Spencer wasn't lying either.
It wasn't poison.
But it was something, something that made Ashley's tongue thick and her head grow heavier and caused her vision to go from painfully sharp to fuzzy around the edges.
Ashley could feel her body tilting to one side, but it was like being underwater - she didn't topple over, she floated off.
It was warm. It was scarily soothing.
A ship no longer tethered to the dock, drifting... drifting... drifting.
But not dying.
Ashley noted the loud beating of her own heart, right before falling into a nice sleep.
And she saw Spencer, for a lazy second, reaching out and taking the glass away and a satisfied smile on those delicious lips.
Right before oblivion, Ashley smiled back at the woman and blew her a kiss.
/ / / /
"When she wakes up, give her anything she needs... Within reason, of course. No phone-calls out. And don't let her leave. Is that understood?"
The man nods.
Then he kneels down, picking up the brunette as if she were a kid, and carries the woman away. Spencer waits until they are fully out the door before she reaches for the phone on the desk.
Pressing one button, she doesn't have to even wait for a full ring before it is answered.
"Yes, Ms. Carlin?"
"Be at my place in, oh, two hours or so. I've got someone for you to check out."
"Of course, Ms. Carlin."
And then she sits down to the open laptop and the documents being swiftly transferred for her to go over.
All about Aiden Dennison.
He reads like some bastardized version of a character from The Great Gatsby - more money than sense, pomp and circumstance - but there are cold touches all around, too.
Bodies tend to pile up and get swept under the rug.
Arrests never happen, sections of a city kept away from the public eye.
Aiden rules the roost, with oil-slick charm and an unexpected iron fist.
Spencer smirks, because the two of them actually have a lot in common in the way they handle things and people and investments.
If you play by their rules, you'll be alright.
If you don't play by their rules, you are as good as dead.
And, really, she can't take any moral high road.
She's done her fair share of blood-letting. She's seen men go down and not get back up.
She's been the bullet in the gun.
She's been the long knife in the dead of night.
There isn't a difference between them, except for gender.
But top dogs tend to fight. They don't make friends with one another for nothing.
The gain has to be bigger than the ego for that to happen.
And Aiden Dennison's ego is probably the biggest thing on him.
But that is Spencer Carlin's own personal weakness as well.
She adores being king of the mountain, pushing on the backs with her thumb and eliminating the competition, each take-over barrels through her system like a drug.
And she rides it out, like the best sex in the world, rides it out until there is not a thing left.
If they were to work together, they could probably run the state.
And, were it not for Ashley Davies, Spencer might have bought this line and traveled it to her possible ruin.
But there are strange factors coming into play, unknown motivations at work, and Aiden Dennison turning up now seems less like a chance at consolidation - and more like a case of retaliation, born and bred far away from his speech of 'scratch my back and I'll scratch yours'.
Spencer stares at the picture of Aiden Dennison on her laptop, but it is not a look of concern upon her face. Or even anger.
She is grinning like the cat who caught the canary.
Because Spencer Carlin loves nothing more than a chance to flex her muscle.
To show the streets who is in charge.
To carve her name into legend.
God, but she loves a good old fashioned war.
/ / /
"She's not awake yet?"
"No, but she should be soon. Her jaw is very swollen, so she should take these every four hours. I listened to her breathing and it is steady. Some bruising along her torso... It would be better for me to ask her some questions once she is awake, just to make sure there isn't any internal bleeding of any kind. Otherwise, it is my medical opinion that she will be fine."
"Okay then. You know the way out. Come back around noon."
"Yes, Ms. Carlin."
Ashley takes a very shallow breath at that comment.
And her pulse stops racing. And she feels the muscles in her back start to relax again.
She woke up, literally, five seconds ago.
And she felt so groggy, so damn out of it, that the cool touch of fingertips to her face seemed very far away.
And the words that echoed in her ears seemed foreign at first, jumbled and odd.
But she quickly caught on, squinting one eye barely open and focusing on a bent head of silver hair.
The man didn't seem to notice her being awake, very intent on looking at her stomach and lightly pressing against the skin.
Then she flicked her one-eyed gaze to what she could see around her, which was no longer Spencer Carlin's office, but a huge living room or den.
There was a coffee table. There were books. There was a fire-place.
And Ashley's mind started to race and the hand closest to her started to flex, just a bit, ready to punch this guy and get the hell out of whatever she was.
But a door slammed shut somewhere she couldn't see and the man's head darted around and Ashley shut her eye quick, not wanting to give away that she was now aware.
Of course, hearing 'Ms. Carlin' does not mean that this situation is any better for her.
It could be that this is where she'll be disposed of.
Isn't that the term people like to use, to make it seem less like murder and more like you are simply taking out the trash?
Then again, Ashley reasons, she is alive - that drink obviously didn't kill her, it just put her to sleep. But the question is... why do this at all?
"You must be hungry." A voice pipes up from behind and to the right.
And Ashley internally rolls her eyes, pushing her sore body upwards and facing Spencer's amused smirk.
"How'd you know?"
"You were too still."
"People are still when they sleep."
"Not really. They snore. They drool. They do not have tension lines on their forehead."
Ashley self-consciously rubs her hand over her forehead then as Spencer shrugs off her jacket, revealing a black top - sleeveless - and lightly tanned arms.
It's ridiculous that Ashley notices this. It's ridiculous that Ashley likes noticing it.
Spencer's skin is nice to look at, though.
It is even better to feel. Even better to taste.
"Why did you knock me out?"
"To bring you here."
"And where is here?"
But Spencer just walks into another room and Ashley trails her gaze down to Spencer's ass, annoyed at her own lack of caring for personal safety in the face of her increasing lust for the blonde.
Talk about stupid. Talk about dumb. Talk about jumping out of the plane with no parachute.
Still, with the reckless abandon that has been her only guide in this life, Ashley figures that if it is her fate to perish at the hands of Spencer Carlin - it's a pretty nice way to go.
/ /
Soup isn't a meal.
But it is warm and it slides down her sore throat easily and it doesn't require her mouth to move much.
Being prodded and poked at is annoying.
But this guy doesn't seem like a pervert and Spencer is surveying every single touch and it is probably a good thing to not be dying from the inside.
Taking pills of any kind always sucks.
But they aren't too large and it does not take long for them to hit in, to run wild in her body and numb all the discomfort.
Being high off of anything was never her bag.
But there is a peace to feeling nothing much above the neck, there is a kind of comfort in the sensation of a sure hand in her own as it pulls her along because she cannot walk too well.
And she glances at the various pieces of art on the walls and she pauses on the windows that overlook the skyscrapers in the distance, she feels the carpet sinking down under the soles of her boots, she feels each breath she takes - how it fills her up and how it flutters out of her again.
"I suppose I should let you rest, hmm?"
Spencer's voice has a flavor and Ashley wonders if anyone else has noticed that.
It is a contradiction - sweet and sour at the same time.
Saying one thing, like 'let you rest', but doing another thing with that hand - slipping from Ashley's palm and sliding up under Ashley's shirt, grazing where that punch landed and making Ashley shiver.
From an echo of pain, sure, but more so from anticipation.
Ashley feels simultaneously connected and disconnected from her own skin, Spencer's touch catching her on fire and cooling her down, there but not, a dream and a reality.
And that breathing she can track, it gets louder and it picks up speed.
"What do you think, Ashley?"
And the question bounces around her head, knocking into whatever is left of her common sense and begging for a straight answer, but common sense is for good people - not thieves, not killers, not fire-starters.
Besides, Spencer's hand has a friend now and the two of them are moving south, undoing the top of Ashley's jeans and slowly pulling the zipper down and questing fingertips move past the clothing and press firmly against Ashley's clit.
"Oh god... that feels good..."
Spencer's laugh is small and perfect and Ashley wants to crawl inside of that sound even as she closes her eyes and languidly pushes her hips forward - anxious for more pressure, anxious for more sensations to rocket up her spine, feeling weightless and aroused and ready.
Because it feels good. So fucking good.
She'd do anything to keep Spencer touching her. Anything at all.
Those fingers rub so slowly, they deny and they tease. Those fingers taunt by going lower and dragging back up like there is all the time in the world, over and over and over again.
Ashley finally catches up to her own voice, her own voice asking for what she has wanted all along, from that very first day, from that very first drink and ever since the very first time Spencer Carlin bent her over a desk and ruined her for other women.
"Oh, fuck, please... fuck... me..."
And Spencer's voice tastes like a wicked kind of victory.
"No rest for you then."
/
The offer will be put on the table, even with this new development.
No need to make an enemy, unless one has to.
The plan is sound and it is profitable - two sides working together, pooling all the scum and all the bad cops and all the meat-heads into one giant network.
It can mean a new level of domination.
It can reach into every nook and cranny, it can buy mayors and it can influence governments.
All Spencer Carlin has to do is give up Ashley Davies.
And, really, what is one fire-bug in the face of owning the streets?
Because Aiden knows that he and Spencer Carlin have more in common than they do not.
They do not operate with emotion. They do not care about feelings, they care about being the best.
The both of them, keeping their hands clean but still able to eradicate problems.
Two charmers in a sea of rough faces - together, they would be a force to be reckoned with.
It was just kismet, really, that Ashley turned up when she did.
Getting a little bit of long over-due retribution would just be the cherry on top for Aiden, a niggling annoyance in the back of his mind in the body of a fetching brunette with a penchant for burning down places, the girl who got away.
Up there, in those aloft rooms, with guards and protection, Ashley Davies has no idea that her day has come.
TBC
