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C
alvin Hyman pushed a cold, limp french fry around his plate and listened with only half an ear to his campaign manager.
“We have this election just about wrapped up, Cal. I’m feeling very confident,” Stan was saying, “but there’re some things
we really have to keep an eye on. The primary is in only a week, but the opposition is moving up in the polls I looked at
today.”
“What?” Calvin straightened, pulling his mind from whether or not Hank had made it to Madison in time. “I thought this was
in the bag. I’ve got Mason Carter’s endorsement, for God’s sake. Why would I be losing ground in the polls?”
“Mason Carter’s endorsement is gold, Cal, pure gold,” Stan said patronizingly. The man had a frizzy gray comb-over and an
odd little mustache. You’d never know to look at him that Stan had all the humanity of a Nazi death camp guard. “But our opponent
is young, good-looking, and talks like he’s already in office. And he relates to people really well.”
“I relate to people.”
Stan winced. “Of course you do, Cal, of course you do. I’m not saying you don’t relate. It’s just that we need to work a little
more on your perceived persona. Loosen up a bit. Maybe wear jeans once in a while. Kiss some babies.” Stan caught the arm
of a passing waitress. “Can you warm up my coffee, sweetheart?”
They sat over an early supper at the Greasy Grill on Winosha’s Main Street. The place boasted only a one-page menu, encased
in a plastic sleeve. It listed an unimaginative array of sandwiches and burgers that had a tendency to come out of the kitchen
oddly alike. But it looked good to patronize local places—made him seem like more a man of the people—and he could greet a
lot of potential voters in the busy diner. As Calvin glanced at the door, Sheriff Clemmons and that young FBI agent walked
in. The FBI agent scanned the diner, and his lip lifted in a curl as if he had smelled fresh shit. Probably expected bruschetta
and French chardonnay in a northern Wisconsin diner. The sheriff nodded when he caught Calvin’s eye.
Cindy, the aging diner waitress, came back with a glass carafe of coffee and slopped some into their cups. “Hey, Cal.” Why
was everyone shortening his name suddenly? “Shannon came in about half an hour ago, looking for you. She was kind of excited.”
Shannon looking for him was nothing special. She probably wanted money to buy a gilt pig planter. Calvin smiled reassuringly.
“Thanks for letting me know, Cindy. I’m sure it’s not important.”
“You’re probably right.” Cindy pivoted, her white orthopedic shoes squeaking. “She said something about the bank.”
“What?” His voice was loud enough that Cindy started and splashed coffee on her waitress uniform. Stan looked up and frowned
in disapproval, but Calvin had other things on his mind. “What about the bank?”
Cindy scratched her orange permed hair. “Well, I don’t really know. She just said something about the bank. Maybe that they
caught the robbers? Does that sound likely?”
Yes, it did. He tried to relax his shoulders. He already knew that Nald and Fish had been caught. Really, it’d been only a
matter of time with those two.
“Problem, Cal?” Stan was watching him.
“No, no.” Calvin made himself take a sip of coffee. “No, I was just caught off guard is all. I guess I’m jumpy about the bank
since the robbery. Good thing they caught those two bozos.”
He smiled again just as the sheriff sauntered up. “’Spect you all heard about the shootout in Madison.”
Calvin felt a spurt of glee. At last something was going well today. He knit his brows in artificial horror and leaned forward:
The Candidate Concerned. “No, what happened?”
Clemmons pulled a chair up to the table and sat down. “Seems there was a shootout practically on the capitol square.”
“No!” Cindy was still lingering, her coffee carafe forgotten on one hand.
Clemmons nodded. “’Fraid so. Young woman in the Office of the Federal Prosecutor got herself shot.”
“I just think it’s awful the way they let any old person get a gun,” Cindy started in, waving the coffee carafe precariously.
“Why, I bet it was one of them foreign students that go to the university there in Madison. They oughtn’t let them have firearms,
you know?”
“Which is why you need to vote for Calvin here come the preelection day,” Stan jumped in. He ignored the fact that Calvin
was in reality for gun-owners’ rights. “We need to get these lunatics off the streets of America, and Calvin Hyman stands
for tougher criminal sentencing and a fast-lane death penalty.”
“Actually,” Sheriff Clemmons began.
Calvin interrupted him impatiently. “Was anyone else hurt?”
Clemmons paused to take a sip from the coffee cup he’d carried over before drawling, “Nope.”
Shit. Hank had failed. Turner was still alive. Calvin struggled to keep his expression normal. How was he going to fix this?
Especially with his election campaign in trouble? How—
But Cindy snapped her fingers suddenly. “That’s what Shannon wanted you to know.”
Calvin frowned, his panicked thoughts interrupted. “What?”
“The bank auditors,” Cindy chirped cheerfully like the robin of his personal doom. “They’re moving the audit up to tomorrow.”
T
urner felt the masculine warmth against her back and sighed deeply. Contentedly. She hadn’t felt this warm, this safe since
. . . since she couldn’t remember. She was like a cat curled by a fire, purring. Which was a ridiculous image since she wasn’t
a cat, no matter what John said, and this certainly wasn’t her home.
That thought made her open her eyes.
The room was dim. She could see a bedside table, the type that might be in a modest motel room, with a metal adjustable lamp
on top. Next to the lamp was a digital alarm clock that read 8:16 p.m. They must’ve slept the afternoon away. Two books, a
paperback on top of a hardcover, sat beside the clock. The spines were facing away so she couldn’t read the titles. She looked
at them thoughtfully for a minute before curiosity got the better of her. She pulled a bare arm out from underneath the covers
and picked up the paperback. It was a Robert B. Parker.
Cold Service.
Underneath, the hardcover read,
Days of Defiance: Sumter, Secession, and the Coming of the Civil War.
Hmm. That sounded rather erudite for an FBI agent. She turned the paperback over and started reading the blurb on the back.
The male arm lying over her stomach tightened.
“Do you like Robert B. Parker?” John’s voice was slow and rusty. He sounded sleepy still.
“Not really.” She put the book back and rolled over in his arms. “He writes guy books.”
John watched her with eyes that had bags underneath them. His face was creased from the pillow, stubble shadowed his jaw and
lower cheeks, and his salt-and-pepper hair was mussed. He looked so sexy she could hardly contain herself.
He raised his eyebrows. “Guy books?”
“You know. Guns. Fisticuffs. Women with big boobs.”
“Huh. And what do you make of my bedside table?”
“You like history and detective stories?”
“Anything else?”
“No. Should there be anything else?” Her eyes dropped to his lips.
Both she and John were nude and lying intimately close. She could feel the hair on his thigh against her calf. Maybe he was
too tired? But then he moved his leg and that theory bit the dust. By the feel, he definitely wasn’t tired.
“Sure,” he said. “You can find out all sorts of things from people’s bedside tables.”
She bumped her hip casually against him. “Like what?”
His pale eyes narrowed. “Lots of stuff gets found on bedside tables and in them—”
She tried to keep her face blank as she ran through the contents of her own bedside table. There wasn’t much in it besides
gummy cough drops.
He started listing. “Guns, drugs, bunny-rabbit-shaped vibrators—”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Bunny—?” At least she didn’t have a vibrator, bunny-shaped or otherwise.
He nodded. “Diaries. Female porn—”
“Female . . .” She suddenly remembered the paperback book in her bedside table. The one with the three-way story inside. Oh,
good gravy, how embarrassing. He hadn’t read it, had he? She cleared her throat. “And what would a trained FBI special agent
make of such material?”
“Funny you should ask.” He stroked his hand up her arm and fingered the sensitive skin at the juncture of her neck and shoulder.
She arched her neck to give him access.
“A detailed study,” he said in a deep, intimate voice, “of a certain female porn book I found recently, revealed that the
average woman likes really big dongs. In multiples.”
He
had
read her book. Turner tried to look sophisticated. “It’s only a fantasy, you know. I doubt the average woman really wants
multiple, uh, partners at a time.”
“You relieve me,” he murmured into the side of her neck. The vibration tickled. “But there’s still the question of dong size.
I was taken aback by the dimensions quoted in said female porn. One of the guys sounded like the victim of growth hormones
gone wrong.”
She raised her eyebrows in amusement. “And this came as a surprise to you?”
“Nooo.” He drew back. His hand was at her breast, and he gave her nipple a little pinch. She arched involuntarily as sparks
of arousal shot through her. “But I’m disappointed that women are so superficial. I’d somehow considered them the more romantic
sex.”
Turner rolled her eyes. “Oh, like men aren’t interested in breasts.”
“Well, yes.” He frowned sternly, rubbing his thumb over her nipple to emphasize his words. “But not every man is that interested
in size—”
“Oh—”
“And a guy could get a complex after reading about giant dongs.”
“A complex? Like an inferiority complex?” Turner widened her eyes. “I really don’t think you have anything to worry about
in that area.”
“Why, thank you kindly, ma’am.” John grinned. “I do aim to please.”
She opened her mouth to retort to that rather self-satisfied statement. But he leaned down and kissed her, and the words fled
her mind. His lips were firm and only a little moist. He moved them sensuously over her mouth, nipping at her bottom lip.
Turner sighed, and he took advantage of her open mouth to push his tongue into her. It was thick and textured like suede,
sweeping against the roof of her mouth, tasting of coffee and man. He thrust in and out, always just escaping her own tongue,
until she moved restlessly. She tilted her head and caught him, sucking on his tongue, running her hands across his smooth
back.
His muscles rippled as he rolled. Suddenly he lay over her. He settled his hips on top of hers and pinned her to the mattress.
He thrust his thigh between her legs, forcing them apart, and she felt his body hair on the soft skin inside her thighs.
It made her vulnerable. Open. And that knowledge excited her.
He nudged again, and she widened her legs still more. He had his thigh pressed against her so close that the lips of her vulva
were spread over his hard flesh. He shifted and rubbed against her there.
She broke the kiss. “John, I—”
She gasped because he’d pressed down on her, directly on her clit.
“Too much?” he asked, as if he were inquiring about the amount of wine in her glass.
She licked her lips. What he was doing to her felt so good, she didn’t know where to look. He was right in her face, and he
knew what he was doing to her. How could he not? Her entire pelvis was heavy with heat and desire. He must feel her wetness
down there on his skin.
“Turner,” he said, his tone quiet and dark, “is it too much?”
“I . . .” She licked her lips again. “I-I don’t know.”
He watched her and moved his leg again deliberately. She felt the hair on his thigh abrade her most sensitive skin as he slid
through her vulva. She couldn’t help it—she wriggled against him.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he murmured. “Does it hurt?”
Oh, my.
She blinked and tried to concentrate on his words. It was difficult. “What?”
“Some women are more sensitive than others,” he explained, his words seductive in the still room. “Some can’t stand direct
contact on their clitorises. Others can. Can you?” He nudged against her.
“I . . . yes. Uh, yes.” She wasn’t even sure what she was saying.
But John knew what she meant. “Good. Then you’ll like this.”
He reached down and touched her flesh, adjusting her against his leg matter-of-factly. Suddenly the pleasure was much more
intense. Could he do that? Just touch her there so casually? She had the feeling that she wasn’t up to John’s level of sexual
sophistication. Wasn’t he embarrassed at all? Of course, he wasn’t the one about to—
Oh, she didn’t know where to look.
“Keep your eyes open, baby,” he crooned. “I want to watch you.”
Watch me?
She shivered at the thought. “But—”
“Shhh. Just feel.” He propped himself on his elbows, presumably so he could put both hands to her breasts. “It feels good,
doesn’t it?”
Yes.
It felt too good. She was in danger of losing control of her body, of herself. Of everything.
“Feel,” he whispered like some dark incubus, making her forget all she knew about herself.
“I—” She couldn’t do this. She was so wet down there that each movement of his leg made soft squishing sounds.
He squeezed her nipples—both at once—and pressed down hard with his leg. If he hadn’t been holding her down, she would’ve
come right off the bed. She couldn’t . . .
“God, you’re sexy,” he murmured so low it was almost a growl.
She felt a surge of arousal.
“I’m going to remember you like this forever,” he whispered, his voice rasping with erotic need. “Your nipples red from my
fingers, your neck arched back, tender and vulnerable. And my leg riding your pussy.”
Oh, Lord. No one had ever talked to her like this before. So roughly, so explicitly, using such words. It shouldn’t turn her
on, but it did. It did. She watched him, watching her through eyes so slitted she could barely see the blue, and felt her
excitement rise.
“I can feel your heat, baby.” His nostrils flared and he looked almost cruel. “And your liquid. I’m going to fuck you soon.
I’m going to put my cock in your heat and make you come again. And I’ll be watching you the entire time—”
“John.”
She fell apart. Simply fell apart.
She shuddered, incapable of stopping her body from sliding over the edge into pure bliss. She spread her legs wider and arched
into his hard thigh, unable to see or care. Her breath came in harsh gasps, and when she opened her eyes again, he was still
watching her. He looked satisfied. He pushed up and knelt between her limp, wide-spread thighs. He reached over to the drawer
on the bedside table, took out a wrapped condom, and glanced up at her again.
“Are you ready?” he asked conversationally as he tore open the packet. “Because I’m about as hard as I’ve ever been in my
life. I almost came just from watching you. You’re that sexy to me.”
She blinked and wet her lips, her eyes drawn to his penis. It stood up between his thighs, nearly purple, thick and hard against
his flat belly. He carefully sheathed his cock, letting her watch him prepare himself for her. She actually shivered with
erotic anticipation.
Then he did something that made her widen her eyes.
He dipped two fingers into her vagina and spread her own essence on his cock. She must have made a sound. He looked up as
he deliberately rubbed his fingers into her sensitive flesh again.
“I’m making sure I’m ready for you.” He fisted his hand over his erection and slowly stroked the liquid up and down the outside
of the sheath.
She watched, mesmerized.
“Because once I’m in you, baby,” he said softly, “I want it to last a good long time. I’m going to ride you hard. And you’re
going to come again with me in you this time. You’re going to know who made love to you tonight. I’m going to leave you weak
and exhausted and thoroughly fucked.”
Her eyes widened even as she clenched internally at the slow words. “I—”
He leaned down, holding his body above hers with one arm. “Watch.”
And she helplessly obeyed. Her eyes followed his to where his cock just touched her body. She watched as he guided himself
into her with one hand, feeling and seeing that first ravishing breach.
“Are you watching?” he grunted.
“Yes,” she breathed.
“Do you feel me?”
She moaned in reply. It was almost too much—seeing and feeling what he was doing. She wanted to close her eyes. But they stayed
open, connected to John.
“Good. I’m with you now.” He glided into her on one long slide to emphasize the point.
She moaned, feeling the invasion of his flesh into hers. Her hips tilted, and she drew her knees up on either side of him.
“Hold on,” he whispered.
He withdrew almost all the way, then rammed his entire length home again. He continued in a hard, fast rhythm that shook the
bed and made her feel each thrust vibrating through her. Her head arched in reaction as she clung to his shoulders. It was
too much. He wasn’t giving her any time to adjust. To combat the exquisitely pleasurable sensation. To keep herself whole.
He was—
“Don’t turn away.” He caught her face between his palms on a grunt, his hips still in motion. His face was sheened with sweat,
his mouth drawn on almost cruel lines. “Stay with me.”
“I can’t—”
He reached between their bodies and touched her at her most sensitive place. He pressed down with his thumb. Firmly, never
breaking contact as his penis slid in and out of her roughly, drawing the hood around her clit taut on every thrust.
“I—”
“Feel.” His gaze pierced hers. His thumb rubbed ever so slightly.
She gasped, and then suddenly he was kissing her without any finesse at all, his tongue thrusting into her mouth as his cock
thrust into her below. Powerfully, possessively. And all the while his thumb bore down on her.
She broke from the kiss with a gasp, grabbing for his butt and pulling it into her, grinding her hips up to his, his hand
caught between their bodies. “Oh, I—”
So close. So very close.
He thrust hard and fast, with her fingers still digging into him. She saw stars. A million points of light sparkling behind
her eyelids, and she knew she was gasping. Had lost all control of her body, of her mind—again. And she didn’t care. It felt
that wonderful.
She could hear John laughing, a loud, joyful sound, but that soon stopped.
Because he came himself.