Burn Down the Night (18 page)

“Yeah,” he breathed, his eyes closed. And I could tell he was getting close. So close and I don't know why I moved. Why I did it. But I pushed off the wall and crawled up the bed between his legs.

“What—”

I didn't give him a chance to argue or push me away or make some kind of bossy command. I slipped my lips over the head of his dick and he groaned, low in his gut like he approved on a visceral level.

“Jesus, fuck, yes.”

He was so hard against my lips and I took him deeper, tasting the salt of his come and his sweat against my tongue. He put his hand on my head, pushing me deeper like he knew that was what I liked, and I did. I liked it so much.

His cock buried in my throat, his hands tangled in my hair, he started to come. Arching up into my face.

“Yeah, oh fuck. Take it. Take it all,” he groaned and shook and pushed and retreated only to push back in deeper and I took it all. His hot salty come spurting down my throat.

When he was done I slid off him, and he jerked and twitched at the movement. I imagined him so sensitive to me that my touch hurt and I wanted to explore that. I wanted to push that hurt into pleasure and back again.

But instead I sat back and wiped my burning, stretched lips. The inside of my bottom lip was raw from where I'd tucked my teeth.

He would like my teeth, I thought. Next time—

I jumped up off the bed, or I tried to. He grabbed my hand, wincing as he sat up.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“I'm…”
going to go finger myself raw in the other room
. “I'll sleep on the love seat.”

“Why?” he asked. He was all undone from the orgasm. He was bleary-eyed, his dark hair had flopped over his forehead, and his mouth was slack and sweet in that dark beard and I wanted to press my lips to his.

We've never kissed.

All this shit between us and we never once kissed.

He leaned in like he was having the same thought and I pulled back. Some latent misguided effort to protect myself. To preserve what I could of me.

“Okay,” he whispered, his breath all over my face. “No kissing. But let me…” His hand touched my tummy through my shirt and I felt every muscle contract. My stomach, my legs, my back—everything tightened.

I sucked in a breath and didn't let it out.

“Baby, let me touch you,” he whispered. I said nothing. I didn't nod or flinch or even breathe.

If I opened my lips I would say no. I would say don't. Because that was what I was good at doing. Denying what I wanted. Making myself unhappy.

So I bit my lips shut, keeping myself silent.

And he took it as permission and I let him.

His fingertips slid under my shirt, my skin painfully alive to his touch. I turned my head away because somehow closing my eyes wasn't enough.

Those rough fingertips slipped under the elastic waist of my yoga pants, over my tummy, and I shook at the feeling.

“I can feel how hot you are from here,” he breathed. “How wet.”

“Don't—” I said, hard and fast but then stopped.

“You want me to stop?” he asked.

I shook my head, still not looking at him. “I want you to not talk.”

“So you can pretend it's someone else?” he asked, laughter and something darker all over his words. Something a little hurt maybe or a little angry.

I looked at him, my eyes meeting the dark blaze of his. “Just…get me off,” I said.

“Your wish,” he muttered and that finger was not so gentle now. His touch didn't make me tremble, it made me shake. I wanted to grab his shoulder with my hand but I didn't. I was there, up on my knees, his hand in my pants, and I tried to be as alone as possible.

I wasn't pretending he was someone else. I was pretending I was alone.

His finger was an intrusion—thick and gorgeous between my legs. Hot and hard. Calloused and rough. I gasped, my head falling back on a suddenly weak neck.

He burrowed under the cheap rayon of my thong and found my slit. He gave me no preamble. No foreplay; he just kept going until he found my clit. I jumped. Gasped. Weaved on my knees.

He pushed down hard on my clit and I cried out, lifting my hips in to the touch. Wanting more. Needing more.

And he gave it to me. He pushed my yoga pants down around my thighs and put his whole hand into my orange thong. Fingers pushed inside me, one, then two, and a third.

“Oh God,” I cried out and finally grabbed onto his shoulder. He swore and I remembered—somehow—that he had a sunburn.

“Sorry—”

“No,” he said and grabbed my hand, putting it back on his shoulder. “You touch me.”

We were a strange circuit. His hand in my pussy, my fingernails on his sunburn.

“I'm going to make you come,” he said. “Me. Max. You can go hide out in the other room, but only after I've made you come.”

“Don't—”

But his thumb slipped over my clit and I was too far gone. The orgasm was right on top of me. An avalanche of pleasure I couldn't stop or push back. I shoved him away, his fingers abandoning my clit, and I came anyway. I collapsed forward on the bed on my hands and knees, my yoga pants pushed down my legs, my thong askew.

I came and I came and I couldn't stop it.

Finally, I caught my breath. Came back into my body. Was able to feel my face. I sat back on my heels and readjusted my thong so it wasn't cutting into my pussy and wished I could just teleport into the other room.

“You gonna look at me?”

“No.” But I shook back my hair and made eye contact, as awkward as it was. I even managed to smirk. “Thanks.”

“You're welcome,” he said, in some quiet, strange way I didn't like.

I got up off the bed and pulled up my pants. It was so quiet between us, the sound of my clothes over my skin was like thunder.

“I'll go in the other room.”

“You don't have to,” he said.

“No, it's fine.” I was talking to him like we'd been trying to walk through the same door at the same time.

I walked across the room, my body pulsing, still sending out random electrical shocks.

“Joan,” he said when my hand was on the doorknob.

“What?”

I heard him take a deep breath, slowly let it out. Whatever he'd been about to say, he'd swallowed back down.

“Listen,” I whispered, staring at a bright square of carpet in the hallway cast by the kitchen light. And not at him. Definitely not at him. “Don't trust me. Don't care about me. Don't…even like me. And I will do the exact same for you
.
So when we walk away from each other…”
It won't hurt.

I didn't say it. In case I was wrong. In case it was only me that cared. That trusted. That liked.

His silence gave me nothing and I left before I could say any more.

I curled up on the love seat with the extra pillow and the blanket from Fern's condo, and I knew one thing was completely clear.

Sooner, rather than later—I had to leave.

And it was going to hurt anyway.

Joan was going to leave.

Sooner, rather than later.

I couldn't sleep, thinking about her sneaking out. Taking my phone and her garbage bag of fake IDs and trying to find her sister alone.

It should be easy not to care. It's what I was good at. Every single thing in my life that mattered, I shoved away with both hands so I didn't have to think about them, much less give a shit. My mom and dad. Any woman who would treat me right.

Dylan.

I was so good at it that in the end, all I had left around me were a bunch of men who would rather see me dead than alive. So, honestly, a stripper with intimacy issues who had lied to me, nearly killed me, and I hadn't even fucked…she shouldn't matter.

But somehow there I was, staring up at the popcorn ceiling, listening to the faint roar of the waves on the sand, my ears tuned to every shift of her body on that love seat.

Because she mattered.

Because she made me want to be kind.

She made me want to be different. Better.

The smart thing to do would be to leave first. She was asleep, I wasn't. I knew where the car keys were. I could just go. Forget about this mess.

I had options. Jacksonville. Arizona. I could even go to my brother's mountain for a little while. Soak up some of that man's good life. With the money I'd put aside, I wasn't desperate for work.

I could make up a new plan for the Skulls. Leave a legacy that wasn't soaked in blood.

Joan was a big girl. She could figure it out. She'd figured out harder things.

But still, I didn't fall asleep.

And I didn't leave.

Don't trust me. Don't care about me. Don't even like me.

I stayed because it was too damn late.

I cared.

Finally, once the birds started making a racket, I got out of bed. I slipped on my swim trunks and a T-shirt and went into the other room.

She was so tiny on that love seat. Smaller with all her attitude turned off while she slept. I knew how attitude could work to make a person seem bigger. Tougher. But she was just a woman. Human and fragile in the end.

And unbearably alone.

Fuck.

I picked her up from where she was curled on the love seat. My ribs made it uncomfortable, but she was small. She curled up even tighter in my arms, as if even in sleep, she was trying to minimize how much we touched.

I had to give her credit—Joan was Joan, no matter what. And I don't know why I liked that. Why it turned me on and intrigued me while at the same time had me worried.

It just did.

I set her down on the bed and she rolled away from my arms, over on her other side. She must have slept like shit out there on the love seat. I pulled the blanket over her and headed out to the kitchen.

I was going to have to work fast.

On the counter were our phones. She wouldn't leave without hers. And she probably intended to steal mine. Which, again, Joan being Joan was pretty easy to predict. I was going to have to start hiding my phone.

There were plenty of good and valid reasons to not do what I was planning, but I didn't listen to them.

I grabbed the phones off the counter and went down one floor to find Fern.

It was quiet this early in the morning, but I could hear morning news broadcasts turned up extra loud behind all the doors. The smell of coffee filled the hallway and made every single vein in my body crave some caffeine.

I stopped in front of the condo that was exactly beneath ours and wasn't shy about pounding on the door.

Fern, wearing a bright green robe and no makeup, opened up right away.

“What are you doing?” she asked, all furrowed brow. She glanced up and down the hallway as if people might be watching us.

“Can I come in?”

She pulled the belt on her robe a little tighter, her eyes wary.
Got it. Not welcome.

I lifted my hands, the phones in each. “I just need the name of the guy who cracked my phone.”

“Why?”

God, suspicion ran deep in this family.

“I'm trying to keep your niece from doing something stupid.”

“Good luck,” she said, the sarcasm apparently a habit.

I blew a hard breath out my nose. I did not have time for this. “Look, you want to pretend you don't give a shit, great. Keep up the good work. But in the meantime, why don't you lend a hand to the people who do give a shit?”

She tucked her robe again, a nervous tick. A tell. But she was silent.

She didn't want to help. Fine. Fuck her.

I stepped back into the hallway away from the door, my eyes still locked on hers so she knew whatever was about to happen was—in part—her fault.

“Help!” I yelled. “I could use some help!”

“Stop it!” she cried and reached forward, grabbing the front of my shirt. She yanked me inside her condo and shut the door behind us. “What are you doing?”

“What needs to be done.”

She eyed me for a long time, like she had a chance of making me back down. I just crossed my arms over my chest and waited for her to realize she wasn't going to win. Not with me. I got what I wanted. Part of the perks of being a conscienceless outlaw.

“Wait here,” she finally sighed. “Just let me get dressed.”

“I don't need you to come with me. Just give me the guy's condo number.”

“Right. Like I'm going to let you go alone,” she scoffed. “I'll be back in a second. Don't…” She glanced around her condo as if seeing it with new eyes. As if cataloging all the things I might see or touch or take. I almost told her I didn't care about her shit, but she spoke up first. “Just…don't go anywhere.”

She turned and walked across the carpeted living room to the shadowed hallway, and from there, back into the shadowed bedrooms. Just off the foyer was her kitchen. It was a little bigger than the one we had with some nicer appliances.

The coffee pot hissed and gurgled and I went in to help myself, opening her cupboards until I found a mug. Making no effort to stay quiet.

“What are you doing?” Her voice was muffled through the heavy concrete walls.

“Drinking your coffee,” I said.

It was flavored with something sweet, but I drank it anyway. Her fridge was covered with coupons and pictures and I leaned in to look at them, wondering what kinds of things a woman like Fern took pictures of.

They were old, but the face in most of the pictures was unmistakable.

Apparently, Fern had taken pictures of Joan. A teenage Joan, in baggy clothes with a petulant sneer on her mouth.

Her natural hair color was red. Not bright. But dark. It suited her.

There was another girl in the picture, who hadn't quite learned the petulant sneer and smiled widely at the camera.

Jennifer.

I leaned in closer, as if I could tell from some old picture whether or not the girl was worth saving. There was another picture, the edge curled up and I pressed it flat. A Christmas or birthday. There were presents and Jennifer had a ribbon around her neck. Joan was looking down at a box in her lap.

“I gave them phones.” I jumped slightly at Fern's voice.

“They didn't have phones before?” Teenagers had phones. Fuck, grade school kids had phones. It was so commonplace it was weird when they didn't.

“They didn't have anything when they came to me.”

Finally I looked over at Fern, her face locked down tight as if she kept every emotion behind high high walls. And razor wire.

“If you want to know more, you have to ask her,” Fern said, because apparently I wasn't as good at hiding my thoughts. “But,” she pointed at the picture, “I could tell Ol—Joan was thinking of leaving. Jennifer was going to turn eighteen and graduate. She'd been accepted into Florida State and I knew the second Jennifer was gone, Joan would drop out of community college and she'd leave, too. I felt like there was nothing I could do, so I got them phones, thinking if they were ever in trouble, at least they could call me.”

“Did you bug the phones?”

“I didn't go that far.” Fern's laugh was dry—the sound of stone rubbing against stone. “I guess I should have. But I thought they'd keep in touch with me. That they would…try.”

“I'm guessing they didn't.”

“Joan and I drove Jennifer down to school. We got her unpacked and settled. We drove back here, and when I woke up in the morning Joan was gone. No note. No nothing. I called, I texted, and I never heard anything. But I never changed my number, in case they needed to reach me. And once a year I emailed the two of them, just to let them know I was still here. If they wanted—”

“To come back?”

She nodded; I caught the movement out of the corner of my eye.

“I never thought it would be like this,” she said. “But I probably should have guessed. Joan and me…we're a lot alike.”

“No shit.”

She arched an eyebrow at me. “I did the same thing to my family. When I left them…I left. I never looked back. Joan was doing what the women in my family have been doing for years. But Jennifer wasn't like that. She was a sweet girl. Trusting. So smart.”

She swallowed hard. And then again. And I stepped back like Fern was some kind of bomb about to explode all over me. “Do you…do you know where Jennifer is?” she asked.

“You'll have to ask Joan.” I wasn't stepping into that mess. No way. In fact, looking at these pictures, hearing Fern's side of the story, I was beginning to see how fucking pointless what I was doing might be.

Joan was Joan.

And apparently Joan left.

“You ready?” she asked. I drank the last of my coffee, wincing at the taste. Irish cream, that was it.

Fern grabbed a Tupperware container from the counter.

“You really play tennis every day?” I asked, checking out the new tennis outfit. Black and a kind of silvery gray. She was like a super-hero tennis player.

“No,” she said. And that was all.

“You just like the look?”

“Something like that.”

Yeah, she wasn't going to tell me anything I didn't need to know. Fair enough. But I did wonder what was in the Tupperware and what it was for.

“So? What do you need with Eric?”

“Eric's the phone guy?”

She nodded and locked her door behind us after we stepped into the hot concrete hallway. The smell of coffee had been joined by bacon and my stomach roared.

“I'm going to have him put some tracking spyware on her phone so I know where she is.”

She glanced up at me again, every thought, every feeling on lockdown. I couldn't tell if she was happy or sad or worried or scared. She gave away nothing. “Because she's going to leave?”

“Apparently, that's what she does.”

We walked down the hallway silently.

“She's in trouble, isn't she? Bad trouble. Jennifer, too?”

“Look, Fern, you gave her the cash. The place to stay. You fixed me up. You don't have to care anymore if you don't want to.”

She pushed open the door to the stairwell, and I held it open so she could go in first.

“She doesn't want me to care,” she said quietly, but the concrete stairwell made her voice echo.

Yeah, I could get how that might be easy to believe. I mean, Joan was good, real good at the “I am an Island” act. But she was ready to get herself killed for her sister. She'd saved my miserable ass. Called my brother so he wouldn't be scared. That woman she fucked—Sarah—the tenderness and care Joan gave her. Fuck, the way she sucked me down last night. It told a different story. About a different kind of woman.

Even the way she pushed me away when my fingers were deep inside her—coming all alone on that bed—because that was safe or some shit. Because she thought alone was better.

Yet, she wanted to go to the damn cocktail hour with a bunch of old folks she didn't even know.

And she wanted to be a nurse. A fucking nurse!

So, yeah I wasn't buying the idea that Joan didn't care about anyone and didn't want anyone to care about her.

We got to the next floor and I opened the door for her, and when she walked by I said, “Yeah, I think that's bullshit and you know it. I think you tell yourself she doesn't want you to care so you can feel better.”

She turned and glared at me, standing right in front of me so I had to deal with her or knock her over.

“No, she told me she didn't want me to care. Over and over again. And I ignored her, I did. I just kept caring and I just kept trying. I got her to finish high school. To stay in community college—”

“I don't think that's the care she needed,” I told her. Education was nice, but Joan needed something more. Something serious to fill up the holes in her life.

“Maybe you're right,” Fern said with a hard nod and a chin that was trembling. She sucked in a breath. Another one. “You probably are. But I've spent seven years trying
not
to care, lying in bed at night, telling myself not to imagine them dead. Or in jail. Or any horrible nightmare in between, because Joan couldn't bother to call me to let me know they were okay. So don't you dare tell me I don't care.”

Well, she wasn't on lockdown anymore. Her red hair was practically vibrating. Her hands around that Tupperware container were shaking.

“Okay,” I said.

“Okay?”

“Okay, I won't. You clearly care. You're up to your eyeballs in giving a fuck.”

I went to step around her but Fern got in my way.

“Is this a joke?”

“I ain't laughing.”

I stepped past her and she let me. She was behind me now, walking fast to keep up with my long, limping strides.

“You care, too,” she said.

Fuck you, Fern. That's what I wanted to say. But instead I said nothing.

Because clearly, somehow it was true.

We stopped in front of a shut door that looked exactly like every other shut door. Fern blew out a long breath and put her shoulders back. She glanced down and checked her cleavage before knocking on the door.