by Misty Simon
Ben agreed, and we went to sit at Mad Martha’s Milk and Munchies to have a cup of coffee and a piece of pie while we wasted some time. Mad Martha greeted Ben by name and gave me the eye, sizing me up. To make sure I was worthy of sitting with the town’s sexpot, or trying to figure out why I would want to be seen with the infamous fallen one? I didn’t know, but I wanted to eat in relative quiet. If she was sizing me up now, she would be doing it even more if we were still sitting here an hour from now. I decided to be proactive.
“Hi, Martha.” I read her nametag to be sure it was actually Martha. Wouldn’t want to make that mistake when I already had half the town giving me the evil eye. “How are you this evening?”
She seemed a little taken aback, so I pushed my advantage. “Ben promised me the best pie in town and told me we had to come here for it. I was wondering what you would recommend?”
And didn’t Martha go all dainty and friendly on me. “Well, of course, honey. I bet you’d love a slice of my lemon meringue pie. It is divine. Why don’t you and Ben have a seat, and I’ll be right over. Would you like some coffee with that?”
“Of course. I heard Detective Jameson talking about the great coffee here, too. I’m sorry I haven’t had a chance to come over and taste it for myself.”
“Now, you don’t worry about that. I know you’re a busy woman. You can actually phone in an order to me in the morning and I could have my nephew run the whole thing over to you, you know.”
“No I didn’t know, but I will definitely keep it in mind. Thank you, Martha.” I took the seat across from Ben, in a booth he’d already picked out, and smiled sweetly at him.
“Pouring it on a little thick, don’t you think?”
“Absolutely not, Mr. Fallon. It’s all about customer relations and making nice with the people who might come in your shop.”
“That’s crap, and you know it.” The dimple winked at me, and the mischievous smile sent my heart racing.
“All right, it’s crap, but I didn’t want her staring at me all night and possibly spitting on my pie, so I decided to be proactive.”
“Smart move. It looks like we’re even getting the big slice of the pie, too. Good job.”
We smiled at Martha as she put our pie (which was huge) on the table and gave us two forks. “Good eating, kids. And Ivy, I’ll be in this week to see about some stuff I’ve been meaning to try on.”
She walked away, and I gave Ben a smug smile. “See?”
By ten o’clock we were back at Kitty’s and ready to take on the world, or at least the trash cans. We parked in the spot around the corner again and walked the short distance to the curb where the cans stood.
“Now, you’re sure Kitty doesn’t have a dog?”
“I’m positive,” I said as I walked on the uneven curb and tried to keep myself shielded by the big bushes separating the house from the street.
Ben was creeping behind me and I turned my head to speak to him. A scrambling noise made me whip my head back around to the front in time to see what I thought was a raccoon, except I couldn’t really see his mask because of the bright neon green panties on his head.
One of the cans had tipped over and a big black trash bag was ripped down the side, spilling its contents across the pavement. And there, right there, was my proof, against Charlie at least. A rainbow of silk and lace cascaded out of the bag, and I bent to scoop everything back inside the black plastic.
Ben picked up a particularly “fancy” pair of panties and raised that one eyebrow before I snatched them out of his big hand and shoved them into the bag. Not wanting to make any noise, I didn’t yell at him until we were a couple of blocks from the scene of the crime. I was thanking God we didn’t actually have to go into the house, so my yelling was more for show than anything else.
“You are a miscreant.”
“Am not.”
“Are too.”
“No.”
“Yes. And I can’t believe you were out there fondling women’s underwear when I was trying to gather all the evidence.”
“Yeah, well, I couldn’t help myself. Crotchless panties are such a turn on.”
“You are such a...such a man.” And that said it all for me. He was such a man, but in a lanky, beautiful kind of way. It could possibly be I’d just decided to make him my man.
We drove back to his apartment, and since I’d promised him an explanation for why we had to go out to Kitty’s house to do a little snooping, I prepared myself for a lecture on trying to do things on my own without him. He didn’t disappoint.
“Of all the idiotic shit you have done and come up with, this tops it. Why didn’t you come to me when the stuff was first stolen? I would have helped you.”
I paced the small confines of his living room, avoiding hitting the plush chair and the couch by not pacing in a straight line but more of a maze-like curvy meandering. “I wanted to handle it on my own.”
“Then why did you call me in at the last moment?” I opened my mouth, but he didn’t give me a chance to rationalize before he barreled on. “You could have come to me at any point and I would have helped, or at least been able to try to help you figure out what to do.”
“Look, don’t pull this macho crap with me. I wanted to handle things on my own and thought I was doing a good job, even if I wasn’t getting anywhere. When we met up at the cabin, I thought about telling you, but then I knew how determined you were to figure out Janice’s murder, and I didn’t want to burden you with anything else.”
“Well, you still could have told me.” Something in those green eyes was different as he shifted his gaze from mine.
It was then I realized this wasn’t just the testosterone talking, or a need to be included in everything. He really cared about me.
But where did that leave me? I’d been a tangle of emotions and needs since he’d first come up and whispered in my ear in the bar. But had everything been leading to this moment when his guard seemed to be down and he was sincere instead of his usual arrogant, confident self? Was this the side of Ben I’d felt had been missing and so had kept myself from really falling for him?
Of course the not-falling-for-him part was a crock, because I had a sneaking suspicion much of the falling had been accomplished the night he came to the house and I thought he was an intruder. He’d stayed the whole night on my floor and never once tried to sweet talk me or force his way into my bed. Had I found what I’d been looking for all along? A sign I wasn’t merely going to be some notch on his bedpost? My heart started beating so fast I thought I might be having a heart attack. And it certainly didn’t slow down any when Ben started walking toward me in that sleek way he had.
I was a goner. He put his lips over mine and kissed me senseless. His hands cradled my face as he took his sweet time exploring each part of my mouth. It was swoon worthy. The taste of him exploded in my brain as his hand squeezed my tush for a brief second, then moved in a steady path straight up to my breast. After that it was all about feeling and enjoying the thrill I knew those big hands would be able to give me.
Chapter Twenty-Two
We were hot and heavy, roaming hands and panting breaths, when the shrill ring of the phone cut through a particularly yummy growl from the vicinity of my left thigh.
“Should you get that?” I asked, wanting to kick myself in the head. Hello? Why would I want him to do anything that was guaranteed to stop the delicious wanderings of his hands and tongue?
“No. No,” he breathed against my flesh. He was getting closer to the place I most wanted him to be when the answering machine picked up.
“Ben, this is Marty.” Ben’s hands froze an inch from my skin, and I shuddered, groaning, and not in a good way. “I need you in here right now. Peter’s out on a story, and I got a call about a burglary in progress that went all wrong. If you want me to take you seriously with this private investigator license thing, you’ll get your ass down here as soon as you get this message.” And then there was a click, and we both sa
t trying to get air back into our lungs.
Ben dropped his head onto my naked hip and I could feel his breath fan near my belly button. “My boss,” he said.
Despite the lust and need clouding my brain, I could think well enough to realize this could be Ben’s big break into crime reporting. The paper hadn’t given him anything but his usual food critic stuff since he’d graduated from his online course, and he was getting down about the fact that he wasn’t going anywhere. Now this opportunity fell into his lap just as I was about to get him in my lap. Sigh. I knew what I had to do. I tried to move out from under him, but his head was heavy on my hip and he gripped me tighter around the backs of my thighs.
“Don’t move,” he said, his voice low and strained. “Just don’t move.”
Um, okay. Could I at least talk? Apparently not before he did again.
“I can not believe this,” he mumbled against my stomach. “I’ve waited and waited for them to notice me for this position and now, now, he calls.”
“I was pretty impressed with your position.” Good, Ivy, make a joke right now. That ought to get you another chance at seeing Ben’s beautiful hair from an aerial view.
But he laughed and some of the tension seemed to drain from his body as his grip on my body loosened. “I don’t want to go. I do not want to go right now.”
And I don’t want you to go, I thought. But I also didn’t want to make this harder for him. “You have to go, Ben. This is your chance, and I don’t want you to miss it.” I combed my fingers through his hair and sighed. Why is my life always like this? I’d been an animal when we were in the thick of things, and now I felt like I’d stepped into one of those jaw traps you see on television.
Ben placed a kiss right on the swell of my hip that made my stomach jump. Then he got up in all his nude male glory and stalked across the room. “Do you hate me?” he turned and asked.
What? “What? Of course I don’t hate you.”
“I hate myself, that’s why I asked. I want you, and here you are laid out like a dream.” At least he didn’t say turkey dinner. “A dream I crave, and I’m caught between wanting to ignore Marty to stay with you and running to the office. I’m an ass. Why did this have to happen now?”
“Ben, let me tell you, this is the way my life always works. I would have been surprised if nothing interrupted us. That’s the way it is for me. I don’t hate you, and you shouldn’t hate yourself.” I shifted on the couch—yes, the ugly couch, because we hadn’t had time to make it to the bedroom—and pulled a pillow over my lap. “We’ll have plenty of time to take up where we left off, but I don’t want to be the one who kept you from taking the chance of a lifetime.”
“You’re being awfully understanding.”
I was, wasn’t I? Good for me. Then again, when I’d pulled the pillow over my legs it was because I could see them in the light spilling from the kitchen. Now that Ben wasn’t between them, I didn’t want him to get a good look without the benefit of heavy panting, which I assumed clouded the vision.
“I admit I wish you weren’t leaving, but I also get why you have to. So go get dressed,” I said, shooing him away with my free hand.
He seemed to struggle with himself for about a second before he sprinted down the short hallway, and I heard rummaging and muttering.
Jumping off the couch, I quickly retrieved my clothes from the floor, the lamp, and the corner of a large framed picture of a mountain range. Ben had some throwing arm.
By the time I was all put back together, except for my panties, which I could not find, Ben was hurtling back from the bedroom and ready to go.
“We’ll pick up where we left off as soon as I get this story.” He gave me a long, deep kiss that set my knees to jiggling and escorted me out to my car. “Thanks, Ivy, for understanding. I really appreciate it.” And then he was gone and I was left standing in the parking lot, sans panties, on a frigid and windy night.
At home I crawled into my cold, lonely bed again and fell asleep after a lot of tossing and turning. The next morning I woke from a dream so hot I looked for burn marks on my sheets. Ben had been doing things to me I’d only heard of, and in return I was a sexually ferocious vixen. As I sorted through my closet looking for an outfit for today, I decided next time with Ben I’d try some of the dream moves, and that whipped-cream-and-ice thing I’d read about. I fervently hoped next time would be soon.
On the walk to work I planned my day and tried to find a time when I could call Bella and tell her about this new development in the life and times of Ivy. But apparently Bella had been using her non-existent psychic powers, because she was at The Masked Shoppe two minutes after I’d opened the door.
“So, Ivy, where were you last night?”
“Why?” But I knew my smug, self-satisfied smile gave me away.
“You little vixen. You and Ben? Down and dirty?”
“I was just calling myself the same thing. And yes, dirty with an extra R.”
“No way.”
“Yes way.”
“No.”
“Yes.” Hadn’t I had a similar conversation last night? And didn’t that end up right where I hadn’t thought I wanted to be? Which, of course, brought me back to hot thoughts of the wonderful things Ben and his hands, lips, and tongue had done to me. It almost sent my knees to jelly again.
“You have a twinkle in your eye.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
“So I guess I don’t have to ask how it was. Do I?” Bella fingered some of the costume jewelry hanging on a skeletal tree on the counter.
I laughed. “You can certainly ask, but I’m not going to tell you.”
She looked at me, her face registering shock. “You won’t tell me, your best friend in town?”
“My best friend, period,” I said, laying my hand over hers and giving it a quick squeeze. “But no, I won’t tell you. I didn’t even tell my sisters when they each called this morning. It’s like they have hormone ESP. Suffice it to say that what there was of it was incredible, and I will be doing it—and more—again, as soon as possible.”
“You are bad.” She took a necklace from the tree, gave it her attention, and then placed it back on its branch before looking at me again, a twinkle in her own eye. The twinkle flashed out after a second and she said, “Wait. What do you mean ‘what there was of it’?”
So I had to explain about the infamous interruption. And after I talked Bella down from yelling at Ben about his priorities for the fifth time, she finally calmed down.
Thirty seconds later Kitty came in, putting a quick end to our conversation by giving me the same look I’d seen over the past few days. It was a combination of confusion and some other emotions I couldn’t quite put my finger on. She’d been distant and strange to me ever since the Harvest Ball, but I’d chalked it up to maybe some stress at home. Plus, I’d been so busy lately, and had so much on my plate with the shop, the theft, Janice’s death, and trying to find her killer, I hadn’t given Kitty and her petty nature a second thought. Only because Ben and I detoured into her neighborhood was I reminded of something she’d said on the Sunday after the dance. God, was that really only four days ago?
She’d been putting away stock and I came in to tell her we were moving the plastic swords to a different area for better traffic flow to the cash register. She kept her back to me and said, “It wasn’t supposed to be like this when I ran the store.”
Now, maybe I’d misinterpreted what she said, but since seeing Charlie in what was most likely my underwear, I’d begun to wonder about her. I also wondered what part she’d had, if any, in the lingerie going missing. I vowed to keep my eyes and ears open. Charlie would be in today, and his mother was already here.
Bella left after a little more whispered kibitzing. Two hours later, Charlie came lumbering into the store. I was in the storeroom and had a perfect line of vision to the fountain. Charlie bent over to place his tools on the side of the fountain, and I saw a glimpse of vibrant purple this time
. Someone should really take the time to tell him not to bend over if he doesn’t want the world to know his fetish, I thought.
Then I heard Kitty call for him, and I moved quietly from the storeroom to the hallway outside my office. I guessed she’d decided to hold her impromptu meeting in my office without my permission. She really had been trying to take over lately, and I decided we might need to have a little talk about that sometime soon.
But my thoughts were cut off when Kitty’s furious whisper reached my prying ears. “Why didn’t you take anything last night? I told you to come in and take everything this time, not just the bras, and I saw everything is still here this morning. What is wrong with you?”
Ah-ha! So he had taken all the lingerie but only gave up the bras. I’d bet he gave the bras to Jackie; Kitty, with her little stick frame, would not fit in anything over a 32B.
“I’m done, Mom. I like Ivy, and I’m not going to mess things up for her again.”
“You will if I say you will.”
“No, I won’t. Between you and Jackie, I’m about ready to take a long dive off a shallow cliff. So get off my back.”
I heard a rustling sound and, afraid Kitty was about to come out, went back to the storeroom. Shoving aside several boxes, I grabbed my garbage bag of hidden evidence. I rushed back out because I wanted to corner them both at the same time and meet them head-on about their plans to “ruin me.” But when I made it back to the office, only Charlie was standing there.
I had to make a quick decision. Did I want them together or should I divide and conquer? I didn’t want to wait on this. It was too important. I still hated confrontation, but it was getting easier to do when people were threatening my shop and my livelihood—my reputation.
“Charlie, can I have a minute of your time?”
He jumped like I’d applied a cattle prod to his purple-silk-covered backside. “Uh, hi, Ivy. Uh, sure. I have a minute.”
