He waited some more. Then he raised an eyebrow. Asking my permission. My heart banged so hard it made my nod falter.
He said, gently, “Do you mean to tell me that such a fine and beautiful woman as yourself is a virgin?” The look of astonishment on his face could only have been genuine, though I still wouldn’t allow myself to believe it.
His head shook and his smile told me he meant it. He said, “Well, it only confirms my opinion that this a town for losers and that your own taste and discernment are impeccable.”
I said, “Please. Take my conditions seriously.”
Without missing a beat he told me, “Whatever you want, however you want it. It’s going to be A-OK with me.”
My lips pursed and wrinkled. “I know you’re just saying that.”
Leaning forward he said, “Believe me, you are not a woman to whom I will just say things.”
“But there are women you will just say things to.”
“As of this moment now, there are no women. There is only you.”
“You can’t expect me to take you seriously.”
“Expect?” Drawing breath he rose and grew. “I fucking demand it, woman. Anything you want, any damned thing at all. You tell me and I’ll either get it for you or I’ll die in the attempt.”
“You’re joking with me. I know you are.”
“Does this face not look like it’s in deadly earnest to you? Because if it doesn’t, you just tell me. Say the word and I’ll fucking get another one.”
I leaned across and stroked his face. “Don’t do that. I like your face.”
“Then believe what it’s telling you,” he grabbed my wrist, “Because I positively swear and affirm, I have never been more serious about a fucking thing in the whole of my fucking life.” And he put a kiss in my open palm like the beat of a butterfly’s wings.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“If I beg you, is there any chance, is there the slightest possibility, that you will please say that we can get the fuck out of here?”
E GOT OUT of town. As we drove she said, “Those blue cars weren’t local.”
For a moment I wondered if Garberville was small enough and the librarian was important enough that she actually knew everyone in the city. She looked over to me and asked, “You saw the plates?”
I had noticed that. I nodded, impressed that she had picked up on it.
Looking serious, she asked me, “You’re sure that it was you they were looking for?”
I nodded. I didn’t want to think about any of that now. Truth be told I was having some difficulty getting my mind to stray any useful distance away from the fact that this fucking angel who was hotter than a ten grand hooker when she wore a thick plaid skirt for fucks sake, was a virgin.
And, of course, I was eager to a point of obsession to relieve her of that burdensome distinction. In all of the most spectacular ways that I could achieve and as soon as I could possibly arrange it. Preferably in some way and in a location that would be worthy of the occasion. But in the back seat of her blue Saturn if absolutely necessary.
The commitment that she had wanted I was only too eager to give her. She was the answer to a prayer I didn’t know that I had. A goddess, ready and willing to follow me was a wonderful enough idea, but this miracle had not asked me one single question. For that alone I could have married her.
Here was a woman who had seen me at my very worst. She came upon me at work. And she hadn’t asked anything of me, not even my fucking name. Nothing at all but faithfulness. And that, I felt, was the thing I most wanted to give. I think I’d given up on finding anyone who would take the gift for all that I was worth. To give myself, to her.
With hardly a word between us, she had enough faith and trust, and love, to want to come away with me. With no idea where or what danger we would be walking into. She was ready to drop everything and come, to be by my side. And she’d come running. Literally. The picture I had of her, running at me outside the library, that’ll last me a while, I tell you. I would walk through fire for that woman.
The fact that she had the face of an angel, the eyes of a demon, and a body I wanted to eat up over and over did nothing but sweeten the deal.
If what she knew was enough for her to be mine, then I was hers to the death. And the fact that she was a virgin was, I can’t deny it, a pretty fucking juicy cherry on the top of what was already the best looking cake that I ever saw.
More than anything now I wanted to get us to somewhere we could have some private time. Some moments to be together. A place that we could hide out. To learn the wonders of each other. Nest a while. Mainly, to be truthful, I wanted to get to the wonders of her. I wasn’t expecting too many surprises from the wonders of my own body.
I was eager and anxious, bordering on obsessive, to share what wonders there were deep in her soft embrace. The scent that I’d caught of her outside Beary’s office, the warm, welcoming curves and the urgent heat that I found in the library blended into a dream that I hadn’t woken up from. I was sure it was a dream that, the deeper I sank into it, the more I would want to stay wrapped up there forever.
She was everything I wanted. And I didn’t even know her name.
I was lost watching her profile as she drove. Watching her take us over the miles, the two of us quiet, ready for the next part.
My phone rang. It could only be one person. She didn’t even look round. She made the slightest nod as she pressed her smile. Like she knew. She understood.
I said anyway, “It’s business. I should take it.”
She nodded again and her eyes flashed at me. She got that I was not asking permission, but I was asking for her complicity.
When I pressed the phone to connect, Arden said, “I’ve another matter for your attention. Where are you now?”
“Is this going to be another of the ‘quick and simple’ jobs?”
There was a pause. He said, “I heard from Jackson.”
That got my eyebrows to move. “Is this chat? Since when do we chat?”
“He said he’d had a leaky pipe. To thank you for fixing it.”
I waited. Thinking about the fact that Jackson spoke to Arden. I didn’t know they were connected. He said. “Head for DC. I’ll send you the file.”
“I’ll read it.”
“Big league terms on this one. You know what I mean.”
I knew it meant the money was better. And I knew that meant more trouble, more risk, or something worse. The blue sedans’ plates were from DC. I asked him, “Will going to DC make my predicament worse or better?”
He hesitated. “What predicament is that?”
I said, “Well, if you know there’s no point me telling you. And if you don’t it’s best we keep it that way.” And I hung up. He wouldn’t have told me. And if he did I wouldn’t have believed him. I thought about whether to believe the implication that he didn’t know.
She looked over. Her voice was warm. It was where I wanted to be. “Another…” she didn’t know what to call it.
“A piece of work,” I told her, “It is.”
Arden’s link pinged up on my phone almost right away.
The files gave details of Luther Graynge, a rug dealer in DC. She asked me, “Did you say a ‘drug dealer’?”
“Nope. Guy sells rugs. Afghan rugs. Kelims, Turkomans, mainly it says,” I looked up at her, “You know what those are?” she nodded. “He has a store in Georgetown.”
“Classy neighborhood.”
She knew stuff, my girl. I wanted to know her name, just like I wanted to tell her mine. To watch her face, hear her say it for the first time. I was feeling like a fucking schoolboy. Mannish boy, feeling it. Too big for his fucking breeches. And I fucking loved it.
For now, though, this seemed like a magical time. Both of us completely committed to each other, without either of us knowing anything about the other except their occupation. Even there she had the advantage of me. I really didn’t have much idea what librarians di
d.
I flicked through pictures of the target. It seemed I may have seen him before somewhere. That mustache looked familiar.
While I read about the rug business and the habits of the dealer in question, my gorgeous driver said, “Breakfast?”
On the roadside up ahead was an ice-cream colored diner.
E AND ME, we were just a regular couple, crossing a diner’s parking lot in the sunshine. Going for breakfast in a fifties-style diner on a bright morning. A guy and his gal. Or maybe ‘Moll’ in my case. He held the door for me and I leaned close.
“Am I a Moll?”
“You’re a doll,” he said. I thought it was funny. His hand on my back as we walked in made me feel the way movie stars feel. Tall. Glamorous. Desirable.
My heels and his brogues made smart clicks across the black and white tiles. He picked a white table in the center, back from the big picture windows, and he waited for me to sit on the red leatherette seat.
The waitress, Sassie, poured coffee into mugs and ice water in plastic glasses. A smile snuck between her rosy cheeks as she looked from one of us to the other. She wrote our order on a paper pad with a ball-point that she pulled from behind her ear.
“If you need anything, just shout,” she spoke to us both. But it wasn’t me that her ass flicked for. It wasn’t much and she probably couldn’t help it. I guessed that was the kind of thing that made women jealous.
I wanted to know so much about him. Right now though, sitting across the table from him with both of us keeping straight faces was enough to make electric currents hum from my core to my limbs. Breakfast in the sunlight would be a perfect start.
The experience that was etched into his face made me worry. My life had been quiet. Sheltered even. I hadn’t traveled, I had no experience of the world outside of this state. This county held practically all of my memories. All except those I had read. For me they were the most real and the most important.
Books and stories were where I went as a child to get away. I escaped from the things in what the adults called the ‘real world.’ I knew then that if that was reality, they could keep it. If I had to live in it, I would at least need a way to vacation away and books were my way from then on.
But the difference in our life experience seemed like a gulf. I said, “There’s a lot of things I’ve never done.”
His eyebrow lifted and I knew we were thinking about the same thing. Looking like a nice, respectable couple, sitting across a diner table for breakfast, he was thinking about gripping me by my hair. He was imagining putting his hands inside my panties.
Kissing my neck and sucking on my breasts. I knew that was what he was thinking about. Because it was what I was thinking about. My stomach fell through the floor. My eyes popped open.
I imagined what was inside his pants. How was it now? I wanted to look under the table and see. I felt it. In the library. Even before then, in the hot darkness outside Beary’s office I felt the heat of it. And the length. I couldn’t get that out of my head that night. Then, in the library, I felt its hardness. The pulsing girth. And I shouldn’t be thinking about that now. Quickly I put my hands on top of the chrome-rimmed table.
The glint in his eye would have cut glass. I know he was thinking about getting my clothes off. Peeling my hot, quivering flesh free. Slipping the straps of my bra down over my shoulders. Like I was thinking about his belt buckle. I wanted to be the kind of gal who would unbutton his shirt slowly. One pop at a time. Look up in his eye and pout my wet lips. Run my hand over his bulge.
As I began to wonder about the taste of his cock I had to hold down a giggle.
His eyes moved to the window and narrowed. I followed his gaze. Pulling slowly into the lot outside, a blue sedan slipped in to park near the road. It looked like one of the cars from outside the library. He waited. He let his breath out slow with a muttered Motherfucker. It was only then that I realized I’d been holding my own breath.
We watched without turning our heads too much. We were thinking as one. His attention was like a hunter’s. Like a top predator, still. Waiting. Ready.
A man rose out of the open car door. Tall, in a long black coat. The brim of a dark hat hid his face. He crossed the lot and went up the steps to the door behind me. I didn’t want to look around.
My man had it under control. I had no doubt. The long figure moved straight to our table. The room went quiet. Under the broad hat, his face was covered in a white knitted mask with holes for his eyes. He looked at both of us. He had a gun.
From sitting, my hero snapped his fist into the intruder’s throat, leaped up to seize his shoulders from behind with both hands and kicked him in the backs of his knees. When he shoved the man’s shoulders down, hard, a sickening crack sounded when the chrome edge of the table met the man’s jaw.
My assassin took the man’s gun and hit him hard across the back of the skull. Lying sprawled under the table he looked like a scarecrow blown down in a high wind in his long black coat and white mask. Reaching down for the unconscious scarecrow’s wallet and keys, my hero calmly pocketed them.
“I’m sorry we won’t be able to stay to finish our lunch, Sassie,” he called over, “Sorry about the mess.” He left some bills on the table.
The congregation of customers in the little diner circled around our table to gawp at the gaunt figure slumped underneath it. Sassie looked up at us. “He only brought a gun.” She shook her head. “Fool didn’t stand a chance.”
~~
We crossed the lot to my car in a hurry. Without thinking I’d already opened the door and slid into the driver’s seat. The other blue sedan pulled in and slid leisurely next to the first. My hero got smartly into the passenger seat.
“Drive off,” he told me, “don’t rush. Head back on the road, straight ahead the way we were going.”
“Shouldn’t you drive?”
He nearly missed a beat. I almost thought that I heard him not saying, Not now. It’s too late. He told me, “You’re going to do fine,” but he sounded like he really meant it.
My tires crunched from the lot onto the highway as the blue sedan’s door swung open and a man lifted himself out. Leaning on the top of the open door, he turned to watch us. He was dressed the same as the man we left on the floor inside.
“Be firm with the gas, no need to jerk or stab it. Same with braking. Hard but smooth. Hold the wheel and guide it. Don’t jab.”
I would be his puppet. His avatar. He would guide me and I would guide the car. Inside I jangled. My heart thumped. I just drove. He watched the mirror and turned to lean over the seat and watch behind us.
He told me, “He’s going to the diner. Running now. I expect he’ll be back and after us pretty fast.”
I said, “The road’s pretty straight. He’ll see us for a long way.”
“Not over that ridge ahead he won’t. There’s at least a few hundred yards of road you can’t see from behind. We’re going to do something there, okay?” I nodded. He trusted me. I wasn’t sure that I trusted myself, but I felt safe in his hands. “Speed up now,” he turned to look back over the seat.
“Is he following us?”
“He’s pulling out onto the road.” I looked in the mirror but all I could see was judder. He said, “He’s a good long way behind, but he’ll be a whole lot faster.” His voice was calm. He was firm and precise as he instructed me. “Give it the gas. Take the car as fast as it will go and keep straight along the middle of the lane.”
Killian: The Hitman’s Virgin Page 6
