Authors: Deirdre Savoy
Body Of Truth (22 page)
His fingers tangled in her hair. “How are you feeling?”
She leaned up on one elbow and looked at him.
“Tell me about Tyree.”
“That's what you're thinking about now?”
She nodded, laughing at the indignation she heard in his voice. “Partly. What's his story?”
“You know as much as I do. You got more out of him in twenty minutes than I have in two years.”
“Is that why you sicced me on him? Is that standard police interrogation technique?”
“No, but as Tyree would say, he was crushing on you. I figured I may as well use that to my advantage.”
“His mother wasn't hurt in any accident, was she?”
“No.”
He didn't elaborate and she figured she knew as much as she needed to.
“He's a good kid,” Jonathan continued. “I'd like to do something for him, but damned if I know what. I know most social workers would disagree with me, but taking him from his mother isn't the answer. He'd carry the guilt the rest of his life that he wasn't able to help her.”
She understood Jonathan's frustration but didn't have any answers either. “Don't look at me. I was trying to get Wesley to give up selling drugs. We both know where he is now.”
He brushed her hair from her face. “If it's any consolation, the word is he was trying to get out.”
She closed her eyes and laid her cheek against his chest. That did help. It also explained why he wasn't so quick to assume Wesley had been killed because Amanda Pierce's murderer thought she saw something. “Thank you.”
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The next morning, Jonathan took Dana upstairs to Tyree's apartment. Dana disappeared into the bedroom where the kid's mother rested. The apartment was still neat though the dust was starting to collect, but there was little food in the house. After her stay in the hospital, Jonathan doubted she had any money to replenish it. Under other circumstances he would have gone to the store for them himself, but he wouldn't leave Dana unprotected.
He pulled out the bills he had in his pocket, probably less than a hundred dollars, and extended them toward Tyree. “Why don't you go to the market while we're here to watch your mom?”
Tyree held up his hands as if he'd been offered something hot or dangerous. “Nah, man, I told you I don't want your money.”
“I understand that. But sometimes being a man means doing things you don't want to do because they need to be done. Your mom needs to eat if she's going to get better.” He thought guilting the kid a little would change his mind, but he still stood there with a belligerent expression on his face. “If you want, we can consider it a loan,” he offered. A loan both he and Tyree knew he had no means of paying back.
“All right. A loan.” Head hanging low, Tyree reached for the money. The kid turned and walked toward the door. Jonathan sighed, knowing it had taken a measure of the boy's pride to accept the inevitable. Somehow he'd make it up to him.
Once Tyree was gone, Jonathan prowled around the living room feeling restless. He wondered what Dana and Tyree's mom were doing. He stopped mid-stride hearing Dana's laughter coming from the other room, a full-bodied laugh unqualified by anything. To his recollection, that was the first time he'd heard that sound, which both pleased and dismayed him. There hadn't been much for her to laugh about in the last week or so. He was pleased she'd found humor in something even though he hadn't inspired it himself.
Dana was still in the room when Tyree got back. Jonathan helped him put away the food, then the two of them sat down in front of the TV to catch the tail end of some shoot-'em-up action flick Tyree had been watching.
After a few moments, Tyree asked. “What are they talking about in there so long?”
Jonathan shrugged. Damned if he knew, since that was the same question on his mind. But when Dana emerged a few minutes later, she was smiling. He was grateful at least for that.
She set her bag on the table. “Tyree, your mom wants to see you.”
The kid bounded out of the room. As soon as they were alone, Jonathan asked, “How is she?”
“Whoever worked her over knew what they were doing. From what she tells me, she's lucky to be alive. But she's on the mend now, as long as nothing untoward happens.”
“So what were you talking about for so long?”
She smiled in a way he couldn't begin to understand. “In some ways, she's as starved for attention as her son is. She had him when she was his age. Her mother threw her out of the house when she found out about the pregnancy. She's been making her way the best she could since then.”
“But she's still making her living on her back.”
“Actually, that's something relatively new. She'd been living with a man who supported her and Tyree for a long time. After he died, she didn't want to go on welfare, since that's a handout. At least the money she makes on the street she earns. In an odd way, she's as proud as her son is, too.”
“That's a convolution of logic if I ever heard one.”
Dana shrugged. “I never said I agreed with her. I tried explaining to her that welfare isn't what it used to be. You can't go on the dole forever, like the old days. But it would provide her with health care for herself and Tyree and they would train her to do something she could make a living at. She said she'd always wanted to be a beautician. At least then she'd make a living on her feet instead of her knees.”
“Do you think you got through to her?”
“Who knows? You can't make people help themselves, but I hope so. She's a nice lady with a wicked sense of humor. She had some things to say about you, too.”
“Really? Like what?”
“That,” she said, with a wicked smile of her own, “you'll just have to wait to find out.”
Later that night, as she and Jonathan settled into bed, she laid her cheek on his chest. For a moment she stared at his gun on the dresser, still in its holster as he always kept it, her constant reminder that her being with him wasn't some lark but as a preventive to danger.
Jonathan's kiss to her temple brought her focus to him. “So what did Tyree's mother say about me?”
That's what was on his mind at this moment? She leaned up on one elbow to look at him. “It wasn't you precisely. More about your brethren. Cops.”
“What was that?”
“Only that you guys are as kinky as any pervert out there. She said most of you were control freaks and the rest of you were just plain freaky.”
“Which category do I fit in?”
She noticed he didn't deny the assessment. “So far?” She lifted one shoulder in a shrug. She hadn't really considered it before. She knew that with him, she hadn't exercised her usual take-charge demeanor. In the past few days, she hadn't felt in charge of much. She'd thought it was simply a change in herself. She hadn't considered his role in the equation. “We haven't gotten into freaky yet, so you tell me.”
“Are you complaining?”
“Not at all. I like what you do to me. Now I'm planning on doing a few things to you.” She lowered her mouth to his chest to trail a path of soft, moist kisses to one of his nipples. She circled her tongue around the peak, while strumming her thumb against the other. She was rewarded with a low growl of pleasure that reverberated in his chest and in her, too.
She knelt between his legs and moved lower, letting her mouth, her hands skim over his chest, his ribcage, and lower, tantalizing but not satisfying. She ran her tongue along the tip of his erection before taking him into her mouth. He groaned and his hands rose to hold her head in place. Even when he was at her mercy, he strove for control. She brushed his hands away and continued as she wanted.
She felt the tension building in his body, and the air was heavy with the mingled scent of their arousal. He brushed the hair back from her face. “Baby, I want to be inside you.”
That's what she wanted, too. She got a condom from the dresser and rolled it onto him. Straddling him, she took him inside her, both of them shivering as her body enveloped his. She didn't object when he pulled her down to him and covered her mouth with his. Her fingers gripped his shoulders as they moved together, slowly, languidly, heading for the brink. His arms closed more tightly around her. He pumped into her more and more urgently, until she, like him, found release, her pleasure coming in wave after wave that made her tremble against him.
Afterward, they lay together, her cradled in his arms. Feeling warm, safe and sated, she closed her eyes and dozed.
Something woke her an hour later. The first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was Jonathan standing at the window looking out. That made it the second time in three days she'd found him like that. Was it some sort of ritual with him or was there something special about those two nights. The only common denominator she could think of was the sound of rain against the windowpanes.
She sat up and switched on the bedside lamp. “What are you doing up?”
“Thinking.”
“About what?”
“Things. I don't know.” He glanced at her over his shoulder. “You should get some sleep.”
He'd said the same thing last time. But he'd come back to bed when she'd asked him to. She had a feeling he wouldn't this time. She got out of bed and went to him, slipping between him and the window to draw his attention.
His arms closed around her, but she sensed his attention still centered elsewhere.
She ran her fingers along one of his shoulders. She kissed the one tattoo she found on his body, an outline of a butterfly in black without any color to fill it in. “What bet did you lose to have gotten that?”
“It wasn't a bet.”
Something about the quiet tone in which he'd said that made her look at his face. His eyes were hooded and his face grim. Obviously, there was some story behind the tattoo, something that affected him in a substantial way. Given his present mood and the closed off expression on his face, she doubted it was something he wanted to share with her, but she couldn't let it go that easily. “Tell me.”
“Maybe some other time.” His hands slid down to grasp her buttocks in his palms. “For now, I have something else on my mind.”
His mouth found hers. She gave herself up to his kiss. If he wanted to distract her with sex, she was all for it. But whatever emotion she and the night had dredged up in him came out in his lovemaking. His hands moved over her skin roughly and there was harshness to his kiss she'd never known in him before.
He lifted her in his arms and she wrapped her legs around his waist. He carried her back to the bed, sheathed himself, and joined her. When he entered her it was with one swift thrust that brought him fully inside her. She cried out, not in pain, but with the sudden pleasure of having him fill her completely.
Then he was moving inside her with deep rapid thrusts. She wrapped her legs around his waist and took him deeper still. Her fingers gripped his back, her nails biting into his flesh.
One of his hands slipped beneath her hips to meld their bodies even closer together. It was too much. Pleasure exploded in her, making her body tremble and her eyes squeeze shut in reaction. A moment later, she felt him tremble, too, as he buried his face against her throat. She clung to him still, her body wracked with tiny aftershocks.
His lips trailed a path of kisses along her shoulder before returning the way they'd come. “I'm sorry, baby,” he whispered against her ear.
“You're apologizing for giving me an orgasm?”
“The way I did. I'm usually not so . . .”
“Eager?” No, usually he reminded her of that old Pointer Sisters song about a lover with a slow hand. But she wasn't ashamed to admit that whatever way he took her he excited her. “We'll have to put that one down in the somewhat freaky category.”
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