The Arrangement Anthology (54 page)

Horror washes over me when I stare at my wrist. The bracelet is gone. It’s not there. My pulse pounds
in my ears, drowning out everything the crazy man is saying. Henry’s ticking things off on his fingers and stepping toward me, like I personally fucked up his life. As I scan the floor of the room for the bracelet, his words finally sink in.

“Are you even listening to me, you fucking whore!” Just as I look up, his palm collides with the side of my face. Pain
explodes in my cheek as my face whips sideways. Henry grabs me by the shoulders and pins my arms to my sides.

His voice gets freaky calm. The
death grip he has on my shoulders loosens and he pets my arms like I’m a cat. “This is your fault, you know. I normally don’t get this bent out of shape over the little things.” As if fucking Sean was a little thing. How many times has this guy been cheated on? Is that why he’s freaking out? “Today could have been perfect. God knows how hard I tried, love. I tried to put it behind me, to forgive you, but once you walked in here with that slutty dress and that beautiful smile, I kept looking at your mouth. I thought about shoving my cock in between those hot lips and enjoying you like I should. I deserve a good time after what I’ve been through, I do. And you were supposed to be it, but then I kept thinking about it and looking at those lips, and those tits in that dress—and it just kills me that he had you first.” Henry takes a breath and tries to steady himself.

“I’m a forgiving man, I am. Just ask any of my exes and they’ll tell you that I don’t hold a grudge under normal circumstances, but bloody hell—this is so far beyond
normal that I can’t handle it. I can’t…” By the time he’s done talking, his voice is so high and airy that I’m seriously considering jumping out the window. I can’t get past him to run out the door. What floor are we on? I’m pretty sure a three to four story jump will break my legs and I’m up higher than that.

I’m talking. I don’t know what I’m saying, but my voice is soothing, soft. My palms are up towards him like he’s going to hurt me and I’m begging him to stop. “You can. You can handle anything, Henry. You can handle this.”

Slowly, his eyes raise and he looks at me. A bolt of frigid fear shoots through my stomach and lodges in my gut. “Tell me something.”

I nod. “Anything.” My gaze flicks around the room for the bracelet
, but it’s gone. It’s so gone. The clasp must have been broken. It’s probably outside the building in a gutter. Gabe is going to find my chopped up body at Captree tomorrow if I don’t figure out how to get out of here. I make my decision and wait for his question.

“How do you live with yourself? You see what you’ve done to me and I’m sure you’ve done it to other men. You’re an
addiction, and an anomaly. You have a wickedly sinful body, like you’ve used it to get what you wanted your whole life, but there’s this wholesome, chaste thing about you—like you have no idea how to use that body—like you’re shocked when some guy looks at you like he wants you. You can’t be both. It’s not possible to be a virgin slut, but somehow you are.”

I have no idea how to answer that. My eyes dart between Henry and the door. He notices and the
corner of his mouth tugs up. “Do you want to leave? I haven’t even gotten what I paid for yet.”

Yeah, there’s no way in hell I’m having sex with him now. I
don’t do crazy. “I really think we should reschedule.”

“Yeah?” He steps towards me and I step back. He grins like
it’s funny, like he knows that he’s scaring me. “Why? Do you have another client after this? Or is it Ferro again?” Henry steps forward and I step back. He advances on me until my back hits the wall.

“I want what I paid for,
skank.” Henry places his hands on my shoulders and leans, forcing all his weight onto me. My knees buckle and I kneel between him and the wall. I don’t wait for him to whip it out, I act. With all the force I can muster, I draw back my fist and slam it into his junk, while his hands are occupied by his zipper. Henry gasps and doubles over.

I jump out of the way before he can catch me, but I’m too close the wall. His hand grabs the back of my neck as I race past him. His other hand is there in a flash, strangling me. Rapidly, I step backward, trying to pry his fingers off my neck. I’m screaming at him, but my voice is being choked into silence.

My knees hit the back of the bed and he pushes me down. The crazed look in his eyes tells me that he’s going to do more than fuck me. He has every intention of hurting me as much as he can. I can sense it even though he never says a word. The silence is thick, suffocating me. I watch in terror as Henry chokes me. A bead of sweat rolls down my temple. His eyes track it as his hands grab at my thighs and shoves my hem out of the way. The beautiful panty is ripped away. When Henry goes to crawl on top of me, something crunches on the floor under his foot. I hear it, but the sound doesn’t register. My heartbeat is a million times louder.

Henry straddles me. His pants are still on, half undone, and his hands reach for my face. He leans in close, pinning me to the bed. Resting a hand on either side of my face, he strokes me over and over again—slow and creepy. The whites around his eyes are exposed as he stares at my neck without blinking. His hands drift there to the soft spot at the hollow of my throat. His thumb strokes the vulnerable place softly, like he knows that pressing into it will crush my windpipe.

I’m going to die. My death wish is finally coming true, and it’s not until this moment that I realize how much I want to live. This can’t be the end, it can’t be. I worked too hard and came too damn far on my own to be killed by this man, but there’s nothing I can do. I can’t bite, kick, or claw my way out of this. It’s not until that instant that the tears start cascading down my cheeks.

Henry
closes his hand into a fist and positions his thumb on top of the soft skin on my neck, staring, like he’s mesmerized. He savors the moment, slowly twisting his wrist and feeling me gasping for air as the pressure increases, bit by bit. Before Henry pushes all the way down and buries his thumb in my neck, the door is kicked open. Wood shards fly across the room as the doorjamb breaks apart. Henry looks up just in time to see Gabe coming at him. One of the old guy’s beefy hands collides with Henry’s side.

As Gabe lands the punch, he
says, “Ride’s over, asshole.” Henry is launched off the bed and hits the floor like a rag doll. Gabe walks around and says, “This is from me, personally.” Gabe’s leg swings, and wheezing sounds of pain come from Henry.

Jumping off the bed, I run over and grab Gabe’s arm before he can kick Henry again. “Don’t,” I plead and tug on his arm. “Just get me out of here. Please.”

Gabe stops and turns back to look at me. “Gather your things, Miss Stanz, and meet me in the hallway. There are consequences for messing with Miss Black’s girls. I need to make sure the message is received.”

I’m shaking. I don’t notice it until I try to nod and can’t. Taking my purse, I turn my back on them both and walk out the door.

“Avery, you all right?” Mel asks as she skewers a hotcake and pops it into her mouth. I couldn’t manage to tell her what happened with Henry. I covered the slight black and blue on my cheek and smile a lot, hoping that she won’t ask questions.

As it was, Black asked a million questions and wasn’t convinced that it wasn’t my fault until Gabe spoke. The only bright side to today was the huge check. Apparently when a client tries to kill one of Black’s girls, we get compensated.

The money is burning a hole in my pocket. I want to get rid of it, but I can’t. I know that would be stupid, but it feels tainted. I nearly died earning that bit of cash.

“Yeah, you’ve been
uncharacteristically quiet.” Marty picks up a sausage and makes an obscene gesture.

Mel sneers at him. “Cut it out,
dickwad. You don’t have to pretend to be bi or homo or whatever the hell you were doing before. And I think Avery forgave you way too fast for pulling shit like that, so don’t piss me off or I will stab you with my fork. Then, my pancakes will get bloody and I’ll have to kill you with my spoon.”

Marty blinks at her. The shock is short lived. He grins. “I bet you’ve done lots of things with a spoon.” He winks at Mel and then stabs a sausage and hands it to her. “It’s de
monstration time.”

Mel’s amber eyes widen as her mouth falls open. “Holy shit. You did not just say that to me. Did he really just say that, Avery?”

I’m lost in thought, wondering about everything and nothing. My mind skips between things that seemed pointless at the time, but now mean something. If that light at Prairie Drive didn’t take so damn long, I would have never met Sean. There are little things like that flooding my mind, and I can’t stop them.

Mel bumps my shoulder. “Hello? What’s with you? He told me to suck off a sausage in the middle of IHOP.”

I shrug. “So, do it.”

Marty tries to hide his laughter under a napkin as Mel gives me a WTF face. She
blinks and a second later, she grabs the fork and is doing sexy things to the sausage. I’m leaning on my hand, staring blankly, but I’m aware enough to know Marty is transfixed by whatever Mel is doing—and so are the guys in the next booth. They’d been talking about some game way too loudly and now all three of them are silently watching Mel give her breakfast a blowjob.

I glance at her out of the corner of my eye
, like I’m bored. “I wouldn’t swallow if I were you. I’m pretty it’ll be all grease. You’ll gain ten pounds in one gulp.”

Mel
nearly chokes and puts the thing on her plate. The three guys are now staring at me, as well. Mel start laughing, but she has a strange smile on her face. “You’re talking a bit too loud there, Avery.”

“You’re blowing your breakfast, Mel. I don’t think it matters much.” I glance up at her
, after folding my napkin into a swan. My mom taught me how to fold napkins before she died. It was her latest hobby.

One of the guys across from us stands and walks over to our table. He gives Marty the guy nod and says to me and
Mel, “There are very few women who demand attention the way you do.”

Mel laughs,
“Which one of us are you talking to there, Slick?”

The guy smiles. He’s attractive
, with sandy blonde hair that’s not too long or too short. Coupled with a firm body and blazing blue eyes, he’s a hottie. “What makes you think I was only talking to one of you?” He leans forward and places his hands on the table. There’s a silver ring at the base of his thumb. I stare at it for a second too long. He says to me, “Cock ring. Comes in handy, so I just carry it with me.”

“It’s kind of small.” I flick my eyes up to his. I don’t feel like fending him
off right now. It was the quickest shortcut to getting rid of him.

He grins and looks at me. “There’s nothing small about me, baby.
” Mel’s eyes flick between me and the guy. She’d normally cut off his balls, but today she isn’t.

“Prove it,” Mel blurts out. “Whip that sucker out right now and show us the
miraculous marvel that is tucked into those tight jeans.” Mel sweeps her eyes to his waist and then dips her gaze lower. When the guy doesn’t move, she glances up. “Well, come on. I don’t have all day. Besides, me and my friend here will only do a three way if the guy has a really big dick.”

The guy swallows hard. “A three way?”

“You walked over to the right table. In fact, my friend here is sometimes gay, so if you play your cards right, you might get a four way.” Mel laugh-smirks as she inclines her head toward Marty, who, in turn, wiggles the tips of his fingers at the guy. “So, whip it out and show us. If it’s big enough, we’ll make your wettest dreams come true.”

The guy stands there like he doesn’t know what to do. His friends are laughing
, egging him on. A waitress brushes past him and the guy nearly jumps out of his skin. “You’re just shittin’ with me.” The guy smiles and turns to walk back to his table.

Mel shrugs. “Well, now you’ll never know.” When he looks back at her, Mel winks at him.

He laughs like she’s kidding and slips into his booth. Their conversation continues in hushed whispers. They keep looking over at us.

“You’re evil. You know that?” I say
, and shake my head. “Let’s get out of here before this turns into an urban legend.”

Mel slips out of the booth. “
Oooh! I like that! If you see a girl sucking off a sausage at the IHOP on Sunrise Highway, then you’ll be invited to have a three way with her and her hot friend. Totally the stuff legends are made of. Damn, I love breakfast!” Mel glances at the table of guys and licks her finger seductively. Then, she points at the guy we were talking to. “Could have been you.”

“You were joking. It wasn’t a real offer.” The guy is smiling, and it sounds like he’s trying to convince himself. His friends are smiling hard, watching him.

Marty says, “That’s what you think. Why do you think they let me hang out with them?” He mouths
huge dick
and waggles his eyebrows. As we walk out, the guy’s friends start teasing him for passing up two hot chicks.

“Well, you totally screwed with that guy, and I helped make the legend of the
Long Island sluts into a real thing. I bet it’s floating around Facebook by morning.” Marty walks next to me, smirking triumphantly. Mel is ahead of us, speed walking to the car.