Unleashed

by Lois Greiman

  He watched me like a hound on a hamburger. Fire burned in his eyes…an out-of-control inferno that threatened to consume my self-constraint like dry kindling. “And?”

  I shut the water off and picked up one of the small terrycloth hand towels. “And I thought I had better get him some sustenance before we began round five.”

  He smiled, or made a carnivorous facsimile of the same, then straightened from the wall. “If you wanted a cheap all-nighter, sweetheart, all you had to do was call.”

  My stomach clenched. “I did call.”

  A range of hot emotions flashed in his eyes. “You should have told me you were desperate enough to fuck someone who was still drooling into his bib. I would have considered it an emergency.”

  A dozen nasty rejoinders zipped through my head, but I kept my tone above reproach. “It’s fortunate, then, that you were otherwise occupied.”

  He shrugged. The motion was stiff, almost indiscernible. “Just investigating a couple pesky murders.”

  I ignored the niggle of guilt that swam through me. After all, he was here, wasn’t he? If he had time for his mother, he probably could have spared a few minutes for me.

  “Well…at least it wasn’t anything important,” I said, turning toward the door, but he caught my arm.

  Rage ripped through me in a trembling arc, but I refrained from killing him…like a civilized human being.

  He, on the other hand, looked about as domesticated as a panther.

  “Who is that asshole?” he growled.

  I raised my brows, surprised and maybe just a little bit thrilled by the barely controlled anger in his tone. It made my own rage subside into the periphery with a girlish titter.

  “Do you want the truth?” I asked. My voice was impressively mature.

  He snorted, maybe remembering there had been a time or two when I had been less than forthcoming. But seriously, at the beginning of our relationship, the lieutenant had accused me of murdering a guy whose intentions had been less than honorable. In fact, judging by the size of the corpse’s woody, rape had been Andrew Bomstad’s intention. How honest did he expect me to be?

  “Why not give it a try?” he asked.

  I stared into his eyes, held them steady. “His name is Tony,” I said. “And we’re talking. Just talking. Did you ever consider that?”

  “With you?” He scorched my ventral region. Swear to God, it felt like he was going to singe the boobs right off my body. “No.”

  I held myself steady, ignored the insult, disregarded the compliment, and forced myself to speak with lugubrious lucidity. “Well, maybe you should have,” I said, and eased my arm out of his grip.

  He released me, then took an abbreviated step backward and shook his head, as if trying to convince himself of the wisdom of letting me go. “You’ll be bored out of your mind in a week.”

  I glanced over my shoulder at him, making sure I was looking up through my well-groomed and dutifully enhanced lashes. “Maybe that’s exactly what I want.”

  “To be out of your mind?”

  I kept my chin tilted down at that sexier-than-thou angle. “This may surprise you, Lieutenant Ridiculous, but the fact that an individual isn’t willing to accost an innocent in a public restroom doesn’t make him boring.”

  His lips twisted a little higher. “You haven’t accosted me…yet.”

  Maybe it was his cocky grin that made me snap. Or maybe it was the fact that I wanted to eat him whole. “You’re an ass,” I snarled. My boobs heaved as I leaned forward to deliver that denunciation. His gaze dipped to my cleavage, and in that second I felt my sexual allure like a poorly controlled superpower.

  But after a hard-won struggle for maturity, I straightened. Settling my breasts back into their kryptonite case, I reminded myself that with great power comes great responsibility.

  “I’m glad you noticed my ass,” he said, and pulling his gaze from my chest, lasered it into my eyes.

  “Well, on that note…” I gritted a smile and turned smugly away. “I believe I will return to my boyfriend.”

  “He is a boy and he may be a friend,” he said, “but that’s not what trips your trigger, McMullen.”

  I turned back, teeth clenched, eyes narrowed. “You don’t know anything about my trigger, Mr. Regurgitate. Not what it is, how it works, or where to find it.”

  “That’s not what you said the other night when you were screaming my name and—”

  “The other night?” My voice may have vaguely resembled the growl of a Tasmanian devil.

  Still, he remained as he was.

  “The other night!”

  His brows had lowered a little and he was watching me closely, as if it might be prudent to make the sign of the cross and back away, but he remained unmoving. Leave it to Rivera to choose the path of the unwise.

  I drew a deep breath through my nostrils, causing my boobs to swell above my relatively modest neckline. His gaze dipped, then rose more slowly.

  “At Office Depot,” he said.

  I pursed my lips, remembering our time together in the office-supply store. Jack Rivera can be a first rate douche. Sometimes he’s overbearing. Generally, he’s irritating, but in all my dating years I’ve never found anyone who can match him in an out-and-out sex-a-thon.

  I’d rather be skinned with a potato peeler and sautéed in coconut oil than admit that to his face.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said.

  “On Foothill and Ramsdell.”

  I raised a dubious brow. “Dr. Dirkx believes that anyone can become delusional if he has a sufficiently weak psyche,” I said.

  “In the electronics section,” he added.

  I cleared my throat and tried to do the same with my mind. But the memory of being crammed between the all-in-one printers and the laptop accessories made my cheeks flush. All of them. Nevertheless, I remained suitably haughty.

  “For your edification, I haven’t seen you for twenty-seven days,” I said.

  “So you’re pissed that we haven’t visited office supplies for a few weeks?”

  To be honest, the old Chrissy used to find staplers pretty alluring, but even in my currently turbulent state I wasn’t deluded enough to admit that little factoid.

  “I was referring to the luncheon we shared at Casa Bonita.”

  He stared at me, expression unreadable.

  “You had the carnitas with rice; I, a lovely taco salad.”

  He watched me for another several seconds, then huffed a snort. “How the hell much have you had to drink?”

  I scowled, tried to think of the answer, and gave up. After a shot and a half of anything, I’m pretty much incoherent. To say I’m a lightweight is an insult to light. “How much I imbibe is no longer any of your concern, Lieutenant Riveter.”

  The smile dropped from his lips. He straightened from the wall. “You didn’t let that dippy surfer dude pick you up, did you?”

  “Tony happens to be a perfect gentleman.”

  “A perfect gentleman who knows where you live?” he asked, and took a glowering step toward me.

  “No!” I held up a hand as if to ward him off with magical powers and managed to refrain from telling him that he was one of a very few whom I had invited to my house. “I met him here.”

  The flames banked a little in his dark-brew eyes. “Good to know you haven’t become a complete moron,” he said. “Come on. I’ll drive you home.”

  I stepped back. The motion wasn’t quite as graceful as I had envisioned. I may have ricocheted off the vanity and upset the basket of used washcloths. “Now you want to take me home?”

  “I would have offered sooner, but I thought Mr. Cool Dude out there might be insulted,” he said, and reached for my elbow.

  I jerked away, though he never actually made contact. “Leave me alone,” I snarled.

  “What’s wrong now?” he asked.

  “Now? Now!” I stared at him. He stared back, as uncomprehending as a turnip…or your averag
e man. “Now you’re suddenly interested in me. Now that I have a date. Now that I—”

  “Is that what you think?” he asked, and prowled a step closer. It was like being stalked by a grizzly. A tight-assed, hotter-than-Tijuana grizzly. My heart jumped to my throat. Man, I love the ursine family, but I managed to raise my chin and glare at him.

  “That’s what I know,” I growled. “I don’t even exist for you until there’s someone else in my life.”

  “You’re the one who called it off.” He made some kind of slashing motion with the edge of his palm, sweeping it through the air that sizzled between us.

  “Am I? Really?” I asked. “Because if I remember correctly, I haven’t heard a word from you since—”

  “The best sex of your life?”

  I licked my lips. “You’re…” I had already used several of my favorite insults and took that moment to return to one of my adolescent favorites. “Stupid!”

  “You’re horny,” he said, and stalked closer.

  My palm smacked against his cheek like a clap of thunder.

  He stared at me to the count of three. My chest was rising and falling madly. A dozen rational thoughts whizzed through my brain: He wasn’t right for me. It was time to grow up. I needed to…

  Jump him.

  And that’s what I did.

  Chapter 5

  Is it premarital sex even if you’re never gonna get married?

  —Sixteen-year-old Christina McMullen, who, prior to this question, had believed herself too old to be spanked

  Rivera caught me in midair. I wrapped my legs around him. He growled something, then smashed my lips against his. His hands were squeezing my ass, already diving up under my dress.

  I grappled with his belt. He was rough and ready. I was rougher and readier and—

  “I shall make certain no one enters,” someone rasped.

  I jerked my bruised lips from Rivera’s, slamming my attention to the right. His mother stood in the doorway, eyes bright, expression determined.

  My jaw plummeted in concert with my libido.

  She winked and backed out of sight, letting the door swing closed behind her.

  Rivera and I remained exactly as we were, frozen in place, staring at the exit in shocked silence.

  “I—” Couldn’t think of anything to say.

  “We—” he began and subsequently seemed to run out of words.

  I cleared my throat, failed to meet his eyes, and released my leg lock. His hands, caught under my sheath, lifted the fabric almost to my waist before my Manolos touched tile. I swatted the dress down, cleared my throat again, and backed up against the comparative safety of the sink.

  Looking for a place for my gaze to land, I inadvertently scanned across his face. He was glaring at nothing in particular. “Is she—” I could barely force out the words. In fact, my voice was no more than a pained whisper. “Is she really standing guard?”

  Lifting one hand that had very recently been caressing my nether parts, he ran his fingers through his hair. It might have been my imagination, but I think they trembled a little. “I don’t think…” He shook his head, then nodded economically, though he winced a bit. “Yeah. Yeah, she is.”

  I gazed morosely into middle space, trying, with no success whatsoever, to figure out how a respected psychologist had arrived at this ignominious situation. “You know, it’s funny.” I laughed a little. Ha ha ha. “I thought my family was weird.”

  “Your family is weird,” he said, but his voice lacked conviction.

  Maybe that’s why I didn’t argue with him. Or maybe it was because it was absolutely true. Either way, I had the good sense to remain silent on that front. Go, crazy-ass Chrissy.

  “Well…” I clenched my fists against my thighs. “Listen, I’m sorry I called you…” My gaze slipped toward the appropriate body part, but it was obscured by other, more active parts of his anatomy. “An ass.”

  He drew a deep breath and glanced toward the door, as if having his mother nearly witness our ill-advised coitus changed everything. “Maybe I shouldn’t have…” He shook his head once and jerked up one lean shoulder. “He looks like an okay guy.”

  “Yeah. Yes.” I was only vaguely aware of whom he was speaking. “I think he is.”

  He nodded, but his teeth were gritted. He unclenched them with an obvious effort. “You were right.”

  I was holding my breath. This might have been the first time Rivera had ever suggested such an unlikely possibility to anyone. Certainly, he had never mentioned it to me. I waited impatiently to learn in what way I might have strayed into the land of rightness.

  “We shouldn’t…” He glanced away. “You deserve someone…” His eyes looked old, suddenly, and tired beyond reason. “Different.”

  For a moment, I almost argued, almost said it didn’t matter. It was okay if he didn’t always call me back. We were together now. But then I remembered where we were and what we had been about to do in a classy public restroom…with his mother standing guard at the door, for God’s sake!

  The thought made my cheeks want to disassociate themselves from the rest of my face.

  “Well…I’d better…” I motioned toward the door.

  He reached out. I told myself I should back away before I was scalded, but I failed. His hand, large and warm, skimmed my arm, scaring up goose bumps before falling to my hip. I was holding my breath. Our gazes clashed and my breath hitched, but he only smoothed a wrinkle from my dress and pulled his smoldering gaze from mine.

  I gave him a stuttering nod and stumbled back half a stride.

  “Well…it’s been…It’s been good knowing you, Lieutenant.” Those might have been the weirdest words I had ever uttered in my life. And that’s saying something. But they were also true. Yes, okay, knowing him had also been crazy and disorienting and scary as hell. But it had been good. For a while.

  “Yeah,” he said. The world froze as we stared at each other, and then he reached for me again.

  I wasn’t as strong this time and leaned toward him as though there were a hard wind at my back, but he just pulled the door open beside me.

  It only took me a couple of lifetimes to come to my senses, an eternity to stomp out the fire in my underduds. Then I turned like a poorly programmed automaton and goose-stepped out the door.

  His mother glanced at me, wide-eyed, then raised her dark gaze accusingly to her son.

  “Geraldo!” she scolded, sotto voce. “What are you thinking? You will never have the woman of your dreams if you are done so quick.”

  Chapter 6

  Death is nothing but a vague rumor to the young…until someone tries to off you with a poker. Then it gets pretty damn real.

  —Christina McMullen, PhD

  “So, Jeremy…” I glanced down at the handwritten record on my little desk and swiveled my cushy chair toward the comfy client couch. I was sitting in my modest office in a modest part of town across from the modest coffee shop I could no longer bear to look at after the debacle with its owner two nights before. Even though Tony had said nothing about my extended visit to the restroom, I was pretty sure my electrocuted hair and steam-wrinkled sheath must have made him guess that something had gone down in the ladies’ room. And I use the word ladies’ quite loosely here. “How’s school going?”

  He shrugged. This was only my second session with Jeremy Jones, but I was getting pretty tired of his indolent shrugs already. He was one of those kids who thought his life too hard to bear…one of those kids, coincidently, who’d had everything handed to him on a silver salver. Salver…ah, my erstwhile classiness had returned.

  “Have you had any more trouble with Mr. Fowler?”

  Another shrug

  “He’s your chemistry teacher, isn’t—”

  “Just…” He turned toward me, disdain written across his arrogant features like a road map to teenage angst. He had very pale skin, very dark hair, and enough attitude to suggest he might actually be a vampire. I considered that possib
ility for a second before remembering, with some ambiguity, that vampires didn’t actually exist. Which gave Sookie Stackhouse a whole lot less to worry about. The old Chrissy had loved the True Blood series and the books that inspired them. I mean, seriously, the men were sexy as hell and didn’t feel a burning need to wear a lot of superfluous clothes. But the new, improved Chrissy didn’t have time for such tripe. She simply felt it was important to stay abreast of my clients’ literary choices. “Just give it up!” He paused and narrowed his eyes. “‘They certified that I am sane, but I know I am a madman.’”

  I stared at him.

  “That’s Tolstoy. Maybe you’ve heard of him.”

  Ah, an intellectual. I smiled benignly.

  “You can’t help me. Nobody can,” he added.

  “Bullshit.” I said the word calmly and with very little inflection, just to see what would happen.

  His eyes opened wide. My smile amped up a little.

  “That’s Tony Stark. Perhaps you’ve heard of him.”

  He lowered his brows. Despite his considerable height and obvious anger, I was pretty sure I could take him down if I had to. He weighed about as much as a hangnail. And in my present mood, I rather liked the idea of a tussle.

  “Human beings are trash,” he said. “That’s Freud.”

  “Yes, I recognized the reference.”

  “He also—”

  “Freud was an ass,” I said.

  He stopped short, mouth agape.

  I watched him blandly, waiting for his next gambit.

  “My last therapist thought he was a genius.”

  “Maybe he was an ass, too.”

  “She!” He spat the word, as if the gender difference explained everything.

  I watched his expression, read the hostility, and tried to guess at its roots. His parents seemed to believe it was caused by “sexual confusion,” aka his homosexuality…which they completely condoned; they just wanted to see him happy. Or so they told me in no uncertain terms. Perhaps it was the absoluteness that made me question their sincerity. “I didn’t mean to imply that women can’t be asses, too.” A particularly poignant moment in a restroom barely thirty-six hours ago was living proof.