Hammer: A Dark Romance Page 3

  “What the fuck are you doing?” she curses at me, her voice lit with outrage.

  “I’m going to spank your ass until you tell me what’s going on.”

  And that’s exactly what I do. I sit down on the bed, pull her over my thighs and I start spanking her bare bottom long and hard. She’s short compared to me, and small, and holding her over my lap isn’t hard, even when she starts wriggling and cursing up a storm.

  I’ve always thought there was something about Jazz that was hellaciously spankable. Last night my palm met her ass more than once and I noticed she arched up and into it. This is different though. She might like a little heat in the bedroom, but what I’m giving her is a lot more than a little. My arm rises and falls hard and fast, whacking her bare ass. It’s not as hard as I could hit her, but it probably feels like it. Her skin colors up immediately, pale cheeks turning flame red in the shape of my palm.

  “You’re going to tell me who that dead guy is, and you’re going to tell me now, because we have about five minutes before those two wake up and this is over for all of us.”

  “I can’t say!”

  “You can. And you will!” I keep up the spanking, my palm falling relentlessly against her ass. She deserves every bit of this. She should have told me she was in danger when she heard the guys next door. I could have been ready for them. They might all have survived. Or none of them.

  “Let me go, Jake! For fuck’s sake! You’re hurting me!”

  “It stops hurting when you start talking.”

  * * *

  Jazz

  I can’t fucking tell him. No matter how much he makes my ass burn. I’m already humiliated enough that he saw my pictures on Rodney’s phone; I can’t tell him how they came to be there, or why Rodney and his asshole friends are here.

  Jake’s apartment looks like a war zone and there are faces here I don’t want to see, much less talk about. I turn my face away from the carnage he unleashed and try to withstand the heat and pain searing through my flesh. Maybe if I can just grit my teeth and hold on, I can get through this. Maybe. Ow, fuck. Okay, no. Every time his hand lands it is fresh hell. I’m starting to think that what he’s doing is worse than what Rodney would have done, but that’s not true.

  “I can’t tell you!”

  “You can, and you will,” he insists.

  I don’t think I’ve ever been spanked in my whole fucking life. I’ve been smacked around. I’ve been threatened. I’ve been beaten up. But being spanked is different. Being held down and slapped is a special kind of embarrassing. I feel sore and small and guilty all at the same time, and I don’t know why I’m feeling guilty, because there is no way this is my fault. I don’t owe him anything, including answers. I’ve been humiliated and hurt enough in this entire ordeal without Jake adding to it.

  “Ow! Fucking ow! Goddammit! Stop!”

  Last night, I felt his power one way. Now I’m feeling it another way, and it’s unbearable.

  “Oww! Okay! Jake! Okay! I’ll tell you!” I give in.

  Jake pulls me up on his lap. It is absolutely not comfortable to sit, but even if it was, I’d be squirming anyway because of how he’s looking at me. He’s so fucking strong and so damn stern. He’s a big, scary, serious dude, and I’m in trouble with him. I was in trouble with the guys on the floor too. Very different sort of trouble.

  “Who is he?” Jake points to the floor.

  “He’s a cop. His name is Rodney.”

  “Those are both pieces of information I got off him already. Now tell me what I don’t know.”

  This is a very uncomfortable interrogation. I don’t want to tell him. I don’t want to tell anyone what Rodney put me through. I especially don’t want to say that I dated him because at first, I thought he was cute.

  “You’re not talking,” he growls, shifting his hands in a way that suggests he’s going to put me back over his knee. Over his knee like a naughty little girl. Over his knee, like...

  “I’m going to tell you! It’s just hard.”

  “Listen, Jazz,” he says. “I’d love to take this slow and have you tell me in your own time, but in case you haven’t noticed, this just became very much life and death, so...”

  “I used to date him,” I blurt, knowing that once Jake hears this, he’s going to hate me. He’s going to never want to be with me ever again. Well, that’s not that surprising. I didn’t expect this to be anything more than a one-night stand.

  “Okay, so how did you get from dating to this?”

  “I broke up with him.”

  “And he’s been harassing you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You know why?”

  “Because he’s a psychotic asshole.”

  “Who brought two of his friends with him to hurt you. That’s not crazy ex behavior. That’s something else. There’s more to this, isn’t there?”

  God, he’s good. Most people would believe me and stop there, I’m pretty sure. They wouldn’t keep probing even as tears fill my eyes. I’m fucking glad Rodney is dead. He deserves death. The other two do as well. Both of them were accomplices in his sick little scheme.

  “We’d been dating for a month or so when he asked me if I wanted to sleep with one of his buddies. He made it sound like it was going to be hot or whatever.”

  “What did you say?”

  “No, of course. I’d only slept with him once anyway. He was always trying to get in my pants, but he kind of gave me a creepy vibe that only got worse with his clothes off.”

  “So he didn’t like you saying no?”

  “He told me it wasn’t an option. He told me that to be with him, I had to fuck his friends. He was like some kind of deranged Spice Girl. I told him I wasn’t into being shared or swapped or whatever. I thought the conversation was over and he dropped it. Then, uhh, maybe a week later, I go over to his place and his friend is there. With his dick out.”

  Jake is listening, his expression stony. He’s probably wondering why I went back to Rodney after he said that shit, but the fucked-up thing is, Rodney was cute, he looked hot in his uniform, and he had a way of talking that made everything sound like it wasn’t really that big of a deal. I thought I was overreacting, until that day.

  “And that’s when I freaked out and told him we were over and he told me his friend had already paid. It got... bad.”

  “I’m sorry,” Jake says.

  “Yeah, so I don’t like talking about it. But, uhm, anyway. It ended with him telling me I had to leave town. Apparently he does... I mean, did, do that all the time. He was dating half a dozen girls and then he’d sell them to his cop buddies for sex. A lot of them went along with it. He didn’t really make it feel like you had a choice...” The words are tumbling out of me now. I’ve thought about this for so long. It feels weird, but also good to say it out loud. “But I know there’s always a choice. I guess I wasn’t actually as trashy and weak as he thought I was. Anyway, after that, he started to harass me to get me to leave town. He does that to the girls he doesn’t want in circulation anymore. And when I refused to leave, he started fucking with me. I lost my car because it kept getting towed and the fine to get it out was more every time. There’s a lot a cop can do to fuck with you if they want to.”

  “Yeah,” he agrees. “Like breaking into your place. And this one.”

  “They don’t care what they do. They think they run this town. They’re like little local gods. I’m really sorry I brought this to you. I’m going to get going,” I say. I try to wriggle off his lap, only to find myself held there with an arm like iron.

  “You didn’t. They broke down my door.” He shakes his head in disbelief.

  “They do what they want,” I say. “They don’t really care. They know this is a poor area and people here don’t have good lawyers, and they can get you thrown in jail for the weekend or longer if they fuck with your paperwork. I’ve been in and out of jail three times since this started on bullshit charges.”

  His jaw tightens and he
gives a quick nod, as if he’s just decided something.

  “Alright,” he says. “We’re going. Now.”

  I wish it was that simple, but I already know enough to know that it’s not. “Where are we going to go? What are we going to do?”

  “Well, right now, we’re going to try not to get arrested for killing cops,” he says. “We can work out the details later.”

  “We are fucked,” I tell him. “You should just tell the cops I did this and let me run.”

  “Yes, because they’re going to believe a 4′9 girl who weighs maybe a hundred pounds on a heavy day broke one man’s neck and put the other two out cold. They’re going to know exactly who did this and they’re going to get you as an accessory for it. So we both need to get out of here.”

  I stare at him, trying to process everything, and failing completely. “So we’re just going to run? For how long? They’ll find us and they’ll kill us and...”

  “They’re not finding anything if we leave now. I doubt those guys said anything about going to trash a house. It’s going to take some time for anyone to notice them missing, and it’s going to take even longer for them to get found here.”

  “You mean, it’s going to take until those two wake up. Which could be an hour from now, or a minute from now.”

  “Right. So go get some stuff. Underwear, change of clothes, passport if you have it.”

  I hesitate, but he’s already sliding me off his lap, his big palm contacting my ass with a heavy swat that reignites the fire in my rear.

  “Go!”

  I have to step over Rodney’s broken body on the way out. I thought I loved him once, for five minutes, before he made it obvious that I was just some meat he was going to use. I feel sick to my stomach at what has happened, and scared of what’s to come. Who even knows if the other two are going to wake up. Jake might have killed them all. I might be an accessory to three different murders.

  I can’t take this.

  The apartment door almost falls in on me when I try to open it. Thankfully, Jake is there behind me, pushing it back up with his powerful arms.

  “Just scoot out the side,” he says. “I’m going to try to get this back on.”

  I nod and go back to my place. They didn’t need to kick that door down. They had the key. From the outside, everything looks normal. Once I step through, I see how fucked it is.

  My place is utterly ruined. Everything I owned, everything I dared care about has been smashed systematically. Rodney always was a fucking asshole, but I thought if I just kept my head down long enough he’d get tired of harassing me and leave me alone.

  Now I’m starting to think something really fucking sinister was going to happen today if they had found me home. Trashing the place makes it look like there was a robbery. And if I’d been where I was supposed to be, at home, in bed, it might have been a home invasion, assault, and then a murder. He was coming for me. He wanted me gone. I guess he finally decided to get rid of me once and for all. Instead, he got rid of himself.

  Rodney’s not ever coming back. Jake dropped him like the sack of shit he was and holy fuck, was that satisfying to see. When those guys came in through the door, I just froze. If it wasn’t for Jake, I’d be dead by now, I’m sure of it.

  “Where’s your stuff?”

  Jake appears by my side. He has a bag in his hand. Something tells me that bag sat in his place fully packed and ready to go long before anyone came to knock his door down.

  “I don’t know. My stuff is everywhere.”

  “I have your purse from last night,” he says, his voice calm and certain while mine tremors. “Do you have a passport?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. Then let’s go.”

  * * *

  Jake

  She’s just staring at an open lingerie drawer, which is now empty aside from one shiny red thong I would bet money she has never worn. The rest of her underwear has been thrown around like confetti. It lies scattered among broken glass and ceramics, picture frames and mugs broken and stomped on by those thugs who have brought their badge into disrepute.

  “Okay, come on,” I say, urging her out the door. It’s better if we leave her stuff all messed up. That shows signs of a struggle. That’s evidence we have of foul play. I take a few pictures of the apartment before we leave, just in case someone tries to clean up after the fact.

  I want to be out of here before the other two wake up. I want to be so long gone they don’t have a hope in hell of finding us.

  The law is only as good as the men enforcing it, and those pieces of shit who used their power to exploit women were never worthy of the badge. But that’s not going to matter once the story gets out. Once word spreads that there’s a cop killer on the loose, every single boy and girl in blue is going to have a hard-on for us like you would not believe. We’re going to be the monsters in this story, and I know what happens to monsters. People come for them with pitchforks and fire. Or in the case of the police, hails of gunfire. If they catch us, there’s no chance they’ll bring us in. Cop killers get shot on sight. Everybody knows it, nobody says it.

  “Come on,” I urge her gently. “There’s nothing left here.”

  “I don’t think there was ever anything here,” she mumbles.

  She’s not going to be able to get herself ready, so I grab a bag and stuff some things from the floor into it. She’s going to need something to wear tomorrow and the next day. I also grab a small teddy bear that must have been on her bed. Usually that wouldn’t be go-bag material, but it is only a few inches long and it might help.

  “Come on.”

  She’s stuck there, staring, shocked. It’s like she’s just straight up shut down. Her mind has overloaded with all that has happened in the last few minutes. Witnessing violence can do that, and she just watched a man die. This is the sort of thing the military trains you to be able to handle. Either that or you wash out. Can’t freeze when the bullets start flying. But she’s as frozen as anyone I’ve ever seen. Not her fault. She’s not made for this kind of life.

  When she doesn’t move, I crouch down and scoop her up and over my shoulder. My car is out back. It’s a beater, and there’s something going on with the alternator that makes it hard to start every now and then, but it will get us over state lines and that’s the most important thing.

  I take the fire escape down, rickety iron flexing under our combined weight. It holds together long enough to get us out of the building without being seen.

  I’m starting to second guess myself and what I’ve done. I left two of them breathing. That might have been a mistake. If I’d killed all three of them, we could try to claim ignorance of what happened, but I’m not going to go back and kill in cold blood just to save my ass in a dodgy cover-up.

  Military experience helped with getting into this mess, but I’ve never prepared for a domestic campaign in which we’d just killed law enforcement. I’m used to being the good guy, but now I’m very much on the wrong side of the law.

  “Do your seatbelt up,” I say, dropping Jazz into the passenger seat.

  By the time I get in my side, her seatbelt is done up and she’s staring straight ahead.

  “You okay?”

  She speaks without moving a muscle. “I’m fucked. You’re fucked. We’re both fucked.”

  * * *

  Jazz

  “Jazz. Look at me.”

  He makes me turn my head toward him with a firm, but gentle grip on my chin.

  “You’re going to be okay. You haven’t done anything wrong. I’m the one who engaged those three. I’m the one responsible. I’m going to keep you safe. No matter what, okay?”

  I just stare at him. I don’t know what I did to earn this kind of loyalty. No, wait. I do know. Nothing. Nothing except fuck him.

  “I’m really sorry,” I whisper. “I should have told you what you were getting into.”

  “Why? It’s not like we got married. We had sex. There’s a lot we don’t know about ea
ch other.”

  His words are factual, but they sting, and it doesn’t make any sense. I know we’re not married, of course. But it feels like a rejection—which is stupid because this man literally just threw his whole life away to save mine.

  He starts the car and we head out of the city I fought so hard to stay in. Now I don’t know why I bothered. I should have left the minute Rodney threatened me. I could have found another shitty job in another shitty town, but I didn’t want to. Being settled meant something to me. Now I know that was stupid.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To stay with some friends.”

  “You have friends who will hide you after you killed a cop?”

  “I have friends who would hide me no matter what,” he says. There’s a grim pride in his tone, and I can’t help but envy his certainty. I don’t have anyone I can count on like that. That’s half the reason I was so vulnerable to Rodney.

  We drive in stiff, tense silence. I’m expecting to run into a roadblock of police cars, or see lights in the rearview mirror literally any moment, but it doesn’t happen. We just drive along at a sedate pace, blending in with the other, presumably more innocent, less killer-on-the-run cars.

  I feel physically numb, and mentally I am just stalled, looping around a small number of thoughts. Rodney deserved that. Now he’s dead. Now his friends are hurt. Now the world feels like it is ending one minute at a time because I know people like me don’t get away with things like this.

  “You said that cop had tried to get other girls into prostitution.”

  “Not tried. He did,” I say, answering Jake’s sudden question.

  “We need to find the other girls he did that to. We need to get enough evidence to prove that what happened was self-defense.”

  “They won’t care. Fleeing is an offense. They’ll put us in prison. And I can’t go to prison. I’ve seen Orange is the New Black. I can’t deal with all that.”

  He smirks at me wryly. “Real prison is a lot worse.”

  “Yeah, I bet it is.”

  I wrap my arms around myself to try to self-soothe. This has gone from one of the best nights of my life to one of the worst days I’ve ever had. Last night was so incredibly hot. The sex was rougher than I’ve had before, even with Rodney, who thought he was dominant, but all that ever came to was inept rutting, banging into me like I was a bag of sand. When he first suggested fucking his friends, I almost considered agreeing, just to get some decent dick.