The Murdered World 38

“Now we need another shower,” Christina trilled, when he was fully done with her and she was finally able to speak again.

“That’s alright,” Frank said. “We didn’t shampoo the last time.”

His lips brushed the nape of her neck in what might’ve been a kiss. If he weren’t the Punisher.

He took her back into a shower stall, moving her weight around like it was nothing to him, holding her up as the hot water washed away their sweat and he rubbed sweet-smelling shampoo into her hair. Christina summoned up enough strength to stand, to squirt a thimbleful of the same stuff into her hand and she massaged it into Frank’s scalp, playfully brushing her body against his so she knew where he was, even with her eyes closed from the shampoo.

Christina thought she could’ve spent forever in that shower, feeling the water keep her clean, Frank’s body close by, his hands in her hair like those of some worshipful acolyte with his goddess. He was just washing her, she knew, but it felt a lot like tenderness. Maybe anything would, after all she’d been through.

Soon enough, he lowered her back into the shower spray, stripping the shampoo from her, and then he stood under it himself to dispose of the lather. Christina was glad she could open her eyes then. She watched it all run down his body—his scarred, burnt body that had still been an instrument of pleasure to her—and it disappeared down the drain.

He turned off the water and the world became a sudden chill.

“We should leave some hot water for your sister,” Frank said, padding out naked to get two towels from the cabinet.

It was the first time Christina had thought of Emma in what felt like hours. Strange, considering they were the only three people for miles. She wondered what it would be like if it were only Frank and her, alone in this bunker.

It was a nice thought, if an uncharitable one. I shouldn’t think of how nice it would be if Emma weren’t here—at least this way I know she’s okay.

Maybe she’d just go naked, if it were only the two of them. Let Frank fuck her whenever he wanted. And he could go naked too. She wondered which of them would make a pass more. Christina knew she was no slouch in the looks department, but God, that summer sausage cock of his. Imagine being reminded of what that beast could do to her every time he walked by—like she wouldn’t be doing that even if he were layered up like an Eskimo.

After he’d toweled her off, that seemed to be it for his energy. He sat down against the wall and pulled Christina into his lap, which was exactly where she wanted to be. She could still feel a kind of power in him, but there was no will animating it. He was content to be still, still with her. And she was still with him, lying against his broad chest and sizable shoulder with nothing but utter relaxation in her body.

There was a long, silent interval. Frank stirred slightly and she worried that was the end of it, that he would propel her off of himself and get up, freed of her and of any lingering need to care for her. But he stayed there, running his hands along her full thighs, her creamy stomach, teasing the sleekness of flesh left pliant and warm from the scouring of the shower and the perfect softness of the towels.

Christina could not help but stiffen and contort a little under the force of his caresses. As gentle as they were, they knew just how to touch her. She sensed he could jar her out of her happy bonelessness a lot more than he did… he wasn’t doing anything intently, only toying with her. Almost curiously. Like he was discovering for himself all the intriguing effects his lightest touch could have on a receptive—very receptive—body.

“What am I going to do with you, Frank?” Christina cooed, putting a delicious rasp on her words that she knew would produce the hardness she now felt under her ass.

“I thought we’d just gone over that.” But he stopped probing her, wrapping his arms around her body instead.

She liked it, though… He probably just wants a hold on me so I don’t get too far before he’s hard enough for more.

It was a joke, but Christina didn’t make herself laugh. It might’ve been too close to the truth to be funny.

“What are you going to do with yourself?” she asked now, twisting around to lay on her side, kissing his pectoral. Her lips touched a puckered crease that a 9mm round had called home. She moved them and kissed a slender red line that had to have been left by something sharp and angry.

Christina wondered if she could ever touch him as much as violence had.

“I’ll let you know the next time I need a shower, that’s for sure,” Frank said, his voice a touch lighter.

“I’m serious. I know you’re on this crusade, but what if…”

“What if?” he prompted, and his voice was serious again.

“What if there’s no one left for you to go to war with?”

His fingers ran down the line of her spine. They didn’t stop where the flesh swelled out into the cheeks of her ass.

“I’m serious,” Christina insisted.

Frank patted her rump gently. “Look at this place, woman. Remember where you slept. People used to have so much. Almost everything they could ask for. And they still wanted more.” He shook his head. “It’s not going to get easier out there after what’s happened.”

“And what about in here? I think I could be content with what I have. Could you?”

“It’s not about contentment. It’s about what’s out there, needing to be dealt with. Someone pushed the button that wiped us out—”

“And you think that you can get to them?” Christina demanded, unable to stop a disbelieving laugh.

“Maybe. Maybe not. Don’t you at least want to?”

“That’s not the point.”

“It is to me. People talk to me about good and evil, right and wrong—I see action and inaction. Good can’t be sitting around, doing nothing, and hoping that evil goes away. I have to do something or I’m as bad as—”

“Maybe this is good,” Christina broke in, running her hand down his body, feeling out the healing wounds with their lingering pain and the fading scars where she could just touch him and feel him surge. “What we’re doing, right here. What we make each other feel. That’s not nothing. It’s action.”

“It is good,” Frank admitted. “But it’s not enough.”

“Not for you, maybe. But that’s something you’ve decided for yourself. And if you go out there and hunt until you find someone worth killing, it’s because that’s what makes you happy, not because it needs to be done.”

“I should stay here instead? Make you happy?”

“What would be so wrong with that?”

Frank could only let his head drift back until it met the tile.

“This could be a fresh start for you, Frank. The Law can’t be after you now. The Mob can’t even exist. Maybe the best thing you can do now is stick around… make sure Emma and I don’t slap each other to death some fine day.”

“Quiet now,” Frank said. “It’s too late for so much talk.”

“You wanna get your beauty sleep?” Christina asked teasingly, reaching down to see if she could stir anymore life from him. Four times in one night… it would be beautiful.

Frank stood, spilling her onto the damp floor. “I’ll think about what you said,” he told her, and it had the tone of a promise. “But I won’t do the wrong thing. Even for you.”

Christina would’ve called him a finocchio, if he hadn’t just made it so impossible for her to think of him like that.

***

When Frank returned to bed, he dreamt of Lucy. He heard her pounding on the door to the bunker and knew, somewhere in his bones, that she had swam after him. That while he was killing everyone in Angel Mercader’s house, she was coming ashore, trying to follow him. And that when he’d rushed Christina and Emma into the bunker, she’d been looking for him.

He opened the vault door and found her bones trying to get to him, like they would for all eternity.