Free Blowback by Lyn Gala Page B

Carla.”
    Tom studied this woman again. “Like on the sign?”
    “Yep. Spent twenty years on my back to get enough money to
buy my own place and then one of my best girls tells me she’s got some really
big guy whose getting choosy about who services him. I came down to say that I
don’t offer a menu of women. Whichever doxy feels like offering to bed you is
the only choice you get. Take it or leave it.”
    “Seems like you forgot to give me that speech,” Tom pointed
out.
    She smiled, her warm body still pressed to his side. “Seems
like I did. Now as much as I enjoyed myself, you will understand that business
is business and you did agree to pay twenty credits for my services.”
    “Thirty five,” Tom corrected her. “Pants are on the ground
where you threw ‘em.”
    She smiled. “You may talk like you’re from Outflung or Beauteous or one of those places that didn’t see fit to set up
schools, but you really do have a sweetness about you.”
    “Don’t go telling people that,” Tom said. “You ask around
and you’ll find out that Tom Frieden has a reputation as a man with very little
sweetness to him.”
    “Oh yes. We’ll let the rest of the world think you’re a
junkyard dog.” She smiled and leaned in to kiss him on the mouth before she rolled
off the bed and went padding over to where his pants lay on the ground.
    “If you’re thinking of hiring me, you should know that ain’t
far off,” Tom said. “I’m not the type to go thinking on things a whole lot, but
if you give me a rifle and tell me that there’s a man who needs killing, you
won’t have to think twice about whether or not he’s dead.”
    She stopped, Tom’s pants in her hand. Walking back over to
the bed, she dropped his pants near his knee and then sat down next to him and
leaned over him. “So, you kill for money?”
    Tom thought about that. He was Corps…a cop, but when it came
right down to it, his job was to cover the others. In other words, Ramsay
pointed out who had to die if things went wrong and Tom made sure they died.
“That’s about the short of it,” Tom agreed.
    “Would you kill anyone?” She looked at him curiously and Tom
wondered if she had a particular someone in mind.
    “I don’t kill folks who don’t have reason to think it’s
coming and who can’t take care of themselves. And mostly, I just kill folks
Captain Ramsay points out as needing killing if they try to double cross us.”
Tom figured that was close enough to the truth without getting into the
details.
    She nodded and reached for his pants. “So in other words,
you’re not as much junkyard dog as you let people believe. That will teach the
girls because several of them thought you looked too scary. But let some man in
a fancy suit come in and they’ll fight each other to take care of him.” She
shook her head. “Some days I wonder if I’m ever going to be able to teach any
of them to have any common sense.” She pulled the money out of Tom’s pocket and
counted out thirty-five of his forty credits, slipping the last few notes back
into his pocket.
    “What’s this?” she asked. Tom looked at the tracker in her
hand.
    “A computer thing,” he said with an awkward shrug.
    “And you aren’t worried about me taking it?” she asked
curiously. “It looks pretty high end.”
    “If I was going to worry, I’d have done that before letting
you chain me to the wall,” Tom pointed out. She smiled and put the disk back
into his pocket.
    “That’s true.”
    “You planning on unchaining me?” Tom asked.
    “Oh I don’t know. As long as you’re chained, I can have my
fantasies about keeping you.” She gave him another of those wicked smiles that
Tom did love and he could feel his cock take an interest, even if it was going
to be a while before he could rightly do anything. “No protest?” she asked,
running her hand up and down Tom’s chest.
    “I’ve got several hours before my captain comes looking and I
plan to use them to