It was time to think more about myself and less about motherfucking Mark Cross, I decided. What were my options?
I went to the window and used three fingers to widen the space between two blinds. The road was quiet and empty, but two motorbikes waited in front of the motel instead of one. As I was looking, I saw a figure walk towards the one that was not Six’s. A figure completely clad in black, too, with a black helmet and black gloves and boots.
A woman.
There was no doubt that she was a woman. Even if she hadn’t had those curves, even if she’d had a less graceful body, the way she walked, so feline, so self-assured, would have been a dead giveaway.
The woman climbed on her bike, turned it on, and gave a quick glance upwards before taking off to the road. She looked directly at my window. Maybe she could see me through the tattered blinds. Her helmet had polarized glass, so I couldn’t see her face, but I was sure she was looking at me.
Just a minute later, Six opened the door and entered the room with two cups of coffee and sandwiches to match. “Hi, pretty face,” he said absently.
It pains me to admit that I felt a pinch of jealousy when I realized that it was very likely that they had just met below, in the motel’s bar or whatever they had down there where you could get some cheap food and coffee. I shouldn’t have cared, but I did. Stockholm’s syndrome, already?
My presence in this place was a last minute thing; Six was supposed to kill Mark Cross and go into hiding alone. Maybe he had arranged an appointment with the woman in this place, but I had altered his plans. An appointment... a date? Was she his partner? His lover? In any case, maybe she was supposed to be with him in this room right now, instead of me.
“Anything?” Six asked, handing me a cup of coffee and a sandwich, before taking his jacket off and throwing it on the bed. He sat on one of the two ramshackle chairs and waited.
His t-shirt was black too, and it was visibly in trouble: it was hard work trying to keep all that muscle mass at bay. I wept for its poor seams. His gun hung from a holster strapped to his side.
“Anything...?” I repeated, clueless. I’ve been here alone all the time, what could I know that you don’t? I tried to think fast but all that chest and abs and arms were distracting.
“The TV,” he said, pointing at the set. Of course. I hadn’t even thought of turning it on. I pushed the big grey button and the ugly beast came to life with an electronic whirr. I sat on the other chair, at the opposite side of the bed, making it creak and bend dangerously. We watched for a while, switched channels, but there was nothing about the attack in Mark’s office. Maybe it was too early and the news would spread later in the day.
“Do you always watch the news after a hit?” I asked Six, and took a bite of my sandwich. It was dismal, but I was so hungry that I could have downed it in a single gulp. “It must be hard, having nobody to gloat to. Just yourself, alone in a room.”
I was provoking him recklessly, this time not because of my primal fascination with danger, but because seeing the woman walking to her bike had made me irrationally angry.
“Look, pretty face,” he said, dropping his sandwich and coffee on the tiny table that a brief visual inspection revealed as overstained and probably sticky, “I’m still not sure about letting you live. You’d better keep that tempting mouth shut for the time being.”
“T-tempting...?”
I couldn’t help it. I should have shut up, I knew.
“More than nothing, the way you leave it ajar,” he replied. And I immediately realized that I was staring at him with my mouth agape. I had been looking at him the same way from time to time. Fucking muscle-tortured t-shirt.
“Don’t make me laugh,” I reacted. I took a big bite of my sandwich and a gulp from my coffee. “You have pretty eyes, and that’s about it.” It wasn’t much of a comeback, come to think of it.
“Pretty eyes, eh?” he grinned. “Contact lenses, chump.”
“Really?” I couldn’t believe it. I left my coffee and sandwich and climbed on the bed with my elbows, leaving the chair and kneeling on the floor. I scrutinized his eyes, trying to find the fakeness in them. They looked authentic as fuck. I got closer, and closer, and closer. “I can’t—”
His eyes were all over me now. And his hand. His powerful hand was grabbing me by the back of my head, grappling at my hair so hard that it hurt a bit. Then his lips. He planted his mouth on mine as if he wanted to suck the life essence out of me. His scent filled me in an instant: a raw, crude smell of man, sweat mixed with coffee and leather (or maybe I was smelling the jacket too: I was lying on it), and also a hint of expensive perfume. They must pay well for killing future presidents, I thought right before losing my mind and surrendering to his kiss.
Sometimes, when I’m kissed, I dream. I forget myself and get sucked into an image, a sound, a sea of touch. It’s like a blackout in which the only thing that exists is the kiss and the reaction it generates in my mind. It doesn’t always happen, but it happened then. Six kissed me and I forgot everything about the world, both in space and in time. His kiss transported me to a dark, deeply passionate dimension inside my being, a dimension of touch and color I can dive into for as long as the sensation lasts.
When I came out of that delightful abandonment, I found myself doing everything I could to get rid of my clothes. He was staring at me, seemingly entranced by what he saw, and then he started kissing my neck, as I fumbled with my hands to get naked as soon as possible. His stubble left a tickling, tingling sensation wherever it touched, and his smell made me surrender to him like a hypnotic spell. It was only smell, though, a mix of scents that would have made some perfumer very rich if she had discovered this man. But this man was mine right now.
Ten seconds later, he was inside me.
“... oooh!”
That’s all I could say as he made his entrance. His cock was long, strong, and hard, with the perfect curvature as to match his movement like a pendulum, in-out, in-out, as he flexed his abs to push and pull, his powerful arms holding my legs in the air, one of them covered by a huge tattoo that seemed to speak of ancient warrior cultures and modern urban outlaws at the same time.
I felt possessed, in all senses of the world. He was claiming me and I didn’t care. Or, rather, I enjoyed it, in a primal way. I also felt like a spirit possessing me, something helping me free all the dark desires lurking inside my body, sensations that had been dormant for years and now surfaced in a delirious explosion of pleasure.
The rest was friction, thrusting, moaning, sighing and whimpering and shrieking and finally bursting into an orgasm that, in my mind, broke the barrier of sound and trickled down the floor, out the door, down the stairs, out to the road and from there, the rest of the country.
I needed that, I thought after it was all done. And fell asleep.
* * *
“How many people have you killed?”
“I don’t know. What about you?”
He exhaled a puff of cigarette smoke as he said this. He was still almost naked, wearing only a pair of boxer briefs, leaving his huge tattoo completely visible.
I gave him a look of disapproval. I was still trying to recover from what had happened –the way I had willingly submitted to his raw, unbounded thrill, even though every alarm bell should have been ringing in my head since the first second I saw him. An assassin, for the love of all that is holy. And one who was supposed to kill me, too. I knew I shouldn’t “bond” with this man, and I thought I never would... that’s why we ended up fucking, I thought guiltily. I was so sure it wouldn’t happen, that I let my guard down.
And he was now cracking stupid jokes with the same unfazed expression of his, the emotionless mask that he had surely mastered in the course of long years of crime.
“I’m serious,” I said. “How many?”
“I honestly don’t know. Twenty-five? Thirty? I never kept a count.”
“You’re lying.” But I knew he wasn’t. I just wanted him to be. A way
to justify myself, to force myself to believe that he wasn’t such a bad guy, that he was redeemable. I couldn’t be with him otherwise... and the fact that I was thinking in terms of being with him was terrifying.
It was just sex, I told myself. An impromptu thing. To release the tension.
But I knew it was more than that. He had me hooked with his eyes since before the first shot. And then his strength, his self-assuredness, his smartness as he took me under his wing and protected me from the others. From the rest of the world. I had been aching for him to fuck me, only I didn’t want to admit it. But now it was done.
He must have seen some of all this in my expression, because he stared at me, exhaled a new puff of smoke, and said:
“Don’t fool yourself, pretty face. I’m one of the bad guys.”
“But you didn’t kill anyone this time,” I objected.
“You distracted me,” he said. “You and your pretty face.”
“Still. You didn’t.”
“At the very least, you should have let me kill him. Maybe I can still do it and keep the money.”
“Please. Don’t.”
“He’s an asshole.”
“I know. But just... just don’t kill him, OK?”
“Bah, it would be impossible now anyway. He’ll be watched from every side 24/7. It’s you I should kill to get the Scope off my back. But I guess I won’t.”
* * *
As he laid beside me, still half naked, I realized I had no time to lose if I wanted to make my escape and recover my life.
The moment was now. He was asleep. I knew how to ride a motorcycle. I could make it to the next town and go directly to the police. Or call 911 from the motel’s bar or whatever. But better to put some miles between us first.
And yet, I didn’t.
I kept telling myself that I should leave, but I stayed there, lying on the bed completely naked beside him. The glow of the afternoon bathed his body, painting a picture that was both rough and adorable. My fingers were running over his stubble, distracted, lost in the physical sensation of its resistance. I wondered if this was the last time I’d see him this way, or at all.
I didn’t want to leave. I needed his protection. People were after me too. He had said as much. What would I do out there alone? Walk two yards and get a bullet to the head, for sure.
The best thing I could do now was stay with Six for a while.
Really? Stay with a professional killer?
Yes, that exactly.
It’s the rational thing to do, I told myself to make the voice of my conscience shut up for a while. This man knows what he’s doing, and I’ll be safer with him.
But deep inside, I knew that was bullshit.
His eyes, his smell, his way of kissing me. His attitude. All of him over me, inside me. I wanted to be with him. And I was so confused... I was starting to forget what was right and what was wrong.
I didn’t just need his protection. I needed his...
I needed him.
Also, I was grateful. He might be a killer, but he had not only spared my life, he had actually saved me from being raped. That had to count for something.
At least, I hoped it did.
THE YOUNG PROMISE
SADIE
I met Mark Cross at a charity event. His campaign for the reelection as a senator had already started by that point, but everyone knew he had set his sights much farther: four years ahead, when he’d run for the presidency. There was another man who had a similar plan: Seth Pryce, also a state senator, but in the North. Pryce was also campaigning for reelection and his goal was to become president in the next election. Which, of course, put both men in collision course.
Given this, everybody knew that all these charity events were no more than their anticipated campaign for the other election, the one that would take place in four years. Their reelection as senators in their respective states was a given already, and their teams were frantically trying to come up with ideas for proposals that gave each of them an edge over the other.
That’s where I entered the scene. Young, enthusiastic, ambitious, freshly out of college, with nothing to lose and everything to win, I approached him at once, and he seemed delighted to see me. I’ve never had reasons to brag about my appearance, or so I’ve always thought, but I caught his eye immediately. I thought at the time that he liked my attitude, but I guess now that he had dirtier thoughts in his mind.
I had three proposals for him, and each one of them would give him a specific advantage over his competitor. First and foremost, he was interested in the one who’d represent a welcome change in his state: a reform so that poor people would be able to access the judicial system and petition their authorities with less hassle. But the other two were more far-reaching: proposals to be made at the national Congress, giving him the opportunity to become a national political figure –almost a president in the making. A complete rewrite of the health insurance system, which everyone in the country agreed it was broken, and a series of new requirements of accountability for banks and other financial institutions, so that the national economy would be more shielded against instability. These two proposals, presented together, would get him support from both the left and the right in the political spectrum.
Mark Cross took me under his wing immediately. He told me to go see him the next morning. From then on, I’d go to his office every day, working on some project of his or suggesting my own ideas for changes in legislation. For all his idealism, he was notoriously hard to convince, and I would spend long minutes making my case, trying to make him see how beneficial my idea would be. He would usually shoot it down on the grounds that it would be costly or the other party would never accept it, but he always complimented me for my initiative and intelligence.
The other women in the office gave me sullen looks from time to time. I thought they were simply jealous because they had given up, working on the day-to-day minutiae while I was designing new and fresh proposals and getting his attention. It turned out it wasn’t exactly the case.
“Can’t you see what he’s doing?” Becca asked me one day. “He’s not interested in all your wonderful ideas. He likes to keep you around. I’ve seen how he looks at you. He wants to woo you so that you’ll feel at ease with him, but you’re just a pretty toy. He wants to fuck you, that’s all.”
I paid no mind to her at the time. Of course I knew Mark wanted to fuck me –it was more than evident in the way he looked at me as I spoke to him. But nevertheless, I believed that he was genuinely interested in what I had to say, whether he was attracted to me or not. Also, he was a married man, with kids, and surely he loved and respected his family!
Day-to-day work was less idealistic and a bit disappointing, though. While I waited for Mark to actually review and prepare some proposal of mine (something that always seemed to require weeks of negotiation within the Party), I was in charge of doing some outreach to hunt for issues and opportunities in the field, so that I could come up with new proposals, and even field annoying calls from annoying people who wanted some piece of legislation tailored for them.
The most annoying of them all was by far Scott W Poole, a farmer with bazillions of acres who was one of the biggest economic actors in our state and was now beginning to branch into other kinds of business. He wanted me to draft a change in zoning regulations so that he could open offices downtown and pay taxes as if they were an extension of his rural establishment. He also wanted Mark to propose a modification in national tax laws so that he could mount a research facility and have it pay taxes as if it were just part of his existing crops, though it would actually be a top-notch lab for biological innovation.
He called very often, trying to persuade me and win my support so that I would convince Mark to help him. I always deflected him in the nicest and most courteous way possible, but I resented having to talk to him so often, which distracted me from the really important work, which was to build and fine tune new projects to impact people’s lives in
meaningful ways. I should have been helping people in need, not putting up with a rich farmer’s complaints.
As months passed and election day approached, Mark started paying more and more attention at my drafts, and I thought I was lucky that he wanted to have some ammunition for the electoral fight. If that ammunition could be useful for making people’s lives better, then my work was good and satisfying, I thought. I was proud of myself, so proud that I didn’t hesitate when he called me and asked me, for the first time, to go to his office at night to keep working on a draft with him. That was the night when he showed his true colors. That was the night when everything changed.
A BULLET WITH MY NAME
SIX
Who will it be? Seven? Or maybe Four.
I’ve never been one to dwell in dark thoughts. I just do what needs to be done. I receive my instructions, get the money, plan the job, do the job. That’s about it. Other people would take a glance at my personal history and find lots of reasons for me to be a dark, solitary man with a sad past and an even sadder present, but nobody knows me that much at this point. Wendy got to know me well, and she turned her back on me. I swore to myself I wouldn’t make that mistake again.
That said, I found myself dwelling in dark thoughts now. I couldn’t avoid it. I knew there was a bullet with my name somewhere, but who would they send to shoot it? It made no sense to think about it; the only thing I needed to do was make sure they wouldn’t get me, and try to turn the tables back on them. But, again, I couldn’t avoid it.
I didn’t know how many fingers there were in the Scope’s hand, or how many were actually active at the moment. I had personally met a handful (pun intended). There was Nine, who had paid for her treason; there was Four, who was always cool and distant even at her most charming; and there was Seven. I would hate it if Pam decided to send him to do the job.
A Vote For Lust: A Bad Boy Political Romance Page 3