“Fuck yeah,” I confirmed, my eyes to a pile of folders on the edge of the counter that I not only didn’t put there, I had no idea what they were.
He saw what I was looking at and I knew this when he invited, “That’s everything I got on Nick, Nair and this investigation. Take it, read it, I’ll cook. When I’m done, I’ll bring you your food, we’ll eat and while we do, I’ll answer any questions you have.”
I looked up at him and said quietly, “You’re not staying here.”
“I’m not leaving,” he said quietly back.
We locked eyes.
I tried again. “There’s no reason for you to stay here.”
“Way you tell it,” he fired back instantly, “no reason for me to go either.”
Fuck.
Fuck!
I had to get back on my game. He was screwing me at every turn.
I broke eye contact, sucked back more beer, grabbed the folders and stalked through the kitchen to the back.
My house was shit. The bathroom suite was pink, put in during what I was guessing was the ‘50’s and the tub and basin had rust stains. The carpet was shag. There was wood paneling from the ‘70’s in every room and my kitchen appliances were all avocado.
I didn’t care. I made decent money but in my job, early retirement was necessary. You couldn’t carry on doing what I did for eternity. You had a brain in your head, you quit doing it before the age of fifty hit your life’s horizon. So I lived small but still content and socked back everything I could. The house was sturdy. It had personality that was mostly my mess, my cat and me, I spent very little time there and thus it worked.
It was the back room that sold me on the place.
It wasn’t a walled in patio. It also wasn’t
not
one. It had big windows so it seemed outside even though it was inside. Narrow, it had concrete floors I’d strewn with thick, bright, braided rugs. There was an old, slouchy, comfortable as all fuck couch that had tons of big, slouchy pillows on it. Two wicker chairs angled across from it, more slouchy pillows on those. A big upright chest at the wall to the side of the door from the kitchen that had everything you needed in it, corkscrew, bottle opener, lighters, cigs, extra ashtrays, condoms, the shelves covered with green, trailing, brightly potted plants that even I couldn’t manage to kill and I forgot to water them frequently.
I loved it back there. If I was home, I was back there. I even had two space heaters back there so when it was winter, I could still be there.
So I went back there, grabbed a pack of smoky treats, a lighter, ashtray and camped out on the couch with my beer and the folders.
What seemed minutes later but I knew by how much I’d read wasn’t, Creed came out with a plate of food that smelled divine in one hand and another cold one in the other.
“You shouldn’t smoke,” he muttered, handing me the plate and setting my beer on the table in front of me.
“You shouldn’t either,” I threw out my guess and his eyes caught mine.
“That’s why I know you shouldn’t do it,” he replied, confirming my guess and moving back into the house.
I looked at the ziti. It was baked. There was tons of cheese, some of it baked brown. It reeked of garlic and I knew at a glance it would be delicious.
I set the plate aside, put the file that was open on my lap on the low, rectangular table in front of me, grabbed the plate again, nabbed the fork stuck in the food, sat back and commenced eating. Upon my first bite it was confirmed. It was delicious.
Creed joined me, sitting in the wicker chair furthest from the door, putting his booted feet up to the edge of the table and his eyes to me.
He shoved a big fork full of ziti in his mouth and asked through it, “Questions?”
I didn’t have any. He was thorough. He didn’t miss a trick. This was added proof he was skilled, talented and experienced.
“You did a shit ton of work and got a month of nothing,” I told him something he already knew.
“This is why I know the ride’s gonna get bumpy,” he replied then shoved more ziti in his mouth.
I shoved more in mine, chewed and swallowed.
“So, no questions about the file, let’s get this closeness crap outta the way,” I suggested and he grinned while still chewing.
Then he invited, “Shoot.”
“Arizona?” I asked.
“Phoenix,” he answered.
I shoved more ziti in my mouth, buying time to find it so I could ask it.
Then I found it and asked it, “Married?”
“Divorced. Six years.”
Six years, divorced. His oldest child was twelve. I wondered how long he was married before the divorce. In other words, his first child was born four years after he left me so I wondered how long it took for him to replace me.
I didn’t ask this. It was clear we had to talk about our pasts, get to know each other. There was no avoiding it. But there were places we weren’t going to go.
I nodded then continued, “You work out of state often?”
“If the job feels good and the pay is right, yeah.”
“How long you been in state?”
His eyes held mine even as he shoved more ziti in his mouth, chewed and swallowed.
He was preparing me.
He didn’t have to. I was already braced.
Then he gave it to me. “Left Kentucky, went to Michigan. Moved from Michigan to South Carolina. Met Chelle there. Her parents moved to Arizona, she got pregnant, wanted to be close, we moved there.”
“Chelle?”
“Ex.”
“Right,” I muttered, leaned forward, grabbed my beer, sat back and took a swig before I looked back at him. “See your kids often?”
“Often as I can.”
“Close?”
His eyes grew sharper on my face before he answered but when he answered, with the words he said, this warning would be lost on me.
“Yeah, with both. Kara’s gettin’ to a stage, doesn’t get along with her Mom so I try to be around and if I can’t, I’m a phone call away. Something she takes advantage of so it’s good for me since I connect with her often though it sucks why she feels the need to do it. Brand’s all me, top to toe to heart to mind, all my boy.”
His casual, yet careful, words pierced through me like spears and I froze in an effort to contain the pain.
Then the pain engulfed me and I couldn’t contain it anymore.
As it swallowed me into its dark, fiery pit, I tossed my plate of ziti on the table. It went skidding across the files and flew over the other side as I drew my other arm back and brought it forward in a sidearm slice, releasing my beer so it sailed past him and shattered against the low wall under the windows at his back, foaming beer spraying in wide spatter all around.
His feet came off the table and I knew by his eyes, he knew.
He knew.
He didn’t forget.
That motherfucker
knew.
“Sylvie, let me –” he started.
“You named her kids my names,” I whispered, my breaths coming heavy.
“Sylvie –”
Shit, fuck,
shit.
I couldn’t take it.
We’d talked about it. We’d talked. Frequently. Talked. Dreamed. Planned.
Frequently.
I told him, we had a girl, she’d be named Kara. We had a boy, we’d name him after his Dad.
Those were my names.
My fucking names!
“
You named her kids my names!
” I screamed then attacked.
Launching myself over the table, I hit him in the chest. His chair slammed back, taking us and his plate with it, ziti smushed between us but I did not give one, single, solitary
fuck.
He named another woman’s children
my names!
That fucking motherfucker!
I shot up to straddling him, my knees in the back of the chair, my arm coming back in preparation to land a blow and he shot up with me, arms coming around me, effectively taking away my target. He pulled me to him, rolled the both of us free of the chair then kicked it and I heard it slide and crash against something that stopped it.
I’d learned early and quick that my size was a major detriment to pretty much anything, especially if it was physical. I was in shape, no doubt about it, but I was small, thin and a woman so I had to aim true, be willing not to fight fair and be smart, fast, ballsy and sly.
I was so pissed, I lost sight of all that and Creed immediately gained the advantage. If I didn’t pull my shit together, his weight, height and power would have me defenseless in seconds.
But there was no way
in fuck
he was winning this.
No way.
No fucking
way.
Therefore, I lifted my head and sank my teeth in his neck so hard, I tasted blood.
“
Fuck!
” he ground out, reared back and I went with him, using his momentum to take him to his back. I shot up, straddling him again and didn’t delay in pulling back an arm and landing a fisted blow to his cheekbone.
He grunted and his head shot to the side.
I didn’t get a second one in. He got his hand around my wrist and rolled me to my back, him on top of me.
I got my boot planted in the floor and rolled him so I was on top. I grabbed both sides of his head and lifted it in preparation for a head butt when he came totally up, knifing at the waist. I automatically held on, my hands fisting in his hair.
“Calm the fuck down and let me explain,” he growled.
“Fuck you!” I shouted, let go with one hand, brought it low, shoved it up the back of his shirt and scored my nails through his flesh.
“Jesus,” he hissed, shifted to his knees and immediately fell forward so my back slammed into the edge of the coffee table before it went skidding. Then my back hit floor and Creed’s body pinned me.
Not good. I had his weight on me and his hips between my legs so I couldn’t get a knee to his crotch. He reached back and pulled my arm from around him, his other hand going to my other wrist and yanking my hand out of his hair. He pulled them around and between us, locking them there.
We grappled, pushed, pulled, shoved, both of us growling, grunting and hissing, me rocking my hips and planting my feet, arching my back, nearly rolling him but not succeeding.
Fuck, he was going to win.
Fuck, I had to fight dirty.
I lifted my head, he reared back to avoid my teeth but couldn’t get back fast enough. I got my mouth on him and didn’t use my teeth. I used my tongue.
The element of surprise worked.
He stilled instantly.
It was a tactical error.
Not on his part, on mine.
He smelled good. He tasted good and fuck me, he
felt
good.
The pain of his further betrayal, one even more unforgivable than the last, still consumed me and it had to go. It had to go and I knew only two ways to stop it. Two ways I’d blindly turned to over the years. Two ways that didn’t work for long but they worked for a while.
Without thinking, to dull the pain, I needed one of those ways.
So I went for it and licked up his neck to below his ear and God,
God,
the scent of him, the feel of him on my tongue, the taste of him…
God
.
Suddenly and instantly, something altogether different consumed me.
I bucked my hips, put my weight into my foot on the floor and rolled him so I was on top. I went right in, my teeth to the collar of his tee, my fingers curling into it, I used both until I got the tear then my mouth went away and I ripped it all the way down.
His hands curled in at my waist. “Sylvie –” he murmured but I bent. My mouth to the sleek, muscled skin of his chest, I liked the feel of him against my lips so much my tongue snaked out.
Oh yeah. So good. Fucking beautiful.
I took more, across his collarbone, down, to his nipple I sucked deep and his hands slid from my waist to become arms wrapped tight around me.
“Baby –” he whispered and I jerked up, slammed my mouth down on his and darted my tongue between his lips.
He took it and let me take, hard, deep, fuck,
fuck,
he tasted of beer and ziti and Creed. I remembered that taste, could swear it tipped my tongue countless times for going on two decades. I missed it and I loved it.
Loved it.
The kiss went wild, his hands went into my hair, holding my mouth to his then he took his turn to take from mine.
I gave him a taste then shafted up. His hands fell away from my hair. My hands went to my tank and ripped it off.
He had one second to take in my torso before I bent back to him and it was done. Even if I had the strength to fight it, I wouldn’t have tried.
We tore at each other’s clothes, shoes, tossing them aside, rolling, hands everywhere, mouths, tongues. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t think. I could only taste and feel.
I eventually got between his legs and didn’t hesitate, didn’t play, didn’t fuck around. I sucked his hard, thick, long cock deep, the head hit the back of my throat and my lips hit hair.
“
Jesus,
” he groaned then angled up. I lost purchase only suddenly to be flying through the air, twisted, brought down on his body facing his crotch, rolled and yeah, oh fucking
yeah,
he was over me. His mouth was between my legs, his knees at either side of my head, he was voracious, rabid, eating fierce, his tongue thrusting deep, his mouth sucking my clit hard.
God, so good, so goddamned good, nothing better. No. Not nothing.
No one.
No one fucking better.
I lifted my hands to his ass, pulling myself up and taking his cock in my mouth. He didn’t make me work, his hips moved under my hands and he fucked my face as he ate me and his mouth worked me harder. He went down to his forearms beside my hips, shoved his hands under my ass and pulled up so he could devour me. My knees cocked, thighs spread wide, I opened them wider and took his cock as he took my pussy until it built so huge I couldn’t take it anymore. I released his cock, dropped to my back on a low whimpered moan and I lost his mouth.
I rolled to him instantly, hands on him, vaguely watching him reach for his jeans, yank out his wallet.
“Creed,” I whispered and even I heard the depths of my need.
His big hand fanned against the side of my face, gliding back into my hair as he looked down at me, his face hot, hard and fucking beautiful.