by Liz K. Lorde
He clearly cares a lot about her. Maybe he’s not such an asshole after all, “I think that I do,” I tell him.
The ghost of a smile appears on his face, “Good. I’ve got some business to attend to,” he informs me, and then sips more of his no doubt scalding coffee. He’s got a stronger mouth than I do, that’s for sure. Lustful waves lap against my pussy when I start to day dream how his sculpted jaw might work as he eats me out.
A shiver runs through me and Connifer continues: “I’ll give you three hundred when I’m home,” he says this as casually as one would mention that they were picking up a gallon of milk from the store. Surely he meant for the week. Connifer drinks from his cup once more, “my engagements shouldn’t last past midnight. Think yah can keep yourself up ‘till then?”
“Yeah,” I reply automatically, the thought of thee hundred dollars still skittering across the lake of my mind. “Sorry,” I say, “but you said three hundred?” I tighten my jaw and bring my brows down, my heart tapping faster against the bone of my breast.
“Startin’ off yeah,” he explains coolly, “I’m not exactly sure how long I’ll be needing to care for Morgana.” I hope it’s a while—no wait—that’s… just no.
I chuckle to myself, “Let me get this straight. You’re going to pay me three hundred a night to watch your kid that’s not really your kid?”
Connifer nods that perfect head, his thick and trimmed beard bobbing along with him. “Nail on the head, lass,” he brings the white mug to his lips and quickly flicks his tongue across his blade-like lips, “’less ya got a problem with money, of course. Not allergic to hard work and a little green, are ya?”
“Never.”
CHAPTER 7
VIVIAN
SLOGGING UP THE STAIRS of my and Ray’s brownstone, I can feel the lead in my bones wanting for sleep. There is a tight ball of need that forms just past my navel, and I can’t seem to ignore it; this burning physical desire that makes me want to rail against the exhaustion plaguing me, to go and fit my fingers into the dripping, wanting place between my legs.
To think of Connifer.
Of those ambitious icy blue chips for eyes.
By the time that I managed to get home, Ray had fallen fast asleep with a manila folder in his one hand and a tumbler of rum in the other on the couch.
Why was my body so on fire for this man? And just what the hell did he do for a living? I finish ascending the simple, brown wooden stairs and am greeted by pitch blackness. I feel around the wall for the light knob, and twist it carefully so that only a low, soft orange luminescence cascades from the ceilings fixtures.
This reveals the twin bedrooms. Ray’s is on the left, and mine is on the right. I saunter against the wooden flooring and make my way into the short corridor, which has a window to look out from. Placing my hand on the silver knob, I open the door to my room—which I don’t bother with locking—and I close it behind me; throwing my keys onto the black painted dresser. They clatter noisily and I glide over towards my single and grossly unmade bed, collapsing face first into it and hoping for a divine embrace.
It is anything but.
But it’s still my bed. After I let out a long breath, I turn over onto my back and stare up at the ceiling.
And then I do something… unusual.
Feeling fresh waves of heat press against my pussy, I send a hand down to my jeans and slip my hand into my crotch. The broad shoulders of that man are the first thing that comes to my mind, which only makes my clit ache tighter with primal need. I need to feel him, for the first time in what feels like a lifetime, I have this deadly desire to feel him deep inside of me; to have him take me for all that I’m worth.
Why does he make me feel this way?
When my mind wanders to the thought of his rock hard, chiseled, Adonis-esque abs, I suddenly realize just how deeply fucked I am. Because I’ve never been so attracted to a man before. I never expected it, I just found myself wet with anticipation of something that’s never going to happen. Placing a finger against the lips of my pussy, I feel just how dripping wet I truly am.
After I do my deed, I find a small sense of physical and mental relief, and then I let the sleep in my bones whisk me away.
THE NEXT MORNING I’m rolling out of bed late around ten PM, and I get myself dressed for work in something casual; blue sage capris and a black v-neck shirt. I had to get them from a Goodwill charity back when I first got to Chaos. Just wasn’t enough changes of clothes that I’d brought with me. Hastily moving down the stairs, I note that Ray has already left for work, and I make my way to the kitchen. Pulling open the fridge, I look for my plastic wrapped plate of ham sandwiches. My name is written on them in black sharpie, and when I take the plate out and uncover the wrap, I find that one of the sandwich halves is partially eaten.
Dammit Ray.
This is quickly becoming a common game for us. He eats some of my food, or rather, I should say that he steals some of my food, and I do the same to his sweet iced tea.
I hope that he has a thirst for disappointment when he comes home from work, because that man is going to have an empty pitcher, I swear it.
After I scrounge up something to eat, I head off to my job at Fry Guy’s, swing over to Connifer’s and knock on his door.
When he opens it, my stomach instantly tightens.
“You’re on time,” he says with the cadence of cold fire. “There’s a surprise.”
I put my hand to my chest, “I just couldn’t wait to see you.”
“Your flattery completes me,” he deadpans, and I smile. “She’s in her crib sleeping. Just fed her a bottle, so, hopefully she’ll be down for a good nap.”
“Okay,” I say, nodding my head, feeling dumb that I couldn’t find the wit to say anything else. I have to avert my eyes from his gaze, I can’t look at him without thinking about the way I touched myself last night to the thought of him.
“I’ll text you when I’m on my way home,” he informs, stepping closer to me. I can feel the heat coming off of his glorious body. Don’t melt beneath his presence, I try and convince myself. It looks like he wants to move in closer, and there’s this unseen tug between our bodies – like if I breathe in wrong he might strip me of my clothes and take me right against the wall.
But he doesn’t do this. His eyes dip down to my neck, and I can feel the heat crawling on my skin when he says, “See you later.”
He walks away from me, and I get to look at his broad shoulders and striking back.
Yeah. I’ll be imagining that naked all of tonight.
LATER THAT NIGHT, CONNIFER UNLOCKS the door and steps inside. I’m cutting up slices of lime to snack on against his living room table, watching Late Night with Louise Cantrell. “Hey,” I say to him, putting down the chef’s knife and sucking on a lime.
Connifer smirks at me and gives me a wink; swaggers over towards me and tosses his set of keys onto the table. He then plops down on the couch, getting so close to me that him just sitting makes his sculpted body brush up against mine. He snakes an arm over the back of my neck and pulls me against his firm shoulder and chest, giving me a whiff of his woodlands smelling deodorant or cologne. “Careful with that,” he says, his eyes meeting mine and a smile beaming on his face, “little girls shouldn’t play with such big knives. Could kill a man with one of those.”
“Maybe I’ll test that theory if you don’t let go,” I tease, trying to worm my way out of his firm but friendly grip. “Hey come on.”
Connifer lets out a belly laugh, “Believe it or not I prefer not bein’ stabbed.”
“Fine I promise—“ I tug my body against his stupid buff arm, “not to.”
“I don’t know,” he tests, “your word’s your bond, you know.”
“Jesus do you do this to all your sitters?”
His eyes pinion me in place and tell me simply: No, just the ones that I really want to fuck. “Just looked like you could use some fun,” he husks before letting me go and spreading his l
egs out while he sits. “How’d the baby do?”
“She was fine, I think she missed you a little though.” I keep my eyes on him and pinch two fingers together to make a point. “Just a little. This much even.”
“Very funny,” he says, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a leather wallet. He produces three, hundred dollars bills and sticks his hand out to me. When I go to take them, he pulls back. “Ah-ah, wait a second. There’s a condition.”
“I don’t like the sound of that.”
“You’re new here. There’s this place I want to show you.”
“How long would it take?”
Connifer shrugs, “Thirty minutes or less, it’s not far.”
SO OUT OF CURIOSITY I agreed, and he drove us over in his black and red dodge charger. When we get to the place, I ask, “This is the place?”
Connifer smirks and gets out of the car, and in turn, I take off my seatbelt and round the car. We’ve parked on the side of the street, and a small abandoned chapel sits where Connifer’s heading..
“This is it,” Connifer says.
“This where you dump your bodies?”
Connifer turns to look at me with faux shock. “You weren’t supposed to catch on so soon,” his face snaps back to normal, and then he smiles. “Just kidding, lass, I wouldn’t hide a body in such historic place.”
I narrow my eyes inquisitively.
“Still kidding,” he says, standing at the cracked open, wooden double doorway.
When I deliberately refrain from going inside, I take a moment to drink in the broken architecture. Shattered stained glass windows look down on me, and a haunted gray exterior coats the chapel. There’s cracks that splinter the walls of the building, and a three foot sized angelic statue that looms above the entrance of the place. I take in a breath and shake my head before stepping over beside Connifer.
This is either the dumbest thing that I’m ever going to do, or it’s going to turn out, well, like a run-down church date that’s not a date with a hot Irish man who looks like he could tear down the place without breaking a sweat. Although it might be sexier if he did.
Connifer goes in first, cranes his head over his shoulder to look at me, and then come-hithers. “Less you’re scared,” he mocks like an arrogant jerk that I have to restrain myself from wanting to climb.
“I’m not!” I duck my head below a wooden beam between the ajar doors, and I follow him inside.
The inside is even worse than the out. More shards of colored glass litter the whole place, and there’s broken pews that flank me on either side. A hole in the roof lets moonlight pour through, and a red colored carpet leads up to the still standing alter. Three steps that span the whole width of the chapel rest just before that alter, and a series of broken golden candle holders are at the back of the place. Still, there’s a melancholy beauty to this eviscerated ground, and I feel like I’m stepping into something unnervingly private.
I follow Connifer, who moves over to the set of steps and sits down on one of them, and then I sit beside him.
“Look up,” Connifer says, pointing towards the hole in the roof with his chin.
When I lean back and check it out, I’m greeted by a white glow of many stars. “It’s beautiful,” I tell him.
“My brother and I, we used to come down here all the time when we were younger. Can’t say that we’d pray to God, but when we were ever unsure about something, we’d come here. Hell I used to make my old…” he looks like he has to consider his next words, “concoctions. Yeah. Used to brew them down here.”
“You have a brother?”
“Of sorts. Stick around long enough and I’m sure you’ll meet him.”
“Well the pay’s pretty killer,” I admit, tilting my head to look at him. He’s looking up at the stars still, and he’s got a serious look on his face; like he’s mentally and emotionally preparing himself for some sort of holy trial. I was going to say more to him, but now I’m finding myself ensnared by his simplistic beauty. The hard lines of his jaw, the way that his forearms and shoulder muscles are corded with brutal, efficient mass. My heart begins to quicken and tighten, and breathing starts to feel like I have to learn it all over again.
Connifer takes a long breath, and I get a food view of his powerful chest when it expands. He turns his head to look at me, and then he smirks. “Are you staring at me?”
“What? No. No, I was looking at the stained glass windows.” I reposition myself on the step and feel needles prick against my lungs.
Connifer picks himself up off of the step, smoothly glides over to me, and squats down in front of me. His elbows rest on his legs, letting his arms loosely hang. “Lie,” he says. “I could feel your eyes on me.”
“I wasn’t. I swear.” It feels less awkward to lie.
“Lie,” it comes out dark as dusk. “Are you a virgin?” The question hits me like a punch, and I don’t answer immediately. Connifer smirks and brings himself to his feet, “no need to answer. Can see it in the red of your face.” Before I can do or say anything, he bends down and puts his big hands just above my waist and pulls me up; he the brings me in closer against his person, and our eyes lock with one another. His nostrils move when he sniffs me, the heat of our bodies mingling freely with forbidden lust. “I can smell how badly you’ve wanted me,” he husks. Connifer slowly pushes me in the direction of a wall, and I can hear the sound of stained glass crunching beneath our shoes. My back presses up against the wall and I feel so much heat throughout my body I think I’m going to melt into a puddle of embarrassment, fear, and lust.
“I don’t want you,” I tell him meekly, every part of my body feels like it wants to follow his touch. Like I’m a plasma ball, and his fingers seduce and enthrall my every light.
“Lie,” he susurrates, moving his mouth in so close to me that our lips could kiss with the slightest relenting of my will. When I find myself just barely starting to lean in to his kiss, to taste that sweet seduction, Connifer pulls his head away and a whimper effortlessly escapes me. “True,” he murmurs and then flips me around, pinioning me against his body.
I can feel something hard poking at me from his jeans, and it takes all of my will not to rub myself against it.
Connifer pulls my hair into his hand, revealing my neck, and he brushes his lips along the back of it, making my hairs stand on end and my pussy tighten in attention. “Let me tell you a truth,” he says, and brings his teeth to the lobe of my ear, pulling and stretching it with his teeth. I suck in a sharp breath, and a jolt of need strikes just behind my clit. “I didn’t plan on taking you here to fuck you,” he reveals. “But I could,” I hear the ambitious smirk in his tone. “I can smell the way that your pussy aches for my cock. Can feel the heat coming off your need.” His hand goes from my stomach down to my crotch, and he holds me there long and hard, making me wriggle to break free and fantasize of how much further he’ll go all in the same moment. “This cock is going to fuck you until you can’t feel anymore pain,” he promises, his hand on my pussy rocking back and forth. “Until you whisper my name and clench around me, drooling your cum all over my shaft.”
Now my body’s going crazy from having to listen to all that, but I came here for a reason. I somehow pull myself from Connifer’s grasp and turn to face him, the anger filling up my cheeks and making my heart pump hard and thick. “That’s not going to happen,” I tell him, not even wholly sure if I believe myself. He only gives me a serious, calculating look that makes my knees want to buckle. “I didn’t come here to get involved with anyone,” I confess, “so, please.”
Connifer steps forward and puts his hands on the wall at either side of me. “Sorry,” he says it with great insincerity, “just got too caught up in you. I’m not one for anything serious,” he chuckles darkly, “but I can tell what a woman wants. And when you’re good and tired of this gig, like all the rest before you, let me make you cum. Give you something to remember me by.”
I swallow hard and brush back a strand
of my black hair, “Just take me back to my truck.” I say it like I’m going to forget or block out what’s happened here tonight, but with the way that my heart’s beating, I know that I’ll be remembering for a long, painful time.
FOUR DAYS LATER OF quick glances and flirtatious conversations, and I still can’t get enough time with this guy. I keep thinking that I’m crazy for feeling so weird around him, for being so intoxicated without a drop of liquor to my tongue. Now I’m sitting on Ray’s couch on my day off.
“So…” Ray begins, reading one of his Cozy Mystery books on his kindle. “How much is he paying you?”
I slurp mostly milk, more so than actual honey nut oats, from my bowl with a spoon; then I turn to face him, “Huh? Who?” I keep the partially filled bowl close to my face, and try for another bite. I wasn’t paying too much attention to Ray, because I’m too busy being angry with myself for giving Waingro more money. There still hasn’t been a single mention of my mother.
“You know who,” Ray insists in a low, I like to put my hands on my hips kind of tone.
“What? No Ray. I don’t.”
Ray keeps staring at me. Boring into me. When he lifts his brow, that subtle, subtle little lift? Yeah, that’s when I know he’s organizing his symphony: His symphony of sarcastic destruction. “Honey,” his lips smack, “yes, yes you do.”
My body tenses with an exhilarating rush of cold fear and excitement. I realize who he’s talking about, “You mean Connifer?”
“Yes,” Ray ejaculates, pumping his fist in victory. “I mean,” he brings two fingers up to his mustache and touches them briefly, “yes. Yes that’s the guy.”
