Plum Girl (Romance)

by Winters, Jill

  Then they were on the shaggy cream rug, gripping each other and saying things that might embarrass them later. He reached under her sweater and bra to feel her breasts, and the minute he ran his hands over her nipples, he groaned loudly. Lonnie started to pull her sweater over her head, but stopped midway when she felt Dominick's hand slide inside her panties. Her body jolted, her eyes shut tight, and her moan sounded more like a sharp scream, as he moved his hand on her, whispering about how wet she was right before he slipped a finger inside her.

  "Christ, Lonnie," he breathed in her ear, as he pushed deeper and harder with his finger, "you're so hot.... You... you look so hot tonight.... God, I... I've wanted this all night." It took all her energy to respond.

  "Me, too," she whispered breathlessly, and jerked her body against his finger because it felt so good. "I thought... when you... when you didn't say anything about how I looked—" She stopped herself from continuing because her insecurities sounded ridiculous, and also, she was too turned on to speak anymore. His hands were even more adept than she'd fantasized they would be; they were gentle but powerful, expert but intimate, all at the same time.

  He let out a short, strained laugh, and murmured, "I didn't want to say anything because I didn't want you to think I was only after your body." She tried to laugh herself, but she couldn't because she was panting, as his finger propelled her closer and closer to orgasm. Oh, Lord, she was so close. So close... So close...

  Suddenly, keys clanked and jangled outside the front door.

  Oh, no, Peach was home! Immediately, Lonnie pushed him off her. They scrambled to their feet, and started to adjust themselves. Although, with the exception of Dominick's hard-on, he was fine. It was Lonnie who looked like she just had a wild few hours in bed. She incoherently mumbled "act natural" to him, before she'd rushed into the bathroom to straighten herself up.

  Peach entered the apartment laughing. "What do you mean, you don't believe in knock-knock jokes? Oh, hi, Dominick!" He stood there, feeling awkward, while Peach and Matt strolled over.

  "Hi, Peach, how're you doing? Hey—Matt, right?"

  "Yeah. How's it going?" Matt replied.

  The bathroom door opened and Lonnie came out. Dominick gave her a once-over. She'd combed her hair and put her sweater and bra back in place, but she still couldn't do anything about her rosy, used lips, and her just-fucked, flushed face. More than anything, he wanted to touch her, hug her. But instead, he and Lonnie took seats in separate armchairs and made conversation with Matt and Peach.

  "I'm telling you," Peach was saying, "you should've been there." She'd just finished describing the Bruins game, and the fight that had broken out only two rows behind them. She and Matt had raced home to see if they'd be on the ten o'clock news.

  "So, Lonnie, what did you think of Twit's announcement yesterday?" Matt asked, with; a lopsided, mocking grin.

  "Oh. The word ridiculous comes to mind," she said. "Didn't you find it strange that—" Then she stopped herself. She didn't know what to isolate; she wanted to ask Matt if he'd found every single thing about Twit & Bell strange these days. But she remembered what Detective Montgomery had told her about total discretion, so she proceeded lightly. "I don't know. It just seemed strange that Twit would make a blanket statement like that about not taking another partner. Well, you're an attorney.... How'd you feel about it?"

  Matt shrugged. "Honestly, I couldn't care less. I'm putting in another year there; then I'm moving on to a bigger firm, anyway."

  Lonnie nodded. "But didn't Twit think his announcement would alienate the others?"

  "The guy is totally blinded by ego. What does he care?" Matt leaned back against the couch and rested his hands behind his head.

  "I see your point," she agreed, and added off the cuff, "I guess B.J. feels the same as you."

  He snorted, "B.J. is just lucky he even has a job at this point." That made him snicker.

  "Which one was B.J. again?" Peach asked. While Matt launched into an unflattering description, Lonnie glanced over at Dominick. He made penetrating eye contact, as if to say: I don't know when we're going to finish what we started, but when we do, neither of us will be able to walk for a week. At least, that was how she chose to interpret it.

  "So, why's he lucky to have a job?" Peach asked, and Lonnie snapped out of her lustful trance. That was a good question, and she was also interested in the answer.

  "Simple," Matt said, smirking. "As an attorney, B.J. sucks." His smile grew wider. "He's screwed up with three different clients already. The guy's a complete asshole." His face was positively beaming now, as if nothing gave him greater pleasure than illuminating B.J.'s defects. No one said anything, so he continued. "That's why he was so obsessed with the idea that he was getting fired."

  "B.J. was?" Lonnie was shocked because B.J. always acted confident, especially when it came to his casework. Of course she figured a lot of it was pretense, but she never dreamed that it was all pretense.

  "Hell, yeah. B.J. was completely, psychotically obsessed," Matt sneered, his voice thick with ridicule. When no one responded to that, he switched gears and made his tone milder. "See, he'd worked with Lunther on a couple of cases, and he'd made blunders—we're talking big-time blunders. And Lunther told him if he screwed up one more time, he was out. Then, a few weeks ago, he lost a client."

  "How?" Lonnie asked, wide-eyed and keenly interested.

  "It was some dinky finance firm. The account was relatively small potatoes, so Lunther gave it to B.J. But they thought he was incompetent, and instead of switching to another attorney they changed firms." He paused, grinned devilishly, and said, "I've gotta tell you, Lunther was angrier than I'd ever seen him."

  "But, I thought you said the client was 'small potatoes,' " Peach said, quoting with her fingers.

  "Relatively," Matt repeated.

  Lonnie couldn't believe what she was hearing! All this had been going on while B.J. was proudly sauntering around the office, bragging about how he breezed through his work. Life was so strange. Still, she failed to see why Matt was so utterly, shamelessly, smug about the whole thing.

  Suddenly she remembered what B.J. had said at the staff meeting the day before—that he was glad Twit was the one in charge now—which she'd thought was very odd at the time. Now it made more sense.

  "Why didn't he get fired?" Dominick asked, although Lonnie sensed that he was only politely curious about B.J. She, on the other hand, was fascinated.

  "I don't know. Lunther was probably going to, but—"

  Matt didn't need to finish the sentence; everyone was thinking the same thing. Lunther died before he had the chance.

  * * *

  "Sorry about interrupting you and Dominick tonight." The apartment was pitch-black, and Peach and Lonnie were lying in their beds, wide-awake.

  "Oh, it's okay."

  "No, really," Peach went on, "Matt asked me if I wanted to watch the news coverage of the game at his place, but I didn't know if I wanted to go to his apartment yet."

  "I'm glad you came back here." Lonnie was grateful that Peach, for all her free-spiritedness, was still cautious. They were both like their father that way. Lonnie asked, "So, do you like him a lot?" She couldn't help but wonder what her sister thought of Matt after tonight. Had she noticed the profound enjoyment that Matt seemed to get out of his so-called friend's misfortunes?

  "Umm... he's okay. I don't know." She paused. "He bought a chili dog."

  "Huh?"

  She sighed and repeated, "He bought a chili dog. At the game." Lonnie rolled to face the partition screen, and Peach finished with, "I just don't know if I can be with someone who eats that. A hot dog's bad enough, but then cow flesh on top of it? I just don't know if I can make a relationship like that work."

  "Oh. Yeah," she agreed gently, because she admired Peach's vegetarian principles, even if she couldn't relate. Not only were cheeseburgers a weakness, but no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't get her conscience to engage the red-meat is
sue beyond the calorie count.

  "Did you have fun with Dominick tonight? I mean, before Matt and I busted in on you?"

  "Yeah." Especially the half-naked writhing part. Not that she had tons of experience with fully naked writhing, but inexperience seemed easy enough to fix. She said good night to Peach, and soon they both drifted off to sleep.

  * * *

  Early the next morning, Lonnie met Detective Montgomery at Espresso Royale to discuss what she'd observed around the office since they'd talked on Monday. She'd written down a few notes, but was still unsure if there was much purpose in it. On top of that, now he was getting on her case about her large cafe mocha.

  "How can you drink that crap?"

  "It's good; I like it."

  "You got so much sugar and chocolate in that, it's not even coffee anymore." He winced as if her drink was the foulest concoction he'd ever seen.

  "Sorry, we can't all be 'manly' and order black coffee, pretending it's the best thing we've ever tasted," Lonnie replied. Normally, she was more polite, but Montgomery had been teasing her for the past five minutes. The man seemed to get a big kick out of rattling her, but now that she wasn't afraid of him anymore, he was getting a reaction another way. Namely, by acting like an obnoxious punk. And here she was doing him a favor!

  He chuckled and said, "What happened to the nervous little girl from the other night? The one who thought I could cart her off to jail without a moment's notice? I think I like her better."

  You would, she thought. "I'm twenty-seven. I think that qualifies me as a woman."

  He sighed. "Ah, God. So you're one of those?"

  Those? By now she knew he wasn't out to get her. But he was still a royal pain.

  "I only mind being called a 'girl' when it's meant to reduce me. Now, can we get back to the case?" She kept her tone even, because something told her that if she encouraged Montgomery's badgering, he'd be merciless.

  "Okay, okay. What d'ya got?" He took out his notepad and waited for her report.

  "Let's see...," she began. "Well, I'll just give you the list." She handed a sheet of paper across the table to Montgomery and explained, "See, I've numbered things in terms of abnormality, with 'one' being 'very odd' and 'eight' being—"

  "I get it, I get it," he cut her off, and scanned the list. "What is this?"

  "What?" She straightened up in her seat, a little indignantly.

  "What's this—'Bette's bragging reduced'? 'Twit stayed in office a lot'?" Well, sure, with that inflection, of course it sounded dumb. " 'Hang-up calls'?"

  "Yes. I've been getting hang-up calls ever since Delia forwarded Lunther's phones to me."

  "Uh-huh." His expression was bland. "Solicitors and anyone else who would have no reason to know Bell died. Next"—Lonnie's blood was boiling—" 'Delia spills soda'?"

  "Wait, I didn't get to finish writing that! What happened was—"

  He held up his hand to silence her. "Really, that's okay." He shook his head and waved the paper, as if demanding an explanation. "You call this helpful?"

  "Hey, what's your problem?" Lonnie asked, annoyed. "Those are perfectly valid observations."

  She went on to explain why, and finally he nodded, half convinced.

  "Okay, okay," he said. "What's this one? 'Mail delivered late on Thursday.' " He cracked up laughing.

  Lonnie gritted her teeth. "That's why it's number eight. If you were listening before—"

  "Okay, I'm sorry," Montgomery said, still chuckling. "This is... this is good, really. But I think from now on, look for things that are a little more tied into motive."

  Lonnie scoffed, "What makes you think there'll be a next time?" She snatched her list out of his hand. "Is this my tax dollars at work?"

  Montgomery laughed, and leaned in closer across the table. He softened his tone. "Look, I'm sorry, all right?" Yet he was still beaming with amusement at her expense. She just scowled. "Really, this is helpful. I'm giving you a hard time this morning, I know."

  "Why are you?" Lonnie asked, relaxing her posture a little.

  "I don't know. You're like the little sister I never had." He squinted his eyes, and appraised her with blatant cockiness. "Actually," he corrected, "you're not exactly like a sister." Either he was trying to annoy her or come on to her, but either way, it gave him far too much pleasure.

  "Please, you're old enough to be my butler. Can we get back to the case now?"

  "I'm forty-three," he said, mildly indignant. "But you can relax. You're not my type, anyway." He leaned back and flashed the confident smile of a middle-aged hunk who knew he still held appeal. "I like my women compliant."

  "Yeah, that sounds about right."

  "You're a little high maintenance for my taste."

  "Fascinating. I'm crushed, by the way. Now, about my notes—"

  "And you're high strung, but you just don't know it."

  "Well, you're overbearing and overdeveloped," she said without thinking. Then a giggle burst from her throat. "Hey, now you've got me doing it!"

  He just grimaced. "Yeah. All right, so what else d'ya got?" She gave him a saccharine smile and took the folded-up copy she'd made of Twit's fax from her bag.

  "Here," she said, passing it to him.

  "What's this?" he asked, as he took it.

  She shrugged. "I don't know what it means, but I just know Beauregard asked me every day if this fax had come in, and then since Lunther died, he hasn't mentioned one word about it. He hasn't seen it yet." He scanned the contents, and she added, "Ann Lee was Lunther's assistant. One day she just stopped showing up for work."

  Detective Montgomery folded up the paper and slipped it into his front pocket. "I'll look into it. Thanks. I mean it." He seemed completely sincere.... What was the catch?

  "No problem," Lonnie said, and decided to take advantage of his gratitude, which promised to be ephemeral, at best. "Detective, I just have to know," she probed. "What did you mean the other night when you said there had been threats against Lunther?"

  "Kid, I can't get into all that with you."

  "Why not? You can trust me! Anyway, how do you expect me to keep an eye out when I don't even know what's going on?"

  He pondered that for a moment, and then yielded. "It was nothing specific," he explained. "But we had it on file. Bell's brother—"

  "Henry."

  "Right. A couple weeks ago, Henry comes into the station and wants to file a report, saying his brother had gotten some death threats. But the problem is, the guy doesn't have any real information. All he knows is what Bell told him—that someone he knew had threatened to kill him more than once."

  "Oh, God," she muttered to herself.

  Montgomery continued. "But Bell wouldn't tell him who it was—claimed they were empty threats. Apparently, he'd told Henry in passing, never realizing he'd take it any further."

  "But why was Henry worried?" Lonnie asked. "I mean, if Lunther didn't think the threats were serious...?"

  He shrugged. "I can only assume that Bell was a real asshole, because, I gotta tell you, Henry believed it. He was absolutely positive that if someone had the chance, they wouldn't hesitate to kill his brother. And as it turns out, he was right."

  Lonnie had always thought there was something underlying Lunther's disingenuous good-ol'-boy bit, but was it even more than she thought?

  "Then when we got the call about his death," Montgomery continued. "Well, the way he was found... let's just say, it didn't feel right." She thought about the way Lunther had been backed up against the coatroom wall, and undeniably, it was strange.

  Montgomery gave her notes a once-over. "There's nothing here about Macey Green." He looked up at her. "So you didn't notice anything off about her? Nothing at all?"

  "N-no."

  "Think, Lonnie. Anything at all?"

  "No, Detective. I can't think of anything." Why was he so suspicious of Macey? Was he still zeroing in on her just because she'd left the holiday party before the police had arrived? Lonnie realized that
she'd have to snoop around a little more if she wanted to get information that would get Montgomery to give up his Macey theory. If she could just find evidence against the real killer... Hopefully the fax would turn up something important.

  "Okay," Montgomery said. "Now, before I go, is there anything else? Anything at all?"

  Lonnie considered telling him what she'd learned the night before about B.J. But she couldn't do it. B.J. was too harmless to commit murder, and the last thing she wanted was to mar his career any more than he already had. She couldn't implicate him with a clear conscience when she didn't believe for a minute he could be a murderer. So she just shook her head.

  Montgomery got up to go. "I'll be in touch. Thanks again."

  Lonnie knew she'd have to look a lot harder if she wanted to find out who the real killer was, and keep Montgomery from coming down hard on the most convenient scapegoats. But how would she do that without attracting attention and making herself a target?

  She half smiled good-bye to the detective, took a final swig of her mocha, and told herself it was just the sugar making her shake.

  Chapter 18

  "Are we gonna kiss, or are we gonna eat?" Lonnie was sitting on Dominick's lap, with his office door firmly shut. She snuggled closer. She knew she should get back to work, but since it was Friday, she was feeling lazy.

  "You choose," Dominick murmured, and kissed her jaw softly. He tightened his hold on her, and she squirmed just enough to feel him hard underneath her. She sighed languorously, and kissed his mouth. Slowly and deeply.

  "That's not fair," she whispered into his mouth after they broke the kiss. "You know what I'll choose every time." He smiled against her lips, and ignored his ringing phone. "Aren't you going to get that?" she asked, running her fingers through his hair and over his ears. He just made a low, husky sound, and nuzzled her hair.