Page 2 of Nightfire

She was scrawny more than thin, as if not only didn’t she eat enough, but what she did eat was crap. Mike outweighed her by more than a hundred twenty pounds. She’d picked him up in a bar, a drunk and powerfully-built man, and now she was provoking him.

She slapped him, then stepped right up into his face, features twisted in a sneer, mouth blurry with smeared lipstick. “You hear me, you asshole? You fuck me till I’m done, not till you’re done. And go puke somewhere else, limp-dick asshole.”

Mike simply looked at her, breathing down another spasm of bile.

She watched him, dark eyes bright with anticipation. She’d just challenged him, insulted his manhood.

There was a script for this, a set sequence of events, one she was waiting for, trembling for. He was supposed to start whaling on her, beating her bloody. Right about…now.

She expected it. Wanted it. Was quivering for it. And, if he could read female arousal right, and he had years of experience at it, she was getting off on the idea of being beaten up. By him.

Mike couldn’t breathe.

He needed to get out of here, fast. Needed to get out of this disgusting bathroom, out of this disgusting apartment, out of this disgusting life. Now.

She was standing in the doorway to the bathroom, blocking his way.

Mike reached out to close his hands on her shoulders. Under his big hands, her bones felt like bird bones, barely covered by skin. She shivered, an uncontrollable movement of excitement. The game was about to begin, and man, she was so up for it.

But instead of flinging her against the wall, Mike simply lifted her slightly off the ground and gently put her down a foot to the right so he could get out of this damned bathroom and get to his clothes before what was roiling in his stomach could come up and out again.

He was pulling up his jeans when he felt her push his back. “You son of a bitch!” she screamed. “Where the fuck you think you’re going, huh? You’re gonna stay right here and get the job done, you bastard.”

Mike looked around for his boots, hearing her screeching voice as if it came from a distance, like a fly buzzing and batting against the window pane.

He found his boots—one under the bed, one lying on its side under a rickety, splintered chair. He remembered tearing them off. He’d been in a rush to get his clothes off, get them into the bed. Not because he’d been consumed by lust, he now recognized, but because he wanted to start fucking before the smell, and the filthy mess he could see even in the dim light, turned him completely off.

Now that he’d puked up most of the alcohol and was semi-sober, he realized he’d been right to hurry because what he saw was enough to switch his dick right off.

He was a Marine—even if he’d been SWAT with the SDPD and was now a partner in a thriving security business with his brothers, once a Marine, always a Marine. Marines were neat and organized. This awful hovel looked like rats nested here. Clothes flung everywhere, not one thing folded. The bed had been unmade last night, sheets filthy and stained. The whole place stank of sweat and sex and despair and—oh God—now that he was paying attention, a space was cleared off a table, with a mirror and a razor blade and some white powder that had scattered.

Shit. Fuck. Oh, fuck.

A cokehead. He’d fucked a cokehead. Half-fucked a cokehead.

She was screaming abuse at him, kicking him, trying to pummel him with her fists. Mike was tempted to just stand there and let her abuse him because he deserved it.

He was 36 years old. He’d been a soldier and a damned good one. He’d been SWAT, the best on the force. And now he was a partner in one of the most successful security companies in the country.

He was one of the good guys.

So what the fuck was he doing here with a cokehead? One with mental problems too. What was the matter with him?

He tuned back into what she was screaming.

“—ing asshole, what the fuck do you think you’re doing, you fuckhead, you can’t even keep it up, I thought I was bringing home a man but I was bringing home a faggot who can’t keep it up…”

Mike tuned back out as he put on his jacket. If there had been anything even remotely funny about any of this, he’d laugh. His big problem in life up to now hadn’t been keeping it up, but keeping it down.

Sex had always been a sort of refuge, a way to turn his head, his feelings off. Like running, only more fun. Sweaty brainless exercise.

This…he didn’t know what this was. It wasn’t sex. It wasn’t fun. It was a glimpse into a dark part of himself that scared him shitless. A dark part that inevitably led to a black, dank future made up of filthy holes like this one, touching rock bottom over and over and over again.

Her screams were louder now that she realized he was actually leaving and she wasn’t going to get fucked or beaten up.

Shit. She was making a terrible racket. Someone was going to call the cops and wouldn’t that be the perfect end to a perfect day? Have his old cop buddies forced to haul his ass down to the cop shop.

His buddies in law enforcement knew he wasn’t capable of hurting a woman. Some of them even knew that his company, RBK Security Inc, secretly helped battered and abused women escape from their tormentors and set up somewhere else with a new life. Their own underground railroad.