“Because there is something about your eyes that hints at faraway places and different lives than the one you’re currently leading and the brown of your skin makes me think of the beach and summer and sunshine and although you have the dirtiest sexiest mouth ever, there is something quite regal and proper about your enunciation. That’s why.”
“Jesus.” He pulled out his pack of smokes and lit one, never taking his eyes off me. “You’re a fucking poet.”
“And you are my muse.”
He smoked and contemplated me and when I realized he was probably never going to answer my question, I leaned against the bars I so often caressed in the still of night, closed my eyes, and relaxed into myself. And although I knew I should go upstairs and get some sleep, I couldn’t bring myself to leave his side.
“India, via Manhattan Beach.”
“Huh.” I nodded as I considered his roots.
“What does ‘huh’ mean?”
“It means I’m thinking on it so please shut up, which I’ve noticed you find quite difficult do to when you’re around me.” I flirted because I knew it made him uncomfortable and I wanted him to feel some of my discomfort at being in such close proximity and yet never touching because not touching him, not even a graze of my fingertips against his brown skin, which I knew would be warm and yet would goose bump under my fingers, was killing me.
“I’ve only been around you once before and if I recall correctly, there was not much talking going on,” he countered.
“Only because of your stupid rule.”
“Which you followed.”
“Because I wanted you to fuck me.”
My blunt truth shut him up and for a few moments we both sunk into ourselves and the silence was glorious because we shared it, we made it ours, we owned it together.
“British schools?”
He shot me a questioning look, lost in his own thoughts, my words jarring him.
“In India,” I added, “did you attend British schools?”
“Something like that. The same schools the diplomats sent their kids to, that’s where I went.”
“Did it become home or does California hold your heart?”
“That’s assuming I have a heart to hold,” he shot back.
“Oh shut up with all the black heartlessness and just answer my question.” I crossed my arms and waited.
“Uncross your arms and I’ll answer your question.”
“Answer my question and I’ll uncross my arms.”
“India.” He admitted so many things with that one word, mostly that he did, in fact, have a heart and that regardless of all the nastiness he shoved at me and the cruel words and horrible thoughts, that heart belonged to me. I owned it. He entrusted it to my care. Which suddenly, as my pulse raced and my breathing stutter-stepped, was a problem I could not explain—but one that existed all the same.
“I should go.” I panicked and pushed myself off the bar, determined to make it to the door of my building and inside and upstairs and away from him.
“Juma,” he called to me despite my request that he not say my name that it not cross his lips that he forget he ever learned it. “Stay.”
Another man would reach for me, his fingers would find mine and entangle themselves and he would pull me between his legs and wrap my arms around his waist and he would bend to my throat and inhale my scent and then press his lips just. right. there. And I would sigh and my pussy would quake and I would be his.
But not this man.
He didn’t need to do any of that because I was already his and so I stopped and I breathed deeply and I settled because I didn’t want to leave I simply got scared he scared me and I didn’t want to say good night because going our separate ways again saddened me. So I returned to his side only this time I moved closer so close I could feel his heat and I knew it made him uncertain and ill at ease, but I didn’t care because like I said before, I wanted him to be uncertain and ill at ease while he was around me not touching me not kissing me.
“Thank you,” he breathed into the quiet of the night and I smiled but said nothing and he turned toward me and leaned close and said it again, but I think only because he wanted an excuse to lean close and almost touch me but not.
“Did you have a best friend in school?” I needed to distract myself from the warmth of his breath on my neck and he finally leaned away from me to suck on his smoke and calm and settle because that whiff of me did things to him.
“Dinesh Kaur and Arun Ansari.” Those names rolled off his tongue with ease, and I knew he loved them.
“Do you keep in touch?”
“No.” And that made him upset.
“Did you have a dog?” I wasn’t going to press the friend thing.
“Too many, Juma. Kind of like all of your questions.” He sort of smiled and smoked and looked down the street like he needed to take his eyes off my face for a second or two and at that moment I should have just pointed the gun at my temple and fired.
“I think that’s my cue.” I stood and stretched and yawned because even though every atom of my being was alert and hypersensitive, his mere presence a sheer thrill, the fact remained that it was 4:32 in the morning and I was freaking exhausted. He watched me and maybe he wanted to protest or maybe he regretted giving me an out or maybe he was simply sad to say good night but he remained silent.
Of course he did.
I smiled even though it hurt because I didn’t want him to know how easily he got to me under my skin in my blood and because I was happy we shared whatever this was—the questions and the fraught silences and the so-close-but-not-touching.
“You never said my name.” He tried to sound casual although his statement was anything but and he knew it and that’s when I knew he had been waiting all night to hear his name cross my lips but it never did and now it was time to part ways.
I bit my lower lip and studied my feet for a second fidgeting under his gaze his need his vulnerability and I considered myself and him and everything I was about to do and I wished I had more time to analyze and proceed with caution but I didn’t because he needed something right then and I had to decide whether I wanted to be the girl to give it to him or tell him to leave me the fuck alone.
“Spread your legs,” I ordered as I moved toward him and gestured, “wider.” And his eyes filled with that feral fear I’d seen earlier when I came too close for comfort but he did as I said and I moved into the space he created for my body and I made sure not to touch him because I knew I had already gone too far.
“I don’t know what you were trying to accomplish the other night when you gave me that little lecture about touch,” I said, starting nice and slow, my voice low just for him, “but you were right, I am the kind of woman a man takes his time with—he touches me everywhere because he wants to possess me, leave his mark so to speak, and his lips linger on my body and his hands slip between my legs and he kisses my pussy because he wants to and because I love to be touched. And even though you say you don’t want to touch me I know you do I feel it in the heat rolling off you in waves I hear it in your voice I see it right now while I’m talking to you and your dick is fighting to break free of the confines of your jeans.
“And that”—I glanced down at his crotch and he glanced down and neither of us moved and he didn’t even breathe—“is all right because there is nothing I want more than to touch you. I crave it just like you said I would. I want to run my hands up your thighs and press my palm against that fucking huge bulge and listen to you moan while my lips press to your throat and I taste the salt of your sweat. I want to climb into your lap and grind my wet pussy against you and wrap my fingers in your hair and kiss you so deeply you lose your breath. I want you to touch my face and lips and throat and kiss me softly as if I’m delicate and I matter and am not just the girl you slammed into the door and pretended to fuck like a whore. And I want you to whisper in my ear that you have never seen anyone so beautiful and that I feel. so. good.
&n
bsp; “But I know you can’t do those things that they break all of your rules in epic fashion so much that you might never recover from such an encounter, so here’s the deal: I will say your name if you let me touch you.”
He leaned away from me fast and panicked and something wild flashed in his eyes and I almost felt bad for the devil’s deal I’d offered him but I refused to relent because if he wanted a part of my soul I wanted a part of his. Tit for tat.
He started to say something in protest and I raised my finger to quiet him.
“There’s no discussion to be had—it’s a yes or no kind of thing, and you just have to trust me.”
And then I smiled because I knew he would say no and I would be free. And long tense seconds passed between us when all I heard was his heavy breathing and the sharp inhales and drawn-out exhales on his smoke. Nothing else because nothing else mattered.
“Touch me.” He finally spoke as he flicked his butt to the ground and tried to look casual as he sat on the steel bar but he looked positively terrified. “Do it.”
But he didn’t look as terrified as I felt because although my fingertips burned for his skin, I knew the minute his name danced on my tongue and crossed my lips I would be his to destroy with this perverse thing between us. And I suppose I was ready to die for him because I inched closer to his body and listened as his breath caught and felt him stiffen as I reached for his throat to simply wipe away the dried blood, my fingers barely grazing the skin and stubble, but feeling scorched nonetheless.
I stepped back and smiled and he realized that was all that I would not make him suffer any more of me on him my skin on his because I loved him so and couldn’t bear to destroy him the way he so carelessly destroyed me. And I think right then right there he fell in love with me all over again.
“Thank you.” I backed away from him and moved toward the door, slipping inside and watching as the glass slowly closed before finally daring to live up to my end of the bargain throwing caution to the wind and praying there might come a day he would take it upon himself to care for me the way I had already sworn to care for him and sound and syllables vibrated in my throat and rolled around on my tongue and played along my lips and just as the door shut I braved a whisper and gave him my soul: “Dutch.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
DUTCH
Get back to me.
Want you in Bologna
by tomorrow night.
FUCK.
I deleted the text and closed my eyes, listening to the city race through the day, wondering what kinds of fuckery were taking place in the dark corners and dusty nooks that people liked to pretend didn’t exist but I frequented often. Lighting a smoke, I glanced around the room, squinted my eyes, and spied a bottle but pushed out of bed and made some coffee instead. I could always add the bourbon, just needed to get some caffeine first.
My kitchen was a wreck, fucking filthy, and while the coffee brewed I punched out an irritated text to my cleaning service, demanding that someone stop by my apartment and do their goddamned job.
Good morning to me.
I was in a foul mood and Avery’s text was not helping one bit.
Fuck you
and Bologna.
I hit send and then swigged my coffee, the caffeine jolting my system because I made it like sludge. After two cups, I thinned the third with the remains of my Scout, lit a smoke, and set about the task of packing.
I was all activity and motion and caffeine and nicotine and bourbon, anything to keep me from stopping what I was doing and remembering her fingers as they brushed my skin all those nights ago.
I wasn’t looking for Juma that night, or maybe I was, fuck if I knew. But when I glimpsed her exiting the train station, that short hair and those cheekbones and that ass, all rational thought and behavior ceased and all that mattered was her. Fucking her in an alley, any alley, just slipping my dick inside her pussy, that was what I wanted until what I wanted turned into something altogether strange and other. When hearing her voice and seeing her smile mattered more than the throb of my hard-on. When her sharp stare and heated glance thrilled more than fucking her senseless.
And I knew I was in trouble because even though her touch was torture and terrifying, it was all I wanted and so much more. But instead of being a man about it and finding her again and telling her and touching her like I craved and she deserved and kissing her softly as I held her stunning face in my hands and her lips parted and I could smell the peppermint on her breath, I fucked every woman who crossed my path who was not her on the chance that I could fuck her out of my system. Even though I knew that was impossible, it didn’t mean I wasn’t going to try. The bartender at Nell’s, a girl on the train, a woman buying a latte, the lawyer for my condo, a dog walker, the wife of my neighbor and his sister’s best friend, a yoga instructor, a doctor in the park, a girl in Duane Reade, a librarian. All forgettable because they weren’t her. A photographer, a teacher, a singer, the waitress at Lucky Strike, a personal buyer at Bergdorf, a woman in the nail salon and her girlfriend, a sex therapist, a soldier.
Then Avery texted and I started packing because it was a hell of a lot less risky dealing with those motherfuckers at The Gate than it was dealing with her. I could kill some goddamned Poocha much easier than I could kill anything I felt for Juma.
You have ten hours.
Get your ass over here.
Now.
I knew what Avery wanted, some help with that goddamned newbie Keeper, the dark lovely with the big tits that Rani fucked every chance she got, so much so that she hadn’t been assigned a single Poocha until now. She was green and unprepared and now I had to clean up the mess. I also knew what Avery was up to, having me sweep in and take care of one of Rani’s pets and fix everything so then he could report to the others that without me the Poocha would have never been handled. He was worried and wanted to buy me some time or some respite to get my shit together and stop pissing people off.
And because I loved him like the brother I never had and I was desperate to escape the city full of women I had fucked and the woman I wanted to fuck and touch and let her touch me everywhere,
I packed my shit and hit the street. I left my keys with my doorman and let him know I’d be gone for at least a month, if not longer, and to make sure that fucking piss-ass shitty cleaning service cleaned my apartment. And to collect every single one of my deliveries of Old Scout.
Then I grabbed my bike and headed for The Gate, checking my watch and hoping those assholes Rani and James were off torturing someone on the other side of the planet.
“Why the rush, Dutch?”
“Now’s not a good time, Mistress.” I banged my head against the door in frustration before shooting Death a grimace.
“That’s not happiness to see me,” she purred as she leaned against the wall, her hip jutted out and her hand resting against it.
“It never is.”
“Ouch.” She laughed and pretended I hit her in the heart when she and I both knew she had no heart.
“What do you need?”
“I heard about the other night”—she turned a little more serious, not much, but some—“the pipes and whatnot.”
Jesus fucking Christ, did every motherfucker know about that night? I wanted to forget about that night.
“And?”
“Would you like me to take care of some folks?” She raised a brow in my direction. “Particularly the Jamaican and the Indian?”
I leaned away from the door and laughed. Of course I wanted her to off those motherfuckers, but I was a Keeper and the last thing we did was make deals with Death. I killed her people for a living—I wasn’t about to put myself in a situation where I owed her shit.
“Nah.” I considered her for two extra beats. “But you can take care of me.”
And even though they’d warned me about fucking Death and even though there were cameras right outside the door to The Gate and even though I knew those cameras were trained on the alleyway and
even though she wasn’t the woman I really wanted, I slammed her up against the wall and fucked her senseless.
Or maybe I fucked myself.
I was past the point of knowing or caring.
After watching her straighten her skirt and disappear down the street, I ran up the ten flights of stairs, found The Gate virtually empty, grabbed a couple of things I needed from the office, and headed for the Point.
Every major city had a Point. And every Point was guarded by a Dosha, the magical warriors of The Gate. Points were The Gate’s version of a portal—we created them, we controlled them, and only we could use them. You weren’t supposed to bring anyone who was not a member of The Gate through a Point, so if you wanted to drag a Poocha from one Point to another, forget about it because it wasn’t happening. Unless you could get around the Doshas. And no one could get around the Doshas.
The Point in New York City was at 70 Battery Place, one of those luxury buildings full of banker fucks with their fancy cars and custom suits and 2.6 kids. Assholes. The types that made you glad to be a diabolical killer, able to think up fifty ways to bring about the ends of their very insignificant lives in all of two seconds. Luckily for them, we dealt with the Doshas to access the Point. Had it been any other way, there’d be a shortage of Wall Street motherfuckers, that was a guarantee.
“Hey Mike?” I stuck my head in the door. “Can I leave the bike somewhere?”
Mike, a lanky black guy with light eyes that drove the women crazy and the nastiest right hook I’d ever witnessed, looked up from his book and nodded. “Just leave it out front, I’ll take care of her for you, Dutch.”
I pushed into the building and leaned against the counter for a second. More than anything else—women, drugs, cars—this guy loved his books. Since he was a kid, he’d always had a book in his hands. “What’s keeping you up at night these days?”
I was one of the few Keepers who hung with the Doshas—most Keepers considered themselves too special to be hanging with the likes of what they considered to be “the help.” Personally, I thought the Doshas were the ones who held all of this shit together for the rest of us and I loved them for it. Plus, they were the coolest cats around, much better than the rest of those Gate motherfuckers. And despite being invited, the Doshas never once showed up for one of my “sessions” with Rani, James, and the crew. Never.
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