Chapter 15
15
Grim
I’ve never yet turned down a blow job. Life’s too short to do that. Especially life on the run. Reaper and Karma both accepted this about me, even though Karma herself never strayed and Reaper was a possessive bastard. But he knew my heart belonged with him. I killed my own father for him, after all, because he’d never let the two of us be together. And also because he was a violent, abusive bastard who would’ve eventually succeeded in killing me, my mother and my little brother if I didn’t do something about it. I went on the run with Reaper and they got to live. But that’s all truly done and buried now. Scattered in rivers and fields and plains all over America.
I don’t even remember the kid who spent the first six months on the run violently wishing I’d never killed anyone, even though he is me. That didn’t stop me from thinking about all of that and more after I was left alone in that bar downstairs.
I alternated between feeling killing rage at Karma for straying, to the same kind of rage for myself for thinking it’s time to move on, for letting her go so she could stray, for giving her the excuse to. And back again. Over and over. And when the music got too loud I came up to this room. Just me and all the fucking ghosts. All the years, all the memories that ended so abruptly, so unexpectedly last winter. All the purpose, desire and history that bled out when Reaper did under that bridge, on that cold night. All the bad decisions that led to it. He was the one who held it all together for me, for the rest of us. He was supposed to outlive us all, damn it.
If I hadn’t slammed that metal pipe against my father’s head all those years ago when he was about to shoot Reaper, he wouldn’t have died under that bridge. He would’ve died in that barn on my father’s rundown farm. Not better. Just different. I’d have to go back a whole lot further to change that. But I don’t want to change it. The way it was is just perfect. What I want is for it to still be. And I’ll never have that. Wish I could stop wanting it. But stupidly, I can’t.
I was just about ready to put my fist through every wall in this decrepit hotel room when Scorpio knocked. He had no way of knowing about the killing rage boiling inside me and I had no idea what to do with it.
But the thing about that son of a bitch is… he’s more attractive than anyone I’ve ever met and he’s got a mouth on him that just makes it worse. I always had a thing for smart mouth bitches, never could resist them.
So, yeah, turns out I did know what to do with the killing rage. I deposited it down Scorpio’s throat along with my cock. It went a lot better than smashing up this hotel room would’ve. Helped calm me down better too.
Now’s he’s almost naked, lying next to me in bed and I don’t know where to go from here. I just know where I want to go. But my wants don’t have much basis in reality lately.
He’s a great kisser with exactly enough tongue and lips and teeth… just like his blow job. But I’ve graduated to kissing his neck as I stroke his cock with one hand and run my other hand over his abs. He must work out a lot. I like that. I like the definition, the ripples of his abs, the waves of his biceps.
“Enough of this,” he says lazily. “I wanna fuck.”
But his eyes are closed and he’s leaning against me like he’s in no hurry to start doing anything other than letting me continue doing what I’m doing. I can smell Karma on him, but also his own scent. Something that reminds me of the quiet night after a lot of partying. I like it.
I let my hand slip off his cock and further down between his legs.
His hand shoots out like a snake and grabs my wrist, and his whole body is suddenly as tense as a string. I like feeling the power coiling through those muscles of his I was just admiring.
“You said you wanted to fuck.”
“I wanna fuck you,” he corrects himself.
“No.”
He releases my wrist and I go back to stroking his cock. After a while he sighs and relaxes again and for whatever bizarre reason, I take it as a gift.
“I’m only getting a hand job?” he complains after a while, but his voice is soft and I know we’re doing just fine.
“You’re lucky you’re still here at all,” I say. “So just shut up and let it happen.”
“Man, you’re bossy.” But he relaxes into me even more.
“You don’t know the half of it.”
He grins at me with his eyes half closed and I kiss him again before he says something that’ll make me do something I regret. His breathing gets harder, raspier, needier as I start stroking him harder. I bet all those sounds would be even better if he let me fuck him, which my dick is just about ready to do. But not my mind.
Random blow jobs from pretty strangers are one thing.
Letting them into my bed feels like a betrayal. And the only reason he’s here is because I’d be doing much worse things with my hands if he wasn’t.
Letting go is a bitch. Holding on to a dead man is worse.
I’ve been trying to do both for months now. And it’s impossible.
“I’m done,” he whispers hoarsely. Then his body tenses again in that powerfully coiling way as he comes all over his stomach and my hand.
And now I won’t know what to do with my hands again. It’s a crippling thought.
I let him go and lay on my back on my side of the bed and for a while the black cracks in the grey ceiling are the most interesting thing. Until they start to resemble all the roads we rode down while scattering Reaper’s ashes. I close my eyes, but the roads are all still there.
“Do you want me to go?”
I have no idea.
“I didn’t want you here in the first place.”
But maybe that’s not entirely true. I’ve been trying to fuck my way out of all the memories of Reaper. And I never got this far. Never got to the point of kissing them. Or letting them into my bed. Into my room. Into my head. It was a nice hour of not remembering.
The bed wobbles as he sits up, wiping his come on the sheet. He’s grinning at me as I look at him, but mostly just with his eyes.
“Yeah, Reaper wouldn’t like this,” he says. “I get it. So I’m gonna take off.”
I never took him for a very perceptive guy, or one who gives a shit about anything but having a good time. But here he goes, proving me wrong. He gets up and starts disappearing back into his clothes. I don’t want that either. But I put my cock away because the fun is very much over.
“For what it’s worth, you shouldn’t feel bad,” he says while tugging on his jeans. “You couldn’t help it. I’m real good at seducing old men. It’s how Joker and me made a lot of money back in the day.”
“You’d let them fuck you but not me?” I ask, wondering why I actually care. “And I’m forty-three. I’m not old.”
He chuckles at that as he buckles his belt. “No fucking involved. I’d pick them up, he’d rob them, no need for any fluids to get exchanged.”
I wonder why he wanted me to know this.
“You gonna rob me too?”
“Nah, those days are gone,” he says.
But they’re not. Because he already took something from me and I’m not even sure what. I just know something’s different now. And I doubt things will go back to how they were. This smells too much like a new beginning.
For all his talk of leaving, he’s just standing there, between the bed and the door, fully dressed and still kinda smiling with his eyes. He is pretty. In and out of his clothes. And he’s got a way of saying what you need to hear, even if I’m not sure he knows it. I can see why Karma fell for him. And why she doesn’t want to give him up.
So all I can do is say the only logical thing.
“You can stay.”
“You sure?”
He doesn’t believe me. No surprise there, because I don’t believe it myself.
“No.”
That makes him laugh. It’s a nice sound. Friendly. Inviting. Wholesome, somehow. Even though he’s probably more broken than even Karma was when she came to Reaper and me.
“But I’m as sure as I’m ever gonna be.”
He laughs again. I could grow used to hearing more of that laugh.
“All right, fair enough,” he says and walks over to the table to pick up the bottle of bourbon I was using to try and not remember or feel anything. Kinda failed at both.
He joins me on the bed and drinks before offering me some. He’s got the right idea so I drink too.
Maybe we’ll manage to forget together, maybe we’ll kiss some more, maybe I’ll even figure out why I asked him to stay. Either way, it beats drinking alone and a decision’s been made. Maybe it was even the right one. But I’m not holding my breath. Because I haven’t made many of those lately.