“Thanks,” I said.
“Yeah, well, you better go talk to your father about this shit.”
I grunted, got into the car, and started the engine. I drove fast, swerved around the wreckage of my beautiful car, around the corpses left in the hot afternoon sun, and hurried back toward my house as Mona curled up into a little ball on the back seat and cried.14VinceI parked in my normal spot and carried Mona inside. I shut the door, locked it, and took her to the couch. Her crying had stopped a couple blocks ago, and she stared up at me with bleary eyes as I sat down next to her.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Not really.”
“Physically, I mean.”
She hesitated, touched herself, and let out a breath. “I think so.”
“Stay here.” I ran upstairs, hurried into her bathroom, and found a first aid kit under the sink. I may be a mobster, but I’m not so stupid that I don’t have a first aid kit just lying around. Too many rough nights taught me the importance of a well-stocked medicine cabinet.
I stomped back downstairs and knelt down in front of her. She looked at me, her pouty lips parted, her breath coming fast.
“This’ll hurt a little,” I said as I took out some antiseptic and a cotton ball.
“What are you doing?”
“Cleaning your cuts.” I doused the cotton ball in the antiseptic then dabbed it over a particularly deep cut on her cheek.
She winced. “Ow. Fuck.”
“Sorry,” I said. “But I don’t think it’ll need stitches at least. Probably won’t scar, either.”
“Good,” she said, but her voice sounded flat and distant. “Right, yeah, don’t want to scar.”
“Mona,” I said, grabbing another cotton ball and cleaning more of her cuts. “I know what just happened was scary.”
“Scary?” Her eyes narrowed. “Is that what you’re calling it?”
“I know you’ve never gone through something like that before, but—”
“We just got shot at,” she said, pulling away. “They rammed our car and tried to kill us. Then you… you… you killed them. I saw the bodies.”
I stared into her eyes, held her gaze for a few beats.
“It’s going to be hard to calm down,” I said, my voice slow and steady. “What you just went through, it wasn’t a small thing.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” she asked, her voice getting shrill.
“Your adrenaline’s pumping,” he said. “You have to try to calm down.”
“I can’t calm down,” she said and grabbed at my face. She clawed at me like she wanted to tear me apart. “They tried to kill me.”
I grabbed her wrists and pushed her back against the couch. Her eyes were wide and wild as she stared at me, but slowly she began to breathe in deep, gulping gasps, and stopped struggling against me. She bit her lip, closed her eyes, then opened them again.
“Are you okay?” I asked, voice soft.
“I think so.”
“Something like that, it leaves a mark,” I said. “It’s going to be hard to shake for a while.”
“Why did they do it?” she asked, her voice a whisper.
“I don’t know,” I said. “You were never supposed to see something like that. I never thought…” I trailed off.
She stared into my eyes and her wrists went limp. I pressed her back against the couch, moving closer. Her breasts heaved as she took deep breaths and bit down on her lip hard. I moved closer, my eyes roaming her body, unable to help myself.
She tilted her head and opened her mouth. I thought she might say something, but she stopped herself.
So I leaned closer and kissed her.
Gently at first, just my lips brushing against hers. She sucked in a breath, let out a soft moan. I pinned her harder against the couch, kissed her deeper. She threw herself at me, mouth open, tongue against mine. We kissed slow and hard, a little rough, a little desperate. I felt my own heart racing and knew I was going through the same thing she was, that adrenaline survivors feel.
I released her wrists and reached down to her jeans. I unbuttoned her fly, unzipped it, tugged at them. She let out a soft gasp as I pulled them off, revealing light blue lacy panties barely covering her smooth, bare pussy. I kissed her harder and she gripped my hair, gripped it hard as I ran my fingers over those panties, over her pussy. She moaned, rolled her hips, and I pressed against her clit.
She was wet and I felt my cock growing harder as she moaned into my kiss.
I couldn’t help myself. But I knew this would help her, even if she didn’t realize it just yet. I pulled away and dropped between her legs, forcing them open nice and wide as I kissed up her thighs then licked over her panties, kissing her wet little pussy, the lacy underwear already drenched from her need.