Shee-yit. It was funny how his drawl deepened when he talked to her. So soothing. She could listen to him swear all day. Awl thayat fuckin’ boo-ull shee-yit don’ mean crayp. Just yer tits ‘n’ ass, honeybuns. That’s all Ah need. She stifled a hee-hee and plopped down on the couch beside him.
“Don’t get me wrong,” she said, “I’m glad we’re safe. It just seems—I don’t know. Like she should be dead. Or we should. With all of us alive, it’s so…anticlimactic.”
“That’s a good thing,” he said, kneading the back of her neck with one hand. “Trust me. And you did real great for your first time out.”
“That’s just it. I didn’t do anything.”
He stared at her. “What are you, kiddin’ me? You conned your way in, beat the shit out of their pet rapist, kept your head, and got my mind off poisonous snakes.”
She waved the praise away. “Anything sounds good when you add poisonous snakes.”
“Honey, I was pretty proud to be workin’ with you.”
“Is that what you call it?” she teased. “Working with you? What, we’re co-workers? Colleagues at the office?”
He didn’t smile. Just looked straight at her with those dark eyes. “I sure hope we’re more than that after everything.”
“Kevin…” I love you. Isn’t that silly? I barely know you. But I can’t imagine life without you.
“You’re a woman in a billion, Jenny Branch. A zillion.”
“Yup, Ah sure am,” she said, aping his laid-back accent.
Finally, he laughed. “That was more Foghorn Leghorn than a real Southern boy.”
“Oooh, stop talking about cartoon chickens—it gets me hot.”
“Yeah?” He had stopped rubbing her neck, was now running his fingers through her tangled hair. “You know what I could use, honey?”
“A Big Mac?” she guessed.
He looked distracted for a moment. “That does sound good. But I was thinking a shower.”
She smiled at him. “What a coincidence. I was just thinking about how dirty I felt.”
Chapter 37
Hot water beat down on them as he soaped her thoroughly, washed her hair (it wasn’t a salon product, but she didn’t want to break the mood by complaining), rinsed it, washed it again.
She rubbed the soap all over his sleekly muscled body, marveling at the scars—a few knife nicks, one bullet, old road rash. A life on the run and, later—well, one way or another, he’d been running from his family since he’d been a child. She didn’t have the details, but could make some educated guesses.
She even remembered reading about Kevin’s father and brothers. The Stone family crime syndicate. Thugs who were successful in spite of themselves. Mafia Clouseaus. She’d find out more on the Internet, later, when he wasn’t soaping her breasts.
She ran slippery fingers over his shoulders, down his back, over his butt. She lathered up still more and cupped his testicles, rubbed his stiff dick, ran her soapy fingers through his coarse pubic hair, and he groaned and leaned against the wall.
“How come people always want to have sex in the shower?” she gasped as his fingers danced between her thighs. “It’s hideously dangerous.”
“You’re kind of wrecking the mood, honey bear.”
“I was just asking. Slippery surface, water everywhere, soap in sensitive places—it’s a recipe for disaster.”
“Honey, you think too much.”
“Spoken like a true redneck asshole.”
He laughed and pulled her close for a kiss. She nearly slipped out of his grip; they were like soapy seals. “I am a redneck asshole.”
“As long as we’ve got that straight,” she mumbled into his mouth as he cupped her face and kissed her with a thoroughness that made her forget about the general unsafe conditions.
He slid his hands over her butt, lifting her to him, and she could feel his strong hard-on pressing into her stomach. Water beat relentlessly down on them, making her think of a July rainstorm, all fury and heat.
He was kissing her neck, pressing her tightly against him, and she realized her feet were off the tiles. She wrapped her legs around his waist as he rubbed his dick through her lower lips, teasing her, caressing her, but she grabbed his hand and squeezed. He caught her subtle “fuck me now!” signal and carefully eased into her.
It was a tight fit—stupid water!—and she felt a little like a butterfly being pinned to a board. But it was glorious, all the same. She never wanted to be anywhere but where she was at that moment.
His head fell back so rapidly she heard the thunk! as it connected with the wall. He didn’t appear to notice, just clutched at her and thrust, thrust, thrust. She hung on, kissing his shoulders, his neck, biting him, nibbling at the clean, slick skin.
“Oh boy,” he groaned.
“Took the words right out of my mouth. Speaking of mouths. Put yours back on mine.”
He obliged for a moment, then broke the kiss with a groan. “Honey, I’m gonna—owe—you—one.”
“That’s why God made beds.” She laughed as he stiffened against her, as his head hit the wall again, as his eyes rolled back in his head. She feared he would drop her, then realized he’d never, ever drop her.
After a long moment he set her down on shaky legs, and bent to her, and kissed her softly, sweetly.
“You realize we’ve never done it in a bed?”
“Bet you won’t be able to say that in the morning,” he replied.
“How long do you think the hot water’s going to hold out?” she asked.
“Long as we need it to. But let’s get dry and I’ll show you how fine I think you are.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
Chapter 38
They didn’t bother with towels, just rolled around on the bed and let the blankets dry them off. His mouth was everywhere: her mouth, her wet hair, her neck, her breasts. He suckled on her nipples until she thought she would lose her mind, kissed her stomach, licked her belly button.
Kissed her lower, harder, stuck out his tongue and tasted her for what felt like hours. Actually pushed his tongue inside her and wiggled it around until she was clutching his head and crying out at the ceiling.
He pulled back only slightly and licked, kissed, sucked. Stroked her with his tongue and his fingers, and when his tongue flicked across her throbbing clit while two fingers slipped inside her, she was afraid she’d hurt him, she was clutching at his head so hard. Her orgasm zoomed through her blood like a bullet, a sweet, dark bullet. Her heels drummed on the bed, and she was begging him to come up here and fuck her now and he just laughed against her slick flesh, laughed and stuck his tongue into her again, laughed and licked her and kissed her and held her apart for his mouth.
He enjoyed her the way a man in the desert would have enjoyed a piece of fruit, savoring it and gobbling it at the same time.
At last, at last he stopped, came up to her, grabbed her by the shoulders and rolled her over. She straddled him at once, grabbed for him, guided him into her. So deep, he went into her so deeply and sweetly she could feel him in her heart—her heart, it was galloping, bursting, blowing up in her chest.
He grabbed her by the back of her neck and pulled her down, kissed her, forced her lips wide for his tongue, bit her, licked her, and she kissed him back and thrust against him, rode him, used him the way he was using her.
Now they were rolling over on the bed, now he was on top, now she was, and they were both talking at once and he was groaning and shouting and kissing her and touching her everywhere, and she held her to him as tightly as she could while the cords stood out on his neck and he roared at the ceiling and she didn’t think until after what the guards outside must be thinking.
Chapter 39
They talked. And talked and talked. About everything and nothing. The new Diet Coke, the old family. Charmer. C.O.P. O.S.I. The Boss. Tide versus Cheer. (For a soldier living life on the edge, he was surpassingly knowledgeable about laundry.) Fathers and daughters. Opening p
resents Christmas Day versus Christmas Eve.
In a halting voice almost unrecognizably thick, he told her one horrifying story after another. Horrifying and hilarious, sometimes. His family was as quick with the guns as they were to slip on banana peels. He told her about how he’d run from them for years, to the FBI, to the Snakepit.
She in turn talked about her father, still alive and well (she assumed; she hadn’t seen him in three years, talked to him in nineteen months) in Cottage Grove.
“I bet he worries about you,” he said.
“I bet you’re wrong,” she replied, and for a wonder, the old hurt had little power over her at the moment. Why that should be, she didn’t know. Was it just Kevin? New opportunities? Mind-blowing sex? A lurid combination of the three?
“I bet he is, though.”
“It’s not like I’m going to find out,” she replied, a little defensively.
He said nothing, just rubbed her knuckles across his lips.
“It’s not the same thing,” she continued as if he had argued with her. “You had a totally different thing with your fath—your family. My father and I—we were never close.”
“Yup, but that’s in your power to change. You could start to fix it with a phone call.”
“Kevin, darling, you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. I mean, you haven’t seen your family in years, by choice, just like me. But you’re telling me to plunk in a quarter and give Dear Old Dad a call? Do you hear yourself?”
“Yup, you’re right, but you could still call him.”
She resisted the urge to leap out of the bed and pace the small bedroom, so anonymous it might as well have been a Super 8 motel room. “If I called him, he would have zero interest in seeing me.”
“Nope.”
“What, nope? What does that even mean?”
“Don’t get your Irish up,” he replied mildly. “But you’re wrong. Who could know you and never want to see you?”
She was warmly flattered, although he was wrong, wrong, wrong. “Kevin, it’s possible that you don’t see me—thank God—the way my father does.”
“I hope not, honey. But you could still call him.”
“I’m not calling him.”
“Okay.”
“Kevin, you just don’t know. You had a relatively normal family life.”
He laughed at her.
“Okay, your dad was—is—the head of the biggest crime syndicate south of the Mason-Dixon line, but he still came home every night for dinner, loved your mom, loved you and your brothers. Played catch with you, for God’s sake. My dad—he isn’t like that.”
“People change.”
“No,” she replied. “They really don’t.”
“You’d better be wrong,” he sighed, and kissed her hand again.
Chapter 40
She woke up startled: where was she? What had happened?
She stretched, feeling pleasantly sore, pleasantly used. Tired, still, but in a really good way.
The incredible events of the past few days—hours!—came back to her, and she rested in the mussed bed, thinking about Kevin and smiling.
The smile faded as she sensed she was alone in the small house. Something about the air: you could always tell when nobody else was sharing space with you.
She turned her head, saw the note resting on the other pillow. Didn’t move for a long minute, just stared at it.
That’s not going to be anything I want to read, she thought.
She lay there for a long moment, cursing herself for her cowardice, and finally forced herself to reach out and pick it up. Her arm seemed to go on forever; her fingers finally, finally reached the piece of paper.
She thought: He just ran out to get coffee. He’ll be right back.
She thought: The Boss called and made him come in for a debriefing. He’ll be right back.
She thought: He had a heart attack but didn’t want to bother me, so he quietly called an ambulance for himself. He’ll be back after ten days of observation.
She picked it up and read it. Once was all she needed.
Jenny, sweetie,
I can’t. Been alone too long. Besides, there’s bad guys to catch. I’ll never forget you.
’Bye, honey,
Kevin
“Oh, you slick, sly son of a bitch,” she said aloud, and threw the covers back.
Chapter 41
Eight days later
Prague
“You’ll meet your contact in five minutes. Show him the money; he’ll give you the codes. You’re not wired, so you’ll have to remember it.”
“I’ll try,” Kevin said dryly.
“Yeah, yeah, you’re secretly a genius, which is why we’re both freezing our asses off in a public park in the middle of the day.”
“Temper,” he said mildly.
“Anyway. Pop open your cell, give the codes to our tech guys. They’ll fix it so the bad guys won’t be able to arm the bomb.”
“What about the others?”
“We’ve got a guy ready to track our little friend back to his bolt hole. So let him leave. Okay? Resist all urges to rearrange his dental work. Are you reading me? You’re reading me, right?”
Kevin almost smiled. If he had smiled, it would have been the first one in over a week.
“I know that look. Restrain the urge to pound on him until his face falls off. Hello? You listening?”
He couldn’t get Jenny out of his mind. His thoughts varied from feeling like a total shitheap to feeling he had done the right thing: she would be safe now.
And if he was afraid, if he wasn’t ready to have a family, to endanger a family, to suck her into the Stone family legacy of bumbling ruthlessness, so what? There were plenty of single fellas in the world. Nothin’ meant nothin’, as his daddy liked to say.
“I’ll try,” he said, “but it won’t be easy. Little shit.”
“Yeah, well, that’s why we’re going to stomp him good. He knows you from the Snakepit, and The Boss has kept a lid on it: most everybody thinks those pukes are still in business.”
“You sure you don’t want some action?”
“Are you kidding?” Caitlyn shook her head, pink strands of hair flying. “I’m only here for my second honeymoon. It is a total coincidence that there was, you know, a little errand to run also.”
“For someone who doesn’t work for The Boss, you and Dmitri sure do—”
“Oh, shut up,” she said, and gave him a shove in the general direction of the park.
“Nobody wants gold anymore,” he commented. “Too hard to move. And the price is too volatile.”
“I’m an old-fashioned guy,” the puke said. He was about five-eight, with chin-length blond hair and watery blue eyes. His hook-like nose dominated his face; his mouth was hidden by a straggly, dark-blond beard. He smelled like stale cheese. “You get how the code works? You can only punch it in once. And, obviously, if your finger slips, it’s ka-boom Venice.”
“It’s sinking anyway,” he said, and the puke laughed.
Kevin handed over the small, sleek briefcase. Caitlyn had picked it out in a small leather shop called, interestingly, Hobo Handbag. He had been indifferent. He was about most things, these days.
Had it only been a week since he’d snuck out on Jenny like a thief?
He didn’t sneak, he reminded himself. He saved her.
From pure force of habit, he looked around the small park again. It was just a park: trees, bushes, cracked sidewalk. Almost empty—it was business hours, and school was in session. Nobody was close.
“Ready?” the puke asked.
“Yup.”
“Six. Two. Twenty-two. Eighteen. Six. Six. Six.”
“Got it.”
“Here comes your tech.”
“What?” Not part of the plan. Kevin heard the sharp clicking of heels on concrete and nearly fell over. It felt like every tendon in his neck was creaking. He had just looked, dammit—nobody could sneak up on him without serious
outside support. Set up! his brain was screaming. He had about half a second to decide what to do, and if he guessed wrong, he’d—
“I’ll take that code now,” Jenny said, smiling at them both.
Kevin gaped. The puke was also gaping, more in admiration than the total shock that Kevin felt. Jenny was buried in a man’s black wool coat which came past her knees. Her blond hair shone in the sun. One eyelid dropped in a wink.
“He’s got it,” the puke said helpfully.
Jenny’s smile broadened. “Wonderful.”
“You’re pretty fine, lady. You up for some action later?”
“I’d rather,” she said sweetly, “bathe in my own vomit.”
“What?” the puke asked. Then, “Gaaaaaah!” as Dmitri came out of nowhere—literally. One minute it was the three of them, the next Dmitri was standing there, and put a hand on the back of his neck. To Kevin it looked like Dmitri was barely touching the guy, but everyone could hear the small bones in his neck creaking like a door on rusty hinges.
“A moment of your time?” Dmitri asked, smiling, and then hauled the puke deeper into the park.
“Uh,” Kevin said, because honest to God, it was the only thing he could think of.
“Code,” Jenny said, the smile plucked away as if it had been a mirage. She was holding a cell phone open, the small screen shining up into her face.
“Uh.”
“Cooooooode,” she repeated, with much less patience.
He took hold. Reminded himself he was a professional. Tried not to drool over the gorgeous little blonde in the big, black coat. Ohhhhhh, she looked good. She would always look good to him, even when she was eighty and wrinkled. Not that he was likely to see her eighty and wrinkled. He’d fixed that a week ago.
He reminded himself he was a professional. Dammit, hundreds of thousand of lives were in the balance!