by Wyatt, Dani
“She’s not here.” Roger slurped his tongue inside his lips as he turned back to the new Irish rogue that danced around the ring, throwing a sidelong glance toward Cameron.
Roger’s nose still looked like a camo pattern of puke green and sick jaundice yellow as it wrapped up under his left eye.
“Left with your baby brother about thirty minutes ago. Said she’d be back by 2. Looked like they were going out for a nice little lunch date — Gilroy’s I think. Asked if I wanted takeout.” He sneered and smacked his lips as he turned back to focus on this new guy that always seemed to be around lately which only raised Cameron’s radar.
“Oh — and,” Roger’s thick tongued voice followed Cameron as he moved toward the back hall, “Victoria got a nice delivery earlier too. Seemed to really cheer her up.”
He felt like some jungle fever came over him.
What the fuck? Not fucking today. Is this a joke? Did I not made it fucking clear as Baccarat crystal she was not to leave without telling me who, what, when, and where? Delivery? What fucking delivery? What doesn’t she understand about letting me know what the fuck is going on?
Cameron smashed into the back office; sure Roger must be delusional. He expected to find her sitting behind her desk tapping the keys on her computer or having it out with some vendor over the phone about when they would get their check.
Instead, Cameron felt his stomach turn. Three strides and his hand was on the little card that stuck up out of the mass of ivory petals.
The vase of white roses dominated the room; the sweet scent only served to ignite his fury as the little card shook in his fingers.
‘One night, the Meridan on Bates. Reservations made. T.’
The red lights didn’t even register on his radar as the Camaro turned on two wheels down Warren and onto Shepard coming to a screaming halt in the parking lot behind Gilroy’s Restaurant.
He barreled out the car door before the engine quit humming; leaving the driver’s door unlocked for the first time in twenty years as he felt the pavement crunch under each footfall.
Six foot five inches and 267 pounds of iron clad fury stomped toward the front door of the restaurant.
What the fuck? How could she not tell him? Flowers? Lunch out? She knew he was supposed to be at Reggie’s until at least 4. Did she really not understand the fucking rules? How the fuck was he supposed to protect her ass when she was leaving him out of the damn loop? She was a tough nut to crack, but babygirl needed another lesson. After I redden her ass, she may not get her happy ending.
The last second he rounded the corner his breath caught in each lung like barbed wire, he held onto the one fiber of hope that this wasn’t as bad as his gut was telling him. But, if the burning in his face was any indication, all out war was about to begin.
His eyes caught them like a Bald Eagle looking for a mouse at 1000 yards. Cameron locked on to their fingers as they intertwined across the table. The glare through the front glass of Gilroy’s couldn’t hide the connection he saw. He watched as the light curls on the back of Asher’s head leaned forward and his lips connected with her cheek.
Then, the apocalypse hit.
She smiled. Dear Jesus, please tell me she didn’t just smile. She did, she fucking smiled across the table while he held her hand and kissed her like she is fucking available for that shit. Stop, you better stop right fucking now. Leave, leave, leave.
Cameron’s fingertips dug into his palm as his hand locked onto the door handle.
No one understood what happened in a brain like his. Once the switched flipped, there was no law, no consequences that would hold him back. The only two people he loved in the fucking world were sitting there with their betrayal in full fucking view.
Everything slowed, there was no rational thought, only instinct, and subconscious reaction. A pounding started in his head like a hail storm, and his skin felt like it was covered in stinging fire ants.
He didn’t know what was happening in those next few seconds, but, her eyes flashed to the door where he dropped the handle as she dropped Asher’s hand. Their eyes locked together for the smallest fraction of a second.
Her hand opened, the connection between the betrayers lost. Her eyes looked like she encountered a vision of the devil in human form as Cameron turned away, and his muscles carried him without conscious thought back around the corner of the brick buildings.
He had never felt a pain of this magnitude. Through every fight, every beating he took with the belt from Larry, his lit cigarettes that used his arm as their ashtray — nothing felt one fucking bit as close to what was going on inside his head and his body right then.
Only his heart felt nothing, because it was no longer there.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He heard it, it was his name. Only, there was no meaning to it, somehow the voice and the word were separate, as though they had no connection to him or each other.
His foot met the floor on top of the accelerator, the eight cylinders blowing through a gallon of gas as the engine screamed. He sent the needle into the red, not sure where to go.
The clutch man. Let up on the fucking clutch!
Her palms were slapping on his window.
There’s that voice again.
Words were coming out of her mouth, but she may as well been speaking Latin because they held no meaning. There existed no reality above the noise of the engine as Cameron struggled to block out everything.
He slammed his hand into the steering wheel and let out a bellow like dragon fire across some mythical dark valley.
She was screaming, knocking and pounding on the glass that felt like a million years and a thousand miles away. How can he keep her safe? How can he trust her? How could she do this?
“Get the fuck off the car.” Cameron let off the accelerator just enough for his voice to carry through the glass.
“Stop it! Let me explain! It’s nothing, Cam. It’s not —”
He roared the engine again, and her hands shot up to cover her ears.
Clutch man. Get us out of here. The fucking clutch!
Why couldn’t he leave?
There was nothing she could say right now. Not one magic word. Not a thousand magic words. It was fucking betrayal, no matter what the reason. Promises broken meant worlds collided and their lives were no longer on parallel paths.
Then, everything felt thick, heavy, slow, and silent. She was still knocking on the window as his hand slowly turned the knob, and the clear barrier went down in slow, uneven inches.
He saw what must have been relief in her eyes, but it didn’t register anything other than what his brain identified as some human emotion for which he had no purpose.
She was pleading, the sounds coming out of her were gibberish as the hammers in his head doubled into his gut. He felt stinging flames branch out through every vessel and vein until his skin felt it would peel from the heat.
“You can stay at my place, I won’t be there. Get your stuff, don’t get your stuff, I don’t give a shit.”
The noise finally stopped coming out of her mouth, all that was left were those eyes and Cameron felt his stomach come up.
“I didn’t do —”
“Yes, you did. I told you what you needed to do, you agreed. You lied. You fucked up the trust I had in you. You want Asher? I told you to fucking tell me that, and I would have taken my back seat and let you go. But you fucking promised me there was nothing fucking there! And, the fucking flowers? What, you’ve got that shit all covered too, huh? I love you more than my own fucking life. I always have. Don’t you fucking get it? I would die for you, kill any fucker for you. But, you need to listen, I can’t be around if you’re going to be off making your own fucking rules. That shit don’t fly, Vic. No fucking way. You fucked this up, and I’m fucking done. I’ve got the balls, and they fucking ordain me to take care of shit, I’m no fucking pussy. I can’t ride this fucking ride with you, it’s too much. I’m dying right fucking now — so we’re done.”
Ca
meron had never felt that clutching feeling in his throat before and there was an unfamiliar prick in his eyes. He bit down on the inside of his lip until the metallic flavor spread over his tongue, and the pain distracted his heart from beating again.
“Cameron, come on, it —”
Words again, she was saying words again, and they meant as much to him as a discarded dirty rubber.
“Shut the fuck up, Victoria. Go back inside, do whatever you fucking want because that’s what you do. I gave you my fucking word, and I kept it. You agreed to the fucking rules. I’m here to protect you; I’m here to tell you how shit is going to go down, not the other way around. If I can’t keep you safe, then I can’t be here. I’m going to take care of this bullshit debt once and for all, but then, I’m leaving. I’m done. We had our shot, and it’s not going to work because I can’t trust you to do as your fucking told. Now, get your hands off the fucking car or you’re going to get hurt.”
“You're being an assho—”
Cameron stomped his boot to the floor, and his left foot rose off the clutch, the smell of rubber, exhaust fumes and the sound of the pistons firing 400 horses muffed out any more of her useless syllables.
He drove straight to the cell phone store as soon as he heard his phone start blowing up inside his jeans pocket.
Outside on the pavement, he crushed the image of her face with the heel of his boot as it came up on the screen along with the ringtone that usually sent his blood flowing and his cock rising. But, he didn’t know shades of gray and when he was done, he was fucking done.
New phone, new number — the beginning of the end of everything he had ever wanted
43
“Don’t, please, not this time, I want to feel you cum inside me. PLEASE, God, it feels so good, don’t stop —”
“You need more, little girl?”
“Yes, God, please make me cum —”
There were no more beautiful words than what he just heard, and his crazy ass greedy cock was only too happy to oblige.
Her hips bore down, his eyes already blazing as he watched her sitting on his lap, facing him taking him as deep as he had ever gone. Her wanton side out in force and he loved watching her come out of herself like this.
“OH my God, don’t stop, right there —”
The words turned into one long screaming orgasm as her arms tightened like a stranglehold around his throat. He pulsed upward with the clenching of her walls, taking every inch her body would give him, feeling her from the inside with sensations that didn’t even have names.
Jesus, fuck…every fucking time feels better than the last—
Her muffled whimpers slowed into the crook of his neck, and he pulled her head back by the hair, he needed to see her face, look into her eyes.
Victoria’s eyes were the picture of pure bliss, unadulterated ecstasy as she rode out the final waves of her climax and her body overheated on his cock and soaked them both.
He reached around, slipped his fingers down into the dripping juices that streamed from where there bodies bound into one, bringing them up and swirling them around her tight dark bud.
Cameron wanted more; he wanted to see that look on her face one more time before he cemented his seed inside her.
“You like that? You want my finger in your ass? You’re going to cum again for me aren’t you babygirl?”
He pushed slowly, firmly, and her body yielded and he heard the whimpering, guttural sound of resignation and rapture in her voice.
He pumped his long, slick middle finger in and out of her ass as he rose her body up with his arm around her waist, pounding into her like a soldier on leave finding a virgin at the whorehouse.
He felt her body heat up around him again, her softness enveloped him — he knew he wouldn’t last much longer.
“Cum for me babygirl —”
He raised her ass for another deep stroke and then slipped a second finger deep into her tight ring of muscle — she wriggled like some snake on a hot rock but Cameron locked her down with his arm around her waist, her tits at his mouth, as he leaned in and marked the soft flesh.
“Owwwww!!!”
Her face lit up with a look of such pure rapture and love, Cameron was done. From his toes to his ears, his body seized up, his balls churned shots of cum so far into her he was sure he had planted himself inside her.
The idea of sending his seed home only pushed his crazy dick to pump harder, impaling her and filling her with every drop that rose up from somewhere that felt like his soul.
She rocked on him until they both fell into a kiss that seemed like it wouldn’t end. He could feel the soft plush curves of her body melt against him as he held her close, and his cock jerked the last drops deep in her belly.
“Who loves you, babygirl?” Cameron barely got the words above his breath into her ear.
“You do, daddy.” She curled around him like a spider clutching its prey.
“That’s right babe —” He licked her neck, listening to her breath in his ear hitch and halt. “That’s right.”
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP
What the Jesus devil’s fuck????
There is that split second when you puncture the membrane between unconscious and conscious; when your brain and body exist on another plane, somewhere between two worlds that feels like nowhere.
Cameron wished he lived there; in that nowhere. Because when that moment of blissful ignorance was over and he realized she wasn’t wrapped around him and his morning wood was the only evidence of the dream that still echoed in his head, nowhere was the only place he wanted to be.
He threw his arm over his eyes.
Not because there was any light coming in, he had sealed up the hotel room like a tomb with the light-blocking curtains. The ink that covered his chest and both arms was a muffled gray against his flesh.
The spiderweb obsidian ink that covered his elbow and part of the top and bottom of his arm looked like a death mask as he draped the crook of his arm over his face trying to keep reality from tangling its nasty fingers around his neck.
Get up. You still have shit to do. Get up. Get up. Get up. I wonder where the fuck she is. Stop it. Get up. Go fight, go. It’s all you know; it’s all you have and it ain’t much, but it’s the only fucking way you’re going to get through this shit day. And the next, and the next. Finish the job and then get the fuck out.
Between the searing branded image of Asher’s hand on hers and his lips on her cheek, Cameron’s only other thought was how far he should go. Colorado hadn’t been far enough, maybe he needed at least an ocean between them so he wouldn’t be tempted to come back again.
Two panting furry faces were resting on the edge of the shitty motel mattress. He had to give the clerk an extra fifty bucks to let him bring the dogs.
“Come on, let’s get those shitters emptied.”
He ran the dogs for a couple miles until they had pissed and crapped and looked like they were ready for him to leave them the hell alone for a few hours.
He fed the dogs and threw his ass in the shower.
Guys like him didn’t get happy endings. Right? He, of all people, should have known better. He couldn’t remember ever seeing one himself and he sure as shit hadn’t earned one. But, her, Jesus — she fucking deserved one and he thought he would be the one with a shot at giving it to her.
Killing Asher — visions of pounding his head into a brick wall — occurred to him. But he wasn’t the betrayer, he didn’t know she belonged to him, and he certainly couldn’t fault him. Dude had good taste.
His heart asked him for permission for every beat, he barely breathed in and out without conscious thought as he threw his broken self into the car. His head rested on the cool leather wrap of the steering wheel as his eyes closed, and he lost himself in the quicksand of grief. It wasn’t just a broken heart; it was a death, a funeral, and a burial of everything that had kept him just this side of reality.
He took one, two, three long b
reaths — his mind felt like a dead body with a rope tied around one ankle, a cinder block around the other end and the icy water of the Detroit River pulling him down.
By the time he lifted his head, the clock on his phone said 8:36. He had walked out of the hotel room at 8:02, he only remembered taking those three breaths then — nothing — and it was 30 minutes later.
Fuck man, you are fucking losing it. Nut up.
He focused like a sniper staring down through the cross hairs, tunnel vision, blocking everything else out as he drove to the only place where he knew he could find relief.
I hope Reggie’s got a big boy for me today because they are probably going to be sorry they got out of bed this morning.
He knew he could cause real damage in his current state of mind. Ripping off limbs and crushing windpipes sounded like the best way to start off the shit day. Unfortunately, it would probably leave him in handcuffs.
You still have to handle this shit man. You still have to keep her safe. Button up this bullshit and then disappear. You gotta make it another few days, you gotta decide. Take the fall or figure it out. But, she will never, ever lay with that fuck — not if there’s any blood left in my veins, she will not be their sacrificial lamb.
He felt the weight of war on his shoulders. She would be safe, that was mission priority, even if they weren’t together that would never change. He had not decided until his car turned left instead of right at the red flashing light at Belmont and Wayne. Right took him to Reggie’s, left took him to O’Leary’s where Topher held court every day.
Every direction he turned the pieces and parts in his mind, there was no out. No perfect way to keep all the flaming sticks in the air, juggling them was no longer an option; it was time to nut up and make a decision.
Even as his fingers felt the cool metal of the door handle, the buzzing neon GUINNESS STOUT sign in the window like a caution light, he couldn’t be sure how or if he was going to walk out the same way he came in. The scenarios flashed in his head like strobe light images of the ending of some tragic comedy.
