Starling (Southern Watch Book 6) Read online

  She’d come out to find Molly missing. Well, not missing, she realized as she stepped up to the door. The sound of the television going in the parlor was a strong indicator that Molly had just decided to do something other than read or be alone with her thoughts in the room they were sharing.

  Lauren understood that. She didn’t much care for the idea of being alone with her thoughts right now either.

  She had made it to just outside the parlor archway when she heard the faint snatches of conversation under the TV’s raised volume, almost as though someone had turned it up to cover a whispered conversation.

  “So … if a guy … does that … in your mouth … what does it taste like?” Molly’s voice was curious and maybe a little disgusted.

  “It’s called cumming.” Lucia’s tone was even, almost amused. “And it’s not a good taste. You want to move his tip to the back of your mouth when he’s about to cum, because otherwise you—I mean, your taste buds are on your tongue, right? So if you move it to the back of your mouth, when it comes squirting out, you don’t really taste it as much and you can just swallow it right down—”

  “Ewwwwww!”

  “—without, you know, getting sick,” Lucia finished. “Guys don’t really like it when you start gagging. It’s a turnoff.”

  “Gagging?” Molly asked, somewhere between revulsion and awe. Lauren was feeling sick too, but for a different reason. “You really get sick? From what, the taste?”

  “Unless your guy has been drinking a lot of pineapple juice, yeah,” Lucia said. “It’s a pretty distinct flavor, pretty nasty.”

  “Wait … pineapple juice? What?”

  Lauren closed her eyes and shook her head.

  “It changes the taste so it’s not so bad. Asparagus does the opposite.”

  “So … I mean, I’ve heard the old … I don’t know, sayings about ‘spitting or swallowing’ …”

  “Don’t spit.”

  Molly’s voice broke in after a short pause for reflection. “But if it’s nasty, why would I want to—”

  “Look, it’s all about what you’re trying to do,” Lucia said. Lauren barely contained her nausea. “If you’re actually trying to give the guy a good time, pulling it out of your mouth or stopping before he’s done? It kills it. I can’t do that in my job. I have to keep going until he’s done and practically begs me to stop. If you’re trying to please the guy, don’t quit until he’s done, don’t spit, because that’s—I dunno, guys get offended or something. Definitely don’t gag.”

  “But it sounds so fucking gross!”

  “It is,” Lucia said, “but … I dunno, you get used to it. Just do what I told you to do, and you won’t taste it so much. Finish it until he tells you to stop. Swallow if you can, because the taste doesn’t go away if you spit, and he’ll be all glowing and flattered if you do. Unless you hate him, in which case … why are you blowing him in the first place, unless it’s for money?”

  Lauren’s eyes almost burst out of her head. “Oh, God,” she whispered. Now her daughter was getting career advice from a prostitute.

  “Is there some guy you have in mind for this?” Lucia asked, sounding like she was sort of dimly enjoying herself. This was older sister advice, except from a goddamned hooker.

  “No,” Molly said, and she sounded serious. “It’s all theoretical, I guess. I’m just curious.”

  Lauren took a halting breath, and the nausea subsided a level or two. It was still there though, kind of a twisting feeling in her stomach at hearing her daughter ask a pro on how to give blowjobs and pleasure a man with her fucking mouth. Or by fucking her mouth. A new swell of sickness hit Lauren’s belly, settling in her guts.

  “It’s not a bad way to start with a guy,” Lucia said matter-of-factly. “Instead of losing your … you’re still a virgin?” She sounded pretty definite, like it wasn’t really a question.

  “Yeah,” Molly said with obvious discomfort. Lauren felt that gut-twist again; Molly had nearly lost it to a demon only a couple months back, against her will, and though she was coping well, it was still a sore point, Lauren knew. Trauma didn’t fade like bruises. It stayed long past any physical signs.

  “Oral is a good way to start,” Lucia said, sounding like her voice was drifting off, dreamy. “Guys like it. Well, most guys do. It’s quick and easy, less messy than, you know, fucking. You can do it in a car without contorting your entire body against the wheel, and it feels good for him.”

  “Uh huh.” Molly sounded a little far away too. “So … if it’s so good … why don’t guys just go for it … you know, all the time?” She was speaking in a hushed whisper once more, probably hoping they wouldn’t be overheard. Either that, or she was ashamed to be asking.

  “Variety,” Lucia said. “I think? I don’t know. Different guys like different things. I have customers that are in the mood for oral one time and anal the next. Then maybe they want straight sex the next time. One guy just likes feet, another likes me to use my hands and then let him spray all over my belly. I don’t know how guys think, I just know how to do what they want.”

  “Huh.” Molly sounded like she was processing it all. “But what about—”

  Lauren leaned against the wall a little too hard, and her back made a thump. She froze, and the conversation came to a halt. Shit, she thought, and knew she’d been heard. No point hiding it now.

  She came around the corner, looking right at Molly. Why shouldn’t she? Lauren was in charge of her, in charge of protecting her, and this—this—abominable conversation? No part of it sounded good to Lauren. None of it. “We have to go,” she said hoarsely.

  Molly frowned at her. “Go? Go where? It’s—”

  “The watch is—there’s a car on Faulkner Road that—” Lauren was so flustered she couldn’t finish a sentence. “Come with me,” she finally said, exasperated and wanting to make it an order rather than a question or request.

  “You want me to come with you on a call?” Molly leapt to her feet. She didn’t even cast a look back at Lucia, instead bursting into a goofy, geeky, uncoordinated run. Well, there was a reason that Molly wasn’t an athlete. She dodged past Lauren in a second, bare feet thudding along the floor as she hurried to put on shoes.

  “Wow,” Lucia said mildly, her green eyes registering very little surprise. “I thought you were trying to keep her out of harm’s way.” It came out not as any kind of indictment on Lauren’s parenting, more like a gentle—even amused—commentary from a detached outsider who didn’t care what happened one way or another.

  Lauren didn’t know what to say to that, so she didn’t say anything at all. Instead she whirled, ready to go gather up her weapons and try to corral her daughter away—far away—from this goddamned hooker who was not just educating her about the facts of life, but about the finer points of giving blowjobs for fun and profit.

  *

  “So we’re looking for a kid?” Erin asked, quivering clear down to her legs. It was just getting darker and darker, the clouds above covering the skies. It was pretty damned unsettling, especially since she and Reeve had both been seeing things out here. Really fucking unsettling.

  “We’re looking for a kid, at least,” Reeve said, holding his sword, tip pointing up, her high beams glinting off it. “Mack Wellstone. His mother’s name was—is—Nora. His dad died this morning out in the woods.”

  “From what?” Erin asked, trying to keep her voice steel-chord taut to keep the worry from bleeding out. She was no chickenshit, but this was not exactly a calming stroll in the woods. It was a tense watch, waiting for backup to show so they could start sweeping for a kid and facing … well, hell, God only knew. Demons, probably.

  “Hendricks and Arch dealt with it, I don’t know,” Reeve said, his gaze still sweeping around their lighted perimeter. “They didn’t say in front of the kid, and I didn’t have a chance to talk with them about it afterward.”

  “Goddamned Hendricks,” Erin said under her breath. She meant it. The cowboy was suppos
ed to be a demon expert, but he was about as useful as two left shoes when you were in a hurry to get out the door. “They didn’t even give you a hint?”

  “They might have had some other things on their minds,” Reeve said, keeping his sword pointed toward the woods. “I might have too.” His voice was low and rough, and veering toward choked.

  That was probably the closest the man had gotten to acknowledging he’d gone to his own wife’s funeral today, Erin realized. God knew he hadn’t shown a sign of it elsewhere.

  “Just keep our perimeter tight for now,” Reeve said, just as leaves crunched out in the woods.

  Erin spun, her Glock held tight, and her desire to put her finger on the trigger held at bay by years of her daddy teaching her not to put it there until she was ready to shoot. Her stomach warbled, rumbled, a queasy hint of worry like a chaser fighting with the shot of fear she’d just taken against her will. The bat was hanging from her other hand, heavy as shit and threatening to drag down her aim.

  “Shit,” Erin said, tracing a path over the lit parts of the road, the headlights giving her a little to see by. “This is all we need, a goddamned search for a wayward kid when we’re in the middle of demon-infested woods.”

  “Hard to say if demons are infesting the woods,” Reeve said.

  “Well, they’re in the town,” Erin shot back, slowly spinning to cover one hundred and eighty degrees extending behind her car but careful not to point her weapon close at Reeve. “It’s not exactly a stretch to imagine them out here, is it? Especially since this kid was already attacked in the woods by something this morning.”

  Reeve blinked a little at that. “Shit. Yeah. You’re right. Guess I just don’t want to think of—fuck.”

  “What?” she asked, frowning at him as she tossed a look over her shoulder.

  “The woods were always my sanctuary this time of year,” Reeve said tautly, his own gun clutched in his hand. “Any normal year … I would have been out this morning for opener. But instead, we get this. Maybe I was just hoping, giving all the hell we’ve seen in town … it’d steer clear of my damned woods.”

  Erin chuckled against her will. “You were hoping we were up against a bunch of goddamned city-slicker demons?”

  Reeve hesitated, then laughed. “Yeah. Like they’d draw a border at the edge of the woods and be afraid to cross it. ‘There’s no Chardonnay or goose liver or shit in there!’” He laughed again, then stopped. “Goddamn.” He looked right at her, and there was an empty look in his eyes. “They’re gonna take everything they can from us, aren’t they? Every last goddamned thing, right down to our lives.”

  “Looking that way,” Erin said soberly. She couldn’t really see his face fall, but she knew the words had hit him nonetheless, and felt required to say something more. “But we’re not gonna goddamn let them, remember? Not without a hell of a fight.”

  “Right,” Reeve said, and returned to scanning the dark woods, eyes alert for movement, the two of them listening for any unusual noises. But he didn’t sound convinced.

  *

  “Honey, I’m home,” Pike said as he came in the door of his ranch-style brick house. It was after seven, which was when he usually came in, past the time when the kids—they were five and two—were in bed. He preferred early bedtimes for his kids, mostly so he didn’t have to put up with too much of their horseshit in the evenings. He put in some time with them in the mornings and on weekends, but he didn’t have much interest in them at this age. The five-year-old, he conceded, was starting to get interesting, but the two-year-old … eh. Wiping asses and talking baby talk bored Pike, and the sooner they got through that into the point where they could hold decent conversation about something that wasn’t related to toys or kids’ games, the better.

  Darla agreed, he knew. They’d weighed the pros and cons, and decided in favor of having kids, but Pike was most definitely finished at two. He doubted he had the patience for any more because he barely had the patience for the two he had. The kids went to bed early by mutual accord; Darla didn’t have much patience for the bullshit parts of parenting either.

  “How’d the peace talks go?” Darla asked, swinging her pretty blond head around the corner. She’d had some nice curves even before they’d had kids, and those were more accentuated now. Her breasts were quite a bit bigger too, though Pike was ambivalent about the belly fat she’d picked up. There was a time when she’d had abs, a tight little stomach that made him pull out and blow his wad on her, white splattering on her pearly skin. The sight was hot enough that even after he was done he immediately wanted to fuck again, in spite of the pain it caused his prick to try and force himself to go on once he’d blown his load.

  That was what Darla was good for. She was from Illinois, originally, hearty Midwesterner stock, but without any of the puritanical bullshit that Midwesterners sometimes picked up. She loved cock, loved to fuck, loved to go all night and push him past his limits. She was as libertine as they got, in touch with her feminist side, in touch with her sexuality, and ready to cuss like a fucking sailor at the drop of a hat. She sucked cock like a champ too, had given him head on their first date because she’d been on the rag at the time. He’d watched her face as she’d teased him, savoring his roller-coaster of emotion and arousal until he’d exploded in orgasmic relief after forty-five minutes of insane, teasing buildup.

  He’d known right then that this woman was the one for him. The fact that they’d had their first three-way a week later at her suggestion had cemented the decision.

  He thought about how much he’d gotten laid before Darla had come along, and it couldn’t hold a candle to how much he’d gotten laid since. She had zero possessiveness about him, practically handing him the keys to the chastity belts of women he couldn’t have hoped to fuck before he’d met her. She could whisper a word to him, some little secret, some angle he could take after talking to a woman for five minutes, and ten minutes later the woman’s dress would be in a pile on the floor and he’d be balls deep, thrusting into her until he reached that sweet climax. All because Darla would show him the way.

  Goddamn, did he love that woman.

  “Went well,” Pike said. “I gotta throw Reeve a budget bone in order to make good, but that ought to be no big deal.”

  Her eyes flickered as she nodded. “Small price to pay. You probably won’t even have to live up to it over a whole fiscal year, and anyway, who cares? It’s not your money.”

  “Exactly.” Pike smiled.

  She returned the smile, an element of lasciviousness in it now. “Did you fuck Jenny?”

  “Six ways to Sunday,” Pike said.

  “Good.” She sauntered over to him and kissed him, unbuckling his belt. She broke off and let his trousers drop to the ground.

  She chased his cock around in her mouth for only about ten minutes before he moaned and squirted in the back of her throat. She took it all down, smiling mischievously around his piece, holding it in there afterward, rolling her tongue in a way that caused him discomfort now that he’d gotten off. He grunted, but she kept her lips firmly anchored on his dick. She did this sometimes, smiling as she slipped it out and gave him a lick up to the sensitive head. “I like the taste of her. Her and you, together.”

  “Jesus,” Pike said, sweating. Was it hot in here?

  “I’m thinking about going on,” she said, and deep-throated him again. Pike grunted; the prospect was pleasant and yet unpleasant. He had that painful, after-orgasm sensitivity from head to the bottom of his shaft, and Darla damned well knew it. But he knew better than to say anything, because she didn’t mind doing unpleasant or even painful things to him, and this was the least of them that she might try if she were in a playful—or hateful—mood. She slipped her lips up and down him again, tickling the back of her throat with the head of his penis.

  Pike gasped again.

  She pulled it out, gripping it firmly and giving it a squeeze. A little dot of semen dangled at the tip, hanging like it might drip. She
looked at it, then at him, and he felt like he was being watched by a shark. She took him into her mouth up to the tip and gave him a hard suck. He tried not to moan again but did, and she smelled his weakness, squeezing the base of his shaft and running her lips tightly up and down him again, wringing amusement out of him at his expense.

  Goddamn, did he love this woman.

  “Admit it,” she said, pausing and taking his dick out of her mouth, dragging it across her cheek, where it left a trail of saliva and a thin thread of clear ejaculate, “you wish I’d swallowed the cumshots that made our babies too, don’t you?” She looked up at him with devilish amusement.

  “It gets easier every year,” he gasped, avoiding the answer while trying to get control of his breathing. She was being really rough with his shaft, like she was trying to suffocate it, but Darla had always been rough—in blowjobs, in sex. He mostly didn’t mind, though he had drawn a line that he knew she exceeded with other partners. “As they grow up, I mean. They’re not quite the needy little bitches they were when they started out.”

  “You’re such a selfish prick,” she said, squeezing his dick mercilessly hard again. She rubbed the head on her chin, leaving another droplet there and grinning at him. “Stop being selfish, prick, and give me another squirt.”

  Pike groaned. He still wasn’t through the refractory period where his dick would be recharged for another round, but she was pushing through that painful interregnum with everything she had. “You know, I do have my limits.”

  That was the wrong thing to say. Her eyes lit up, and she looked up at him without raising her head. A hand that had been cupping his balls a moment earlier snaked through his legs and up before he could protest.