Starling (Southern Watch Book 6)

by Robert J. Crane

  Brian stopped staring at his nose. “I think that’s apocryphal.” Casey looked at him blankly, past the tip of his nose. “Made up. Bullshit. You know.”

  “Really?” Casey nodded, seemingly mollified by this. “Good. Because not being able to shoot a gun while having sex kind of flies in the face of everything America stands for. Freedom! Fuck yeah!”

  “Fuck yeah,” Brian said, nodding along. “I want to go fire a gun while getting somebody off right now.” He pumped his fist, then caught a sidelong look from Casey. “Not you. A woman-shaped person.”

  “I could put on a dress—”

  “Stop trying to make this happen, Casey.”

  “Okay, okay. I get it. I’m just a little too much man for you—”

  “You’re way too much man for me, Casey,” Brian said, blinking his eyes, which felt really dry. Like dryer than Sauron’s, probably. “A hundred percent too much man for me, in fact.”

  “There’s always Ms. Cherry’s. She’s very understanding, and that redhead, Lucia—”

  “Is very lovely, I’m sure,” Brian said, really feeling this weed, even though it was not among the very best he’d ever had. “Though I’ve met her alter ego, and I’m not sure I could get the thought of her out of my head enough to … y’know, get hard.” Where had it come from? Grown in a ditch somewhere in Appalachia, watered by piss? Or had they imported it from somewhere like Colorado or Washington? He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, because he realized very suddenly that he was pinching one of his balls between his leg and the seat and wanted it to stop. “I just like it when a woman … you know, actually wants me.”

  “Don’t we all,” Casey said, sighing like he was talking about some great lost love. “Don’t we all.”

  Brian shifted again, and this time the discomfort didn’t have to do with his balls.

  *

  Hendricks looked back at the fire that was growing in the woods, eyeing it and shaking his head. Left unchecked, he reckoned that was trouble with a capital T, but kinda not his problem yet. The houses were mostly burned out on their own, still belching smoke skyward, all the good lumber reduced to kindling in the biggest bonfire he’d seen since he’d left Amery, Wisconsin, where those boys knew how to build one right.

  He sauntered his way up the hill, figuring his discussion with Arch was a lost cause—for now, at least. It hadn’t exactly gone the way he’d planned it, not that he’d put a lot of thought into it. Maybe that was the problem. Arch wasn’t him, he wasn’t Arch, but he was saying things that he’d maybe have found comforting at the time of Renee’s passing.

  Didn’t matter though, ultimately. Arch was going to do what Arch was going to do, he told himself. Though he had a strange knot in his stomach that suggested his attitude was not nearly as laissez-faire as he wanted to believe.

  Coming up to the road at the top of the hill, he caught sight of his car and started to head for it. Someone called, “Hey, cowboy!” and brought him up short.

  Shit, it was Duncan. With Erin. Standing around her squad car. She was more of the reason for the “Shit!” than the demon or the squad car, though.

  Ignoring his good sense, he sauntered his way over, ignoring the smoke that was blowing hard this way now. Waving his hand in front of his face like a choice fart had been ripped right in front of him, he got a hacky-gaggy feeling that came from the smoky aroma forcing its way up his nose and into his lungs. After a minute the wind stopped, and suddenly he could breathe again.

  “Christ,” Erin said, doing a little waving of her own. “That shit’ll overpower you.”

  “Yeah, it shoves its way down your throat and chokes you like …” Hendricks paused, then dismissed that one. “Y’know.”

  “A dick?” Erin said, clearly unamused. “Stay classy, Wisconsin.”

  “Or whatever,” Hendricks said stiffly, then turned his attention to Duncan. “You got a read on that skinny guy from the funerals?”

  Duncan just shook his head. “He’s out of my sight. Or feels.”

  “Best not strain yourself too hard trying to find him,” Hendricks said, “or else you’ll end us up in some other fiery hellhole like this.”

  “I’d say I was sorry, but I’d be lying,” Duncan said. “Killing this thing was an unvarnished good.”

  “I don’t think the developer here would agree with that,” Erin said.

  “They were never gonna sell any of these right now anyway,” Duncan said. “People are getting the message: Get the fuck out of Dodge before you can’t dodge anymore.”

  “Pretty sure the ‘Dodge’ in that saying comes from Dodge City, Kansas,” Hendricks said. “Not dodge as in, GTFO of the way.”

  “I was playing with the English language, Tex Dick-man,” Duncan said. “You leaving?”

  “If you’ve got no line on that skinny, bitchass funeral-director-looking motherfucker from the motel … yep,” Hendricks said, hiking up his belt a little. Damned thing always sagged with the weight of a sword and a 1911.

  “Got a spicy redhead to go fuck?” Duncan’s eye glimmered just a little as he said it, and the wind came blowing back through right then, smoking them out. Hendricks launched into a coughing fit that didn’t alleviate when the wind stopped.

  Erin’s coughing stopped almost immediately after it did though. “The fuck?” she said, half-gagging. “You and Starling? Really?” She sounded more disbelieving than pissed.

  “I dunno,” Hendricks said, keeping his pissed-off answer aimed right at Duncan. “She didn’t show up to this little party, so she might be busy.”

  Erin got a nasty smile. “Probably letting Casey plunge his cock in her whore ass for a twenty. Over and over, you know.”

  Hendricks found himself strangely unmoved by that suggestion. “Who knows? But seriously, thanks for fucking nothing, Duncan.” He added the dash of sarcasm that it required, and headed for his car, getting in and starting it immediately. He burned rubber and got the fuck out of there before he had to look Erin in the face again.

  *

  Erin felt a strange clenching feeling in her chest, and it wasn’t from just breathing in a fuck-ton of black smoke, either.

  “I thought you should know,” Duncan said. He was still wearing that blank, dull expression.

  “Fuck, I don’t care who he does in his off time,” Erin said. “I’m just glad I was the girl before the actual whore, not after. And I’m over him anyway.”

  “Nah,” Duncan said, as fucking indecipherable as ever. “But you’ll get there.” And he turned and walked off like that was fucking that.

  *

  Pike was enjoying the preparing of his preparations, his role in the next steps of all this. Enjoying it very finely, pushing his dick into Jenny’s pussy, over and over, her sweet, tight little ass bent over the desk in front of him, moaning her pleasure softly into the desk calendar. Drooling a little too, making a mark on early November. Lucky that was already past.

  Her ass was a nice little back end, looked good in jeans, good in those black work pants. He’d started screwing her after he made a stupid joke: “Do you wash your clothes in Windex? Cuz I could see myself in your pants.”

  Darla had suggested it, said the type of person Jenny was, she’d find it funny. And she did—she laughed and laughed, and then, when she came up, face red from laughing so hard, she said, “I don’t know if you could fit in ’em, but I’d let you try.”

  And by God, he’d tried her just about every day he could since.

  Some of the little moments were the ones he’d remember best when this was all over. Sitting on a stupid conference call and she’d tiptoe in to bring him something. He’d be waiting, zipper down, cock hanging out, and when she came around the desk and saw it she’d get that mischievous glint in her eyes. She knew what to do, and she’d get down on her knees and put her head in his lap, and he’d tilt his head back and just enjoy the sensation of her lips slipping around there, hand doing a yeoman’s work giving his balls the right amount of pressure.
He hadn’t had to teach her much, but he’d got her that information, how important a good grip on the balls was. Too much and you’d make a man want to lose his lunch. Too little and your fingers were just sitting there, might as well have been cloth boxers brushing against them for all the good it’d do.

  Jenny had a fine pussy too, and a nice, smooth back with a little mole a quarter inch from her spine on the left side, right in the middle. It was the only mark on her other than that tramp stamp of a butterfly. He’d cum on that thing more times than he could count, given the wings a splash of white like he gave Jenny’s face or her tits, sometimes.

  God, this felt good. Pike could do this all day, that simple back and forth. She was moaning, really into it, and why shouldn’t she be? He’d had enough lovers, knew how to satisfy a woman, and she’d been with almost no one, and certainly no one who knew what the fuck they were doing. She’d confessed to him, after the first few times, when she started to really initiate the sex, and he asked her, “What do you like about me?” Her answer was, “You’re the only guy I’ve been with that tries to make me cum.”

  His dick had blown up like a virile puffer fish that day, and he’d gone after her snatch again and again, trying to prove her assessment right by pulling screaming orgasm after screaming orgasm out of her sweet, cocksucking lips.

  He put his hands right on her hips, pushing his dick all the way up into her, letting it swell inside there for a second as he held it hard. He could imagine the tip expanding up in there. Then he slid it out and put his hand around himself, giving the shaft and head a stroke on its way out. That felt good. Do that a few times and he’d get this show closer to over, quicker, because he didn’t have all day to just enjoy himself.

  Jenny moaned quietly. She always drooled when she was good and heated up, like she was melting out of her mouth. He pushed her legs closer together—thank God she was kinda tall, so he didn’t have to squat down to fuck her from behind standing like this—and started going back at it again, the little O around his cock formed by the circle of his right thumb and forefinger giving him that little added touch as he pushed in and out, in and out …

  He was getting real close now. Pike took his hand away from where he’d been stroking himself when he pulled out and thrust in, figuring he’d just let Jenny’s pussy do the last of the work. Shouldn’t be long now, he knew, given how close he was …

  Reaching down, he slid open his top right desk drawer as he leaned harder against her and took her off balance. She grunted as her abdomen collided with the corner of the desk, but he got a deeper thrust and it felt good, so he ignored her pain and pushed hard, letting the tip rest up in there for a second, giving it a little shake as he reached for the thing waiting in his desk drawer. It shone as he picked it up, so fucking close …

  He could have just ground his dick up in her at maximum extension for another minute, and he probably would cum, great heaving squirts coming out the tip, buried so deep in Jenny’s snatch she could probably taste it in the back of her mouth. She might even feel the warm white spray as it pumped out of him.

  Well … not today, maybe, but … any other day …

  Pike was close, so close, but the distraction of reaching for the knife had set him back; his orgasm slipping away like it was over the next hill one moment, and he started to crest it, and when he got to the top he saw it slipping over the next hill yet. Slippery thing, orgasms, and he wanted to gallop after it, but Jenny was starting to moan in real pain now; he’d thrust about as far up her as he could go, and she was nice and wet, felt wonderful, but just—not quite tight enough …

  He just needed her to clench real fast, just a real tight jerk of the muscles so he could get there. He thought of this thing he’d heard of, always wanted to try … and hell, it wasn’t going to matter here pretty quick, was it?

  Pike clenched the knife tight in his right hand and gave her a punch in the back of the head, making hard contact right at the base of the spine. She let out a yelp and every muscle in her body went tight at once from the shock of the blow. She was perfectly clenched, if only for a second, and he hit that peak like a race car going over the top, pushing his shaft in and out madly, making sure he got there, and got there good. He could feel the ejaculation starting, and he held her down over the desk, leaning over, so she didn’t just slide down like a damned jellyfish, because he’d knocked her the fuck out with that punch …

  He finished cumming in her now-loose-ass pussy. “Whew,” he breathed, giving his brow a wipe. It was slick with sweat, because they’d been going at it for over a half hour without a break, and he had some cramps in his legs. In his twenties they wouldn’t have been a big deal. Now he’d probably be feeling them all night.

  The door opened with a pop and Pike almost shit himself; if he hadn’t already cum he’d have lost his erection for sure, that door swinging wide and hard, someone standing there for a second, grinning wide at him—

  “Well hell,” Darla said, grinning, “looks like you had fun.”

  She came strolling into the room as Pike sagged, dick still in Jenny. “Damn, woman. Good thing you didn’t come in a minute earlier; you’d have ruined everything.”

  “I heard you make your O sound while I was listening at the door,” Darla said, closing it behind her as she came in. She was wearing a black dress that fell to just above the knee, fancy to the nines. He’d watched her hike that dress up before and straddle him in the front seat of the car, banging the hell out of her back on the steering wheel as she banged the hell out of him. She leaned over the desk, went face to face with Jenny, who was now drooling openly on the calendar, limp as a dishrag, and Darla looked up at him with annoyance. “You shitbrick. She’s not dead.”

  “Well, I was gettin’ there,” Pike said defensively. “You said that as long as it happened after I came—”

  “You fucking donkey punched her? Was that what that was?” Darla snorted derisively. “Shit. Glad you decided to try that on her and not me.”

  “I know which side my bread is buttered on,” Pike said, dick still up Jenny’s snatch. It was oddly comfortable to be having this conversation with Darla in exactly this state. It wasn’t the first time they’d had a marital conversation while he was balls deep in another woman in front of her.

  “Well,” Darla said, shrugging as she got up off the desk, crossed her arms in front of her, and gave him an expectant look. “You’re done, so … get it done.”

  Pike hesitated. “And I have to do it before …”

  “Before you pull out, jackass,” she said with distinct lack of amusement. She waited a tick, and then said, “You aren’t chickening out on me, are you? Because it looks like she’s the one with the pussy, not you.”

  “I’ma do it,” Pike said, steeling himself. He’d even figured out how he was going to do it. He’d originally planned to plunge the knife into the base of her spine at his climax, but … He’d always wanted to try a donkey punch, and hell, there was no telling what the knife would do if he’d done that instead. He might have gone to his grave still wondering what a donkey punch felt like. Now he knew.

  And now he also had to finish the job.

  “Okay,” Pike said, dick withering away inside Jenny as he stood over her, groin pressed up against the base of her ass. He could almost imagine that anal sphincter, ready to loosen up after death, the way he’d heard it did—

  “Shit!” he said, and almost jerked out. Darla was behind him now and threw her weight against him to keep him from pulling out.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” she growled, her head against his spine in the center. “Kill her ass before you pull out, you dumbass!”

  “She’s gonna shit and piss on me as soon as I do,” Pike hissed, trying to recoil but finding his wife blocking his escape. She was really putting her weight into it.

  “So what?” she asked. “You’ve had worse done to you, dumbass. Hell, you’ve begged me to do worse to you.”

  Pike steadied himself. Tha
t was true, sort of, but … still … he didn’t want to get shit on right now …

  “There’s nothing for it,” she said. “Be a fucking man, not a little bitch, and slit this cunt’s throat so we can do this ritual and get on with the main event.” She patted him on the bare ass, not letting up on him.

  “All right, all right, all right,” Pike said, brain running away with him. He held the knife, the hilt’s rough edges scraping his palm. This wasn’t the way he wanted to do it, but it was still doable. He took a breath, raised the blade—

  And he brought it sideways into Jenny’s throat, almost retching as he did so. She stirred only slightly as he drove it in the side of her neck, thanking a God he hadn’t ever actually believed in that he didn’t have to do this to her fucking face. He couldn’t even really see the damage he was doing, shoving the knife in blind. He jerked it around, hoping he was doing what needed to be done, twisting it where it was buried in the side of her throat. It felt gross and wrong, like he was trying to saw through a stick steak—

  “God, you pussy,” Darla breathed in his ear. Her hand cupped his, and he felt Jenny’s blood between them as she guided him, opening the throat with one good, strong motion, sawing the blade out. Jenny jerked, and Pike felt his pecker sag even worse inside her, little crust of hardening cum drying painfully inside her, like he’d superglued his dick into her. Her ass jerked and dropped. Even though it was probably only an inch or so, it felt like a tectonic plate shift.

  He was still holding her up, but Darla was helping now, leaning in against him. She pulled his hand free, warm, red blood covering their hands, hers atop his, the once-silvery knife blade covered in the thick blood of life. Pike breathed heavily, raggedly, as Jenny sagged, limper and limper, against the desk. She had no fight left in her; all the strength had gone out of her legs after the punch, and now she was near the end.

  “Stay in her,” Darla said, and slapped him on the ass. It had a Pavlovian effect on him, except instead of him drooling at the sound of a bell, his dick spasmed, trying to swell in arousal. Here it fought against the fact he’d just blown his wad and also, he thought vaguely, murdered a fellow human being after fucking her. “You keep your dick in there until I tell you otherwise.” Darla’s voice held that hard edge of command. “You hear me?”