John Wick: No Rest For The Wicked (Patreon)

All in all, Addy liked being a bartender who catered exclusively to criminals. She’d tried being a hitwoman—done the prerequisite tour in Afghanistan, then tried to be a civilian, then tried to be a hitter. Hadn’t worked. Still too squeamish, at least when it was just some guy sitting at home, or in his car, or in a booth. Maybe she was a racist. She’d never minded shooting someone in a keffiyeh, waving around an AK-47. Maybe she’d just done too much of that to do anymore.

But she’d tended bar in college, always been something of a mixologist, even in high school. And people liked her. When she asked Charon how someone got a gig at the Continental, he told her there was an opening for a bartender in the club. Like he’d had his eye on her. Tending bar in the club was just like tending bar at the Red Circle, or anywhere else. Only here, she might have to shoot someone if they got out of line. If it came to that. Which it didn’t.

Business was booming the night she met Perkins. A big drug shipment coming to the docks and it was like a whale going down in the ocean. The whole reef, predators and scavengers and everything in between, they all wanted a cut. Those who had money wanted to celebrate, those who didn’t wanted to plan on taking those who did. Here on neutral ground, Continental ground, they could take a breather. Leave the rat race for the hangover.

Yeah, it was a rowdy house, but the crowd was subdued in comparison to some college kids Addy had known. The nice thing about criminals—at least the kind of players who made it to the Continental—was that they were aware of their mortality. They didn’t make fool of themselves. Didn’t need to prove how big their balls were, at least not in a way that would make Addy reach for the collapsible baton in her pocket. They grabbed life by the throat and took all they could. And if some of them thought her throat was bared, at least they tried for it with their hands on the table.

Ms. Perkins slid up to the bar like it’d been waiting for her. Addy knew her by reputation—like a shark’s fin, you got someone’s reputation long before they ever showed up at the Continental—but none of them had mentioned the look of her. This dark, fallen angel vibe which resonated with Addy’s old-enough-to-know-better baby dyke days. Exactly the kind of evolved goth girl she would have fallen hard for back in college. Hell, she could’ve spent an entire leave in that girl’s bed.

Burning blue eyes made all the brighter by her bronzed tan, dark hair, black clothes, obsidian fingernails. She had a raptor grace—a stillness, a quiet, waiting to just explode. That long raven hair flowed like a river into her leather jacket, which itself flowed down to leather pants. Boots. Perkins was the same as anyone: she would get dolled up for the club. That she hadn’t told Addy that she’d returned from the hunt, her blood up, and she was eager to enjoy some spoils.

“Vodka, straight up.”

Addy poured her a shot. Waste of her talents. “Picking up bad habits from the Russians?”

“Picking up money from the Russians.” Perkins flashed a wad of bills. Not rubles either. She floated one of them over to Addy.

“Let’s just put it on your tab,” Addy said as she slid it back.

“Wanna spend time with me already?”

“Oh, ages.” Addy moderated her sarcasm, pushing the shotglass to Perkins just as she had the bill. Perkins knocked it back. Pushed it back for a refill. And a question.

“When do you get off?”

“When the bar closes,” Addy replied noncommittally, favoring Perkins with a challenging smile. Let her suss out its meaning.

“Not what I asked.”

Addy poured for her. Perkins’ eyes were thirsty, but not for the drink. “Well, I suppose that’ll happen when someone gets down on her knees and eats my pussy.”

Perkins smirked right through drinking her shot. “Taking applications?”

“I don’t currently have any openings.”

“I have a few…”

Addy poured without waiting for Perkins’ signal. Perkins just looked at the shotglass.

“How much?” she asked.

“For a shot of vodka? Something ridiculously overpriced that you won’t mind paying.”

“For someone to drink it with.” Perkins tapped the wad of bills still on the bar. “Or from.”

“That’s not on the menu.”

“I love ordering off the menu. That’s where the tastiest stuff is.”

Addy leaned forward. Giving Perkins a look down her corset top even as she denied her its feel. “You couldn’t afford me.”

“So give me a discount.”

“How about another drink, instead?”

Perkins mulled over the offer, lush lips setting in a quietly feminine pout. You’d think it would break her proud face, but it just made it seem more dangerous. “Surprise me.”

Her phone blipped; she checked it. When she turned back, Addy was gone, a margarita in her place. The cocktail napkin underneath contained her phone number and an imprint of lipstick. Perkins wasted some time watching Addy mix a martini for another hitter, then returned to work.

No rest for the wicked.

***

Addy finished up her shift. It was, at the end of the day, a service industry job, and though the tips were extravagant and the experience as crisp and clean as everything else at the Continental, she still finished the day drained, tired, and with sore feet.

Covering her tattoos with a light coat, she left the Continental, caught the subway, returned her key to its lock, and after a quick shower did nothing to alleviate her tiredness—but everything to rid her of the grimy, sweaty feel of continuous labor—she collapsed into bed, sweetly dry from a lush towel, the satin sheets wrapping around her naked body like they longed to touch her. She slept, knowing she would awake in the middle of the night with her sleep cycle even more shot to shit, but fine. Fine…

She awoke to the soft caress of a hand on her face. Not just soft; a woman’s touch. She opened her eyes and found a set of burning blue mirrors regarding her. She opened her mouth to gasp with surprise, but kept herself from loosing the sound. Perkins laid next to her the bed, over the sheets that Addy was under, her jacket off, her shoes off, her tanktop as dark as everything else about her.

“Your home phone’s an easy way to find your home,” Perkins said, fingers running lightly, curiously over Addy’s lovely features. “But if you really wanted to make it a challenge, you should’ve gotten a better lock. Home security, Addy. It’s so important these days.”

“People know better than to fuck with a Continental employee.”

“I’m not planning to fuck with you,” Perkins said huskily. Her fingers continuing a delicate massage at Addy’s temple, her touch somehow considering. Addy slept on her belly, but despite her breasts and womanhood being hidden even from the outlining of the thin sheet that covered her, she felt vulnerable. Deliciously vulnerable.

Why did Perkins’s touch have to feel so nice, her voice sound so… experienced?

Perkins’s fingers traveled lightly down Addy’s neck, across her shoulders, pulling the sheet back from the naked slope of her back until she could see the sides of Addy’s breasts, just beneath her, the continuance of her flowering tattoos like her pale skin was too beautiful for a garden not to spring from it. Addy clutched her pillow tightly. Felt her body stirring with the shockingly gentle touch of the assassin, how it felt like Perkins was soothing some hurt when Addy hadn’t known she’d been injured.

“I know I should buy you a drink first, but at least I bought a drink. That’s something, right?” Perkins boldly pulled the sheet down Addy’s body, Addy blushing as the small of her back and the very beginning of her ass was hit with the cool air circulating by the bedroom’s gently spinning fan. She felt a sudden excitement at the thought of Perkins’s warm hands replacing that chilly air.

“You should stop,” Addy finally murmured, reminding herself that Perkins had broken into her apartment, climbed into bed with her, touched her without permission, and all she’d done was give her a phone number, the thought of maybe, maybe going on a date with her.

“I know your rep.” Perkins smiled as if somehow proud of her. “If you wanted me to stop, I’d be stopped. I want you. I just don’t have the fucking time to pretend I wanna go on a date with you and get to know you and all that shit. I just want your body, and if I can’t buy it, then maybe after I make you come a few times, then you’ll let me have it.”

Addy’s teeth clamped. Fucking assassins. Fucking bitches. Being such assholes while they turned her on so hard. Just this once… just because it felt so good…

“If you don’t make me come,” Addy said calmly, “I will break your goddamn neck.”

“I like those odds,” Perkins said, lifting herself off the bed to remove the rest of her clothes. Addy watched, just as exposed as Perkins, knowing that Perkins got off on being watched by such a beautiful woman, getting the approval of such a killer. Addy guessed that in their line of work, there weren’t so many female role models. Wasn’t much sisterhood. They had to stick together. Come together.

Naked, her body beautiful both as a work of art and as a weapon, Perkins laid down on top of Addy. The warmth of her body penetrated the thin sheet, teasing Addy’s tingling need. She held Addy to her, pressing her breasts into Addy’s back, reaching almost underneath Addy to rub her thigh just short of her pubis. Addy turned her head, shocked and impressed at Perkins’s touch, the way she knew how to please, how to warm. Perkins leaned over her shoulder, gingerly lowering her lips, pressing them together with Addy’s, winding her tongue into Addy’s wet, warm mouth.

“Oh shit,” Addy cooed softly, feeling the rest of the sheet fly away, their bodies coming together. She actually wasn’t going to get to break this bitch’s neck.

In fact, she was almost afraid of how she returned the kiss, passion beginning to build inside, her skin tingling everywhere it touched Perkins’s succulent flesh.

“Pretty, pretty girl…” Perkins purred as she kicked the sheet resolutely off the bed. She liked fucking with the lights on, and the glow from the streetlamp outside through the window she had come through was good enough.

She flipped Addy over, mounting her face to face, their breasts pressing together along with knowing lips, Addy’s passionate touch matching Perkins’s, making her vibrate as much as Addy was. Perkins’s hands moved, surprisingly gentle, over Addy’s taut, muscular body, lingering where they shouldn’t, feeling what Addy couldn’t. Addy’s nipples were hard against Perkins’s as those deviously genteel hands moved down her back, molding the firmness of her ass and hips.

“What’s your first name?” Addy moaned.

“Give me one,” Perkins muttered, the tone of her voice sending a tremble sweeping through Addy’s body.

“Sarah.”

“Louder,” Perkins insisted.

“Sarah!” Addy moaned, with more passion than she would’ve believed. After the fear and anger of Perkins’s intrusion, now she was hungry for tenderness, responding heavily to Perkins’s loving caresses. Probably why she’d been so audacious in the first place, the cunt—

In reward, Perkins’s fingers moved down Addy’s body, brushed over her clit. Addy’s needs were merging with Perkins’s desires; neither of them had the will to resist the other, though Perkins didn’t want to and Addy didn’t care.

Addy closed her eyes and smiled, reaching for Perkins, moving her hands over her full breasts to test their firmness, tease their curves even as Perkins caressed her sex. Without hesitation Addy opened up to the needing hands, letting them do whatever they wanted with her wetness, her lust.

“That feel good, Addy?”

“Yes…”

“Better than anyone else?”

Hating herself for giving into the dizzying nearness of Perkins’s body, Addy resigned herself to stroking Perkins’s ego. “You’re the best.”

“So are you.” Perkins lowered her mouth hotly to Addy’s ear. “We belong together.”

Fucking headcase. Thinking she was proving something by getting Addy to fuck. It would’ve made her laugh if she wasn’t so turned on by it, Perkins’s need, her resolve, her madness. Their lips came together, tongues melting into one. Addy closed her eyes. The room was spinning; she fell from Perkins’s kiss and instead bit at her throat.

But Perkins shoved her down against her own pillow, overcoming Addy’s passion with her own. She used her mouth at Addy’s hips, at her waist, at her breasts, Addy moaning over and over again, the brutality of Perkins’s mouth and then the gentleness of her hands. She squirmed under the lingering lips that bit her breasts so fiercely, then the fingers that molded to her wet sex like it was some precious artifact. It was like Perkins was two separate women. The devil and the angel.

Then Perkins’s brutal mouth came to her pussy.

“Oh sweet Jesus!” Addy cried, sucking air into her lungs, the rush of oxygen pouring fuel on the fire.

She looked down the valley of her breasts, the endless flat of her belly, down to the beautiful dark woman and her flaming tongue on Addy’s explosive cunt. That tongue, burning sensuously, parted Addy, probed into her, nestled its flame deep within her like a furnace’s inferno. And her eyes—her glowing, radiant eyes. Addy wanted to give something to them, be worthy of their burn.

She reached down, fingers rippling at her clit; like the strumming of a guitar, she had her own hips bucking upward to Perkins. Her own body trembling with the tang of those pleasures, her surrenders and her demands. She was consumed by it: the flavor of Perkins’s cunt in her flaring nostrils, begging to be tasted as well as scented.

Perkins was burning even hotter. She was the ultimate pleasure, the only one worthy of a beautiful dagger like Addy, and her mouth would prove it. She swirled her tongue inside of Addy, kissed her pleasuring hands, washed her lips in the juices that flowed so sweetly for her. Sucked at the hard clit, seeing if she could make it harder.

But she’d pushed Addy as far as she could go. Addy wouldn’t be submissive anymore, wouldn’t take it like all the rest. The bed rocked, mattress squeaking as Addy moved around—her breasts against the sharp abs of Perkins’s abdomen, the nipples dragging stiff and hard over Perkins’s skin. Then her lips on Perkins’s thighs, moist and soft but on fire. Perkins felt fingers spreading her pussy open, a little laugh as Addy stared at the naked beauty of her sex. Arms around her flaring hips and taut ass cheeks, then a mouth buried as deep in Perkins’s cunt as she was in Addy’s.

The two kissed wildly at soft flesh, tender pleasures, Addy enjoying the gentle moisture against her face, Perkins the hot taste on her tongue. They penetrated each other, nibbled at each other, their satisfaction and their lust making it impossible to think. Their bodies were on fire and a woman was there in their arms, putting it out. Perkins sucked lightly at Addy’s clit. Addy shot her tongue inside of Perkins. Tender hot thighs wrapped around a face. Delicious juices marking cheeks. Soft down of an unshaven sex against a mouth.

Perkins wasn’t satisfied with this mutual pleasure. She worked hotly at Addy, higher, higher, wandering to Addy’s sweet, firm ass, tenderly licking between, probing at the hole until Addy shuddered, then back to the wet cunt, the savored taste. She wanted to give more than she was receiving, make Addy twist and turn as much as she was—ass wiggling around, hips heaving, back arching.

Addy didn’t have Perkins’s ego, her need to dominate. She let herself go.

Perkins groaned deep in her throat, grinding firm breasts into Addy’s flat stomach, pushing her mouth flat against Addy’s slit, her tongue deep inside to feel the muscles tighten and release as Addy came… violently.

“I’m coming!” Addy whimpered into Perkins’s sex.

“Come for me,” Perkins whimpered as her own orgasm rushed over her, her body fluttering into weakness. “For me…”

Her moan was wetly muffled in Addy’s cunt, her white knuckles lost in her tight grip of Addy’s ass. Her body trembled violently, the room tumbling around her, the world spinning—her only constant, Addy.

She felt a series of kisses on her warm thighs, then, unbelievably, insatiably, that mouth returning to her sex, sucking and squeezing at her tender clit. She squeezed her thighs tight around Addy’s head, not sure if she wanted her to stop or keep going, but her defeated pussy was delivered to Addy’s lips either way. Again and again. Perkins felt that ever-ready tongue taking her slit, over and over again, until another climax left her body trembling and her pussy wet. More than wet.

Then, having inflicted two orgasms to Perkins’s one, Addy rolled Perkins off herself, the two women lying side by side and enjoying, almost disbelievingly, the afterglow of their shared release.

Addy stirred before Perkins. Lovely naked body climbing out of bed, going to her wardrobe, taking out simple, fresh clothes. Boy shorts, pajama top. Perkins watched her dress, feeling strangely fatigued. She wasn’t triumphant, but she didn’t… mind either. The act she had just completed had been one of inferiority; she had lost to Addy. But she’d liked it.

Addy wiggled her pert ass into the shorts, turning around to catch Perkins’s eyes still on her, but her mind a million miles away.

“I have an early shift tomorrow,” Addy said. “Get out so I can sleep. I have to take another shower now.”

She put a little invitation in her voice; an openness to Perkins joining her, a nightcap before she left. But Perkins got up and dressed in shaken silence. She went without a word.

She came back to the Continental, but they didn’t speak again. Perkins avoided her gaze. Addy would feel eyes on her sometimes—not the kind of eyes she was used to, but a knowing gaze, a longing one. She could never be sure it was Perkins, but she liked to think it was.

In this game, you were either at the top or you were nothing. Addy didn’t think Perkins could be with someone who challenged her. There was only room for king on the hill, and Perkins had decided it had to be her. In every aspect of her life.

The next time Addy really saw Ms. Perkins, she had bullet holes in her. Four of them, and a graze across her temple. Bulletproof vest ruined, clothes soaked in blood. And she was on Addy’s front step.

“You broke the rules,” Addy said, her voice not controlled—she wasn’t sure what it was. Reproachful, disappointed, chiding, worried. Hadn’t she known? No matter how good you were, there were some things no one was good enough for. Some heights Icarus just couldn’t reach.

“Seemed like a good idea at the time,” Perkins replied, blood on her teeth, but the same icy confidence she’d had offering to buy Addy’s pussy, just a few long years ago. “Can’t be that bad,” she spewed. “Didn’t put one in my brain.”

“Wouldn’t be much of an example if they had.”

Perkins cocked her head. Almost floored herself. Amazing she’d managed the walk. Addy imagined her taking one hell of a cab ride. “You want me to bleed all over your welcome mat?”

“Fifty thousand for the patch-job. I’m going to miss a lot of tips calling in sick for you.”

“You’ll get it,” Perkins said, spitting blood off to the side. “And if you want a bonus, I can eat your ass.”

“Extra ten thousand for painkillers,” Addy said coolly. “And eating my ass is a bonus for you.”

Perkins opened her arms. Addy sighed in grieving for her current ensemble, then ducked her head under Perkins’s arm and helped support her gory weight inside the apartment.

“And Perkins?”

“Yeah?”

“No more fucking with John Wick. Promise me.”

“Yeah, yeah—anything else?”

Sixty thousand dollars was about as much as Addy could live with charging for some first aid. But how else to make her squirm?

“What’s your real name?”