LEO
She’s a tough cookie and I want a bite of her. That’s the best way I can describe it. Her flame-red hair is framing her face in the afternoon
light, and she looks like an angel. One I want to defile.
I know I’m fucked up but I don’t care. She’s come the closest anyone has to making me laugh in I don’t know how long.
She’s sitting opposite me like she’s not sure she heard me right. She’s wrinkling her nose and scratching her head, her mouth open but not saying anything.
I tell her again. “I want to fuck you.”
She blushes and looks down at the menu like it’s really interesting suddenly. “Are we getting desserts?” she asks.
“What do you think?”
“We’re not having this conversation.” She’s still looking down.
I take my finger and put it under her chin, lifting her face until she’s looking at me. “Don’t act all coy,” I say. “We’re both adults. I’m here for forty-eight hours. Less than that now. I see the way you look at me. What I’m offering is a no-strings-attached deal. You get some. I get some. Who loses?”
“I lose,” she hisses as the shakes appear in front of us. “I lose from this deal.”
“Your debt is cleared.”
“That’s not the point.”
“So you’re saying no?”
“I’m saying drink your shake.”
I take a sip through my straw. “Fuck, that’s good.” I get half the thing down me and then sit back and wait for the sugar to wake me up. “I’m going to the bathroom.”
I head in there and take a leak. When I come back out she’s got the burgers on the table, but she’s waiting for me before she eats. “Dig in,” I tell her as I slip into the seat opposite hers.
I like the way she seems to have a streak of natural submission to her, like she’s hardly aware it’s there. I tell her to eat and she does. I get her to look at me and she doesn’t fight me. She does what I say. I wonder how far I can push that.
“You’re going to say yes,” I tell her.
“Oh, I am, am I? Aren’t you the cocky motherfucker?”
“Am I wrong?”
She meets my gaze at last. She holds her eyes fixed in place and I want to kiss her more than anything, even with ketchup sitting at the corner of her mouth.
I dab at it with a napkin and she says nothing. She just looks at me like she’s getting ready to yell. “Well?” I ask eventually, tiring of waiting.
“God, you’re infuriating,” she says. “Do you always say whatever it is you’re thinking?”
I shrug. “I want something. Why not be honest about it?”
“But have you thought about me in any of this? What do I get out of this?”
“How long’s it been since you got laid?”
She jabs a finger my way. “That’s exactly my point. All right, I admit I’m interested, but you’ve made it pretty clear you’re only here for fortyeight hours. Not only that, but you said there’s a chance you could get killed if you don’t find the person you’re looking for. I know nothing about you. I don’t know what line of work you’re in.
“How am I supposed to say yes to a no strings attached thing like this is the start of a porno and then in two days you vanish? You were gone five years’ last time and you’re back one day and yes I admit I have some feelings but I can’t let them out.
“I’ll get hurt and you don’t seem to give a shit.” She takes a deep breath while I bite into my burger. Her speech seems to have taken a lot out of her.
She slumps back in her seat and her shoulders sag.
I decide to calm her down. “I’m not saying you should get attached to me. This isn’t a cheesy movie, you got that right. But we are both adults, and we can have sex without hang-ups if we want to.”
“I don’t know.” She gets to her feet. “My turn to go to the bathroom.”
I look out the window and watch the town. Over the road, a mom is walking a toddler, the two of them laughing at a cat chasing leaves in front of them. An Oldsmobile is driving past. It reminds me of the first car I had.
Further on a couple of old guys are playing chess, the board set up on a tree stump between them. It’s like I’ve walked into the past. I tap my pocket and feel for my cellphone, checking I haven’t traveled in time.
The view is a lot different from the city. Getting a gun would take forever here. Getting decent food doesn’t take long. It looks like everyone knows everyone. Even the diner owner is chatting to the customers over by the door. It’s a weird place. Somewhere I don’t belong. I belong in the city, not here.
I look at the mom out there again, and I get a vision of the future. Amelia walking along, holding the hand of a little kid. They’re walking around the corner to look for me. To look for the kid’s Pop. That’s me. I’m taking them out on the boat for the day.
What the fuck?
I turn back to my food. Where the hell did that come from? I’m here for two days to find a snitch and then I’m gone. I can’t stay here. I can’t even entertain the idea.
I’ve put her in too much danger already. Anyone from the other families sees me with her and she might end up held for ransom somewhere. Or snatched and vanished for good, just to send me a message.
I look at the town with fresh eyes. Any of them out there could be the snitch, could be the one trying to get war started again. The one to take her from me.
When I was nineteen, we found out a guy was selling blow without our permission. He was based in a town like this, hiding under the radar far from the action. The cops found his entire family sliced up and spread over the bandstand in pieces. That’s the future if I stay here. No.
That’s the future for the snitch, not for me. I’m safe in the city. She’s safe when I’m gone. I should retract my demand before it’s too late.
She comes back out of the bathroom and I take one look at her and I know her answer. She wants me. I want her.
I’m in big trouble. I’ve got to have her. I can work out the rest later. I see her eyes and they’re bright and sparkling and she’s smiling as she looks at me.
“Budge up,” she says, coming to sit on my side in the booth. “You not finishing that?” She looks down at my burger.
I slide it her way. There’s only one thing I’m hungry for now, and it doesn’t come covered in ketchup. Ice cream, maybe. That could work.
I lower my hand below the table and place it on her knee. She’s wearing a skirt that shows off her legs, and I can feel the soft warmth of her skin under my hand.
She sits bolt upright when she feels my hand on her leg. She glances at me and then back at the food.
“You don’t know what you’re missing,” she says like nothing’s happening. One cool cookie, that’s her.
I stroke her leg with my fingers, moving an inch higher up, watching out the window like nothing’s happening. I can hear her breathing change as she puts the burger back down.
I glance her way and she’s gripping her shake like it’s a life preserver. I stroke higher up. “I never got an answer,” I tell her. “What’s it to be?”
“Isn’t this your answer?” she whispers. “The fact I’m not screaming and running for the hills?”
“You could still call this coercion,” I say, stroking higher still. I’m at the hem of her skirt, running one finger toward her thigh.
“I don’t know what I call it,” she says. She looks straight ahead and her cheeks flush with color. “What do you do for a living?” she asks. “Are you a criminal?”
I nod, still stroking my way up. The heat of her thighs is growing. Makes my skin tingle. My cock throbs in my pants. It won’t be in there for long if I have my way. Which I always do.
“A bad one?”
“Not heard of the Gianni family?”
“Should I?” Her voice is an octave higher as I’m stroking her inner thigh. If I move any higher, I’ll be able to feel her panties. The heat is burning me. I lean closer to her.
“Strongest mafia family in the state.”
“Oh,” she says in a tiny voice. “You’re in the mafia?”
“That scare you?”
“I don’t know. Are you likely to hurt me?”
“Only if you want me to.” The tip of my finger reaches the edge of her panties. I stroke along the line of the fabric, still only glancing her way. Her breathing is driving me wild, the way she’s trying to keep herself under control.
“Everything all right with the food?” The guy is standing next to the booth, looking at Amelia. “Uh-huh,” she says as I slip a finger just under the edge of her panties, feeling the smooth soft skin underneath.
She shaves down there. I can tell. Good. I like them smooth. City girls do it all kinds of ways, but I thought rural hicks had never heard of razors. Guess I was wrong.
“Are we having dessert?” she asks as I stroke closer to the core of her. She shifts in place and I move closer, turning my hand so my finger is running along the edge of her soft folds.
She lets out a quiet groan and slides down in the seat a little, moving her legs further apart.
I find her entrance and it’s soaking wet. I gather up moisture and slide it over her folds, massaging into her skin, exploring the outside of her pussy.
“No dessert yet,” I say. “There’s something else I want to eat.”
“And what might that be?” The last line is strangled as she reacts to my finger gliding over the top of her clit. It’s the briefest lightest touch I can manage and she responds by leaning against me, exhaling.
Her head is on my shoulder and she’s still trying her best to control her breathing.
The guy who runs the place is looking my way but one stare from me and he hurries off into the kitchen. None of the other customers are looking our way, and I wouldn’t care if they did.
All I care about is ripping those panties off her and burying my face between her legs.
“Taste yourself,” I say, bringing my hand out from under the table. I slip a finger between her lips and she doesn’t resist, sucking hard, her tongue flicking and making my cock even harder.
I move my hand back under the table and resume playing with her clit, this time over the top of her panties, feeling them grow damp. “This is what’s going to happen,” I tell her. “You’re going to come right here in this diner. And when you do, you’re going to thank me for your orgasm.”
She looks at me, and her eyes bulge. “I can’t.”
“Want me to stop?” I ask, sliding from her clit to stroke her thigh again.
“Say the word and this stops.”
“No,” she says. “Please, no. Don’t stop.”
I move back to her hardened nub of pleasure. As she gasps, her cheeks flushing, her eyes wide open, I lean down and breathe in the scent of her neck. It’s sweet and gentle, even as the words she’s muttering are anything but.
I want her so bad, I almost bend her straight over the diner table. I want to spank that ass of hers, see if she moans or screams when I do it.
I want to shove my cock between those pretty lips of hers. I want her more than I’ve ever wanted anyone in my life.
I feel her getting close. She’s shifting in place more as I stroke her clit faster and faster. I don’t care who’s watching. I just care about seeing what she looks like when she comes.
“Come for me,” I whisper in her ear, dipping a finger an inch inside her before returning to her clit. Above the table it looks like nothing is happening at all, just two people sitting together, one of whom can’t seem to sit still.
She grips the table’s edge. “Oh fuck,” she says, biting her lip to keep from crying out. “You’re going to make me come.”
“Do it,” I tell her, dipping into her again. “Come for me.” That’s when I see him raising a gun my way.