‘You just did,’ Rushe said into the rear-view mirror, and Eric slumped back into the seat.
‘You drive all the way over here to pick me up just so you could put a bullet in me?’
‘Guys punished for intercepting my woman pray for a bullet.’
The men who were party to the affair that brought her and Rushe together could testify to Rushe’s dislike of her being approached, and Michael Lewis could too.
Being a part of the team meant that she would have to earn the respect of those already on it. She and Eric didn’t know each other very well, but she needed to make it clear that she wasn’t to be messed with.
‘I shot a guy,’ Flick said to Eric, though realised how lame it sounded the minute she said it.
‘Good for you,’ Eric said, implicitly agreeing with Flick’s assessment of her statement.
‘She didn’t kill him,’ Rushe said, then lowered his voice. ‘You don’t announce shit like that.’
Flick could see how admitting breaking the law could be bad. ‘But you trust him,’ Flick said to Rushe, and Eric laughed.
‘He doesn’t trust no one. I don’t care how many times he’s flown up your skirt, Darlin’, he doesn’t trust no one.’
That specific issue was a bit of a sore spot at the minute. From her silence, and Rushe’s too, she figured that Eric would get the unspoken message.
‘Where are we going?’ Flick asked, getting a bit sick of sounding like the grumpy, whiny child on a long car journey with their parents.
‘Ten minutes,’ Rushe responded.
‘You going in the back?’ Eric asked, poking his head between the seats.
‘I don’t skulk,’ Rushe said.
‘Yes, you do,’ Flick said.
‘He’s scared of the dog,’ Rushe said, by way of explanation.
‘I’m not scared of a dog!’
‘We went into this place a couple of years ago,’ Rushe said. ‘Pit-bull flew at him, took a chunk out of his thigh.’
‘A few inches over and Gracie wouldn’t be around wearing her big, beautiful smile.’
‘You said you didn’t have a woman,’ Flick said.
‘His daughter,’ Rushe murmured.
‘You have a kid?’
‘Born after the bite, yeah, so we know everything still works...’ Eric said. Flick wondered if that had been a genuine concern of his after the incident, or if it was a male display of virility to highlight that he still functioned and was good stud material. ‘She’s a smiler.’
Flick found such a simple statement changed everything. These men didn’t always seem human. Eric might be a new acquaintance, but she already knew he had a weakness. Rushe had infiltrated her mind and changed her way of thinking.
‘How old is she?’ Flick asked.
‘Don’t get cute,’ Rushe said. ‘We don’t give a fuck about Gracie, and you better not be carrying her picture again.’
Eric disappeared into the backseat. ‘You should carry a picture of me,’ Flick teased Rushe.
When he switched his focus to her, he took a long look over her body. ‘Who needs a picture.’
Flick didn’t see Rushe as the kind of man who would sit staring longingly at a photograph anyway.
‘What’s the deal with you two?’ Eric asked. ‘Never known you to have a steady girl.’
‘Us?’ Flick said, twisting again. ‘Tell me about you two first.’
‘He shot me,’ Eric said. ‘We were the only two to walk out of a bloodbath.’
‘You didn’t walk anywhere,’ Rushe said.
‘Yeah, this bastard dragged me out of there. Place went up in smoke, didn’t it? They never found out what happened there, did they?’
Eric might have been appealing for Rushe’s input, but her lover was his usual stoic self.
‘So you’re friends?’
‘Your man doesn’t have friends.’
‘He doesn’t have girlfriends either.’
‘Plenty of women,’ Eric said. ‘I don’t know why I said that. Rushe actually can kill a guy with his thumb, I’ve seen it.’
‘If you’re done,’ Rushe said, and pulled the car to a stop on a dark road that didn’t have another vehicle on it.
Flick took in the tall buildings and the covered windows, some with light beyond. People lived here, and though there was graffiti in the alley down the block, it was quiet enough. She didn’t see menacing youths hanging around, or any evidence of drug use or prostitution. This was a decent neighbourhood.
Rushe took her hand, which in the car was an odd action. Tensing, she gasped out, but by the time her head came around Rushe had linked the cuff from the wheel to her wrist.
‘You’re not coming in, Kitten, not this place,’ Rushe said.
Eric laughed and left the backseat, leaving the couple alone. ‘You still don’t trust me,’ Flick said.
‘I’ll be back in under three minutes.’
Rushe would never explain himself to her, but to be a part of the team she would have to get him to improve his communication.
Rushe and Eric met on the sidewalk and didn’t waste time talking; they went straight to a door a couple of dozen feet further down. Neither bothered looking back to her, but Rushe wouldn’t do anything so telling.
Sitting on this quiet avenue, Flick tried to take in some features. There were five storey buildings on each side of the road. She couldn’t see a street name, but the door on the opposite side of the road from the one Rushe and Eric had used was labelled thirty. She couldn’t fully see into the alley, but the corner of a dented metal dumpster poked out.
The window directly above that dumpster had a blue plastic daisy on the sill. Flick knew random details weren’t what counted, and she had to learn how to pick out what was important, give the details cohesion, gather the relevant and dismiss everything else.
Honing her skills would have to wait, though, because the door the men had used opened, and then Rushe and Eric were on their way back to the car.
Neither spoke when they got back in, and Rushe unlocked the cuff from the wheel, leaving it around her wrist. Using the key he’d left in the cuff, she freed herself as they roared out of the street. Given the sombre mood of the men, Flick could only wonder what went on because she knew better than to question Rushe in front of people.
Not too long later they dropped off a still silent Eric, and then they continued their drive back toward the hotel.
‘Are you ok?’ Flick had noticed that Rushe had blood on the knuckles closest to her on the wheel. ‘Was that work for Galante?’
She received no reply. Rushe took them back to the Waterside, parked the car, and got them back up into his suite, all without uttering a word.
‘You have to start talking to me, Rushe, what’s going on?’
Taking hold of her hand, he led her to the couches arranged in the corner. They didn’t sit, he took the hem of her top to pull it up over her head and she let him, but she wasn’t going to let sex take over again.
Except Rushe didn’t try to take things further. He took her hand again and pulled her down to sit facing him on the couch.
‘Yes, it was work for Galante, a bookie trading on his turf,’ Rushe said. ‘I didn’t take you in because fast and mean works best in those situations. You’re not mean, Kitten.’
So brooding and scary was what he was going for. Flick’s presence would detract from that, she couldn’t argue the opposite. Being involved was important, but she couldn’t knowingly hinder the job, and Rushe had his strengths.
‘I’m ok not being there for the thug stuff; you work better on your own for that. Why did you take Eric?’
‘Two are more effective than one,’ he said.
‘Not Scott? What is the deal between them?’
‘They work together, partners.’
‘What do they do?’ she asked.
‘Fence stolen electronics.’
Flick was happy he was being honest. ‘What’s the plan?’
‘Women are
disappearing,’ he said. ‘It’s not only about Susie or Lisa.’
‘You’ve known something was wrong from the beginning.’
‘Yeah, they’re involved in something, a sex game gone wrong, or a compulsion one of them has.’
Getting a chance to discuss the details, and compare notes, made Flick feel closer to her love and somehow more important in his life. This conversation displayed how his own respect for her, his trust in her, had grown.
‘Do they all take part in the murder?’ she asked. ‘Or is it one of them, and the others are covering it up?’
‘We don’t know,’ he said.
‘Who is involved?’
‘Whyte was the first one to see Lisa, and the first to date Susan. Whyte made a move on you first too.’
‘Rosa said he’s unhappy about this, about us.’
‘Why do you think I wanted you close?’ Rushe said.
‘She went to school with Whyte and Joey.’
‘Rosa?’
‘I recognised her, but it took me a while to place her from the yearbook,’ Flick said. ‘I was looking through so much information.’
‘Why is she still hanging around,’ Rushe muttered, and the arm he had rested along the back of the couch shifted to let his fingers spread through the ends of her hair.
Drawing her knees up, Flick relaxed them against his thigh when she curled toward him. ‘Joey was her high school boyfriend, her first love, but he messed around on her.’
‘So she got back at him by screwing around with his dad. What about Whyte?’
‘She never slept with him, she thinks he’s creepy,’ she said. ‘But you were right about his fetish. Whyte used to watch her and Joey having sex, so it goes back a long way.’ Studying his eyes, Flick could see how he absorbed the new details. ‘Whyte’s father got him therapy for it, so it must have been a serious concern. Though he has no police record, at least not that I can find.’
‘Men like Whyte can pay for whatever they want,’ Rushe said. ‘If all he wanted to do was watch, then he could pay for that.’
‘If it’s not just watching, what—‘
‘It’s the kick of doing something wrong, watching without getting caught by the women, they can’t have known he was observing.’
‘Joey slept with Lisa, Galante did too, except—‘
‘The men knew,’ Rushe said. ‘They must have seduced the women... did Joey come on to you?’
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘But it wasn’t a serious offer, it was opportunistic, he didn’t have intent.’
‘Lisa must have known.’
‘Known what?’
‘When she blew up at that poker game. She heard Joey had been interested in you; it was exactly what happened to her,’ Rushe said. ‘She started working in the Lounge, Whyte showed interest, she ended up working in the X-Lounge, then Joey made a move on her. I don’t know if she was intimate with Whyte first, but I doubt it. Joey tempted Lisa, they had sex and Whyte watched somehow, so he got his rocks off.’
‘Do you think that’s what happened with Susan?’
‘I don’t know,’ Rushe said, pushing up off of the couch to pace to the window on the far wall. ‘I wasn’t around then.’
‘Because you were with me,’ Flick said. ‘Do you feel guilty about that?’
‘No.’
The reply was abrupt but adamant, and Flick wondered if it was a little too quick. ‘You had no way to know what was happening here.’
‘I knew enough,’ Rushe said. ‘I knew she was in trouble.’
Flick knew then that Rushe beat himself up about Susan’s death. It might be because of his issue about protecting women, or maybe it was because Scott was an acquaintance and Rushe felt he’d let him down.
‘Are you ok?’
‘All my life I’ve...’ Rushe stared out past the gauze curtains and Flick settled back, giving him time to decide what he wanted to say. ‘I’ve always done this, it sort of happened by accident. One job led to the next until eventually this was what I did. I’ve taken a lot of cases and helped a lot of women, in every walk of life. I’ve lost a few in the process, but... I didn’t know it was like this.’
‘Like what?’ Flick murmured.
‘It was always about fighting against something, solving the problem, pushing back for the women who couldn’t push back on their own.’
‘It’s noble.’
Rushe spun around so unexpectedly that Flick didn’t know what his intention was. ‘What those guys did to those women was unfair; I evened the odds, made them fight someone their own size.’
‘Or bigger,’ she said.
‘I never thought about the...’
‘The what?’
‘You make me weak.’
‘I know,’ Flick said.
‘I never thought about those who lost, the partners and families of the women I helped, of the women I lost. I never considered them.’
‘You fought back against the evil,’ she said. ‘You said it yourself that it’s not smart to get too invested. If you care too much and fail, then you might never come back from that. Are you thinking about Scott?’
‘I’m thinking about me,’ Rushe said, coming two strides closer. ‘What do I do if I lose you?’
Flick could decipher the disorder of his thoughts through his manner, and Rushe was never muddled. ‘You won’t lose me.’
‘You’re not gonna leave me, but if something happens to you...’
‘You’ll go out and make the lives of the men who hurt me a living hell.’ Flick meant the statement to be light-hearted, an attempt to hopefully defuse some of the futile frustration.
‘Then what?’ Rushe asked, gravely serious. ‘I still won’t have you.’
Rushe liked to be a few moves ahead of everyone whenever he could be. So it was just like him to think beyond the immediate retribution.
‘Rushe,’ she asked, bringing herself to her feet. ‘Will you make love to me now?’
Appeasing him with words was impossible; Rushe wasn’t the type to be appeased. The concerns he spoke of had occurred to her as well. He would have been toying with them for longer than she had. His habit was to mentally toss things around for a spell before he gave them voice.
Rushe must have sensed her thinking because he relaxed, though the chaos remained in his mind.
‘Please,’ she said attempting a smile.
‘Take off your clothes.’
‘You first,’ she said, and his smile reciprocated.
He gathered his shirt at the back of his neck and pulled it off to let it drop. ‘Your turn.’
Flick had on her jeans, but she went for the hook of her bra because she knew how he loved her breasts. Her bra joined his tee-shirt and she moved forward, narrowing the space between them until it was non-existent.
‘You’ll never lose me, Rushe,’ she said, tucking her hands into his pockets. ‘You don’t need a picture; you don’t even need my body. I live here.’ She placed a hand by his sternum, over his heart. ‘Am I any less yours when I’m not standing right in front of you?’
‘You talk too much.’
He bent to pick her up, and ever the gentleman he went straight for her ass and wrapped her legs around him. ‘Couch?’ she asked, shaking her hair down her back, pushing her breasts to his chest.
‘Won’t get that far,’ Rushe said, and went to his knees, laying her on the carpet, right there in the middle of the suite.
Flick lifted her head to kiss him, but Rushe cut it short. He kissed her jaw and her chin while covering her breasts with his hands. Grasping them, he stroked her flesh; lowering his mouth to her cleavage, Flick enjoyed the feel of him against her skin.
Rushe wasn’t the most subtle of men, and he certainly wasn’t often gentle with her. So now, lying here, Flick let him sample his fill of her. He took one nipple into his mouth and loosened her jeans at the same time. When they were unfastened, he knelt up and yanked them to her knees.
‘Jeans off.’
Flick
kicked away the clothing that offended him before he lay down over her. The other breast got a kiss but he licked his way down to her thighs. Instead of moving onto new pastures, his hand slid down her leg and began to circle that sensitive spot on her knee. He lowered until he could tickle it with his tongue, then came back up, the height of his body enveloping hers. Lying here under him she felt the pulsation in her loins grow. She was hot, and swollen, and ready for him.
‘Fuck me, Rushe,’ she whispered, happy to have his mouth back on hers for these few moments.
‘Not tonight, Kitten,’ he said, tracing his lips back and forth on hers. ‘You’re the best sex I ever had.’
Flick had almost forgotten the question, but her impulsive grin reminded her. ‘I know that.’
‘So why did you ask?’
‘To show you that I’m better for you in ways that others can’t be. I’ll be the best business partner you ever had too. The best sexual cover.’
‘Time to get into character,’ he said.
One finger probed into her and Flick sighed out at the joyous intrusion. Another joined the first and he began to rub the length of her folds, sliding his fingers in and out of her, catching her clit in the process.
‘I want you to come. I want to watch you.’
‘You see me all the time,’ Flick said in a rush of breath, caught in his delicious action. Flick sensed how slick she was, how she coated his fingers, how sweet a space her pussy was for him to slide into. It wanted his dick embedded in her, but her mind was stuck in the tumultuous ocean of endorphins he created on speeding his exploit.
‘Talk... god, I love to hear you talk.’
‘You always tell me I talk garbage,’ Flick smiled, unwilling and unable to open her eyes and lose the warmth of this protective shell around them.
‘You do,’ he said, and on kissing her again, Flick felt his smile meet hers. ‘It’s not the words I like; it’s the tone, your voice.’
Whyte had said something about her voice in Rushe’s company, and Flick didn’t know if that was the cause of Rushe’s words now, or if he maybe hadn’t considered it until Whyte pointed it out.
‘Rushe.’
‘That’s it,’ he breathed, matching the husky tone of her voice. Still their lips rested together and he spoke into her mouth, feeding his words to her. ‘That’s the word I like. Who controls the pleasure?’
Explicit Detail Page 22
