Rest & Trust

by Susan Fanetti

  “No, you won’t. You do not want to get stitched up without painkillers.” He pushed his hand closer to her face, and she closed her eyes. “Trust me. I know.”

  “No.” She kept her eyes closed and took another deep breath, counting steadily to herself as she released it.

  He was quiet for an awkwardly long time. When she opened her eyes, curious, she found him staring at her. His eyes were so…fierce that she flinched.

  “How long have you been clean?”

  “What?”

  He didn’t repeat himself. They both knew he didn’t need to.

  No point in prevaricating; maybe if he knew, he’d stop waving temptation in front of her. “Three hundred and ninety-three days.”

  He turned and dumped the Oxy back into its bottle. “That’s good. Is it Oxy?”

  “Opiates in general. Started with E, actually, but Oxy and H are my personal monkeys.”

  Nodding, he opened a sterile package and pulled on a pair of latex gloves. “Meth rides my brother. He hasn’t managed a month clean in probably ten years.”

  “Shit. That’s tough. Meth is a bastard.”

  “Smack’s no picnic, either.” He undid the bandana from her arm and started cleaning her wounds.

  “Ah, fuck,” she muttered at the sting of the antiseptic.

  He stopped and met her eyes. “This is going to suck like nobody’s business, doing this straight. You know that, right?”

  She managed a smile. “You told me you wouldn’t hurt me, though. Remember?”

  He smiled back, and she was distracted from the pain and fear by the potent urge to lean in and suck on that ring through his lip.

  “I’ll go as easy as I can.”

  “Okay, then. Try not to make it too ugly.”

  “No guarantees. But scars are hot.” His smile became a grin, and she returned it. This guy. Damn.

  First he dabbed ointment in the through-and-through wounds and taped pads of gauze over them. Then he threaded a curved needle with dark thread, and swabbed the gash again with antiseptic.

  He pushed the needle into her skin, and she yelled, “Holy FUCK!” That was a very not-cool level of pain. Her eyes sought the bottle of whiskey. Maybe just…

  His head turned and tracked her view. “You want to take a hit off that bottle? Would that screw up your time clean?”

  “Maybe. Either way, it’s a long, twisty road to hell. I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop at whiskey, once I start feeling good.”

  “Okay. If you yell and jump every time the needle goes in, though, this is gonna look like Leatherface did your first aid. And I’m gonna need to start drinking.”

  “You do that a lot?”

  The needle came through the other side, and this time she only grunted. But fuck a duck, it hurt.

  He tied off the first stitch. “Do what?”

  “Drink. This mess isn’t the aftermath of a party. This is normal state. You drank all this, didn’t you? Alone?” He poked the needle in with a bit more force the next time, and she jumped and yelled, “Ow!”

  He ignored her and brought the needle through again. “Don’t get twelve-step preachy with me. I know the drill. Been through it a bunch of times with Thomas.”

  “Thomas is your brother?”

  “He is. He’s the one with the problem. I’m a slob, not a drunk.”

  “Unless this mess is a year’s worth of booze, I think you might be both—OW! You said you’d go easy!” If someone offered to cut her arm off right now, she’d probably accept rather than deal with more stitches. At least that would be one quick pain.

  “You want to watch you don’t piss off the guy with the needle, sweetheart.”

  “Sorry,” Sadie replied, well and truly cowed.

  They sat quietly for the next couple of stitches. Sadie kept her face screwed up, trying to be still. This shit hurt more than anything she’d ever felt before. But at least he was being gentle again.

  “This isn’t me with a drinking problem,” Sherlock muttered as he tied off a stitch—oh please let it be the last one. “This is me just going through some shit.”

  He pushed the needle into her arm again. Fuck! Sadie looked and saw that this one would certainly be the last; he was at the end of the wound. “That’s how roads like mine start, though. Your brother’s, too—AH!”—she breathed deep and held still as he tied off the last stitch. “We all started because we were looking for something to help us deal with some shit.”

  “Nobody preachier than a recovering fucking addict,” he muttered as he taped gauze over the line of stitches—Sadie noticed that they were fairly straight and even—and pushed away. “You don’t know me, or my brother, so keep your opinions to yourself.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Yeah.” He pulled off the gloves and started cleaning up the mess from his medical attentions. At least he was cleaning that up.

  While she watched him, everything that had happened over the past hour or so finally converged into one clear thought. “Holy shit. I got shot. By a cop.”

  At that, Sherlock gave her a wry smile, lifting one side of his mouth. “You did. Welcome to the club, little outlaw.”

  Sadie was overcome with urges. Her arm hurt like a fucker, but the endorphins had finally fired up, and she was vibrating with need. She needed to scrub his house down. She needed to drink that whiskey, and God! she needed those Oxys that were just right there.

  And she needed to get off. She needed her hot new biker friend to put his hands on her—and not when he was holding a needle.

  That last option seemed the safest, so before he could stand up, when he would be too tall for her to reach, she stood, leaned down, and brought her good arm up. She grabbed hold of his beater and kissed him on the mouth.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Sadie had a fucking spectacular mouth. It was too big for her face, but it was gorgeous—full red lips, the bottom a bit fuller than the top, the top with a sharp bow.

  He’d been staring at it, trying not to fixate on it, since he’d set her off his bike in that alley. And now it was on him, and she was sucking on his bottom lip, and fuck.

  Pushing her back, he caught his breath—and his libido, which had thoroughly enjoyed the feel of that mouth on his.

  But she was small and clearly young. Shit, early twenties, he guessed. He was pushing forty; old enough to be her father, theoretically. He looked down into that young, smooth face—gorgeous eyes over that incredible mouth, and in a color as close as he’d ever seen to the violet people always said Elizabeth Taylor’s eyes had been. A pert little nose with a silver ring through the left side. Her hair was short and straight, cut bluntly above her shoulders, black with streaks of cobalt blue. The whole effect was youthful. Too youthful.

  She still had hold of his beater; he put his hand over hers. “How old are you, sweetheart?”

  “Twenty-f-five,” she stuttered. That was a lie. When he cocked an eyebrow at her to show his skepticism, she smiled. Fuck that gigawatt grin. “You have fantastic eyes. And I was being straight with you. I’ll be twenty-five in August. Why? How old are you?”

  Twenty-five-ish was older than he’d thought, but still. Thirteen-plus years. There was a lot of life in that difference. He didn’t know why it mattered; he’d fucked younger club girls. But club girls hadn’t been sitting in his kitchen with their blood dripping on the floor, asking him about his brother.

  “Thirty-eight.” At his answer, she stepped forward, insinuating herself between his legs. “What are you doing?”

  “That’s not so old. And you are fucking hot. I am fucking horny. I need something to burn off the freakout—I can’t get high, so I need to get off. It’s you or that Oxy, bub.” She bent down and kissed him again, nuzzling her nose into his heard. “I want to feel you.”

  His cock had been fully engaged since she’d first sucked on his lip; now it ached. But this was a bad idea. A recovering addict, a stranger, and wounded. A girl like that, in his own house. His private space.<
br />
  He was not in control of this situation. Sherlock liked to be in control, particularly where sex was involved. This was a bad idea.

  Putting his hands on her hips, he pushed her back and stood. Her top was snug and didn’t quite meet the waistband of her tiny cutoffs, and his thumbs grazed the bare skin of her belly. She was slim but not firm; her body was soft and yielded easily to the pressure of his hands. Several times, he’d caught a glint of metal under her shirt: her navel was pierced. Now, as she had one arm raised, still clutching his beater, her top had pulled up, and he saw a dangling silver sugar skull, elaborately rendered. He’d brushed his thumb over it before he’d realized he was going to.

  Her belly twitched, and the skin roughed with gooseflesh.

  “I should take you home.”

  “Why? I just want a fuck before I go.” She pressed her body to his. “I can feel that you’re into me.”

  She hadn’t moved her wounded arm much, but now she brought it slowly up so that her hand could brush over his jeans, tracing the length of his erection. The muscles in his gut clenched behind that touch. He caught her hand and, like a reflex, held her to him, then pulled her away, wincing when she hissed in pain. “Sorry. Sadie…”

  Before he could work out the rest of that sentence, she let go of him and stepped back, wrenching her sore arm from him; he released her right away, before he could hurt her again. “Okay, I get it. Whatever. It’s probably better if I call a cab, so I don’t have to hold on with only one arm.”

  “I have a truck, too. I can drive you.”

  “No, I—” she didn’t get farther than that, because he’d bent down and kissed her. As soon as she’d backed off of him, his desire overtook his reservations. This was his thing, and he knew it was weird: he needed to be the instigator. He wanted the lead. He didn’t like getting instructions; he liked giving them. He didn’t force himself on women, but he wanted to be the one running the show. It was why he and Taryn had worked so well in bed: there, if only there, she liked being told what to do.

  His kiss was nothing like hers had been. Sadie had kissed him gently, experimentally. Sherlock bent her over his arm and shoved his tongue into her mouth. She made a quick sound—a protest, or maybe just a moan—that was swallowed into insignificance in his mouth. And then the hand of her good arm clenched into his beater again and she pulled, as if to bring him even closer. That spectacular mouth opened more, and her tongue came out to play with his.

  One hand was still on her belly. He pushed it up, under her top, and cupped her breast—it was small, less than a handful, but he could feel the hard knot of her aroused nipple under the silky nothing of her bra—no padding; he liked that. He tweaked the tight bud with his fingers, and she jumped in his hold.

  He lifted his head from hers, sucking on her tongue as long as he could. When they finally parted, she opened wide eyes and whispered, “Holy shit.”

  “I don’t play, Sadie. I will take you home right now, but if you want me to fuck you, then fuck you I will. Know what you’re getting into.”

  She frowned and fought to stand straight up. When he let her, she asked, “What’s that mean? I’m not into all that weird shit, like ropes and whips. I don’t like other people hurting me.”

  He noted the phrasing of that last sentence as odd, but let it go. “I’m not into that, either. I won’t hurt you. I don’t get off on pain—yours or mine. But you follow my lead. Do what I say. That’s how I fuck.”

  “Control freak.”

  “In this, yes. You want me to drive you home?” He should just do it, just take her home. She was too fucking young. And too fucked up. A year clean was not that long.

  She was quiet for a few seconds, appearing to stare at his belly, and Sherlock had about decided to make the call for her and take her home. Then she looked up, with an unexpectedly savvy gleam in her eyes. “What do you want me to do?”

  Contemplating that gleam, Sherlock let himself give in to what he wanted. “Okay.” He turned and dug into his first aid kit. When he found what he was looking for, he shook two pills into the palm of his hand, and then shook out two more from another bottle. “First, I want you to take these.”

  The gleam in her eyes winked out, and she scowled. “Hey—”

  “Antibiotics, sweetheart. And Tylenol.”

  “Oh.”

  He picked up her hand and dumped the pills into them. “I’ll get you some water.”

  “In a clean glass, I hope.” She gave his sink a suspicious glare.

  “Bottled. Hold up.” He crossed to the fridge and pulled out a chilled bottle of still water.

  She followed him, so he had only to turn and hand it to her. As she took it, she said, “You know these shit all over the environment, right? I mean, you’ve got to know that.”

  “You a tree-hugger? That what today was about?”

  She shrugged, wincing when the move pulled on her hurt shoulder. “Today was about a big, shitty corporation poisoning people, making their babies come out without all their parts, or too many parts. This bottle is part of a system that lets companies get away with that shit. People don’t look too closely at the cost of their conveniences unless they’re the ones bleeding out their eyes or having three-legged babies.”

  While she swallowed her pills, he laughed.

  She scowled. “That’s funny?”

  “It’s cute. The way you think standing on the courthouse steps with a bullhorn makes a difference.”

  “Today made a difference. People will see the machine eating up the cogs. What happened today was all on the cops. People will see that.”

  Damn, she really was young. “People will see that you made them late for dinner. That’s what they’ll see.” He pulled his phone out of his jeans pocket and got online. A quick search brought up a news video. He didn’t even have to play it; the banner running along the bottom bore the title: RIOT AT COURTHOUSE; 3 OFFICERS INJURED. He turned the screen so she could see it.

  She crossed her good arm over her body and put her hand over the bandage covering her stitched wound. “Fuck. No way. They were the ones who made it violent. They were shooting everywhere. They beat Blake and shot me. That I know of.”

  “Sorry, little outlaw. Ma and Pa Normal don’t want to know. If they did, then things would change. But nothing ever changes because people don’t want it.” He put his phone away. At the same time, she pulled hers back out, digging into her ragged denim shorts—not much more than booty shorts. Her skinny legs were covered with black lace tights. On her feet were silver Docs with glittery laces. Interesting ensemble for a riot.

  “I need to check in with some friends. I can’t believe how I keep forgetting that other people besides me were there today.” She’d lost the lusty edge from her attitude, and Sherlock thought the moment they’d had between them had died.

  “You still staying?”

  “Sure. You’re still hot, and I’m still fizzy.”

  “Fizzy?”

  “Yeah—what I call it when I…need.”

  Something in the way she’d said that—that catch before the word ‘need’—struck him deep, and he reached out and put his hand on her face. His palm dwarfed her cheek. She leaned into the caress for just a second and then pulled away.

  “Make your calls. I’ll put the kit away.”

  While he disposed of the bloody medical detritus and put his kit away, Sadie walked out of the room, her phone to her ear. He didn’t like that; he might not have been particular about the state of his space, but he was particular that it was his space. But he assumed she wanted privacy, and he grudgingly kept his mouth shut.

  As soon as he had the waste in the trash and the kit back in the pantry, though, he went out to the living room, where she was standing, no longer on the phone.

  She turned a wide, brilliant grin on him. “Holy shit. You are a total fucking geek.”

  He looked around at the room. It was neater than the kitchen; he generally managed to get his food leavings back
there before he lost the motivation to clean. A few empty beer bottles on the coffee table, a half-full bottle of Cuervo on his gaming unit. A couple of hoodies on the floor by his overfull coat rack. A spare pair of boots at the base of the sofa.

  But Sadie wasn’t focused on the mess. Instead she pointed to the gaming wall. He’d covered the wall in a photographic mural of the Milky Way. On it hung a massive flexscreen television, and under that was his gaming unit: every video game console in mass-production since the Atari 2600, all of them operational. He’d had to do some fancy retrofitting to make his state-of-the art AV system compatible with geriatric technology, but everything worked. The whole wall perpendicular to the mural wall was shelves filled with games for all those consoles.