and it certainly was no accident. He sat there, letting Dave think things over, while he nursed his drink. He only had the one, after all, and buying another while a client waited would be anything but proper.
“Noah, this is useless,” Dave finally said at last. “This is a three-oh-eight casing, it looks like, but that’s a pretty typical hunting cartridge. You said you this was related to a client?”
“I didn’t say anything like that, Dave, and you know it.”
There was the grin, the almost perverse smile that Dave had when he got caught digging for information. Only, Noah knew, he didn’t need to dig far. He’d have seen the look on Noah’s face and it would have told him that he wasn’t half wrong. From there it wasn’t much of guesswork. Dave’s face got serious, though. Ruminative, almost.
“You know what I’m about to tell you, Noah.”
“And what’s that?”
“Don’t get involved with her; it’s only going to get ugly.”
“I’m only working in a civilian capacity, Dave.”
“Oh, of course.” His voice dripped with sarcasm and self-righteousness. “What was I thinking, Noah? You’ve never let a girl get out of control.”
Noah drank what was left of his beer and stood up.
“Thanks for the advice, Dave. I’ll let you get back to work now.”
Dave’s look soured further, and he looked at his drink.
“Yeah, whatever.”
Jacqui looked composed and cool, though Noah knew it was only a facade. He knocked before he came in, the way he’d said he would. That was the signal not to unload the pistol he’d given her on the first face she saw through the door. It sat beside her on the table, apparently untouched. Noah knew enough about the sort of people who don’t use guns regularly to know that she probably had nearly forgotten about it until he knocked.
Yet at the same time, he suspected, it was ever-present in the periphery of her mind.
He sat down in the only other chair in the place, in the middle of the room. He studiously avoided the idea of sitting on the couch beside her, though it would have been the more comfortable, more natural place to sit. He smiled what he hoped was a reassuring smile at her and pulled a scrap of paper out of his pocket.
“So, Ms. Jones, I’ve been doing some poking around, and… it’s not ideal. The man who shot at you owns a hunting rifle, appears to smoke.”
Noah laid the cigarette butt down on the coffee table, assuming the young woman wouldn’t recognize it. However, he was surprised to see her caught by a thought. He waited for her to tell him what she was thinking. She was too afraid, he thought, to leave out something that might save her life. Even if it were a little bit silly. All she needed was time, and perhaps a push.
“Well, I do know,” Jacqui stopped. She seemed to be pondering her choice of words, but then she didn’t go on.
“What is it, miss Jones?”
“Would you stop calling me that?” Noah was nonplussed at her reaction. “Just call me Jacqui. I’m tired of people calling me ‘Miss Jones.’ At least you could do that.”
It was not typical for Noah to call any of his clients by their given name, particularly the ones he was acting in a protection role with. Normally people of that class were too keen on formalities, hardly even prone to using contractions in their speech.
“Yes, of course.”
“I need to get out of this place. I can’t think in here.”
Noah thought for a moment. It would probably, he reasoned, be safe enough. Nobody would have known where he was. He hadn’t been followed, and he kept himself off lists when he could. He had gotten pretty good at it over the years. Finally he nodded.
His coat hung on the hook by the door, until he took it back. He opened the door first, he walked ahead, keeping an eye out. He saw the man standing there, but he looked harmless enough. There was no reason to think that there was any risk here, anyways.
It wasn’t until the little man moved, as Noah passed, that he realized that somehow he had miscalculated. Noah stepped to intercede and shot his arm out, catching the fellow by the neck. Noah saw now, the little man had a knife in his hand. It would be sharp, he knew, and most of all cheap. He held the headlock on tight and looked to Jacqui.
“Do you know this man?”
“No!” She was terrified, he saw, and then the knife came down on his thigh.
Clearly the attacker thought he could get away, perhaps even finish the job, if he got Noah to let loose. But his instincts didn’t slacken. He tightened harder, until he heard the little man choking and the knife’s jerking slowed.
He roared out the question in his anger:
“Who do you work for?”
The little man made no motion to answer, just pulled the knife free. Noah tightened again, as hard as his arms would allow. Then the hoodlum stopped moving, his face an ugly color. Noah let him down lightly. He would be awake, he suspected, in a few minutes. And he knew that they had to be away by then.
Jacqui’s face was a mixture of emotions, the same mixture she had worn earlier that day. The sun was down, now, and they were sitting outside of Noah’s parent’s cottage. Nobody would come here for weeks at a time, he knew. Even if whoever was hunting his client had known about him, had found his apartment, they wouldn’t think to check here. He, himself, had almost been uncertain that they still owned the place.
But the key was still hidden in the same place, and the same pictures hung on the walls, so it stood to reason. So he told Jacqui they would stay here for the night. She said she needed a shower, to relax. Noah could understand, needed a shower himself.
When she’d called him in to the room, asking for a towel, he had forgotten himself for a moment, noticed her through the glass. It wasn’t a perfect view, but he could see how large her breasts were, how shapely her bottom. He’d only barely managed to maintain his professional distance, then. He set down a towel and a robe he’d pulled from the pantry, and then he turned to go.
“You know, we could save some water showering together.”
Noah could feel a stirring in his loins. The desire to agree rose along with a lump in his throat.
“Jacqui, you know I can’t.”
“Come on, Mr. Walker.” Noah wasn’t sure what she meant by saying his name that way. He was almost offended, though he couldn’t have said why.
“You know why I can’t. It’s not that—” he stopped for a moment, but then he let himself finish. “It’s not that I’m not interested.”
“Aw, sourpuss. I won’t peek.”
Noah felt the last bits of his resistance slipping away. Perhaps she really wouldn’t peek. It would be saving water, and there was no reason not to be close to her, as long as he didn’t go all the way. He could almost feel the electric haze of mutual arousal, but he attributed it to the heat from the water.
Finally he sighed, unbuttoning his shirt. His clothes were left in a pile on the floor, and he knocked on the glass of the shower cover.
“You’d better turn around, I’m coming in.”
And then he slid the glass aside and into the shower he went. The water wa
s aimed at Jacqui, so he only got the lukewarm spray off her body. Compared to the heat in the room, it seemed ice cold. He turned around, and the two of them stood back-to-back.
“Do you need to get under the water?” Jacqui’s voice was soft behind him.
“Yeah, do you mind?”
Noah started to edge around the side of the tub, skirting by Jacqui. He felt her breasts press into his back, and he could feel himself hardening. Perhaps it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to do something, anything to relieve the arousal he was feeling. He knew Jacqui had to be feeling something, too.
He looked over his shoulder to see Jacqui facing away. Noah let the water spray into his hair, running down his back. He grabbed a bottle of shampoo, lathering it through his hair. His eyes closed for a moment, and that was when Jacqui turned. Noah nearly lost his balance when he felt her mouth on him. He didn’t fight her, just let one hand drop down, resting on her head.
“You can’t imagine,” he mused, “how good that feels.”
He let her bob her head on his cock, enjoying the sensation. It seemed to get sharper, more defined and more pleasurable by the moment.
“Don’t stop.”
He could feel his fingers interlacing with her kinky hair, pressing her deeper and deeper. He could feel himself approaching the edge, the release that might let him finally clear his head—then his phone rang. Fuck, he thought. Just another moment.
And then, all at once, the spell was broken. He realized what he’d been ready to do, and he knew Jacqui had known too. It was playing with fire, and he wasn’t ready to take that risk. He pushed the shower door open and stepped out. Dimly, he could hear Jacqui behind him, her tone a mix of frustration and confusion, but he wasn’t listening to what she was saying. He needed to get out of that room.
Noah didn’t hear her come in, but when she spoke he didn’t turn to look. It was too difficult to make the situation work as it was, he reasoned. With the way things were going already, he knew that he would only be making himself miserable.