The Real Mrs. Price

by J. D. Mason

  “I told you I’d be back!” Plato yelled back.

  “That was a year ago, man.” The man looked at Marlowe and grinned. “Goodness gracious!” he said, eyeing her like she was peach cobbler. “Who is this?”

  Plato surprised her and pulled her possessively close, wrapping an arm around her waist. “You just keep your damn distance.”

  The other man laughed. “Don’t blink,” he said, bowing at the waist. “Welcome to A Little Piece of Heaven, lovely lady, the coolest club in town in the underground.”

  It was a warehouse, with warehouse-high ceilings and walls, and warehouse-expansive concrete stamped floors, and a massive stage with a funk band, horns and all, playing old-school music that had the dance floor packed.

  As he led her to the bar, Plato glanced back at Marlowe. She was awed, smiling, and excited by this whole rollicking scene. She looked impressed. He was doing good.

  “What can I get you?” the bartender asked.

  Plato waited for her to order.

  “Vodka tonic?” she asked sweetly.

  “Beer,” he said.

  Marlowe loved to dance, and she got high on vodka tonics and music and him. He’d coaxed her to a secluded corner of the club where she sat perched on his lap, laughing, whispering nonsense in his ear, and teasing him with hints of cleavage and flashes of thigh. This is where Marlowe Brown made her introduction. This was his first glimpse of the woman hidden behind the persona of Mrs. Price since the day he’d met her. Pretty and happy. Carefree. Lovely and loving life. One more vodka tonic and she might even love him.

  “What the hell are you doing to me?” she asked passionately, leaning against him and grazing soft lips against his cheek.

  What had he done to her? What had she done to him? Getting with a woman was never an issue for Plato. Wanting a particular woman for more than just to do her was the challenge he faced and not a very pressing one because he was never in a place long enough for more than a romp and a good-bye kiss. She intrigued the shit out of him, though. Her and her devil talk, her bone reading, her bewitching and beautiful self.

  Marlowe stared at him with a heavy, thoughtful gaze. “You keep saving my life,” she slurred. “You’re not supposed to save it. You’re supposed to steal it from me.”

  He furrowed his brow at the odd statement. “Is that what those bones told you?”

  She laughed. “Why do you care? You don’t believe in my bones.”

  “But you do. Deeply. I can tell.”

  She studied him. “Magic is only as powerful as the believer.”

  “And you believe I’m evil.”

  “At first, I believed that’s all you were,” she said thoughtfully. “But now…”

  “Now?”

  “Lucifer was an angel. And he was beautiful. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Are angels all good? Are devils all bad?”

  She was drunk off her ass and fluid in his arms.

  “Kiss me, Marlowe.”

  Marlowe grinned mischievously, revealing a little devilish behavior of her own. She leaned close and pressed her full lips against his. Marlowe’s delicious tongue swept through his mouth, and Plato’s cock throbbed in response.

  She moaned, pulled back, and whispered, “Yes.” As if in response to the message he’d sent to her with his dick.

  “I need to get you back to the hotel,” he said, flushing warm.

  She nodded and smiled. “And then what?”

  And then … and then. Drunk sex was sloppy sex. Sex with abandon and without inhibitions. Drunk sex with Marlowe and that voluptuous body of hers would be those things and then some, and just the thought was enough to make him damn near come in his pants.

  He gently pushed her off his lap to stand and took hold of her hand. He led the way to the door. His imagination began reeling from all the lovely ways he would seduce this lovely creature. Plato smiled.

  The Faithful

  HIS FULL NAME WAS Osiris Plato Wells. Growing up, his family and friends had called him O.P. but he preferred Plato.

  He was born in a small town in Germany. His father was in the army, and they moved around a lot, so he couldn’t settle on a place to call home.

  He didn’t want to talk about what he did for a living and “suggested” that she change the subject when she’d asked.

  Plato was forty-four, six four, had one son, and had been married once, when he was twenty-two. Marlowe’s game of twenty questions had come at the expense of a great deal of patience and energy on her part. Plato hid behind a wall of sarcasm and secrets and changing the subjects, so what little information she did get from him, she pieced together to make up the story of his life.

  She could’ve blamed it on the alcohol, but the truth was that Marlowe had wanted to kiss him all night. Plato had been accommodating, polite, and an actual gentleman, to her surprise. He also smelled damn good, looked like an exquisite work of art, and when he wrapped that strong hand and those long fingers around her hand, Marlowe’s had unwittingly melted into it like butter.

  There was a gray area, a void in the time between when they left that nightclub and when they appeared, as if by magic, back at the hotel.

  Her room was next door to his, but Plato had taken her back to his room, and Marlowe didn’t protest. He closed the door behind the two of them, and she turned to him, grabbed him by his lapel, pulled his face to hers, and kissed him again. Pressed against his chest, she could feel just how strong he really was. If he was evil, then so was she for wanting him. If she was cursed, then so be it. Marlowe’s life had been shredded, and there was nothing left of it worth saving. Let go, Marlowe, she told herself. Temptation is all up in your face, so take it.

  Need flooded her veins, and Marlowe nearly went limp in his arms, recovering long enough to break the seal of their kiss. She took a step away from him, untied her wrap dress, slid it off her shoulders, and let it fall to the floor.

  He licked his lips in anticipation. “Come here, Marlowe.”

  She smiled. Marlowe backed away from him and eventually turned, wound her way through the living room and down the hall, and crawled into bed.

  “Damn,” she heard him say.

  Damn was right. Damn. She wanted him. Damn, she needed him. Damn. She was tired of fighting against what was natural—the two of them together, foretold in dreams and bones and spells.

  She looked over her shoulder and watched him slipping out of his sport coat, then pulling his shirt from inside his pants, unbuttoning it, taking it off. Marlowe hadn’t slipped out of her stilettos, and she didn’t plan to. Plato pulled his T-shirt over his head, and Marlowe gasped at the sight of his massive chest covered in ink. An ornate cross was tattooed in the middle of his chest. In her haze, she managed to make out other symbols on his pecs and shoulders: Asian and Egyptian symbols, dragons, yin and yang, an eye, the om and infinity symbols, and the death angel, all creating a beautiful collage, telling the story of who and what this man truly was.

  He stood over her, unbuckling his belt and sliding out of his trousers. Marlowe rolled over onto her back, bit down on her lower lip, and writhed on the bed, excited to receive him. He’d put a spell on her, a lovely one. A dark one. Marlowe wanted him in a way she’d never wanted a man before. She craved him inside her, filling her, consuming her, just like in her dream. He bent at the waist and braced himself on muscular arms above her, hovering in his true form, the one from her dream, the one she’d feared, and then slowly he lowered his body to hers.

  She arched her back, raising her breasts to meet his broad chest. Plato stood up, reached under her hips, and slipped her panties off past her high heels, then placed his hands on her knees, coaxed her thighs open with a gentle push, and nestled himself between them.

  “Yes,” he whispered, staring down at her as if she were a meal. “This is what I want, Marlowe. This is what I need.”

  He’d said it. He’d finally told her what he’d come to her for. For this. For her sex. For her love.

  He balanced
himself on his elbows and braced on either side of her. His broad and powerful chest pressed down on her until she could hardly breathe. He pushed inside her. Pulled out of her. Pushed deeper. Pulled out again. He did this over and over again, until the full length of him, which felt endless, was inside her.

  * * *

  The sunlight woke her up. Marlowe opened her eyes to the Dallas city skyline, in Plato’s room. She was naked, covered only by a sheet, and he was gone. A sinking feeling washed over her, and a lump swelled in her throat as she realized what she’d done. She’d sold her soul, given herself to him, like an offering, like a lamb for slaughter.

  “Oh, Lord,” she muttered sorrowfully.

  She crawled out of bed, her legs still weak. She needed to wash herself, to clean him off her. Marlowe started the shower, and as it ran, she began to sob quietly. All that alcohol and feeling sorry for herself had led to this. Marlowe had been reckless with life, and because of her carelessness, she didn’t deserve to have one. Marlowe bathed in the hottest water she could stand. And when she got out of that shower, she tamed that tangled mass of hair on her head as best she could. Lord! She was ruined. Absolutely ruined and condemned to only God knew what.

  Marlowe went back to her own room, and a half an hour later, a knock came at her door.

  Plato walked in, looking cavalier and triumphant, carrying a tray filled with cups of coffee and breakfast sandwiches. “You hungry?” he asked indifferently, like he hadn’t just claimed her soul and marked her for hell.

  Marlowe stared horrifically at him, watching him take a huge bite out of one of those sandwiches.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, knitting his thick brows.

  She’d been a sacrifice, a human sacrifice for him, and he had the nerve to ask her what was wrong?

  “What did you do to me?” she asked bitterly.

  He looked confused. “I brought you breakfast.”

  Now he was toying with her, mocking her. “What did you do to me last night?” she asked, more aggressively. “What the hell happened?”

  An expression of revelation shone on his face, and then a smirk. “Last night.” He nodded, shook his head, and took another bite of that sandwich until it was nearly gone.

  He didn’t even have to say it. She knew that whatever he’d done to her had been vile and depraved. How many different ways had he violated her? Marlowe started to cry.

  “Whoa!” he said, putting down his sandwich. “Are you crying?”

  Her face twisted in a sob that she fought to hold back, and Marlowe shamefully nodded.

  He raised his hands in surrender. “Nothing happened, Marlowe.”

  “Something did,” she protested. “I woke up naked in your bed, and you’re telling me that you didn’t touch me?”

  “Of course I touched you,” he responded matter-of-factly, eyeing her sensually up and down. “A beautiful, naked, and drunk woman in my bed.” He shrugged. “I touched the hell out of you.”

  Marlowe was mortified.

  Plato continued rubbing salt in the wound. “Licked on and kissed a few things.” He shrugged. “I might’ve even sucked on something.”

  She grabbed a pillow from the bed and threw it at him. “You sonofabitch!” she yelled.

  “But other than that,” he quickly said, “nothing happened, Marlowe. You passed out.”

  “I did not!”

  “No, you did,” he argued. “I mean, I could’ve … I wanted to … I should’ve, but I didn’t want to waste my good sex on an unconscious woman,” he said smugly. “When I do get that opportunity, and I will,” he said assuredly, “I want you wide awake, aware, present, and actively, vigorously participating.”

  He was out of his mind. She stared at him, looking for some sign of a lie, but after a few moments, Marlowe was convinced that he was telling the truth. The whole truth, which meant he’d seen and done more than she’d have liked for him to see and do, but he was convincing, and she did come to believe that they hadn’t had sex.

  “You’re sober now, though,” he said smirking. “We’ve got some free time between now and when I’ve got to pick up that drive from that kid,” he reminded her, picking up his sandwich and finishing what was left of it. “I’m down if you are.” Plato winked.

  Marlowe rolled her eyes. “I’m so not down.”

  He sighed. “I’ll be back in a few hours,” he said, taking her sandwich with him. “Got people to see, things to do, or is it people to do and things to see?” He turned and looked at her one last time, shook his head, and licked his lips.

  Marlowe shuddered, feeling absolutely violated.

  * * *

  “You ain’t called me,” Shou Shou fussed over the phone. She’d called five minutes after Plato had left the room.

  Marlowe felt like she was ten years old all over again. “I know, Shou Shou. I’m sorry. I’ve been busy. That’s all.”

  “Doin’ what?”

  If that old woman understood the magnitude of that question, she wouldn’t have asked it. Then again, knowing Shou Shou the way she did, Marlowe realized that that’s exactly why she would ask it. That old woman wasn’t crazy. She was psychic.

  “Too much to tell you, Auntie,” she finally said.

  “Too much you don’t want to tell me is more like it,” Shou Shou huffed.

  Marlowe smiled. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I take it he finally gotcha?”

  Marlowe didn’t answer, which, to Shou Shou, was an answer.

  “That’s what I figured. You won’t let him letchu go, Marlowe.”

  “I’m not doing anything to him.”

  “You doin’ plenty. You know how you are.”

  She had grown up hearing that, and Marlowe was getting tired of it. Like everything bad happening in her life was somehow her own fault. “How am I, Auntie?” she asked, frustrated. Marjorie used to tell her that. Belle sometimes told her that, and Shou Shou said it all the time.

  “You think with yo’ heart, Marlowe. Not with yo’ head. You let yo’ feelin’s rule you. Always did. Always will. Feelin’s betray you, baby. That’s how you ended up with Eddie, and that’s how you—this one here done got to you. And that’s why I don’t think he’s gonna leave.”

  Shou Shou sounded sad. Marlowe closed her eyes and regrettably hoped that Shou Shou was right. She didn’t want Plato to leave. She had no idea where this relationship was going or what would happen if he ever found Eddie, but right here and now, she wasn’t so sure that she was ready for him to go yet.

  “You listenin’ to me?”

  Marlowe heard her.

  “You can’t change him, sweetie. His nature is true, and it is what he is. It’s how he is. Maybe he hasn’t showed it to you yet, or maybe he has and you think that you can live with it, but can you really? How long can you ignore it, Marlowe? Act like it ain’t there, but it is. It always is.”

  “But what if the good outweighs the bad, Auntie?” Marlowe challenged.

  “His bad qualities are darker than most. Demons ride on his shoulders like angels ride on yours, darlin’. And they whisper to him and tell him dark secrets. They always in his ear, girl. And he listens. He would miss them if they ever left him.”

  “But maybe he wouldn’t ever hurt me, Shou Shou. We’ve spent time together, and I don’t think that he would.”

  Shou Shou let loose a heavy sigh.

  “He’s been careful, Auntie,” Marlowe continued. “You just have to get to know him, and you’ll see.”

  “I don’t need to meet the devil to know what he can do, Marlowe,” she snapped.

  “But I’m telling you, maybe that’s not what he is.” She paused and then corrected herself. “Maybe that’s not all that he is.”

  “Hush, girl,” Shou said dismally. “You know how silly you sound?”

  Marlowe rolled her eyes and shook her head.

  “Roll ’em again,” her aunt threatened. “He tells you what you need to hear. Shows you what you need to see. He’ll be what you need hi
m to be until he can’t or won’t.”

  Deep down, she knew that her aunt was right. Did it matter, though? Marlowe had always followed the way of her heart. And never once had it been right, and just like Plato had his nature, she had hers. It could be sloppy and careless. But she couldn’t change hers any more than he could change his.

  “I guess I’m doing all this talkin’ for nothin’. What’s done is done is done.” Shou Shou sighed again.

  Marlowe could hear the disappointment in the woman’s voice.

  “I let you down again,” Marlowe said sorrowfully.

  “It’s not me you let down, baby. It’s yo’self. You deserve better than what you get.”

  “But I always think I’m getting the best, Auntie.”

  “Because yo’ judgment is bad. Because you don’t think before you do somethin’, Marlowe. But I s’pose it ain’t no use in talkin’ ’bout it now. I am here fo’ you, baby,” Shou Shou reassured her. “Like always. So is Belle.”

  “I know,” Marlowe whispered.

  “I was too late to keep him out. But there might be something else I can do,” Shou said introspectively.

  “Like what?”

  “You let me think on it. I’ll be in touch.”

  Taking in the Shape

  “SO WILL YOU BE STARTING work on another case when you get back home?” Lucy asked.

  She was disappointed that the two of them were leaving Blink, but Roman honestly could not justify staying. She sat next to him on the plane and didn’t say much until they were about twenty minutes into the flight.

  He smirked. “I wish. Unfortunately, it’s not like I have clients lined up outside my door begging for my services,” he admitted.

  “Do you have family?” she asked.

  Any mention or reference to family always garnered a sheepish reaction from him that elicited reactions from people around him. Lucy was no different.

  “Rather not talk about it?”

  He glanced at her. “Rather not.”

  Roman had learned the hard way that there were some mistakes that you couldn’t recover from. His family, or rather, the state of his family, was one of those things. It was one of those things he’d never be able to fix, filled with consequences that he’d have to live with for the rest of his life.