“My hair is purple,” she said it again, mainly because she still didn’t believe it.
“I’m correct in my belief that you didn’t intend to dye your hair? There’s been some kind of accident?”
Willa shook her head and a thin stream of anger began to trickle through her. “Oh, this was no accident,” she said. “This was…” an intentional, well planned way for me to know I should never underestimate Alicia. “This was a mistake. I made a massive mistake.”
“Not that this will help,” John stepped into the bathroom, rubbing his jaw, “but it almost matches the sweater you had on earlier this evening. I thought that was a really flattering color on you. Some women look great in red. For others it’s pink, but that shade, you own it.”
Willa stared at him for a brief second before she started laughing. Hard. She leaned forward and put her elbows on her knees. Then she slapped her hands over her face. She laughed so hard she squeaked and her stomach hurt. Tears oozed out. She was pretty sure some drool did as well.
John’s hands settled on her shoulders. The crown of her head came to rest against his abdomen and Willa felt him laughing too, that sniff-sniff-sniffing of his she found so endearing. It shook his body the same way as hers.
How was it possible for a man to smell so good? She wanted to slide her hands up under his shirt, push away the fabric and flick her tongue over his warm skin, to taste his flesh, to see if his flavor was as captivating as his scent. And there was more. Her hands itched to dip into the waistband of his sweats and run through the trail of hair that started at his navel. The urge nearly overwhelmed her, but purple locks tickling her nose did a fine job quelling the desire.
“My sister always bitches that her gray hair doesn’t hold color well,” John said, after a moment. “She moans that it fades or washes out quickly and she’s got a head full of salt when all she wants is pepper. Your hair’s still wet. Maybe it will wash out.”
Washing her hair again was a logical idea, but the only shampoo she had was the amethyst-tinted formulation for platinum to silver hair. Willa lifted her head and dropped her hands. “That stuff’s all I have and I don’t think it’ll help. I don’t have anything else except dishwashing liquid.”
“Dish soap isn’t a bad idea. Dawn dish soap works on oiled-up penguins and other seabirds. Remember the Exxon Valdez spill? Wildlife rescuers have been using it on oil spills for years.”
“My hair’s not oily.”
“It’s worth a try isn’t it? I’ve got some Dawn at my house. Come on.” John said. He held out his hand to her. When she took it, she didn’t let go until they were back across the street at his place, standing beside his kitchen table.
He’d left pictures of a crime scene spread out on the tabletop. Willa saw the photos upside down. She took in grisly images of a man’s body—battered, bloodied, and tattooed with a sloppy, stylized script that ran across a lividly bruised chest and shoulders. Her brain tried to assign colors to the nonsense shapes.
“Don’t look at those,” John said, pulling her away from the table, handing her a bottle of green, honeysuckle-scented detergent he’d taken from under the sink. “They’re not nice.”
Willa glanced at the liquid soap. “You think this will work?”
“Yes,” John nodded. “Yes, I do.”
“You know how I said you were probably a crappy poker player? I take it back. I bet you bluff your way to the pot every time.”
Sniff-sniff-sniff. “Lean over the sink, Your Majesty.”
“Are you going to wash my hair?”
“Yes. Yes I am. Let me get a few towels first.” John slid open a drawer to the left of the sink, pulled out a pile of dish towels, and handed one to her. “Put this down and lean on it. It’ll be a little softer.” He turned on the faucet and adjusted it until the water was a comfortable temperature. Then he reached for the sink’s chrome spray gun and dragged out the hose, squeezing the trigger to test the water pressure. “Queenie, assume the position.”
“Only you could make something like this seem … fun.”
“I can think of better ways to have fun. Checkers, for instance, and dominoes, marbles or jacks. Yeah, jacks.”
With a soft chuckle, she rested her chest against the edge of the sink and dropped her violet head into the stainless steel basin.
John stepped beside her and squeezed the trigger again. She sputtered immediately as lukewarm water rushed into her ears and streamed into her nose. “Oops,” he said.
She straightened and mopped her face with the towel that had been cushioning her breasts. “Maybe I should do this myself,” she said, wiping her nose.
“I’ll be more careful.”
She eyed him for a second then hunched back over the sink.
John repositioned the nozzle and saturated her hair. The water spiraling down the drain had a blueberry juice hue to it. “So far so good,” he said, turning off the faucet.
“What?”
“Color’s already running out. A lot.”
“What? I can’t hear you. There’s water in my ears.”
Chuckling, he lifted the dish soap and squeezed a quarter-sized blob into his left palm. Then he rubbed his hands together and sank his slippery fingers into her hair. In a second he’d worked up a mauve-tinted foam.
He was simply washing her hair. She had her face in a cold, stainless steel sink that smelled slightly of Ajax cleanser, and Willa could not recall when being shampooed had been quite so … so … erotic.
Of course it all could have been caused by her bent-over position, blood was rushing to the top of her skull, but there was a magnetic sort of friction, and she was charged with energy. As John’s fingers made tiny circles on her head, threads of pleasure sailed through her blood and set off a hum in her bones, in her ears. She felt slick moisture surge between her thighs and her pulse quickened. It took everything she had to keep still, to not reach back for him, to suppress a moan of delight.
It was just his imagination, but John swore he smelled ozone, the kind that came from a lightning strike. Honeysuckle blended with the scent of Queenie. The combined fragrance was sweet and summery. The foam turned darker as a sensation as warm as July sunshine traveled from his fingertips and radiated out to every nerve ending in his body.
Her neck. The nape of her neck was bare, waiting, to be nuzzled by his nose. He could just lean forward and plant a line of tiny kisses along her wet hairline. It would be so easy to just lean forward a little, press his chest to her back and slip his wet hands over her breasts while he flicked his tongue around her ear. Just a tug or two and her bottoms would drop down to her ankles. Her panties would follow.
Distracted by the summer heat of his body and notions of nakedness, he forgot to moderate the temperature when he began to rinse. Icy water cooled his hot hands and Queenie jerked sideways, squealing.
“Give me that thing!” She pushed a saturated swathe of soapy lilac hair from the right side of her face, and grabbed hold of the sprayer. Her pajama top was drenched. Queenie squinted at him for a moment, her tongue poked into the corner of her mouth.
Hands up, John took two steps back. “Easy now. Easy. You don’t have to pull the trigger,” but you should. I need to be hosed down.
Mouth twitching, finger twitching, she plainly considered doing what he’d been thinking, but fumbled instead for the faucet and adjusted the flow. “I hope you shoot better than you spray, Detective. Let’s try this again. You lather, I’ll rinse, and then we’ll repeat.”
“Maybe you’d be better off doing it yourself.” He dropped his hands.
“I’m tired of doing myself.” She groaned into the sink.
“I don’t think I’m helping.”
“No. You’re not. You’re not helping one bit. Just tell me it’s working.”
John moved closer to have a better look at her hair. Big mistake. She was forty thousand volts and he was nothing more than a thin filament, beginning to glow—too brightly. In a few seconds he’d be n
othing but ash.
He swallowed as he reached for the honeysuckle detergent and poured out a dollop.
“Do you think I should just leave it on for a little while,” Queenie reached up and shut off the water, “and let it soak in?”
She lifted her head when he didn’t say anything.
John simply looked at her, watching as she squeezed excess water from her hair. Liquid soap ran up the inside of his wrist.
“It’s not working, is it?” she said, straightening. The towel she draped round her neck soaked up the wetness streaming down her neck and shoulders.
In the next instant, John tasted sunshine. He had no recollection of lifting Queenie onto the countertop, yet he found himself planted smack between her knees, slippery, soapy hands in her sodden hair, mouth fastened to hers, feasting on sweet, pure, clean solar power.
Water and electricity of any sort were a dangerous mix. He stood in a puddle on the floor; direct current caused his muscles to contract and he held on to her tightly. Queenie was a live conductor, a soaking wet live wire, and her alternating current ran across his skin, searing him as her fingers gripped his neck.
Holy hell, Willa knew John could kiss, but this kiss was different than the last time. There was something Led Zeppelin-’been-a-long-lonely-lonely-lonely-Rock-n-Roll-time’ about this kiss. It was unadulterated hunger, animal need. She’d become tomorrow’s breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert and he wasn’t going to waste a morsel. He’d bite, lick and suck every last speck of marrow from her bones.
And it was exactly what Willa wanted him to do.
Under his sparking rock-n-roll kiss, the universe as she knew it faded to a pinprick of now—right now—and Willa finally quit thinking. She made a funny little noise, a crackling, popping sound far back in her throat, letting her thighs press against John’s ribs. Her left calf curved around the small of his back and she tried to get closer to him, clinging to his shoulders. She needed to peel off her sticking wet clothes and climb all over him, burrow beneath his skin, and find a way inside him.
John seemed to want that too. His hand left her head and ran along her collarbone and her throat, stopping at the buttons on her pajama shirt. The tip of his thumb tickled and skimmed between her breasts as he undid buttons, fingertips tip-toeing over her skin. It was the barest, lightest touch and Willa shivered, her breath caught in her chest.
He shifted closer and she felt his erection brush the inside of her thigh. It slid closer to home, to where heat had pooled and wetness of a different sort had begun to seep through her cotton panties. In another few seconds that dampness would soak through her pajama bottoms. Her hand tightened on his shoulder when he moved again. First his hip, then the hard length of his penis ground against the top of her pubic bone and lower still, to where her covered flesh was swollen and ridiculously sensitive. Raw pleasure shot through the top of her head and Willa yowled into John’s mouth. She jerked upright, legs squeezing around his middle.
John’s tongue stopped dancing over hers. His fingers disengaged from her damp hair and he tugged his hand out from between their bodies. Quickly, but gently, he pulled away, raking his teeth over his bottom lip, hissing.
Yes. Willa nodded. Moving was a great idea. The wet countertop wasn’t the most comfortable place. She licked John’s sublime flavor from the corner of her mouth, buzzing as if she’d had a double shot of caffeine. She waited for him to put his arms out to her, to swing her down from the counter.
To take her down on the floor.
Or the round kitchen table that was covered with photos of a dead man’s tattooed chest.
Or the set of stairs that led to the front door.
Hurry, hurry, hurry.
John was breathing hard, just like she was, but he swallowed, smacked a hand to his forehead and ground it there like he’d eaten ice cream too fast and given himself brain freeze. “This isn’t helping. I’m not helping at all, in any way. I’m a terrible helper. Sorry. I got a little … hoo-boy.” His eyes dipped from her face to her breasts and back again. “Your hair.”
Dazed, Willa heard herself say, “My hair?”
“Let’s concentrate on that. My hands on you right now, not a good idea. Priorities. We’re here for your hair.”
“Oh. Oh.” What sort of drugs had been in that ravenous kiss? She’d forgotten about her hair. “What color is it?”
His gaze bounced again. “Pink,” he said, a little hoarsely.
“My hair’s pink?” Willa hopped down from the counter, the aching need for mindless, mind-blowing sex and an explanation for why John was putting the brakes on a speeding train was no longer necessary. “What kind of pink?”
He shook his head. “No. Not your hair, your… I better get … you a dry shirt. One that isn’t see-through.”
“Flannel isn’t transparent.”
“Unbuttoned it is.”
Willa glanced down at herself. Two pert, dusky pink nipples looked back. There was a bit of lint stuck on the left one. She tugged cold, damp fabric back over her breasts. “I see. Well, your distraction worked, but I guess the Dawn dish liquid didn’t. So what color is my hair now?”
John shook his head again. “You’re tired. I’m tired. We both need to get some sleep.”
“What color is it?”
John exhaled. Slowly. “Well, it’s wet.”
The expression on his face made Willa grit her teeth. “What color is it?”
“Hey, come on. It’s late. We should go to bed. In the morning, we’ll start over with the shampoo again. We don’t need to meet my mother for mass.”
“John, please. What’s it look like? Is it still purple?”
His mouth puckered like a fish’s before his eyes leveled with hers. “No. Not purple. A pale, and I stress the pale part, lavender-ish gray.”
“Gray. Okay. Gray is better than purple. Right? Of course it is. Gray’s just fine. People have gray hair. Gray is absolutely…”
Who was she kidding?
Purple was sort of funky—unprofessional, but very funky. Gray was asphalt, rain, steel and…
Willa wanted to rush into the little washroom under the stairs and bawl, which would not be terribly useful or change the fact that she’d still have to deal with ugly hair afterwards. Call it pride or vanity, but white hair was part of who she was. It defined the image she had of herself, made her feel distinctive. All right, it was only hair and she’d had bad hair before. She’d once made the mistake of getting bangs. A color disaster was easier to correct than waiting for something to grow, except something had grown from this. Something had expanded and festered. Alicia had finally found the Achilles heel she could exploit.
Dumbly, Willa sagged against the counter and stared at her Keds. The shoelaces were untied and they looked as soggy and limp as she felt.
Sniff-sniff-sniff.
Wilted, on the verge of defeat, Willa lifted her gaze to tell John she didn’t appreciate his sense of humor at the moment, but he was smiling crookedly. His t-shirt was wet. He had soapsuds on his short curls. His eyes were a vivid green. She forgot about her hair. She forgot about Alicia’s malice. She forgot about Dominic and investigations and classified material and the FBI because she remembered what it felt like to want. “I love you,” dribbled from her mouth, but it was swallowed up by his louder and far more practical, “Let me get you something dry to put on.”
16
John draped her wet clothes over the shower door. When he came out of the bathroom in his pajama pants he found Queenie seated on the end of his bed. Before he’d changed out of his damp sweats, he’d pointed out a pile of clean clothes for her to choose something dry. Instead of taking a freshly laundered sweatshirt, she’d abandoned her soaked pink flannel PJs in favor of the wine-stained rugby shirt he’d worn earlier in the day. The jersey dwarfed her; the sleeves hung down like elephant trunks, so she’d shoved them up to her elbows. The deep, open neckline offered a peek-a-boo glimpse of her breasts.
He took a seat beside
her with a reminder to keep his hands to himself. He’d treat her like a high explosive. He’d had training in handling high explosives, and she was a live mine. He wouldn’t handle her at all. Tonight, Queenie was radioactive gold.
She flopped backward on top of the covers and looked up at him. “Why did you come over earlier?”
“You left before dessert,” he said. “I wondered if you wanted something sweet. Do you want something sweet? The brownies are downstairs.”
She made a small sound and seemed as though she wanted to say something, to tell him something, or ask a question. Her lips made half-formed words that had no sound or real shape. Watching the movement of her mouth did peculiar things to his insides, to his brain. Ideas formed. Then other ideas—x-rated ideas—formed. God, he was tired, yet despite that he contemplated going back into the bathroom for a Vicodin left over from when he’d been meat-forked. It would knock him out for hours and thereby remove the danger of him turning into the old horny prospector he felt like.
Panning for Queenie. Yeah. That was funny, so funny he made himself laugh. Sniff sniff sniff. “Kim Novak,” he said, covering his ass. He moved to the bedside table. “I was thinking, now that it’s drier, it’s a little like Kim Novak’s hair in Vertigo. Her hair had this shiny, metallic quality, like real platinum, like yours now.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful. I look like a Hitchcock ice queen.” She turned onto her side. The angle gave him a clear shot down the rugby shirt. He could see the swell of each full breast.
He was so screwed.
Good thing he’d tied a knot in the cord of his bottoms. That way they wouldn’t slip off when he sat down beside her again and he wouldn’t accidentally fall into her dick-first.
“Wait a minute. You’re kidding, right?” She slapped the mattress with both hands. “The name ‘Queenie’ actually stems from your idol falling for a platinum blonde ice queen in Vertigo?”
“Hey, Jimmy Stewart got the girl, Your Majesty.” John stretched out flat on his back and closed his eyes.
“You mean,” she said through a yawn, “Jimmy killed the girl.”
For Your Eyes Only Page 26
