by J. R. Ward
She knew he was into the rough stuff and didn't have a problem with that in the slightest.
Vin swept her hair back from her face as she freed his arousal, and knew full well he wasn't the only one likely to get a view of what she was going to do to him: Both of the desk lamps were on, which meant if anybody in those skyscrapers was still at their office and had a pair of binocs, they were about to get one hell of a show.
Vin didn't stop her or turn off the lights.
Devina liked an audience.
As her mouth parted over the head of his cock, he groaned and then gritted his teeth as she swallowed him down into her throat. She was very good at this kind of thing, finding a rhythm that swept him away, staring up at him as she worked him out. She knew he liked it a little dirty, so at the last moment she pulled back so that her perfect breasts were what he came on.
With a low laugh, she looked at him from under her brows, all naughty girl not yet sated. Devina was like that, changeable depending on the situation, able to be a proper woman one moment and a slut the next, her moods masks that she wore and discarded at will.
“You're still hungry, Vin.” Her beautiful hand drifted down the sheer bustier to her thong and stayed there as she stretched out on her back. “Aren't you.”
In the light, her eyes were not deep brown, but dense black, and they were full of knowledge. She was right. He did want her. He had since the moment he'd seen her at a gallery opening and taken both a Chagall and her home.
Vin shifted off his chair and knelt between her legs, spreading them wider. She was ready for him, and he took her right on the carpet next to his desk. The sex was fast and hard, but she was crazy into it and that turned him on.
As he orgasmed into her, she said his name as if he had given her exactly what she after.
Dropping his head to the fine silk carpet, he breathed hard and didn't like the way he felt. With the passion gone, he was more than spent; he was barren.
Sometimes it was as if the more he filled her, the emptier he got.
“I want more, Vin,” she said in a deep, guttural voice.
In the locker room shower at the Iron Mask, Marie-Terese stepped under the hot spray and opened her mouth, letting the water wash into her as well as over her. On a stainless-steel dish, there was a golden bar of soap, and she reached for it without having to look over. The Dial imprint was nearly washed smooth, which meant the thing was going to last only another two or three nights.
As she washed every inch of her body, her tears joined the sudsy water, following its path into the drain at her feet. In some ways, this was the hardest part of the night, this time alone with the warm steam and the rotgut soap—worse even than the post-confession blues.
God, it was getting so that even the smell of Dial was enough to make her eyes water, proof positive Pavlov didn't just know about dogs.
When she was done, she stepped out and grabbed a rough white towel. Her skin tightened up in the cold, shrinking, becoming like armor, and her will to keep going performed a similar retraction, pulling in her emotions and holding them secure once more.
In the cubicle outside, she changed back into her jeans and her turtleneck and her fleece, stuffing her work clothes into the duffel. Her hair took about ten minutes of blow-drying before she was ready to go out into the chilly night with it, and the extra time at the club made her pray for summer.
“You almost ready to go?”
Trez's voice came through the locker room's closed door and she had to smile. Same words every night, and always at the very moment she put the hair dryer down. “Two minutes,” she called out.
“No worries.” Trez meant that, too. He always made a point to escort her to her car, no matter how long it took her to get ready to leave.
Marie-Terese put the dryer down, drew her hair back, and wrapped a scrunchie around the thick waves—
She leaned in closer to the mirror. Sometime during the shift, she'd lost an earring and God only knew where the thing was. “Damn it.”
Shouldering her duffel, she left the locker room and found Trez out in the hall texting on his BlackBerry.
He put the phone in his pocket and looked her over. “You all right?” No. “Yup. Was an okay night.”
Trez nodded once and walked with her to the back door. As they went outside, she prayed he didn't hit her with one of his lectures. Trez's opinion about prostitution was that women could choose to do it, and men could choose to pay, but it had to be handled professionally—hell, he'd fired girls for skipping condoms. He also believed that if there was even a hint that a female was uncomfortable with her choice, she should be given every opportunity to rethink what she was doing and get out.
It was the same philosophy the Reverend had had at ZeroSum, and the irony was that because of it, most of the girls didn't want to leave the life.
As they came up to her Camry, he stopped her by putting his hand on her arm. “You know what I'm going to say, don't you.”
She smiled a little. “Your speech.”
“It's not rhetoric. I mean every word.”
“Oh, I know you do,” she said, taking her keys out. “And you're very kind, but I'm where I need to be.”
For a split second, she could have sworn his dark eyes flashed with a peridot light—but it was probably just a trick of the security lights that flooded the back of the building.
And when he just stared at her, like he was choosing his words, she shook her head. “Trez…please don't.”
Frowning hard, he cursed under his breath, then held out his arms. “Come here, girl.”
As she leaned forward and stood in the lee of his strength, she wondered what it would be like to have a man like this, a good one who might not be perfect, but who was honorable and did right and cared about people.
“Your heart isn't in this anymore,” Trez said softly in her ear. “It's time for you to go.”
“I'm fine—”
“You lie.” As he pulled back, his voice was so sure and certain, she felt like he could see right through into her heart. “Let me give you the money you need. You can pay it back interest-free. You aren't meant for this. Some are. You are not. Your soul's not doing well here.”
He was right. He was so very, very right. But she was done relying on anyone else, even somebody as decent as Trez.
“I'll get out soon,” she said, patting his huge chest. “Just a little longer and I'll be caught up. Then I'll stop.”
Trez's expression tightened and his jaw went rigid—evidence that he was going to respect her decision even if he didn't agree with it. “Remember my offer about the money, okay?”
“I will.” She arched up on her tiptoes and kissed his dark cheek. “Promise.”
Trez settled her in the car, and after she backed out of her spot and started off, she glanced in the rearview mirror. In the glow of her taillights, he was watching her, his arms crossed over that heavy chest…and then he was gone as if he'd just disappeared.
Marie-Terese hit the brakes and rubbed her eyes, wondering if she had lost it…but then a car came up from behind her, its headlights flashing in the rearview and blinding her. Shaking herself, she hit the gas and shot out of the parking lot. Whoever was on her bumper turned off at the next street, and the trip home was about fifteen minutes long.
The house she rented was tiny, just a little Cape Cod that was in okay shape, but there were two reasons why she'd picked it over the other ones she'd looked at when she'd come to Caldwell: It was in a school zone, so that meant there were a lot of eyes around the neighborhood, and the owner had allowed her to put bars on all the windows.
Marie-Terese parked in the garage, waited for the door to trundle shut, and then got out to enter the darkened back hall. Going through the kitchen, which smelled like the fresh apples she always kept in a bowl, she tiptoed toward the glow in the living room. On the way, she tucked her duffel bag into the coat closet.
She'd empty it and repack it when there was no one aroun
d to see her. As she stepped into the light, she whispered, “It's just me.”
Chapter 4
He slept with her.
The following morning, Jim's first thought was a real shitkicker, and to try to get away from it, he rolled over on his bed. Which just made his wakey-wakey worse. Dawn's early light was kicking the ass of the curtain next to him, and as the brightness barged into his skull, he wished the frickin' window were made out of Sheetrock.
Man, he couldn't believe he'd slept with that gorgeous, vulnerable woman in his truck—like she was some kind of whore. The fact that he'd then come back here and drunk himself into a Corona-tose state was a little more believable. But what it all added up to was that he still felt bad about what he'd done and he was going to have to hammer nails all day with a hangover.
Great. Planning.
Throwing off the blanket, he looked down at the jeans and flannel shirt he'd worn to the club. He'd passed out before he'd had a chance to get naked, so everything was rumpled, but he was going to wear the Levi's to work. The shirt, on the other hand, he had to save from twelve hours of construction. It was his only “good” one—which meant no paint specks, no holes, no missing buttons, and no frayed cuffs. Yet.
Jim stripped down and dumped the shirt into the leaning tower of dirty laundry by the bed. As he walked his headache into the stall shower, he was reminded of why not having a lot of furniture was a good thing. Short of his two piles of clothes, the clean and the needed-to-be-cleaned, all he had was the rattan couch that the studio had come with and a table with two chairs—all of which were mercifully out of the path to the bathroom.
He shaved fast and showered quick; then it was boxers and the Levi's and four aspirin. Undershirt was next, followed by socks and boots. On the way to the door, he grabbed his tool belt and his work jacket.
His rental was on top of a garage-like outbuilding, and he paused at the top of the stairs, squinting so hard he bared his teeth. Goddamn…all that eye-piercing light made it seem like the sun had decided to return the Earth's attraction and move a little closer to seal the deal.
Down the creaking wooden steps. Across the gravel drive to the cold truck. All the way with an expression like he had a spike through his foot.
As he opened the driver's-side door, he caught a whiff of perfume and cursed. Images came back to him, all of them carnal as hell, each one of them another source of inspiration for the headache.
He was still cursing and squinting as he drove out the lane and past the white farmhouse, the owner of which was his elderly landlord, Mr. Perlmutter. No one had lived in the big place for as long as Jim had been a renter, its windows boarded up on the inside, its porch perennially empty of wicker anything.
That nobody-home routine along with the thirty days' notice to get out were his two favorite parts about where he stayed.
On the way to work, he pulled into a gas station and bought a large coffee, a turkey sub, and a Coke. The quick mart smelled like old shoes and laundry softener, and there was a probability that the sandwich had been made last week in Turkey, but he'd been eating the same thing for the last month and was still upright in his boots, so the shit obviously wasn't killing him.
Fifteen minutes later he was steaming up Route 151N, drinking his coffee, wearing his sunglasses, and feeling marginally more human. The job site was on the western shore of the Hudson River, and when he got to the turnoff for it, he recapped the Styrofoam mug and ten-and-two'd the wheel. The lane that went down the peninsula was pothole central, thanks to all the heavy-duty machinery that had barreled across its bare back, and the truck's shock absorbers bitched and moaned the whole way.
At some point there was going to be manicured lawn everywhere, but for the moment the rolling earth resembled the skin of a fifteen-year-old boy. There were countless tree stumps across the shaggy winter-brown grass—pimples on the face of the land that had been created by a team of guys with chairt saws. And that wasn't the worst of it. Four whole cabins had been torn down, their footings and the bald plots beneath their first floors all that was left of structures that had been there for over a hundred years.
But everything had to go. That was the command from the general contractor. Who was his own client.
And about as much fun as a hangover on a cheery, chilly morning.
Jim pulled into the line of pickups that was forming as more of the workers came in. He left the sandwich and the Coke behind on the floor of the cab to stay cool and crossed the tire-chewed dirt tracks toward the gestating house. With its skeleton of two-by-fours erected, its skin was now going up, the particleboard sheets being nailed onto the bone structure of the frame.
Fucking thing was a monster, so big it was capable of making those McMansions in town seem the size of dollhouses.
“Jim.”
“Chuck.”
Chuck, the foreman, was a six-foot guy with square shoulders, a round gut, and a perpetual cigar stub shoved in his mouth—and that was about it for conversation with him. Thing was, Jim was clear which part of the house he was working on and what he was going to do, and both men knew it. With a crew of about twenty carpenters on the project, there were varying degrees of skill and commitment and sobriety, and Chuck knew the drill with everybody. If you had half a brain and could throw a hammer well, he left you alone, because fuck knew he had enough on his plate with the jackholes.
Jim braced himself and headed for the supplies. The nail boxes were kept stacked in a lockable cabinet on the six-car garage's concrete slab, and next to them, lined up in a row, were the gas-powered electrical generators that were already going at a roar. Wincing at the noise, he stepped over the snakes of extension cords that ran out to the table saws and the nail guns and filled up the pouch on the left side of his tool belt.
It was a relief to head for the southern side of the house—which, considering the floor plan, was practically in the next county. Setting to work, he began hefting six-foot-by-four-foot sections of particleboard and locking them in place against the framers. He used a hammer instead of a nail gun because he was just that flavor of old school—and because even with the manual stuff he was one of the fastest carpenters around.
The sound of a pair of Harleys coming down the dirt drive brought his head up.
Eddie and Adrian pulled their bikes in together and dismounted in sync, removing their leather jackets and their black sunglasses in the same rhythm too. As they approached the house, they came gunning in his direction and Jim groaned: Adrian was looking at him with a whole lot of what-the-hell-happened-with-the-hottie on his pierced face.
Which meant the guy had noticed that Blue Dress disappeared about the same time Jim did.
“Shit,” he muttered.
“What?”
Jim shook his head at the guy next to him and refocused on what he was doing. Positioning one of the sheets against the frame, he held it with his hip, unhooked his hammer from his belt, got a nail, and pounded. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat— “Have fun last night?” Adrian said as he came up. Jim just kept on pounding.
“Ah, come on, I don't need all the details—but you could spare me a few.” Adrian glanced at his roommate. “Back me up, would ya?”
Eddie just walked by and knocked his shoulder into Jim, which was his version of a good morning. Without being asked, he took over bracing the particleboard, which freed Jim up to hammer twice as fast. They were a great team, although Adrian balanced out the pace. He was less than industrious, preferring to spend his time fucking around and running his mouth. It was a wonder he hadn't gotten fired in the four weeks he'd been on the site.
Ad leaned against a naked doorjamb and rolled his eyes. “You aren't going to tell me whether you got a birthday present or not?”
“Nope.” Jim positioned a nail and creamed the head of it. Two hits and the top was flush with the board and then he got another fresh shot at imagining Adrian's face on a target.
“You suck.”
Yes, he certainly had last night—no
t that it was any business of that friendly neighborhood gum-flapping motherfucker with a metal fetish.
Things fell into their usual rhythm, and the other guys got out of Jim and Eddie's way as they went around, closing the gap from where they'd stopped the day before, sealing things up from the spring rains that were just starting. The house was going to be about fifteen thousand square feet in size, so to get it battened down tight in just one week was a tall order. Still, Jim and Eddie were busting ass, and the roofers were already halfway across the rafters. By the end of the weekend, they weren't going to have to worry about the cold drizzle or the freezing wind anymore, and thank God for it. Yesterday had been a suckfest of wet and nasty, and there were still puddles here and there that splashed up onto his jeans.
Lunchtime came quickly, which was what happened when he worked with Eddie, and while the other guys propped themselves on the edge of the house facing the sun, Jim went back to his truck and ate alone sitting in the cab.
The sandwich was still cold, which always improved the taste, and the Coke was spectacular.
As he sat on his own and chewed, he glanced over to the empty seat next to him…and remembered dark hair spilling over the upholstery and the arch of a female neck in the dash lights and the feel of a soft body beneath his.
He was such a shit, taking advantage of her like that, and yet, after it was all done, she'd smiled up at him as if he'd given her exactly what she'd wanted. Except that couldn't be true. Sex between strangers was just a temporary reprieve from loneliness. How could that be enough for someone like her? Christ, he didn't even know her name. When the deep breathing had passed, she'd kissed him and lingered on his lips; then she'd pulled the top of her dress up and the bottom of it down, and left him.
With a curse, Jim threw open the driver's-side door and took his lunch around to the back bumper It was warmer out in the sun, but more to the point, the air smelled like fresh pine boards, not perfume. As he turned his face to the sky and tried to wipe clean his mind, he lost interest in the sandwich, putting it aside on its Saran Wrap and focusing on the Coke instead.
