She broke away, because she was, after all, Ben Labeck’s sweetheart, and shouldn’t be going around smooching other men no matter what amazing kissers they were.
Reluctantly Johnny released her. He gazed directly into her eyes. “That,” he said softly, “was the best thing that’s happened to me in a month.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
“Ouch!” Ben said. “You’re pulling my hair off.”
“You think this is bad?” Mazie scoffed. “Try having a bikini wax.”
It was midnight, they were in the farmhouse kitchen, and Mazie was trying her mother’s nettles remedy on Ben. The first step was removing the nearly invisible embedded nettle spines by pressing strips of duct tape over the rash-ridden areas of skin.
“Try not to scratch,” Mazie advised when she was satisfied that all the affected areas had been de-nettled.
“You shouldn’t have said that,” Ben complained. “Now all I can think about is scratching.”
He was sitting in a chair at the kitchen table, a gauze bandage taped to his head and welts like spiraling nebulae on his arms and neck. He was bare-chested, and Mazie was enjoying the sight. Moving behind him, out of reach of those hands that could instantly turn her into girl-putty, Mazie dipped her fingers into the paste of baking soda and lemon juice she’d been letting sit for a few minutes, then began dabbing the citrusy-smelling stuff to the back of Ben’s neck. She loved the way his thick, dark hair tapered at the nape into tiny, comma-shaped hairs. It was endearingly little-boyish and it gave her the urge to kiss his neck. But this was definitely a full-grown man she was dealing with, and she had to be careful not to get anything started, because Ben Labeck might have an abscess on his brain ready to burst like an overstretched water balloon and she had to be the adult here.
Crap.
“Feels better already,” Ben said, sighing as the baking soda worked its magic.
Tilting his head back, he reached out, wrapped both hands around Mazie’s face, and gently pulled her downward. Their lips met in an upside-down kiss. Sweet. And amazingly erotic. He was just as good an upside-down kisser as a right-side-up kisser, and he made her legs go all wobbly. She nearly dropped the bowl of glop.
They broke apart, smiling. Mazie had to take a deep breath before she could go on, moving from Ben’s neck to his shoulders. Oh, those lovely shoulders, the skin warm, supple, and springy with muscle beneath her hands—the trapeziuses, the deltoids, the scapulas, all firm and well developed—and she discovered that she was spreading baking soda where there wasn’t even any rash, just for the sensuous pleasure of feeling his flesh.
“Mmmm,” Ben moaned. “That feels fabulous. I think I got some nettles in my groin area. Yeah, I’m pretty sure my groin is nettled, Mazie, could you—”
“I think a bag of ice cubes would do the trick.”
He laughed. It was her favorite sound in the world: deep, rumbling, and sexy as hell. She attempted to slather the paste along his biceps, but it was nearly impossible because he kept showing off, flexing his biceps and making big muscles. Finally she smacked his arm with the wooden spoon. “Behave, you.”
Ben dabbed a finger in the baking soda mixture and tasted it. “Is this stuff edible? Because I’m hungry enough to eat it.”
The word hungry elicited a Pavlovian response from both of them. Ben’s stomach growled with a deep, subterranean sound like a subway train and Mazie’s oinked and gurgled in sympathy. Neither of them had eaten since lunch. How long ago had that been? She was too tired to calculate.
Grubbing through the fridge, Mazie found the pan of lasagna Gran had made for supper, along with garlic breadsticks and a relish tray. It took only a few minutes to heat the lasagna in the microwave, then they fell on it like feral hogs rooting out acorns. Wine would have been a perfect accompaniment, but you didn’t leave spirits lying out in a household where Sam and Joey Maguire might put it to experimental use. They made do with a pitcher of fresh lemonade. It was a funny thing about food, Mazie mused, but it always seemed to taste best eaten outdoors or while leaning against the kitchen counter late at night.
Once her first pangs of hunger had been satisfied, Mazie brought up the subject she’d been dying to discuss. “Why was Derek Ralston out there in the swamp? Do you think he was following us?”
Ben shook his head. “I think he was already waiting in the woods when I showed up, biding his time until I was off guard, focusing on a shot.”
“He sneaked up and hit you with a rock, like the boys said?”
“Possibly. But I think it was a sap. The doctor said she found tiny bits of electrical tape in my scalp—like what you’d wind around a homemade blackjack. And he seemed like the kind of guy who would carry a blackjack around.”
“If Duke—Derek—whatever he called himself—was there ahead of you,” Mazie said, “it means he planned the attack in advance. But he couldn’t have known we’d be videotaping tonight.”
“Did you tell anyone?”
“Well, Gran and Scully knew. And Holly.” She thought back to the talent competition earlier today. Who else had been around? Darlene, Channing, Sophie? “I guess some of the other beauty queens might have overheard me mention it.”
Ben poured himself another glass of lemonade. “I’d like to know why Ralston attacked us. Was it to stop us from working on the film?”
“You think this is about the documentary?”
“I think it’s about Fawn.”
Mazie nodded. “Fawn mentioned Derek in her diary. Duke the Puke.”
“Right. Didn’t she say he came on to her when she was working in the garage?”
“She said he hit on her. Maybe he held a grudge about it. Maybe he wanted to get back at her. The night of the pageant he might have seen his chance.”
Ben considered the possibility. “I saw the police investigation files. Duke was alibied to the eyeballs. A lot of witnesses saw him at a local bar the night Fawn disappeared. There’s a time gap between the end of the pageant—around eleven—and Duke leaving the bar, around one in the morning.”
Mazie brushed a clot of baking soda off Ben’s ear. “Still, he could have done something afterward.”
“I’m with you on that. Alibi or not, I think Ralston had something to do with Fawn’s disappearance. But not necessarily working on his own.”
Mazie frowned. “You think more than one person was involved in Fawn’s disappearance?”
“Look—it can’t just be coincidence that as soon as we start digging up stuff about Fawn, we’re both attacked, and nearly killed.” Ben picked up their plates and carried them to the sink. “Someone gets worried we’re going to find out what happened to Fawn and sics Ralston on us. But things go bad for Ralston during the attack—his meth explodes, he’s burned, he’s out of his mind with pain. What does he do then?”
Mazie shrugged, too tired to think. She ran water into the lasagna pan to let it soak.
“He needs someone to drive him to the hospital,” Ben said. “He goes whining to—okay, this is hokey—but let’s call him Mr. Big. Mr. Big realizes that Duke is a big, dumb loose cannon who’ll blab if the police come around looking for a guy with meth burns.”
“That makes sense,” Mazie said. “So Mr. Big pretends to drive Duke to the hospital. Instead, he pulls over behind the grain elevator and kills him.”
“Right. All we have to do now is find out who our Mr. Big is.”
“Or Ms. Big,” Mazie said. “But we’re not doing it tonight. Bed, you.”
While Ben showered, Mazie went up to his room and put fresh sheets on his bed—they’d feel good on his nettle-rashed skin—then lugged a pillow and comforter over to the easy chair on the opposite side of the room.
Ben came up to his room all showered and shaved and baking soda–free, in clean boxers and T-shirt. He was smiling. “That paste stuff worked. The rash is practically gone.”
He wrapped an arm around Mazie, took her chin in his hands, and kissed her lightly. “Thanks for taking such goo
d care of me.”
“You’re welcome. Now get in bed.”
“You have no idea how long I’ve waited for you to say that.” He eased himself into the bed, then looked over at Mazie as she settled into the chair. “Wait—what’s wrong with this picture? Why are you over there and I’m over here?”
“Because I’m monitoring you.”
“Monitoring. Hmm. Is that like canoodling?”
“You know very well what it means. I watch you to make sure you don’t have a seizure or start to drool.”
He patted the sheets. “You can monitor me closer here. Get a lot better view of my drool.”
“If I come over there, do you promise to go to sleep?”
He lowered his eyelids and gave her a come-hither smile. “Eventually.”
Mazie bit her lip. “The boys—”
“We’ll be very quiet.”
“And Gran—”
“She’s on the other side of your house, right?”
“Yes, but—”
Ben did that up-down-up thing with his eyebrows she loved.
“I can picture the headlines now,” Mazie said. “Ex-Convict Has Sex with Injured Man; Causes His Death.”
“So now you’re bragging? You think you’re so good you’re going to make my skull explode? Sweetie, you’ve got to back that up with action.”
“Go ahead, make jokes. You’ll be dead. I’ll be the one living with the guilt.”
Ben lifted the blanket and patted the sheet beside him. “Some things are worth dying for. Come here, baby.”
She did, her body mutinying against her brain. She stripped off the ragged remnants of her gown and dropped it to the floor as she walked toward Ben, until she was wearing nothing except bikini underpants.
Watching her, Ben thought this just might be Krakatoa for his creased skull, because his whole body was jolting into sensory overload at the sight of Mazie’s beautiful bare breasts, her nipples erect in the cool room, her waist tiny, her hips lusciously curved. She smelled of perfume and sweat, because she hadn’t had time to shower, and the scent of her own natural body was ten thousand times more aphrodisiacal than any perfume.
He moved over, making room for her, worried that she’d still change her mind, but that was the funny thing about women—they were suckers for wounded warriors, and here he was with his pathetic, damaged head, and he intended to milk this thing for all it was worth.
Mazie gazed at Ben’s face in the soft lamplight, the white bandage on dark hair giving him a rakish look. Then his arms were around her and she closed her eyes as his mouth found hers in a sizzling kiss. He dragged his mouth away, murmuring something in French against her throat. She had trouble with French verbs but got the gist of what he intended to do.
His hands roamed her body, and she loved their size, their roughness, their eagerness to touch. She arched her back, wanting him everywhere at once. He cupped her breasts, thumbing the nipples, then moved his head down to suck. Mazie’s hands knotted in his hair as nearly unbearable pleasure rippled through her body, setting up a hot, desperate ache between her legs.
His head moved lower as he kissed her knees, her thighs, roughly pulled down her panties, now soaked with her wetness, and parted her, teasing her slick flesh, making her groan in pleasure; but that was just the come-on, the opening band for the main act. He found her clitoris, rigid and quivering, and flicked it with his tongue. It made her wild and she thrust upward at him in desperation, wanting more, needing more, her breath coming in short pants, her entire body taut. Then he sent her over the edge, convulsing in pleasure, gasping his name.
She barely had time to draw breath before Ben moved over her, forcing her thighs farther apart and thrusting into her with a hard, urgent stroke. Her vagina had tightened up during all those weeks without him, and now it burned slightly as it stretched to accommodate his thickness. Ben was gasping, groaning in pleasure, and she recalled for a panicked moment that a man with a head injury should not be doing this, but then her concern for him was swept away in her own selfish, overriding need. Ben stroked harder and harder, propelling them both toward what they so desperately needed. Mazie felt her insides quiver as a second, more powerful orgasm built up. She wasn’t expecting it to happen so quickly and was surprised when it began, surging through her body in escalating waves, giving her a pleasure so intense it was almost painful. Feeling her clench around him, Ben began to climax, uttering a groan that seemed to wrench from the depths of his being, going rigid in every muscle, and finally releasing.
Afterward, they were both quiet for a moment, the only sound their rapid breathing. As it gradually slowed, they looked into each other’s eyes and smiled.
“That was amazing,” Ben said, stroking Mazie’s sweaty hair out of her eyes.
“You were amazing,” she said, curling up against him, lightly kissing his shoulder, which smelled very faintly of lemon juice.
He eased her up against him into a more comfortable position and kissed the top of her head. “Mazie?”
“Hmm?”
“You really know how to monitor a guy.”
Chapter Thirty
Ben dropped Mazie off at the BZ Garage at noon the next day.
His brain hadn’t leaked fluid, his eyes were bright, and he looked remarkably healthy for a man who had been awake most of the night making love to the woman who was supposed to be seeing to it that he didn’t overexert himself. They’d finally fallen asleep in each other’s arms, but Mazie had wakened at five o’clock, dragged herself out of Ben’s bed, and sneaked down to her bedroom before the boys got up and started asking awkward questions.
The plan was for Ben to drive back to the farm and twin-sit until late in the afternoon, when he’d bring the boys to town to watch their aunt in the pageant parade. All the members of Mazie’s family were invited along on the pageant cruise scheduled for after the parade, but Gran hated boats and Scully, who knew his sons too well to trust them on a water-going vessel, planned to take the boys to a movie instead. It would be just her and Ben on the boat tonight. A sea cruise—well, a lake cruise. It sounded romantic.
Very romantic, if Ben’s scorching good-bye kiss was any indication. Weak in the knees and a little sore in the nether regions, Mazie walked into the garage.
The garage sat on a now-abandoned military airfield; it had once been a hangar. It was a glorified Quonset hut that looked as though an enormous corrugated steel drum had been sawed in half and plunked into the ground. At the end of the Second World War, a newly discharged pilot named Bernie Zuff had bought the hangar, converted it into an automotive repair shop, and named it BZ Garage. Eventually his son took over the business, then his grandson, and now Buzzy ran it, the fourth generation of Zuffs to operate the garage.
Although it was bright and sunny outside, the garage was dimly lit, the bulbs dangling from the high, arched ceiling creating canyons of shadow in the windowless interior. Scully’s pickup was parked near the west wall, hunkered low on its rims. This morning Mazie had phoned a tow service and arranged to have the truck hauled from Skifstead Road to the garage. Buzzy was tightening the lug nuts on a trailer hitch when Mazie entered. He came over, wiping his hands on a greasy rag.
“Morning, Buzzy.” Mazie gave him a big smile. She felt like smiling at everyone today.
Buzzy didn’t smile back. He wasn’t a people person. He was a car person. Short and stocky, he had a round head, wide mouth, and pugnacious jaw. He wore glasses on an elastic band over small, weak eyes and was never seen without his Chicago Cubs cap.
“Tires,” Buzzy said by way of greeting, holding up three fingers. “You need three new tires. The fourth one was okay.”
At least she thought that was what he said; Buzzy was a mumbler. “Make it a complete set,” Mazie said. She’d apologized to Scully for his truck getting vandalized, but her brother had brushed it off, told her the truck had needed new tires anyway, and that his insurance company would pay because it was a case of vandalism.
; “You got to pay in advance,” Buzzy said.
Coming from anyone else, this would have been rude, but Buzzy had never picked up social niceties. His thing was taking care of cars, not people’s feelings. She followed him into his office at the back of the garage and waited while he worked an ancient, crank-handled adding machine. Everything here was old and decrepit. The battered desks, the file cabinets, and the threadbare swivel chairs all looked as though they’d been purchased at an army surplus sale in 1959. Mazie was willing to bet that not a single thing had changed since Fawn had worked here. Had she perched on that office chair, worked at that grease-stained desk with the rusty dent in its drawer?
Mazie could barely tell a wrench from a pair of pliers, but even to her untrained eyes, the garage looked outmoded. The hydraulic lube rack was probably the original equipment, the tool drawers were rusty, and oil-stained barrels and old batteries were piled about higgledy-piggledy. Decades of exhaust fumes had blackened the walls and ceiling, and the tools hanging haphazardly from the pegboards looked old and worn. Still, Buzzy’s business didn’t appear to be suffering; there were a dozen vehicles sitting around on the floor awaiting repairs. A camping trailer sat at the rear of the garage—probably the one Fawn had referred to as “the potmobile.”
Mazie’s attention flickered to the TV on a wall shelf, set to a Madison news channel. The sound was off, but obviously they were running the story of Derek Ralston’s murder. A reporter was doing a live on-camera from the parking lot behind the grain elevator.
Buzzy punched the tire sale into the cash register. He only accepted cash or checks, refusing to wrangle with the paperwork entailed by dealing with insurance companies. Scully had given Mazie a check for the tires, telling her he would hash things out with the insurance company later.
“When can I pick up the truck?” Mazie asked.
Buzzy took off his baseball cap and ran a greasy hand through thinning strands of reddish-gray hair. “Four o’clock is the earliest I can have it done. I close at five.”
Tangled Thing Called Love: Life and Love on the Lam (A Loveswept Contemporary Romance) Page 20
