Quintic (17 page)

Something special the place was. It
told about him, not in intricate details but vivid glimpses of who
he was. Of what he wanted. Did he like the women here? At first,
she did not understand how he could. Yes, she’ll admit some of the
showgirls were gorgeous, but she preferred the men.

He bought her a drink. They sat next to
one another, not touching, only his knee brushed against hers once
in a while. She made as if the bar was like any other ordinary
bar.

Lemieux kept observing her, a smile
playing on his lips. “You are now into my world,” he said.

She was fascinated. Not excited per se,
not sexually, not at first. But all that nakedness did somehow,
eventually, arouse her.

They drank; she became quite drunk. He
bought her a dance, choosing a guy that resembled him. Tall. Lanky.
Well-defined muscles. The male stripper was young enough to have
flawless skin on his body but old enough for expression lines to
mark his face and give it character. Old enough to know it took
more to arouse a woman than just rocking one’s pelvis. The man
danced with his body; he danced with his eyes, lasciviously looking
her over. Her shoulder. Her breasts. Her belly. Her thighs.
Caressing her yet never once touching her.

Hand to his crotch, Lemieux watched her
admire the showman. His hand did not caress nor grope but merely
covered. She observed the show and her friend; neither man touched
her. The naked man left. Her breathing slowed. Her lips hurt; her
teeth had cut into the skin by the end of the dance.

Lemieux bought a dance for himself,
choosing the girl that was the most similar to her for the dancer
had long, dark-brown hair, and a tallish, slender body. But the
woman did not have her blue eyes, nor the dark-blue locks in her
hair as a memento of an Italian sea. And the stripper’s breasts
were too big for even a tall man to cup in his hands.

Her man watched them both. The one
prancing in front of him he gave a casual glance, curious at the
most. Was he seeing the dancer at all? His heady gaze returned to
her, sitting next to him, again and again. She felt the caress of
his eyes. The hunger. No restraint muddied them now. His hand,
immobile, still blanketed his groin.

They left after the show and took a
taxi to his place. She had not known until they were naked, in his
room, that she would not have sex with him; she could not. Not
because she would not know if he was with her or with the dancer.
She knew. The dancer was a
faire-valoir
, a foil; both dancers had been for
her. She finally understood his restraint on their previous
nights.

He wanted her all. Once he had it, he
would not stop; he would show any limits. She was not angry at him.
He did not push her. He understood he was asking too much.

“
I’m happy, Pattycake. I’m thankful
for that one dance. Us together watching each other watching the
dancers, that’s to be our dance.”

It could have been their
chant du cygne
, their swan song, but it
wasn’t. She did not run from him. He had expected a dark part of
her that night, and, in a way, she had given it to him. He handed
it back, for her to do what she wanted with it. With
him
. They became friends.

At first, they did not talk about their
history together. They met amongst others. Laughed. Touched.
Barely. She never told anyone. She certainly did not tell the man
that came after, that man that would become her before.

Later, the handyman did ask again.
Requested to have her back again, but only if she wanted. “I’ll
take you elsewhere, something special, something different,” he
offered once again.

And he did. In his own way, he freed
her. She wished she could have returned the favour.

Excerpt
from
The J-man
, by Trica C. Line

MacLaren Back to the
Fun Part

T
he waiter brought the food over.
They ate in silence. Chris could see she was thoughtful, perhaps
debating how much more she should tell him about Lemieux? Fat
chance. He briefly considered getting her drunk enough to talk. His
second option was more in the line of kissing and pleasuring her
until she decided to speak. Unless he yelled loud enough to knock
some sense into her. All of the above. Neither of them finished
their plates.

The
wa
iter came back to offer
coffee.

“
I’ll have a
decaf latte,” she ordered. “And he’s going to take a double
espresso. Make it tight. Thank you.”

Chris
took it as a sign the coffee was good here. Or
was it more a signal that their chat was not over yet? Or
both?

By
now, she was ever so slightly pianoting on the
table, a telltale he had learned to pay attention to; something was
coming. She was silently arguing with herself while frowning at
him. She looked furious. Damn sexy. Tired. Sad. The sadness he did
not like.

She sighed.
She had to know he would not let it go. He needed a
handle on the case and the one that seemed the
most logical right now related to the guy’s sexual tastes. Other
than that, Lemieux could have been just a regular guy, friendly and
polite. And fuck, he had to study the hacking angle too, hadn’t
he?

Other
hackers had been murdered in the previous months. Granted
Patricia had assured him she had not known any
of the victims. Yes, those deaths had been filed under burglaries
turned bad (the cover-up was for her sole benefit). And yes, the
killer’s modus operandi on those was completely different from
Lemieux’s murder. Chris referred to those killings by the name
‘
bathtub
killings
’
for they had found the vics stabbed to death and bathing in
their own blood. Those victims had connections to the gamer
community. And said group had ties to the hacker community. Of
which, as far as he could tell, Lemieux had been a member. To this
day, the
burglaries
remained unsolved. And now Lemieux.

He watched
as she closed her eyes and took a sharp breath. He listened when
she opened them back and told him about her last date with Lemieux,
the fucking dances at the strip club. Damn woman. He listened hard,
worried at first, then relieved. Fight over.

He
still
hated Joshua’s guys, but Lemieux
had done fine by her. Chris already knew she was attracted to the
odd ones, so the club thing did not bother him much. He might have
to take her there if they didn’t find any other lead; she might
recognise some of the staff. In Chris’s experience, guys like
Lemieux had very specific tastes. And the woman at the motel had
been a slender, tallish brunette. Like Patricia.

He was sad,
though, because she was. It was obvious to him, but not to her yet
it seemed, that she had liked the Lemieux guy, and until she
admitted to her feelings, not to him but to herself at least, she
would keep on feeling sad and angry. She needed to mourn
Lemieux.

He
might have to take her to the club, just the two
of them, to help her reminisce, but not before he had checked the
place out first with the guys. On their afternoon drive-by, the
place had looked cheap, and he suspected the interior looked a lot
different now than what she had seen three years ago.

For now, the
fighting was definitely over. Only for tonight, though, because she
was still lying about that night.

“
We just
watched a few numbers,” she had said. “Got drunk,” she had added.
“Had a fight,” she had continued. “We went home. Separately,” she
had concluded. “And that was it. We both moved on.”

He could
tell she was lying but wasn’t sure about which part exactly, maybe
all of it. Had she lied about the guy not being a hacker but just a
handyman?

“
What do
hackers need handymen for?”

A dismissive
shoulder shrug. “I don’t know the details.”

Not knowing the details isn’t the same as not knowing,
Angel
. “And you hooked up with Joshua
after that?”

“
Like I
said; that was it.”

Fucking
lying. OK, not so much lying as not telling the truth. She had
slept with Lemieux a few months later, and that time she had known
the jerk’s kinks.

To End His
Day

W
hat else could he do but take
her back to his place? Faint blue shadows betrayed her fatigue. He
too tired. She held his hand in the underground parking lot, and
they made the trip up fingers entwined.

She
disappeared into the bedroom while he went to
check his messages. None. Good. When he joined her, he found her
standing in the middle of the room, close to the bed but not quite
next to it. She turned to face him, unzipped her little black dress
and, wide blue eyes on him, let the dress very slowly slip to the
floor. Bare but for her underwear and heels. Her lingerie was
see-through, even more so than he remembered. The loveliest
sight.

She took a
step forward. He took a step forward. She stopped; he did too. She
dropped one pump, then the other, taking a step forward after each.
Then another. And another. Until she stood a breath from him, her
breasts brushing against his shirt. He listened to her short pants,
enjoying the feel of her nipples rubbing against him with every
gasp.

His heart
was beating fast, his blood throbbing in his ears, in his pants,
but his breathing was steady as he studied her. She started
loosening his tie, unbuttoning his shirt, the cuffs, her fingers
never once touching his skin. When she had undone all the buttons,
she pushed the shirt back from his shoulder and to the floor, it
went. Only when she had him shirtless did her hands follow her eyes
to caress his chest. The languidness of her movements betrayed her
sorrow.

He took a
sharp breath as she rubbed her breasts lightly against him, her
skin pale next to the oh so sheer berry lace, the areola darkened
by their diaphanous shield, her nipples rigid, stretching the lacy
fabric.

He wanted to
pull her to him hard but was afraid to break the spell.
You can do anything you want,
Angel
. And he did mean
anything
.
He would give her the fucking moon if she asked for it. Would
cheat, steal, kill if he thought it would console her.

She
removed his belt and pushed his slacks down
until she had him standing in his briefs and socks, his pants down
around his ankles. She aroused him, so fucking much, with her
nipples brushing against his torso. His cock tented the
fabric.

They stood
motionless for what seemed like a long time. Perhaps not more than
a minute. A heavy with yearning and desire and lust eternity-long
sixty seconds. She wasn’t gazing amorously into his eyes but kept
the blues glued to his chest.

Kneeling
in front to him, she
tugged at his shorts and lowered them to his pants around his
ankles before, almost heavily, standing up again. She sure was
taking her sweet time, and damn, he liked it. A lot. She looked
spectacular, breasts taut, nipples erect, lips parted as she panted
softly, the blues so dark. Seventy seconds. Eighty. One
hundred.

She
stepped back before unclipping her bra; she
dropped it distractedly to the floor. Her panties followed. One
hundred and ten. She sashayed back to him, her breasts to his
chest, her hands on his ass, fisting his flesh. Her mouth latched
onto his neck, her tongue wetting the vein that was pulsing so very
fast.

“
Do
me
, Christopher.” A whisper. A plea.
Fucking magnificent. Two minutes.

His hands on
her ass, he guided her to the bed, sitting down on the edge. One
hundred and thirty seconds. He pushed his knees between her legs.
One hundred and forty.

“
Put your
hands around my neck,” he ordered as he lowered her onto him,
guiding his cock into her, feeding her sex as she wrapped her legs
around him.

They sat,
him on the bed, her on him, barely moving, his cock buried deep
into her sheath, her sex surrounding his length. One hundred and
fifty. She moaned. One hundred and sixty. Her lips trembled against
his skin. One hundred and seventy.

He
r grip tightened around him as
the wave built. He kissed her. Time seemed to stop. She held him
even closer, her arms clenching around his neck. He let go of her
mouth. Delaying her orgasm. Awaiting it. She held her breath of a
second, then stiffened and came. His heart skipped a beat as he
looked at her. He came while the undulations of her sex receded
around his shaft.

They
sat
motionless until the breathing eased.
His neck ached, but he went on holding her. Two hundred and
ninety.

She started
drawing away from him, but he kept his hold.

“
Christopher,” she murmured in a breathy voice.

He kept
holding tight. She bit him,
one small
bite on the side of his right shoulder where the muscles
connected.

He let
go
reluctantly, her pushing herself off
him, standing again, him holding her first by the waist, then
standing too. He smiled down at the dishevelled her. He liked.
Traces of him on her made him feel fucking powerful. Manly. His
mark of her. Macho. His cock stood erect again, ready again. She
was stunning.