“Okay. Ready.”
Again, he started gentle.
Again, he built her up.
Too much sensitivity somehow flipped into not enough contact, and once again she strained to meet his face, and he pulled away, and it felt so horrible and frustrating and delicious that she laughed, and heard him laughing too, felt him laughing against her, and then he brought her to the brink once again and she screamed so loud she scared herself.
Grim made no move to enter her.
He went down again.
And she trusted him.
GRIM ○ 2:47pm
Grim ached.
Hard from the moment he kissed her, and had been so focused on Presley’s needs that he hadn’t even taken his shorts off yet.
Presley was gorgeous clothed, and equally gorgeous naked. Toned and lithe and beautiful.
At first, overanalyzing every moan and squeal, Grim wondered if she was faking it
After a while—twenty minutes? thirty?—Presley finally grabbed Grim by the ears, grinning and panting, and pulled him up to her. Then his shorts were off and he was in her hand, being guided inside her, and he paused, asking about protection, and she told him it was okay, and then he was inside her and the feeling was incredible.
He moaned deep in his chest.
He maintained a slow pace, not wanting to rush, not wanting to finish too soon, trying to match her rhythm and thrusts. But when she kissed his neck, Grim knew he couldn’t last much longer. And when she came again, grunting in his ear, he knew he only had a few more thrusts before he—
“Chicken pot pie.”
Grim groaned, his jaw clenching as he disengaged and rolled off of her.
“You okay?” He peeked at Presley, and found her wide-eyed.
“You actually did it.”
“I did what?”
“You stopped.”
He swallowed. “You said the safe word.”
“Weren’t you close?”
“Yeah. I was right there.” He turned to her. “Is something wrong? Did I hurt you somehow?”
“I didn’t think you’d do it.”
Grim didn’t understand. “Do what? This is consensual, right?”
Presley laughed. “Yeah, it’s consensual. I didn’t think you’d stop if I said the safe word.”
“Isn’t that the point of a safe word?”
“It is. But men don’t usually stop when you tell them to.”
“So you’re okay? This was a test?”
Presley nodded, her eyes so huge. “I figured that would be the one way to see if it worked. Are you mad?”
“Of course not. What kind of asshole gets mad at testing a safe word?”
“There are a lot of assholes in the world, Grim.”
“So… now what?”
“Now…” Presley reached for him “…it’s your turn to trust me.”
KADIR ○ 2:55pm ○ 1503672907
The diamond file had two sides, one with a finer grit pattern for detail work. Tungsten was an extremely hard, tough metal, resistant to bending and breaking. Still, the ring needed occasional sharpening, to keep the barbs optimal.
Kadir had once punched through an alligator skin cowboy boot and took a chunk of ankle from a debtor trying to flee by climbing into his attic. In his more self-reflective moments, Kadir wondered if the guy thought walking with a permanent limp was worth defaulting on a 10k loan.
People were weird.
“How long we gonna wait?”
Kadir stopped filing his skull ring and shot Doruk a look. His partner was loyal, but had an IQ equal to his chest size. His plump arms, which looked like sucuk stuffed so tight into the tailored blazer, were intruding on Kadir’s side of the front seat. They’d tried to rent a larger car, but after the last minute flight to Wichita all the SUVs and luxury models had been taken. Spending this long in a cramped mid-size sedan with anyone would fray nerves, but it had gotten to the point where Kadir’s main pastime was imagining violent ways to murder him. He’d been mentally boiling Doruk in a deep fryer when the man broke the silence with his stupid question.
“We wait until I say we do.”
Doruk shrugged. “Three weeks. Long time to be after a debtor.”
“You get paid the same wherever you are. Might as well be here.”
Doruk shrugged again, and Kadir considered punching him in the face, ripping a hole in his cheek. Or maybe popping an eyeball.
That might annoy Alpay, though, considering Doruk was family. A second cousin, or in-law, or some other distant relation. But family took care of family, one of many styles of doing business that the Turks had aped from the Italians.
Of course, Doruk didn’t know the whole story, or the real reason they’d been tailing Presley for so long. Alpay Karaduman, head of the Houston syndicate, thought Kadir and Doruk were on an extended vacation. It was only a matter of time until Alpay discovered the hundred thousand dollars missing from the books.
Money that Kadir had loaned to Presley. Loaned without going through the official channels. Loaned without getting any sort of permission.
He thought:
The bitch had played him, all flirty and seductive. Kadir shouldn’t have fallen for it, but he wasn’t GQ material; a pot belly, a double chin and tiny dark eyes that made him resemble a bullfrog, and so many acne scars that a full tub of spackle wouldn’t smooth them out.
Kadir was ugly, his outside matching the rot he knew he had inside, when he was ten years old and caught cutting off the tails of neighborhood cats to add to his collection of more than thirty.
Women despised him. And even the priciest escorts couldn’t hide their disgust when he pulled out his syringe.
But Presley… she’d been the sweetest girl he’d ever met. When she looked at him, it made his neck blush. No woman had ever treated Kadir like she’d treated him.
Hell, he actually thought it was love. And Kadir hadn’t even screwed the bitch.
But it wasn’t love. It was a con. She’d played him, and skipped town with a hundred K of Alpay’s cash.
If Kadir didn’t get the money back, Alpay would feed him to the fishes. Literally. The Turkish patronu had an actual shark tank, like some insane James Bond villain.
But Kadir had her. When she’d skipped town, he tracked her credit cards to find her flight and hotel. And when she’d taken his 9mm and broken his finger, she’d left her suitcase behind, with her prescription meds.
She filled at Walmart, but Kadir knew Presley wouldn’t go back there. So he waited for her to change pharmacies. Again, a simple computer trace, but the waiting had been a pain in the ass. And when he tracked her to the grocery store, that damn cop showed up.
So Kadir and Doruk had been keeping an eye on the ex-cop’s apartment, waiting for Presley to visit.
Which she did.
<
Well… almost everybody.>
Now that Kadir had found her, he had to pick the right moment. Maybe a late-night home invasion. Maybe a road rage fender-bender that led to a fatal shooting.
Kadir didn’t avoid killing. He’d done it many times, and enjoyed it. Murder involved risks, and the penalties for screwing up were steep, but he likened it to eating at a fine restaurant; nice to indulge in on special occasions.
Killing the ex-cop shouldn’t be too much of an issue. Once Grim was out of the game, it became a question of what to do with Presley.
Kadir glanced at Doruk.
Kadir had plans for Presley. But they would require privacy.
He didn’t want Doruk to see him naked, doing the things he wanted to do. It was bad enough that Doruk sometimes watched him take his hormone injections.
Kadir’s pock-mocked face split into a smile.
And like all artists, Kadir insisted on starting with a blank canvas.
PRESLEY ○ 3:45pm
The cheese grater did its job on the frozen butter, and the crust came out flaky, and they grinned like fools every time one of them said “chicken pot pie” during the meal.
Afterward, they snuggled on the couch, Presley feeling wonderfully normal.
Living with Fabler had been a mindjob of colossal proportions. Prior to that, Presley’s life had been all about the hustling, the lying, the running around, stress turned up to eleven, no end in sight.
Grim wasn’t the answer to Presley’s many problems. He had a boatload of problems himself, and he barely qualified as boyfriend material, let alone father material.
“So… the money you borrowed…”
After-sex pillow talk was supposed to be light and pointless. Grim apparently mistook their lovemaking for something more, and he wanted to get serious.
What Happened to Lori Page 23
