Geography of Murder (7 page)

My eyelids fluttered and I wound my shaking fingers through his short hair. "Very real. South New Guinea tropics..." I moaned as he moved up my body. I felt the tickle of his breath on my eyelashes. He explored the canvas of my face, touching everything until he arrived at my mouth. His first touch was feather light. Then he pressed his open mouth over mine and I gasped when his tongue invaded me.

He tasted of beer and garlic and something that was uniquely his own. He grew rougher, shoving his tongue deep into my mouth, pressing me back until my spine was against the bar. One hand skidded across my bare back, sliding around my ass and pulling me against him. He broke free and pressed trembling lips against my throat. Tugging at the waistband of my pants he said, "Get those off."

I skimmed pants and underwear off, tossing them in the same pile as my shirt and would have stepped back into his arms except he stayed me with a flat palm against my chest.

"Stand there," he ordered. "I want to look at you."

His gaze tracked down my shivering form, pausing to study my straining cock. His eyes widened when he saw my other tattoo. A slender, green vine circled my erection, ending in an unopened bud over my piss slit. The tattoo had cost me 64

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a small fortune and three hours of unforgettable pain. Until that moment I had always wondered if it had been a costly mistake, done at the spur of the moment. Seeing the look on Alex's face made it all worthwhile. Before I could even guess what he was going to do he knelt in front of me and took me in his mouth. The shock was incredible. I swayed on my feet and would have fallen if I hadn't had the bar behind me. His hot mouth enclosed me in wet warmth, his tongue swirled around my tattooed head and veined shaft. I moaned and rocked forward. With shaking hands I cupped the back of his head and urged him on with hoarse words. My balls tightened and I knew I was seconds from coming. Before it could happen he squeezed the base of my cock, stopping the ejaculation. He pulled away from me and stood in one smooth move. His face was flushed, his pupils black holes. His mouth glistened with saliva.

"I'm going to fuck you. Tell me you want me."

"Yes. Please."

He led me into a dim bedroom that had black-out curtains on the windows and walls painted some dark color I couldn't make out. He didn't turn on a light. A pale glow spilled in from the other room. It was enough to see his eyes glitter. He opened a drawer and plastic rustled. He handed me a condom and a small tube of lube.

"Get me ready."

I held the condom wrapper in my teeth while I unzipped his linen pants and slid them off. His legs were covered by fine hair that I knew would glint red in the light. He wore no 65

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underwear. Even in the dark room I could see the bobbing outline of his swollen cock pressed against his belly.

"Suck me."

I knelt and pressed my face into his crotch. I could smell him now, earthy and raw. I inhaled, then slipped my lips around him. He sighed and thrust his hips forward. After less than a minute of sucking him, he pulled me off and pushed me back onto my heels.

"Put it on."

I rolled the condom down over his fat cock and lubed him up.

"Get on your knees."

Shivering with anticipation now, I did as he ordered. He smoothed his hand over my back and covered me with his body. He stroked my flank, then probed my puckered hole.

When he inserted one finger into me I whined in need. A second finger followed the first and slid over the flesh of my prostate, sending electricity singing along my nerve endings.

I humped his hand, eyes closed at the building sensations.

His other hand gripped my hip, holding me steady. I trembled and rocked my hips into his touch. I moaned when he withdrew his fingers and with the latex covered tip of his cock, probed my wrinkled orifice, forcing it open while his large hands held me still. He entered me slowly, letting me adjust to the invasion. After a brief spasm of pain there came heat. I welcomed him with guttural sighs. He began to move, first in slow steady strokes that rapidly increased in tempo until he was pounding into me with a ferocity that left me mewling helplessly, unable to catch my breath. I braced 66

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myself against the floor and waited for the storm to end. It did with a grunt as he emptied himself into the condom. He roughly stroked me to orgasm moments later.

We stayed like that while our hearts settled back to a steady rhythm and we could breathe again, then he peeled away from me and stood, helping me to my feet. I swayed and he steadied me. He disposed of the condom and took me in his arms.

"You'll stay."

It wasn't really a request. That was okay, I wasn't about to argue. We slipped between the covers of the double bed and I drifted into the first deep sleep I'd had in weeks.

I awoke to darkness so total it was like I had lost the memory of light. I remembered a poem I had read once in the last year I spent in high school. It was by Lord Byron and even then everyone said he was a fruit. Maybe that's why I liked him so much. The line that always stayed with me was about darkness—'Morn came and went—and came, and brought no day.' A story of eternal darkness that never ended. I rolled over and collided with warm flesh.

It was so much like the horror of the grisly discovery of George Blunt that I squeaked and lunged to the edge of the bed. A hand snaked out and wrapped around my arm saving me from tumbling to the floor.

"Jason. It's okay. You're safe."

I was hyperventilating and Spider pulled me into his arms, soothing me like I was a child terrified by a bad dream.

Maybe I was. I took a deep breath and pushed away from him.

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"Sorry, I didn't know where I was. I freaked..." I laughed shakily. "I swear, I'm not usually so jumpy."

"You got good reason." He helped me sit up. "Hold on, cover your eyes."

I did, and light filled the room. I blinked and looked around. The room was as much like a cave as you could make something above ground that had windows. There were no pictures or decorations anywhere. Instead one whole wall was dominated by a black sling and a rack with various whips, restraints and bondage tape. I'd never seen such a well-equipped Dom room outside of a club.

"Jesus," I whispered.

He grinned. "You like it?"

"Wasn't what I was expecting."

He slid his arm around my bare shoulder and nuzzled my neck. "What were you expecting?"

I shook my head. He kissed me hard enough to leave me gasping again. Then he swatted my thigh. "Regretfully there's no time to play. I have to get to work and so do you."

"I don't have a job anymore, remember."

"Yeah, you do. I talked to your boss and explained things to him. He's willing to give you another shot. You agree to stay out of dead guy's beds and he'll keep you on."

"Funny."

"Come on, I'll feed you and then I can drop you by your place." He stooped to catch another kiss. "We'll meet back up tonight."

Now that he had my whole day mapped out, I hurried to get ready. Quick shower and bacon and eggs—I scrambled 68

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the eggs, he got the bacon on, insisting that growing boys needed their protein to function. Afterward he dropped me at my apartment, where I found my ancient Honda sitting in front of the graffiti covered crap-hole I lived in. So obviously wherever I had gone the night Blunt died I hadn't taken my own car. The puzzle grew. I frowned.

Spider saw where I was looking. "That yours?"

I frowned. "Yes, but what's it doing here?"

"What do you mean?"

"It wasn't here the first time you dropped me off, was it?"

He shook his close-cropped red head. "No, it wasn't. So where was it?"

"I don't know. I remember driving to the Vault ... I would have left it in the parking lot there. If I drove it after, I don't remember." Scary thought, driving around in a drunken haze.

We both approached the vehicle. Nothing seemed out of place. I had the keys on my key chain. I popped the front door and a cloud of stale hot air puffed out. My second set of keys, which fortunately didn't include my apartment key, hung from the ignition. Clearly the car had been shut up for a while. A litter of McDonald's food wrappers and drink containers covered the back seat. I wasn't exactly a neat freak.

"Is that all yours?" Spider peered into the interior, taking in everything. When I nodded he asked, "Anything missing?"

"Don't think so."

He pointed at the emergency parking brake. "You always leave your car with the emergency brake on?"

I looked and frowned. "Not usually. Never saw the need."

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He pointed to the car key. "Give me that. I'll have it printed. Maybe it was a helpful neighbor."

We both knew that was a crock. Spider went back to his truck and pulled a tool kit out of the truck bed. From there he pulled on a pair of gloves, crossed back over to my car and slid into the driver's seat. Careful not to touch the gearshift, he opened the glove compartment. He rifled through the papers there, holding up a handful of condoms. "You know the heat in a glove compartment will damage these things."

I rolled my eyes at him and snatched the wrappers out of his hand. "Thank you, Dr. Ruth."

He collected the keys and followed me inside.

The apartment next door to mine housed a family of four who were classic white trash from Okie country. She was already hanging out the door, avidly watching us approach.

Behind her a TV played Jerry Springer and one of her kids was screaming. Welcome to my neighborhood.

"Sorry," I muttered, gripping my keys in my hand. "It's not much, but it's home until I can find something better." I didn't say the obvious: if I could afford anything better I wouldn't be here.

He lightly touched my back, which was riddled with tension. "Don't worry about it. Pack up some things. You can spend the weekend at my place. I'm low down on the duty roster, so unless we have a major crime wave in the next few days I'm pretty well free till Monday."

"You want me to come stay with you?"

He stepped so close to me I felt the heat from his body. I shivered at the intensity of his gaze. "I intend to keep you at 70

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home and fuck you until you can't walk straight. What do you say to that?"

I was already feeling weak-kneed. "Yes, sir."

"Good." He spun around and trotted back down the steps.

At the bottom he cocked and aimed his hand in an imitation gun. Then he was gone. The neighbor looked on. She had a Marlboro dangling from her slack mouth. Gil came out into the hallway. Jerry Springer played on their TV. A string of bleeped out expletives followed them.

"Fuck's that? Christ, where you been, man? Cops was by looking for you. What you do now?" He peered down the hall toward the entrance. "Who was that?"

Gill was not the most enlightened of apes and I usually kept my private life private from him. But I was too giddy from the night spent with Alex to care what Gill thought.

"That was my boyfriend," I said proudly.

Gill snorted and stomped back into his apartment. His wife followed silently. They banged the door shut on a rising wail from one of their kids.

"Good morning to you, too," I called after them. Shaking my head I entered my home and went to pack a bag for the weekend. After a while I found myself whistling while I packed.

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71

Geography of Murder

by P. A. Brown

I spent the morning in court waiting to testify, but
the case was adjourned for another day so that was a
waste of time. Back at the station I changed out of the
monkey suit I only wore to trials, pulled out the file on
George Blunt. I fell to re-examining the skimpy
evidence we had built our even flimsier case on.

Nancy came in from her own court duty and, throwing her jacket over the back of her chair, dropped into her seat. The swivel chair creaked alarmingly.

"That thing dumps you on the floor I'm going to be too busy laughing my ass off to help you up."

"I don't need your help." She flipped open a blue binder, one of our current open murder investigations and started studying the contents like they were nuggets of pure gold.

After a while she looked up and met my gaze. "It true you picked the kid from the Blunt case up at county yesterday?"

Cops gossip worse than little old ladies leaning over picket fences. I grimaced. It shouldn't surprise me that she had already heard. It still pissed me off that people couldn't mind their own business.

"So what if I did? I wanted to pick his brain about anyone else he might have noticed hanging around the docks lately."

A lie, since I'd barely talked to Jason. I'd had too many other things to do with him.

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"You aren't ... getting involved with him are you? You know Garcia will freak if you hook up with an ex-suspect who's got a record."

"Ex being the operative word. He should never have been charged in the first place. We got sloppy. One of us should have noticed his knuckles."

"Christ, you are involved. Garcia's gonna have your ass."

"He can try." I turned back to my computer, signaling the discussion was over. I heard her humph once in disgust then she went back to looking at her murder book.

After several minutes of silence, she asked, "Want to grab lunch?"

"Sure. Rudy's?"

My phone rang. I scooped it up and cradled it under my ear. When I hung up I met Nancy's gaze. "Cancel lunch. The dive team recovered something near the George Blunt crime scene."

I grabbed my jacket, checked that my Beretta was in its holster and accessible. Nancy was closing down her PC.