Hot

by Julia Harper

  “I’m making sure I’m ready for you.” He fisted his hand over his erection and slowly stroked the liquid up and down the outside of the sheath.

  She watched, mesmerized.

  “Because once I’m in you, baby,” he said softly, “I want it to last a good long time. I’m going to ride you hard. And you’re going to come again with me in you this time. You’re going to know who made love to you tonight. I’m going to leave you weak and exhausted and thoroughly fucked.”

  Her eyes widened even as she clenched internally at the slow words. “I—”

  He leaned down, holding his body above hers with one arm. “Watch.”

  And she helplessly obeyed. Her eyes followed his to where his cock just touched her body. She watched as he guided himself into her with one hand, feeling and seeing that first ravishing breach.

  “Are you watching?” he grunted.

  “Yes,” she breathed.

  “Do you feel me?”

  She moaned in reply. It was almost too much—seeing and feeling what he was doing. She wanted to close her eyes. But they stayed open, connected to John.

  “Good. I’m with you now.” He glided into her on one long slide to emphasize the point.

  She moaned, feeling the invasion of his flesh into hers. Her hips tilted, and she drew her knees up on either side of him.

  “Hold on,” he whispered.

  He withdrew almost all the way, then rammed his entire length home again. He continued in a hard, fast rhythm that shook the bed and made her feel each thrust vibrating through her. Her head arched in reaction as she clung to his shoulders. It was too much. He wasn’t giving her any time to adjust. To combat the exquisitely pleasurable sensation. To keep herself whole. He was—

  “Don’t turn away.” He caught her face between his palms on a grunt, his hips still in motion. His face was sheened with sweat, his mouth drawn on almost cruel lines. “Stay with me.”

  “I can’t—”

  He reached between their bodies and touched her at her most sensitive place. He pressed down with his thumb. Firmly, never breaking contact as his penis slid in and out of her roughly, drawing the hood around her clit taut on every thrust.

  “I—”

  “Feel.” His gaze pierced hers. His thumb rubbed ever so slightly.

  She gasped, and then suddenly he was kissing her without any finesse at all, his tongue thrusting into her mouth as his cock thrust into her below. Powerfully, possessively. And all the while his thumb bore down on her.

  She broke from the kiss with a gasp, grabbing for his butt and pulling it into her, grinding her hips up to his, his hand caught between their bodies. “Oh, I—”

  So close. So very close.

  He thrust hard and fast, with her fingers still digging into him. She saw stars. A million points of light sparkling behind her eyelids, and she knew she was gasping. Had lost all control of her body, of her mind—again. And she didn’t care. It felt that wonderful.

  She could hear John laughing, a loud, joyful sound, but that soon stopped.

  Because he came himself.

  Chapter Forty-five

  O h, man,” Fish groaned.

  “Like, this is, like, torture or something, dude,” Nald whimpered.

  They were in a little room at the Sawyer County sheriff’s office. The air conditioning was out. The walls were blank. There wasn’t anything in the room except a table and four folding chairs and them. They wore el stupido orange jumpsuits. Somebody had said their clothes had been burned after they’d stripped, but that had to be a joke. A really sick joke. And he and Fish had on, like, chains. Like, dungeon chains. Chains from one ankle to the other so they had to shuffle if they walked, and chains that tied their hands to a belt-chain at their waists. Totally medieval. They clinked when they moved.

  Obviously, the Sawyer County cops considered them very dangerous dudes.

  But that wasn’t what had made Nald whimper. Nope, what was really the icing on the long-john donut, so to speak, was a guy who’d just walked in the door carrying a big paper grocery bag. The guy was in a dark suit and he had some kind of gel in his hair, so he was probably a certified fruitcake, but right now, Nald could not’ve cared less.

  The guy had food. He could smell it.

  The guy set the bag down on the table and began unpacking it. First came some sandwiches with the bread sort of squished so you could tell it was the good kind. Then he took out a big bag of Lay’s BBQ potato chips and some cans of Yoo-hoo. Nald held his breath when the guy stuck his hand in the bag again. The hand came back out with a long white box. Could it be?

  Nald was so excited he closed his eyes and prayed. Pleeeeeeeaase!

  He peeked with one eye. It was! He opened both eyes to gaze reverently at a big box of Little Debbie Zebra Cakes—those funny-shaped cakes with the hard white icing and black stripes. Nald stared in awe at the fruitcake guy. He had perfect taste in food. He was amazing.

  For a fruitcake.

  The man sat down in a chair behind the table and glanced at them. Now that he was no longer unloading food from the bag, he looked a little mean. He’d pushed back his suit jacket and there was a big black gun under his arm. Nald shifted from one butt cheek to the other in his chair. The man took out an itsy-bitsy tape recorder and set it on the table. He pressed a red button.

  “My name is Dante Torelli,” the man said without showing any embarrassment for having such a goofy name. In fact, his lips hardly moved. Which if you thought about it, was a weird way to talk. “I’m an FBI special agent.”

  Nald licked his lips and tried to figure out if he was supposed to be scared at this news. Maybe the FBI guy was going to beat them up with a rubber hose or something. Although why they would use a rubber hose when a tire wrench was a whole lot harder was a good question.

  But Fish had an inquiring mind. “Why’re you special?”

  The guy blinked. “That’s what we’re called. Special agents.”

  “Why?” Nald asked.

  “Because. That’s what an FBI agent is called.”

  “So you’re not any different than other FBI guys?” Fish clarified.

  “No.”

  “Then why did you say you were special if—” Nald started.

  The guy slammed both his palms down on the desk. Fish jumped. Nald gulped. The guy blew out his breath. Then he smiled. You could tell he was trying to make his smile friendly, but it wasn’t. It was more like scary. Nald smiled back just to let him know the smile was a nice try, even if it wasn’t really working. Maybe if the guy liked him, he’d give Nald a Little Debbie Zebra Cake.

  “So, gentlemen,” Mr. FBI man said. His smile slipped, and he forgot to put it back on again. “I want to ask you a few questions about the bank robbery.”

  Fish stiffened. “Nuh-uh. We’re not gonna talk without a lawyer present. Think we’ve never seen a cop show before?” Fish snorted loudly to show how unlikely that was.

  “Yeah,” Nald nodded righteously. “I’ve watched every episode of Reno 911!”

  “First thing you do, you get a lawyer,” Fish said.

  “Yup.”

  “Otherwise it’s a no-go. We clam up.” He sat back and stared at the FBI dude.

  Nald tried to fold his arms, realized he couldn’t, and settled for sitting back in his chair, as well. He hoped his stare was as tough as Fish’s.

  A tiny muscle popped out on the FBI guy’s jaw as if he were pissed at them. Then he reached over and snagged the bag of BBQ potato chips. He tore open the top, stretched it wide, and took out one—just one—potato chip, confirming for Nald that the man was indeed a fruitcake. What real man eats chips one at a time?

  “Well, that’s just too bad,” Mr. FBI Fruitcake said, sort of waving the chip.

  Nald would’ve sworn he could smell BBQ and grease across the table. His stomach rumbled.

  “Uh,” said Fish. He looked less smart now, because drool was running down his chin.

  “Looks like . . .” the FBI d
ude ate the chip and rustled around in the bag for another, “I’ve got at least an hour to kill. Sure you don’t want to talk?” He asked that last bit through a full mouth of potato chips.

  “Uh,” Fish said again. Maybe his brain had, like, fried from the smell of chips.

  The FBI agent ate another chip slowly, and Nald followed the guy’s hand to his mouth. He could almost taste that chip, salty and crisp and all mashed up in his mouth. Nald whimpered.

  The agent looked up, like an idea had just occurred to him. “Would you like one?”

  “Uh!” Fish said and made a grab for the bag. But his hands were chained to his waist and he could only move them the length of his elbows. The potato chip bag was out of his reach.

  The FBI guy made a tut-tut sound, like an old grandma when you’d tracked through the house in muddy shoes. “You know there’s things I’d like to discuss, Mr. Fish. I’d be more than happy to share my lunch with you while we talk.”

  “Aww,” Fish kind of moaned, and his chin quivered. You could see that giving up those chips was costing him, but he’d always said there was a code of honor among thieves.

  Nald swallowed. He was pretty unsure about the code of honor. If thieves were so honorable, then what were they doing robbing people?

  The FBI guy picked up one of the sandwiches and popped the plastic triangle thingy it was in. He took out a sandwich half and sort of waved it, too. Right in front of their noses. A pale pink sliver of bologna showed where the sandwich had been sliced. It glistened in the fluorescent light.

  Nald lunged for it.

  The FBI guy jerked back the sandwich real quick and raised one eyebrow like he was the Duke of Dork. “Do you have something you’d like to say, Mr., ah, Mr. Nald?”

  “Yeah, I’ll spill.” Nald wriggled his fingers. He could almost feel that sandwich in them.

  “Wha—” Fish started, but the FBI dude handed over the sandwich half.

  Nald hunkered down because his arms could reach only to chest height, and bit into the soft white bread. It was the best thing he’d ever tasted.

  “You’re going to rat me out for half a bologna sandwich?” Fish yelled.

  “It’s got Miracle Whip,” Nald defended himself, mouth full of mushed-up bread and bologna.

  “Turd!”

  “Douchebag!”

  “After all we’ve been through—”

  “Yeah, like that swamp!” Nald laughed, but then some bits of bologna flew through the air and landed on the desk and made him look less cool, so he stopped.

  “Give me some of that!” Fish yelled at the FBI guy.

  “You’ll need to—”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’ll tell you everything, too,” Fish muttered. He got the other half of the bologna sandwich. Nald was already eyeing up the rest of the sandwiches. One looked like chicken salad. Lots of Miracle Whip in that.

  FBI guy took out a pen and a yellow pad of paper. He clicked the end of the pen and held it over the paper. “So, who planned the robbery?”

  Fish got a crafty look on his face. “How about some Yoo-hoo?”

  “Talk first, Yoo-hoo second.”

  Fish pouted.

  “Well, it was a guy called us up—” Nald started.

  “Might’ve been a girl,” Fish reminded him.

  “Ooo, right. Like that Trinity chick.” Nald nodded.

  “Yeah. Yeah.” Fish had finished his half of the sandwich and was drooling again.

  “Sooo,” the FBI agent said real slow. Nald noticed that he hadn’t written anything down on his notepad. “You’re saying that Trinity from The Matrix planned your robbery.”

  Nald squinted. Was this guy dumb or what? “No. No. The voice was all Tron-like. You know, disguised. It could’ve been a chick like the Matrix chick—”

  “Or a dude,” Fish put in.

  Nald nodded. “Or a dude.”

  The FBI guy put one elbow on the table and rubbed his forehead with his hand like he had a headache. Probably they were talking too fast for him.

  “It. Was. A. Dude,” Nald said real slow.

  “Or. A—” Fish started.

  “Chick. Yeah, I know.” The FBI dude waved a hand and sighed. “Okay, how did this person contact you two?”

  “Nope.” Fish sat back.

  The FBI guy looked up. “What do you mean, nope?”

  “We already told you one thing,” Fish said. “I want a Little Debbie.”

  “A Little Debbie cake,” the Fruitcake said slowly, like they were the ones having a problem following the conversation. “You want a Little Debbie cake for telling me a man or possibly a woman called you, but you don’t know which.”

  They nodded so fast that their chains clinked.

  He took out one potato chip and held it up. “This is what that piece of information is worth.”

  “Aw, but—” Nald started.

  Mr. Fruitcake broke the chip in half and gave them each one half.

  Fish stared down at his half a chip. “Man, that’s cold.”

  But he ate his chip and so did Nald.

  “C’mon.” The FBI agent wiggled his fingers at them like he was a spaz. “Give me something I can use.”

  “Well.” Fish looked at Nald. “We got this phone call one day.”

  “Yeah! We were watching South Park in the basement of your uncle’s house. It was that episode when Kenny got killed.”

  “Doofus!” Fish yelled. “Kenny gets killed in every episode!”

  “I know that, bonehead. But this was the juicy one—”

  “Oh, yeah!” Fish was excited. “With spit—”

  They both doubled over laughing so hard Nald’s gut ached. When he looked up again, tears were running out of his eyes and the FBI dude was tapping a finger slowly on the table.

  “Enlightening as that little exchange was, gentlemen,” he said. “I still don’t know what was said during the phone call. I want you to tell me every word.”

  “Oh, yeah. Right.” Fish frowned real hard, thinking. “Okay, the phone rings and I pick it up and I say hey.”

  “No, you didn’t.” Nald shook his head.

  “Did, too!”

  “Did not.”

  “Did, too. I always say hey when I answer the phone.”

  “Not this time. You were pissed, remember, because you couldn’t get the bag of cheese doodles open. So you said what instead of hey.”

  “Oh, yeah—”

  “Gentlemen,” the FBI dude interrupted. “I’m getting older even as we sit here. What did the caller say?”

  “Um. He—”

  “Or she,” Nald reminded Fish.

  “Yeah, he or she said, what.”

  “No, that’s what you said,” Nald pointed out. “What.”

  “Yeah, but he—or she—said what, too. And then I said what and it was What? What? What?”

  Nald shook his head. “Should’ve hung up on them.”

  “Gentlemen!” the FBI dude said loudly. Nald sort of flinched. For a fruitcake he was kind of scary. And he was fingering the gun under his arm. “What did the caller say after the whats?”

  “Um . . .” Fish thought carefully. “Would we like to get a lot of money?”

  They both looked at the FBI guy.

  He stared back. “And?”

  Maybe the guy was a retard.

  “We said yes,” Nald told him.

  “Duh!” Fish pointed out. “Of course we’d like a lot of money!”

  “Who wouldn’t?” Nald nodded.

  “I mean, only a real doofus wouldn’t want a lot of money.”

  “And we are not doofuses.”

  Mr. FBI closed his eyes. “Did he—”

  “Or she,” Nald reminded him.

  “ Or she,” he repeated through his teeth. “Say anything else? When the robbery was going to happen? What weapons to use? How to do it? Anything?”

  Fish screwed up his face in thought. “He—or she—said we could come get the shotguns at the quarry. We got directions, ’cause we
hadn’t been out there in a while.”

  “And we were s’posed to do it on Saturday,” Nald reminded him.

  “Yeah, that caller person was a real butthead about Saturday.”

  “We said, why not Monday?” Nald put in.

  “We’re more awake on Mondays,” Fish explained. “But nooo.”

  “Had to be that Saturday,” Nald finished. A thought occurred to him. “Hey, is that a clue? Like a Scooby-Doo clue?”

  “We deserve a Scooby-Doo treat!” Fish yelled. He opened his mouth like Scooby-Doo and begged.

  Nald laughed and did a Scooby, too.

  The FBI dude must not watch Scooby-Doo. He was staring at them, the muscle under his eye jerking. Then he suddenly got up and walked out of the room without even saying good-bye. But that was okay, because he left the Little Debbie cakes behind.

  Chapter Forty-six

  J ohn awoke Friday morning to the worst smell he’d ever encountered in his life. He opened his eyes and saw Squeaky, ears up, tongue out, panting by his side of the bed. Man, what had the beast eaten? His breath smelled like carrion. The dog must’ve seen he was awake. He backed up two steps, whined, and lunged forward again, hot doggy breath washing over John’s face.

  “Okay,” John muttered. He sat up, and the dog barked.

  “What is it?” Turner mumbled beside him.

  “Your dog.” John looked at her.

  She lay on his usual side of the bed, taking up both pillows. Her face was flushed with sleep, and she had an adorable cowlick on the side of her head. The sheets were around her waist, exposing soft, pale breasts with relaxed nipples. He already had a morning erection, but the sight of her hardened him further.

  He leaned down to kiss the nearest nipple. “Good morning.”

  She smiled at him sleepily, just as Squeaky began barking in earnest. John swore.

  Turner frowned. “I think he has to go out.”

  “Yeah, I guessed that.”

  He sighed and sat up again, looking for his trousers. Then he remembered: he’d left them on the floor of the bathroom the night before, soaking wet. Fine. He got out of the bed and crossed to his dresser, found a pair of sweatpants, and put them on. By this time, Squeaky was nearly bounding around the room.

  John put on his athletic shoes and looked at the dog. “Shit. We still don’t have a leash for him, do we?”