Calculated Exposure (15 page)

Carla was silent for a long while.

“What is it?”

“Nothing. I guess whatever you’re doing is right for him.”

“Oh.” Erica slumped on the wall. Just what was it that she was doing right? Constantly challenging him? Feeding him? Screwing his brains out in increasingly kinkier ways? If it was the latter, she was going to run fresh out of kink soon. And what was he going to do when he learned she wasn’t the confident goddess with her shit together she pretended to be? Would he care she’d fled a perfectly good home life as teenager? One where she had a mother that actually cooked good meals and father who made sure the bills were always paid? Would he balk at her refusal to be groomed into a perfect cook, perfect homemaker, perfect wife?

And what was she doing now? Trying to affix him to her by filling him up with good Cuban food and keeping him so well-sexed he wouldn’t want to go home.

She laughed long and loud. If that wasn’t irony, she didn’t know what the word meant.

* * * *

Curt had been sitting with his feet up on Erica’s coffee table, gawking at game shows on Telemundo for at least an hour before he ran out of coffee. That had been the cut-off he’d arbitrarily assigned himself that morning when the fox had left. Finish the coffee, then make his calls.

He’d been tempted to run some more water through the coffeemaker, but even he knew that was a ridiculous stalling effort. He turned the television volume down low and dragged his messenger bag across the carpet to his feet. After meditating on the strap’s weave for a while, he dug out his phone with a sigh. Before he could dial, a text message from Erica came through.

It was an arm’s-length photograph of herself making an
Ugh
face. Behind her in the shot, a bunch of people held up political signs with badly-worded puns.

“God, she’s cute.”

Curt responded in kind with a picture of him giving wild eyes to the columns of numbers in some data he’d been carrying around in his bag. Then he dialed his sister’s number.

“How goes it, Curt?”

“Don’t know, you tell
me
. Where’s Mum?”

“Watching all the Oprah she missed. I taped it for her, you know.”

“Yeah. Uh, did she…well, where’s Dad?”

“Hasn’t come ’round, but he keeps callin’.”

He cracked his knuckles. “What’d he say?”

“Said he wants to talk. Put it behind ’em.”

“Like fuck he does. Did she talk to him? Did she want to?”

Jenny muffled the phone and yelled, “You get off that banister, you hear me, or do you want to lose another tooth out of your head before it’s ready?” When she returned, she said, “Yeah, she wanted to, but I wouldn’t let her.”

“Good.” He blew out a breath and raked his hair out of his eyes.

“We’ve hardly left the house, you know? We were doing good and the reporters were starting to go away and neighbors had stopped casting the evil eye at me every time I took out the rubbish. Then this shit. I don’t understand it, Curt.”

“You think I do?”

“You’re the genius.”

“Right, just like Mum, and look where that got her.”

“I mean, all that time she was in jail, he acted like he was so surprised she’d be involved–that he didn’t know. What kind of man could do that to his ex-wife?”

“Don’t know.”

“He’s scum, Curt. I don’t want a thing to do with him.”

Well, that makes two of us.
“Just keep Mum away from the phone, okay? She’s too fucking forgiving and I know she hasn’t changed, even after all this. And I don’t want her talking to the press. Let ’em find a new bone to gnaw on.”

“Alright. So when should I fly out for your graduation? I’ve been saving up for the ticket.”

“Don’t worry about that. I’m not attending the ceremony.”

“Why the fuck not? It’s a big deal.”

“Jenny, it’ll be sort of anticlimactic by then.”

“If you say so. Gotta go. Your nephew’s set on maiming himself.”

“Yeah.”

He disconnected and tossed the phone onto the coffee table, giving not a single fuck about the loud thwack as it made contact with the wood. If it broke, he wouldn’t have to answer any more stupid questions about why his father royally had screwed over his mother, and how she served the time he should have. And how she’d probably forgive him for it.

He’d always respected his father growing up. Didn’t have a reason not to. He was a good provider and a devoted husband, or at least Curt
thought
. But then he’d cracked somewhere and he got mean. Mum hung in there for as long as she could because she was that sort of Catholic, but finally with Jenny’s tearful pleading, she’d filed for divorce.

That hadn’t been the end, though. Even after they separated, she kept taking him back in, giving him chances to redeem himself. One of those chances ended up with Curt and his father in fisticuffs. Curt had spent the night in jail over that. And then Mum went and forgave his father again. Things had been tense ever since, but then his father had showed his true stripes.

He didn’t want love. He just wanted access.

Not only had he been complicit in stealing valuable evidence from unsolved cases from the Guard station where he’d been a sergeant, but he’d been the linchpin in the embezzlement scheme Curt’s mother took the rap for. His dad had seen an opportunity and capitalized the moment she’d turned her back. Went as far as taking her lunch one day, then acted when she stepped out to fetch napkins.

If a man like that–one everyone thought was so righteous–had stolen from the people he was supposed to protect and serve, what the fuck was Curt supposed to become? Would he slip down the same path? Turn into some sort of deviant opportunist?

He kicked the table and growled.

Why now? Why fucking now, when I actually give a shit about someone besides myself?

Chapter 11

Erica ducked out from under Tate’s arm for the third time in less than an hour. She was getting to the point where if he touched her again, she’d deck him, lay him flat out on his ass, whether he was sick or not.

She was trying her damndest to be good, though. They were in a crowd of hundreds and wearing the newspaper’s credentials.

“Why do you keep checking your watch?” he asked after the last time she moved away. “Got somewhere else you want to be?” He wore a smarmy sneer that made Erica’s smack hand itch.

“Yes, I think I made that clear last night.”

He wrapped that arm around her again and all she could do was seethe. “Oh, come on, Ercilia, my little Cuban
flor
. It’s just like old times. We haven’t shot together in ages.”

“And for good reason.”

“Lies.” He gave her a squeeze. “Besides, you just got back from a super-long vacation. What’s a seven-day workweek or two?”

It took a moment to realize what he’d said. She scooted out from under his arm. “I’m not working tomorrow, Tate. Whatever schedule you have me on, you fucking take me off now.”

“That’s cute. You know, there are people out there clamoring for employment. I can take any young girl under my wing and train her up.”

“Maybe you should do that, then. What’s wrong? Cass get bored and moved on already?” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Did you hit her? She doesn’t look like she has much of a swing. She call the cops?”

He laughed outright, but the set of his lips was tight and the lines at the corners of his eyes deepened. “I’m just messing with you. I know you’re not going anywhere.” He sniffed and wiped his nose on his sleeve.

She was pretty sure his sniffling wasn’t from the flu that time. It was a wonder the man hadn’t yet snorted himself to an aneurysm. The way she saw it, with his litany of bad habits, Tate should have been dead a long time ago. She decided to keep her mouth shut for the remainder of the event, though that didn’t stop his mouth from running.

“So, who’s your new boyfriend, huh? There’s gotta be some dude, right? It won’t last.” He kept trying.

She kept ignoring him.

When she finally made it back to her apartment, she opened the door to find Curt, in headphones, dressed in khaki shorts with frayed hems and a t-shirt with some mathematical joke she didn’t get. He was pacing in front of the coffee table, mumbling to himself. A spate of papers covered it and his laptop perched treacherously on one sofa arm. After closing the door, she relocated the expensive device to a safer cushion and waited for him to acknowledge her.

He finally stopped pacing and removed his earbuds. “Shit, what time is it?”

“Around seven.” She shrugged off her camera bag straps. “Sorry I’m so late. I got held up.”

“No offense, darlin’, but I didn’t notice.” He pushed his glasses to the top of his head and rubbed his eyes. “I started working on this problem this morning and haven’t come up for air since.”

“Oh?” She set the bags on top of the kitchen counter and carried the third bag, a plastic one with a few miscellaneous items she’d picked up, to the bedroom. When she returned to the living room, Curt had piled the papers into a reasonably neat stack and tucked his computer away.

“Working on PhD stuff?”

“No, that’s all done, more or less. I’m just refining something my future employer needed a fourth opinion on.”

“
Future
employer?”

He shrugged. “Perhaps I should say
current
employer, since I apparently I started working yesterday and didn’t know it. My fault for taking my supervisor’s word for what the contract said. Oh well. Just means I’ll get paid sooner.” He shoved all of the papers on the coffee table into a sort-of-neat pile. “How was the rally?”

She blew a raspberry. “Started late, ended late, and same old shit as the last rally. They should have just recycled the pictures from the archives. Waste of time.”

“That happen much in Newspaperland?”

She shook her head. “Hungry?”

“Actually, yes. I didn’t stop to eat lunch, but don’t worry about cooking. I’m a big boy. I can fend for myself for the most part.”

Probably, but I won’t let you
. “We both have to eat, right? So let me fix something.” She wrapped her arms around his waist and gave her best coquette smile as she stared into his eyes. “I can get out the sandwich press and make us some Cubans. I already had it planned. Just didn’t think I’d be here this late.”

He used his thumbs to push her hair away from her eyes and gave her an inscrutable look that made her uncomfortable after a moment. Finally, he said, “If you insist.”

“I do.” With some reluctance she freed her hair from his fingers and headed to the kitchen.

“Can I help?” He leaned against the counter, and when the phone in his hand buzzed, he hit the kill switch without even reading the display.

When she cocked her head sideways to question it, he blinked.

I guess I’m not the only one keeping secrets.

“Wouldn’t you rather relax?” she asked while scrubbing her hands at the sink.

“You’ve been on your feet all day. It’s nice being pampered, but you don’t really have to do
everything
for me when I come down here. Let me help.”

“Um…”
Hmm
.
Not used to delegating.
“The sandwich press is in that wide drawer. Can you plug it in while I take out all the fixings?”

“Sounds grueling, but I think I can manage it.”

“And maybe set the table? I’m assuming you know how.”

“More or less.”

She took ham, pork, cheese, pickles, and mustard out of the refrigerator along with a case of beer she’d chilled the previous day. She offered Curt a bottle and he took it on his way past.

As she fondled the twist-tie on the bread bag, she asked, “How would you be spending your Saturday if you weren’t here?”

That earned her a laugh, and she was so damned glad to hear it. There was something almost palpable in the air between them. Not exactly negative–she’d experienced enough of that atmosphere around Tate–but tense. Anxious. The guy needed to relax, but she wasn’t exactly sure how to make that happen without knowing the source of his agitation.

“Grant is Stateside right now, so we’d probably be out with Seth tottering from one bar to the next, harassing the bouncers and staying on our stools well past last call.”

She paused her slicing and swallowed hard, afraid to make eye contact with him as he passed behind her with plates. “Would you rather be doing that?”

Another laugh. The tension ebbed a bit more.

Keep him laughing, then.

“Honestly, I’m too old for that shit. It’s getting harder to get up in the mornings after a night out with those two. Well, Grant can’t really hang anymore, either. The kids have him on some sort of sadistic schedule in which he falls asleep beside his beer by nine or ten. Seth could probably stay out carousing until dawn, and I could probably hang with him, but the resulting heartburn is a bitch.”

She grinned as she resumed her cutting. “You make it sound like you have one foot in the grave.”

“Feels like it some mornings. I should try clean living at least once in my adult life.”

“Not
too
clean, I hope.”

“Now, now. Don’t go getting any ideas.” He winked.

When she winked back, he returned to the narrow kitchen and wrapped his arms around her waist from the back.

She felt his lips graze her ear, and his hands’ warmth as he slipped his fingers into her waistband.

“We haven’t even had dinner yet.”

He moved her hair back from her neck using his chin and pressed his lips against her neck’s sensitive crook.

“I…” She sucked in some air. “I thought you were hungry,
rubio
.”

Another chuckle.

The air was nearly breathable again.

“My appetite has suddenly changed.” He worked one hand out of her pants just enough to undo the catch and work the zipper down. With more freedom for exploration, he delved back into her panties and thrummed his fingers against her clit. With his other hand, he dipped fingers into her wet sex and spread her lips demonstrably. “I want to be in there.”

She could barely parse the words, because he was unrelenting with his teasing. His lips, teeth, then tongue attended to one of her naked earlobes, shifting her concern of things down low to his mouth up high. His gentle abrading reminded her of where else that mouth had been. “I…”