“Stop it,” she snapped. She gave his chest an angry shove. “Feeling sorry for yourself will not help. Now tell me what she was referring to, because I will not be left hanging while you glower and sulk. Out with it. Who’s this…what’s the name? Novak?”
He let out a careful, measured breath, and tightened all his muscles against the ache of impending loss. “Kurt Novak. He was a Zhoglo clone,” he said dully. “Hungarian mob family.”
He took a deep breath, sucked it up, and told her the whole sorry, miserable tale of how he’d fucked Connor over left, right, and sideways in the Novak debacle.
He kept his head down for a while after. Unwilling to meet her eyes and face what he was sure would be there. She didn’t say a word.
Finally he couldn’t stand the suspense any longer. He looked up.
Becca’s angry, belligerent pose was gone. She gazed at him, her head cocked at a thoughtful angle. Faintly puzzled.
“Is that all?” she asked.
An ugly laugh ripped through his throat. “All? Fuck, isn’t that enough for you?”
“Not really,” she said. “I mean, yes, it’s a terrible story, and I’m so glad it turned out well, but I don’t see where your great sin was.”
“He was my friend,” he snarled.
“Well, of course,” she said. “So you made a mistake. It must have hurt you terribly, and I’m very sorry for that, but it turned out well in the end, so what’s the big—”
“People are dead and rotting in the ground because of my mistakes!”
She flinched at the violence in his tone. “Are you talking about that other thing now?” she asked, her voice cautious. “That cop in the Ukraine who died because of the security leak? The one whose daughter disappeared? Um…Nick? You were not the security leak.”
He shot to his feet, and headed towards the door. “Fuck,” he hissed. “There’s a reason why I don’t have conversations like this—”
“Oh, no. No way.” She darted between him and the door. “Don’t you dare storm off in a huff before I’ve made my point. In the Novak thing, you were deceived. In the Ukraine thing, you were betrayed. Deceiving, betraying, those things are sins, and they are hateful and evil, yes, no question about it. Being deceived, being betrayed, these are mistakes, Nick. These are bad breaks. Big, big difference!”
“No, there isn’t!” he yelled. “I should have known better! I should have figured it out, and—”
“Well, you’re not God! Too bad!” she yelled back. “And neither are any of the rest of us! Get the hell over it! I’m sick of your histrionics!”
“Don’t try to put a sparkly positive spin on this, babe.” His voice was low and vicious. “What counts are results. You have to draw your ultimate conclusions from results. That’s called facing reality.”
She stubbornly shook her head. “Strike out ‘sparkly positive spin,’ and replace it with ‘the voice of sweet reason.’ Besides, nobody around here seems to hold it against you, except for that bitch Tam. And you yourself, of course.”
He made a derisive sound. “Oh, yeah. You can bet they haven’t forgotten it for one instant, sweetheart.”
“Nick. News flash.” Her tone was sarcastic. “They invite you to their weddings. Hello? People do not invite people they don’t like to their weddings, unless you’re talking about rich uncles with oil wells. Weddings are expensive, they’re personal, they’re important. So face reality, OK? Your friends care about you. Deal with it!”
He shook his head, and sank down onto the bed again, resting his aching head in his hands. “I don’t know,” he said dully. “I just don’t fucking know. I’m always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Always.”
“The other shoe? What are you talking about?”
“My next mistake. The ultimate fuckup. When they finally get a clue. It always happens, sooner or later. When they’re disappointed.”
He forced himself to look up minutes later, tormented by the silence. And he wished he hadn’t.
Becca’s eyes swam with tears. She wiped them away, and flung her head back, sniffing aggressively. “You think I’m going to be disappointed, too. Don’t you?”
She was demanding the truth and he didn’t dare respond.
Christ, he had to get real. Every woman he’d ever been remotely involved with had been ultimately disappointed by him. There was no reason to think that this time would be any different. How could it be?
But neither did he want to cut it short by saying as much. He would take what he could get for as long as he could get it.
A yes would be a pathetic, doglike whine for reassurance. A no was a lie that would jinx his sorry ass for sure. There was no good answer for her.
“Just forget I said it,” he muttered. “Please.”
“No,” she said. She wiped her eyes with her fingers, sniffing hard. “I will not forget it. Don’t ask me to. It doesn’t work that way.”
“Let’s just drop it, OK? I can’t deal with—”
“I am alive because of you, Nick!” Her voice came through the gurgle of tears with startling force. “You saved me! You were doing a brave, heroic thing in the first place, and you put it aside when I showed up and did another brave, heroic thing, for me! How’s that for results, buddy? You’re the reason I’m not dead!”
“Yet,” he cut in harshly. “The vote’s not in on that.”
“Well, my vote is already cast, no matter how this turns out!” she snapped. “And my vote counts, goddamnit! Is that clear?”
The blaze of righteous fury from her cowed him as much as it dazzled him. God, she was pretty. “Uh, yeah,” he muttered. “Whatever.”
She harrumphed. “Good,” she said, after a moment, mollified.
He sat there, stupefied to realize that he actually did feel a little bit better. It probably didn’t run too deep, and it probably wouldn’t last too long, but hey. He would take what he could get and be grateful.
Besides. Getting bitched out by a girl in a low-cut dress whose tits bounced seductively every time her chest heaved had its positive side.
Then she kicked off her shoes, sat down on the chair, and hiked her skirt up so he could see the strip of pale skin above her stockings. She unhooked her garter, and started slowly, sensuously pulling her stockings off. His heart rate kicked up.
So did another part of his anatomy.
Becca’s hands shook with the effort to maintain the appearance of cool nonchalance. She wasn’t sure exactly what she was getting into, coming on to him when his mood was so unstable.
But if sweet reason wouldn’t do the job, hot pounding sex might.
“What’s with the striptease, Becca?” he asked, his voice hard. “Do you want to have sex?”
She shrugged with feigned indifference, moved on to the other stocking. “I don’t know. Have you finished sulking yet?”
“I could maybe put it aside for long enough to fuck you,” he said.
“Hmmph,” she sniffed. She twitched down first one spaghetti strap, and then the other, and reached back, struggling for the zipper. “Does this mean your grumpy mood is going to crash right back down on me right after you come? Because you know damn well I hate that.”
“Anybody’s guess,” was his bland rejoinder. “No guarantees.”
“I will, of course, stick pins under your fingernails if you do that to me again,” she informed him.
His mouth twitched. “Yeah? You got pins in your bag?”
“Oh, yes. My handy dandy portable torture kit is always at the ready,” she assured him. He looked like he was trying not to smile, which was already a victory, so she swiftly followed up her advantage with a slow, hip-swaying walk towards him. She turned her back.
“Unzip me,” she ordered.
He did, and his hands fastened over her, so hot and buzzing with delicious energy that sent shivers racing through her, his fingers closely following the slow slide of the fabric down over her hips, bringing every tiny hair on her body to attention. His lips pressed against her back, moved against her spine. A slow, hot lick of his tongue. Ooh. Nice.
She turned around, spinning inside the strong circle of his arms, and wound her own arms around his neck. Burying her nose in his hair, inhaling his warm scent. “Aren’t you going to undress?”
He nuzzled her cleavage with a sigh, squeezing her bottom. “I have to go down to the men’s room in the lobby, and buy some condoms from the machine,” he said, sounding chagrined. “I meant to stop someplace on the way up here, but we got sidetracked by the blow job.”
OK. Here it was, the moment to make the big announcement. Or offer. Or mistake. Or whatever it was. Only time would tell.
“Um, Nick?” she asked, her voice small. “About the condoms…”
“Yeah? What about them?”
“I, ah…I brought an alternative, if you want to use it,” she burst out. “I have a diaphragm. It’s just been sitting around in a drawer for ages, and I would love to…well, only if you want to.”
She waited expectantly for a response, but he didn’t move a muscle. His face didn’t change. He just stared up at her.
She was nonplussed and started to falter. “Um, of course, I can only use this assuming that you’re not planning on, um…this is kind of awkward, because we’ve never discussed the simple ground rules for our relationship, what with all the life-and-death drama—”
“You mean, I can’t fuck anybody else,” he finished.
She didn’t have the nerve to speak after that blunt rejoinder. She could only wait. And wait and wait.
“I’m not,” he finally said, his voice flat.
Something relaxed inside her. She’d been lecturing herself, reminding herself that she had no objective reason to demand exclusivity from him. She’d been bracing herself for being brought up short and sharp.
But he hadn’t. He hadn’t. She swallowed over a joyful lump. “And you, um, won’t?” she asked delicately. “For the duration?”
His hands tightened on her hips. “Duration of what? Of our affair, you mean? You see an end point to it? Nice of you to tell me.”
His harsh tone made her panic, like things were slipping in a direction she’d never intended. “No! That’s not what I meant at all! It’s just, you know, a thing I said. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Then don’t say it.” He got up, breaking the circle of her arms, and walked away, staring out the big picture window, his broad back radiating intense emotion as only his could.
He shrugged off his jacket. “It goes both ways, you know.”
“What do you mean?” Becca finally succeeded in getting her bustier unhooked. “What are you talking about?”
“About you not fucking other guys.” He shoved his shirt off.
“Oh. That. That goes without saying.”
“I want to hear it said,” he said. “Out loud. Just like I did.”
It was hard not to laugh at his intensity, when she considered her spotty track record with men. Hah. As if she would when she had him.
“I will not have sex with anyone but you,” she said quietly.
He undid his belt, shoved down the pants. His broad, thick erection sprang out, stiff and swaying. At the ready. He gripped it, fixing a steely gaze on her. “Don’t even look at other guys,” he said softly.
“I’m not,” she said simply. “I can’t. All I can think about is you.”
Her face went beet red at that admission. She looked down quickly, pulling off the garter belt and untangling the ribbon ties of the panties. When she finally got it sorted out, he was right in front of her. Vibing his hot energy at her, scorching her with his hungry gaze.
“Good,” he said thickly. “That’s how I like it.”
He reached for her, but she stumbled back, arms out to hold him at bay. “Wait, wait. I haven’t put the thing in, so please don’t melt my brain yet. Let me pop into the bathroom and see if I can get it in.”
“I’ll help. I’ve got long, strong fingers. And there’s no place on earth I’d rather put them than up your tight, juicy—”
“Thanks, but no thanks,” she cut him off crisply. “I’ll muddle through it alone. If you’ll excuse me.”
“Fine. I’ll wait for you out on the deck, in the tub. Hurry up.”
She fled to the bathroom with her cosmetic bag and collapsed on the edge of the clawfoot tub, doubling over the shaky knot of emotions. Laughter, tears, fear, amazed disbelief, that she’d come so far, so fast. Like a snowball rolling downhill, gaining crazy momentum.
She pulled herself together, squeezed some jelly into the latex device, and started. It took a lot of false starts and struggling and cursing. She’d never used the damn thing enough to develop any skill at inserting it. She finally got it lodged in what she sincerely hoped was the correct position.
She walked slowly onto the little wooden deck. In front, it looked out over a densely wooded slope that fell away before them, offering a spectacular view of Mt. Rainier in the daytime. On the sides of the deck, high cedar-slat walls ensured their privacy.
Nick was already in the tub. Foam swirled and bubbled around him. His arms were stretched out on the tub’s rim, his head flung back. The cold patter of rain dotted his face, and made his black hair shiny and spiky with water, gleaming like an otter’s pelt.
He watched her approach out of lazy, half-lidded eyes.
She sank down into the delicious warmth and floated, drifting through the water towards him as if they were magnetized. Suspended in liquid heat, inches from his wet, gorgeous body. She swirled her hand through the water. Found his cock on the first pass, though admittedly it was kind of hard to miss a thick, rock-hard pole like that.