“Come on, hot sauce,” he said, giving no indication he’d be taking her directly home to her house. It was eleven forty-four and he didn’t have time for an argument.
“Sure thing, matzo ball,” she said with a giggle. “You know you kind of look like a matzo ball.”
“Is that your idea of a compliment?” he asked, leading her to the bar so he could settle up with Triple B and get his cap.
“I like matzo balls,” she said defensively.
At least that was a start.
* * *
During the walk across the parking lot, the fresh air rejuvenated Roxie. Made her ache with want. Excitement started to build. For sex. For a wipe-my-mind-clean orgasm and the blessed satiated calm that followed.
After all of Fig’s big talk last week, he had better deliver.
Uh-oh. “You know what they say about men and expensive sports cars,” Roxie said when he brought her to an uber-fancy silver Corvette.
He spun her around so fast her head kept going. Before she knew what’d happened he had her pinned to the side of said fancy sports car. Then he grabbed her ass, lifted her left leg behind the knee and ground his zipper against the dampening cotton lining of her undies. “Ya know…” he said.
If Roxie were a smidgen less intoxicated and a bit more coordinated she would have jumped up, wrapped her other leg around him and hung there. His yin to her yang.
“…one day soon,” he continued, “you are going to owe me a huge—” he held her tight and ground his erection against the very place she wanted him “—and when I say huge I mean huge—apology.”
Before she could make sense of the “someday soon” time frame, he pulled away, opened the door and helped her in. “I feel like my butt’s dragging on the ground,” she said when he pulled onto the open road.
“Close your eyes,” he suggested.
She did and felt the car accelerate. The power. The speed. She loved it. Until the car started to spin. Bad idea. She opened them back up and focused in on the hula girl on the dashboard.
“You okay?” Fig asked. The electric window to her right opened. The cool night air blew through her hair. She felt wild and free. And gassy. She burped. Her attempt to quickly cover her mouth wound up an awkward smack in the nose. “Sorry.” She waited for his censure, for his condemnation for how drunk she was.
Instead he burped, too. “Now that feels better,” he said.
Smiling, Roxie relaxed into the welcoming soft leather seat. Until she noticed they were headed toward her house, not Kyle’s condo. “Hey,” she said. “We’re supposed to be going to your place.” To rip each other’s clothes off. To have sex like wild wildebeests out on the Serengeti. “So you’d best pull a U-ey and get us going in the right direction.” She hoped the walls of Kyle’s condo had sufficient soundproofing between his unit and the ones next door.
“I’m taking you home, Roxie. To your house.”
“Oh, hell no.” Roxie sat up. “I have until three.”
She could see Fig’s smile in the light from the speedometer. “What happens to you at three?”
Mami started prowling around. Roxie’s brief opportunity to play at carefreeness ended and she returned to her hellish existence inside the walls of the childhood home she hated.
“I am muy caliente for you, figlet,” she tried, leaning across the center console to slip her tongue in his ear while she ran her hand from his knee up the inside of his thigh.
He covered her hand with his and stopped her, mere inches from her destination. “What’s with the figlet?” he asked, moving her hand to her own thigh. “You keep calling me that and I doubt I’ll get turned on enough to put out the flame atop a birthday candle much less take on the blaze you’ve got going.”
“Fine.” Roxie crossed her arms over her chest and stared out the window. “If we’re not going to have sex then take me back to the bar,” she said, feeling tense from a potent mix of anger, frustration and lust churning inside her.
“Why?” Fig asked. “So you can find someone else to screw you?”
He made it sound immoral. “What’s wrong with two people having sex? Finding enjoyment and satisfaction in each other’s bodies?”
“That’s exactly the reason we’re not going to have sex tonight,” he said, sounding a little pissed off himself. “When we’re together—and notice I say when not if—” he glanced at her then looked back at the road “—it will be because we both want each other, not because any member of the opposite sex will do.”
And to Roxie’s utter disgust she started to cry. “How could you do this to me?” she wailed. “You have no idea…” she sobbed. “I need…”
“I know what you need, honey,” he said, placing his cool palm on her thigh. “When I get you settled into your bed I’ll take care of you.”
If the thought of him seeing the inside of her home hadn’t sent her into a panic, she may have had more time to think about how sweet he sounded just then. “You are not coming into my house.” She wiped at her wet eyes with the back of her hand. “I don’t want you anywhere near my house.” She reached for the handle to open the car door. “Let me out here.” She tried to yank on it.
Fig slammed on the brakes and grabbed her hand. “Are you insane?” He swerved the car onto the shoulder of the road.
“Why can’t anything go the way I want it to?” She fought Fig. “Why do you do what Victoria asks and not what I ask?” She opened the door, hauled herself out and screamed up at the starless sky. “Is one night of fun too much to ask for? One freakin’ night?” She turned and pounded toward her house.
“Where are you going?” Fig asked.
As if it weren’t clear by the direction she was headed. “Home,” she snapped. “That’s where you want me to go, right? So that’s where I’m going. To my home. Where you are not welcome,” she screamed. “Good. Night.” Although why she’d wished him a good night when hers was getting suckier by the second—because of him—was a mystery. May his tire pick up a nail on the way home and he be greeted with a flat first thing in the morning. Four flats. “If you won’t do it for me,” she yelled at the sky, “do it because he deserves it.”
“Who deserves what?” Fig jogged after her.
“You’d better not leave your precious car unattended in this neighborhood. You’ll come back to find all your tires missing.”
That’ll do, Roxie thought as she turned the corner onto her road. The darkness enveloped her. She’d walked this route hundreds of times, didn’t need light to see where she was going. Unfortunately Fig didn’t know enough to step over the hose Mr. Victor kept laid out across the sidewalk to drain his sump pump into the sewer grate.
“Damn it,” Fig said in the midst of trying to keep himself from falling to the ground.
Roxie smiled, wishing she could have seen it.
“Any more hazards I should be aware of?” he asked from beside her.
“I think I heard the sound of your windshield shattering. Probably vandals. You’d better go check it out.”
“It’s only a car. It can be replaced.”
Roxie stopped short. Fig bumped into her. Three more houses and she’d be home. It was time to put an end to this nonsense. “See that light up ahead? That’s my house. I am certain I can make it there unassisted.” Because her anger had sobered her up but good.
“I don’t mind walking you.” He took her arm in his.
Daring man. “Well, I mind.” She yanked herself free.
“Let me take you out tomorrow,” Fig said. “Or better yet, come to my place. I’ll cook you a delicious meal. Tell me what you like. I’m up for anything.”
“I choose O’Halloran’s. Without you. So I can get drunk and go home with someone who’s up to the task of giving me what I want.”
“Oh, I’ll give you what you want and more,” Fig said. “When you’re sober.”
“Sex is more fun when I’m drunk.” Which worked for her, since that’s the only time she ever wanted it. Until she’d met Fig.
He turned to her, his face so close she felt his breath on her cheek. “Then you’re not doing it with the right men.”
Her phone rang. She pulled it out of the front pocket of her skirt and looked at the lit display. Mami. She whipped it open. “What’s wrong?” It was just after midnight. Mami always slept until at least 3:00 a.m.
“I smell smoke,” Mami said, coughing.
Roxie sniffed the air.
And ran.
Her sandals slapped the broken-up sidewalk. The bottoms of her feet stung. She didn’t stop. This was all her fault. The fire marshal had warned the house was unsafe. A fire hazard. But Mami had clutched at her chest and grabbed for her sublingual nitroglycerin tablets when Roxie broached the subject of living someplace else, even temporarily.
Fig called out behind her.
Roxie didn’t answer. She should have done more, tried harder. Now Mami would pay the price for her failure. She tore up the front lawn. Thick, dark gray smoke billowed from the open kitchen window. Roxie jammed her hand in her front pocket to get her key and took the front steps all three at once.
“Wait,” Fig yelled.
Roxie inserted the key in the lock.
Fig tackled her. “I said wait.”
“My mother’s in there,” Roxie yelled. “Get off of me.” She struggled beneath him.
He tightened his hold. “I called the fire department. They’ll be here in a minute.”
But they wouldn’t be able to locate her amongst the clutter. Only Roxie knew the path to the back bedroom, what she needed to skirt around and climb over. Only Roxie knew where Mami would be, huddled near the edge of her mattress, her bed all but taken over by dolls and clothing she worked to repair, and beloved mementos of her life with her husband.
“You don’t understand.” She fought with every bit of strength she had and managed to turn onto her back.
“Stop it,” Fig said. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”
Roxie didn’t care about herself. Tears leaked from her eyes. “Only I can get to her. I have to get her.”
“You’re not thinking clearly.”
She was thinking clearly enough to know he was stronger than her and had the advantage of being on top of her, and the only thing she could do to escape him was knee him in the balls as soon as the opportunity presented itself.
Which is what she did.
Fig sucked in a breath and forgot about her for the few seconds it took to push him away. She felt a moment’s remorse at the sight of him lying on his side in the fetal position, before she opened the door.
A huge blast of heat and smoke greeted her. When it dissipated she yelled, “Mami, I’m coming.” Then she headed into the darkness.
CHAPTER FOUR
“ARE you insane?” Fig yelled at Roxie for the second time that night as she removed the oxygen mask, again, and coughed. Black soot stained her face—especially beneath her nostrils—and clothes. “You could have been killed.”
While he’d writhed in pain on the front porch, on the verge of vomiting, and struggling to breathe. Incapacitated. Helpless. Two conditions he’d decided long ago he’d rather die than ever experience again.
But she’d done it. Gotten herself and her mother out of the house right as the fire trucks had arrived. At least he’d managed to force himself upright, albeit hunched over, to help her the last few feet so he didn’t come off like a total loser.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice gravelly from smoke inhalation, her words muffled by the oxygen mask.
Not as sorry as she was going to be. Because once he got her alone he was going to spank her bare backside until it was a bright cherry-red for doing what she’d done.
He shifted his stance, the ache in his balls accompanied by a deep pressure low in his gut. Terrific.
“I told you this would happen, young lady,” an older man wearing a red windbreaker with the words “Fire Marshal” in black across the chest said. “But did you listen? No. You thought you knew better than I did and look what happened. Your mother could have been badly burned or killed, and it would have been all your fault.”
Fig waited for Roxie to put the condescending windbag in his place. But she sat in the back of the ambulance, her feet dangling, looking utterly devastated.
“Hold on there.” Fig jumped to her defense. “If, in your professional opinion, this house was a fire hazard and Roxie and her mom were in imminent danger, then it was your duty to enforce whatever fire codes you have in this town and evacuate the premises. Any less speaks of negligence on your part which makes this situation your fault, not Roxie’s.”
“I recommended she leave,” the old man said, losing some of his initial bluster.
“You gave me two weeks to clean it up,” Roxie spoke.
Clean up what? Fig wondered.
“More than half that time has elapsed and it looks as if you haven’t done a blessed thing.”
She lowered her head.
“This isn’t helping,” Fig pointed out. “Do you know what started the fire?”
“We can’t be sure until our investigation is complete. And all the junk inside the house is hindering our efforts.” He turned to Roxie. “I don’t know how you could live in those deplorable conditions.”
Deplorable conditions? Fig wondered. Roxie looked over his shoulder, her expression one of mortification. “Ay Dios mio! Do they have to do that?”
Fig turned to see firemen dragging piles of stuff and bulging garbage bags out of the house, dumping them on the front lawn.
“We can’t take a chance any smoldering ash will reignite,” the fire marshal said. “And my men need room to move around in there.”
Roxie closed her eyes. “I want to go to the hospital to see Mami.”
“You’re going to the hospital to get yourself checked out,” Fig insisted, tired of arguing with her.
“I don’t need…” More coughing.
“She’s ready to go,” Fig called to the paramedic.
The fire marshal handed Roxie a paper. “I warned you if I didn’t see a noticeable improvement I’d take action. As of this minute you are officially ordered to vacate the premises.”
“Great timing,” Fig said to the old man. “I bet you’d recommend she up her fire insurance coverage right about now, too, huh?”
He turned in a huff and left.
“What about my things?” Roxie called after him. “And Mami’s things?”
“We’ll worry about that in the morning,” Fig said. “I’ll meet you at the hospital.”
* * *
Fig glanced at the passenger seat, where a subdued Roxie reclined. He had so many questions about the condition of her house, the bags and piles of what looked like trash that firefighter after firefighter had carried into her front yard. Whose were they, and why were they inside the house? It was beyond belief, the polar opposite of his neat, orderly, obsessively clean existence.
He pushed the sight out of his mind. It didn’t matter. Regardless of her situation at home, tonight she was a friend in need of a place to stay.
“You can drop me at a motel,” she said sullenly, facing away from him.
“I didn’t convince you to leave your mom in the capable hands of the CCU staff so I could drop you at a motel. You’re coming home with me.”
“Now you’ll bring me to your place?”
He smiled, relieved she sounded a bit more like the spunky woman he was growing to like a little more each minute he spent with her. U
ntil she added, “Right. I get it. You wanted me sober. Well, tough luck. I’m not in the mood.”
“So the only reason I would bring you home with me is for sex? I couldn’t possibly have the least bit of compassion for a woman left homeless by fire, for a friend who’s worried about her mother? I couldn’t possibly be a decent enough guy to think maybe after the night you’ve had you wouldn’t want to be left alone in an impersonal motel room? Thanks for the compliment.”
“I don’t even have a change of clothes,” she muttered in reply.
“I can put up with you walking around naked. I’ll even join in if it makes you feel more comfortable.” He watched for her response.
She turned to face him and graced him with her first smile since their argument in his car. “Opportunist.”
He smiled back. “If I have to, I’m sure I can rustle you up a clean T-shirt and boxer shorts.”
“Thanks,” she said.
“For you? Anytime.”
“Only for me?” she asked, her voice teasing. “’Cause you kind of come off like a rescues-damsels-in-distress kind of guy.”
Not really, more because he didn’t get out all that much than he minded doing it. “We’re here.” Fig pulled into the parking lot and parked in Kyle’s spot.
Up in the condo, Roxie collapsed on the old sofa. “I stink like smoke. But I’m too tired to shower.”
It was fast approaching five in the morning. Fig was exhausted, too. “I’ll help you.” Fig held out his hand. “Come.”
“If only it were that easy,” Roxie quipped.
“Woman, you have sex on the brain.”
“It’s an affliction.” She placed her hand in his, and he pulled her up. “Brought on by drunkenness.”
“But you’re not drunk now,” Fig pointed out, moving to stand in front of her, as close as he could without touching her. The room heated. Or maybe it was just him.
“No.” She swallowed, but maintained eye contact. “I most definitely am not drunk now.”
Fig eased his fingertips up the side of her neck, slowly, stopping to cup the area just below her ear. “So what do you think is causing it?”
The Nurse's Not-So-Secret Scandal Page 6