MJ 6B: Case of the Curse Pt 2

"Hold me. Don't ask any questions, don't try anything sexual, just hold me, please."

He stood and crossed to me, stopping a few feet away. "Are you sure?"

I nodded. "Hold me please, and if you ever throw this in my face or tell anyone I'll-"

"I won't."

He took my hand and led me to his bedroom. I'd slept in it once, knocked out, and in my morning rage hadn't appreciated the king size bed with satin navy sheets.

He pulled the towel from my wet hair and sat on the bed, pulling me down. He just took off his button down shirt and shoes, leaving his sacks on and guided my in my robe to lay down. I settled into the crook of his shoulder and closed my eyes.

He smelled so damn good, like he always did. It was almost like the old days, when we'd been partners, beat cops. In those days the attraction had been simple and easy. The sex had been furious and hot but there had also been laughter, and once Finn used to hold me just like this.

We'd been so innocent then. I'd never drawn my gun once in the field, I was a rookie. Following in my father's footsteps I'd been alone except for my godfather, a sergeant, until Finn had come along.

I had thought I was falling in love with him until a very petite, very curvy, very beautiful woman walked into the station house and introduced herself as Finn's wife.

I'd transferred to vice to escape him but he had followed so I'd gone into homicide. Running from Finn I'd met Arthur Bowers, and helping Arthur escape a murder charge had cost me my career on the force. My father had died on the job, a detective. I'd just barely made the grade when I'd been forced out.

Luckily I'd been left the PI business from a relative I'd never known and had grown into blackmailing cheating spouses. For a few years it had been peaceful until the fateful day Finn, footloose, fancy free, and totally divorced had waltzed back into my life.

Since then I had killed. I'd been beaten, shot at, and threatened more times than I could count. I'd stood trial for murder, and almost come full circle recently when Arthur Bowers resurfaced and tried to end my career as a human being.

I had seen so much death and gore and vile sickness I'd reached my breaking point. In the morning I would cross another line. I would walk into a man's home and kill him, not to save my life or another's, but to fulfill a promise of vengeance. I'd still be me but I would become something more.

I snuggled deeper into the crook of his shoulder and that night I pretended none of this had happened. I pretended Finn and I were back in my old apartment, curled up on my pull-out couch, our uniforms draped over the recliner, and our futures stretched long and unwritten before us.

For the first time in years, I fell into a dreamless sleep.

***

I woke to find Finn still sleeping beside me. His pants were on, my robe was still tied though gaping, and my hair had dried to a tangled mess.

I extricated myself and did the necessary, borrowed his toothbrush, and tried to brush my hair.

I was still sleepy and when I came back in he looked so damn good. Sleeping on his back his own black curly hair was poofed out, and he had a decent beard start going. He slept on his back one arm by his head like caught in the middle of a backstroke. He was lean, his muscles sharply defined once by life on the streets now by an expansive home gym. He had tattoos from his days in the Marines as well as remnants of a wild youth.

I sat and brushed hair back from his eyes and he sighed, shifting to nuzzle my hand. I was lost. I had pretended all night, why not let the fantasy continue a little longer?

I dropped the robe and laid beside him naked, pressing my cool flesh into his, sleep-warm and welcoming. I kissed his shoulder and his neck gently, licking as I went.

It was almost easy to call up those playful innocent memories of ignorant days past. I undid his slacks and lowered the zipper, sliding my hand inside. He was half hard and I began to nibble his ear as I stroked him to full hardness.

At long last he woke and turned to face me on his side.

"Marly," he said with a yawn, "are you s-"

"Shh." I pressed my finger to his lips and then kissed him. Funny how he had the same morning breath as anyone yet it never bothered me to kiss him like this.

His arms wrapped around me and his hips thrust to meet my stroking hand. He moaned and I did as well, heady pleasure swirling in my mind.

One arm loosened and his hand sought out my breast, cupping it, teasing the nipple. My toes curled and I closed my eyes and enjoyed the teasing motion with little pants.

He moved me to my back and my hand slipped from his pants. He hastily shrugged them off and then his mouth replaced his hand. He licked and sucked and nibbled until my hands fisted in his hair and my own hips thrust up. I was desperate to be filled, to have him inside me and I was more than ready, but apparently he wasn't.

Finn kissed down my body and shifted until his mouth was at my pussy and then he attacked me. He suckled and licked and electric shocks coursed over my body radiating from his hot mouth.

He added two fingers inside me, spitting on his thumb. That he worked into my anus and then he curled those two fingers to press on my g-spot. He began to massage and I cried out, manic with need. Finn didn't tease long, his mouth returned to suck my clit and it felt like I exploded.

I screamed and twisted the sheets in my fist, humping his face furiously, my brain swimming in the most intense orgasm of recent memory.

I came down panting and he moved to grab a condom from the nightstand. He put it on in record time, likely afraid I would change my mind, and before I could offer him a little pleasure with my own hands and mouth he was between my legs, and thrust in.

Finn was on the larger scale of what I could handle and had the grace and knowledge of an old lover to hold still. No matter how aroused I was he pushed in deep and I had to adjust. That feeling of first entry was always so delicious, and he knew how much I enjoyed it.

He laid on me and our mouths fused into a kiss as he began to thrust. His hips pumped and our bodies slid together, his sweat-slick abdomen rasping my slit with each deep, grinding thrust.

I came again with almost shocking ease and clawed at his back, drawing groans of pain from him.

I was barely done with the immensely glorious pulsing deep inside and he was out, moving. Time for his favorite position; he turned me onto my stomach and drew me to my knees, forcing my face down to the bed with a heavy hand on my back. He slammed in now and hit my cervix. It was brutal pain for a second and again he held still, letting me adjust.

Then he began to fuck me harder than he ever had before. His hands slipped to my hips and he jerked me ass back onto him with every thrust. The brutal pain came with each push and pull but pleasure blended with it and all I could do was moan and beg him for more.

Finn grunted in response and I felt his balls tighten and not slap my pussy so much. He slipped a hand around placed two fingers on either side of my white-hot sensitive clit, letting the motion of our bodies pull the hood back and forth.

I came with a primal scream and he slammed into me again and again, forcing me to brace the headboard as I orgasmed again, and Finn joined me with a hoarse shout. We moved mindlessly together riding the crest until it slowed and we collapsed, exhausted on our sides.

We lay there panting for a moment and I cautiously pushed him to his back and settled alongside, my head on his shoulder. He wrapped an arm around me and the other he pushed his sweat-slick hair from his eyes.

Was content to let it be and lay in silence but he seemed in the mood for pillow talk. "What was this, Marly?"

"I saw and heard some horrible things. I'm going to do something today I swore I'd never do. Last night I just needed comfort and damn me, but Finn, you're the only one who can give me that."

He kissed the top of my head and pulled me closer. "And this morning?"

"I miss this, all right? I miss working nights with you in our uniforms, busting shoplifters and vagrants, and then spending days in my bed. I miss when I loved you and it wasn't complicated, and I just wanted to relive it. do we have to dissect it."

He took a deep breath. "Marly, I love you. You know that. It doesn't have to be complicated."

I pulled away, feeling the need for space. "It always has been. Even in those early days it was a lie. You were married and I was your mistress."

I sat and tuned my back on him. He just rolled to his side and laid a kiss on my lower back, surprisingly gentle.

"We were different then. I was an idiot kid, fresh out of the military. I'd been in the Gulf, I'd seen some bad shit, and I wanted to escape it. I married my high school sweetheart before my first deployment and way before returning from the third I knew it was over. She'd moved out when I joined the force. She had a boyfriend, it was over, but we were two Catholic kids scared of divorce."

"You never told me this."

"I did, you just didn't listen. My ex-wife...she's a bitch. She came to the station that day with divorce papers for me to sign. She only said she was my wife because when she saw you she got jealous. That bitch only had them drawn up because she wanted to get married to somebody else.

"I told you, but you wouldn't listen. You transferred, and then I followed you. I tried to tell you I had papers drawn up myself, I was ending it to be with you. You didn't listen.

"Marly, can't you see? You left me so many times. I never gave up."

I whirled around, pissed off. "You left too! You left me to face two murder charges, you left me alone with that!"

He sat now too. "If I had stayed we would have been tried together and gone down. I left the state because there wasn't enough evidence to convict you alone. I did it for you!"

The fantasy had ended. "Fuck, Finn. I wanted a nice easy morning fuck and some cuddling, you had to ruin it with talking. Fine, I love you, you love me, we bump uglies now and again but you're right. We can't be together or we go to prison!"

"Marly..." he growled then sighed. "Look, obviously whatever happened yesterday has to do with Bain. Let's deal with that, you have my help and support, but I ask one thing. When this is done, you WILL sit down and discuss this like an adult with me."

"Before we strike this bargain let me tell you what I have to do. I have to kill Bain."

I finally turned and looked at him. With his loose hair, scruffy beard shadow, and visible tattoos he looked like the perfect person to help.

"All right. I'll do it if I have your word you will talk to me after."

I nodded, wondering what more there was to say.

***

"You're sure this will work?" I asked Finn later as we drove to Lake Forest in a stolen car. Riding in back was Carlos, a former personal assistant to Finn both in his fencing days and startup porn mogul ones.

I'd worked with Carlos a few times with Finn and he'd even testified at my trail for the murder of Stormy Michaels. Carlos had been the one to pick up Finn and was his alibi, and he had testified on my behalf that I wasn't near the club that night.

Trouble was I had been. The other murder charge I faced, Eddie Harwood, was my then ex-boyfriend and owner of the club where Stormy had been shot. Truthfully we'd pieced it together. Eddie had killed Stormy. Great, neat, except a mysterious man we'd never found had killed Harwood, setting me and Finn up. The only man that knew anything about the unknown gunman was my old childhood pal Alabaster who had hightailed his ass to Europe and off the map.

Carlos was many things. A good sewer, a good business manager, but originally he'd come to Finn as a forger and today he was going to reprise his career.

Finn ended the pregnant pause with a sigh. "You and I both were cops. You know as well as I dump a body in an alley with no wallet and you're scot free, but there's too much here. We've got a dead son, a dead PI, a missing daughter, a dead drug dealer...Marly this is the only way out."

"It's complicated. Too complicated."

"And you and I both know a suicide note in Bain's hand will be pat enough for any local rinky-dink cops to consider it open and shut."

I turned to Carlos. "So the story again is this: Bain discovered his daughter was into heroin and he tracked down the dealer and killed him. Eleanor ran away when she realized a recent sex partner was a previously unknown half brother. When Bain discovered this he killed Edward Blake, his son. When Eleanor didn't come back, he killed himself out of grief and guilt."

"Got it. I'll just need a letter written by him, a couple practice sheets and I can write it. Put his prints on it and we're good, as long as you stage it right."

"No problem there. You ready?" Finn asked me.

I pulled the disposable cell out and called Bain's direct line. He answered sounding a bit rough; perhaps he'd heard the news about his son. "It's Marly Jackson. We found Ellie and we're bringing her in. We'll be there in ten minutes."

"What!?! Of course I- I'll be ready."

I hung up and took a deep breath. "In the end I have to do it."

"Marly, I can do this. My conscience is shredded enough, you don't need to do this."

I glanced out the window. "I made a promise. This man is evil, and he has to die. T's not about us anymore. You should have seen Ellie. Her brother, her fucking brother raped and tortured her. He did this with their father's consent, a man who killed his wife, probably his sister, and raped his own child countless times. I only regret we won't make him suffer."

No one spoke the rest of the way. We were let in the gate and Bain himself ran out and down the steps. When we emerged he stiffened, a stark black figure against the large white house.

"Where is she?"

Finn strode over and jabbed a gun into his side. "She will be along in a minute. Call your man."

Bain looked at Finn at a level gaze and paled. 'Dawkins!" he yelled.

"Have Dawkins dismiss everyone and leave, or I shoot. Got it?"

"How do I know you won't anyway."

I strode up and pulled off my sunglasses. "Trust me, he won't."

Bain eyed me and I gave him my gimlet stare.

"Sir?" the butler asked.

"Ellie is coming here and I need total privacy. Escort the staff off property and then leave. Five minutes Dawkins."

"Sir?"

"She's coming and I need total privacy," Bain drawled the last with a touch of lasciviousness.

The butler nodded and my stomach roiled. "No, Dawkins, you'll stay with us. Get everyone else out."

"But you said-" Bain's protest was cut off by Finn's gun jabbing him in the ribs.

We waited as a woman in a maid uniform and a gardener came out and walked to their cars. When they drove off I brandished my gun and trained it on. "Inside, now."

"Marly" Finn asked me as we forced them into Bain's home office.

I shot Dawkins without pre-emption and everyone froze, staring. I turned to Bain, heart pounding and adrenaline coursing through my system as the man slumped to the ground, a large hole in his chest as he gasped for air.

"He knew the whole time, didn't he, you sick fuck!?!"

"Knew what?"

"Finn? I'm ready."

Finn dropped his own gun and grabbed Bain in a sleeper hold. The thinner man struggled but after several long minutes he fell into unconsciousness.

"I'm not yet," Carlos said. "Suicides write the note usually at the site when at home. Give me five minutes. What do I say about Dawkins?"

"He was the gay lover of Bain and tried to stop him. When Bain shot him, final nail in the coffin."

Carlos shrugged and sat in the desk chair. Petite, delicate, and darkly Latino he didn't fit as well with the décor as gothic Bain did. "Works for me."

He had on gloves as well and opened drawers, pausing and waving me over silently. I came and saw he was pointing at my bug.

"Oh, that's mine." I blushed. "I forgot about it in the, er, excitement."

I pulled it and tucked it in my suit jacket. Carlos shook his head and selected a few papers, and began writing his own.

Finn scowled at me. "It was still recording, wasn't it?"

I shook my head. "Six hour tapes and I haven't been home in 24 hours, we're safe."

"Christ, Marly."

"I had my mind on other things." We both glanced over at Bain as he moaned. Finn was there in a flash, using a pillow to smother him back into unconsciousness. We didn't want him dead yet.

"Almost done, Carlos?"

"Almost. Okay, got it. Bring him here, he should be holding it."

Finn picked up Bain with a grunt and we all with gloved hands positioned him. The gun I'd brought was stolen, hot, bought for cash on the street.

Carlos made Bain clutch the note and Finn helped me position the gun. It was tricky getting it to a position where blowback wouldn't land on me instead of the room, but I managed.

I squeezed the trigger and it was like his skull blew off.

I expected to feel dead but horribly, oh so horribly, I felt alive. We all did and glanced at one another nervously hiding smiles like the fucking suck sociopaths I felt we were at that moment.

A noise from the hall jolted us. Before we could move Ellie came barging in screeching, Nikolas' behind her fumbling with the gun I'd given him.

Ellie stopped, saw her father, and began screaming "the curse, the curse," over and over again.

She ran towards her Father but Finn stopped her. At the touch of a strange man she flipped out and began thrashing.

"Nikolas what is going on?"

"She went for a fix, said she was going to the bathroom. I chased her here in a goddamned cab. She's high, out of her mind."

Finn restrained her with both hands and Carlos edged away. He'd seen enough violence and Ellie was vibrating with the threat of it. Her loud screeching had turned to slurred nonsense and then she surprised us by grabbing Finn's gun from his holster.

He'd left the safety off and she swung it wide, jerked the trigger back, and blew off some crown molding. Finn dove for her but she sidestepped and aimed at me. "You did it, you killed him but he killed her and he's dead and you killed him!"

I put my hands up in as non-threatening manner as possible but she was on something that had her pupils blown and her movements jerky and erratic. PCP it looked like, every cop's worst nightmare.

"I'll kill you!" she screamed and a shot rang out.

For a panic-stricken moment I thought she'd done it, but then she slumped to the floor.

Nikolas let out a screech and ran to her before we could stop him. Finn was the only one with a working mind and he crawled to the elder Bain and grabbed the gun.

Nikolas reached for Ellie who squeezed off a shot by his head, fairly unaffected by the shot to her stomach. "Kill me, Nik, kill me," she sobbed.

"I can't!"

Finn stalked back and kicked Nikolas aside. He pumped two bullets into Ellie's brain and when her head was a bloodied mess and she stopped moving he pulled the gun up.

Nikolas let out a whine that w as almost pure animal and collapsed to a sobbing heap.

"Carlos?" I asked after a few seconds of blinking bewilderment.

"On it."

Finn replaced the gun in Bain's hand then came to stand over Nikolas. "It had to be done. She was on fucking angel dust! How could you let that happen?"

"I didn't know! Oh, god!"

I reached into my purse and brought out tweezers. "Get him out of here, Finn. Do it now!"

Finn had to drag him to the front kicking and screaming. The whole scene had taken less than four minutes but my adrenaline was still high and it felt like hours.

The gun I'd given Nikolas was a .22 which meant the slug was still in her but could have moved. I slapped on a second pair of gloves and began to feel inside the wound until I found it. It took several minutes but I got it out with the tweezers. It was important there be only one gun in this scene.