I let out a long, slow breath, trying to control my rage. I took her by the shoulders and pushed her up against the nearest wall. “Haven’t you fuckin’ worked it out yet? I’m not going to walk away! Not from you!”
She sniffed and nodded and then I was covering her lips with mine, letting her know that I was there for keeps. I tasted salty tears but I kissed them away and went on kissing, wrapping my arms around her waist and holding her tight until she finally relaxed against me.
I pulled her in tighter and kissed her neck, then the top of her head. “No more keeping shit from me,” I growled. She nodded...but I knew that it was going to swing both ways: if I wanted her to be honest with me, I was going to be honest with her about my past.
One problem at a time.
I gave her one last squeeze and then pulled her towards my car. “Come on,” I told her. “We’re going to see Murray.”
47
LOUISE
When we arrived,Sean took his hammer and told me to wait in the car. But I crept up the stairs behind him and waited outside Murray’s office, ears straining. I had to know what was going on. What if Murray’s heavies had guns? This wasn’t like smashing up a dealer’s operation or a grow house: sleazy as it was, Murray’s business was at least partially within the law. He could opt to call the cops.
I heard the heavies get to their feet. “Unless you’re here with the redhead, O’Harra, fuck off.”
I didn’t have to see their leering grins—I could hear it in their voices. “Murray said we could hang around on set. I’m looking forward to seeing her get stuffed. Maybe they’ll even need us to help, if they run out of cocks.”
Sean’s heavy footsteps. Then a choking noise and the sound of something heavy hitting the wall. I peeked around the door frame.
Sean had pinned the two men against the wall, the handle of his sledgehammer across both their throats. Their toes just barely touched the ground. “You ever talk about her like that again,” he said, “and I’ll knock your fuckin’ heads off.”
The men gurgled and choked, their faces turning blue. One of them tried to reach under his jacket. Sean kneed him in the groin.
When he finally released them, both of them fell to their knees, holding their throats. Sean snaked his hands under their jackets and my stomach tightened when he pulled out two guns. He tossed them on the floor and then swung the hammer down on both of them, reducing them to twisted lumps of metal and leaving a dent in the floor.
I pulled back behind the door frame so that he didn’t see me. The next thing I heard was the crash as he opened Murray’s door—with his foot or the hammer, I couldn’t see.
“That contract is legal,” I heard Murray say. “It’s fucking legal, O’Harra. You can smash all you like but she’d better come here, today, ready to meet her new boyfriends, or she owes me ten thousand.”
There was a cracking, splintering sound and I guessed that Sean had just brought the hammer down on Murray’s desk. “It’s not about the fucking contract!” he yelled. There was rage in his voice like I’d never heard. A metallic bang echoed through the building—he must have slammed the hammer into Murray’s safe. “It’s about her! She’s not one of your girls!” A hard thump and the crunch of plaster—I imagined him burying the hammer in the wall, right next to Murray’s head. “She’s better than that! Better than all of us!”
For once, Murray’s voice was shaky. “I want paying,” he said. “You can have the contract but you gotta buy it out.”
I heard Sean snarl and closed my eyes, waiting for the sound of the hammer hitting bone. That would be it: Murray dead, Sean in jail—I might never see him again.
But the noise that came instead was tiny, the barely-audible thump of something small being tossed down on the floor. A moment later, Sean stormed out of the office. He did a double-take when he found me lurking outside, then pushed something into my hand: my contract.
“Tear it up,” he told me, and I did—in long, loud rips that felt like freedom.
“But how did—you don’t have any money either!” I said.
He shrugged and kept walking towards the street, laying his hammer over his shoulder. He took out his phone and started dialing.
“What are you doing?” I asked, frowning.
“Calling a cab.”
I glanced at the Mustang, confused. Then I realized what he’d done and my face fell. “Oh my God...but that car’s the only thing you care about!”
He stopped walking and turned back to me. “No,” he said. “It’s not.” He put his finger under my chin and tilted my head up and then his lips were coming down on mine. Hard and ferocious, forcing my lips apart. I gladly opened for him, molding my body to his. Every press of his lips sent fresh ripples of pleasure through me and I gave myself up to it completely, floating on a river of pure relief. My chest was going fluttery at what he’d just said...what he’d justdone.
His tongue explored my lips and then dived inside, the kiss turning deeper and hotter. His hands slid through my hair and then clasped my shoulders, holding me in place for a second. But that wasn’t enough for him. Before I knew what was happening, his hands had slid down my body and I was being lifted like a doll, one hand on my ass and the other across my back. He growled and kissed me again and again, arms locked around me in an unbreakable hold. I moaned in pleasure—it was like nothing I’d ever experienced, even from him. He’d kissed me plenty of times but I’d never felt so...kissed.
And then I realized what it was: he was kissing Murray right out of me.
When he finally released me, he drew in a long breath, still refusing to put me down. “Let’s get back to the mansion,” he said. “There’s something I want to show you.”
