Creeping Beautiful

by JA Huss

  She stares up, squinting a little, like she’s remembering something she forgot.

  I turn back to find Donovan. Make sure he’s seeing this. I mean, that was the point of coming here, right? Make her remember?

  But he’s not paying attention.

  “Hey, Donovan. You wanna like… join us?”

  He turns, but slowly, hands still in his pockets. And it takes his eyes a few seconds too long to meet mine. “What?”

  I nod my head at Indie, who has started climbing the stairs.

  “Oh. Sure. You go with her. I’ll find us something to eat.”

  Indie is almost at the top now, looking at all the other photos that hang in the upstairs hallway.

  “Call Adam,” I say. “I’ll keep an eye on her.”

  He nods. And I follow Indie upstairs.

  She’s peeking into Adam’s bedroom. He had the largest one on the front side of the house that faces the driveway and the south gardens.

  I stand next to her and take in his room. Everything is covered in white sheets but I don’t need to remove them to know what’s underneath—a large four-poster bed in the middle with nightstands on either side. Two chairs make an intimate seating area off to the left, and a massive armoire made of dark wood balances the whole thing out on the right.

  Where does Adam live? Why don’t I know this?

  I suddenly feel like he’s hiding things from me. Which, to be honest, I should’ve figured out four years ago when he disappeared. But I had so many other things on my mind after Indie took off that day.

  Indie moves on to the next room, which is Donovan’s. Smaller than Adam’s, but still large. Same kind of furniture. Four-poster bed, armoire instead of a dresser. All the furnishings up here are antiques and are probably as old as the house, which is over a hundred years old. Only the stuff downstairs is new.

  Then she looks across the hall at my room. It’s not as small as hers is, but smaller than both Donovan’s and Adam’s and the four-poster bed and armoire make it feel crowded.

  Indie loses interest quickly and heads down the hallway to her own room. She doesn’t pause at the entrance like she did for the others, but goes right in and by the time I catch up with her she’s sitting on her double bed with the painted iron frame. Her eyes are downcast and her fingertips gently caress the quilt that kept her warm for all the years when she slept up here.

  She absently kicks off one boot, then the other. Wiggles her bare toes. Which are painted, I notice. Dark pink.

  And for some reason that bothers me. Indie with painted toes. It makes her four-year absence so… real. Like… did she have a pedicure? Did she paint them herself? Where would she do something like that?

  I tried to track her that first year. I felt obligated. I mean, I did turn her into this… bloodthirsty sociopath, right? The least I could do was keep an eye on her and make sure she didn’t lose her mind and start offing people. But she literally disappeared. No trace. By this time Adam, Donovan, and I had been running ex-Company teams for several years. We had connections. Not anything as intricate as what we had before the Company fell, but it was enough to get intel and keep teams alive.

  Even with all that, Indie was gone. I found some security cam footage of her truck right after she left. Had a decent, if spotty, track record of her as she made her way east towards Mobile. But after that… nothing. That was under two hours.

  Two hours.

  That’s all it took for her to wipe herself off the map.

  It was a weird time for me. I was so fucking confused. I kept playing what happened back in my head over and over again. Donovan left right after Indie, claiming he couldn’t be a part of this. So it was just me that night.

  Just me. All alone in this house.

  I’ve been alone here before. Every time Adam and Indie went on a job I stayed behind.

  But this wasn’t that kind of alone.

  This was… loneliness.

  Adam wasn’t picking up his phone. I called him constantly through that night, but he never picked up once. Finally, I had left so many messages his voicemail was full and I gave up. I went up to my bedroom and fell asleep, confident Adam would call me with some kind of update.

  He sent a text.

  A fuckin’ text that said, “It’s over.”

  Just thinking about that fills me with hot anger right now.

  How do you send a text like that?

  I called him back that same day. He didn’t answer. I texted. He didn’t answer. So I busied myself tracking Indie on the various security cams.

  I figured, OK. Everybody needs a moment. We just need to get our heads on straight and figure this out. And then they’d all be back.

  No one came back.

  Well, I guess that’s not true. Obviously, someone covered the furniture in white sheets and shut the house up.

  But everyone moved on so I moved on too. Went to my machine shop. Turned the upstairs into a livable apartment. Started making some art pieces. Mostly outdoor sculptures. Opened up a fucking Etsy shop.

  Which makes me chuckle a little, that’s how stupid it sounds. I was a thirty-two-year-old retired child-assassin trainer selling metal art on Etsy.

  But I like my fucking Etsy shop. It calms me. Gives me purpose. And I sell a shit ton of art on there.

  Once Indie left there was nothing. I had nothing. She was my everything. I probably could’ve been happy if Adam had come home. Probably could’ve stayed in the business if he was there.

  But he disappeared too.

  He’d moved on. The things that happened that day could not be fixed.

  We were all… broken.

  Indie gets up from the bed and walks over to her closet. She has a real closet, unlike the other rooms. I expect it to be empty, or maybe hold all her old clothes, smelly and moth-eaten. But inside her closet are dozens of pieces neatly hanging from the rail in clear plastic garment bags.

  She takes one out and turns to hold it up at me. “What’s all this?”

  “I dunno.”

  “Should I open it?”

  “Why not? It’s your closet. Must belong to you.”

  She furrows her brows and frowns, but doesn’t say anything as she takes the garment bag over to the bed and lays it down. You can tell the quality of a thing by the sound the zipper makes when you open it. And this one has a nice, deep, ripping sound that conjures up images of Italian leather purses and handmade luggage.

  “Huh.”

  “What is it?” I walk over to the bed and look down as she eases the hanger out of the top of the bag and takes the dress out.

  “I never bought this.”

  “I guess Adam did.”

  She turns to look at me. “Why would he do that?”

  I shrug again. “Maybe he was hoping you’d come home one day.”

  She stares at me for a long moment. “Maybe.” Her gaze wanders over to the open closet door, and for a second I think she’s going to go unpack everything. Check it all out. But she drops the dress back on the bed and turns to the window.

  This is when my heart skips two or three beats.

  But before I can stop her, she’s walking over to it and looking out over the duck lake.

  I wait in the middle of the room, holding my breath. Because the little brick house that used to be visible from her window isn’t there anymore.

  She glances down at the windowsill and picks up an old rifle scope, then puts it up to her eye and once again looks across the lake.

  “Indie?”

  “What?”

  “Are you hungry?”

  And just as those words come out of my mouth, Donovan calls up the stairs. “Hey! There’s no fucking food here. Like… none, dude. I’m gonna go hit up the store. You guys want to come?”

  I’m about to say yes when Indie answers for me. “No. We’ll stay here.”

  “OK. You want anything special, Indie? Sweet tea? Or lemonade?”

  “Beer?”

  Donovan and I both lau
gh. And for a short moment I feel like maybe this is all gonna turn out OK. He’s gonna go to the store and come back with beer. And we’ll all go outside and sit under the pavilion and drink it like that day four years ago never happened.

  “Beer it is.” And then I hear Donovan’s footsteps across the hardwood floors. A few seconds later comes the sound of the front door closing.

  But Indie is still fucking peering through that scope across the lake.

  She lowers the scope and turns to me, smiling.

  “What?” I whisper it.

  “I love this place. God, I love this place. Why did we ever move, McKay? Like… OK. I remember that the Company went under or whatever.” She waves a hand in the air, dismissing that thought. “But we had work after that. And it was pretty good, right?”

  I nod at her, unable to say anything. Because it was good.

  Until it wasn’t.

  “You wanna…” I sigh. “I dunno. Go watch TV or something? Take a walk?”

  Her smile slowly broadens and she takes a few slow steps towards me until almost all the distance between us has been erased. She reaches for me. Takes hold of each side of my open leather jacket and tugs me the final step towards her.

  Into her.

  “No. I do not want to watch TV or go for a walk. I want to be here with you.”

  Then she leans up on her tiptoes and pulls me down to her at the same time.

  And we kiss.

  And this time the kiss is nothing like the last time. It’s not tentative and hesitant.

  She opens her mouth and I respond by doing the same. And then the tip of her tongue slides across the tip of mine and there is nowhere in this world I’d rather be than right here with her. There is nothing I want more than to kiss her forever. Steal all the breath inside her, and replace it with mine. Fill her up and make her whole again.

  That’s what I tell myself when I spin her around and walk her backwards towards the bed. The back of her knees bump against the mattress and then she reaches down, grabs the dress and the garment bag, and shoves them on the floor.

  She’s still got a hold of my jacket and she pulls me down with her when she sits and then leans back on the bed.

  I brace both hands on the mattress on either side of her head and press my chest into her breasts.

  Then her fingertips are once again fumbling with my belt, and the button on my jeans, and then my zipper. And when her cool palm wraps around my quickly hardening cock and squeezes it, I almost pull away.

  Almost.

  Because even though almost everything about this is wrong, and has been wrong since that very first day she came here to live with us at Old Home, it suddenly feels… maybe not right, but certainly inevitable.

  I know who she really wants, and it’s not me. It’s not Donovan, either. And it’s certainly not Adam.

  It’s Nathan St. James.

  But he’s not here and I just don’t care anymore.

  I want her.

  I have always wanted her and that’s the only thing that matters.

  Our kiss continues. But I want us both naked. Now. So I nip her lip and stand back up, shrugging off my jacket and letting it drop to the floor at my feet.

  She sits up too, squirming to get her arms out of her jacket, and then she’s tugging on her sweats as I kick off my boots and lift my t-shirt over my head. I let it fall to the floor on top of the jacket and just stand there as her eyes practically caress me as she studies the hard muscles of my stomach.

  I reach for the hem of her t-shirt—“Let me help you with this”—and then lift it up over her head. She has no bra on now. No panties either. She is quickly naked and all I want to do is look at her body. Her firm, round breasts and tightly peaked nipples. Her small waist and the wide curve of her hips. The way she bites her lip when she’s thinking hard or very nervous.

  She bites it now, conscious of my staring eyes.

  Do I make her nervous?

  Even if I do, I’m not gonna stop.

  I was never allowed to look at her like this. From the day she first walked through this door until the day she walked out, everything about Indie Anna Accorsi was forbidden.

  She tried a few times. Once she turned eighteen everything changed around here. And every once in a while she’d find me alone in the house and she’d sit in my lap and hug me. Try to force me to make a move.

  But I didn’t.

  I wouldn’t.

  See, here’s the problem with my love for Indie.

  She’s not just mine. She’s ours. And if I messed around with her, Adam would mess around with her too. Oh, I know what he’d say if he was here and this was a real conversation. He’d say nah, it wasn’t like that.

  But it was like that. It was like that for all of us. Even self-righteous Donovan wanted her that way. He just knew he was last in line because he wasn’t around enough.

  So Adam can pretend that he wouldn’t be jealous if Indie and I became a thing, but he would’ve. And then… I don’t know. I don’t know how that works.

  It doesn’t, I guess. And that’s why I always ignored Indie’s hints.

  But I can’t ignore it anymore. If she had not left that day, if Adam hadn’t left that day, if Donovan hadn’t left that day, if I had not been the only one to stay—we’d have already figured this out.

  But they did leave. So this is where it all starts, I guess.

  This is the next beginning.

  Indie reaches for my jeans again, parting the fabric over my lower stomach, pulling open the zipper and tugging them down just over my hips until my cock springs out, fully erect and throbbing.

  Her firm squeeze makes me close my eyes, and when I open them, she’s dropped to her knees in front of me.

  “Sit on the bed.”

  It comes out of her mouth like a command.

  I don’t have to be told twice. I have been dreaming about her lips wrapping around my cock for four long years. I turn and sit as she scoots out of the way and repositions herself in front of me again. She tugs my jeans down my legs the rest of the way, pulls them off completely, and shoves them aside as she opens up my legs and fits her hot little body between my knees. Her palms caress the top of my thighs as she gazes up into my eyes and for a moment I wonder if she’s thinking about… him.

  She smiles at me.

  And I know she’s not. She doesn’t even remember him. Not really. She looked out the window across the room with a fucking scope and didn’t see a goddamned thing.

  Nothing to see. Not anymore. But that’s beside the point.

  The point is… she’s here with me now. Just me.

  I lean my hands back on the bed to get a better view of her as she lowers her head and opens her mouth and then…

  “Oh, fuck.” I moan it. Because her wet tongue slides up and down my shaft as she holds my cock gently in her palm. Then she squeezes it and slides her lips over the top of my head and bobs down until they seal around the upper part of my shaft.

  I hold my breath. That’s how good that feels. And I know we just had sex last night, but it feels like it’s been several lifetimes since I’ve felt this good.

  She begins sucking me off in earnest, taking me deep and holding me inside her for long moments of pure bliss. My fingers are tangled in her hair, gripping and twisting it all up. Urging her to keep going. She sucks on my head and pushes me into her throat and there is nothing I want more than to just come all over her fucking face.

  But not yet. Not this time. Maybe next time.

  I still want to be careful with her. She might be a sociopathic killer but she needs gentle guidance right now.

  So I stand up. My cock falls out of her mouth and her eyes go wide as she looks up to meet my gaze.

  “Please. Do not tell me no, McKay. I will—”

  “Shut up, Indie. And lie on the bed.”

  Sometimes that gentle guidance needs a firm hand.

  She stands up with a smirk on her face, confident that I won’t be stopping
before we really get started, and then crawls across her mattress and lies down flat.

  I crawl over her legs and then knee them open. She obeys, bending her knees to maneuver around my legs, and then raises them up so her wet pussy is in full view when I look down.

  My hands rest on the top of her knees and I push her legs back as I ease my cock up to her opening. She bites her lip again. Like the anticipation is killing her. And then she lets out a long rush of air as I enter her and push myself deep inside her pussy.

  I lean forward and rest my hands on the mattress on either side of her head. Kiss her mouth. I want to kiss her mouth forever. Never let her take another breath that isn’t shared between us.

  And then I fuck her. I fuck her with hard, penetrating thrusts. I fuck her until she begins to moan and wail. And then I fuck her soft, gently moving my hips as I whisper things into her mouth. Things like, “I fucking love you, Indie.” And, “You will never walk out on me again.” And, “You’re mine. And the only people I will ever share you with again are Donovan and Adam.”

  Because even though I know it’s wrong, it’s already something we’ve done.

  And she giggles at that last part. Like she’s forgotten everything that’s happened so completely, the thought of being shared between me, and Donovan, and Adam is actually something good.

  When she’s close, when her body tenses and her back begins to arch, I come inside her. We climax in the very same moment. And I do not give one fuck that there’s no condom and I have no idea whatsoever if she’s on birth control.

  She is mine.

  And when Adam and Donovan get home, she will be ours.

  Again.

  Indie Anna Accorsi has always been ours.

  It’s just the only fair way to do things.

  Adam bought her, after all. Donovan kept her mostly sane. And I loved her. I loved her enough for all of us.

  So do I mind? Do I care that I will never be allowed to possess her completely?