by April Hill
Two minutes later, after three kisses that left me breathless, and a lot of attention to my already taut nipples, Matt pushed me back on the bed, lowered his head between my legs, and began to nibble and kiss the insides of my thighs. I reached down to caress an erection that seemed to me—after a very long drought—astonishingly large, hard, and very, very ready.
When I moaned that I wanted to have him inside me right away, he spread my legs wider, raised my knees and knelt between them. I wrapped my legs around his waist and trembled at his first, deep, hard thrusts. I can clearly remember the incredible strength and size of him, and the feel of his mouth and tongue moving over my breasts.
At which point, I passed out.
When I woke up, it was morning, and I smelled coffee. My head felt like it was about to implode, so I stumbled into the bathroom, swallowed a handful of aspirin, and crawled into the shower. I didn’t bother drying off, because my entire body felt hot and feverish, but I found my slip and panties by the side of the bed and put them on before making my way into Matt’s spotless, sunny kitchen. He was spooning out scrambled eggs onto two plates, and the smell made me instantly nauseous. I took a piece of toast from one of the plates and nibbled at it, hoping to calm my stomach, then sat down on the closest chair, afraid I was about to be sick.
“How are you feeling this morning?” He sounded cool, but polite. I cleared my throat and tried to answer, but all that came out was a horse little croak.
“My throat hurts,” I said miserably.
“You’re dehydrated.” He handed me a chilled glass of orange juice. “Drink that.”
“I hate orange juice,” I said.
“Maybe vodka would help.”
Shit! It was obviously going to be one of those “let’s fix the drunk” mornings.
“This is fine.” I snatched the juice up and drained it very fast. It actually tasted pretty good. Cold and wet, anyway. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Can you eat, or not?”
I shook my head vigorously. “I’d rather not.”
“Suit yourself.” He swept the eggs off both plates and dumped them in the sink.
“I’m sorry,” I began, “about … well, about last night.”
Matt didn’t turn around. “No problem. Having a dead-drunk woman fall asleep on me, mid-stroke, is kind of a new experience, though. Deflating, too. I’d call it a pretty poor second to masturbating in a public toilet.”
I cringed. “I said I was sorry.”
“Yes, so you did.”
“Maybe I should go home, now,” I murmured, but as I stood up to leave the kitchen, Matt turned around and took my hand.
“Sit down for a minute, Gwen, please,” he said softly. “I’ve got something I want to say—need to say, I guess.”
I sat down.
Matt shook his head. “I’m sorry about what I said a minute ago. It was rotten. I … maybe I was expecting too much out of last night. I like you, Gwen—a lot.”
“Yeah, I can tell.” It sounded sullen, even to me.
It seemed like a long time before he spoke again. “My dad was an alcoholic,” he said finally. “He died when I was fifteen. He was drunk and doing close to eighty when his pickup missed a curve and crossed the median on a county road near our place in Colorado. He killed a man and his wife and their two little girls. Both the kids were under six years old.”
I glared at him. “I am not an alcoholic!”
Matt sighed. “Not yet.”
Funny how little things can change everything, isn’t it? I had absolutely no intention of doing anything that morning except gathering my tattered pride and my wrinkled clothes and skulking home, but then, I noticed this big, white china sugar bowl sitting in the middle of Matt’s kitchen table. Without really planning to do it, I grabbed the bowl with both hands and smashed it over his head. Then, I stood there and watched with a kind of horrible fascination as a long gash appeared just under his hairline and a thin stream of blood began to dribble down his forehead.
For a wounded guy, Matt moved really fast. He had me bent over the kitchen table with my slip up to my waist and my panties down around my knees faster than you can say big, huge, gigantic rubber spatula. (The kind you use to get the last of the mayonnaise, for you voyeurs and detail freaks.)
I kicked and squirmed, and howled at the top of my lungs, not just because I was embarrassed by what was happening, but because every blow of the damned spatula stung like bloody hell. My feet were dangling inches above the floor, so I couldn’t get a real foothold, and Matt was holding me down with one hand on the small of my back. Every time I tried to reach behind me, he pushed my hand away, then managed to grab my wrist and pin my arm across my back. After that, with my only line of defense immobilized, he had a clear field, and please, believe me when I report that he made the most of it.
He landed maybe twenty or twenty-five swats, mostly on my butt, but a few up and down the backs of my thighs. When he stopped, we were both out of breath, and my ass and everything south of that felt like I’d sat down on a kitchen burner. I was literally sputtering with rage when he pulled me off the table and dumped me back on my feet. I started swinging with both fists at his head, but without much effort, he managed to duck my swings, and got me by one wrist.
“Stop it!” he ordered. “All that happened here was you just got your butt blistered, and you damned well had that coming. Maybe next time you pick a bar fight, you’ll think twice before you try to cold-cock someone bigger than you.”
“You son of a bitch!” I picked up a plate with my free hand, and raised it over my head to throw it.
Matt didn’t even try to stop me. What he did do was to let go of my wrist and unbuckle his belt. “Make one move to throw that plate,” he said calmly, “and I swear to God I’ll put you back across that table and give you a walloping you’ll never forget.”
That stopped me. I still didn’t know Matt very well, but at this point, with my butt scorched and pulsating and my damned underwear still tangled around my feet, I was ready to believe every word of the threat. I put the plate down on the table as slowly and carefully as I could. Matt called a cab for me, and I got dressed and went home. I swore under my breath the whole way, trying not to cry.
There was a funny thing that day, though, and for a long time I didn’t really understand what was going on. By the time I got home, I was still muttering under my breath about rotten, abusive bullies and about suing his goddamned, fucking ass. Twenty minutes later, I was still plotting acts of vengeance, like putting the little dog’s poop in Matt’s mailbox, or sneaking over there and pouring weed-killer on his patio plants. I tried with all my might to stay mad enough to pay him back by doing something mean and rotten, but what I really wanted was to go back there, pound on his door, throw myself at his feet, and beg him to take me to bed. I have never felt so turned on in my entire life. Go figure.
Eventually, of course, all that passion turned to anger, and then to righteous indignation. I had always considered myself a very liberated lady, and aside from the embarrassment of being spanked and scolded like a little kid, I took the implication behind Matt’s “correction” very badly. I had managed to come this far in life without being reprimanded for what I saw as nothing more than occasional exuberance, and I wasn’t about to let some arrogant Alpha male manhandle me.
I didn’t see or talk to Matt for months after that. Then, one day, he just showed up— asking to borrow an egg. Without ever talking about what happened between us, we declared a truce. The war was over. But he never asked me out again, and it broke my heart.
* * * *
LouEllen turned up two weeks after she disappeared, by the way—safe and sound, and dressed from head to toe as a man. There had never actually been a Mr. Ebersole. Later, though, LouEllen called to apologize about the confusion, and about the little dog, explaining that she had tarried longer than expected at a small surgical clinic in Tijuana, where she had gone to take the first steps necessary
to become Mr. Paul Ebersole.
Chapter Three
Matt may have originally just been teasing about taking me in for questioning that morning that Gabe’s body was found, but as a consequence of my continued cuteness, I did get end up getting dragged “downtown.” He said it was simply for questioning, but I saw it as a clear case of police harassment. He drove me to the Pacific Area Police Station, escorted me not all that gently into a big, disorderly room with a whole wall of file cabinets, and sat me down me in a swivel chair next to his own very neat desk.
“All right, now. First things first. Have you ever been arrested?” He punched a series of mysterious figures into a computer.
“Doesn’t that thing tell you all that?” I asked sweetly.
Matt swung his chair around to face me. “That thing?” he repeated, grinning. Some people refuse to believe that some other people are clueless when it comes to technology. I do have an aging desktop computer, and even an e-mail address that I use now and then, but that’s about as far as I’ve gotten, so far.
“Computers are on the list of things I’m planning to get to, someday,” I explained.
“Some day?”
I yawned. “Well, it’s a very long list. Let’s see. Computers come just after teaching myself ancient Greek, learning to fence, and to play the lute, of course.”
Matt sighed, and turned back to the screen. I got the feeling he was tired of joking around. Some people are funny that way. Work, work, work.
He started over. “Okay, once more. Have you ever been arrested?”
“Doesn’t that thing tell you all that?” I repeated. Hey, I could be just as stubborn as he was.
He stopped typing, and gave me a hard look. “All right, then. Let me explain how the system works. We can do this the easy way, or we can do it the hard way.” Then, he smiled that fabulous smile again. “Sorry, movie cops use that line all the time, and I’ve always wanted to say it to someone. Oh, and in case you’re interested, this ‘thing’ says you have no arrest record, which amazes me, frankly.”
“No rap sheet,” I corrected him smugly. “I go to the movies, too, Detective. No … I mean yes, I do not have a rap sheet. Unless you count high school, of course.”
Matt rolled his eyes heavenward, visibly annoyed, now. “We don’t count high school.”
“Wow,” I exclaimed. “That is a relief! And they swore to me it would be all be on my permanent record. Looks like they lied.”
“So it seems.” Matt leaned back in his chair. “Okay, so what did you do in high school that was so bad?”
“You don’t want to know,” I whispered. “It was too awful.”
“I’m sure.” His voice sounded weary, like maybe playtime was over. “Now, could we please talk about why you’re here?”
“Because I’m a murder suspect, right?”
“You’re not a murder suspect,” Matt explained patiently. “At this point, you’re just a person of interest.”
I snorted. “A person of interest? Shit! Why do cops always have to talk like officious assholes?”
He smiled again. “It’s required—a part of our equipment. They issue our terminology at the police academy. I can say perpetrator, too, if you really want me to.”
I wasn’t giving up that easily, though. “So, explain to me how a person of interest is different than a suspect?”
“It means that they’re curious about what you might know, but don’t think you did it—yet.” Matt rubbed his eyes, and sighed again. “Of course, they don’t know you as well as I do.”
I ignored the crack. “But they think I know something?”
“Maybe.”
“Well, I don’t,” I said stubbornly.
“Maybe you know something you don’t know you know.”
“So, now I’m stupid and obtuse, is that it?”
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it. Now, let’s start over, and try to stay on the subject. What can you tell me about this person, Gabriel Tannhauser?” He paused for a moment. “I’m sorry, Gwen, but I have to ask this. Did you have a reason for wanting this guy dead?”
My laugh was a little on the bitter side. “If you had known Gabe, you’d know what a dumb question that is. The answer is yes—and no. Did I want him dead? No, not really. I mean, not well and truly dead, but something would have been nice—something nasty enough to get his attention. So, no, I didn’t exactly want to see him dead-dead. But what my grandmother used to call ‘comeuppance’ would have been great.”
Matt groaned. “Thank you. That clears it up perfectly.”
I shrugged. “You had to know him. He was a louse, but he had his moments.”
“Some of which he spent with you?”
“I was nothing but this brief little blip on Gabe’s radar screen.”
“How brief?”
Now, I was getting annoyed. “Is that a professional inquiry, or a personal one?”
“Maybe both. What else can you tell me about him? About your relationship with him?”
“My relationship? Well, now, let me see.” I scratched my head thoughtfully, and smiled sweetly at Matt when I answered. “Oh, I know! I fucked him. One hundred percent more often than I did you. How’s that?”
“Twice, then?” Matt typed this information into the computer as if it meant nothing at all to him.
“You have a very poor memory, Detective,” I crooned, hoping that my voice was dripping sarcasm. “You and I never…”
“Yeah, we did,” he said quietly. “You were just too wasted to remember it.”
I bristled. “Or maybe it was just extremely forgettable.”
“Maybe.” It was obvious that the crack had hurt him, and I could have bitten off my tongue right on the spot if I wasn’t such a yellow, lily-livered, egg-sucking coward. The thing is, I did remember it. I remembered every gorgeous, lusty, sensuous moment of it, until … It was the earlier part of that awful evening and the following morning I was still trying to forget.
Matt didn’t say much else after my snide little outburst, just kept typing until he’d finished the report. He printed out what he had, and then handed me his business card. The interrogation was over as quickly as it had begun. “You can go, now,” he said. “If you think of anything else, call me. Or if you’d rather, you can talk to Detective Dan Olsen—my partner. I can’t leave right now, but I’ll call a cab to take you home.”
“No thank you,” I said coolly. “I’ll walk.”
Matt sighed. “Don’t be ridiculous, Gwen. It’s probably three miles back to your place, and on that foot of yours you wouldn’t get two blocks.”
“Then, I’ll get a bus!” I hissed. I have no idea why I was acting like such an idiot, by the way, other than the fact that acting like an idiot comes so easily for me. I think what I really wanted was for him to show some sign that he’d been hurt by everything I’d just said to him. That didn’t happen, though, proving once again how few feminine wiles I have, even on my best day. It’s pathetic.
Next, Matt tried being reasonable. “This is Los Angeles, Gwen. You can’t just walk out and find a bus. Besides, it’ll be dark by the time you get home, and there’s a good chance there’s still a murderer out there, somewhere. Look, I’ll tell you what. Just give me five minutes to finish up, here, and I’ll drive you home, myself.” He pointed to the report he’d just printed.
Which is when I reached over, picked up the half-finished report, and tore it in half.
The two halves of the report didn’t have time to flutter to the floor before Matt took my arm and dragged me out into the hallway. I limped along after him on my dumb cast, and a few yards further down the hall, he punched open a swinging door. The door was clearly marked “MEN,” in big black letters, and as we barged inside, a badly overweight guy who was just zipping up started yelling and turned his back.
“Shit, O’Connor! This is the goddamned men’s room!”
“This’ll just take a minute, Phil. I’m questioning a suspect,” Mat
t said. “Close the door on your way out, will you?”
The fat cop flashed a big, smarmy, knowing smile. “A little afternoon quickie, huh?”
“Kind of.” Matt gave good old Joe a cheerful thumbs-up. A comedy team, yet. As the fat cop pushed by us and slammed the door, he was roaring with laughter, his belly and jowls wobbling with the effort. Detective O’Connor reached over and threw the bolt, and a second later, pushed me down over the grimy sink on my stomach with my skirt over my head and my underwear drooping around my ankles. I was lying in a puddle of that sticky, pink hand soap they always put in public bathrooms, with my head jammed under a stainless steel towel holder, but out of the corner of my eye, I could see that the good Detective had come prepared for action. He had remembered to bring along a thick, eighteen-inch wooden desk ruler.
But if he thought I was going to stand for this kind of crap, he could damned well think again!
“Just what the hell do you think you’re–” That’s as far as I got with my protest before the ruler cracked across my naked behind, changing my question into an agonized yelp, and causing me to rear up so fast I smashed my nose against the faucet and whammed my head into the towel holder. Blows two through ten felt like liquid fire, and would have had me screaming bloody murder if I hadn’t been hideously aware of where I was, and who was outside—probably with his fat, hairy ear glued to the door. For all I knew, good old Joe had called over a few of his smutty-minded cop cronies, by now. My grandmother always told me that you have only one chance to make a good first impression, and I sure as hell didn’t want to blow my image in front of a bunch of sweaty, oafish half-wits with overhanging beer-bellies and chewed-up cigars. So I took each painful ruler swat with my teeth gritted, my lips sealed, and my dainty butt ablaze.
“Now,” Matt said, letting me up off the sink. “Are you ready to answer my questions, or do I have to get rough?” Then, the son of a bitch actually winked.