Last Hit: Reloaded Read online

  Daisy and I exchange a glance.

  She is a danger, I telegraph.

  She’s in trouble. I think she needs my help.

  I frown. Nyet, stay away from her.

  Daisy matches my grim look with a disappointed one and then turns to Christine.

  “What’re you doing after lunch?”

  Before I can interrupt I feel a pinch at my side. Shutting my mouth, I resign myself to discussing personal safety issues with Daisy at home. When we are alone and she is naked, I may be able to convince her of my way of thinking.

  “I’ll need to go home. My boyfriend gets off work around three and I need to be there.”

  “Need to?” Daisy asks the question that I am thinking.

  The girl does not look up at Daisy, only ahead now. “Yeah, I mean he doesn’t want me to be at campus alone.”

  “You could come over to our apartment,” Daisy offers. “We could do some more studying.” She turns to me in explanation. “It’s so loud in the commons, and the study hall in the building always has a couple of jerks who come in and throw their stuff around. They take up both of the long tables and talk really loud.”

  “I can take care of that for you,” I say. I’ve seen these boys. I watch them through the window but I did not realize they annoyed Daisy. A small talk with them as they leave would ameliorate this problem for her.

  “No, Nick, it’s fine.” She rolls her eyes and then turns back to Christine. “What do you think?”

  The girl shivers when a gust of wind hits us as we reach the sidewalk and are no longer protected by the tall brick buildings. The Village Bean is down two blocks, and the snow and biting wind are penetrating even my coat. Whatever danger she is to Daisy, I cannot tolerate seeing the young girl tremble like an orphan on the street. Carefully so she does not see, I extract the gun from the interior of my pocket and slip it into the side pocket of Daisy’s coat. She looks down at the new bulge and shakes her head in rueful dismay.

  Shrugging off my coat, I gesture for the girl to place it around her shoulders. “Here.” I walk toward her. “I’m from Russia. I was born in the cold.”

  Christine holds up her hands in a defensive crouch and stumbles backward. Daisy reaches for her and they both slip. I grab Daisy and with a rough tug, haul them both upright. Christine looks at the both of us, eyes darting between Daisy and me, and then she turns on her heel and runs off, leaving Daisy openmouthed and me with the jacket in my hand.

  “I do not like the look of that girl,” I warn.

  “She was afraid,” Daisy responds, still staring down the street watching Christine’s form getting smaller as the distance between us grows. “Of everything.”

  “Da, and people who are afraid have fearful things at home.” I pull on my coat and then remove the gun from Daisy’s pocket, placing it once more inside my interior pocket.

  “Don’t you feel anything for her?” she asks, her eyes full of questioning.

  Fear spikes. I feel nothing for anyone but Daisy. Is that not enough? But I cannot lie to her. “You are my heart. If I would lose you, then death is the only mercy I would find.”

  I rub my chest as if I could feel the lettering that is inked on my skin.

  “She’s not a danger to me,” Daisy insists.

  “Her, no. What she fears? Yes.”

  Chapter 7

  Daisy

  I watch Christine retreat with a mixture of concern and frustration. She’s fleeing us as if we’d invited her to . . . to . . . I struggle to think of something horrible enough. To her own murder¸ perhaps. But that seems ridiculous and dire. We’re college students. We should be worrying about nothing more than what our next grade is going to be, right?

  So why do I feel such despair at the sight of Christine’s retreat?

  People who are afraid have fearful things at home.

  A flash of memories crowds through my mind, all of them unpleasant. I remember my father’s control over me when I lived under his roof. His constant checking of my wardrobe—am I dressing to draw attention? Am I wearing makeup that will make boys notice me? His harsh responses if I disobeyed. The slap he gave my face when I wore lip gloss because my mouth was chapped. The constant, furtive feeling of hiding, of being scared even when I wasn’t disobedient. His shoving a gun into my hand at one in the morning and demanding I help him “defend” our home because he heard a noise outside.

  My father was abusive. Even though it was all designed to keep me safe because I was the only thing he had left that he cared for, it was still abuse. I still remember years of living under his thumb, afraid to say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing. Afraid to set off my father and endure weeks of his paranoia.

  I see all this in Christine when I look at her. Maybe she has a crazy father at home, too. Maybe that’s why she can’t do her homework. Maybe that’s why she never has a lunch, or a coat even when it’s cold. My sympathy for her bubbles over.

  Poor Christine. I won’t push her. I’ll be the easiest friend she’s ever had. I’ll bring extra in my lunches and bake her cookies and give her my homework and never, never ask questions. I’ve been in her place. I know what it’s like to feel like a quivering rabbit, constantly afraid.

  I’m no longer that girl, but it doesn’t mean that I can’t feel sympathy for her. I think back on my life with my father—would I have gotten away sooner, changed who I was, if I’d had just one friend on the outside that would have stayed by my side?

  “There are too many shadows behind your eyes, love,” Nick says as he shrugs his coat back on. He pulls me against him, and the movement allows him to reach into my pocket, to take back the gun he always carries.

  We’ve discussed it before—I worry that he carries a gun on campus. When we watch the news, it seems there are always reports of shootings, and I fear for the day that it happens at our college and Nick’s gun is discovered.

  Nick tells me that these shootings make him all the more convinced that we need protection.

  And I . . . well, I can’t disagree with that. So I let it ride. But I still worry that one day it’ll be found, and then I don’t know what we’ll do. Our happy life here feels so very fragile. One wrong move could destroy it.

  Boy, Nick is right. There are shadows behind my eyes today. I give him a sunny smile. “Just thinking too hard, I guess.” I slide my hands under his jacket and tickle his sides, even though I know it’s useless. My Ukrainian is not ticklish in the slightest, but I still love trying.

  “About your friend?” He leans in and kisses the tip of my nose, and it doesn’t matter that we’re standing on a winter street and the wind is bitter. I’m warm from the inside out at that small gesture.

  “About everything,” I confess. “So, tell me more about this fine arts program. Your teacher likes your work?” I’m so proud of him.

  We begin walking, and his hand reaches into my pocket and he laces his fingers with mine. It’d be better to wear gloves, but then we wouldn’t be able to touch each other nearly as much. And Nick and I are compulsive with our need to touch.

  “Da. He thinks I have promise,” Nick admits, his accent thicker now that we are alone and there’s no need to pretend. “That I have artist’s eye. He wishes for me to apply for fine arts program.”

  I beam with pride. “That’s so wonderful.” I squeeze his fingers in my pocket. “I’m so proud of you!”

  He flashes me a grin, and then unlaces his hand from mine to hold the door open to the Village Bean. I duck under his arm and then wait in the doorway for him to join me. We order our food and wait at the counter, snuggling together. It’s not until we sit down that Nick continues our conversation. “I will not join program, Daisy. It is useless, the fine arts degree. There is no point to it.”

  My jaw drops. “How can you say that?”

  “What shall I do with my art, Daisy?” Nick takes our coffees and pastries from the counter. I follow behind him as we grab a table in the corner—always in the corner. He sets the tray dow
n and pulls my chair out for me, leaning in to murmur in my ear. “Shall I draw them something to pay for our meal?”

  “That’s not fair,” I protest. “Lots of people make a living with their art.”

  “Name one.”

  I blink and cup my hands around the cardboard of my coffee cup. My mind is blank. “Picasso . . . ?”

  The look he gives me is wry. “You flatter me, Daisy. I am no Picasso.”

  My cheeks heat and I wish I had more examples of artists to give him to encourage him. I love his art. I want him to continue it. I love to see him create, to see the images come to life on the page. His works are always dark and grim, but so finely detailed that it awes me to think of all that going on behind Nick’s beautiful eyes. “I don’t think it’s a bad thing to express yourself and to create things of beauty for the world to appreciate.”

  “Then I will just draw you a flower the next time something in the apartment breaks down and we shall see how useful my talent is.”

  I frown at him. This is the closest we’ve come to an argument. He’s being bitter about his art, and I think it’s magical. I wish I had a fraction of the same poetic soul he does. Why can’t he see that it’s special? That he is special? “I’m not going to fight with you about this.”

  “Then let us not speak of it.”

  We don’t, but I still think about it as we eat and chat about school, and then return to our classes. I’m still thinking about it as we go home that night. When he goes to the gun range again, I will scour the Internet and the library for books about current artists, men who make a living creating with their hands, their minds, their imagination. I will prove to Nick that he’s wrong and that he can be more than just a hired gun.

  Determined, I smile to myself, and Nick catches me. His fingers caress my cheek as I clear plates from the table.

  “Why do you smile?” he asks. He likes to know all my thoughts. Sometimes I think Nick wants to crawl inside my head, just so he doesn’t have to be in his own. But this is a thought I’m not going to share with him, because we’ll argue and I don’t want to do that. Instead, I think about his fingers on my skin, and decide to distract him the best, most wonderful way I know how. I set the dishes down and turn to him, unbuttoning the front of my cardigan.

  He raises an eyebrow at me, his smile broadening. “Is it not study time?”

  “It is not,” I tell him, parting my sweater and revealing the nude bra beneath. The tattoo of his art is lurid between my breasts, over my heart, his name in Cyrillic. I touch it and become immediately aroused. If I have to be his canvas to get him to appreciate art, I’ll cover myself with his designs. “I was thinking about another tattoo,” I tell him, and cup my own breasts through the bra. “Something for these. What do you think?”

  He stalks toward me like a wolf, and I shiver with excitement at the look in his eyes. “I think they are perfection already, my Daisy. You are perfection.” His hands push mine aside, and then they are cupping my breasts, kneading them and teasing my nipples.

  I gasp and put my hands to his neck, pulling him in for a kiss. “I want you,” I tell him. “Please, touch me, Nick. I need you.”

  His mouth captures mine, and I’m startled by the hunger in it. Always ravenous for love, my Nick. His passion increases my own, and I tear at his shirt, desperate to see his skin, his tattoos. He’s beautiful to me. So beautiful it makes an aching knot in my throat.

  “Bed?” he asks between kisses.

  We can go to the bed and make sweet, languid love, but I’m feeling a little wild tonight. I grab two handfuls of Nick’s shirt and drag him to the sofa instead, and when he falls backward, I climb onto him and straddle him, grinning as I do so.

  “Too impatient for bed, milaya moya?” he breathes, and his hands return to my breasts.

  I nod, nipping at his mouth. “I need you inside me, Nick.”

  His breath hisses out from between his teeth, and then he’s reaching between us. I think he’s going to slide a hand under my wool skirt, but instead he is unbuckling his pants. Giddy, I shove at the stockings covering my legs, hitching up my skirt. I need to be bare for him. Right away.

  He gets his cock free long before I’m able to wriggle out of my stockings, and I whimper in protest. Nick solves my problem by putting his hands on the waist of my stockings and tearing them right down the center seam, then pressing his hand into my now-damp panties. My skirt’s rucked up around my waist and I start to ride his fingers, eager for more. More Nick, more of his touch, his skin, his scent. I’m utterly addicted to this man.

  He murmurs sweet-sounding words in Russian under his breath, his lips playing against mine even as his fingers stroke through my wet, slick folds. Then, when I can’t stand it any longer, he pushes aside my panties and drags my hips forward a little, settling the head of his cock at my entrance.

  His gaze meets mine, an unspoken question. Do we want to go bare this time again?

  I nod. I’m on birth control. I want him deep inside me without anything separating us.

  He grabs my hips and thrusts me down onto his lap, and I sink onto his shaft. My breath escapes my lungs, and then I lean forward, kissing him, our lips playing as I start to ride him.

  We move together, every motion utterly sweet, and delicious, and just right. Perfection in a male body—that’s my Nick. He knows just how to touch me so that I’m whimpering, knows how to play his fingers over my skin so that I’m clenching against him with a forceful orgasm.

  The sight of my pleasure makes his erupt. He buries his face against my neck and bites down just as I feel his cock pulse inside me. He’s coming, holding me so close and so tight that nothing in the world will ever separate us.

  We are one, Nick and I. And I love this more than words can ever express.

  ***

  The next morning, I avoid seeing my father. I know I should visit him. I should probably go and make sure Peanut is walked, and Father isn’t having one of his anxious episodes, but I keep thinking about Christine and her fear, and it makes me remember all the bad times with my father. And I just can’t face him today.

  Instead, I spend the extra time in the kitchen, baking. I bake cookies, since they are easy to package and hide in pockets. Chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter cookies, oatmeal raisin cookies, and snickerdoodles. I’ll send the extra ones down to my father . . . later. And Nick will eat some of them.

  The rest, I wrap carefully in Saran Wrap and will take with me to classes today. It’s part sympathy for Christine, and part bribery. I intend to find out what is making her so frightened . . . so Nick and I can fix it.

  Nick saved me from my misery. Together, with his help, I’m sure we can save my new friend, too.

  Chapter 8

  Nikolai

  All morning I watch Daisy flit around the small kitchen. She bakes. And bakes. And bakes. The apartment smells like a pastry shop, and she looks edible. I carry her off between the peanut butter cookie batch and the oatmeal raisin cookies.

  “You are dirty.” I swipe a finger down her flour-coated arm. She extends it to the side as if to judge the truth of my statement. I lick my finger and make a new trail, this time around her clavicle and into the valley of her V-neck sweater. I am mesmerized by the shadow that swallows the tip of my finger.

  “I like to think I’m wrapped up in my work,” she teases.

  “Nyet, you are filthy. Let me clean you.” Her neck tastes salty and sweet and addictive.

  “I have two more batches of cookies to make.” Despite her protest, she remains in the circle of my arms, arching her neck to provide easier access. I delve into the cleft of her breasts, stabbing the valley with my tongue. Soon we are ripping at each other’s clothes, and I’m pushing my cock inside her. The smells of the baked goods mixes with the musk of our shared arousal, and I know I will never eat another cookie again without getting hard.

  She cries out and clutches me as she comes, and I follow swiftly behind her, spurting my seed inside her tigh
t sex. The quick orgasm depletes me, and while Daisy skips off to clean up and finish her baking, I lie wrecked on the sofa.

  The police scanner spits and stutters in the background. I’ve taken to listening to it, waiting to hear my name. Instead it is reports of robberies, domestic violence and the occasional shooting. The cold doesn’t deter any unsavory activities, only sends them inside.

  “Nick, why do you suppose we can’t seem to rent out any of these units? This place is close to the university. All the units are renovated and seem nicer than anything I’ve seen advertised. Yet, here we are six months later, and it’s still completely empty except for us.”

  “The applicants have not been qualified, kotehok.” The scanner squawks about a GSW or gunshot wound. Single. To the head.

  “We don’t need to be so strict. So what if they had a few unpaid parking tickets or a public intoxication violation? It’s college. That’s what college kids do.”

  I lean forward and turn up the scanner. Where was it that this shooting happened?

  “Those are all signs of danger. Their weaknesses could be used against us.”

  She clicks her tongue. “We aren’t in Russia. There are no enemies here, not unless you count the spanglytopgirls.” The last words are jumbled together and I can’t make them out. My attention swings back to her at the word enemies.

  “Who are the spanglytopgirls? I will dispose of your enemies.” I stand up and stalk toward her. She waves her spatula at me.

  “No nudity in the kitchen. Shoo. Out of here while I’m making cookies.”

  Stepping back across the invisible line she has drawn, I wait for her answer. Shaking her head, she sighs. “It’s nothing, Nick. Really. I just liked some of the clothes the girls had at the party and wished I had worn them.”

  She won’t say more, and while I leave as she asks, I remain alert. More details are being exchanged on the radio.