Page 10 of Small Town Beast 2: Saverin’s Duet (Sins of the South)

FOUR

SAVERIN

Time to go.

The first thought.

The second: is this fucking cat trying to kill me?

The orange beast had seated itself firmly on Saverin’s chest and, seeing he was awake, promptly dug its claws into his skin.

“Gerroff!”

“MROWWWW!”

The animal thudded to the floor. Good grief. Saverin shut his eyes, but the furry menace sprang across the room and jumped on him again, knocking all the breath from his lungs before leaping nimbly back to the floor.

Saverin fumbled to his feet, his six-foot-three frame bashing into the many mobile sculptures hanging from the ceiling of the room. Where the fuck am I…Is that supposed to be a door ?

“MROWWOWOWWWWWW,” screeched the cat. Saverin jerked open the door, resisting the urge to give the fiend a none-too-gentle boot in the ass as it smugly pranced out of sight.

“Go on, you son of a bitch.”

“ Mroww,” it sneered back.

When he closed the door the handle popped right off and remained in his hand.

Saverin stared blankly at the piece of hardware and the jagged hole it left behind.

In Saverin’s world the handles of doors remained usually where he found them.

Not here. The soft, splintered wood had come apart like wet paper.

There were flood-lines going up the panel.

He could not remember his house on Bailey Hill, with its solid doors of 18th century white oak, ever flooding.

Where are we? Tanya is here. Headache. Dick hurts. Find the exit.

He pushed the door open to a narrow hallway and determined he was in fact inside a double-wide trailer. And last night? A vision flashed of his pale dick plunging into Tanya’s miles and miles of ass, grabbing her hair and—

Saverin pushed the handle back in the jagged hole and turned back to the bed.

He was wide awake now. “Mrrrf,” Tanya said in her sleep.

Saverin rolled out stiff shoulders. The rickety bed frame they’d curled up in had been a foot too small for him but she lay nestled up in the yellow cotton sheets like a fairy in a buttercup.

It was a female’s bedroom. Barely bigger than a bathtub. Pictures of crystals and tarot cards and horoscopes and one of those bands where the men dressed like devil worshippers and the women dressed like virgins.

He sat down on the bed and lifted the blanket off Tanya. She was still naked, her brown skin smooth and flawless except for the love-marks he’d left on her tits, her neck…lower…He reached down and thumbed a nipple until it stiffened.

She moaned softly in her sleep and he moved to the other one, rubbing it slowly back and forth.

Take it easy on me, darlin.

He needed to get going. Should he wake her? Leave a note?

He stood up because it was too tempting not to fuck her.

Last night had been fun but Saverin had a mission that morning that could not be delayed.

The mission concerned Tanya’s son, Amari, who was still missing somewhere in Rowanville.

Tanya would be safe here with Gwen, although the girl had less sense than a bee had thumbs.

“What time is it?” Tanya mumbled to his back. So she was awake after all.

“Half past five. Go on back to sleep.” His voice was raw like he’d smoked a whole pack.

“Where you goin’?”

He crossed the room and sat down on the bed. Her hair covered half her face and he gently moved it away to fan over her shoulders and the pillow. “Just to town,” he said.

Sleepy eyes snapped open. “You’re leaving now? To Rowanville? ”

So much for a slick getaway.

His gaze lingered on her soft brown eyes, searching lower to her softer lips, lower still to all those other places he’d dove into the night before with reckless hunger.

She tugged him down to kiss her. Tanya’s lips were soft and warm.

Honey didn’t taste so sweet. Saverin rocked back down to the creaky mattress and she straddled him with one smooth and gorgeous leg slung over his thighs.

Women…so different from himself, and Tanya especially.

Smooth where he was rough and hairy, soft where he was hard, brown as a chestnut where he was pale. Nothing compared.

Tanya rubbed her thumb over his cockhead. “Remember last night?” she whispered.

“What part?” he murmured back, meaning to tease her. But her expression changed; her own words had brought back something else from that night and now he was thinking it too.

Before Tanya won the lottery.

Before he raw-fucked her over every inch of that bed.

When he had killed the father of her son, in front of her.

“You know what part,” Tanya said quickly, but the damage was done.

Saverin tried to focus on Tanya kissing down his neck but he saw only the face of the dead man.

The one with the name he couldn’t remember; the father of Amari.

He’d shot him five times– or was it six?

Once in the face, blowing the thing beyond recognition.

Dead. Did he regret sending the bastard to hell?

No, he did not. He didn’t regret the other lives he’d taken let alone some dirty monster who probably would have raped Tanya before shooting her dead.

Thank God he’d been there. Thank God for his gun.

Imagine if the filthy fucker got hold of his Tanya, defiled her, killed her…

He wanted to gag at the thought. Fuck the motherfucker, he was dead now.

So that made ten dead men. Or eleven? Other faces swam before him; faces from his other life that blotted out the view of Tanya leaning over him.

The stain on Saverin’s mortal soul had set long ago, like ink on muslin, unable to wash clean.

He understood that very well. He’d never killed without knowing exactly what it meant, and he hated to forget details, since a man should never take a life lightly.

Yet it was a struggle to recall exactly what had happened last night.

How did it start? He’d been arguing with Tanya, then he’d taken her keys and opened her apartment, and then the gun— flashing— blood…

“Baby, what’s wrong?” Tanya whispered.

“Stay here with Gwendolyn today,” he ordered, kissing her one last time before rolling her off him.

There really wasn’t time for fooling around anyhow.

Colton— that was his name. Tanya’s ex-boyfriend and her son’s father.

Tanya never spoke on him but Saverin had a good idea what that relationship had been like…

The motherfucker had found her all those years later, and stalked her to her new apartment in Florin.

Then he’d broken in and laid in wait for her to get home…

Tanya grabbed Saverin’s arm, snapping him out of it. “So where are you going, exactly?” she demanded.

“Out. Down the mountain,” he said gruffly.

“Why?”

He began hunting for his clothes. “Just some personal business.”

“Don’t you want to talk about last night?”

“When I get back, Tanya.”

Her eyes got that mulish look. “I want to go back to my apartment,” she declared.

He got his belt and picked out Tanya’s clothes from the lingerie sprawled on the floor. Did he really need to state the obvious?

“ Well ?”

“You can’t go back there. It’s a crime scene. They’ve probably got the stiff still in there.”

Tanya flinched. “That would be disgusting. They can’t just leave a dead body in my house all night!”

“This is Florin, on a weekend. Shit moves like molasses uphill.”

“I don’t want the police running through my place, going through my stuff. I don’t trust them.”

Saverin waved away her concern. “They won’t touch a thing.”

“Because you say so?”

“Do you have my wallet?” he asked, ignoring her sarcasm.

She dug around under the pillows and handed it to him, saying, “I don’t trust the police. That deputy had a bad look to him.”

“The deputy is my cousin,” Saverin dismissed, although privately he acknowledged Tanya was right to be wary of the flinty-eyed Absalom. “Worry about that lottery ticket.”

Tanya inhaled.

“What?”

“So that wasn’t a dream?” she squeaked.

“No, Tanya. You just won the motherfuckin’ powerball.”

Tanya buried her face in the pillow and screamed, “I’m rich!”

“I know, Cleopatra. Get dressed.”

Laughing, she kicked out her legs and rolled around in the bed. The sight of her tits slipping out from under the blanket made his tongue heavy in his mouth.

Saverin buttoned his jeans over his thickening erection and watched her get dressed. Tanya was too tired to sense his eyes on her, so he indulged in the show without interruption. Only when she began looking around for her shoes did her eyes check into his.

He smiled crookedly back at her. Never enough time with her…that changes today.

Tanya did a hopping dance to get into her flats. “ Why won’t you tell me where you’re going?”

“Later.”

“How about now?”

“No.”

She snatched up her canvas bag. “Well, I’m ready.”

Saverin knew she was pissed but she’d just have to allow it. Hopefully what he brought back from his journey down the mountain would make up for his evasiveness. He smiled to himself. It definitely will.

“What?” Tanya said, eyeing him.

“Nothing. Look, Tan, be careful how you move with Gwendolyn over this lottery stuff,” he said, changing the subject. At the moment their hostess was sleeping peacefully in the other room, dreaming of the million-dollar check she’d soon be cashing. He assumed.

“A minute ago you wanted to leave me here with her all day,” Tanya pointed out. “I don’t want to stay here, so I should tell her I’m leaving. Just to be polite.”

“Well hurry up,” Saverin said ungraciously, opening the door. “I need to get going. Maybe it’s better if you don’t stay here anyway. The girl doesn’t have the sense God gave a— oh shit.”

The front door of the trailer swung open, and Saverin instinctively put Tanya behind him and hauled them both back into the bedroom.

Heavy footsteps buckled the plywood floor.

“What?” Tanya hissed.

“Somebody’s here. Quiet. ”

“It’s probably nothing.”