Chapter 3

The first time she meets his son, it's at the park. He's handing her a bag filled with cash and a .38 Special. The kid's cute, about the same age as Jane and just as precocious. He proudly tells his dad about a new friend he made on the swings, then shows them a dance move he learned, and she waits until he runs off to the monkey bars before turning to his father.

"You hiring kids to keep up appearances now?" She tries to keep the sneer out of her voice but is only partially successful.

Rio snorts, and slaps his hands down against his knees. "Everything gotta be a play to you? You can't just believe I got a kid?"

She turns back towards where the little boy is playing on the bars waving in their direction, and sits back against the bench. "He went to the same preschool as Jane, I'm surprised I never saw you there."

"Yeah, well I was busy."

"Too busy to be a parent?"

"Something like that." He looks down at his hands where he's pushing his cuticles back on one had with the thumbnail of the other. "Look, I ain't here to get into a sparring session with you, just take the gift and stick it under your pillow, okay?"

She shakes her head and scrunches up her nose before peering back into the bag. "Why?"

He turns to her and puts a hand on hers. The paper of the bag makes a soft crunch as it collapses into her lap, and she looks up at him. His mouth is set in a grim line, eyes serious, and he claps the other hand down on her shoulder. "Because people talk, okay? People talk and when they see you and me together, they jump to conclusions like you're my drycleaner and maybe they're looking for a new person to keep their suits smellin' fresh too, you know what I'm sayin'?"

"But I am your drycleaner."

"Yeah well I don't want nobody sniffin' around my laundry."

Beth huffs and jams the bag into her purse. "Nobody's going to break into a suburban mom of four's house just because they heard on the grapevine that she's cleaning your fucking suits."

"Oh yeah? How about if they heard through the grapevine that I'm fuckin' the drycleaner."

Beth stills, hand still in her purse. "It was two times."

His shoulders lift in a shrug. "That's enough." He sighs and sits back against the bench.

Beth glares at him and gets up off the seat, turning her head as she walks away. "Your suit'll be ready on Friday, don't forget payment is on collection."

...

"And then he started with this fucking drycleaner metaphor which, frankly-"

"Weak, right? Weak as Fuuuu." Beth hears the clatter of metal on tile and Ruby swears loudly.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, fine just... don't you love corner cupboards I mean who thought they were a good idea?"

Beth chuckles. "You should get one of those lazy susans, they're great."

"Ugh, right. With what money? Homeboy's paying us peanuts in exchange for caviar."

Beth is two bags in to unpacking the groceries when there's a lull in conversation and she hears a sound from down the hall. "Ruby I gotta go, I think Dean's in my bathroom again."

"Where are the kids?"

"I managed to wrangle sleepovers for all of them tonight, I guess he decided to try and make a long weekend of it, you know what he's like." She sighs. "I'll talk to you tomorrow, okay?"

"You okay to do the cash tonight?"

"Yeah it's fine, it's not like Stan could say no to the extra money, and Annie's going to lose her job if she doesn't do what Boomer says."

"Love you."

Beth smiles as she walks down the hallway. "Love you too." She hangs up, and pushes open the door to her room. It's already cracked, and she frowns. Dean always closes both doors when he uses the en suite - he thinks it means she won't hear him. Her heart leaps into her chest and she looks over at the bedside table, where she had stashed the gun Rio had given her. She stops for a moment before walking as normally as possible around the foot of the bed, and decides to take a gamble.

"Honey, don't forget to hang the towels back up, you know how much I hate it when you leave them on the floor." As she's calling out, she reaches in to the drawer and pulls out the gun. The wood handle sits nicely in the palm of her hand, and she slams the drawer to mask the sound of the hammer being pulled back. A lick of steam floats out of the bathroom, and she takes a deep breath as quietly as she can, letting it out slowly.

Beth shuffles around the room a bit more, opening and closing drawers, before she gently pushes her shoulder against the bathroom door, gun clutched tightly in her hand.

There's a smear of blood on the floor, trailing towards the bath. A pile of neatly folded clothes sits on the closed toilet, and her heart is hammering in her chest as she creeps towards the bath.

It's the tan butt cheek and tattoos on the back of toned arms peeking out the side of the half closed shower curtain that give him away, and she's already letting out a sigh of relief as she rips the curtain back and points the gun dead at his chest. "Jesus Christ, you scared the shit out of me."

Rio looks up from where he's scrubbing at a patch on his arm. "Yeah, well I couldn't exactly show up at Rhea's covered in someone else's blood and viscera now, could I?" He pauses and glances down at her hands, where the gun is still clutched firmly. "You gonna put the gun down, or are we gonna get really kinky?"

Beth starts, and looks down at her hands. "Shit, yeah sorry just... why not just go to your place?"

"Was in the neighborhood, thought I could kill two birds." He leans back and runs his hair, which she just noticed is slick with conditioner, under the spray.

"You have basically no hair, why are you using my conditioner?"

"It smells nice, and I get dandruff." He closes his eyes and rinses off his scalp, while her eyes drift to his arms. The definition in his triceps does something weird to her insides. Then her gaze slides down his body, to his thighs, where she can see a strip of muscle snaking down towards his knee.

"Wait a minute... are you flexing?"

'Gotta give you somethin' to stare at."

"Ugh." She rolls her eyes and slides the curtain shut violently, and is about to storm out of the bathroom when a hand snaps around the plastic and grabs her by the wrist. He tugs at her arm, and then she's clambering in to the bath, fully clothed, shoes slipping on the wet floor. He takes the revolver from her hand, disarms it, and tosses it out onto the bath mat. "What are you doing?"

"What's it look like?" The corner of his mouth tilts up, and he presses her into the wall. She shivers.

"Like you're ruining a good pair of suede pumps."

He glances down at her feet and raises an eyebrow. "Oops."

He drops down to his knees and her mouth goes dry as he lifts one foot and pulls a shoe off and drops it over the side of the bath. He does the same with the other, then looks up at her and waits for a moment. She bites her lip, and he undoes the button of her pants, pulling them down her legs and taking her socks with them before sending them in the same direction as the shoes. His nose touches the inside of her knee, and she shudders as he trails his mouth up her inner thigh until he's biting at her underwear and shoving them down. She kicks them off and starts tugging her sweater over her head, but he snaps a hand down on her wrist before she gets it past her stomach.

"No."

Her hands fall to her sides, and he laces his fingers in hers, pressing them against the wall at an awkward angle as he presses his tongue against her in just the right spot, and flicks at it once before sliding his lips up towards her stomach and letting go of her hands. He stands, and she lifts her arms so he can tug off the top. It hits the floor of the bath with a wet thwack, and a few moments later her bra is gone and she's feeling incredibly exposed and inadequate against the long slim lines of Rio's torso. She panics.

"Showers are a really uncomfortable place to have sex, you know," she blurts out. "And I'm a lot older and... less flexible than you are."

Rio wraps a hand in her hair and tugs, until her neck is craning and she's looking directly up into his face. "You forget that conversation we had the last time?"

"Oh, what that you've got a kid? He's six."

"And when we had him I was older than you were when Kenny came along."

"Oh." Her hair is still trapped in his hand, so she shifts her eyes down to where the bird rests against his throat.

"Besides, what's age got to do with it, you don't think anyone with eyes doesn't want to fuck you? Jesus look at you." His hand runs down her side, and he squeezes at her rubs until she sucks in a breath. 'You got any idea how often I think about this? About you and me, no clothes just soap and water and skin?" She lets the breath out slowly and cringes about how nervous it sounds. "I don't even think about fucking you, I just think about touching you everywhere, squeezing that gorgeous ass and sucking on your tits until you beg me to go down on you."

She lets a moan slip through her lips and then stiffens. "Wait, you know my kids' names?"

He groans and drops his forehead against her shoulder. "Killin' the mood, ma."

"Please don't call me that."

He kisses her collarbone and relaxes the hand in her hair. "Why? You want me to call you something else?"

"It's just... I don't like it okay. Just call me by my name."

He nods and lifts his head. And then his lips are on hers, and she's grabbing at his shoulders until she can feel her nails biting into his skin. His mouth is hot, demanding, and slick, and she can't help but lift a leg up as high as she can to wrap around his thigh. His dick is pressing into her pelvis and he thrusts his hips, hard enough for her to get a bit of friction where it matters.

At one point, the other foot slips, and he catches her, lifting her up until her legs are wrapped around his hips. They both giggle, breath catching as she circles her hips. He kisses her again in response, and she can't help but smile against his mouth. She thinks of the way it twists in a smirk, how his lips stretch across his perfect teeth when he smiles, how he bites at his lower lip, and juts out his jaw when he's indignant.

She thinks about all of this as he breathes hard against her own mouth, open and desperate, before he adjusts her against him and bites down on her chin. She digs her nails into his shoulder again and he moans loudly before pressing his whole torso hard against hers until her breath leaves her, body sandwiched between him and the wall.

They stay like that until the water begins to lose its heat... fifteen, maybe twenty minutes. Beth's mouth feels raw from his beard, and they've nearly fallen to the ground five or six times, but it's almost like he's determined to drive her crazy.

So she lets her legs fall to the ground and pushes him away from her, shuts the water off, and steps out of the shower.

Her eyes immediately go to the streak of blood on the floor, and she reaches for a towel, wrapping it around her before grabbing some toilet paper getting down on her hands and knees to scrub it away. The steam in the bathroom has kept it from drying, and it wipes off easily. It's when she's tossing the paper in the toilet that she feels him behind her, and a moment later she's standing again, being shoved through into the bedroom until the backs of her knees are hitting the bed and she's forced to sit down heavily. The bed creaks.

"Killin' the mood, Elizabeth."

His finger trails down her chest until he's untucking the towel from around her breasts. Her breath catches at his expression. He looks vulnerable, like he's just shared his darkest secrets. Their eyes lock, and she swallows, hard.

"What are we doing?"

His hand slides up her neck and up into her hair a the back of her head. "You ever meet someone and every time you look at them, you just want to be right there? Not like... fuckin' and shit just... there." Her eyes narrow. "Not that I... don't want to fuck you because I think it's pretty ya know, obvious that I do."

"You've held a gun to my head multiple times."

"That was different."

"You threatened to kill me two weeks ago."

He leans his forehead against hers and sighs. 'Yeah well you did steal from me and get me arrested, I think that's a kind of reasonable reaction." She shoves at his chest and he holds his hands up in surrender before stepping away. "Look, I get it if you don't feel the same way. I've been an... asshole and that's probably not something that's easy to get over."

Beth cocks her head to the side. "I need a drink." She pushes up off the bed and secures the towel back around her before wandering in to the kitchen and opening the cabinet with the glassware. "You want one?" she calls out.

"Nah, I'm good."

She jumps at his voice in her ear, and shudders as his lips brush against her earlobe. Her hand has a tiny tremor as she pours out a couple of fingers of bourbon, and tosses it back in one swallow, biting back the cough.

"Elizabeth..." His head is pressed into the crook of her neck, and she shivers at the intimacy.

"Yeah?"

"Use me."

Beth puts the glass back to her mouth and sucks the last few drops of the drink as they drain from the bottom. He's stepped back, but she can still feel his presence, close enough for his body heat to kiss her skin, far enough away for her to turn without touching his.

She turns until they're face to face, her in just a towel, him completely naked in her kitchen, at three-thirty in the afternoon. He's standing a few meters away from the spot where he went down on her that first time, and her thoughts go to the noise he made when she pressed her hand hard against his tattoo.

She lets her fingers trail down his arm, shoulder to wrist, where she wraps her hand around, straining to touch her fingers and thumb. He grunts and sucks in a shuddering breath, so she squeezes again, and his eyes flutter shut and head tips back.

"Put me on the counter." He picks her up around the waist and goes to put her next to the sink, and she shakes her head. "No, on the island. Around the other side."

He drops her back to the floor and walks her backwards until they're in the spot she wants. "Do it."

She drops the towel once she's up on the counter, and leans forward until her eyelashes are kissing his cheek, and her breath is on his neck where her hand grips gently. "Now finish what you started the first time."

He goes to slide down her body, but she digs her fingers into his neck until he bites his lip and lets out a sound that makes her inside feel like a cement mixer.

"No, I said finish what you started, not give me a replay."

So he curls himself around her, and presses his dick against her until he's thrusting against her clitoris, his soft skin sliding up through her pubic hair and against her belly, and she lets her mouth drop open.

"That husband of yours due home any time soon?" A shiver runs through her, and she whimpers.

"I don't know."

"That turn you on? That he could walk through this door right now, see us here like this? You think it would make 'im want to try fuck you like I can? Until you're messy and sweaty and so wet you can't tell who's cum is dripping outta you?"

She doesn't reply, just reaches down and squeezes his dick until he's silently twitching and shaking against her.

She know's he could just shove himself into her with little care, but she wants to make him squirm, so she maneuvers him until the tip is just inside her. He tries to thrust into her, but she slaps her hand around his upper neck and tilts his chin until he's staring at her with dark eyes. "What do you want?" Her question hangs in the air for a few moments.

"I want you to welcome that asshole into this home with open arms and open legs." She knows the confusion is showing on her face, and he runs a finger down her cheek and wraps it in her hair. "I want you to stand here after I come inside you, letting it slide down your thighs until they're sticky. I want you to kiss him on the cheek when he gets home and then tell him to shove his face in your crotch."

All of a sudden he's deep inside her, hitting a spot she's not ready for yet, and she jerks. His hand tightens in her hair, and he holds her to him so tight she can feel her tits squishing up toward her collarbone. She squirms under the heat of his gaze. His voice is rough and hoarse. "Then when the shock wears off and he decides fuck it, here's my chance, and his tongue is deep in you, I want you to tell him you love the feel of my cum leakin' down your legs, and then ask him to lick it up before getting the fuck outta your house."

Beth twitches violently, and she can feel her eyelashes flutter as she clenches around him. She knows it's wrong and dirty, but she doesn't care. She's exactly what Annie would call lost in the sauce and fuck, why is she thinking about her sister right now.

It hits her hard and fast, her body unexpectedly tensing and she lets out a guttural unhh as she comes, eyes tightly closed and sweat trickling down the back of her neck. Her legs are held tightly against his hips, heels digging into his ass, and as her as eyelids twitch open, she catches the desperate look on his face as he lets himself go.

And then when he's looking at her again, something passes between them and they're kissing. It's soft and messy, he tugs at her lip gently with his teeth and she licks his with the tip of her tongue. And then he's pulling away abruptly.

"Don't move." He's firm and authoritative as he runs a hand down her arm, before he turns around and strides off down the hallway. She' shivers, still naked on the counter, and tugs the towel up over her shoulders.

He's back a few minutes later, fully clothed and a burgundy polka dot dress clutched in his fist, his mouth set in a firm line. "Put this on."

"I-"

"Put it on."

She grabs the dress and tugs it on, doing the buttons up quickly and letting the skirt pool around her hips, her ass still bare against the wood.

"Stay there until he gets home, yeah?"

She nods silently, and he turns to walk away.

"What about my money?" Her words cut through the empty space between them, and he pauses as he opens the door.

"You call me when he's gone running to his momma, and I'll bring it by."

"I thought you said you brought it."

"I told you I was killin' two birds Elizabeth. By my count takin' a shower and fucking you is two."

"Is that all that was, fucking?" Her heart feels like it's about to pound through her chest, and she looks down at the hem of the dress, where her fingers are playing with the space below the bottom button.

He presses his lips together, and she can hear his shoes squeak against the floor. "Call me when he's gone."

End.