by Noir, Stella
I shake my head.
“Nothing,” I lie, looking back down on the screen in my hands. Christian. Fucking Christian. I should have known that he wouldn’t let this go.
He’s not a true mobster, just an associate like I was. But he is part of the business, even if he’s only moving at the outer edge of it. He knows me and he knows what I have been doing for the past few years, even though he has never been a contractor. He’s not a bad guy, just someone who got roped into working with the mob, because they used one of his establishments for their business.
Just like this girl, Christian had shown up at the wrong place at the wrong time, witnessing things he should not have witnessed, and he was given a choice: either pay protection money, work with the mob and let them use one of his coffee places to conduct business—or get killed.
I liked him from the beginning and I was one of the guys who stopped our head from killing him, though I am pretty sure it would have happened eventually if I hadn’t killed the boss first. I persuaded him that it was good to have friends outside, guys who are not criminals at heart but just want their families to live.
Christian is that kind of guy. Innocent but immoral enough to let certain things pass, useful and trustworthy.
But now I have one problem with him.
He knows about the recent deaths. All those idiots I had to kill to get rid of this soul reaping business. He is not stupid and he saw them fall one after the other. Now that the last of that core group who used to frequent his place is dead, he is getting worried. He has every reason to fear for his own life now that everyone in that circle is dead. All those bastards. Christian should be thankful. There is no way of telling what could have happened next. One misstep on his part and he would have been dead, I’m sure.
But he doesn’t know that. He doesn’t know who killed them. For all he knows, the killer could be after him next—and he is not completely wrong about that either. I have been on the verge of doing something about him, but decided against killing him. For now. It has been a tough choice and one that never really left my head. The only reason I left him alone—and planned to continue to do so in the near future—was because he was out of sight. He didn’t ask questions, like always, and he didn’t seem to care about anything that happened within the circles of the mob. I figured he would be relieved, just going on with his life after all of them were gone.
And now he wants to talk. To me of all people.
I thought I was done, and now it looks like I have two people to worry about—two people I don’t want to kill.
I knew this wouldn’t be easy, but somehow expected a different kind of difficulty to come across my way.
“You look very unhappy,” she observes, furling her eyebrows with disbelief. “Bad news?”
Oh, hell yes bad news! You have no idea, silly girl.
“It’s all right,” I say. “Just work.”
“On a Saturday?” She asks. “I guess in a position like yours it’s hard to get away, hm.”
She sits up and tries to tame her crazy hair. It’s a futile attempt and leaves her hair looking even wilder than before. The smile that appears on my face because of it is yet another thing that annoys me.
“Guess you could say that,” I say, walking back to the bed, pondering whether I should take her again. My cock is twitching at the thought of it.
But before I can put any of those thoughts into action, she throws the sheets aside and jumps out of the bed.
“I won’t be in your way,” she says. “I’ll get ready and leave.”
My hunger for her grows when I see her walking through the room, bare naked, seductively swinging her hips as she walks.
“No, you come over here,” I order.
She pauses and turns around. Her slim shoulders almost disappear beneath the dark blond waves of her untamed hair. Her dark eyes are wide open, her lips slightly parted.
Whatever will happen, whatever I decide to do with her in the long run—I know I won’t let her go before I fucked her again.
She doesn’t move, but just looks at me with those deer like eyes, her mouth partly opened as if she was calling me. I called her back, but she doesn’t move.
“Well, if you’re not coming to me,” I whisper. “I’ll have to come to you.”
She flinches in surprise when I approach her with two wide steps. I grab her upper arm and pull her naked body close to mine as I plant my lips on hers. The sweet moan she makes when our tongues meet is thrilling to the core. I need her.
I’m rock hard, and the tip of my cock is poking her soft flesh while I claim her. She squirms and moans, willingly giving into my need for her. I need to make sure that she is ready for me, because it’s no fun if she is just playing the bitch in heat I need.
My hand wanders between her legs, passing over her bare mound before I part her lips. She is dripping wet and eagerly moves her leg aside to invite me in.
“What a little slut,” I hiss, and I can feel her smile through our kiss.
She lifts her leg and wraps it around my waist, pulling me closer with as much force as a delicate person like her is able to produce. The tip of my cock teases her entrance, coming dangerously close.
Fuck, what is she doing? I’m not gonna knock her up!
I try to push her away from me, before my hunger takes over and leads me to do something even stupider than everything I’ve already done with her.
“It’s okay,” she breathes, her need audible through every syllable. “I’m on the pill.”
Never trust a girl you just met when she says that. Never. That has always been my hard rule. Bitches are crazy. You never know when you run into one who’s just looking for a baby daddy, shackling you for life.
But that is not the impression I get from her. The way she rubs her wet cunt on my cock speaks of nothing but lust.
Fuck it.
“I’ll trust you on that,” I hiss, before I grab her ass and pull her up, placing her where she belongs.
She groans loudly and wraps both her legs around my waist when I invade her wet center. She squeezes my cock with desperate need, clawing into the skin on my shoulders as she tries to hold on to me when I start pounding her. She is so tight, so needy and ready for me. The intensity of feeling her bare is almost too overwhelming—I won’t last long this time. She is too much.
She is so light in my arms, riding my cock while I am standing in the middle of the room. It never occurred to me last night, but in this position, with this fierce power and agility she shows, it reminds me of how athletic she is. Her body may appear averagely slim and feeble at first, but she is strong and fit, not a skinny little lamb that needs me to show her how to walk. She is clinging on to me, moving along with my motions with ease. I thought I was the one taking what I need from her, but looking at us now it’s hard to tell who is fucking who.
She is taking what she needs just as much as I am—and she deserves to get what she is after.
I don’t stop fucking her while I move us over to the bed. She squeals when I throw her on the ruffled sheets, her legs still spread wide open for me.
“Turn around,” I command.
She obeys and gets on all fours, pointing that perfect ass up in the air and toward me. Her entire body reacts to me when I shove my cock back inside her. Her muscles clench around my throbbing cock and she hollows her back like a good, horny girl.
I don’t have to tell her to help my thrusts by touching herself—she does it all on her own, determined to come on my cock.
I grab her by the hips, ramming my length into her without mercy. She throws her head back and groans with grateful pleasure. The noises she makes in combination with the sight of her beautiful back side almost drive me over the edge too soon. Harbingers of a brute climax are traveling through my loins.
I slow down, trying to regain clarity, but it’s too late. The change of my motions has sent her over the edge, and I can feel her muscles clenching around me as she finds her release. She come
s on my cock like a good girl and forces me to follow her within moments.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Mars
It’s been close to a month. A fucking month.
You’d think that’s enough time to get my head straight, but on the contrary, I decided to make things worse by continuing to see her, date her, as if she was my fucking girlfriend.
I am keeping an eye on her. At least that’s what I am telling myself. If I pretend to be her lover, a trustworthy companion, I might become the one person she eventually confides in. If she ever does, that is.
We have been seeing each other a few times, but never for longer than a few hours. It was bad enough that she stayed overnight the first time I took her home. I don’t want this to turn into a routine too early, not with her especially.
It’s another early morning and I am standing in front of the mirror, staring at the sorry ass in front of me.
“Idiot,” I hiss at myself. “Fucking idiot.”
Nike left a hair tie she last time she was here, and it’s lying in front of me like a warning. Dark red, like the blood I have shed. I lift it up and twist it between my thumb and index finger.
I don’t know what to do with her. More than three weeks since I first fucked her, since that pathetically glorious night that made me lose my head, and I still don’t know.
The same goes for Christian. I have met him once and told him that he shouldn’t worry, that he should leave things untouched and just continue with his life, free of the mob’s constant threat. He sat in front of me, nodding, but insecure as fuck. He doesn’t trust me. He doesn’t believe that there is nothing for him to worry about as long as he keeps quiet.
So, he went and did the opposite of what I told him. He started to investigate, and he noticed that I am no longer carrying out jobs like I used to. He started to dig into my affairs, and now we really have a fucking problem.
I am meeting him today, once again determined to reassure him. Too bad I can’t just whistle a soothing melody to this bastard so he could calm down.
I finish to get ready, leaving my new life apartment in old life clothes, because that’s how Christian knows me. Dark and rugged jeans with a black sweater and an old leather jacket that is well past its peak. It was the first expensive item I bought for myself when I started earning good money with a bad job. It’s as old as my killing career, but unlike many other aspects and items, this is one I am not willing to leave behind.
I hesitate for a moment before I close the door behind me, and then head back inside. It’s better to be safe than sorry, and so I add my unobtrusive handgun to the outfit, hiding it in its holster beneath my leather jacket. I hope I won’t have to use it, but it’s always good to have it with me, especially when I am going to that place.
Christian is waiting for me at his establishment, the bar that provided us with a hidden back room to conduct our business. It’s the middle of the day and none of the staff have even arrived yet to prepare for the night. I knock at the heavy, dark wooden door and hear him unlock it from the other side within a few seconds, as if he has been waiting behind the door like a pathetic dog.
The door opens and I see his furrowed face appear. Christian is not much older than me, but he looks tired and used up, which is probably a side effect of not only running a bar all by himself but also of years of stress due to being handled by the mob.
“Come in,” he says, his voice unusually dark and low.
He steps back and I slip through the door, which he quickly closes behind me. The bar is dark and empty, with most of the chairs still turned upside down on the tables.
I follow him to the bar where he pours both of us a drink without asking whether I want one or not. Whiskey, neat.
“You seem distressed,” I notice when he hands one of the small glasses over to me. “Did anything happen?”
Christian brings the drink up to his lips and finishes it in one go, before he looks at me with furled eyebrows.
“You know very damn well what happened,” he hisses. “There’s a killer out there who eradicated the entire gang—and you want me to believe that they’re not after me next.”
I nod quietly, taking a careful sip from my own drink, just for the impression, not because I actually like it.
“That’s fucked up, man,” Christian adds. “And you know what’s even more fucked up?”
He glances at me through narrow eyes, supporting himself on his elbows as he leans over to me.
“What?” I ask, raising one eyebrow to show how little his affected behavior impresses me.
“The way you’re dealing with this,” he hisses. “Just telling me to let it go, to live my life without worrying. After all of this happened? Do you really think I’m that stupid, Joe Mars?”
I flinch at him mentioning my real name. I have never used that name with the mob, and there were only a handful of people—mostly the boss and his immediate associates—who knew my legal name. It probably wasn’t that hard for Christian to find out, but the fact that he is mentioning it now shows that he really did some digging in my direction.
“That’s right,” he says as if he was reading my mind. “I did some research, Mr. Stockbroker. Trying to make a name for yourself out there, are you?”
“Get to the point, Christian,” I hiss at him.
He clears his throat and straightens up to his full, yet not very impressive, height.
“I think it was you,” he declares. “You wanted out. You have never enjoyed being involved in this business and you know the mob better than I ever have. You wanted to get out and you knew that things were going downhill with them. The fights, the deaths, the mistrust—they were weakened, and you took the first chance you got to eliminate them once and for all, man by man.”
I don’t reply anything to his accusations and take another sip from my drink, just damping my lips, mostly to win time.
“Am I not right?” Christian continues, now placing his hands on his hips, trying to hold an intimidating and confident posture. But I can see his hands shaking when he lifts them up. He is anything but calm and confident, because he knows who he is talking to.
“I see why you would think that,” I say. “But don’t you think that even if your accusations were true, I would admit to them right now?”
His face freezes.
“So, you’re saying I’m right?” he says in disbelief.
I shake my head. “I didn’t say that.”
“You’re not denying it either!” Christian insists. “And you want me to live in a fool’s paradise so you can go after me next!”
I roll my eyes at him. This guy is making things worse for himself with every sentence, and he doesn’t even realize it.
“I have no intention of killing you,” I tell him, even though I am not entirely sure at this point.
“But you killed the others—”
“Christian, listen,” I interrupt him. “We have something in common, you and I.”
He furls his eyebrow. “I don’t think th—”
“We both never belonged,” I continue. “We both could have been eradicated at any moment if we stepped on anybody’s toes. You were useful for them, but also a constant danger. Who knows how long they would have let you go on like this before the boss decided that you pose too much of a threat.”
“But I never—”
“Shut up!” I bark at him. “Let me finish, you idiot! One more interruption and you’ll find yourself with a bullet in your head!”
He stares at me and his face loses all of its color, but he remains quiet for once.
“It doesn’t matter what your intentions were. The mob doesn’t trust people just because they don’t openly pose a threat,” I say. “It is hard to earn their trust, especially when you’re an outsider to them. You and I, we both were such outsiders. I was hired by them, and you were used by them. You should be just as happy as I am that they are gone.”
He frowns at me and pours himself another drink.
<
br /> “So, you really did it,” he whispers, sounding disgusted. “You really killed all of them.”
I don’t give him a reply, but raise the glass to my lips again, taking another sip that barely reaches my throat and mostly moistens my lips.
“What’s important now is the future, Christian,” I say. “You can live in peace now—if you let things go.”
“If I let things go,” he repeats, his voice low and full of terror. “Are you threatening me?”
I turn around to him, catching his small and light gray eyes on me.
“Maybe,” I say. “If I deem it necessary, yes Christian, I am threatening you to stay quiet.”
“Or else?” He asks. “Or else I’ll end up like the others?”
I shake my head. “It doesn’t have to be that way.”
He flinches when I suddenly jump up from my barstool.
I’m done.
“Everything that needs to be said has been said,” I tell him. “It’s up to you now, buddy.”
He looks at me, his face in an unreadable expression. There is a hint of fear, but not enough for my taste. I will have to watch this guy.
“Goodbye, Christian,” I say, and turn around to leave.
I close the door behind me without hearing another word from him.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Nike
“Ugh, sickening,” Amanda says when she sees me trying on a new outfit. She winks at me.
I am standing in front of my full body mirror, turning and stretching to see if the dress I bought with the help of her recommendations suits me as well as it did in the store where I bought it. It’s a dark red flare dress with lace around its Bardot neckline—nothing I would usually dare to wear, but Amanda convinced me to go for this one and I trust her judgment.
“Sickening, huh?” I ask, smiling at her.
“Yeah, you’re like a teenage girl,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Head over heels for that guy—and all I told you was to get some fling action!”
I chuckle, straightening my dress for the umpteenth time.
“That was all I was going for,” I assure her. “How could I have known that he would turn out to be more than just a fling?”
