Murder

by Ella James

  I run my hand over the back of his left thigh, smoothing over a deep scar I saw after we had sex downstairs.

  His chest expands beneath me. He lets out a long, silent breath. “I’ve lost a ton of muscle mass since getting…home.”

  He raises his right knee, cradling my lower body with his own. I feel myself relax against him.

  The word “home” seems laced with frustration—maybe even bitterness—and I want to ask. I even feel like he might want me to. But I’m not sure what to say. I don’t want to say the wrong thing. Finally I relax more and look up at the ceiling, “Has it been like you thought it would be? Being discharged?”

  His left thigh tightens underneath my stroking fingers.

  “I didn’t,” he says roughly. “Think about it.” I see his calf flex underneath the waning bubbles.

  “How long were you in?” I ask softly.

  “Eleven years.” I glance back at him, finding his eyes shut.

  “Does that mean you might be…twenty-nine?”

  He lifts an eyelid and smiles, looking oddly miserable. “Old.”

  “No.” I turn around toward him and drag my hand over his upper abs. His abs twitch, and he sits up slightly, looking at my face curiously, silently, as he piles my hair up on my head with his damp hands, and, with his hands spreading along my ribcage, leans me back against his chest. He folds an arm around me.

  “I guess it probably feels like it,” I say softly.

  Like always, I wait for him to answer, and like usually, he doesn’t—at least not with his voice. He trails his fingertips over my soft belly, tickling until I sigh.

  It’s been so long. “This feels so good.”

  I’m still needy for him. He’s still hard. Maybe I should feel strange that he’s not initiating sex, but this means more: lying against him with my body lit up. Knowing that he needs me, but he’s holding me instead. This has been a gift.

  With his right hand still playing with my belly, his left one comes down around my hip. I feel his face against the back of my hair. “You seem younger than twenty-six.” His lips press behind my ear, and I have to struggle not to moan.

  “That’s funny,” I manage. “I don’t feel it.” I realize who I’m talking to and feel self-conscious.

  “I was at that meeting.”

  My muscles stiffen, and as much as I want to turn and see his face—I also don’t. “The commission meeting?”

  “Yeah.”

  I sit up straighter, pulling slightly away from him. I rub my face with my wet hand. “Mmm, let’s maybe just pretend you weren’t.”

  I feel his hand spread out against my back. “It made me want to know you.”

  “Really?”

  “I didn’t plan on it. But yeah.” His finger traces an indention on my back where I think I have a draining tube scar. I let out a long breath.

  “You were brave,” he says softly.

  I shake my head. “I looked pathetic.”

  “You were trying.”

  “Without you, I would have told those people all about myself for nothing.” I draw a knee up to my chest and rest my forehead on it, hiding, I guess. I sink my arm into the water, watch it lap around my elbow. “I don’t like to share my details.”

  He drags his fingers down my back, making me shiver. I feel cold and hot. Restless.

  “We have that in common, I think,” he says.

  Then his mouth touches my spine. I flinch, then shiver. His lips drag up toward my neck.

  “Barrett…”

  I gasp as his mouth finds the curve between my neck and shoulder. I can feel his teeth, maybe. What he’s doing hurts—and makes me moan.

  “I tried,” he breathes in puffs. His mouth moves down my collarbone. He grabs me by my arms and turns me toward him, licking at the side of my throat. “Please believe—” he trails under my chin— “I tried…” He bites my jaw. He’s hungry, frenzied, reckless.

  By the time his lips find mine, I’m crying out for him. I grab his head, his hair. Our tongues surge: gliding, reaching. We pull each other closer, kissing hard. Between the kisses, panting. I can feel his cock against my leg. I grab for it. His hands find my hips. He lifts me to him.

  His eyes burn mine. “Tell me.”

  “Yes!”

  He lifts his hips, groaning. I feel his head against me, thick and prodding.

  “Oh God. Fuck.” I spread myself. He pushes in. That’s how we do it: rough, in water; splashing, moaning, screaming. My fingers dig into his neck and pull his hair. His hands hurt my hips and ribs. He slams into me, sending plumes of water through over my clit.

  It doesn’t take me long. It doesn’t take me long enough. He moans as his cock thumps inside me. I can hear him panting as his muscles twitch and quiver. My eyes open and his eyes are shut tight. His face looks pained. I have never seen a thing more beautiful.

  As his blue eyes open, I kiss his mouth softly. He’s still in me, eyelids drifting shut.

  Dear God, his tongue is soft, his lips are tender; careful now. When whoever pulls away, he brings my head down on his shoulder.

  I can barely hear him say, “I needed you.”

  As he kisses my cheeks and picks me up, his face is bare; his face is tired or relaxed. I can’t decide if he looks lost or found.

  We get into the bed together, shivering and wet. He pulls the covers over us. The next thing I’m aware of is a sharp, gold light.

  FIFTEEN

  BARRETT

  I wait until she’s breathing evenly, then I quietly dress, grab my .338, and go downstairs, where dawn is streaming sheets of amber through the windows by the door.

  I put the gun in its case early last night, after I first put Gwenna in my bed. I set the case on the kitchen counter and pull it out. I take my time looking over it, and when I’m finished, I step away from the counter and just stand there for a minute. It feels important somehow, though I can’t say why.

  I leave the gun in the kitchen, but I can’t stop myself from going through the motions of clearing the house. When I’m finished, I carry the gun case over to the coat rack, where I get my Lakers cap and fold it into my back pocket. I get my helmet from a nearby cabinet and realize I haven’t left a note.

  ‘Going into town. Be back soon,’ I text Gwen. I’d like to add, ‘Make yourself at home,’ but how would she do that? I don’t even have real food here.

  I look down at the gun case, waiting on the hardwood floor in front of the door. I could take it with me. Truthfully, I want to. Always. My McMillan .338 is the first gun I bought myself, way back before even the Rangers. Before it made sense for me to have a gun like this. It was my way of investing in myself, telling myself that I’d do it.

  Looking at it now makes me feel strange. The plans I have for it…

  I decide after a few minutes not to take it with me this morning. I stash it in the walk-in pantry, lying right along the baseboard, then arrange some empty cardboard boxes so they hide it from casual view.

  I feel tense and restless as I pull my wrist brace on, then get on my bike and head toward town. As I drive down the winding, dew-damp road, through wooded foothills, underneath a fog blanket, I let my mind wander over last night. Most of it was surreal. Some of it makes me wish I never had to see her again. Makes me feel fucking terrible. I could go there… It would be easy.

  But I also think about the moment I pushed into her. It felt so fucking good, like my whole body lit up. Everything went out of me, and light rushed in, and there was Gwenna, wiggling that ass against me, clamping that fat pussy down on my dick. I feel myself harden now and try to shift my thoughts away from her sweet body.

  One thing I keep thinking about is her tucking that blanket around us. I’d woken up—sort of—and I was trying to breathe into that fucking pillow. Something about her pulling the blanket up…it just keeps replaying in my head.

  I guess I thought she’d…

  Most people wouldn’t want to be around that. Someone losing it. Why doesn’t she
care?

  I can feel her hand on my leg in the tub. The way her fingers brushed the back of my thigh. I couldn’t stand it the first time her fingertips slide over the bumpy scar. I got that graze the day I hurt my head. I’ve always hated it. I’ve always thought it should have been more.

  I still think it should have been more. I know I should have died with Breck. I couldn’t shoot Maliha, even thought that was my goddamned job. That bomb blew up the square. She died, too. And then I end up over the edge of that building and I’m landing and so bright.

  It was so bright and I heard Breck and everything was burning and… I look down at my left hand, strengthened by the fabric brace I have to wear to hold the handlebar.

  You paid, I hear her voice say. I don’t even think she ever said that, but I still hear those words in her soft voice.

  I feel warm and…weird. Like I can breathe a big gulp of the air. It smells like dirt and water. Feels like heaven in my lungs. I look down at my hand and I think I may love it: this fucked up hand.

  If I’ve already atoned, maybe things could be different.

  It’s a thought I don’t allow to linger.

  I’m getting into town now, navigating little roads lined with storefronts that are somehow quaint and tacky all at once. I like it, though: Gatlinburg with its rock-lined streams squiggling through the city, with its ragged sidewalks, with its silly mini golf and faux chateaus and strip malls. And then the mountains rising up around it. They’re not really mountains. They don’t seem like mountains to me. But they’re still beautiful.

  I stop at a gas station and fill my tank up. Not because I need it. Just because I like to have it. I go in to pay and look for breakfast. But…none of this looks good. I grab a bar of caffeinated chocolate, then I spend a minute looking at the Red Bull. I’ve got some at home. I could chug some now—in fact, I should—but…I don’t know. I just don’t want it. The taste. I’m fucking tired of drinking Red Bull.

  I get a pack of white powder doughnuts, some beef jerky, and a bag of Cheese Its before wondering what Gwen would eat. I’ve seen a tube of Pringles in a grocery bag of hers before. I get some Pringles. While the short dude with a faux-hawk rings me up, I see these round rights by the register. Some are blue, others green, and one is brown.

  “Mood rings,” the guy explains.

  “What do they do?”

  He laughs. “It’s based on temperature.” He taps a stack of pamphlets in front of the rings. “They just change color. Want one?”

  I can tell he’s joking, so I deadpan nod and pull a blue one off the plastic display. I look right into his eyes and tell him, “It’ll look good with this dress I have.”

  I get a kick out of watching his eyes bug out, then watching him compose his face, until it’s so tight, he looks like some kind of doll.

  I take the bag and nod. “Thanks, dude.”

  I can feel his eyes on me as I get back onto my bike and drive off toward this strip mall I see on the next corner. I can’t help thinking of Breck. He’s got this older brother, Casper, who was born female. Over the years, Breck would tell people at bars sometimes that he was born a woman. He was pretty big, not as big as me but ripped as shit, and more than once, I watched him throttle someone who had something negative to say.

  “Just doing a little weeding,” he would say.

  He had this half-assed Southern accent, just a little bit like Gwen’s, because his mom was from one of the Carolinas. South, I think.

  I park in front of a bakery with a neon blue “OPEN” sign flashing in the window. I know, as I walk inside, that I’m walking into more than buying scones.

  I know.

  But I’m not sure how much I care.

  GWENNA

  His room is clean and quiet. The bed is empty. On the pillow beside me, I find a note.

  HOPE YOU SLEPT WELL. I HAD SOME THINGS TO DO THIS MORNING. CHECK THE OVEN BEFORE GOING HOME. B.

  I go downstairs and find the house empty. The stove clock says it’s 10:43 a.m. Inside the oven, I find a tinfoil-covered dinner plate piled high with scones. Blueberry scones, apparently. In the garbage can, I find a box from Mona’s Bakery in Gatlinburg.

  My chest goes hot. He went to get these just for me—or us. I know he did it this morning, too, because Mona’s only sells food baked the day of. I down two delicious scones and drink some orange juice, then I float into the den, where I find my clothes draped over the couch’s arm.

  I take my time upstairs, dressing and making the bed, and have to struggle not to check the drawers.

  I wonder if he folds his clothes or they’re just in a messy pile, shoved in. Somehow I doubt they’re messy.

  Before I go, I hug his pillow. Smells like him.

  I wonder if he’ll call.

  SIXTEEN

  GWENNA

  December 30, 2011

  I slide my Kindle into my carry-on bag, a little leather backpack propped against the arm of my black suede couch. Elvie stops messing with my new DVD player and walks over to me, wrapping an arm around my waist. “You and your imposter books,” he drawls.

  I wriggle free and swat his cheek. “They’re not imposters. They’re ebooks.”

  He snorts. “I don’t know how you do that.”

  “You don’t read, so I imagine not.” I quirk an eyebrow at him.

  “I read music. Isn’t that enough for you, woman?”

  “Of course it is.” I reach instinctively for him, but remember he doesn’t want me touching his hair. He’s playing tonight.

  He must have seen the intention on my face, because he cups my cheek and pulls me up against him. “You’re looking good there in that little skirt, Gwennie.” He rocks his hips against me, just to be sure I feel how turned on he is. “You want to fuck before Jamie gets here?”

  I wince at the word—fucking is totally not how I’d like to describe sex—then shake my head and laugh. “She’ll be here in five minutes, you lunatic.”

  “It could be a quickie.”

  “No one’s that quick.”

  In fact—especially not Elvie. Especially not lately. When we first started having sex our sophomore year of college, sometimes he would come before he even got all the way inside. Now sometimes it takes him longer than me. I push that thought away. Models aren’t allowed to feel insecure about their looks. I pat Elvie’s itty-bitty beer pooch. “It’s going to be a long five days without you. I hope New York is amazing.”

  “It won’t be the same without you.” He looks down at his big belt buckle, frowning as he rubs it. His green eyes lift to mine. “You could still come, you know. Back-up sing.”

  I push my hand at his face. “You arrogant asshole. I’m the star,” I say in a dramatic Southern accent.

  His eyebrows shoot up. “Too good to back-up sing for Elvie Wesson.”

  “Damn right I am.”

  He taps his fingertips against his mouth and frowns at me. “You know…” He shakes his head. “I feel like I’ve seen you somewhere.” He slaps his jeans and twists his handsome face into a hillbilly duh look. “I know!” He snaps his fingers. “You’re the lady on the billboard!”

  I shove his shoulder. Elvie topples toward the couch, and just as I can see his face tighten with embarrassment, we hear a car horn in front of my house.

  My house.

  I glance around my beautiful space, and Elvie huffs. He doesn’t say anything—he never does—but there are these times when he makes me feel like some kind of big, gross giant: when I wear heels, or when I can reach something he can’t. As if it’s my fault I’m tall for a girl, and he’s short for a guy.

  Jamie beeps again, and Elvie gets my suitcase while I shoulder my purse and carry on. He gets the front door for me, and we step outside without a word. Our breaths make pale clouds. I find myself smiling as I turn to lock the door. It’s cold here in Nashville, but not as cold as it will be where I’m going. I can’t freaking wait.

  I take a small step back, admiring my little house. My dream. Th
e little wreath on the door. I get chills as I think of going back to the studio. To work more on my album, which combined with my movie and modeling income, helped me buy this house.

  My album!

  Elvie frowns at me, and I flick him on the arm.

  “Daydreaming all the time,” he drawls.

  “About the studio,” I say.

  “Aww, I gotcha.”

  But he doesn’t. The only son of one of country music’s most beloved duos, Elvie cut his first record when he was 9. He’s had a CD in Wal-Mart since last year. A Christmas CD since the year before.

  Next year, I’ll have my own album too. My eyes tingle a little as we walk to Jamie’s schmancy SUV, a Cadillac SRX. As Elvie opens the trunk, Jamie gets out of the driver’s seat and throws her arms around me.

  We both squeal, and Elvie covers his ears.

  Jamie lets me go and jabs him in the arm.

  “What is it with you women and the hitting?”

  She shrugs and looks him over. “You look nice, cowboy.”

  “Singing at the Bluebell.”

  “Oh yeah, Gwenna told me about that.”

  “Gwennie.” He settles my suitcase in the trunk and shuts it. Then he wraps his arms around me.

  “You two. Get a room. Oh wait, I’m taking your girlfriend with me.” Jamie sticks her tongue out.

  Elvie flips her off.

  She goes around to her side of the car while Elvie kisses me. He tastes like cigar and chicken. We had dinner at Miss Darcy’s Grill. I wipe my lipstick off his mouth. He has the good sense not to complain this time.

  He even kisses me again on the cheek. “Stay warm, Gwennie.”

  “Break a leg. Not both, though. Or I’ll have to send you away on an ass’s ass.”

  This is Elvie’s and my private joke. One time I told him I would always love him, even with no arms and legs. It was meant to be funny. Romantic, dark funny—but funny. He said he would love me always, too. But when I got too old and ugly to be photographed with him, he’d send me away on a mule’s ass.