"And that's what you're doing now," I said, my sense of relief palpable. I knew Tempest wasn't the same as her parents, no matter what she thought. I knew she was different from them.
"We grift people who are bad guys," she said. "Murderers, pedophiles, corporate executives who are responsible for stealing their employees' pensions. We make them pay. And then we take care of the victims, the people who were hurt by them. Before, there was no justice for Johnny and Deborah and their daughter. Now they'll be taken care of, for a long time, at least. It's enough to get them back on their feet."
"It's different from what your parents did," I noted.
"My parents conned indiscriminately - it didn't matter to them if you were honest or dishonest. They would have had me pickpocket a nun if they thought she was carrying cash. That's how I was raised. My father used to say that everyone was a potential mark. It just so happened that it's easier to pull a long con on a bad guy, because, well, they tend to be dishonest and greedy, so that's how a lot of their games played out."
"Is that how it played out in West Bend?" I asked. I ran my hand down her back, feeling the softness of her skin under my fingers. I lingered on her tattoos, tracing the outline of one of the birds on her shoulder.
Tempest raised her eyebrows. "Well, the people they grifted here never turned them in. They didn't pursue them in any way. So what does that tell you?"
"That they were dishonest," I said, my fingers lingering on the wings of the bird tattoo. I peered at the feathers, the purples and blues that swirled together. "What's the bird tattoo?"
"They were dishonest," she answered. She paused, glancing at her shoulder before responding to my question. "It's a swallow."
I traced over the edges. "It's beautiful," I said. "Really nice ink. What does it mean?"
Tempest looked at me and flicked her tongue over her lower lip, and for a moment, I was distracted by what she was doing. "Travelers get them a lot," she said. "In old times, sailors got tattoos of swallows to mark the number of miles they'd traveled. So it's just a symbol of freedom, you know? Being on the road. Never looking back."
"Is that what you've been doing?" I asked, tracing my finger around and around the tattoo, raising goose bumps on her skin. "Walking away and never looking back?"
She exhaled heavily. Wearily, I thought. "It's what I do, Silas," she said. "One of the rules."
"What rules?" I asked.
"Grifter rules," she said. "My rules. Never stop moving. Don't look back."
"Those are the two rules you live by, then?" I asked. "Some kind of grifter's code?"
She shook her head. "They're just mine."
"Any other rules, or is that it?"
"One more," she said. "Don't fall in love."
I was silent, my finger tracing down her arm before I brought it back up to her shoulder and down between her breasts. Her nipples rose to attention at my touch, and she squirmed in front of me.
I didn't tell her that she was wrong about the swallow tattoo. Swallows might represent freedom and travel - but she was forgetting the most important part.
And that was the fact that no matter how many thousands of miles they traveled, swallows always returned home.
29
Tempest
I woke to Silas moving beside me.
"Sorry," he said. "I wasn't trying to wake you. I just had to get up to brush my teeth. And take a leak."
"Classy," I said, rolling over onto my stomach in the bed and sliding up his body until my head was on his chest, my cheek pressed up against his warm skin.
I didn't want to move from where I was laying. I wanted to stay like this for as long as I could.
That fact was frightening. Staying here for a few days was one thing, but more than that? Letting myself get used to this with Silas wasn't a good idea.
And yet, it's the only thing I wanted to do.
Silas ran his hand over my hair, the strands clinging to his hands momentarily, then falling back into place as he let them go. "How did you sleep?"
"Good," I said, the response automatic. The memory of last night was etched on my brain - Silas and I moving in sync, sweat glistening on our skin. I had fallen asleep in Silas' arms afterward, my need completely satiated. I hadn’t slept that well in years. "How did you sleep?"
"Mmm," he murmured, pulling me up to him, close, so that my breasts brushed against his chest. He kissed me lightly on the lips, but I pushed him away.
"I have morning breath," I said.
"Obviously," he said. "This is real life, not a romance novel."
I laughed. "Well, let me brush my teeth, then."
Silas squeezed the flesh of my ass cheek and pressed me against him. "Oh, you don't want to get out of bed, do you? It's all nice and warm in here. It's cold and lonely out there."
"I really have to pee," I said, pushing away from him.
He groaned loudly. "Come on, bright eyes," he said. "You know you want a piece of this."
I laughed as I walked into the bathroom and shut the door behind me. Being here with Silas in his place felt comfortable. It wasn't like the morning after that we'd had in Las Vegas, the one where I felt awkward and tentative. This felt like being someplace familiar.