Page 36 of A Murderous Crow
“I don’t know if I like the sound of that,” she said uneasily.
“Okay,” I negotiated. “When I say ‘pissed off,’ it’s all lowercase letters. If you genuinely anger me to the point that it’s all in capital letters, or I see red, we shout it out behind closed doors and nothing happens until you’re comfortable that I’m merely irritated and ready for funishment and not to really hand out any punishment.”
“Did you just say funishment?” she asked, and she very nearly giggled.
I grinned. “Yeah, you like it?” I asked.
“Yeah, I actually kind of do. I think that’s exactly what it is… round two, as you put it, didn’t come off as funishment for me. It felt too cold, and like you were genuinely wanting to punish me with sex.”
“No, not at all.” I cuddled her close and genuinely felt bad for a flicker of a moment. “Genuinely, I just want what you want – to have fun, and explore – no strings attached.”
“Okay,” she whispered. “Thank you for taking the time to clear that up.”
I smiled to myself, and she shifted a bit and said, “I really should go home tonight.”
“Not tonight,” I argued. “I want to make sure you’re alright.”
“I’m fine,” she said.
“Then I selfishly just want a beautiful woman in my bed tonight,” I countered.
She laughed and shook her head, saying, “You don’t have to do that.”
“Do what?” I asked. I was genuinely confused as to what she was getting at.
“Keep calling me beautiful. It’s sufficient enough to just say you want a woman in your bed tonight. You don’t have to butter me up like that. I’m just fine with… I don’t know if we can even call it ‘friends with benefits’, to be honest. I thought you hated me.”
I laughed then, and I couldn’t help myself. One, she was in fact,gorgeous, and two, hate was a rather strong word.
“You’re beyond beautiful,” I said, and she snorted. “As for hating you? The only thing I hate about you is – well, there are two things really. That you best me more often than not at the real estate game, and that God-awful, thick-as-fuck, corn-pone, country-bumpkin accent you use. It makes you sound dumb, and you arenotdumb.”
She giggled at me and said, “Believe it or not, thatismy natural accent. This one is the fake one. I learned to stop using it in college, and then figured out it was one of my greatest assets once I graduated. Go figure.”
“That thick-as-hell accent is not your natural accent. I mean it. Talk normal for me.”
She cleared her throat and said, “Why? What do you want me to say?” Sure enough, the accent was real, but not nearly as souped up as she used on clients. It was somewhere between her, I didn’t know, customer service voice and the clean, clear American accent she code-switched to when she was just Savannah, and not Savvy Savanna.
“See, now that’s not nearly the same as what you use on a daily. You can talk to me just like that all you want,” I told her, and I meant it. “You don’t need any of that shit. The makeup, the designer clothes… although I do like many of the things you wear. That dress tonight was choice.”
She was silent for a time, cupping her hands and bringing them to her face, scrubbing them.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I just realized I cried most of this off, and I likely look dreadful!” I laughed then and picked up a washcloth from the little side table beside the bath and put it in her hands.
“Thank you,” she said, and worked at getting the makeup off her face, which I had absolutely no problem with.
We stayed in the bath, not really doing much more talking, merely soaking up the warmth of the bath and one another’s company. There came a time when I felt pruned enough that I asked, “Ready to get out?”
She sleepily murmured back, “Yes.”
She got up at my gentle prodding, and I helped myself up by bracing on the edge of the tub. I wrapped her up in one of the lush bath sheets I kept in here, rubbing her briskly through the thick fibers.
“You fuss too much,” she complained.
I chuckled and countered with, “Let me. I certainly owe it to you.”
She got out and handed me a towel, and I stepped out onto the bathmat and dried myself. She went to the mirror and took down her hair, shaking it out and setting the clip aside.
