Ballistic

by K. S. Adkins

  He had long legs like a gazelle, whereas I’m built like a pug. I lose that foot race before the gun even goes off. Shaking off the weird encounter, I promise myself to switch up my routine again. I can’t afford to let my guard down. Especially after how off kilter I felt the first time we locked eyes. That put a serious mind whammy on me and I haven’t been right since. Since that day, I see him wherever I go, and look for him in the crowd even when he isn’t there.

  Locking my door, I climb under the stiff covers and place my gun under my pillow within reach. I close my eyes, praying for sleep. Lucky me, sleep found me when I was actually sober. Unfortunately for me, I also woke up that way too.

  Because when I did, he was there.

  Watching my father clean his weapon was one of my favorite things to do. I was ten, going on eleven and I wanted him to teach me man things. I was ready. Asking me to oil the rag, I take it and dip it handing it back to him.

  "Why do you clean it every Friday, Pops?” I ask him touching the spring

  “A gun is a powerful thing, Junior. In the right hands it can save lives. In the wrong hands, it can take them.”

  Setting the spring down I ask him, “Why do you keep it here if you’re not working?”

  Not missing a beat, he looks up and over at my mother who is finishing the dishes then back to me. “I will always protect what I love most.”

  Rage unlike anything I’ve ever felt courses through me. What if I hadn’t been there to save her? Christ. The man had the nerve to touch her. No, not just touch her, attack her. He’d been watching her work that cop over for hours. She made herself easy prey to that fucking predator. The second she cleared that door he made his move and I’m furious that I didn’t reach her before he touched her. I’m even more furious that, according to Venessa, she is ‘street smart and cock ready’ whatever that means, so she should know to watch her own back. Clearly her own safety means little when she’s too busy doing shots with strangers. While his hands were all over her, she looked…bored. What in the hell is wrong with her? I needed to cool off before I approached her, based on my shaking hands, I knew that much.

  Part of me wanted to go back and kill the bastard, but I decided to leave the weakened predator to become the prey as natured intended. Seemed fitting since by now he’ll have either been rolled or raped and either option appealed to me as long as it was slow and painful. For weeks I’ve been trying to find a way to introduce myself without her thinking I’m insane and nothing has worked. So, standing outside her room with a copy of her key and a hard on, I can admit my plan has hit a snag.

  She doesn’t strike me as the kind of woman who would appreciate my tactics. But then again, what sane woman would? Silently entering her room and closing the door, she doesn’t budge even as I trip over the chair that was left out. Looking around I notice her clothes are in a duffel bag, her toiletries have their own separate bag, her laptop is charging and the best part about all of it was she slept totally naked. A man can appreciate that especially if he was too tired to even eye fuck her while she was out.

  Exhausted, I pull up a chair, settling in to watch her. Like every night since I first heard her name, she’s the only thing I dream about when I fall asleep and the first thing I think of when I wake up. She confuses me, keeps me guessing and mystifies me. Normally I try to make sense of these ever-changing feelings, but tonight I indulge them, too tired to do otherwise. I wanted to sleep, needed to, but the smell of her perfume in my nose made my cock even harder. Inhaling that scent, memorizing it, I decided the real thing was better than the fantasy. The woman smelled like heaven and cigarettes.

  Slowly, I released the button of my jeans, lowered the zipper and slid my left hand in. Maybe I should be ashamed that I was about to jerk off while she slept unaware, but I wasn’t, and the second my hand made a fist around my cock, I knew shame was the last thing I was going to feel. In truth, there was no word or emotion that could describe what I was feeling once she opened her eyes and caught me either.

  Working myself with one hand, I stroke up and down adding a squeeze for effect. When she faces me and raises her arms above her head, showcasing those tits, I jerk myself harder and faster. When her hands come down and one rests across her breast with the other on her belly, I feel it building up like fire in my shaft. My cock hurts and is so hard right now, I was afraid to come.

  With her dark eyes watching, I wanted to cover her in it, forcing her to wear it and to potentially warn other males off. But that’s another fantasy. In reality, I was about to come in my hand with her mere feet from me. When it hits, I don’t close my eyes. I narrow in on hers instead. I study her thighs, her collarbone, and even her neck. When the first burst fills my hand, I bite my cheek with the force of it. Once the shakes wear off, I quietly fix my jeans, grab a handful of tissues from the nightstand, and feel her judging me for my actions but says nothing.

  Looking her over, it hardly makes sense that she can be built like this, but the proof is in the tissue in my pocket. The most amazing thing is she’s not even five feet tall but, she’s curvier than any female I’ve ever seen. Her body, like her ability, is an anomaly. Clearly she doesn’t fear me because I watch as she drifts back off to sleep not caring that a stranger just blew his load in her room. The fact she didn’t scream or beg me not to hurt her proves she isn’t an ordinary woman. As her mouth slightly opens and I realize she’s truly asleep I look down at the tissue again and decided that no she wasn’t ordinary, she was nuts.

  Appreciating the view, I’m caught off guard when she starts thrashing. Appearing to be held down by invisible hands, I start to rise to free her when she jackknifes up reaching for her throat and breathing heavy. She calms some and grates out “die” before she starts to breathe normally. She has yet to notice me, but just as she turns to get comfortable again, our eyes meet.

  Fuck. Those eyes freeze me every time they settle on me. Call me what you want; say what you will, but the second her eyes locked on me the world shifts. Her eyes forced me to feel things. When her puffs of breath hit my nose from several feet away, my own breaths fell in synch with hers. What the fuck is happening to me?

  “Please do not panic,” I advise her quietly. “I don’t want to restrain you.”

  She blinks once, twice, and then rolls her now smeared kohl-lined eyes. Pulling up her covers, she situates herself and turns away from me in an effort to what? Go back to sleep? Ignore me? Does nothing faze this woman?

  “Unless you’re hiding a gun under your pillow, please look at me when I’m speaking to you.” Taking her silence as my answer, I wrap my hands in her bedding and yank them, not only from her body, but clear from her bed letting them land in a heap on the floor. Bringing her knees to her chest she curls into herself and closes her eyes. Okay, now I’m starting to get pissed. Climbing onto the bed, I pull her towards me. When she opens her eyes again, I find myself robbed of speech. Christ, in that moment those eyes held the keys to my fucking black soul and that freaked me out so, I let go of her. I have never been lost in a woman’s eyes before. I caught myself before asking what she saw there because I knew then she saw what I was made of and I was afraid of her answer. When she looks into my eyes, she doesn’t blink, but her pupils dilate and I feel my own eyes widen in response. It’s fucked up, is what it is. Humans don’t lock in on each other, but swear to Christ, that’s what just happened. I couldn’t stop her either; I just let her lure me deeper. When she wouldn’t release me, I had to do it out of pure fear. Instead of demanding the answers I feared, I played the role protector.

  “This room isn’t secure,” I mumble. “Anyone could get through that pitiful excuse for a door.” She still just stares at me. Her silence wasn’t expected or appreciated. I’ve watched her at work, followed her every move and thought I had a handle on her many personalities but again, I was wrong. This woman only lets you see what she wants you to see. “I take it a strange man that jerks off in your room isn’t unfamiliar to you?”

&nbs
p; When she continues to stare through me my nerves decided they couldn’t handle it anymore. I’m here for one reason and after tonight, she knows she owes me. Standing up and walking over to her laptop she watches me but her eyes following me is the only movement she makes. Picking it up, I turn it to the left side and remove the flash drive. She narrows her eyes and her breathing picks up, finally giving me a fucking response.

  Removing the flash drive and tucking it in my pocket, I set the laptop back and lean against the wall. Her flaring nostrils tell me she's furious but outside of that, she’s still as a statue.

  “Get up, get dressed and meet me down the street for coffee,” I tell her, walking toward the door sporting serious wood again. “When you show and listen to what I have to say, I may be feeling charitable enough afterward to give this back to you. You owe me, Lina. That man I left on the ground could have killed you had I not been there. You’ve got twenty minutes.”

  Not looking back, I close the door behind me and begin my walk to my car parked a block up. I wasn’t ten steps away when a single bullet was fired close to my shoulder, causing me to tap dance out on the asphalt out of complete terror. Whipping around I see her standing in her doorway, buck assed, with bed head, makeup all over her face, a pistol aimed at my chest and smiling.

  “This outta be good,” she says in a voice that is at odds with the rest of her. Her stature is small; her features even smaller, but her voice is thick, deep and powerful. Then she turns, closes the door and leaves me standing there close to pissing myself. Minutes pass and when I realize she isn’t going to shoot me while my back is turned, I practically jog to my car and decided the bitch was fucking crazy.

  Maybe she was crazy, although she wasn’t the one who currently had a pocket full come-stained tissue. Yeah, that would be me.

  It took all the courage I had to go into our kitchen and ask her for advice. Most days she forgets I exist, but liking a boy is serious and I have no one else to go to. Taking a dish towel and reaching for a wet bowl to dry for her, she smacks my hand, hard.

  “What?” she sneers at me.

  “Can I ask you something?” I mutter, reaching for the bowl again determined to do my part.

  “Did you buy that bowl, Halina?”

  Looking down at my red hand, I whisper, “No.” I answer knowing to keep my response short.

  “No, you didn’t, so don’t touch what don’t belong to you.”

  Taking a step back I mutter, “I’m sorry,” and attempt to walk away.

  “No. I’m sorry.” My heart fills up with hope at her words. I stop and turn toward her, desperate for her help, but when her frown deepens and she glares at me, I know she hasn’t suddenly begun to give a shit about me. “That you were ever born,” she says.

  My shoulders dropped and I quietly went to my room and fell asleep with my original question unanswered. I knew the answer to the other question I was always afraid to ask. My mother didn’t love me. It was one less question I needed an answer to now.

  That sexy son of a bitch has some balls, I’ll give him that.

  First, he stole my focus when he started following me. Second, he earned my respect when he stepped in to help outside the bar but he commanded my full attention when he got off staring only at my body. Maybe it’s pervy to some but for a woman like me with no morals to speak of, it was fucking hot.

  I’m only entertaining meeting him out of curiosity. He’s invested quite a bit of time into me and I want to know why. The flash drive he took had a lecture I was writing on it, not an active case so I could really give two shits about that. But, I do not like people touching my shit. He knows who I am and no doubt knows what I do, if he thinks stealing from me is the best way to get my attention. I’ll be honest, he doesn’t just have some of my attention he has all of it.

  Would I be giving my neck an extra squirt of Jo Malone if he wasn’t panty melting hot? No. I can admit I’m totally shallow like that. Had he been a butter face, I’d have shot him and went back to sleep. You wake up to a hot man rubbing one out while staring at your naked body with flushed cheeks and shaking hands, you don’t shoot. You wait it out. You hope he uses his mouth to make you scream. But he didn’t. Instead after he came he wanted to bargain. Which of course makes me want to scream and not the “Oh, God, I’m coming!” scream, either.

  It is clear he doesn’t know what to do with me. He also thinks he’s king shit and is pissed to have to deal with me at all. He clearly has control issues and did his homework on me. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have watched what he said. Everybody thinks they know me at first, they think they can outsmart me, confuse me. It only takes moments for them to realize they’ve erred and that it’s too late. Unless I’m totally shitfaced, you can’t lie to me.

  Which is why I prefer a life of solitude with a whisky chaser and rap lyrics.

  Like all humans, he’s not who he appears to be. We all have armor, a means of keeping the world from seeing us for what we really are. Personally, I excel at it. No one needs to know that I’m an emotional shit show, that I feel things more deeply than they do. That I would give anything to be loved and accepted in spite of my curse. But outside of the girls, I keep everyone out. I wear heavy eye makeup, punk out my hair, always making sure to hide my figure. The girls always say my eyes see and express too much, so I black them out because it makes people uncomfortable. I can work with that, the less I’m seen, the better. Humans take advantage of weakness. That’s survival 101, therefore, I refuse to show mine. There was no name for what I saw in his eyes, but if I had to choose one, I’d say fear. Fear of what? Meh, I’m not that talented, but part of me felt like if I had asked him what he was so afraid of, he would have told me. And no, I didn’t want the answer. Quite frankly, neither did he.

  Opening the door to Zef’s, I see him in the back booth sipping coffee. Man, do I have a love affair with coffee. Especially when hot stalkers with an affliction for hotel room masturbation drink it. This guy is six feet of primal male. Perfectly done hair which comes to his shoulders that he usually slicks back. Part of me wonders what kind of product he uses, I bet its TIGI or something sexy like that. Personally, I’m all about Suave and some de-frizz spray. He’s manscaped to perfection with the most arresting blue eyes I’ve ever seen. I stop myself from touching my own eyebrows because I haven’t plucked them in days, whereas his are arched and even. He’s buff, but not overly so. I have a thing about corded forearms too. Like I want to bite, lick and be carried around by them. If I could find a willing participant, I’d like to use him as a monkey bar and swing from them, but that’s on the bucket list. Then there are his teeth and lips. Don’t even get me started on what I could do with those things. All in all, he’s too perfect. You can’t trust perfect because perfection doesn’t exist. Reminding myself he has an agenda, I fall into the booth across from him, signal our server for a cup and cross my arms over my chest. A chest he can’t take his eyes off of, I get it, they’re huge. Try lugging these bitches around on a daily basis, the term fun bags is grossly misused.

  “First, I want my key back,” I say sticking out my hand. When he reaches into his pocket and places the key into my palm, I pretend to ignore the sizzle that blazed through me at the contact because even I know that’s fucked up. “Second, who are you? Third, why are you following me? And forth,” I say leaning forward narrowing my now make-up free eyes, “What the fuck do you really want?”

  “I’m Anthony,” he smiles showcasing those magnificent teeth. I bet his parents had a killer dental plan and got him braces. “But the few friends I have call me Tony, three and four are one in the same.”

  “Anthony what?”

  “Gallo.”

  Everything in me just goes still. I feel like him telling me his name was linking him to me in some way and I didn’t like feeling like this, not even a little bit. I’m not big into prophecies and shit like that, but I knew, I fucking knew I was destined to know this guy. This is the guy Jules has a hard on to find and here he
is sitting across from me sipping coffee wearing a Michael Kors button down. The only reason I even know who MK is, is because of that Big Sean song and even then I had to Wiki that shit. Once I did, I started ordering his goods online because the man makes solid clothes. This set up is not a coincidence. Anthony planned this and his timing sucks. I don’t want to get to know this guy. I mean, I’d bang him because, why not? But help him? I’ll pass. However, if my vagina could talk, she’d be getting his number, telling him I like it from behind then offer to do his damn laundry for his trouble. My vagina is not a rational thinker.

  “My name is Anthony Gallo,” he repeats taking my hand in his because my mind and vagina were elsewhere, we didn’t stop him. “And I need your help.”

  Taking my hand back, lowering my eyes so he can’t see them and reaching for my coffee, I assess him as much as possible. Whoever he is, whatever he wants, is not going to bode well for me. I can feel it in my bones. By bones, I mean vagina.

  “I’m listening,” I offer, but hide both hands under the table so he can’t witness them shaking.

  “If you look into independent profilers one name comes up. Yours. If you talk to anyone in law enforcement it’s your name they mention. You are the youngest profiler in the state, despite your rare ability. The simple fact is, you were born to solve mysteries.” He finds my hands again and squeezes them under the table. “It just so happens I have a mystery that needs solving.”

  Taking my hands back for the last time and throwing cash on the table, I grab my key and stand up. Following suit he does the same prepared to stop me. I knew it. Another human who needs my fucking help with a case. Figures. “Where are you going?”

  “Thanks for the wakeup call, Anthony,” I say, walking toward the door, pretending not to be hurt. “I’ve had worse.”

  “I saved you last night,” he growls down at me. “You owe me.”