E HELD ME close and my body came to life like someone had thrown a switch. This was not how I should spend the night. This guy who said himself that he worked for the mob, I absolutely should have nothing to do with him.
And I should stop my hips from rolling up and down against the impossibly huge bulge in his pants.
“Okay, ma’am,” a pair of black boots with big feet in them stopped by my head. One of New York’s Finest, a big redhead with a fresh, young chubby face looked down at us. “Break it up, both of you. You don’t want to finish the night in the cells.”
I reached around into my back pocket and flashed him my badge. “This is part of an on-going investigation, officer, and I’d be grateful if you didn’t obstruct me in the pursuit of my duties.”
He cleared his throat. “Oh. Do you need some help there, ma’am?”
Horse remained still on the ground as I stood. I rested one foot on Horse’s chest and asked the cop, “What do you think?”
“I’d say you have the situation pretty well in hand.”
“Good. Well, thanks for your assistance, officer, and don’t let me keep you from your urgent and vital duties.”
He began to lift his arm, I think he was going to salute me – he really must have been new on the beat – but he still looked uncertain.
“Fucking off nicely,” I offered, “would be the thing to do now.”
“Lady, I don’t care who you are, nobody tells the NYPD to fuck off, nicely or not.”
“Of course not, officer. I wouldn’t dream of telling you. I was just offering a suggestion. I suggest that you might like to fuck off nicely. And, while you’re in a receptive mood,” I moved my nose nearer his face, “I recommend quite strongly that you don’t call me ‘lady’ again.”
The cop made a face, but he turned and left.
I looked down at Horse. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that he was a pretty pleasing sight, pumped and hot, on the floor and beneath me. His sarcastic grin made me want to slap him, and that came as a pretty cheering thought, too.
He said, “I‘ve got an apartment not to far from here.“
“Meaning someone else’s apartment.”
That made him blink. “I kind of house sit for the guy who owns it.”
“You mean it’s a bolt-hole that you get the use of.” I could hear it. Listening to the spaces between people’s words, hearing what they don’t say, that’s really my thing.
He said, “Have you got fucking X-ray ears or something? Do you scoop up in bar quiz nights by hearing the answer in the way the question is phrased?”
It was a shame to take my foot off the big guy but I thought it would be better to stop while the novelty was still intact. I offered a hand to help him up. “You didn’t say that I was wrong.”
He didn’t take my hand but clambered up on his own. “What would be the point? “He dusted himself off briskly, still twinkling. “So is interrogation your Special Agent super-power?”
“I can carry out all of the rest of an Agent’s duties as well any other agent, better in most cases, but getting a suspect to tell me what I need to know, that really is my specialist skill.”
“And most of the time, I bet they don’t even know that they’ve told you.” He caught on fast. I like a man who’s a quick study. He shook his head, “When you were in high school, you must have scared all the boys to death. Teachers too, most likely.”
“That isn’t scary.” She looked up with a wicked smile, “Not so long as you never try to lie to me.”
“I’ll keep it in mind. So, come up to my bolt-hole for a drink.”
“Yeah, I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“I wouldn’t know whose hospitality I was accepting. It could end up compromising me.”
“Call it part of an investigation. And it will be, in a way. There are things we could both be investigating.” I didn’t say anything. “Oh, okay.” His chin tipped upward. “You think I could be setting you up in some kind of honey trap.” I tried hard not to laugh at that. It wasn’t easy.
“You don’t ever run low on self-esteem, do you?” That eyebrow lifted as his mouth stretched a grin. “You pack enough swagger to power a posse of rappers.”
He blinked. Slow. I watched those long eyelashes swoop. Especially the dark patch in the middle of his left eye.
As my back straightened and my chin rose I told him, “You can come back to my apartment for a drink if you want.”
He brightened and gave me his dark, arch grin. I liked it.
As I hailed the cab, I told him, “One. Drink,” and I gave him a firm look. Like me saying that would make any difference to him. A man like him, I knew he would only take it as a challenge. But I’d already shown that I could immobilize him if I needed to.
He held the cab door open for me. Nice. I wasn’t certain how it would go if he put up a committed resistance, but I was more than happy to find out. The idea made me swallow so hard that he looked down at me.
Holding the door and looking in he grinned, “What?”
My lips set firm and I shook my head. “Nothing.” He shut the door and walked around to the other side to get in. Also nice.
My apartment was on the top of a six floor building on West 9th Street, at 9th and 6th Avenue. A florist and farmers market was on the street level. They were just closing up as we came in and Mr Kwan, the owner waved happily to me.
The tiny elevator was hardly big enough for two people and it made for an awkward ride in company with almost anyone. Not Horse, though. He pressed himself into the corner to give me as much personal space as he could, and he made it seem like it was fun. A little game to divert us as the skinny metal car shook all the way to the top of the building.
After I opened the four locks I showed him into the main room. It was spare, pale and minimal. A bookcase, two armchairs and a long couch were arranged around a low wooden coffee table, a two seater dining set that I never used sat near the kitchen. A drinks cabinet stood in front of the fireplace and a big mirror hung on the wall above.
I was at the drinks cabinet, facing the mirror. He stood behind me, looking around the space. “What would you like to drink?”
I watched him in the mirror. He raised one eyebrow. “You.”
“Cute. What’s your second choice?”
He bowed his head low to my neck. His breath was warm in my ear, “I don’t ever settle for second best.”
As I looked up to see him in the mirror, I felt the warmth of his lips a fraction of an inch away from my neck. His hot breath melted into my skin. My eyes drifted closed and my head lolled to the side. He blew kisses without touching, in my ear, all down my neck and along my throat while the fingers of his other hand stroked my neck on the other side with a touch as light as feathers. Inside me I felt a chasm open, and fresh cool air blew through me.
His hand raked through my hair and I looked in his eyes. “Are you sure you know what you could be starting here, mafia man?”
His hands were on my hips. His eyes looked almost serious.
“You’re right. Something like this could get me in trouble with the Mafia board of ethics.”
“Do they have a…” and I did slap him. Not hard. But he caught my hand held it. Held me as he looked in my eye.
“What about you, Special Agent?” My muscles sang, from my calves to my back and all the way up my shoulders to my neck. My eyes were ready to drift closed as he said, “Do you know what you could be getting yourself into here?”
I pulled myself up. It was true. I was one moment’s careless abandon from shimmying out of my principles and letting them float to the floor like last night’s party dress. But who was he to tell me? I pressed his chest. “A drink.” I said.
He grinned as he nodded and I turned back. I felt the heat of his hips behind me. Near.
“You know, you’re right.” He said, “I shouldn’t have sex with you.”
“Good. No.” My voice cracked and it irked me.
“Not tonight. Not here.”
I didn’t want to ask him again so I fixed us each a bourbon. As I turned with the glasses I knew he was just waiting for me to ask him to go on. I lifted my chin. Maybe an eyebrow. A little. That was all.
He grinned wider as he took his tumbler and raised it to me. I lifted mine to him.
“You’re a beautiful woman.” I watched him take a sip. I savored a nip of mine.
He said, “Fairly beautiful, anyway.“
I nearly spluttered my drink. He had timing, I had to give him that.
“And you’d get a great fuck. Probably the best of your life.” My hip cocked as I leaned back against the cabinet.
I asked him, “Is this going to be a very long story?”
His chin raised and his eyelids lowered. Through a tight grin he said, “You already said you have to work tomorrow. And I have commitments, too.”
He took another nip of bourbon and his lips pulled back over his teeth.
“I’m ready to fuck you all night long but, see, I have this rule. One woman, one time. No tears, no comeback.”
“What makes you think I’d want to come back for more?”
He chuckled. “Yeah. Right.” His eyes flashed. “You’d want more. That’s kind of why it would be a waste for the one time to be tonight.” He moved a step closer. “Better on a weekend, or sometime when you’ve at least got a day off.”
“So we can go for a little longer? Make all the shapes and moves we can and stretch it out as far as it will go, you mean?”
“Oh,” his neck craned down and his face came close to mine. As his tongue moistened his lips, he seemed to be watching mine. Then his eyes flickered up to mine. “I’d stretch it as far as it will go either way.” His grin was evil. “It would just be better for you if you have a day off to recover.”
I laughed and clinked my glass against his.
“Do you have a lot of luck with that kind of a line?”
“Don’t know. I never needed any luck.”
I wanted to move. We should sit. Or something. I was in my own apartment, but almost imprisoned, surrounded by a strange man. Pinned against the drinks cabinet.
I cleared my throat but my voice still came out smoky. “I can see how it could happen.”
He looked at my ear as he touched my hair, like he was improving the arrangement. Making it more to his taste perhaps. “What’s that, Special Agent?”
“How a woman could fall in love with a man like you. Falling would be a good word for it.”
His voice was somewhere between a rumbling purr and a low growl. “You make it sound like a bad thing.”
“It would be for her.” I wanted to move. But I couldn’t. Not without touching him. I wanted to touch him but I knew that if I did I wouldn’t let go.
I looked up and found his eyes. Waiting for me. My breath caught. “She would fall and she might not get back up. In the meantime, you’d be gone like a cool breeze.”
“I don’t hear too many complaints.”
“I’m sure.” This was what I wanted to say. But not from this position. I wished I hadn’t started, I felt too vulnerable. Too much like he had me in the palm of his hand.
“She’d be bound to want to try again.” My knee trembled. “And again and again.” my mouth was dry, “But you wouldn’t give her the chance, would you. No second bites of the cherry for you.”
“You really think you’ve got me pegged.”
In one sidestep I was by the chair. I held out my hand to invite him to sit. My heart was pounding like I had escaped a deadly situation, and almost too late. “Let me give it a go, okay?”
He spread himself into the chair and his grin was magnetic. “Hit me with your best shot.”
I took a reassuring sip of my drink as I moved around to the other chair. Now I felt I should be a safe distance from him. Even though I knew, the risk in this situation wasn’t from him. It was in how long I could hold back from painting myself around him.
After a breath I thought for a moment. “You never go back to the same woman twice, and you reason it like, ‘why would you.’ But it’s because of an injury. Poor baby got hurt and he doesn’t want the nasty pain again.”
“Oh, you were good up to that last part.”
“You’re afraid.”
I got his big grin with all the teeth for that. “Now you’re reaching.”
“You’re afraid of what would happen if you let someone get too close to you. Afraid that you might start to care. What then?”
“I care.” His voice was quieter now.
“Like you care about characters in a movie. Like you might care about an expensive beer.”
He snorted and took another drink.
“You’re afraid that if you let someone get too close they might start to matter to you.”
He raised his glass. “Special Agent by day, shrink by night.”
“I studied Criminology. There’s a lot of psychology involved.”
“And a lot of bullshit by the sounds of it.”
“That’s why you’re fearless. You don’t have anything to risk. There’s nothing at stake for you. Win lose or draw, it’s all the same.”
“You get all this from Redbook Magazine?”
“But that’s not the really scary part, is it. The big risks would be if someone mattered to you, then you’d run the risk of losing them. Is that what happened to you, Horse?”
“You’re kind of full of shit, you know that, right?” Now he was obviously holding the grin up by force.
“But that isn’t the worst thing. No, the worst thing would be, the most frightening thing, what if you allowed yourself to matter to someone else? Then you’d have responsibility. Your actions could have consequences. How would that be?”
“Okay, okay. Your little game is cute. But that’s enough now, alright?”
“You’re a child, Horse. On the outside, you’re as hard as the come. I’ve dealt with big time Mafiosi who aren’t half as hard as you are. But inside it’s another story. Your emotions are still in the little box where you locked them away when you were a little boy.” That got a tug in the corner of his eye.
His brow darkened as he took a pull on his drink. I prodded some more, “What were you, seven?” his lip tightened. “Six.” The tiny wrinkle cut the corner of his eye a fraction deeper. “You were six when it happened.” And the look on his face was cold as stone. “What was it, Horse? What happened to you?”
“Nothing happened.” He stood. “Nothing at all. I had a childhood just like anyone else. No better, no worse.” He drained his glass. “Like you would care.” He moved to the drinks cabinet and looked back as he lifted the bottle. “You mind?”
“No, of course not.” I stood up and moved next to him. His jaw was working and his grin was just a picture now. A trace of where a grin used to live. I held up my glass. “Give me another, too, okay?” I touched his arm with my fingers. His free hand snapped on my wrist. As his thumb touched the inside of my forearm a shock shook through me like the sudden eruption of a deep volcano.
His breath was hot on my face. “You got some good interrogator tricks. I bet you came out top of your class. Gold stars all over the fridge. Meanwhile, back in the real world.”
His face, his eyes were so hard, he looked like a man in the middle of a violent storm.