by Sharp, Tracy
* * *
I pulled into the parking area of the repo depot and parked the Jeep, keeping my hands on the steering wheel to keep myself from grabbing on to Cal and holding on for dear life. I didn’t want the night to end yet. I was still trying to keep my breathing steady and slow my heart. I was feeling unhinged and truth be told, I was scared. The last person I wanted to see me in this state was Jesse. He would probably be home by now and he’d want to tell me about his date. I kept telling myself that he was probably home. I was wishing it. I couldn’t let him see me this way if he was there.
I stared at the windshield, not wanting Callahan to see my eyes. Even if I felt like I was losing control, I wasn’t willing to let Cal see me feeling weak.
“You okay?”
“Oh, yeah,” I said. “Just a momentary lapse of sanity. Nothing out of the ordinary.” I glanced at him, pasting a smile on my face.
“Why don’t you come in for a minute? Have a beer.”
It sounded like a good offer. I’m stubborn. If I was starving I’d dig around in a dumpster before I asked anyone for food. “It’s late.”
“Please? I can’t sleep after tonight. I don’t want to unwind alone.”
I turned and looked at him. He could read me easily and I could see that he wasn’t saying it for my only my benefit. He really didn’t want to be alone. “Sure. Okay.”
As I followed him into the building, my eyes were drawn to him. For some reason I couldn’t look away. His broad shoulders under the worn jean jacket he wore, the way his dark hair curled on his neck, fascinated me. I looked down at his snugly clad butt, then down to his strong legs. He had runner’s legs. I wondered if he jogged at all. Then it occurred to me that I really didn’t know much about Callahan’s life outside of his job or what had been going on lately between us and the criminal element we seemed to have surrounded ourselves with.
“Are you checking me out?” he asked, not turning around. I could hear the grin in his words.
“Maybe. You’ve got nice legs. Do you jog?” It was strange asking him that question. We’d had sex and really I barely knew much about him.
We were heading into the tiny kitchen. He went to the fridge and took out two beers. “Oh my. A compliment.”
Now I was getting irritated. “Well? Do you?”
He twisted off the caps and handed me a beer. “I jog early in the mornings. Five miles a day. It’s all I have time for usually. Sometimes I’ll go for a run before bed. Sometimes it’s the only way that’ll keep my brain from spinning.” His eyes were holding my own, refusing to look away.
“Ah.” I took off my jacket. It was getting warm in there.
“I used to cycle when I was a lawyer. I don’t have time to do both. I stopped after an old lady hit me with her giant boat of a car and totaled my bike.”
“Were you hurt?”
He shook his head. “Nothing serious. Just a few scrapes and bruises.”
“Did you sue her?”
“No. I did get her license revoked before she killed somebody.”
There was maybe only two feet between us. My eyes strayed to his blue Henley shirt. The buttons were undone and I could see the tan skin of his chest. I forced myself to look away, gripped my beer and took a long pull from the bottle. It had been the kind of day that would’ve justified drinking an entire case. However, that wouldn’t solve anything.
“Are you hungry? We didn’t eat any dinner. I’m famished.” He started looking through all the take out menus he’d stuck to his fridge with tiny magnets. “What do you feel like? Thai? Pizza? You’ve gotta be hungry.”
Why did he always look so inviting? I didn’t like the way I always wanted him. I needed to have more control over my emotions. I didn’t need any more complications in my life.
To hell with it. I covered the distance between us and slipped my arms around his waist.
“It can wait,” I breathed into his ear. I caught his earlobe between my teeth ran my hands up under his shirt, running them over his chest. His skin was hot under my touch. I moved my hands down over the crotch of his jeans and felt a little surge of power when I heard his soft groan.
He turned and faced me, his eyes softened by arousal. As his hands encircled my waist, he drew me closer and lowered his head to kiss me. His mouth was warm and soft but within moments, our kisses grew urgent and hot.
We undressed quickly, pulling off our clothes and leaving them on the cold, tiled floor. Cal lifted me onto the steel kitchen table and I lay back, shivering against the cool metal beneath my skin. He kissed me all over. My body seemed to have a will of its own. My back arched with my need and I wrapped my legs around his hips, impatient.
“Wait,” he said, breathless.
“No.” I couldn’t wait. I moved myself over him, gasping at the sensation of him filling me. I reached above my head and grabbed the edge of the table. “Don’t be nice. I don’t want nice.”
He grabbed my hips and pulled me closer. I gripped the edge more tightly and closed my eyes, losing myself in him. My mind shut itself down and my body took over, meeting his thrusts with urgency and delicious abandon.
I sat up and reached for his face. He leaned in and met my kiss. I breathed him in, the smell of his sweat, of his hair, and felt strangely at home.
He slid his hands under both my calves and placed them on his shoulders. When he moved inside of me, I felt every inch of his cock. His strokes became slow and deliberate as his fingers found my wet clit, creating slippery heat with rapid back and forth friction. A tiny little knot of need balled deep inside my belly, the pleasure I felt becoming so intense, I became almost numb with it. The orgasm started slow but grew in intensity until I was bucking against him, wanting more of his thumb and cock at the same time.
Callahan’s chest, neck and face had flushed a beautiful deep pink. He became so hard inside of me, I knew he was ready to come.
“Come on me,” I breathed.
“Are you sure?” He was breathless, trying not to come just yet.
“Yes. I want to feel it on my belly, my chest.”
He drove into me, harder and faster with every passing second. Suddenly he pulled out and stroked himself as his hot, pearly fluid spilled onto my belly, between my breasts.
I’d never craved the feel of a man’s cum on me before. Callahan was different. He had a strange, frightening effect on me.
Later, we did order pizza. We’d finished his last two beers earlier, so I settled for cola. We sat on the steel table with the pizza box between us like a couple of high school kids.
Cal was back to grinning. He was awfully proud of himself. “Well, I don’t know about you but I sure feel better.” His chewing muffled his voice.
I smiled, but kept chewing. The sausage, pepperoni and cheese were heavenly. Whoever had first thought of putting that combination together had been a friggin’ genius in my book.
He took a bite of pizza but eyed me as he chewed. “Do you feel better?”
I almost choked laughing at him. “Are you really that insecure?”
“Well, yeah. It’s a guy thing. I mean, you seemed pretty happy, uh, at the time.”
I nodded. “Yes, Cal. I was happy. Good job.”
He shook his head. “Jesus. You’re tough.”
“This is news to you?”
“No, I guess not. I just figured that since, you know, we’ve … been close for a little while now…”
I put down my half-eaten slice of pizza, suddenly losing my appetite. A familiar old feeling began gripping my neck and shoulders and suddenly the room seemed far too small for the two of us.
Cal kept on struggling. “That, uh, that we’d be, well you’d be … we could start being—”
Why couldn’t he have just left it like we had before? Why did he have to spoil it by expecting more from me than I had to give?
I stared at him, becoming impatient with him because of my own growing feeling of suffocation. “What? Nicer to you? I told you. I don’t want
nice. If I wanted nice I’d boff some college professor with loafers and a blazer. We’re buddies. Let’s not get all romantic about it. Okay?” The very thought made me shudder. I just wasn’t the romantic type.
He looked like I’d hit him. And I immediately felt like an asshole.
He’d expected me to swoon and become all soft and girly on him, like every other woman he’d bedded. And although I’d greatly enjoyed the act, it just wasn’t me. I just wasn’t the swooning type.
I threw my legs over the table and began gathering my clothes. “Look. I’ve gotta go.”
“Leah, I’m sorry if I rushed you—” He got off the table and reached for me.
Not wanting to be touched, I moved away, bending down to pick up my jeans. “Let’s just forget it, okay?”
I didn’t look at him. I didn’t want to see the stricken expression on his face. I was feeling bad enough already, but still, I couldn’t bring myself to reach out to him and I didn’t know why.
I felt his eyes on me as I shrugged my jacket on and headed down the hall and out the door. I didn’t look back at him but I stole a peek at my rearview mirror as I drove away.
I’d left Cal looking shell-shocked, standing in the parking lot of the repo depot watching me drive away. I didn’t really want to hurt his feelings. I just didn’t want there to be any complications between us. I liked Callahan. He was a good person. And he was risking his ass helping me. All the mushy assumptions people made about each other after sex wasn’t for me. Frankly, that stuff made me feel claustrophobic. I’m a loner. Always have been.
Chapter Twenty-Four
I was tense as I drove home, so I channel-surfed until I found a bluesy, country rock song that I liked. I cranked it and sang along. The sexy rhythm made me drive too fast. I kept noticing the needle edging ten or so miles over the speed limit and I’d have to slow down again. I didn’t want to be stopped by any friends of Finn. And this wasn’t a large town, so the chances were good that it certainly wouldn’t be in my best interest to be stopped for speeding. God knows what would happen to me. I had a feeling that my stints as a juvenile jailbird would look like acres of fun in comparison. The cops might not be so nice this time. Even jail might be preferable.
I’d been in many dangerous positions before in my life, mostly in my youth, but I wasn’t the same person anymore as I’d been back then. Sean was right. The core of me was still the same. I no longer thought that risking my life was a fun time. It didn’t give me the same rush anymore. Maybe it was because I kept thinking of Jesse. He needed me.
I pulled up to my house, killed the lights and the engine of the Jeep. It was quiet. The kitchen light was on but no other lights burned. I looked up at the window to Jesse’s room. It was dark.
I told myself that he was probably in the kitchen making a snack. When I got to the door and looked through the window, the kitchen was empty, except for Frank who was sleeping on a placemat at the table.
Maybe he’d gone to bed and had forgotten to turn off the kitchen light, I reasoned. When I went upstairs to check his room, it was empty. His bed hadn’t been touched. It looked as if he hadn’t come home yet. I looked at the digital clock on his bedside table. It read one-thirty a.m. This wouldn’t have been an unusual time for a man of twenty-one to be still out on a date under normal circumstances. But these weren’t normal circumstances. I’d brought bad men into our lives. We were both targets.
I took deep breaths to stifle the panic which was threatening to overwhelm me. It was a losing battle. I started gasping and moaning, making deep, guttural sounds low in my throat. They sounded like they were coming from a million miles away. For the first time in years, I thought of cutting or burning myself. That thought snapped me out of it and I tried to make myself relax.
I felt something wet on my hand. Looking down I saw Buddy’s concerned eyes gazing up at me. I numbly patted his head, my mind whirling. I decided to turn to the only person who’d ever known how to make sense of chaos.
“Come on, Buddy. We’re going to see Jack.”
* * *
When I pulled up in front of Jack’s, there were police cars in the parking lot. I could see Jack through the screen door, leaning against the counter with his head in his hands. As I walked up to the building, I saw Patrick’s grim expression as he shook his head slowly, arms crossed over his chest. Several police offers stood in the room speaking in low tones.
Jesse. My heart stopped.
I went through the screen door on wooden legs. I didn’t want to know what they were going to tell me but I needed to know. My throat was so tight I couldn’t speak. I stood there staring at them, waiting for them to tell me the worst. Why hadn’t they called me?
The police turned to me. For a moment, nobody said a word.
“Jack?” I croaked, my voice thick with the flood of oncoming tears.
He looked up at me, his eyes red and puffy. “Leah.” He stayed where he was and opened his arms.
I went to him. Let him gather me up in his huge arms. “No, Jack. No. No.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“NO!” I shook my head. “Not Jesse. Not Jesse.” I let the tears come. I stared up at him, willing him to tell me that it wasn’t true. My brother wasn’t dead.
“No.” He shook his head. “It’s not Jesse.”
I stepped back, staring at him, afraid I hadn’t heard him right. “What?”
“It’s Sean. He’s dead.”
My knees gave out under the flood of relief washing over me. Jack lifted me back up and led me to a couch in a living room down the hall.
“Not Jesse? It’s not my brother? He’s all right? Where is he?” I was babbling as he sat me down.
He crouched in front of me, his face stricken.
“Jack? Where is he?”
“Woodard and his friends dumped Sean in front of the door,” he began. “It could only have been them. They were long gone by the time I went out there.”
I stared at him. My chest constricting.
“Sean lied about having a date. He followed Jesse on his date with that girl.”
“Oh, no. No, Jack. No.” I was shaking my head as if somehow my denials would change what had already happened.
“The girl was one of Woodard’s and she led Jesse straight to him. Sean must’ve caught a weird vibe from her and went in after them. He didn’t come back out alive.”
I covered my mouth with my hands and sobbed, long and hard. I cried in a way I never had before. I cried like I never had for Susie.
Jack gathered me in his arms again, hugging me close, as if trying to shelter me from a deadly storm. “Woodard’s got Jesse, Leah.”
When the initial panic subsided with Jack’s reassurances that we’d get Jesse back, a strange calm fell over me. Falling apart and crying hysterically wasn’t going to help us get Jesse back. So I sat for a while, breathing deeply and thinking. The calmer I got, the angrier I became. My brother had done nothing to Woodard. Woodard didn’t care about that. He fed off innocent lives. He made his money by hurting others. This was old hat to him.
One thing I was absolutely positive of was that I was going to get him. I was going to make sure he never hurt another innocent person again. No matter what happened. His life was about to take a major turn for the worse.
“I’m sorry.” I looked up at Jack who’d just come back from the kitchen with a cup of tea. He handed it over and sat down beside me on the couch.
“For what?”
“For feeling relief that it’s not Jesse in Sean’s place.” My voice was thick with tears I’d already shed.
“Hey. Anyone would feel the same in your position.”
“But Sean was our friend. He was looking out for Jesse and he went in after him. He was trying to protect him, just like you said he would.”
He placed an arm around my shoulders. “Nobody could blame you. Sean wouldn’t blame you.”
“I’ll grieve for him after we get Jesse back,” I said, lookin
g into Jack’s red-rimmed eyes. “I won’t forget what he tried to do for Jesse. I promise.”
“I know you won’t, hon. None of us will.”
My nerves were raw but I couldn’t rest. I couldn’t relax knowing that Woodard had my little brother. I kept running possibilities through my mind of what Woodard would do to him. Time was short. I couldn’t sit there any longer.
“I need to call Callahan,” I said to Jack.
“I’ll call him. You drink your tea.”
I managed a smile. Jack was so nurturing for a big, scary guy. I was so thankful that he was my friend.
Within moments Jack came back into the room. “Callahan’s on his way.”
I nodded. “We have to move tonight. The longer Woodard has Jesse, the more likely he is to--” I couldn’t bring myself to finish.
Jack nodded. “No problem. You know I want Jesse back as much as you do.” His face turned hard. “I want this fucker, Leah. I don’t care if I have to die to get him. I’m gonna get him.”
“Don’t say that. You’re not going to die.” The thought sent me into a fresh wave of terror. Yet, even in the midst of all the horror, I felt the same way as Jack did.
If I had to die to get Jesse out of there and to make sure that Woodard never hurt another person, I’d do it.
There wasn’t a question in my mind.
* * *
We’d moved back into the main area of the motorcycle shop when Cal came through the door with Buddy. I’d completely forgotten him in the Jeep. Cal had him by the leash, and although Buddy was being a very good boy, Cal looked like he was about to wet his pants.
“Somebody was barking his head off in the Jeep,” he said, dropping the leash.
Buddy came to me. He seemed to be smiling. I bent down and hugged him. “Hi, baby.”
He nuzzled his head against my face.
“Thanks,” I said to Cal. It meant a lot that he’d gotten Buddy out of the Jeep for me. He was terrified of him, yet he knew that Buddy would make me feel a little better. My heart swelled. I decided I’d have to be nicer to him after all. “I see you still have all your limbs.”