Cherry Bomb (15 page)

The hell with it. We were adults. I was tired and wanted to be comfortable.

The sweatshirt came off.

I met Phin’s eyes and didn’t feel comfortable at all. I felt awkward and vulnerable and ner vous and also a little excited, like a teenager right before her first time. Phin’s eyes had that purple hue again, and his expression was intense.

I levered myself between the sheets.

Go to sleep,
I told myself.

But instead of closing my eyes, I watched Phin take his shirt off. His body was different than Latham’s. Latham’s body was decent. Lithe, strong, distinguished. But comfortable and familiar. Sort of like a Lincoln Town Car.

Phin had a Ferarri. Fast and sharp and sculpted. And dangerous.

Quit it. You just buried Latham. He hasn’t even been dead for three weeks.

When Phin began taking off his sweatpants I used all of my self-control to kill the bedside lamp so I couldn’t see anything else.

The bed bounced lightly when he climbed in, and then he turned off his light and we were both lying there in the dark and I was getting warm. Really warm.

Hot, actually.

If he tries something, I’ll roll with it,
I decided.

I closed my eyes, waiting for him to touch me. Wanting him to touch me. I knew it was wrong, for a hundred different reasons. But I wanted sex. I wanted to feel something other than pain. With all the death and horror of the past weeks, I needed something life-affirming.

I no longer had love. Love died with my fiancé.

But I didn’t expect love from Phin.

However, an orgasm or two would be a good temporary placeholder.

The bed springs creaked, and I sensed him shifting. Moving closer to me.

Maybe my breath quickened a little bit. Maybe I shifted a little bit toward him as well.

I waited. Pictured his hands on my body. My breasts. Between my thighs. I remembered his kiss, how good it was, and imagined how his mouth would feel on other parts of me.

But nothing happened. He didn’t make a move.

I’d been rebuffing him all night, and he hadn’t been put off. Now, when I finally want him to try something, he decides to listen to me?

Didn’t guys understand women at all?

I sighed, loudly, hoping he’d take the hint.

Nothing.

I sighed again, this time putting a bit of slut into the tone. More of a moan than a sigh.

Nada. Zip. Zilch.

I realized I couldn’t back down at this point. I was turned on. All I had to do was reach for him, and I would make sure he was turned on as well.

My hand crept under the covers, toward Phin. I aimed low, for a part I was sure would get his attention. The king-sized bed seemed huge, the distance between us enormous, and I really did feel like a virginal school-girl, so much so that I almost giggled, and giggling is not something I’m known for.

And then I heard it. A sound. A horrible, libido-killing sound.

Phin was snoring.

My hand stopped, flattening out like someone had stomped on it. I shrunk back, turned and faced the other way, the luxurious heat of arousal transforming into the sting of rejection. Giggly and turned on to red-faced humiliation in less than three seconds. It had to be some kind of record.

I closed my eyes and swore that if he ever tried to touch me again I’d break off his fingers. Then I tried to sleep.

Exhausted as I was, sleep didn’t come.

CHAPTER
30

L
UCKY BITCH.

It had a December 31 vibe, like counting down the seconds until the new year, and Alex had been looking forward to seeing the monochromatic fireworks of poor Lance’s head blowing up. But lucky Jack stormed in at the last possible second and saved his miserable life.

How anticlimactic.

Things became interesting again when the two cops arrived, but Jack killed the live feed in the middle of that little drama. Cue commercial. Switch channels.

Alex considers her next move. It’s still too early to pay Jack’s ex a visit, so she spends some time on the Internet, reading up on defibrillators, replying to an e-mail in her anonymous account, learning about bulletproofing a vehicle. Boring stuff, but necessary. Then she logs on to the homepage of her pay-as-you-go cell phone ser vice provider. The phones are impossible to trace, but they do keep track of minutes and numbers called. Because Alex is spoofing caller ID, most of the numbers listed are 555-5555.

But there are a few real numbers. The numbers Jack has called from the phone Alex gave her.

One of them is interesting. An 800 number. Alex makes a mental note to call it later.

At a little after seven a.m. she dresses in the police uniform and goes for a ride, finding a twenty-four-hour con ve nience store and picking up two rolls of duct tape and some quick energy foods: chips, beef jerky, candy bars. She also gets a six-pack of bottled water.

It’s going to be a thirsty day.

Back at the hotel she checks her appearance and then knocks on Alan’s door.

“Yeah?” he answers.

Alex steps away from the peephole, letting him see her good profile and her cop clothes.

“Mr. Daniels? It’s about your ex-wife.”

She resists a smile when she hears the lock turn, the Cheetah stun gun palmed in her right hand.

Two seconds after the door opens, Alan is on his knees. Two seconds after that, he’s facedown on the carpeting.

Alex checks the hallway for witnesses, and seeing none, drags Jack’s husband to bed.

CHAPTER
31

I
FELT LATHAM’S ARM
slip around my waist and I sighed, happy it had all been some horrible dream.

But it didn’t feel like Latham’s arm—it felt like a stranger’s—and everything came back at once and I jolted, then went rigid.

“You okay?” Phin, his voice sleepy.

“Yeah. Just forgot where I was.”

Phin’s hand was still on my hip, burning there like an iron. I nudged it off.

“I wasn’t trying anything.”

“I know.” My tone had more regret in it than I might have liked.

Sunlight peeked in through a crack in the drapes. I looked at the clock radio. A little past ten a.m. I’d managed about four hours of sleep. Not too bad. I’ve been able to function on less.

I rubbed my eyes, felt some crud in the corners, and immediately wondered how my hair looked. My breath was probably awful as well. I wanted to get up, dress in the bathroom, but didn’t want Phin to see me in my underwear. Earlier it seemed daring. Now it was just plain embarrassing.

“I’m not used to waking up next to cops,” Phin said. “Especially pretty ones.”

I felt his finger trail up my spine. I flinched away.

“Jesus, Jack. We’re both adults.”

I faced him, hugging the sheet to my chest.

“You’re a good-looking guy, Phin. I’m sure you’ll rebound quickly.”

He smiled and locked his hands behind his head, triceps bulging.

“Do you like being miserable? Is that your thing?”

His pillow talk needed some work.

“No, Phin. Like most other people in the world, I actually try to be happy. And sometimes I actually achieve it for brief periods of time. But to me, being an adult means having responsibilities.”

I was lecturing, but Phin appeared more amused than chastised.

“I used to be like that. Feeling like the only thing holding the world together was my self-discipline.”

“There’s a difference between taking care of business and being a control freak.”

“I know that. Do you?”

And to think I almost slept with this guy.

“I try to do my best. Sometimes it doesn’t work out, but I keep trying. It’s all I can do.”

Phin adopted a pensive look as if he was considering what to say next. I waited, feeling dorkier and dorkier in my sports bra and red pan ties.

Finally, he spoke.

“Let me tell you a story, Jack. Young man. Had a decent paying job in an office. Was in love with a girl who loved him back. They even had the wedding date set.”

“This is you, I’m guessing.”

“It was me. Living the American dream, on my way to two-point-five kids and a thirty-year fixed mortgage.”

“So what happened? One day you just decided a life of crime was sexier?”

His eyes went somewhere else. “I was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Told I had eight months to live. Maria—Maria Kilborn, my bride to be—she and I were…
right.
Like we were supposed to be together. You know? When someone is just perfect for you?”

I nodded, a lump forming in my throat. “I know.”

Phin focused, smiled sadly. “But she wasn’t strong, Jack. She was strong in some ways. But not emotionally. She cared about people. A lot. Maybe too much. I remember driving home from the doctor’s office, thinking about how I was going to tell her, seeing it in my head. And I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t hurt her like that. Not only the telling her, but thinking about her watching me die…”

Phin cleared his throat, then scratched the back of his neck.

“So I didn’t go home. I rented a hotel room, called an escort ser vice, and fucked my brains out while Maria was going crazy wondering where I was. She tracked down our credit card usage, came to my room, saw me with the whore. There was screaming, crying. She told me she never wanted to see me again. And she kept the promise.”

I made a face. “Do you think that was noble, what you did? Breaking up with her instead of being honest?”

His gaze was intense. “You tell me, Jack. Is it easier to hate someone, or to miss them after they die?”

I thought about Alan, who left me, and Latham, who left me in a different way.

Phin was right. Losing Latham hurt more.

So was he a coward, or was he being strong?

When I met Phin, on the Job, I’d immediately liked him. He’d been involved in a gang fight, three against one. They were armed. Phin wasn’t. All three wound up in the hospital.

During the arrest Phin was compliant, polite, even jovial. Like he didn’t have a care in the world. I bumped into him accidentally sometime later, at a local pool hall, and we began playing eight ball on a somewhat regular basis. He was attractive, sure, but I think the thing that drew me to him was his attitude. He seemed free. Even bald from the chemo, taking breaks between games to go throw up, he seemed more at ease with himself than anyone I’d ever met.

I wondered what it would be like to live in the moment like that. To not worry about anything other than the now. Was it liberating? Or empty? Brave or weak?

“This was a few years ago.” Phin turned on his side, propping his head up on his hand. “I had surgery. Had treatments. Still kept getting worse. Nine to five didn’t really seem that important anymore, so I quit. Eventually I ran out of money, lost my insurance. Lived on the street, day by day, getting by. But something funny happened. I didn’t die.”

“Remission.”

He shook his head. “Not really. Cancer’s still there. Pain is still there. I’m going to die from it. But it isn’t killing me as fast as the doctors have hoped. I thought I’d rob a few gangbangers, hustle a little pool, spend a few weeks partying like a rock star and then die in a gutter somewhere. But here I am. Still alive. Here. With you.”

He touched my back again, and this time I didn’t flinch. But since I’m cursed with the burden of overanalyzing everything, I ruined what could have been a romantic moment by asking, “Why are you here, Phin? Why are you helping me? This isn’t your fight. Am I a diversion? Any port in the storm? A way to kill some time so you don’t have to think about your life?”

Damn my big mouth. If he walked out the door right then, I couldn’t have blamed him.

But he didn’t walk out. He just stared at me. Not angry. But patient. Understanding. And I filled in the blanks. He wasn’t with me because he wanted a little action, or because I helped him take his mind off his death sentence. He actually cared about me. I saw it in his face. Here was a guy who divorced himself from life, packing his feelings away like winter clothes in the summertime. He worked to keep people out.

And he let me in.

And the least I could do in return was live in the now.

In one quick motion I billowed up the sheets and cast them off the bed, exposing Phin in his red boxer briefs. His body was long and lean and cut, and I wasn’t sure where I wanted to touch him first. I chose his abs, running my hand along his six-pack while sliding alongside him and hooking my leg up over his thigh.

The kiss could have been morning breath bad, but all I tasted was heat. Heat and passion and possibilities that I promised myself would be explored.

His arms encircled me, fingers of one hand running through my hair and tingling my scalp, the other wandering over the back of my sports bra.

I smiled while his tongue probed mine, then pulled slightly away.

“Sports bra,” I said, “no clasps.”

I dug under the elastic, stretched it up over my arms, and he helped me pull the bra over my head and arms. I paused, letting him look at me, drinking in how much he seemed to like the view. Then I grabbed his wrists and put his hands on my breasts.

He rubbed the flat of his palm over my nipples, rolled one between his fingers, tugging on it gently, making it stiffen. Then his arm was around the small of my back and he tugged me next to him, urgent, his mouth on mine.

His lips trailed down past my jaw to my neck, and I locked my legs around the side of his thigh and ground against it, feeling my first jolt of full-on arousal, building inside me like a wave.

Right then I was ready to go at it. I wanted him in me. Wanted to wrap my legs around his hips and ride him until I made him moan.

Phin had other ideas.

He kissed his way along my neck, sliding his body down next to mine, breaking my leg-lock on him. His arms encircled my hips, hands grasping my ass, and his mouth found my nipples. He caught one in his teeth, held it between them while bathing it with his tongue. I tried to open my legs but he held them together, which drove me a little crazy as he switched from one breast to the other. He was too low for me to touch anything other than his head and back, so I locked my fingers in his blond hair and held on.

His head moved lower, licking my rib cage, my navel, and then slowly, maddeningly, to the top of my red pan ties. He rested his mouth there, letting me feel his hot breath through the fabric, and then began to kiss.

I moved my arms down, trying to help him tug my pan ties off, but he held my wrists and wouldn’t let me, continuing to move his mouth and jaw over my pubic mound, up and down and in small circles until it felt ready to catch fire.

I tried to fight him, wanted to end the foreplay and flip him over and straddle his face and let him devour me. I pressed up against his mouth, but he moved his face away each time I did.

Even though the pan ties stayed on, even though he deliberately avoided hitting the right spots, I felt the orgasm welling up. And then I understood what he was doing, other than teasing me.

It was okay to not be in control.

I moaned, turned my head to the side, took a corner of the pillow in my mouth, and let him have his way.

His way was torture. He licked my thighs, all around my panty line, his tongue slow and lazy, his hands cupping my bottom and raising me up to meet his mouth. Then, like it was tissue paper, he tore my underwear off, his warm wet lips directly on me.

Again I tried to open my legs. Again he held them together.

“Please,” I said.

But there was only more teasing, to the point where I couldn’t endure it anymore, and I was going to come even without any direct stimulation. My hips began to pump, moving without my control, and my hands clutched the mattress and a scream welled up in my throat and then…
oh my God
…then he finally opened my legs and his tongue found me and the tiny orgasm became a monster, plea sure so intense it almost hurt, building up and multiplying until I was nothing but pure sensation. I grabbed his head and ground against him as my whole body shook, captured and helpless in his beautiful mouth.

But it didn’t end with one. After the first, his fingers came into play, and he coaxed another orgasm out of me, and by that time I was pleading with him to enter me, promising him nonsensical things, begging to the point where I was near hysterical, and
then he did
.

Holy Mary mother of God.

Half an hour later, arms and legs tangled up, sweaty and glowing and wonderfully sore, I realized I could get really used to living in the now. For a guy dying of cancer, Phin’s refractory period was impressive. We’d done it twice, and might have gone for thirds when my cell phone rang.

Harry.

“I should get this,” I told Phin, pulling away.

His hand stayed on my ass, his finger making lazy circles. I slapped it away. I didn’t want to talk to Harry McGlade while in any stage of arousal.

“Morning, Jackie. I found the first phone. Guess where it was? Go on. Guess.”

“I have no idea, Harry. A supermarket.” Postcoital glow left me a little scattershot.

“A supermarket? Why would she hide the phone in a supermarket?”

“You said guess, I guessed.”

“You sound funny. Did you just get laid?”

“Where was the goddamn phone, McGlade?”

“It was a supermarket. She plugged it into one of the outlets behind the fresh produce. According to the SIM, the second phone is in Gurnee. I’m on my way now.”

“We should meet you,” I said. “We still need the rifles.”

While fleeing from the Feebies, we’d left our long guns in the RV.

“I should be there in about an hour. And I’ve got someone for you to meet.”

There was a screech in the background.

“What was that?”

“That’s who I’m talking about. I’ve recruited some extra help on the case.”

Another screech. It sounded like a parrot.

“Did you buy a parrot? You had that Baretta fetish when we were partners.”

“That was Columbo, not Baretta. I liked him for his trenchcoat. And Slappy is not a parrot.”

“Slappy?”

“You’ll meet him soon. I’ll call when I’m close. And make sure Phin wears a rubber.”

He hung up. I turned to Phin, wondering if I could make him beg like he had made me, but he was unfortunately putting on his jeans.

“Starving. I’ll pick up some food. You want coffee and donuts?”

“I’m a cop. Of course I want coffee and donuts. There’s money in my purse.”

I trusted him, I reminded myself. As he fished out a wad of bills, I reminded myself of it again.

“I’ll be back soon.”

“I’ll be waiting.” I grinned.

He left, and my grin became a crushing feeling of despair. What was up with that?

I didn’t regret the sex. The sex was great. I needed it. Phin was a fun partner, and lived up to the fantasies about him I’d never admitted to myself I had.

Latham? Of course I still missed Latham. Of course I still blamed myself for his death. But I wasn’t being disloyal, wasn’t cheating.

Alex wasn’t on my mind at that exact moment—we couldn’t do anything until she contacted us again anyway—so she wasn’t the cause of my emotional pain.

It was the pregnancy test. That’s why I wanted to weep.

I touched my belly, letting the tears come, feeling so interminably alone.