A Shameless Little BET

by Meli Raine

  She emerges, face freshly scrubbed, the hair at her temples damp.

  I look at Jane. Really look at her.

  Now I’m just primed.

  The tea tray is neat and simple, with a small coffee machine next to it. Jane turns on the kettle, ripping open a small teabag and gently placing the string and tab over the edge of a small porcelain cup. Delicate, almost haunting, her movements make me spellbound.

  Someone tried to shoot Jane in the head at the flower shop.

  Someone firebombed her apartment to destroy Alice’s files.

  Someone’s getting sloppy.

  Someone is beyond desperate.

  The weight of her phone in my jacket pocket reminds me. I pull it out, then dig through the small bag Drew had the agent deliver. We have bug-out bags for moments like this, all with small first aid kits, basic electronics and batteries, and hygiene and clothing kits.

  A small sound, faint but emotional, comes out of Jane. I set her phone down, the cord coiling around it like a snake, and give her my full attention. Simmering to a boil, the electric kettle does its work, heating up.

  So do I.

  It’s wrong to want her so badly, especially after all the violence of today. A moral pang makes me feel an echo of emotion I think I’m expected to feel.

  But don’t.

  Conventional emotions don’t work in guys like me. We don’t fit in neat boxes. Social norms are designed to keep people within narrow ranges. But I can’t stay in a lane if I’m saving someone’s life, because the reality of being a target means the bad guys don’t stay inside the lines.

  Same with my heart.

  And, apparently, other body parts.

  Warriors go into battle with a specific hormonal system triggered intentionally. We can’t fight and win if we don’t launch every offensive, including biochemical warfare within. You don’t charge at the enemy, or pull the trigger, or peel out in a car chase by acting inside someone else’s politeness grid.

  Screw that.

  All those warrior hormones linger long after the imminent danger has faded. The body doesn’t know the difference. We can’t be expected to rein in thousands of generations of evolution with the intellectual constructs of the last hundred years.

  Talk about an impossible mission.

  I’m holding back. I am.

  And then she makes the first move.

  Looks like I’m not the only one drawing outside the lines.

  Jane lifts the tea kettle as it whistles and pours two cups of tea. She turns to me, unbuttoning her cardigan while her eyes bore into mine.

  “I’m going to shower,” she says, stripping her shirt off, revealing red scratches and scrapes on her naked elbows. Her bra strap cuts into her skin, breasts jutting out as she reaches back to unhook it.

  The scrap of fabric falls to the ground, one strap catching on a taut nipple for a split second.

  She walks into the bathroom. I hear the spray turn on. I follow, her look an invitation.

  I need no other signal.

  By the time I reach her, she’s wearing only panties and an expression that is so sad, so soulful. Before I can ask, she presses her palms against my chest and looks up, beseeching.

  “Can I – is it okay if I –”

  “Anything. Everything. What do you want? How can I give you what you need?”

  “If I cry while we’re making love, please don’t be upset.”

  “Why would you cry?”

  “How can I not cry?”

  “I won’t hurt you. And we don’t need to –”

  She cuts me off with a kiss.

  Jane

  I know how this works.

  Sex isn’t going to make my future better. Sex is about the now, the moment we’re in together, the joining of two bodies that can take us to a third place where we get to forget for a while.

  No matter how fleeting.

  Pleasure isn’t just about what a man’s hands, tongue, cock can do to me. If only it were that simple. No, pleasure is also about escape. Refuge. Silas’s hands on my bare back as we kiss is a kind of safe house itself. The air around him hums with a protectiveness that is, itself, pleasure.

  Indulging in the raw sense of being safe is ecstasy. Until you’ve spent a long stretch of time in constant uncertainty, you don’t realize how the solid, alluring flesh of a man can be nirvana.

  Especially when that man is Silas.

  The kiss ends and Silas holds his hands on my ribs, thumbs brushing against the sides of my breasts, eyes dark with desire. “You’re sure? Sure you want this, now?”

  “Do you – do you not want me?” His words make tears fill my eyes.

  “Of course I want you,” he says, voice rough. “I’m just making sure.”

  “Instead of making sure, how about making love?”

  This time, he’s the one who stops me with a kiss. The long, hot, wet feel of him makes me inhale sharply, his hands moving up, cupping my breasts, then riding back along my spine. All the little cuts and bruises on my body start to throb as if crying out for attention, countless witnesses to this horrific stretch of time where my body is an object for a predator.

  Being prey is a kind of death.

  Silas brings me back to life.

  His clothes feel unnatural. I begin to peel them off. He helps, stripping without separating his mouth from mine. It’s as if ending the kiss ends the sex. Ends the intimacy. Ends this interlude we desperately need as we use our bodies to wash away the evil of the day. From the way his tongue presses against mine, lips moving with a tender urgency that matches the feeling inside me, he feels the same way.

  How could we feel otherwise?

  Soon he’s naked and we stand before each other, the hair on his thighs tickling my smooth skin, the muscles in his arms banding around my shoulders, a cage I want to crawl into, close the door, lock and live inside. No other prison would feel like this. Only Silas can be my cage.

  Only Silas can be in me.

  The hot shower envelops us as he leads me in, the spray turning out skin to slick and heat. Kissing while the water soaks our joined bodies feels like heaven. When you’ve held yourself together through sheer willpower and hope, the moment of letting your guard down is a ritualistic pleasure.

  Doing it while being kissed, Silas’ hands coating me with a kind of kinetic worship, is so unbelievably good.

  “Jane,” he whispers, the word mingling with the water’s whispers, my breasts sliding against his wet chest, our thighs interlocking like they know each other well.

  More. More time will give us that privilege.

  I slide my hands from his hips up his thick, muscled back, my hands wanting to map him. I open my eyes as we kiss, then shut them quickly, the water making a clear view of this perfect man impossible.

  Perhaps that’s a sign.

  I need to rely on touch, instead.

  He spreads my legs with one firm knee and I feel him against me, rubbing slowly, achingly slowly, until I tighten. The sensation is shocking, swift, whole. I want him in me, though. Not on. Not around.

  In.

  Abruptly, he turns off the water, stepping out of the shower and reaching for a towel. Being rubbed down by his ever-watchful touch turns me into an object. The center of attention.

  And then he’s half-dry, too, and we’re moving.

  The room is small, the bed standing out, ruffled bedspread and all. A thousand pillows dot the space by the headboard but as Silas stretches me out on it, nothing else matters, pillows rolling off, pinging on the floor, clearing the way.

  The last time we slept together Silas was doting, but the sex itself was faster than expected. Not too fast. Just not long, lazy, slow.

  I don’t want hours of lovemaking right now, my body tells me as I feel the familiar pulse between my legs, as Silas slips one finger inside to find me wet, my hips grinding against his hand, my chest tight as my throat makes my breath shake. I want him in me, powerful and over me, the thrusts of his body into
mine a calming rhythm.

  He’s warm, so warm, skin rising with heat as we kiss and I reach down, grasping him firmly. He knows what I want, his thumb rolling circles that send electrical shocks through me. Each layer builds on the one before until I’m gasping, eyes tightly shut, holding back from the climax he’s drawing out of me. I don’t want to come like this.

  I want to come with him in me. I want to experience us, fully, so I can fall apart, too.

  Being put back together is another form of pleasure, too.

  His mouth goes to the hollow below my earlobe, licking with a concentration that says he knows I’m close, knows I’m holding back – and knows how to push me over the edge. I’m seconds away from begging, pleading for mercy as his scarred, big body rolls on its side and he stares at me, open, aware.

  I reach for him, touching the thick muscle of his thigh, next to his erection, moving up the taut abs, to his broad chest. His body is made for battle.

  Mine has been the battlefield for people who do not understand my warrior.

  His head dips down, tongue on my breast, hand bringing mine to stroke him. Once, twice, three times until he stops me, moving his other hand to my jaw, cradling my face in his big hand.

  “I want you,” he whispers.

  “I want you, too.”

  The words aren’t superfluous, the exchange important for reasons I don’t understand in the moment but will, later. He takes my reply as an invitation, moving me so he’s on the bottom, I’m on top, and without hesitation I envelop him, covering his body with mine. My ankle brushes against the thick scar on his leg, the hairless stretch of twisted skin a reminder that he is, indeed, a soldier.

  One who serves me.

  This is the opposite of what I imagined. In my mind’s eye, he is on top, a forcefield, a shield, a wall.

  But this is better.

  Because Silas knows he can make me feel safe with him.

  Making me feel safe, period, means learning to let go.

  The orgasm rises up so fast I can’t breathe, my belly tight, my nerve endings overpowered by a rush I didn’t know Silas could make in me. He feels it, too, eyes hooded, hips moving up in a pattern designed to give me everything.

  Pinning my hips in place, he moves against me with skill. My body will be the focus of all his attention. My body will be treated as nothing less than divine.

  My body, his movements proclaim, will not be ignored.

  As we come, he squeezes my hips hard, his own pleasure taking over as I ride him, frenzy more important than decency, until we are nothing but sweat, friction, hands, and god, it feels so, so good.

  The feeling is exquisite, sensitive and shocking, and then it’s too much. I roll off him, my body one big heartbeat, Silas’s breath hard and fast, his arms splayed across the still-tucked bedcover.

  I laugh. “We didn’t even make it under the sheets.”

  He moves, pulling enough out so that with sloth-like movements, we’re able to get under the covers and let our breathing go back to normal.

  Normal.

  Whatever that is.

  Then, and only then, do the tears come, like a rainburst, a hail storm, a tornado funnel formed by the intersection of bad events.

  I am at that crossroads. It’s become my address.

  But in Silas’s arms, I have a new home.

  Chapter 18

  Jane

  I have this awareness I don’t want to have.

  My body, naked between the sheets, my breasts and hipbones pressed down by the weight of a thick blanket, hurts everywhere. It’s a pain I don’t mind, the kind that comes into your consciousness as a form of knowing you’re alive.

  Sleep fades as I realize Silas’s hands are on my shoulder, my chin, whispering actual words I’m supposed to understand.

  “Jane? It’s time to get up.”

  A yawning stretch I can’t control makes me inhale deeply, the fresh soap scent of cleanliness making me jolt, eyes wide open.

  Silas is in a clean polo shirt, unbuttoned, a smattering of chest hair poking out at the V. His eyes are kind and warm, his hands casual and gentle.

  “Mmmmm,” I protest, then sit up, tense and on edge. “Wait. What? Where are we? What about Lily? Is Lily okay?” I clutch his arm, disoriented.

  “Shhhh,” he soothes. “We’re at the Lilac Inn. It’s one thirty. Lily’s still touch and go, but alive.”

  “Oh. Thank God.” I want him to tell me she woke up. That she’s fine. That she wasn’t really shot in the head yesterday.

  That she wasn’t really shot in the head because of me.

  Instead, he says, “But it’s time to shower and go.”

  “Go where?”

  “Someplace safe.”

  “You found one?”

  “I’m making one for you. But we need to go to it. Now.”

  “Where?”

  “D.C.”

  “Washington, D.C.?”

  “Is there another D.C. I don’t know about?”

  “Silas,” I say, my words slurred with sleep. I lick my lips and regroup. “You want me to fly all the way to D.C. now?”

  “Yes. It turns out Drew and Lindsay will be there, too. Along with Harry and Monica.”

  At the mention of Monica my skin chills. I pull the covers up to my collarbone. “Monica?”

  He gives me a sad smile. “Big endorsement for Harry’s campaign. House leadership. You know how these endorsement parades work.”

  “Lindsay’s going?”

  “Drew tried to keep her away. Harry and Monica were persuasive. They want to target the family values voters.”

  I turn into a block of ice.

  Family.

  Right.

  He senses the change and gives me a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry. That was callous of me.”

  “No. It’s fine.”

  “None of this is fine.”

  “You really think D.C. is safe? With all those people there?”

  “The place we’re going is. Besides, I don’t think Southern California is exactly a peaceful place for you, Jane.”

  My aching shoulder blades are a reminder of that truth.

  “Paulson’s in D.C. for meetings, so it won’t all be fun and games. Drew wants to run through more databases. Lindsay’s only playing the campaign appearance game because it keeps Harry and Monica from realizing what Drew’s up to.”

  “Huh?”

  “A complicated smokescreen. If she looks like she’s back in the tribe with Harry and Monica, playing by their rules, then they’ll be less suspicious.”

  “Yet another reason Drew doesn’t want me near Lindsay. Not only because people around me are dropping like flies, but because now she looks like she’s allied with Monica, and that means Monica thinks she’s got her minion safely under her arm, where she wants her,” I whisper.

  “You really, really would have been a good agent.”

  “Stop saying that.” I shiver. Despair floods me. No amount of analysis and pattern matching will actually save me. It might give me insight, but what good is insight when you’re dead?

  “When this is all over, we need to put you to good use,” he says, tossing clothes on the foot of the bed. A bra, undies, jeans, and a simple green pullover.

  “You put me to good use last night,” I remind him.

  “Pretty sure it was the other way around,” he says with a laugh, then pauses to bend down and kiss me, sweet and full.

  I pull back first. “You think this will ever be over?”

  “Yes.”

  “And I’ll be alive at the end?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “You’re either extremely overconfident in your ability to protect me or breathtakingly naïve, Silas.”

  “Or I’m in love.”

  We smile at each other. My heart picks up, the feeling distinctly different from fear.

  I could get used to this feeling.

  I will. Someday. Soon.

  I stand, knowing we need to get
going. He gently smacks my ass and says, “Shower now. Talk on the plane.”

  I do as I’m told.

  Ten minutes later, my wet hair is slicked back against my scalp, I’m dressed in the clothes he gave me, and we’re checking the room for anything we might have left behind.

  Like my sanity.

  The woman and man in the black sedan in the parking lot turn out to be our drivers to the private airport. Glynnis and Johann don’t say much, pleasantries being hard to engage in at two a.m. I’m wired now, all traces of sleep long gone.

  I know better than to talk about anything sensitive. The drive is long and boring.

  But not so bad with Silas holding my hand.

  Silas’s phone buzzes. He checks it. He shows no emotion.

  Which means it’s bad.

  “Personal or business?” I ask.

  “Yes.”

  Uh oh.

  “Someone is leaking proof of laundered money from El Brujo’s operations that was paid to senators. Current senators and former senators who were in office while El Brujo was alive. The leaks are slow and steady. Eight senators so far. Financial records, audio recordings of conversations – you name it.”

  “Who’s this person leaking to?”

  “Heavy hitters. Major newspapers in D.C., New York, London.”

  I just blink.

  “This is huge,” Silas whispers. “The noose is tightening.”

  “Who would do that? Who is leaking? Corning?”

  “Corning was one of the people hit. Reports are going crazy pinning this thing down. It’s Pulitzer material.”

  “What about Harry?”

  Silas shakes his head. “He’s not on the list.”

  “Not yet.”

  His sigh is all I need to hear.

  Deceit is a contagion. Monica is Patient Zero, which means Harry’s in the danger zone. The hot zone.

  The bullseye.

  Complicity is intertwined with volition. Harry and Monica are a team. Always have been, always will be. In the pecking order inside their relationship, Monica’s on top.

  In public, it’s the other way around.

  Closing in on the two means that anything goes.