Death, Taxes, and Hot Pink Leg Warmers (37 page)

That called for another bullet, didn’t it?

Why, of course!

Blam!

Geils responded with a yowl this time.

“You let one of your customers beat the shit out of Angelique, and you got Maddie hooked on drugs.”

I’d begun to relax a little by then and was feeling more generous. I’d go easy on the guy and only give him a single bullet for those two offenses. A twofer.

Blam!

He bayed like a wounded animal.

I stepped over to him and looked down at his bloody leg. “Every shot on target. Not bad for a pipsqueak, huh?”

A SWAT officer ran into the room, a metal shield in one hand, a gun in the other. He looked from me to Geils to the multiple bloody holes in Geils’s leg.

I lowered my gun.

And collapsed to the floor.

chapter forty-five

All Wrapped Up

Four hours later, I sat in an ER room with Nick. We’d wrapped up the case, and now a doctor was wrapping Nick’s tender ribs. X-rays showed three fractures. Nick’s lip had required a couple of stitches, too. His nose had been broken again, but that was nothing new to him. The thing had been broken multiple times before. He held an ice pack to his tender eye.

Though I was physically intact, emotionally I was on the verge of falling to pieces. Through his one good eye, Nick could see how upset I was. He reached out with his free hand to take mine, giving it a reassuring squeeze.

The doctor made a note on the clipboard. “I recommend staying overnight for observation.”

“No can do, doc,” Nick said, glancing my way. “I’ve got plans.”

Was he serious? How did Nick think he was going to make love to me with three cracked ribs? Part of me thought he was crazy. Another part knew we needed to follow through, now more than ever. People like Don Geils took so much out of us. We wouldn’t give them any more than we had to.

The doctor looked from Nick, to me, and back to Nick again. “All right, then. I won’t argue with you, but I will send you home with some pain meds and strict orders to take it easy.” He turned to me now. “Can you keep an eye on him for the next twenty-four hours or so?”

“Sure.”

The paramedics had cut Nick’s shirt off him, so we were forced to drape a hospital gown over him when he climbed out of bed. We made our way out of the ER and went to check on Aaron and Christina.

We stopped at the door of a recovery room where Geils lay on a gurney, his heart monitor giving off a steady pulse.
Blip. Blip. Blip.
A police officer sat in a chair nearby, reading a five-month-old
Sports Illustrated
he’d probably found in the waiting area. He was there solely to make sure Geils didn’t attempt a getaway. He didn’t give a rat’s ass if we pestered the patient.

Though Geils was still sedated from surgery, I stepped up to the head of his bed. “Who’s the gimpy old fart now?” I pulled my hand back, put my thumb and middle finger together, and gave the bastard a heartfelt thump on the forehead.

I stepped back and Nick took my place, standing over Geils, staring silently down at the man. Geils came to then, opening his eyes to find Nick standing over him. Geils cowered in the bed, shrinking back against the gurney. His heart monitor ratcheted up to breakneck speed.
Blip-blip-blip-blip-blip!

“Nervous, are ya?” Nick chuckled. “Donald Geils, you are one sorry sack of shit.” Nick gave Geils a bruising thump on the chest. After the beating Nick had taken from Geils’s goon squad, the man was lucky Nick didn’t shove a bedpan up his ass.

We made our way to a nearby private room where Christina had been taken to recover. The toxicology screen showed she’d been given rohypnol. Though Theo wasn’t talking, the police deduced he had slipped some into her glass of champagne. A bottle of the stuff was found on a shelf behind the bar. Her fellow DEA agents suspected it had been smuggled into the country by Valley Produce and delivered along with a previous shipment of crystal meth. The security video would provide evidence. No doubt Theo would be charged as an accomplice to the attempted rape.

Christina lay in the bed in a hospital gown, only half conscious, Ajay in a chair by her side. He looked thoroughly enraged and totally worried at the same time. He punched his right fist into his left palm. “I’d love to get my hands on Don Geils and Wesley Prescott.”

A nurse walking by stuck her head in the door. “I happened to overhear,” she said in a stage whisper. “If you’d like to give me a urine sample, I can make sure it gets into Don Geils’s orange juice in the morning.”

Ajay raised his fists in triumph. “Hooray for Obamacare!”

The nurse winked and resumed her rounds.

Christina turned her head to me, her eyelids fluttering as she fought to keep them open. “I heard you emptied a clip in Don Geils’s leg.”

“It was just a few bullets,” I said.
And one less than the guy deserved—the one to his head.

Christina reached out and took my hand. “Thanks, Tara.”

I gave her hand a squeeze. “Anytime.”

Nick and I peeked into Aaron Menger’s room on our way out. One of the bouncers had swung a barstool at him and he’d suffered a concussion and major blood loss, but fortunately his skull was intact. Transfusions had replaced the lost blood.

His wife dabbed her eyes with a tissue. “The doctors say his prognosis is good,” she said in response to our inquiry. She looked me in the eye. “I’m glad you put a bullet in the assholes who did this. I hope they spend the next few years in jail, too.”

*   *   *

I drove Nick to his new home in the Mini Cooper, trying to drive smoothly and avoid quick starts, stops, and potholes so as not to further aggravate his injuries.

When we arrived, he gingerly eased himself out of the car, grimacing in pain. He refused my help to the door, though he did allow me to fish the keys out of his pocket and unlock it. Once inside, he took my hand and led me to the bedroom, walking cockeyed to relieve the pressure on his pulverized ribs. He didn’t bother turning on any of the lights, but since the place was the same floor plan as mine, we could easily find our way around.

We stepped into Nick’s bedroom. Without light, all I could tell was that his new king-sized bed was covered in a dark comforter, which in turn was covered by his snoring old dog. Nick roused Nutty and I helped the dog down from the bed and led him to the back door for a potty break. When he came back inside, he decided the couch looked like a good spot to resume his nap. He climbed up and settled in.

I returned to Nick’s bedroom to find he had lit a single vanilla-scented candle. He’d also turned back the covers, revealing shiny satin sheets I suspected he’d bought for this very occasion. An enormous bouquet of red roses stood on his nightstand. He’d obviously gone to a lot of trouble to make tonight special.

I wasn’t about to let Don Geils ruin it.

I raised a finger. “I’ll be right back.”

In all of the craziness, I’d nearly forgotten the massage oil and nightie I’d bought at Victoria’s Secret. I ran out to the car and brought them inside, stopping to change in the bathroom before returning to Nick’s bedroom.

When I stepped into the doorway, Nick looked up from the bed, where he lay wearing nothing but a sheet over the lower half of his body. The sizable tent told me he was ready for action. Hell, I was, too. Had been all day.

His one-eyed gaze traveled from my face, down to my toes, and back again. “Wow, Tara. You’re a sight for sore eyes.” He gave me a soft grin and gestured with his hand. “Get over here.”

I walked over to the bed and climbed in next to him. I poured some massage oil into the palms of my hands, rubbed them together, and turned to him. “Where can I touch you where it won’t hurt?”

“I can think of only one place.” He cut his one visible eye to the bulge under the covers.

“Is that so?”

This was not at all how I’d pictured our first time, though I couldn’t say I was disappointed. Just being in bed with Nick was a thrill. I wouldn’t be able to devour him as planned, but maybe it was better that we’d have to start with small bites. Otherwise, the two of us would likely overdose on each other.

I reached down under the covers and took him into my hand. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes as I wrapped my hand tightly around his thick shaft and began to slowly move it up and down. He exhaled with pleasure. After a moment, he rolled toward me and nuzzled my neck, sliding a warm hand up under my nightie to cup my breast. He ran his thumb in a circle around my nipple, bringing it to a hard peak.

He sucked gently at a spot under my ear and whispered, “I’ve never wanted anything as bad as I want you right now.”

My nether regions throbbed with need. I crooked my leg and ran a foot up his calf.

I felt him flinch.

“Does that hurt?” I asked.

He chuckled. “No. Your feet are like ice. Go put those leg warmers back on.”

I did as I was told, returning to bed in record time.

He gave me an apologetic look. “I’m afraid I’m not up to much foreplay tonight.”

“I don’t care,” I said breathlessly.

I’d already been forced to wait far too long.

I didn’t want foreplay.

I wanted
him
.

He reached into the nightstand and grabbed a box of condoms, pulling one out and sliding it over his impressive erection.

Nick gave me one last chipped-tooth grin and lowered himself onto me, emitting a groan that was half lust, half pain. Cursing, he rolled off the other side.

I ached with need. I needed him inside me—
now!
—or I just might die.

He sat back on the bed and yanked the red panties off me, one leg warmer going with them. Kneeling between my legs, he put a hand under each of my thighs and lifted my legs until they were crooked over his shoulders. Finally, a position that wouldn’t put too much pressure on his fragile ribs.

Using his erection like a diving rod, he found the spot he was looking for, teasing me briefly with his tip.

“Take me, Nick!” I cried, breathless and desperate.
Please!

With a primal sound, he drove himself into me with the force and speed I imagined he’d once used on the football field.

I gasped in pleasure, rocking upward to meet him, hooking my ankles behind his neck.

He steadied himself with one hand on the bed, encircling one of my calves with the other, resting his cheek against the pink leg warmer. He drove himself into me again and again I came up off the bed, feeling an F-5-magnitude climax coiling in me.

One more thrust and I cried out, coming with an intensity I hadn’t known my body was capable of. Emotions and sensations swirled in me like a sensual kaleidoscope, a vortex sucking me into the ultimate physical pleasure, into a mindless oblivion, into a world of desire and delight that Nick had created just for me.

One more intense thrust and Nick, too, shuddered in orgasm, forcing me upward on the bed, making me grateful there was a pillow between my skull and the headboard.

He grabbed my hips, pulling me tight against him and holding me perfectly still, in me up to the hilt. I opened my eyes for a brief moment, catching a glimpse of the euphoric look on Nick’s face, feeling a surge of pride and power in the fact that I could bring him such pleasure. The thought curled another climax in me, this one smaller but satisfying. I gasped when it sent me reeling a second time.

Afterward, I lay there, spent. I’d like to say that sex with Nick was everything I’d dreamed of, but that would be selling it short. Sex with Nick was better than I could have ever imagined.

Panting, his bandaged ribs heaving, Nick held me still until he softened a moment later. When he pulled out, he lay down beside me, resting an arm across my stomach.

I turned to him. “I can’t believe Natalie would make you eat green beans for this.”

“It wasn’t like this with her.” He looked intently into my eyes. “
I
wasn’t like this with her.”

He reached out and ran the back of his index finger over my cheek. When it drew close to my mouth, I turned and grabbed it between my teeth.

Nick chuckled. “She definitely wasn’t like
you,
either.”

We kissed once with our eyes open, looking into each other’s eyes, hearts, and souls. The kiss was soft, warm, and intimate, perhaps even better postcoital since the kiss could be enjoyed for itself rather than as a mere precursor to something more.

When we pulled back, Nick reached over, picked up the candle, and blew it out. Then he pulled me to him again for a deeper, longer kiss, one that sent me adrift all over again, into a vast and wonderful universe inhabited only by me and Nick.

chapter forty-six

Beginnings and Endings

The next few weeks were a flurry of activity.

While the rest of the Tennis Racketeers settled into federal prison, Darren Williams was sent to the state lockup, charged with attempted murder for hiring his pool cleaner to send the powder to Judge Trumbull and kill me, Eddie, Ross, and Ackerman. The pool cleaner had likewise been charged.

Don Geils was being held on drug, prostitution, money laundering, and weapons charges. With no one willing to manage his financial affairs, Geils missed a payment on his note and the former owners of the club foreclosed. On a bright note, his taxes were fully paid up.

Merle and Bernice married in a quiet civil ceremony. The following day, they took over the club, removed the poles from the stage, and turned the place back into a dinner theater. Bernice retired her tassels, retrieved her black umbrella, and revived her role as everyone’s favorite flying nanny, much to the disappointment of men who hadn’t heard of the changes and came to the club expecting to see poppin’ and lockin’ rather than Mary Poppins. They weren’t interested in a spoonful of sugar, because it wasn’t medicine they wanted to
go down.

Merle finished a script, a spoof on
High School Musical
called
Old School Musical,
which featured the tale of a group of high school buddies returning home for their fiftieth reunion. He’d sent the script out and a Broadway producer had called to inquire about buying the rights.