Charity For Nothing: The Virtues Book III (9 page)

“
Nothing!
” she cried out, and it was so sweet, so perfect hearing her call out my chosen name I very nearly came right then and there.

“Not yet, Baby, just a little bit more,” I urged, voice tight, controlled the way my thoughts and emotions would never be. I felt like a total basket case, thoughts, fears, anger – not at her but myself, all swirling into a dark miasma that was blown clear away by the fire of my orgasm. I came hard, driving into her. Pulling her back onto me by her shoulders, back stiff and my body taut as I shot jet after jet of my cum inside her.

“Fuck,” I uttered and she went limp against the counter.

“What?” she gasped out after a few unsteady breaths.

“I didn’t use a condom.”

“IUD,” she said.

“Doesn’t protect against STD’s, Baby.”

“I’m clean,” she murmured, her head to the side, cheek pressed against the counter as she rested.

I didn’t like that. I didn’t like that at all, she needed to be more careful than that, period, so I said, “And you’re so sure
I
am?”

She froze and I pulled out of her slowly. Watching a white spill of my sperm slip out of her after my removal was such a dirty fucking turn on I was nearly hard again instantly. Instead, I tucked it back in my pants and buttoned up while she stood slowly, her dress falling to cover her, as she turned and leaned her shapely butt against the counter.

“Are you?” she asked nervous.

“Maybe I am, maybe I’m not. That’s why you should always use a condom.” I wanted her to be safe, at the same time I was angry with myself for letting this happen, for losing control like that. Some sadistic part of me was enjoying her discomfort so I didn’t fess up right away about the status of my sexual health.

“Are you?” she repeated and swallowed hard.

I simply stared back, neither confirming nor denying for the moment.

“You can be a real dick, you know that?” she asked and I neither confirmed nor denied that either.

She cursed and drifted past me and my bike sitting forlorn in pieces in the middle of my kitchen floor. She snatched up her bag and made for the hallway and I broke.

“Charity…”

“Save it, Nothing; just save it,” she said, voice wavering with tears. A moment later I heard a door shut and the bath start to run in the guest bath. A moment or two later and the shower kicked on, right about the same time I started kicking myself.

She was right, that was a real dick thing to fuck around about. I bowed my head and pulled on the back of my neck to ease the tension knotting me up between the shoulder blades. Finally with a sigh, I took a seat on the overturned five gallon bucket, picking up a socket wrench and got back to work. It was hard to concentrate. The feeling of her soft skin on mine a sense memory, a ghost of feeling I hoped hung around a while.

God I was a fucking mess.

Chapter 11

Charity

I shut the bathroom door and started the bath to let it get warm before switching it to the shower. I sat for a minute on the closed lid of the toilet and shook. Sex with him had clearly been a really, really bad idea but it’d felt so amazing at the same time. I buried my face in my hands and scrubbed at it furiously to wipe the tears away.

Why would he do that?
What could he possibly have to gain by saying those things to me?

I stood up and tossed my wet clothes in the sink. My bag was still really damp on the outside, but inside everything was dry. I pulled out the towels and set them on the toilet next to the bathtub and got into the shower. The hot water soothed any residual chills out of me, except for the one that ran through my blood at what he’d said to me…

“Maybe I am, maybe I’m not…”

Who fucking
does
that?

I showered and pulled myself together. For better or worse, I was stuck here until at least the storm was over and who knew how long hurricanes lasted, I hadn’t thought to ask. I stepped out of the shower onto the thick bathmat and wrapped my hair in one towel and my body in the other. I took the time to brush and braid my hair and dressed quickly. Bra, panties, denim short shorts and a pink tank top. I dressed for the Florida heat, and not the way I really wanted to after his comments which was as covered as possible.

When we’d been having sex, I was all for it. It’d felt amazing, wonderful, and had been totally erotic and hot in a desperate down and dirty kind of way. After what he’d implied after, though? Now I was just left feeling dirty and on uncertain ground. I hated mind fucks like the one he’d given me. How was I ever supposed to trust or believe anything he ever said again? I don’t think guys realized what kind of damage they did with those kinds of head games, you know?

I tried to put on a front that looked braver than I felt before going back out to that kitchen to face the music. I was half hoping he would be standing there feeling guilty about what he’d said; hoping he would start immediately apologizing… no such luck. He was seated on a dirty, white, overturned bucket, turning a socket wrench with that familiar ratcheting sound. When I’d been a little girl, before my dad had been kicked out by my mom for what he’d done to Hope, I used to sit on the grass next to the driveway while he worked on his truck.

I closed my eyes now and tried to pretend it was the sun on my face, a book in my hands. I tried to let the sound take me back to that time and place when I’d still had both parents. When I’d felt safe and loved and everything was still bright and shiny with a future full of endless possibilities.

“What are you doing?”

His gruff voice pulled me right out of my fleeting daydream and I sighed. He may not be able to tell the truth, but I would never be that person.

“Pretending I was back home in California, my dad working on his truck in the driveway.”

He squinted at me, hands still working at his bike, “Why would you do that?”

“Because right now, anywhere else would be better than here,” I said softly and he sighed, hanging his head with a soft curse.

“Look, I’m clean, I don’t know why I said that…”

“Because you’re an asshole. Only assholes say things like that to girls they just banged against their kitchen counter.”

“Fair enough, I deserve that.”

“I brought you some food,” I set down the Tupperware containers full of what I’d pilfered from Cutter’s house on the edge of the nearest countertop – the one, thankfully, we hadn’t just fucked against.

“Look, Charity –”

“Save it, Nothing. I don’t want to hear it,” I told him and walked away.

He cursed again and there was a sharp bang and clack followed by what I imagined was his socket wrench skidding across the kitchen floor. I’d left my bag and wet things in his bathroom, but right now, I just wanted to be surrounded by something that was mine. I didn’t want to go wandering through his space, so I went back out to the garage and huddled in the driver’s seat of my Jeep. I cried some more, and I think, eventually, I fell asleep. Had to be better than awake.

God, I was such a stupid girl.

***

I woke up somewhere that wasn’t my brightly colored bed in Cutter’s house. It took me a minute to realize it wasn’t my Jeep, either. I pushed back the black comforter and sat up. The dresser at the foot of the strange bed was made of dark wood, an antique mirror against the wall was attached to it, the silvered glass spotted at one edge where it was either flawed or flaking in the back.

Pictures were tucked into the edges of the mirror, surrounded by the same dark wood as the dresser and foot board of the bed. The storm sounded like it was still going strong out there, and I realized that the light that illuminated the room wasn’t from a nightlight, it was the blue-white light of a battery operated camping lantern.

I threw back the blankets and picked up the lantern from the bedside table, which matched the bed and dresser. I glanced through the doorway beside the bed and noted the small master bath through it, but the pictures around the mirror were like a siren’s call. I couldn’t resist.

The pictures were of a pretty auburn haired woman with blue eyes that held just a hint of lavender to them. She held a smiling girl about four or five and they were laughing at the man behind the camera, sitting in the back of an ambulance’s open bay doors. Tucked behind the picture were two EKG readout strips, one had pen in the upper right hand corner in blocky letters that read ‘Katy.’ The other, when I edged Katy’s out of the way, read ‘Mommy.’

There was another picture above the one with the EKG strips, this one had the ambulance in profile, and standing in front of it, was a younger looking Nothing, the smiling woman tucked against him in the crook of one arm, the little girl sitting on her father’s shoulder, an arm tight over her lap, her arms raised in the air in triumph.

A happy family.
Nothing’s
happy family… except now he was all alone.

I let my eyes roam from picture to picture, settling on a close up of Nothing’s wife. She had pale white scars along the side of her neck, her hair in the first and second picture had hidden them away, but this picture she was coming up out of a swimming pool, her hair slicked back behind her, showing them against her pale, freckled skin. The scars on the side of her throat drew the eye down to the heavy patch of scarring on her chest and so intent was I on the images I didn’t hear the door open, or see Nothing standing there, shoulder against the door jamb until he cleared his throat, scaring the ever living crap out of me. I jumped and put my hands to my chest, startling hard with a short bleated shout.

“I put you in here so you’d be more comfortable than sleeping in your car, not so you could snoop through my shit.”

“I hardly think looking at some photographs in plain view constitutes snooping,” I snapped.

He pushed off the doorframe with a snort, “Whatever. I was coming to see if you wanted something to eat.”

“The power gone out?” I asked.

Nothing raised his eyebrows, “What do you think?”

“I think you’re behaving like a real cocksucker, that’s what I think,” I muttered dispassionately.

He bowed his head, and let it bounce a couple of times before grabbing the back of his neck and pulling to ease the tension between his shoulders. I knew it for what it was, I did the same thing.

“Fair point, well made,” he conceded.

“What I can’t exactly figure out is why?”

He gave a Gallic shrug, “Maybe that’s just the kind of guy I am.”

It was my turn to raise my eyebrows, “Really? The same guy that carried me from my Jeep to his bed so I’d feel more comfortable?” I asked.

He smiled, and it changed his whole face into something different, something beautiful, like an angel that’d fell to earth… or a devil. Wasn’t Lucifer an angel once?

“Fair enough. Hungry?” he asked.

“Is there coffee involved?”

“Power’s out, but I’ve got some energy drinks in the fridge, still cold I think.”

I made a face, “Those are so crap for you.”

“And coffee isn’t?”

I gave him a look that said clearly, ‘don’t be stupid’ and he laughed this time. I hugged myself and went towards him, he reached out and I just automatically shied back. I still felt gross and I think he knew it. His face fell and he nodded, I hoped an apology was coming but no dice.

He just gave me the next best thing instead, “I’m clean, for real. Guess I just felt the need to teach you a lesson.”

“What, to never, ever trust a guy again? Lesson learned.”

A stormy look crossed his face, a scowl, but I don’t think it was aimed at me. He stepped aside and gestured, saying “After you.”

I stepped past him and padded barefoot down the hall to the kitchen. I must have been asleep longer than I’d thought because the motorcycle seemed to be mostly back together, fewer pieces littering the newspaper, which also seemed to have been picked up and refreshed, new lying on the ground.

“What was wrong with it?” I asked.

“Critical leak, needed to replace some gaskets, it’s almost done.”

“How long was I out?”

“Long enough. Can I ask you?” I turned to look at him and waited patiently for the question. ”Why’d you crash in your car? You could have just asked me…” I cut him off.

“What, like I asked if you were clean?” He had the decency to look at least halfway chagrinned.

“Right,” he said instead and held out a plate of food to me, a sandwich, but not like the ones I’d brought with me. Something he’d likely crafted.

“An apology come with this?” I asked softly and my gaze flicked up to his. His gray eyes were shuttered tight, his walls high and impenetrable.

“Nope.”

“Fucking great,” I muttered taking the plate.

“You need to be more careful,” he intoned gravely.

“Thanks, Mom.”

“I’m not your mother, Charity. I’m not your daddy either,” he said when I opened my mouth to be flippant. I shut it resolutely.

“You’re an asshole,” I said finally and he nodded, but there was no smile attached to the movement.

“I won’t disagree with you there,” he said and it was the last bit of talking that we did. He went back to working on his bike and I hoisted myself up to sit on one of the kitchen counters and eat my sandwich. A bite or two in, he rose and wiped off his hands with a rag. He turned opening up the fridge beside me, and wordlessly handed me an energy drink. I eyed him warily and took it, cracking it open. It was cool, but not cold, which I could live with.

I finished the sandwich and sat and watched him work for a while before working up the nerve to ask him, “When does it look like I can leave?”

He paused, his sexy as hell shoulders dropping minutely before he asked, “Can’t wait to get away from me?”

“Do you blame me?”

“No, I guess not… and the hurricane made landfall a couple of hours ago.”

I frowned, “I don’t understand, didn’t it make landfall before I even arrived?”

“That’s a fallacy, Baby.”

“Don’t call me Baby,” I said stopping him, he sat there, mouth hung open mid-response before closing it and nodding once.

“Okay. As I was saying, landfall isn’t when the hurricane starts tearing shit up, it’s when the eye reaches land and passes over.”