Wetwork

by Andrew, Nikolai

How can he say that for sure?

  Stringer is a good guy, I know that. My mom’s first letter to me after they got married, which they did without even telling me beforehand, went on and on about how wonderful he was. How she’d met someone that was going to take care of her, and if I wanted to come live with them, I only needed to ask.

  No chance. Not right then.

  I was living the life I thought I wanted with my dad who left me to run wild while he was off making protection runs and gun deals for his motorcycle club. I was fourteen and able to do whatever the hell I liked. Throwing parties brought me friends who never would have looked twice if I wasn’t the girl with the cool father who let us party at his place.

  My dad thought he was invincible. Untouchable. But that all ended when he got pinched for his third felony drug possession, three strikes you’re out. He ended up turning state’s evidence on his own biker club members in exchange for a reduced sentence and that was something I don’t think he thought he’d ever do. The club was his family, now they’d hurt me if I went back there, just to get at him.

  But, things happen we don’t expect and my mom, too, she never would have thought she’d end up getting sick and dying just a couple of years after she married Stringer, just months after I came here to live with them at the ranch.

  If Stringer thinks he can stop what happened today coming back to bite us both, he’s wrong.

  Still, he’s so confident about it all. Every inch of me wants to believe him. I want him to hold me, to tell me that it’s all going to be okay. I want to feel the warmth of his skin against mine, to breathe in his scent of old wood and those books he reads. I’m not even sure he knows what an e-book is. I want him to be everything that he’s telling me he is, but at the same time I want to keep as far away from him as I possibly can.

  Because I can’t let myself believe.

  Because if I did that, I’d just be setting myself up for more bullshit. More hurt, more loss and my dance card is full when it comes to those things.

  “You can’t promise that,” I say, tears starting to burn my lids as I fight them back. I hate crying, I’ll do almost anything to not let that happen. I think it’s the adrenaline and close call with danger and maybe death that’s making me loose-lipped. “I need to get dressed. I need to go to the station and tell them what happened.”

  “I can’t let you do that.”

  My eyes snap to his. “You can’t let me? What does that mean?”

  “If the cops found out what happened, we’d both be in danger. I can’t allow that.”

  “So what, I’m not allowed to tell the truth about what happened?”

  “Not this truth, no.”

  “Fuck you!” As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I regret them, my hand going to my lips as if to pull them back in.

  I turn to run up the stairs, but before I take the first step, his fingers cinch around my forearm. I swivel back around and my open palm connects with his face. The slap shakes me more than it shakes him, and I look down, unable to keep my eyes off the front of his boxers, where his cock is still visible against the fabric. I swear he’s had an erection the whole way back here, which seems impossible but is true.

  A little molten need escapes from between my legs at the sight and I draw a breath as I squeeze my thighs together. His hand is hot and tight on my arm and it makes me think of his cock nesting inside of me for the first time.

  I’d be hot and tight around him, for sure.

  “I’m getting dressed and leaving before the police come and find us, because they will, Stringer, they will,” I seethe. “So let me go.” My words are in direct opposition to everything else to what I’m really feeling.

  When I meet his eyes again, I see indecision and I’m not sure what to do. I try to pull away, but he tightens his grip, and it’s exactly what I want. I want him to show me he’s strong enough to take care of us both, and at the same time I hate him for doing it.

  “No,” he says finally. “You’re not fucking going anywhere.”

  I laugh, shaking my head, squirming a little to try to get out of his grip. “How are you going to stop me?”

  4

  Stringer

  Man, I had to use all my skills to tie her ass to the bed. Little hellcat, trying to leave. Not on my watch.

  She’s sleeping now as I watch her from the doorway. It’s been a couple of hours, but I couldn’t rest.

  The restraints are tight enough to secure her rebellious, perfect ass, but she’s comfortable enough with one of her knitted unicorns in her arms as I stand in the hall, dressed in jeans and nothing else. Causing her pain wasn’t my intent and if she’d have just calmed the fuck down, it would have gone a hell of a lot easier, but true to form, Raven is not one to make things easy.

  And, fuck if that isn’t one of the things I love about her. She’s royal pain in my ass sometimes.

  Still, she needs to know two things: I’m in charge, and I will keep her safe.

  I love the way she’s spread out on the bed, dark hair splayed around her head like some sort of broken, black halo, ample tits that tell me she’s not supposed to be as skinny as she is, pressing up against the cotton of her bra.

  She needs to gain some weight, at least in my opinion. Something I’ve been working on, but she’s got some bad habits from the years spent with her dad that are taking time to undo. She says she forgets to eat, she pushes her food around on her plate but in the end, only takes a couple bites and from what Olga told me, her ex had a thing about women being pre-teen sort of thin and Raven took his disappointment in her size to heart and she starved herself for his approval.

  Again, something I’m working on, because thin or not so thin, I love her, but bottom line she needs to be healthy.I see her mother in her eyes and the way she smiles. I never intended to have a wife, but life has a weird way of forcing you into situations that are the best for you even if you don’t understand it at the time.

  But, what I had with Olga wasn’t what most would think. We’d started an uneasy sort of friendship. She worked at the old bookstore in town and took to saving older and first edition copies of science fiction books for me.

  The friendship grew, as much as I would allow but it was platonic in every way. I had no attraction to her but when I started to take note of the way Robert her boss treated her, my instinct to protect kicked in.

  Then, one day I came in, no one was tending the register, but I heard what was going on in the back room. Her boss was threatening her, basically put out or get out. She lived in the little apartment upstairs but what sealed the deal for me was when he threatened to turn her into immigration.

  From there, I did what I never thought I would. I married her to keep her safe. What she didn’t know, and I’ll never tell anyone, I had a sister named Olga. She died when she was six years old from cancer and soon after depression and self-harm took my mother from me as well. My father had never been in the picture and my need to stand up and be the man he never was took root.

  Even at just sixteen years old, I always wondered if I’d done enough. If I’d only tried harder, been a better son and brother. Maybe things would have been different.

  I moved Olga in that next day, and we lived together in case immigration ever did come to investigate—not that they did—and we had separate adjoining rooms that nobody would ever suspect.

  Olga was safe, and when she fell ill, I did what I could to keep her alive. No expense was spared. But in the end, money is no match for nature.

  She shifts on the bed, whimpering a little in her sleep, and the sound makes the blood flush to my dick. I almost lose my balance as my muscles tighten as she tries to turn, unable to move far with the restraints, and her full, naturally pink lips part giving me a flash of white teeth in the light from her bathroom. Fuck, I can’t help the thought of those lips wrapped around my shaft as she kneels in front of me, her spit dripping from her chin as she struggles to take all of me. So beautiful.

  With
a grunt, I pull down the zipper on the fly of my pants and pull out my cock. The hallway is dark, there’s only the dim light from her bathroom streaking across the room and I know I shouldn’t. I know if she wakes up, she’ll see me, but fuck it. She could have died today, I could have died today, and my usual rational, controlled self is being overridden by a new program.

  A new program that has me and my stepdaughter living as man and wife. Somehow, I know that’s the end game for me and her, and maybe I just need a push.

  And that push is my dick calling the shots. It’s hard and heavy in my hand, the head swollen as I begin to pump but my palm is rough and dry. I raise my hand toward my mouth, add spit for lubrication, then start again. Already my balls begin to tighten, each breath harder and louder as I build momentum. The thought of covering her face, her tits, her stomach with hot strings of my release drives me on.

  I close my eyes. It’s wrong. I know it’s wrong. I shouldn’t be thinking of her this way. But fuck, I’m too far gone to pull back now.

  When the white gush covers my hand with a grunt, it’s all I can do to try to catch it all. Spurt after spurt lands on my fingers as I lean against the frame of her bedroom door for support, trying to get myself under control when I hear it…

  “I could have done that for you.”

  My eyes land on her face, her gaze fixed on me as a smile curls her lips. I don’t move, don’t turn away, don’t attempt to put my dick back in my pants.

  “I want it,” she says softly.

  I lick my lips, my cock already springing up again at her words and the conflict inside me rages even as I step to the edge of her bed.

  “You want this?” I clench my hand around the still-hard pole of blood-filled flesh. The sticky cum is spread across my fingers as she stares then licks her lips and nods. I release my grip as she opens her mouth, tongue out, her eyes on my face.

  Wildness surges through me like a molten river as I bring my fingers to her mouth.

  The first swipe of her tongue and the sight of my white cream on her lips feels like a re-birth. She licks each finger as I bring it forward, sucking them into the slick heat of her mouth as her tongue wraps and winds around as I drop my other hand to her throat and hold her steady as I feed myself to her.

  “I’m a part of you now.” I breathe out as I take my wet hand and swipe it over her hot cheeks. “My mark is on you.”

  “I want more.” Her gaze drifts to my cock, which is high and tight, standing tall, ready to deliver, but inside, the singe of guilt persists looking down at her tied to the bed.

  I know it’s wrong.

  I let go of her throat, stuffing my cock back in my pants as her eyes follow each movement.

  I can’t stop myself as I lean down, my lips on hers as my hand drift down her taut belly, dancing on the outside of her damp panties listening to her moan and move against my hand.

  She tastes better than my fantasies as I press against her clit, her hips coming up to gain traction and time speeds, racing around us as our tongue wind together and her body comes undone under my tough.

  I pull back, she’s panting, her eyes fluttering from the burst of her orgasm and fear and shame take over. I slip into the bed with her, her body shaking as tiny sobs sneak from her lips as I hold her against me in silence until she’s asleep and I watch the stars outside her window glow, watching us.

  Good.

  Evil.

  As my grandmother used to say, they are two horns on the same goat and fuck if I don’t feel like a goat right now but I can’t leave, I let sleep take me, my bound stepdaughter in my arms knowing nothing will ever be the same. so I turn away and head out of the room.

  * * *

  “This is probably the best burger I’ve ever tasted in my life,” he says as I take a seat opposite him at the table. We’re sitting at a twenty-four-hour diner on the edge of town and it’s coming up on six AM and I haven’t slept at all, but I’m more awake than I have been in years.

  The amount of food spread out in front of him would be enough to feed a man ten times his size, but The Irishman is about as tall and skinny as a vaulter’s pole. “Help yourself,” he says, but I shake my head.

  I don’t know his real name, though he’s given me plenty over the years. Daniel Shaughnessy, Kieran McCarthy, Mick Kelly, to name a few. That’s why, in my head, he’s always just The Irishman. The go-to man whenever a cleanup job was needed around this part of the country, and fortunately for me one of the few people I knew how to contact outside of Taylor Security or the CIA.

  “You know,” he says, “if you were going to wear a suit, you probably should have picked a more upmarket place. Not that I’m complaining, you understand, but you do kind of stand out in here.”

  “Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays are for suits,” I reply. “Habits have kept me safe over the years and I’m not about to change that now. Besides,” I glance around the other tables, a teenage couple grinning as they look into each other’s eyes, an elderly man and woman chatting as they eat their toast and eggs, “if anything happened, all they’d remember was a man in a suit. What build was he? No idea. How tall? Couldn’t say. A suit is a uniform.”

  He shrugs. “Whatever you say.”

  “Did you deal with the problem?”

  “It’s all done. As good as new. And I’m trusting you on that because I don’t usually work before I get payment but we’ve got history and all so—oh, thanks very much.”

  I push the brown envelope across the table without glancing at anyone else. The mistake people often make when conducting clandestine business in public is assuming that everyone is watching them. They’re not. They only start if you act like you’ve got something to hide.

  The Irishman doesn’t count it, he simply picks it up and puts it in his pocket like it’s a grocery list.

  “Now, about this other problem?” he says, taking a bite of his burger and closing his eyes like it’s the nectar of the gods.

  “One. Winged. There’s a description in the package I just gave you. Probably on foot but he could have got a vehicle.”

  “He saw what happened?”

  I nod, thinking about the way he was watching and how Raven reacted when she saw him. I looked in on her, sleeping again, before I left to come meet with The Irishman, and decided to untie her. I’m confident she meant what she said about not calling the police and I don’t want her tied without me there, but I was damn sure to stay up most of the night making sure the security system was up and running, tweaked to be even more sensitive to any movement or her clever attempts to disable the sensors on her door and windows. I also initiated a lock down which I’ve never used before. The only way to unlock the doors is with a special code and my fingerprint so I’m fairly secure that she’s not going anywhere.

  But, she is a pain in the ass, so I took it one step further and slipped a tracking chip inside the heart locket she always wears. It will buzz my phone if she moves outside the perimeter of the house. I should have done that a long fucking time ago. All this other bullshit would have been avoided.

  “There’s ten percent in the packet I gave you,” I tell him. “The rest when it’s done, as usual. And it might be urgent, but it doesn’t have to be quick, if you understand me.”

  He grins around his burger. “Oh, I get it. A little bit personal, is it? Well, that’s just fine, you leave it with me and I’ll see it’s done right.” He hands me a business card for his pest control business. It’s a legitimate company that turns over a small yearly profit, but it’s not where his main income comes from. On the back is written a string of numbers. Co-ordinates for the meet when the job’s done. “Are you sure you won’t have one of these? They really are very good.”

  I shake my head as shove the card inside my jacket, and stand to leave, tucking a ten under the ashtray for the waitress. Nobody notices the man under the suit, but you can be sure to be remembered if you don’t tip.

  “Good to see you, Stringer. Wasn’t sure I’d ever ge
t the pleasure again.” The Irishman finishes as I head toward the door.

  The only thing on my mind as nod my goodbye is my raven-haired hellcat doing God knows what back at the house.

  5

  Raven

  When I wake up, the knot of need still tangles low in my gut and my skin tingles where Stringer touched me. I can still taste him on my lips, the feel of his teeth as his mouth had crushed to mine. His hand slipping down my belly, fingers dancing on the outside of my panties, rubbing, harder and faster as I’d rutted myself against him until I exploded and he held me tight while I cried.

  He stayed like that until I fell asleep. His arms around me, no more words were spoken, like we both knew we’d crossed some line and we needed to be still and silent as the night collapsed in around us.

  Now he’s gone, I’m no longer tied and somehow, I know that I’m alone in the house, and I don’t like it. I’m not sure how I know he’s gone, but I just do. It’s like there’s some invisible thread connecting us, and right now it’s stretched longer than I’d like.

  As I curl under the blanket, looking out my bedroom window which faces the front of the house, I remember the day I arrived here. Mom didn’t know she was sick then and of course wanted me back in any way, shape or form. She picked me up from the airport after my frantic call that dad had been arrested and he said I could be in danger as well. She booked my flight immediately. No guilt, no I-told-you-so’s. Just her usual accepting love.

  We drove here, my memory of pulling in and thinking I must be in a dream.

  After a drive down a long dirt road, wrought iron gates ten feet high opened as if by magic when my mom’s black Hummer approached. I still remember thinking how this an accountant’s house? It has to be a movie star or business mogul and inside, it seemed like I’d never learn my way around the myriad rooms or get used to having use of a private swimming pool, a jacuzzi, a fully-equipped gym. My dad might have let me live my life however I wanted to, but from what I saw in those first minutes here, I knew my mom was giving me something that would change my life forever.