I like women like my cars: expensive and dangerous. But the brunette hammering on the inside of the trunk lid of my 2015 Mustang GT was in a different class on both counts. Seemed like she was trying to outgun the pistons that raged a few feet ahead of me as I swerved around a beaten-up Honda and cut back in front, tires squealing, wipers on overdrive.

Collateral is such an ugly term and I felt terrible to the pit of my stomach, but it had been unavoidable. An impulse. She was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time as I fled the building. And now? Red and blue strobes bounced off the car's interior as downtown raced by in a blur of streetlights and darkened buildings. Cops in the rear view. Cops zigzagging in and out of the wing mirrors. I didn't need reminding that Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear.

As I avoided a Chevy, the car slewed and I steered into the slide, hauling left at the intersection through a stop sign. A minor felony on any other day, but my pursuers would be only too happy to label it 'dangerous driving' if they ever caught me. They certainly wouldn't take the word of the best stunt driver in the state that nobody was in any danger whatsoever. Especially when that driver had also racked up robbery, resisting arrest, and kidnapping in the last twenty minutes. Slam dunk case: do not pass Go, do not collect $200.

I mashed the pedal and spun the alloys with exactly the right amount of torque to put some distance between the sirens and me. They could run the plates and chase their tails all the way to the inevitable dead end, but it didn't change the fact the lead was temporary. Soon the fuckers would try to cut me off. I needed to clear my head and think. Think. The thumping from the trunk wasn't helping, a percussive reminder of what I'd become. How far I'd fallen.

The road crested and the Mustang was airborne for a second, suspension crunching as thirty-five hundred pounds of automobile landed on the asphalt and accelerated into the night. The car was made for manual shift. Such control, especially in bad weather. I opened her up, revs red-lining in each gear, and was in sixth before my pursuers even became visible. Left them for dead on the straight, darting between slower moving cars amid blasts of angry horns. With the needle into triple figures, my body was pressed into the reassuring hug of the Recaros; an expensive luxury, but worth every cent I hadn't paid for them.

As each crossroad shot by, I scanned the squat buildings and offices for somewhere to lay low for a while. An open warehouse door; anything.

Six blocks of nothing.

Seven.

Eight.

And then… there! I smiled, flicked off the headlights, dabbed the brake and snapped the wheel right, skidding the car into a lazy arc, straightening to bounce down a grassy embankment and powering it into a car dealership lot. I yanked the handbrake and spun the car, tires complaining against the wet surface but holding, doing their job admirably. The Mustang juddered to a halt alongside a Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat like a fucking glove. Like I'd done in the movie Street Hounds. Like it had been parked there all afternoon, one of maybe a hundred high-performance vehicles for sale, the only telltale sign to the contrary being the wisps of steam as the rain splashed from the hood.

Killing the engine and shrinking into the plush seat, eyes barely above the level of the dash, I watched the cops speed by above. The woman in the trunk, whose silence I'd assumed meant she was scared shitless by the hard drive, started hammering again. At least she was conscious, which was some small relief. But I'd had enough.

“Shut up or I’ll put a fucking bullet through the back seat.”

The sound ceased.

Sirens faded into the distance, replaced by the irregular Doppler of cars in less of a hurry sending spray onto the embankment. I breathed out, heart slowing, focusing on the fat droplets drumming the car's husk and windshield, gradually obscuring me behind the watery curtain. Safe for now, giving me time to reflect. Time to think properly.

Facts.

One: I got the diamonds and the money. The holdall on the passenger seat represented my last score. After I delivered the stones to Monroe, we'd agreed that any money on the side would allow me to leave the life behind. My second shot at happiness. At redemption.

Two: I got the hard drive. Just two-and-a-half inches wide, the flat, metallic rectangle in the side pocket of the bag was the only evidence of my involvement. Disabling the cameras would have taken too long, and my reconnaissance during the prior weeks revealed that the feed wasn't backed up, nor networked. No drive, no witnesses, no case.

Three: I got her. A witness, upsetting the precision of the job. Aside from the rent-a-cop we dodged outside as he raised the alarm, the store was meant to be empty. So what the hell was her pretty ass doing there? And what could I do with her now? I wasn't a mercenary. I'd lied about the gun.

Without leverage, I had to somehow get rid of her without screwing up the operation. After all the planning, I couldn't risk bringing bad news to Monroe's doorstep, let alone spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder. I'd had enough of that for the past three years and was tired of it. Should have never got involved, but hindsight's always a whole heap of shoulda woulda coulda.

Reaching for the rear view, I angled it towards myself. I needed sleep. My hair, melanoid and unmanageable, would soon need cutting to prevent it curling and making me resemble Luke Duke. But other than bad hair and mismatched irises, I didn't look like a villain. No scars, no tattoos, no crooked features. Just a regular Joe; someone you might find working on a construction site, or in a bank, or behind a desk. Unassuming. Anonymous. That's why Monroe chose me. That and I can drive like nobody else and he needed a loner who could get away fast. While there probably weren't any better drivers in town, in truth he didn't really give me much choice. I was already in deep and he knew it.

I cast my mind back to the night I'd called his bluff, claiming, "I'm not your guy," despite owing him what I'd pissed away in the casinos. Plus interest. He'd remained impassive, standing there in the living room that Naomi and I had once called home, shaking his chubby head before stepping to the mantelpiece in his tailored suit that probably cost more than my couch. He picked up a photo of Naomi with Sadie pulling a face on holiday in the Rockies, his Southern drawl flicking from amicable to hostile in an instant.

"It's not a request, Mr. Carlton. I can be… persuasive if ya know what I mean."

I said nothing. Fiddled change in my jeans pocket.

"Such a pretty girl," he mused. "LakeView Elementary, no? Upstate?"

My stomach tightened as the color drained from my cheeks and my mood darkened. "You so much as go near her…"

It was supposed to be menacing but felt as empty as my insides, and Monroe's twisted smirk confirmed it as he returned the picture. "So I can count on you?"

I tried to retain some semblance of bravado, but knew I was trapped. Naomi had long gone with the shiny ski instructor, all perfect teeth and sculpted abs. I saw Sadie on alternate weekends and we'd hang out, get ice cream, play in the park. But a quick stream of Dad things wasn't enough. The times in between were like someone had ripped out my heart and shoved a brick back in its place.

Perhaps predictably, like one of the losers in the movies I'd been in, I hit the bottle. Hit the craps tables. Hit on women I should have avoided, night after night face first between the legs of the horny and the desperate. There was something about surfacing, face slick with pussy juice, crawling up and sinking inside someone else's wife – as Brad the skiing prick had done to mine – that anesthetized the pain. A perverse kind of payback, bucking, clutching and groaning into the small hours, ending a knot of hot, naked limbs and false promises. And honestly, I didn't get any complaints – just compliments and fuck me harders – so who wouldn't have kept at it? I developed a thirst for it, addicted to the thrill of being out of control, the shot of adrenaline normally delivered from my job boosted at night too.

And then? It would all be good when I saw my little girl's smile and we'd become a lopsided family again, even if just for a few hours. I'd get to spoil her and watch Disney movies, but it'd be over way too quick. I'd try and fight the subsequent lull, remain upbeat, tell myself I wouldn't fall, then end up drowning in self-pity, throwing myself wholesale at the mercy of whiskey and wasted, wanton wives who should know better. The spiral continued until Monroe gave me the lifeline that curbed my descent. Bought me out. Gave me purpose outside my day job.

Yes, he'd called off the wolves that wanted my blood in greenbacks. But then I owed him.

Since that day I'd been on the wrong side of the law more times than I cared to admit. Crime had a steep learning curve, but like any career, it got easier. I grew some sort of exoskeleton to try and shield myself from the terrible acts I was being forced to commit. I'd tell Sadie about right and wrong, how to grow up to be a good citizen, and hate myself for the hypocrisy. What if she found out? It would crush her to see me for the lying role model I was. It made me sick, but I couldn't get out until the debt was paid. Until now.

With each job I found myself gradually becoming the very thing I despised and feared. Cold. Detached. Cynical. The only satisfaction was that I got the car out of him. "If I'm gonna do this for you, I need something fast and powerful," I'd said on that first day. "And I want to keep it when we're done."

Monroe barely blinked. "Name it."

When given carte blanche, who'd pick a Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche, or McLaren? Too showy. No balls. It had to be all-American, unapologetic, raw and exciting to drive. And what better model than a car made by the pioneering company behind motoring history? The V-8 that created a thunderous, roaring symphony of combustion beneath the hood. The Pirelli P Zeros for unparalleled grip, even in wet conditions. And, I was reminded when she hit the lid a few more times, a sizeable trunk.

The rain had mostly subsided. A flash storm. Even the moon was trying to peek from behind thinning clouds in the distance. It was only a matter of time before the cops realized I wasn't ahead of them and they doubled back. Time to move. I gunned the throaty engine, revved it to remind me of the incredible power I had at my disposal, put the demisters on max, nosed out of the lot and headed back towards the city at less than half the speed I'd left it.

-- o --

The Red Brick Motel, just the other side of downtown off the interstate, was a shining example of America's network of nondescript places to sleep. Bland and tired, I suspected it had little need for the No Vacancy sign. But it was close enough to the drop point the next day, yet far enough from the city that I wouldn't attract attention. And, unlike most places nearby, it had a strip of waste ground out back, away from the road, which was where I pulled up and parked.

Only one room light was on, and when I climbed out with my knapsack and the holdall onto the shimmering, worn concrete and stretched, I could hear why. Someone was having a real good time, that much was damn certain, spanks and sighs ringing out into the night.

Shaking my head, I rounded the trunk. Paused. Took a deep breath, then popped it. She was curled up, hair a mess, eyes wild, scared yet defiant, and I immediately felt further guilt for what I'd done. Somebody's wife. Probably somebody's mom. But I knew I couldn't show weakness and fought it back.

"Listen carefully. You're gonna climb out as quick and quiet as you can and we'll hole up here for the night until I can figure this out. Far as anyone knows, we're just another couple that need a place to stay. You keep calm and quiet and don't attract any attention, we both walk outta here in the morning. Got it?"

She nodded, fast and scared, and I stepped back a pace to let her out. She was a tidy package; I hadn't noticed the extent of her beauty when I'd bundled her in. Her pencil skirt rode high on bare legs as she straddled the tailgate, and hopped over to stand, slightly unsteadily, beside me. As she straightened her blouse and dusted off, I could see her eyes darting, calculating, perhaps wondering if she could make a run for it in her flats.

"Don't," I cautioned, placing a hand on her bicep. She had good muscle tone. "Nice and easy, remember?" She softened slightly, nowhere to go, and I slammed the trunk, blipping the locks.

We rounded the edge of the L-shaped two-storey building and crossed the pockmarked courtyard to a reception area on the far side. It was cramped and smelled of vinegar, sporting just a tiered stand bursting with leaflets advertising local attractions, a faux wood laminate counter, and pigeonholes of keys beyond. The proprietor, an old guy with more teeth than hair, looked up from his crossword. "Help ya?"

"Got a room for a night?"

He peered over the top of his glasses, cast his gaze up and down each of us in turn and came to the wrong conclusion. I wasn't going to correct him. His lip curled up at one side. "Sure. Hundred bucks, Casanova."

I shook my head. "It's gone two a.m. I got sixty-five," I challenged, laying it out note by note on the peeling counter at his eye level.

His eyes narrowed. "Price is a hundie, friend."

I eyed him a moment, swept up the bills and turned to leave, grabbing the woman and reaching the door before he called out: "Wait."

One fake signature and seventy-five bucks later we climbed the concrete staircase at the corner of the compound, walking past two unoccupied rooms to reach fourteen. The extra ten bucks was to be away from any other guests on either level; a request that didn't seem particularly difficult to fulfill. I unlocked the door and ushered her ahead of me, watching her ass from the doorway a fraction longer than I should before following and securing the lock.

The room was basic, but I didn't need more. Bed, table, chair, cable TV, and a bathroom that smelled vaguely of mold and cheap household cleaner. She looked at the bed and wrinkled her nose, then at me. "Seriously?"

"I'll take the chair."

"Chivalrous. You sure know how to show a girl a good time. Lock her in the trunk then treat her to a five-star dive."

Her accent was as all-American as the car she'd been locked in. Not whiney or nasal, just kinda… cute. Almost rural. Part of me wanted to remain featureless and distant, but I couldn't do it. Too human, that’s my problem. "I'm sorry, okay?"

"Sorry?!"

"Hey, listen, it wasn't meant to work out this way. I was… improvising."

"So, until I came along you were just gonna, what? Rob my husband's store and run?"

I stared at her. "Shit."

"Yeah. Shit. What's he ever done to you?"

"I didn't… it wasn't-"

"So you're the brains of the operation, yeah?"

I sidestepped the remark. "What the hell were you doing there so late anyway?"

She strode to the bed, turned and plonked herself on the edge, the battered mauve bedcover deforming around her shapely ass. "Like it's any of your business."

I remained silent. Waited.

"Fine. Looking for my daughter if you must know."

I grimaced. "Not tucked up in bed, huh?"

She fixed me a steely glare. "Evidently not."

"How old?"

A sigh escaped her lips. "Old enough to drive. But not like you I hope."

"I know what I'm doing behind a wheel."

It was her turn to keep quiet, but her gaze wasn't stationary. Kept flicking over me. Maybe sizing me up, to see if she could overpower me. Or looking for a chink in my resolve to exploit it. Perhaps she was checking me out, I couldn't be sure. My imposed lifestyle demanded I worked out at home, and my ego wanted to believe she found me attractive, however unlikely the reality under the circumstances. I hadn't been this close to a woman in months.

As I watched her, something bubbled beneath my surface. Something primal conflicting with the reality of the situation, my mind still at a loss how any of this was going to end cleanly. There was no simple way out. She'd seen me, I'd seen her; it was a foregone conclusion what was going to happen when I let her go. As if she could read my thoughts, our eyes met and I dredged up some words that came out calmer than I felt:

"You should get some rest."

"Ha!"

"No, I mean it."

"Like I could sleep."

"Just… try. Been a long night already."

"But. The gun…"

I fixed her with a look I hoped was loaded with compassion. "If I was going to use it, I'd have done so earlier. Hardly gonna fire in a motel am I?"

I watched her sigh again, then eventually slither up the bed and lay back. It was a struggle to keep my gaze falling to her full chest as gravity took over beneath the tight blouse. I didn't fight it. Seemed I did a lot of that. A weakness in my DNA, probably. The same weakness that got me into this whole mess in the first place. Sometimes I wondered if the car had more balls than I did.

When she'd settled I sat replaying the evening in my head, primarily wondering how I'd missed her entrance at the store. I was usually so careful to keep one eye on the task and the other on the exits. But she'd caught me by surprise and I'd panicked. Perhaps it was the excitement of the last job or that I'd been too engrossed in the safe to notice… but no, the way she'd appeared from nowhere. Something didn't add up. I grabbed the knapsack and rummaged through it for my laptop. I also shifted the holdall full of loot towards the desk, away from view. Fewer questions that way.

Booting up Tails I connected a USB cable, retrieved the store's hard drive from the holdall pocket and hooked it up, plugging my portable disk kit into the mains to supply it power. The drive spun up with a high-pitched whine, the laptop recognizing it shortly after, dutifully adding an icon to the desktop. Of course, the camera feed was in a proprietary format, but I had software for all the major vendors. I'm like that.

The feed was a typical two-by-two grid of locations: top-left the back office that contained the safe; the square alongside covered the main entrance and part of the strip mall beyond. Below was a view of the small stock room, while the final camera captured the bulk of the store itself. The glass-topped units and cabinets dotted throughout the space housed rings, watches and necklaces in which I'd not been interested; maybe half a million in stock that would require fencing. The holdall's content was more immediately useful, especially when added to the cash I'd already pilfered over three years of bad behavior.

I hit the fast-forward icon and watched the timecode speed by. Customers and employees scurried around, transactions taking place, the ebb and flow of a normal day dwindling until the place was locked up for the night by the heavyset store manager. Then there was nothing much of anything happening for hours of footage. I tripled the playback rate until the front door cam registered a long-haired blonde cheerleader fumbling with the lock outside.

She opened it, stepped into the store and I watched her approach the alarm panel, punch in the same code I'd used a couple hours later, then beckon to where a lanky youth stood waiting in jeans, hoodie and a beanie hat. She paused a moment, before stalking back and dragging her somewhat hesitant friend behind her at arm's length. They hustled across the store, and I picked them up again from overhead in the stock room.

She wasted no time. Pushed him back against one of the metal racks by the left wall, stepped in on tiptoe for a kiss and wrapped her arms around him. Moments later, his reservations melting, he responded fully, their kiss deepening until her hands began wandering between their bodies, over his chest and down his hips to unsnap the fastener of his jeans. She left the garment that way as they kissed, before slithering down his body to kneel in front of him, peeling his fly apart and scooping out his semi, admiring it for a moment then making eye contact with him before engulfing his rising erection in one motion.

Clearly enjoying the attention, his head tipped back as she went to work. If he wasn't quite twenty, he wasn't far off, long pale features atop a chiseled jaw line registering pleasure. Certainly didn't take him long to grow fully hard in her mouth. But with the amount of energy she was channeling into the blowjob, I doubted I would. And I had ten years on him. Soon, she was bobbing her head up and down, running her tongue and lips along his sizeable shaft, cupping his balls, looking up into his eyes. I could only see the back of her head from the upper left side but he seemed colossal in comparison to her dainty hand rubbing the full length. She treated him to some further teasing before taking the tip of it in her mouth and swirling her tongue around the head.

The camera was fairly grainy quality, but unlike some models that captured footage resembling the stop-motion 1950s Godzilla movie, at least this one exhibited continuous playback. I could see wetness glinting off his erection in the stock room strip light each time she pulled away, before pressing him urgently back between her lips. The girl could suck dick, that much was obvious. She gradually increased the depth of her strokes until as much as she could of his length regularly disappeared and reappeared, glistening. Then she steadied herself, took hold of his hips and worked her way deeper, engulfing around two-thirds of his hardness and pulling back, beginning a gentle rhythm. He was clearly in heaven and I couldn't blame him.

She toyed with his impressive shaft for another ninety jaw-dropping seconds according to the timecode in the corner of the screen, before withdrawing fully. Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she stood, reached under her tiny skirt to tug her panties down and tossed them on the tiled floor. Turning her back to him, she ground against his tumescence and he reached for her hips, pulling her to him harder. They writhed that way a little before she reached beneath her skirt, angled herself forward a few degrees and began to slowly reverse.

There was no mistaking what was going on. It was written all over his face as he sank into her evidently tight pussy, inch by mammoth inch until her perfect ass pressed against the open flaps of his fly. His hands flipped up the excuse for a skirt and grappled the flesh of her slender hips as they began a stuttering rhythm that gradually picked up speed until it became fluid. Soon they were bucking harder, his hands gravitating north to cup her perky tits over the stretched jersey bearing the logo of her squad. Her hands reached to cover his, head tipping back and it was only then I could see how young she was. Sixteen if she was a day. Seventeen at a push.

The pair ramped up the pace. Her hands remained to massage her boobs through the tight top while his returned to grip the exposed flesh of her firm rump as he slammed inside her tiny frame. Her mouth had fallen open and she was clearly panting hard. Even though there was no sound accompanying the footage, I could well imagine her breathless little cries bouncing off the ceiling and storeroom boxes.

I became aware of being fully hard as I watched them fuck, and rearranged my jeans to relieve the pressure. The fact she was totally into it, facing the ceiling-mounted camera as she took him deeply and rocketed towards orgasm, flicked levers inside my mind that made my dick surge in my underwear. Every so often my hand would brush my groin and I'd swell beneath the confines of my clothes. So engrossed in the action, I didn't notice the woman behind me until she gasped. Second time she'd sneaked up on me in as many hours.

Instinctively, I swiped to try and switch desktop displays and push the feed off-screen but the damn thing didn't respond. By then the damage was done. I looked over my shoulder to see her hand covering her mouth, eyes wide.

I don't know why I'd been so slow, perhaps it was the endorphin rush, but in that instant it all fell into place in my head. "Oh. My. God. Mommy didn't know."

She seemed too dumbstruck to speak, affording me precious seconds to shake the video from my mind and realize there might be a way out after all. A smile gradually spread across my lips.

"Terrible if this was leaked."

She still didn't say anything. Watched her daughter fuck this well-endowed character, unable to tear her gaze from the screen until it became too much and she sat back down heavily on the edge of the bed. She heard me the second time, seemingly jolted from her trance, whispering. "No."

I turned back to the camera feed just in time to see her daughter come. The boy buried inside her wasn't far behind, bucking and jerking as he unloaded into her tightness. The pleasure etched on both their faces was a sight to behold.

I whistled. "Think of the hits this would get."

"No," she said again hollowly. "Please God, no."

I looked across at her. So vulnerable. It was incredibly alluring but I did nothing. Just waited for the penny to drop, which it did some moments later.

"So what do you want?"

"I thought that would be obvious."

She sighed. "Okay, I'll keep quiet."

I smiled. "We both know it's not as simple as that."

"So what do you want?" she repeated.

I looked back at the disentangling teens on-screen, making themselves presentable before stepping together for another kiss. "Oh, I dunno. Like daughter like mother?"

She stared at me. Through me. Then dragged her gaze south to rest on my still hard crotch and back up. Focused on me for a long moment before reaching for the top button of her blouse. "You promise you'll destroy the tape?"

"I don't think that'll work."

"What?" She stopped, just thumbed the button. I knew I had to play it cool. Fuck knows I wanted to see her tits.

"Think about it. I destroy the drive, I have nothing if you go back on your word. No, I need more than that." I looked back at the video as the teenagers' hands wandered during the post-coital kiss. "So we trade. Her tape for one of you."

"What?"

"It's simple." I fished my phone from the knapsack and turned to her. "I film you now, you get to destroy that video." I jerked my thumb over my shoulder. "You for her. Deal?"

She looked ashen. "But my husband… how will I know you won't…" She left the words hanging.

"You keep quiet about tonight, the video goes no further. I promise. Why would I risk it? You'd go straight to the cops."

She was silent, clearly something going through her head. Maybe a lot of things. Pros and cons? Working out if she had any leverage of her own? A way out now the situation had changed? I had no way of knowing, but it seemed nothing came to her. My cock jumped inside my jeans at her realization and I spun the chair around fully to face her. "I trust you'll make it convincing."

She scowled before composing herself, resigned to her immediate fate. I flicked my phone to video and held it in front of me, framing her upper half, and giving her a go signal. She trembled as her fingers fell to each button of the white blouse, unfastening them in turn. The growing gape revealed the delicate smoothness of her skin until her bra and stomach fell into view as the front of the garment separated and hung from her shoulders.

She was in great shape. A tiny bit of sexy belly rippled as she shrugged the blouse to pool behind her on the bedcovers and I was afforded the tantalizing view of her bra-clad chest catching the pathetic yellowy luminance of the naked motel light. The creamy upper surface of her breasts swelled above pastel cups that strained to prevent their escape. A decent handful, maybe a thirty-eight or forty; an inch for every year of her age, perhaps. I couldn't tell and didn't care beyond the fact she was full and womanly. If her daughter grew to half her mother's beauty she'd still be striking.

I watched the woman rise from the bed and stand in front of me, her midriff and dark skirt becoming framed by the lens. She reached behind her hips and unzipped, the skirt dropping to the floor before she stepped out of it. Her panties were UCLA blue cotton. Not lacy or racy, but functional and smooth and alluring. The camera caught strands of dark hair peeking from the edges where they met her thighs. She didn't miss the effect it had on me.

The bed deformed again as she perched on its edge, easing her legs apart. I felt like I should direct, but didn't want to speak in case the video ever had to be released. For a second I panicked that I'd be visible somewhere in a reflection and checked the surroundings. The no-brand TV and only mirror were behind me, both as weathered as the rest of the room. The fear passed. It couldn't have lasted anyway, the incredible sight of her trailing fingertips over her belly and up to cup her tits made me harder than the diamonds in my holdall.

Despite her predicament, the worried crease of her brow began to fade as she did whatever it took to save her daughter's public dignity. The actions of her hands cupping and squeezing her doughy twin mounds, fingers tweaking hidden nipples that began to show through the fabric, seemed as arousing for her as it was for me. I desperately wanted to see her buxom flesh released, but let her go at her pace, content as a voyeur. For now at least.

Trying to keep the phone steady, I tracked it to follow the fingers of one hand as she trickled them south between her legs. She jolted a fraction as they reached the apex of her lips and pressed, then slithered further down to cup her pubis and rub. I panned back up past her squeezing other hand just in time to film her lip catching in her teeth on one side and a gentle exhalation. Unlike her daughter's movie, this one had sound.

I focused on reactions more than actions for the next portion of the video. It was so sexy watching the way her concentration faded in and out, eyes fluttering open and closed, mouth parting to take little gasps. The manner in which her lightly freckled cheeks rose and fell either side of her tapered nose was enchanting, as each touch ignited pleasure receptors inside her body that caused involuntary flickers of happiness to register. I adored watching women tease themselves almost as much as I did taking them. In my dark past, I'd often sit on the floor and watch in a drunken stupor as they played with themselves, a blur of fingers, vibrators and gasps until I couldn't help myself and moved in to eat or fuck.

After so much time spent absent from my vice, the excitement of watching another married woman reach the pinnacle of her own pleasure was the tipping point. The spike of need hit my brain like the firing pin of a handgun, triggering my cock to surge with blood. I wanted her. Every square millimeter, every hole. It was irrational. Stupid. But I had to have her, the thirst returning to contaminate parts of my psyche I thought I'd locked away.

Struggling to maintain my composure, knowing the delay would make our eventual union even more powerful, I forced myself to glide the iPhone down past her hand massaging each breast in turn. Every curve and raised hair follicle was digitally recorded until I centered on the actions of her fingers over her panties. She was circling her clit and I could see a slender, darker oval forming on the surface near her fingertips, spreading towards the bed. Her gasps elevated a little and she sought the waistband, slithering beneath to continue the pleasure.

Tiny hip gyrations began to accompany her ministrations, genuine excitement registering as her eyes first found mine, then dipped to the obvious bulge and back. Twice. Imploring, perhaps the need in her as great as it was in me.

Keeping the camera as steady as I could, I unsnapped my jeans and wriggled in the chair to lower them, relieving the pressure. My length tented the boxers and I traced it with my free hand before pulling the front elastic down to release the entire thing to her deepening gaze. Hooking the waistband below my full balls caused her actions to increase in intensity. The dark spot grew. I wondered what was going through her mind. Hoped it was the same as mine.

Sensing she was close to the end, I panned the camera to capture everything I could. The undulation of her cute belly, probably a holdover from childbirth. The goose flesh. The prominent nipples outlined beneath the hand insistently squeezing and rubbing her tits. The eyes fixed on my cock, with a faraway look in them as her head and body began to close in, focusing everything on the moment of release, mouth falling open.

The rise of her orgasm was a delight to witness until she bubbled over and came, gasping into the cheap room. I could barely keep still but pulled the focus back, the lens capturing her full body in all its underwear-clad glory, stiff at first, then shuddering as the waves of orgasm pulsed, hand buried deep beneath her panty material. I knew I'd be visiting the video time and again in the privacy of my home, but there were more immediate needs to be tended. The thirst was all-consuming, coiling, tightening, ready to snap.

Somehow I had the presence of mind to wait for her to stop quivering and begin to reanimate before shutting off the recording and stowing the phone. Then I succumbed to my raging desires. She barely had time to remove her hand before I was on my knees and took over with my mouth where her fingers had vacated. Her surprise gave way to a moan of pleasure. She smelled fantastic through the soaked material. Raw and earthy. I peeled aside the sticky two-tone fabric and the full aroma hit me. My tongue found home, her clit hard beneath it and I circled, kissed, nibbled and licked as she writhed.

The bed bounced as she fell back and I continued to service her. If she had any compunction about cheating on her husband, it evaporated when I brought two fingers up to her sopping entrance and eased them inside, intent on giving her another orgasm quickly. Crooking them, I found the patch of nerve endings without any trouble and wiggled, pressing skyward to her obvious delight. Her hips bucked upwards, forcing her body against my hand. Opening my palm while continuing to stroke her most sensitive area enabled me to press my tongue on her clit from above. The dual stimulus caused her to shriek and grind against me as the crest of a second orgasm crashed into the tail end of the last.

Clear juice trickled from her spasming cunt around my fingers and I lapped at it, savoring every molecule. I'd missed that; the taste of irrepressible lust. It scorched me. Turned me on. Put me on autopilot, one clear destination.

Standing, cock poised, I leaned over her body, grasping her wrists and shoving them up and out, pinning her to the bed as I sought her sopping entrance and slid home past her pulled-aside underwear. All the breath left her body at once and I sensed that even if she'd been able to stop me, she wouldn't. Our pubic hair entwined just for a second before I pulled back fully and filled her again. Deep. Repetitive. Driving hard, each meeting of our groins splitting her wetness, trapping me within her sugary channel for an instant then letting me draw back for the next exquisite cycle. Her legs came up off the floor, ankles crossing behind my hips, drawing me further into her slippery depths. My chin and lips grazed her neck, electrifying us both as we slammed against one another. Strangers thrust together by circumstance now thrusting through necessity.

The extra ten bucks for the room was worth it. With no neighbors to disturb, she didn't hold back. What started as low growls deep in her throat began to manifest themselves as ever louder gasps. I nipped her ear lobe and she went wild. Begging. Coming. Writhing beneath me. Maybe the shrewd old guy at the desk had drawn the correct conclusion after all.

The prelude of watching her pleasure unfold for the camera already had me on a sexual knife-edge. The pulsing of her pussy and hot breath against my cheek tipped me over my personal abyss. I felt the pressure welling deep inside my body, amplifying my pistoning like the Mustang when I floored it, before my rhythm broke down and I emptied everything I had inside her clutching heat.

Both breathing hard, glowing with perspiration, we stayed that way for some time as the aftermath of orgasm ran its course. Strange under the circumstances, but I wasn't complaining. I was more than content to feel her heart slowing against mine before the awkwardness rose and we disentangled. I rolled to one side, buckled up and watched her redressing, equally mesmerized at the reverse striptease as I was in the regular direction. She lay back down, facing away from me on the uneven mattress, and I mirrored her shape from a foot away, listening to her breaths returning to a steady state, and observing the way her hair caught the light, only becoming aware of how weary I was when my lids drooped a few times.

I didn't mean to drift into sleep, but could no longer fight the fatigue. Haunted by racing thoughts of three years of being someone I wasn't, it was hardly what I'd call fitful rest, but my body clearly needed the downtime. Processing information from the last job was my mind's primary focus. And planning my next moves: drop the stones off, drive home free of my obligation to Monroe, fetch the remainder of my stash and head north, calling the realtor on the way to finalize the house sale. Release the equity. Go meet Sadie. All in a morning's work, right after I let the brunette go.

The night sure hadn't gone as planned, but she'd turned out to be a bonus rather than a worry. Exquisite, her taste worth the regression to my old ways. And to witness her horny daughter too was all the sweeter. Especially the look on her face as she came, the twists of pleasure palpable through the security camera lens as those tumbling strands of hair swished either side of chipmunk cheeks and upturned nose. Even with the CCTV footage erased, I'd be able to revisit the video of her mom at my leisure, watch the same pleasure cross her face time and again. The fact I'd managed to turn a dire situation into such a triumph was almost too good to be true.

Too good to be true.

Images of my father swam through my head, warning that if something seemed too good to be true, it usually was. Too good. The words rattled around my subconscious. My brain sharpened. Clicked. Like the locks in the safe. Left three. Right twelve. The lock snapped open, just like my eyes.

She was gone.

Fuck.

It took a moment to register then I sat bolt upright. Looked to the side of the desk. The holdall was gone too.

Double fuck.

I scrambled off the bed. Phone: gone. The only thing that remained was the laptop, still spooling the security footage. I could see myself crouched, working on the safe in the office. Why would she leave that? It made no sense. Until I fast-forwarded to where I retrieved the diamonds and cash.

I rewound the scene to check I wasn't seeing things. No. Definitely. In the adjacent camera feed, a few minutes before I stole from the office, the brunette unfurled herself from behind the cash desk in the store, went for the door, unlocked it and waited. As I came out, she made as if she was walking through the store, freezing as I did before I darted for her and swept us both from the establishment.

Triple fuck.

A setup from the start. She wasn't the storeowner's wife. Probably not even the cheerleader's mom. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Their hair color didn't match. Nor, now I thought about it, did they even look that much alike. I'd not paid enough attention to the detail. Been blinded by the sex. The fault in my DNA yet again.

My mind raced, heart thudding and I froze as the final tumbler clicked into place.

Monroe. It had to be. The only other person who knew about my darker days. My weakness for women. He had no intention of letting me leave his employ, but as I always insisted on working solo, he had no way of knowing my location until the next day. Didn't want to dirty his hands at the drop point, so he'd planted the brunette to find out where I was. Which meant…

Shit.

The low crunch of tires on the uneven surface of the courtyard focused my mind to a pinprick. My adrenaline peaked. I grabbed the laptop and drive, stuffed it all into my knapsack and raced to the door, unlatching it and peeking out. The sedan had stopped immediately below and I caught the moon reflecting off the skinhead of the burly guy that climbed out. Wasn't housekeeping, that much was for damn sure. All two hundred pounds of him made for the concrete stairwell, knowing exactly which room thanks to the traitorous brunette's tip-off. I waited for him to begin his ascent then bolted from the room and charged in the opposite direction along the balcony that ran in front of the rooms. He must have sensed the vibrations of my feet slapping the structure and quickened his climb. I risked a glance back, the only thing registering was that he was pacing fast and had a gun raised, pointing at me.

I darted left and right to make any shot difficult, burst past the last room and clattered down the steps three at a time, rounding the knee of the stairway, barrelling down the remaining stairs and bounding into the courtyard then doubling back to the rear of the establishment. I rooted in my pocket for the key, blipped the locks and hauled myself in, throwing the knapsack in the passenger seat, fumbling the key with shaking hands and gunning the engine. I reversed and spun in a waft of tire smoke then punched the gas just as the guy rounded the building, gun leveled.

With only ten feet between him and one-point-seven-five tons of Mustang snapping his stocky legs, the math didn't add up in his favor. He squeezed off a hurried shot that pierced the passenger side windshield before he dove away and I spun the car into the courtyard with a precision that only comes from daily abuse of cars and rubber. I screeched away from his corner of the building, diagonally across the courtyard and hurtled over the sidewalk to crunch onto the thankfully quiet access road that led to the interstate, pushing the engine to its limit in third.

The bald guy didn't give chase. He'd be foolish to do so in that shitty Buick. I swung onto the interstate, mind whirling as fast as the revs of the car and indicated to pull on, joining the scant traffic at the young hour. Only when I was half a mile further on did I rub my eyes and breathe out heavily, fighting nausea that threatened to paint the car interior at my narrow brush with death. I focused on the road instead, trying to calm, keeping the needle below sixty-five, destination who the fuck knew.

I hit the rim of the steering wheel in frustration. Monroe would be able to easily track the car as it was in his name. So I had two options: one, lose it. That hurt more than I cared to admit. After three years it was almost a part of me. Option two was to find a phone and call Blake who, for the right price, could give the car a new identity and allow me to disappear off Monroe's radar for real. Risky. If Monroe went to all this trouble, he sure as hell would have my place staked out. But with the holdall gone, I needed every cent of the cash hidden in the basement. I figured I might have time before the gunman reported back and they mobilized someone. But not much time. Monroe also knew where Sadie was, so I had to reach her first. Get her to safety at all costs and deal with my incensed ex-wife later.

It wasn't much of a plan, but decision made, I hit the blinkers and powered off the interstate, looping back to join the opposite carriageway, heading for my neighborhood the other side of the city. The only thing that mattered now was calling on my smarts, acquired criminal know-how, and blind luck to stay one step ahead of my pursuers.

I gripped the wheel, the crescent moon glinting off the roar of the Mustang's hood as I accelerated into an uncertain future, both for it, for me, and my daughter.