Weapon Read online

  “You want to drive yourselves?” he finally said. “Do you want to have that conversation with Christian? Do you? Because the one I had was humbling to say the least.”

  They both sat back, gave him some space.

  “I’m not saying either of you couldn’t handle him, but if I’m right, Abby has no clue as to who her father is, and Netty, the way Abby made it sound, you’re crushing too hard on him to see straight.”

  “What?!” Netty said, cranking her head even further around to now give Abby bitch eyes. Abby shrugged her shoulders like she didn’t know what Brayden was talking about.

  “Yep,” he said. “Looks like I’m the voice of reason here, so why don’t you all just sit back and, I don’t know, stop ovulating together.”

  At that, Netty’s face froze. In the back seat, Abby started laughing, and then Netty was laughing, too.

  “You two are certifiable,” he said, grinning. “Seriously.”

  3

  Christian Swann wasn’t home by the time the three of them rolled into Palo Alto. It was nearly three in the morning and everything was eerily silent. Walking up to the house, there weren’t any sounds at all. Not dogs or cats. Not insects. Nothing. Just darkness and the pressing, early morning cold.

  Abby couldn’t keep her eyes open, but Netty, she talked to Brayden the whole way there. And not about anything specific. He couldn’t help wondering where she got her energy. It was boundless!

  Inside the house, they tucked Abby into bed. She was going on with a drunk’s admiration for the huge house, mumbling about how beautiful everything was. Her eyelids bobbed once, twice, and then it was light’s out. She went down fast. Almost like an infant. Brayden showed Netty the guest room, but she already knew where it was.

  “I’m not sleeping in there,” Netty said, refusing to go in there. “That’s where—”

  “I know,” Brayden interrupted. She was referring to Maggie having killed herself in there. “I was here.”

  To think Abby and her father had barely even lived there and already there had been a suicide, a kidnapping and a near-death assault…what wonderful house-warming gifts.

  “I’ll take the couch,” Brayden said. “You can sleep with Abby.”

  “I’m not sleeping with her,” she said, almost like she was offended. “Not until she feels like herself.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously. I’m sleeping with you tonight.”

  He raised his eyebrows, stared at her long enough to realize she wasn’t joking, then he frowned back at her in resignation. At this point, he was too tired to argue. Then again, this really was his fault. The thing about gaming, about dropping bait 24/7, is you don’t always know what you’re going to do with the ones you hook. The girls like Netty who somehow seem to really like you.

  Not that he minded Netty.

  When it came to having friends with possibilities, Netty was full of potential. It’s just, after what happened to her—the almost-rape and the lesbian bodyguard slash almost-lover—the girl had issues that needed sorting out. Perhaps deciding her sexuality was best left to a qualified therapist.

  “Fine,” he said, “but don’t get all upset if I fart on you in my sleep.” Now it was her turn to cock an eyebrow. “What? You have a problem with that?”

  “No, it’s just, I was about to say the same thing to you.” She made a serious face long enough to give Brayden pause, then followed up with a tired laugh. “Don’t be such a boner killer.”

  While he made up the couch, she washed her face, brushed her teeth and changed into pajamas, or whatever. When she returned to the living room, she was in purple boxers and a light pink tank top. Brayden tried not to stare, but she looked good. He was in boxers and a tee himself, and he was sitting on the couch.

  “You don’t have to be modest, it’s not like I’ve got anything worthwhile under here anyway,” she said, cupping her smallish breasts. There wasn’t even enough of them to fill her small hands.

  “So you say,” he replied, still being polite. “Perky tits are in, by the way.”

  The couch was oversized and he had taken the back and side cushions off to make more room for them. He also had blankets from the hall closet and pillows from the guest room to make up their “bed.” She plopped down next to him, motioned for him to scoot over.

  He did.

  Crawling under the same blankets as he was in, she said, “Perky tits are in, maybe, but not small tits. Seriously, move over.”

  He hadn’t expected her to sleep right next to him. There was another side to the couch. Plenty of room for them both without having to spoon each other like they were something they weren’t.

  “A girl doesn’t have to have big breasts to have great breasts,” he said. “Not every guy wants his girl sporting big ass porno bags, you know.”

  “Yeah, whatever,” Netty said, lying down. He inched his body into the back of the sofa. He ran out of room quickly.

  “It’s true,” he said, wondering how the hell this was going to work.

  She curled her back into his belly, started pushing into him even though he wasn’t moving. “I’m not going to sleep on the edge of the couch, Brayden. Be a gentleman and scoot back.”

  “I am back,” he said. She stayed nestled into him. It was causing the kind of reaction he wasn’t ready for. There was something about having her petite body against his that made the room just a few degrees warmer.

  “What are we watching?” she said.

  The TV was off.

  “I don’t know. Nothing. The remote’s on the coffee table.”

  “I can’t get to sleep without the TV on. Sorry. Plus I need a distraction from your erection. It’s pressed pretty good into my back.”

  “Um…yeah…TV sounds good,” he said, feeling his face flush. He tried to scoot himself off her, but she wasn’t having it.

  She sat up, turned around, and smiling—her hair tossed aside and sexy—said, “If you tell me it isn’t me, that you get sleep boners before sleeping, I swear to God you’ll ruin everything.” It was right then he realized how pretty she was, and that maybe, just maybe, he wanted her. His response though? Wide eyed silence. And what was she talking about?

  She didn’t want him ruining what?

  She turned on the television to re-runs of a show he had never watched on a channel he was sure was free back when he was not quite born. Before satellite. Before cable. He felt himself drifting, but tried to stay awake because he liked the way he felt snuggling up with Netty. Her hair smelled clean and summery, and just below that was her scent. He didn’t want to breathe deep and startle her, but he liked the way she smelled, her skin.

  “I can feel you breathing on my neck,” she said.

  “What kind of shampoo do you use?” he said. “It smells good.”

  She made a big production of rolling over, and looking right into his eyes.

  “Just say it,” she said.

  “What?”

  Honestly he had no idea what she was referring to, but he knew what he felt from her and it was a line his brain told him he definitely shouldn’t cross. Not with Abby in the house and Christian on his way back from New York. Abby’s father could walk into the house at any minute, and even now, with nothing going on between him and Netty, he would have some serious explaining to do.

  “I should sleep on the floor,” he said. His mind was made up. That was the right thing to do. “In case Abby’s dad comes in. He already doesn’t like me.”

  “Don’t be stupid,” she said. He started to move, she pushed him back down.

  Then it happened: that moment unfolded, unplanned and unrushed.

  It just happened.

  “You totally want to kiss me right now,” his mouth said, totally against his will, “don’t you?”

  “I do,” she replied, softly.

  She was not at all like the crazed Russian skulking around the house days earlier, barking orders, breaking windows, trespassing and calling immortal Nazi war c
riminals assholes to their faces.

  Did I just kiss close her? he thought.

  He didn’t mean to do that. She should not have said what she said, but she did. And the next thing he knew, she was moving slowly toward him. She put her mouth on his, and damn if she didn’t taste so soft and sugary sweet. Her whole body seemed to move into his with that kiss.

  My God, he thought, she’s good!

  When she pulled back, her face was all lust. Then again, so was his.

  “Where did you learn to kiss like that?” he said, breathless.

  “My ex-girlfriend.”

  “What else did she teach you?” Brayden asked breathless, his heart hammering blood straight to his…well, you know…

  “She taught me to let go sexually, although it didn’t work so well with her because I’m not into girls. I’m just not into guys forcing themselves upon me. I like that you’re being coy, and respectful. It turns me on.”

  “Abby said it was difficult for you, afterwards, I mean.”

  “I want to get past that,” she said.

  She started to pull his shirt off, saw the scars mapping his torso, and gasped.

  4

  Hers was a totally organic reaction, but it inflamed Brayden’s insecurities. He talked himself off that ledge. Told himself to remember the pool in Vegas. How he took his shirt off and everyone saw his scars and it was okay. How he met Becky when he was sunbathing at the pool just like that. Maybe it was because of his bravery that he got his first real education in the art of seduction.

  Becky.

  What a fucked sideways sort of wet dream she was…

  “I was bullied a lot as a kid,” he explained to Netty. “When I couldn’t take it any more, I fought back, sort of, and I got the living crap kicked out of me. There were four of them. They stripped me of my shirt and pants, then they whipped me with their belts. If that wasn’t enough, when they were done, they all pissed on me. My blood, their urine. It was exciting in an I-don’t-need-this-shit kind of way. Very scandalous. Until recently, this was my defining tragedy. The thing that always kept me shy, in my own head, if you will. Basically it was the thing that made the ugly me so much less attractive.”

  “You’re not ugly,” she said. “And I’m sorry for my reaction.”

  “It’s okay,” he said, pulling his shirt back down. “Sometimes, to really get to know someone, you have to know the thing that hurt them most. I call it their defining tragedy.”

  She thought about this for awhile, and he said nothing as he looked at her, waiting. Then she lifted her pink tank top up over her head and set it beside her. She wore a small, white bra. Reaching behind her, she undid her bra and let it slowly fall away. Her breasts were small, her nipples pink and pinched tight. To Brayden they were small, but beautiful.

  “Like so many girls, my boobs are my defining tragedies.”

  It always amazed him how much girls obsessed over breast size. He didn’t get it. His hands just sort of got to them on their own. The sharp intake of breath took her by surprise. Her skin was warm. Soft like silk. She was skinny, but not so skinny that you wanted to start shoving greasy food down her throat. It was a petite skinny. His mouth found her nipples a moment later and that’s when everything took off.

  His shirt came off, then her boxers. She wasn’t wearing any underwear and now it was his turn to be surprised. She took off his boxers and she smiled, seeing he was ready for her.

  The whole time he was thinking, am I really going to do this? This is Abby’s best friend! She pushed him back, mounted him (but didn’t mount him mount him), and that’s when he held his hands up and said, “I can’t do this.”

  “What?”

  She was naked over the top of him, the insides of her knees pressed ever so lightly against his hips. In the light of the television, she looked like an angel.

  “You’re Abby’s oldest friend. She wouldn’t want this.”

  “Yes, she would,” Netty said.

  “No.”

  He felt himself starting to go down. The moment was dying. Instead of speaking, Netty reached down, grabbed his business, started to work it back up.

  “You can’t tell me no when you’ve brought me this far,” she said. Her voice was sexy seductive. Totally nonplused.

  “If she finds out—”

  She was working him, forcing his big brain to take a back seat to his little brain, the one that was about to get him into the biggest trouble ever.

  “She’ll only find out if you tell her,” she said. At this point, he was more than ready.

  Before he could object, she slowly lifted then lowered that beautiful, naked body down upon him. Like she was getting into a cool pool, one cautious (and several times painful) inch at a time.

  “No, no, no, no, no,” he was saying, fast, breathless and pleading, not ready to do this. But when she made the privates-to-privates contact, when she broke him through her hymen and worked him deep inside her, all his useless no’s became a constant chant of yes’s.

  “Omigod,” she breathed, throwing her head back. She sat up, hands on his chest, pushing herself up; then—back arched—she ran them seductively through her hair, eyes locked on Brayden as the push and pull of lust wound through her in long, elated currents.

  He tried to hold out, thought of everything terrible. He thought of Sunshine Cranston of Janine’s Ugly Five back at Astor Academy, and how her breath must smell like boiled assholes. Or that maybe she had pimples on her crotch and bushels of untamed pubic hair for days. He thought of fat guys with greasy skin and old homeless dudes squatting out dumps in the corners of public places and never, never wiping afterwards.

  And then she found her groove and gave herself over to him. Seconds later, it was happening. She was peaking. Listening to her, watching her chest flush red, feeling goose bumps rise all across her bare ass as she came, he finally stopped thinking of everything terrible and just saw her. He saw her the way she really was and she was incredible. He grabbed her waist, let his thumbs settle on the ridges of her hip bones, rocked himself deeper inside her, and then he let go as well. Not like with Becky or his first, the married woman with the dog and no name. No, this was different. She wasn’t a stranger at a hotel pool, or a married woman in an elevator or a trio of out-of-town girls at a bar.

  She was Netty.

  Netty whose father was in jail. Netty whose mother, Irenka, was forced to plan swingers parties just to make ends meet. This was Netty who used to work at a bookstore as a book nerd, who was thrust into San Francisco’s dot com life, into a hipster world that nearly swallowed her, before losing her best friend to murder and nearly losing her own life to a psychopathic maniac doctor teetering on the edge of insanity. Looking at her, riding the firm underside of her, really gazing deep into her eyes, so deep he felt he could see everything important, and nothing at all, he really saw her, in all her beauty, in all her weakness, in every state of vulnerability, and he sighed. Almost like a delicious death. Like he gave her his very last breath.

  Spent, she collapsed on him, her heart beating hard against his, their breaths coming together, pushing apart. She kissed him. He kissed her back and for one brief, glorious moment, there was no Abby Swann. No Savannah Van Duyn. There were no beatings and no pissing-on’s, and no ugly, ugly days. It was just two people who found each other, who needed each other, who took each other for all they had and everything they had to give.

  “You have that look,” she said. He couldn’t breathe. “I know that look.”

  “What does my look say?” he asked, euphoric and drained. He couldn’t stop thinking about how this moment totally took him by surprise.

  Smiling, like the world weighed no more than a feather, she said, “It says you are sooo into me.” If it was possible, her smile became even more hypnotic. Was it insane that he wanted to kiss her again? That the kiss right after sex seemed so much more sensual than the ones leading up to it?

  “I—I…I think that was probably the best three minu
tes of my life.”

  “Don’t start writing your own legend. It was two minutes. Maybe two and a half. But you’re right. It was…amazing.” Unplugging, if you will, she looked down and said, “By the way, you’ve got blood all over your dick.”

  In that moment, for reasons he could not explain, the horror show on his privates didn’t matter. Not one single bit.

  Then, only seconds later, Christian Swann decided to walk inside the house from the garage and turn on all the lights.

  First Class

  1

  Margaret’s transformation wasn’t done. Christian had to leave her in that awful in-between stage where she barely looked human. It wasn’t exactly the image he wanted to leave with, but he didn’t really have a choice. When it came to seeing his former bride becoming a miracle of science versus wondering why his daughter was shot and killed, the daughter thing was going to win out every time.

  From Monarch’s New York office, he booked his flight, then called Gerhard. He had to know more about Abby’s accident. Gerhard didn’t answer the phone.

  Christian hailed a cab and said to the driver, “JFK Airport, please.” The cabbie loaded his bags, then got in the car and took off. In the back of the Yellow Cab, he called Gerhard ten more times then, when he was about to give up, Gerhard answered. He didn’t sound like himself. Wherever he was, the reception blew.

  “Where are you?” Christian asked.

  “San Francisco. Heading into a tunnel.” He started to say something else when the line went dead. The cabbie arrived at New York’s main airport in no time flat. Christian checked in, then phoned Gerhard again. No answer. Finally the overhead announced first class for his flight was boarding. He stepped onto the plane, trying to ignore the lust-filled looks just about every stewardess was giving him.

  As he was taking his seat, his cell phone buzzed. It was Gerhard. No, Enzo Holland, according to Brayden. Regardless, there was too much static. Holland’s voice was scratchy and breaking apart in a digital wasteland. Finally, discouraged, he hung up and shut off his phone.