by PJ Adams
And then: awareness that he wasn’t done, that he was still thrusting.
Now she didn’t cling so tight, and her body resisted his movement as he thrust and withdrew. Now all sensation centered on where their bodies joined: the squashing of her breasts against him, his arms wrapped around her and the driving entry and withdrawal of his hard shaft.
That shift in how they moved was all he needed and now he slammed deep and held and she felt wet heat exploding inside her as he threw his head back and cried out.
Another pulsing as, already, he started to soften, and then she was holding him deep once again, with her arms and her legs wrapped around him.
2
She lost track of how long they slumped like that in each other’s arms. The reverie was finally broken by the sudden roar of a passing logger’s truck and the blast of a horn.
Still atop her, Denny jumped and twisted, and she was reminded of the night before and how his confident charm could so easily be taken over by moments of alarm. It was only later that she’d discovered he had good reason to be wary...
He glanced back down, and that smile broke across his features. They laughed. The trucker, driving past... “Do you think he could see much?” she asked, and they laughed again.
Denny raised himself and pulled away and Cassie felt that sudden withdrawing sensation as his soft member slipped out of her. Back in the driver’s seat, she watched as he raised his hips and pulled his shorts and pants back up. “We’re going to have to find you some new clothes,” she said, as he fastened his belt. “There’s a time and a place for black tie, and I hate to break it to you, but driving a logger’s road through north Maine isn’t it.”
She found her jeans and started to wriggle into them but the space was too cramped. She opened her door and stepped out. Instantly the cold air bit, and all of a sudden it was as if reality had just slapped her hard.
They needed more than just a new pair of pants for Denny. Neither of them had anything. After the encounter with the two hitmen back at Pappy’s she and Denny had just taken the Lexus and fled. There had been no time to pack. They hadn’t even gone back to her cabin in case more surprises lay in wait for them there. Hell, they hadn’t even had time to check out this car they’d stolen. For all she knew there might be a body in the trunk.
She climbed back in. It was no good thinking like that...
“So what are we doing?” she asked. “What’s the plan?”
Back when they’d taken the car they’d just chosen their direction on the toss of a coin. At that point they hadn’t had time to let the enormity of their situation sink in. But now she was starting to think things through...
Denny was staring ahead, up the empty highway. She studied his square-jawed features and wondered what was happening to her. For all that she’d been mad he’d treated her as a one-night stand, in truth it hadn’t been anything more than that to her either. A natural part of a wild, stormy evening.
Hard to think Denny McGowan had only walked into her life the previous evening. So much had happened since then! A stormy night at Pappy’s Lobster Bar, the place half-deserted, and – out of nowhere – in walks a complete stranger in a tux soaked through from the rain. He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a fat roll of hundred dollar bills and asks if there’s anywhere round here a guy can get a drink.
A mad evening, an intense night... that he was gone the next morning had hardly been a surprise. That he’d come back at all was surely the real surprise of it all.
But now she needed to get her thoughts straight. They needed a plan. And the fact that she was thinking like this, more than anything, marked a transition. A plan implies something longer-term. It says that somewhere in her head or in her heart a part of her had already decided she would see this thing through, whatever it was. This thing between her and Denny MacGowan.
“I need to think,” he said, at last. “I need to work out what to do.”
“Might help if you at least told me what we’re running from.” They’d left the two gangsters tied up at the bar with the cops on their way. There probably wasn’t much the cops could do, except pin a bit of minor property damage on the two, but it bought some time, at least.
“I will,” said Denny. “I’ll tell you all about it once I’ve got it straight in my head, okay?”
She wasn’t sure it was okay. Sounded more than a bit like he didn’t trust her, like he was taking his time to work out just how much to share.
She studied him carefully, and finally he turned and she could see just how scared he was. Maybe she was being unfair. Maybe he was just out of his depth.
“We keep heading north,” she said, moving on. “We end up in Canada. Now I know we’re pretty desperate but... Canada?”
He shrugged, then said, “Turn east and we’ve got maybe two hundred miles before we hit the Bay of Fundy and it’s pretty much all trees and lakes until then. We could find somewhere to hole up and lose ourselves for a time.”
“You don’t strike me as a cabin in the woods kind of a guy. And winter’s closing in. Gonna be colder ’n a witch’s tit out that way. You really know what you’re suggesting?”
That lost look again. City boy out in the wilds. Just how desperate was he?
“Why are they after you, Denny?”
“Like I said. There was a girl, and my best friend. I got involved with some low-lifes and ended up owing them far too much money that I didn’t have any more. All in all I lost close to ten million dollars.”
Numbers like that... It was like he was talking about the incomes of small nations, not bad gambling or business debts.
“That’d have been bad enough, but then, just to complicate things a little further, it wasn’t exactly my money to lose...”
§
“My turn,” he said, as they resumed their drive, heading north, getting close to Bangor now. That would be where they needed to make some decisions, as the roads came together offering them the choice of east, west or carry on to the north. “You’ve been asking all the questions up to now, so I reckon it must be my turn.”
That was hardly fair. Yes, she’d been asking questions but how many had he actually answered? She let it pass, and waited.
“A guy. You said there was a guy involved, sometime back in your sad story of bad luck and worse decisions. See? I pay attention. So what happened?”
All that seemed a long time ago now. “Seems I have a weakness for the bad boy,” she said, and he at least had the decency to smile at that. “They say a girl’s always drawn to men like her father, and I guess there’s some truth in that. My pa was a bad lot, and now that you’re making me think about it, I can’t say there’s been a man in my life who’s been much better.”
“Until now?”
“I’m reserving judgment.”
“This guy?”
“He discovered I’m no pushover,” she told him. “He discovered I don’t take kindly to being lied to, or to a guy who tries to throw his weight around. When I met him he had a BMW with a beautiful paint job. When I left him, that beast wasn’t so pretty any more. Cheating bastard leaves a can of paint-stripper lying around, what does he expect? And by ‘lying around’ I mean in the store and I had to pay for it, but the principle’s the same. Time I moved on after that. I got tired of looking over my shoulder.”
“That how you ended up in Maine?”
She shrugged. “I moved around. Summer jobs and then scraping through the winter. There’s a whole series of bad luck stories you don’t want to hear. It even bores me, I tell you.”
“I’m captivated.”
His eyes were still fixed on the road ahead. There were buildings either side of the road now, on the approach to Bangor: warehouses and lumber yards.
She couldn’t work him out. Couldn’t decide if he really was besotted with her – I’m captivated – or if he was just playing her along with that smooth talk that came so easily to him.
Then... one of those turns of convers
ation, a sudden connection, that changed everything.
“Cassandra Dane...?” Now he turned to look at her. “Daughter of Billy Ray Dane? Hell, that makes some sense now. No wonder you’re out here in the middle of nowhere.”
“You recognized my name?”
He nodded.
“No wonder you’ve got so much fight in you.”
§
Billy Ray Dane had been all over the news eight years ago, his trial on the front pages for weeks on end, or so it had seemed at the time. Big shot Wall Street trader with a tendency to play fast and loose with the rules and then when things heated up he’d ended up involved with all kinds of bad money and worse company.
“I didn’t get my fight from Billy,” she said, her voice tight and controlled. She didn’t get anything from Billy, or at least nothing she’d want to keep. “I got it despite him.” All the coverage, the TV profiles of the corrupt financial wizard living the life of the super-rich in his Long Island mansion... it was another world.
“I got my fight from growing up in a one-room apartment in Brooklyn with a sick mother and somehow managing to get through school. We never had any help from Billy, only occasional interference because he could never leave things alone. At first Mom was too proud to make any demands on him, and then she was too sick, and then it was too late. I got my fight from standing up for myself when nobody else would. After Mom passed on, I got it from finding myself sixteen years old without a roof over my head and my only living relative in jail. I...”
She stopped, took a deep breath and then released it slowly. “Like I say, I’ve got so many bad luck stories I bore even me.”
It was true, she realized: she’d grown up full of fight and spirit. She’d never been one to take life’s ups and downs sitting down. It was only since Billy had tried to reconcile with her and she’d fled that all of that spirit had been knocked out of her. She’d stopped using her real surname in the three years since Billy had got out. She hadn’t even heard the surname spoken out loud for maybe a year until this morning when one of the gangsters had used it while he was pointing a gun in her face.
“He tried to get in touch,” she said. “When he was still inside. Said he wanted to apologize. The way he got in touch was to have two muscle-bound thugs bang on my door late one night and hand over a note he’d written. Nothing’s subtle in Billy Ray Dane’s world. Said he was going to be freed soon and he wanted to meet and get to know me.”
“Did you do that?”
She shook her head.
“I moved away from New York. Found a job cleaning cabins in a ski resort in Vermont, then headed up to New Hampshire. I’d come through it all. Working three jobs at a time so I could put myself through school, I found myself a place to live after Mom died. I was doing okay before Billy weighed into my life again.” But then it was as if all of that was knocked out of her. That was when the bad choices started; when all she could do was find ways to scrape by and keep a low profile.
She glanced across at Denny. He’d made her feel good. He’d flattered her, made her feel as if she actually had some value about her again. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt that way. Couldn’t remember if she’d ever felt that way.
But when had she ever been with a guy who wasn’t some kind of trouble? Was she just repeating history with Denny McGowan? This enigmatic stranger with his beautiful eyes and easy charm and his frustrating habit of being hunted down by gunmen?
Just then, he swung off the highway, and into a Walmart parking lot.
“Now this may not be the finest outfitters you’ve ever tried,” he said, “but I bet they have an impressive line in t-shirts and bad-fitting sweat-pants.”
§
She stood a little distance from the checkout, watching while Denny took care of their purchases. It probably wasn’t an everyday sight here: guy in a tuxedo, bow-tie hanging loose around his neck, bagging up and paying for a mountain of jeans, sweaters, two puffer jackets, sneakers and hiking boots. When he pulled that roll of hundreds out of his tux pocket Cassie thought the cashier’s eyes were going to pop right out of her head.
Outside, loading up the Lexus, Cassie still felt detached, as if she’d taken a step back from it all and was watching someone else.
“So where from here?” asked Denny, oblivious to her mood.
“Indeed.”
He paused at that and gave her a quizzical look.
She’d been pushed around for too long now, always forced into responding to the events in her life. She’d dodged, she’d run, she’d evaded confrontation. In every relationship she’d had, she’d looked for protection above all else, and far too often she’d misinterpreted stupid male bravado as strength.
Denny McGowan.
Just another mistake, or was he somehow different? Was she really so desperate or shallow that she had to keep latching on to whatever was on offer like this? What did she even know about him? Pretty eyes and a perfectly proportioned dick were hardly the best basis for a relationship.
“I don’t know you,” she said. “You excite me and turn me on, and make me feel more alive than I have in years, but I don’t know you.”
“Isn’t that enough for now?”
“It’s a start.”
“What more do you need?”
“I want to have a good reason for why I’m risking my life by sticking with you.”
“Seems reasonable, for sure.” That spark in his eye again. That God-damned spark! She tried to blank it out.
“I need to know who you are,” she said. “I need to know why a guy walks into a bar in the middle of Nowhere, Maine, in a tux, in a storm, with a roll of hundreds in his back pocket. I need to know why he’s got two gunmen on his tail. I need to know all about you, Denny McGowan. I need to know if you’re worthy of me.”
...which sounded arrogant and demanding of her, but it was true: she deserved better. Better than she’d had; better than the life all those bad choices had led her to; just... better.
“You need to convince me, Denny. You need to win me.”
“You mean, like, you want me to take you on a date? Is that what you’re saying? I’ll do that. I’ll take you wherever you want to go.”
As ever, his answer was quick and facile, but there was something else in his eyes now. Perhaps it was some kind of realization that she’d taken a big step, that she meant this.
“There’s a place I know,” she said. “Place I used to work before I came out to Maine. Over in the White Mountains, near Bretton Woods. Maybe three hours west of here. Probably less, the way you drive. I know somewhere we can hole up, gather ourselves. Make plans. But I mean it: I need to know you, Denny McGowan. You need to convince me I’m doing the right thing here.”
3
“My turn,” she said, as they resumed their drive.
After loading up the Lexus, they’d found restrooms and changed into new clothes. Fresh underwear felt so damned good! After what seemed like the longest time, she was starting to feel human again. Jeans, a tee and another over-sized sweater, nothing to draw attention.
Denny looked different in sneakers, jeans and a check shirt. He’d worn that black tie and tux well, but now he looked more relaxed, as if he’d finally peeled away the layers of who he was trying to be.
This time they headed back the way they’d came and took the I-95 west. “First: are we safe in this car? The cops must have got to Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee back there, by now. What if they reported it stolen?”
Denny grinned at that. “It’s not stolen,” he said. “It’s mine.”
“Yours?”
“Al and Luis – the gentlemen you met back at your lobster bar – they took it from me last night. They were, shall we say, escorting me back to Boston in it when I took them by surprise and gave them the slip. I hid out in the trees until I saw them heading slowly south, looking for me, and so I headed north. I must have walked for miles in that storm, jumping into the trees every time I saw headlights just in c
ase it was them coming back to search in the other direction.”
Outside, Bangor was mostly hidden from view by embankments and trees. They could have been almost anywhere. Cassie closed her eyes and took a long breath. So much had happened! Her quiet life at Pappy’s seemed so far away, all of a sudden.
“So why were they ‘escorting’ you back to Boston? A gambling debt, you said last night?”
He was doing that thing again: the slight delay while his brain worked, always calculating, planning what to say. She hated that she felt so suspicious of him, hated that her instinct always started off on a negative track.
“Tell me the truth, okay?”
He nodded, glanced at her with those steel-gray eyes, then said, “A bad business deal. A string of them... Business, gambling... it’s all just different forms of gambling at the end of the day. I didn’t really do all that. Looking after the money was Brady’s side of things.”
“‘Brady’?”
“Brady Lowe. Old buddy of mine. The oldest. We went through MIT together. He was an economics major; I was software engineering. Did you have me down as a geek? No? I’ll take that as a compliment. We roomed together through college, me and Brady. We set up a software company while we were still at Harvard Business School. We shared everything.”
“Including a girl...”
She remembered what Denny had said the previous evening: She was beautiful, she was fun, she had an IQ of 160 and she was screwing my best friend. I’ll give you a hint: one of those was a lie.
“Yeah, that was kind of a breaking point, you know?”
“And your buddy... Brady Lowe: he cheated you out of everything?”
“Did I say that?”
She nodded.
Silence, for a time, then: “Maybe I was a bit harsh. Brady made some bad decisions. There were repercussions. You know what we did? We wrote dating software. Or at least, that’s what I did, while Brady was out making connections to turn my doodling into money. All I did was a wee bit of data-mining and pattern-matching. That and working out the algorithms that hooked people in so they just had to keep coming back for more.”