“Declan, I love that.” My hand was straying up my own thigh. Stroking up the inside.
His voice scraped into my ear, “I love to feel your heat and the buzzing of your pulse down there. I love to feel the hot wetness on your lovely lips.”
“Declan.” My fingers were finding the wetness.
“And the taste of you. Oh, I really love to push my tongue, to press it between your lips and scoop, deep inside you.”
“Declan.”
“Then just to flick around your little bean while it buzzes. And to suck. To slurp out all your lovely juices. To get my face wet with you, from my chin all over my nose and my cheeks. And lick you. Lick you like an ice cream, melting on a hot summer day.”
My fingers were wet. As I thought of Declan’s lips pushing against me, his tongue pushing me apart, plunging up, high inside me, scraping the insides and teasing around my mound and my hood, my breath thickened and caught in my chest.
“Declan!” My fingertips pressed and my thighs shook as I imagined the hardness of his chin, the scrape of his stubble against my shuddering flesh. My hands dove fast inside my panties and my back arched.
A storm blew and splashed inside me and my toes curled, my fingers clenched. My stomach rolled.
“Come on, girl.” His voice urged me on, “I can hear you. You know I fucking love that. I just really want to be able to taste you and to breathe in your scent when you get there. You taste so fucking divine, my little sinner, my fucking little temptress.”
My eyes screwed tight and I gushed as my fingers pushed at the front of my opening and rattled at my clit.
~~~~
I met Liam in a diner. We went to his car and he took me through the details of how the night would go as he drove me halfway across town. As he’d said, when we arrived the lobby of the hotel was busy with guests coming and going. We were two people moving through a crowd. The mirror-sided elevator was almost full when we went upstairs to the fourth floor.
In the adjacent hotel room where all their equipment was, I sat at the vanity while Liam brushed my hair over and over. Slowly, tenderly. It was a wonderful, calming sensation, like being pampered in a luxurious spa.
“We’ll get every loose hair we can from you before he gets here. When you’re in the room with him, don’t touch anything that you don’t absolutely have to.” Every brushstroke he followed with his hand. Then Declan handed me a completely new set of clothes to wear.
The brand new shirt, skirt and jacket, the shoes and the underwear were identical to the ones I’d been wearing that morning.
“I’ve ordered a bottle of champagne and two glasses. Make sure you knock over the glass that you use, and I’ll replace it. We’ve an identical champagne bottle, too that we’ll replace for the one in there.”
I went by the connecting door into other the room.
Two thirty was when I told him to come. I sat on a towel in one of the two armchairs and a Sabrina Paige story kept me entertained while I waited. He was about half an hour late when he rapped his bony knuckles on the door. It was a thin, furtive sound, more like a scratch than a knock.
When I opened the door, his head craned forward, thrusting his face at me. His grin was like a mean, greedy kid who found himself alone with someone else’s cake.
With as warm a smile as I could manage, I held the door open to invite him in. He had a big, square black box that looked like it came from a store. Tiny silver lettering in the center carried the name of a very exclusive Italian lingerie brand. The box looked new and like it hadn’t been opened.
I poured him a glass of champagne.
“Oh, my dear,” he flung the box on the bed and rubbed his hands together, “I’m so glad you agreed to help me with this little matter.” The point of his tongue flicked around his pale, thin lips. He reached for my hand. I stiffened. As soon as he detected it, he yanked his hand back the way a schoolboy would, caught in the act of doing something that he knew he wouldn’t ever get away with.
“Do take a look inside the box,” his eyes flashed and gleamed as they ran over my curves again. His hips kind of wriggled. His grin now was frank and predatory. “There are two sets in there. Both are wonderful. I think you’ll be perfect for them. Try on the green ones first.”
The green set was a dark green corset, stockings, and wide, silk panties, split up the crotch. All of it was trimmed with black sheer nylon and elaborate lace. It was certainly the kind of a thing that a man might find sexy, that a woman would probably never choose. There were green shoes in the box, too. Enormously tall, pointed heels with chrome soles and insteps.
“I’ll take them into the bathroom.”
His eyes were wide, “Oh, you could just,” his voice caught, “you could change in here.”
“I’ll be no time at all,” I gave him the best impression that I could make of an alluring, seductive, kittenish smile. While I was in the bathroom, I had to keep reminding myself of the task at hand and stop myself from just turning on the shower and stepping in.
When I returned to the room, I found that the judge had made himself pretty comfortable. He reclined on the bed and leaned back with pillows stacked up behind him. He’d taken off his jacket and his shoes. His shirt was open and he’d buckled a wide black collar around his throat.
His pants were open and he had a twiggy little penis in his bony hands. As I walked in, he stuffed it back into his pants. An impulse made me want to tell him it was okay, he could wave his little prick around if he wanted. But I stopped myself. I was more comfortable with the thing inside his pants. He’d put it away, he could keep it there.
His face reddened as he looked me up and down. One hand was still in his pants.
His eyes flashed and his eyebrows danced as he looked at my bare shoulders and neck, the tops of my breasts, heaving in the constriction of the stiff corset. He breathed heavily.
“Now, you mustn’t come too close, my dear. My doctor told me. No contact, not even very close proximity. And definitely no coming.” Then he added, “For me that is,” and he sniggered.
Sure, Your Honor, I thought, The sight of a scrawny geezer waggling his pencil dick is bound to get me off in a flash. But I didn’t say anything to him.
“Turn around.” His voice was harsh. Like an entitled customer, irritated by indifferent service in an upmarket store. Still, I did what he asked me. I gave him a slow twirl. “Again. The other way. Slower.”
Surprising he didn’t have more lady friends.
“Now,” when my back was to him. I knew what was coming. He was so hoarse he could hardly get the words out.
“Bend over. Very slowly. All the way to the floor.” As I started to fold forward, his breathing got heavy, “Like you dropped a contact lens.”
I heard a rustling. A shuffle under fabric. I looked back over my shoulder.
“Oh, God don’t,” he said, clutching at the collar. “Don’t look at me,” His head tipped to one side, “If you look at me like that, I’ll come. I mustn’t come.”
But he was pulling the collar tighter while his other hand beat away inside his pants. He started to shake. I leaned farther forward and looked back, right into his eyes.
~~~~
In blue plastic hooded coveralls and face masks, Liam and Declan slipped quickly in from the next room. Liam dropped a pile of fresh bed linen on the floor and a portable vacuum.
Declan had a large freezer bag ready to slide over Malfease’s head. The judge’s smile may have softened slightly as his breath pulled the plastic weakly in toward his nose and mouth.
I said, “The old geezer’s done the job for us.”
Still, it was obvious that he went off a happy man.
Declan said, “I think you smoldered him to death.”
I hadn’t time to look at him, I moved quickly back to the next room to change clothes. Liam was already starting to pull the linen off the bed.
Chapter 14
The three walked down a flight of stairs, then put the beddi
ng and towels into a laundry chute. The freight elevator took them down to the lower basement parking level with the bag of Courtenay’s clothes and the lingerie that she had modeled.
Walking by the dark walls of the basement, they avoided the cameras that Declan had mapped earlier and slipped out to the street where the car was parked. Liam drove them slowly by the hotel, just in time to see an extravagantly dressed black woman bustle her way hurriedly out of the lobby.
“I knew we could count on BeriNece,” Declan said with a smile.
Courtenay looked at the two men. Liam said, “She got a call asking for her to come up to see the judge, just about an hour ago. She’ll be on the cameras, so she may get picked up.”
Courtenay scowled, “That’s bad, isn’t it?”
“Unlikely.” Declan said, “First, she’ll most likely say she wasn’t there at all, then she’ll say that she didn’t see anyone. By the time the police get her to admit that she went to see the judge, they’ll have the autopsy to confirm that she had nothing to do with his unfortunate demise and they’ll all have had a satisfyingly busy time, solving a death by natural causes.”
“Which is what it more or less was, in the end.” Liam said with a smile. Declan said, “Or an accidental suicide, which is what they call a ‘death by misadventure,’ is it not?”
“I believe so,” Declan nodded.
“But the main thing is, nobody will be looking for anything more interesting. The judge called up the services of the lovely BeriNece and went to the hotel to get laid. He got overexcited and started without her.” Declan smiled.
Liam chuckled, “BeriNece got there just in time for the fright of her life, then very understandably tried to run away and pretend that none of it ever happened.”
There was almost no night-time traffic other than occasional trucks gliding by, diagrammed with lights all over. Liam drove the long way to a cluster of recycling dumpsters with the laundry and the lingerie that Courtenay had worn.
The cement yard was past the edge of town and Liam said, “The fuck, there’s not a camera here and nobody’s going to come visit. Let’s burn it.”
When there was nothing but a small pile of black ash remaining, they drove on to a country house inn, called Five Oaks. It was nearly four thirty in the morning when they parked. There was no one at the desk, but Declan opened the glass doors with a keycard.
As he held the door open, he bowed and ushered the others inside with a sweeping wave of his arm. “Señor and Señora Gomez, please.”
Courtenay frowned as she passed him.
Liam chuckled and asked him, “Now, do you know what to expect when we get upstairs?”
“Oh, I think I have a little bit of a hunch.”
Upstairs in the suite, quite a small suite as it turned out, Declan said he would call down to room service for a bottle of champagne and some sandwiches.
“You’ll be fucking lucky,” Liam said, “there was nobody on the desk. If this place was dozing any more soundly, you’d hear the carpet snore.” Liam took out his phone to compose and send a text message.
Meanwhile, Declan lifted the receiver of the room phone. “Could be. But even very sleepy hotel staff are usually motivated by the prospect of a tip. Ah, there’s an answer. “Hello, good evening to you. This is—oh, I’m sorry, I don’t know what room this is. But you do, right? Yes, that’s grand. We’d like a cold bottle of champagne please, with…” he peered around the room. Looked over at Liam. Liam shrugged. “With three glasses. Yes, and could you bring us a few plates of sandwiches?”
Declan smiled and nodded as he listened. “Yes, thanks. That’ll be grand. Yes, Gomez. That’s right.”
Courtenay clapped her hands and squealed. Then she said, “What’s all this ‘Gomez’ business about?”
Liam and Declan smiled and shook their heads. Declan said, “I’ll just try the bathroom,” and he strode across the room to open the door. Poking his head inside, he called out, “Oh you are with us.” He stepped back. “Do step out and join the party, Mr. Irons.”
Liam’s head shook, “Ah, but you may not get a glass for the champagne.”
Declan stood aside to let Irons pass into the room. “Perhaps Ms. Pert herself will allow you a sip.”
“Maybe,” Liam’s grin spread mischievously, “And maybe she’ll let you have some champagne, too. If you’re good.”
“Ah,” Declan made a wry smile, “Now that would be a first.”
Courtenay’s brow pinched. “The champagne?”
“No.”
Tall and broad in the bathroom doorway, in his perfect suit with his immaculate hair, Irons looked like a dark, glamorous spy from an eighties movie. Or a killer. Irons looked every bit as much like a killer as either Liam or Declan did.
His cold, gray eyes swept the three of them and he frowned. “Is the judge coming here?”
“I’d say that was pretty unlikely,” Liam said, “What would you think, Miss Sugarbuns? Would you say that the judge was on his way?”
“Mm, on balance, my guess would be no.”
“Are you saying that you won’t complete the assignment?”
Declan said, “The assignment, as you call it, is not in need of a whole lot of completion.”
“You mean that…” Irons’ eyes narrowed as he swept the group again, “But, you were going to bring him here.”
“Ah,” Liam raised a finger, “there could have been a little misunderstanding there.”
“I booked the suite, I gave you the key. I told you the plan, what was there to misunderstand?”
“Will you not take a seat?” Declan indicated one of the chairs by the small desk. “We understood your intention perfectly, only that isn’t how we planned things.”
Halfway to sitting, Irons stopped and said, “You’ll do things the way that you’re told.”
“See,” Liam stepped towards the other chair, “That is exactly what we won’t do.”
Declan came towards the table, “I wish the fucking booze would make its way up here with a smarter despatch. I’m parched here.” He rested his arm on Irons’ chair, “See, I don’t know what your experience has been with criminal enterprise up to now but, the thing of it is, you’ll almost always find that you’re dealing with crooks.”
“Desperate outlaws, as often as not.” Liam said, settling into his seat. “Ruthless, lawless men who, likely as not, will kill you as quick as looking at you.”
“Those kinds of people,” Declan shook his head, “you try to tell them what to do, they’ll ignore you altogether.”
Liam leaned forward, “And that’s if you’re lucky.”
“If you’re unlucky,” Declan drew his smile tight, “They’ll cut you into little pieces.”
Liam nodded, “Without a thought. Laughing and joking as they do it, likely as not.”
Irons looked from Liam on the one side of him to Declan on the other. “But, men like that, you aren’t saying that you would act the way that men like that would.”
Liam’s face saddened. “Now we do seem to have some misunderstanding. You’re right, Declan, I’d murder for a drink right now.”
He looked in Irons’ eye. “We’re not telling you about ‘men like that,’ that’s not it at all, is it, Declan?”
Three Hitmen: A Triple Bad Boy Mafia Romance (Lawless Book 2) Page 11