MJ 3: Case of the Purple Rose

Soon enough I was wet enough he moved, his weight bearing down to rasp his pub hair over my clit. He squeezed my nipple harder now, and I moaned his name, clutching at his back, digging my nails in.

I drew blood, feeling it on my fingertips and sighed, and he bent to bit my shoulder in kind. I thrust my hips against him, feeling the bright expanding bubble of orgasm shimmering and he seemed to know and began to tighten the hand at my throat.

A feedback loop began and the closer I got the more he squeezed, exciting me and getting me impossibly hotter. Just as I reached that precipice where only intense arousal would catapult me into ecstasy he squeezed until my breath stopped.

I silently opened my mouth as if begging and he began to slam into me, distending my nipple and panting enough for the both of us.

When I finally came he emptied into me with a long, wolf-like howl and my vision began to blur with spots as my orgasm felt like it touched every nerve with pure oxygen and pleasure.

At last he collapsed on me and I coughed as the air, stale with smoke, filled my depleted lungs. This was unlike any other time between us, and I couldn't say how, but it was comforting and unnerving simultaneously.

Exhausted, I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep.

***

I woke to banging on my door and blinked the crusties from my eyes. I was blurry for a moment, but not black-out blurry. I was naked on my couch, sticky from sex, my throat was raw and sore, and there was a blanket on top of me.

I looked around and Finn was nowhere to be seen.

"Just a minute," I croaked and stumbled to the coat rack where my robe hung. The knocking continued and that could only mean an impatient customer or the cops. Anybody else would have just busted in the door by now.

I opened it to see three detectives with a warrant and their IDs out. One was Bruce something-or-other, a guy I'd worked with.

"Marly, you're gonna want to get dressed."

I crossed my arms. "Jackie is supposed to come get me if I violate my bond, and I haven't done that."

Bruce raised a salt and pepper brow, shifting his slight bulk around with a sigh. "You were sighted shooting a gun in a night club last night where a French national Michael Andrews, aka Alabaster has gone missing. And there's other charges."

"I'll get dressed and come with peacefully, but what are they?"

"Conspiracy to commit murder, two counts, in addition to illegal firearm possession and the old count of murder."

"Conspiracy? With who?"

"Alabaster."

Nothing he could have said would have shocked me more. I got dressed mutely before I spoke again, opting for simple as I was likely going to be wearing a jumpsuit soon enough.

"What about Finn?"

"DA dropped the charges."

Had Finn known this? Did he leave while I slept to protect himself or for some other reason?

I went with them to the jail where I went through the fun process of fingerprinting, photographing, being stripped of my shoelaces and hair band, asked if I wanted to press charges for the ligature marks around my throat, and finally I was questioned for all of one second before I lawyered up.

Fuck what cop shows tell you, it's pure BS. The innocent, if they are smart, always lawyer up. I went one better, I called in a favor from Montgomery, the head of the Irish mob, and he sent over his personal lawyer.

In exchange for that I gave him the name of his daughters' killer: Michael Finnegan. If Finnegan hadn't been on the run before, he was now.

In the end it went down like this: Someone anonymously suggested the please do a paraffin test on the deceased Harwood and an unidentified witness placed Harwood and Alabaster as Stormy's killer, with me thrown in. Seeing as I was favored for Harwood's death and had just the night before been seen shooting my way out of Alabaster's nightclub, it made sense.

I rotted in that jail for two weeks before my lawyer gave me the news: Alabaster had been traced to France where he indeed had primary citizenship and before the nearly-impossible extradition proceedings could be done he disappeared.

Finn himself had vanished into thin air, word had it his young assistant was running things competently, and keeping it all legal.

At a preliminary hearing my charges got split up into separate trials, a logistical nightmare that would give me a slight advantage. My lawyer was damn good but his pay was favors to Montgomery and my bill was mounting quickly. Soon enough I knew I'd get word to shiv somebody in the yard like a bad movie plot.

The day of my trial the worst news came. Montgomery had done some investigating of his own and pieced it together. A man claiming to be Smith with ties to the Italian families of Chicago came in. He helped convince Harwood to kill Stormy and frame Finn, then this Smith killed Harwood and framed me.

The good news was that this was an enemy we shared, Finn and I, and that was a starting point. The bad news? Finn was well and truly off the map. The worse news? This man Smith never existed and there was no trace of him, no proof he ever existed except a vague description from Harwood's doorman and Alabaster, my co-conspirator being tried in absentia.

I was fucked, and I was going down for murder. Funny that it was one I didn't even commit.