Bend - Bromberg K.. Страница 66

“You ever going to take a stand on something you want, Doctor?”

He stood. “Not in this room, no. In this room, you’re the boss.”

Well, if that was how it was going to be, I would take it. I could be the boss of this tiny, half-lit room. I threw myself on the couch. Elliot followed and sat behind me. I heard the rustle of him crossing his legs.

“Counting backward from five,” he said.

“Okay.”

“Five.”

His car is huge, and he smells like peppermint. He doesn’t say anything, and my chest winds up with tension. Is this a mistake? He doesn’t look like a serial killer, but maybe he’s not interested in me. Earl is a good enough fuck in a pinch; that would be better than nothing.

“Got a name?” I ask, trying to get my shirt buttoned.

“Yes.”

“My name’s Fiona.”

“I figured that out.” He turns his head a little. “I’m Deacon.” His eyes drift down to my exposed tits then back to the road.

“Should I bother buttoning up?”

“Yes.”

I shake as I finger the buttons. That wasn’t the answer I expected, and I’m suddenly ashamed. But when he flattens his hand on the wheel and turns it with pressure on the heel, my nipples harden through the white shirt, and the rings piercing them stretch the fabric.

“So,” I say, “where we going?”

“Away from a crowd of paparazzi.” He stops at a light and turns toward me. “How do you live like that? All these people around all the time?”

I shrug. “At first, I got upset when they misunderstood something or printed me kissing a Brent Ogilve when I was dating Gerald. That sucked. But then, Gerald was kind of a dick, so they did me a favor.”

I don’t want to talk about paparazzi. I want this guy. I put my hand on his thigh and slide it between his legs. He’s all muscle. He puts his hand on mine and moves it back to my lap.

“Are you gay?” I ask.

“No.”

“Look, if you don’t want to do it, that’s fine. Just drop me off.”

“Take it easy,” he says, squeezing my hand before he lets it go.

But I’m uncomfortable, unhappy. The car feels too small, and this man expands like a balloon, as if his psychic space crowds me. Suddenly, I don’t want to have sex at all. Not with him, not with anyone. I just want to feel like I have everything under control again.

I open the door enough for the hood light to go on. We’re not going fast, and I know he’ll slow down. But he doesn’t. He stretches over me and pulls the seat belt across my body. His peppermint smell is layered with sandalwood, and I want to fall inside it at the same time as I want out of this fucking car.

Snap. He clicks the belt. “You’re in the arts district. It’s late, and everyone’s drunk. There’s no need to take unnecessary risks.”

I’m pissed. Really pissed. Because he’s right.

I look at him as he drives a few blocks. I hate him, and I’m attracted to him, and in my rage, I want to fuck again. I feel the swell between my legs as I remember shit I’m trying to forget—that windshield kiss, and me in the passenger seat inches from a dead girl’s pussy, and it smells like sex.

I’m not thinking about that.

I am not thinking about that.

Fiona, do you want to stop? You’re crying.

I say something. Something about Pinkerton never failing when Amanda drove. And no, I don’t want to fucking stop. I want to remember Deacon with this level of clarity and beauty. Something about the way he smells and the texture of his jacket in the lamplight. Something about his hands. The way they’re completely still when he isn’t using them. I’d forgotten that.

I feel Elliot’s fingers on my wrist and hear the soft curtain of his voice.

All right. You’re mixing things up. Amanda Westin died after you met Deacon. You don’t have to think about the accident if you don’t want to. You’re in control.

Deacon turns right then right again onto a cobblestone loading dock. We’re in an unlit alley downtown. He turns on the dome light.

“So,” I say, “what do you want? You going to tie me up and kill me?”

He laughs, and my anger melts off me.

“I’m assuming that wasn’t your boyfriend.”

I shrug. “Just a Thursday night.”

I undo the seatbelt to see if he’ll let me. He makes no move to restrain me again. I turn around and kneel on the warm leather, the small of my back to the dashboard, to get a good look at this guy. Older. Late thirties, early forties maybe. Little beard happening. Strong chin. Dark hair. Eyes blue and lit from within.

I know he can see my tits through my shirt. I go braless pretty often because I’m small, somewhere between an A and a B. I call it A plus. My light pink nipples are standing on end from him looking at me.

“You like what you see?” I ask.

“Yes, quite a bit. Do you always walk around half naked?”

“Only when I chase gorgeous men out of bathrooms.”

“And why did you do that?”

“Impulse and instinct. It’s how I do everything.”

“You’re very beautiful,” he says.

“Thanks, hon. You don’t need to flatter me to get under my skirt.”

“I’m still trying to decide if it would be worthwhile.”

“Oh, I promise…” I reach out to touch him, but he grabs my wrist.

“Put them behind you, on the dash.”

Oh. A bossy one.

“You came into the bathroom,” I say. “Do you still have to pee?”

“I’m good.”

“Uh, huh. I don’t know what you’re into, but I’ve done that.”

“You let someone piss on you?”

“It was a give and take.”

“And how was it?”

I shrug without moving my hands off the leather dash. “Scratched it off my bucket list.”

He takes half a pause before he laughs so hard and deep I can see his chest moving. I can’t help but smile. Pleasing him does something for me.

“How old are you?” he asks.

“Old enough.”

He’s perturbed by that answer, and he snaps up my bag.

“Hey!”

“Hands on the dash,” he says while looking in my bag.

He flips past my packet of birth control pills and extracts my wallet. I’m nervous, like Sister Elizabeth is standing over me with a napkin and I have a wad of gum in my mouth.

“This your kink?” I say. “Looking in a girl’s bag?”

He flips my wallet open. “You seem quite willing to let me use your body, but you don’t want me to look in your bag. I don’t know if the boundary differences are cultural or generational, but the fact is, I want to keep myself out of jail if you don’t mind.” He rifles through the wad of hundreds to the stack of cards. The Amex Black has a quarter inch of white dust on the edge. He presses his thumb to my driver’s license and pushes it out. “Twenty-two.”

“My birthday’s Groundhog Day.”

He tucks my license back and puts the wallet back in my bag. “What else is on that bucket list of yours?” He tosses the bag aside.

I bite my bottom lip. “Getting nailed in an alley downtown.”

“A real one.”

I would have gotten bored with this shit already, but I want to impress him. I want him to like me. “Ride dressage in the Olympics.”

“Dressage? I would have taken you for a dancer.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It wasn’t meant as an insult. You have a gymnast’s body, but the discipline that takes would keep you out of club bathrooms. So I went to dancer. Dressage wouldn’t have occurred to me, even if I knew you rode.”

“I was the only rider at Stanford with an Arabian. And I ride him Prix St. George.” My answer is defensive, not sexy. He’s implied that I’m an out-of-control little girl with a flat chest and muscular legs. Normally a man’s little insults are met with backhanded returns ending in ammunition for dirty hatefuck talk. But I want this man to respect me.

“Calm, forward, straight,” he says, putting his thumb to my cheek. “And submission to the bit.”

“You’ve ridden?”

“I spent a few years overseas with a certain crowd.”