by Ann Charles
His lazy grin came out to play. “Come here.”
I obeyed, standing close, inhaling the woodsy aroma of his aftershave warmed by his skin. Anticipation had my knees quivering.
His fingers brushed over my face, his grin fading. “Lila really did a number on you. How are your other injuries?” He briefly inspected my bandaged forearm and thumb.
“Healing quickly.” I was still a little stiff and sore, but nothing a handful of ibuprofen couldn’t fix.
“Good,” he said. “Kiss me.”
Okay. “On one condition.”
“Name it.”
“There’s no hiding shit from me from here on out. Ghosts or not, you tell me.”
He chewed on that for a moment, then nodded. “Deal, but same goes for you. Now kiss me.”
I stood on my tiptoes, cupped his face, and brushed my lips over his.
A growl rose up from deep in his throat. “No.” He whirled me around and shoved me up against the wall. “Like this.”
His mouth crushed mine. Frenzied, stormy. A flurry of need blew into me, rocking my world. His teeth nipped my lips, his tongue licking the wounds. I spun, drowning, in a whirlpool of lust.
He came up for air, dotting my mouth with butterfly kisses, teasing. My body pulsed and ached.
“Is that all you’ve got?” I whispered, reaching for his fly.
“Vixen.” He captured my hands, gently pinning them over my head. “I wanted to try taking it slow this time.”
“I don’t want it slow.” I squirmed, yearning tightening my muscles, craving release. “Not right now.”
He trailed his free hand down the side of my breast, skimming, tantalizing. “How do you want it, Boots?”
“Hard.” I moved my torso trying to make his hand touch where I wanted. “Deep and hard.”
His breath hitched, but his palm drifted lower, sliding over my hip. “You already said ‘hard.’”
“I know.” I leaned forward and licked his lower lip, then bit it. “I want you to make me scream.”
His eyes darkened, his pupils inky black pools. “You’re so damned hot.”
“Doc,” I breathed his name. Slipping one of my hands free, I guided his fingers to the throbbing center of my body. “Hurry up and touch me.”
He resisted, teasing, brushing, then skirting. His lips met mine, his tongue seducing me.
Tension coiled even tighter. I whimpered, wiggling against him, and wrapped my leg around his thigh.
He trailed his mouth along my jaw, his teeth grazing my earlobe. “Violet,” he said, his tone gritty. “If you don’t stop rubbing against me like that, I’m not going to last long enough to get my pants off.”
“But you feel so good. I can’t stop.”
“Jesus.” He let go of my other hand and lifted my dress, tearing at my panties.
I helped, shimmying out of them as he struggled with his jeans.
He brushed my hands aside and kicked off his pants. I dropped to my knees, kissing the warm skin below his bellybutton.
“There’s no time for that, Boots.”
He hauled me back up and lifted me, pinning my back against the wall. I wrapped my legs around his waist, rubbing up and down the length of him.
“Now, Doc.”
“Your dress is in the way.”
I yanked it up around my waist and shifted against him, sliding down onto him. Pleasure rippled across his face as he sank all of the way inside.
“God, Violet.” He cupped my hips. “You’re so ready.”
“I was ready last week.”
He chuckled, then pulled out and slammed back into me, shoving me hard into the wall. The clip holding my chignon dug into the back of my skull, so I yanked it out, shaking my hair free.
“So sexy.” He nuzzled my neck and he bore into me. “Your hair smells like peaches and cream.” He tore my dress strap down, exposing my right breast. “My favorite dessert.”
I held his head against me as his tongue flicked. “Doc,” I said, riding the upward spiraling waves of pleasure growing with each push and pull. “I can’t wait for you.”
“Don’t,” he clutched my hips, driving harder, pushing me further up the wall.
I didn’t. Ecstasy crashed through me. Then Doc reached between us and touched me, rubbing with his thumb, and I really blew a gasket. I didn’t realize I was crying out until Doc covered my mouth with his and silence filled the room. I relaxed around him, still pulsing.
He grabbed my hips and gave one final shove and groan into my mouth. Shudders racked him, his muscles trembling under my hands and legs. He pulled away from my lips and leaned his head on my shoulder as more quakes shook him. Then his body stilled, his breaths slowing.
I ran my fingers through his hair. My heart felt full, warm, and cozy. My body tingled like I’d just been zapped back to life.
“Violet,” he said against my shoulder.
“Yeah?”
“That was one hell of a housewarming gift.”
“I aim to please.”
His soft laughter vibrated against me. “I want more.”
“Me, too.”
“I mean right now,” he said, rocking my hips, grinding.
“Giddy up,” I said under my breath.
He bumped against my Go button and my breath caught. Oh! Wow! That was new.
Doc’s pants rang.
“Damn.” He hesitated, looking at me.
The desire glowing in his eyes sent thrill-filled jitters through me. I did that to him. The knowledge made my head float.
“Get it,” I told him. “I’m not going anywhere.” The kids were at my parents’ and Aunt Zoe was just a quick phone call away. For once, I didn’t have to leave the party early.
He let me slide to the floor. My feet were prickly with a lack of blood flow.
Doc shuffled through his pants, digging his phone out of his pocket. He frowned at the number. “It’s Harvey.”
Of course. “See what he wants now.”
Doc answered, listened for a moment, and then held the phone out to me. “He wants to talk to you.”
What? I hadn’t expected that. I took the phone. “What’s going on, Harvey?”
His breath rasped, like he’d been rushing about. “Have you ever seen a headless corpse?”
I blinked. Twice. I’d expected a razzing for being with Doc. His question threw me off guard. “No. Why would you ask me that?”
“Because ol’ Red just dug one up back in my cemetery.”
My chest seized for several seconds. We’d never get his ranch sold at this rate. “Have you called Cooper?”
That got Doc’s attention. He froze in the midst of zipping up his pants, his gaze questioning.
“Not yet,” Harvey answered.
“Why not?”
“I thought of you first.”
“Why me?”
“Because I found your business card in its hand.”
The End...for now
OPTICAL DELUSIONS IN DEADWOOD
Copyright @ 2011 by Ann Charles
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Corvallis Press.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Ebook: ISBN-13 978-0-9832568-2-3
Trade Paperback: ISBN-13 978-0-9832568-3-0
Contact Info:
Corvallis Press, Publisher
630 NW Hickory Str., Ste. 120
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Cover Art by C.S. Kunkle (www.cskunkle.com)
Cover Design by Mona Weiss (www.facebook.com/monaweissfans)
Sneak Peak!
Want a sneak peak at Ann Charles’ third book, Dead Case in Deadwood*, in the Deadwood Mystery series? Read on ...
*Dead Case in Deadwood will be available online in March 2012
DEAD CASE IN DEADWOOD
Chapter One
Deadwood, South Dakota
Friday, August 17th
There was something downright fishy about the corpse filleted on the autopsy table in front of me.
Besides the fact that his head was missing.
Across the chilled body, Detective “Coop” Cooper frowned at me. A Daniel Craig doppelganger right down to his granite cheekbones, Cooper had called at the butt crack of dawn and ordered me to meet him here in the basement of the Mudder Brothers’ Funeral Parlor before I headed in to work at Calamity Jane Realty.
Call me crotchety, but I didn’t like being bossed around, especially before I’d injected any caffeine into my system. “I told you when you dragged me into your office earlier this week, Detective, that I have no idea who this guy is.”
Cooper’s stainless-steel-colored eyes squinted at me, not missing a single one of my blinks. I wondered if he practiced his gunslinger stare-down in the mirror every night while he brushed his teeth.
Facing off with the detective hadn’t been on my agenda for today, but I’d be damned if I’d let him intimidate me over a dead guy who just happened to be palming my business card when his body was found. I lifted my chin and added for good measure, “Standing here looking at the body changes nothing.”
“Miss Parker,” Cooper spoke through a clenched jaw, something I often practiced when dealing with my nearly ten-year-old fraternal twins. “You have to at least look at the body before stating for the record that you don’t recognize the victim.”
“What’s there to look at? His head is gone.”
Cooper’s nostrils flared. Surly bulls had nothing on him. “Do you recognize any other parts of him?”
“Like what parts in particular?”
“The remaining ones.”
“Nope.”
Cooper growled loudly enough for me to hear. “Look before you answer.”
“Fine.” I took a deep breath, thankful for the overwhelming scent of bleach-based cleaner in the air, and willed the troop of monkeys bouncing around in my gut to sit still. I could do this. No problem. It was just a dummy. A mannequin. One of those CPR dolls. I had to do it, for my own safety’s sake, as well as my kids’. As much as I hoped it was just a coincidence that the dead guy had been holding my business card, I had to make sure this wasn’t a sadistic warning message of some sort. I knew that kind of thinking was a tad paranoid, but after the wacky crap that had happened to me over the last couple of months, these days I’d be suspicious of a jolly white-bearded man in a red suit carrying a bag over his shoulder.
I focused on the dead guy’s furry chest and tried to keep my eyes from glancing up at the void where the head should be ... and failed. It was such a clean slice through the neck. What—and who—could have done such a seamless job? I remembered what I was inspecting and turned away, the monkeys rowdy again in my gut.
“You know, if you can’t handle this ...” Cooper started to say, the rigid tone in his voice softening.
“I can handle it,” I interrupted and swallowed the acidic taste of nausea that climbed up my esophagus and onto the back of my tongue. For some stupid reason, I had this irrational need to prove to Cooper that I could inspect dead bodies over black coffee and maple bars just like him and the other guys on the police force. He brought out my need to compete in stupid pissing contests, which hadn’t plagued me since I’d finished the sixth grade but was strong nonetheless.
I looked over my shoulder at Eddie Mudder, who leaned against a set of cupboards with his arms crossed over his black vinyl apron while we admired his handiwork. “Eddie, will you please cover this”—I hovered my hand over the missing head area—“with something?”
Eddie nodded and lumbered over in two long strides. Looking and sounding like Lurch from the Adams Family, Eddie Mudder was the younger of the two brothers who owned and operated Mudder Brothers Funeral Home. His oddities went beyond his physical appearance to his love of eccentric organ music, such as the pipe-organ version of the Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive” that was piping in through the overhead speakers at this very moment. Nothing like some disco tunes while I hung out with a corpse. Was there a psychiatric label for someone who danced with dead bodies?
Eddie draped one square of paper towel over the space where the head should be. “Better?”
I’d have preferred two. Was there a paper towel shortage in the Black Hills? “Sure. Thanks.”
I glanced in Cooper’s direction and found his lips twitching. I longed to jam a paper towel up his nose.
Another deep breath. Okay, back to the dead guy.
His milky ash-colored flesh had a marbled look to it. A thick coat of black chest hair covered his ribs and pectorals. I leaned closer, picking up a hint of stale raw hamburger meat—or maybe that was just my imagination. I searched for a tattoo, a scar, a pierced nipple, something unique, but I couldn’t see anything through the hair—not without a weed whacker, anyway. I stepped back, shrugging. “Nope, I don’t know him.”
Cooper crossed his arms over his chest. “Keep looking. Unless it’s too much for you.”
I curled my lip at him and then returned to scan the corpse’s less-furry stomach. “He has some lint in his belly button,” I observed aloud.
“That’s not lint,” Eddie said from his spot by the cupboard. “It’s a black wart.”
Eww! I grimaced across at Cooper. A flicker of a grin rippled across his granite features. I had an inkling that torturing me rated high on his fun-things-to-do list, right after cleaning his handgun. He schooled his features and pointed down at the body, indicating that I wasn’t finished.
Cursing him seven ways from Sunday under my breath, I shuffled down the table, past where the paper sheet covered the corpse’s private bits and pieces, and looked at the toes. Small tufts of hair popped out from the knuckle of each toe. “This guy must be part Yeti.”
“I’ll make a note of that in the report,” Cooper said with a slice of sarcasm in his tone.
I moved up to the corpse’s knees. They looked like a regular set of kneecaps to me. Nothing remarkable. I hesitated at the paper covering the man’s junk, my determination wavering, my face warming. I avoided glancing at Cooper, knowing any eye contact at this point would make me chicken out.
Would looking at a dead man’s penis scar me for life? Would I ever be able to look at another live version of one without recoiling? This could seriously cripple my love life, which had been barely limping along since the twins were conceived. But Cooper was watching, waiting for my white flag. I gulped and pinched the corner of the little sheet.
Cooper reached toward me. “Wait, Violet.”
The autopsy room door burst open.
“Did I miss the party?” Old Man Harvey asked, crashing into the room all loud and grinning, as usual. His two gold teeth sparkled under the florescent lights. “Sorry I’m late. I had trouble gettin’ out of bed.”
“Your trick hip keeping you up again?” I asked.
“More like Viagra and an old flame.” His grin reached his earlobes. “You should see the tricks that girl can still do with her hips. The way she can wiggle you’d never guess she has an AARP card.”
Criminy. I’d walked into that one with my mouth open and all.
Willis Harvey was my partner in crime and self-appointed bodyguard, whether I liked it or not. He also owned the ranch I was trying to sell even though dead body parts kept showing up there—parts such as an ear still connected to half a scalp and the very corpse under my nose, which the old bugger’
s lazy yellow dog had dug up from the cemetery out behind his barn.
I stepped back to give Harvey room to inspect the corpse. The old codger had saved my future sex life, and my knees wobbled with relief.
“You figure out who it is?” Harvey asked, joining us at the table and looking from me to Cooper.
“Not yet,” Cooper answered.
“Jesus H. Christ, boy.” Harvey said to the detective, who also happened to be his nephew. Pretty much everyone in Deadwood was related by blood or marriage, which was something I’d grasped since moving from the prairie to the Black Hills six months ago. “Do I have to do everything around here?”
Harvey leaned over the corpse and sniffed. “Hmmm. Smells like that homemade goop I rub on my bunions.” He poked the corpse in the rib hard enough to slide the body over just a bit.
“Harvey!” I said, poking him in the rib in turn.
“What? He’s dead. He didn’t feel it.” He nudged me aside and danced toward the feet, singing along in a high voice, doing a spin as the disco-playing organ hit the final chorus. The Bee Gees would never be the same for me again.
“Any tattoos?” Harvey asked.
Cooper shook his head.
“His legs remind me of your Aunt Gertrude’s.”
Cooper kept shaking his head, his grin peeking out of the corners of his mouth.
Harvey had reached the paper sheet covering the man’s family jewels. Without hesitation, he yanked off the sheet.
“No! God!” I closed my eyes—a half-second too late.
“Hmpf. Reminds me of the last time I skinny-dipped in Lake Pactola.”
“Ahhh!” I cringed. No amount of soap was going to scrub that image from my eyes.
There was a rustling sound, and then Cooper said, “You can open your eyes now, Violet.”
I opened one first just to be safe. Harvey had returned to my side, his thumbs wrapped around his suspenders.
“So, neither of you two recognize this man?” Cooper’s eyes bounced between Harvey and me.
“No,” I said.
Harvey scratched his head. “Hold up. Did he have just one testicle?”