Take the Heat

She licked those glossy lips. “I want to thank you…Mike. You can’t know how much what you’re about to do means to me.”

As she spoke, she slipped a hand under the table and let her palm rest on the bulge in my hand. My breath caught in my throat, but I didn’t make any attempt to remove her hand. She curled her fingers, cupping me, and applied just enough pressure to take her touch from curious to exquisite. I couldn’t make a sound, couldn’t alert anyone to what she was doing. If she wanted to jerk me off, right here where I sat, I knew I wasn’t going to do a damn thing to stop her.

“You like that, don’t you?” Those slender fingers worked back and forth, taking me closer to the edge. I clutched my dessert spoon so hard I thought I might snap it in half, fighting to retain some measure of control.

“God, yes,” I replied, the sound coming out as a strangled moan. I was helpless, and she knew it.

“Well, you know the terms of the contract, don’t you?” She grinned, revealing small white teeth. “Half now, and the rest when the job’s done.”

With that, she pulled her hand away and stood. Confident she had me just where she wanted me, she turned and walked away, my last sight of her that round little ass of hers swaying in that tight-fitting skirt.

I sat for a long time after she’d gone, partly because I was mulling over when and how I was going to make the necessarily brief acquaintance of Donnie Palmer, but mostly because Luanne had induced a hard-on in me that just wouldn’t quit. That cool, calculating smile of hers burned in my memory, just as the envelope of cash seemed to burn in my top pocket, and I began to wonder if I hadn’t somehow got in over my head.

* * *

The Elliot Hotel stood in its own grounds, a relic of a bygone age. It gave off the air of having seen better days—the potted palms in the lobby were withered and brown, and the whole place needed a lick of paint—but I wasn’t there to check in. Luanne had told me her husband liked to drink here after work, and if I was lucky, he would be drinking here alone.

I spotted him almost at once, his good looks and well-cut suit a beacon of Hollywood glamour in these faded surroundings. He was sitting at the bar, nursing a glass of what looked like bourbon and staring into its depths as though it might contain the secret to all his troubles. Though why a guy as handsome and successful as Donnie Palmer had troubles, God alone knew. Maybe on a subconscious level he knew his wife wanted him dead.

Hopping onto the empty stool by his side, I attracted the attention of an elderly, white-jacketed barman who looked like he’d been serving drinks here since the day the hotel opened. He set down a white paper coaster before me. “What can I get you, sir?”

“Scotch on the rocks,” I requested, slapping a couple of bills down on the counter to pay for the drink.

Once he’d served it to me, I took a long, contemplative sip, pondering my opening gambit with Palmer. Not every man likes to be interrupted when he’s drinking alone, but I didn’t get that vibe from him.

“Excuse me,” I said, catching his eye as he looked up from his almost empty glass, “you wouldn’t happen to know if there’s anywhere decent around here to get a bite to eat, would you?”

He turned that dazzling smile on me, seeming happy to be distracted from his thoughts. “That depends on what you’re looking for. The restaurant here’s pretty good if you like your seafood, but if you just want a burger, then I’d recommend Buddy’s, about a mile back on the highway. You probably passed it if you were coming out from Charleston.”

I made a show of thinking about it. “Yeah, I saw the place.” Gesturing to his glass, I said, “Can I get you another?”

He considered it, then nodded. “Sure, why not? It’s not like I have anything to rush home for.”

“Don’t tell me, trouble in paradise.” I chuckled, letting him gain the impression I’d been there myself.

“You know it.” The barman set another bourbon, no ice, down in front of him. He raised his glass to me in a salute. “I’m Donnie, by the way.”

“Mike.” I held out a hand for him to shake. As our fingers touched, a kind of electricity seemed to crackle between us. It had been a while since any man had caused that reaction in me, and part of me welcomed it, even as I was pondering the absurdity of being turned on by a guy I’d been contracted to kill. “So, what’s the little lady done to leave you drowning your sorrows?”

He shrugged. “Oh, you don’t want to hear about that.” When I just kept staring at him, he said, “OK, but there’s very little to tell. I’m just another guy who thought getting married would solve all his problems, and found all it did was cause a whole ’nother set of them. Don’t get me wrong, my wife’s a gorgeous, sexy little thing, but she’s just not right for me. More than that, I’m fairly sure she’s cheating on me.”

“And that bothers you?”

“To be honest, not half as much as it should.”

/> “Well, she’s a fool,” I declared. “Seems to me like any woman would be glad to have a guy like you in her life.”

Donnie gave a bitter laugh. “Yeah, that’s what my mom said.” He glanced at his glass as if surprised how much he had downed in two long gulps; then he fixed me with his hazel eyes. The look he gave me was filled with a plea for understanding. More than that, it was filled with naked longing.

“Well, you wouldn’t want to disappoint your mother, would you?”

Donnie spoke so low that I could barely hear it. “If my parents knew the truth about my marriage—hell, the truth about me—they wouldn’t just be disappointed. They’d have me driven out of the county. They wanted me to settle down with a nice girl. How could I tell them what I really want is to settle down with someone like you?” He finished off the rest of his drink, clearly regretting what he’d just said.

Now I knew why Donnie Palmer was so resistant to the idea of a divorce. His marriage to Luanne provided the perfect smoke screen. No one would ever think to question his sexuality, not when he had such a hot little wife by his side. He didn’t have to tell me why he came here every Friday night—or those other nights, when he told Luanne he was meeting a client. He was looking to pick up some guy like me, some passing stranger he’d never see again.

In that moment, I knew I had a choice: I could sit here plying the guy with bourbon until he was too drunk to do anything but lead me out to some dark, secluded spot where I would put a bullet in his brain, or I could have a little fun before I disposed of him. It had been a while since I’d been with another guy, but I loved sticking my cock in a tight male asshole just as much as I loved fucking pussy, and this opportunity was just too good to pass up.

I reached for my drink, brushing the back of his palm with my fingers as I did so. To anyone watching, the contact would have looked accidental, but we both knew I meant it.