by Evelyn Glass
I pace up to him. As I pace, he watches me with a dumb, open mouth. I notice that the light from outside shines off his scalp, the worse comb over I’ve ever seen, and that his cheeks are red. But his expression is that of a bemused king’s. That’s it, I realize. He sees himself as the king of this place. He thinks nothing can happen to him here.
Ha.
“What are you doing?” the man sighs. He doesn’t sound scared, which is a damned mistake.
I leap over the bar and in one movement grip the back of his neck, digging my fingers in just enough to cause pain, but not hard enough to cause any lasting damage. He writhes under my grip, squirms, lets out a long, childish moan of pain. Then he breathes: “Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, why?”
“Why?” I chuckle. “You’re a funny man. Lucca, is it? Yeah, you must be Lucca. Hope’s told me a lot about you.”
I squeeze his neck harder, causing him to writhe like a worm plucked between forefinger and thumb from the dirt. Hope walks across the restaurant and stands just opposite the bar. She doesn’t yell at me to let him go; she doesn’t plead with me that he’s had enough. No, her eyes are wide and her lips are crooked and she licks her lips, slowly, as she watches. She looks at me with more affection than any woman ever has. What shocks me is that I’m able to identify it. True affection is usually difficult to identify for men like me. But not with Hope.
“Time to apologize, Lucca,” I say casually.
“I have nothing to apologize for—” Spit flies from his gritted teeth with each strained word.
I close my hand tougher around his neck, until he lets out another wail of pain. “I disagree,” I say. “I think you have a lot to apologize for. Now, don’t make me ask again.”
I release his neck just enough to allow him to talk. “Fine, I’m sorry, Hope. Okay? I’m sorry.”
“Good boy.” On a chopping board just under the bar lie two carrots: one half-chopped, the other intact. I pick up the intact carrot—a thick baton-like specimen—and smack Lucca across the back of the head with it. The carrot snaps in two. He screams and tumbles forward, bracing himself on the bar, and sobbing softly under his breath.
I lean into him, my lips close to his ear. “If you ever talk like that to Hope again, you’ll get much, much worse than a carrot. Now, Hope’s going to use your kitchen to cook me a meal, okay? We’re celebrating. Don’t be so damned rude.”
“Uh, sure, yeah,” Lucca mutters, rubbing the back of his head. “Of course. Whatever you want.”
I clap my hands together and face Hope. “Let’s do it then!” I smile.
She smiles back, and now it’s not just affection in her eyes. It’s lust. I have no trouble identifying that.
I stand at the kitchen door and watch as Hope makes my meal. She has a girlish grin on her face, making it look more elfish than ever. She smiles as wide as I did when I got my first motorbike. As she chops the vegetables, her lips are fixed into a rictus grin. As she boils and grills her lips are spread so wide I’m surprised they don’t stretch off the sides of her face.
“This is amazing,” she says, spinning around to face me.
Lucca is still at the bar. He can hear every word we’re saying, but that doesn’t matter. Let him listen. What’s he going to do? Try and harass her when I’m here? Try and play the big man? No, he’s stupid, but not that stupid.
“You’re happy, then?” I ask.
“Happy?” She giggles. She sounds too cute when she giggles. “Of course I’m happy! I’ve got all this . . .” She lowers her voice. “All this money from my art. And now I’m cooking. It’s like all my dreams have come true in the same day.”
I tip an imaginary hat. “All in a day’s work, ma’am.”
“Don’t make light of it,” she says. “It’s not something to make light of. This is serious, Killian. Really serious. You’ve changed my life quicker than I thought was even possible.”
“Don’t get soppy, pretty lady,” I grin. “It’s nothing, really, just a man doing what he ought to do for a woman as pretty as you.”
She dances right up to me, so that I can smell the meat and vegetables which cling to her apron. Her voice is very low now, low enough so that Lucca can’t hear. “You can act all tough about it if you want,” she says. “You can act like the toughest man who’s ever lived, but we both know there’s something else in there.”
I reach out, touch her face, stroke her cheek. “Maybe there is,” I say. “But standing here in a stolen kitchen isn’t the place to tear open my heart, is it?”
She laughs. “I suppose not.” And then dances back to the meal.
I sit in a booth, cutlery laid out before me, waiting for my meal. After about half an hour, Hope emerges from the kitchen holding two plates. She skips over to the table deftly, the plates not once becoming imbalanced, and then places one plate in front of me, and one plate in her place. I look down at a meal unlike any I’d ever cook for myself, or even order for myself. It’s steak, carrot, potato, and gravy. So simple—and yet Hope presents it as though it is a work of art. Everything is neatly arranged and there is a piece of parsley curling atop the steak, medium-rare, with just a hint of blood.
“I assumed you liked it bloody,” she says, as she lays down two glasses of coca cola.
“Then you assumed right,” I reply.
I pick up my knife and fork and cut into the steak. Blood oozes around it. I cut myself a big chunk and bring it to my mouth. When I begin to chew it, taste explodes between my teeth, on my tongue. It’s steak, but it’s something more, too. I swallow quickly. “Damn, Hope,” I say, quickly cutting myself another chunk. “What the hell did you do to this?”
“You like it?”
I reply by stuffing another chunk in my mouth. Hope doesn’t touch her meal, just watches me with a fascinated expression.
I wolf down the meal. Maybe I should eat it all fancy, because it’s a fancy meal, but I’ve never had much self-restraint. The steak is beautiful and the vegetables are different, too.
“What’s the secret?” I say.
Hope taps her nose. “A good magician, Killian . . .”
I shake my head, and then stop talking so I can finish the rest of the meal. I drain it all with coca cola and then push the plate away, leaning back in the chair.
“You’re a woman of many talents, Hope.”
She inclines her head. “And you’re a man of many talents.”
I look at the clock which hangs above the door. It’s almost four o’clock.
“We should get back. We need to check on Dawn and Patrick.”
“Okay,” Hope says, pushing up from the table.
I stand up and face the bar, where Lucca stands, seething. “Clear the table will you, my good man?” I call.
Then I hook my arm around Hope and lead her out of the restaurant.
Chapter Fifteen
Hope
As we ride back toward Sapphire Lake, I can’t tell if it’s Killian’s hard body against mine, or the rumble of the bike which is making my pussy ache bad: bad like it’s begging to be touched. As we skim over the road I can’t help but think about the way he stood up to Lucca, the way he just swaggered over there and jumped over the bar. No man has ever stood up to him like that. Never. I couldn’t even imagine it. Dawn, sure, and me in my own way. But not like that. Killian properly put him in his place. And what’s more, he did it like it was no big deal.
I squeeze into him, feeling his muscles, moving my hands over them.
My pussy roars out for him. My pussy begs for him. My pussy gets so wet that all I want to do is grab his hand and push it down between my legs and feel the strength of him. The same hand he grabbed Lucca with, I think, panting. He’ll use the same hand he grabbed that pervert with. That same strong hand. He’ll make me come with it. He’ll drive me crazy with it. He’ll make me his with it. My tongue is lolling from my mouth, I realize. I force it shut as the bike comes to a stop outside of the lake house.
I wish for Dawn and Patr
ick to be asleep so we can just do it. This is the horniest I ever remember being. My whole body stings with lust. It’s like they’re itches all over me that just need to be scratched. But I have to remember Dawn. I have to remember her recovery.
Killian and I walk up the stairs and go to Dawn’s room. The door is open. Dawn is sitting up in bed, her white pajamas clinging to her body with sweat, her hair stuck to her forehead, the sheets thrown away. She grips her knees and rocks back and forth. Patrick sits on a stool beside the bed, a damp towel in his hand. As we enter, he’s reaching across to Dawn with it.
He starts and turns as we enter. “Damn, brother,” he says. “You scared me.”
“How’s she doing?” I ask.
“Better,” Patrick says. “I know she seems worse, but she’s better. The drugs are leaving her system. It’s hard, but she’s a fighter.”
“After this,” Dawn pants, “I’m never touching drugs again. Let me tell you.”
I stay quiet. I want to tell her that I believe her, that I know she’ll never touch drugs again, but it’s difficult to believe. Patrick brings the damp towel to Dawn’s forehead and holds it there, smiling sadly at her. For a moment he’s not a tough-as-hell biker, but a bedside nurse.
“Keep thinking like that,” he says.
As we watch, Dawn brings her hand up and touches Patrick’s hand, pressing the towel harder against her forehead. It could be just that she wants to feel the towel with more force, or it could be that she wants to feel Patrick’s hand against hers. I don’t know. But either way, if it helps her get through this, then I’m happy with it.
“Do you want us to take over?” Killian says.
Even now, when all I should be thinking about is Dawn, Dawn’s recovery, making my sister better, my mind strays to the way Killian dominated Lucca, the way he completely and easily put him in his place, the way he defended me. I feel like I need to cross my legs to stop the fidgeting, like when you’re on a long trip and need to pee badly. My clit feels bigger, hotter, a point of pleasure which can’t be ignored. With a considerable effort, I bring myself back to the present.
“It’s your shift,” Patrick says. “We’ve got Gunny and Declan here tomorrow, haven’t we?”
Killian nods, walking into the room. “Go and rest, brother,” he says. “Hope and I will stay here for a while.”
When Patrick takes his hand away, Dawn flinches. “Will you come back?” she whispers.
Patrick nods seriously. “Tonight, after I’ve showered and rested, I’ll be back. I promise.”
She nods quickly.
“Thank you,” I call after Patrick.
I take the damp cloth and sit beside Dawn, holding it as Patrick held it.
“He’s a good man,” Dawn says.
“When he wants to be,” Killian mutters.
For the next three or four hours we sit with Dawn, rubbing down her skin with damp towels, feeding her sugary food, making her take pain medication and anti-allergy medication, helping her ride the warped rollercoaster off addiction and into sobriety.
Then, when the room is dark and lit only by lamplight, Dawn falls asleep, her body a tight ball, her knees drawn to her chest. Patrick appears at the door, freshly shaved and showered. “I’ll sit with her,” he says. “You two can go.”
As quietly as we can, Killian and I rise to our feet and creep to the door. I give Patrick a quick hug. “Thank you so much,” I whisper.
He shrugs, uncomfortable, and then walks toward the bed. “It’s not a chore,” he says. “Feels good to do something good, you know?”
Killian stops at the door and looks back at his older brother. I think he’s going to say something, but then he paces from the room. After a moment, I follow him.
I sit on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, and Killian sits next to me.
“Thank you,” I say into the silence.
“For what?” He turns his head.
I smile at him, shaking my head. “Where do I start, Killian? Thank you for buying my paintings. Thank you for giving me more money than I have a clue what to do with. Thank you for helping my sister. Thank you for standing up to Lucca. Thank you for all of it.”
Killian shrugs. “It’s not a big deal,” he says. “I’m just trying to do what’s right.”
“Not all men would do that. You know, people think the Satan’s Martyrs are animals. But you’re not an animal, are you?”
“I guess that depends what you mean by an animal,” he says, voice low, staring at a mounted bear’s head but not seeing it at all.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
Even seeing him serious like this, pensive, makes me horny. He just makes me horny. His muscular body, his wounded eyes, his vulnerable-yet-strong demeanor which shouts out for somebody to take care of him.
“I had a girlfriend, once,” he says. “Nothing serious. Not like us. We weren’t close like we are, I mean. There wasn’t this . . .” Connection—it hangs in the air, but he doesn’t say it. “Anyway,” he goes on, “she was on the back of my bike. I was taking her home. She lived about eighty miles out of the Cove, and I didn’t want to spend the night with her. Maybe that makes me an asshole, but it wasn’t like us . . . I’m repeating myself, damn.”
He takes a deep breath. When he lets it out, it’s shaky, drawn.
“It’s okay,” I tell him. “You can tell me anything, Killian. You don’t have to be nervous around me.”
He nods, as though my words give him strength. “Okay, so I’m riding her out of town. Goddamn, some asshole left a rock in the road. It was dark. I wasn’t paying close enough attention. When I say rock, I mean a big-ass rock. A boulder. It was twice the size of a bike helmet. I smash straight into this rock and the bike tips over. I thought I was flying for a moment. I couldn’t believe that I’d crashed. Me, crash? It seemed ridiculous. No, I was flying. Then I landed on my shoulder, cracking it, and slid about one hundred feet down the road. I was wearing my jacket, so apart from a few breaks and fractures, I was alright.
“But she . . . Her arms were grazed to hell, grazed so bad the flesh underneath showed through. They gave her morphine in the hospital, and she got a taste for it. Morphine is basically heroin. That’s what one of the doctors told me. It’s a medical type of heroin. Opium. She was never the same after that. Even after her wounds healed, she couldn’t kick the stuff. It destroyed her. It made her into a different person. Drugs, I just can’t . . .” He shivers. “Drugs,” he repeats. “Goddamn drugs. I despise them, really fucking despise them.”
I shrug off the blanket and move up on the couch, and then wrap my arms around him and lean up so that my mouth is close to his ear. “It’s not your fault,” I say. “Don’t blame yourself. Trust me, I know enough about blaming yourself to know where it leads you. Nowhere, that’s the truth. It leads you nowhere and gives you a whole lot of pain.”
He lets his head fall back on the couch. “Yeah, I know,” he says. “You’re right. It’s just always haunted me. Like that,” and he clicks his fingers, “a person goes from a decent person to a bag of shaking bones, begging for their next hit.”
“I know, I know, it’s messed up.” I reach down for his leg, wondering if this is the time—and then killing the thought. All evening I haven’t stopped being horny. And for some reason now he’s opened up to me, I’m hornier. I grab his thigh, high up, near his cock. He takes a deep breath, and his cock gets hard; I can see it clearly through his pants.
That’s it. I’m gone. My pussy cries out to me, begs me not to wait any longer.
“Come with me,” I whisper. “I’ll make you feel better, Killian. I’ll make you feel so much better.”
Our bedroom contains a dresser, a bedside table, a watercolor of a bear stalking through a forest, and a large king size bed with pristine clean sheets. My only interest right now is the bed. I place my hands on Killian’s chest and push him backwards into the room, kicking the door closed with my foot. I’m wild with lust, panting with it. I want him to know h
ow badly I want him, how much I appreciate everything he’s done, everything he’s given. Not just money, but himself. He’s let me look inside of him, and for what he says that’s a rare thing for him.
I push him until the back of his knees hit the mattress. He falls back. And then I snap my hands up and unbutton his jeans, quickly, hungry.
“Damn, Hope,” he says. “You really are—”
His cock springs free, his huge, thick cock. His intimidating cock. A cock bigger than any I’ve seen, or any I’m likely to see. A real man’s cock. It springs up, rock-hard.
I grab the base of it in my hand. My hand looks tiny when I grab it, it’s so big. He cuts off his words and groans with pleasure. This pushes me on. His satisfied groans make my pussy go tight, ache, tingle. My pussy responds to his moans of pleasure, urges me forward. I rub his cock up and down, from base to tip, and then I lean forward and take the tip in my mouth.