“Kari,” Leo offered.
“Blessed Virgin, I’m going to rot in hell for this on,e Leo. Even after all of this, I still can’t recall her name. I can’t even recall her face. She could walk into this room right now, and I would not know her.”
“I suggest that you get some very recent photos and even video of her soon, then. That would destroy your chances before they began,” Leo told him.
“You are very right there. Now go. I don’t wish to see you until Tuesday, late Tuesday. After lunch. I will be dedicating myself to this major fuck-up until then, and since you are not up on Mexican social workings, I can use other minds who are.”
Leo nodded his head and left the office. He collected his twenty grand from the safe, put that into a bag, and left the hacienda with the laptop and his money. He took off the tie, put that into his pocket, and got on his bike.
Tuesday. That was good. Very good.
Chapter Twenty Eight
Bev decided that what Preston Pope meant when he said that he wasn’t very good at knife fighting was that he wasn’t fucking phenomenal at it like he was at everything else. His skill was only in the upper echelons of great, but couldn’t seem to get past that plateau.
Ah, poor thing. Breaks my heart.
He was in black workout pants, and that was it. They both had their hair pulled back. She was in tight workout pants and a tight, firm, workout top, which was more like a bra, really. They were both panting now, and sweating. Preston was smiling less, which made Bev smile more.
“Preston, you need to quit thinking of the knife as something in your hand. It’s distracting you rather than adding to your armory.”
“It is in my hand, though,” he complained.
“Drop it,” she told him.
“What?”
“Drop it, close your fist and attack me,” Bev told him.
He cocked his head to the side like a confused puppy, but then opened his hand and let the knife fall, closed his fist, and came in at her like the wind of a blizzard. She was able to block two of his attacks and give him a good slash across his chest before his third attack, with his left hand this time, sent her to the mat.
“Yes!” she screamed in victory, and bounced up off the mat.
“Yes what? I hit you! I did not stab you!”
“So fucking what? Was I any less defeated? I wasn’t just down, I was sprawled. I couldn’t have defended the coup de grâce.”
He was confused, and he looked nearly lost.
“Remember the first thing you said when you taught me to shoot? Fuck aiming. Forget the gun even has sights. You need to forget that you even have a knife.”
“Then what is the point of having the fucking knife?” he asked.
She reached down and lifted his hand. She traced the slash mark across his wrist that was still red and angry from her second successful block. “Because you’re dead, too,” she told him. “The knife adds to your weapons; it shouldn’t hinder them.”
He looked at the angry red line, and then at his chest where her slash was skill glowing savagely.
“Naw,” she said with a smile. “That one would have just made you more sexy in a bad boy way. A few stitches and you would have been fine. Same with your other arm. Just a cut, but this one, this one I’m proud of.”
He smiled. “Yes, this one would certainly have been a bit of a hassle.”
They got waters and sat down together, leaning their backs against the wall.
“I think I get it. Can we do knife the next time as well?” Preston asked her.
“Yeah, definitely. As much as you want. I’ve never had this good of a work out with it before. After this session, I feel like an eye has opened inside of me, and I can see what all of these pieces and stances and moves are all about, and how they work as a whole, in concert.”
Preston looked over at her. “That’s called mastery. I remember the first time that happened to me. It was such a rush. And, by the way, I have never died so many fucking times on a mat before in one session.” Then he laughed, and it was a good, solid, joyous laugh.
Preston was right: It was a rush. Mastery or not, she felt fantastic, and a world of possibilities was opened up for her to explore.
Kim and Yvette came into the garage from the attached kitchen door. “Are you two done killing — wow! Preston! I have never seen you so wiped out before.”
“She’s an animal! She just kept killing me and killing me. It was wonderful,” he laughed.
Kim smiled, but she couldn’t find the humor her husband felt at being killed over and over, or understand how good it felt to him.
Yvette was galvanized by his tanned, perfectly formed, nearly naked, sweaty body. The poor thing looked like a doe in the headlights of an oncoming truck.
“You two want a snack or something?” Kim asked.
“No, thank you,” Bev told her. “I think we are done for now. I know I’ve never been this wiped out before. I want a long bath and a short nap.”
They tentatively scheduled to meet next Friday at the same time.
“Come a little earlier,” Kim offered. “That way you can relax a little after lunch before beating up my husband again.”
As soon as they were back, Bev got out of her clothes and into the bath. She purred in the hot water.
Yvette knocked lightly on the door. “You done yet? Can I come in?”
“Done what?”
“Rubbing one out,” she giggled.
Bev laughed. “Come in here, brat.”
Yvette came in and sat down on the back edge of the tub. “So you really had a good time, I guess.”
“Yes, a very good time. I was seriously nervous, though. After watching those vids of him on YouTube, shit.”
Yvette put her hands on Bev’s shoulders and began to massage the tired and tense muscles. And damn that felt good. Bev sighed and positioned herself to give Yvette better access to her shoulders and back.
Yvette’s hands worked her deeply and soothed out aches Bev had already accepted as ones that were going to be painfully sore in the morning. When she worked her fingers into Bev’s neck muscles, Bev moaned with pleasure.
After perhaps fifteen minutes of this, Bev was in deep, relaxed pleasure.
“Bev?”
“Yes?”
“Are you into girls at all?”
Bev sighed sadly. “I really wish I was now.”
“Why?”
“Because I can hear in your voice that you are, and I know it’s been awhile for you. I could tell a couple weeks after we met that you weren’t really getting any with Crash, and if you were, it was of the quickie variety.”
“It’s been nearly two years,” Yvette agreed. “He came out of prison and we fucked like rabbits, of course. He couldn’t get enough of me. It was like we were kids again. I even had to begin using lube because he would take me four or five times a day. But then he started using meth, and that made his dick soft. He could still get off if I sucked him long enough, and that was alright for a while, because rubbing myself while sucking on him, even soft, was still a good encounter for me. But then he really started using a lot of meth; shooting it, smoking it. He just lost interest in sex. It just wasn’t something that was an urge for him.”
“Yeah, I figured it was something like that, and I know that solo rubbing isn’t really all that fulfilling. At least for me it’s not. It helps, but it never fulfills. So, yes, now that I know you are into women, I do — really — wish I was, because I know you’re hurting. But I’m not, sorry.”
“Should I stop massaging you then?”
“God, no,” Bev laughed. “You’ve been with Crash for so long. Does that mean you had girl lovers while you were with him?”
“I had one, a long time ago. I think Crash and I had been together for maybe two years then. See, I lost my virginity to a woman, and I didn’t have sex with a man until Crash. He was my first. After a couple of years with him, I began to wonder if I was missing something. So I ha
d this girl on the side for a long time. Crash never suspected anything because I never told him about me and girls. I knew the kind of porn he liked to watch, and I knew I wasn’t sharing him with any other girl. That shit was not going to happen. I could have done it with, like, Kim and Preston, because Preston isn’t mine, but not with my man. No. Sounds fucked up, but that’s the way of it.”
“So, what happened?”
“Well, Lucy, that was her name, got tired of sneaking around and being my back-door girl. She found a lover who would hold her hand in public and who she could spend the night with, and she told me it was over. It hurt. It hurt a lot, because she was right, and she did deserve those things. She was a great woman. After that, I decided that, yes, maybe I was missing something, but sneaking around wasn’t going to give it to me, and I still loved Crash, so I never looked for another lover.”
Bev didn’t know what to say to that, so she just melted into Yvette’s wonderful hands and soaked up the remaining heat of the bath. It was almost time to get out, because the water was cooling fast now.
“Bev?”
“Yes?”
“Could you, um, hold me?”
“You mean, while you took care of yourself?”
“Yes. Does that freak you out?”
“No, no, not at all, and sure. I could do that.”
They spent most of the evening together, talking and just being close. Bev knew after an hour that this was never going to be something she would get into, but Yvette looked and felt so much better at that point, she decided that if this was as far as she had to go to see her friend’s eyes sparkle again, then this was fine. She could go this far. Caresses, light kisses, a little fondling. Yvette took care of the rest, and she was obviously deeply satisfied with the releases she was experiencing.
What it did do, though, was make Bev’s need for Leo a lot stronger. Listening to and feeling Yvette getting off against her — and she really had some serious sex music going on — didn’t make Yvette more attractive, but it sure made Bev want to be fucked.
After the third hour, most of which was spent talking and laughing because Yvette was so close to being herself again, and she was funny as hell, Bev’s belief in her sexuality was even more confirmed. Part of her really did wish she could get into this and be a lover for Yvette, but being a comfort was going to be all she had to offer.
Chapter Twenty Nine
Monday morning, Bev woke up entangled with Yvette, which felt good and warm.
Yvette’s eyes opened and looked at her across the pillow. “Hey,” she greeted Bev.
“Hey,” Bev returned with a smile.
“You should go see Leo today if he is around,” Yvette told her.
Bev didn’t bother with questions like “hy.” She was so brutally in need, it had to be pulsing above her in neon: “Fuck me, Fuck me.”
“You wouldn’t mind? Maybe someone like Kim could come over this afternoon.”
“I think I can manage. Being with you helped a lot. It took a lot of the fear out of it for me.”
“Fear of being alone?”
“Fear of always being alone. Fear of never finding love again. That with Crash gone, my chances were over for things like kids, or a real house or any of that stuff. Things I always thought I would have with Crash, but always seemed to be further away the longer we were together.”
“Being with me did that? Baby—”
“I’m not getting all lezzy with you,” Yvette laughed. “It’s just, well, you aren’t into it, but you love me enough to give what you can, and Bev, that’s more than enough. It’s like mainlining hope. The fear is just not there anymore. I can feel that someday, probably not soon, but someday, someone will love me again, and I’ll be able to love them.”
Bev nodded. “Good. That’s real good, because it is so fucking true. Seriously, if I was going to lez-out, it would be with you or no one.”
“But you’re not,” Yvette said with a heavy sigh, “because you love Leo’s cock too much.”
“Brat!”
“Slut!”
Bev kissed her nose. “But you’re right. He really does do it for me. So, how do you feel about me taking you up to the club? It might be good just to be out with friends again,” Bev suggested.
“The wake was good,” Yvette mused. “It really was. Have you talked much to Austin?”
“I know who he is, but no, not really. Leo seemed to like him after talking to him once.”
“He’s … refreshing,” Yvette said.
“Not exactly a Greek god,” Bev teased.
“No,” Yvette said seriously, “but a real man, though. I think if I wasn’t in so much pain at the time, and trying to hide it, I might have wound up necking with him in the parking lot.”
“Really!” Bev said with surprise.
Yvette nodded seriously. “I don’t know how or why, but he cut through all the pain and hurt and fear and that whole tarball of black emotions. He cut through all that and gave me glimpses of daylight. Blue sky.”
“He was trying to pick up on you at the wake?” Bev asked.
“No, no, nothing like that. In fact, he probably didn’t feel the connection at all, not like I did. It certainly was confusing for me, because, well, shit, I’m at Crash’s wake for crying out loud, and feeling this connection with Austin? But no, he was a perfect gentleman. He talked about his sister, and his mom back in Arkansas. Said he was going to ride back there next month to visit with them. He talked about getting back in shape, and his depression after coming back from the war.”
“Doesn’t sound like upbeat subjects to me,” Bev said.
Yvette rolled back onto her back and looked up at the ceiling. “That’s just it. They weren’t, really, but he was so upbeat, it didn’t matter. I couldn’t quite put together him and his depression. It was like he was describing a completely different man. And his energy was contagious.”
“Maybe I should get to know him,” Bev mused.
“Do anything more than that with him, and I’ll stick you with a pin,” Yvette said with a smile.
“Wow, jealously already?”
“Terrible, isn’t it?” she laughed. “I’m such a bitch. I just know some little flossy is going to snatch him up before I can get my shit together enough to even date him,” Yvette said. She tried to make it a joke, but Bev saw it wasn’t a joke at all.
“Kinda young, though, isn’t he?”
“He’s something like twenty-seven or twenty-eight. I’m only thirty! I’m not an old hag.”
“Damn straight you aren’t,” thirty-year-old Bev agreed.
When she called, Leo said he was at home all day and was dying to see her. He hadn’t called yesterday because of the funeral. He figured she would be mother-hening Yvette all day. He was right about that, though wasn’t sure “mother-hening” was the right term for what they were doing together. But Leo didn’t need to be burdened with that sort of information — she wasn’t sharing him with any other woman, either. She and Yvette were perfectly in tune with each other on that subject.
So at noon, Bev gave Yvette a $100 in fun money, forbidding any argument about it, and then added three hundred for rent and food. “We’re roomies, and I’m guessing that Crash didn’t leave you with much.”
She nodded and looked at her hands. “Nothing, in fact. I think we have like forty in the bank, nothing in savings. He owned half the shop, but we weren’t legally married, so I doubt I’ll see anything from that.”
“You were with him for over ten years, Yvette. I’ll bet common law would say you were his legal wife. Let’s call Jay,” Bev said.
Jay agreed. He said he would meet Yvette up at the club around four, have dinner with her, and then go over her story. But yes, common law should provide her with the rights to his estate if he didn’t have a will, which Yvette was sure he didn’t.
“He could have had something in his filing shit boxes, but I doubt it.” Yvette sighed.
Bev gave her a hug and said, “We
ll, bottom line, for the next couple of months money isn’t an issue for you, alright? Seriously. I have savings and good money coming in, and I really am all fucked up about sleeping at my house right now. Maybe you could help me clean it up and set it right again someday.”
“You know I will,” Yvette told her. “Any day you are ready, just tell me that’s what we’re doing and that’s what we’re doing.”
Bev smiled, kissed her, and grabbed her ass. “You would make a damn good wife,” she told her, giving her lusty eyes.
CRASH: The Rogue Sinners MC Page 18
