“Does it?”
“Yes.” I hook a finger in the fabric to draw down her underwear. “Step out of these so I can fuck you.”
My dick is out by the time she’s done. I pull up her skirt and draw her close, a leg on each side of the chair.
“I want to make it right,” she says. “I want to help.”
“You will.” I push her down enough for my head to rub her clit.
“Tell me how.”
“Show me how you fuck.” I line up to her entrance. “Show me how it feels good.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know.” Pushing her down, I bury myself in her in one stroke. She gasps. “Show me what you like anyway.”
She starts off timid, moving in all the ways I like. I shift her a little, and she groans.
“Go ahead,” I say. “Use me.”
She moves against me one way, then another, until I help her find a groove. Her mouth opens while her eyes close.
“Dario, wait.”
“Why?”
“Are you ready? Because…”
“Don’t worry about me.”
“God, oh…”
“Come, sweet girl.” I take her face in my hands and put it close to mine so I can feel the orgasm on her breath. Catch the vibrations in her throat before she cries out. Hold her in my grasp while she takes what belongs to her. “Take what’s yours.”
She takes it, and when she’s done, I give her what’s mine.
The thought that started as a cloud I couldn’t hold takes form.
It’s not an idea. It’s a decision.
“Sarah, will you marry me?” I hold her to me, my nose buried in her hair.
I know the answer before she says it.
“I don’t know,” she replies with her head on my shoulder. “I can’t be your partner while I’m a burden. I can’t live… function without you.” She puts her nose to mine. “I don’t know if you should.”
“I should.” I hold her face where it is, where I can see the moon’s glint in the whites of her eyes. “And I will. When you realize how much you give to me, I’m going to marry you.”
“Maybe you will,” she says. “Maybe.”
I’m left wondering, does she doubt my commitment? Or her own?
The bolt is stuck. All I want to do is change a hose, and I’m stuck with my arm in an engine, trying to unscrew something designed to be unscrewed. It’s a stupid part to get held up on and I’m this close to sawing it off. Connor’s arms are crossed, feet apart—a silhouette against the frame of the open garage door.
“We need Dafne’s exact location,” he says. “We go snooping around and she’s not where we think, or maybe she is? We’re gonna be caught with our dicks out and wind up dead as a fistful of doornails.”
“Look, Connor.” I stop to turn the wrench with everything I have. Fail. “Nico’s got nothing, and the only place he can’t access is the clinic on Eighteenth Street.”
The black 1970 Skylark’s been on blocks for years. The hoses are dried out and the lube’s broken down. Oversight on my part. A car like this deserves care.
“And you want to carefully search all five floors for what? The Colonia Memorial Hollowing Center?”
“We don’t have her location.” I pull my arm out of the Buick’s engine. “That’s not going to change. Can you get me the orange can?”
“We need to go in like a fucking storm.” He crosses out of the light to grab the spray lubricant from the tool bench. “We can’t leave Dafne to rot while we peek around corners.” The can turns into a streak of orange when he tosses it. I catch it.
“Until we can guarantee her rescue.” I take the can and adjust the light so I can see the bolt. A little grunt escapes my throat as I try to loosen it. “We’re not storming shit.”
Even with my eyes and hands on a 350 V8, I sense his suspicion.
The bolt finally jiggles loose.
“I mean no disrespect.” He warns me he’s about to drop a garbage bag of disrespect. “But this is her. She’s making you play a game of cricket when we can just hit them with the bat. Why not turn every last one of them into pink mist?”
“Because it makes a mess, Connor.” One last twist and the bolt comes free. “We’re not in some DiLustro backwater where we can bury bodies in the front yard. We’re packed tight in a fucking city. We can’t even blow up that church without greasing a city block. This isn’t a fight between butchers. It’s a war between surgeons.”
I pull out of the engine and lean on the chassis. A streak of grease blots out the StyTown tattoo on my forearm.
He runs his fingers through his hair and averts his gaze.
“Now.” I toss the old bolt and wipe the grease off my hands. “You can either be ready to extract Dafne like a pro, or you can get on a plane and go the fuck home. Because Connor…” I put my hand on his shoulder. “If we lose, my wife’s a sitting duck in this house. Look at me.”
After a moment, he meets my gaze.
“Am I fucking around?” I ask.
“Are you?” His eyes won’t lie with deferential bullshit.
“I am not. So unless you see something, or have an idea that’s better than pink mist and cricket bats, I need you to do your job like it’s the only thing between you and a bullet.”
He looks away, mumbling, “We shoulda done to her what they did to Lissey—day one.”
The thought of it is a spark on dry kindling. That’ll never happen to my Sarah.
“Shut up, Connor.”
He commits to the image. “Done her up like a pig.”
“We are not animals!” Before I can think better of it, I become the animal I deny, putting my greasy hands on his white shirt and forcing him against the tool bench. “Do you understand? If you came here to act like a savage, you wasted your time.”
“You woulda.” He pushes back on his heels, knocking me against the bench.
I would have. In the first days, if I’d needed to, I would have done worse to Sarah than what was done to Dafne. Was I stronger then? Or weaker?
I’m fighting to a draw. Connor and I have each other by the throat, red-faced, in a race to choke the life out of one another before we get choked ourselves.
Connor is ex-military… a Digger who served in East Timor.
I grew up on the streets, fighting for scraps.
We were evenly matched before I had something to lose. Now I’m on my back and my ears are ringing so loudly I can barely hear her voice as she comes in.
“Please!”
Downward pressure bends my elbows. The grip on my throat loosens. My fingers lose their leverage. We separate, breathing like drowning men. Sarah crouches between us, her arms spread as if she has the strength to keep us apart.
“They took her from me.” Connor’s voice is rough. “They put her in a shipping container. In a cage. They stole her and used her like a piece of meat.” He points at Sarah. “They sold her life. Her people did it.”
Sarah’s hand is at her chest. She bears no culpability for what the Colonia did, but I can’t take care of her now. When Connor gets like this, nothing moves forward until he calms the fuck down.