Saturday, December 2
Two women, business associates, grinning until they saw his condition, took the sagging winner away for medical help.
Tanner showered and got dressed. Checked his phone. He had two messages. From the most important women in his life.
From Athena:
—Legit. Legal name January Ann Jones, DOB 1-15-80, New York, divorced Robert Jackman, founder/owner Gulf Environmental Consultants (respected). Credit score 738.
But, he thought as he deleted the text, was it enough? Was January Jones, admitted liar, the woman who already made his heart leap, who she claimed she was?
And from Jan, his mystery woman:
—Woo hoo! Way to go, champ!
He winced at the attached photo, him dancing across the stage. She’d had the grace to send one while he still had his pants on.
Again in anonymous bouncer black, he walked into the bar and went to the corner. Jan glanced up from her cell phone, smiled.
“Very instructive.” She laughed. “The ending was spectacular enough. What was he on?”
“Dunno.” He touched her hand. “The winner’s gone to the ER and Agostino’s probably in a blind rage. Stay away from him, okay?”
Her chin came up, her eyes narrowed. “I have absolutely no inten—”
“Because he’s unpredictable now. His ego’s been trashed. He’ll be looking for a win and I wouldn’t want it to be you.”
She snorted. “Fat chance.”
Contestants filtered in, at once mobbed by fans. Even Cobb prowled, his lips split in a vacuous grin as he carried a loaded tray of drinks into the showroom. Tanner glanced at Jan. She looked up, caressed her lower lip with her tongue. It was positively a caress, definitely not a lick.
“Shoo,” she said, making a little flapping motion with her free hand. “Go to work. We’ll talk later. About everything.”
He went to the service bar, scooped ice into a glass and gunned soda water into it. Mike slid a sly smile in his direction.
“You score yet? Man, they’re hot tonight.”
Tanner shook his head. “I’m working, remember?”
“Tell that to Richie,” Mike said, flicking a glance down the bar.
Agostino, ivory silk shirt open halfway to the belt of his black slacks and looking every inch the handsome A-lister he once could’ve been, was in a holding pattern above a diminutive blonde with impossibly perky breasts. She teetered on pink ankle-strap stilettos, her butt thrust out.
The big right hand, the once-famous hand that could palm a football and launch it unerringly ninety-plus yards, was spread over that butt. Tanner guessed it would take an entire offensive team to get him away from his objective.
But Blondie had the look that telegraphed, I came for this. Some people entered a bar with an explicit sexual agenda: one way or another, I’m going to get laid. So Blondie’d got lucky.
Or not, considering who she’d scored. Omega had done due diligence, and staff rumors around the club confirmed that Agostino’s tastes ran to the very rough end of the spectrum. A glance at him now would send red flags into any normal woman’s mind. He radiated predator.
Around them, a hubbub of figures surged to and from the bar, thirsty guests and harried waiters. The woman with Agostino raised one scarlet-tipped hand and brushed the backs of her nails up the exposed skin of his chest. He straightened, bared his teeth, then bent closer.
A thin shriek brought Tanner’s head around: drink spill, over-wrought dabbing, pissy glares. He went over, poured oil on the troubled waters, ordered up replacement drinks. When he turned back, Agostino and the blonde were gone.
***
But Jan was there, a glass of red wine in one hand. She came out of the crowd into the vestibule as he helped a befuddled woman find her jacket. He helped her into it and worked the door for her. The woman blew him kisses as she wobbled into the night.
“Your back,” Jan said, when they were alone. She waved one hand. “I mean, your back, not you are back.”
“So you peeked.”
“Guilty. It looked...painful, to put it mildly.”
He shrugged. “That’s for another time. Deejay shuts down in thirty minutes, we close in about an hour. Can you wait around?”
“I’ll find a seat in the lounge and watch the spectacle.”
“No headache tonight, huh.” He took her free hand, rubbed his thumb over the back of it. She turned her hand; their palms met. Soft and warm. He could use some soft and warm. Some peace and quiet. Some Jan.
“No headache,” she said, taking the two ordinary words to another level. “But you must be wrung out.”
“I know a sure-fire way to perk me up.” She raised her eyebrows. He read invitation, and then some. Took a risk. “I know better ways than that stage to get my clothes off.”
She smiled brilliantly. “Oh, goodie.”
***
The deejay had to put the house lights on bright before the guests got the hint. Still revved, they double-ordered, took go-cups to the parking lot and did some dancing, and disrobing, of their own. Tanner told Green that he wasn’t closing up. Sorting a thick sheaf of credit card receipts with shaking hands, he just nodded. Tanner went outside, smiled his way through the throngs.
“I’m getting to be an old fart,” he muttered as he joined Jan at her car. He looked over the wildly seething parking lot. “This does not appeal to me.”
“You’re what, closing in on forty?” She caught his wince and grinned. “Hit it, huh. That’s way beyond the age of indiscriminate partying for most grown ups. But, of course, you’re single.” She shot him a look. “Single? Right?”
“Single. And not into indiscriminate partying. And you?”
“Same. On both.”
Agostino joined the mob. He apparently hadn’t run out of moves. Where was the blonde? Jan’s mouth twisted sourly.
“There are exceptions,” she said. “Some guys stay adolescent until they have prostate problems.”
“You want to dance?” Please, he thought, say no. She must’ve read his mind.
“No, thanks. I’m not wearing my dancing shoes. Let’s get some beer and go walk barefoot on the beach. You up for that?”
“Affirmative. And I know the perfect beach.”
***
He had a six pack in the fridge. The beach was a mere block from his front door. His favorite bar could still be open. He explained to Jan. She said she’d follow him. Subtext sounded very promising. Halfway there she called.
“Hey. I’m speeding through the night after a strange man to an unknown destination. How exciting is that?”
“I’m not that strange.”
“Oh. Too bad. See ya.” She laughed. “Kidding.” Her laugh had bawdy overtones. “Never been to Sunset Beach.”
“You’ll like it, I hope. Not your typical beach scene.”
He pulled into the shell-topped parking area in front of the empty McMansion. Three stuccoed stories rose from the thick planting like a Lego monster. Ugliest, most pointless, house on the beach.
Taking it all in, Jan got out of her car and craned her neck. “This,” she breathed, “is yours?”
“This six bedroom, eight-and-a-half bathroom, four Jacuzzi, eight balcony, three-car-one-boat garage extravaganza? With, I almost forgot, a two-level combo wine cellar, silver vault and gun closet? No.” He took her hand, turned her toward the flagged path at one side. “Never.”
“So relieved,” she murmured as she followed him beside the behemoth building, “It’s so over the top it’s funny.”
Through a numeric-coded lock on the steel gate in the ten-foot high wall, and further on into the darkness. Specimen palms arced overhead. Light filtered through fronds from high-up security lamps. They could’ve been in the Brazilian jungle after the lights’ arcs ran out. When she spoke, it was evident she was amused.
“It’s very dark back here. And we’re all alone. Am I safe with you?”
“Maybe.” He smiled, liking the purr in her voice. “Maybe not.”
The path jogged into deeper shadow. Ahead, light gleamed: the paved forecourt to the two apartments. He stopped and turned, pulled her to him. His heart slammed double-time. She wafted into his embrace and looked up at him, eyes wide, mouth curved.
“Is this the maybe-not part?”
He could feel her from chest to knee, padding in all the right spots. And she wasn't trying to move away. “Probably.” He brushed one hand up her neck, against her jaw. “That okay with you?”
“Absolutely.”
Cupping her face, he bent and did what he’d wanted to do all evening. Her lips were hot and he fell into the kiss as if the ground had opened under him. For long moments they touched, feeling their way into it, breathing it in, sharing sensation and breath. Slowly, delicately, he probed her mouth with his tongue, into the corners, along the lush sweep of her wide lower lip.
Her tongue met his and he lifted her off her feet so her body pressed tight, his hands cupping her ass, feeling the muscles contract as she lifted her legs and locked them around his waist. Her right leg clamped hard against the deep gash on his back: agony and ecstasy.
She slid her arms around his neck, one hand gliding delicately down his spine. She was searching for the cuts she’d seen, he realized. She didn’t find any, and splayed her hand on his back, spreading and kneading her fingers like Cat worked his paws. Exquisite.
Their kiss deepened. She panted and wriggled and moaned into his mouth. He groaned as those incredible thighs did little pushups off his erection, and his knees trembled.
“This could be the maybe-not part,” he whispered into her mouth. “Keep going, and I’ll let you know for sure.”
She kept going, and going. Then she stopped, hanging there, breath billowing in and out. He shifted his grip, one hand for each cheek, her sex resting on him with agonizing familiarity. She sucked his tongue in slow pulses and tilted so she fit closer. He thrust forward. Not far enough, not deep enough. Sensations battered him. Her heat...
“Don’t drop me,” she whispered.
“Never.” He nuzzled her neck, her shoulder, hoicked her higher but couldn’t get at her breasts, just the tantalizing slope of them, his tongue tracing her collarbones, her—
“But you could drop your drawers.”
He straightened, kissed her chin. “My hands are full.”
Her blouse rode up as she settled down. The cloth between them had to go. Her shirt, his shirt, her skirt, her underwear. His mind went foggy. Her breath huffed against his neck.
“Turn me loose.” Her arms tightened at the same time her thighs gripped harder. “Let go, Tanner. Just let go.”
He released the handfuls of taut flesh and slowly raised his arms. She clung to him like a kitten to a tree trunk, nibbling his earlobe, flicking her tongue around the edge. Goosebumps raced along his skin. His back ached and burned. He loved it.
He hitched his hips forward, fumbled past her thighs to the waist button, clawed the zipper down. Waggled his hips. The damn trousers stayed put, trapped by those iron thighs.
“Your legs,” he panted.
She flexed, wriggled. His pants slipped slowly, too slowly, down. Her warm skin glided against his. She was wet. His pulse hammered through his body like a pile driver. He put one arm out, grabbed a palm trunk to keep from toppling over. A moment of lucidity swept him and he muttered a curse.
“I don’t have a condom. Not with me.” And if he did, it’d be down around his calves.
She stilled, draped herself around him. “Not in your wallet?”
“No.”
“I thought all guys had a rubber in their wallet.” She bit his collarbone. “But of course you are not most guys.”
“Sorry.” He wanted to carry her to his front door, kick it in, throw her on his bed, roll on a condom and sink himself into her. But his pants were around his ankles and he couldn’t move. “We have a little problem.”
“You have no condoms anywhere?” Disbelief.
“I’m a competent male. Course I have them. But I can’t walk.”
She giggled. He chuckled and she giggled some more. Together, they laughed, and she tipped her head back, and he licked her throat. Her perfume was mossy-citrusy-flowery-sexy. He came up for air.
“But I do know where they are. Ten yards away.”
“First one there wins the prize.”
Her legs unlocked and he lowered her to the ground. She swayed and he steadied her, then bent and kissed her nose.
“You okay?”
“Never better.” She ran her hands down his chest, began to unbutton his shirt. “Of course, there’s always room for improvement. And definitely not,” she said with mock severity, “self-improvement.”
***
He almost did kick in the door, trying at the same time to keep the noise down so his nosy neighbor Mrs. Guzman didn’t rise from her coffin and demand an explanation for his unseemly behavior. And Jan’s: she held up his trousers while exploring his ass. She was elbow deep in his pants, her breath stroking his butt, her fingertips tickling his balls, when he finally got sane enough to find the right key. He opened the lock and nearly ripped the door off its hinges.
“Stop,” he wheezed, distracted to near insanity by her fingers. “You gotta stop.”
“Anything you say.”
She let go of everything and he grabbed his slipping trousers as she sashayed around him, through the dark living room and into the kitchen like a homing pigeon bound for its perch. Light glowed when she opened the fridge and he heard the soft clink of beer bottles and saw Cat sucking up to her and the glow disappeared. She murmured to Cat and he meowed. A security light backlit her as she returned, a beer in each hand, Cat at her ankles.
“A man who has a cat is a man to be admired. Does it have a name?”
“Cat. He’s not mine, he’s a traveler. He also has no concept of privacy or appropriate behavior. And he never lets anyone but me pet him.”
“Ooh, jealous?”
She smiled, dragged the sweating bottle across his chest, then worked it down to his navel.
“Your chest is wet,” she purred. “Shall I lick it off?”
“Only if I can return the favor.” He reached for her, snuggled her against him. Her tongue slicked across his chest, circled a nipple. Fireworks. Kettledrums. Heavenly hosts. “Oh, yes. Lick all you want. Anywhere you like. As long as you feel like it.”
“You drive a hard bargain, mister.”
More licks, more thrills. Which direction was his bedroom? He scooped her up, did a 360, headed to the room with the bed. He lowered her, staying down when he’d got her on the sheets. She worked his shirt off, shifted so he could get hers free. He was down to his boxers, she had only a lacy strip of something across her hips.
“Where do you want me to start,” he whispered, feeling the warm skin of her midriff and the curve of her ribs under his fingertips.
“Start what?”
“Licking.”
She elbowed his right arm away and he had to roll to keep from plunging down on her. He landed on his back and for an instant was frozen with pain and in that instant she landed on him, straddling his hips, hands busy between them.
Moonlight gleamed across his torso and she stopped. Delicately, she traced the jagged slice that slanted from his chest into the waistband of his boxers. He’d put stage makeup on it for the contest. It had been a bitch getting it off.
“Jeez, Tanner,” she whispered, “when did you get these? They look so raw. Don’t they hurt or—”
“A while back. It’s done and dusted. Can we change the subject?”
“Sure. Silk boxers?” She toyed with the waistband, explored the bulging front seam. “The toughest guy in the building wears silk boxers?
Her fingers slid and probed. He palmed her breasts, felt the hard points of her nipples. He was going to explode. She said something else about the boxers.
“They feel good. And they dry fast. Maybe another subject.”
He reared up, fastened his mouth on one breast, and she arched into him. He hooked his thumbs in the tantalizing lace strip. She wriggled encouragingly.
“Don’t stop, oh don’t....What subject,” she gasped, “would you, oh yes, like to change to?”
“I don’t want to talk at all,” he growled, flipping her onto her back and sliding on top.
Her legs rose slowly, skin brushing his, muscle against straining muscle. Her toes hooked into the boxers’ waistband and worked them down. His erection touched her and she made a little kitten sound. He reached out, opened the night stand drawer, kissed her while he fumbled around for the condoms, his tongue driving into her mouth. She captured it, sucked.
Amazing. Woman multi-tasked like a circus juggler. Her hands went between them, circling his cock, the other continuing on to cup his balls. His body vanished and he only knew where one piece of him was. He finally got the condom, ripped at it with his teeth.
“Give me that,” she said, grabbing it, opening the foil.
How many hands did she have? Enough to get the rubber on him, enough to guide him to where her heat and wet welcomed him, enough to clutch his ass and snug him tight.
***
Sometime later he thrashed himself awake to find her arms around him, hands stroking gently, her lips touching his temple, murmuring, soothing.
“It’s okay, you’re fine, I’m here, you’re okay...”
He made an inarticulate sound, some melding of humiliation and pain and desire, and she shifted him closer until her legs lay on either side of him, cradling him, her breasts soft against his shoulders. For a little thing, she had a lot of muscle. Still, his own muscles quivered with remembrance and his breath stayed uneven.
“You’re okay, Tanner, everything’s cool...”
“Sorry,” he mumbled, still captive of the dreams. He shivered.
“We’re fine, sweetheart...” The magic hands stroked lightly along his still-twitching skin, cool palms pressing, cupping his shoulders, all with care, such exquisite care...
“Yeah, fine,” he murmured, and slid into exhausted sleep.
***
In the pale, silvery dawn, he pulled her on top of him and she fitted herself to his body and rode him until the bed pounded the wall. Collapsing against him with a hoarse cry, she gripped him between her trembling thighs so tightly he had to force himself between her muscles.
Skimmed with sweat, grappling like wrestlers, they thrashed the bed to the bare mattress and woke up the day with their cries. Jan crumpled on top of him, whooping out breaths as she shivered with aftershocks.
A monstrous roar cranked up and revved repeatedly in the wide breezeway: Mrs. Guzman had come out of her crypt.
Jan groaned. “What the hell is that?”
“My neighbor. She’s passive-aggressive.” He stroked his hands down her back. “The leaf blower’s her version of a frown.”
“Charming. Maybe I’ll take it away from her and toss it in the drink.”
“She’d just buy a bigger one.” He continued to stroke her back, gradually blocked the blower assault, and almost dozed off. Cat arrived, checked out his toes, and left. He massaged Jan’s back and she moaned.
“I want to ask you a question,” he said.
She collapsed against him, arms draped down, legs flopping. “Cripes, now?” Silence, then a defeated sigh. “Jeez. Go ahead.”
“You don’t have a sister, do you?”
She still let her breath out in little huffs. “No sister. Three brothers, though.” She eased sideways so she could look at him. “Truth.” She was not apologetic. “I’m a terrible liar.”
“So why’d you do it?”
Her mouth set in a stubborn line. “Got good reasons. Maybe later, okay?”
“Why not now?”
“The moment you tell me you’re not a bouncer at that dump, I’ll start talking. Until then,” she mimed zipping her lips, “I’ve decided, not a word.”
Mrs. Guzman cut off the blower and went back into her apartment. A power boat worked its way slowly down the pass; tide must be coming in. A gull cried. Jan sighed contentedly.
Should he tell her why he was at Crave? No. They might be having prize-worthy sex, but he knew almost nothing about her. Other than she lied. Her hand stole across his ribs, fluttered across his belly, tickled the hair around his cock. Which immediately perked up. The marvels of a new sexual partner. Mentally, he zipped his lips. Two could play that game.
Besides, at the moment there was a better game to play.
***
The distinctive ring-tone woke him from a sated sleep. Sunlight slanted from high above. He rolled over, flung one arm out. Empty. Cool. When had she left? He slid off the demolished bed, searched, and in the living room found the phone in his jacket pocket. He returned Athena’s call. She was horribly perky for a Sunday morning.
“How’d your stage debut go, Tanner?”
“Laugh a minute.”
“Right. You looked pretty good.”
“You saw? How?”
“Social media. Heard of it? You and the whole mob are on YouTube.” He groaned and Athena went on. “That business with the last guy and Agostino was hilarious.” She chuckled. “Somebody could die over that, the look on Agostino’s face.”
“Tell me all my new colleagues haven’t seen this.”
“I could, but I’d be lying. Those g-strings, in the right light, vanish. Did you know that? You all looked like you were prancing around nekkit.”
There hadn’t been a bad body on that stage. Some of them, Agostino and one of the EMTs particularly, had been totally ripped. Tanner had, until recently, had no problem with nudity. Getting nekkit either alone or as a couple or in groups, had been fine by him. But not on YouTube in front of millions. And not with those fresh scars, garish symbols of his failure. Nude had been his preferred state. Until Sonora.
“I’m going to join a monastery,” he said. “There’s one way up in the Dakota Badlands where I can be unnoticed...”
“Not like you to whine, Tanner. Is the assignment going nowhere?”
“Pretty much. But Agostino drugged someone last night, an old friend of his. Number Twelve, maybe you saw him.”
“Oh yeah.” Momentarily, her voice got dreamy. “That business with him on that pole? Ooo-eee. And the wardrobe malfunction? I know that guy up close and personal. Me and a million others.”
“I’d bet he doesn’t remember any of it.” Could he go on YouTube and watch? Never. “I’m working on a theory. I’ll bring you some bottles to be analyzed. See you in a couple of hours.”
***
He called Jan Jones. She didn’t answer. She didn’t have voice mail. He considered, then texted her.
—Great evening. Dinner tonight?
No reply.
***
Tanner took the bottles to Omega, asked for possible fingerprint IDs. Both Gordon and Agostino had prints in the files Omega had access to. A lucky break that could confirm Tanner’s suspicions.
“Find that particular bottle,” he said, “and see what’s in the liquid left, if any. Test particularly for roofies.”
“On it,” the tech said, and returned to her lair at the back of the Omega offices.
That evening, dining alone at the beach bar, he got a text.
—One bottle trace flunitrazepam. Two sets prints, identified. Call for details.
Tanner called.
“Okay,” the tech said, “on most bottles is Richard Francis Agostino. The roofie is in the bottle with prints of an Arthur Justice Gordon. And a few other smudges.” Her voice lightened up. “Is this the Art of the amazing wardrobe malfunction?”
“Yeah.”
“Mmm. Introduce me?”