Shooter (Burnout) (36 page)

Chris didn’t want to be reminded that he was in the dog house and he sure as shit didn’t want Deanna sniffing around his relationship with Hayley.

“Look, Deanna, I don’t-”

“Maybe you just want to take the edge off,” she offered suddenly. “I can do that. Like I said, I’m sure that couch is awfully lonely.” She started to kneel down in front of him. He grabbed her arms and hauled her to her feet.

“Jesus, Deanna. This is just getting fucking annoying.”

Deanna, undeterred, unsnapped the buttons on her too-small western blouse. “Who’s going to begrudge you a quickie? Her? Well if she’s not going to put out, she’s got to know that a man like you is going to get it from someplace else.”

Chris didn’t know if he was more annoyed at her persistence or the implication that he would ever do that to someone he was sharing a bed with (well, metaphorically speaking at the moment). He grabbed Deanna and pushed her toward the desk. He bent her forward over the edge.

“Is this what you want?” he demanded.

Deanna squirmed, pushing her ass against his pelvis. “Mmmmm. This is more like it,” she declared.” She snaked her hand behind her and took hold of his arm.

“No,” Chris growled as she tried to twist her upper body toward him. He placed his palm in the center of her back. “Face down. You will never look at me while I’m inside you,” he informed her. “It’s not
your
face I want to see.” He lifted up her skirt and his stomach rolled that she wasn’t wearing panties. He couldn’t put a name to this feeling other than it had the exact opposite effect as it had when Hayley had bent over in front of him in this exact spot.

Slowly, letting her hear what he was doing, he unbuckled his belt, but left his fly buttoned and zipped. She shivered with excitement. He leaned down, placing both hands on either side of Deanna. Into her ear, he said, “I will never look you in the eye. I will always call out her name instead of yours. I will always want her more than you. Is that what you want,
Deanna?”
he lingered on her name, as if to emphasize to her what she wouldn’t be getting from him. “To always be reminded that you’re my second choice? The one I settled for when I couldn’t have what I wanted most?”

Deanna nodded. “Yes. I’ll take it. If I can have you, I’ll…I’ll take it.”

Chris reared back and stared down at the half naked woman sprawled on his desk. Well. That hadn’t been at all the response he’d been hoping for. He’d hoped that by showing her she’d never get what she really wanted, him, that she’d get royally pissed and storm off in a huff. Fuck. Easy was right. Hand to hand combat with women was damn hard when you couldn’t hurt them. Especially when you couldn’t even seem to hurt their feelings.

“You’re pathetic,” he told her. “You’re-”

“I want you!” she cried. “I want you so bad. Look! Just look!” She pulled up her shirt and Chris nearly vomited into his mouth. She had a tramp stamp just above her ass. One word.
Shooter
in black scrolling letters.

He reeled backward so fast he toppled the chair behind him. “Jesus. Jesus God, Deanna. That’s fucked up. You’re insane!”

At that moment the office door opened and Tex stepped into the room. He took in the sight of Deanna still prone on the desk, ass in the air. From his position he couldn’t see the tattoo. He also took note of Chris’s belt hanging loose around his waist. “Well, now. Looks like a party to me. Can anyone join in?” His tone was light, but he glared at Chris intensely.

“Get. Out.” Chris snapped. No one moved, but Chris grabbed Deanna’s shoulder and hauled her up off the desk. “Get. The fuck. Out. Now. You are certifiably insane. Stay away from me. Stay away from everyone I love.”

Something in Chris’s ice cold demeanor must have gotten through to her, because she wiggled her skirt down, grabbed her purse off the desk and fled past Tex who barely inched out of the way so she could pass by.

“She’s nuts,” Chris told Tex while fastening his belt.

“Uh huh.”

“She is! She’s got my fucking name tattooed on her ass!” Chris shouted, still bewildered at the sight of it. “My name! Who does that?”

Tex leaned against the door frame. “Two kinds of women. Crazy ones and ones in love. Sometimes they’re one in the same.”

Chris tucked the end of his belt into the loop and came around the desk. “She’s god damn insane,” he repeated. “Coming here, dressed like that, with my name on her ass.” He shook his head. “I don’t even know what to do with that.”

“Hmm,” Tex replied. When Chris got closer to the door, Tex shuffled out of his way. Then punched him in the face.

“Fuck!” Chris yelled, staggering to the side. He brought up one arm to ward off his friend but Tex appeared to have said what he wanted to say on the matter and leaned back against the door frame.

“What the fuck?!” Chris demanded.

“You know what the fuck.”

Chris looked from Tex to the open door. “She’s crazy!”

“Really? And in all her craziness she managed to undo your belt
and
hitch herself up on your desk, nice and naked from the waist down, all ready for a good, hard ride?”

“I wasn’t going to do it!” Chris insisted.

Tex was unmoved. “Uh huh. And if it had been Slick who walked in that door instead of me? Think she’d fall for that line?”

Chris felt the blood drain out of his face. It was Friday. It was one of Hayley’s usual days to bring lunch. He hadn’t figured she would because of the kind of week it had been, but she still might have. Then he realized that Deanna probably knew Hayley delivered him lunch on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. “That bitch!” he bit out, glaring out the open door. “She
wanted
Hayley to catch us!”

“Possibly,” said Tex. “Certainly wouldn’t have hurt Deanna’s campaign if she did.” As Chris stared out the door, Tex punched him again.

“Son of a bitch!
Stop doing that!
” Chris bellowed.

“Now you listen to me,” Tex said calmly while Chris squeezed his right eye shut. “I don’t know what the fuck you thought you were doing in here with that seven headed sea monster. I don’t want to know.”

“I wasn’t-”

“Shut up,” Tex ordered and for the first time in his life, Chris took orders from his Sergeant. “Whatever you were doing, whatever that was, if Hayley had walked in here and seen it, it would have broken her heart.
Broken her heart, Chris
. Is that what you want? Because you’re already in a world of shit right now and I’ve got to tell you, your relationship cannot sustain one more direct hit. So you better get smart and figure out a way to get Deanna out of your lives without the use of violence and don’t get caught in a room alone with her until you do. Now come on. We got work to do. Can’t hang out in the office all day, banging chicks.”

Chris sighed and straightened up. “I wasn’t going to bang her.”

“Well, I know it’s too much to hope you were gonna use that belt on her ass. She’s damn lucky she’s fixated on
you
instead of
me
.”

Chapter 29

Hayley was picking up two Buds and whiskey sour from the bar when someone spoke from behind her. Offhandedly she wondered why she didn’t notice a temperature drop.

“Well, if it isn’t Betty Crocker.”

Hayley glanced over her shoulder, but didn’t respond.

“Watch it, Deanna,” Maria warned. “Don’t start trouble in my place.”

Deanna flashed a toothy smile and a perfected “Who Me?” look, complete with kewpie doll lips. “I’m not!” she insisted. “I was just saying that it looks like Hayley here has been working a ton of hours lately. Which explains a lot.”

Hayley set the sour on her tray and frowned at it. She’d picked up extra shifts to avoid spending time in an empty house. She wasn’t sure what, exactly that “explained”. And, mostly, she didn’t want to know. Mostly. Unfortunately it was the tiny part of her that seemed destined for masochism that had her asking, “What are you talking about?”

Deanna smiled impossibly wider. “Well you’ve been so busy here with your all-important job as barmaid, and pretty much left poor Shooter all to his lonesome. Thankfully, though, he called me to come take care of him.”

Hayley nearly dropped the tray.

“I got the impression he had a lot of pent up frustration while he had me bent over his desk this afternoon. But you don’t have to worry. I took care of him. Just like I told you I would.”

Hayley looked around helplessly. Though God knew why. It was only 6pm and Chris wouldn’t be here for another few hours to have a few beers before taking her home. They hadn’t talked about it this week, but she had assumed that he would still want to make sure she got home okay and didn’t waste money on a cab.

“Deanna, get out,” Maria ordered before Hayley could do anything at all.

“What? Why?” Deanna sneered.

“Just get the fuck out before I mess up that wrinkled face of yours.”

Whether Deanna was incensed about the insult was unclear to anyone else, but what Deanna herself was
very
clear on was that A.) Maria wouldn’t hesitate to swing at her, and B.) That Maria probably wouldn’t stop there.

As Deanna turned and waltzed out the front door, Maria put a hand on Hayley’s arm. “No point in getting upset ‘til there’s something to get upset about.”

“He wouldn’t do that,” Hayley insisted.

Maria nodded in agreement. “Best just to ask him. That woman lies like a cheap rug when it suits her.”

Hayley shrugged off Deanna’s words and headed to her table.

************************

Chris chose a table near the pool tables and caught Hayley’s eye as she was settling up a tab. It was a relief to see her. He’d been away from her for too long. His self imposed exile was hurting them both, he realized. Tonight he’d take her home and spend the rest of the night making sure she understood that he would do whatever it took for her to feel safe in her own home again.

She finally made it over to them. “Hey,” she said to the boys, who all greeted her warmly. They missed her as much as Chris did, but obviously for different reasons.

She took their drink orders and hurried back. “How’s it going?” she asked everyone, Hawk said terrible without any decent cooking and Tex agreed that he liked someone else doing said cooking. “So today-” she began, putting a draft in front of him.

Chris groaned inwardly. He didn’t want to be reminded of today. Today had been shit. Made shittier by Deanna’s appearance. “Was long and boring and all I could think about was getting here to see you.” He even glanced at the clock above the swinging door and scowled. He really wanted her to be off shift. Like now.

Hayley paused. “Long and boring?” she asked.

“Yep and yep. And now I’m here and all I care about is getting you alone.”

Hayley’s eyebrows knitted together. “So...you missed me?”

“You have no idea.”

She considered this for a moment. “Well, I get off at the usual time. You’re....coming home with me, right?”

“Absolutely, Slick,” he replied, his cock already starting to show interest in taking her to be and his heart starting to grow equally warm at the thought that she didn’t fear him, as he’d worried she would.

She nodded and walked away. Chris began the long wait until the bar’s close.