Moments In Time: A Collection of Short Fiction (27 page)

I did so reluctantly, relishing the feel of him. He brought me up to my feet and held me against his heaving chest before he kissed me breathlessly. We kissed through the water, kissed through colors.

When we were both worked up, Esteban turned the shower off, grabbed a few towels from the rack, and led me out into the bedroom. He put the towels on the bed, then lay me back on it, my legs around his neck.

As much as I was craving for him to go down on me, an image kept flashing through my mind. The one I had in the Jeep the other night, the one of him taking off my panties with the barrel of his gun. The idea of a weapon of death so close to me was tantalizing in ways I was too afraid to understand.

“Esteban,” I said, panting while his lips trailed up my thigh.

“Yes,” he whispered back. “You have a glorious pussy, in case you didn’t know.”

“Do you know what would make it more glorious,” I said, my voice catching in my throat. I was scared to go on with the request, but knew it was something I’d never get to experience again. This was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to feel alive.

My shadows craved it, as did my body, so I came to a compromise.

“Do you have a gun?” I asked.

He paused, and I looked down to see him gazing up at me from between my legs, his brow furrowed. “Yes. Why?”

I bit my lip and laid my head back down on the bed. “Have you ever . . . used it? On a woman?”

Another pause. Finally he said, “Do you mean, not in the killing way?”

“Have you ever . . . put it inside someone? And not pulled the trigger.”

He swallowed. “No,” he said, his voice low, “but that is probably the hottest fucking thing I have ever heard. And I have heard a lot.”

“Will you try?” I asked, feeling extraordinarily vulnerable from both my position and the request. It felt so strange to be laying myself so bare, even if it was just sexually.

“You really do have a taste for death, don’t you,” he said to me as he came up. He kissed me hard, passionately, hungrily, his fingers pulling on my hair until I moaned. Then he abruptly pulled away and went running naked out into the living room. I heard him pick up his leather jacket and when he came back into the bedroom, he had a gun in his hand.

“Don’t worry,” he said as he promptly emptied the clip and made sure the chamber was empty.

My eyes widened at the sight. “I’m not worried.”

“I keep it fairly clean,” he said as he brought it over to me, about to get back into position. “More or less.”

“I think I’ve decided I like things dirty.”

“You think?” he asked, his voice rougher now, an octave lower.

I could feel him tracing the gun up between my thighs. I clenched, my body yearning for it, for the cold hard metal, for the kiss of danger.

“Perhaps we need lube,” Esteban said. Moments later he slipped his fingers over my slit and sucked in his breath. “Or perhaps not. You’re so wet, Lani. I could drink you.”

“Do it,” I moaned. “Lick me with your tongue, fuck me with the gun.”

He swore something in Spanish, I don’t know what, but it was impassioned. I felt his lips press down on my clit, his tongue snaking out to rub it just as the cold barrel of the gun teased at my entrance. My legs spread for him as he slowly eased the gun into me. I felt myself expanding, the coldness both a shock and a turn-on. My body rippled with pleasure, with excitement, with the thrill. Something so deadly was deep inside me, a thing that had taken lives was now giving ecstasy to mine.

It didn’t take long before I was howling, coming hard and fast as Esteban angled the gun to hit my G-spot, and his tongue rubbed my clit until my body broke in waves. I cried out, grabbing his hair, feeling like I was making up for so much lost time, so many lost moments and opportunities. For one brief second I felt impossibly free.

Esteban carefully put the gun on the floor. “That was something I won’t forget,” he said.

“You did say you wanted memories,” I told him once I’d found my voice. It was already hoarse, my lips dry.

“I did,” he said. He slipped his arm under my back and flipped me over so I was on my stomach. “But I’m not done. The gun was hot, but what I have . . . fires better.”

I smiled into the towels as he lifted my ass up into the air, straddling me from behind. He took a firm hold of my hips and thrust into me, making me feel impossibly, wonderfully full. It wasn’t long until we were both coming together, grunts and cries and sweaty skin on skin. My world danced with colors, rainbows, sunshine.

Rays of light in all this dark.

• • •

I must have fallen asleep in Esteban’s arms because he moved a bit, jostling me awake, and my eyes flew open. It was nighttime, and everything was in shadow.

“Just getting a glass of water,” he whispered as he got off the bed. “I’ll get you one, too.”

With my tilted vision I watched him leave the room, his firm, bare ass barely visible as he stepped out of the dark and into the faded light of the hall, where he disappeared around the corner. I could hear him searching around for glasses.

Suddenly the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. For no reason, I was terrified deep in my very core, the kind of scared you got as a child when you were certain there was a monster in your closet.

I was certain that there was a monster in the closet. I could almost see him standing behind the doors, feel his eyes upon me.

My instincts were going wild, telling me to flee, that something was very wrong.

That was when I realized there wasn’t anything in the closet

But there was a breath at my neck.

It happened so fast.

I opened my mouth to scream and a man placed his hand across it, clamping it shut, pressing my lips against my teeth. He told me to shut up, his voice cruel even though I was unable to make a sound, and the smell of stale tobacco filled my nose.

This couldn’t be happening.

What
was happening?

Surely I had to be dreaming, but this was no dream.

I was ready to fight, ready to kick, ready to go. But when the man pressed the cold, hard end of a gun against the back of my head, I froze.

All hope drained out of me. Esteban was in the kitchen with no idea of what was going on. I wondered who this man was, and if there was just him, or were there others. Was he just a burglar? Or was he involved with Esteban somehow?

The man ripped me off the bed and I let out a muffled cry, my feet trying to find purchase on the floor. The man’s arm was very strong and the grip was very tight.

“So he thinks he can just fuck with me,” the man whispered, snarling into my ear with an American Southern accent. “That isn’t how we play it.”

So this wasn’t a home invasion. No, this was something much worse.

I watched in horror as Esteban slowly came back into the room. He was holding something in his hand, a small teapot, I think.

“Lani, I decided to make you some tea,” he said breezily. “Chamomile.”

Suddenly he stopped dead in his tracks. He saw us, taking in the situation in an instant, then he inhaled, his body tensing.

“Put the gun down,” Esteban said in a very calm voice. “She has nothing to do with this. Do not hurt her.”

“Do not hurt her?” the man yelled, nearly blasting my eardrums out as he sprayed my skin with spit. “I will hurt her, I’ll hurt her and make you watch. Then I’ll kill her and I’ll kill you. Unless you tell me where Natasha is.”

“I will tell you if you let Lani go,” Esteban said, as if he had been in this exact situation many times before. He was so calm, and I was so scared. “Please, just drop the gun and we can talk.”

“I’m not talking to you, I don’t trust you.”

“I’m naked,” Esteban said. “How could I do anything? You obviously have me in a tough situation.”

The man pressed the gun harder against my head and I cried out, but the sound was muffled. I was so fucking afraid.

Though it was hard to see Esteban in the shadows, I could see him frowning, the glint of worry on his brow. “I’ll tell you where Natasha is if you—”

“No!” the man screamed. “No ifs. You tell me now or she dies. It would feel really good to see her brains splattered on that wall over there.”

And in that moment, I saw it. I saw him pulling the trigger, I saw the explosion, the bullet going in, my brains going out. I saw my death, my very violent death, the death I’d been attempting for weeks. It was finally here, but I didn’t get to choose this.

Esteban’s words echoed in my head, from the time we were at the lookout.
It’s a good sign to be scared. When you stop feeling fear, that’s when it becomes dangerous. That’s when you die.

And now, I wanted nothing more than to live.

“Fine,” Esteban said. He never came closer, just shifted a bit, but despite my horror I noticed something strange about the way he was holding the teapot. His posture was strained and the more I tried to focus on it, trying to make shape out of the shadows, the more I realized there was something wrong about the teapot in general.

Esteban went on. “Natasha was in the wrong place at the wrong time for the second time. The first time was when she tried to take off with our profits when she was just supposed to stay put. The second time was last night, when she sold you out in an attempt for forgiveness. But I don’t forgive that easily.” His voice sharpened, his body stiffening as he told the man, “Natasha is dead.”

The grip on my mouth loosened by a tiny bit. I felt like it was my time to try to do something, to try to fight, while this guy was in shock.

But Esteban didn’t leave anything to chance. He moved, quick as lightning, and there was a burst of light and a dull pop of noise.

The man loosened his hand around my mouth, slowly easing away until he fell away to the ground, collapsing in a heap.

I leaped back, falling back on the bed as I tried to get away.

Suddenly Esteban was at my side and he was holding my arms, trying to get me to look at him. It was still dark and I couldn’t see him all that well, but I knew enough. There was a dead man at my feet. I’d almost been killed. Esteban somehow shot him with a teapot.

He was talking to me, but I wasn’t listening. He shook me. “Lani. Please. Are you okay?”

I nodded absently, trying to find the words to speak. “Who . . . who was that?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Was he your job? Are you a contract killer?”

He shook his head. “No, I’m not. That’s someone else’s job, but he’s been gone. This wasn’t supposed to be this way.”

“You killed someone,” I said in horror, the realization slowly coming over me.

“I had to,” he said. “You would have been killed. Raped and then killed, that’s how these people work.”

“These people,” I repeated. “You are these people.”

“Lani .
 . .”

“You killed Natasha.”

“You don’t know who Natasha is. She was no better than he was. There are things about my job that I don’t like, but we all take loyalty very seriously. We also take our safety seriously. For ourselves and for others.”

He sighed and looked away. “I guess I should have told you. But I was hoping to spare you the knowledge. This man and Natasha, I was supposed to .
 . . fix them last night. I’d only gotten Natasha. This man had left. I would have found him tonight . . . I was supposed to. But then there was you . . . and I’m a weak fucking man when it comes to you.”

I shook my head, trying to understand. I looked at his hands. Up close I could see he was holding a gun with a silencer. Behind him, an empty teapot lay on the ground. “How did you .
 . .”

“I told you,” he said, “that we take our safety seriously. I had the gun by me all night .
 . . after . . . well, after
we
used it, I loaded it, put on the silencer just in case. There’s another gun under your bed. I put this one in the kitchen. There’s another one by the door. All hidden, but I knew where they were. You can’t be too careful.”

“You hid it in a teapot.”

“Quick thinking,” he said, giving me a smile that didn’t belong at a crime scene. “I was naked, I had to improvise as soon as I heard the scuffle.”

Thank God for thin walls.

“You’re still naked,” I whispered, my attention going back to the dead body on the floor. I stared at the man with the bullet hole in his head. My eyes glazed over, unwilling to take him in, to pay attention to details. I didn’t want to
see
him, the man who almost killed me, the man I’d seen get killed. I didn’t know him, but I’d never had death at my feet.

“What do we do now?” I asked.

“Well,” Esteban said as he sat on the bed beside me. “You go make yourself an actual cup of tea and I’ll take care of the rest. Lani, this shouldn’t have happened to you. You shouldn’t have been a part of this. You shouldn’t have known. This was my problem, my job, my reason for being here. I fucked up. I got involved with you and I lost my head for a moment. I’m sorry.”

I nodded absently. I knew he was sorry. And I was, too. But I knew what I was getting into when I first saw him, when I first learned his name, when I first learned what he did. I knew he was bad and yet I wanted him. I wanted the thrill, to know what it felt to be alive.