Chapter 15 #2
He sat up, driving into me harder, his hand braced against my chest below my throat, fingers splayed, holding me down to the bed, his eyes a molten whiskey staring down at me with such a possessive ire, it raised entirely different gooseflesh along my body as he drove into me, taking his own pleasure, certainly, but more than that, it kept mine going.
The gentle wind blowing over and through me picked up into a gale, a maelstrom that battered me without as much as within, and set off yet another orgasm.
I found both of my hands had wrapped themselves around the wrist that had me pinned to his bed, but I didn’t try to pull his hand away. It was an almost comforting weight against my body, holding me in place, grounding me as I swear parts of me were torn away in the storm of sensation he created.
His wicked grin belied that he knew exactly what he was doing to me, and that he gladly, almost gleefully, fed off me like some kind of vampire.
I closed my eyes and shuddered beneath him. He called out wordlessly, losing his steady pace, shoving into me almost painfully hard, as his own orgasm overtook him.
His hand lifted, replaced with his body, as he lay over the top of me and pressed his lips to mine, and I kissed him back fervently.
“God, you’re so good,” he muttered into my ear, and I couldn’t help my smile, shyly hiding my face and my lips against his shoulder and the side of his neck.
“You did all the work,” I murmured in a light protest, and he chuckled, gathering me close and vaulting over my one leg to lie beside me and pull me into his arms. He tucked my head beneath his chin, and I put my ear over his heart, listening to it thunder against the inside of his ribs.
“Agree to disagree,” he murmured, and my lips twitched lightly into a smile.
I didn’t remember anything after that.
I think I was too exhausted and that I fell asleep. Lord knows, I needed it.
The next morning, I woke to light streaming through the bedroom window. I winced, groaning, and turned onto my stomach, sliding an arm across the crisp sheets to find the bed empty beside me.
I frowned and opened my eyes to a crisp fold of white paper on the pillow next to mine.
Had work to do. Make yourself something to eat. I’ll check the kitchen, so, don’t disappoint me. Call you for the next round soon.
-Corvus
I rolled my eyes and set the stiff and fancy stationery aside, breathing in deep and exhaling the cobwebs and dust of sleep and the dreaming away.
He wasn’t the only one who had work to do today. I’d just been smarter about my scheduling and didn’t have anything until two o’clock this afternoon.
I checked my watch, and it was only a little after ten in the morning. Plenty of time to go home, get cleaned up, have something to eat, and deal with hair and makeup – but honestly, only if I left now.
I didn’t want to fix myself something here while he wasn’t home. It just felt weird – so I got up, got dressed, picked up my bag of cleaned and maintained jewelry on my way out, and headed out to the garage beneath the carriage house.
I hit the switch to open up the garage, pulled my car out carefully into the street, got out, whisked myself to the switch, and hit it to close, ducking out and getting back in my car as quickly as possible.
I headed home and spent a luxurious amount of time under the hot shower spray before my stomach, protesting loudly enough at its neglect, made me get out.
After drying off and wrapping up in my robe, hair in a towel turban atop my head, I went to the kitchen and fixed myself a salad with all the good things.
Torn chicken from a rotisserie I’d picked up from the store, a bed of dark leafy greens, slices of apples, dried cranberries, crumbles of goat cheese, a smattering of walnuts, and a light and bright vinaigrette to top everything off.
I settled on my couch and munched happily away at my lunch while I scrolled through emails on my phone.
Corbett Prescott: You didn’t fix yourself something before you left, did you?
I rolled my eyes, snapped a picture of my salad, and sent it to him.
Corbett Prescott: That’s not breakfast, and that’s not my place.
I giggled and shot back… What? You going to punish me?
I watched the dots bounce.
Corbett Prescott: Since you asked so nicely, I think I will. Be at the following address tonight at eight-thirty.
The address he sent wasn’t one I was familiar with, and so I looked it up.
It was outside Bonaventure Cemetery, down the road from the funeral home, across the street, and down some from the cemetery’s gift shop.
I sent back, I’ll see what I can do about that.
He sent back the grinning purple demon emoji, and I had to laugh.
I finished my salad, turned on some music, and spent the rest of my time getting ready with full hair and makeup, and an outfit for the day.
I decided to wear what had been professionally cleaned and got into the bag I’d brought in that Corbett had given me the night before.
There was one box too many, I realized, even counting the one my grandmother’s watch had been in.
I opened it and gasped.
Inside was a necklace I’d never seen before. It was gold and had a beautiful oval-shaped stone that was a blue that matched my eyes. I couldn’t tell if it was a sapphire, topaz, or something else, but it was certainly made all the more vivid by the pure white surrounding diamonds.
I swallowed hard, took a picture of it, and sent it to Corbett with just one piece of punctuation…
***
My phone remained maddeningly silent, and I got no return text.
I looked down at what I was wearing, which happened to be a thrifted Neiman Marcus linen dress. I put on the necklace and looked in the mirror above the bathroom sink.
God, it was probably the most expensive thing in this shabby, rundown joint.
I swallowed hard and stared at myself for a long time in the mirror.
It definitely helped sell the illusion that I was meant to be among the elite, but the cognitive dissonance was real, staring at the expensive bauble around my neck in the mirror that was rusting and the backing was blackened and peeling from around its edges.
It was beautiful, though, and the way it matched my eyes near perfectly did something to draw the gaze to them and to it, just making everything about looking at me…
I didn’t know. It made me look cohesive, and as the Lady Chablis would say, “stinkin’ motherfuckin’ rich” – which was what I was going for, so I definitely couldn’t complain.
I heaved a sigh and said to my reflection, another thing the Lady Chablis would say, “Two tears in a bucket – mother fuck it.”
I gathered the things I would need for the day out in my living room – laptop, expensive leather briefcase to hold it, and my purse, phone, and keys.
The briefcase had been a gift from my younger brother when I’d graduated from college.
He had worked hard, all summer long, doing odd jobs for two summers to make sure he had enough to afford it and the shipping.
It was Italian, handcrafted. Just beautiful workmanship with a lifetime guarantee.
If anything broke, any seam came unraveled, or anything like that when it came to the manufacture of it, I could send it back to them at no charge, and it would be repaired or replaced for free.
I felt a pang of longing to go home and see my family as I slung it up onto my shoulder before picking up my Coach bag I’d thrifted and paid more than I’d paid for the bag itself to have it cleaned and repaired – but worth it.
Still far cheaper than it would have been to buy new.
I left my little rental, went to the garage to get my Jag out, and headed into Savannah and the office to meet with my client to get a better idea of what they were looking for.
It was a good meeting, and as I’d been instructed by Corbett, I put in another call to the Swede who shall not be named and acted like I was valiantly trying to reach him for the property he’d wanted, warning that it was apt to go quickly if he didn’t act.
It was a dark storm cloud that hung over my head – the knowing, the waiting, the hoping and praying I could pull it off with whoever came looking for him, that the lie wouldn’t show on my face or in my eyes.
I sat back in my desk chair and sighed. I still had a few hours before heading to the address that Corbett had sent.
I was hungry again, and decided that there was no time like the present to take a little “me” time, have an early supper, and get my nails done.
I called in my assistant, Fabian, and let him know I was taking the rest of the day off for nails and an early dinner before I had a personal meeting, and he almost immediately perked up.
“Girl, I am in need of a manicure, and I have got to know – who is taking up all your time lately?”
I stopped what I was doing – shuffling paperwork and my laptop into my briefcase – and looked up at him.
“I plead the fifth,” I said after a long pause in which I considered very carefully what I should and should not say.
It was like chumming the water to his shark’s nose for gossip.
“Right,” he declared. “I’ll get my murse!” I always cracked a smile when he said that. He carried a purse like any one of the girls, but refused to call it that. He called it an m-u-r-s-e for man-purse. I rolled my eyes and finished gathering my things.
It wasn’t too often that we got our nails done together, but it wasn’t unheard of either.
Nails, yes, I thought to myself. Dinner, no.
I really did want some time to myself before I went to the unknown address out near the cemetery.
“I’ll drive,” I told him. “Then drop you off at your place.”
“It’s a deal, sweetheart. I have a date myself tonight.”
I smiled, shook my head, and said, “Mine’s not a date. It’s an arrangement, and no, I won’t say anything more than that.”
“You’re killing me, doll,” he complained, but held the office door open for me so I could step out.
He followed after me, and as I already had my keys at the ready, I locked the door behind us.
He pulled up the alarm system on his phone and armed it as we walked down the hall to the elevator to the garage.
Fabian had been my introduction to the Grand Empress of Savannah, the original Doll herself, the Lady Chablis. First by way of the movie, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, and then by way of some of her performances that had been recorded when she’d MC’ed at a few of the local clubs.
He’d known her when she was alive, and I was sorry I’d missed her. She’d died of pneumonia in 2016 and would, as far as many in the scene here in Savannah were concerned, always be the Grand Empress of Savannah.
Fabian chattered away, taking wild stabs in the dark as to who my new infatuation was, to which I gently, but firmly, corrected him by saying that it was no infatuation. I was just freeing up my wings a bit, and it was just some NSA fun.
That just put Fabian onto the scent even more. He was a bloodhound about it, determined to figure out just who I was fucking, which was hilarious and also none of his business.
I left him pouting on his doorstep a little over an hour later with a sharp but polite admonishment to drop it, even though I knew it was killing him.
Honestly, though, I didn’t want him to think less of me for fucking Corbett Prescott. Especially after we had spent as much time as we had bagging on what a pain in the ass the man was.
I took myself to a quiet little Irish Pub for dinner and relaxed with a glass of wine and my thoughts as I dined.
I had no idea where I was going, and I expected that if I asked, I wouldn’t get a straight answer from him. More than likely, he would say something bold-faced and pointed, like I would go where he told me to when he told me to do it, which, as much as that annoyed me, it also thrilled me.
I stared at the picture of the necklace I wore, and the question mark beneath it. The text had been marked as read – so he’d seen it, and had chosen not to respond to the message.
Insufferable, I thought to myself, and it certainly wouldn’t be the first nor the last time I thought of it where he was concerned.
I wondered about the note I’d left abandoned in his bed that morning. He’d signed it Corvus, which I didn’t know what that meant. I Googled the word.
Corvus is a widely distributed genus of passerine birds ranging from medium-sized to large-sized in the family Corvidae. It includes species commonly known as crows, ravens, and rooks.
So, it meant, crow… or raven… or rook – whatever that was. I wondered if I’d ever encountered a rook before, which led me down a whole different rabbit hole of Googling images to see if I had.
Apparently not. It was a bird specific to Scandinavia, Northern Europe, and Siberia, and I guess it was just like a crow with a few differences.
Hmm…
It was an odd thing to be called, and I wondered why he’d chosen it.
My dinner was wonderful, and I took my time with it. It was a wonderful fisherman’s pie – a flaky top crust layered over a ramekin filled with a delightful white-wine-and tarragon-infused medley of different fish.
It paired delightfully with the crisp white wine I was drinking and put a bit of rose into my cheeks.
I waited and rested, well satiated and a touch tipsy from the one glass.
I wasn’t much of a drinker, so I kept to myself, on my phone, and paid my tab and tipped well so I wouldn’t be chased from my seat while it was still too soon for me to get behind the wheel.
After about forty-five minutes and a glass of water, I was feeling well enough to make the short drive to the mystery address in my phone.
Curiosity killed the cat, I thought as I pulled down the Spanish Moss-draped road that led to Bonaventure Cemetery. As I hit my turn signal to turn into the lot my GPS told me was the one, I eyed the building with some trepidation.
Satisfaction brought it back. I thought of the next line of the children’s rhyme as I turned into the lot and took a fortifying breath.
The building was two to three stories tall and painted a deep, midnight blue – the Iron Wraith’s logo painted larger than life on the outside, the draped skull with its glowing green eyes and matching scythes behind it ominously looking down on the parking lot.
I didn’t know what I had expected, but somehow, pulling into the lot of the most notorious motorcycle gang in Savannah hadn’t been it.