Chapter 33 #3
“Oh.” Aaron grimaces.
“If he doesn’t say yes, I will spank his ass,” Tomás says.
Aaron reaches across me to punch his shoulder lightly. “I’d wipe the floor with you.”
Tomás snorts and gets up on his elbow. “Winner of an arm wrestle gets to do that.”
Bemused, I watch the minor fracas. “Children, settle down. This is serious.”
Aaron bumps his head softly into mine and nuzzles my ear. “Of course you can. We’ll go today.”
“Thank you.”
“She calls me children? I am offended.” Tomás cups my breast. “Punishment? What about ass hook, tonight, while we fuck her and clamp these with weights?”
“Shit. I didn’t mean it that way. Well not…” I sigh.
Hell, I may as well give in. I’ll get an O out of this, and this is bonding. We all need some happy, hot, smutastic memories to blot out the other ones.
“I surrender.” I turn over and offer them my butt.
Smiling into the pillow, I listen to them debate whether to spank me now, as well, or just go out and eat breakfast somewhere at the beach. I’m betting they’ll do both.
Hoping for it, really.
As we walk in through the cemetery gates, I feel a surreal disbelief that I am here in these circumstances. I killed her rapist, perhaps her killer, even. The possibility that her suicide was really a murder has slowly surfaced. We don’t know the whole truth and likely never will.
The new but temporary plaited leather collar they bestowed on me rubs on my neck. I’m fairly sure it belonged to Lucy, but I really don’t care. It’s the thought that counts. Besides, I love that dog. I can’t help my reflexive touching of it. It means more than I ever thought it could.
Possession equates with trust, and it goes both ways now. Riley would be happy for me, maybe even jealous. The happy kind of jealous only she could do.
I smile at the memories that rekindle, of us playing console video games and calling each other rude names for the stupidest of reasons.
“Here.” Aaron indicates the row of tombstones where we will find her grave.
There it is. “Riley Freyers.” Her family gave her a headstone with a floral bouquet engraved on it, which makes my gift apt.
I kneel on the grass to lay the bunch of red roses on her grave.
Tears flow, but I let them do so, for once unembarrassed by my weakness.
My men kneel beside me and place their warm hands on my back.
I pick some grass off my leggings at the knees, adjust the hem of my dress, and clear my throat.
“Wherever you are, Riley, be happy.” I wipe my face, sniffle. “Should I say this next part?”
“What is it you want to say, Juniper?” Tomás rubs my back. “Is it about your vengeance? I say yes. Aaron?”
“I would say yes too. Maybe it will help her spirit rest in peace.”
“True.” I smile shakily, sniffle again. “We got them for you, Wasabi. The men who hurt you. They are gone and won’t hurt anyone else. Wasabi—that was her username,” I tell my men. “She was hotter than wasabi, I used to say to her. Silly, but…” I shrug.
I’ve done what I came here to do.
Are we supposed to stay and meditate? I’ve no idea what is appropriate. Or what I want to do even.
“We have a gift for you and her,” Aaron feels around in his pocket and pulls out a Ziplock bag with four tiny metal figurines inside, each about half the length of his finger.
He tips them onto his palm. “They’re gremlins.
This one is for your collar.” He shows me the brown-and-white one.
“We’ll get a clasp made for it. The others, we thought you might want to leave them for Riley? ”
“If it’s not too crazy? You can do what you want with the extra three.”
“Awww. Thank you, guys. Though I always saw myself as the red-eyed, dangerous one.”
“Nope, you’re the little furry brown-and-white one.” Tomás nods wisely.
I eyeroll. “Me. Furry? Really, though, this is so precious. I adore these.” I hold my hand to my heart, thinking. “I think it best, if I bury them here. That way she can really have them.”
Which is what I do. Using Tomás’s pocketknife, I carefully cut away a small divot of grass and bury them then pop the divot back into place, squash it down. In a few days, the grass will knit it together and no one will see this.
I walk away from her grave with a strange feeling of connection and an echo of friendship that was missing before. Perhaps we have brought her peace. I lift my head to hear the birdsong nature has gifted to us. “It’s a beautiful day.”
They chime in with, “Very,” and “Sure is.”
The little figurine is back in Aaron’s pocket.
“Don’t you dare get fucktoy engraved on my gremlin.”
They cast a look across me at each other.
“There’s an idea,” Aaron says.
“Yes.” Tomás smirks. “We can do this.”
I sigh and give in. Me and my mouth.
We’re off to Corfu soon, and the future holds hope for us, a hope I thought we had lost forever only a scant few days ago.
It also holds filthy sex, and love, and a quite a lot of bondage, must not forget those.
Providing the cops never figure out what I did with my trusty shovel.
Eh, we will cross that bridge if it ever catches up with us.