Lariat

by Marata Eros

  But I screwed Lariat against the wall within hours of knowing him—not a rousing endorsement of my morals. I feel heat rise with regard to my casting of stones. I would be the first one on the list.

  I can tell by his expression that Lariat misinterprets my blush.

  “Are you fucking gone on him?” Lariat asks.

  “No,” I rush to answer then reply more calmly. Though it’s none of his business, I feel compelled to elaborate. “I don’t date people I work with.”

  “Thank God for small favors,” Trudie mutters.

  “Not for him not wanting you, right?” Lariat asks with clear menace.

  “You know, there were guys before this thing.” I move my finger between us.

  Lariat strides to me and and wraps me against him.

  I can’t breathe or think with him this near. The flush returns, but for entirely different reasons.

  “God, that’s hot,” Trudie remarks in a hushed voice.

  It’s easy to forget Trudie’s there, that there’s any audience at all.

  Lariat’s lips are on mine, teasing, coaxing my soul out in the open.

  Helpless not to respond, I wrap my arms around his neck. He lifts me by my ass, and I twist my legs around his waist.

  We break away to breathe, my fingers wrapped around his thick neck as he loosely holds my butt cheeks. Our stare could melt paint.

  “Is this a thing?” Lariat asks quietly, his eyes looking so deeply inside my own, I feel naked, though he’s seen every inch of me nude.

  My swallow is a painful, dry click. It is so a thing. It’s a thing that terrifies me while making me feel as if I’ll die without it.

  Without him.

  Like the sun on the Earth, the rain that falls from the heavens—I’m fertile ground for Lariat, and I’ll starve without him near me.

  “Like I said,” Trudie says slowly, “I’m thinking you need to see this thing through.” She giggles. “Whatever this thing is.”

  “Trudie’s no dummy,” Lariat comments, laughter in his voice.

  They’re conspiring against me.

  He lets me slide down the front of him and doesn’t wince.

  “You recover fast, stallion,” Trudie says.

  Lariat smirks. “With her around”—his dark eyes seek me like a sun behind a cloud—“there’s no choice.”

  *

  “Panty dropping doesn’t even begin to cover Lariat,” Trudie says, collapsing into the royal purple chair. She spreads her knees and mock fans her crotch. “Holy crows, I think I creamed my panties just watching him go after you.”

  With trembling fingers, I shove my hair back behind my ear. “The doing is—wow—just wow.”

  She screws her brows into a first-class frown. “I don’t know what you’re afraid of, Ang. I’d let that man consume me until there was nothing left. Lariat is a walking, talking, sex-on-a-lollipop. Lick him down, lady.” Trudie leans forward, shaking her hand as if she’s trying to calm down.

  I know exactly how she feels. Trudie just got the peripheral wave of sexual yumminess. I was in the blazing heat of it.

  She falls back again, and we’re silent. “So, I hate to be a wet blanket on the chaos and drama that is your life, but I have to study for this huge final exam, when all I really want to do is figure out your mess.”

  Me too. “Lariat’s gone off to”—I whip my palm back and forth—“find out information in probably the most illegal way possible.” I dunk my face in my hands again. “I just don’t want to know.”

  “Probably best,” Trudie says in a droll voice.

  “But maybe, for the first time in my life, I don’t care. Or I’m trying not to think about it too much.”

  Trudie frowns. “Because you dig him or because your life is in danger?”

  All of it. “All that.” I stand. “Can I take a shower?”

  “Mi casa es su casa.” Trudie swings her palm toward where I know the bathroom is.

  “Thank you,” I say gratefully. “Do I still have some spare clothes sitting around?”

  “I’ve got a drawer for you.”

  The edges of my lips tweak. “A drawer? An entire drawer?”

  She nods happily. “Of course.”

  We walk into her tiny spare bedroom, and I rifle through said drawer, pulling out black yoga pants, underwear, and a thinnish lime-green T-shirt. “Perfect.” I nod my appreciation at the comfort clothes.

  Trudie jerks a thumb behind her. “Now that all that drama is over, I’m going to go plow through some studying.”

  “Hey,” I say softly.

  She turns, and the ends of her hair turn up, feathering just past her shoulders.

  I take Trudie in my arms, folding her much smaller body against mine. “I love you.”

  Trudie hugs me back, hard. “I love you too.”

  *

  I take a shower that is obscenely long, washing away what feels like ten days of grime instead of ten hours.

  I winced away all the bruises and scrapes from the initial encounter with Tommy and washed my female bits twice.

  A dissatisfied grunt threads through me that I couldn’t finish what Lariat and I so obviously wanted to.

  My face still hurts from being bashed, but I feel so much cleaner. Renewed.

  I’m a little less scared of what’s between Lariat and me. Of course, once that fear has been subdued, there’s the real threat of Antonio Ricci to take its place. His long reach is clearly extending past his prison cell.

  I don’t think I can stand sitting here in Trudie’s apartment until Lariat comes back to tell me what really happened to Mini.

  When he left Trudie’s apartment, I could tell how much he didn’t want to go.

  I could tell by the hand that cupped my face to the thumb that stroked over the wound Tommy put there. But I understood.

  Lariat can’t get the information he wants and stand bodyguard over me at the same time.

  The thing is, that’s Lariat’s expectation for himself regarding a woman he’s barely known inside of a weekend.

  It’s not my expectation of him. I don’t have expectations of men. Actually, I do—bad ones.

  Lariat has broken me of that part, at least where he’s concerned. I should feel more concerned that he GPS’d my gun, but somehow, his watch care is a tally mark on the right side instead of the wrong.

  I glance at my prepaid cell and press my thumb on the dock to check the time. It’s late, nearly seven. I might have just enough time to go into the office and make peace with Brad. Plus, I need to explain my issues to Maryanne, who tried to help me—if I can catch them before they go home for the night.

  The partners won’t understand my involvement with Lariat. It won’t look good.

  I roll my lip between my teeth, lightly gnawing. Do I care?

  I ruminate on the justice I’ve meted on othersʼ behalf—those who had no money to fight their own battles.

  My memories of my father are like fingerprints of weight on my mind. Each fingertip that touches my brain reminds me of what he couldn’t accomplish because of his death—his untimely death—and the resulting horror my life turned into because of his abbreviated life.

  A fortifying inhalation later, I ask Trudie if I can take her car, it’ll be safer than using the rental everyone can identify me in.

  She moves her earphones to the side of her head, listening with one ear and pausing the practice exam on her laptop.

  “Don’t think that’s a great plan, Ang.” Her whiskey-colored eyes lay worry on me. “I mean, Lariat says he’ll get answers in hours. He didn’t like the idea of you leaving. I hate to say it, but I agree with him. ”

  “I have damage control to figure out. If I have a job. Jugtner, Cognate, and Anderson lost a client—violently.”

  I lost a client.

  “And Brad got clocked. I left in the middle of drama, the likes of which have probably never darkened the doorstep of the firm.

  Trudie swirls in her desk chair to face me, kicking
her petite legs out in front of her and crossing them at the ankle. “Brad’s a dick,” she restates for the record.

  I purse my lips. “Maybe, but he was worried, and Lariat punched him. I work with Brad. I owe him professional courtesy. I need to save my job.” If I can. “I need for him not to press charges against Lariat.”

  “What do you think the partners are going to do if you come clean, Ang?”

  I lift a shoulder.

  “Tell them about this mob thing. Say you’re being threatened, and this comes on top of Mini Dreyfus’s death. What’s wrong with being honest? You’re more important than them saving face.”

  There’s honest, and then there’s honest. “They might be receptive, or they might distance themselves from what they see as a negative publicity liability. What if the media got a whiff of this? I wouldn’t necessarily come off as a victim. I might be labeled as involved in a criminal capacity. Can you see that?” Not to mention, that with some careful sleuthing, my past might be dredged up again, without the protection of minor status.

  I pace away in agitation. “Local lawyer sweetheart shames her dad’s posthumous rep by getting a mob witness off, only to get him killed, and then gets approached by the same mafia.” I make a sound of guttural disbelief deep in my throat. “Yeah, they’ll have a field day with that one.”

  “You know, you’re a goddamned negative Nancy. Why do you keep assigning these people’s deaths to yourself? It makes no sense.”

  I don’t know.

  “You just want to suck up guilt to distract yourself from living. And I’m saying the words: you’re not responsible for their deaths. You were involved in their lives. It could’ve been Brad working those cases.”

  My laugh is harsh. “He’d never do pro bono.”

  Trudie rolls her expressive eyes. “Okay, my point exactly. GQ is too busy grooming himself like an alley cat tonguing its fur instead of what he really should be tonguing.”

  My giggle bursts out of me. “Trudie…”

  She cackles like a witch on crack. “Seriously? You’re the only one in that place that steps in and does something for others. You take a hit on income to help people. Forget the guilt. It’s not real or deserved. It’s false guilt. Let Lariat the Stud help you.” She wags her tongue then stands.

  “God,” I say, laughing. But my legs weaken with the memory of him between them.

  Trudie laces her hands behind her head and swings her hips, making a parody of having a penis.

  Her headphones slide off her head, clunking on the desk, but Trudie’s not paying attention. She’s deep in her role.

  Grabbing her invisible appendage, she wags what looks like a fifteen-inch summer sausage around. “This is not Brad’s, of course,” she says with glee.

  “Of course,” I manage, but I’m doubled over, my ribs singing in agony.

  “It’s Lariat, right?” she howls.

  I can’t speak. Instead, I clutch at my ribs, praying to stop laughing.

  Lariat doesn’t have a foot-long penis.

  I don’t think.

  Chapter 18

  Lariat

  “It gets worse,” Noose says.

  My chin nearly skims my chest, my head hanging low. It can’t get worse.

  “Angel was in that foster home for two years. With that sick fucker doing that shit to her.”

  I shake my head as though that’ll get rid of the images that surface in response to Noose’s information. “I can’t stand to hear it.”

  “I’m sorry, man.” Noose’s clear gray eyes are dark with his rage. “There’re some men that weren’t in line when the man upstairs was passing out the hardware implant that men protect women.”

  “But she wasn’t even a woman.” I’m fucking sick to my toenails. My voice is a diseased thread between us.

  Angela Monroe’s parents died in a tragic car accident. There was no other family, so she got plugged into the system.

  Okay.

  But she didn’t get placed with a good foster family. This one was bad. A full-grown man was raping and beating a kid. I’ve seen some horrors—lived them—but this is almost beyond my capacity to bear.

  Angel bore it.

  If she can survive that nightmare, I can listen to what happened.

  “It’s a fucking miracle Angel turned out the way she did. Smart, driven, helps other people. Hell, she’s a poster child for overcoming.”

  I nod. “God, I wish I’d known. I wouldn’t have—”

  “Fuck that. You didn’t treat her badly, man. She’s almost twenty-seven years old. She makes choices now. Angela Monroe has had an ass-ton of therapy. I’m not saying she’s well. I’m just saying she makes choices about her conduct and what she wants. Angel didn’t have that luxury fifteen years ago; she has it now.”

  I suck in a lungful. “What else?” I let my breath out in a rush, bracing for more.

  “Docs think she can’t have kids. It’s in the medical record.” His voice is flat.

  Of course she can’t. That perv ruined her. My hands fist. “Who is this fucker?”

  Noose’s tight smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “Arnold Jenkins. Did time for it. Sealed record because the whole mess involved a minor.”

  “Not sealed for you.”

  Noose’s broadening grin is a baring of teeth. “No, not for me.”

  We stare at each other.

  Noose searches my face. “No.”

  “Yes,” I reply, facing off with him.

  Noose is uncharacteristically casual, not picking up on my fight me vibe that I just spewed like pheromones. “Vipe won’t want the heat. Someone smart can put his death and our involvement together, Lariat.” His mercury stare lasers me. “You seeing Angel, and suddenly the foster dad from hell is toast. You feel the potential?”

  My fists creak. “I want that fucking sperm stain wiped from the face of the Earth.”

  Noose tenses. “I hear you.”

  “If it were Rose—”

  Noose holds up a fist. “He’d already be dead. Knotted and strung.”

  I bump his fist with my own, our eyes locking. “Then help me.”

  “Let me see what else I can dig up.”

  We stare at each other, and the moment drags into a full minute.

  “You got something to say?” Noose asks.

  But he knows.

  I slowly nod, switching gears to the shit between us. It’s a festering sore, and I can’t stand it anymore. There’s only so much emotional baggage I can carry, and I’m falling under the weight. “I blame you for those kids.”

  Noose’s hard face softens. “Yeah, I know.”

  “Why’d you do it?”

  Noose looks away, taking in the corner of the new club’s building—a resurrected World War II bunker, which is now our headquarters in this corner of Bumfuck, Egypt.

  He cocks his head to the left. “This been eating at you all this time?”

  Grunting, I ask harshly, “Hasn’t it you?”

  Noose nods. “Mainly because it was here.” He swings a palm between our bodies.

  We lean against our rides, the dark sky our only witness.

  “Beating the shit out of me won’t bring those kids back, Dreyfus.”

  He uses my last name like he did when we were in.

  “I know,” My voice is a hoarse curse. “And that’s the fucker of it. You waste the goat farmer—”

  “On orders,” he interjects.

  I give a single, jerky nod. “Yeah, fucking orders,” I say with bitterness. “I think it’s false intel, and I don’t have your back quick enough.”

  “Then the goat farmer pulls the hardware, and I knot him handily.”

  My hands tremble. “I had to have your back then, King. Had to. No choice, brother.”

  His hand lands on my shoulder and doesn’t let go.

  “The little one had a gun, Lariat. The smallest one of the group had a bead on me. Ya had no choice.”

  I cover my face with my hands. “I see their bo
dies dance every night. The blood’s like oil. I can’t get clean; I can’t undo it.”

  “There’s no bleach for the brain, brother.”

  I give a choking sob. My hands fist, wanting to kick my own ass.

  And Noose is there, holding me while I rip chunks of my heart apart for doing ugly things—necessary things.

  After a few tortuous minutes, I finally dry up and look into his hard face. “I hated you, you fucker.”

  A hardly-there smile hovers over his lips. “Nah. I knew it wasn’t me you hated. I knew what you hated was the code. And maybe a little—yourself.”

  Maybe a lot. I nod miserably. “Yeah.” Breath wheezes out of me, and I deflate like a balloon.

  His hard hands are firm on my shoulders.

  “We cool?” Noose claps me on the back, releasing me.

  “After you holding me like a sissy while I bawl my eyes out? Yeah.” My laugh is sad. But somewhere in there is relief, and maybe some peace.

  Noose’s grip is like iron on my shoulders. We’re all stronger than fuck, but Noose is titanium. “You are never weak.” He shakes me. “You’re one of the least weak fucking men I’ve ever known.”

  Now, coming from Noose, if that doesn’t make a guy feel right, nothing can.

  “Okay,” I finally answer.

  “You got me?” Noose asks, his grip tightening to the point of pain.

  “Yeah.”

  Noose releases me a second time, and I sit there, limp and spent. Quiet relief begins to take up the void of anger and shit I had bottled up.

  “You don’t think there’s a day that goes by that I don’t wonder if you almost died covering my ass?”

  I swing my face to his in surprise. I hadn’t considered it. I was too deep in my own head to get out long enough for introspection.

  He nods. “Yeah.” Noose lights up, cupping his hand around the flame.

  Low illumination flicks on inside the club like a small startled sun. We’re still whispering our secrets and unspoken terror in the dark.

  “I knotted that Al-Qaeda fuck and turned.” Noose’s face is tilted up, seeing a different scene in the not-so-distant past. “The sky was ablaze with your fire, the roar of it.”