“If you’re trying to flatter me, calling me a piece of ass is the wrong way.”
“You know you love it,” he says, stroking my arm. “You took that spanking like a champ. Queen in the streets, slut in the sheets.”
“If you ever call me a slut again I’ll kick you in the balls.”
“If you try to kick me in the balls I’m going to have to fuck your brains out.”
“Quentin,” I whimper. “I don’t know how to feel about this.”
“Me either,” he says. “What a fucking mess.”
“I don’t want to believe you hurt people.”
“Killed. Let’s not dance around the bush.”
“I don’t believe you’re a murder. A monster wouldn’t have been so kind with my children, or…me.”
I sniffle a little and scrub at my nose with his sheets. He deserves it.
“When I’m gone I want you to remember me like that. Not like this. Remember how good it was.”
“What if they don’t come? What if they just let you go? Why can’t you stay?”
“Rose, you don’t understand what’s at stake here. A very, very bad man wants to kill me and he’ll hurt people to make me suffer first.”
I sit up and grab his arm. “You’ll kill him first, won’t you?”
“What?” He looks genuinely surprised.
“You can protect us.”
“Rose, did you miss the part where I just told you I kill people for money? I’m not a protector.”
“You protected those girls.”
“I know, but…” he trails off. He sighs. “The best thing I can do to protect you is go.”
“Don’t.”
“I have to. Not yet. I can stay a while longer. I shouldn’t leave today with the fucking circus in town outside or whatever it is, but tomorrow I’m going to have to go.”
I nod. “I need a shower.”
“I need to join you.”
15
Quentin
For a moment I only lie on the bed as I watch Rose stand up, her legs trembling as she shivers. She instinctively covers her chest with her arms, still embarrassed in her nudity. Innocence clings to her like the fresh scent of flowers after a summer breeze has faded. Once she’s on her feet I swing my legs over and stand up behind her, slipping my arms around her waist as I rest my chin on her head.
Rose smirks and wriggles her ass against me. I start to stiffen and she giggles.
“Easy there, give me a minute.”
She pulls at my arms and I reluctantly let go and satisfy myself with holding her hips. She pulls me along into the bathroom and turns on the shower, sighing as the room fills with steam.
“Stop sniffing me,” she says as I sniff at her neck.
“No.”
I like the scent, the way she smells when she’s covered head to toe in sweat. Before I let her ruin it by washing off, I grab her and stick my face in her armpit, and she squirms and squeals and halfheartedly struggles until I breathe my fill and let her go.
She only stops shivering when she’s under the water, and the sight of it pouring down her back makes me harder. I step in after her and pull the door shut, crowding her.
“I can’t move,” she protests.
“Why do you get to stand under the water? It’s freezing in here.”
“If you’re going to stand so close, you can help me wash up.”
I don’t need to be told twice. I pull her back to my chest and grab a bar of soap from the wall and start lathering it up on her stomach, covering my hands in soap before I set it aside and lather up her breasts. No subtlety here. The end is getting close.
I’m never going to see her again. I let her soapy skin slide under my palms with adoring resignation, committing to memory the silky feel of her flesh and the way she gasps when my palms run rough over her nipples. It’ll keep me warm on lonely nights when I’m running from nowhere to noplace.
Rose leans against me as I massage her shoulders. She’s not so tense now but it makes her purr like a cat. I reach around her and turn the showerhead to sluice the soap off her body. It gives me a reason to rest my head on her shoulder.
Then I turn the lever and the faucet starts flooding the bottom. I tap the plug with my foot so it will fill, and pull Rose to me, drawing her to sit with me as the tub fills around us. She shivers harder, her teeth chattering until the hot water rises up to our shoulders.
She sinks to her chin into the water, sliding her back against me in the process. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of a woman’s skin in warm water. Her head falls on my chest.
“We can’t stay in here too long. My kids…”
“Lean forward.”
She sits up and draws up her knees. I rise behind her, take the soap, and scrub her back, first lather, then lightly scratching with my nails. She shudders when I do but smiles, contented. After I rinse her back I reach up and knock a bottle of shampoo into my hands, squeeze a big gob into my palm, and start lathering up her hair.