by Skye Darrel
Then her whole body shoots rigid as her pussy ripples. I feel her orgasm, the pulses in her walls, her other hole clenching my fingers.
Her cries are bliss to my ears.
I take my hand out and hold her waist, focused on the slick heat of her pussy as my balls haul up tight and cum explodes from my cock.
She slumps against my shoulder panting for breath. I feel a wave of drowsiness before her sobs jerk me to alertness.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong, you’re amazing, but this can’t last, I know it can’t. I’ll lose you, Asher. I just have this feeling.”
I soothe her with kisses over the top of her breasts, up her neck to that sugary mouth. “Hush, I’m not going anywhere.”
“You don’t need to go somewhere for me to lose you,” she says. “You could get killed or end up in jail. Then what?”
“Then you find yourself a better man like you deserve.” I’m trying to make light of it but regret my words instantly.
She wipes her eyes and frowns. “You’d let me find a better man?”
“No, but if I’m dead, I can’t lock you in my bedroom.”
She sobs a laugh.
“I’m not gonna die, Natalie. I promise.” My throat tightens. I know the world may not let me keep that promise, but after everything I’ve been through, the world can go fuck itself. I trust in my strength and hers. “I will never leave you.”
“I’ll hold you to it,” she says.
The next morning, I drive Natalie to the police station. Time for a long talk with Hoyt Dunkel. In my pocket is a copy of the recordings.
Natalie sits in the passenger seat with hands on her lap. She’s wearing that flowery dress again.
I can’t stop looking at her.
“What?” she says at the last stop sign before the station.
“You’re beautiful.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because it’s true,” I say.
“Well quit staring at me. You’ll have an accident.”
“In my pants maybe.”
“Oh my God.”
She tells me to keep my eyes on the road, but I know she enjoys the attention. I enjoy giving it.
After our time in the basement last night, I carried her upstairs where we fell asleep together. When we woke up, she was flustered and adorable as a kitten with her bed hair, but also shy. Pris used to say that things look different in the mornings.
That’s what Natalie felt when she woke up.
I’d been a total animal in the basement, giving in to all my urges, ravishing my princess. I may have gone too far, but with how hard she came, perhaps not hard enough.
And this morning, as shy as she was, Natalie’s skin still glowed, and she didn’t stop me from performing my morning ritual. Her pussy tasted just as sweet, and I made sure she came before the clock hit seven. I could taste my own cum in her and it made my cock harder. She used her hands to relieve me.
“You’re having dirty thoughts, aren’t you?” she says as we pull into the station parking lot.
“No, doll face. I’m thinking about you.” For example, I know she’s wearing shorts under her skirt to keep my attention away because mere panties are no defense against my attention.
“You’re ridiculous,” she says tartly. “Focus, Asher. Focus.”
She smiles.
I take a deep breath before we get out, and my thoughts focus on the task at hand. Natalie’s expression firms as well. We face the police station.
“Ready?” I ask.
“Let’s go,” she says.
Chief of Police Hoyt Dunkel greets us in the small lobby, looking like he always does with hair combed neatly aside and that star on his chest. His face beckons me to trust him. I’d called him before leaving the house, said we needed to speak. Dunkel suspected nothing.
He suspects nothing now.
“Busy?” Natalie asks him.
“Paperwork,” he says kindly.
“A shit ton of paperwork,” Natalie quips. “Right?”
“What the mayor pays me for, missy.”
“Sure,” she says vaguely.
I could kiss her.
Dunkel brings us upstairs, through the big room outside his office, where the police clerks are doing the real paperwork, far as I can tell. We go to his office at the back.
Natalie sits in front of his desk, in the same chair she’d been in after the fox incident. I think back to how we came to Dunkel for help and want to laugh.
“Leave the door open,” Dunkel says from behind his cedar desk.
I shut the door. “Better leave it closed.”
“Private matter, eh?”
“Very private,” Natalie says.
“Aren’t you chatty today,” Dunkel says to her, his old school charm thick as oil. “Not like the last time you were in my building.”
“It’s not your building,” I say, sitting at Natalie’s side. “It’s the town’s building.”
The chief frowns. He realizes this isn’t a goodwill visit.
I’ve known Hoyt Dunkel since I was a kid. Mayor Landry had appointed him police chief before I was born, and he’s held the job since. I trusted him like everyone in Salma’s Hope trusted him. Growing up, I believed in his goodness more than I believed in Santa Claus.
Squeaky clean, a man of no flaws. Doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke.
But that was his voice on the recording. I just don’t know how deep the rabbit hole goes.
“What can I do for you?” he asks.
I hold his gaze for a while without speaking. Natalie does the same.
In my former life, the Army taught me to observe the tiniest details. Critical for intelligence work. I look around his office. The town seal, a wreath of Salma’s Tears, hangs on the wall above his head. A Rotary Club logo beside the seal. A state flag standing in the corner. Various certificates of good service hanging on another wall.
Every detail suggests the man sitting in front of me is a shining example of civic duty. A role model. A paragon.
Then I remember other details from the past. I used to see Hoyt Dunkel at church every Sunday until I stopped going in high school. Dunkel had this habit of sitting next to teenage girls he didn’t know, talking with them until service started. He even sat next to Pris once. No one minded. The town trusted him.
When I returned from Afghanistan to show any authorities who’d meet with me those letters Pris had written, Hoyt Dunkel was the only one who listened. Even though in hindsight, her letters didn’t contain much in hard facts.
If Pris hadn’t been my sister, and if I hadn’t linked up with Leon, I could see myself questioning the contents.
Hoyt Dunkel believed me like he already knew the truth.
It all seems obvious in hindsight.
I glance at the ancient computer sitting on his desk. “That thing got a USB slot?”
“Sure do.”
I take out the thumb drive. “Plug this in.”
Dunkel frowns again. “What’s on it?”
“Something interesting,” Natalie says with a smile. “It’s about Verne Resnik.”
Still calm, Dunkel takes a minute to get the recording started. Then he hears Resnik’s voice and his own voice, and his posture crumbles. He turns the recording off.
“Damn,” he says.
“You lied to me,” Natalie says. “That day, you told my boss where to find me. You sent Branigan to Goldilocks.”
That’s the least of his lies.
Dunkel sighs. “I wanted you out of town, Ms. Whipple. You were in danger, you are. I thought those men might convince you to leave.”
Natalie crosses her arms. “So your intentions were good.”
“They were,” Hoyt says, the last color draining from his face. “They surely were.”
“Explain your relationship with Verne Resnik,” I say.
“He’s been pressing me, Asher. For two years he’s been pressing me. I admit it—I’ve been
keeping him apprised of your movements.”
“You told him about my ruse? The lawn and the barbed wire?”
Dunkel nods. “He knew you weren’t crazy from the start.”
Natalie and I trade a look. Even though her eyes calm me some, I can still feel the anger crawling up my throat.
Dunkel sits forward. “I also told Resnik you weren’t a danger to him. I kept him from harming you.”
I clench my hands and unclench them. “All the tips you’ve given me that went nowhere, it was on purpose?”
“Resnik has dirt on me,” Dunkel says. “I had no choice but to help him.”
“What dirt?”
“Maral Swann.”
The casino dancer who’d been in contact with Pris. The woman Leon and I searched for.
“Explain,” I say.
Dunkel’s heavy face is set in graven lines. He waves his hand through the air like he wants the whole thing to go away. “Swann was a stripper in the VIP Lounge. I went there a few times three years ago. I liked to see her dance, is all. But Verne Resnik, that sonofabitch, taped me. I wasn’t on my best behavior, you understand. Resnik said he’d show the whole town that footage if I go against him. He blackmailed me, Asher. I had no choice but to help him.”
“We always have a choice,” I say quietly.
“All I got left in this world is my name and my reputation,” Dunkel says, and he looks damn near tears. “If folks knew I’d been at that Lounge, I would’ve lost my job. I couldn’t have that. I’m a righteous man, Asher.”
“Except you’re not.”
“Are you?” he says back.
“I don’t pretend to be.”
“Resnik took advantage of my weakness,” Dunkel says.
“How does Maral Swann know my sister?”
He dabs his eyes with a tissue. “She knew Priscilla?”
“My sister mentioned Maral Swann in her letters.”
“Don’t know nothing about that. I just liked to watch Swann dance, she was real good at it.”
Natalie makes a noise in her throat.
“What happened to Swann?” I say.
“Don’t know. She disappeared around the time—Resnik killed your sister.”
“Disappeared like Leon Costello disappeared?”
“What do you want me to say, Asher?”
I can’t decide if Dunkel has told me everything he knows. Fat teardrops roll down his cheeks. Something about a grown-ass man crying makes you think he means what he says.
I fix my eyes on him. “How did Pris die?”
“How you think. She’d found out about Verne Resnik’s drug business. She was about to contact the FBI, so Resnik ordered Titus Quinton to silence her. Titus nabbed your sister and drowned her in the river.”
“Resnik told you?”
“He gloated in my face, Asher. Said how a lawman like me can’t do nothing about it.” Dunkel gets another tissue and blots his cheeks. “I done told you everything I know. Resnik’s getting ready to move on you. You too, Ms. Whipple.”
“We’re aware,” Natalie says flatly.
Dunkel asks me how I obtained the recording, and I tell him not to trouble himself, but that’s certainly not the only copy. He looks at me for a while through puffy eyes.
“What happens now?” he says wearily. “You gonna turn me in?”
“Anyone else in your department working for Resnik?”
“Just me.”
I stand up and put my hands on his desk. “You’re no longer Resnik’s crony, Hoyt. You’re going to be an officer of the law like you’re supposed to be, like that badge on your shirt says you are. You play along with Resnik for now. You tell him I don’t know shit. Once this is all over—and believe me, you’ll know when it’s over—I expect you to retire and live out the rest of your days without disturbing anyone ever again.”
He clears his throat. “Thank you, Asher.”
I hold the door open for Natalie, who flashes the chief a sharp look before she walks out, and I’m on her heels, hoping I’ve made the right call.
In the parking lot, I pause beside my Mustang and glance back.
“You think he told us the truth?” Natalie says from the passenger side.
“He told us some truth, of that I’m certain.”
“Well, he lied about two things,” she says.
“Which two?”
“When you asked how Maral Swann knows Pris. He said he knows nothing—that’s a lie. He said she was a good dancer—lie. A creepy lie at that.”
I look at her. “You could tell?”
“I’m good at reading eyes. That includes yours by the way.”
This is interesting. “What do you see in mine?”
“I see you love me, or . . . at least you believe you do.”
“Is there a difference?”
“Maybe, maybe not.” Natalie clutches the strap of her bag “So, where to next?”
I’m about to answer when I spot the red pickup truck cruising up the road. It slows as it nears, closer and closer. A window starts to lower.
I slide across the hood of my Mustang and slam Natalie to the asphalt, shielding her under me as I reach for my ankle holster. I have my gun aimed when the truck reaches us, its window all the way down, and Titus waves.
No gun in his hand.
“Howdy, partner!” He calls like he’s getting a neighbor. Then he laughs and the window rolls up again and the truck speeds away with tires screeching.
Natalie gasps in pain.
24
Highs and Lows
Natalie
“Ow.”
Asher is still on top of me. Pain laces my knees and elbows. The air has been knocked out of my lungs. He rolls off and pulls me to my feet, his face stitched with concern.
“You okay?”
My heart finally catches up. So this is how it feels to be tackled by a football player. “I think so.”
Asher holsters his pistol. “Thought he had a weapon.”
Dust flecks my sundress, scrapes cut my knees and elbows, and my bag’s torn along one side.
I only saw a flash of red before I went down. The shrill laughter of Titus still rings in my ears and goosebumps crawl up my neck. I realize Ashe was trying to protect me from a drive-by shooting.
“Titus is testing me,” Asher says.
“Testing us,” I correct him.
“Us.” He holds me close. “But it’s my job to protect you, doll face.”
The scrapes on my knee are bleeding. “Your job performance needs some improvement.”
“Sorry, Natalie.”
I stand on tiptoes to kiss him. “Thank you for trying.”
By the time we get back to his house, the bleeding has stopped, leaving my knees a scratched mess.
I sit on the living room sofa while Asher cleans my injuries with a warm towel, followed by disinfectant pads, just like that first day when I worked on his lawn. The scratches don’t look bad, and he finishes with two Band-Aids.
He rakes a hand through his hair. I see the cuts on his left palm, the skin scraped worse than my knees and elbows, a trickle of blood staining the cuff of his shirt. “Let me look at that,” I say.
He shrugs it off. “This is nothing.”
“Sit down.”
He sits at my side, and I work on his palm like he did for me, finishing with another Band-Aid. I kiss it for good measure.
Then I notice the tent in his crotch and the heat in his gaze.
“You’re ridiculous,” I say with all the annoyance I feel, which isn’t much.
“If you could see yourself, you wouldn’t say that.”
“Scrapes turn you on?”
“You turn me on.”
His uninjured hand glides to the hem of my skirt, and I feel my face heat. Ever since Branigan tried to touch me, I’ve always found something creepy about a guy’s hand sliding up your skirt. It’s why I stopped wearing dresses anywhere there might be a penis—but Asher is different. He’s healed me i
n more ways than one.
I’ve lost my fears and anxieties and all the hurt I felt before. Not just the hurt from Branigan, but other smaller disappointments of life. Asher’s attuned to me in a way I can’t explain. He makes me feel special, valued and nourished.
Not that a man should be putting his hand up your skirt as often as he does.
I pout while his fingers find the shorts I’m wearing.
“Almost forgot about the shorts,” he says. He feigns irritation as he kisses my chin. “Are you hiding your pussy from me, doll face?”
“I didn’t think it was a good idea to meet with Dunkel with nothing but panties under my skirt. I’m sure you agree.”
“Yes.”
“Also, I am hiding my pussy from you.”
That provokes him to growl. He finds the drawstring of my sport shorts and tugs it loose. In a few seconds, he has the shorts and my panties on the sofa. His fingers tease over my bare folds, wet already from how he glares at me with insatiable hunger.
“You wear whatever you want,” Asher says. “But in the house, I want you to wear only panties under your skirt. I like to guess their color. Or better yet—wear nothing.”
“You’re joking.”
He growls again. “Your pussy is so wet, little girl. You’ll only make your panties dirty.”
Shoving his chest, I’m determined to make a fight of this. His tackle tore a hole in my bag after all. That messenger bag means a lot to me.
“I am a grown woman, Asher Wade,” I say with a huff. “You keep calling me your little girl and carrying me around in your arms and . . . I won’t stand for it!”
His hand moves faster under my skirt. “I like taking care of you, doll face.”
I lose my voice as his thumb rolls over my clit and two fingers push into my pussy. They curl against that knot of pleasure under my front wall.
He knows exactly where my spot is.
The tension I’d felt all morning lifts from my chest. Even the sting on my elbows and knees fade away, and my legs open wider as heat rises in my belly. I clench around his fingers, feel his knuckles on my folds. I turn to face him, only to be rewarded with a punishing kiss.
