Unmarked Man

by Darlene Scalera

  She caught the bus and got out at a corner store several stops before Nick’s building. She bought cheese, crackers, a liter of soda, and a six-pack of imported beer for Nick. She was angry, but also a good guest. As she waited to pay for her purchases, she glanced out the store window, spying the same man in shorts and baseball cap she’d seen near Fat Eddie’s. Coincidence, she tried to convince herself. The man took off the cap to wipe his brow. He had a black crew cut. She recognized the man she’d seen downtown earlier.

  She left the store, headed toward Nick’s with a nonchalance she’d never had the privilege of feeling in her life. The street was busy, the sidewalk crowded with students, shoppers, workers ducking out for a quick break. Cissy weaved in and around the others, away from her unknown fan. She glanced back. The man was strolling up the street with the same checked calm as she. She crossed at the corner, still several long blocks from Nick’s building. She quickened her steps, the sweat slick along her shoulders, trickling down her spine.

  The streets farther from central downtown were less populated. She dared to throw another look over her shoulder. A quick scan didn’t reveal the man. Had she been imagining it? Still, she quickened her steps and turned at the next corner. The street headed into the park, almost empty due to the strong sun and unbearable heat. Thick stands of trees and high bushes edged the park’s path, providing shade but also secret cover where deeds not fit for human eyes could be done undetected.

  Cutting through the park was the shortest way to Nick’s apartment, but that meant taking the path that provided opportunities for…she didn’t even want to think what opportunities abounded in the park’s recesses. She had to go one block back if she chose the longer route, risking the chance of running smack into her stalker. She shot a glance over her shoulder, saw nothing. She was still moving toward the park, unsure what she was going to do, when she spied an alley between two tall buildings. She ducked inside, greeted by the odor of human waste and broken wine bottles. Until she passed the Dumpster she didn’t see a steel storage building at the other end of the alley, its door locked and bolted. A half-ton pickup parked perpendicular to the alley blocked exit from that end. She turned back to the street, peeked her head out, snapped it back as the man with the baseball cap came around the corner.

  She hid behind the far side of the Dumpster, the bag of groceries and six-pack of beer beside her. Nauseous from fear and the smells heated by the sun, she waited.

  Through a crack between the Dumpster and the wall she saw a shadow stretch across the sidewalk in front of the alley’s opening. She held her breath, her clammy back flattened to the brick wall, stray hairs pasted to her neck. The man in the baseball cap paused. Her flesh prickled as he peered into the alley. She waited. Nothing. She peeked between the Dumpster and the wall, saw only the sun’s blinding reflection across the sidewalk. She released a breath and stood. She was bending to pick up the groceries when her cell phone rang.

  She froze. The phone rang again. She sank back behind the Dumpster, fumbled for the slim receiver. The man was too far away to hear the phone, she told herself. One eye trained to the slit between the Dumpster and the wall, she clutched the phone and whispered, “Hello?”

  “Cissy?”

  Nick. Relief so rich, she forgave him everything, past, present and future.

  A figure moved into the alleyway’s entrance. Nick called her name as the phone fell from her hand into her purse. Her fingers severed the connection, turned off the ringer.

  The man moved cautiously into the alley. She had thought herself safe. How many times had she made the same mistake?

  Keeping her gaze on the approaching figure, she reached toward the six-pack, wrapped one hand around a bottle’s long neck, her other hand around another. She brought both hands together, hoisted the bottles to her shoulder, preparing to strike.

  The man’s shadow started past the end of the Dumpster. She stood and swung as hard as she could into the man’s groin. Bull’s-eye. With a groan, the man went down and hit with a thud so hard, even Cissy jumped.

  He lay facedown in the dirt, moaning. The back of his T-shirt pulled tight outlined the holstered gun and the police badge clipped to the man’s belt.

  CISSY PACED the apartment beneath the fish’s placid regard.

  “It’s not enough telling every possible lead not to talk to me? You had the police follow me?”

  Nick poured one of the beers from the six-pack that had taken his colleague down. He took a sip, his cool rivaling his pets’. “It was for your protection.”

  “I don’t need protection.”

  He took another sip as if considering her statement. “Spinelli would probably agree with you there.”

  Cissy winced. “I am sorry about that.”

  Nick waved away her worry. “The ribbing he takes from the department will be more painful.” He gave a short laugh. “Taken out by a six-pack.”

  “If you hadn’t had him following me, none of this would have happened.”

  He stood and set the beer bottle on the counter. “Spinelli’s a rookie hot to play detective. The chief thought it was a good way to keep him busy and keep an eye on you.”

  “I’m a suspect?”

  “You broke in to Lester’s house the night he was found murdered. Later he was found in your motel room.”

  She stared at him. “Is that what you think? That I murdered Lester, then plopped him in my room to take the suspicion off me?”

  “No, that’s not what I think. But the rest of the department doesn’t know you like I do.”

  She thought he was playing with her until he didn’t smile.

  “They don’t know that you let Mary Elizabeth Goca pierce your ears with an ice cube and sewing needle when you were eleven and your mother grounded you for a month. Or that you thought your feet were too big when you were thirteen and nearly crippled yourself wearing shoes three sizes too small to stop your feet from growing. Or that at fourteen, you let your little sister fall asleep with her head in your lap on our couch while my mother took yours to General for X rays.”

  He stepped toward her.

  “They don’t know you feel as helpless and afraid as you did twenty years ago.”

  But he did. Because he’d been right there. Because he’d experienced the same anger and frustration and fear.

  Her gaze dropped away from his sinfully handsome face, only to be stopped by the hard length of his body, the lean legs, the abdomen that rippled beneath the shirt tight to his wide shoulders. She raised her gaze to find him assessing her with the same hypnotic interest. His lids, thick lashed, lowered, his face increasing its sensual cast. Her breath hitched. She had to save her mother and sister. But she had no idea who was going to save her.

  He stepped closer in a movement that was as much to seduce as it was to dominate. She wouldn’t have stepped away if her feet had been on fire. “You were lucky today.”

  “Was I?” She was pleased by the layer of huskiness infusing her voice, causing the heavy-lidded lust in her ex-lover’s eyes to thicken.

  He blinked. The sensuality became seriousness. “Whatever your mother and sister got mixed up in, these guys aren’t playing around. This isn’t cops and robbers to them. It’s life and death. Your death if you’re in the way.”

  He’d come too near, but there was no threat or power play or even breath-stealing lust. What was left was something wonderful. A solid man. She wanted to put her arms around him and let him pull her close. Let the weight of her body relent, if only for an illusionary moment. Her need made her angry. When she looked up into his dark eyes and had to plead, she became angrier still. “Are they alive, Nick?”

  He pulled her into his arms, tight to his body. Her hands balled up into ineffective fists and pressed against his chest. “I’ll find them, Cissy.”

  This was Nick. She didn’t know how many morals he’d lost or gained in the fifteen years since she’d last been in his arms, but she did know he didn’t make promises he couldn’
t keep.

  She rested her forehead against his chest, too tired to pretend to pull away. Holding her shoulders strong so they wouldn’t shake, she allowed two tears to slip down her cheeks. Just as quickly she stopped them. She’d be damned if they’d make her cry. She’d let them shoot her first.

  She lifted her head, Nick’s lips so close she died to touch them, take their warmth and comfort so openly offered. Warmth that rallied against murder and death. She had to taste life. The warmth that exploded into heat as she flicked her tongue across the softness of his bottom lip. With a groan he sealed her lips with his own and plunged inside her, hot and thick and dizzying as the day’s heat. Her body swayed to his, the arousal of her nipples rubbing against the broad span of his chest, the pressure of her pelvis meeting his in open arousal. He kissed her harder, pulling away to plant a trail of kisses down her throat, find the curve of her ear and trace it with his tongue. She dipped her head, taking his mouth hard and fully, desire and the thought of death demanding nothing else but these lips, this body, this man. Her hands crept up the wonderful slopes and shifts of his back. She cupped his face with her hands, her palms to his cheeks and the new sweetness of his lips even scarier than the heavy, pulsing lust.

  Nick pulled away, muttered thickly, “Damn,” his breathing ragged. His gaze came back to her, black and serious.

  “I can promise you I’ll find out what happened to your mother and sister. I won’t promise anything else.”

  Nick Fiore with a conscience. He’d make her love him yet. Her pelvis was still joined with the hardness of his own arousal, her legs still trembling from his touch and his taste. She pressed her body to him harder. “Hell of a time to get serious, Fiore.”

  But as he laughed, dropping his mouth to cover hers once more with a passion all the more appealing in its forced restraint, she knew he was right. From the moment she’d looked up in the station house, the sight of him slamming into her with breath-stealing, body-rocking force, she’d known. She’d lost. The fight was over before it’d even begun.

  She pulled away, already regretting the space between their bodies. But they weren’t teens anymore, when passion was pure and simple and without thought. They were complex, responsible adults. Sex was infinitely possible and even more pleasurable than in their heady youth, but life was more than random orgasms. She faced Nick, with his face made for dreams and his body made for desire, his sexuality raw as the regret that ripped through her. He waited, his thoughts always without revelation, his invulnerable expression no help at all. She reached for him, releasing a word that would have resulted in three Hail Marys and three Our Fathers at Saturday confessional. She had lost a long time ago. Like her mother and sister now, she’d been among the missing ever since.

  His body hardened at the feel of her. The rush of desire staggered her.

  He looked down at her, a concern in his dark eyes that she knew surprised him as much as her.

  “You should stay away from me.”

  She went on tiptoe and pressed her mouth to his. “I can’t do that, Fiore.” In for a penny, in for a pound.

  His hands tightened on her shoulders. She thought for a second he was going to shake her as if she’d lost her mind. Then with a low growl he pulled her against him, their bodies meeting with the boldness that had always been between them. One hand tangled possessively in her hair, forcing her head back, angling it for pleasure. With a harsh intake of breath, his mouth came crushing down on hers. He thrust into her, delving deep into the warmth of her mouth. Her mouth curved in a smile. She would have laughed aloud with a wanton fever if not for the complete capture of her mouth beneath his. His hand tightened on the back of her head possessively, controlling her, pressing her harder still to him. But it was his other hand fisted in the back of her shirt, pressed to her backbone, that gave him away.

  She stopped, drew back from him, the quiver in her knees causing her body to weave. He wrapped his arms around her to steady her. She looked into his eyes for a long moment. If the bad guys didn’t kill her, Nick Fiore would.

  Chapter Ten

  She slid her hands up the nape of his neck and pulled his head down, brushing her lips against his tenderly, tantalizingly as her body melded to his, her pelvis following the rhythm of her lips. Her tongue slid inside his mouth, caressing his teeth, the roof of his mouth. She touched her tongue to his, stroked it, played with it until they both groaned and their breath moved harsh and shuddering and even her reeling Catholic conscience fell away, leaving her shameless and wanting him, fiercely, hungrily, more than she had ever wanted anything in her whole life.

  Her lips inches from him, she whispered, “Been getting awful brave lately, haven’t I?” She wanted him to know she was scared. Scared as he.

  He tipped her chin. “Tough girl.” His eyes remained fixed on her. He was waiting for her. He never rushed. He didn’t have to.

  She stroked the nape of his neck. She would be sorry, but it would be the sweetest regret she’d ever had. She opened her mouth and surrendered her soul.

  “Make love to me, Nick.”

  He took her mouth in a kiss so slow and devouring, if she hadn’t fallen in love with him before, she would have now. As it was, she only admitted to herself in lustful delirium what she’d always feared. She’d prayed it’d been a fluke or the embellishment of memory that happens easily over time. But fifteen years later, no man had made her feel the same as when she’d opened her legs—and her heart—to Nick Fiore.

  The sweet torment grew urgent. Her mouth opened, matching his passion, while her hands tugged his shirt from the waistband of his pants, slid beneath the fabric to the smooth span of his back, caressing his strong shoulders, cool skin.

  His mouth crushed hers greedily. His fingers gathered the fabric of her shirt, drew it over her head. His hand, heated, strong, cupped her breast, released it from the confines of her bra to close over it. His touch delighted in her breasts’ silken full curves, her nipples puckered with desire. The pad of his index finger stroked, circled the nipple’s tip, causing Cissy to shiver with pleasure. His mouth trailed down her throat, the fine flesh of her upper chest, closing over her bare breast, caressing it with the hot, moist heat of his mouth. Clutching his shoulders, her back arched and her fingernails drew blood.

  Her arms wrapped around him and she clung to him as he released her only to cup her breasts with both hands, stroking, molding while his mouth and tongue caressed and her body writhed against him, her moans of pleasure long and shuddering.

  He lifted her in his arms, carried her to his bed, where he’d once promised her she’d be safe. She looked up to find his mouth hard and taut and his black eyes fierce with desire. Cradled against his hard chest, he kissed her long and slow and deep before gently lowering her to the bed as if to say, “You’re still safe.” They both knew they weren’t.

  He laid her on the bed she’d made that morning and found her mouth, hungry and hot and urgent. She unbuttoned his shirt and pushed it off his shoulders. She marveled at his beauty, her fingers tracing a rippled abdomen like a blind person reading Braille. With a pleased laugh, he smoothed the hair back from her face, quickly kissed her mouth, moved down her body, kissing the shape of her until the hot, heavy throbbing between her legs pleaded for release. She reached for him, wanting him, wanting to pleasure him and telling him in language breathless and base and pleasing to both their ears. With a wildfire in his eyes, he took her gaze, held it as he unsnapped her shorts, yanked them to her knees, leaned down to open his mouth against the panties covering the apex of her legs. The damp heat of his mouth burned through the thin silk. He pressed hips, lips and tongue and teeth against her, nibbling, biting, licking while her blood pounded in her head, between her legs and in the most unresponsive of muscles, her heart.

  He slid the panties down to her knees only to return to her, exposed and anxious for him, his tongue finding her sweet spot, caressing it hot and wet with a slow slither that made her cry out, ache to part her thighs a
nd give him greater access but finding herself bound at the knees and helpless beneath the weight of him and the touch of him. Her hips undulated, her body writhed, needful, hungry, while each leisurely stroke brought her closer to ecstasy.

  He took her wrists, pinned them at her sides as his tongue and mouth took her higher in sweet, sexual torture until she arched, pressing herself deeper against his mouth. She climaxed with a shuddering cry ripped from inside her and filled with joyous release.

  She did not open her eyes for a long time afterward, still somewhere between heaven and earth and not anxious to leave. When she did open them, her lids heavy, her limbs languid, she found Nick watching her. His eyes glittering, he smiled a slow smile that acknowledged her passion, relished it and promised more.

  He stripped them both, Cissy watching with the pleased afterglow of passion, enjoying the naked sight of him. She reached for him. He came down on top of her, his weight and strength a wonderful thing in a world where so little was solid. She explored, knowing his urgency, surprised to find her own building again with lazy licks of fire promising to burst into flame.

  He parted her legs with his thigh, kissed her until the flames grew again, suckled her breast while she found him, hard and hot and pulsing, just touching her where he would enter.

  But not yet. Not yet. They stroked, caressed, nipped, suckled until they were both taut and quivering as a stretched bow. Her hands circled him, rubbed him against her. He entered. Slowly. Hard and fiery hot and filling her fully. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her still in his embrace while he kissed her mouth with deep passion.

  He pulled himself out, slid in again. Cissy was on fire. His hands braced on either side of her, he stiffened his arms, lifting his weight completely off her. Their only point of contact was where their bodies joined. Slowly he moved in, out, then in again, she lifting her hips with anticipation to meet him each time. He bent his head, suckled a swollen nipple. She feared she would self-destruct, nothing to be found after but a smile.