Viper: A Hitman Romance (6 page)

Suddenly, I realize that he's close.  Real close.  At some point, either I was scooting closer to him, or he was scooting closer to me, but as far as which it was, I don't remember.  Because: scotch.

Which reminds me.  I refill my glass, finishing off the last bit of the bottle.

I settle back onto the couch, right next to him.  My arms resting right against his and he's hard as a rock under his shirt.  Ryker is pure muscular man-candy.

I can't tell if the sweat I feel beading between my tits is from the scotch, or just my body realizing that I'm dangerously close man who's an intoxicating mix of pure lethality and sexual heat.

"So, who's paying you all this money to kidnap me?" 

Maybe I can get some information out of him.  He seems buzzed, interested, so maybe he's pliable right now.  Maybe he's putty in my hands.  Although I doubt that — there's nothing soft about this man. 

Maybe I can work him over and get a little something out of him. 
Interrogation him vigorously
.  With my mouth.  Maybe I can try and stop thinking about sex for a minute. 

Nope.  To all of it.

"Nice try.  But you're not getting that out of me."

"Why not?  Don't I have a right?"

He shakes his head.  "No.  And it's for your safety.  The less you know, the better the chance is that you walk away from this without any trouble."

Well, maybe I'll try a different angle and ask the question that's been nagging at me this whole time.  "When this is all over, is your boss going to have you kill me?"

He shakes his head.  That's a relief.

"No.  And he's not my boss.  He's a client."

"But what if he tells you to shoot me?"

"Then I'll tell him to go fuck himself."  Ryker practically pounds his empty glass down on the coffee table.  "Look, most of my clients are not great people — they're pieces of shit, actually — but my current client is a little above and beyond the usual and I'm not a fan.  Of him or the way he does business.  At all.  So, I promise you, if you just cooperate, you'll live."

The way he talks is so serious, so earnest, I can't help but believe him.

"And I'll tell you another thing," he continues.  "We need more scotch.  And food."

The man is on his feet right away, and out come the handcuffs.  I do my best sad puppy dog eyes on him.

"No — please?  I swear I learned my lesson last night.  And besides, it would be cruel to just leave me cuffed here, alone, and drunk.  Think of all the trouble I could cause."

"I'll be five minutes.  Just a quick supply run to get some liquor and some more grub."

I put my foot down.  Literally, stomp it, because the scotch is hitting me full force and it sounds like he's going to be getting more of those burgers, which were so greasy I could
feel
my heart
crying
while I ate them.

"No."  Another stomp. 

I feel like a kid throwing a tantrum in front of the candy aisle at a grocery store, but it seems to be working.  Ryker and his iron-will are wavering.

"Why don't you take me with you?" I say, trying to give him a more acceptable alternative to cuffing me.

Away go the restraints.  Maybe those kids are on to something.  These tantrums are seriously effective.

"Seriously, I'm trusting you here: don't fuck it up.  Or I will discipline you like you would not believe."

Now I'm thinking about the cuffs again.  And spanking.  And whatever else Ryker would do to discipline me if I were a bad girl.  Maybe I should be a bad girl.

We get into his Jag, it roars to life and the vibrations feel
great
. 

I'm drunk.  I'm feeling inexplicably horny — though if I thought about it, I could come up with an explanation.  Hint: it's Ryker, his muscles, his smell, his superhuman confidence, the memories of his hard cock pressing against my leg while we made out in that parking lot.  I'm also feeling a bit better, a bit less despondent, because the man who seems like he's death incarnate just told me he wouldn't kill me.  And I trust him.

The burger place is the first stop. 
Big Jim's Burgers
.

Right away, drunk Jessica is saying 'No way'.  Keep your meat away from my mouth, Big Jim.  Drunk Jessica is not doing you again.

"Really?" I say, looking over at Ryker, who's in the drivers seat and pulling us into the drive-thru lane.

"What?  They're good," he says, as if that's all the explanation I need.

Except I'm feisty right now. 
Thank you, scotch
. 
You're like the angry version of tequila
.  Instead of just feeling horny, I feel horny and I feel free to speak my mind to people that no sane person would ever want to fuck with.

"No, they're not good.  They're awful.  Do you ever eat
real
food?"

We're two cars away from the drive-thru menu.  Desperation sets in.

Ryker shrugs. "Last I checked, burgers were real food."

"Look, you said you weren't going to kill me.  If you order burgers again, I swear to god I will
literally
die.  I will puke my guts up, right here, all over the leather interior of your car.  Do you really want to deal with that mess?" 

His attention turns back to the line. 

We edge forward.  We are one car away from drowning in grease.

"Do you think I'm joking?  Take me to a grocery store.  Some place with real food.  Or I swear…" I say.

Then, I raise the stakes.  Finger down my throat, I start to gag myself.

"I am not kidding.  You'll be scrubbing scotch-vomit out of your car for weeks. 
Think of the smell
."

Ryker keeps driving.

We get to the ordering screen.

"Welcome to Big Jim's Burgers, home of Big Jim's Sizzling Half-Pound Meat Feast.  May I take your order?"
the voice crackles over the loudspeaker.

Even without my finger down my own throat, I'd have gagged.

But my finger is down my throat, and I raise the stakes even more.  It goes a little deeper, and puke is definitely churning and ready to come up my throat.  I make a wet gurgling noise.

"God damnit, no!" Ryker barks.

"
Sir?"
the voice crackles back.

My finger is still in my throat.  I'm about to go nuclear.

"Don't fucking puke!  I swear to god I will kill somebody if you do."

"Sir?"
the voice is way more urgent than before.  Some seventeen year old kid is having the weirdest day of their life right now.

Me too.  I'm about to throw up.  On purpose.  In a hitman's car.

I've got my eyes locked on Ryker's.  My eyes are watering, and probably a bit red from gagging, but even a blind person could see that I'm not giving up.  His are all blazing — and profoundly confused — fury.

Fuck you and your burgers, Ryker, I swear to god I will ruin your car.

Ryker mutters, "fine" and I take my finger out of my mouth.

"Sir?"

"
I want nothing!  Nothing.  You hear me?  Just leave us alone."

Silence.  Static.  Poor kid.

Ryker takes us through the rest of the drive-thru line, windows rolled up, and we get the weirdest look from the pimple-faced teen working the line.  Ryker fires back at him with a dead-eye stare and that kid just looks so confused.  I can't help it, but I start laughing my ass off.

I think I might be drunker than I thought.

We get to the grocery store and now I
know
I am drunker than I thought.  Apparently, I can't handle my scotch, but what I can do is keep a straight face so that my hitman captor doesn't know how drunk I really am.

"Stay close.  Don't do anything stupid.  We're here to get some liquor and some food, that's it," he says to me.

Repeating "stay close" and "don't do anything stupid" like it's my own personal mantra, I manage to actually do that while we're browsing through the booze, which is the first thing we do.  But, somehow, and I don't quite know how, I wander off while Ryker is checking out different bottles of scotch.

I wander over into the produce section.

I pick up a big, long cucumber that has a knob on the end that kind of looks like a gun.

Now I'm armed too.  And giggling, because, if I look at my cucumber at a different angle, it also kinda looks like a dick.  It also seems about the same size as Ryker's felt when it was pressed up against my leg.

But, anyways, I'm holding my penis-cucumber-gun and walking back through the store trying to find Ryker.

I may also be making gunshot noises.  Well, laser noises.

Pew. Pew. Pew.

"Ryker?  Ryker?  Where are you my handsome kidnapper?  You're not the only one with a big gun, now," I call out.

Yeah, not the brightest thing to do.

But, the store's mostly empty right now, except for a sad-looking woman in the frozen foods section who has, like, a dozen
Hungry Man
frozen dinners in her cart and looks like she leads the saddest life in existence.

Pew. Pew. Pew.
I blast her a few times and do her a favor.

"Where's my kidnapper at?" Even I can hear the slur in my voice.

I find Ryker in the bakery checking out a baguette.

I square my feet and raise my penis-cucumber-gun like it's high noon and I'm in a Clint Eastwood movie.

"Hey, Ryker," I call out.  "Is this how you usually look before you kill a man?"

He turns.

Pew. Pew. Pew.

His eyes get wide and he is frowning.  But it's not at me.

I turn around and come face to face with a cop.  Mid 30's, crewcut, blond, and, true to form, he's got a box of day-old donuts in his hand. 

He's looking at the two of us with a very not-friendly look on his face.

"Something wrong, ma'am?" he asks.

Ryker shoots me a look that says he actually might break his promise not to kill me.

"No problem, officer," Ryker says.

But the cop doesn't move.  "I was talking to the lady."

Ryker's tense.  Like, striking tiger tense, and I know he has at least one gun on him, and I can feel my stomach starting to drop down to the floor.

"Is there something wrong, ma'am?" the cop asks again.

Think, Jessica
!

If this guy doesn't go away, things are going to get messy.  I mean, I could tell him all about Ryker kidnapping me and holding me hostage for some crime boss or whatever, but all that would lead to is this cop getting his head shot off and probably the rest of the customers getting killed too.

Gotta think fast.

I raise my penis-cucumber-gun and smile like an angel for the cop.

"Pew. Pew. Pew."

The cop looks confused as all hell.

"What the fuck?"

"My girlfriend and I are just playing, officer."  Ryker says.

Did he just call me his girlfriend?  I get a tingle up my spine, even though I know I shouldn't.

Now the cop looks over at Ryker.  And Ryker just raises his fingers, makes them into a gun — a big gun, because the man has some large hands — and winks.

"Reach for the sky, Pilgrim," I say, in my best John Wayne drawl. 

Pew. Pew. Pew.  Ryker and I both blast the cop.

Shaking his head, the cop leaves, package of donuts in hand and dignity in tatters because we just wasted him. 

As soon as the cop disappears down the aisle, a hand locks onto my wrists and wrenches it behind my back.  It hurts.  I yelp.  Quietly, though, because attracting more attention right now would be a bad idea.

"Do not do anything like that again.  This is your last warning."

We finish our shopping and leave.  I'm in charge of dinner because, as evidenced by Ryker's own confession that he lives mostly on takeout, I'm the only one among us who can cook something edible.  I've been cooking for myself — and for Connor — for a long time.  I'm no Julia Child, but I can hold my own.

The cop's still in the parking lot, eating his donuts in his squad car.  I pick up the cucumber again.

Pew. Pew. Pew.

The cop scowls at me.

Ryker doesn't talk the whole drive home.

His irritation is palpable.  But I know I'll change his mind.  I'm about to cook one of my specialties.

We unload the groceries: scallops, arborio rice, parmesan, onions, garlic, lemon, asparagus, and some other veggies to make a salad.

I set to work cooking right away.  Dicing vegetables, chopping onions, mincing garlic.

I set the salad aside.  It's risotto time, now.

And time for more scotch.

Ryker and I both refill our glasses.  It's like we've settled into our own twisted little domestic situation.  He watches ESPN and I bustle about the kitchen.  I'm the kidnapped housewife, he's the kidnapping killer, and it works.  Lifetimes probably already made something like it into a movie.