The Enforcer (Men Who Thrill Book 1) (2 page)

Over the months since that first night, I’d found myself here more and more frequently, and I’d begun to stay longer and longer. Tonight was no different. I’d lingered much longer than I should have. Long enough that I was eventually the last customer who remained, long enough that I wondered if she was uncomfortable.

But she gave no outward sign that anything was wrong, kept that same pleasant, welcoming demeanor, one that I was convinced she used to hide the real her, the her that I caught faint hints of with each visit, the her that sucked me further and further without her even trying.

“More coffee?” she asked when she walked over.

I shook my head.

Her lips turned up in a slight smile and she nodded, and then said, “Okay. I’m going to tidy up a bit, but please sit as long as you’d like. Do you mind if I lock the door?”

As she spoke in those whiskeyed tones, she headed toward the door. The depth with which I wanted to stay shook me to my core, and it was that desire that finally made me stand. If I stayed, I would give her even more reason to notice me, something that was not smart. And I always prided myself on my smarts. So I resisted.

“I’m leaving, but have a nice night,” I said, as I walked toward the door.

“You too,” she responded.

I stepped outside and waited until she locked the door before rounding the block. This thing was stupid, and I needed to stop. I didn’t belong here, there, didn’t belong with her. And the more I pretended, the more it would hurt when I couldn’t come back. It didn’t make sense anyway. She was polite, nothing more. But I craved her presence nonetheless.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

I wandered for a while longer, trying to clear my head, but it was late, and only the worst of the worst, those like me, were out on the street. Only trouble was to be found, and I had more than enough of that, so I went to the place where I was currently laying my head.

I always moved, never stayed anywhere too long, something that never bothered me. I had the money to get a more permanent place, but I never had. Settling, putting down roots was just another pipe dream, another facet of life that was for others and never for me, a fact that I didn’t lament so much as accept.

Still, though I never slept in one place for too long, I did enjoy certain creature comforts, a nice mattress and clean bathroom among them. My current residence featured both, but not much else. Once I entered, I peeled off my clothes as I walked toward the bathroom and then stepped into the shower and turned the water on full blast.

I let the hot water beat down on me, lowering my head under the spray as I moved my hand to my cock, which stood hard and ready as it always did after I left the restaurant. I’d never had trouble attracting female companionship and had any number of willing partners who would have been happy to take care of me. And in the past, I’d have been more than happy to let them.

But no longer.

Only April, who I could never have, would do, so I was left to this, imagining it was her hand, with its nimble brown fingers that had fascinated me from the first, wrapping around my cock instead of my own. Her soft palm rubbing against my shaft rather than my callused one.

I let my eyes drift closed and set my mind free, picturing her in the spacious shower with me, her round curves bared to me, breasts rising and falling with her breaths, so full and heavy that they would fill even my large hands to overflowing. I tugged my cock harder, choking out a moan as I traced my hands down the sides of my imaginary April, rested them at the flare of her wide hips, sturdy enough to withstand an unrelenting pounding and soft enough to cradle me as I leisurely stroked inside her.

Then, in my mind, she pulled away, and I choked out a moan as she kneeled before me, her legs folding in a way that made her thick thighs pull tight. I stroked a finger across my slit, pretending it was her tongue, that the fingers I wrapped about my shaft were her lips.

I tugged and stroked until that telltale pull at my gut intensified to the breaking point. I heard a faint sound in my ear, and when I realized it was the memory of April’s husky laugh, I let go, shooting my cum deep into imaginary April’s welcoming mouth. As the tide relented, I went slack against the shower wall, my breath heavy with the remnants of my climax, and my heart stinging with her absence.

After a few minutes longer, I turned off the water, dried myself, and lay in my bed, my orgasm having pushed the need back a bit, though my desire was in no way satiated. As I so often did in the darkness of the late night, I let thoughts that I would never allow in the light of day roam free, imagined what it would be like to have April here beside me, her warm, soft body beckoning me to touch her, the cold starkness of my surroundings being livened by her very presence. Imagined how it would be to be a normal man with a normal woman with a normal home.

Home
.

The word brought me up short and doused the fantasy.

I didn’t have a home, never had.

And I never would.

But that fact didn’t ease my longing for it, or for her, nor did it stop me from thinking of her as I drifted off to sleep, her soft smiling face dancing behind my eyelids.

Chapter Three

“What?” I responded when I picked up the phone.

“Meet me in twenty minutes,” the voice on the other end uttered and then the line went dead.

I scowled and then stood, dressing quickly for the meet. Shaughnessy loved his little cloak-and-dagger routine, and I needed to keep him happy, so, as annoying as he was, I went along with it. I’d long ago stopped trying to figure out how a man as stupid as him had risen to the rank of assistant police chief, and tried to remind myself that he was a useful asset, no matter how much of a pain in the ass he was.

When I reached the park, I sat on the same bench that I always did and pretended to be surprised when Shaughnessy emerged from the shadows.

“Didn’t mean to startle you, big boy,” he said, an oily smirk covering his face as he settled next to me.

It took a feat of will not to punch him at the use of the dumb nickname he insisted on and an even stronger one not to laugh in the weasel’s face. I’d scoped him and the three bodyguards he traveled with before I’d entered the park, and even if I hadn’t, his lumbering steps would have given him away. But I said nothing.

“Do you have it?” he asked.

“Don’t I always?” I replied.

“That you do,” he said, extending a hand.

I passed him the bag, and as he sifted through it, he spread his lips in a lustful smile, his too-white veneers shining against his spray-tanned skin. For all his instance on stealth, he wasn’t very good at it. My boss wouldn’t have been caught dead within twenty miles of this exchange, but Shaughnessy always picked up the money personally. Maybe he didn’t trust his guys to deliver it, or maybe he thought he had a really compelling explanation for receiving a bagful of money from a known criminal in the dead of night.

I highly doubted it, but again, that wasn’t my concern. Shaughnessy handled most of the protection side of the business, which would have been hilarious if it wasn’t so tragic, mostly keeping the vagrants and street criminals under control while the boss handled the more complex aspects of the business. The arrangement kept the streets clean, at least on the surface, which helped Shaughnessy maintain his low-crime stats, and in return, the boss made sure that the business ran mostly outside of the view of the public.

Shaughnessy was a scumbag and a fool, but he made it possible for me to act with relative impunity—though the cost was high, both in dollars and the sheer fucking annoyance of dealing with him—so he was a necessary evil, one that I tolerated, but barely.

“Any problems I should be aware of?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“So that’s it?” he said.

“That’s all,” I responded, my voice flat, not that he got the message.

He asked that every time and always seemed disappointed at my answer.

“Appreciate doing business with you as always. Stay out of trouble, big boy,” he said.

I didn’t respond.

He waited a moment, seemed to expect something else, but after a few seconds, he stood and left.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

“We have a conundrum.”

I’d come back for the second time this week, more than I’d dared before. I turned my face to her, the wholesome, welcoming smile there making my heart stutter. I nodded slightly, indicating that she should go on, and she smiled even brighter, something that shouldn’t have been possible.

“I always give you the last piece,” she said. “You said it didn’t matter what kind, just pie and coffee, right?”

I nodded. The pie didn’t matter; the ritual was the important thing, being with normal people, being with her.

“Well, I can’t believe this has never happened before, but we have two pieces left, and for the life of me I can’t decide which to give you. Peach or blueberry. I can’t tell which fits, which is rare. I’m usually good at that sort of thing, can guess someone’s flavor after two seconds. But not you.”

She laughed, the sound light and musical, and then glanced away.

“So which is it?” she said.

“You pick your favorite and give me the other one. But I want you to sit with me.”

Her eyes went wide at my statement, and I had no idea what had compelled me to utter the suggestion. As the moment stretched, I almost changed my mind and tried to take the words back, but when she glanced at the door and then at her watch, before walking over turning the lock, and switching off the open sign, I was glad I held my tongue.

“We close in ten minutes,” she said as she walked toward me with two plates. “It won’t hurt anything.”

She slid the slice of blueberry across the table.

“Thank you.”

We ate in silence for a few moments, and then I blurted, “I could tell you’d be peach.”

She lifted her brow. “It was a close call. I’m more flavor agnostic, as these hips can tell you,” she said, gesturing down.

“I like your hips,” I said.

She looked shocked but then smiled again. I looked away, though, unbelieving that I’d just said that. I didn’t think of myself as a stupid man, but this two-sentence exchange with April had left me a tongue-tied, blabbering idiot.

An idiot with a vicious hard-on. I always had this reaction to her, but it was more acute tonight, my cock so hard I had trouble sitting still, but I was unwilling to stand lest the tent in my pants send her running away screaming.

“So yeah, I took over after he retired, been running the place ever since.”

She trailed off, and it took me a few moments to process what she’d said. Something about the former owner, taking over for him after having worked here for what seemed like forever. In truth, I’d been too distracted to pay attention, my mind far too occupied with imagining her soft, full lips wrapping around my cock instead of the fork she held.

I must have made a noise, because she sat up a little straighter. I smiled, or at least gave her what I hoped was my best impression of one. It wasn’t something I was called on to do much of, and I was quite out of practice. It must have worked, though, because she returned the expression.

“So, you from around here?” she asked.

“No. But I lived here for a long time,” I said.

Silence fell, and I took a few bites of my pie, though I didn’t really taste it. I was too distracted by her, her scent naturally sweet and not some cloying perfume filling my senses, the way the low lights of the dim restaurant reflected off her beautiful brown skin, the way her brown eyes shone.

“You don’t talk much,” she said.

I shrugged. What could I say?
No, I don’t because there’s not much time to practice conversation when you’re an enforcer for the mob?
Or better yet,
No, I don’t because I’m too busy thinking about fucking you until you scream so loud your voice goes hoarse, until you can’t move, filling you with my cum, and then doing it again?

Neither seemed like a good choice, so I stayed silent.

“I guess more people should be like that. Like me, for example. Sorry for monopolizing your time. I hope my chatter hasn’t chased you away,” she said when she’d stood. “Good night.”

I stayed still and silent, and after a heartbeat, two, she turned, walked across the dining room, and unlocked the door. I followed, and she jumped when she turned, clearly startled that I was so close. Something lit her gaze, and for the first time in as long as I could remember, I didn’t see fear in another person’s eyes when they looked at me.

But that little spark of desire was gone in a flash, and she pulled open the door, the faint brush of her hand against my arm sending tingles shooting straight to my cock.

“Good night,” I said.

And then I left.

Chapter Four

A few days later, my feet again carried me toward the restaurant, and I didn’t make any attempt to pretend I didn’t want to follow them. I hadn’t been back since we’d shared pie and awkward conversation, though thoughts of her had never strayed far from my mind. And that was the reason I stayed away.

There was no place for her in my life, no place for anyone, not even for those parts of me that yearned for April; there was only room for the enforcer, the core of me that so relished my work. I loved it, shameful and immoral as it was, loved it enough to sacrifice everything and everyone for it. The sacrifice was worth it; I’d known that, believed it with my entire being for more years than I cared to count.

But her, she made me think, imagine, made me want to pretend, and that was more dangerous than any foe. Still, I went toward her, inexorably drawn. I’d have my pie and coffee, use my intimidating face and frame to discourage conversation, but I would spend those fleeting moments with her.

And they would be enough.

They had to be.

Satisfied with my little compromise, I increased my pace, anxious for every moment I could steal, and when I saw the restaurant, brightly lit like a little piece of the heaven I would never enter here on earth, my heart pounded with anticipation. It continued to pound when I entered and she lifted her gaze to me, her lips turning in a slight smile, but a flash of what looked like excitement lighting in her eyes before she extinguished it. But I’d seen it nonetheless, and though I didn’t return the smile or the look of excitement, I felt relief and something like happiness as I strolled to my booth.