Page 43 of Bullet

Jesus. Why didn’t I think of that?

I barely refrain from crossing my arms over myself in the naked Eve pose, one across my breast and a hand over my crotch. “I guess good night, then? I hope it’s uneventful?”

“Yes. Yes, I hope so too.” His voice is rougher than normal.

It seems that I’m always running from this unnerving energy between us, but I can’t just stand here and give in. I turn tail and scramble from the room while trying to be dignified about it, surer than sure I’ve indeed given him a headlights show.

***

Back in my room, I scramble for the bed, tucking myself under the convers like a little kid fearful of the monsters in the closet.

Maybe Bullet just thought I looked weird out of my extremely formal clothes, without makeup or my hair done up. That was probably it.

Anyway, I have bigger things to worry about than if he saw a shadowy outline of my nipples or not. Like what I’m going to do about this job, and a virtual madman on the loose with a possible vendetta against the club that I’ve got myself wrapped up in.

Today was a lot. Yesterday was too. Tomorrow undoubtedly will follow the same pattern.

Sleep is amust.

I dose myself with more than my usual amount of melatonin, turn off all the lights, and sink down into the bed. It’s the perfect firmness. My spine isn’t going to sag in the night and be sore in the morning. I don’t like sleeping on a pile of bricks, but I do appreciate not waking up contorted.

Who picked out this mattress and how did they know?

Despite the exhaustion, lack of sleep, my breathing exercises, my effort to clear my mind downstairs, the perfect bed, and the melatonin, I keep having to switch from my left to my right side, my body growing more restless, not less.

I’m not a cup of warm milk kind of person, but my mind is racing and the one thing I can think to calm it is to write some of my thoughts down. They’re all jumbled and random, and maybe taking them out of my brain will help my gray matter finally shut up.

I turn on the lamp on the square gray end table with the chrome handles. The switch is a metal chain with a large ball, and it bangs against the lamp’s chrome stand under the woven white shade. The noise pings around the room a few times before it’s silent.

I get up, searching my bags and the whole place for my pad of paper and my pen before I remember that I left it down in the kitchen. I was writing a to-do list for tomorrow before Bullet knocked at the door, and seeing him had done things to my brain that made me forget all about it.

I know he’s not asleep, but I creep down quietly into the kitchen anyway. There’s something about him being here that is completely comforting and utterly disconcerting. My racing thoughts probably don’t have as much to do with my restlessness as the heat flowing unchecked through every part of me.

I find the pad of paper and pen right there on the kitchen counter by the stove. I pick it up without making a sound, and that’s when I hear the grunt. It comes again, another forced exhalation of breath, like someone fighting.

Terror immediately turns my body into a hostage, but I force myself out of the frigid response, sliding open the kitchen drawer by the stove and pulling out the 9mm that Tyrant discreetly gave me before he left. The bullets are in a bowl in the cupboard. It’s harder to be quiet retrieving them, but I load them into the gun as quickly as I can with my hands shaking so badly.

Tyrant also showed me how to put the bullets in, turn the safety off, cock it, and after that, it’s just a matter of pulling the trigger.

I’m afraid of guns. I don’t like them. I don’t trust them. I certainly never want Willa to have to touch one. I hid it without telling her where it was. There’s also one upstairs in the drawer of my nightstand, the bullets for it hidden in my sock drawer.

I’m sure I’m overreacting, but I hold the gun in front of me like they do in detective shows, the safety still on, as I edge out of the kitchen, down the short hall, and towards the living room’s domed arch doorway.

The grunt comes again, louder. Is someone in the house? Did Bullet fall sleep? Is he being attacked? Even more alarming is the distinct sound of flesh smacking flesh. Like someone has crept in here past the security and has Bullet in a chokehold, or has his hand rammed over his mouth while he’s pinned to the wall. I’m so scared that my heart is like a car engine that hasn’t been turned over in years, sputtering then firing to life and running far too fast.

The closer to the living room I get, I hear hard breathing. All I can imagine is a man in there, masked and in black, a hand over Bullet’s nose and mouth, trying to strangle him as he fights back.

I edge around the curved doorway, bursting into the room with the gun in front of me, flipping the safety off and cocking it. It’s dark in here, but the light from the hallway spills in, so I can see what’s happening.

There’s no hostage situation.

Bullet is in that reclining chair with his legs spread, his dark jeans open and unzipped, his head thrown back, and his cock in his hand.

He was actually enjoying himself before I charged in here, but now his eyes have shot open and there’s nothing but a look of horror on a face that was so beautiful and relaxed for just that instant right as I charged in.

“Oh my god, Lynette!”

I can’t breathe. It’s half shame, half humiliation, and a heady amount of disbelief, but I’d be a liar if I said that what my eyes are taking in doesn’t make me hot enough that my legs are immediately unsteady. My body is an instant inferno, hot and aching. I can’t tear my eyes away. It’s certainly not like looking at a train wreck. Nothing about this is horrifying, except maybe the secondhand embarrassment at being caught doing it.

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