“Yeah, and I envy those women. I even remember, vaguely, what it was to be one of them.” I leaned back in my chair and blew out a long breath, aware that I sounded way too bitter to be just twenty-five. “But more than envy them, Ben, I fear for them. I especially fear for the ones who will become like me.”
We used our waiter’s return with the food and the wine as an excuse not to talk, but when we were alone again, Ben said, “There’s no one like you, Jo.”
I rammed my fork into my pasta. “Don’t try and sweet-talk me now. You’ve pissed me off.”
He smiled and I wished he wouldn’t. I felt myself toeing that precipice again. Tumble, tumble, tumble. It made me want to push him away and run from the room, screaming. It made me want to draw him near and into my bed, sighing. I had more practice with the former, so I pushed.
“The knowledge of violence is my playmate, Ben,” I said, twirling angel hair around my fork. “I bed down with it in the evening and wake with it again in the morning. That’s never going to change.”
“I know about violence, Jo. Seeing what I see every day on the job…” He shook his head, poured wine into our glasses, and took a sip, his eyes growing dark. “It’s enough to make me want to head out onto the streets with you instead.”
I drew back. “But that’s—” Not what I’m doing, I wanted to say.
“Wrong?” he finished for me, mistaking my puzzlement for disagreement. “Why? How’s it different from the way you scour the streets? Searching. Stalking.”
“I take photos. I just look. I’ve never…touched someone,” I lied. I had. Once. But to be fair, he’d touched me first.
“You think I shouldn’t feel this way because of my badge.” It was a statement, not a question.
His defensiveness intrigued me, even as it gave me pause. “That badge gives you access, power over other people.” Maybe I was oversensitive to the power one person chose to wield over others just because he could, but this seemed pretty straightforward to me.
But Ben was already shaking his head, breaking a piece of bread apart in his hand, dipping it in the oil. “What this badge gives me is a second pair of eyes. Good thing too, because if I had to filter every foul rotted thing I see in this city through my own eyes I’d go mad. But this way it’s bearable. It won’t climb into me.”
Then what was that look? I wanted to ask him. What was that flicker I saw skirting his gaze, adding a hard glint to his narrowed eyes?
It occurred to me then that this was just as much of a blind date as the one with Ajax. I didn’t know who Ben really was. I knew the boy he used to be—the one tormented by his father, disappointed by his mother—but where had the past ten years taken him? What had he been doing? Why did he get divorced? And when did he get the tribal tattoo I’d seen branding his left shoulder when he reached for the bread?
Why, after all this time, had he asked me out?
“Has it ever, Ben?” I said, thinking his answer might tell me a little about all those things. “Gotten into you, I mean?”
He didn’t reply for a while, staring into the flame of our hurricane lamp as he chose his words carefully. “There was this call last week, the third time a unit was sent to this guy’s house in a month. Typical asshole wife-beater…except this time he’d decided to beat on their two-year-old son. So the boys show up, he greets them with open arms, throws the door open, calls them by name. ‘Hey, Harry! Hey, Patrick! How ya doin’?’”
Ben shook his head in disgust, gesturing with his fork. “Invites them right in because he knows his wife isn’t going to say shit. Meanwhile, the only thing holding that boy’s left leg together was his unbroken flesh. The hammer was right there on the coffee table.”
“Oh my God.”
“Yeah,” Ben said, still shaking his head. “And that prick is standing there with this shit-eating grin because we know he did it, he knows we know, and there’s not a damn thing we can do about it.
“So the boy gets taken to the hospital, patched up—though everyone knows it’s like putting a Band-Aid over a bullet wound—and sent home with that bitch who won’t lift a hand or say a word to save him.”
“Ben,” I said softly, knowing he wasn’t really talking about that woman, but another. “That’s not fair.”
He looked at me for a moment, then his expression cleared and he shook his head on a sigh. “No, maybe not. But it’s not fair having to watch this man go free either, hoping next time he’ll make a mistake. That there’ll be a witness around who isn’t too scared or young to speak up against him. And that’s what really gets me. Sometimes, all I want is to be that witness.”
I nodded, because I could see what he was saying, easily. What was a little bit of patty cake with some bastard’s face when he’d just sent his kid to the E.R.? It wasn’t the same, Ben was right about that. Child abuse and wanting a little payback weren’t even in the same universe.
But it still made me take a second look at the man across from me. Where was the boy who’d seen everything in terms of black and white? When had he become comfortable with that particular shade of gray? Granted, most people never even had to entertain these sort of moral questions. His job planted him firmly in that muddled area, and who was to say I wouldn’t feel the same? That I too would need, as he called it, a second pair of eyes?
Who’s to say, I thought uncomfortably, my mind veering to Ajax and the way I’d gone for the jugular—literally—when defending myself against him, that I didn’t already?
There was silence again, and when the scraping of our forks across the plates became the loudest thing in the room, I began to fear we’d reached an impasse, that this was where it would end between us—the idea of violence between us—the same as it had all those years ago.
“How’s Olivia these days?”
Back to neutral territory, I thought, not knowing whether that made me want to laugh or cry. “Great,” I managed, over the lump that’d grown in my throat. “She’s an engineer at a space sciences laboratory. She devises innovative new ways to enhance sexual performance in a weightless environment.”
“Remind me not to fly NASA.”
I had to smile at that. Ben was one of the few guys who had never fallen under Olivia’s spell, and believe me, he was in a definite minority. Then again, Ben Traina had only ever had eyes for me.
“She’s still beautiful and flighty and trusting,” I said, aware of those eyes on me now. I thought about that for a moment. “You’re one of the few people who never put her down, you know that? I always loved that about you.”
He looked surprised. “Why would I? She’s as beautiful inside as she is out. Tough in her own way too.”
“Yeah, but nobody else seems to realize that.”
“Maybe it’s because she doesn’t let them.” At my raised brow, he said, “Hey, you’re the one who said we all become who we need to be in order to survive.”
True. I nodded, though it made me wonder again. Who had he become?
“Anyway,” he said, laughing self-consciously, like he knew what I was thinking, “I don’t want to talk about Olivia tonight. Go back to what you always loved about me.”
That surprised another laugh out of me. “Narcissist.”
“Damn right.”
I decided to risk a little. “I can’t tell you everything,” I said, leaning forward. “I’d need all night and we don’t have time.”
His lids went heavy, eyes growing soft. There was the Ben I knew. “Then tell me one thing.”
I didn’t even have to think. “I loved the way you never tried to change me. I loved how you never compared me with my sister. I loved your honesty.”
“That’s three things,” he said, and linked a hand with mine. His palms were wide and smooth and warm, and the heat from them flowed up my limb, flooding my body. I could have orgasmed right there, just from his touch, and I wondered if he was feeling as light-headed as I.
“Three of my favorites,” I agreed, squeezing lightly, licking my
lips, tasting wine—and hope—as warmth flooded me again.
“I suppose I’ll have to ask you out again to hear the rest,” he murmured, tossing me a knowing look.
I toyed with my pasta, letting out a slow steadied breath. “Your books,” I finally said, “how do they end? The murderer is caught? The villain punished? Justice is served?”
“That’s the standard M.O. for mysteries.”
“And they all live happily ever after?”
He thought about that for a moment, then nodded. “Those who are still living at the end of the book, I guess. Yeah.”
Sadly, that sounded more like fantasy than mystery to me, but I didn’t want to tell Ben that. I swallowed hard before glancing back up. “So. How’s this story going to end?”
“The guy gets the girl, of course.” And he shot me that dizzying grin. I returned it without hesitation, and just like that all thought of control dropped away. The room and all the people—single guy at the bar included—folded in upon themselves and disappeared. I bit my lip, he licked his, and we leapt together.
Three hours and two bottles of wine later we emerged from Taverna Deliziosa as though from a cocoon, sated with food and wine, but further intoxicated by long looks, meaning-filled laughter, and the touch of fingertips across flickering stretches of candlelight.
Outside, we fell on each other like ravenous wolves.
The crisp air bit into our skins but dissipated like steam upon contact with the heat streaking from Ben’s body into mine. He kissed me, first pressing me against the building, the stark contrast between the cold brick behind me and his heated grip making me gasp and grind further against him. Next we were leaning against a low cinder-block wall, me straddling his straightened legs as his left hand snaked up my bare back to knot in my hair, pulling lightly. His right hand found access into my scooped blouse, and he fondled me there, echoing his caress with his tongue, mouth firm and rich on mine, tasting of unchecked lust and Italian grapes. Finally, we found ourselves reclining in the cab of his truck, his lips working my nipples through the silk of my blouse, teeth teasing, while his hands cupped me both above and below. I moaned and felt the echo slide down my body into his until it hummed through the erection pressed against my thigh.
Each time we moved I had no memory of doing so, and each time I allowed it, submitting to the desire I saw firing his dark eyes, and answering the breathless demands he whispered against my flushed skin. Only the sharp look and disgruntled muttering of the man who’d been drinking alone at the bar reminded us we were still a part of the world at large…and necking like teens in a parking lot.
Ben pulled away and leaned his forehead against mine, his breath coming in short, jagged gasps. Far off, to the east of the valley, a bolt of lightning scissored across the sky, followed by a low growl of thunder. I closed my eyes as if warding away the storm and smiled into his mouth. “Move your hand one inch higher, Traina, and you’re going to have to arrest yourself.”
His laughter was choked, hot on my cheek, and spoke more of his passion than words ever could. It was a shock to find our passion could just start up again, like a match set to kindling, sparking thick in the throat, flaring in our loins, and burning the years that had gathered in between to ashes.
Not only that, but in the time we’d been outside I’d utterly forgotten my surroundings. I’d neglected to peer into the shadows, or look behind me, or hold onto even a tenuous awareness of my surroundings. I’d forgotten to sniff at the air for something foul or putrid, or about demonic faces leering at me in candlelight, or even that I’d been warned to survive the night.
What can I say? There was only Ben, his skin scenting the air, his touch turning the storm-ridden November evening into a humid, tropical night. Years of training melted away under the heat of his flesh. If I had an Achilles’ heel, I thought, Ben was it.
“Come home with me, Jo-Jo,” he whispered.
I moaned against his throat. Oh, how I wanted to. In his home, in his arms, in his bed, finishing what we’d started here. It was where I wanted to be. And where I belonged.
“I can’t,” I said, then repeated it to myself. I couldn’t just let myself pretend the last ten years had never happened. I wouldn’t lose sight of the woman I’d become. That was the woman I needed to be.
“Too soon?” he asked, then sighed—regretful, frustrated, understanding—at my answering nod. “Better than too late, I suppose.”
“I’m meeting Olivia in…” God, was it already eleven? “Half an hour. We have some things we need to discuss.”
He didn’t ask what, and I didn’t offer. Instead he leaned back and peered into my face, arms still linked around my waist. “And I suppose making plans with her was a way to keep you from spending the night with me?”
“Don’t be arrogant,” I said. “Yes.”
He smiled, looking satisfied as a milk-fed cat, and lifted a hand to graze my cheek. “Are you always so practical, Ms. Archer?”
“Hmm.” I kissed his throat, my tongue a tickling trail just below his earlobe. Barely suppressing a shudder, he ran his fingertips up my spine, letting them linger and play along the lines of my bare shoulders and neck. Or I thought it was his fingertips. Pulling away, I reached up and touched cool, slim metal, brought it back in my hand and peered at it in the dim light. “What is this?”
But I knew before I’d even finished the question. The slender silver chain, a double-stranded braid, was simple and inexpensive, and had been given to me by Ben on my fifteenth birthday. But I hadn’t seen it since shortly after that. I thought it’d been lost in the desert.
“You left it at my house,” he said, his voice softer, more hoarse. “On that last night.”
Our last night, I corrected silently as he reached out and gently plucked it from my fingertips. I bent my head and he draped it around my neck, fastening it there. Closing that circle. I let out a deep breath, felt tension I didn’t even know I was carrying drain from my body just as the first raindrop fell to my skin.
I fingered the chain, already warming around my neck. “Thank you.”
He bowed closer, bending to me so we were forehead-to-forehead in the thickening rain. Each other’s umbrella. “Sure you won’t come with me?”
I shook my head, rolling it softly along his, because I knew if I opened my mouth the answer would be yes.
“So practical,” Ben whispered, dropping a kiss on my cheek. “What if, for once, you didn’t worry about consequences? What if you just did what you wanted?”
I pulled away to look at him, my eyes traveling down to his lips, then back up again. “I just did.”
“Do it again.”
So I did. I leaned forward, took his face in my hands, and the sky above us exploded with light. We pressed against each other, body and bone, and he lifted me so my legs were wrapped at his waist, fused at his hips, anchoring me against him. I nearly didn’t make it to Olivia’s at all.
6
“Come.”
The word, the last Ben said to me before we parted ways, hummed through my mind as I drove to Olivia’s, like a bee addicted to the pollen of the same sweet flower, refusing to settle and be silent. Come.
I was holding the card he’d pressed into my palm before I drove away…and before I returned for one last kiss and drove away again. He’d printed his home address on the back of it, with a message saying he’d leave the door open for me. Just in case. I almost put the card in my purse before deciding against it. It was very schoolgirlish of me, but I wanted it close and instead tucked it into the hollow of my back as I headed into Olivia’s building.
Unlike me, Olivia lived in the center of town, buying a condo in a chic residential high-rise that came with its own valet, dry-cleaning service, and a twenty-four-hour concierge. Though it wasn’t my style, I had to admit the place was stunning, and convenient for those who wished easy access to the six mile stretch of neon playground a mere block away. Gleaming plate-glass windows bowed high into the sky, reflecti
ng the polished wood interior in its shimmering sheets. Discreet lighting dotted the complex’s foyer in artful little niches, and the design was duplicated in Olivia’s apartment nine floors above.
I stepped from the elevator and was poised to knock when the door flew open to reveal my sister, clad in bright coral sweats, an even brighter smile lighting her expectant face. There were some things only a sister could understand. A giggle escaped me, surprising us both, and that was all the encouragement she needed. She squealed, her high-pitched voice shattering the sound barrier, and wheeled me inside before the dogs came running.
“You look fabulous, brilliant, stunning!” she rattled in quick succession, before pressing a finger to my swollen lips. “And you’ve been kissing! Tell me, tell me, tell me!”
“Can I get a drink first?”
“Martinis are already prepped,” she said, and disappeared with a skip into the adjoining kitchen. “I’ll bring them to the living room.”
I grinned at this sign of her excitement and headed into the core of the apartment.
The kitchen, where Olivia could be heard happily singing to herself, lay to the left. The bedroom was tucked around a slip of an alcove off to the right. I crossed the penthouse foyer, stepped down into the sunken Italian-marbled living room, and found myself facing a sheer wall of glass revealing the un-real estate of the Las Vegas Strip. It was a block so densely lit it could be seen from the stars. Tossing my coat over an overstuffed armchair, I positioned myself in front of the window to wait.
I felt framed, a statue displayed on a very high shelf, out of reach, and almost eye level with storm clouds so thick they reflected the city’s lights back on itself. Strange. The effect was one of condensed power, like electricity boxed between concrete and cloud, the light in between magnified to manic proportion. As the storm’s muffled rumble signaled its approach from the west, I turned my back on the wild city and relaxed in the bright and feminine luxury of Olivia’s home.
Olivia—again, unlike me—had surrounded herself with things. Beautiful, numerous things. There was a collection of fine crystal on a floor-to-ceiling sweep of built-in shelves. She had a preference for Scandinavian designs; the clean lines of Orrefors mixing with the bright, whimsical creations of Kosta Boda. Next to that was a marble fireplace, unlit and unused except as a holding place for some of the trees and plants that seemed to sprout from nearly every corner and niche in the room. I rubbed the leaf of a wildly trailing spider plant, wondering how she did it. The things absolutely thrived under her care.
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