Chapter 35 Talbot
TALBOT
Misty sobs and sniffles as I drive her through the falling snow back to the home base I set up in Maplewood Falls. She curls tighter in the passenger seat, hoodie sleeves pulled over her hands, face streaked with tears.
“They all hate me. I’m a horrible daughter and a horrible person. No one loves me.”
I parallel park in front of the brick apartment building. “Of course they do. Sienna does, and Cocoa.” And I love you.
I stroke her hair as she sobs.
“You don’t have to pretend to be nice to me. I hired you to be my fake boyfriend.”
“Well, technically, you hired me as your hitman. And turns out I probably would have killed Austen for free for you because I want to make sure that he never makes you feel this small again. It’s breaking my heart—the one you reminded me I have.”
“And so what?” She’s derisive. “You fell for me? Yeah, right.”
I grab her shoulder, force her to turn and look at me. “Yeah, right,” I tell her honestly. “You’re the perfect girl for me.”
Her chin wobbles again, and she presses herself into my chest. I wrap my arms around her, stroking her hair, holding her like I can glue all the broken pieces back together.
Eventually, her breathing evens out. I kiss the top of her head and reach for the keys.
I feel how much I love her coiling on the inside of my chest, pressing against my heart as I walk her to the building.
“You’re seriously taking me into your lair?” She leans against my back as I unlock the door. It’s like something a normal girlfriend would do to her normal boyfriend when they’re going home at the end of a long day.
“I can’t wait to see the Batcave. Ooh, a basement unit—very on-brand.” Her voice is still rough, but the edge of humor’s back. We walk down the half flight of stairs, past hand-lettered signs from the 1930s painted on the plaster in faded green—Boiler Room, Laundry, Storage.
“I expected it to be a little more dungeony,” she says, taking in the cream walls and green accents in the hallway leading to a door with a big wreath on it.
I unlock the door, flick the light on in the apartment, and catch the penny that falls off the top of the door.
“And this is so not what I was expecting.” Misty wanders into the apartment.
It’s small but clean. A Christmas tree glows in the corner—real, not fake—strung with old-school colored bulbs. There’s a beat-up green couch, a kitchen with a tiny island, and a wall calendar with holiday photos of pets from an adoption fundraiser.
I do a quick search, making sure there’s no one hiding under the bed, in a closet, or in the bathroom. Clear.
“It looks really normal.” Misty circles the tree in one corner. “Why do you have it decorated for Christmas?”
“I like to celebrate my consumerist heritage. Also, Christmas trees smell nice.”
I break out a bottle of wine that I stole from my brother’s house and uncork it.
She looks down suspiciously at the glass I hand her.
“This is so bougie.” She grabs my face. “Are you really an assassin?”
“Hitman.” I push her hand away, grab the back of her neck, and kiss her—slow, warm.
“I don’t want to draw attention to myself.
If it looked like the Riddler’s apartment, the neighbors might get suspicious.
That’s the secret.” I take her hand. “You have to layer your lies. So if someone uncovers one lie, they think, ‘Ah, I’ve figured it out.’ But really, it’s a peanut butter–covered onion of deception. ”
She laughs—a real laugh—and scrunches her nose.
It’s adorable.
I try to pull her down onto my lap.
“I’m dirty.” She tugs back.
“Dirty girl,” I tease her.
“Ugh, I should probably have made you stop at Ryan’s house. I don’t have any clothes.”
“Hmm.” I kiss her, my tongue sliding on the roof of her mouth. “I like you without clothes.”
I carry her into the small bathroom. The old pipes clank to life when I turn the water on, the small room quickly growing steamy. I step in behind her and wrap my arms around her waist.
The hot water cascades over us, washing away the sins of the locker room.
Misty tilts her head back, letting the water soak her hair.
I reach for the shampoo and pour some into my palm. “Let me,” I whisper, and she nods, eyes closed.
My fingers work through her hair, massaging her scalp with gentle pressure. She sighs, some of the tension finally leaving her shoulders. Water streams down her face, glossy over the planes of her cheekbones.
“You’re good at this,” she murmurs, swaying slightly against me.
“I’m good at a lot of things.” I press a kiss to her shoulder, tasting water and the faint salt of her skin.
She turns in my arms, her eyes meeting mine with an intensity that steals my breath. There’s something raw there, something honest that wasn’t present before tonight.
“Why are you…” She trails off, water droplets clinging to her eyelashes.
My hands find her waist, steadying her. “Because… because it’s you.”
Her lips part slightly, but no words come. Instead, she rises on her toes to press her mouth against mine. This kiss is different—not desperate or demanding, but a quiet acknowledgment, a thank-you.
I wish it was an I love you.
My hands slide up her back, pulling her closer as the water beats down around us. Her skin is slick against mine, steam rising between our bodies as the temperature climbs. I back her gently against the cool tile wall, my lips never leaving hers.
She gasps when my hand finds the curve of her breast, her body arching into my touch.
I take my time exploring her, memorizing every reaction, every soft sound she makes. Will I ever get this again?
“I want you,” I murmur against her neck. “I’m so fucking crazy about you.”
“You’re just crazy.”
She breathes heavily, her fingers digging into my shoulders as I crush her against the wall so I can lift up one of her legs, allowing my fingers to stroke the slick heat of her cunt.
I fumble for a condom from the vanity on the other side of the curtain.
Her legs wrap around my waist as I lift her, angling her hips to me. I mean to slide into her slow and filthy, but she’s so tight and good when the tip of my cock slides in that I pound into her rough, needing us to be connected.
She arches back against the wall while making a high-pitched sound and bites my earlobe, breathing hard in my ear as I force my huge cock in her until her legs are spread wide for me, her ass up so my cock can take all of her pussy.
I fuck her ruthlessly into the wall. Her nails scrape my back, and the scratches burn from the scalding water while she begs for my cock, cries my name. I snake a hand down between her legs and start to stroke her clit in time with my hips, and she whimpers, arching into my touch.
I’m close, and so is she. I can feel it happening as I drive in hard once, twice. Her cunt clenches, vibrating around my cock, then I’m exploding into the condom, fucking every last drop of pleasure, wringing it out of her, biting her shoulder, marking her as mine.
“I will never,” she slurs as the water washes us clean, “ever get used to how huge your cock is.”
Her arms wrap around my neck. I carefully maneuver us out of the shower as she sloppily kisses me, her hair dripping wet all over the carpet as I wrap us in towels and dry us off, carefully, like she’s a new, desired toy I got for Christmas.
She’s warm and soft under the covers, curled up next to me.
I’m sex-drunk—drunk on the smell of her.
It had been a while since I’d had sex just because, not for a job. Just being with a woman because I thought she was pretty, because I liked her laugh, because she liked to race me down the slopes.
Wait. This is for a job. A job I haven’t finished yet.
It’s almost Christmas. Austen is still walking around. I need to—
I can’t do anything about it now, I rationalize. So I should just enjoy this. Enjoy her.
Outside, the snow continues to fall, covering Maplewood Falls in a blanket of white, quieting the world beyond my apartment door. For tonight at least, we’re safe here, wrapped in each other, pretending this could be normal.
“Do you ever…” Misty’s silent for a moment.
“Hmm?” I bury my face in her hair, pull her closer to me.
“Do you ever think about what you want to do when you’re not a hitman anymore?”
“I try not to. Retirement probably means the business end of a gun, my bruised and bleeding corpse thrown over a bridge, dismembered and buried in a landfill—that type of thing. Live by the sword, die by the sword.”
“Yeah, but if you didn’t die by the sword, if you just hung it up one day and then did anything you wanted.”
I open my eyes, stare down at her face. “Then I’d want this—being here forever with you. These last few weeks, sometimes I wish… well, it doesn’t really matter.”
We stare up at the cracked plaster ceiling.
“I think… I’d open up a cheese shop. Here. On Main Street. Probably next to your granny’s café so I could harass you when you were on your shift. And I’d be real snobby and shady about people’s cheese. And I’d close early on Tuesdays and Thursdays and play hockey. With you.”
“And then I’d have sex with you in the walk-in cooler in exchange for free cheese.” She kisses me.
I grin against her mouth. “I’d buy a place nicer than this and try to bribe you to stay over even though it pisses off your family.”
“Would we get Cocoa a friend?”
“Cocoa is an only child.” I close my eyes. “We could have a kid, though. Different species, and she wouldn’t get upset.”
“Two kids. Bonnie and Clyde.” She giggles and pulls the covers over her head.
“First, though, we’ll go to Crested Butte. It’s cheaper than Aspen. Snow’s better. Just the two of us.”
“Sounds like a honeymoon.”
I shrug a shoulder. “I’d marry you if that’s the only way to make you come with me.”
“You don’t want to get married.” She nuzzles my shoulder. “You’re a lone wolf.”
“No, I want it. I want that,” I say again quietly.
She’s staring at me, her eyes warm honey.
“I want to give up the hitman life,” I say, the honesty surprising me.
“But you have to finish one last job.”
“Something like that.” I give a desperate laugh.
Suddenly, I realize I have her. I can still make it to Denver.
Except I don’t even want to go anymore.
“I have to do it by Christmas, they said. Or else. But—” I kiss her. “If you really don’t want me to kill Austen, I won’t.”
“And then what happens?”
“I run until they catch me.” Really? Hudson would probably yell at me, punch me in the face, lock me in his basement for a few days, then let me out, and it would be business as usual.
Cold, lonely, bloody business as usual.
Misty’s got tears in her eyes. She cups my face. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”
I kiss her fingers. “I love you. I’d die for you,” I tell her honestly.
She shakes her head. “I love you more than I ever loved Austen, if I ever really did.”
“Then we finish this.”
She kisses me furiously, passionately, like she loves me, like she doesn’t want to let me go.
“I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“I won’t,” I whisper.
“Then I guess… yeah.” She kisses me. “Kill my ex-boyfriend.”