When…Sue? Sam? Stacy? Whatever. When she was gone, Riya rubbed her temples hard.
“This one is quite a piece of work. Not sure I can effectively communicate.”
“Keep glitter in your pocket. You get stuck, throw some. She’ll be so fascinated, she won’t remember what she asked you anyway.”
A runaway chuckle broke before she could rein it in. “That’s horrible. True but horrible.” She went back to rolling strips of filo dough and dark chocolate that she’d bake the next morning.
Tawny was irritated and dropped onto a stool.
Riya should be fucking writing her books…not trying to decode the male psyche or deal with talking blowup dolls. Talk about a waste of time. Most men needed food and sex. What was so mysterious?
When she’d accidentally stumbled on Riya’s pen name during a random security upgrade of their systems, she didn’t say a word.
Her best friend was far different online than she allowed herself to be in the real world. The erotic novels she published anonymously, the blog under yet another name, and the topics she covered in both fascinated a woman who had known her all her life.
In the virtual world, Riya was one dirty, dirty bitch.
Tawny didn’t want to ruin that freedom for her. God knew she never had any fun. It seemed the cat was about to claw its way out of the bag.
“I have an idea for my dissertation.”
“This shit better not put me to sleep. I can’t believe you’re committing to another four years for a piece of fucking paper.”
Taking a deep breath, Riya said, “I don’t think it will put you to sleep.”
Then the brunette whose brain operated in two different arenas just like Tawny’s outlined her idea for a project that would translate to a non-fiction and several fiction books.
“You write fiction?” Blushing brightly, Riya nodded. It made Tawny smile. “What are they, like…dramas?”
“Uh, no. Not exactly. I mean, there’s drama in them but that isn’t the genre they’d be classed in exactly.”
Fucking with Riya was her favorite pastime. “You mean they’re like spy novels or something?”
There was a long silence and then Riya tilted her head and narrowed her eyes. “You fucking already know.”
“What I know is that my best friend is a total slut who’s on the road to hell in a hand basket.”
Then she busted up laughing.
“Oh my god, how the fuck do you keep so many secrets?” Hands on her hips, she demanded, “How long have you known?”
“More than a year. Tramp.”
With a big sigh, Riya sat on the stool beside her. “I wish I could be more like you.”
“That’s a ridiculous statement.”
Shaking her head, she said, “No. I mean it. Your life interests me.”
“My life would make a good book. It’s shit for the emotional balance of a person.”
“How’s your man friend?”
One shoulder lifted in a shrug. “Still as damaged as I am. Still hot and hung. He’s a non-starter but I love the human being he is and how he walks through the world.”
“You aren’t in love with him after all this time?”
“Riya, Riya, Riya…not everyone gives a flying fuck about Prince Charming. No, I’m not in love with him. I like him. I respect him. I come buckets when I fuck him.” She smiled carefully. “I don’t think I’m capable of love.”
“That’s bullshit. You’re more capable than most, I think. You’re the crazy love type. Once it hits you, you’ll kill to preserve it.”
“Ha! Okay. I’ll keep my eyes open should this miraculous event occur. In the meantime, I’ll continue fucking my mystery man and call it good.” She frowned. “Speaking of fucking, how long has it been since you got laid? Too long, I’m thinking.”
“I’m conducting an experiment.”
“Does it involve celibacy?” She nodded.
“You’ve only fucked two people and you’re in your early twenties. Can’t you wait to do experiments that involve no sex when you’re old and wrinkled?”
Riya’s laughter was one of the best things in the world.
“I have an end-game in mind. Right now, I’m in the initial stages. Testing the waters and whatnot.” Her eyes drifted shut. “I’m going to buy that duplex on the beach I looked at last week.”
“I just closed on a condo a couple of miles away.”
“Your secret-keeping ability is supernatural.”
“I’m done with school and I need privacy. I don’t like scaring Maggie and I work weird hours. The other businesses run themselves but my side work is pretty time-consuming.” Considering, she asked, “The celibacy thing…is that about your dissertation?”
“I need certain data. This is a four-year span that has a lot of moving pieces. There are some parts that aren’t solid in my mind yet. It’s all going to be surveys and stuff so I need a real world test as well. I’m using myself as the control subject.” Then she added, “I need privacy to do everything without Dad looking over my shoulder.”
They talked for hours and Tawny wondered if Riya knew the scope of her idea as well as she thought.
She figured it would keep her mind interested, give her more writing material for the dirty books she liked to write, and maybe she’d accidentally meet someone. Stranger things had happened. No one deserved romantic love more than her closest friend.
Riya yawned. “I’m crashing. We can talk tomorrow. I want to go running in the morning before the rain.”
Leaning in her direction, Tawny gave her a smacking kiss on the cheek. “Get your beauty sleep. I, on the other hand, am naturally stunning and require little rest.”
“Working again?”
“Always. I love it. Go to bed. Enjoy your run.” She said the word as if referring to maggots, the grossest thing on the planet, in her opinion. “Wake me up with that morning chipper shit and you get sliced.”
“I’ll bake early. Food always wakes you up.” A few seconds later, Riya disappeared down the hall.
Hollow kept her busy.
He scoured the web for kidnappings, missing persons, unsolved murders, rapes, and domestic cases that meant an adult or child was in danger.
It seemed there was no end to the scumbags that populated the earth, breathing the same air as the rest of civilization.
They built their own investigations.
Some of the work was the stuff of nightmares. It didn’t make her love what she did, or the difference she made, any less.
Their team operated outside the law.
The boundaries that prevented the police from making arrests and the district attorneys from getting convictions didn’t impede Hollow’s enterprise.
She’d been working for him more than a year when he brought up her own night of violence. He gave her the files on the men who’d killed Arnie and raped her.
As she suspected, it hadn’t been their first taste of crime. The only reason she hadn’t been killed as well was due to a nightclub across the street closing. Within minutes, the street was flooded with milling patrons.
She imagined that the men had been concerned with getting their clothes fastened and getting away from the scene. Unconscious, she didn’t present much of a threat.
Most of her day had been spent going through their arrest records and cross-referencing their victims.
Finally, Hollow had rested his hands over hers, kissed her cheek, and whispered, “Enough. Now you move on. They took enough.”
He’d held her while she cried and then he’d kissed her until she was moaning in his arms.
He took her to his bed. For hours, he loved her body and soothed her spirit. “Remember who you are, Tawny. Remember who you are and then let it go.”
She had done as he told her and the slow-bleeding wound inside was finally able to scab over.
Tawny owed Hollow for many things but, to her, the night he gave her back who she was symbolized the greatest of
them.
Chapter Eight
May 2010
Tawny rolled over in the middle of the night and watched Hollow work in silence for several minutes.
The pale light from his computer reflected off his glasses and in his blue-black hair. He was naked from the waist up, sitting at his massive workstation. His body was corded and sinewy.
It was a body she openly and unashamedly lusted after when he was within touching distance.
He was working on an old case. It was personal to him but she couldn’t get him to talk much about it.
As far as she was aware, it was closed years before when a young boy had been rescued from a rare female child molester and Hollow had fast-tracked his paperwork.
That he’d reopened his files meant it involved other people in the case. A fact that didn’t bother her. She knew a recent trip had been to see her. He wouldn’t discuss the details.
What bothered her was his pain and withdrawal into silence. That meant it was time to stop being polite.
That shit never worked for her anyway.
Standing, she walked naked across the room and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, draping herself over his back. His warm skin felt incredible against her bare breasts.
Everything about Hollow felt incredible.
“Tell me what’s going on because you know I’ll understand.” She planted a kiss on his neck. “Does this involve Elizabeth Clayton?”
He stiffened a moment before exhaling roughly. “It does. I need to know she’s okay. Put measures in place to keep her safe. She’s not like us.”
“I know she isn’t.”
“I’m not in love with her.”
“I know that, Hollow and it wouldn’t matter if you were. I want you to be happy.”
Bringing his hands up, he took hers and brought her around to sit on his lap. Stunning eyes that never held true joy met hers. “I wish I was able to love. I so desperately want to love you, Tawny.”
Cupping his face in her hands, she smiled. “If I had a choice, if it was possible for me, I’d choose you.”
He held her so tight that she hoped for a moment that something inside her would open to him, heat in a way that wasn’t platonic or sexual. It didn’t happen and she knew it didn’t for him either.
Pulling back, he ran long fingers through her hair.
“You are beautiful and brilliant. Perfect for me in every way. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m fucked up.”
“You’re not fucked up. Maybe one day, you’ll find the person who makes everything click. I’m not that woman but I’ll always be a woman that’s here if you need me.”
She kissed him gently on the lips and her body responded instantly as he stood and carried her back to bed.
As her back met the mattress, she murmured, “I’m so fucking sorry you can’t be that man for me. I want it to be you so badly, Hollow.”
“I’m going to take you once more and then I have to let this part of you go. You’ll never be open to anyone else while I have exclusive access to your body.”
Her eyes went wide and he smiled, smoothing her hair away from her face. “Do you think I don’t know the woman you are by now?”
When he slid deep inside her, he whispered at her ear, “Call me by my name, Tawny. Remind me of who I am.”
At the peak of her pleasure, she did.
She never had sex with Hollow again but they touched often and she continued to look forward to the time they spent together.
Being friends and colleagues with such a man came with strange connections over the years. There would come a day when she would meet many of the people she’d only known as names on a screen.
Many of their connections would have been surprised to discover that the flaky redhead they all tolerated with grinning indulgence was actually a source of the solutions to some of their stickier issues.
Being a fixer for the elite financed their philanthropic endeavors. Problems that needed to be handled discreetly were brought to a man who did not technically exist but who had looked many of them in the eye at charity dinners, holiday celebrations, and political events.
For the assistance, they paid dearly.
She sometimes referred to him as Bruce Wayne but in reality, he lived a multi-layered life that even Batman wouldn’t have wanted.
Her life grew equally complex as time went on. She was a woman to whom keeping secrets was second nature, and the person she grew into kept her from being bored.
She suspected her two worlds would collide eventually. Unlike Hollow, there were people in her life who would not be waved off indefinitely.
The collision didn’t ultimately come in the way – or from the people – that she expected. It would prove to be one of the most difficult periods of her life.
Chapter Nine
February 2012
Just after the New Year, as Riya’s doctoral studies neared their conclusion, she invited Tawny for dinner at her new duplex on the beach.
The moment they were done eating, she announced, “I’m taking it real world. My dissertation.”
Tawny had felt the revelation coming for months. Watching Riya struggle with how her research fit together, she understood that it couldn’t remain strictly virtual. “In what way, Riya?”
Clasping her hands in front of her body, the brunette cleared her throat. “You know. I know you know.”
“It’s not safe. No matter what you think, these guys could be dangerous.”
Riya suddenly relaxed and gave her a smile. “Stop. I mean it. Stop it right now. I know you, Tawny. I get that you’ll keep an eye on me.”
“I can run the fucking data a hundred times! That doesn’t mean you’ll be safe, goddamn it!”
“I have to do this.”
“No, you don’t. I understand why you think you do but you can move on from all of it, Riya. Put it behind you.”
“I have to do this. I need your help with a way to protect my data and to be a backup in case of emergency.”
Tawny felt like her chest was going to explode. She whispered, “How can I protect you in different cities? How will I get to you if something goes wrong?”
She thought about her own experience the night Arnie died and her stomach cramped. Not Riya…if something happened to Riya, she’d never forgive herself.
Her best friend stepped close and they were almost eye to eye. “I love you and I need you to believe in me. I need your support so I can finish what I started.”
“I’m afraid for you.”
“Tawny, I’m afraid every time you get on a plane. I know you don’t tell me what you do because you know I’d freak the fuck out. I let you go and I beg every being in the universe to send you back safe because that’s part of loving you…knowing that you have to be free.”
Tears filled Riya’s eyes. “I was free once but I’ve been in a prison of my own making for more than eight years. I need you to help me be free again, Tawny. I have to finish this. I have to see it through so I can find peace.”
“What if it doesn’t bring you peace?”
She shrugged. “Then I’ll try something else.”
The silence dragged out and it was a turning point in the history of their friendship. The world perceived Riya as the mature member of their duo.
Time and time again, she’d allowed her best friend to bail her out, to be the voice of reason, and to fuss over her.
The more outrageous Tawny’s behavior, the more patience and unconditional love Riya delivered because she was a natural nurturer, a caregiver.
It wasn’t the way she’d describe herself. She might almost be a doctor but she’d always been a little clueless about her own life.
Tawny had always been the zany friend who wasn’t taken seriously. It was a persona she encouraged because it distracted from the fact that she was in everyone’s business.
Not that she wasn’t insane and high-risk, she just wasn’t as disconnected as she allowed everyone to believe.<
br />
Riya might write dirty books and conduct risqué research but she was exactly the kind and gentle soul she seemed to be.
She was open – too open in her friend’s opinion – and that made her vulnerable.
Her heart was so fucking gentle and these guys were going to bruise the hell out of it. Even if they didn’t mean to do it.
“If you do this, you can’t take it back. Your regrets won’t matter, Riya. Do you understand? This level of involvement in the span of two months will wear you down, hurt your spirit, and keep you off balance. Are you truly prepared for that?”
“Will you think badly about me if I do this? Being with all these men…”
“Never! Your research is solid and you’ve already uncovered some fascinating shit.” The idea was fucking preposterous. “No judgment, remember? Ever.”
“Thanks.” Riya smiled and poured both of them a glass of wine. “It’s so much more than I expected in the beginning. I’ve done the trials through the lab. I’ve read thousands of surveys. The bottom line is that nothing will give me the level of detail I want like sex.”
“You’re breaking your celibacy with serious fucking.”
“They might not even like me that way. I’m nervous about that part of it actually.”
Tawny laughed loudly for a long time. “I wonder which of these guys will convince you of your worth. Somebody needs to and apparently, you require the person to be in possession of a penis.”
“Well that makes me sound like shit.”
“No. You haven’t fucked enough nor have you been fucked well. You’re the kind of person who wonders if it’s you. Trust me, it wasn’t you. Those two losers had no clue what to do with a vagina.” She lifted her glass. “Their loss. What do you call these guys anyway?”
“Subjects. One through eight.”
“I have a feeling that you’re about to rock the world of subjects one through eight.” Clinking their glasses, she shook her head. “When you break free, you do it hard core, Riya.”
“I had a great example.”
“That’s going to bite me in the ass. I can already see it.” Lost in thought, she ran scenarios over in her mind. “You’ll let me track you?” Riya nodded. “I go deep on their backgrounds. None of this surface bullshit you’ve been pulling. Every subject. Agreed?”
Pushing the Envelope: A Prequel from The Barter System World Page 4
