Page 1 of Nightfire

ONE

San Diego, January 3

“Harder,” she moaned. Mike Keillor gritted his teeth, started moving faster, harder. The cheap, filthy bed creaked so much he was afraid it would come apart. “Harder,” she insisted. The woman under him was red-faced, glassy-eyed, teeth clenched hard as his hips slapped against hers.

“More,” she hissed. When they’d come stumbling into her filthy apartment, drunk and kissing, she’d said she wanted to be held down during sex. So he was holding her down, big hands clenched tightly around her wrists. She bucked up against him, hard, pelvis banging against his, and moaned again.

That was pain he heard.

Startled, Mike stopped moving inside her, lifted his hands. Her wrists were red, starting to swell. He could see his finger marks.

God.

He had big, strong hands. His father’s hands. Tough, sinewy hands. Hands that could hurt. Hands that had hurt this woman.

Mike had his father’s hands, but he had never seen his father touch his mother or his kids with anything other than gentleness and tenderness and love.

His father’s hands had hurt this woman.

And she liked it.

This was sickness. Madness.

Horror boiled up inside him.

Mike pulled out of her, rolled over and ran around the tiny apartment looking for a toilet. He pulled open the door to the closet, to a minuscule kitchenette and finally found the door to the bathroom. He flung up the seat with a loud thunk, barely making it in time to throw up into the brown-stained toilet.

He vomited the six beers with whiskey chasers, the plate of greasy fries he’d used to anchor the alcohol and above all he vomited up the fact that he’d been fucking a woman he hurt and who wanted him to hurt her

Michael Keillor didn’t hurt women. Ever. The thought that he just had kept him hovering over the filthy toilet, one hand braced against the dirt-streaked tiles, as he coughed up bile.

“Hey!” A sharp fingernail poked his naked back. “You shithead! You left me hanging. Fuck’s ‘a matter with you?”

Mike had no idea. He stared into the godawful brown-streaked toilet that hadn’t been cleaned in months.

What was the matter with him?

Good question.

What the fuck was he doing here?

Even better question.

His dick was down, the rubber hanging limply off it. He pulled it off, threw it an overflowing waste basket.

“Hey, you motherfucker!” She thumped his back, hard. “I’m talking to you!”

Mike turned to face her.

He had no idea who she was. He didn’t remember her name. Maybe she hadn’t told him. Maybe he hadn’t asked.

The bar had been dark and loud and they had communicated mainly by her hand on his crotch, rubbing his dick. Five minutes after he’d first set eyes on her, they’d been staggering out the door to this apartment a block away.

She wasn’t a working girl. She hadn’t asked for money. All she wanted was a fuck.

And for him to hurt her.

He could see it now, the fine scars crisscrossing her face, two knife scars on her naked chest, old and new bruises. She’d been hurt already, a lot.