Page 2 of Copper

Fifty thousand dollars? What was Beck planning? Running away with Ellen Quarry? I can’t even afford fresh fruit. How do these guys think I’m going to get fifty thousand dollars?

“If Beck’s missing like you say, we can be benevolent and charitable. We’ll give you…” He trails off and looks at the boss, who holds up three fingers. “We’ll give you three months to pay us back. Do you understand, you dumb fucking cunt?”

I nod and try to control my heaving breaths. What will they do to me if I don’t pay? “I understand,” I say, and it comes out as a husky whisper, fear controlling my ability to speak.

The man backs away from me, and the other thugs walk toward the door. The big boss rises from his seat and rubs his hand down the back of his pants like my couch filth ruined them.

“If you don’t have our money when we come back, Beck won’t be the only one that goes missing. We may even start with your family and friends.”

The men leave, closing the door quietly when they go, and I fall on the floor in a heap of tears and breathless sobbing.

Where am I going to get that kind of money? I don’t have a job. Beck wouldn’t allow me to have one even though I was fully capable of working. He wanted me home and at his every whim with a perfectly clean and decorated home. I’ve been out of the job market for years. My skills with computers are outdated, and I can’t make fifty thousand dollars plus my own living expenses working at Target. I’ve been living off my allowance money Beck left.

The joke’s on these guys, though. They didn’t research me before they came here tonight. If they did, they’d know I don’t have friends to unalive since Beck scared the shit out of them too, and the only family I have left is my skeezy cousin, Peter, who was disowned by the rest of my now-dead family years ago for opening a strip club.

My head comes up, and I fist the carpet under me with ambition I didn’t have an hour ago.

Peter owns a strip club.

Chapter 2

Lucy...Present Day

“Andthenwhathappened?”I ask, leisurely taking Aaron Dwyer’s dick out of my mouth and running my tongue up the bottom of it. I look at him with doe eyes, hopeful he’ll finish the rest of his story. At least I’m entertained when I suck him off.

Aaron runs his hands through my long, auburn hair and gathers it at the top, holding it and thrusting a little into my face. He inhales and tilts his head back on the couch. He really shouldn’t do that. No telling how many greasy, bald heads have been on that upholstery tonight and sweating all over it while they get their balls licked.

“That’s the end of the story, Lucy,” he whispers. The sound is husky, a cross between a moan and a sigh. I love the sound of his voice, even after all these years. “The guy was dead. Throat slit. No forced entry. No motive. Ex-wife is across the country with an alibi. No friends he owed money to. No wives he slept with that we can find.” He swirls his hips and looks back down, his eyebrows furrowed. “Why are you so interested?”

I smile at him and bat my eyelashes as I flick my tongue over the head of his cock. “Do you know why I love sucking your dick, Aaron?”

“It’s your comfort dick since you’ve been sucking on it for close to fifteen years?” he says, smiling that damn grin that lights up a room. The dimple in the middle of his chin pops out.

“Funny,” I say, taking a long, slow bob down his cock and pulling off again with a popping noise. “There were several years when your dick was nowhere near my mouth or any other part of my body.”

He’s not wrong about the on-and-off dick sucking. Aaron Dwyer was my high school boyfriend. We broke up when we went to separate colleges. He met his wife. I met my dirtbag ex-husband because I was depressed when I broke up with Aaron. I moved to nearby Chicago, and Aaron stayed in our large suburb and had two kids with his wife. He had the perfect house with the picket fence, kids, and even the golden retriever.

Perfect until his wife died of a congenital heart issue a year ago, that is.

Me? I had other things happen. Things that weren’t so perfect – a push down the stairs or a black eye when dinner wasn’t on the table when Beck got home. There was no use explaining to my husband that he didn’t let me knowwhenhe was coming home. How could I possibly know, down to the minute, when he would walk through the door? I’d get a slap across the face if I made a wrong joke at a party, and I’d get a kick to the ribs if I didn’t have the dutiful housewife smile on my face at all times.

He had clients to impress, and he did that by letting them fuck me while he held me down.

Nice guy.

I learned to fight back, but the YMCA self-defense course only went so far. I left when I could, hiding with friends until I needed to go home for something I owned. That was back when I still had friends and before he scared them off. Then, he was waiting for me with a glare and a punch to the back or a kick to the ribs. When I fought back, blocking his punches like they taught us, it only angered him more and made it worse. A broken arm once. Six stitches where he ran a knife down my ribcage, and I told the hospital I ran into a door. I soon learned it was better if I played possum and stayed on the floor after the initial hit. If I was compliant and took my beating, he’d leave me alone faster. I switched up my workout routine to increase my core strength so I was better conditioned to survive a swift kick to a body part. How fucked up is that? Most women work out to maintain a certain weight or even feel comfortable in their own skin.

I worked out to condition my body to have my ass kicked.

Every. Fucking. Day.

I eventually started tracking his phone without him knowing and was able to whip something up for dinner if I saw him leave the office. I knew when he was looking for me if he was driving around my friends’ neighborhoods. I knew he followed me to the grocery store, probably worried that a produce guy or cashier would hit on me.

Unfortunately, I also saw him go over to Ellen Quarry’s house after work more than once. He was fucking her. It was obvious. I couldn’t ask the produce manager about banana prices, but he could shag his coworker’s wife.

“Speaking of your other body parts, can you pull the top down? Or does that cost extra?” Aaron asks. I know he’s joking with me by the smile on his face. He forgets that I know him better than I ever knew my husband.

“You’re a fucking pig, Aaron,” I say, taking his cock into my mouth again and sucking on it like it’s lifeblood. I guess it is since I’m in deep with paying for my own place now and owing the mafia.

---