Southern Spirits (25 page)

‘Hundred dollar piece? There's no such thing.'

‘He says it's rare. Took it from the Lebowskis last week.' She glared as he examined it further. ‘Drop that right now and get back to work, you hear me?'

Enrique laughed and flung the coin away, driving back into her, lifting his belly up to let her hand return between them, find and please her clit.

‘Slower for a moment.'

He nodded and followed suit, still watching her, enjoying the reactions on her face.

She looked up at him and announced, ‘I'm leaving him.'

He nodded, obviously feeling his own need for climax, and fighting it. ‘I know,
ma chère
, I know. Someday.'

‘No. Not someday. Next week.'

Enrique slowed down even more, his eyes wide. ‘What? You mean it?'

‘Sure.'

‘B– But why next week? Why not now?'

‘We need time to prepare. Next week, Mickey's planning a big money delivery, over two hundred grand. We can take it and run.'

‘But what about your father?'

‘He'll come with us, of course. Let Mickey keep the club.'

‘And where are we going?'

She smiled. ‘Atlanta, first. I have relatives there, my mother's sister. Shall we stop fucking while I go get an atlas and plan further?'

‘N– No.' The disbelief in Enrique's eyes quickly blossomed into an excited, infectious joy, one she shared, and he quickened his drive into her. It was as if her declaration alone had been enough to lift so much of the weight off both of them. They
weren't out of the woods yet – there was so much to plan, and so much risk – but it was a tremendous start.

Val turned her head to one side . . .

. . . and saw the gold special agent badge sitting on the adjacent pillow like a hotel mint. Cat nodded at it, looking up again into Enrique's face, holding it again, relishing the sensual fullness of the man's cock in her. But it wasn't really him there. ‘Nathan . . . Hound . . . you're in there. Come on, talk to me, Agent Ames.'

Enrique frowned in confusion. ‘Cat, what are you . . .'

Then it was Nathan above her, stopping his thrusts to glance around at the berth as it was fifty years before. ‘Cat, what are you . . .'

‘Don't stop,
idiota!
' Snarling, she rolled him to one side, taking advantage of his confusion to get him on his back, so that she was on top, looking down. She smiled with satisfaction that they were on the same level now.

‘It's . . . real,' he murmured, stunned. ‘You were right.'

Cat smiled. ‘And now I claim my prize.'

And she rode him faster, ignoring his pleas for her to slow down before he came. She wanted him to surrender here too, surrender to the acknowledgement of this phenomenon.

Nathan's hips were beginning to buck upwards, and he pushed up with his cock, his moans reaching a familiar tone that told her his climax was imminent. Cat threw her head back and looked up triumphantly at the ceiling fan, as Nathan's come coated her insides and seeped from her with her own spasming walls.

She fell forwards on top of him, shuddering and laughing with weak delight.

‘Do you know why you're here, Miss Wright?' Leo Kolchak said.

‘Uh, yes, Mr Kolchak.' April stood there, dressed in her finest clothes, as bowled over by the older man's charm, his charisma, as by the fact that her introduction to him was while he sat there, receiving a blow job from a scantily-clad woman.

She supposed it helped that around the rest of the room onboard the train, other minimally dressed women milled about, attending the rest of Leo's guests for this private party. April wore a small, revealing, navy-blue party dress, but still felt overdressed in comparison. And definitely on the spot.

‘Are you certain you wouldn't care for some champagne, my dear?' he asked her in that thick Baltic accent. He was a large man in a black turtleneck and trousers, whose girth and trimmed silver hair and beard suggested Santa Claus by way of a Russian submarine commander. On her knees before him, a slim, shapely woman with a mass of red hair bobbed her head slowly up and down at his groin, while he held her by her hair with one of his huge hands, guiding her pace. Leo could have been asking the woman attending him so intimately the question, except that he barely acknowledged her.

Instead, he was staring at April. ‘Then I'll come to the point. My idiot nephew lost one of my delivery trucks. He cost me thirty thousand dollars.'

April swallowed. ‘Mr Kolchak, Donnie wants to move up in
the organisation, do more than just courier work and odd jobs.'

‘That's understandable. Suck, Miss Halliday, suck,' he added, glancing down at the woman before him. ‘But he still lost my truck.'

‘Yes, sir.' Her heart pounded, suspecting what would be asked of her. ‘Mr Kolchak, we'll pay you back. Donnie always talks about you in the highest regard. He's –'

‘An idiot. My nephew's a fucking idiot.' Now Leo glanced down again at the woman with his dick in her mouth, as if to make April look down as well. ‘Like his father. Clumsy, loudmouthed, boorish idiots, the pair of them. Neither of them deserved Laura, as either wife or mother.'

April felt hot, as stunned by the man's assessment of Donnie as by his insouciance as the redhead continued to service him. ‘Mr Kolchak, Donnie loves you.'

‘So does my dog. But if my dog cost me thirty grand, I'd shoot him. I demand compensation. Are
you
willing to do that and save him? Starting now?'

And here it was, her last chance to back out. April thought she'd prepared herself for this, too. She may have been a smalltown girl, but she wasn't a child. Still, she trembled.

She reminded herself that she was doing this for him, not for herself. ‘I . . . anything, Mr Kolchak. So long as Donnie doesn't find out.'

The man responded with a smile that never reached his eyes. ‘How romantic. Miss Halliday, off.'

The woman rose back onto unsteady feet, not looking at anyone as she moved quickly and silently to the bar at the far end of the carriage. April's attention moved to Leo's dick, a thick, glistening column of flesh sticking up from between the folds of his trousers, pointing in her direction. A chuckle from Leo made her look back at his face, his smile, as he
silently indicated the place where the other woman had just been.

April's heart raced and her mouth filled with cotton. Her legs shook as she approached, and then knelt before him. Oh God, she'd wanted to be so cool about this, but now she felt like that mousy little schoolgirl who'd run away when her first boyfriend had touched her breasts while they were kissing.

‘Don't worry,' Leo reassured her, never touching his cock himself but making it flex teasingly before her, ‘my idiot nephew need never know.'

April wanted to faint, or to let her body carry on while her mind went elsewhere. However, she remained terribly conscious as she breathed in the scent of his sex, his male musk. She tentatively clasped his cock at the base, before parting her lips and taking him inside. It seemed to swell and pulse further, growing hotter and thicker. She leant forwards experimentally, accepting more and more of him, and then her movements grew more confident, even as she reminded herself that, as he'd just come, she could be here for ages. Her eyes felt heavy and wet, as Leo took her by the hair now, guiding her motions.

But it was the man's words that made her heart race and made her realise that this would be the longest night of her life. ‘No, my dear, my idiot nephew need never have to hear about your noble sacrifice. We can keep him in the dark about many things. About my contempt for him and his father. About the times I'd had his mother, my brother's wife.' His voice dropped an octave. ‘I don't suppose we even need to mention who tipped off the police about his father's location, do we?'

A flash to her right made her look up, seeing someone with a camera. Panicking, she tried backing off Leo, but he forced
her back down again. ‘No, my dear. You're too good to waste on my idiot nephew. I have a place for you in one of my Tampa establishments. And if you don't want anything to happen to little Donnie or yourself, you'll agree.'

April struggled, her eyes thick with tears and more flashes . . .

. . . Donnie sat up to a flash of lightning outside, gasping, choked with shock and nearly falling off his bed. Oh my God . . . that
happened
. He was as certain of this as he was of anything in his life. It had happened. Here. He even knew when it had happened: the weekend April had said she was visiting relatives, the same weekend Uncle Leo had also left for one of his parties.

And the reasons he knew this, or how he had received this revelation, never entered his head, as if it had filled to capacity with thoughts of what Leo had done to April. And of the times Donnie had thanked Leo for exposing her.

He was certain he'd never felt so stupid, or so ashamed.

Tara knelt naked on the floor of her berth, the furniture pushed to the ends to make space for the vévé of talcum powder she'd made on the carpet, the vévé to summon Papa Legba, one of the older, more beneficent spirits, who guarded the crossroads between this world and the next. She was missing much – dancing, a sacrifice – but at least she had some sugar-coated beignets from the kitchens as an offering, and the train wheels gave her a suitable drumlike rhythm.

In the end, she knew that it was intent, and ability, which swayed the forces. Besides, she didn't want power, revenge or protection, merely knowledge. How dangerous could that be?

Very.

Tara gasped, her eyes still shut, her mouth still voicing
chants, but her mind sought out the voice that caressed her. Papa Legba?

The papa has kept me from the crossroads for a long time.

Belle?

No answer.

Tara persisted. Who are you? Why are you on this train? Why do you offer these memories of those who have come before us?

She shivered, as something moved across her breasts, and the voice touched her mind again.
I am passion, Great-great– granddaughter. I am power. I am fury and storm and night. And I am here to fulfil my obligations.

The touch slipped down between Tara's legs, even as other forces held the rest of her in place. Her pussy cried out as tendrils stroked her, teasing, loving. But she barely noticed, her mind filling with overwhelming images: a storm ravaging the sky, a maelstrom of wind and rain bound together with thunder and lightning, which seemed to shake the earth to its core, and send all things away seeking shelter. All but the train, a single defiant force cutting through the night, her beam of light lancing the blackness ahead of her as she raced so fast and sure her wheels barely touched the rails.

And perched upon her prow rode a woman, a woman nude but for the eldritch fire dancing around her.

She drove the train.

She
was
the train.

And she drove onwards, to a destination of her own choice, and woe betide anyone foolish enough to stand in her way.

Cat jerked in place, blinking and gasping, immediately calming down as she felt Nathan's arms around. ‘Did you . . . Did you dream that?'

‘Dream what?'

‘A naked woman riding on the front of the train.'

‘Naked? Tell me more.'

‘Never mind.' The sky was dark outside with the continuing storm, and grew darker as Cat and Nathan lay wrapped around each other, sweat binding them together. Cat's head rose and fell as it lay on Nathan's chest, as she listened to his heartbeat. ‘Hound – Nathan – when I was with Jack, I –'

‘Cat,' he murmured, ‘you don't have to explain yourself.'

‘Can I do it anyway? What I'm trying to say was that when I needed to come, he just happened to be there, and it helped that he was so good at what he did. I mean,
Dios
, the way he could –'

‘Is there a non-humiliating point to this?'

‘Yes, dickhead.' She turned her head to face him. ‘He's good. But you're better. Isn't that what you wanted to hear?'

‘Nope. I wanted to hear that he was crap, and that you sent him home to play with his coins.'

Cat smiled, playing with his chest hairs. ‘Men.' Her smile dropped. ‘We should get up.'

‘No, let's stay in a bit longer.'

‘Why?' Then she nodded as if in understanding. ‘Ahh right, you older guys need more rest.'

He twisted suddenly, half on top of her, invading her mouth with his tongue, wrapping one leg around hers, pressing his erection into her thigh. His hand moved up and caressed one of her breasts, enjoying the fullness of it, its heat and softness. Their tongues danced together, and Cat melted and squirmed under his attentions, wrapping her arms around him.

When their mouths parted, Cat gasped and asked, still teasingly, ‘So, you remain in peak condition, Agent Ames?'

‘Dunno.' Pressing his erection harder against her, Nathan shifted his hand down along her belly, dipping once into her
navel before continuing its descent, cupped her mound, feeling the heat, the wetness of individual strands of her bush, and the puffy flesh against his palm. ‘Let's find out.'

Cat's eyes widened in response, and her mouth gasped out as Nathan entered her with his middle finger, gently but insistently penetrating her to the hilt, the walls of her sex tightening ferociously around him. Nathan smiled and leant in close to whisper, ‘Let me know if you find me flagging, right?'

Cat's eyes opened wide each time his finger went deep, and she bit her lip before replying breathlessly, ‘Ah . . . ah fuck . . . bastard.'

He drew closer to her ear and licked it. Cat's body undulated like waves, her limbs spasming, and a reply she tried to make was lost somewhere. But he still spoke. ‘If I want to stay in bed with you, sleep's usually the last thing on my mind.' As his finger continued to thrust into her, his thumb swivelled up to tease and rub against her clitoris. Cat closed her eyes and clenched her teeth in acute concentration. ‘And I don't want anyone else touching you.'