With Extreme Pleasure

by Alison Kent

  “I’ve seen you drink coffee and tea. I’ve seen you drink water, juice. Maybe a soft drink. I have not seen you drink wine.”

  “I gave up alcohol after getting drunk and punched,” she told him.

  His expression grew protective and fierce. “Then why buy a vineyard?”

  “Because it’s the farthest thing from where I live, who I am, and what I know.”

  King rolled up onto one elbow and looked down at her, stroking his thumb over her undamaged cheekbone, his touch nearly making her cry. “This is all make-believe, Cady. You don’t have to run when it’s not real.”

  His words did make her cry. “That’s the thing. I stopped believing in make-believe. I’ll be running for the rest of my life.”

  Thirty-four

  By the time they’d come back inside, having spent the remaining hours of daylight wearing themselves out, their bodies bared to the great outdoors and who knew how many prying creaturely eyes and satellites, she’d been freezing.

  Temperatures dropped quickly in the city, yes, but the steel and concrete and millions of bodies held onto that warmth long after dusk. Out here in the middle of God’s green nowhere they weren’t so lucky.

  When the sun set, it took the heat with it. The only way to generate more was with physical exertion and the friction of their skin. She would’ve loved it if they could’ve kept making love forever, wrapped up in the quilt like bugs in a rug, toasty and close and less two people than one, but by that time they resembled the walking wounded.

  Her thigh muscles had never been so sore. Even the hot bubble bath she’d just climbed out of had barely eased the ache. Wrapping up in her grandmother’s old terry robe that smelled of green fields and the sky and lavender, helped ease more than her physical pain.

  She piled herself and the yards of worn pink fabric into one of the chairs at the kitchen table, counting the smorgasbord of soup cans lined up near the sink, and the pots heating on every burner of the stove. She and King never had made it to the store, so soup it was.

  As cute as he looked stirring the pots’ contents and checking the flames beneath, she wouldn’t have traded this meal for one cooked by any of the hundreds of specialty chefs in Manhattan who prided themselves on their ratings and stars. “I never did thank you for getting the house ready.”

  “Not a problem,” he said, bringing spoons and two mismatched crockery bowls to the table, adding two bottles of water he’d fetched from the truck, and dish towels to serve as hot mats.

  And then he leaned close, as if to kiss her, saying instead, “No sex for you tomorrow until we shop. A grown man cannot recharge on soup alone.”

  “Hmm. Sounds like an old wives’ tale to me.”

  “And they got to be old wives because they saved the soup for when their husbands had colds. You need to pay attention when they speak. Feed a cold, starve a fever. Or is it the other way around?”

  That made her laugh. “When we’d come here for vacation, we couldn’t do anything, not eat, not go to the bathroom, definitely not run off to play until the car was unloaded, the groceries put away, the electricity and water working again. My dad made sure to time our trips and bathroom breaks so that we flew through getting everything done.”

  “Must’ve been hard for you, the not eating part,” he said, setting a pot of tomato soup on one towel, a pot of vegetable beef on another, adding serving spoons to both, then returning to the stove.

  She breathed in the aromas of the veggies and salty broth, and her stomach growled its impatience. “I don’t know when I became such a pig, seriously. I don’t remember eating much at all as a kid.”

  “You’re doing a good job of making up for it now.” A pot of cream of chicken completed their meal. “I found a tin of crackers, but they weren’t good for anything but sticking together with mortar to build a house.”

  “I’m done with crackers, thanks, but I could go for a thick grilled cheese sandwich,” she said, ladling tomato soup into her bowl and inhaling again. “Mmm. This smells so good. My grandmother was a big believer in soup for lunch.”

  “With the grilled cheese sandwich,” he said, finishing her thought as he sat.

  “Or fried bologna and onions. Or tuna.” She sipped a spoonful of soup. “Was there tuna in the pantry?”

  “Enough to populate the seven seas. But tuna’s on my hit list. I lived on the stuff for years. Tuna and chips. Tuna and crackers. Tuna and tuna.” Forgoing the serving spoon and then forgoing his bowl, he ate vegetable beef out of the yellow club aluminum pot.

  “Was this before…” she left the question unfinished for a reason she didn’t understand. Bringing up his history seemed an intrusion she had no right to make. One she didn’t think she wanted to make when things here finally seemed so…normal.

  “Before prison? Before my parents died?” He caught her gaze, held it, deepening her chagrin that she hadn’t just blurted out her whole question. “It’s okay to talk about it, chère. You’re not going to hurt my feelings.”

  “It’s so…personal.”

  “And having my cock in your mouth isn’t?” he asked, shaking his head. “Sorry, sorry. I know. Grandmother Josephine would be turning in her grave to hear cock talk at her table. Bad enough to have one poking around in the shed.”

  Cady sputtered, blowing her soup off her spoon and back into the bowl. “Not to mention in the backyard.”

  “Guess it’s a good thing cocks were allowed in the bedroom, or else Edgar would have never been born, eh?” He reached for his water bottle, uncapped it. “And I wouldn’t be here eating soup with you now.”

  “Hey, at least it’s not tuna.”

  “Ugh,” he grumbled, before drinking, the plastic crackling in his hand, crackling again when he set it on the table. “When I got out, I was twenty-two, bare bones broke, and mentally blitzed. What money I had went for booze and smokes, with food coming in a distant third.”

  “Where did you live?” She didn’t remember if he’d told her. “Your house was the one that had burned down, right? The fire you were accused of having set?”

  He nodded, ate a bite. “I had a piece of shit trailer. One room with a bed, another with a couch and a kitchen. There was a bathroom, too, though most of the time I stood at the front door and pissed into the wind. Seemed the thing to do after four years of going in a bowl in front of anyone who wanted to take a look.”

  “I can’t even imagine—” she started to say.

  King cut her off. “Can’t you?”

  “Not really,” she said, knowing he wasn’t talking about pissing into the wind.

  “You’ve been looking over your shoulder for a good chunk of your life. You have no idea who’s been watching you, or what they’ve seen. I doubt anyone’s had a camera in your toilet, but one of Tuzzi’s spies did have the run of your house. Who knows what the guy may have seen?”

  Cady swallowed the soup she had in her mouth and left her spoon in her bowl. She also left her water alone. She wanted a drink, but her hands were shaking, and she didn’t trust that she could get it to her mouth and not spill.

  “You hadn’t thought about him watching you, had you?”

  “I only made the connection between Tyler and Tuzzi a couple of days ago, remember?” She closed her eyes, shuddered, clenched her hands in her lap. “I don’t care if he saw me undressed, but watching me flossing or poking at zits or showering?”

  How many personal rituals did she go through that she wouldn’t want anyone, including King, to see? Much less someone looking for a way to ruin her life? Each thing she thought about—shaving, menstruation, even clipping her toenails—humiliated her even more.

  King backed his chair toward hers, the legs scooting across the scarred linoleum floor. He draped his arm around her shoulders and urged her close. “I could be talking out of my ass, Cady. He might’ve done nothing but keep an eye on you while waiting for Malling to get out.”

  “I wouldn’t call that nothing.”

  “You’
re right. It’s not nothing. But I didn’t want you thinking too much about that toilet cam.”

  “Too late. That’s all I can think about.”

  “How ’bout you don’t think of anything? How ’bout you finish your soup and climb into bed and get more than a couple of hours of sleep?”

  “And what are you going to do?”

  “I was thinking of doing the same thing.”

  “Just sleeping?”

  “Just sleeping.”

  “No bumping naked parts?”

  He pulled back, frowned at her as if thinking she needed her mouth washed out with soap.

  “Hey, that’s what it is. And I’ve heard your potty mouth say a whole lot worse.”

  “The look wasn’t about your potty mouth.”

  “Then what?”

  “That you’ve got the energy to go at it again.”

  She didn’t, until she started thinking about it, then realized if he was the one she was going at it with, her energy would never flag.

  She reached over and tweaked his nose. “You’re the old one, remember? And the one who has dishes to do.”

  Thirty-five

  When King opened his eyes the next morning, it was bright enough outside to be noon. Last night, he and Cady had done the dishes together, made the bed together, then crawled between the sheets and passed out with little more than a hushed good night and a kiss that had gone on forever.

  She’d curled up facing away from the window. He’d spooned in behind her and held her for most of the night, waking up once to ease his numb arm from beneath her head and going lights out as soon as he rolled onto his back. He was on his back now, and she hadn’t moved except to switch sides. But now that she was facing him he could hear her breathe.

  Propping his arms behind his head as Cady exhaled like the brush of a feather against his side, he stared at the ceiling, trying to decide if he was ready to wake up, or if a few more hours of shut eye would do him even more good.

  But since his mind had stirred enough to start working, and had turned to thinking about where they were and why they were here, he gave up trying to doze off and instead drifted to the conversation they’d had with their soup last night.

  What had Tyler whoever-he-was been doing in Cady’s apartment when she wasn’t around to see? Boning his supposed girlfriend Alice, obviously, but other than that, what no good had he been up to?

  Living as she had for so long, on edge, looking over her shoulder, she wouldn’t have been careless enough to leave anything she didn’t want seen lying around when she was gone. She took her backpack everywhere, and except when she had it out surfing the Web, her laptop—the only thing she owned of any value—was always in it.

  That put Tyler there as a spy. Watching Cady and reporting back to whoever sent word of her comings and goings to Tuzzi. Had Cady said how long he and Alice had been dating? She’d concluded that his crawling into her bed had coincided with Malling’s parole, but how long had he been in place?

  How long ago had she sold her ride? Was he responsible for her slashed tires? For her botched job interviews and dates soured by graffiti-sprayed cars?

  Had he listened in on any phone calls she’d made and spread rumors? Made her private life the stuff of public gossip? Had he come there with a specific assignment or just to keep his eyes peeled? And peeled for what?

  That’s what King couldn’t wrap his mind around. With the Renee massage oil connection, there was no way Tyler was anything but a plant. Alice had been cute enough, so screwing her for the cause couldn’t have been a hardship. But it all seemed so ridiculously out there.

  As if this entire situation wasn’t ridiculously out there? He frowned. Had they talked about the boyfriend to McKie? What if Tyler wasn’t there to launch a first strike against Cady as she’d suspected? What if—free pussy aside—he was still there because he hadn’t found what he was after?

  And what if he couldn’t find what he was after because it wasn’t there? Because it was with Cady all the time? Before climbing into her bed, he’d made sure she was passed out. Had he doped her drink? Or left it up to the alcohol to wipe her out, clearing him to search her backpack, her laptop…

  King rolled onto his side, propped up on one elbow, nudged his partner in crime. “Cady?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Wake up?”

  “’M awake.”

  “What’s in your backpack?”

  “What?” she grumbled.

  “Your backpack. What’s in it?”

  She straightened her legs, rolled over, and pushed her bangs out of her eyes to look up at him. “I don’t know. The usual stuff. Wallet, lip balm, undies, meds, girly hygiene things, and lately a full change of clothes and something to sleep in. Your guns.”

  So she had noticed. “I’m working on that.”

  “Good.” She stretched, arched her back. The sheet slipped down to bare one breast. “I’ve got a backache from carrying them around.”

  “If you’ve got a backache, it’s from boinking like a bunny, and from hauling your laptop everywhere,” he said, pulling up the sheet or else they’d never finish this conversation.

  “I’m used to my laptop.”

  “Yeah. About that.”

  “Yes, I know. I’m online way too much, but since I don’t exactly have a lot of things going for me in real life…”

  “This isn’t about you being online.”

  She grumbled as she propped up on both elbows. “I might be able to keep up if I had coffee.”

  “And if you hadn’t dragged me off to the backyard last night, you’d be drinking a cup even now.”

  “I knew that would come back to bite me in the ass,” she said, rolling her eyes and yawning.

  He leaned toward her and growled. “I’m going to bite you in the ass if you don’t listen to me.”

  She sat up and cupped her ears, the sheet falling to her waist. “Better?”

  He forced his gaze back to the ceiling. “Your laptop. On the Ferrer shoot. You had it with you. You had it when you climbed into my truck in the garage. We didn’t have to grab it when we went back for your things because—”

  “Because I had it with me…and?”

  “Did your roommates ever use it?”

  “I don’t think so. They both had their own.”

  “And Tyler? That night he was in your room. Could he have used it?”

  She shrugged. “I suppose. Like I said, I didn’t know he was even there until I woke up to pee.”

  “What’s on your laptop, Cady?”

  “What do you mean?” she asked, and frowned. “The usual. Music, photos. All my saved e-mails.”

  “What else?”

  That question she didn’t answer right away, squirming in the bed as if thinking of getting out. He grabbed her nearest wrist to keep her from going anywhere. “Cady? What’s on your laptop?”

  She rubbed both hands over what she could of her face, threaded her fingers into her hair. “I have a folder of stuff from Kevin.”

  This time he didn’t care that she was half naked beside him. King sat up, plumped his pillows behind him, and leaned back. “What kind of stuff?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Term papers. Research, maybe. He worked for the campus paper, so articles? I never thought about it when he was alive, and after he died, I couldn’t bring myself to go through it.”

  Interesting. More stuff he hadn’t known. “So he was in school at the same time?”

  “Same time, same place, two years ahead.”

  “And it’s never occurred to you that he might have had something that Tuzzi wanted?”

  “Not really, no. The folder was on a flash drive he gave me before the thing with the heroin and the mascot ever happened. He told me to hold onto it. That he’d backed up some of his papers because his hard drive was flaking out. I kept it all, then after he was gone, transferred the files to whatever laptop I had at the time.” She pulled her knees to her chest, propping her chin the
re in the cradle. “It’s like the only connection to him I still have.”

  “Is the folder password protected?”

  She nodded.

  “Do you still have the flash drive?”

  She nodded. “It’s in my wallet.”

  “Your wallet that’s always in the backpack you carry everywhere.”

  She turned, looked at him and frowned. “You think that’s what Tyler found? That he wasn’t watching me pee or shower or change tampons. He was snooping in my backpack.”

  “I don’t think so.” King shook his head. “If he’d found the flash drive, he would’ve taken it. It’s more likely he found the folder on your laptop when you were out of the room showering or…doing those other things.”

  “That makes more sense. I know the flash drive is still there. At least it was the morning you skipped out on the bill at McCluskey’s and I had to pay for my cinnamon roll and everyone’s coffee.”

  Speaking of coffee…He tossed back the covers. “Get dressed. We’re going to find coffee and breakfast, and buy food. Then we’re coming back and you’re going to show me what’s in that folder.”

  “You want to wait? Shouldn’t we look at it now?”

  He shook his head, digging for and finding new boxers, T-shirts, and socks in the duffel of things McKie had provided, but he stuck to his broke-in jeans.

  “McKie’s the only one who’ll know what to do with the information. Whether he gets here in two hours or three isn’t going to make a difference. And that’s assuming we do find more than your brother’s homework.”

  “I guess you’re right.”

  “Hell, yeah, I’m right,” he said, whipping the sheet clean off the bed. “I’m a lot more than a pretty face.”

  Thirty-six

  There was one thing King had yet to hear from Cady, and that was the story about the original prank that had started this whole mess eight years ago.

  Demanding that she share the details would hardly put her in the mood to share. She didn’t like going back into her past. He couldn’t blame her for wanting to stay away.