She flashed on Eric Woolfson’s Turn of a Friendly Card suite, specifically the “Nothing Left to Lose” section, and wondered if it weren’t true for her.
Then she followed Nick out to the massive parking structure and tried to ignore the blank-eyed stares of those just wading in. She knew she must look like that, and she didn’t like it. Not at all.
Was that blood on his jacket? She didn’t ask and he didn’t mention it. Maybe it had been a bad one for him after all.
The drive home was a blur. Her well-used Pathfinder might as well have followed his car on its own through some mystical autopilot. She didn’t remember parking. She didn’t remember the stairs. Now she stood in front of the gas fireplace as he flicked on the switch and the heat began to dissipate the long day’s cold. Early winter was building up its strength, biding its time.
She looked around. This place, an old, East Side apartment he had adjusted to his needs over the years—bars on the windows, reinforced doors, multiple locks, subtle soundproofing—had become a temporary haven to her since the shoot-out at the casino near Eagle River. But it felt like a prison, too, as did her free time. She was on indefinite leave from the rez hospital, and there was a perfectly fine Indian casino only twenty minutes’ drive away. (Nick had taken her to its small theatre to see Alan Parsons and his Live Project recently, and then she had become reacquainted with gaming.) Now the itch to press those buttons had become its own prison, one only she could see.
Nothing left to lose.
Jessie sensed that Nick was acting on borrowed time. DiSanto was a good guy, and an even better partner. Nick teased him mercilessly, but they’d bonded after poor Ben Sabatini’s murder. The younger cop was probably on the job, letting Nick get some rest. She noted he’d set his phone where he could grab it quickly.
The fact that he was here, rather than on the job, on a heater case, said a lot. She should feel lucky. But luck was elusive.
“How about a drink?” Nick said.
He slid his iPod into the Bose dock that had recently taken over his stereo needs and hunted up something appropriate. She bet herself it would be one of their songs—the Alan Parsons Project, or a Greg Lake ballad. Maybe Genesis from The Trick of the Tail days.
She was surprised when the first piano notes cascaded from the speaker. Rick Wakeman’s Sea Airs. Very romantic.
Gee, I can’t get away from gambling even in my mind, she thought as she paid off the lost bet.
“Maybe one drink,” she said.
Nick turned and faced her, his look intense in the flickering darkness. He touched her cheek with a rough hand. She felt the scars entrenched through his flesh, where he’d gripped a silver-loaded handgun.
Neither said anything for a long, breathless moment.
Then he swept her into a rough embrace, and she felt her body respond almost independently of her mind, which wanted her to analyze, measure, and step away.
But it was too late. Their mouths found each other, and her need was suddenly overpowering, and it seemed that his was, too. For a long while they tasted each other like teenagers at a drive-in…
Did teenagers even know what a drive-in was, she wondered, her mind once again separating from her body.
Does it matter?
He held her closer and nuzzled her ripe lips, her smooth cheeks, her ears, her neck, all the while stroking her hair with his large hands. Their tongues met, danced, twirled, then retreated, leaving behind a cooling sheen of desire they both felt. Their motions intensified, and in the light of the gas flame in the corner their pupils flickered with the fire of their passion as they stared into each other’s eyes. After a few minutes his hands slid from the back of her head, down her back, and to her sides, where his caresses made her breathing quicken. Their lips on each other, their roving hands causing friction heat, they slowly edged toward the maroon leather sofa, sinking into its cool embrace while continuing to explore each other like kids accidentally left alone by overprotective parents.
Oh, Nick. She reacted to his touch, but also felt regret for her behavior. But she couldn’t figure out how to force herself to change. The gambling was somehow driving a bigger wedge between them than his fleeting infidelity. Because he had made amends, and continued to do so, while she floundered about in the rising waters of gambling addiction, waters that threatened to drown her if she didn’t find a way to get herself free.
His hands were under her blouse now, his hot skin infecting hers with the lovely burning of his lust. She unbuttoned, and he peeled the cotton slowly downward, freeing her covered breasts. Burning fingertips slid under her brassiere, and she felt his touch on her skin and she deftly undid the clasp and then her breasts thrust out at him, her nipples growing from the heat between them. He took them between gentle fingers, one at a time, and followed up with his tongue.
She moaned. This had been magical for them since that first time, up in the cottage he rented from her. There had been heat between them for years, but he had never realized it, and she had been too shy. His confused feelings had been based on how dangerous his condition had proven for those he loved. And nothing had changed… In fact, knowing someone had possibly used a murder to send him a message was almost enough to cool her passion.
Almost. What he was doing inexorably drove her into a frenzy, her sensitive nipples tingling under his attention. His tongue slowly traversed the long curve of her belly, around and around the skin of her navel, the warmth-cool of his saliva entering her smooth pucker before it continued down the downy slope toward the top hem of her jeans.
He unsnapped them and slowly stripped them down over her thighs. She laid her hand gently on the back of his head and urged him onward, downward. He unzipped them in front with one hand, the other stroking her buttocks as they were revealed. His tongue trailed down, past where the jeans had been, and reached the top of her panties. His hand, now free, tugged the thin fabric down, and he followed, his lips and tongue softly kissing the skin plunging to her cleft.
On a dare from her friend Donna Banner, a life-loving pediatrician recently hired on at the rez hospital, Jessie had gone from a neatly trimmed mound to a bare one, feeling deliciously wicked as she’d admired the results afterwards. And Nick… Nick had certainly reacted to her decision as Donna’d predicted. And why not? She knew how sensual the smoothness could be.
Now Nick tortured her with a slow and deliberate prying open of her smooth folds, kissing her with uninhibited passion as she felt herself melting inside.
He grunted as he ran into the obstacle of her pants and damp panties again and, with endearing impatience, tugged hard until the fabrics reached her ankles, at which point she shucked them completely by stepping out of their tangle and kicking them away. The way clear, Nick homed in on her most sensitive areas, and she spread her feet to allow him access. She used her hands on his head for balance and gave herself to him without reservation.
The white heat of the moment melted any differences they’d had, any issues, and any conflicts. All she could do was concentrate on the pleasure he was intent on giving her, selfless and unbounded by inhibition.
He opened her as if unwrapping the ultimate gift, and his hot tongue electrified her inside and out, exploring and never still, tasting and touching, swirling and lapping. She groaned and pulled him toward her, granting him more and more of herself.
And he took more and more, nuzzling and licking and both zeroing in on and deliciously depriving her most sensitive spot. Harder and harder, then less, hotter and then cooler, wet and dry, he made her the target of all his attention, and she saw red at the edges of her vision whenever she opened her eyes. Then she closed her eyes, and it was just the two of them in the world,
Jessie shrieked softly and melted in waves of ecstasy even as he gave her no reprieve, until she almost had to push him away to let the orgasm peak without causing her to scream in delicious yet incapacitating pleasure.
Panting, she slowly straightened from her awkward position, her leg
s splayed widely apart with Nick on his knees between them. She looked down at him, and in the gaslight caught the glint in his eye, the small, smug turn of his lips displaying his pride at having brought her to such heights.
In all fairness, she thought as her brain began to work again, they hadn’t been all that intimate in a couple weeks. She’d stored it up, she figured, and all he’d had to do was open the door. She had thrown away the key.
She took barely a minute ripping his pants off and pushing him down to thank him with a special approach he had no trouble allowing. She yanked his briefs down to his ankles, waited impatiently as he stepped out of them and kicked them aside, then engulfed him with her loving mouth.
“Jessie,” he whispered into the darkness above them. “My dear Jessie…”
She gave and took and gave again, pleasuring him with attention and deprivation and back again, feeling his thrusting at the back of her throat and yet preventing him from finishing, finding that a selfish part of her wanted to save him for herself again.
He groaned in frustration and pleasure, a mix of emotions bubbling under the surface of the words he muttered. Then she left him, her sudden absence leaving him cold for a moment, until she straddled him and guided him inside her cleft, replacing the brief cold with the warmth from her inner core.
He filled her, and she rose and fell on him, their mouths meeting again and staying together as they rocked rhythmically on the leather, united in pleasure—and love, her mind screamed, and love!—as they hadn’t been for much too long.
The sweet scent of their mingling sweat enveloped them and urged them on.
Mordred
He huddled over his equipment. The infrared camera was paying dividends now. He’d taken a chance on deploying both standard and infrared, and this unexpected interlude was making his extra work worthwhile.
He had wired up the cop’s apartment earlier, knowing his scent was effectively masked by Ghost, the hunter’s best weapon against sharp olfactory abilities. His professional lockpick equipment had gotten him in the door easily enough, though it hadn’t been a picnic.
Not that he knew what a picnic might have been like.
His memory was dominated by strobe and fluorescent-lit laboratory flashes, harsh light glinting off thick steel bars and shiny autopsy tables, their gutters running with thick red blood, bottles filling for later consumption and rewards for work well-done.
No, hadn’t been a picnic was just a phrase for Mordred. He had little memory of everyday pleasures shared by humans, because he had always been reminded that he wasn’t human.
Now he watched the infrared imagery on the monitor and saw that the two of them had switched positions again, their body heat giving away their location and marking the boundaries of their heated bodies. Now she was on her knees and he was thrusting behind her and Mordred could relate to that one, yes he could, because even in the lab they had given him subjects to be with, to play with, to mate with, that he remembered now all too clearly with the hollow pang of loneliness born of an all-consuming mission…
He wiped a sheen of sweat from across his brow and felt the urge to change and find himself a plaything.
No, the mission comes first. He knew his orders, at least as they stood right now.
He watched the two shapes melting together and apart and back together again, separating and rejoining, and then she straddled him again, and they became a red and black blob on the monitor, their rhythm gathering speed until finally they slowed and fell off each other and clearly lay in a sprawling embrace.
Their body heat had peaked, and he was expert enough at reading the colors to know that sweat was cooling on their skin and changing the sensor’s readings.
Simonson
The bastard was recording them.
He wondered what Lupo would say if he knew what the pervert was doing. This was more info to pass on to the cop eventually, after he approached him with his proposal. It was likely the guy wouldn’t believe him at first, but Simonson had ways of proving what he said, and even now he made a note of what the Wolfpaw operative was up to.
He was almost angry enough to make a move right then, stop the bastard and teach him a lesson.
But that would cause him too much trouble later, because they’d probably dispatch an Alpha Team, and then he and the cop would have too much to deal with. This way, even though he couldn’t be sure what their game was, he knew they were in surveillance—not termination—mode.
Chances were good the CEO and the rest of the bastards on the board were too occupied with the daily hearings, which had just started and gave every indication of lasting for weeks. They’d be keeping their noses clean for the most part, so he had better not overreact.
He retreated into the darkness and watched without acting.
Once again, he was watching the Watcher.
Sigfried
He ran gnarled hands through his thinning hair, combing it with his spread fingers and wincing as he felt the bumps in his skull. It was short hair and stringy, and it was more gray than it had been even just last year. He sat in a cone of light made by a brass desk lamp. The rest of his office was dark, black to his eyes, and he breathed in the familiar scent of leather from the chairs and the sofa and the dozens of books lined up behind him on shelves. He preferred not seeing the details around him because they tended to distract him.
The first day of hearings had been brutal. Having barely begun, the bloated congressmen had preened and pontificated for the cameras. All his previous influence on Capitol Hill had only bought him one friend appointed to this committee, and this guy could ill afford to make his allegiances known on the first day. So Wolfpaw had been raked over the coals. Sigfried still smarted from the smackdown.
While he appeared to take notes on the congressmen’s tirades, Sigfried instead wrote a list of their names for future reference, surreptitiously eyeing their nameplates without listening to half of what they said. His answers were already sculpted anyway, weren’t as much answers as brief monologues, and he didn’t expect to be there very many days longer. Then he had circled three names on his list and made sure Omega Team received them in order to do research. The three congressmen—one a woman, actually—would find their families’ images on crisp photographs taken with a zoom lens in the next day’s mail. Their focus would no longer be on these hearings, and the furor would fizzle out. It was a tactic he’d used before, one that worked well by reminding the sanctimonious politicians that anyone could be gotten to, no matter what level of protection.
Sigfried chuckled. The press wouldn’t know what to make of the sudden disengage maneuver by the politicians, the questions would turn softball, Sigfried’s answers would be boring and predictable, and the story would start to fade.
Now, as far as Sigfried could tell, Wolfpaw’s greatest enemy was one lone cop whose stubbornness had cost the company plenty. He’d made a mistake with that cop, escalating too fast, not realizing until too late that he was dealing with another shifter. He’d assumed the cop’s takedown of Tannhauser, Schwartz and Tef was nothing more than luck. But by the time he realized his mistake, he’d issued orders and dispatched Wagner and her Alpha Team to take care of it. It was one thing to know shapeshifters existed, and another altogether to be a shapeshifter.
No, he’d badly miscalculated. Now the hearings would still occupy his time, and he figured the cop thought he was home free. Well, he was wrong.
He was very wrong.
For Sigfried had “loosed the thunder of his terrible swift sword,” as he liked to say when golfing with his more aggressive political partners, never mind the misquote.
He withdrew his head from the cone of light, and anyone standing nearby would have seen him almost disappear into the darkness. He knew how to pull that off, too, with accounts in the Caymans ready to fuel a very comfortable retirement indeed, a retirement somewhere out of the reach of extradition. But that was a last resort. For now, Sigfried was staying. He had faith in himself,
his plans, his contingencies, and ultimately in his highborn luck.
His wife slept in one of the three master-size bedrooms upstairs. He could join her.
Instead, he picked up the phone and speed-dialed a number. The voice at the other end was sleepy, but awoke when he spoke her name. Idly, he clicked the desktop remote, and a flat monitor flickered into life, one of three mounted across a low credenza not far from his desk. The middle monitor now showed his wife in the dark bedroom, a gray, bulky shape under a thin blanket. He frowned in distaste.
“Be ready in an hour, Margarethe,” he said into the phone. “I’m coming over.”
There was a sharp intake of breath at the other end. “Now?”
“Now. Have one other there with you. Either blonde or brunette.” He rubbed his chin absently. “And have her ready for me.”
He could hear she was already getting out of bed. It was inconvenient, but he had an account. Her services didn’t run cheap, but when someone like Sigfried requested special service, she knew how to indulge his tastes at any time of day and night. She knew better than to argue, or complain.
When she agreed he was already hanging up.
Jessie
She lay on her side, curled into his body, and remembered to trace the map of his scars in her mind. With the lights on, she’d gotten a look at a whole new set of patterns of which she hadn’t been aware.
He had been in trouble he hadn’t told her about.
It was both sweet and infuriating.
Nick Lupo was not used to sharing. Anything, from information to personal space.
But she had to admit, he was getting better. And some things he could share just fine. She caressed his stomach and the top of his groin from behind and felt him stir under her touch even though he was asleep.
They’d needed this. She knew she’d been pushing him away. Hell, she was still angry at him for the Heather Wilson slip…
If you could call it that.
But there was all that weird baggage she’d had dumped on her since the massacre, since poor Tom Arnow’s accidental death.
Wolf's Edge (The Nick Lupo Series Book 4) Page 6
