15. Zira
ZIRA
Is he fucking serious?
Too stunned to speak, I just watch Bradley excuse himself and leave the kitchen so casually, as if we weren’t getting hot and heavy literally ten seconds ago.
Sex isn’t transactional?
What kind of bullshit is that?
Unlike Bradley, I live in the real world and sex is the biggest transaction to exist. Sliding from the table, I quickly button up my jeans and debate what to do, but it’s hard to think while my body is still singing so high from pleasure.
I’m so close to orgasm that just walking back toward the room I woke up in sends pulses of delicious pleasure coursing through my body.
Fuck it.
Once inside, I shut the door and strip off my clothes while heading straight for the shower in the ensuite.
If I’m stuck here, then I’m not going to remain this wound up when I can take care of it myself.
Despite the shabby bathroom walls and slightly yellowed floor tiles, the pressure of the shower when I step under it is out of this world and I nearly forget the reason I came in here.
Standing under the spray is utterly soothing and for a long few minutes, I soak up the sensation of the powerful water stream massaging aching tension from my shoulders.
It’s bliss. It’s the kind of shower I’ve read about when scouring hotels and fantasizing about having enough money to take a trip somewhere blue and sunny. I could easily lose myself here and not come out until the water’s cold and my skin prunes.
Luckily, the ache between my thighs brings my pleasure back into focus and under the hot, powerful spray, I work myself to orgasm with my fingers in just a handful of seconds.
Oddly, Bradley’s getting me so worked up and then leaving me utterly in the cold is rather arousing and my thoughts tumble with the idea of him charging back in here full of regret, eager to help me finish because he can’t resist me.
It’s a peachy fantasy that lets me come all over my fingers and finally satisfy that aching craving inside me.
The afterglow doesn’t last long.
I stand under the shower and gaze down at the plug hole, watching the water swirl and swirl before getting sucked under the black cap. With each gurgle, reality’s cold claws resettle across my shoulders.
We stole from the Mafia and the only thing standing between me and a fate of being tortured to death is Bradley. Bradley, a man who is apparently too much of a gentleman to accept sex as a thank you or payment.
The first man in history, in my experience. Over the years, I’ve slept with more men than I care to count, but it’s a necessity when there isn’t enough money to cover an important bill, rent, or to soothe some loan shark looking for my brother’s head.
Why is Bradley different? Why can’t he just accept it like everyone else so we can move on?
His refusal frustrates me, but I can’t pinpoint why. Either he thinks he’s too good for me or it’s some kind of game to make me crawl back and attempt something even more obscene.
Sex isn’t transactional.
The phrase spins around my mind as I finally climb out of the shower and wrap a towel around my body. Back in the bedroom, fresh, clean clothes have been laid out on the bed for me, along with my phone and a handwritten note.
Zira,
Your phone was recovered from the car so I’ve returned it to you. Help yourself to the clean clothes and let Frank know if you need help changing your dressing. I’ve left to get some food.
Bradley.
I stare at the note until my eyes blur, mapping out the swirls in his penmanship. They match the swirls on the card he gave me, so maybe he did write those cards himself. Something as pretentious as that would definitely match with the gold ink and his apparent values.
Brushing the note aside, I slide onto the bed knee first and pick up my phone.
It’s fully charged and the screen is void of any kind of notification.
My fear that they’ve been through my phone and thus removed the home notifications is calmed when I open it with my passcode and find the same silence inside.
No calls. No texts. No emails in my inbox, only countless in my junk.
Even my quiet social media has only one notification about monetization which I quickly swipe away and groan.
Usually, work and Peter keep me so busy, I don’t have to worry about the silence in other parts of my life, but sitting here in a silent room only shines a light on the cavern of loneliness I try to ignore.
There’s no family to check up on me, no friends beyond work colleagues that I don’t know well enough to socialize with, and no lover to look out for me.
My closest friend is probably Mrs. Lee from my local grocery store.
My head sags down and I lock my phone, setting it aside just as a twinge of pain pulls across my ribs.
Taking a deep breath, I drop the towel from my torso and peer around myself to glimpse the gauze covering my wound.
Just a peek and the phantom touch of Bradley’s fingers ignites on my skin once more.
He was so gentle and focused when patching me up and I never thanked him. Not verbally, at least.
Shit.
Harris really did try to kill me. Not only that, but as life left him, he was still determined to take me with him.
Out of all the terrifying people who have turned up at my door over the years in response to shit Peter’s gotten into, Harris has always been the worst. I misjudged him from the very beginning and nearly paid with my life.
How did I get here?
Returning to my phone, I swipe along to my brother’s number and send him a quick text asking where he is. No response leads me to send a string of texts telling him I’m worried, I’m hurt, and that I really need to know if he’s okay.
There’s no answer.
Not even the read notification pops up.
Defeat draws me down prone onto the bed and I clutch the towel to my throat, staring up at an off-white ceiling and mapping out every single bump with my eyes.
Peter’s missing, again.
I’m here, though I have no idea where here is.
A criminal organization wants to hang and quarter me for thefts I barely took part in.
And Bradley… confusing, hot Bradley. He rejected me, but from the way he was kissing me, he definitely wanted it. There’s no way he didn’t want it, but something made him stop. That’s never happened to me before. Ever.
Thoughts of Bradley and the mindless tracing of the ceiling above me eventually lull me into a sense of calm, and I’m fast asleep before I know it, only to be woken a couple of hours later by Bradley knocking on the door to inform me that he’s back with dinner.
I wake, groggily, and rub my eyes as I sit up. My hair’s long dried, but given how I was lying on it, my usually poker-straight strands have dried kinked and messy, so I resort to a ponytail to keep it all out of my face. After dressing in the fresh clothes at the end of the bed, I check my phone.
Still no answer.
Shit.
Does that mean something happened to him? Or is he just asleep?
Stifling a yawn, I trudge out of the room and in the direction of the noise radiating from the kitchen.
Inside, Bradley stands at the table he dumped me on earlier and unloads multiple cartons of food out of a brown paper bag.
The scent of take-out hits me like a truck, and before I can announce myself, my stomach rolls with an obnoxiously loud gurgle.
Bradley doesn’t look up but he does smile.
“I didn’t know what you like to eat so I got everything.
We have fried rice, egg noodles, rice noodles, chicken, beef, prawn, veg, sweet and sour, spicy, Szechuan, egg rolls, veg rolls, dumplings, sesame chicken and…
” Pointing at each carton in turn, he pauses over the last one in his hands and examines it.
“Black bean. Are you allergic to anything?” He looks up at me with those gray, moonlight eyes and smiles again. “If you are, then tell me.”
My heart skips a beat, and my stomach gurgles again, sending a flush of embarrassment to warm my cheeks, and I press both hands over my abdomen.
“No, I’m not allergic.” If he’s not going to mention what happened between us, then I won’t either.
“Good. Dig in. You must be starving.”
Part of me wants to be stubbornly polite and refuse because eating in front of a man I barely know, who drugged me earlier with water, feels risky.
My hunger wins out and before I know it, I’m in the chair shoveling egg noodles into my face as fast as I can scoop them up with the chopsticks.
All decorum goes out the window as my stress, exhaustion, and upset manifest in an insane appetite that gradually gets soothed as together, we make our way through every carton one by one.
“This one’s mine,” Bradley says, removing one last package of prawn toast from the bag. “I don’t share this.”
I gaze over a mound of chicken and pineapple balanced precariously between my chopsticks and smirk. “Not even if I bat my eyes?”
Bradley takes a firm, no-nonsense bite of his prawn toast. “No.”
“I’d argue with you just on principle but… whatever.” The food is far too good and I’m too hungry to care. Shoveling my next mouthful in, I groan deeply. “So good.”
“You look like you haven’t eaten this well in weeks.”
“I’ve never eaten this well,” I correct with a full mouth.
“Y’think I can afford more than cup noodles from the store?
” A bite of veg follows my next mouthful of prawns.
“And after—” In my haste, food catches at the back of my throat, so I chew quickly and prevent a choke.
“Sorry. After everything that went down with you, I couldn’t eat, couldn’t keep anything down, and then everything became so…
” Both my hands lift in the air, then I spear a dumpling and pop it in my mouth.
“It’s fine. Whatever, right? I mean if everything goes to shit, at least my last meal is amazing. ”
Bradley eats more slowly than I do, but as he watches me, I get the distinct impression that I’m being analyzed. I can’t imagine what kind of test might be running based on how I eat, but I can’t bring myself to care.
It’s just too damn good.
As my hunger gradually fades, my pace slows and I lean back in my seat with a long, low groan, and the prospect of poking Bradley for a better reason about why he rejected me earlier rises.
Meeting his gaze, I’m all poised to answer but suddenly, a loud vibration cuts through the meal.
Bradley’s eyes snap down as if he can see my waist through the table, and my cheeks warm.
“Sorry,” I murmur. “Do all your weird morals put you against phones at dinner?” I lick sauce from the back of one finger while retrieving my phone.
“Not at all,” Bradley replies. “Who is it?”
“It’s…” The screen lights up and I straighten up like a bolt. “It’s my brother! Oh, thank God.” Unlocking my phone, I highlight his text and quickly show Bradley so he knows I’m telling the truth.
[Peter] Where are you?
[Zira] No clue. Where have you been? How are you? Is everything okay?
[Peter] You’re hurt?
[Zira] It’s nothing. Tell me where you are! I had to drive for miles and miles and you’re not here.
[Peter] What do you mean?
I pause and glance up at Bradley. “What do I tell him?”
Bradley wipes the corner of his mouth with his knuckle, chewing slowly. “Ideally, if you can get him to meet you, I’ll have a much better time protecting him.”
“You mean it?”
He spears some chicken and nods. “I’m a man of my word.”
“I can’t tell him about Harris. That’ll scare him.” Chewing on the inside of my lower lip, I stare down at the screen and eventually settle on a little lie.
[Zira] Harris and I are ready to meet, and you’re not here. Where the hell are you?
Setting my phone down, I turn back to the food, but my appetite is either sated or vanished because my hunger is gone. Bradley passes me a bottle of water and watches me with that quiet, intense gaze once more.
“Will he be in trouble with you?” I ask, tracing my tongue around one of my teeth as my leg starts to bounce. “Because he drove that car with the rest of the diamonds?”
“Not with me,” Bradley replies. “The Irish may see him as an accessory or an opportunist, but I’ll work on that.”
I nod slowly. “I still can’t wrap my head around that part. I feel like I should be going to the police or something.”
“The police won’t help you,” Bradley replies. “You’ll be passed around until you end up with the wrong officer who will just hand you off to the Irish.”
My eyes widen. “They’d do that?”
“Some, yes.”
“Geez,” I mutter under my breath. “Can’t trust the cops, huh?”
Anything else Bradley has to say doesn’t reach my ears because Peter finally texts me back and his message sends my heart down into my gut.
[Peter] Liar.