Page 8 of At Her Pleasure

He dropped his phone in the well between them, and when he did, his finger accidentally brushed the screen and activated his playlist.

The next song was an old hymn sung by the Statler Brothers. He guessed she’d be surprised to find he had that stuff on his music player. But when she turned her face toward the window, he was surprised to hear the lyrics come from her. A discordant recitation, halfway between speaking the words and singing them.

“‘He walks with me, he talks with me, he calls me my own.’” As she glanced his way and saw his expression, she shrugged. “I’ve slept in a church basement a couple times.”

“Yeah.” He turned out of the lot and left the cemetery behind. As he drove through the dirty streets, he noted the still-present people in the shadows, tracking the car. She had her head down, a thinking pose as she turned the watch cap in her hands.

“So do you usually do this kind of thing?”

“No. Not really.”

“So why did you tonight?”

There were a lot of reasons, but he went with simple and somewhat true. “Something happened on my shift, a few days ago. It’s been in my head, messing me up some.”

An understatement. It had doubled the agitation he carried within him. His life felt like a jail cell, and the pressure to break out was intense. He wanted to challenge the state of the world, the intolerable limits of his own mind. He needed to roar, to rage, to run. Hunt. Chase.

Which was sort of what he’d done tonight.

As she digested what he’d said, and considered what he hadn’t, he wanted to touch her hair. That beautiful mouth. Ask for the privilege as he knelt before her, aching to earn her trust, the right to care for her. He wanted to drive right out of town, take them both somewhere far away.

Here tonight, maybe he’d given her a glimpse of what could be different for her. She’d never know how much he ached to join her on that path, but fortunately he was mature enough to know how insane an idea that was.

He pulled into the side lot of Paulie’s Garage as her head came up. “Why are we here?” she asked suspiciously.

He fished in his pocket and removed his personal keys, pulling one off of the ring. He pointed to an old Cadillac behind the chain link fence. “That belonged to my uncle. He died a few months back.”

His last living family member who knew he existed or mattered. Which uncomfortably reminded him of what she’d said to Cissy.

“It still runs.” He cleared his throat and offered her the key. “Backseat sleeps pretty good when you can’t afford a hotel. You asked what I would have wanted if I won. I didn’t lie, but there’s something else I want even more. I want you to get out of here. Pick a direction and drive. Go somewhere you’ve always wanted to go. Somewhere warm. You look like you’ve been cold so long you don’t bother shivering anymore.”

Her aggression was going to run afoul of the police again, and cold fear, aching through that wound in his chest, told him where that could lead.

“You’re welcome to tell me to fuck off. To eat shit, but I’m going to say what I have to say. You have a lot of energy, but you also carry the kind of mad that turns into prison sentences. I know you can do better. You’re smart as hell. Don't destroy yourself, don't let your demons take over. Find a way to manage them, use them for something good for yourself.”

Her eyes were smoky as a smoldering fire. Deliberately, he curled his fingers around her wrist, the hand closest to him, still gripping the backpack. The touch sent electricity jolting through both of them. She twitched. He pulled her hand free of the pack and laid the key in her palm.

She touched his fingers, a bare second of contact, then she shoved out of the car and stood beside it. Waiting for him to let her into the locked gate.

After he did that, he walked her over to the car. She gave him that wary cat look. “You going to call it in stolen?”

“Maybe, when I wake up tomorrow for my shift and have to pretend I don’t have a foot-long cut that hurts like a son of a bitch.”

She pressed her lips together, her eyes swirling with that ice cream sundae mix of reactions he’d probably dream about for the rest of his life. “You liked the pain,” she said.

“You liked giving it. You also liked tending it.” He met her gaze. “Don’t lose that combination. Bye, Mistress of the Hunt.”

CHAPTER THREE

Present Day

Cynbad Marigold ignored most dates other people considered significant.

Wedding anniversaries. Yeah, she’d never have to worry about that one.

Birthdays. What was the point of marking every year you got older?

Date of death. She hated it when people put fake flowers and homemade crosses where car crashes had been, or TV news people marked the anniversary of multi-death tragedies, year after year. It had happened in the past, on that day, during that specific year. Move the fuck on.

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