by JA Huss
“Me. I work for me. How about you? Who do you work for?”
“I don’t work for anyone. I’m not a hired killer.” I snarl out the words, but it has no effect on him.
“No, you kill for free. You kill for yourself. So it looks like we’ve got something in common after all.”
I huff out a few incredulous breaths at that remark. “Boy, Sasha is right. You are delusional if you think my escaping a life of sexual slavery with some old man—”
“I’m not that old—”
“Tet,” I cut him off. “You are insane if you think my father was giving me to you. OK? No offense, because you’re hot and I’d go back and do it all differently if I thought you really were the guy I was promised to. But there’s no possible way on earth that’s the case. OK? So yeah, I killed a bunch of people to get away. And I’m not sorry either. I’d do it again and never think twice!”
I bite my lip as my hysterical words echo off the tiled walls for a moment, and then the place goes quiet.
He takes three quick steps towards me and I back up instinctively, but I hit the sink. And then before I can come up with another plan, he’s pressed up against me, standing over me almost. His stare is captivating because everything about his expression, his body language, his breathing—all of it says this moment counts. His hands hover over my shoulders and then he gives me a crooked smile.
“Harper,” he says calmly.
“What?” I snap again.
“I want you. I’m going to touch you. I’m not fighting with you anymore. It’s a waste of time. I’m going to fuck the shit out of you right here, right now. In this goddamned desert shithole bathroom even though you deserve to be fucked on a tropical beach or somewhere with a mountain view, or, hell, even the goddamned Hummer would be better than right here. But you know what?”
I swallow down my surprise. “What?”
“You gotta make the most of what you got. And we’re not on a tropical beach or in front of a goddamned beautiful mountain. And fucking Smurfette is probably out in the Hummer. So this is all I got.”
“None of this has anything to do with the fight we’re having.”
He smiles and then nods at me. “Oh yes, it does. Because here’s the thing, Harp. We are about to have makeup sex. Right the fuck now. And if you don’t want me to do that, then feel free to finish this fight properly. You ready?”
“So you’re gonna force me.”
“I’ll count to three so you can have a few more moments to decide. One.”
My heart begins to beat wildly. “What the hell—”
“Two.” His hands are still hovering above my shoulders but now they slowly descend to rest on my upper arms. “Three.”
I expect to be turned around, pushed against the sink, and fucked from behind.
But that’s not what I get at all.
His hands descend down my bare arms, stopping at the elbow for a brief moment to caress the soft skin on the underside. And then they continue down to my waist. He eases them underneath my tank top, and then places both palms flat against my skin. “I’ll take that as permission to proceed, but feel free to stop me at any time.” And then his strong hands grab my waist and place my ass on the edge of the sink. He cups my face and leans in, his lips lightly touching mine.
I kiss him back. With tongue.
I can feel the smile on his lips. Because he knows I gave in with that tongue. He won this fight hands down. I am out for the count before the bell even rings.
“I win,” he whispers into my mouth. “I’m not here to fight with you. I’m not here to trick you. I’m not here to kill your pain-in-the-ass piece-of-shit brother. I’m here for you, Harper. And that’s all there is to it. And if I have to yank your cute little ass into a roadside bathroom to make you understand that, I will. Every single time. I will. You and me,” he says, pointing to each of us. “We are the only ones who matter.”
I shake my head as I try and absorb this. “I don’t understand any of this, James. Why, why, why? All I want to know is why?”
“Why, Harper? I have no why answers. Your father, your brother, Sasha probably, they have the why answers. But your father and brother are lying and Sasha is very close to copping out on her own. So we’re gonna let all this run its course and you’re gonna follow my lead.”
I don’t know what to say. Some of this makes sense. Especially Sasha. She wants to tell us what she knows, but she’s holding out for reasons that have nothing to do with loyalty to the people working against us. She’s holding out until she can trust us. So he’s right about that.
I rest my head on his shoulder as he unzips his pants, pulls out his dick, and grinds his hips against me. “Lift up,” he says, his voice still soft but controlling.
I lift up and then my shorts are dangling off my ankles.
Then his hands slide under my ass, lifts me up, and he walks me across the bathroom and pushes me up against the heavy wooden door. His cock slides in, but so slowly it’s driving me crazy. “Harder,” I whisper. “This doesn’t qualify as fucking the shit out of me.”
He chuckles against my ear as he slides out, again, so very, very slowly before entering me again. “You’re wrong, Harp. You’re so wrong.” His hand slides over my behind and one finger finds the bud of my ass. I moan a little as he pushes it inside, and then something overtakes me, and I’m pushing back against the pressure. “More,” I pant. “I want more.”
“Baby,” he growls, “you will get all of it very soon. But right now this will have to be enough. Now, put your hand under my balls and hold them, like you’d hold something very precious.”
My hand is in motion the second he asks. I love when he tells me what to do during sex. It’s so completely fucking hot. My fingertips find the soft skin of his balls and I cup them gently, moving them back and forth in my palm. “Yes, that’s perfect, Harper. I want them in your mouth.” I’m already struggling to be let down so I can make his wish a reality, but he stops me. “Not here. Because I will want to fuck you all night long once I get your head between my legs.” He removes my hand and lifts my fingers to my lips. I suck on them the way he likes. They slide in and out slowly, like we’ve got all the time in the world to orgasm.
Then the door handle jiggles next to my hip and then comes knocking. A man’s voice talks in Spanish.
“Ignore him,” James whispers. “He is no one to us. I meant what I said. We are the only ones who matter.”
The man knocks again, talking louder this time. But James responds with a hard thrust and I moan. Another thrust, another moan. And I realize he’s doing it on purpose when the demands on the other side of the door become furious.
“Me,” James says, lowering his face so I have to look him in the eyes. I instantly forget the commotion on the other side of the door and all I see is the soul he’s hiding behind the green. “Only me, Harper.” He leans in and bites my shoulder, making me squeal.
“Yes, do that again.”
And he does. He fucks the shit out of me. Slowly. Taking his time. Thrusting his hardest. Ignoring the world on the other side of the door until he spills himself inside me, calling out my name as I moan his.
We collapse into an embrace, a hug really. And wait for the aftershocks to dissipate. And now there are more voices outside. Someone threatening to call the police. I raise my eyebrows at James for that one.
“Please,” he says, probably loud enough for the people outside to hear him. “It’s the fucking Mojave Desert. I’m pretty sure no one’s coming.”
And then he sets me down and grabs a few wet paper towels to clean me up. “Thank you,” I whisper, as he holds my shorts open so I can step back into them. He even pulls up the zipper and buttons them up. And then, when we are good and ready, he unlocks the door and opens it up. We get angry stares from the little Mexican guy, a thumbs-up from some teenager, and a look of disgust from an older couple.
“Sometimes,” James says, stopping in front of the old people, “you gotta
grab that moment, ya know? I just never know which ones will be the life-changers, so I treat them all the same. We had a fight. And then we made up. Life is good again. So”—he does a little bow to the smirking old lady, who is charmed by his honesty—“my apologies.”
He holds my hand, swings it, actually, until we reach the Hummer, and then he opens my door for me and goes around to jump in his side.
“Well,” Sasha says. She’s lying down on the seat of the Hummer stuffing her mouth with multi-colored candy worms, sweating like crazy because it’s hot as hell in here. “If you try and explain what took you so long, I will plug my ears and sing la-la-la. So just don’t.”
“Finally,” James says as he starts the Hummer and puts it in gear. “I have a way to render the Smurf speechless.”
And me too, I think to myself as I stare at the desert going by. Me too.
Because slow and honest will get me every time.
Chapter Thirty-Two - James
I like the thought of the desert when the blood is practically dripping off my hands after a kill, but experiencing it outside of an air-conditioned house, that’s another thing altogether. And the 1992 Hummer is not known for its awesome air-conditioning power.
We might be in hell.
But the desert is a hell I can relate to. It’s a hell I belong in. It’s a hell that calls me over, invites me in, and offers me sanctuary from my sins. The desert heat is a penance I joyfully accept on the off-chance that suffering in the heat is enough to dry the blood on my hands.
I hate the fucking heat.
I hate the fucking desert.
But when you deal in death, you must atone in all ways possible. And my motto is, Things can always get worse.
Hell could be worse than the Sonoran Desert in the summer. Hell could be the Sonoran Desert in the summer with ninety percent humidity.
“Um,” Harper says, as we stare at the shack Merc calls ‘the Sonoran safe house’ from the tepid comfort of the climate-controlled Hummer. “I don’t think it has air-conditioning.”
“It barely has walls,” Sasha adds. “I’m not going in there. I bet there are more rattlesnakes inside than there are outside.”
She’s probably right about that. “Come on, you two are exaggerating. It’s fine.” Fucking Merc. That asshole never comes through for me. Ever. Who has a shithole for a safe house? Mine are stocked with anything you could need on the run. I got guns, I got a vehicle, I have first-aid kits in every bathroom. I have dry goods in the pantry and—
“Let’s get a hotel,” Harper offers with a wave of hope in her voice. “I’m sure Palm Springs has nice hotels. It’s a resort town, isn’t it?” She makes a face as she looks around.
Right. I’m getting the feeling she hates the desert too.
I turn the engine off and the air-conditioning stops. The three of us begin to sweat simultaneously. All of a sudden we can’t get out of the Hummer fast enough. “Come on, let’s just rest a little bit and then we’ll see how we feel once the sun goes down. We should at least stay the night, then start again in the morning.”
“It’s lunchtime, James,” Sasha says with an irritated clip as she smacks the back door closed. “Sunset is practically tomorrow.”
I take Harper’s hand and ignore the Smurf. She can go wherever she wants. I’m not her keeper. We make for the front door as Sasha checks for snakes and Harper drags her feet behind me as I tug on her. Merc’s place looks like it was built by mud-hut dwellers in ancient times. The kid was wrong, walls are the only thing it has going for it. Thick—I’m talking like three feet thick—adobe mud walls. I know this because the front door is recessed back about that same depth.
I grab the handle, then pull back from the sting of burning metal on my palm. Fucking desert. I use my t-shirt to twist the handle and find it unlocked so the door swings inward.
A rush of cool air smacks us in the face and all three of us say, “Ahhhh,” in surprise.
“It does have air-conditioning,” Sasha says.
We all move forward into the house and then I close the door. “No, I think it’s just naturally cool in here because of the adobe walls.” We’re standing in a small foyer in front of a flight of steps leading down to a sunken room. Up here on the terrace is another room off to the side. It’s got bars on three sides.
“It’s a jail,” Harper says, looking up at the cell as she walks down the stairs to the living area.
“An old jail, from like the cowboys and Indians days,” Sasha adds. “I bet Jesse James stayed here. Or some other famous outlaw.” She laughs and looks at me. “Like you, James.”
“Like you, Smurf.”
“Merc belongs in a jail,” Sasha says as she follows Harper. “If that asshole has a style, this is it. Retro poky. But it’s better in here than outside. I guess we can stay. These couches look comfortable.”
She’s right, the couches do look comfortable, and the coolness makes everyone love it instantly. It’s a helluva lot nicer on the inside than it is on the outside. I have my gun ready in case there’s someone here, but I know where Merc is, and it’s not anywhere near Palm Springs, so it’s just a formality.
“Is there a kitchen? And water? I want to take a shower. I’m still gooped up with blood and dirt.”
The morning’s bullshit comes rushing back to me. I’d already forgotten about the kid’s drugged-up bike ride this morning. It feels so long ago. “Knock yourself out. I’m sure there’s a shower somewhere.” I pull Harper over to the couch. It’s just some old comfortable thing with a white sheet over it to keep the dust off, but I do not care. I plop down and then pull her into my lap. “We can stay a night, right? Have some alone time?” I waggle my eyebrows at her. God, I just want to settle for a little bit. Hold her close for a night and forget about shit. Is that too much to ask for?
“Shit,” Sasha calls from another room. “James, you better come in here.”
I push Harper up and we find Sasha in a pretty decent modern kitchen. It’s got new appliances and stone countertops. It even has a six-burner stove. “Nice,” Harper says as we look around. But then I notice what Sasha is staring at.
A phone.
“What the fuck?” I look over at Sasha and she’s shaking her head.
“I didn’t,” she insists. “I have nothing to do with this phone. At all.”
“And it’s lit up,” Harper says. “Like the one I found at your place, James.”
“What fucking phone at my place?”
“Remember? I told you about that phone that was waiting for me on your kitchen countertop. When I came in it was lit up and there was a message from Nick on it. That was the phone the assassin was sending messages to after he took Sasha.”
I shake my head. “No, you did not tell me that.”
“Yeah,” she insists. “I thought it was from Nick, and it said, ‘We’ll talk soon. Don’t forget why this is happening.’ And it had that little mushroom icon, like the one on the message this morning.”
I don’t want to hear about a mushroom. There’s no way that can mean what I think it does. I look away from her so she can’t watch me struggle to make sense of this. This whole fucking job is a mess. Nothing has gone right.
“James?” Sasha tugs on my t-shirt. “Should we listen to it?”
I turn back around but Harper already has it in her hand. “Listen to it?”
“There’s a message,” Harper says as her finger swipes the screen. It takes everything in my power not to snatch that phone right out of her hand. Her finger connects with the right button and there’s some static as a voice cuts in and out. “That was not in the plan.” And then the phone beeps to signal the message is over.
“What plan?” we all say together. I play the stare game with them. They look at me with narrow eyes. I shoot them back a silent don’t-fuck-with-me and then direct my attention to Sasha.
“It wasn’t me.” She’s shaking her head. “That message was not for me.”
I look back to Harper.
“That was Nick?”
She nods. “But… I don’t know what he’s talking about. None of this makes any sense. And don’t even bother asking me what the plan was when we left last year. He never told me.”
I believe her. So I don’t ask that question. I just need some fucking time to think. I need some answers. I need a way to get those answers and I need to make contact.
“Well,” Sasha says as she puts her head on the counter. “I’m tired. Nick is obviously not gonna come try and kill us. That would make no sense. Let’s just stay here. I don’t want to drive any more. Besides, that message could’ve been for Merc, right? I mean, this is his house.”
Harper shoots me a look. “Your friend is working with my brother?”
I don’t answer, just let the question hang there. I change the subject back to Sasha. “I thought you were worried about snakes inside, Smurfette?”
She yawns and walks off. “You guys can do what you want. But Merc’s like my default adopted father, so the way I see it, I own this place. I’m gonna find a bathroom and clean up. Then I’m going to sleep.”
We watch her walk out of the kitchen and then Harper turns to me. “That kid is like a pendulum. She swings in every direction. I thought Merc was the devil?”
I don’t know what to say to that, either, so I change the subject. “Do you want to stay?”
She gives me a wicked little smirk. “Do you?”
My grin is so wide, she starts laughing. “I do,” I whisper in her neck as I pull her close. “We need some down time. It’s been go, go, go since we met. I can use some peace.”
She wriggles free and puts a hand on my chest. “No more sex.”
“What?” I almost choke.
“It’s not right. I have so many personal questions for you. Questions I should have answers to if we’re together. And if we’re not together, then none of this is appropriate.”
“Harper,” I say softly as I grab her hand and twine our fingers together. “How much clearer do I have to make it? You agreed to be mine when I took your virginity.”
