“He didn’t. He got away. He won’t get away next time.”
Her heart and stomach revolved. “Do you mean he won’t be able to get away?”
Dusty’s snicker sent shivers through her.
“There has to be a way to fight this without using violence,” she said. Suddenly she longed for sleep.
Nasty sat up and held her so tightly she could hardly breathe. “We’re not dealing with the world of Polly’s Place and tidy, feel-good stories.”
“You said you don’t like… hurting people.”
He stood, pulled her up with him. “That’s not exactly what I said. Although it’s true. I said I didn’t like killing people.”
“But you can do it if you have to?” The urge to cry came without warning. “That makes you a killer.”
“Nasty—”
“It’s okay, Dust. I can handle this. Go on ahead, and we’ll catch up.”
When they were alone, Nasty caught her chin between finger and thumb and tilted up her face. “Are you afraid of me?”
Polly swallowed. “I don’t know.”
“You mean that?” He raised one brow. “You really don’t know whether or not you’re afraid of me.”
Her jaw worked. “You would kill this man, wouldn’t you? If you caught him?”
“I’m going to catch him.”
She had never been this cold. Very quietly she asked, “And you will kill him?”
“When this is over, I’ll explain everything to you and you’ll understand. I can’t do that yet. But I know you feel something for me—a great deal, maybe. That’s more than I’ve ever had from a woman before—from a woman I want.”
“You make yourself sound so calculating.”
“Maybe I am.” He looked at the sky. “Call it a habit. You’ll just have to help me soften up around the edges. You could make that a cause, or something. Soften up Nasty Ferrito.”
“You’re wet. And your hand needs proper attention.”
“You’re wet, too. We need to give each other attention. Lots of attention. I’m going to find a way to make sure we get the chance. You didn’t tell me you can’t swim.”
She’d expected this. “It didn’t come up.”
“Yes, it did. I even asked you if you’d like to learn to dive.”
“The answer’s no.” She laughed, and it almost felt good.
“You tried to come after me.”
“Pretty stupid, I know.”
“That wasn’t the way it hit me. I’d say a person had to care a lot to try to rescue someone they thought was drowning—if they couldn’t swim themselves.”
He could tie her up in words so easily. “I guess you might be able to say that.”
“Thanks,” he said, with a mock punch to her shoulder. “Thanks, good buddy.”
She couldn’t allow herself to be diverted. “Nasty, I’ve got to know what you’re thinking. About the other.”
He found her hand and slid it down his body, down to his bulging crotch. “Any more questions?”
Her fingers closed convulsively. “Sex isn’t a problem. It isn’t the problem I’m talking about, and you know it.”
“You asked what I was thinking.”
Muscles tensed low in her belly and between her legs. “This,” she squeezed him hard enough to draw a groan. “This isn’t what you think with.”
“If it is, we’re in big trouble. It may be creative, but only selectively. Hell, Polly, you’re killing me.”
She tried to take her hand away, but he covered and held it where it was. “This wasn’t my idea,” she told him. “I’ve got a nutcase on my tail. You’re making murderous noises about him, and I want to know how serious those noises are.”
He released her hand and jerked her close. “You ask how serious I am? After what just happened?”
“It was awful.”
“Awful? Geez, you’ve got an inadequate vocabulary. It was fucking deadly.”
“Please.”
“Oh, excuse me.” Sarcasm oozed. “Crumb, but that was an icky experience.”
“Don’t laugh at me.”
“Then don’t say things that make me laugh at you.”
She pushed at him. “Let me go. I didn’t ask you to protect me. Please let me go.”
He didn’t.
“I’ll go straight to the police and insist they take action. I’ll tell them it’s very serious, and they can’t play a waiting game any longer.”
“Polly, the police can’t help.”
Her throat ached. “They’ve got to.”
“They can’t.” Keeping a firm hold on her, he started toward the April’s boarding ramp. “I’ll pick up my things and get you back to Dusty’s.”
Desperation overtook Polly. “Tell me you aren’t going to kill anyone.”
“Venus will be worried out of her mind by now.”
“Xavier? Tell me that if you catch this man—if you find out who he is—you won’t really hurt him. He didn’t hurt me.”
“Yes, he did.”
“Yes.” She held his wrists and made him stop. “But even if you believe in taking a life, for a life—he didn’t murder me last night. And I didn’t drown tonight. He didn’t kill me.”
Young moonlight shone in his eyes. “You’re so right. And if he gets another chance at you, he may not finish you then, either.”
The steady thud of Polly’s heart swelled. Her teeth chattered. “So why would you kill him? You wouldn’t. Say you won’t.”
“Polly,” he said. “Unless I’ve completely lost my touch with these things, he didn’t kill you last night because he didn’t want to kill you.”
She watched his face.
“And he didn’t make sure you drowned tonight because he didn’t care whether or not you did.”
“I would have if you hadn’t saved me!”
“Probably. But I’ve told you it may not matter to him one way or the other.”
“Stop it! Just explain what you mean.”
“I already have.” Wrapping an arm around her waist, he led her aboard. “If I knew why, I’d be closer to making sure one or both of us don’t end up dead before our time. I don’t. I am pretty certain it’s not you he’s after. I think this guy wants me. And he wants to take me alive.”
Fourteen
“You’re late,” Jack said. He’d dozed while he waited for her. “Get in here.”
The motel room door closed. “You order me up here to some godforsaken dump in the mountains—where I’ve never been before, by the way. Then you whine because I’m late?”
“Turn on the light,” he told her. “We’ve got some things to settle first.”
“First?”
“Turn on the goddamn light!”
“We’ve been through this,” Jennifer Loder told him. “I’m better in the dark.”
If he was a gentleman, he’d argue. He wasn’t a gentleman. “Maybe I’d like to see that clever body of yours in action.”
She laughed shortly. “But not my face?”
Jack didn’t respond. Apart from some girl he’d sneaked into the showers at school, Jennifer was the only plain female he’d ever had sex with. But her body was fantastic. Supple and hot, so damn hot. She wound around him like a long, nymphomaniac snake.
“What’s with the cheap motel?”
She wouldn’t get anything near the truth on that one. “It’s been a long time since I had a woman in a motel.”
“If that’s as much as it takes to give you your kicks, maybe I’m wasting my talents.”
He was scared shitless. That’s why they were in a no-name motel beside a mountain road—in the middle of almost no where. “I’ll make sure you don’t leave thinking you’ve wasted a thing.”
“Unzip your pants.”
He raised his arms and gripped the bed head. She was always like this. She called the shots, set the pace. Sometimes slow, and every way twice, sometimes fast—get it out, poke it in, and get it done.
“Did you hear me, Jack?”
> From the start she’d made it clear that if he wanted her, wanted them to service each other with the kind of fanatical, impersonal intensity they both craved, it had to be on her terms.
“Did I get something wrong, or am I your boss?” he said, mildly enough.
“Shut up and get it out.”
He wasn’t in the mood anymore. “Sit down, Jennifer.”
“I didn’t drive for an hour on those roads to sit down. Not unless I sit on you. That’ll be just dandy, mate. Otherwise, I’ll say good night.”
“You bitch. You know we’ve got trouble.”
“You’ve got trouble. I’m all right, Jack.” She laughed.
He didn’t find her very little joke funny. Propping himself on an elbow, he groped for some of the pills he’d spilled over cigarette burns on the nightstand. He swallowed the pills with vodka, and closed his eyes for a blessed moment. The rush of power and excitement came almost instantly. “How about a little cocktail, Jenny? Something to help you keep me warm?”
“I don’t need any help.”
No, she didn’t need any help. “Let me feel you.”
“I want you to get rid of her.”
Jennifer only cared about Jennifer. She saw the mess they were in from one viewpoint—her own. She didn’t give a damn if everything he’d built got blown away. “It isn’t that simple.”
“She’s in the way. She can make trouble. She’s expendable. Any arguments so far?”
“What do you want me to do? Ask her if she’d mind taking a hike?”
“Yeah. I’d say that about covers it.”
He felt fuzzy and warm—and turned on again. Jennifer roamed the musty room. He could see her shadow on the wall, then her reflection in a mirror, in the glass on a picture.
“I want to fuck, Jen.”
“Weren’t you the one who said we had to talk?”
“We can do both.”
He saw her go into the bathroom. While he waited he popped another pill, with more vodka. “Jen! C’mere.”
Water blasted in the shower.
“Crazy cow,” he muttered, rolling off the bed. Staggering, he tore off his clothes on the way to the bathroom. “You’re crazy,” he shouted.
When he reached to feel for her, a swift chop to his wrist sent him leaping away, clutching his arm and howling.
The shower curtain rattled aside. “Get in,” Jennifer ordered.
He did as she told him and howled afresh. “Too goddamn hot, you sadistic—aah!”
She turned down the heat—a little. “I like it hot,” she said, handing him a bar of soap. “And I like it slick. Use this.”
His eyelids wanted to droop. He stumbled and caught himself against the tiled wall. “Get in here with me, Jen. I want you. You make me slick. You do it for me.”
“When you promise me what I want—you’ll get what you want.”
“I can’t think.”
“Think about losing everything you’ve worked for.”
“Stop it.” He heard something tear but couldn’t identify the sound. “What are you doing, Jen?”
“Persuading you, mate.” Her strong fingers, closing on him, dragging it through a hole in the shower curtain, panicked him. “This is the best part of you, Jackie boy. The biggest part of you. Did I ever tell you shaved heads turn me off?”
“Women find it sexy.” He heard the slur in his own voice. “Sexy.”
“Some women, maybe. Not this one. If you didn’t have such a big tool, I wouldn’t give you the time of day.”
He didn’t like what she was doing. “Come in here, Jen,” he wheedled. “Let me hold you, baby.”
“You’re gonna love this, Jackie. It’ll be the ultimate. Everything you want without even touching me.”
“Not everything I want,” he complained. “I like a lot of stuff you do. I like to suck your tits.”
“Jack, Jack, you’ve got a foul mouth. We’ll have to work on that.” She worked on another part of him. If he didn’t know it would hurt, he’d kneel in the tub and rest. She said, “We’ve got all night for fun and games, lover. I’ve only just started. But you’ve got to promise she’ll go.”
He tried to concentrate. “Get in here. I don’t want the goddamn curtain.”
“The curtain’s getting hot, Jack. Soft.” She held tighter and forced him backward. “But what Jackie wants, Jackie gets. You want me in there with you, here I am.”
She stepped into the tub, using his dick to keep the curtain exactly where it was—between them. Strain popped cheap rings from the rail. Where they hit, they pinged.
“You’re sick,” he muttered, his hips rhythmically jutting toward her. “Crazy sick.”
“And you love it. Get rid of her, Jack. Now.” She pressed her body against the soft plastic sheet, against him, and slithered over him. Her legs parted and trapped his. He felt her rub him into her, into springy hair and moist flesh. “She’ll be the one to ruin it for us if she sticks around.”
“I need her.”
“You can pull it off without her. You’re the inspiration, Jack. It’s all you. It always was.”
“Jen”—his knees sagged—“shit, Jen, I can’t take this.”
Her breasts dug at him. “You said you like these. Feel ’em. Squeeze ’em. Yeah, like that. Oh, yeah. Use your teeth.”
“The sodding curtain—”
“Forget the curtain. It’s perfect, Jack. You don’t have to see me at all—you don’t even have to touch me really.”
“I want to touch you,” he told her through his teeth. Then he bit a nipple and heard her yelp with pleasure.
She slid his cock back and forth between her legs, panting, and thrusting her breasts at him. Each time he felt the place he wanted to feel, she gave him a second to try groping his way inside her, then pushed him over her hot button again, seeing to her own satisfaction.
Jennifer leaned on him, trapped him against the wall with the fury of her attack. She was so strong. More shower curtain rings tore free.
She sobbed, high and thin from the back of her throat, then yanked him away so hard he yelled. Bending, she took him in her mouth and ran her hands beneath the curtain and behind his legs to squeeze his backside. When he shouted, she fumbled until she could pinch him.
“You are so sick,” he yelled. “Finish it.”
She was on her feet again, back to pleasing herself again. “You’re a big man, Jacko. You don’t need her. You’re the director, and the concept is yours.”
“She’d have every right to go to the network—and the union.” Jack groaned. “I’m coming, Jen. I want inside you.”
“Soon.” But for a few hooks, the curtain gave out and fell to bunch between their bellies. “Make sure she’s got too much to lose, Jack.”
“How?”
A relentless hand forced his head down. She slid her pointed breasts back and forth over his face, pressing a nipple into his mouth with each pass. “Whatever will hurt her the most, of course. Let her know that if she stays, she’ll lose it.”
“She’s ambitious,” he said when his mouth was briefly empty.
Jennifer convulsed. As always, she climaxed silently, spending all her release in the hammering of her hips against him. “Now it’s my turn,” he told her.
“Convince her to take her ambition somewhere else. She causes trouble with the cast anyway. That would go against her if she brought a case. Do it, Jack. Tell her.”
“You’re missing something. I think we’ve got trouble we haven’t even begun to guess at yet.”
“Here’s what you want,” she said, positioning him where a single push sent him surging inside her. “Have fun, Jacko.”
He grunted. The beating, cooling water washed his sweat away.
“Gavin—”
“Not now,” he muttered. “Gavin’s easy. If he drops out, no one will ask questions. He’s got a history of moving on.”
“If you’d let me finish, I was going to tell you to leave him to me.”
Pr
essure mounted. Jennifer climbed on the edge of the tub, braced herself on the wall behind him, and spread her bent knees. “Work for it, Jack. It’s always better when you have to work for it.”
The curtain still hampered him. He stood on tiptoe, dipped and shoved, and grappled with her soapy body to keep his balance.
“Oh, yeah,” she said, using her acrobat’s body like a weapon designed for sexual torture. “Gavin won’t be a problem.”
“Can we save the talk for now.”
“I multitask real well, Jack. I can take care of the little painter prick. No sweat.”
“I don’t want any mess.”
“Trust me, Jack. There won’t be. If there’s any fallout anywhere, I’ll handle it.”
He was coming out as he should have been going in. He came on her thighs and made a grab for the rail. His hands closed on rusty metal, and he struggled to get back inside her.
Jennifer laughed. “The last living optimist,” she said when his penis buckled.
The rail gave out and they slammed in a tangled heap on the bathroom floor.
Fifteen
He’d expected a call from Roman. “Dusty’s an old lady sometimes,” Nasty told him. “He had to fill you in on all the details.”
“We always said a good woman was what you needed.”
“While you and Dusty play matchmaker, I’m up to my ears in shit here.”
“Anything new since the night before last?”
“No.” He snorted. “I’m still getting my breath back.”
“How’s the hand?”
Nasty flexed his stiff, taped left thumb. “Dusty hasn’t lost his touch. It won’t fall off.”
“You think it’s the Colombian thing?”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
Nasty turned aside from the spreadsheet he’d been working on at Dusty’s and looked through the open study door. Polly was working on a piece about sidewalk sculpture. Jack Spinnel had taken Nasty aside and told him he wouldn’t let her out of his sight—and anyway, in broad daylight with Polly front and center at all times, they didn’t have anything to fear.
“Nasty?”
“Yeah. I’m not sure if it’s the Colombian thing, but I think it may be. Makes sense it would be the last gig, doesn’t it?”
“Revenge?”
“Seems likely. I’ve embarrassed them. I’m supposed to be dead.”
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