Chapter 8: Eight

Lucas could feel the strain on his sweats. Three days. Come to the café in three days. He took a deep breath and collected the bowls and spoons from the floor, trying not to think of her full lips or the way her eyes would keep steady as if she could sneak into his soul if he wasn’t careful.

If he let his guard down for even a moment, she’d been inside, clutching his heart with both hands, standing before him naked, and he’d sink into the bed alongside her, completely lost within her.

She still had his hoodie, he realized. He hoped it would smell like her when she returned it. He shook his head. I need to focus. But on what?

He grabs the milk and is about to open the refrigerator when the drawing catches his eyes. Allison. Maya. And him. They looked so happy in the image. Like a mess of crayons yes, but happy.

Allison never saw the look on her mother’s face as Maya packed the bags. 

“Please, don’t go,” he’d said, trying to hold her. “You don’t have to go.”

But she only looked at him with that soft sweet look. “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t keep worrying about whether or not you’ll come home in one piece.”

“What about Allison, huh? What about Allison?”

Tears escaped her eyes. “She’ll have you, right.”

“What if I don’t make it home one night?” Lucas grabbed her luggage. “Then what?”

“Lucas,” she said, reaching up to stroke his face. He’d had a beard back then. “You know what my family will do when they see her. What my husband will do.”

He bit his lip, not wanting to cry too. “Fuck him. Stay. Stay with me. Please.”

She shook her head. “Allison’s two now. And I can’t be her mother as well as your home right now. I need…” her words puttered out. 

“You can be everything you need to right here,” he said, stepping towards her. “Your husband will only mistreat you again. You family… they’re all…”

“They’re my family, Lucas.” She kissed him, wet and sobbing. “One last time. For you.” And then she unbuttoned her shirt, and they collapsed on the bed before his world ended and she shut the door behind her.

Six years later, and the feeling has returned. The burning, melting, intoxicating surge of desire, of dire need, that flooded his belly and put strength into his limbs.

“Elsa,” he said, tasting her name on his tongue. That was all he needed to renew the surge of warmth inside his gut. Her first name. “I don’t know if I can betray you now.”

He sighed and picked up his phone. 

“But my daughter needs me.”

The screen shifted colors as he tapped the digits. The call connected.

“Status?” The voice was sharp and crude. It didn’t care that his cock was threatening the inseam of his sweats or that he was pacing his kitchen, drowning in nervous energy.

“I’m in,” he said, pausing in front of the fridge. 

“Good.” The line disconnected, and he placed his phone on the table.

He shut his eyes and played back the previous night. The scary woman sitting in a café. The disgusting smell of coffee that clung to his clothes. The fat man in a submarine. The bodies. Elsa pressed up against his lips. Elsa tearing off her coat in his car, sizzling hot. Elsa in his arms as he struggled to get her into bed. The way she’d grabbed him and begged him. The way she moaned and spread her legs before he finally managed to get the covers over her.

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The tears as she cried out for her Baba.

The way she slipped her hand on Mr. Bovver’s thighs before stuffing the pill down his throat.

What was she up to? What could someone like her possibly be afraid of? She was a goddess, a killer, and one of the fiercest women he’d ever met.

What was Delight made of? Was it really just a recreational drug to enhance sex? Or was there something far more sinister? It was linked to too many murders and assaults. Yet people still argued that it was simply for relaxation and unwinding.

“Fuck,” he swore out loud as his phone vibrated. He didn’t want to worry about right or wrong. He didn’t care about that. Unknown caller flashed on his screen. “Yes?”

“Mr. Sunshine!” A younger voice spoke to him now, full of feigned happiness. “I just heard the good news!”

“Agent Six,” he muttered, sitting down and resting his head on the table. 

“You’re doing good work out there, brother.” Six was always too loud. He’d been the one who pulled Lucas out of the holding cell and made the offer. Lucas had almost refused on account of Six’s enthusiasm.

“Just remember your end of the deal.” Lucas tried to keep the animosity to a minimum.

“Oh, you,” he said. “You are such a jest, Mr. Sunshine. Of course, everything will be taken care of. We’re the feds. Not monsters.”

Lucas couldn’t suppress his laugh. 

“You keep laughing there, Luke. But once this is all over and the Chung’s are in jail, you’ll be thanking us and praying to us.”

“Is that all?” He got up and climbed up the stairs, thinking he’d take a nap. It had been difficult to sleep on the couch with a worked up woman locked up in his bedroom.

“Well,” said Agent Six. “I hope everything goes well, then. Just remember to keep your pants on. These photos of Elsa have the men whistling back here.” He laughed. “But you don’t strike me as interested in the oriental mysteries.”

Lucas pulled open the door and sighed. It still smelled like her: like sweat and coffee and strawberries. His pants were once more struggling to remain calm. “I will call you when I have an update,” he said and put his phone down on the table, off.

The covers were a mess, and he pulled it against his face, taking another deep breath. It smelled too sweet. He didn’t even mind the coffee. And then he noticed the rolled up parchment sticking out from beneath the mattress.

“Is this what I think it is?” he asked to the room, head spinning as his blood rushed down to his loins. “No fucking way.”

He ground his jaws; her sultry curves appeared slowly as he unrolled the paper. Elsa was scowling. Her hair was up in a bun with her arms stretched above her, bearing her chest and the small patch of hair beneath her stomach. It had been trimmed in the shape of a spade.

He climbed into bed, pulling the covers over him and holding the painting above him, swearing he would get it framed.

It would have been so much easier to betray the cold woman sitting in the café and bossing him around.

He pulled down his sweats.

 

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