Flesh and Bone Page 16

  He cried harder.

  “I don’t have all night, Franco. Push the fucking button.” I shoved my Glock to his skull.

  “I’m sorry,” he cried. “Tell Tiny I’m sorry. I will leave the girls alone.”

  “It’s too late. You’ve done your damage. Now pay the price.”

  “No, no, no. Please. I swear to you. I will stop.”

  “No more girls,” I said.

  “I swear.”

  “Ever.”

  “Okay.”

  “Your days of pimping and abusing are over. Say it.”

  “Yes, yes, I swear. Please.” He fumbled with his penis, trying to strip the explosives off. But his fingers didn’t want to work.

  “Are you telling the truth?”

  “Yes.” His body quivered and slimy drool stained his chest, reflecting the moonlight.

  And then he peed.

  Sighing, I took the remote from him and told him I believed him. He seemed relieved and surprised so I continued, remembering three dead girls and dozens of others, raped, beaten, and abused.

  “But just in case you’re forgetful, here’s what’s going to happen if you go back on your word.”

  He screamed as I pushed the button. The garage rocked with a massive explosion. The ground shook, knocking us both back. A huge fireball rolled up into the dark sky.

  Getting my bearings, I stood and found Franco curled in the dirt sobbing, his hands cupped over his penis. The heat from the flames pressed against my skin as I nudged him with my foot.

  “Get up, motherfucker.” He rolled over, his face contorted with fear. He moved his hands and sobbed some more as he found his penis intact.

  I bent over him and stared hard into his eyes.

  “Keep your promise, Franco. Or next time it will be your dick.”

  My name is Diem Rushton. I am a vigilante.

  *

  The next day I entered the gentlemen’s club through the large double doors and squinted into the vast dim room. The cool air attacked the thin sheen of sweat on my skin, threatening to freeze it rather than evaporate it. Casually, I wiped my brow and made my way to the bar, the black trash bag in hand.

  I panned the room, more than a little disappointed when I didn’t see the sexy brunette who sometimes waited tables. Instead, I noted the black shiny catwalk glimmering under the colorful lights, and I counted eight bald heads bobbing at stage level. Loud music started over the speakers, the bass thumping quickly as I eased myself onto a high-backed stool.

  The bartender recognized me and slid a cold Miller Lite into my hand. I took a swig and turned back toward the stage. A curvaceous little blonde pranced down the runway and grabbed on to a pole. Her large breasts, too perfectly round to be natural, continued to shake as she swung herself around.

  “Diem!” Next to me, a strong hand gripped my shoulder. I lowered my beer, and club owner and longtime friend Tiny De Martino cupped my face with his short, stubby fingers. His hand was warm and soft just like his eyes and he smelled strongly of Drakkar Noir.

  “My girl,” he said to me with great affection. “Come, let’s make words.”

  Per his usual, he led me across the room on quick-moving legs. We went through a doorway and down a long hallway lit with weak lights positioned above the baseboards. Turning right we entered another dim room with large leather chairs, a couch, and a few small lamps on accent tables. It smelled different from the main room. Less stifling cologne and beer and more like the subtle fresh rainforest air fresheners you hang on your rearview mirror. I liked the room much better than the bar, having been in it at least a dozen times before. Tiny always feared that his actual office was a target for listening devices, so he held meetings with me in here where they swept daily for bugs and admittance was strictly regulated.

  “Sit,” he said, pointing to the large couch. I eased onto the leather cushion and watched as Tiny did the same, the stereo remote in his hand. After turning the powerful system on and adjusting the volume to voice level, he turned sideways and wiggled his eyebrows.

  “Franco is so mad.” He slapped his short thigh and laughed heartily. His pant legs rose and I smiled back, amused by his orange and black striped socks.

  “You shouldn’t have any further problems with him,” I said. I handed him the trash bag full of cash. “Here’s some severance pay.”

  Tiny dug through it, his eyes lighting up like a kid on Christmas morning. He handed me three stacks and set the bag aside.

  “I thank you, Diem. I thank you so much.” He hugged me, little arms wrapped around me.

  Franco had caused him a lot of trouble. Seducing his girls and then holding them hostage, forcing them into his prostitution ring. Tiny was good to his girls and he thought of them all as his family. Losing them to Franco hurt his soul, and he feared for their safety. He had paid for and stood at attention at more than one funeral.

  “I owe you. I owe you too much.” He laughed and stood, bag in hand. Walking to the door, he turned and said, “But today I have a surprise. Wait here.”

  Five minutes hadn’t even gone by when she entered, all things sex wrapped into one.

  “Hello,” she said after closing and locking the door. She stared at me and stood still, allowing me to take in her short dark hair, big brown eyes, thick lips, and lengthy five-foot-nine body.

  “Hello.” We’d never spoken before, just held brief heated gazes as she busily waited tables.

  “I heard what you did,” she said, walking toward me in a short dark skirt and gray sleeveless blouse.

  “Just doing my job.”

  She stood before me and looked into my eyes.

  “It was a job very well done.”

  She smiled and I caught her scent. Calvin Klein’s Eternity.

  She reached for the remote and switched the tuner over to a CD. As the silence searched for the sound to start, she returned the remote and reached down to stroke my face.

  “I’m here to thank you.”

  I swallowed hard. “You don’t need to.”

  “I know. But I’ve been wanting to talk to you. So when I heard what you did, I told Tiny I wanted to personally thank you. With a private dance.”

  I struggled for my voice. She didn’t normally dance. Only waited tables. Tiny had said she was a grad student with a healthy amount of self-respect. He made sure others respected that.

  The music started. She turned it up nice and loud and Beyoncé’s “Naughty Girl” began to pound out.

  Her hand left my face like a whisper and she started moving her hips. My skin began to burn, and she shoved me back against the couch and started in on her blouse. One button at a time, painfully slow, she gyrated and opened her shirt. Her face was serious in a sexy seductiveness, lips pursed slightly, eyes blazing.

  Down and down her hands went, peeling open her blouse and skimming her defined abdomen. Palms flat, she moved them up and down and then stripped the shirt from her body.

  I inhaled sharply, hit at once by the beautiful glow of her amber skin against the black satin bra. Then down went her palms again, this time to her skirt, where her fingers undid the clasp and her hips shook it off, one inch at a time, eventually revealing a pair of matching black satin panties.

  My heart thudded into my throat and all the way out to my fingertips. Her eyes held mine captive as she slid the skirt down and off her legs. Then she swung her hips to the beat and straddled me, grabbing my hands and placing them on her ass. Her body tightened as she moved, waving herself into me, her spine as limber as a snake.

  I flushed and burned hotter, the scent of her as real and as powerful as the heat of her skin. She put her hand on my shoulder and arched into me again and again, like she was riding in a saddle and moving with the beast beneath her. Her ass was round, soft, and full. My clit ached as I held her buttocks like two fleshy globes, feeling her every move and sashay.

  I imagined smacking it in the heat of lovemaking, of sinking my teeth into each cheek as she came.

&
nbsp; As if hearing my thoughts, she groaned and bent down to my ear.

  “Squeeze me harder,” she said as she reached back to unhook her bra. With it loose she lowered her arms and pulled it slowly from her chest. Her eyes scorched me as she slipped it off and tossed it aside.

  A short, sharp breath escaped me. Her breasts were the size of my hands, the nipples dark like fudge. My mouth at once watered and she again grabbed my hands. She placed them on her, each one cupping a soft, weighty breast.

  She sighed and thrust her chest forward, stretching her neck back. She held my wrists and moved them faster, encouraging me to massage her. Then she looked at me and pinched her nipples from between my fingers.

  “Ah, ah, yes.” Her body kept moving, dancing into my hands. Her eyes fell closed and she pinched herself again and groaned. She held my gaze as she moved. Told me without words what she liked and what she loved. What she longed for and had to have.

  I squeezed my fingers, holding her nipples captive. She cried softly and pressed her hands over mine, rubbing herself. “Baby,” she said, breathless. “You’re about to get one hell of a dance.” Then, with another groan of desire, she stilled our hands and crawled from me to stand.

  Music still throbbing, she again moved her hips and rubbed her palms up and down her body. She moved so fluently and so seductively, it was hard to believe she didn’t do it for money. She was made to move, built to seduce.

  She continued to stare into my eyes as she danced, hands drifting to her panties. There she dipped her fingers into the waistband and pushed them down. Down, down, down they went. Off one long, graceful leg and then the other. I studied the glimmer of her waxed skin, the sleek muscles of her thighs.

  She watched me as well, spinning her panties around her finger before tossing them into my lap. Then, with another smoldering look, she turned around and danced, running her fingers through her hair and down the sides of her body. They played over her hips and then rounded the curve of her ass. She shook it to the beat, short and sexy and then longer and hypnotizing.

  I breathed heavily through my parted lips, awakened and consumed by her. She turned her head, glancing at me from the side. Throwing me another grin, she bent over, touched her toes, and then flexed upward, parallel to the ground, dipping the small of her back.

  She waved her body again and came back up slowly, gripping her ankles and then skimming her hands up her legs as she went. She turned and slapped her ass, watching me closely from the corner of her eyes.

  I sat gripping my thighs, the satin panties softly kissing my skin and my heart running away with my libido.

  Another firm slap made me blink and she turned, deliberately and slowly. Facing me once again, she danced and slithered, the music somehow moving through her. Her hands went low to her pussy and teased with her fingertips. I saw the glint of slickness below the short hairs and I knew she was just as excited, that it wasn’t all an act.

  A hot shot of thrill surged through me and I felt my eyes narrow in further desire. Her catlike body continued to move and she could see the change in me, I could tell by the way she parted her lips and lifted her hand to her mouth. Her pink tongue came out and licked her front two fingers.

  Then slowly she lowered them, trailing them over her skin to her pubis once again. There, she first sighed and then she touched herself.

  I let out a noise myself as I watched the two fingers strum alongside her clit, mingling with her wetness, opening up her soul. Her flickering brown eyes spoke of the pleasure’s welcome, allowing her fingers to stroke the inner chords of her desire.

  She took a step closer, her need mounting. She stilled her hand and brought it to my face and pressed it to my lips.

  “Taste,” she mouthed and I did so at once, running my tongue along her fingers, tasting her sweet arousal. Her eyes flashed dangerously and she straddled me and grabbed my hand.

  Hurriedly, she pulled it toward her center, shoving it into her painfully wet and hot flesh. She took my cheek in her other hand and made small noises as she stared into my eyes.

  “Inside me,” she breathed. “Now.”

  I strummed her flesh up and down and then dipped the tips of my fingers to her opening. She held me tightly, one hand squeezing my shoulder, the other gripping my wrist.

  “Please,” she begged.

  With two fingers I went inside, and she sank down on me with a groan and an internal clenching.

  “Ah, fuck,” she whispered, shoving her hips back and forth. She wrapped her other arm around me and leaned in as she desperately rode my fingers. “You make me feel so naughty,” she said.

  And then she straightened her arms and leaned back, bouncing up and down on my fingers, using her thighs as springs. I curled my fingers and pushed against her walls, flicking the tip of her cervix back and forth.

  Her nails dug into my upper arms and her abdominal muscles tightened like she was doing sit-ups. She called out over the last of the music.

  “Yes. Ah, fuck, yes. Yes!” And then she screamed and bounced and yanked herself up to me where she singed me with a deep, hot kiss.

  Her body continued to move as her tongue swirled and her lips captured. Madly she thrust, until her body gave in and went limp atop me. She tore her mouth from mine and audibly gasped for breath.

  Soon the room was quiet with only the deep rhythm of our hearts beating. I could feel hers pulsing around my fingers. She raised her head and looked into my eyes. Hers were watery but starkly clear, as if they’d just been washed and she was able to see through them for the first time.

  “That was so bad,” she said, laughing. And then, with a deepening of her strained voice she added, “And so very good.”

  She leaned in and bit my neck, causing me to jerk.

  “Do you know what I’m thinking?” she asked.

  I watched her closely, in awe of her even then at her most vulnerable. She looked at me with openness, with honesty, with her same consistent confidence.

  “No.”

  “I’m thinking I want more.” She trailed a finger down my cheek. “I’m thinking I want those thumbs.” She eyed my hands. “I’m thinking I want them on my clit.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you still want me inside you?”

  “Yes.”

  Carefully, I placed my thumbs along the sides of her clit. She pulsed her hips and sighed.

  “Yes, oh yes. Right there.”

  I rubbed her, massaging her hot full cleft, pressing into it along the sides, feeling it twitch. She laughed as she moved.

  “It’s good. Fuck yeah, it’s good. Mmm, can you tell how well I like it? Am I tight around your fingers? Am I soaking them with my excitement?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you like it? Do you like the way I feel?”

  “Yes.”

  “I love the way it feels.” She kissed me, sucked hard on my bottom lip. “I want to taste you. I bet you would taste so good right now.” Her hips quickened and I knew she was close. I could feel her cinching around my fingers, feel the swollen heat of her flesh between my thumbs. “I want so many things. But I’m going to wait. I’m going to wait until I can get you all alone in your bed.”

  She reached for my face, held me captive with her hands and eyes. Her hips jerked and she struggled for breath.

  “And then I’m going to spread you open and taste you—” She neared climax as she spoke. “Going to—oh God—lick you and suck you—take you in my mouth—make you come with my tongue—”

  She stared fiercely into my eyes as her body convulsed all around my hands.

  “Would you like that?”

  My voice had vanished.

  “Tell me,” she demanded.

  I nodded and swallowed with difficulty. “Yes.”

  She threw her head back and cried out. “Oh yes, oh fuck yes. I’m thinking of you…of you.”

  Her hands slipped from my face to cling to my shirt as she leaned back, the last of the orgasm
claiming her.

  Her chest heaved and her skin glistened. Her stomach was taut, a faint vein running down into her hip.

  Silence filled the room. The music had stopped. My hand ached but I hadn’t noticed until now. All I could feel was her. Wrapped down on to me. Hot and tight. Insanely wet.

  When her eyes opened, she slowly pulled herself forward. Her fingers remained tightly clutching the fabric of my shirt. She smiled coyly.

  “What are you thinking right now?” she asked.

  I was thinking many things, but one in particular. “I’m wondering why you work here.” She belonged on a real stage, on a movie screen, in front of a classroom, or at the top of a high-rise building…in my bed, in my life. She didn’t belong here.

  “I need the money,” she said simply. “Men tip more when there’s a naked woman on the stage.”

  “You don’t dance,” I stated.

  “No. And I won’t.”

  I smiled. “You did for me.”

  She laughed and kissed me softly. Her voice was ragged from spent passion, and nothing had ever sounded so sexy. “You’re not a man. And I told you before, you make me feel naughty.”

  She released my shirt and pressed her palms over it in an attempt to smooth it out. She did the same to my lips with her fingertips.

  Her eyes told me she had more to say, but instead she climbed off me and stood to dress. I watched, knowing that I could for all eternity and it still not be enough.

  “So, do many people make you feel that way?”

  She refastened her skirt. “No.” Her mouth tipped mischievously. “Just you so far.” She bent and retrieved her bra and wrapped it around her waist to fasten it. As she turned it around and slid her arms into the straps she said, “How about you? Do you normally go around beating up bad guys?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, so this isn’t just a one-time gig, then?” She picked up her blouse and slipped her arms through the holes.

  “No.” I stood, not wanting her to go. The feeling was new to me. Exciting and terrifying.

  “Well, then,” she said as she buttoned. “Looks like we both have our naughty little secrets. I work here, and,” she pulled me into her arms, “you make the world a little safer.”