One Last Breath

by Lisa Jackson

  As she stared at the night scape of the city, through the raindrops on the windows of the bus, she wondered why she resisted.

  Because Liam is dangerous. She sensed he was a man to whom she might lose her heart, a heart she guarded ferociously.

  Usually impulsive, ready to cut and run, Rory had learned to protect herself, as well as land on her feet, to rely on no one but herself. Maybe that was what this was all about. Since Liam Bastian was different from the other men she’d dated, she sensed he could hurt her. It would be best if she got on the bus tonight, then avoided him, thus ending the “relationship” before it really began.

  “You’re an idiot,” she muttered to herself as the bus screeched up to the stop near her apartment building. She stepped onto the curb, into the lonely night, feeling the dampness of the night pressing against her face.

  As the bus rumbled away, she dashed across the street to the front door of the older building with its brick-and-glass façade. As she did, she heard footsteps behind her. The street was nearly deserted, the vapor from the street lamps causing an eerie glow.

  Her heart froze.

  A glance over her shoulder confirmed that a dark figure was hurrying forward, emerging from the alley she passed. Oh. God.

  Fear propelled her. Blood cold, she ran for the door, all the while reaching into her purse, her fingers fumbling as she located her keys.

  Move, Rory!

  She splashed through a puddle on the sidewalk, heard the rush of traffic speeding past. Would someone stop if she was assaulted? Maybe she should call for help now. From the corner of her eye, she saw him, a tall man in dark clothes approaching rapidly.

  She opened her mouth to scream just as the door opened and he stepped into the pool of light cast by the bulbs set deep into the ceiling of the portico.

  “Rory!” he called. She recognized Liam and her knees gave way. He swept her up, wrapped his arms around her and pulled her against him, then pressed cool lips against hers.

  “Oh, God,” she gulped out.

  “You all right? I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “Well, you did!” She sounded so breathless. Fear, or something else? Something more treacherous, sliding through her, a wanting she knew would only cause her pain . . . yet . . .

  Standing in the puddle of light, feeling the strength of him, she made the irretrievable mistake of kissing him back. Automatically she opened her mouth and felt his tongue touch hers. A shot of pure sensation sizzled through her, and she knew, despite all her protests, she was lost to him.

  Without a word, she led him to the elevator and the upper story apartment. They didn’t bother with the lights, or a lock on the door, just tumbled together on the futon that was her bed and struggled out of their clothes, always touching, ever kissing. Rory felt the warmth of his tongue glide down her body, leaving a trail on her bare skin. Blood thundered in her ears and she felt an instant warmth growing deep within her when the tip of his tongue found her nipple and toyed with it.

  I’m in trouble, she silently told herself in her one last moment of sanity, then her body arched, he took her breast into his mouth and her body arched to meet him. Her fingers traced the sinewy muscles beneath his skin as she felt him slide into her, his eyes locking with hers as they began to move together. Then her throat was tight, her entire body pulsing with need. She met his thrusts with a sweet rhythm of her own. The moment built and built. She couldn’t breathe. It was better than anything. The totality of feeling. All beyond her experience. Everything intensified, faster and faster, hotter and hotter, the crescendo building until she was screaming silently, her fingers digging into his flesh. She wanted to drag him into her core, feel him inside her as deep and connected as she could. Her thoughts splintered and she suddenly came in a breathless spasm, crying out in surprise. He groaned as he met her at the apex. When he fell against her, she held on to his perspiring, heaving body, full of joy and a kind of disbelief. So, this was what it was all about. Beautiful.

  She never wanted the night to end.

  But she couldn’t tell him, not then, not for a while. She was too afraid. It took weeks of lovemaking before she could be completely honest about her feelings, and then once the words were out—I love you—she mentally braced herself for the rejection. It was too soon. Too soon! Apart of her feared he would vanish like smoke.

  He took a long moment to answer her, long enough for her to crawl inside herself and die a thousand deaths. It was about a month into their relationship and they were back at Rendezvous—his suggestion—and somehow she’d just popped out with her feelings, blurted those three little words over another coffee with Baileys. She saw everything in sharp relief, though the noise retreated to the background, deafened by her panicked heartbeat.

  And then, in all seriousness, he asked, “What are you doing the rest of your life?”

  And she answered without thinking, “Spending it with you?”

  His slow smile was all the answer she needed.

  Now, turning away from the window, Rory climbed in bed with her daughter, who was mumbling in her sleep, plagued by restless dreams. She touched Charlotte’s forehead—a little warm, maybe?

  She watched her daughter for a while, and Charlotte finally fell into deep, rhythmic breathing.

  Rory pressed her face into her little girl’s red tresses and blotted out any further thought about Liam Bastian.

  * * *

  The hotel room was dark except for what filtered in through the crack in the curtain from Portland’s city lights, a strip of illumination that hurried over the end of the bed, striping their bare legs as it ran across the room and up the wall.

  The woman lying naked on the bed felt like having a cigarette, though she didn’t smoke, never had. She just felt like she should be doing something, and smoking was what they did in old movies after coitus.

  Coitus . . . that term sounded quaint and old-fashioned, not anything that had just transpired between her and . . . her bedmate. She threw him a look. Also naked, on his stomach, too damn relaxed. What they’d just done was less than romantic. It was base, emotionless fucking. Period. And it was starting to sort of piss her off.

  It had been a long while since they’d gotten together. You’d think that would have whetted his male juices—absence making the prick grow harder—but instead she’d just been subjected to a kind of rote thrusting that had left her thinking about all the problems she needed to take care of instead of a hopefully impending climax. (She hadn’t felt anything close to that in months.) No, her mind had wandered to the same problems of five years ago. Problems that hadn’t been resolved in the least at that fiasco of a wedding, although she’d thought for a short while that she’d gotten lucky and a few of the people she couldn’t stand would die. But no! And that lunatic’s rain of bullets had damn near hit her.

  What had happened? She still didn’t know. Nobody did, apparently.

  And now . . .

  Jesus Christ, here she was, lying naked in this three-star hotel room with a man she didn’t even really like. Their affair had raged like a firestorm at the time of the wedding, but now . . . well, let’s face it, he smelled. Sure, the odor could be called musky, male, maybe even sensual, but to her these days it was just plain old BO.

  She was icked out by practically everything he did, though an honest part of herself, something buried deep in her female brain that rarely saw the light of day, had to admit she’d become rather particular as the years rolled by. Drop food on the floor and abide by the three-second rule? No way. That shit needs to go straight in the garbage. Let an animal lick you with its tongue? God, no. They were fine at a distance, but keep them away from her.

  So, okay, here she was . . . tied to this sweaty male because of decisions made that she now wished she’d thought through a little more carefully at the time. What to do now?

  She stared up at the darkened ceiling. She could lift her head and look past him to the clock on his side of the bed, or she could get up and
find her phone to learn the time, but she did neither. She toyed with the idea of pretending to smoke as she looked down at her naked body, admiring her own smooth stomach and toned legs. She was a fine-looking woman. Who had said that to her? Or was it something from the days of coitus and old movies? She’s a fine-looking woman.

  For some reason that thought pissed her off, too. Like she was made for some man’s pleasure.

  She exhaled noisily, then decided to try the pretend-smoking thing. She brought her fingers up to her lips, sucked in a lungful of air, then blew out a fake stream that she could almost see. She kind of liked the feeling, so she did it a few more times before she tired of the artifice. What was the point, anyway?

  He made some kind of noise with his lips that made her think about his breath. Garlicky smell. She wrinkled her nose. She had to get out of this rut she was in. And it also pissed her off that he’d fallen asleep almost instantly after he’d rolled off her.

  “What time is it?” she asked in a loud voice.

  He didn’t move and she glanced over at him. One eye was open, dark and liquid, looking her way.

  “Would you look at the time? Okay? Please?” she asked, jabbing an elbow into his ribs for good measure.

  With a grunt of exaggerated effort, he lifted himself up and looked over. “Midnight,” he pronounced.

  “Oh, my God.” She scrambled off the bed and searched for her clothes.

  He turned over and watched her step into her scrap of panties and snap on her bra.

  “Stop looking at me,” she ordered, shimmying her dress over her head.

  “C’mere.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “No, c’mere.”

  When she ignored him, sliding her purse from the nightstand, making sure her cell phone was tucked inside, he jumped off the bed and grabbed her around the waist, tumbling them both back onto the bed. She shrieked and immediately began slapping at him. He roughly clasped her hands together, manacled them over her head, held her there hard.

  “Stop it,” he ordered.

  “You stop it,” she spat back, squirming. “I’ve got to leave!”

  His other hand was marauding over her body and she twisted and fought and gnashed her teeth. But then he thrust one knee between her legs and dry-humped against her and goddamn it, she suddenly wanted him SO BAD.

  “You better do it right this time, asshole,” she whispered in his ear before clamping her small, white teeth onto it with vigor.

  “Ouch! Bitch. I’ll do it right.”

  His free hand yanked at her dress, hiking it up over her hips. She heard a rip.

  “Damn you! I paid—”

  She cut herself off on a gasp as he yanked off her panties with hard fingers and then was on her, driving into her so fast, thrusting with such force that she had to lift her palms to the headboard to keep from crashing her skull into it.

  “I—hate—you,” she gasped in time to his thrusts. “I—hate—YOU.”

  He came with a groan and a collapse that left her furious, still moving beneath him to ensure she came, too. She was so mad she could scream. He’d taken his pleasure and left her hanging!

  But no . . . the furious rubbing was working anyway and his half-hearted attempts to aid her with a few desultory hip thrusts helped bring her to a climax. Not as good as it should have been, but at least she got there.

  “Ooooh, oooh,” she moaned on a deep exhalation of air.

  “Good for you, huh,” he said, self-satisfied.

  That did it.

  She slapped him across the face, hard.

  Immediately he clasped her hands over her head again, and she could feel him harden.

  “You can’t do it again,” she goaded. “You don’t have it in you.”

  “Careful, bitch,” he whispered.

  She was getting really turned on. “Yeah, yeah . . . you’re not man enough. Can’t even pleasure a woman.”

  It was a game they’d played in the past. The distant past. She was thrilled the game was resurrected. She was moving beneath him, inviting him, even while she insulted him.

  But then, instead of taking her like he should have, she sensed his cock start to shrivel. He rolled away from her.

  “What?” she demanded. This was it. She couldn’t stand for this any longer. She had to finish this affair tonight. Right now.

  “We gotta talk about something.”

  Now he was sitting up. She could only see his back. Her excitement was quickly turning to anger. “Talk all you want,” she snarled. “It’s o—”

  “He’s getting out of prison. This week.”

  The rest of the word remained unsaid. She almost asked who, but the words turned to dust in her mouth and she felt a stab of fear. “No.”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’ll take care of him,” he amended.

  She started laughing, quietly, hysterically. He turned around swiftly and glared her down.

  “What are you going to do?” she managed on a hiccup.

  “I’ll take care of it,” he said again, biting off each word. “Now get the hell out of here.”

  That was a second shock. “You don’t tell me what to do!”

  “I said I’LL TAKE CARE OF IT! Just give me some room to breathe!”

  She threw herself off the bed, straightened her dress, slipped into her shoes, swept up her purse, and stomped out of the room. She would have slammed the door behind her, but it was too late to bring that kind of attention to herself.

  Take care of it, my ass. She was the one who always handled things.

  She marched down the hallway, aware she was missing one piece of her outfit.

  Well, screw him. He could just figure out what to do with her panties. She hoped to God they drove him crazy with lust, but more than likely he wouldn’t even pick them up.

  And THAT pissed her off, too.

  Chapter 8

  At the Buzz, Connie cut the engine, the headlights of her Outback catching the abandoned pickup before dimming in the dark parking lot. Under her breath she muttered an oath about her uncle’s damned truck, one that she knew, deep in her heart, she would eventually have towed to an auto salvage yard. The rusting, useless vehicle and Uncle Ira’s disinterest in moving it was a constant source of irritation. She had a feeling she was going to have to take matters into her own hands.

  Sighing, she hankered for a cigarette for the first time in two weeks. She ignored the craving, grabbed some groceries from the back seat, and made her way into the little coffee shop. Without Heather, she would have to double-up on her shifts.

  Heather . . . What was her secret? And why did Connie feel the need to protect her? Probably because of the kid. No matter what kind of trouble Heather had gotten herself caught up in, it wasn’t little Charlotte’s fault and Connie, married three times herself, knew about lousy, and at the very least emotionally abusive, ex-husbands. “Losers,” she muttered. Every last one of them.

  This morning, against her better judgment, she’d called in her backup barista for the early shift. Debbie was her niece, her brother Bob’s youngest child, who at thirty-two had yet to launch and leave home and oftentimes smelled of marijuana smoke, seeming to be drifting through life. Debbie couldn’t hold a steady job, was forever late, was rarely able to make correct change, but was friendly enough and sweet, if that counted for anything in today’s world.

  Half an hour later Debbie rolled up in her canary-yellow Volkswagen Beetle and, dark braids swinging, hurried into the shop. “Hey!” she called cheerily and went about finding a clean apron as Connie switched on the lights to indicate the shop was open.

  “You’ve got the drive-up,” she yelled, and Debbie nodded as she emerged from the small alcove where the supplies were kept. Head bent, Debbie was tying the apron strings around her slim waist and yes, there was a distinct odor of Mary Jane hanging around her. At five thirty in the morning? Hadn’t she heard about coffee and caffeine
to get the day started? Hell, she was coming to work in a coffee shop!

  But Connie held her tongue as she drizzled icing over warm cinnamon rolls. She didn’t care what Debbie did, not really, as long as it didn’t affect her job.

  Debbie smiled at her. “The window? Oh. Sure. Whatever.”

  Connie had already set up the computer and made certain the till was loaded. All Debbie had to do was hand over the drinks and collect the money or debit or credit cards. And, oh yeah, make change. It wasn’t rocket science.

  The door opened and Carlos swung in. He greeted them all with a smile just as the bell sounded and the first customer rolled through the drive-in lane. “Here we go,” Connie called out. “Remember, the amount of change is listed on the screen.”

  “I know, I know.” Debbie was already turning on the mic. “Welcome to the Buzz, what can I get started for you this morning?”

  “Medium coffee, black,” was the response.

  Connie glanced at the screen to see a black SUV. The man placing the order through the open window of his vehicle was the same person who’d come through yesterday, the one who’d made Heather flee in panic. Obviously he was back, checking for her. Connie’s heart pounded, and while Debbie prepared the order, Connie said to Carlos, “Take over the cinnamon rolls, will ya? I forgot something at the house.”

  “Sure,” Carlos said with a quick nod, his dark, netted hair glinting under the bright lights illuminating the back of the counter.

  Connie was already stripping off her apron and heading for the back door to the parking lot. Her plan was half-baked; she didn’t even know exactly what she was doing, but she hurried outside where the sky was starting to lighten. She didn’t think twice, just jumped into her little car, flicked on the ignition, and threw it into gear. Then she waited until the Tahoe nosed its way from the lane used specifically for the drive-through and turned onto the nearly deserted street. She followed, at a distance, just like in the movies. With so little traffic in this small town it would be easy for the driver to spot a tail, but then a strange thing happened. As she slowed, another car sped around her, then backed off, as if it was following the same vehicle. She considered that it was someone on his way to work, but when the black Tahoe stopped for gas, the gray car slid into a spot against the curb where the driver waited, not turning off his engine.