by Reiss, CD
He’s just about admitted he’s Alpha Wolf.
A criminal.
What has he done? What evil has he fomented? What goes on in the dark web?
Drug-trade-human-trafficking-hacking-whistleblowing-cheese-pizza-slavery-war-guns-murder-for-hire-revolution.
I’m a few feet from the car when my heel catches a rock. I slide my hands from my pockets to reweight my balance, but he’s got his hands under my arms, holding me up.
Holding me still.
The list of crimes that happen on the dark net bounces through my brain as he holds me. Is he going to kill me? Strangle me right here in the parking lot of his own factory? Maybe he wants to try. He’s well-built, but I’m pretty sure I can take a computer nerd in hand-to-hand combat. I just can’t let him get the jump.
He goes for me.
I’m surprised and prepared for it at the same time. I didn’t actually believe he’d try, but I’m reaching to block an attack while he’s leading with his head, which is weird, but I got this.
When his lips smash against mine, my body is a split second ahead of my brain. It’s processed the list of dark net violence and thus completes a series of moves to bring down a frontal attack.
Even as I’m using his weight against him by holding his arm still while I swing him, letting his high center of gravity do all the work of stripping him of his balance, my mind processes the kiss. Because it was a kiss. A real soft-lipped-slightly-open-mouthed-I want-her-to-like-it kind of kiss.
By the time those nice thoughts register, I’m slamming him up against the car. I’m a little disappointed that I can’t take back my counterattack. I would have let him kiss me a few more seconds before taking him down.
His eyes are open wide and the breath’s knocked out of him. The thump of his body against the car door fades into the night.
“Why did you do that?” I ask.
He looks at me as if I asked him why he pees standing up. Brows knotted. Arms out. Mouth half open as if he can’t contain the sheer number of answers he could give me right now.
“What?” He says it like whot and it’s endearing and haughty at the same time. Damnit. I should have taken that kiss and not gotten all black belt on him.
“Don’t sneak up on a girl like that.” I sound like a brat.
He straightens himself out, pulling his cuffs down and realigning his jacket. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t just do a very impressive judo throw and tell you, out front, that I’m going to kiss you. First, I’m going to put my hands on your face, because I would like to feel your mouth move when I do it. Then I’m going to tilt my head to the right, so please, you should also tilt your head to the right.” He waits for me to nod, and when I do, he comes close to me and lowers his voice. “I’m going to wait a second once our lips touch, just to make sure we’re both appreciating this first contact. When I open my mouth a little, I want you to do the same. You need to accept my tongue in your mouth.” He puts his hands on my shoulders. “Is that enough of a warning?”
“What happens after that?”
“It’s unwritten.”
He moves his hands up to my jaw, laying his thumbs against my cheeks. He strokes them and I lean forward.
He kisses me just as he said he would. His tongue tastes like ice water, and his lips curve into the shape of mine. The adrenaline in my veins blends with something newer and warmer. He slides one hand back and tugs my hair, which sends fluids and sensation and pleasure and all my attention between my legs. I push against him just so I can feel him resist. I need to fight him as hard as I want him.
He’s rigid and yielding all at once, turning us around until I’m the one with my back against the car. I shove him away, and he separates from me with a sharp intake of breath.
He doesn’t say a word, still holding me by a fistful of hair. The cold clouds of our breath mingle between us. He’s a predator, a criminal, and a mistake. But his jaw is tight and his nostrils flare when he breathes. He’s all those things and a bull charging for the red cape.
“Push me away again,” he says finally, “and we’re done here. And I know for a fact that’s not what you want.”
I am the red cape, and I need to be yanked away as much as I need him to charge at me again and again. “When I want you to stop, I’ll say so.”
I shove him again, and he smiles before laying a kiss on me. It’s not a kiss I fight. It’s a kiss I want. He pulls his mouth away as if giving me a second to tell him to stop, but I don’t. I don’t push against him until our mouths are locked again. His hips grind into me. I feel his erection through our clothes.
I’m clutching his coat without any sense. I want to tear away every stitch of fabric. I push and pull with equal ferocity. I want to spread my legs, but my coat’s too long. I want to punch him. I want that hard dick stretching me and I want it to hurt. My mind is wiped clean of everything but need. I don’t have a job or a career. I don’t have dreams built from childhood. I don’t have a name. I’m just a pillar of desire. I’m reduced to movement and hunger. I want his body inside mine. Nothing else.
“Hey, uh…”
Keaton snaps away from me at the sound of the security guard’s voice. My body wants him back, but my mind fills up again.
“Yes, Bernard?” Keaton has on a full British jacket of what-could-you-possibly-want-now?
Bernard looks as embarrassed as I should be. I pull on my coat ties as if they could be any tighter.
“Just wanted to let you know my shift’s over in ten minutes and I’ll let Trey know—”
“Thank you,” Keaton snaps.
Bernard nods and backs away. Keaton turns back to me as the guard’s boots crunch against the loose gravel. We don’t say anything until the footsteps disappear.
“Well,” Keaton says, inviting me to begin the mindful part of this thing we started—whatever it is.
“Well. That was…” I swallow. Was it great? An eye-opener? An earth-shattering beginning to something that will stop my ambitions dead in their tracks? “Complicated.”
“It doesn’t need to be. I don’t live here. There’s no threat of permanence.”
I know what he’s suggesting. This can be very short, very simple, and very pleasurable. It’s tempting. He moves a swatch of hair from my cheek, letting his fingers brush my skin.
“You’ll be back a lot to manage this.” I wave at the factory.
“They need me in California. This”—he waves at the factory, mirroring my gesture—“it’s not my area of expertise.”
“But you will be back. And I can’t… getting caught having an affair with someone like you? It’s not—”
“It’s now or never.” He brushes his finger along the length of my throat. I’m collapsing like a house of cards. “By the time I come back, you’ll be in Quantico making the world safe from people like me.”
He’s close again. I can smell his aftershave cutting the cool air. His lips are on my throat, flipping me like a switch.
“What if I’m not?”
“We’ll ignore each other.”
I know that’s not possible. His hands are on my jaw and his mouth is on mine. My body has never responded to a man this strongly. I’ve never felt so little control over it. I won’t be able to ignore him when he comes back or when he’s away.
But the logic is manageable. I use it to shut up the klaxons enough to hear my screaming inner child.
She’s telling me I could lose everything. She says I need to be safe. For once, I need to feel safe and Keaton Bridge is anything but safe.
I soothe her. I promise her the adults are in charge. She doesn’t believe me, but she trusts me. She was always foolish. She trusted the men she brought home. Trusted Mom’s word that the piles of wrapped dollar bills on the coffee table were from a greeter’s gig at Wal-Mart, not the results of a long con.
I’m thinking about those bills when Keaton reaches behind me and opens the car door. The pulsing beep of the open door alarm matches the thrum o
f my heart. I’m thinking about how I believed her because I wanted to. The bills meant food and maybe a month of cable TV. They meant comfort, and I wanted comfort more than the truth. They never meant a different life.
I’m grown up now and my comforts may have changed, but my inner child’s excuse-making hasn’t. I’m better than that. The adults are in charge.
“Thanks,” I say. “But no thanks.”
With a little push, he steps away from me. I don’t know what’s going on in his love life, if getting sex is easy or hard for him, but the look on his face is layered with so much confidence with its contrasting disappointment that I can only assume he usually gets “yes” for an answer.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “For leading you on.”
“It’s nothing.” He brushes my hair away from my face, and I’m suddenly aware of the cold air creeping up my sleeves. “Can I return you to the only dark parking lot in the state?”
I look over the desolate nightscape. I hear the trickle of the nearby river and the buzz of the overhead lights. I don’t want to wait at the guardhouse for a cab. I want to go home. “Sure.”
He steps out of the way and I get in the car, relieved, disappointed, and regretful all at the same time.
Chapter 16
keaton
We cross a narrow bridge in the center of Doverton, wheels clacking on the wooden boards bolted into the steel frame. The bridge has low guardrails and a thin walk on each side that’s used more for fishing in the Winnepak River upstream from the factory than for crossing it. The steel-colored water runs narrow and shallow in the summer, but in the winter or during rains, it thrashes between the banks.
There is no small talk between Cassie and me. Every word is loaded. Every pause has meaning. So when we drive for five minutes in silence, I know something’s on her mind.
I appreciate this, because I have plenty on mine.
“This link?” she says, breaking the silence.
“Yes?”
“The fact that you gave it to me means I have to register you as an asset. It’s a totally confidential process.”
I laugh. How could I not?
“What’s so funny?”
“Darling, if you want to find criminals, the first thing you have to know is that there’s no such thing as confidential.”
She looks out the window. Was I too hard on her?
No. When it comes to this, she needs a little tough love.
I pull into the supermarket lot and make my way to the dark corner where her car is parked.
“You do what you have to,” I say.
She nods. I get out and open her door for her.
She’s a few steps toward her car when she turns, keys in her hand. “I have a question.”
“Go on then.”
“You don’t believe you’re protected, and getting me this link has made people mad at you. Why expose yourself like this?”
Because in the little time I have left, I want to leave a mark. An anonymous mark, yes, but a trail of good things astride the bad. I want to know people I care about are settled, and in the little time I’ve known Cassie, I care about her. I want her to have her promotion. I want her to get what she wants out of life.
I don’t know why she’s important to me or how she’s weaseled her way into my heart, but the fact of it is indisputable.
However, I can’t tell her that.
“I don’t care for Nazis,” I say.
“Yeah.” She presses a button on her keys and her car unlocks. “Ain’t that the truth.”
I open her door for her. She gets in. She keeps her head turned away from me, signaling that there will be no goodbye kiss unless it’s taken.
Getting slammed into the side of my car was pleasant in a way, but I won’t take what’s not offered again. I slap her door closed and watch her rear lights get smaller in the distance.
When I reach for my phone, I realize my wallet is gone.
Chapter 17
cassie
I am seven and a half the first time I slip my hands into a stranger’s bag. I am too young to know better and old enough to be good at it. I’ve practiced on my mother for weeks. I’ve dug her leather wallet from her bag as she leans over the kitchen counter a hundred times. If she feels it, I get a death glare that reminds me that my competence is important. I could be the difference between ramen and pizza for dinner. If she doesn’t feel my hand, I get three M&Ms.
I really like M&Ms. They taste like safety. They taste like approval. The hard crunch is the glassy crackle of her disapproval. The sweet chocolate melting on my tongue is the warmth of her love.
She’s a tough critic. She does not lie. She knows I’m coming, so she is ready to feel any jerk or pressure on her back. Both the bag and the wallet are leather. She paired them to make it harder for me to feel the difference between bag and wallet. The actual leather parts of the bag have faded in the sun. The man-made pleather is bright, deep blue-green. She holds it more tightly than our mark will. She makes it hard. It frustrates me, but I’m not supposed to pout over it.
The first time I do it correctly, she’s leaning over the kitchen counter with a cigarette and the phone pressed to her ear. She’s talking about a TV show to a friend, or a lover, or a mark she’s working on. Behind her, the cast iron pan sits on the stove with the little chunks of scrambled egg drying on the edge. Just in front of her, on the counter, sits a salt shaker like the ones you find in a diner. A chrome crown over a white gown. Little pieces of beige rice swim inside the sparkling salt.
The teal bag is unzipped, but not wide open. She never makes it too easy, but she doesn’t want me choosing marks that are too difficult. I don’t sneak behind her, because other people will be watching. I come from behind her and reach for the salt shaker with my left hand while my tiny right hand slides into her bag.
Of course, the wallet is wedged under a pamphlet and a pair of sunglasses. I don’t hesitate. I’ve done this before and even though I failed, I know she’s added the obstacles for my own good.
I say “excuse me,” in the little girl voice we’ve worked on, just as I pick up the salt and slip the wallet away.
She keeps talking into the phone. She knows that when I pick up the salt, I’m supposed to take her wallet. But she’s also honest, and as she’s listening to whomever is on the other side of the phone, she turns around, clasps her hand into a fist, and pumps it downward, raising her knee in victory.
I did it.
Those M&Ms—one red, one blue, one yellow—taste like victory. They taste like worthiness. The sweetness of personal contribution to my own well-being.
We do it a few more times, and each time I get better. Each time she offers me little tips and tricks. Her knowledge is endless. She’s a wonderful mother who knows everything that is important. I’m the luckiest kid in the world.
On Friday, we go to the zoo. Every year, if there’re fewer than two snow days, schools in the Detroit area are closed on the first Friday in May. The zoo lets in all school-age children for free, but adults pay full price. The result in this poor community is that one adult in a group of friends will take the day off so the rest can go to work. The adult-to-child ratio is huge on this day. There’s a sense of unending chaos, and that works in our favor.
Mom says to try to find wealthy people. There aren’t many truly rich people at the Detroit Zoo on the first Friday in May. But I know what she means, and she knows what she means. Find someone who can afford to lose their wallet today.
The zoo is a two hour drive from home, so I’m motivated to get this right. This is going to be worthwhile trip.
I find a woman who takes out a few twenties to pay for three bags of Cracker Jacks. She leaves her bag unzipped. The straps fall low on her hip. Low enough for me to reach. When she takes her three children to the penguins, I follow.
The kids she’s with look like her, with rich brown skin. One is my age, and one a little bit older, and the last is around two and totally focused o
n his sticky popcorn. She leans over the railing to point out how the biggest penguin watches over the small ones.
I lean with the children she’s watching. “Which one?”
When she points, I take her wallet.
She looks back at me with a smile. “That one!”
I use the shield of her body to hide the fact that I’m putting her wallet into my bag. Her smile is warm and forgiving, and I imagine that if she knew what I had done she wouldn’t mind at all.
“Who here knows where penguins live?”
The question is for the three children she’s with, but I’m caught up in the moment and I join them in raising my hand.
“South Pole,” I shout.
The prize in this competition is being right. The two other kids shout the same answer, but I was first. For a kid like me, it’s Olympic gold.
“That’s right,” the lady says.
“They have wings, but they can’t fly,” I add. “They’re flightless birds.”
I should be gone by now. I should have slipped away seconds ago, and every second counts. Mom says so. Besides that, now the lady is looking at me strangely. The wallet is heavy in my bag, and I can’t run away now. Not without her wondering why.
“Emus and ostriches and kiwis too!” I cry.
The kid who’s slightly older than me shoots me a look. I don’t imagine she knows about the wallet, but I’m encroaching on her birthright. She’s supposed to be the one who knows everything in this family. The approval I’m getting from her mother was meant for her.
“Are you with a grown-up?” the lady asks.
This is dangerous. I don’t want to hang around this family for another second. If she reaches into her bag for her phone to call the three-digit number grownups use for lost children, she might realize the wallet’s gone. I know what to do if I’m caught, but Mom will be disappointed. This is way past M&Ms. Chocolate is nice, but approval is sweeter.