Vice(39)

Natalia’s cheeks turn a delicate shade of red. She glances away, fiddling with the strap of her rifle. “Well. She said you were always a bully when you were little. You’d never let her play with you and your friend from next door. You were fiercely protective of her, though. You would never let anyone else pick on her. She told me you were strong and protective. She said you had a dog called Arry that you loved more than anything when you were in school, and that you cried when it got loose and ran away.” She pauses, watching me slyly out of the corner of her eye. “She said you never knew, but your father hit the dog with his car and it died. No one ever told you, because they knew how upset you would be.”

“God damn it. I f*cking knew that dog hadn’t run away.”

She laughs, her voice all silvery and gentle. “And…Laura said that I would like you. She said you were handsome, and that women were always throwing themselves at you, and you never noticed.” Her cheeks have turned an even darker shade of crimson now, and she can’t seem to focus on anything apart from the rifle strap in her hands. “I can see now why she would say that,” she whispers.

“You think I’m handsome?” I’m teasing her, using a playful tone, but it embarrasses her, I think. She throws her head back, tilting her chin at me defiantly.

“And so what? You’d be a liar if you told me you didn’t think I was beautiful. I know you do. I’ve seen the way you look at me.”

“How do I look at you, Natalia?”

She huffs and puffs, getting herself all flustered, and it’s the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen. “Like you already think you own me. Like I’m already yours, and you’re planning how you want to enjoy me.”

“I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t pictured us f*cking, Natalia, but I’d never think I owned you. One person can’t own another. You can only own someone’s heart, and that has to be given freely in the first place.”

She shuts up. I don’t think she was prepared for me to admit I’ve been fantasizing about her. She must have thought I’d deny it point-blank, but f*ck. What’s the point in that? I’m a cards face-up kind of guy. I don’t like guessing or teasing, and I don’t like wasting time. In the past, being so forthright has gotten me into trouble, lots of trouble, but it’s better to be honest than to hide behind lies all damn day long. I won’t do it. I’d rather be shot down in flames than never know where I stand.

“If my father heard you say you daydream about me like that, he would kill you on the spot,” she says.

“Good thing he’s not around, then.”

“He could be.”

“We’d better lose him, then. Care to lead the way?”

She gives me a rueful smirk, an “okay, wise guy” kind of smirk, but she sets of walking in a northerly direction, shifting her rifle from one shoulder to the other. Walking four feet behind her, I get a stellar view of her ass as her hips swing from side to side, and I have to remind myself that I can’t actually pursue this woman. I f*cking can’t. I’ll lose my dick before I get to exact my revenge for Laura, and then what will I have to live for? No more meaningless sex, and no more jerking off. I might as well be dead, too.

“You can’t go any faster?” Natalia calls over her shoulder. “My grandmother used to move through the forest faster than you.”

“I live in New Mexico. Do you have any idea how rare it is to see a tree there, let alone this many of them, all pressing together trunk to trunk like this?”

“Stop complaining. I know you’re not from New Mexico. You’re from Alabama. They have plenty of trees there. Laura told me. Bayous, too.”

I’m beginning to resent the fact that this woman knows so much about me, when I don’t really know anything about her. Nothing at all, really. Asking questions of her seems unkind, though. Any answers she might be able to give me will inevitably lead back to her father, and I don’t want to upset her unnecessarily. A part of me doesn’t want to hear it, either. She never said the words, but they were there, hanging between us like a motherf*cking noose all the same: her father won’t let another man near her normally. No man…except him. I feel sick to my stomach.

A low rumble of thunder overhead scatters birds from the trees, and I feel it—a shiver of electricity through the air, powerful enough to make the hairs on my arms stand to attention. Natalia looks up, studying the small patch of sky that’s visible through a tiny chink in the canopy overhead.

“It’s time,” she says. “The rain is coming. We’d better find somewhere to wait it out, otherwise we’ll be soaked.”

“I don’t think there are that many watertight buildings out here,” I observe.

“Oh, you’d be surprised.” Grinning, she sets off running, just as her father did earlier. It’s much harder to keep up with her than it was to pace him, though. She’s nimble and small, light on her feet, and I’m a hundred and eighty-five pounds of muscle, packed onto a broad, 6’3” frame. Suffice it to say, I am not graceful or silent as I crash through the undergrowth behind her.

I’m starting to feel the burn in my lungs when the heavens open and the rain begins to fall. Describing this as rain feels misleading. This is more than rain. This is a torrential downpour, so sudden and violent that it’s like being hosed down by riot police. And I should know, I’ve been doused by the five-oh more than once in my lifetime.