Maximum Exposure

by Alison Kent

Or maybe it wasn’t there before.

  “Anyway,” Stephanie went on. “Tell her we miss her and are thinking about her. Dustin hasn’t been himself since she’s been gone. Like it’s his fault she fell, which is ridiculous. She went to Starbucks by herself.”

  Where anyone could have seen her, threatened her. He said his good-byes and slammed down the phone, assuring Penny he was fine when she called out to ask. He had to make sure Jodi was okay before Tomás showed up. Carmen would have to cover the floor. Fuck the job.

  He told Penny he was taking his lunch hour early, which she duly marked on his time card, and he told Carmen he’d be back, and that her boyfriend was not to leave before Roland had given his okay and signed off on the boxes Tomás brought.

  Carmen hadn’t been happy with Roland disrespecting her boyfriend and doubting his competence, but she was more than happy to get him out of her face. And she’d always seemed to be such a nice girl. At least as nice as was possible, considering she lived with drug-dealing scum.

  Friday prelunch traffic through the city wasn’t bad. He hit Jodi’s complex before noon. He parked, hurried to her door, and knocked. When she didn’t answer fast enough, he knocked again. He was reaching for his cell to call her when he heard the thwump of her dead bolt and the click of what he assumed was a second lock.

  It wasn’t. She cracked the door, shoved the muzzle of a handgun through. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Let me in. We’ll talk.”

  “We’ll talk here.” She kept the gun trained on his chest, her finger on the trigger, the safety off. “Who are you, motherfucker? You’d better tell me now.”

  He didn’t think she’d blow him away, but he wasn’t wearing a vest or his piece, and that didn’t leave him a lot of room to negotiate. He kept his voice low. “Roman Greyle.”

  Her eyes were wide and watery; her face was pale. “That doesn’t tell me anything.”

  “Let me come in. I’ll tell you all that I can.”

  “You’ll tell me everything,” she snapped. “And you’ll do it now. From where you’re standing. Or I’ll drop you to the ground.”

  He kept his hands where she could see them, kept his eyes on hers, kept his voice subdued. “You want the truth, you let me in. Or I walk away.”

  He watched her waver, uncertainty causing her to blink, hesitation bringing the gun down a notch. Finally, she moved the foot bracing the door and backed into the room.

  He walked inside, turned the dead bolt behind him, but that was all he did, staying where he was, not wanting to give her any reason to think twice about letting him in.

  She waved the gun. “Start talking.”

  He took a deep breath. “My name is Roman Greyle. I’m DEA. I’m undercover. Have been for a year. And my telling you that may have just fucked up everything I’ve been doing. Now, can you put the gun away before one of us gets hurt?”

  She waited a second, then surrendered, securing the gun in a box at the top of her entryway’s coat closet, then heading for the kitchen, leaving him behind. He followed, keeping his distance and always a piece of furniture between them. Whatever had scared her, he didn’t want to make it worse.

  She poured Diet Coke into a tall glass, added a healthy finger of rum. It wasn’t even noon, and she didn’t offer him the same, or so much as water. “What happened on Monday? When you went to Starbucks?”

  She gave a bitter laugh. “Steph, right? Miss See All and Tell All?”

  “I pressed. She was very professional. Now tell me what happened. And I don’t mean the story about you hurting your back and your knees when you fell.”

  “But I did fall.” She’d been standing on the other side of the open counter that separated the kitchen from the dining nook, where he waited. She set her drink on the stove top and walked out. “I just didn’t do it on the way to Starbucks.”

  He glanced at her knees, at the skin that had been scraped by something other than her office carpet. The wounds had scabbed over but still oozed blood from beneath a coating of clear ointment. “Your palms?”

  “What about them?”

  “You usually break a fall with your palms.”

  She held them up. Not a scratch to be seen.

  “And your elbows?”

  She showed him both. Clean as a whistle.

  “Your knees. Tell me. And about walking to Starbucks.”

  She put her hands to her hips, stared at the floor, finally walked into the dining nook and pulled out a chair, pointing him to another. They both sat, Jodi wincing.

  “I had a bit of a clash with Dustin Monday morning—”

  “About?”

  “You,” she told him, lifting one of her professionally shaped brows. Only then did he notice her lack of makeup and the bruiselike smudges under her eyes. “I was steaming when I left the gallery, and when this guy in a van at the curb asked me for directions, I was in the mood to tear into someone. Unfortunately, he tore into me first.”

  Roman felt his temperature rise. “How so?”

  “He grabbed my wrist—”

  “What did he look like?”

  She gave him a description that sounded a lot like Tomás, finishing with, “Are you done interrupting me?”

  He nodded. It meant nothing. “Go on.”

  “He told me to give you a message.”

  “Me?” Roman asked, barely able to cough out the word. Bebé was really trying to get to him through her?

  “Yes, you. He said to tell you not to fuck up his stuff, or something like that.”

  “Was it that, or was it something else?”

  “It was that. Not to fuck up whatever it is you’re keeping for him.”

  Bebé could have said that to Roman himself. He didn’t need Jodi to deliver the same message he’d already made clear. There was more. A dangerous more causing Jodi to meet visitors at the door with a gun.

  “What else?”

  She dropped her gaze to her lap, twisted her fingers together there, fingers with nails that were broken, their polish chipped away, her cuticles bitten. “Jodi? What did you do to your knees?”

  After she blew out a long breath and swallowed, she told him. “When he drove off, I somehow thought to get his license plate. I was chanting the numbers, digging for something to write with when I realized they were my plates.”

  What the fuck? “Your plates?”

  She nodded. “When I got back to the gallery, it took me half an hour to go out and check my car. That’s just not me,” she said, gesturing with one hand, then giving up, as if there was no way to explain.

  She went on. “I don’t get scared. Not the way I was scared then. I tried to convince myself I’d remembered the numbers wrong, transposed a digit or something. I had to be making a mountain out of a molehill. I’d get outside and realize I was wrong.”

  “But you weren’t.”

  “No. I wasn’t. I couldn’t believe it. There was my car, sans plates.” She stopped, reached up and ran her hands through her tangled mane of hair, shook her head. “I had to get out of there, but after my row with Dustin, I needed a reason he would know wasn’t a lie. The only thing that came to mind was the doctor.”

  Christ Almighty. He’d gotten her into this. No one else. Him, Roman Greyle. “You scraped up your knees on purpose.”

  Slowly, she straightened her legs, studied her handiwork. “They were already carpet burned, so I figured, what the hell? I banged them up on the pavement outside, then cleaned them up and said they weren’t bothering me so much, but my back was a mess. Dustin took one look and sent me home.”

  And then she’d called and called and called. Told him she had to talk to him, that it was urgent, begged him to call her back. He hadn’t. He’d left her to face this alone.

  “How did he know I’d be walking to Starbucks?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “The guy who took my plates. How did he know to take mine?”

  “He was watching for you to leave. Hoping to catch you going ou
t for lunch or whatever. And he took yours to do just what he did. Scare you into holing up and staying home.” And, as he said it, Roman knew he was missing something.

  Taking her plates and having her deliver a message were child’s play. Neither one would get his target, get Roman, to react. “That’s still not everything, is it? He didn’t just want you to tell me not to fuck up.”

  Her gaze came up sharply, her eyes slicing into his like twin switchblades, swift, unexpected. Deadly. “He said if you did fuck up, he’d deliver me to you packaged the same way.”

  Silence. Dead silence. Paralyzed. Still. For a long moment, Roman couldn’t move; could only think of the shrink-wrapped bricks of heroin in the storeroom at Splash & Flambé; could only think of Jodi, in pieces, packaged the same way.

  All of that took time to settle in, and then he wished it hadn’t. He launched to his feet, sending his chair hurtling across the floor to slam the wall, punching into the Sheetrock.

  Jodi glanced around him at the damage, then slowly returned her gaze to his. “Are you going to tell me what that means? Or is it best if I don’t know?”

  “I have to go,” he said and bolted for the door.

  “That’s it?” She got up to follow, chasing him, yelping as her knees sent her stumbling. “You’re leaving me?”

  Not just leaving. Leaving me. He turned, doing his best to hide the fury eating him alive, and cupped her face in his hands, making sure he had her attention. “Do not answer this door for anyone but me. Do not answer your phone, either line. Not even if my number shows on your caller ID.”

  “Roman—”

  He shook his head, cut her off, still hearing her saying his name. Christ, it sounded so good. So good. “Me or the cops. That’s it. I’ll be back tonight. Nothing’s going to happen between now and then.”

  “What about after then?”

  “You’ll be fine. Trust me.”

  “Will you be fine? Are you going to tell me what this is all about?”

  “Right now, no. But I’ll fill you in as best I can later.”

  “Is that a promise?”

  Oh, baby. Oh, sweetheart. “It’s the only one I can make.”

  Twenty-two

  This was never what Finn had intended to happen. The more he’d thought about shooting Olivia in flashes of light, the more he’d been convinced the results would be exactly what Dustin expected. Her expression illuminated, her body exposed. The black velvet and satin surrounding her glittering and alive. But this…this…

  He groaned, the sound rolling up from his gut as he sank his body into hers and pressed them both against the wall. She melted. She took him. She bore every ounce of his weight. She didn’t resist his advances or stop him, but instead invited him close, like she’d intended this to happen all along.

  He slid his hands beneath that damn tempting fringe to her breasts, molded, squeezed, found the rings she wore there, and pushed the ends of his little fingers through before dipping his head to find her nipples with his tongue. She groaned, her head rolling to the side, her hands flat against the wall at her shoulders, as if stapled there.

  He’d been waiting for days to taste her, wondering too many times if she’d be sweet or spicy, when, after all that writhing and dancing, she was salty and musky and warm. He licked his way around the rings, which he held away from her breasts, lapping at her areolae and nipples until he couldn’t take it anymore. The scent of her sex drew him down.

  He dropped to his knees, tried to take care with her skirt but couldn’t find any fastenings, so he did what he had to do, tossing the torn fabric behind him, hearing it slide across the floor. The ring piercing her clit gleamed gold in the light from the spot he’d dimmed.

  He sucked it into his mouth, caught it with his teeth and tugged, slipped the tip of his tongue through, and teased her there, back and forth across the top of her swelling sex, which pulsed with the flow of her blood.

  She gasped when he spread her open, moaned when he pushed two fingers inside her. She was wet, and his cock throbbed with each stroke, in and out, in and out, her hips pumping against him, fucking his hand.

  He didn’t care that they hadn’t taken any time. His hand was not what he wanted her fucking. He stood, reached for his fly. Her fingers were already there, helping him, in the way, pulling him out of his pants while he pushed his boxers and jeans to his knees.

  She hooked one leg around his hip and reached for his shaft to position him. He surged forward, burying his cock up to his balls in her heat. She was tight, and she held him there, squeezing, releasing, gripping, easing. He groaned. This was seconds from being done.

  “It’s okay,” she whispered against his neck, looping her arms around him, her hands flat beneath his nape. “Make it hard and fast. I’m all yours.”

  He wanted to laugh, to toss back his head and roar. Right now, as jacked up as he was, he couldn’t give it to her any other way. And knowing she felt the same? Well, that cut this encounter’s life span in half.

  Nothing aroused him more than being wanted this fiercely. And hot? Didn’t even begin to describe the sensation or the full scale of his desire. He gripped her hips; buried his face between her neck and her shoulder; and gave her what she wanted, what he wanted, pounding into her, bouncing both of them off the wall.

  She gasped and panted, and he could barely breathe. He didn’t have time to breathe, to think. This was all about his cock, and the tight, wet glove of her pussy, and those damn gold rings where they dug into his skin.

  He slid in, pulled out. The wet, sucking sounds as he slapped at her filled the cavernous room, along with her rhythmic groans and his own coarse grunts. Mindless fucking at its finest. That was what this was. And then she squirmed, jolted, and cried out as she came.

  She was still shuddering when he followed, one powerful shot after another, his knees shaking, his quads weak. But even when he finished, he didn’t move. And she didn’t move. And so he stayed inside her, pulsing, wondering if she could feel him hardening again.

  He did smooth her skin where he’d been digging in with his fingertips, turning his head to rest it on her shoulder. “I might have left bruises. I’m sorry.”

  She didn’t respond. Not right away, though she didn’t make any attempt to move or reject him, and she did keep him inside her as he grew thick and long. So when she finally did speak, he wasn’t sure how to take her soft words.

  “Don’t blame me for this.”

  Was she kidding? “Why would I blame you?”

  “I danced for you. I led you on.” She paused, swallowed. He felt her throat convulse where his face rested. “I asked for it.”

  He lifted his head, looked at her. Something was going on here. Something deeper than he knew how to deal with. Something important that he didn’t understand.

  “You danced for me because I told you to. If you led me on, I was the one who let you. And you didn’t ask for anything at all except what you wanted.”

  Her head was back. Her eyes closed. She was still holding him, with her hands, with her sex, though she had lowered her leg, relieving the strain from standing on the other. But then he thought he saw her lower lip tremble.

  She caught it, pressing it tight to her top lip, but he’d seen it. He knew. There was something very wrong in her world. He didn’t know where to start making it right, so he did the one thing that seemed the most obvious.

  He kissed her.

  He cupped her face in his hands and softly rubbed his lips on hers, soothing her, gentling her, making her see that this was all about shared pleasure, not about casting or taking blame. Blame. Where had that come from, anyway?

  It took several seconds, but the tense moment faded, and she parted her lips beneath his urging and kissed him back. It was a perfect kiss, a meaningful mating of tongues, an accidental clash of teeth, laughter, coaxing and teasing, and then hands began to roam.

  That was when the kiss changed, grew potent, intense, lustful. She arched her back, her shoul
ders against the wall, her pelvis forward, and ran her hands down between their joined bodies, where she fondled her clit, cupped his balls, stroked the underside of his shaft when he pulled out to give her room.

  But then he pushed right back in. She felt too good to leave, though he did break away from her mouth so he could kiss more of her: her neck, her throat, her collarbone, the upper swell of both breasts. She moaned as he discovered her, and then she threaded her fingers into his hair and lifted his head.

  Her eyes were glassy with desire. “Could we…not stand?”

  “Yeah, sure,” he said, thinking, Anything you want, say the word. “But the floor’s pretty hard.”

  “I’m sure your back can take it,” she said, a queenly demand, and that made him smile.

  It would’ve been beyond cool if he’d been able to maneuver them down without ever pulling out of her. But this was real life, not fiction, and so as much as it pained him, he slipped his penis free, keeping his arms around her as he tumbled.

  She climbed on top of him, straddled his thighs. His cock stood at attention against her belly. She held the head in one hand, thumbed the seam on the underside, slid her bottom farther down his legs, and leaned forward to take him into her mouth.

  She toyed with him, teased him, tortured him until he hurt, using her lips and her tongue, her hand tight at the base of his shaft. He could have been lying on a bed of nails for all he felt of the hard floor.

  What he felt was the tip of a match, a short fuse sparking. He reached for her shoulders, hooked his hands in her armpits, and pulled her mouth back to his. She kissed him with the same fire that burned through his groin when she took his cock deep inside her again.

  She ground her hips against him, rose up and down, long, sweet, agonizing strokes all the way from his balls to his slit. She rolled, doing a figure eight, taking him with her, breaking him, burning his chest and his belly with the metal hoops heated by the friction of their bodies.

  And then she sat up, braced her hands on his knees, and leaned back. He propped himself up on his elbows and watched her ride, watched the slide of his cock between the lips of her pussy, watched her hole swallow him, watched the light catch and glint off the gold as she moved.