I cringed. “Here?”
“Together.” He laughed again. I thought it was just me, being that I’d been pulled out of bed by the hair this morning, but Frank was particularly evil today. I started unbuttoning his shirt, my sudden desire to be ravished making me forget about having company. He caught my hand. “What exactly did you tell Casey about Bella being here?”
“Is that why I’m in trouble?”
He squeezed, crushing the bones in my fingers against each other.
I cried out, “Nothing specific!” He released my hand and let me get back to his buttons. “Just that she was staying with us because there was an issue with one of her jobs. It’s technically true.”
“I do not want you talking to him about what we do. Understood?”
“Did,” I said glumly. As if I needed any further reminder that my only excitement was our ever diminishing sex-life. “Maggie thinks you beat me.”
“I do beat you.” He morosely stroked my cheek with his fingertips, as if beating me was a bad thing.
I leaned my face further against his hand. “Not enough.”
“Apparently.” He tensed, then released me and looked away.
I cuddled against him, feeling his cock grow hard beneath me despite his obvious lack of interest in fucking me senseless. This was a great sex chair, although the last time he’d fucked me in it I ended up stabbing him in the leg with a letter opener. It was a well deserved scar; he never again attempted to place a book on my back to combine his favorite worldly pleasures into one.
“We have guests,” he reminded me.
As if on cue, Hugo barked Casey’s arrival home.
Chapter Twenty-One
She lay in bed and blew cigarette smoke at the ceiling, wrapped in Casey’s American flag, the smell of him on the sheets. There was a yellow happy face sticker he’d no doubt put up there, smiling through her smoke. Even though he’d been dressed that morning like he’d fallen asleep in the dirty clothes hamper, she wanted it to be his smiling face she was looking into instead of the stupid sticker.
“Silva is not gonna fucking die,” she muttered around her cigarette. It was something she’d done as a girl, saying aloud the things that should and should not happen, sometimes, often, screaming them to ensure her request came true.
Where was Casey? Store. Buying condoms. And scoping out the bed and breakfast. That made it okay. She was excited to get out of the house. Excited to screw him again. Excited just for him to come back and smile at her. She turned on his iPod, the playlist he created for her and her alone. When she was little one of her schoolmates bought her a cassette and asked to see her fanny. Casey hadn’t even asked to see her tits yet, or to pose nude for him like she said she would.
She spit her cigarette at the happy face, quickly turning her head to avoid the falling cigarette’s return. It was a game one of her brothers taught her, like shooting arrows or guns into the sky and running from their descent. Except this was the poor, unarmed Scot version. Just as stupid and not as fun.
The glowing tip of her cigarette burned a hole in Casey’s sheets. Frankie’s sheets. She used to have cigarette burns on her thighs. It never affected her desire to wear short skirts, to throw out the hand-me-downs from her brothers, outdated and oversized boy clothes that she hated wearing. Vincent wouldn’t look so small if his clothes fit, but he wouldn’t hear of it.
The goddamned dog barked loud enough to be heard over Sid Vicious. Did that mean Casey was back? She peered out the window, Frankie’s car crookedly parked, but no Casey. Then he appeared, having remembered that he was on an errand and returned for his forgotten purchases. He set the alarm off instead of opening the trunk, and laughed at himself until he got it right.
She commanded, “Look up,” and he did, though he couldn’t have heard her. She smiled at the control she held over him and waved, feeling glorious to be above him like a princess in a tower. He beamed at her, waving back far more enthusiastically than called for, until his attention was yanked away like a fish with a hook in its mouth by his mother, coming to help him unload the car.
Bella sat back on her heels, away from the window. Until she got to Frankie’s house, she’d never met anyone else’s mother. When she was a girl, boys wouldn’t bring her home to meet their parents. They certainly wouldn’t now that she was grown up. She hadn’t even killed anyone’s mother. Except her own.
She looked back out the window at the car. Closed trunk. She lit another cigarette. Not knowing where Casey was made her feel anxious. But she didn’t want to go downstairs. “He’ll come up,” she said, and straightened her hat. Then she remembered that she’d locked the door, and would have to unlock it and ruin her pose on the bed to let Casey come inside.
There was a knock at the door, too brusque to be Casey. Frankie had a key. Let him use it. “I have to talk to you,” he said, shutting and locking the door behind him. “Do not tell Casey anything about Gideon.”
“We’ve already been over this,” she said, tempted to tell Casey everything about Gideon just to make Frankie stop bossing her around.
“He would be very upset. He wouldn’t understand.”
“We’ve already been over this,” she repeated. They both turned at the second knock on the door, one filled with restrained excitement.
Frank opened it, and for just a second Casey looked like he’d been castrated. Then he smiled, smiled smiled and rubbed the back of his head. “Hey, Frank,” he said, trying too hard to act like he wasn’t up to something. Casey was right. He would be a terrible liar.
“We were going for a nice morning stroll,” Bella said, drawing attention away from him before he started to blush, or worse, told Frank what they planned to do after strolling. “You want to come?”
Casey looked a bit panicky at Frank’s invite, but Frank was too shocked to have even heard the invitation. “A stroll? You?”
“I can walk, Frankie,” she said, carelessly tossing the flag to the bed and demonstrating as she approached Casey. She lit another cigarette before slipping her arm through his. “Shall we?”
“You wanna come?” Casey asked. She elbowed him in the ribs. He was wearing his ugly hat again. She’d told him not to.
“Your mother is making lunch. Be back by one.”
“Yes, sir,” Bella said, dragging Casey down the stairs and getting a horrified look from Maggie as they reached the front door arm-in-arm.
“We’re going for a stroll,” Casey said with a grin. “You want—” Bella cleared her throat. If he invited his mother, she was breaking his legs. “We’ll be back by one.”
“Aye,” she said, and pulled him out the door before Maggie could start screaming.
“Why were we inviting everybody?” Casey whispered as they fled the scene.
“We weren’t,” she grumbled. “You’re taking off that hat before we get to the road. I will not be seen with you when you have that on your head.”
“Like you should talk. What is that, a squirrel?”
She punched him. It happened to be Alexander McQueen. And chinchilla.
“Your hair is fine, Bell,” he said, pulling it gently off her head and petting it like he did Frank’s white rat. Then he put it on over the other hat and smiled at her, all fucking pleased with himself.
“You’d better be as good the second time around,” she threatened.
Casey had the pride, or lack thereof, to admit, “I didn’t even do anything.” Then he smiled and reminded her, “You wouldn’t let me.”
“You did as you were told.” That was more than she could say for most men.
They walked toward the woods, Casey stopping every few seconds to point out something “pretty,” and her using the moment to wipe filth from her shoes.
Bella could run on cobblestones in six-inch heels. Steel grates were no match for even her slenderest heeled stilettos. But when it came to mud, and rotting leaves sticking to perfect patent leather, her feet became fearful. “It’s no good. We have to turn back.�
�
Casey looked at her, then at the house, which was still in perfect view. They had only gone a few meters from the end of the driveway. She could see Frank watching from her bedroom window, fighting back a grin. Maggie was on the porch, rapidly going gray with worry. Bella’s competitive nature demanded they continue, at least until out of view. But her shoes…
“I’ll carry you once we’re out of sight.”
She nodded determinedly, and they continued. Between both of them pausing, she in disgust, he in awe of more or less the same thing, it took several minutes to be away from prying eyes. She would need a horsewhip if they were to be there and back by one, but she’d have to hold off until she retrieved her red riding jacket and black leather skirt with high boots from Frank’s apartment, as an accessory simply must compliment an outfit to a T.
Today she wore an emerald green Dior dress, corseted with a puffy, feathered skirt, black patent leather ankle booties by Versace, and a hand-stitched charcoal Prada frock coat to match Casey, her current accessory, with his green pants, tight, from fuck knew where, and ash gray shirt with purple stitching and a picture of a black bird.
Bella climbed on his back, Casey remarked that she was heavier than she looked, and it was settled that life would be better if the woods were paved.
After a journey three times as long as it ought to have been, they reached welcoming asphalt. Bella yanked hats off his head, shoving them into her purse and shoving him behind a tree. She hiked up her skirt, held out her thumb, and rolled her eyes as a car crashed into the one in front of it, and a truck skidded to a stop, nearly colliding with the tree where Casey was hiding. Before a third car got close enough to pick them up, or crash, Bella grabbed Casey by the collar and hauled him toward their awaiting transportation.
The driver of the truck was a couple of years older than Casey, and looked like he had a severe mental deficiency. Men like that weren't worth the effort of feminine charm and anyway she had Casey with her, so she started pulling out her gun to ensure compliance. Then she remembered that Casey actually spoke French, and directed him to relay her message. It somehow lost its effectiveness during translation, and she was forced to bring out her gun anyway to make him move over. The driver took the passenger seat and Casey sat between them. They were on their way.
The truck wouldn't go any faster no matter how hard she pressed the pedal. She felt thwarted and it made her angry. They were both staring at her. “Tell him we aren’t stealing it.”
“We aren’t?” Casey asked.
She gestured to the filthy dashboard with disgust. “Do you actually think I would steal this?”
He shrugged as if the only thing that mattered was whether the truck was a pretty color, and then spoke to the driver. They both shrugged. Then the driver said something and Casey raised his eyebrows, glancing back at her with a smile. “He wants to sell us some pot.”
“How much?” she asked without giving it a second thought. She used to take speed until she met Silva. It calmed her, but so did he, and Silva bought her nice things. Speed just made her very skinny.
They spoke in French. It sounded less like bartering than Casey agreeing to whatever he requested. By the time they found the bed and breakfast, they were the proud owners of more marijuana than they could smoke in a month, and Bella was completely out of cash. The driver no longer seemed to mind having his truck hijacked, and drove away with a joyous wave.
She used her credit card to reserve the room until Christmas. If she was going to be stuck there she'd make the fucking most of it. She wondered whether Casey actually had any money. Artists were supposed to be poor but Frankie must've still been giving him something. She'd spent enough on his painting at any rate. Bella liked being the provider with men. She could treat them like whores.
They walked down the dimly lit hallway with an actual room key, the establishment obviously not having been updated in technology or décor since before the Nazis invaded France.
Casey pointed out how neat it looked where the wallpaper had started to peel, and that the light switch was upside down so it said off when it was on. Bella set her purse on the bureau and waited for him to stop looking around and take her coat. He traced a smiley face with a heart shaped head in the dust on the television, which was mounted on the wall too high for her to reach. She made him scrub the dust off his hands before touching her again. She twirled around and tapped the back of her neck the way Frankie showed her proper ladies would do it. Frankie's mother was practically a whore herself, but she was French so Bella considered her elegant automatically. “I hope you’re not expecting much. I don’t have any tits.”
“I like boys too, remember?”
Bella glared at him. He smiled. He did the same thing when Frank glared at him, and she wondered whether there were a serious enough threat in the world to actually shake him. She fucking hoped not.
“Take off your clothes,” she said, leaving her dress hanging over her shoulders until he stripped down to his underwear, plaid boxer shorts that made her wet. The Scot in her loved seeing a man’s bare knees, and she had always secretly wished for more plaid in the world of fashion. “You can leave those on.” She shrugged out of her dress, giving it to him it to hang up once he stopped grinning. She didn’t want to take off her bra and lose what little breasts she had, or his admiration, but he reached around her with a skill not many men possessed, and unhooked it himself. Then he got a very serious expression, and after a moment of knotted eyebrow silence, asked if she owned a yellow parasol, smiled, dipped her onto the bed, and kissed both of her nipples like he’d never been so happy to see them.
She shoved his head lower. Deaglan had been the first to teach her that women could enjoy sex. Not just the power it gave her, the control over them, blotting her lipstick right on their cocks, getting them in trouble with their wives. Cunnilingus was incredible. She felt ten feet tall and she'd stare at other women, laughing at them to think that they weren't getting any.
That wide mouth of Casey's. She could picture him with men, though she'd never seen more than snogging. Picturing him with women made her want to knife someone.
She rolled a joint while he started going down on her, and he blew smoke across her body between licks, until he was laughing too hard to pay attention to what he was doing so they just got stoned instead and took a nap.
When Bella awoke he was laying halfway on top of her, wearing her bra as a hat. There'd been too many times, pinned beneath the weight of their bodies, not strong enough to lift them or fight them or kill them. But Casey was light, and her head was lighter, and he was one that was helpless, completely nude, face down and unconscious. She was wearing his underwear. He had a nice bum. There wasn’t enough time to screw him now, not if they had to be back by one. And they did have to be back. She was hungry, really fucking hungry, and now she remembered why she preferred accelerants.
Bella shimmied out from under him and got dressed, waiting until the very last moment to wake him. She was used to leaving her lovers sleeping, and liked to look down at them on the bed before slipping away, slamming the door to startle them awake once she was gone. “Casey,” she said, sitting by his face and rubbing her feathery dress against his nose. He smiled in his sleep. It was sweet. Most of the men she’d fucked weren’t even in the habit of smiling while awake. She spritzed them both with her perfume. It didn't smell as good with pot as it did with gunfire. “It’s time to go.”
He opened one eye, dragged his arm up to his face, and peered sleepily at his—Gideon’s watch. “I had a dream about your hat.”
“Did it eat your hat?”
Casey yawned and laughed. He looked around for his shorts, peeked under her skirt, shook his head and gave up, pulling on his pants without them. Then he raised one eyebrow and checked in her purse. “Thief.”
“Shut it.” She snatched it away and gave him his hat.
They left the drugs in the room, hidden in the box spring, and caught a ride with a caterer whos
e van was filled with pastries. Bella was glad she’d brought a large handbag. She and Casey ate stolen cream puffs the entire way back to the house, licking each other’s fingers, the inside of her bag now as filthy as the outside of her shoes.
Vincent was the first to take notice of them, sitting in that horrible Peugeot, trying to start it. He looked them up and down and chuckled. Bella straightened her dress, feeling paranoid that it was clear they’d been out of their clothes. Then Maggie appeared, standing in the doorway with her hands on her hips. Vincent turned away, ducking under the dashboard as if he suddenly realized that hotwiring it would solve the problem.
“Hungry?” Maggie asked. Bella realized that if Vincent was out here, he must’ve already eaten. They were late.
“Starved,” Casey said with a laugh that gave away what his mother obviously already knew. She glared at Bella while Casey greeted her with a kiss on the cheek.
Bella would not be intimidated by anyone, least of all a woman with a spoon. She walked right by and helped herself to a plate of lukewarm food she normally wouldn’t touch. Gideon was shouting on his cell phone at the other end of the table, a full plate of food in front of him. He stopped speaking when he saw her, as if his conversation wasn’t so loud she could’ve heard it from their fucking hotel. She ripped off a hunk of fried chicken with her teeth and ignored him.
Casey sat beside her, nearly missing his chair. He’d smoked more than she had, and would’ve still been asleep if she’d let him. Bella could sense Maggie standing behind them. She looked back and smiled. Maggie tightened her grip on Casey’s chair. “There’s something wrong with your watch,” he said, offering an excuse for their tardiness and holding out his empty wrist to his stepfather.
“I’d say so,” Gideon remarked, glancing accusingly at Bella.
As a lawyer, he should’ve been fully fucking aware that a killer and a thief were two very different things. Besides, she hadn’t stolen his watch. It was probably on the nightstand in their hotel room. “Fuck off!” she spat, standing and shoving her chair against the table. Then she had to come back to get her plate, which might’ve ruined the whole effect if Gideon and Maggie weren’t so terrified of her. She could hear Casey call after her, hear them trying to stop him from following.
Les Recidivists (Chance Assassin Book 2) Page 14
