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  His chin stopped on her head, and then he crouched to rub his face in her wet hair. A moment later, his hand replaced his face, and he stroked downward, smoothing her hair again.

  As though none of that had happened, Rushe shut off the water and slid open the stall to leave her alone in the puddle that still drifted toward the drain.

  Rushe took no time at all to get himself back together after a shower, but Flick went through her routine and blasted her hair with the blow dryer. Her natural colour mesmerised Rushe, for no reason she could understand. He had a preoccupation with her dirty-blonde hair, which was darker than Flick remembered. Then again, it had been close to a decade since she’d seen it. Rushe’s hair was a dark brown that she likened to the colour of expensive dark chocolate.

  Leaving the towel, and any thought of clothes, behind in the bathroom, Flick entered the bedroom to see that Rushe had changed all the bed linen.

  ‘You’re not usually so domesticated,’ she said. ‘What’s the occasion?’

  ‘We need to re-group,’ he said, capturing her wrist and pulling her onto the bed.

  Flick knew it had to be mid-way through Tuesday, maybe as late as dinnertime, but Rushe apparently wasn’t finished with the sex. Except when her butt hit the bed, something clicked and she was dumbfounded – he’d cuffed her to the headboard again.

  ‘This is ridiculous!’

  ‘You’re not dating other men,’ Rushe said, lying down to spread out.

  ‘I’m not actually dating him. I got a job—‘

  ‘In the Lounge, I got the skinny on you last night.’

  ‘You asked about me? Wasn’t that a bit suspicious?’ Flick’s right wrist hung in the cuff between them; she rolled to face him, leaning on her restrained, central arm.

  ‘Suspicious not to,’ he said, groping her breast. ‘Man, you’ve got great tits.’

  ‘You asked about my breasts?’

  ‘It’s what men notice.’

  Flick wasn’t naive to that, and she’d used that nugget of information, taught to her by Rushe, to her advantage. She now knew how to make sure her face was forgettable.

  ‘Breasts you’ve been very intimate with, you know them better than I do.’

  ‘Those bastards don’t know that,’ Rushe said.

  Flick bashed her chin into the pressure point of his shoulder, but he didn’t react, his attention remained on the ceiling. Although his arm came around her automatically, and he tucked her body closer.

  Being tactile wasn’t a natural urge for Rushe, but he had become accustomed to her body being against his. Now when his form sought hers out, the impulse was subconscious. Maybe it was an act of protection, or maybe it was a sex thing; Flick didn’t care about the why. They were a normal extension of each other. Meaning that without him near, she had felt almost unreal.

  His fingers lost themselves in her hair where they played, and stroked, twisted and twined. Rushe wasn’t conscious of doing it, which only made it more endearing.

  ‘Next time you lie to me I’m going to schedule a breast reduction,’ Flick teased. ‘And I’ll be paying for it with your money, see how you like that.’

  The diagonal slope of his smile was vague. ‘You try it, and when the doc puts you under I’ll triple his fee to make them bigger.’

  Her jaw fell as she sat up, away from his hair-frolicking hand. ‘You wouldn’t!’

  ‘Sure about that?’

  Flick was amazed at how he always knew just what to say and do. If shouting and stomping was required, Rushe was more than capable. Equally, like just now, he could plant a seed in her mind that would take root. He was right, she’d never be sure. Flick might have been kidding, but Rushe had played the hand well because now she’d be too afraid to consider doing anything so rash, in case Rushe followed through.

  ‘You don’t mess with my girls,’ he said, pulling her body onto his.

  Rushe shoved her cuffed hand past his face and laid her down, her back to his front, so he could grope her breasts as if they were on his body.

  ‘They won’t be yours again until there are no restraints.’

  ‘I’ve told you to trash the underwear,’ he said, closing his fingers over her.

  ‘Not that restraint,’ she said. ‘This.’ Flick rattled the cuff again.

  ‘You can’t go back to work there,’ Rushe said.

  ‘Yes, I can, and I will. There are other women there, it’s safe.’

  ‘It’s anything but safe. They have a job ad in the paper every week. The staff turnover is suspicious.’

  ‘I got the job hoping I would find Lisa still working there.’

  ‘She hasn’t worked in the Lounge for weeks. But Lisa is in the hotel.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ Flick asked.

  ‘I haven’t just been sitting on my ass.’

  ‘Tell me more. Who is she in a relationship with?’

  ‘Joey, but you don’t need to know—‘

  ‘Lover,’ she said, clamping her hands on his to still their movement on her breasts. ‘Tell me about the best sex you ever had.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard me, what was her name?’

  ‘What the fuck do—‘

  ‘We’re a team, Rushe. I came with you to be part of the team. You trust me, or you don’t. You know I’m strong enough to handle this. You fell in love with a fighter. Why do you expect me to roll over and play dead now?’

  Rushe squeezed. ‘You never do as you’re told.’

  She turned her face toward his arm. ‘If I’d done what you told me to, I wouldn’t be with you now.’

  ‘You’d be safe.’

  ‘I’d be unhappy,’ Flick said, but chose to lighten the mood by joking with him. ‘We’re going to learn how to do this together... If you can’t adjust, I’ll demand you get a nine to five that requires you to wear a suit to the office every day, then we’ll have to get married... and I’ll have to start squeezing out the kids and—‘

  ‘Ok,’ he griped. ‘You’ve made your point.’

  ‘You better make me happy, or I’ll make you miserable,’ she teased. ‘Whatever we do from here, we do together.’

  A forgotten fantasy zipped her senses and Flick sat up on Rushe, getting to only forty-five degrees because of the cuffs.

  ‘What is it?’ Rushe asked.

  ‘Nothing, I was just reminded of...’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That morning, in the shack... when you woke up and I was...’

  ‘Sucking me off,’ Rushe said, relaxing back while Flick remained seated on his abdomen. ‘If it’ll make you feel better you can—‘

  ‘No,’ she said, bringing her legs around to the side so she could see him. ‘It’s me. I’m the woman.’

  ‘What woman?’

  Flick knew she wasn’t making much sense. There was no time to explain herself because there was a knock at the front door. The bedroom might be as dark as night, but they both knew it wasn’t night outside.

  ‘Did you order pizza?’ Flick asked.

  ‘Order pizza then come in to fuck you?’

  ‘That sounds exactly like you, yes,’ Flick said, aware of his necessity of forethought.

  Rushe reached to open the nightstand drawer without moving the rest of his body.

  ‘Your buddies?’

  ‘No,’ Rushe said, finding and checking the pager. ‘Wait here.’

  He shunted her body away and swiped his jeans from the floor. ‘What if it’s people come to kill you,’ Flick said, desperate to be at his side in case he needed help. ‘I’m tied to your bed naked; they could do anything to me.’

  ‘I could do with a good fight.’

  Rushe pinched her nipple and moved away before she could catch him. So Flick could only watch as he left her alone in the bedroom, again. She expected Rushe to get rid of the interruption, but she didn’t expect to hear shouting, especially from an unfamiliar voice. Flesh hit flesh, something crashed, and the yelling stopped abruptly.

  Flick p
ulled at the cuff and twisted her body to get her feet against the headboard. Trying to pry the bed bars loose was useless, so she tried to squeeze her hand out of the cuff. The pressure on her bones made them instantly ache but she had to get free, she had to get out there. The man she loved could be hurt, in need, but Flick couldn’t call out. She couldn’t make any intruders aware that she—

  The bedroom door swung open, ricocheting off the closet in the wall. Her pounding heart overwhelmed her breath; the panic seized her until Flick recognised her own personal thunder filling the entrance.

  ‘Rushe!’

  With two strides, he was at her side, unlocking the cuffs. In her moment of freedom, Flick flung her arms around his neck and locked her ankles on his back.

  ‘I was scared, I thought they hurt you!’

  ‘How many guys you had around here?’ Rushe asked.

  Flick didn’t care about the way he heckled her, but to shut him up she clashed her mouth onto his. He hadn’t touched her; his hands remained loose at his sides.

  ‘The smallest hint of danger makes you horny, Kitten,’ he said, tipping his head back to separate his mouth from hers.

  ‘Why do you think you turn me on so much?’

  Flick let her body slide down his until her centre met the tell-tale mass of his equivalent arousal.

  ‘No,’ he said, taking hold of her hips to force her back onto the bed, where Flick bounced down onto the mattress. ‘Put your clothes on.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I knocked him out.’

  ‘Who?’ Flick asked, and was up off the bed in a flash. Rushe caught her wrist and swung her around against his body to prevent her from exiting the bedroom. ‘What?’

  ‘Clothes.’

  Being naked in this place had sort of become second nature to Flick, so much so that it hadn’t registered. Dragging open one of Rushe’s drawer’s – because it was the closest – Flick grabbed a tee-shirt to pull on as she left the bedroom.

  ‘Who is it?’ Flick called over her shoulder to Rushe before she reached the person, whose body was hidden by the kitchen wall so she could only see a pair of prone legs.

  ‘Michael Lewis,’ Rushe responded, while sauntering out of the bedroom.

  Flick got to the legs in time to make the ID for herself. ‘If you knew that, why did you hit him?’

  ‘He approached you in the street,’ Rushe said.

  ‘He approached me in the street,’ Flick muttered, tucking a hand into Rushe’s jeans pocket when he joined her; personal space was nothing to Rushe where she was concerned. ‘So that earned him a concussion?’

  ‘He’s lucky that’s all he got.’

  Michael groaned, and Flick hopped over his leg to crouch at Michael’s side. ‘Michael, can you hear me?’ Flick asked. ‘Rushe, go get an ice pack.’

  ‘Not a chance,’ Rushe said, and began to move away.

  ‘You did this,’ she shouted after her lover.

  ‘Which is why I ain’t undoing it.’

  Michael groaned again and rolled to his side so Flick forgot Rushe. ‘Are you ok?’ Flick asked Michael when he tried to sit. ‘Take your time.’

  ‘What happened?’ he asked, finally managing to sit up, clutching at his head in the process.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Flick asked, deliberately ignoring Michael’s question.

  He took a few seconds to survey his surroundings, to get his bearings, and then a flash of understanding seized Michael’s features.

  ‘Rushe,’ Michael said, while attempting to stand.

  ‘You don’t want to talk to Rushe right now,’ Flick said, unsure where her lover was but hoping he would stay there.

  ‘I do. I do! Where’s my sister? It’s been a week! It’s been...’ Rushe reappeared, and Michael trailed off. ‘You hit me... Are you Rushe?’

  ‘Your sister is in deep,’ Rushe said. ‘But not unhappy about it.’

  Once again, Flick wondered about prioritising sex over talking.

  ‘No,’ Michael said. ‘No, she’s a kid. She doesn’t know what she’s doing.’

  ‘She’s doing Joey and his father.’

  Flick was amazed by how calm Rushe was while delivering such shocking news. But he had been doing this type of work for a long time.

  ‘How do you know that?’ Flick and Michael asked in unison.

  ‘I’ve seen her.’

  ‘Having sex?’ Flick asked Rushe. ‘With both of them?’

  ‘No,’ Rushe said.

  ‘My sister is a good, kind person,’ Michael said, and with Flick’s assistance he managed to get to his feet.

  ‘So?’

  ‘She’s not a slut.’

  ‘Nothing wrong with being a slut,’ Rushe said, scanning Flick’s figure in an unusually detached way. ‘You don’t know what your sister is.’

  ‘Where did you see her?’ Flick asked.

  ‘In the Lounge,’ Rushe answered.

  ‘That’s impossible.’ Flick shook her head. ‘I—‘

  ‘Last night.’

  Flick hadn’t been working; she’d been on her date with Whyte.

  ‘What did she say?’ Michael asked. ‘Did she look well? Were they making her take drugs? Why didn’t you bring her home?’

  ‘You asked me to locate her, not extract her, that’s extra.’

  ‘You want more money?’ Michael asked, and Flick was as surprised as he was.

  ‘We’re no charity, and this is serious shit,’ Rushe said.

  ‘Serious, how?’

  ‘You’re talking about messing with a crime syndicate. These kinda guys don’t give up shit for nothing.’

  ‘I want her back, we’ll pay, whatever—‘

  ‘You’ve got dick,’ Rushe said. ‘It’ll take you a lifetime to pay off what you owe us already.’

  ‘How do you know about my finances?’ Michael said. ‘You can’t walk away, you can’t leave her there, and you said yourself that it’s dangerous.’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘If you won’t help I’ll find somebody else who can.’

  ‘Great,’ Rushe said. ‘Now beat it.’

  Flick knew Michael had no other options, he’d said as much to her on the street. Rushe remained apathetic while Michael lingered.

  ‘We’ll get her back,’ Flick said. ‘We wouldn’t leave an innocent person in harm’s way.’

  ‘She’s no innocent,’ Rushe muttered.

  ‘Michael, you have our word that we will get her back for you. But you can’t come here like this, it’s unsafe... for all of us. Please, go, now, we’ll be in touch when we have something positive to report.’

  ‘You’ll get her back?’

  ‘Yes,’ Flick said, directing him to the door. ‘Don’t come back here.’

  She opened the door for him. ‘Thank you,’ Michael said. Flick pushed him out, closed the door, then spun on Rushe.

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘I don’t like him.’

  ‘So...? What has that got to do with it?’ Flick said, and had to hurry to catch Rushe when he began to walk away. ‘You don’t like anyone.’

  ‘I make my own rules.’

  ‘I’m going to help them,’ she said, and stopped at the end of the dinner table. ‘Are you going to leave me out there alone?’

  ‘Why do you care?’ Rushe asked, spinning around.

  Flick had to think about this for a second, but the truth was so clear for her. ‘Because I know what it’s like to be alone. I know what it is to be desperate, to need help, and to have no one to turn to.’

  On a nasal inhale, Rushe’s face went up and his shoulders went back. ‘Fine.’

  ‘That was... easier than I thought it would be.’

  ‘Are you ready to walk away?’ Rushe asked, coming toward her, disregarding her previous words.

  ‘I’ve already told you I’m not—‘

  ‘Not from me,’ Rushe said. ‘In this game things can go wrong fast. If I tell you we’re leaving, do not hesitate. You understand me?’r />
  ‘But—‘

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘When your game is fucking people over, you get paranoid.’

  ‘We’re not fucking anybody over.’

  ‘Not us,’ Rushe said. ‘Them. If these guys get clued in, about us, about our questions or our connection, they will pull the trigger.’ Flick nodded and was surprised to feel Rushe link his fingers between hers. ‘I will pull the trigger.’

  ‘What do you—?’

  ‘I don’t know how involved the King Club are in this. We do not want to make enemies of them, that’s serious trouble.’

  ‘As opposed to what we’ve dealt with in the past,’ she asked.

  ‘I’m telling you that I’ll do what I need to do.’

  ‘I haven’t forgotten who you are. I know that you’re capable of doing what needs to be done. I won’t let you down.’ Rushe nodded, but she could see he was still unconvinced. ‘What now?’

  ‘Sex.’

  ‘Stupid question,’ Flick said and let Rushe lead her back through to the bedroom to continue with their spree.

  Each had a lot to get out of their system, things were more intense now, but instead of regret she felt strong. Rushe was with her. He trusted her. Flick knew she could rely on him. Now she needed Rushe to realise the same in return.

  Chapter Ten

  Tuesday night was great. Flick had a dozen questions, but Rushe screwed her curiosity out of her on the promise that they’d talk about it on Wednesday.

  Rushe couldn’t cook to save his life, so Flick made them a meal. In a show of appreciation, he ate her for dessert right there on the living room floor. Having the following day together was good, and she even heard him laugh with ease.

  His repose was surprising because Wednesday was the night of her date with Whyte. Subsequent to their afternoon having sex Flick went into the shower alone, which was surprising in itself. She got out, went through her routine, and came in to the bedroom to change her clothes.

  Rushe came up beside her as she perused her wardrobe, then he started to kiss her, to fondle her breasts, and tell her just what he wanted to do to her.