by Brandon Witt
“I don’t know about that. I was supposed to be in court today and sent a junior associate instead,” he said, smiling that ridiculous smile. “So they’re going to pitch a shit fit.”
“Ah, the benefits of working for myself.” I pulled out my phone and thumbed through the applications until I brought up the word processing app. I typed Jordan in all caps at the top of the page before giving him a frank look. “Which brings us to the crux of the matter, I suppose. Tell me, Jordan,” I said in my usual blunt manner, “who the hell would cheat on you?”
He went red a little, which should have made him look like a tomato. It didn’t. “I suppose there’s a way to snatch a compliment out of that.”
I shrugged. “Take it how you will.” I leaned back in my chair. “Let me guess. Some girl you want to marry, but you think she’s after your money?”
“Rachel has her own money,” he said. “I just feel like we’re not clicking like we used to. All of a sudden, there’s like this wall between us.”
“And you thought, ding, I need a private eye?”
“No, I thought I should follow her. See what she’s up to. Who she’s into. Then a private eye caught me,” he said, making me laugh. “And now I think you might be a little better at surveillance than me.”
“Give me some details,” I said, rubbing my hands together.
He shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know what would help you. What are you looking for?”
“Something salacious, honey. I don’t give a damn about helpful.”
He looked startled before laughing. “You’re a bit crazy, no?”
“And don’t think I don’t know it. Where’d you meet? What’s she look like? What are her routines?”
He spent the next fifteen minutes giving me the rundown on who, exactly, Ms. Rachel Graven was. A Stanford graduate with a high IQ. An only child whose stepsister gave Jordan the willies with her excessive flirting. An associate at a firm in the same building, but foreclosures and asset seizure as opposed to his tax law. Worked eighty-hour weeks and was back for more on Monday. Dark hair, dark eyes, and an affinity for blood red lipstick. Oh no, girlfriend. She sounded like one cold, smart bitch. If she wasn’t cheating on him, she could be my new drinking partner.
“I don’t know.” His deep sigh tugged on my heartstrings a little. “Maybe she’s just not that into me,” he said with a self-deprecating smile.
I didn’t deny it. “Maybe she’s just a ho.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be neutral?”
“That’s Switzerland, dear. This is America, and we take sides.”
He smiled. “So you’re on my side, then?”
And your back, and your front. I forced my dirty mind back to reality. “I’m on whoever’s side is paying me.”
“Well, that would be me,” he said, holding out his hand for a handshake.
I mock-squealed like a Miss America pageant winner instead. “So I’ve got the job?”
He laughed and shook his head. “Against my better judgment.” He checked his watch and did a double take. “Damn, it’s been an hour. I’ve got to get going, and your friend is probably filling out a missing persons report.”
“Drew?” I shrugged. “Bastard is probably so into his homemade sauce, he doesn’t even realize I’m gone.”
“You want me to give you a lift?”
“I’m good,” I said, not wanting to be in his gorgeous proximity a moment longer. “I’m pretty sure biting a client’s neck is a horrible way to begin a working relationship.” Oh shit. “Good Lord, did I just say that out loud?”
From the looks of his red, stunned face, I did.
“You want to bite my neck?” he repeated slowly.
I want you to fuck my ass, actually. Long and slow. Bent over a countertop somewhere. I told my raging hormones to calm down before I lost a potential job. “Kidding, Jordan. Kidding.”
“Right. The sarcasm thing, right?”
I nodded, a sanguine look on my face.
“Are you going to be all right?” He paused at the door, giving me an unreadable look.
“Perfect,” I said and then winced. Asinine. I had a bad habit of using the word “perfect” when things were anything but. I waved him off. I felt a pang that I probably wouldn’t see him for a while, and that was ridiculous.
After he disappeared, I left a message for Drew that went a little something like this: “Hey, you bitch, I know you went home without me. How the hell am I supposed to get home? See you tomorrow.” I added one more bitch for good measure and hung up.
The older woman at the table next to mine was using all the peripheral vision she could muster to spy on me, and I sipped my coffee with an innocent look. “What?” I asked, facing her full on. “He knows he’s a bitch.”
She glared.
After I had prolonged my coffee as long as I could, I began the long walk back through Riverwalk, determined to call Drew until he answered. On second thought, because I knew him very well, I decided to head to the bus stop just in case. I walked to the bus stop, feeling the stretch and pull of the muscles of my knee. Oh, I was going to pay for this tomorrow. Hell, I was paying for it now. I sank down on the bus stop bench gratefully, wondering if it was lazy to call a taxi to pick you up from a bus.
I dug out my pack of cigs and a lighter from my pocket and finally lit my one of the day. My so-called family and friends had whittled my one pleasure in life down to a single moment of a twenty-four-hour day, one single moment to fill my damaged lungs with delicious cloudy air and let it out on a single breath. I did so immediately, almost feeling close to orgasm for waiting so fucking long. It was just as well that I was close to quitting. God knows you can’t smoke anywhere anymore.
I eyed the police cruiser that slowed down next to my bench before the window lowered.
“Put that goddamn cancer stick out,” the officer said.
I shook my head, letting it hang out of the side of my mouth as I gave him the one-finger salute. “Fuck you, Five-O.”
“You’re not getting in my car with that thing,” he insisted. “Disgusting, filthy habit. Put it out.”
Lord, I’d heard it all before. “I just lit the freaking thing.”
“You want a ride? You put it out now.”
“It’s my one of the day,” I whined. The no-nonsense expression on his usually joking face finally made me stub it out on the curb. “Fucker.”
“Now you’re littering,” he grumbled.
“Robby!”
“Been circling every hour or so,” my brother said, waving me over. “Finally caught you. Drew said your sorry ass was in the area. Destitute. Homeless. As usual.”
“For once I’m glad to see your face. What’s up, Tao?”
“Is that the gratitude I get for coming to pick your ass up?” he groused, even as Tao, his partner, gave me a fist bump. “Get in. We’re in a fire lane.”
“Shouldn’t I be wearing cuffs or something?” I asked as I clambered into the backseat. My leg was too tired to entertain them with my version of a perp walk.
“In your dreams, perv.”
“Settle it, you two,” Tao said mildly.
As Robert peeled away, I spotted the bus lumbering up to the stop and sighed with relief. He was an annoying little twerp, but today my brother was a lifesaver.
My apartment was dark, and I left it that way, making my way by the filtering light of the bathroom to my bed. I sat on the edge of the bed, glad I’d bothered to spend the extra money on a pillow-top mattress. I had to thank the South Carolina Doubletree, actually, where I’d once rented a room next to Cheating Spouse number forty-two. Ching! Fake register noise. Doubletree had to have the softest bed on earth, and I’d done my best to replicate it. The comforter was thick and dark brown, and I felt comfort for the first time all day.
I rummaged through the bottom drawer of my nightstand until I had an orange prescription bottle in hand. Meloxicam. After I’d explained the exact nature of my leg problem to my doctor
, the unconcerned bitch had rattled off a prescription that did absolutely nothing for me, but I persevered anyway, taking it doggedly every day. I’d been tempted to hit CVS, sweep a mass of OTC products into my basket, and go all mad scientist on my leg. But for now, I sighed and downed another meloxicam, dry.
Take with food, the bottle screamed at me.
Now that I was within two feet of a pillow? Highly unlikely. I fell back onto bed, pulling the covers over my head. It wasn’t until I was half asleep that I realized I was now down to a half a cig a day.
“Fuckers,” I muttered, before drifting off.
I knew nothing else until morning broke through my blackout curtains.
Chapter 3
HIS EYES were wicked, stormy pools as he leaned over me, and I kept my eyes open as long as possible to watch his slow descent. I let them drift shut as his hot mouth fastened on the soft skin of my neck, and moaned a little.
“You’re killing me,” I managed, threading my hands through the silk of his hair.
“I’m trying,” he teased, working a hot trail with his tongue down my neck and around the muscles of my chest.
My stomach contracted hard and bottomed out as he traced his way around my abs. His hand drifted down to my cock, which jutted upward for his attention. His hand instead palmed my balls gently and tugged a little as his tongue darted into the indentation of my belly button. His tongue went upward instead of down, and he used the broad side of it to surround one of my stiff nipples.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I groaned, working my waist like a freaking belly dancer to try to get my dick closer to his hand, his skin, his mouth, his anything.
Soft laughter ensued before his hand finally took control of my leaking cock. “This what you wanted?”
“You’re such an ass.”
He worked his hand up and down, the precum dribbling from the mushroomed head slicking his way. God, I’d never been so turned on or hard. I even heard ringing in my ears. He leaned in, his voice whisper soft as he neared my ultrasensitive ear. “Maybe you should get that.”
“Get what?” I shook my head in response, and feeling his hand draw away from my cock, I grabbed for his wrist. “Don’t stop.”
“Pick up. Pick up.” God, even his breath wafting across my face was delicious. He smelled like mint and strawberry gum.
“Jordan,” I murmured.
“Pickuppickuppickuppickup!”
My befuddled eyes snapped open, and I heard my specially programmed ringtone clearly. I slammed my head back down on the pillow.
“Fuck!”
I glared at my phone, having a vibrating seizure on my nightstand. It had better be good. I looked down at my raging hard-on and groaned, then buried my head in the softness of my pillow. It had better be damn good. I waited silently for the message prompt, enjoying the warmth of the morning drawing sunlit lines on my back.
God, why would I be dreaming about Jordan? He was off limits. Practically married. I pressed the unknown message and listened for a moment before groaning. Trevor.
“I want to talk to you about Finnegan,” he said, enunciating his words precisely in a way that was now uniquely his. He hadn’t spoken that way when we’d first met. He’d drawled, slow and long vowels, and skipped some consonants altogether. I’d thought it ridiculously sexy. Soon he’d eradicated it to the point that it only appeared when he was angry. Or passionate. Even now, I could hear the way he put six extra a’s in baby when we were in bed. “As soon as you can, I want you to come over to my place.” He paused and then added, “Laura gets home at six thirty, so sometime before then.”
I grimaced, sitting up and pushing off the bed with a groan. I stretched, wishing I hadn’t checked the message at all. I wanted to ignore him altogether, but he had my dog. He’d also taken off with the good television, the good linens, and most of the dishes. While I was fine eating Captain Crunch out of a jelly jar, he wasn’t going anywhere with my dog.
I had walked Finn when he had to work late, trying to establish himself as a new associate instead of grunt number twelve at the law firm. I’d fed Finn, bought his food, taken him to the vet, and taught him the dumbest tricks known to man. There was a reason he barely responded to “sit,” “stay,” and “down.” I found it more to my liking to spoil him, and if you said “gimme sugar,” he was on you like white on rice.
High on my soapbox, it took me a moment to hear my phone buzzing, even though it was in my hand. I checked the flat face and groaned. Drew. Work.
“What’s up?”
“I ought to ask you the same thing.” Drew’s voice was annoyance personified. “I rescheduled the meeting for this morning. Where the hell are you?”
“I’m trying to remember the last call I got from you that didn’t begin that way.” I found the remote amongst the disarray of the covers and pointed it at the TV. I immediately pressed mute so Drew wouldn’t bitch.
“I’m trying to remember the last time you bombed so many appointments.”
I halted in front of my dresser and opened the box of Nicorette one-handed, tearing the box a bit in the process. With friends and family like this, I didn’t need cigarettes, I needed fucking cocaine.
“Do you know where I can get some good blow?” I asked, only halfway kidding.
“Mackenzie, will you get serious? Are you coming in to work or not?”
I slapped the patch on my upper arm and lit up a cigarette at the same time. “I’m sorry, you bitch, didn’t you desert me yesterday?”
“Didn’t I call your brother to give you a ride?”
“Yet another offense I’ve yet to collect for.”
“Will you put that fucking cigarette out?” Drew sounded exasperated.
“I’m not smoking,” I lied.
“I heard the lighter, you fruit.”
Damn, but the surf forecast looked good. I turned the volume up a pinch, just enough to hear over Drew’s monotone report about our morning meetings. I rummaged through the nightstand drawer and unearthed my leg brace, which I only used when it got bad, and flopped back down on the bed when I found it. I eased it over my foot and up my leg as I listened to the report and not Drew.
“More typical July conditions this week, with a nice southwest swell. Bad news is we may be expecting a low-grade storm in the next two to three days. Good news is that the swell will increase slightly, making a good weekend for all you surfers out there.”
I shrugged. Sooo… we may get creamed by a storm, but before Mother Nature hurls a tree through your window, by God, there will be surfing! The weather forecaster sent a toothpaste-ad smile to all of us at home, and I almost covered my eyes from the glare. Someone needed to ease up on the Crest Whitestrips.
“We have two consultations and an appointment with Randolph Kelly this morning,” Drew informed me.
God. Randolph Kelly was an irate husband, a sixty-something-year-old who’d acquired a twentysomething girlfriend and us to monitor her, apparently. The grizzled bastard had hired us no less than six times, and this time was no different from any of the last. It was a good news/bad news situation—she wasn’t cheating, but he owed me one hell of a bill for sitting next to her curb for two weeks.
“So what’s your excuse for skipping out?”
“My leg is still hurting from yesterday, you know. It was a long walk.”
“And you’re still not feeling well?”
I shrugged even though he couldn’t see me, not feeling the least bit guilty. Damn, but the report of the water conditions had me wanting to rearrange my whole morning. I blew a ring of smoke over my head, sad that the cigarette was damned close to my fingers. It was always gone too fast.
“Are you forgetting I went off with a murderer? I was almost killed, after all.”
“That can be rectified.” At my continued silence, he stressed, “This is important. By the way, did you seal the deal?”
“Yeah,” I said, jamming the phone between my ear and my shoulder. “He hired us.”
<
br /> “That wasn’t exactly what I was talking about.” I could hear the smile in his voice.
“Oh, for God’s sakes, Drew.” I didn’t need to see my face to know it was flushed. “It wasn’t like that.”
“Is our resident queen losing his pristine charms?”
“Shut it, bitch.” I’d show him pristine. Sure, I was in a bit of a rut, but I enjoyed sex no more or less than the next person. Trevor and I had had a very active sex life. It was the only thing that bastard hadn’t been deficient in. “Don’t be jealous because I have standards.”
“And Mr. Perfect didn’t meet those standards?” Drew suddenly sounded quite sympathetic. “Is this because of Trevor?”
Hell, Jordan met standards I didn’t know existed. My skin suddenly felt shivery, remembering my interrupted dream and his calloused, sure hands on my malleable flesh. I could still see his expressive eyes behind those glasses, focused on me, only me, and it made me want to do crazy things to his person. God, to steal the words right out of Akon’s mouth, he was a sexy bitch. He addled my senses and made me want to say “Trevor who?”
“Water temperature is in the midsixties,” Whitestrips continued. “Should be a glorious, sunshiny day for all you beach lovers.”
“All right, all right, you twisted my arm,” I murmured. I clicked off the TV and tossed the remote on the bedspread. “Reschedule one last time,” I told Drew above his protests. “I’ll be available tomorrow. I promise.”
“Mac, you boy-bitch, I know you’re going to the beach—”
I hit the End button on my phone, and it followed the remote. I mean, this isn’t Hawaii—they get waves like this all the time. Hell, it’s not even Daytona Beach. Not using a good surf day like this would be darn near un-Floridian.
It wasn’t long before I was attaching the soft rack for my board on my old pickup. The door creaked as I opened it, and I slid onto the cracked vinyl seat. As the truck stuttered to life, I remembered my mechanic’s last unsolicited advice, dire as usual, as he’d swiped my Visa card—“Those struts are about ready to be replaced.”
I had just dropped a little over a grand for a new starter, a water pump, four tires, and numerous other repairs on my dilapidated old truck. Old Bessie had been good to me since college, but she had gotten tired of being put on the back burner.