Page 92 of Worse Than Wicked
“You’re insecure?” he asks.
“I’m human too.”
He stares at me a long minute, then draws his hips away. His cock slides out of me in a slippery rush. “Who do you want me to kill?” he asks, frowning up at the ceiling.
“I was thinking about Dixie,” I say. “What she did to me in high school.”
“Really?” he asks. “She didn’t do that much.”
“She did a lot,” I say. “Not just to me. To my brother too.”
“Then have him kill her.”
“He doesn’t have it in him.”
Duke stares at the ceiling another minute, and then he smiles. “He doesn’t, does he? Fucking pussy. He’s always been soft.”
“Will you do it?”
“Someone has to avenge you,” he says. “Obviously your family’s too weak to do it.”
“She’s going home for Labor Day,” I say. “I thought, maybe we could get her on the way. And then go visit your folks in Faulkner. It’s only a month away.”
“Really?” he asks. “You’d go back?”
“Of course,” I say, planting a soft kiss on his shoulder. “I know how much it means to you.”
“Okay. I’ll kill Dixie. Since it means so much to you.”
“We’ll have to make sure she’s driving home alone,” I say. “I don’t want anyone else to get hurt.”
“You don’t mind killing someone,” he points out.
“People who deserve it.”
“Why do you get to decide that?” he asks. “You’re playing god.”
“Well, sometimes god doesn’t do a very good job. Someone has to step in and do it for him.”
Duke tucks the pillow behind his head and doesn’t speak for a long time. Finally, he says, “Am I next?”
“For what?”
“You’re getting rid of everyone who wronged you. Didn’t we wrong you the most?”
“You’re making up for it now.”
“You never say you love me unless I ask,” he says. “Do you mean it?”
“I mean it as much as you mean it.”
“If I do this, will you believe me?” he asks. “Or will you keep asking me to kill more people, like you did Baron?”
“Would you?” I ask, toying with the neck of his t-shirt. “For me?”
“I would try.”
“Who would you kill?” I ask. “If you got to pick. Anyone in the world. Who would you kill?”
