Blown (5 page)

As we left together, I felt guilty for the first time for what I'd asked Mateo to do.

One of Mateo's errands earlier had been collecting my things from Crimson, so my bag was stowed in the back of his car. I gave him a quick hug when I saw it. Frankly, I'd written it off as a loss because there was no way I'd survive a return trip to Crimson's camp to collect it.

"I thought you might need that." He smiled, but it was a little tighter than normal.

I nodded and climbed into the car. The quicker we left, the better. I didn't need someone catching a glimpse of me and starting all sorts of havoc.

We left the racing fields and turned west toward L.A., then circled back. Driving with Mateo, all that alone time, should have been comforting, but it wasn't. He held my hand, swiping his thumb across the same half-moon patch of skin over and over. With every crossing, my tension grew. I never worried this much about what I do for a living. This stage, closing in on the bad guy, was when I got fucking excited. This time instead of excitement, a growing knot of dread settled in my belly.

Just past the California-Nevada border, Mateo pointed at an overgrown fueling station, a throwback to Route
66 in its prime. It was a small by modern standards, with the glass boarded up and the roll-up door to the service bay so rusted it would likely never open again. The red and white paint was faded and worn to the point where gray cinderblock was showing through in most places. The gas pumps sat off-kilter to the broken down blacktop and one another. All in all, it looked abandoned.

"That's it." Mateo didn't slow as we drove by.

"Are you sure?" I squinted to get a better look in the rearview mirror. That's when I saw one lone car parked behind the building, mostly obscured by sagebrush and a dilapidated shed. "Never mind, I see it."

"It sure looks empty."

"How did you find out about it?" I knew Mateo had sources that he probably didn't want to tell me about, but I was still curious. There was no way he just walked up to Crimson and said "Hey, I just fucked your girl. Oh, and by the way, could you tell me where you're cooking meth?"

"I went to school with a couple of guys in Crimson's group. They tend to talk too much
," he replied, but it was guarded.

"That's why they're not with you?" I decided not to push. Realistically, once I had the locat
ion, I wouldn't need to supply the source of that information to my boss.

"Guys like that don't do well with Luis." He shrugged but didn't elaborate. I was glad.

"So what's the plan?" The service station had faded out of sight and we were still headed east.

"Find a hotel. Come back later."

That worked for me. I needed to report in and I wanted a shower and a change of clothes.

"Hey." I rubbed the backs of my fingers over Mateo's cheek. He had a pretty healthy five o'clock shadow working and it scratched against my skin. He glanced at me, then looked back at the road. "Thanks a lot for this."

He looked at me harder then. Thank God we were on a straight stretch of road because having the driver focusing away from the road for that long was fucking unnerving. "Don't make me regret it."

I nodded, not at all sure
it was a promise I could keep.

#

Mateo went in search of food while I called my lieutenant. The motel was one of those creepy dingy roadside things that they show in movies, too cliché to be real. Yet, there I was, standing on the stained carpet next to the window, so I knew it was more than just bad Hollywood writing. No wonder Norman Bates went all crazy. This place was fucking creepy. And nasty. I was afraid to lie on the bed, so I paced and listened to the phone ring.

"Liverton." My boss snapped in that irritated way that said he hated his phone and would prefer if I fucked right off and stopped calling.

"It's Roni."

"Where the fuck have you been? You're over two hours late." From anyone else, that might have been an expression of concern, from him it was an indictment. He hated tardiness more than he hated his phone.

"I'm in shit bag hotel in Arizona chasing down a lead."

"Fuck, he led you all the way across the state line? We have to turn it over."

I debated whether or not to remind him that I'd been recruited by the feds to help with this investigation. Even though I reported to Lieutenant Liverton, the case already belonged to Homeland Security, not LAPD.

"I plan to do surveillance, then wait
for further orders." It was a given, but he liked spelling out the obvious and he was a stickler for protocol. He could never learn about the source of my information. He would frown on me fucking my informant, regardless of how hot he was.

"Good. And Roni, don't miss your fucking call
-in time again. I was worried."

He might have been worried about the case, and he might have been worried about explain
ing a lost undercover agent. Believe me, that shit happened way too often. But I seriously doubted he was worried about me personally. The guy had the emotional capacity of a salt lick.

Mateo walked through the door a few seconds after I disconnected the call. The timing was so perfect, it made me wonder if he'd been lurking outside listening through the door.

"Hey, this was all I could find." He dropped a pizza box on the dresser, and set the key next to it. This place was a throwback to the past with an actual metal door key that looked like an oversized version of the one that let me into my apartment, rather than an electronic keycard that beeped when activated.

I opened the pizza. He could have brought back week old sushi and I would have been thrilled. I was starved and pizza was like fucking bonanza. I pulled a piece out and the cheese stretched from the box to the flimsy paper plate Mateo provided. It was New York style, thin crust, mountains of cheese, and just the right amount of sauce and pepperoni.

I took a bite. "Oh my God," I spoke with my mouth full, sucking air to cool the cheese burning the roof of my mouth and my tongue. "I seriously love you right now." I swallowed too quickly, then took another bite.

He
stood back and watched, a big, annoying smile on his face.

"Wha?" The word was garbled around my pizza.

"Hungry?" He ran his thumb over my bottom lip and said, "Sauce." Then he sucked it into his own mouth and I wasn't really all that hungry any more.

I set my plate on the table without taking my eyes off his mout
h. He had the sexiest lips ever, plump and teasing and I knew what they tasted like, but I wanted to find out again just to be sure. I reached for him and he stepped away.

"Ah-ah-ah. None of that. You need to eat and gain your strength."

"But. . ." I followed after him, still focused on his mouth. I was an eye on the prize kind of girl, damn it, and I wanted to fucking kiss him more than I wanted to eat pizza.

"No buts. You're going to need all the energy you can get for what I have planned for you."

I was torn. I sure as hell didn't want to wait, but lust-fuelled intentions aside, I really was hungry. My stomach reminded me then with a delicate growl.

"Fine." Before I took another bite, however, I dished a slice for Mateo. "You're going to need your energy
, too."

He laughed and took the plate. "Thank God."

"There's only one problem." I chewed off a piece of the slice before continuing. Middle of nowhere or not, this was some kick-ass pizza.

He
bit off about half of the slice in one go and raised his eyebrow. He was in a hurry, too. Then he raised his other eyebrow and looked at me like "Well? Continue." He was too busy chewing to speak.

"We can't use the bed."

Mateo choked on his pizza. I pounded his back while he coughed. "What the fuck?" His eyes were watering and his voice was raw.

"Have you looked at it? I don't think the bedding has ever been washed." I wasn't even exaggerating.

"Seriously?"

"You can use it if you want, but there's no way you're getting me on it naked."

Mateo looked like I'd just issued a challenge and I had the good sense to be afraid.

"I can work with that. We'll just leave your clothes on. Most of them anyway." He smiled like he'd figured out something complicated and I threw a glob of cheese at him.

"Have you seen the outfit I'm wearing?" I gestured down my body to the barely there skirt and the midriff-baring top.

"Oh
, yeah." His smile took on that happy, faraway look that reminded me he'd done more than look at my outfit.

"Don't be a dick, Mateo. I'm
already practically naked."

"Yep." He nodded happily then took another bite of pizza.

I shook my head. He clearly wasn't hearing me. I decided to break it down for him. "Mateo, I really,
really
want to fuck you. But I will
not
do it on that bed, naked or not. Got it?" I bit into my pizza with extra snap. I wanted him to feel my teeth and since he wouldn't let me near him until I finished eating, the fucking demonstration was the best I could do.

He shivered and took a step back.

"Got it." He ran out the door and returned a few minutes later with a blanket in his arms, the tail end of it dragging on the ground. "I keep this in my car for emergencies."

I was tempted to ask how many other women had been on top of it as
a matter of emergency, but opted against sounding like a jealous harpy. Besides, I was willing to take my chances since it looked cleaner than the bedspread provided by the motel.

He
smiled, then spread the blanket over the bed. Thankfully, it covered to the edges. I could work with that.

When he finished, he sat on the edge of the bed and patted the space next to him with flourish. "Join me?"

I grabbed another piece of pizza for myself, and one for him. I was finishing my second piece and he'd flat out inhaled his first, but hadn’t had a chance to get another. I figured if he could go find a solution to my fear of the bedspread, I could serve him a second slice of pizza.

We ate our pizza in awkward, uncomfortable silence. Our relationship had been pretty singular so far. We figured out very early on that we were great at fucking together, so we never wasted time talking. Beyond the occasional
yeah baby, right there
, we didn't have a lot to say to one another. That gap in common ground grew exponentially after we realized that we landed on opposite sides of the law. He lived outside of it and I enforced it. Nothing kills a relationship like arresting a boyfriend.

He
finished his pizza and after a moment decided to get another. "This is weird." He shoved half the slice in his mouth with that announcement.

"What is?"

"Us." He spoke around a mouthful of pizza and it sounded more like
uff
than
us
. "Here, trying to work together."