Page 37 of Blood & Kisses

“Hey, sweetheart, we’ll leave in an hour after I’ve made you breakfast,” Blake says in a husky and sultry voice.

“Okay,” I reply. “Eggs. Poached. On toast.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he salutes before shutting the bathroom door on me.

My focus naturally gravitates to the door at the end of the hall, but it doesn’t seem right to go there. Instead, I grab a clean towel and fresh clothes and wait for Blake to finish in the bathroom before I jump into the shower.

It’s only me and Blake at the breakfast table because Cormac had to leave for swim training, but spending time alone with him and with Cormac is nice.

Ignoring the pinching in my groin, I park my backside on a bar stool while Blake works his magic on the grill. It was a good night of fucking and the first time I’ve been pleasure by two men at once, but my body does feel a little drained and worn.

“See, this is what we’re gonna do,” Blake starts with his back turned, flipping eggs, even though I requested poached, but was half-joking when I said it. There’s wholegrain toast on a plate, and I grab one, place it on my plate, and start buttering it. “Since you have no experience with a firearm, we’ll have a session in the shooting range, then head out of town, and I’ll set up cans on the fence for you to hit at a longer distance. Does that sound good to you?”

“Sure,” I reply. “As long as we’re not trespassing on someone’s property.”

“You can leave the details to me, alright?” he replies pertly, and I know he’s up to no good again.

He places a plate of fried eggs and bacon on toast before me, and my stomach rumbles with hunger. “Sure looks good for poached eggs,” I smile to sense his reaction.

“Poached eggs are for normies, sweetheart,” he croons as nothing can touch him, and he has the world at his feet. Yep, Blake has inherited some hellishly charming genes from his ma or pa, even though they abandoned him when he was a little boy. “Girls who kill need fat to sustain their blood lust.”

“I’d hardly call it blood lust, Blake,” I argue, picking up my fork. “When I’ve ticked off each man from my list, I won’t be killing another single soul after that.”

“We’ll see,” he grunts, pulling up a stool beside me with a plate piled with hashbrowns, crispy bacon, toast, fried eggs, and sliced tomato.

“We will not see. I have no desire to go on a killing spree,” I strike back because I want to make this point clear. My murders have a purpose and are not random or out of blood lust joy. “I’m making a career out of this.”

“It’s good money,” he furrows his brow, looking innocent, which contradicts the words dropping from his kissable mouth.

“How would you know?” then it dawns on me. How could I forget? “Smiler. He pays you to knock people off? Don’t tell him I’m interested in doing that; besides…you don’t look like you’re living a rich life. You live in an apartment above a garage and drive an old pick-up truck you modernized.”

He screws his face up. “I can‘t get used to you referring to him as Smiler. It’s kinda…” he puffs his cheeks out, “sounds like an animation character or something.”

“Reminds me of one of the Batman villains,” I reply.

“That’s the Joker. Or are you meaning the Riddler?” he snorts amusedly. “I guess when you look at it like that, Smiler suddenly becomes a little freaky.”

“He is a little freaky,” I munch on my food, enjoying each salty mouthful. “Not that I’ve ever met him or want to meet him, but ah…” I clear my throat. “He leaves a single rose stem, so I wonder if he watches us when we clean up the bloody mess he leaves us.”

A shadow casts over Blake’s face as he places his fork on the plate and sips his coffee. “So…he’s seen you?” he asks as his gaze is focused on the kitchen cabinet for some strange reason.

“I don’t know,” I reply cautiously, uncomfortable by his sudden change in temperament. “I mean…I have no idea who leaves the rose stem at the house or why they do it. But there is always a fresh stem on the table in the kitchen so that it may be one of his lackeys.”

He nods slowly, his gaze seeming distant, still staring at the kitchen cupboard as if a hundred and one things are flipping over in his mind. “He’s not a man you want to meet face to face, though, Rae.”

I chuckle. “I know…as I’ve said…I’ve seen the mess he makes after he’s knocked someone off,” I reply as my nerves wound up due to this newborn sinisterness.

“You should’ve told this to me before,” he mumbles and begins eating again.

“What difference does it make?” I enquire, wishing I could open his skull to see his thinking. “As I said, there’s no note on it, and Z and I don’t touch it, let alone bring it home.”

He relaxes a little. “Okay,” he resigns, bites a strip of bacon, and chews thoughtfully. “Boss has some strange tastes.”

I snort. “You think? Leaving a smiley face drawn in blood is…yeah, a little odd,” I reply sarcastically.

“The thing is, though, Rae, I’ve been told that he never does the killings himself,” he explains as he darkly scrutinizes my plate to ensure I’m eating. “He has men that he pays to do it for him.”

“I’m not surprised,” I reply as the distinct scent of metallic blood enters my senses and turns my stomach a little. “It’s hard to describe the smell of that much blood and piss and feces...”

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