“You tired, or would you like some company?”

 

“Yes, please,” she sighed.

 

“I don’t know if I ever told you this, but I have an amazingly large bath tub. One of those monstrosities with the lion’s feet and everything.”

 

She was already starting her bike back up. “No, you didn’t. You have been withholding vital information, mister! I don’t mind all the other secret squirrel stuff, but this? You withheld this?” She closed the connection and didn’t bother with her helmet.

 

Gunning across the road and down his lane, she pulled up beside his bike in the covered area beside the house and then, laptop in hand, she ran up the stairs and through the porch.

 

“Leo!” she called as she came in the house.

 

“Upstairs,” he answered.

 

After dropping her stuff on the couch, she ran up the stairs. She could running bath water as she climbed.

 

Leo met her at the top landing. “I figured the sooner I got water in the tub, the sooner I would get you naked.”

 

“Got that right,” she said, and started stripping.

 

Shirt off and reaching for her bra strap, she spied a pastel colored box. “What’s that?”

 

“I picked up some oils and stuff this afternoon. I didn’t really know what to get, or how involved you got into the whole bath experience thing, but the girl at the counter was very helpful.”

 

“Was she now,” Bev said, with mock jealousy.

 

“Yes, and quite cute, actually, with the little nose and the dash of freckles on her cheeks—”

 

Bev punched him playfully in the gut. “Back to the whole ‘bath experience’ question, I was kind of hoping you would join me, and it might not be so good for you to be smelling like lilies in the morning. But on my own, I’m a serious witch’s brew bather.”

 

“They won’t go to waste, then. I’ll be right back up. I’ve got a roast going in the slow cooker,” he told her, and he started for the stairs.

 

“You cook?” she asked, slightly amazed.

 

“Well, yeah,” he said as if that was sort of a silly question. “How can you eat well if you don’t know how to cook well?”

 

“Take out,” she answered without hesitation.

 

“Ah, so you’re one of those liberated types who see the kitchen as the next thing to a symbol of servitude.”

 

“No. It was just dad and me through my teens, and we did a lot of take out and pizzas, and frozen things. Food was never really a priority with us. After I started college, I was introduced to the whole food experience thing and found that eating well was preferable to frozen burritos, but I didn’t have time to learn.”

 

“And now?” he asked.

 

“I’ve thought of taking classes several times, but never went. On my own, I revert back to frozen burritos and take out rather rapidly,” she told him with a shrug.

 

“Hmmm. You’re like one of those swirly ice cream things. You have this amazing biker thing going on with swirls of random girly in you,” he observed.

 

“Thank you, I think,” she said with an amused smile.

 

“Be right back,” he told her.

 

“I’ll be in your tub, and if you don’t hurry, I’ll start brewing potions,” she warned.

 

Beverly had never met a man who really understood the bath. They simply couldn’t comprehend that sitting in a bath, soaking in the heat, was doing something. Or that the goal of the bath was the bath itself; that it was its own fulfillment. Of course, with oils and essences, rubbing one out was always a fine way to enhance the experience as well, but not a necessary one.

 

On his return, he was naked and looked at his chin in the mirror. He decided to shave first. She didn’t mind this at all, because until this moment, she hadn’t really had a chance to simply enjoy looking at him. She had certainly enjoyed his embrace and his strength and the hard sensuousness of his body, but this was a rare moment. What better place to enjoy such a moment than in a bath of hot water, soaking up the heat?

 

One thing she noticed was that he had several scars on his lower back. There were two others on his right side, near the tattoo of a dragon which she had enjoyed looking at before. On his other side, in the same place and nearly the same pose, was a tiger. Those and the black widow crawling up his jugular vein were his only tats.

 

She didn’t want to ask questions, however, not right now. She just wanted to take him in.

 

After his shave, he slid into the bath behind her. She leaned back against his chest and found the position very comfortable.

 

“How is Yvette doing?”

 

“Good, I suppose, considering. She was with Crash a long time, twelve years, she told me. Hell, they were just kids when they got together. I have no reference point for empathy. My father, I suppose, but that would only be imagining, since he’s still alive.”

 

“My mother, for me, but my father is still alive as well. My grandparents died when I was small, and the concept of just how great a loss death was hadn’t really sunken in yet.”

 

“Kim and Avo are with her now. Avo is going to spend the night, and I’ll come back over in the morning. They still haven’t given a release date for his body, but we’ve call a funeral service and paid for a cremation service to be held as soon as we know when we can.”

 

She glanced up at him. “The rumors of the killer being you are circulating.”

 

“Kind of wish it was me right now,” he said, which shocked her.

 

“Why?”

 

“So I would know what was in that damn box he had with him that was so valuable he risked dealing with Vasquez over it,” he told her. Then he looked down at her. “That can’t get out. I just fucked up big time.”

 

She nodded. “Safe zone. You trusted me this far. Can you trust me enough to tell me how you knew about the file boxes?”

 

“File boxes?” he mused. “I didn’t know what kind of box it was, only an approximate size. Files, records, secrets, that makes sense.”

 

“Can I ask if you are just guessing about Vasquez?”

 

“I’m not,” he told her, and then described his visit to the crime scene. “It was a long shot. I heard from you that it happened in a clearing, and that was the clearing we used. I had the feeling then that he had used that spot before, several times. When I got there, I ran into that same deputy, too. What a mind-blower that was.”

 

She listened to him talk about the conversation he had had with the deputy he once refused to kill. Bev felt a pang of jealousy because she could hear the connection they had with one another. It was there in the deputy’s questions, which could only have been answered by him, and there was something like a feeling of gratitude in his description, which was strange. Bev knew she didn’t have that kind of connection with Leo, and it would be a bit insane to wish for that type of connection. But knowing another woman had it with him bothered her a great deal.

 

“So,” she asked, interrupting his monologue about the good-looking blond deputy, “I still don’t get the Vasquez connection.”

 

Leo sighed.

 

“Pushing too far?” she asked.

 

“We’ve already been too far, and it needs to quit having its way. It is too important.”

 

“So,” she asked and then bit her lip. “Leo? Just tell me. I’ll believe you. Tell me that it wasn’t you.”

 

“It wasn’t me,” he told her. “And again, I was serious, especially with what I know now, when I said I wish it was.”

 

She let that process. “If everyone could safely know what you know now, how would they feel about you being the trigger man?”

 

“Overwhelming relief,” he told her with only the briefest of pauses.

 

“Not happy or sad?”

 

“No, not at first. Hence the term overwhelming.”

 

“Even Yvette?”

 

That stopped him, and he was thoughtful for a long time, “No, no I don’t think so. She would understand, and even at some point admit it had to be done, but I don’t think she would ever allow me in her house, no matter how many years passed.”

 

After a time, she said, “It sounds like I should be glad it was done, but I’m very glad that it wasn’t you who did it.”

 

“It poses several problems, though,” he murmured. “Since it wasn’t me, who the fuck was it? And if he was part of the club, somehow realizing what was going on, then why hasn’t he come to Danny? There would be no reprisal against him, not after he showed them what was in that box. I’m sure of it.”

 

“Maybe he isn’t sure of it,” she offered.

 

“Hmm,” he thrummed. “Maybe what’s the box isn’t as clear as Crash believed it was?”

 

“Yvette told us that he messed with the filling and stuff in that box when he tweaked. Like some tweak out on TV’s or stereos or computers, he tweaked out on his filing shit. That’s what she called it, anyway, like it was nearly a daily occurrence with him.”

 

“Yvette never looked into the boxes?”

 

“She treated it like her diary, which he never invaded. Since the boxes were in the closets with other things, she noticed magazine pages, newspaper clippings and hand written notes, but nothing specific,” Bev told him.

 

“I suppose that with enough tweaking, he could have rendered the information fairly useless to anyone but himself. Perhaps just bits and pieces are in there which his mind filled in the blanks for,” he said in deep thought.

 

“Writers do that without tweak,” she told him. “They get so into the story, so wrapped in the visual and sensual aspects, that they think they wrote all of that down. Even when they read back through it, it’s like their mind conjures it up so they see it. But when I get there, whole paragraphs are missing. Not just words or sentences. I had one writer who missed a whole chapter. I knew it was missing because one of the main characters died in that chapter, and all of the other characters were referring to and talking about the event, but it wasn’t there.”

 

“Caught up in their own world bubble,” he said, much lighter than he was before. “Interesting. I sometimes think most people are like that anyway. We get so wrapped up in what we are thinking about, or worried about, that we don’t notice or remember ninety percent of what is going on around us.

 

“For example,” he added, “I told Austin today that I knew his age, and that he had a birthday coming up soon. He was astounded that I knew that. He obviously doesn’t remember me being at his party last year, or his conversation with Jay about his sister, who he adores.”

 

She shook her head a little and said, “Well, when you do that, it feels like such an intimate invasion that your mind goes blank, and it can only attempt to deal with the fact that this stranger apparently know your secrets.”

 

“Hmm, I’ve never heard it described that way before,” he told her.

 

“That’s because you always explain it afterward and take away the initial shock, and then all the wonder and awe can come to the surface. But initially, it is close to an adrenaline-inducing event, which adds to the fun after the trick is explained, but it is not so fun as it is going on.”

 

She turned and looked up at him. “I’ll bet if you composed something like a ten-item list, instead of three or four, by the time you got done, a man would be at your throat and most women would be in tears.”

 

“Seriously?”

 

“Have you ever had someone ask you to do it again, on themselves?” she asked, settling back into the water.

 

“No,” he said softly. “On other people, yes. Most do, in fact, but never repeats for themselves.”

 

“If it really is fun, people generally enjoy repeat experiences,” she pointed out. “You know, like having sex with you. Definitely looking for another repeat performance — tonight, after dinner, in fact.”

 

Leo seemed to take that much harder than she meant it, because he brewed about it all through dinner — which was a shame, because dinner was fantastic. The roast was perfect, and so were the potatoes, carrots, and onions he had prepared. He also added some asparagus sticks, steamed to perfection, and she aww’d and made happy sounds through most of the meal.

 

“This is so unfair,” she declared. “This is so good, and now I’ve eaten way too much!”

 

“I’m glad you liked it,” he replied, picking up her plate and heading for the sink.

 

“But now I’m stuffed! I can’t have sex, especially with you — monkey-sex man — when I’m stuffed!” she complained.

 

“Sounds like a perfect reason for a walk, then,” he offered.

 

“More like a waddle, but that sounds good right now,” she admitted. “Let me help you with the dishes.”

 

They cleaned up the kitchen and put away the food together, working in concert without hesitations or collisions. She wondered if Leo noticed this sort of trivial yet miraculous kitchen dance they were performing so naturally.

 

She caught sight of Leo pulling a gun with a leather clip holster from an end table drawer in the living room. He clipped it to the back of his belt before shrugging on a jacket. She ran upstairs, pulled on pants and boots, and then grabbed her leather jacket before hurrying back down.

 

About twenty yards down the trail, she looked around and decided, “This is dark.”

 

“Not out at night much, are you?” he chided.

 

“Not without the bike and my headlight beam. This is seriously dark, though. I can’t see my feet, for crying out loud,” she declared. “Any particular reason you brought the gun?”

 

“Well, yes, because it’s dark and all kinds of nasty things come out when it’s seriously dark.”

 

“Do not,” she said, “start with the ghost stories. I swear I’ll claw a hole through your chest if you start with the ghost stories.”

 

“Well, not all of the weird things around here are ghost stories. A few zombies have crashed around here for years.”

 

“I’m not kidding, Leo. There will be blood and gore, and I’ll leave you in a dying heap on the road as I scream like a little girl all the way back to your house.”

 

“Naw,” he said, looking back over his shoulder. “You can barely see it from here. You’ll probably wind up lost in the bog.”

 

“Bog? There’s a bog in Lakeside?”

 

“Bog, wallow, slough, pretty much all the same thing, aren’t they? Anyway, go panicking around and the will-o’-the-wisps will have you for sure.”

 

“Leo, I’m warning you,” she said behind the fingers of both of her hands as she pressed them to her mouth.

 

“Oh, well, will-o’-the-wisps aren’t ghosts. No, far from it. They’re kind of like lights that float around. Pretty, even. But in the black like this, they like to put themselves in tree stands, and when you are panicked, it looks like they are the lit window of a house, or perhaps a street light up ahead. But as you make your way toward them, the will-o’-the-wisps move farther back into the woods, drawing you deeper in. By the time you calm down enough to realize what’s happening, you’re fucking lost…”

 

He didn’t say anything else for several steps, seeming not to care about finishing. She glanced up at him a few times, encouraging him to keep going. Finally she said, “Well? What the fuck happens then?”

 

“Oh, I thought that was obvious. They getcha!” he growled, and he tickled her sides with surprising accuracy.

 

“You motherfucker!” she raged about ten steps ahead of him, having bolted that far screaming in terror before she knew what he was doing.

 

“Remember, dear, don’t panic,” he warned.

 

“Panic? Panic? I don’t feel panicked! I feel fucking homicidal!”

 

“Good. You’ll probably make it past the zombies on the way back home, then. Just so long as your aren’t panicked,” he said in a rather unconcerned voice.

 

“Oooo, I will get you for this, Mr. Hampton, you can be sure of that,” she growled up at him as she fell back into step beside him.

 

He seemed to have no end of “other-than-ghost” stories to relate for the entire walk. Zombies, trolls, bog lights, faeries, an assortment of vampire types — they had her whole back crawling with a hair-raising sensation by the time they were back to the house, which she ran to from about fifty feet out — as soon as she was sure it wasn’t a will-o’-the-wisp trick and there wasn’t a zombie on the porch.

 

“I suppose,” she said as he came in the door, “that you’d be wanting sex now. Well, that shit ain’t happening, Mr. Hampton. Bloody fucking hell! You’re shameless!”

 

“Have I told you about the haunts we have around here? Some up by your place.”

 

“No,” she whimpered, her hands coming up to cover her mouth again. “And don’t. Please?”

 

“Then get your sexy ass up those stairs and be naked in bed before I get there, or you’ll never sleep a wink in these parts again,” he said in a low guttural voice.

 

“Meep!” she squealed, and ran up the stairs.

 

She was naked, but she was also up to her nose covered in sheets and blankets. Blankets were safe. Everyone knew blankets were safe. Only outside of the blanket could any ghoul or ghost get you.

 

She had much too good of an imagination. That was the terror of ghost stories.

 

Her visual skills were off the charts. She could look at those fold-up patterns and tell you exactly what it would look like if it were folded up, no problem. She was on the money every time. She aced those intelligence tests so high that she could have received a military scholarship and been an officer right now. However, she could also create a world around her with perfectly understandable physics which not only allowed the possibility of will-o’-the-wisps, but which allowed her to see them right now outside the window. She could even hear them.

 

When Leo came into the room, turned out the light, and slipped into bed with her, all her trembling vanished under his soothing hands.

 

“You are a very mean man,” she said flatly. “That stuff really does scare me, and not in a fun way. Not at all. It won’t even be funny to me tomorrow. I’m too visual. It’s real. I can’t explain it any better than that.”

 

“Never a Girl Scout, then, huh?”

 

“I quit after my first camp out, and everyone, including the leaders, told ghost stories. I had night terrors for weeks after that.”

 

“Sorry, I thought you were just being girly.”

 

“Maybe I am, but I was surprised with your observation skills that you couldn’t see that I was really getting scared.”

 

He kissed her and she pressed against him, reaching down to take his cock in her hand and stroke him. He was already incredibly hard.

 

“I thought you didn’t want sex?” he asked as she continued to stroke him and purr in her throat.

 

“Must have been the fear talking,” she offered.

 

His hand went down to her thighs, and then parted them to find her very ready and willing. When his fingers found her nub, she groaned into his chest, nipping and licking at his nipple.

 

After several minutes of this mutual enticement between them, he entered her with two fingers, spreading her apart, and driving them as deep as they could go.

 

“Oh yes, yes, just like that,” she moaned, nodding her head against him. She squeezed his cock harder as she stroked, though it was like trying to squeeze a stone harder. “Take me, Leo, or make me come. I’m so fucking turned on right now.”

 

Shifting his weight, he lowered his mouth to her breasts and began to fuck her with his fingers much harder, driving his hand into the flesh of her pussy. Her hips bucked and lifted in response.

 

“Oh shit, that’s going to do it,” she groaned, her head pressing back into the pillow as her back arched, lifting her breasts to his mouth as he suckled her.

 

When he added his third finger, she gasped at the escalation of sensual stimulation this produced. It wasn’t like a new plateau, it was like a whole new mountain. He remained merciless with the amount of energy he poured into her.

 

Her hips began bucking wildly now, with sporadic bursts of sensation which were unpredictable. They just happened, and she wasn’t aware of the voltage of them until her hips were already in the air.

 

She knew she could get off like this, but she also knew it wasn’t going to be like his cock. She wasn’t going to feel it building up and rushing across her. It was probably going to be like these bursts that had the muscles of her thighs and abs tense with anticipation, and then violently assaulted by pre-orgasm voltage.

 

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” she panted with quick breaths, only stopping to let out a growling shriek of surprise when a burst thrashed through her. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh fucking god!”

 

With the speed his hand was fucking her, and with the width of three of his thick fingers, in and out no longer had sensual distinction. Her pussy was overstimulated. Any stimulation just added to the storm. She quit pulling at her free nipple and reached down, found her nub, and rubbed herself hard and fast, and for a moment it was like even that was just more, not distinctive.

 

Then her whole body burst and clenched up, pulling her unyielding strength into a ball from head to knees. “God!— Fucking god!” Then her legs convulsed, slamming her heels back into the mattress, driving her hips into the air, and just as suddenly the voltage of the orgasm curled her back up, and then she was driving again to thrash in the air. The convulsions were fast, powerful, and the idea that she was somehow being electrocuted filled her astonished mind.

 

Suddenly Leo’s hand was gone, and the abrupt emptiness had her hips and ass fucking the air wildly, trying to find it again as she rolled to her side and quaked. Her body jerked and spasmed as if there were exposed live wires in her, popping and snapping.

 

Unexpectedly, she found herself on her knees. At the same moment, she realized that she was forgetting to breathe. She sucked in great gulps of air, giving no further thought to her position until Leo’s cock entered her with one hard thrust from behind, and her head snapped up off the mattress as she wailed a silent scream of pure bliss and agony.

 

Leo’s hand grabbed a fistful of her hair. He pulled her back and up onto her hands, and then further up, holding her fast in the air and fucking her with alarming power. She had never felt this controlled, this fucking used, before. The orgasms were violent and strong. She was fucking getting off on this savage caveman ravaging — not only getting off, but begging to be taken harder.

 

His climax was an experience of utter domination. His left hand grabbed her whole breast and squeezed, he pulled her back even further, bending her like a bow, and hammered into her with beastly thrusts.

 

Completely helpless, completely used. This was what early women felt like when their Neanderthal men took them and fucked them.

 

God, why did she love this so fucking much?

 

He let her go. Just opened his hands and let her fall. And she did fall, straight into the mattress, her head hitting the pillow like a stone. She panted and clawed ineffectively at the mattress with weak fingers, her ass still in the air, with no idea what she was expecting. It was over. He was done with her. Discarded.

 

His arms came around her and pulled her into him so they were spooning.

 

Oh yeah, this is why I love that so much.