Guilty Pleasures

by Stella Cameron

  “Okay, I guess.”

  “Okay, I know. And after we get there I’m going to take my time loving the feel of you. We’re going to take our time. We’re going to make love.”

  Six

  The older model black Porsche didn’t give Nasty enough room. His bent knees amused Polly.

  So far he’d done exactly as promised. Venus had returned to Bellevue and Hole Point—happily accepting Dusty’s offer to “take the boy and go meet some old friends.” Bobby remained with Dusty to learn about the shop.

  And Polly sat beside Nasty while he drove through a pretty evening into the crammed lot at Park Place, the bustling shopping center and movie complex on Central Way.

  “Next comes Fabiola,” Nasty said as if he could crawl inside her mind.

  Polly smoothed her thin cotton dress over her bare legs.

  He looked sideways at her. In this light his eyes turned oddly amber. “Is she like you to look at?”

  “Taller. Prettier.”

  “Not possible.”

  She smirked. “Of course she can be taller.”

  “Smartie.”

  “I love this area. It feels sort of San Francisco to me.”

  He regarded riotous blooms cascading from planters, brightly filled windows in an eclectic array of shops, little tables arranged around a fountain and crowded with coffee-drinkers, and he made an assenting noise. “Coffee aficionados and microbrew junkies all. Readers and talkers—walkers and bikers—and boaters. Civilized renegades. Or maybe domesticated mavericks. People here remind me of settlers with a lot of respect for having found nirvana. I love this place, too.”

  “Are you from here?” She’d been waiting for an opening to see if he’d be protective of his background.

  “Nope.”

  One more “nope” and she’d know how protective he was. “So you’ve only lived in the area since you came to Kirkland?”

  He swung the car into a slot not far from a line of waiting moviegoers. “Nope.”

  Okay. “I was born in Marysville—that’s a little town—”

  “North of here on 1405—just the other side of Everett. Pretty place. Rural, really.”

  “So you know Washington well.”

  “Well enough.” He pulled on the emergency brake. “I spent some time in Issaquah when Dusty used to live there. That was while my friend, Roman, had business connections at a… a sort of health club in the mountains. Foothills of the Cascades. In a place called Past Peak. Have you been there?”

  “Of course.” She turned sideways in her seat to look at him. “I like to ski. In the winter Bobby and I go up to Snoqualmie. It’s not far from Past Peak. Do you ski?”

  He stared straight ahead. “I used to.”

  His ankle. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”

  “I’ll ski again. I’m already a hundred percent better than I was after it happened.”

  “That’s great.” Relief at his optimism eased her breathing. “How long ago was the accident?”

  “Twenty months. Not that I’m counting.” He faced her. So enigmatic. So compelling. The final rays of a setting sun turned him gold.

  “Did you do it skiing?”

  His lips flattened. “No, Polly, I didn’t do it skiing. Are we ready for beer and noise?”

  She’d hit yet another of his nerves, this one very raw. “We’ve got a few minutes.” She should know when to quit. She did, but wanted to know more. “You sound as if you’ve been to TGIF before.”

  “Yeah.” He ducked his head to see up to the second-story balcony, and the red-and-white striped canvas awnings over the windows of the restaurant. “Cheerful.”

  “Good American food. I have simple tastes.”

  “So do I. In food. Not in women.”

  He had the power to stop the blood in her veins. “What does that mean?”

  “It means I don’t have a simple taste in women. Not if the woman’s going to be important to me. I’ve had a lot of difficulty making any choices at all. But now I have, and she isn’t simple. I choose you, Polly.”

  Nasty did everything he did so well. He speared her easily in place with a clear, unwavering gaze.

  “Do you have folks?” she asked.

  “Everyone has folks.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Yeah. You mean you’re curious about me. I take that as a compliment.”

  Polly rubbed her cotton skirts again. “And you also take it that I’m nosey. Isn’t that what you’re suggesting?”

  “I want to know about you, Polly. That doesn’t make me nosy, it makes me interested. I want you to be interested in me, too—it means you care. I was born in Montana. On a ranch.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “You’re kidding.”

  “Why would I be? Don’t I look like a guy who’d be at home in the saddle?”

  Polly considered. “I think you’re a guy who’d be a heart-breaker in the saddle. With one of those hats tipped over your eyes, and worn jeans. Scuffed boots. An oilskin duster that looks like someone had a war in it. Yes, I—”

  “You’ve got quite an imagination.” He stroked the bridge of her nose. “I left Montana a long time ago. I was seventeen. I’ve never been back.”

  “Why?”

  “You and Seven should be great pals.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You both want to know everything about everything. I haven’t had a reason to go back. I may now that my friend Roman and his wife live there. Wanna come?”

  Polly blinked, and shook her head. “You just keep dropping things on me. Get serious.”

  “I’ve never been more serious in my life than I am right now, with you.”

  He wasn’t giving her a chance to weigh what had happened between them.

  “Cool it,” he told her, and spread his big, right hand on her thigh. “I’m not going to try to drag you off to Montana tonight, or anywhere else, except to bed.”

  “Nasty!” Her heart smote her ribs. “You know you don’t mean that.”

  “Okay. I don’t mean it.” That warm, hard hand rubbed her leg to the knee and back to the groin. And that’s where it stayed. He didn’t even let his small finger quiver, but it rested where it shouldn’t rest—and they both knew it. His grip tightened. “I do mean it.”

  “Fab’s zany,” Polly said, making a grab for safe ground. “She says the first thing that comes into her head.”

  “I’ve got a one-track mind.”

  Polly eyed him quizzically.

  “I can only think about you, right now. For the rest—I’ll just be going through the motions.”

  She’d missed safe ground. Every second took her farther down the slippery slide toward crawling into his arms and taking whatever they could have together, and to hell with the rest.

  “What’s that look about?”

  She started. “We should go into the restaurant.”

  “Did the guy who left the pep talks on your answering machine make any comments about you having dangerous new friends?”

  She shrugged and prepared to brush the questions off again. Instead, she averted her head and frowned unseeingly at the windows of nearby Park Place Book Company.

  “That’s a yes,” Nasty remarked conversationally. “Isn’t that interesting? New friends. Who do you think these people are talking about?”

  In some cases she had no idea. But when the man had berated her for the thin cotton skirt, he’d been talking about her walking on the dock and meeting Nasty. He’d been jealous of Nasty seeing her, that much had become very clear to Polly. And she no longer believed this man could be a threat, not the kind of threat she’d originally feared.

  “You aren’t afraid of me anymore, are you?”

  “Not the way… No.”

  His short laugh held no mirth. “You’re afraid of me, but differently from the way you used to be afraid of me. Great. How about explaining that to me?”

  “I’ve got to meet my sister.”

  When she r
eached for the handle, he shot out a hand, palm up, inviting her to hold it.

  Hesitantly, Polly rested a hand on his.

  “You don’t have to say anything,” he told her. “I think I understand. You’re afraid being around me is bad for your health. That it’s making someone jealous.”

  “Something like that.” Why continue to avoid the truth?

  “What do you think happens next? In this setup?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I do. If I’m out of the picture, your champion watches for any other man who looks in your direction, and threatens you until you get rid of him, too. And so it will go. Until or unless this creep gets the balls to approach you himself.”

  “Don’t!”

  “There’s no point in pretending. That won’t make it go away. The time to make a stand is now—with me to help you. But you’ve got to stop walking around smelling of fear.”

  “If I keep to myself, he might be satisfied.”

  “You’re not listening. It’s not me, Polly. It’s anyone you might get close to. You do see that?”

  “I guess so. But I feel helpless. You can’t fight an enemy you don’t know.”

  He took her hand to his lips and kissed it. He closed his eyes and kissed each finger, each bone in the back of her hand her wrist.

  Polly stroked his hair, she couldn’t help herself. He raised his face and settled the side of his head against the rest. “I can see the enemy. Not his face. I don’t have to. But I can see him—or feel him’s a better explanation. That’s what I’m trained to do. To get you, he’ll have to come through me. The guy’s a coward, a sneaky coward. He won’t risk coming face-to-face with me. And wherever you are, I’m never going to be far away.”

  “You’ve got work to do.”

  “I run the diving classes, and we’re between sessions. Dusty doesn’t like my shopkeeper efforts.”

  “So you can squeeze in saving Polly before the next set of diving lessons.” She sounded disgustingly petulant.

  Nasty put her hand back in her lap. “However long it takes to get my hands on this clown, that’s how long I’m going to take. I’m going to flush him out and bury him.”

  Alarm unwound in Polly. “Violence never solves anything.”

  “Wrong.” The cynical downward turn of his mouth shook her. “Violence often solves a lot of things. Unfortunate, but true. But don’t worry, I’m not planning to kill this jerk, just maim him for life.”

  “Nasty—”

  “I’ve got to live up to my reputation. Keep in practice, too. Nail-pulling is an art. I’d better get my pinking shears sharpened, too.”

  Polly felt her eyes widen. “Pinking shears?”

  “Most effective tool for an attractive circumcision.”

  She screamed. She couldn’t help it.

  “As I said,” he told her when she’d covered her mouth. “You don’t have a thing to fear, Nasty’s here. So’s Dusty. God help this dickless little bastard. Whoops!” A blush gave Nasty a fascinating extra dimension. “Sorry about the language. Take me up and introduce me to Fabiola.”

  Baskets of scented hybrid petunias and trailing ferns swung a little in the breeze. Polly registered their colors, and their heady smell, but didn’t stop moving until Nasty reached around her to push on the brass door handle at TGIFriday’s. Noise, heat, and essence of charbroiled meat blasted her face. The instant they passed from the foyer through the second set of doors, a crowd of men about a corner table told her where she’d find Fabiola. Men flocked to Fab, they couldn’t help themselves; yet she had never found one she wanted on more than a temporary basis.

  “Follow me,” she told Nasty, passing tables overhung with Tiffany lamp shades that allowed only a muted glow through colored glass. Perched on high stools, patrons watched banks of television screens around an elevated bar. Red light flickered in the face of an oversize clock.

  “Hey, Polly! Come and join us.”

  She sought and found Art Loder’s pleasant, smiling face at a nearby table. He sat with Jennifer, with Jack Spinnel, and several members of the crew. Polly squeezed Art’s shoulder. “This place is bursting. Hi, guys. This is Nasty Ferrito. He owns a local dive shop. Nasty, this is Art and Jennifer Loder— our monsters. Jack Spinnel, writer, director, and producer. Willie Wonka—not his real name, I’ll tell you about that another time if you want to know—Willie does magic with makeup. Seamus, and Caroline. Wardrobe and camera respectively. We’ll come and visit later. We’re meeting my sister, Fab.”

  “The microbrew girl?” Art said, grinning. “Bring her over, too.”

  “Don’t buy into it, Polly,” Jennifer said. “He’s been trying to get her attention ever since she came in.”

  Polly didn’t miss Jack’s cold stare—or the fact that it was directed at Nasty. “Later,” she told Art. “Business first. Then pleasure. See you, Jennie.”

  Fab’s clear voice rose from the center of the admiring group of men. Polly started burrowing a route between their bodies, then gasped when her feet left the ground.

  As abruptly as he’d lifted her, Nasty set her down. The shutters had closed over his expression once more. He looked down into her furious face and snapped his gum.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she hissed. “Don’t you ever do something like that again.”

  “And don’t you ever do something like that again.”

  “What—”

  “Someone threatened to kill you today. Have you forgotten that?”

  Her eyes stung. She hadn’t expected her own reaction. Too many new experiences, some of them terrifying, some of them overwhelming in quite different ways, had come her way too fast. “I haven’t forgotten,” she said through her teeth. “How could I when you remind me about twice a minute?”

  “How hard do you think it is to knife someone in a crowd?” She felt her mouth drop open and was helpless to close it. “You’re a babe in the woods, Polly, baby. You don’t get it, yet. And I’m not standing around waiting for you to get it when it’s too late—when you’re dead. Understand?”

  “Well”—she blinked and swallowed—“unlike some people, I’m not used to thinking about people with knives.”

  “Do you understand me, Polly?” The unrelenting tone of his voice spit out each word.

  “Don’t call me baby again.”

  “Do you—”

  “Yes. Yes, I understand. I want to talk to my sister, and there’s a group of people around her table. How do you suggest I get to her?”

  Nasty regarded her steadily and moved his gum around. “Stay close to me.” Clamping a hand at her waist—surely more tightly than could possibly be necessary—he turned to the laughing gaggle of men. In a loud, terse voice that could cut granite he said, “Listen up!”

  Polly flinched, and jumped hard enough to jar her teeth together.

  Silence fell. Not just on the men around the table, but on a good portion of the whole restaurant.

  Fire overtook Polly’s skin. She bowed her head.

  “This lady’s trying to get to her sister,” Nasty said. “Her sister’s sitting at the table you’re juicing. Do you mind?”

  A low grumble started and stopped abruptly. Polly didn’t dare check to see how Nasty had made them quiet again. Feet passed her, and jeans, and bare, hairy legs. Gradually the restaurant noise rose again.

  “Polly, where the Sam Henry have you been?”

  She raised her head and looked into Fab’s startling blue eyes. “Trying to get through your crowd of admirers. Where else would I be?”

  Fabiola tilted her head to study Nasty. “Hmm ” Her straight blond hair swung away from one side of her face. “Nice. You can be very sneaky, sister, and very selfish. Are there any more at home like you, gorgeous?”

  “Fab,” Polly said, but only because she was expected to protest her sister’s aggression. “This is Nasty Ferrito. He—er, I invited him to join us.”

  “Smart girl.”

  “Let’s sit down,” Po
lly said when it became evident Fab wouldn’t remember to invite them. “I understand you spoke to Mom.”

  Fab bent forward over the table. “Keep your voice down,” she said, sending significant glances in Nasty’s direction.

  “Nasty knows all about it. I think Mom’s half-convinced he’s the enemy.”

  Fab sat back again. To Nasty she said, “Are you the enemy?”

  “Why, yes, ma’am,” he told her. “Of course I’m the enemy.”

  “He’s not the enemy,” Fab said matter-of-factly. “Mom’s in a real snit. How do you like my dress?”

  “What dress?” Polly asked.

  Fab checked the divided halter top on the minuscule red number she wore. “I’m decent.” Long, red-nailed fingers passed under her very shapely bottom to a hem that clipped the tops of elegant thighs. “Everything’s covered.”

  Polly smiled at her adored sibling. “Just, my dear. How can you blame men for falling all over you when you look like that?”

  “I don’t blame them,” Fab said. “Who are you, Nasty Ferrito? Apart from being Nasty Ferrito? My mother and I think that’s a wild name.”

  “I’m a dive-shop owner,” he said calmly.

  “And?”

  “Former Navy SEAL. Montana son. Loner. A dangerous dude.” He raised his well-defined eyebrows. “And a man with plans.”

  “Crumb—as my soft sister would say. A virtuoso of violence in the flesh. Counterintelligence and all that stuff. Inhuman, that’s what they call you people. Hell—I mean, crumb, what are you doing with my little sister?”

  “Put a sock in it, Fab.” Polly fumed. “For the record I’m older than you. Nasty used to be in the Navy. He teaches diving school now.”

  “Oh, sure.” Fab slid slowly sideways in her chair until she could see all of Nasty. “When they talk about seven feet of whipcord, they’re talking about guys like you, Captain Death.”

  Nasty’s sudden laugh startled Polly. She was growing tired of being startled around this man. “Captain Death?” he sputtered. “That’s great. Geez, wait till I tell Roman that one. He’ll croak. Nice to meet you, too, Fabiola Crow. You’re beautiful, but not as beautiful as your sister. You’re smart—but I doubt if you’re as smart as your sister. You’re sexy, but definitely not as sexy as your sister. Polly’s the family diplomat, too. But you’re a winner, Ms. Crow, and I think I’m going to like you.”