Just like they said, I don’t hear the one that gets me. I never hear the sound, just feel as sledghammer in my thigh. A second too late I tug both triggers and the shotgun goes off. I lurch around and Martin spins. I see blood. I think I got him.
He turns back and clutches his face. Somehow I missed with a fucking shotgun. He strides over, clutching his face. There’s blood between his fingers. I got his ear. Hah.
I clutch my leg. That’s a lot of blood. It doesn’t hurt.
I’m pretty sure that’s bad. I’m sorry, Eve.
Martin kicks the shotgun away, not that I could have reloaded it. He raises the pistol and aims at my head.
“Boy, you are no end of trouble. It will be very difficult to explain this.”
“Yeah,” I manage to rasp, “Sorry about that.”
He shrugs, and then Eve picks up the shotgun and swings it like Ol’ Betsy in a cheap Western and bashes the buttstock right into Martin’s skull. His hands shock open and the pistol drops right out of his grip. He turns back, moves to grapple the gun away from Eve, but she recovers from the swing and puts her full weight into it, twisting it like she’s swinging a baseball bat. The stock hits his upper arm and there’s a solid meaty crack, and he howls, clutching at the limb. Her backswing catches him right on the kneecap.
Watching a man’s leg fold up the wrong way is unpleasant, even if it’s a simple fuck like Martin Ross.
He goes down to the ground, rolls. His hand slips behind his back.
Of course fucking Martin would have a backup. He slips the little black pistol from his back pocket. Eve doesn’t see it. She raises the shotgun over her head, ready to bring the sharp bottom corner of the buttstock right down on his fucking head, but I can already see it playing out, as in slow motion. He’s going to shoot her right in the gut.
His pistol, the one he dropped, is slick with blood in my hand. Doesn’t matter. I put the muzzle against the side of Martin’s head. He stops as he feels it. Eve sees the pistol in his good hand.
Bang, bang. Once and then twice for sure. Eve screams. She’s covered in blood.
Mostly not hers. That works for me.
The shotgun falls with a thump in the dry dirt and suddenly she’s tugging at my arm.
I’m so tired. I need a nap. Just let me sleep, damn it.
When I don’t get up she locks both arms around mine and pulls me over the ground. She wraps something around my leg and shoves me in the passenger’s seat. I flop over as she pushes the door shut and climbs in the other side. The little Toyota groans as she pulls back up onto the road.
You know, I’ve never let her drive. I wasn’t even sure she could. Guess it doesn’t matter.
I fade in and out. Red and blue lights bruise the night sky. Eve stops the car, gets out screaming and waving her hands.
At some point, somebody picks me up. I keep calling for Eve.
A small, silky hand closes tight around mine.
“I’m here,” she says, over and over and over. “I’m here.”
I keep hearing it as I drift off.
When I finally wake up again I feel like I’m covered in concrete. The lights blind me, so I press my eyes shut. Eve’s soft hand grips mine.
“Hey,” she murmurs.
I still can’t open my eyes.
“Where the hell am I?”
“You’re in the hospital, Vic. You got shot in your leg and your hand was pretty badly burned.”
“Oh.”
That would explain why my leg hurts so badly I’d like to tear it off.
I finally manage to get my eyes open. Eve has a bandage around her head and a cast on her hand.
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” she says, quickly.
I touch her cheek. She rubs against my palm.
“They won’t let me get in the bed with you, but they can’t make me leave.”
I listen patiently as she tells me what’s going on. First, and most importantly, I’m not going back to prison. As soon as she was able, she sent Alicia and her lawyers to Martin’s house, gathered up a mound of evidence linking him to, well, everything, and papers were being filed to plead for an official pardon from the governor. There was quite a bit of proof that I was not involved in anything I was convicted of.
It’s a shame Martin died. Apparently head wounds like that are fatal. If he was alive he’d be under in investigation for murder. For Evelyn’s mother, for my father, for my mother; the police were looking into the possibility of poison. For all of them and for Brittany Andrews.
Martin wasn’t big on loose ends. Brittany bought a new car with her generous severance package after my trial, and moved to Arizona. A few weeks later her steering gave out and she crashed into a ditch. She wasn’t found out there for over a week. Crash wasn’t fatal.
Suddenly all my anger at her tastes bitter and cruel and I try to will it away, but I can’t stop myself from knowing I felt it, if that makes any sense.
After a long discussion, Eve and I decided to take Amsel public. As the sole owner she had the right. The company was in rough shape and the initial public offering was dicey. It cut her net worth by two-thirds, but it brought legitimate investors on board and Eve retained a large interest in the company, enough to turn things around. Good people there could bring some honor back to the family name, I guess. I was done with that, and so was she. The dividends from her stock go in the bank, and she took out a hefty chunk to help me follow my dreams and go along with me.
There was nothing to do about the house. By the time I was ready to limp my way out to see it, there was nothing but a burnt, charred shell, a few piles of bricks here and there sticking up like the carcass of a long dead animal, baked in the sun. It’s amazing the kind of things that survive a fire. A photo album came out, almost untouched, and my father’s magnifying glass, a few things here and there. In one wing of the house there was an antique chair just sitting there with some black soot on the seat. I don’t even know how to explain that. What could be salvaged, was salvaged. We sold off the land to a developer and banked the money, not needing all that much. There was an insurance claim, of course. Since Martin and Vitali set the fire, we cashed in big time. My parents and so on back through the generations were meticulous about inventorying the contents of the house, and those antiques inside were probably worth more than the land. The insurance hadn’t been updated since Dad died, but it was more than enough to set us up for life.
I had everything I needed. The garage, not being attached to the house, survive the fire. We sold all the cars.
Except one, obviously. She was waiting for me at the garage where I had the truck tow her. It was like the scene at the end of the movie where the hero’s dog has miraculously survived and runs up before they all head into the sunset. Except the car just sat there, being a car. I mean, I was conceived in the back seat of that thing, I’m pretty sure. It was my dad’s car, and now it’s all that’s left of him. Other than me, I mean. Eight generations of Amsel men fought in the Revolution and the Civil War, built a huge financial empire, built that house. Now all that remains is me and my Trans-Am.
We could do lots of things, the two of us. Start a new business, buy into others, find work in the financial sector, become angel investors.
After I spend two days repairing the Firebird and find a body shop to fix up the paint scratches from the corn, Eve looks at me.
“Let’s open our own shop.”
Far be it from me to argue with her.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Evelyn
It took me a while to get used to the smell of motor oil, but here I am.
Carlisle, Pennsylvania is the last place I expected to end up. If you told me years ago I’d be sitting in a cramped office above a garage while my husband works under a ’68 Chevelle replacing the transmission, doing the books for his garage, I’d have laughed in your face. Yet here I am. This is child’s play compared to the kind of work I’m used to, mostly arithmetic. I should have known. We’ve bee
n at it two years now and the Amsel Motors has gained a nationwide reputation for restorations of vintage General Motors automobiles. Just last week I oversaw taking out a loan to install a second rotisserie- not for cooking, a big machine that lifts cars and spins them around effortlessly, turning them all around for the restoration work. Victor can tell the year and model of just about any car with a glance at the headlights and I’ve seen him turn rusted out hulks into gleaming, beautiful works of art. Not least his Dad’s Firebird, his first project. It has pride of place out front, gleaming black and menacing in front of the office. The new paint job is incredible.
I’m done, ready to close the books. I take a certain enjoyment from doing it old school, keeping track of everything on paper. Everything around here is like that, mechanical, simple. It brings a certain comfort to our surroundings. The only computer in the shop is in the corner of the office here. I use it to process orders for parts when Vic sends them up. I glance up at the clock, and see it’s an hour past quitting time.
Sure enough, when I descend the staircase, Victor is still under the car he’s working on, tinkering.
“Honey,” I say, planting my fist on my hips. “It’s quitting time. Come on.”
Sighing, he ducks out from under the car. He is, of course, covered in grease.
“Let me get cleaned up.”
“I’ll go get started on dinner. If you don’t show up in fifteen minutes I’m coming back to get you.”
He gives me that look and heads off to clean up as I walk outside and across the long gravel drive to the house. We bought a manufactured house; it came in big sections on trucks and they put it together for us. For the first year we lived in the cramped apartment above the garage, which now serves as a storage room. Inside, I want to collapse into a chair but instead I put a pot of water to boil for macaroni and cheese and toss a pack of hot dogs in a pan to heat up. Simple fare, but as long as we’re eating together it works for me.
Victor comes in after exactly fourteen minutes. Cleaning up means de-greasing himself. He kisses me on the cheek and ducks into the bathroom, and the shower starts. A half an hour later he comes out clean, and dinner is ready. There’s still a faint smell of oil about him, as there always is, but I’ve started to like it. We serve ourselves, bumping into each other purposely at the stove, and sit down in front of the television. Victor wears a thin t-shirt, and his tattoos show through.
I lean on the arm of the sofa while I eat, with my legs over his. He twists off the cap of his beer, then mine, and our fingers brush when he passes it to me. I scarf down my food in big bites, barely chewing. Vic eats and swigs from his beer, and I drink mine down in big gulps. Before we moved in here I’d never even had a beer- when we dared out eat back during our college days I never drank, and I would occasionally take wine at the stupid parties my father made me attend while I was working for him, but only because I had to. I’ve learned to love the hoppy, bitter taste of the brews Vic picks out. He’s a beer snob.
Our plates end up on the coffee table, beside a few empty beers for each of us. I’m feeling tipsy, and daring.
So, I slip onto his lap. He snatches the remote and turns off the TV, and his hand slip up under my t-shirt, and he pulls me into a kiss as I straddle him. My hands slide under his shirt. His skin is still damp from the shower, and so is his hair. I twirl a finger in it. He lets it hang to his shoulders now, in thick coal black curls. He starts to tug my shirt up, and I stand up, pulling his hands. Without a word, he follows me down the hall and almost pushes me onto the bed. I fall face down and he tugs my jeans down as I undo the button. Once they’re over my hips and ass they slide right off, and my underwear comes next, then his warm mouth on the small of my back, working his way up to peel off my shirt and unhook my bra.
He gets on top of me and slides his hands up my back, kneading the muscle. I twist and wriggle out of my shirt, and my bra, and lay there naked, sighing into the bed as he massages my back. He runs his hands down my legs, and rubs my feet. I don’t know how they end up so sore, but they do. It tickles a little and I can’t help laughing. When I do, he smacks me lightly on the butt and I laugh harder and wriggle out from under him, then spring on him. It’s his turn. I get his boxers down and he’s already hard for me, but I press his erection against his stomach and rub my belly against it as he pulls his shirt over his head. I slide up, so he can feel the heat between my legs, and bury my face in his soft hair and breathe deep.
My trick, he calls it. I sit up and slide my sex along the length of his shaft, and the look on his face is priceless. He can’t keep his hands off my breasts, my ass, my neck. He pulls me down and kisses me and rolls on top of me. Once he’s on top he tickles my sides and grinds his cock against me, kisses me hard. I want him now and he knows it, so he holds back, kisses my throat, nips and suck at the soft skin, starts working his way down. I groan and roll my hips, urging him on, but he slows, stops, slowly kisses his way across my collarbone from one side to the other before he shoves his face in my armpit and sniffs. I try to push him down, but he struggles.
I’m still laughing at he takes my nipple in his mouth, slides his arms around me and sucks. My sex is throbbing, my thighs slick, but still he takes his time, making happy little noises as he sucks. Shivers pass through me, but not from cold. I push on his head and he finally relents, licking down my middle to dive between my legs and softly lick my slit. With a groan I spread my legs and let my arms fall limp on the bed, close my eyes and savor the sensations as he slowly works his way around, tonguing and teasing the skin of my inner thighs before he gives me another lick, each touch making my clit throb. Then his mouth as his finger slips inside, and I can’t take it, I have to have him inside me.
He rises up, wipes his chin with his arm, slides on top of me and pushes his cock into my sex. I curl my fingers in his hair and savor the feeling of his shaft pushing into my walls, the feeling of my body swallowing him. Somehow I feel surrounded and enveloped as I take him inside me and he puts his arms around me and I dig my fingers into his back. He always fucks me harder when I scratch him, and tonight I want it hard. I’m celebrating. I urge him on with my legs, rake his back with my nails, moan and whimper and breathe in his ear, begging him to fuck me harder.
When he slows, he rolls and pulls me on top of him. I sit up and ride him hard, eyes closed, my nails digging into his chest as he holds my sides, steadies me as I ride. I could do this forever, but I’m so horny I can’t make myself slow down and savor it anymore. Soon I’m quivering, my back rounded as I lean over him, and he’s taken over again, thrusting into me from below. He pulls me to him, holds me close and digs his heels into the bed, driving into me. When I come he almost loses his grip on me, for my thrashing. It’s so intense all I can do is bunch up and squeak, the waves of pleasure too intense to breathe. He holds me tight as he finishes, throbbing inside me.
I go limp on top of him, let him slip out of me and snuggle up to his side. This is going to be one of those nights, and I want him to rest before we go again.
“I have something I really need to tell you,” I whisper.
“Yeah?”
“Victor. You’re going to be a father.”
He sits up, and I rise up on my elbows.
“The test was positive. The one I took on Monday. I went to the doctor yesterday morning and they called me with the results. I’m pregnant.”
I’m not sure how he’s going to react, but he whoops with joy, snatches me up off the bed and flops me down, so I’m lying with my head at the foot of the bed, and kisses me hard, holding me tight. I reach down between his legs and stroke him, and he growls in my ear.
Round two is going to start a little early.
Thank you for reading Blackbird. I hope you enjoyed it!
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Copyright 2014 © Abigail Graham
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Mockingbird
A Stepbrother Romance
by Abigail Graham
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Copyright 2015, Abigail Graham
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