Double Tap

by Lani Lynn Vale

  I felt her stare, but I never stopped chopping the wood.

  Set the wood up on the stump. Swing back. Strike hard and fast.

  Thwack.

  I repeated it over and over, waiting on her to say something.

  It took her a long time.

  Thwack.

  I counted thirty five pieces before she finally spoke.

  “I’m mad at you,” she said softly.

  She was crying.

  I hated when she cried.

  I didn’t stop, however.

  I just kept going, waiting for what she had to say next. The only outward sign that I was listening was the bunch of my shoulders.

  “You should’ve told me about her suicide the night she did it,” she said tearfully.

  I whirled on her. “Is that right? And how exactly did you expect me to do that? I fucking called you seventeen times that night, and left you at least a fuckin’ million text messages. I know how to take a fucking hint.”

  Her eyes widened at the vehemence in my voice, and she took a step away.

  I was on a fucking roll, though, and really let her have it.

  “All you had to do was be understanding. If you can’t handle this, what makes you think you can handle it when I have to take down a goddamned kid because he pointed a gun at his big sister?” I asked irately.

  I walked past her, going inside to the kitchen to grab a drink.

  She followed.

  I heard her stomping feet behind me as I walked up to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of water, twisting the cap off viciously.

  “I don’t like it when you’re right. It makes me mad when I have to admit that I’m wrong. I know I was wrong, but you were wrong, too,” she snarled.

  I looked at her incredulously. “You’re so full of shit. You piss me the fuck off.”

  She crossed her arms. “Well, maybe if I’m so full of shit, and I piss you off so fuckin’ much, we shouldn’t be together.”

  I shook my head at her and gave her a droll look.

  “We fight. We yell. You throw shit and I glare at you. That’s just how we are. We don’t have the type of relationship where it’s all hearts and goddamned flowers. We have the type of relationship that’s real. We fight hard, and make up harder. And you need to get over your fucking snit, because I’m so fucking hot for you that I might not be nice when you really need it,” I growled in Georgia’s face.

  She tried to push me away from where I was pinning her to the wall, but she didn’t get me far. In fact, it was only the barest of millimeters, and that was only because I didn’t want her to hurt herself when she slammed her wrists against my chest.

  “I fucking love you, Georgia. Get the fuck over it,” I yelled.

  She narrowed her eyes. “You fuckin’ love me? Than where the fuck were you?!” She screamed in my face.

  I rocked back on my heels. That one penetrated. The vehemence in her voice alone was enough to send me back.

  “What do you mean, where was I?” I asked.

  She surged forward, taking advantage of the gap I left her, practically hurling herself at me.

  “You weren’t there. I needed you, and you weren’t there,” she whispered brokenly.

  My heart broke.

  “I didn’t know,” I rasped.

  She slumped into me. “I wanted you to come to Houston so bad. And you never came. I called you so many times, and you never came.”

  “I did come, though. I may not have been there in person, but I was there with you. I thought about you nonstop. Not once, in the last eight years, have I stopped thinking about you,” I said adamantly. “I would’ve come down and helped you celebrate your graduation just so you had someone there if I hadn’t shot that stupid bitch who was trying to kill Luke. I’d have been there. I’ve known where you were since six months after the accident. I’ve gone down there every month since I got out of the Navy.”

  She looked shaken. “You knew where I was? But why did you never stop by?”

  I leaned my back against the counter and shrugged, crossing my arms over my chest. “You weren’t ready. I knew you’d come back when you were.”

  Her mouth dropped open and the hair that’d been threatening to fall out of the messy bun she’d put it in, finally gave way, spilling her beautiful wavy hair out across her shoulders and partially covering her face.

  “What would you have done if I was never ready?” She asked painfully.

  “I’d have been one hell of a lonely man. You’re it for me, Georgia. You have been since you were that shy girl who stole my heart,” I said truthfully.

  I would’ve waited too. However long it took. It wouldn’t have mattered if I was a sixty five year old man, there’d never have been another woman for me.

  “But…” she shook her head. “If that was the case, why did you never return my calls?”

  I shook my head.

  “I don’t know about any calls, Georgia. I’ve had the same number since I was fifteen. If you’d have called, I’d have answered.” Then I amended. “If I was able. What number did you call?”

  Her brow furrowed. “The same one that I’ve been calling you on.”

  I took the phone from her hand and started scanning through her contacts, finding two numbers. One under Nico, and one under Nicolas.

  “Which one have you been getting calls from me under?” I asked, scanning through her call log.

  Nico.

  Pulling up the other number in her phone, I couldn’t help but laugh.

  “You have my dad’s number under my name.” I wheezed.

  “But…if I had your dad’s number that means… Dear God. I left your dad all these voicemails. I practically poured my heart out in all of them!” She nearly yelled.

  I shook my head. “It’s okay, Georgia. My dad doesn’t even know how to work his phone. He still has a flip phone, if that tells you anything. I don’t think he’s checked a voicemail in all that time. In fact, if the phone was capable, it’s probably still on there.”

  She slumped and walked forward into my arms.

  I caught her up, burying my face into her neck.

  She smelled like hay and the laundry detergent she used. A cotton smell that was oddly attractive. It was also something I was beginning to smell like myself since she’d been the one to do my laundry the last time.

  “I just can’t believe it. All these years I’ve been calling your dad. How did I screw that up?” She asked.

  “Dad’s and my number are one digit apart. His ends in 2122, and mine ends in 2123,” I explained.

  She sighed, and the feel of her breath against my chest was enough to make my mind turn from the fight we’d been having to making up.

  We’d never had make-up sex before.

  But we were about to if the feel of her hand running up my bare side was anything to say about it.

  “Georgia, we need to talk about birth…” I tried, but the feel of her lips running along my nipple made me lose my train of thought.

  My hand went up, tangling in her hair and I said, “I didn’t think that nipple play would be what did it for me.”

  It did, though. It made my dick go from half-mast to full blown, raging hard on in milliseconds.

  She whimpered when she pressed herself against me and felt the way my cock tented the front of my jeans.

  Her mouth switched to my other nipple while her hands went down and found the belt of my jeans.

  My hand went down to the gun that I had at my back, and I withdrew it, then set it on the counter.

  In the nick of time, too, because in the next moment my pants were down around my ankles, as were my underwear.

  My erection bounced free, smacking against her belly like a heavy weight.

  Pre come oozed from the tip, wetting her shirt where it came to a rest on her stomach, but she didn’t care.

  Instead, she ripped the shirt free from her body and threw it across
the room.

  It hooked on the faucet, the tail end hanging down to trail in a pot that I’d had soaking in the sink.

  Neither one of us paid it another thought as she started in on her bra next.

  It was one of those ones that clasped in the front, and it took her practically no time at all to get it unlatched.

  Her breasts fell free and bounced, finally settling in place with her nipples pebbled. Breasts heavy with arousal. Her chest and face were flushed, her eyes dilated.

  I took all that in at a glance, waiting to see what she’d do next.

  In all of our sexual encounters, it’d always been me who initiated sex.

  This was new for me.

  It surprised me how sensual she was.

  How eloquent her movements were.

  The skirt she had on would’ve been next to go, except she surprised me, yet again, by yanking it up to pull her panties off rather than removing it all together.

  Then, without another word, she turned around and bent over the kitchen table.

  Saliva pooled in my mouth as she looked over her shoulder at me, wiggling her ass.

  I smiled and stepped out of my jeans that were still around my ankles.

  My dick bounced with each step I took and her eyes stayed glued to the movement.

  Licking her lips, she laid down completely on the table, spreading her legs slightly more before grabbing a hold of the edge and waiting.

  Anticipation raced through my veins.

  When I finally got close enough to her, I dropped down onto my knees and ran my hands up the outside of her thighs.

  They were smooth and soft, and oh so sexy.

  Her sex was at eye level with me as I leaned in and licked her.

  Her unique flavor bloomed on my tongue, and all good intentions about taking it slow flew out the fucking window.

  I buried my face in her pussy, smothering myself with her heat.

  I arrowed my tongue and plunged it into her core, nose running along her perineum as my hand came up and shot straight to her clit.

  I flicked it twice with the edge of my thumb, causing her to grind her pussy back into me.

  When I next came up for air, I buried two fingers in her dripping entrance and leaned back in to lick her hairless lips.

  She gasped and gyrated her hips as a moan escaped her lips.

  “Fuck me,” she pleaded.

  With two more flicks from my tongue and a curl from my fingers, I stood and lined my cock up to her entrance.

  She wiggled her ass and pushed back.

  I slammed into her, causing the table to move at least two inches across the kitchen floor.

  She screamed, but I didn’t slow.

  I knew it wasn’t a painful scream. It was a pleasurable one.

  She gasped with each thrust of my hips.

  Each time I pulled all the way out, letting my cock that was glistening with her juices stop at her entrance before I plowed back inside.

  Her screams became one long drawn out moan, and I felt that particular feeling start to tickle at the base of my balls.

  Each swing of my hips had my sac slapping against her clit.

  And when I felt her pussy start to tighten down on my dick, I lost my control on my release.

  The next thrust forward, my balls drew up, and my eyes squeezed shut.

  She screamed, and I felt the rhythmic pulse of her orgasm as it coursed through her.

  The tunnel my dick was shuttling into became slicker, and my orgasm took over.

  Her vaginal walls coaxed my release from the end of my dick.

  Hot, thick pulses of my come shot into her channel in quick bursts, and I saw stars.

  My hands clenched down onto her ass, hard.

  I opened my eyes long moments later to my phone ringing in my discarded pants.

  “You may wanna get that,” she gasped.

  I laughed and pulled out of her pussy.

  My release leaked out of her entrance, trailing down the length of her lips to drip onto the table beneath.

  “You’re gonna have to clean this. Like for real.” She laughed as she pushed up to her elbows to look at me.

  I winked. “My cleaning lady’s on the fritz. I’ll have to see about hiring a new one.”

  She shook her head and reached for the shirt of mine that was laid over the back of the chair closest to her.

  Taking it, she wiped the table free of my come and then started in on herself.

  “You know,” I teased. “I was planning to put that back on later.”

  She shrugged uncaringly. “Too damn bad.”

  The phone stopped ringing, and I couldn’t say that I cared too much.

  I found I quite liked makeup sex, and all of the worry I’d felt earlier had dissipated.

  However, by the time I got to my pants, it’d started up again.

  All that worry came back with a vengeance as I looked in trepidation at the readout.

  Shit.

  I answered the phone and put it up to my ear. “Pena.”

  “Hey,” Luke said tiredly. “I got something you need to see.”

  Chapter 17

  Shit just got real. Now watch while I light the fucker up.

  -Nico to his teammates

  Nico

  I was numb.

  My head felt like there was white noise on full volume playing in it.

  “They’re alive,” I said, shaking my head. “They wouldn’t be any good to them dead. They have to be alive.”

  “The child, at least. If we’re lucky, the other kids. As for Candice and Guy, I’m assuming most of that blood is theirs. There’re tire tracks from Guy’s wheelchair throughout the entire room. And they lead down to the basement door,” Luke said from his standing point in the middle of the room.

  The only thing that kept racing through my mind, over and over again, was that I should’ve checked on them sooner.

  Maybe then none of this would’ve happened.

  Holy. Fucking. Shit.

  This place was a goddamned disaster.

  Blood was everywhere.

  It looked sickly bright against the white carpet and white tile across the living room and into the kitchen.

  The added smear marks of what looked like something being dragged through the blood was even more disheartening.

  “How’d you know?” I asked, eyes focusing on a small baby blanket that was hanging partially off the loveseat, the very tip dragging in the blood next to the couch.

  The blood was slowly seeping up the length of the blanket as it was absorbed by the spongy material, and I shuddered.

  Other than the signs of a struggle and blood, there was no other evidence surrounding or inside of the scene.

  I’d been called only after the scene had been combed for any evidence. It’d still be a crime scene, but they’d no longer collect anything on it due to so many people running back and forth throughout the area.

  When no one answered, I tried again.

  “How was this found?” I asked, eyes scanning the area some more.

  “Tip from your woman when we told her about the suicide. She was speaking with the receptionist about the chick she replaced.” Luke murmured, eyes blank.

  My brain was trying to comprehend just what my eyes were showing it, but it was a little slow on the uptake, and I was grateful.

  I felt very fondly for this family, and to know something bad had happened to them really shredded my heart to tiny little pieces.

  Suddenly, though, something occurred to me.

  “The dog. Where’s the dog?” I asked, my eyes darting around quickly.

  Luke shook his head, and Detective O’Keefe walked over, shoving his notebook into his breast pocket.

  “No dog. Haven’t seen one since I got here,” O’Keefe said.

  Something was niggling at my brain, and it took my eyes looking at the blanket soaking up the blood again for m
e to finally separate it out from my jumbled brain.

  “The dog. The dog never left the baby alone. He was obsessed with her. Slept with her at night. Find the dog,” I said suddenly.

  O’Keefe and Luke stared at me like I’d lost my mind, but I was shaking my head before either one could dispute my claim.

  “For real. Find the fuckin’ dog. Comet followed them all the way to the pediatrician’s office twenty minutes into town at Angel’s first appointment. They had to keep him locked up when they left from then on. They’d made the mistake three more times since then, and each time he found a way out of the house and followed them. Please, look for the dog. He’s got a microchip on him that tracks. They had to do that after he left the last time,” I reemphasized.

  Needless to say, they looked for the dog.

  ***

  “Holy fucking shit. You were right!” John crowed twenty minutes later.

  I nodded. “Good fuckin’ job, man. I knew you could do it.”

  He shrugged, throwing off the compliment as if it was no biggie, but it was.

  “Beacon located at 65556 CR 968,” John said, reading the address off his screen.

  The team wasted no time gearing up.

  I didn’t either. There was no way they were keeping me out of this.

  We all looked somber as we made our way out to the armored truck we used for raids.

  All of us except Downy, that was.

  He was obtaining our warrant from the judge, and would be meeting us there.

  I drove for five long, silent minutes to a nice subdivision in the middle of Kilgore proper. It was less than a five minute drive from everything, and one of the biggest family neighborhoods in the area.

  My confidence that the dog wouldn’t leave the baby started to wane.

  Certainly a neighborhood like this wouldn’t house a killer…right?

  Nonetheless, I parked about a quarter mile away, pulling over under a corpse of trees that shaded nearly the entire street.

  Our black vehicle blended in flawlessly with the shadows, as it was meant to.

  Although it would be visible if somebody looked closely, it also wasn’t going to be obvious if one was just scanning the area.

  “Downy’s here,” I said, watching as his personal vehicle pulled up behind us.

  He got out, dressed much the same as us, only his vest now also had K-9 on the upper right corner.