Chapter 10: Window Display
The morning light was a sharp, accusatory blade slicing through the loft. It illuminated the dust motes dancing over empty whiskey glasses and the dark, patterned bruises left by rope on Joanna’s skin. Riley was already awake, sitting shirtless at the small kitchen island, a laptop open, her face lit by its cold glow. The scent of last night’s sweat and sex still lingered in the sheets.
Joanna watched her from the bedroom doorway, wrapped in one of Riley’s worn flannel shirts. The fabric smelled of motor oil and her. The plan, such as it was, had solidified in the dark hours: they would get the tapes. Not buy them back. Take them. The simplicity was terrifying.
“He’s not a pro,” Riley said without looking up, her fingers tapping keys. “He’s a leech. Leeches are lazy. He won’t keep them in a bank. Too much hassle, too many questions. It’ll be a safety deposit box, maybe. More likely a fire safe in his house.”
“How do you know?” Joanna’s voice was hoarse.
Riley finally glanced at her, a flicker of something dark in her eyes. “Because I know how people like him think. They want their treasure close. They want to look at it.” She turned the laptop screen. It showed a real estate listing for a mid-century modern house in the hills, all glass and angular roofs. “He lives alone. No dogs, according to public records. Alarm system is basic—motion sensors on the ground floor, contacts on the doors and windows.”
Joanna moved closer, the flannel hanging open. “You’ve been busy.”
“While you were snoring.” Riley’s smirk was brief. She zoomed in on a floor plan. “Master bedroom here. Walk-in closet. That’s where it’ll be.”
The clinical dissection of her past, of Marcus’s invasive hold on it, made Joanna’s skin crawl. This was her life, reduced to a schematic. “And we just… walk in?”
“We don’t walk. We go at 3 AM. A Thursday. He has a weekly poker game in the valley every Wednesday night. Drinks. He won’t be back until dawn.” Riley closed the laptop with a soft click. “You scared?”
“Terrified.”
“Good. Fear’s useful. It keeps you sharp.” Riley stood, stretching, the muscles in her abdomen cording. She looked at Joanna, really looked at her, taking in the shadows under her eyes, the way she clutched the shirt closed. “You don’t have to do this. I can go alone.”
The offer hung in the air. A lifeline. Joanna could stay here, in this clean, sunlit space, and let this fierce, dangerous woman clean up her mess. The temptation was a warm, seductive blanket. She shook her head. “It’s my mess. I go.”
A slow, approving nod. Riley stepped into her space, cupping her jaw. Her thumb brushed Joanna’s lower lip. “Then we prep. And we need to be solid. No static between us.”
The look in her eyes was unmistakable. It was the same look from the garage, from the bed last night—a need to fuse, to dominate, to erase any doubt through physical communion. It was a battery recharge, a pact written in flesh.
Riley’s hand slipped inside the flannel, palm warm on Joanna’s stomach, pushing the fabric off her shoulders. It pooled on the floor. “Tonight’s about us,” Riley murmured, her lips grazing Joanna’s ear. “Forgetting him. Remembering who this is for.”
She guided Joanna backwards, not toward the bed, but toward the vast, floor-to-ceiling windows. The city sprawled below, anonymous and endless in the late afternoon haze. Riley’s hands were firm on her hips, turning her, pressing her front against the cool, unforgiving glass.
Joanna’s breath fogged the pane. The sheer drop yawned beneath her, a dizzying grid of streets and rooftops. “Riley…” The name was a whisper, swallowed by the immense space.
Riley’s body pressed against her from behind, hot and solid. She nipped at Joanna’s shoulder, her hands sliding around to palm her breasts, squeezing roughly. “See them?” she growled, nodding at the windows of the distant skyscrapers. “They’re all going about their boring little lives. And you’re here. With me. On display.”
One hand left her breast, trailing down her stomach, through the coarse hair, until it found her cock, already hardening under the relentless attention. Riley’s other hand splayed on the glass beside Joanna’s head, caging her. “You’re mine,” she stated, her voice low and absolute. “My pretty fucking masterpiece. Let the whole goddamn world see who owns this ass.”
She stepped back. Joanna, trembling against the glass, heard the sound of Riley spitting into her own palm. Then the rough, wet sound of her stroking her own thickness. A moment later, Riley’s hand was back, not on her cock, but lower, probing between her ass cheeks. A calloused finger, slick with spit, pressed against her tight, untouched hole.
Joanna jolted, a shock of pure sensation spearing through her. “Oh, god.”
“Relax,” Riley commanded, her voice a gravelly vibration against Joanna’s spine. The finger pressed inward, a slow, relentless invasion. The burn was bright, shocking. Joanna clenched, her nails scraping against the glass. “Breathe out.”
Joanna exhaled shakily, and Riley’s finger slid deeper, knuckle-deep. It was an intense, stretching fullness, so different from anything before. Riley worked it in and out, a crude, careful preparation. Then she added a second finger, twisting, scissoring. The pain morphed, blurring into a deep, radiant ache that made Joanna’s knees weak.
Riley removed her fingers. The emptiness was brief. The blunt, broad head of Riley’s cock pressed against her, demanding entrance. Riley spat again, the wetness cool on Joanna’s skin.
“This is us,” Riley growled, her hands gripping Joanna’s hips like vices. “This is what he’ll never have.”
She pushed.
The penetration was brutal, a single, decisive thrust that buried her to the hilt. Joanna screamed, the sound echoing in the loft. The glass vibrated faintly against her palms and forehead. The feeling was one of being split open, filled beyond capacity, owned in the most fundamental way. Tears of overwhelm streaked down her cheeks, smearing the view.
Riley didn’t move, letting her adjust, letting the searing stretch bloom. “Fuck, you’re tight,” she hissed through clenched teeth, her own control fraying. “So fucking perfect.”
Then she began to move. Short, deep strokes that rocked Joanna’s entire body against the window. Each thrust was a punctuation mark on her claim. Joanna was utterly pinned, a specimen against the glass, her reflection a blur of pain and ecstasy. Riley’s rhythm accelerated, becoming harder, faster. The slap of skin, the guttural sounds from Riley’s throat, the faint squeak of the window frame—it was a crude, desperate symphony.
Riley’s hand snaked around, fisting Joanna’s leaking cock, her grip punishing. “You gonna come for me while I’m fucking this ass?” she rasped, her breath hot on Joanna’s neck. “You gonna let everyone out there see you get off while you’re taking my dick?”
The shame was incinerated by the sheer, audacious thrill of it. The exposure, the vulnerability, the raw filth of the act coalesced into a firestorm in her gut. Joanna was beyond words, reduced to raw, open-mouthed gasps that fogged the glass. Her orgasm built, not as a wave, but as a detonation at her core, fed by the relentless pounding and the degrading, exhilarating words.
“I’m gonna come in you,” Riley grunted, her hips pistoning. “Gonna fill this tight hole up. Mark you inside. You feel that? You feel how deep I am?”
Joanna could only nod, a frantic motion against the glass. The coil snapped. Her climax ripped through her, violent and silent, her cock pulsing in Riley’s tight fist, her muscles clamping rhythmically around the intrusion buried deep within her. The intensity wrenched a broken sob from her throat.
The clenching of her body around Riley’s cock was the final trigger. Riley swore, a ragged, primal sound, and drove in one last, deep time, her body locking as she emptied herself inside Joanna with a sharp, guttural cry.
They stayed like that for a long moment, fused together against the world, both panting, sweat-slicked. Riley slowly softened, slipped out. The aftermath was a raw, throbbing emptiness. She turned Joanna around, pulling her into a fierce, possessive kiss. Joanna could taste salt and something wild.
Riley rested her forehead against Joanna’s. “Solid?” she asked, her voice rough.
Joanna nodded, her body humming, sore, and fundamentally rewritten. “Solid.”
Later, cleaned up and dressed in practical dark clothing, they sat at the island again. The map was up on the laptop. Riley pointed to a service road behind Marcus’s property. “We park here. It’s a half-mile hike through the brush. We go in through the patio door in the master. Glass cutter. It’s old glass, no laminate.”
“And if he’s there?” Joanna asked, her voice steady now.
Riley unlocked a small, heavy lockbox on the counter. Inside, nestled in foam, was a compact, black Taser. “Then we persuade him.” She looked at Joanna, her gaze unwavering. “You still with me?”
Joanna looked from the weapon to the floor plan, to the marks still visible on her wrists. She thought of the cold glass against her skin, the feeling of being utterly possessed, and the terrifying freedom it granted. She was no longer just Joanna Levin, retired model, victim. She was Joanna, who belonged to Riley. Who was going to take back what was hers.
“I’m with you,” she said.
Riley smiled, a thin, dangerous thing. “Then let’s go shopping. We need a few things.” She closed the laptop, the finality of the click like a hammer falling. The planning was over. The doing was about to begin.
The industrial supply store smelled of concrete dust, rubber, and latent violence. Riley moved through the aisles with a predatory certainty, her cart filling with items that felt like promises of a different kind of night. Joanna followed, her skin still humming from the morning at the window.
They stopped before a display of glass cutters. Riley selected a heavy-duty model with a carbide wheel. “Quiet,” she said, dropping it into the cart with a metallic clink. “Clean.”
Next was a small can of silicone lubricant. “For the slides,” Riley muttered, more to herself. “Old doors sing.” A compact bolt cutter followed, its jaws formidable. Each selection was a silent hammer falling, driving the reality of their plan deeper.
“Flashlights,” Joanna said, pointing to a shelf. Her voice sounded strange to her own ears, detached.
“Headlamps,” Riley corrected, grabbing two black LED units. “Hands free.” She tossed them in. “Gloves, too. Nitrile. No prints, no fibers.”
The domesticity of the shopping cart—next to light bulbs and paint rollers—felt like a sinister joke. Joanna watched Riley’s hands, the same hands that had mapped her body with such devastating intimacy, now calmly evaluating the grip on a crowbar. The duality was electric.
At the register, the bored cashier scanned the items without a glance. The ordinariness of the transaction was the most frightening part.
Back in the truck, Riley stowed the bags behind the seat. The silence was thick. The sun was setting, casting long, desperate shadows across the asphalt. Riley started the engine but didn’t pull out. She just looked at Joanna.
“Last chance to walk away,” Riley said, her knuckles white on the wheel. “Once we cross that line tonight, there’s no erasing it.”
Joanna studied the sharp line of Riley’s jaw, the focused stillness of her body. This wasn’t a offer of mercy. It was a final inventory of resolve. “I’m not walking,” Joanna replied, her voice steady. “He stole my peace. I want it back.”
A faint, grim smile touched Riley’s lips. She put the truck in gear.
They didn’t go back to the loft. Riley drove to her garage, the space now holding a different tension. The workbench was clear. She laid out their new tools like a surgeon’s kit. The headlamps cast harsh pools of light in the growing dark.
“Try these,” Riley said, tossing Joanna a pair of black, form-fitting pants and a dark sweatshirt. “You need to move. No rustling.”
Joanna changed in the small bathroom. The clothes smelled like Riley—oil and detergent. When she emerged, Riley was already dressed in similar black, looking like a shadow given form. She approached, her eyes scanning Joanna up and down.
“You’re shaking,” Riley observed, not unkindly.
“Adrenaline,” Joanna breathed. “And… everything else.”
Riley stepped close, eliminating the space between them. She placed her hands on Joanna’s shoulders, thumbs pressing into the tight muscles of her neck. “We need to burn it off. The nervous energy. It’ll make you clumsy.” Her gaze was direct, searing. “I need you sharp.”
Her meaning was clear. It wasn’t just about release. It was about communion, about reaffirming the tether between them before they stepped into the dark. Joanna nodded, a quick, sharp dip of her chin.
Riley led her not to the workbench, but to the open, clear space of the garage floor. It was concrete, cold and unyielding. She spread out a moving blanket, its coarse fabric a stark contrast to the satin sheets of the loft. “Here,” she said, her voice assuming a low, commanding tone. “On your knees.”
Joanna sank down, the blanket rough beneath her. The garage air was cool on her skin. Riley stood before her, unbuckling her belt with deliberate slowness. The zipper’s hiss was loud in the quiet space.
“You know what to do,” Riley stated, her hand guiding herself out. She was already hard, a thick, flushed arch of flesh in the dim light. “Use that famous mouth. But this isn’t for cameras. This is for me.”
Joanna leaned forward, her world narrowing to the musky scent, the prominent vein, the bead of moisture at the tip. She licked it away, the taste salty and familiar. Then she took Riley in, swallowing her down in one smooth, practiced motion.
Riley’s head fell back with a sharp gasp. “Christ, yeah.” Her hands tangled in Joanna’s hair, not guiding, just holding, claiming. “Deep.”
Joanna obeyed, setting a rhythm that was all devotion and hunger. She hollowed her cheeks, used her tongue, took her deeper each time until her throat protested. She worked with a focused intensity, wanting to wring every tense thought from Riley’s body.
“Look at me,” Riley grunted.
Joanna’s eyes flicked up, meeting Riley’s blazing stare. Seeing herself reflected in that fierce gaze, used and willing, sent a violent thrill through her core.
“Good girl,” Riley whispered, her hips pushing forward gently. “Now get up. Turn around.”
Joanna rose on shaky legs, turning to face the blank cinderblock wall. Riley’s hands were on her then, yanking the pants and her underwear down to her knees in one rough pull. The cold air hit her exposed skin. Riley pressed against her, one arm wrapping around her torso to palm her breast, the other hand guiding herself between Joanna’s thighs from behind.
The position was animalistic, vulnerable. Riley’s cock slid through her slick folds, coating itself, but didn’t enter. She rutted against her, grinding her swollen flesh against Joanna’s ass, her own arousal.
“You’re so fucking wet for this,” Riley hissed in her ear. “Wet for stealing, for breaking in. It turns you on.”
It was a filthy truth. Joanna moaned, pushing back against her, seeking more pressure. “Yes.”
Riley spat into her hand, slicking herself thoroughly. She positioned the blunt head at Joanna’s entrance. “This is the focus,” she growled. “Everything else falls away. Just this. Just me.”
She thrust in, a deep, conquering push that stole Joanna’s breath. There was no slow burn this time, just immediate, brutal fullness. Riley set a punishing pace, her hips slamming against Joanna’s ass with a force that would leave bruises. The sound of skin impacting skin echoed off the hard walls.
Joanna braced her hands against the cold cinderblock, each drive pushing her forward. “Fuck, Riley!” she cried out, the words ripped from her.
“Yeah, take it,” Riley snarled, her arm tightening across Joanna’s chest. “Take every inch. Let it hollow you out for what we have to do.”
One of Riley’s hands slipped down, finding Joanna’s hard, neglected cock. Her grip was vise-tight, her strokes rough and perfectly timed with her thrusts. The dual sensation was overwhelming, a circuit of raw pleasure closing. Joanna felt herself hurtling toward the edge, the concrete world fading to a narrow tunnel of sensation.
“You gonna come?” Riley demanded, her breath ragged. “Come while I’m filling you up. Do it.”
The command was the final trigger. Joanna’s climax detonated, a white-hot silent scream that locked her muscles. Her release spilled over Riley’s fist in hot pulses. The intense clenching of her inner muscles around Riley’s buried length tipped Riley over the edge.
Riley drove in one final, deep time, a guttural shout torn from her throat as she came, her own release flooding Joanna’s core. They stayed locked together, panting, slumped against the wall.
Slowly, Riley softened and slipped out. She turned Joanna around, pulling her into a hard, salty kiss. “Solid?” she asked again, forehead against Joanna’s.
“Solid,” Joanna breathed.
They cleaned up in silence, the mundane act of wiping themselves down with paper towels feeling surreal. They dressed again in the black clothes. Riley checked the tools one last time, packing them into a small, dark backpack.
The drive to the hills was silent. The city lights faded behind them, replaced by the oppressive darkness of the winding canyon roads. Riley killed the headlights well before the turn-off, navigating by moonlight onto the unpaved service road. They bumped along for a half-mile before she eased the truck behind a thicket of scrub oak.
The night was alive with crickets and the dry whisper of the wind. Riley shrugged on the backpack. She handed Joanna a headlamp but shook her head when Joanna moved to put it on. “Not until we need it. Light travels.” Her face was a mask of pale concentration in the dashboard glow.
They moved through the brush like ghosts, their steps careful and silent. The house emerged below them, a dark geometric shape against the starry sky. A single security light glowed over the front door. The rest was shadows.
Riley pointed to the rear, to a wide patio and a wall of glass doors. They crept down the slope, using the native landscaping for cover. The patio was cool concrete underfoot. Riley set the backpack down silently, withdrawing the glass cutter and lubricant.
She sprayed the door’s sliding track, then fitted the cutter to the glass. Her movements were economical, sure. She scored a small circle near the latch with a sound like a single, sharp sigh. A gentle tap, a suction cup pull, and a perfect disk of glass came free. She reached in, unlocked the door, and slid it open just enough.
The interior was still, smelling of stale cigar smoke and cleaning products. Riley pulled on her nitrile gloves and handed a pair to Joanna. Their headlamps clicked on, narrow beams cutting the darkness.
They moved through a sterile living room, following Riley’s memorized floor plan. The master bedroom door was closed. Riley listened, then slowly turned the knob.
The room was dominated by a large, unmade bed. Riley’s beam swept to the walk-in closet. Inside, amidst racks of garish silk shirts, sat a heavy, gunmetal-gray fire safe.
“Bingo,” Riley whispered, her voice barely a breath.
She knelt, examining the lock. It was a digital keypad. She looked up at Joanna, her eyes reflecting the LED light. “Think. Did he ever use a code you’d know? Birthday? Something vain?”
Joanna’s mind raced through the sludge of bad memories. Marcus was vain, stupid, predictable. Then she remembered. “His first vintage car,” she whispered. “A 1970 Mustang. He never shut up about it.”
Riley’s fingers hovered over the keypad. “Seventy…?”
“Seventy… six,” Joanna said, recalling the boastful, drunken tirades. “1976.”
Riley input 1-9-7-6. A soft beep. A red light.
“Shit.” Riley’s shoulders tensed.
“Try it backwards,” Joanna urged, a desperate idea sparking. “Six, seven, nine, one.”
Riley input 6-7-9-1.
A green light flashed. A solid clunk echoed in the quiet closet.
Riley let out a slow breath and pulled the handle. The door swung open. Inside were stacks of cash, a few jewelry boxes, and on the top shelf, three unlabeled digital tape cases.
Joanna reached in, her gloved hand closing around the cold plastic. Her past, physical, tangible. A wave of nausea hit her, followed by a surge of vicious triumph.
A floorboard creaked in the hallway.
Their headlamps snapped off simultaneously, plunging them into utter blackness. Riley’s hand clamped over Joanna’s mouth. They froze, listening.
The creak came again, closer. Followed by the heavy, shuffling gait of someone not trying to be quiet. Then, a voice, thick with sleep and confusion, muttered, “The fuck… left the patio door open?”
Marcus was home.