“So you're not going to tell me anything about being with this guy?”
I shrugged as I scanned the lunch menu at our favorite cafe. “I told you he's not my normal type, but there’s this chemistry I can’t shake. It's just complicated.”
“Yeah, yeah he’s a murderer and you’re his kid’s social worker. Blah, blah, blah. I don't really care about the emotional part, Tara. I want to know what is he like to fuck.”
“It's fine.”
“Fine? If it's only fine you need to head for the hills.”
“No, I mean it's…” I could feel the warmth rising. I wasn't really one to talk about that kind of stuff, especially to my friend who hooked up with a different guy every night from Tinder.
“Continue, prude.”
“I’m not a prude. In fact, it’s the best I’ve ever had.” Just the thought of the night before was enough to make me as hot as a Vegas afternoon.
“Yeah, but you don't know. I mean you've been with what, three guys?”
“Four and a half,” I answered proudly.
“You had sex with half a guy?”
“No, it’s just one of them I didn’t, you know, go all the way with.” I smiled at the memory of heavy petting with my college professor all those years ago.
But Maddie wasn’t impressed. “Holy shit, all the way? What are you in middle school?”
“Ugh, you know I’m not great with that sort of talk.”
“Okay, so was he loud? Dominating? Into three ways with your best friend? Give me details, woman!”
The truth was that despite my discomfort with intimate talk, I was dying to talk about him to someone. “I mean no, there's not like Fifty Shades of bondage going on. But,” I lowered my voice and leaned in. “He does things.”
“Ooohh, things!” she teased.
“I mean things with his tongue. Hank never…it was pretty much just in and out and that was all but this is way different.”
She reached for the bottle of merlot and filled my glass to the very rim. “I don’t care if it’s only noon. Drink up, Sister, and give me these dirty oral details, you poor deprived thing.”
With an unladylike gulp of my wine, I decided to test the waters of how kinky last night actually was. “Well, he’s very oral I meant.”
“For fuck’s sake, Tara, lots of guys go down on you. Have you really never—”
“I’ve had that!” I leaned in and lowered my voice to a whisper. “What I mean is his tongue went everywhere.”
“Everywhere? Like in every…”
I nodded, an embarrassed blush warming my cheeks.
With an obnoxious laugh, she smacked the table causing everyone to look. And then, as if I couldn’t be dying enough, she blurted out, “Holy fuck, you got a rim job? I’ve never even done that!”
“Shut up!” I hissed.
“I’m sorry! That’s just so kinky, Tara. Your poor virgin backside must have clamped up like a boa constrictor.”
“It was…”
“Yes?”
“It was so wrong it was right.”
“Well, girl, you definitely have something there worth pursuing. You’re sure you don’t want to share?”
I shook my head, the very idea of him touching anyone else making my gut clench like the time I ate bad tuna.
“Fine, Tara, just make sure you keep everything sanitary down there and stuff. Maybe buy him some Listerine or whatever.”
“Can we not?”
“Okay, I’ll tell you about my date last night. But promise me this – you’ll get a creeper pic of his dick to show me?”
Minutes after leaving the restaurant, he pulled me over.
“How much wine did you have with lunch, Miss?”
I slammed my palm into my steering wheel. How many times would this very scene have to repeat before I could make a clean break?
“One,” I answered.
“Hm, wine with lunch on a weekday. Stressed out?”
“Always.”
“You really need to get out of social work, Tara. It’s a shitty career.”
“It’s certainly not as great as being a dirty cop on the take.”
His nostrils flared, but he swallowed the anger, for the moment. It was daylight and Flamingo was busy. There would be too many witnesses for full-blown violence and we both knew it.
“Where were you last night? I stopped by and you didn’t answer.”
“I went out with Maddie and things went late. We ended up grabbing a Lyft to her place.”
He pushed his mirrored sunglasses to the top of his bald head. After a few seconds, he seemed to be satisfied with my answer.
“Perhaps it’s time to get me a key.”
“We’re over, Hank. I mean it this time.”
“Hm,” he said, glancing around my car. “It’s too bad your brother Tommy has to serve all the time in Clark County. I heard your dear old crooked-as-fuck dad failed to get him moved again.”
I didn’t answer, refusing to play his game. Eventually his gaze fell to my ring finger. “Don’t take that off, Tara. And we’re not through.”
I looked down at my crooked ring finger at the rock I hated. The last time he caught me without it on, he’d broken my finger.
I counted the hours at work, my mind only on seeing him again. And, to be honest, having him buried deep inside me again.
“Hey, Drake,” my evil boss said from behind me. I didn’t even turn around.
“That tweaker baby’s grandparents want to make a visit. Make that happen. I want this one before someone other than that bleeding heart Judge Wheeler, too.”
“Yeah, sure, Jerry. I’m supposed to go over there later. I’ll talk to the father about that.”
I didn’t say no one is taking that baby from Shawn, or that I’d already emailed Judge Wheeler my thoughts and he was for sure taking the case on the off-chance that it went that far.
“Good, good.” He turned to leave.
“Oh hey, I might actually head over there now.”
“Good idea. Catch him fucking up.”
I nervously knocked on his door, like I was thirteen year old visiting a boy for the first time.
To my relief, he opened it with a smile.
“What’s that?” He pointed to the Chili’s bag in my right hand.
“Dinner, we said dinner, right? I figured this was easier than going out.” Easier for your to stick your tongue in me again, I thought.
“I told you I don’t date, right?”
“Date, smate. I’m your social worker.”
“Is that the social part of it?”
“If that gets me in your door. Please don’t leave me standing here feeling like an idiot. Your neighbors are all staring.”
I glanced around, Becky next door and some old woman across the lot didn’t even pretend to not be gawking.
“Everyone’s gotta eat, I guess, and I’m off tonight. But we’re not eating that.”
We played with Grace, and then walked her in the stroller with Thug lumbering behind. I even ate some healthy green thing he made instead of the baby back ribs that were calling my name.
And yes, as soon as she was asleep, we fell into bed together.
Afterward, I lay next to him in the darkness.
“This is scary for me, you know that, right?” he said, rolling toward me.
“Twice, breaks the rules.”
“It’s more than that, and you already know the fucking rules are out the window. This is a complication I don’t need right now.”
“Do you want me to go?” My stomach churned as I waited for his answer.
“No, that’s the problem, Tara. I never want you to go.”
My lips brushed his, but he pulled back. “Sorry, kissing is new to me. Another break of my rules.”
“So you really haven’t kissed anyone since…since…”
“You can say her name. It’s okay, somehow you’ve made the rawness of that fade.”
“Dawn was the last person you
kissed.”
“I kiss Grace all the time,” he teased.
“You know what I mean.”
“That’s correct.”
“You loved her?”
He thought for a moment, his eyes toward the ceiling. “I thought I did.”
His hard body pressed into mine. “I might need to start working out,” I said as my hands groped his completely solid backside.
“Nah, I like you all soft.” He laughed and pressed at my in-need-of-many-crunches midsection.
“Mean!” Rolling into him in playful wrestling, I forced his lips onto mine.
“You’re not getting any if you don’t kiss me, Mister.”
“Mister,” he repeated.
“Jerk face.” His lips met mine as he said, “Such harsh language!”
But, for the first time, the kissing and the penetration happened at the same time, not romance or sex. Romance and sex – and I knew then that we were way more than a casual fling. I was falling in love, and I thought that he was, too.
Nine
I Don’t Just Kill Everyone, Contrary To Popular Belief
Mack
And now I’m kissing her, I thought as our tongues intertwined in that perfect dance that only we seemed to possess. Kissing her, and she’s sleeping here.
My cold, calculating brain screamed at me to stop. But my heart, it was falling hard and fast for Tara Anne Drake. Yeah, I even knew her middle name. I was in trouble, we were all in trouble – because when I felt things, people got hurt.
But that night in my bed, with my perfect baby asleep in the next room, I felt bold, invincible. Why can’t I have them both? I deserve this! But the truth was, I didn’t deserve any of it. What I deserved was to be rotting in an unmarked grave outside of Ely Penitentiary for the sins I’d committed.
No, not the actual thing that they convicted me of. That was fucking fully justified. But everything before that… In the dark night sometimes I could still hear the screams.
“Hey, come back to me,” Tara said, her body beneath mine.
“Oh, I’ll come alright. But you first.”
“Kiss me.” Her lips met mine again, and the feeling was too strong. I had to get a little distance or I’d lose myself in her.
I pulled away. “There are better places for my lips.”
“And your tongue,” she said with a moan as I slid lower.
“Always,” I said against the sweet warmth of her.
“Ahhhh,” was the only sound she was capable of producing as I sucked her in, desperate to avoid the intimacy of facing her.
But the truth was, nothing with Tara was just a sex act. Nothing about her was the same as the others. And, my brain screamed, if you don’t cut her out loose you’ll lose everything.
I was too weak to listen that night, too weak to not have her again and again. I wasn’t strong enough to be a dick to her and make her leave before morning. Far too wrapped up in her, I’d let myself forget what happens when I let myself feel.
“Shower,” I protested the next morning. Her fingers were quickly waking me up again, my cock caring little for how much we’d used it the night before.
“After.” Tara slid down, her lips wrapping around my erection.
“You’re filthy,” I teased with a groan as she worked me like no one else ever had. This woman and her perfect mouth, and perfect everything else, was going to be the death of me.
It didn’t take long for her to have me coating her eager tongue yet again. “We’re not done,” I argued as she rose to leave afterward.
“Sore,” she said with a grin.
“So was I. Your turn, baby.”
Through the monitor, Grace began to cry. “Saved by Grace,” she said with a wicked smile.
“Raincheck, then. But tonight, we’re going until you can’t sit down tomorrow.”
It was ridiculously hot the next afternoon as I changed the oil in my unsexy-as-fuck-but-safe vehicle.
“Shit,” I howled as I cut my hand trying to force an overly-tight screw.
“Didn’t get any sleep at all last night, did you daddy?”
“Don’t call me that, it’s creepy as fuck.” I wrapped my bloody hand in my t-shirt as Becky walked up behind me.
“Baby daddies are all the rage right now, fool.”
She held two Bud Lights in her hand, and opened one with the metal top of the other, as if she did that all day long.
“I don’t drink, remember?”
“They’re both for me.”
“Should you really be drinking in your constant condition?”
“I’m not pregnant, asshole.” She gulped at least half the bottle of beer.
“Run out of Disney names?”
“Run out of social workers to fuck in the kitchen window?”
“Point taken,” I said, looking toward her trailer.
“Be careful with that, Mack. It’s a great plan on the surface – fake a thing for her to get her on your side, but if you treat her like you do most women, it’s going to backfire.”
“I’m not faking.”
One of her eyebrows rose as she stepped closer. “Wait, you’re actually attracted to that mousy little bitch?”
“Don’t,” I said, reaching for the wrench.
“Who would have ever thought you’d fall for someone like that?”
“I didn’t say fall. I don’t fall – but, I like being with her.”
“Do you mean you like fucking her?”
“No, I mean…can we not talk about this?”
“Fine,” she shrugged. “Let me clean up that cut.”
“Nah, it’s good. I’ll rub some dirt on it, builds immunity.”
“You’re insane.”
“Understatement. But hey, thanks for watching Grace so I could get this done.”
“The girls love her. Tianna is pushing her around the house in that Cadillac of a stroller you spent too much on.”
“Your air working okay now?”
That morning as Tara was leaving, Becky showed up at the door with her five hundred children dripping in sweat.
“Air went out last night,” she panted, casting a glaring eye at Tara.
“I’m not watching you,” Tara said as she got in her car.
“Social Services is always fucking watching!” Becky howled as she drove away.
Anyway, I spent the morning fixing her A/C before moving on to auto maintenance.
“Miss your bike?” she asked, pointing her second Bud at my car.
“I don’t really miss things. I’m fairly black and white.”
“And what’s your black and white attitude on stripper-whore baby mama lurking around asking about Grace?”
“What?” That caught my attention.
“I assumed Ethel told you. Yesterday afternoon your egg donor was hanging out in the parking lot. Asked the old lady about Grace’s routine.”
“Shit, Ethel hates me.”
“Well, she hates being bothered more. She told that tweaker skin-and-bones to go fuck herself. In those words.”
“Wow, okay. I’ll see if I can’t unfornicate that situation.”
“Do so, because she is trouble, Mack. Courts favor the mother, even shitty-ass-ones.”
She turned to leave, and another moment of decentness came over me. “Hey Becks, for the record, you’re not a shitty one.”
“Wow, are we actually becoming like neighbor-friends or something? Because I could use a friend. I mean, I’d rather be fucking but…”
“I don’t have friends, and the screwing is never gonna happen. But if there’s anything you need, just say. I owe ya.”
“Actually, Simba’s father was around last night. Talked some evil shit to my boy, made some threats to me.”
“Get me his details and I’ll have a little talk with him.”
“I don’t want him dead, MacKenzie, just behavin’.”
“I don’t just kill everyone, contrary to popular belief. Geez!”
Ten
&n
bsp; F*ck You Boxer Briefs
“So glad you could tear yourself away from the new boyfriend to make it to happy hour.”
Maddie stared at the menu, as if she didn’t already know every detail of the Cabo Wabo Mexican Cantina’s offerings from three to five in the afternoon.
“Oh, sorry,” I said, glancing at my phone. “He’s not my boyfriend, but oh my lord, he just sent me an actual text.”
That got her attention. “You’ve been dating this guy for two weeks, and a text is a big deal?”
I wasn’t sure what we were, to be honest. I did know it was more than he’d probably ever let himself experience, but I couldn’t help but wonder if he was simply seeking stability for Grace. I constantly fought that he’s just not that into you demon in my head.
“I’m not sure dating is the right word. We’ve never actually left his place. But no, he’s called me but never once a text or direct message or anything like that.”
“Your murderer is weird.”
“Please stop calling him that.”
“Fine, your not-boyfriend, not-dating, hooking-up guy is a bit a-typical.”
“I think he’s just not that into technology. Or communication. He’s certainly not into commitment.”
“So what does this all-important text say?”
“Uh.” I opened it up and studied it. “It appears to be an underwear picture.”
She laughed as she stabbed a chip into the guacamole. “We call those dick pics, Tara.”
I shook my head. “No, it’s not that. He’s not wearing them. They’re just laying on the floor.”
“Maybe he wants you to do his laundry?”
“Look.” I showed her my phone screen.
“Those are hilarious!” She signaled to the waitress. “We’re going to need a fuck-ton of margaritas in the next hour,” she said, pointing at her empty glass.
I peered at the picture again. It seemed to be a pair of boxer briefs on his floor and they said in small print “fuck you” all over them.
“I think he’s breaking up with me, Maddie.” My heart pounded.
Redemption Page 6
