Explicit Instruction (20 page)

‘No I didn’t, stop messing around
.’

Rushe’s
cantankerous reaction was all the confirmation Flick needed. But she wouldn’t tease him, because she didn’t want to discourage him. If she chased his smile away too far it might never come back. But it was so warming to know that she’d caused... or at least been a part of a moment of happiness in his life no matter how fleeting.

‘Ok, let’s go.’

Patting his chest, Flick let him clamber off her to straighten himself out, and get that frown glued back into place. Rushe rubbed at his jeans checking what mess she’d made.

‘Kitten,’ he scolded
, but he slapped his thigh and let it go.

‘Let’s get moving,
’ Flick said.

‘You’re naked.’

‘I was naked in the car last night.’

‘I’m not letting you
go out there naked,’ he said. ‘Not a chance in hell.’

‘Do you think there are men out there who haven’t seen breasts before?’ she asked
, stepping into her jeans and pulling them up, never having had the notion to go outside without dressing first anyway.

‘Probably,’ he said
, retrieving the knife then hauling the duffel off the floor while she put on her sweater and swiped up her underwear, sure to leave nothing behind. ‘But that’s not my concern.’

‘What’s your concern?’

‘They’re my breasts,’ he said, opening the motel room door. Flick paused to look at him. ‘What?’

‘Your breasts?’

‘Yes,’ he said, without shame. ‘Your tits mean more to me than they do to you, so why haggle over ownership?’

Flick was sure if she hadn’t scared his sm
ile away it might have poked its head over the horizon again. ‘You’re taking ownership of the breasts attached to my body.’

‘Yeah.
Problem?’

‘
No,’ she said, with few other options.

While he dumped the bag in the trunk
, Flick settled herself into the passenger side, then Rushe climbed in and got them started.

‘Seatbelt,’ he said.

‘Can I have your penis?’ she asked, while obeying.

‘Now?’ he asked
, with a hand on her headrest while he reversed from the parking spot.

‘If you own my breasts...’

‘We’ll work out a timeshare,’ he said, swinging them out of the lot and through the dark city streets.

‘That hardly seems fair. You’ve already laid claim to my vagina, and now you’re claiming my breasts.’

‘He takes a lot of looking after,’ Rushe said, as intent on the road and as stoic as ever, even despite this teasing.

‘You’re amazing,’ she sighed.

‘What?’

‘Who
is this guy you’re meeting?’ she asked, knowing that he’d never understand or accept the statement.

Flick might not know who Rushe was
, but he proved the adage that still waters ran deep. He’d yielded to her fear again. When he told her that he wasn’t involved with the trafficking Flick believed him, though that didn’t explain his reasons for being mixed up with Victor, Skeeve, and the others. There was more going on here than met the eye, and if Flick ever needed proof of that, all she had to do was remember that look on his face; she’d made him smile.

No
amount of begging would make Rushe take her out of the vehicle. While he reminded her that she’d promised to behave, Flick didn’t feel compelled not to try to go to the meeting. Trying was always the first step toward success, without it no chance of succeeding existed. But Rushe wasn’t interested in her reasoning.

The car was parked on a
well-lit street, he’d told her to stay put, and while part of her wanted to chase after him, she knew better.

Being locked up in a car might not be fun
, but if she’d listened to Rushe in the first place she wouldn’t be in this mess, and likely neither would he. Just the memory of that first night made Flick wonder about her motivation for refusing his advice. There could be no reason to warn someone not to go into a place. Clearly, the only trouble on the street was the owner of the warning voice, and he was telling her to keep moving.

Back
in that shack she’d believed Rushe indifferent. She’d thought she could never pleasure a man like Rushe but she had, though she wasn’t very sure how. Tonight wasn’t their usual fuck session.

Since they’d rolled into that motel room what went on between them wasn’t animal mating for copulation
, it was animal bonding. Women were always jeered for coupling sex and emotion. Rushe would never admit to having feelings for her, it would just never happen. He’d never whisper words of affection and romance to her in the still of night.

Much as she didn’t want to admit it
, Flick knew that they had no future. If they both got through this, and Rushe wasn’t sent to jail for a million years, he’d never be happy with a meek librarian. This bond between them was forged because of the danger they could both face at any second.

Maybe she would get a screw out of it
, but Rushe wouldn’t hang around. Flick had nothing to offer him, and being with a criminal wouldn’t offer much stability. Being with Rushe would involve giving up any dreams she might have of love and security, home and children. But he’d be worth it. Rushe would say different. That was why there would never be a future. He’d tell her to “get” and then he’d disappear into the sunset, and she’d never see him again, because he would believe that was what was in her best interest.

Swiping some errant tears from her
face, Flick slunk down in her seat to look around outside. Then she saw him. Rushe, in a lit up diner on the corner of the block diagonally opposite where he’d parked the car. Whether he did it to give her sight of where he was, or so he could keep her in his view, Flick didn’t care.

This
view gave her the chance to be a part of whatever this was. It could give her the chance to understand. If she hadn’t caught a glimpse of Rushe before he sat down she’d have missed him. Just one man sat at the same table, and though Flick could only see his profile, she was sure she’d seen him somewhere before.

But he wasn’t
Shiv or Skeeve, Glen or the Kid, and no one else had been at the shack. He definitely wasn’t in Victor’s office. This wasn’t John, or the driver in the car that brought her to Victor’s place, it definitely wasn’t him either.

Flick mentally ticked off places, taking
careful notes of where she’d been, and what she’d seen. During her long deliberation, she concluded that she would make a terrible detective. Recognising someone wasn’t what was important, placing him was important. His name didn’t matter, his job, or his family. If she could put him in a location then Flick could establish those things, who he knew, what his position was.

Walking back through
her time with Rushe brought Flick back to her own life. He wasn’t the cab driver who took her home, her super, or any of the people she’d encountered in family, or life, and this person wasn’t famous, there wouldn’t be a gang of... a gang.

Flick sat poker straight
. In a gang. That’s where she’d seen him. He was in the gang, the first gang, at Dell’s. That man had been in Dell’s the night she walked in on the meeting. He’d been at the table, in the seat next to Victor, whom she placed there too.

Whoe
ver Rushe was talking to was a man who worked with Victor. But they were running from Victor... weren’t they? Flick couldn’t believe that Rushe would boost her out just to hand her back over, that made no sense.

This stranger had definitely sat at
Victor’s side, so he had to be important. Could he be a competitor of Victor? And their proximity at the meeting table in Dell’s merely a coincidence? But why would Rushe talk to an employee of Victor, or to his competitor? Weren’t they running for their lives right now?

Every time she’d asked Rushe about what was going on he’
d refused to tell her. While Flick had caught titbits over the last few weeks – and she certainly now understood the hierarchy and how the men made a living – she still didn’t know where Rushe fit in.

While she understood
his desire to protect her, she didn’t understand why he didn’t give her more information that might help her. At any point, she and Rushe could be separated and Flick couldn’t get out of this without him, just as she had no desire to walk away from Rushe while this was going on.

Examining the
scene, Flick couldn’t see who was talking because they were too far away. Rushe made no gestures; he just drank from a mug of coffee. The other man gestured little too, and she figured their lack of hand movement must be goon one-oh-one.

Flick could push the issue
of information, but she had faith in Rushe, and if she questioned him too much he might doubt that. As John had said to her, she shouldn’t be in any hurry to end the wait.

Watching them in that booth at the window of the
diner, Flick started to salivate. Hot coffee would be great right now, in this cold car, on this cold night. Her ally and his cohort sat in there warm with the other patrons and Flick got to sit out here freezing to death. She could be in bed. If she had just accepted Rushe’s terms then she would still be in the motel, except she wouldn’t have slept.

Being here in this car observing the scene was better than any alternative. In the motel she’d have paced
, and worried, and jumped at shadows; thinking about Rushe out in the world somewhere that she would never find him.

The minute
all of this was over, she was getting herself in shape. Well, not in shape because she trained at the gym all the time, but she needed some kind of combat skill. If anything happened in that diner, Flick couldn’t do a thing about it. She’d probably scream, scramble out of the car, and run over there, just to get herself shot, or be a distraction for Rushe.

Getting self-defence training seemed so obvious
, though she’d never imagined what she could need it for. No one anticipated assault and abduction. Then again she’d been targeted by two bag snatchers, so maybe learning how to defend herself would be a good thing.

But men like
Skeeve were the ones you had to really watch out for, and he didn’t play fair. Something would be better than nothing, but if someone pulled a gun there wasn’t much anyone could do against that.

Considering how crazy Rushe would go if she got out
of the car and crossed to grab a coffee from the diner, Flick saw he was on his feet. He and the Dell’s guy still stood together, and she didn’t know if they were leaving or addressing a confrontation between themselves, or any other danger she might not have picked up on.

He’d been out of the car for a good half hour
, but had only come into her line of sight in the diner ten minutes ago, that left twenty minutes unaccounted for. He’d commented on not being back before daybreak, but she wasn’t sure if that was because he had other meetings, or other plans.

Rushe was the king of forethought
, so no doubt he believed there would be a problem, or danger to look out for. Any trouble around here hadn’t jumped up and down waving its hands, so she hadn’t seen it, and it seemed from experience that was what it needed to do in order for Flick to notice.

Still the men stood in the diner
, but neither was particularly tense so Flick continued watching, and waiting. Then Rushe was walking out, away from the man who quickly went toward the back of the diner and out of sight. When Rushe came out of the diner he kept moving but was looking around, carefully, not too obvious in his observation but she knew he was aware of anything and everything, hyper alert as always.

Flick told herself to be casual
, except sitting in a car with nothing to do gave her no distractions. But she shouldn’t have worried, because when Rushe got back into the car he cranked the engine, pulled away at speed, and didn’t look at her once. Thankful that she hadn’t gone to the diner, Flick wondered if he would have noticed her absence.

‘Did it go well?’ she asked
, but received no response. ‘Now what?’

‘Sex.’

One syllable, and her father had called him a barbarian, how apt. ‘With anyone in particular?’

His knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. ‘I was gonna fuck you slow,’ he said. ‘Now I’m gonna wash that smart mouth of yours out with my spunk, how you feel about that?’

‘Say ah,’ Flick said, and she countered his glare with a big grin. ‘We’re alive, Rushe. Give it to me anyway you can, while you can.’

The car sped up
so suddenly that she was pressured into the backrest of her seat. Wherever they were going, he wanted to get there fast.

Less than ten minutes later Rushe
was pulling her into a different motel room. It looked the same as the first, except the mirror had been replaced with a cheap print, and the bed was on the opposite wall. Rushe dumped the bag to the floor, and pushed her to the side.

‘Strip.’

As was becoming her custom Flick did as she was told. ‘Rushe, I don’t—‘