Invasion (11 page)

After dressing myself and arranging her in the perfect rendition of her previous position, I take the cum rag in my pocket to dispose of properly. Planting a chaste kiss on her cushioned lips I descend back to the hell which suppresses my spirit, summoning a past that I will have to soon face.

Wounds do not bleed, nay, this kind leaches sanity.

History rolled heads from shoulders

My guillotine is my smile

David:

A
month in and I can hear Carly swearing and grunting, and I’m curious as hell. What the fuck is the mad woman doing now?

Silently heading upstairs I open the basement door, quiet as a time walker strolling through walls, hearing what sounds like the pixie wrangling with something in the laundry.

“Bastard thing! Argh!”

The dichotomy of her lullaby voice releasing expletives gives me an amused smirk. I love a dirty mouth, especially on an angel. Creeping to her location I make sure I am in position to not cast shadow, shallowing my breathing to marginal.

I can hear my exhalation and freeze, listening intently. I daren’t breathe, it’s too risky.

I can hold my breath like a pearl diver and employ the ability now, unwilling to expose my presence. With a sweaty forehead and her cute curls sticking to it, she wipes her arm up and over her head, making her hair stick up while I spy on her in the meager gap between the door and the frame.

Bending over the machine, too short to reach without her legs dangling, I’m staring at the sweet tush snug in yoga pants, recalling it naked, remembering her burning for Mark. I want to murder that motherfucker, I really do.

Her hips are on the lip of the top loader, legs flailing while she bashes about with one of those stupid rubber-strip can opener thingumabobs and a cutlery knife. This woman needs a man in her life if she can’t even open a jar without a gadget.

I observe her, attempting to figure out what the hell she’s trying to accomplish, assuming from the mess around her that she’s aiming to undo the housing behind the washing machine.

Carly flops back from the tiled wall where she was wrestling, heaving a massive huff of resignation when she twists to sit on the machine, knees bent, shins swaying while her feet dangle and seesaw, throwing the rubber gadget on the floor with temper.

Christ she has tiny feet. The space from the heel of my hand to the tip of my index finger is probably longer than her foot.

Watching her is alchemy, warmth and affection conjured in my body to fester into sappiness. I don’t know how Mark could hurt someone so perfect, so sample sized. My instinct is to protect her, to cherish her, and it’s as foreign as drinking diesel. Pushing the chemistry down, to be processed later, I know soon I have to inhale. Air is wasted on ardor, making my skin prickle with the tingling of oxygen deprivation.

Her face is a picture of misery, biting her bottom lip while her chin quivers, tears of frustration laminating her eyes when she abruptly
slips to the laundry floor and bursts into tears, hanging her head and wailing, broken and alone.

I ache for her hardships. Being the witness to something so private, to what I imagine a lot of single women hide from the world, I have the impulse to rescue her, hold her, soothe the pain and tell her she’s not alone.

She’s never alone. Not now. The longer I watch the more I’m stuck in the ointment of her aura, of her company – just: this woman is my panacea, amnesia be damned.

I have a calling and its name is Carly. Seeing her breaking down over a leak, and rocking herself while hugging her knees, siphons the sympathy from my hibernating heart, and I shadow backwards, retracing ghostly footsteps while fighting the impulse to swallow her breath, heating my sorrowful soul with her thaw, counteracting my hard angles with her soft curves.

Now is my opportunity to put my halfwitted plan into action.

I’ve had plenty of time to make alternative arrangements should things get complicated, and briskly go back to my den to retrieve the collection of house keys I stole from her extra copies in the kitchen drawer. That handyman belt is stashed behind the hedge and it’s time to retrieve it.

I’m so pumped by this latest development that my pulse is pounding a knell in my ears, intoxicating my plasma with excitement.

She’s too close to the back door, there’s no way I can escape that way. I’m going to have to be reckless and exit out the front door, silently,
and
locking it behind me. Jesus, this isn’t an easy mission, not by any stretch of the imagination.

Like a prick on a date I check what I’m wearing first, satisfied with the cargo pants that’ve been my companion since this hell began. They fit me well and my combat boots fit the look, like it’s thought out. I woke up in a dodgy alley wearing this, but now they’ve been laundered and smell and look like trendy threads. Yanking up my sweater, just in case, you never know, a man can hope, I’m wearing the new army surplus vest.

I have no fucking clue why military gear calls to me, it might have something to do with the dog-tags in my possession, which give me my name and a number. I’m a number. A forgotten digit in the spiral stairwell of time.

Rubbing my palm over my head, I’m hoping my thatch is still short enough to be presentable. Fuck, I wasn’t planning on meeting her so soon. I’m always prepared and am pissed with myself, but I’m outta time. I give my armpit a cursory whiff, content I don’t reek in any way, and move out.

Snatching the stash I snap the front door key off the keychain, pocketing it quickly, and rapidly retracing my path. I sneak the basement door ajar, listening for movement, eyes peeled for action, my pulse slowing to near catatonic, as if stressful situations calm me like zen meditation.

Fading into the passage I creep past the kitchen, the laundry beyond it at a convenient angle for me to stay undetected, where weeping still whispers through the doorway, and I bullet through the obstacles like a missile launched into the hot zone, keeping to the walls and conveniently placed furniture-shields, treading lightly and in a prepared crouch, feeling like I should be holding a gun.

Reaching the front door I apply just enough pressure to prevent the knob from snapping, twisting it in minute increments to release the catch without noise. I have to move like a drone, speed imperative while I’m exposed like this, only exhaling once the door is sealed behind me and I’ve relocked it.

Instantly assaulted with bitter cold I rush through the wind, bent over below window height. Surreptitiously speeding to the tool-belt I snatch it out of the shrubbery, donning it so it’s slung over my shoulder rather than worn, and then hoof it through the only gap in the hedge to round the boundary, to walk up her driveway to the front door as if I took a stroll from the road.

If she’s looking, at all, this must seem organic and convincing. The last thing I need when she opens that door is suspicion. I’m invigorated by the excursion, feeling so alive I have a spring to my step, a lightness of being, strolling to my destiny, to my obsession.

I’m über casual meandering to her front door and ringing the bell, anticipation mixing a jubilant cocktail in my blood. We’re about to be eye to eye, face to face. Fucking A.

From this vantage I can see her through the glass panel beside the cedar door, still far back in the passage to the kitchen, wiping her eyes, then her nose, a faint sniff reaching me.

I lose sight of her as she advances, my heartbeat palpitating, schooling my expression to impartial.

Give no hint you know her.

Ha, know her my ass. What don’t I know about her?

The door flings wide and she glares at me. “Can I help you?”

Of all the receptions I was expecting, hostility wasn’t high on the list.

Don’t give her your name, just don’t. Some intel remains top secret until trust is earned.

Trust. Is. Earned.

I give her a welcoming smile, like I’m a regular Joe. “Hi, um, I’m Gavin. I’m just going around the neighborhood letting folks know I’m available for odd jobs and maintenance. So if you need anything –”

Shit, I don’t have a business card or the right tools to fix that fucking leak. I’m a fuckwit because I haven’t thought this through. Too late now, my long awaited moment is shattered. We’re eye to eye but she’s not happy to see me.

I’m brain dead because no woman wants to answer the door while mid-meltdown. I wanna punch the partition between us with irritation, so pocket my itchy fists instead.

“You’re a handyman?” she repeats, looking at me with strength galvanizing in her stare, yet her voice is still washed out with weeping. Carly sags against the door, still with tears in her eyes, rimming them with a pink tinge I find alluring. “I’m Carly, and your timing is perfect. Come in.”

Hallelujah! Is she for real? I could be Hannibal’s first cousin and she’s just letting me in, not wanting ID or references, just … and
this
is why you ring her doorbell mid-meltdown, the babe isn’t thinking straight and it’s to my advantage.

She yabbers on about how cold it is and I’m not dressed warmly enough, leading me straight to the laundry and pointing accusation at the problem.

Standing here after seeing her struggle, it hits home how much taller I am. She had a helluva time getting behind here and I have no such issue. Glancing back at her, at how petite she is, probably hitting four-foot-six at a push, I’m feeling like Goliath instead of David.

Hiding my grin at my internal musings I look back at the water feed pissing water. It’s a common problem. With age the end of the hose perishes. When once it was snug it’s now split, the water pressure adding damage to the deteriorating rubber until it fissures beyond the metal clamp holding it in place. It’s a big clamp and I know where to find the tool for the job, and I’m hoping she does because there’s no way I’m using her can opening gadget to undo this clamp.

“Do you have a wrench?” I ask, standing erect and facing Carly, trying my damnedest to be nonchalant.

“Yeah, um, Mark’s toolbox is here somewhere.”

“Probably in the garage,” I mutter, thinking of it on the third shelf in front of her Prius.

“Help yourself to coffee, I’ll be right back,” she says, and I watch her walk away, at the leggings suctioned to her tush, at the way it clings in the front view of her pussy; she’s not wearing underwear.

I’d pay god to finger that.

Swallowing the lust lodged in my throat I take her up on her offer. The scent of this coffee percolating has been torturing me all morning. She’s got herself a drip machine like offices use and it permeates the entire house, even the basement. When she’s home I go without, smelling dinner warming, breakfast frying, sneaking glimpses of her pouring obscene amounts of syrup on her pancakes. I’m a masochist to put myself through the daily torment. When you can smell bacon and eggs somehow a cold jar of pickles really doesn’t cut it.

Grabbing a mug from the dish drying rack I pour a coffee, leaning against the kitchen counter where I leave my tool-belt, waiting for her, gaze on the garage door like a psycho, getting a ridiculous thrill over knowing her lips were on this mug last.

She returns too quickly, forcing me to slug the decadent brew in scalding gulps.

“Will this do?” she frowns, holding out every wrench Mark has in the toolbox.

Kudos to the pixie, she knows what a wrench is.

I can’t help it, the lady makes me smile. She’s so darn cute, overwhelmed and vulnerable. I like my babes vulnerable, it’s giving me wood which I need to wither asap. “Uh, yeah. That’ll do,” I say with a smirk, giving a curt nod.

Getting to it I move to the laundry, pulling off my sweater so it doesn’t get wet if the water sprays. Without thought I hand it to her, “Keep that dry.”

Leaning behind the device I turn off the faucet feeding to the machine. If she had half a brain cell she’d have done this first to prevent the flooding. The second I undo this housing the water in the pipe is gonna join the rest of the deluge I’m standing in, so turn to her, catching her giving me a visual lick when she thinks I’m not aware. “Do you have a bucket I can catch this water in? A jug? Something like that. The second I undo this housing the water in the pipe is gonna piss everywhere.”

She guiltily meets my eyes with her gaze, on the cusp of saying something, dismissing it with a quick nod, fleeing back to the kitchen to do my bidding.

Alone, I indulge in a cheek splitting smile.

So easy.

Too easy.

But damn it feels good having a little woman running at my beck and call.