Fast Women

by Jennifer Crusie

  “I found out a little more about Stewart,” Nell said. “Not much, but some.”

  “Good,” he said. “I’ll come over. You want Chinese or pizza?”

  “Chinese,” she said, smiling into the receiver in spite of Suze and Margie’s trauma. It was disloyal, but on the other hand, there was nothing like a man who fed you. And possibly slept with you later.

  “Wear those blue silk things,” he said and hung up.

  Definitely slept with you later. The thought of it made her breathless. Everything about him made her breathless, including the sweeping way he just assumed they’d be back in bed. If he’d fumbled, she’d have been self-conscious and they’d have been awkward. And they weren’t awkward, hadn’t really ever been since the first day when she’d looked at his desk and realized how much work he was going to be.

  Little had she known.

  She ran upstairs to put on her blue silk pajamas and pick up the bedroom, pushing Marlene off the bed to straighten her quilt. Marlene moaned at her, so she dropped the chenille throw on the floor, and Marlene stuck her nose in it and shoved it around a little, stood on it and wiggled her butt, turned in circles four or five times, and then settled down with a tortured sigh.

  “Yeah, you have a rough life,” Nell said and went to clean up the bathroom.

  When the doorbell rang, half an hour later, she caught her breath and took one last look in the mirror. Color in her hair, sparkle in her eyes, heat in her cheeks, and silk on her body. “God, I’m hot,” she said to the mirror, and then she went to let him in.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Gabe came in, dropped the Chinese on the bookshelf by the door, put his arms around Nell, and kissed her until she was breathless.

  “Do you have any idea how long I’ve been waiting to rip these pajamas off you?” he said, running his hand up her side.

  “No,” she said, her voice coming out as a squeak.

  He kissed her again, his hands sliding all over the blue silk, and then he said, his voice husky, “So do we eat Chinese while I stare at you with lust, or do we go upstairs where I throw you down on the bed and have my way with you?”

  “Bed,” Nell said.

  Half an hour later, Nell grabbed onto the headboard of her bed and pulled herself up, trying to get her breath back. “My God. Maybe we should try moving that down a notch.”

  “I wasn’t the one moaning, ‘Harder,’” Gabe said, pulling her down so that her back burned against him. The man was a furnace. “If you’d go a little slower, I’d have time to think.”

  Nell stretched against his muscle and bone, memorizing how strong and solid he was. “You want me to be passive?”

  “Hell, no.” Gabe ran his hand down her side and made her curl up again. “I’m just saying you’re not an easy woman to love.”

  “Also, I don’t moan.” Nell shivered under his hands. “That was Marlene.”

  “That would explain the stereo effect.” He kissed her neck and she shivered again, and then he drew his fingers across her stomach so that she pressed back, harder against him.

  “Stop it,” she said. “This is supposed to be afterglow.”

  “I like my afterglow with you in motion. I measure time by how your body sways.” He bit her earlobe and she rolled to look up at him. “Okay,” he said. “I just like my afterglow with you.”

  His eyes were dark as ever, but now they were hot, too, intent on her, and he took her breath away. Good grief, she thought. Look at him. He’s beautiful.

  “By how my body sways?” she said instead.

  “It’s from a very hot poem,” he said. “It comes to mind whenever I watch you move.”

  Poetry, she thought. He’ll be surprising me forever.

  Not that she was counting on forever.

  “What?” he said, and when she didn’t answer, he slid his hand up her body again to make her shudder. “You make me nervous when you get that look in your eyes.”

  “It’s hunger,” she said, rolling out of bed and picking up her pajama top from the floor. “Time to eat.”

  “Bring it up here.” He rolled and snagged her pajama bottoms from the floor before she could. “I’ll wait.”

  “Lazy.” She tugged on the hem of her pajama top, and he grinned at her.

  “Conserving my energy,” he said, and she lost her breath again.

  When they were both in bed, forking garlic chicken from the same carton, he said, “By the way, we found some diamonds today.”

  Nell stopped with her fork in midair. “The Ogilvie diamonds?”

  “Well, the Ogilvie earrings. They were in Chloe’s jewelry box.”

  Nell listened as he filled her in and then said, “And I suppose you couldn’t find Chloe in Europe.”

  “Not a chance. But I know what happened. My dad was crazy about her. He gave them to her, and she wore them for the family picture and then put them away. They’re not her kind of jewelry. I called Trevor and he said he’d see me tomorrow. I’m really looking forward to that.”

  “Diamonds are everybody’s kind of jewelry.”

  Gabe shook his head. “Not Chloe’s. I’d bet she didn’t even know they were diamonds, or if she did, she didn’t have a clue what they were worth. She was only nineteen when Lu was born. Her idea of fiscal magnificence was a restaurant with cloth napkins.”

  His voice was affectionate, and Nell stomped on the jealousy that stirred in her. He’d be a real clod if he didn’t still care about her. “You must have been really happy,” she said. “Chloe’s so sweet and then a new baby.”

  Gabe looked at her as if she were insane. “I was twenty-six and I had not planned on getting married, let alone being a father. Chloe could have been Marilyn Monroe and I wouldn’t have been happy.”

  “Oh, come on,” Nell said, feeling guilty because that was cheering.

  “Stop romanticizing,” Gabe said. “Everything turned out fine. Chloe was great, but it was not a fairy tale. Now tell me what Margie said.”

  “She talked about Stewart,” Nell said. “She hated him.” She filled in the details and inhaled chicken while Gabe ate and listened, finishing with, “She thinks he’s alive but if she doesn’t collect the insurance money, he won’t come back. She’s having a hard time.”

  “How are you doing?”

  “Me?” Nell started to laugh. “I’ve had the greatest sex of my life two days in a row.”

  “That good, huh?” Gabe leaned over her to put the carton on her bedside table. “And we’re just getting started.” He kissed her, keeping his weight off her with his arms, and she pulled him down on top of her, wanting something solid to push against.

  “I like the way you fight back,” she murmured against his mouth.

  “I have to.” He moved his mouth to her ear. “If I don’t, you’ll destroy me.”

  “I was talking about the sex,” she said, pulling away a little, and he reached for another carton.

  “So was I.” He sat back and opened the carton. “You’re a strong woman.”

  “I didn’t feel like it sometimes,” she said, thinking of all the years when she’d played passive so Tim would feel as though he was in charge, all the lost months after Tim when she couldn’t eat. She looked in his carton. Crab Rangoon. Excellent.

  Gabe took one and gave it to her. “Yeah, but how do you feel now?”

  “Powerful.” She bit into the pastry, savoring the creamy filling. “Strong. Exciting.”

  “That’s what you feel like to me, too,” he said. “Must be you.”

  “Might be you,” she said. “It’s a pretty new feeling.”

  “I find that hard to believe.” He picked up a pastry and bit into it. “I’d bet you’ve been kicking butt all your life.”

  Nell thought back over her old life. “I never really had any butt to kick. Everything went my way.” Her friends had always deferred to her, the agency clients had obeyed her every suggestion, her kid had known better than to cross her, Tim had done what she’d told him to�
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  She stopped with another piece of Crab Rangoon halfway to her mouth as the realization hit.

  “It’s you,” she said. “You’re the first person who ever pushed back.”

  “Only because it feels so good. What else is there to eat over there? I could have sworn I bought—”

  She took the Crab Rangoon carton away from him and put it back on the bedside table, and then she shoved him over onto his back. “I want to be on top this time.”

  “Maybe,” he said, not fighting her. “But later. I had a long day, I fucked your brains out on an empty stomach, and I know there are potstickers over there. I want to eat.”

  “So do I,” she said, and began to lick her way down his stomach.

  “You can be on top,” he said, and then he shut up.

  * * *

  “So how are you?” Nell asked Suze on Tuesday as they helped Margie close the teashop.

  “I’m fine.” Suze didn’t look at her as she punched register keys.

  “I mean you and Jack.”

  “We’re fine.”

  “Okay,” Nell said, switching gears. “You know, the weirdest thing happened today.”

  “Tell all,” Suze said as she printed out the register tape.

  “Gabe and I had a fight over the new rug for his office. He honest to God thinks if his father picked it out, it’s sacred. And I’m not sure he even liked his father.”

  “Okay.” Suze frowned at the tape.

  “So I told him, look it’s got a hole in it,” Nell said. “And he said, ‘You should know, you put it there.’ The guy has eyes like an eagle. And I said if it hadn’t been so old, I wouldn’t have been able to, and he said getting rid of things based on my ability to destroy them would clean out the building, and we were just glaring at each other.” Nell stopped to stare in front of her, remembered the way Gabe’s eyes had snapped at her, the way he’d leaned over the desk to yell at her. “And I got so hot I grabbed him by the tie and kissed him.”

  “I’m still not getting the weird part,” Suze said. “Sounds like business as usual to me.”

  “You know, it’s not the fighting that turns me on,” Nell said. “I hate the fighting. It’s the way he looks when he’s trying to dominate me. He doesn’t have a hope, but he sure looks good trying.”

  “Interesting relationship,” Suze said.

  “Anyway, then we did some heavy necking, and then he asked me if I wanted to have dinner at the Fire House and kissed me again and went back to work.”

  “Sounds like a good provider,” Suze said. “So?”

  “So we didn’t have sex,” Nell said. “I know, I know, it was the middle of the day and we were at work, but do you know how long it had been since I’ve necked? I mean, just necked? Tim and I never did that. We talked about work and we had sex, but we never fooled around and then didn’t do it.” Nell shoved the last of the chairs under a table. “I’d really gotten to the place where if I got kissed, I started taking off my clothes.”

  “Which would explain Riley,” Suze said, zipping shut the bank deposit bag.

  “Do you and Jack neck?” Nell said, and Suze stopped.

  “Oh,” she said. “Now that you mention it, no.”

  “It must have something to do with marriage,” Nell said. “I don’t think I’m ever getting married again. You lose such good stuff.”

  “Yeah,” Suze said, slowly. “We did a lot of fooling around before we were married.”

  “Well, you were eighteen. It’s appropriate to do that when you’re a teenager.”

  “We did more than that.”

  “That’s what I heard.” Nell brought the broom around to the back of the counter. “You need me for anything else? Because I necked today, and I think my boyfriend is going to expect me to go all the way tonight.”

  “What do you mean, you heard?” Suze said.

  “Oh.” Nell tried to think of a good lie, but it was Suze. “Well, you know, Vicki divorced Jack for adultery, so I assumed—”

  “You didn’t say ‘assume,’ you said ‘heard.’” Suze folded her arms. “From whom?”

  Nell looked at the ceiling, trying to think of a way out.

  Suze followed her eyes up. “From Riley?” she said.

  “Riley?” Nell pulled back, confused. “Why Riley?”

  “That’s his apartment,” Suze said, nodding at the ceiling.

  Great. “I was just looking at the ceiling,” Nell said. “Pressed tin. You don’t see that much anymore.”

  “Unless you live in a historic district,” Suze said. “Then it’s pretty common. How—” Her eyes widened. “Gabe? The agency? Did they get the evidence for Vicki’s divorce?”

  “Yes,” Nell said, “but don’t you dare tell anybody I told you. I’m not allowed to talk to anybody about agency business.”

  “What kind of evidence? What did they do?”

  “I think they just followed you.”

  “I want to see the report. They keep their files in the freezer, right?”

  “I don’t know where—” Nell began, and Suze went into the back room. Nell followed her in time to see her open the freezer. Margie had been warned about leaving it unlocked, but warning Margie was always an exercise in futility. “Uh, Suze?”

  Suze started shifting through boxes, looking at dates. “Spring of 1986,” she said. “It has to be … here it is.”

  “Okay, that’s agency property,” Nell said, but Suze already had the box open and was tabbing through folders.

  “Dysart.” She pulled out the folder and flipped it open and then grabbed for some pictures that slid out. Nell caught them as they hit the floor and straightened to put them back in the folder, only to be caught by what she saw.

  They’d been taken through a window, through a space where the curtains hadn’t been pulled completely shut. Jack was stretched out on a cheap motel bed, looking more handsome than Nell could ever remember, forty and fit and in his prime. No wonder Suze had fallen.

  But the camera wasn’t focused on Jack. Beside the bed, standing with her pom-poms on her hips, was Suze, eighteen and amazingly pretty in her cheerleading uniform, looking at him with head tilted and lips parted. She was laughing, and she looked shiny and new and exhilarated.

  “My God,” Suze said from beside her.

  Nell said, “Yeah. You were a babe.” Then she added hastily, “You still are, of course—”

  “Not like that,” Suze said. “I didn’t know what I had. Look at that.”

  Nell looked again. “Honestly, you’re better now.”

  “Oh, yeah, sure I am.” Suze took the photos from her to leaf through them, and it was almost like a flip book, watching Suze-at-eighteen take off first her skirt, and then her sweater, and then her virginal cotton white bra and underpants until she stood there naked, flaunting a high, tight body that would have brought a stronger man than Jack Dysart to his knees.

  “I may never take off my clothes again,” Nell said, looking at the last picture in disbelief.

  “Who took these?” Suze said.

  “Riley,” Nell said. “It was one of his first assignments. Gabe said it scarred him for life.”

  “Damn good thing I’m not sleeping with Riley,” Suze said. “I’d never be able to compete with myself.”

  “Oh, please,” Nell said. “Riley slept with me.”

  Suze jammed the photos back in the folder. “Don’t ever let Jack see those.”

  “Listen, sweetie, you didn’t see them. Just because I’m doing the boss doesn’t mean he won’t fire me.” Nell filed the folder back in the box and put the lid back on. “Forget you ever saw these.”

  “I’d love to,” Suze said. “But I don’t think I’m going to.”

  * * *

  January turned into February. Nell continued to fix the agency behind Gabe’s back and then fight with him about it, Margie stalled Budge about the wedding and the insurance, Suze stayed with Jack and pretended she wasn’t miserable, and Gabe remained fixated on the
diamonds. He’d gone to see Trevor about Chloe’s earrings and had the riot act read to him: Patrick had bought the earrings for Lia at the same time Trevor had bought the entire suite for Helena, and that kind of generous husband did not deserve a posthumously suspicious ingrate for a son. Gabe had come back even more determined that something was wrong—“If he bought those for my mother, I’d have seen them on her; that woman liked jewelry”—and now he was driving everybody crazy, mumbling about it. It really wasn’t healthy for him to obsess on the past, Nell thought, and she did everything she could to distract him, including badgering him about the reception room couch, which was only getting more slovenly as the weeks passed. All they needed was for one really heavy client to drop down on the damn thing and they’d be picking splinters out of a lawsuit.

  And it wasn’t as though they didn’t have enough to think about without some phantom diamonds. The agency was swamped with work, including a new wrinkle on an old client when Riley got a phone call and came out of his office to say, “Gina wants us to follow Harold tonight. I’m calling it the Hot Dinner.”

  “Gina thinks Harold is cheating?” Nell said.

  “I think he owes her a couple,” Riley said. “But I don’t think she feels that way.”

  “Yeah,” Nell said. “People get so sensitive about adultery.”

  The following Monday, Nell was typing the Hot Dinner report—Harold was definitely cheating—when Suze came in. “Hey,” Nell said. “You’re too early if you want lunch.”

  “Not lunch,” Suze said, and Nell looked at her closer and went cold.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I need to hire the McKennas,” she said. “Family tradition.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Oh, I think so.” Suze nodded toward Gabe’s office. “Can it be him? I don’t think I can face—”

  Riley opened the door to his office and stood in the doorway. “Thought I heard your voice.”

  Nell looked from him to Suze. “Suze just dropped by.”

  Suze took a deep breath. “I need a detective.”

  “Okay,” Riley said. “Stay home tonight until I call you.”

  Suze nodded and opened her purse. “How much retainer—”