Reading Online Novel

Ain't Your Bitch(40)



“Yeah, whatever.”



Jacqui looked composed and cool, though Noah knew it was only a facade. He knocked before he came in, the way he’d said he would. That was the signal not to unload the pistol he’d given her on the first face she saw through the door. It sat beside her on the table, apparently untouched. Noah knew enough about the sort of people who don’t use guns regularly to know that she probably had nearly forgotten about it until he knocked.

Yet at the same time, he suspected, it was ever-present in the periphery of her mind.

He sat down in the only other chair in the place, in the middle of the room. He studiously avoided the idea of sitting on the couch beside her, though it would have been the more comfortable, more natural place to sit. He smiled what he hoped was a reassuring smile at her and pulled a scrap of paper out of his pocket.

“So, Ms. Jones, I’ve been doing some poking around, and… it’s not ideal. The man who shot at you owns a hunting rifle, appears to smoke.”

Noah laid the cigarette butt down on the coffee table, assuming the young woman wouldn’t recognize it. However, he was surprised to see her caught by a thought. He waited for her to tell him what she was thinking. She was too afraid, he thought, to leave out something that might save her life. Even if it were a little bit silly. All she needed was time, and perhaps a push.

“Well, I do know,” Jacqui stopped. She seemed to be pondering her choice of words, but then she didn’t go on.

“What is it, miss Jones?”

“Would you stop calling me that?” Noah was nonplussed at her reaction. “Just call me Jacqui. I’m tired of people calling me ‘Miss Jones.’ At least you could do that.”

It was not typical for Noah to call any of his clients by their given name, particularly the ones he was acting in a protection role with. Normally people of that class were too keen on formalities, hardly even prone to using contractions in their speech.

“Yes, of course.”

“I need to get out of this place. I can’t think in here.”

Noah thought for a moment. It would probably, he reasoned, be safe enough. Nobody would have known where he was. He hadn’t been followed, and he kept himself off lists when he could. He had gotten pretty good at it over the years. Finally he nodded.

His coat hung on the hook by the door, until he took it back. He opened the door first, he walked ahead, keeping an eye out. He saw the man standing there, but he looked harmless enough. There was no reason to think that there was any risk here, anyways.

It wasn’t until the little man moved, as Noah passed, that he realized that somehow he had miscalculated. Noah stepped to intercede and shot his arm out, catching the fellow by the neck. Noah saw now, the little man had a knife in his hand. It would be sharp, he knew, and most of all cheap. He held the headlock on tight and looked to Jacqui.

“Do you know this man?”

“No!” She was terrified, he saw, and then the knife came down on his thigh.

Clearly the attacker thought he could get away, perhaps even finish the job, if he got Noah to let loose. But his instincts didn’t slacken. He tightened harder, until he heard the little man choking and the knife’s jerking slowed.

He roared out the question in his anger:

“Who do you work for?”

The little man made no motion to answer, just pulled the knife free. Noah tightened again, as hard as his arms would allow. Then the hoodlum stopped moving, his face an ugly color. Noah let him down lightly. He would be awake, he suspected, in a few minutes. And he knew that they had to be away by then.



Jacqui’s face was a mixture of emotions, the same mixture she had worn earlier that day. The sun was down, now, and they were sitting outside of Noah’s parent’s cottage. Nobody would come here for weeks at a time, he knew. Even if whoever was hunting his client had known about him, had found his apartment, they wouldn’t think to check here. He, himself, had almost been uncertain that they still owned the place.

But the key was still hidden in the same place, and the same pictures hung on the walls, so it stood to reason. So he told Jacqui they would stay here for the night. She said she needed a shower, to relax. Noah could understand, needed a shower himself.

When she’d called him in to the room, asking for a towel, he had forgotten himself for a moment, noticed her through the glass. It wasn’t a perfect view, but he could see how large her breasts were, how shapely her bottom. He’d only barely managed to maintain his professional distance, then. He set down a towel and a robe he’d pulled from the pantry, and then he turned to go.

“You know, we could save some water showering together.”

Noah could feel a stirring in his loins. The desire to agree rose along with a lump in his throat.

“Jacqui, you know I can’t.”

“Come on, Mr. Walker.” Noah wasn’t sure what she meant by saying his name that way. He was almost offended, though he couldn’t have said why.

“You know why I can’t. It’s not that—” he stopped for a moment, but then he let himself finish. “It’s not that I’m not interested.”

“Aw, sourpuss. I won’t peek.”

Noah felt the last bits of his resistance slipping away. Perhaps she really wouldn’t peek. It would be saving water, and there was no reason not to be close to her, as long as he didn’t go all the way. He could almost feel the electric haze of mutual arousal, but he attributed it to the heat from the water.

Finally he sighed, unbuttoning his shirt. His clothes were left in a pile on the floor, and he knocked on the glass of the shower cover.

“You’d better turn around, I’m coming in.”

And then he slid the glass aside and into the shower he went. The water was aimed at Jacqui, so he only got the lukewarm spray off her body. Compared to the heat in the room, it seemed ice cold. He turned around, and the two of them stood back-to-back.

“Do you need to get under the water?” Jacqui’s voice was soft behind him.

“Yeah, do you mind?”

Noah started to edge around the side of the tub, skirting by Jacqui. He felt her breasts press into his back, and he could feel himself hardening. Perhaps it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to do something, anything to relieve the arousal he was feeling. He knew Jacqui had to be feeling something, too.

He looked over his shoulder to see Jacqui facing away. Noah let the water spray into his hair, running down his back. He grabbed a bottle of shampoo, lathering it through his hair. His eyes closed for a moment, and that was when Jacqui turned. Noah nearly lost his balance when he felt her mouth on him. He didn’t fight her, just let one hand drop down, resting on her head.

“You can’t imagine,” he mused, “how good that feels.”

He let her bob her head on his cock, enjoying the sensation. It seemed to get sharper, more defined and more pleasurable by the moment.

“Don’t stop.”

He could feel his fingers interlacing with her kinky hair, pressing her deeper and deeper. He could feel himself approaching the edge, the release that might let him finally clear his head—then his phone rang. Fuck, he thought. Just another moment.

And then, all at once, the spell was broken. He realized what he’d been ready to do, and he knew Jacqui had known too. It was playing with fire, and he wasn’t ready to take that risk. He pushed the shower door open and stepped out. Dimly, he could hear Jacqui behind him, her tone a mix of frustration and confusion, but he wasn’t listening to what she was saying. He needed to get out of that room.



Noah didn’t hear her come in, but when she spoke he didn’t turn to look. It was too difficult to make the situation work as it was, he reasoned. With the way things were going already, he knew that he would only be making himself miserable.

“There’s something I should tell you,” she said.

It was a sentence that he’d always been afraid of, had always made him uncomfortable. Too often people said ‘there’s something you should know’ or ‘there’s something I should tell you’ when they had news he didn’t want to hear. But he tried to steel himself against that reaction, since he knew she couldn’t be telling him he was adopted and she couldn’t be telling him she was pregnant. So he ignored the pit that dropped open in the bottom of his stomach, hardened his resolve, and only then did he answer.

“Yeah?” He made a motion as if to turn, but he didn’t quite look at her. “What’s that, miss Jones?”

He imagined the look on her face. In his imagination she was angry, her nostrils flaring just so at the targeted, if subtle, barb. Instead, she sat down on the soft chair just in front of him, thoughtful. Almost as if she hadn’t heard it. Somehow that was unacceptable to Noah, but he couldn’t figure out a way to do anything about it without seeming petulant. So he let her be, waiting for her to reveal whatever she had decided he had to know.

“You know, you are—never mind.” She sighed, and began again. “I was thinking about what you were saying. Hunting rifle, and so on. I was trying to think if that could be some sort of hint, you know?”

Noah nodded, still not daring to look directly at Jacqui.

“It’s not much to go on, really. Hundreds of thousands of men hunt. Probably ten thousand within twenty miles of you at any given time. It’s not proof of anything.”