by Carmen Faye
"I feel the same. I don't think there are snipers; at least no one has taken a shot at me. Did you ever see more than three of them at any time, Jim?" Cole asked.
Jim paused and then said, "No. Three or two. Never fresh faces."
"I'm going to have to chance it, then. This place will have locals rushing up on it soon and I have a date to return to," Cole said into the phone.
"Fuck a duck, Cole. I swear to God, I thought this was easy money," Jim said with worried apology weighing down his voice.
"If it were anyone else saying that, Jim, I might have some doubts, but I don't doubt you for a moment. Even right now. I'll call you from down the road."
"Safe wind, Cole," Jim said with a defeated voice and then Cole broke the connection.
From his jacket, he took a spare clip and reloaded the 9mm. He scanned again, knowing the snipers had scopes, so they were likely so far back he couldn't see them even if he knew exactly where to look.
Fucking snipers. How do you deal with fucking snipers?
What came to mind just before he was going to stick his head out there and run for the parking lot, risking a bullet through his skull was that illusion he had before all this started: that perfect moment of him and Nicole, taking advantage of a rare free day to jump on the bike and take a ride.
He liked the way she looked and how he felt around her, and how he felt about her. It was a great image and one he wouldn't mind as his last thoughts in this world. So he let the illusion play, let the emotions fill him up and immerse him in stimulations. Then he took a breath and leapt over the side. As soon as his feet were flat on traction covering, Cole ran as hard and as fast as he could for the parking lot.
Across his mind, inside the illusion, Nicole kissed him a quick but proprietary peck and then said, "Shoo, go take care of your thing." Her voice rang in his ears along with the thunder of an adrenaline-jacked bloodstream. "Shoo," he heard her say again as he made it past the closest line of parked cars.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Sirens were approaching when he made it to his bike and shoved his gun into the saddlebag. He slipped onto the seat, ignited the engine, and came off the stand with a single motion of practiced grace. The Harley roared to life and he gunned it out of the parking lot, hurtling out to the frontage road, letting RPMs roar from his pipes before gearing hard and fast, thrilling with the raw power surging through him and the bike. He ran expecting a bullet into his retreating back at any moment.
"Shoo," Nicole told him, making a rather cute motion with the back of her hand, as if brushing him into action.
"I am, baby. I'm fucking shooing as fast as I can!" he yelled into the wind and shifted again, bringing the bike up to sixty in a thirty-five mile zone.
Then he geared down, pulling the bike to rein, bringing his speed down to the posted limit, and letting the Lowrider chug down the frontage road while he panted air into his lungs.
No sniper, or at least he didn't hear one or notice an attempt. He was well out of range now.
A sheriff four-door came into view and a passed him few seconds later with full lights, and sirens going, heading for the dock where the firefight occurred. Three more were running hard behind the first, trying to catch up.
Cole cruised the bike into the parking lot where the café was and brought it down on its stand in a stall just outside the door. He cut the engine. Then he just sat and rubbed the gas tank for a time, petting his horse, feeling a strong affinity for the metal beast at the moment.
Just as his breath was coming under control, Nicole came out of the door with her helmet in hand, bearing straight down on him with purpose in her stride.
"What happened? Are you alright?" she queried, looking him over for signs of injury.
"Nothing, I'm fine," he said.
"Don't lie to me, Cole Porter!" she hissed. "I know you too well. What happened!" she demanded, her voice a whispered scream.
Cole studied her. Her eyes were clear, bright, and currently very agitated. Apparently she hadn't caught what she just said to him. On top of that, he not only saw her as she was now, but how she was in his illusion at the docks.
"The drop," he began, his brain spinning with questions and feeling connections to her that were simply not possible to have, "it went sour. They decided that a witness wasn't in their favor, so they tried to off me." He watched as the magnitude of this registered in her thoughts and then watch the shakes travel up from her hands to her shoulders to join the tremors coming up her spine. He hated the feeling of her in this condition, knowing he was the cause. "But it is done. See? No holes, no hurt, no pain, and no blood. Just me. A little winded, but fine."
"Cole?" she whimpered and now she was shaking quite a lot.
He pulled her to him and brought her into his arms, and then lifted her so he could cradle her on his lap while he straddled the bike. She not only came willingly, she clutched and soothed her hands across his chest and shoulders, as if not believing he didn't have holes in him. "I got to make a call, baby," he told her while getting his phone out. "People are worried."
"I'm worried," she complained.
"Yes, but other, admittedly less important at the moment people, are also worried. They don't deserve to have demons gnawing at them."
She nodded, kissed his left cheek, and nodded again. "Fine, but then you are mine. This is our day, remember?" Her voice was definitely laced with a feeling of prior claim.
He nodded his agreement and dialed Big Jim.
CHAPTER TWELVE
"Cole? If you aren't Cole, hang the fuck up!" Jim's voice demanded.
"It's me, Jim. I'm out. Out and clear of any pursuit."
Jim's sudden release of breath came through the cellphone sounding like a hurricane. Then Cole could hear the protesting squeaks of his chair as he sat down behind his large desk.
Jim's voice was that of a wrathful volcano when he said, "I only wish there were more of them so I could ring the life out of their useless bodies myself. Do you need anything? Do you want anyone to meet you and see you home? Do you have enough money?"
"Jim, are you going to ask if I wore my jacket next? I'm fine. They aren't and they also aren't going anywhere with the package."
"You left it with them?" Jim asked.
"Want me to go get it now?' Cole asked and Nicole's head popped up off his shoulder giving him a wide-eyed stare.
Noting her overreaction to his jibe, he decided to cut Jim a little slack, too. People weren't quite in the joking mood yet. "It was the package or me and I decided that the package was delivered. Our job was complete."
"No, I'm glad you left it there. It wasn't something we could have handled anyway. They supposedly had a specific buyer, but I never learned enough about that side of things in order to find buyer by myself. No, it is best left exactly where it lays. Like you said, we did our job, exactly what they paid us to do."
"Did they pay us?" Cole inquired.
"Up front, yes, which was one of the reasons I didn't think this would go down like it has. They felt and acted, like professionals. I thought you would be treated in a professional manner and, knowing your people skills, I felt like you were the best man for the job."
"No worries, Jim, but I will accept a beer when I come in again," he told him.
"You got it and I'm happy you're alright."
"Me too," Cole admitted. "See ya." He put the phone away and Nicole began kissing him—his cheeks, his nose, his forehead, and then his lips, and then his lips deeply.
She fell into him as no other woman has. Delving into his core, soothing discovered stress, revealing areas of need, healing him where she came across worry, or strife. Her hands heedlessly explored his shoulders and chest, working his muscles with her lithe strong hands.
"God, Cole," she whimpered. "When I saw you out here, I knew. I just knew. Don't lie to me! Anything but that. What? Am I so fucking frail?"
"No, baby, but look at you. You're torn up. I hurt when you are like this. It's done. We still have our day. So, w
hat do you want to do?"
She gazed into his eyes and opened her mouth to say something, and then snapped it shut. Then she glanced around, as if getting her bearings. After observing a sense of greater control and calm descended across her face, Cole met her eyes when she looked back to him and said, "Your place. I want to go to your place and sit like this for the rest of the day, and kiss, and talk. Can we do that? Please?"
He gave her an intimate brushing kiss across her lips, and said, "We can do that. That sounds like a perfect thing to do."
He set her back on the ground and she got into her helmet, and then with simple, easy grace, slid in behind him, wrapping herself tight against him and squeezing his butt with her thighs.
Cole started the Lowrider, eased its chugging engine out of the parking lot, and willed the bike to carry them home. It roared to life and flew for the highway.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Nicole looked around Cole's home with curious awe accompanied by some annoying déjà vu while feeling warm humor bubble up at the picture it gave her of the man she was rapidly coming undone around.
Video games, action movies, and what looked like some home videos were around the floor in front of the TV. Coke cans were on the coffee table. A couple of beer bottles were poking their necks out of the trash near the kitchen in what she supposed was the dining room, but felt more like living room B.
The house had three bedrooms and two baths. The home office was a bit cluttered, but she could sense order from it, as well. Nothing was rich or luxurious. Nothing was polished or glass cased like at her place. Nothing had gold chrome or tinkling glass. He did have an expensive set of kitchen knives, which she recognized, having the same set at her place.
Browns. A great deal of browns were in his home. The two strangely odd elements, inside this blend of typical suburban male, were the oil paintings on the wall and the complete works of Shakespeare lying with its spine spread open to save his recent reading space. It looked like he was about a fourth of the way through the volume.
He brought her a beer and she nodded to the couch, following him, and then lowered herself smoothly to his lap with an arm draped across his shoulder to rest behind his neck, relaxing into a familiar and slightly possessive pose. She sighed against his chest and then kissed his neck with an ease suggesting she did this all the time, paying no attention to the reality of it being the first time.
She glanced at the TV. Her annoying déjà vu told her that under the TV, in the wooden cabinet, were two porno DVDs that he never watched. They were only played when friends gathered at his house for poker or to swap lies after a bike run or similar occasions. They were background and, though he probably didn't use the word, they were merely ambiance.
In fact, no one watched them even during those gatherings, being much too focused on each other and the fun of being with brothers.
She tipped her bottle of beer up and stared at the TV, trying desperately to figure out how she knew this. What could possibly hint to her from the rest of the room in such clear visuals, such a level of information about him and his personal life?
She didn’t know. It made no sense, but the DVDs were there. She was sure of it. The thought of now going over and finding those two DVDs actually in the cabinet below the TV terrified her. She didn't believe she could handle such precise evidence about their lives and how their lives belonged together. It was freaking her out, actually.
She looked back to him and saw the man she wanted to be with ten years from now. She blinked and pushed the vision away. She wanted to see Cole as he was right now. She wanted to learn about him on her own with no more previews or pressure—and whatever God or brain tumor was fucking with her like this could fucking stop and let her be! Let them be!
"Where did you grow up?" she asked, going for something normal and safe.
Cole leaned a little back and seemed to relax more. Then he told her about growing up in Chicago and his childhood. He talked easily about it and seemed to view it as simply history, which had very little bearing on who and what he was today. Though he didn't deny that predicting this outcome, from knowing him at sixteen and some of his history, wouldn't be difficult.
After talking and passing the occasional kiss between them, he asked about her and she tried to be honest. She allowed the abusive stepfather to be shared, along with his attempts to seduce her and his violence when she didn't accept his advances.
As she talked, it felt like he was really listening, honestly interested, so she talked a little about running away, being on the street, going from city to city, developing the personal outlook over the course of a year that it was all the same. It all felt the same. Sure, this place had a Space needle and that place had a bridge, but people were people and, generally, living with them wasn't very much fun.
She left the prostitution out, as well as the call girl stuff. She felt like a real woman right now and that stuff was no longer the real her. She never wanted to be a whore. Never wished that when she grew up, she could suck cock for a grand a night.
This was not who she was. Yes, the money sounded good and yes, she started it and continued to do it of her own free will. And yes, she lived very well because of it. But it was all crap. Next to this moment right now, sitting in Cole's lap, drinking a beer, and talking with him – being listened to so fully by him – had in it far more wealth and shiny things. She felt so real right now, she was close to tears.
"You haven't been trying to get me into bed," she pointed out. Not as a challenge or a tease, but as a statement of fact that aroused her curiosity.
"I don't feel rushed and, besides, I'm enjoying this, though it is off sometimes... well, weird," he said, looking around the room.
"Weird? Good weird or bad weird?" she asked.
"The I'm not complaining, but I still don't understand kind of weird," he told her.
She bit her lip. Could he be experiencing the same things? If they were at her apartment right now instead of here, would he know where her Ben Wa balls were? Would he be able to find her DVD of lesbian porn—which she watched with interest, though never with high enough arousal to get herself off during the show. It was basically just research.
Women are sexy. Period. Two women together showed a lot of sensuous body language. She regularly visited the high dollar strip clubs for the same reason: research. She wasn't using any of that research on Cole, she mused, playing with the idea of seducing him into bed. After all, didn't he deserve everything she could give him?
Well then doesn't he deserve the truth about his DVDs?
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The question came out of the left field of her mind and thunder-bolted into her heart. "This is nice," she agreed, trying to distance herself from that bare all or shut up intrusion of judgment. "Just the two of us."
She was going to add, again, how much his close call today scared her, when he murmured, "Sometimes it feels like four" under his breath and then took a quick sip of his beer, his eyes scanning the room thoughtfully.
"What?" she prodded softly, trying to move and bent to look in his eyes, "What did you say?"
"What, what?" he said, looking back at her and this time he wasn't lying. He probably had no idea he said that out loud.
"You said something about," she hesitated, not sure if this was a wise choice to make. She took a breath and started again, "You said something about it feeling like there were four, not two of us here."
His eyes widened a little, then he regained his composure, "Did I?"
"Can you tell me what you meant, what you mean?"
He scanned the room again and readjusted himself under her. "I have no idea what is going on with me. Flashbacks or some shit. Maybe it's the stress from this afternoon that is fucking with me. That makes sense, right? I mean, it's not an everyday occurrence, thankfully."
"I'm very glad to hear it," she nodded, "you... well... that event and you afterward and the thought of losing you just after we decided to take a risk and get t
ogether really ripped fresh scars inside of me.”
She sighed and took a breath. “I've never shaken like that before. It was like some really good things were just beginning and then ... Cole? I could have been there for five or six maddening hours waiting for you, never fully finding out later what happened, and losing... everything, for no good reason."
"Everything?" he grinned, rubbing his hand up and down her thigh, producing what she felt was definitely and unfair level of distraction. "What? Like three kids and your frustration with aerobics not being the cure-all you continuously demand it to be?" he chuckled, and took a long drink, then said, "I need another beer." Then he slid her off his lap, not noticing that she was gaping at him with her mouth open or that her eyes were bugging to the point of pain. "You want one?" he called back into the living room.
She shook herself. "Got anything stronger? Whiskey? Gin? Heroin?" she joked.
"You don't have to get me drunk to seduce me," he said off-handedly. "I have tequila, left over from a poker game."
"Who the fuck has left over tequila? How long has it been there?" she asked with an appalled voice.
"I don't think it spoils," he told her.
"How long?"
"About six months," he guessed, looking up, calculating. "Yeah, about that."
"For six months you have had tequila in your home and have never, in all that time, had a reason, or good lack of reason, to have a few shots?" she asked, her amusement ripe, covering her shakes and the knotting inside her gut. "Bring that bad boy over here."
"I have this funny insight that tells me I should say no, bad girl, lay down," he said with a puzzled face as he set down fresh beers and then a double shot of tequila for each of them.
"That better have been a joke," she teased.
"I wish I knew," he murmured under his breath, "Post stress has never affected me like this. I'm sorry if I'm fucking up our day."
"We will enjoy another and no, you aren't fucking it up at all. I'm having a very good time, aside from a few hours ago when people were attempting to take you from me; the day has been one of the best I've had in ... well... forever. A red letter day for sure."