15
I arrive for my shift in the uni gardens 20 minutes late, and my boss approaches me while weeding the rock gardens outside the Science School.
“By all means, dock my pay,” I instruct, “and I assure you this won’t happen again.”
“Is everything okay,” she asks, pulling grimy gloves off. “Is everything okay at home and in class?”
I frowned in confusion because she’d never paid much attention to my personal life before, and this was the first time I’d been late since I started this job. Although I had changed my shift several times when they got in the way of classes, “Yes, everything is fine. Why do you ask?”
“It seems out of character for you, Rae, when you’re always so studious,” she inquires, slightly perplexed. Again, I wonder why she is making a big deal out of it when this is the first time this has ever happened.
“I promise it won’t happen again,” I wipe the dirt off my knees as she glances around to see how many are around. My heart sinks. Is she about to sack me and doesn’t want anyone to overhear? “Please, I need this job. You can’t sack me.”
She explains, “Oh, no, I not going to sack you, but I have to give an official warning-”
“I swear it won’t happen again,” I beg. “I love this job. Even in winter and when it’s raining, I still show up on time and work my butt off.”
“Ah, sorry,” she shows me her palm to hush me. “You’ve got the wrong end of the stick. I didn’t make myself clear. I’m giving you an official warning for an incident that occurred yesterday. While I know you weren’t on duty, we have a reputation to uphold,” she clarifies.
I scratch my head in confusion with my dirty glove. “What am I being accused of?”
She hesitates for a couple of beats as if what she’s about to say is difficult. “It was an interlude in the bushes by the kiosk between you and another student.”
“Oh my god,” my cheeks burn. “I’m so embarrassed.”
“There were several witnesses who identified you and the male student, but it’s not my business; it doesn’t look good for your future prospects in employment, particularly if you expect me to recommend you to future employers,” she states flatly. “That happened yesterday and this morning; you were late, so let’s hope you don’t make a habit out of it.”
“I promise I won’t,” I’m completely apologetic. “Honestly, I am deeply embarrassed by my behavior.”
She shrugs. “You’ve been warned, and I won’t speak about it again.”
“Thank you,” I gasped, seeing my life dissolve before my eyes. I need this job to pay the rent in my little apartment, run my car, pay for food, etc. Although my expenses have decreased since moving into Gabe’s house, I still need financial independence.
After she moves away, I violently attack weeds with my trowel to fight off the shame of being caught by my boss. Sweat pours down my neck as surrounding sounds bounce about my ears, ignored.
I come to the end of the shift but work another thirty minutes to make up for being late. I’ll miss class, but I can ask my tutor to send me the notes. As I pull clover wedged between the succulents, I’m reminded that I have to pick up my herbarium assignment from my apartment to work on back at Gabe’s house, which is due soon.
I imagine my little apartment stinks to a high hell of urine, and I really should spend some time cleaning up the mess left there by the bad people. I stop myself when I realize that I could also be categorized as a bad person, and that’s a weird concept.
After working the extra thirty minutes, I’m drenched in sweat from the midday heat and head to the gymnasium next to the Science School to shower.
The stadium has a casual basketball game, and the air conditioning is in full force; it’s cooler there than outside. I turn down the hall toward the locker room and shower area and spot one of Cormac’s coaches, wearing a navy polo shirt with the Torres uni sports logo, speaking quietly to a man wearing the same shirt.
They step aside for me to slide past, but I catch Lyons's name mentioned and intentionally drop my bag on the floor to dither.
“Rumors are circulating among the girls on the team that it was his wife,” Cormac’s coach states quietly to the man.
The man replies, “I don’t listen to rumors, but she’s got a good motive.”
“Because he cheats on her?” she replies bluntly.
He grunts, uncomfortable with the suggestion, “Well…I don’t know about that. He has several investments and a good nest egg for his family. Anyway, are you happy with the team going to the Nationals?”
“Reasonably…” she answers, but a group of strikingly tall guys walk down the hallway toward the locker rooms, and I take my leave from eavesdropping to wash off my sticky sweat.
As the water covers my naked body, I think of Lyon’s wife, who met only once at the swim team dinner. She knew. Without a doubt, she knew that her husband was cheating on her; I just wonder if she knew about the sexual assaults and bribery. I hope she has a good alibi to remove her from the crime scene.
By the time I leave the locker room, the swim coach is gone, and I rush to my next class in the Botany school, where not a single whisper or conversation is about the swim coach's death. Nobody in this part of uni cares about sports or would know Lyons if they even smacked into him. It’s a refreshing place amongst plants and botany enthusiasts, where the topic of conversation is pruning and propagating.
After class, I drive to my apartment building and park on the road rather than in the parking garage for safety reasons. It’s strange being back after everything that’s happened and I realize how closed-in this area is compared to Gabe’s house on the lake. The apartment is tiny, and I think the block across the road is grey upon grey, with car exhaust pollution to top it off.
Fear claims the base of my spine as I step into the elevator and press the button for my floor. Yet again, the thought occurs to me that I should’ve brought my gun. All it takes is a distracted moment or a wrong turn, and I can be lying on the floor with blood streaming from a bullet wound in my stomach. Whoever broke into my apartment was either looking for something or was trying to scare me. It worked.
But I can only think of three people who would arrange this, and thanks to the boys, one of them is dead. The other two are on my list and in that photograph.
I stall at my door and press my ear against the wood, listening for suspicious sounds. Empty. Carefully, I unlock the door and push it open a crack, searching for movement, before pushing it wider.
Something is not right. The scent of lemon wafts, and I stand in my room, completely baffled by what lies before me. It’s not only tidy but immaculate, and I can tell by the lemon disinfectant scent that someone has scrubbed the floors. The bed is perfectly made. I don’t think I ever made my bed that neat. The urine patch on my covers has vanished, but to make sure, I pull my covers back and check inside the covers. Dry and crispy clean. Wow.
I find my phone and message Blake: Are u responsible for cleaning my apartment?
Blake: I’m saying nothing.
Me: Seriously, did you organize this?
Blake: What would u give me if I said yes?
I smile and gaze out the window at the apartment block opposite, thinking again of the man Gabe dropped from the window opposite. I have so many questions without answers and secrets I must get to the bottom of. However, what’s been made clear is that these three men will only tell me what they want me to know. Little by little, the cracks widen, and I find out who they really are.
Me: Whatever u want (:
Blake: Don’t tempt me
My finger hovers over the screen to ask him to stay the night with me, but I have a meeting with Gabe, and it might not go in my favor. It occurs to me as I stand here in this spotless apartment that perhaps Gabe wants me to move out of his house and back in here. My heart sinks as I internally myself for disrespecting his space by having sex with Blake at his kitchen table. That’s twice in one day that I’ve been reprimanded for having unbridled sex in an inappropriate place.
There’s a gentle tap at the door, and at first, I assume someone is knocking on the door neighbor’s place, but I peer through the spyhole in the door to make sure, and I’m greeted with warm, mischievous eyes.
“What the hell?” I proclaim as I swing the door open. “How…”
“Hi, babe,” Blake croons, kissing me on the cheek.
“How did you get here so fast? Wait. Are you following me?” It’s starting to make sense now.
That charming, dimpled smile stretches across his handsome face.
“You did follow me,” I rage, pointing my finger at his amused face. “Wait.” Another realization hits me. “Did you put a tracker on my new car?”
His eyebrows shoot up, feigning innocence. “Your apartment smells spick and span,” he inhales, avoiding my questions. “Like lemonade in summertime.”
“Excuse me? Why do you find this funny? And can you please answer my question,” I demand, not that it’s making much difference with him.
Those lips find my neck as his arm hooks around my waist, pulling me in tight as he nibbles my skin, making me giggle. “You’re so fucking beautiful, Rae,” he groans against my skin.
“Still, you’re not answering my question,” I fake an attempt to push him away, even though I’m quite happy where I am in a warm, solid embrace, bulging muscles, cologne, bristly chin…oh god, why do these men do this to me? I am weak for them. “Have you got a tracker on my car? How did you get here so quickly?”
“So many questions,” he groans, sliding his hand between my butt cheeks, then lifting me off the floor where I have to wrap my arms around his neck so I don’t fall backward. My body is then dumped on the bed with him on top, peppering kisses all over my body.
“Are you going to answer any of them?” I giggle as he lifts my T-shirt up and rubs his bristly chin over my skin, forcing out a squeal from my mouth.
“Yet, another question,” he groans, using his teeth to pull down my shorts as the space between my legs becomes increasingly saturated. My hands find my hard nipples as I start circling them with my fingers to add to the delicious sensation trembling through my body.
My shorts are dragged down my smooth legs, and I slip off my T-shirt and unhook my sports bra to lie naked before my devastatingly charming thief. “That goes unanswered. You have more secrets than CIA agent,” I gasp as this thought sinks deeper. “Unless you are a CIA agent. Could it be possible a CIA agent in disguise of a thief?”
He kneels over me, running those warm brown eyes all over my naked body, drinking me in with his hot desire and masculinity. “That scenario is entirely possible, sweetheart, but you’re strumming the wrong banjo if you’re insinuating that I’m the CIA agent.”
“Is Gabe the CIA agent who hires you for dirty work?” I pose as his tongue circles around my belly button, making my skin prickle as I comb my fingers through his thick raven hair.
“More questions…” he growls, lifting his head to drill me with those dancing eyes. “There’s only one way to end this Spanish Inquisition.”
“Yeah, and what’s that?” I know the answer already and I love to tease this out.
He positions himself between my spread legs and starts undoing his jeans button, followed by his zipper, as his gaze remains firmly glued to my face. “I’m gonna have to fuck it out of ya,” he snarls, and I grin, biting my bottom lip, hungry for his cock.
“You think that will work, do ya?” I taunt, batting my eyelashes flirtatiously.
“Oh, yeah,” he asserts with that deep, sensual voice as he flops out his hard length.
“It looks like I’m saying farewell to the Spanish,” I say, stabbing an attempt at a joke that makes him narrow his eyes.
“Oh, no,” he hums confidently, aiming his cock at my pussy, ready to drive in. “I’ll be fucking you all the way to Spain.”
I pout my lips. “I’m pleased. I’ve always wanted to go, and with air travel prices being so high-”
He rams his cock into me in one go, and I arch my back, moaning as my nipples go hard and my skin shivers, so wet and horny. He places my left leg over his hip, running his hand down my shin to my thigh, before leaning over me. The thief starts thrusting into me as my bed jolts against the wall and the traffic noises outside.
He feels so good and so right inside of me, and I wish this escape into ecstasy could last forever, but it won’t. After this simmering expedition, we leave, and the raw world greets us, and we become killers again. Blake lifts my leg onto his shoulder, moves slightly behind me, and continues his thrusting pace as I join his rhythm and press my body against his – gasping and moaning. God, it feels good.
“This bed was a virgin,” I pant, as the orgasm is brimming so close, rippling up and down my legs and shivering all along my arms and breasts.
“I’m glad that I’m the one to break your bed’s hymen,” he groans back, slamming that cock into me like there’s no tomorrow.
“I’m glad, too,” I sigh, grabbing a hunk of his flesh and squeezing in desperation to hold on to something as my body falls under his spell.
“I need you tight, babe,” he growls breathily, pulling out. “You’re fucking remedy, and I need you tight.” He slides my thigh from his shoulder as my eyes glance at that erect wet cock, shiny in the light, before he rolls me over onto my stomach in a plank position.
He kneels over me and slides two fingers into my saturated and hungry pussy, before sliding that penis in again. Due to my legs being close together, his penis pinches my insides a little, and I have to wiggle to adjust my comfort.
“Ah, that’s it,” he snarls, thoroughly pummeling me with fast strokes that draw out pleasure screams from my mouth as my body contracts and retracts several times before the orgasm comes and storms through every cell in my body, sending me to Spain and back.
“Spain feels so good,” I sigh as the orgasm swells and the tips of my toes tingle while my clit radiates out in the place between pleasure and pain.
He pulls out and rolls me over, placing the top of his shimmering wet cock in my mouth. “Suck until I cum,” he demands, and I take his length in my hand, place my lips over the head of his cock and move up and down quickly.
It doesn’t take long, and a low growl at the back of his throat exudes when he cums into my mouth. He brushes back my stray hair that has fallen from my ponytail, and in a smooth voice, he demands, “Swallow, sweetheart, swallow.”
I let the warm, salty juice slide down the back of my throat as those eyes looked down at me proudly. “Good girl.”