CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Maddie risked a glance at Dingo. He was clinging to his steering wheel with both hands as he drove, his eyes focused fiercely on the freeway ahead of them.

The earthquake had shaken him up and gotten his adrenaline flowing—or so he’d said. So much so that he’d insisted they forget about sleeping and drive through the night, hit Sacramento at just past dawn.

But Maddie knew that it wasn’t the earthquake that had shaken him—it was the fact that after he’d grabbed on to her to try to protect her as his car rattled and shook, he’d kissed her.

She’d kissed him back. In fact, they’d made out for a good long time—until he’d jumped away from her as if he’d been bitten by a snake.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked him now.

He laughed, but it was a sound of despair, not joy. “Nope.”

“Well, I wanna talk about it,” she said. “I don’t know what the big deal is. I like you and you seem to like me—”

“Fiff,” he said. “Teen. As in: You. Are. Fifteen.”

“Drama, drama, drama, drama,” Maddie said on an exasperated exhale. “So what?”

“So what?” he said. “So what? So I could go to jail. I’d have to register as a sex offender, forever. Forever, Mads. It happened to a friend of my cousin.”

“What happened to your accent?” she asked.

“It’s fake!” he shouted. “I’m fake! Everything’s fucking fake, all right? So, see, you don’t really like me after all! Say the word, I’ll turn around and take you home!”

“Well, that’s stupid,” she said. “If you take me home, you’d practically be handing me over to Nelson. And until I get the money or the proof that Fiona was the one who stole it, you’d pretty much be sentencing me to death.”

“Fuck,” he said, because she was right.

“You know, I think maybe I like you more now,” she told him. “So, really, all this time, you’ve been, what? Playing a character?” She imitated his Australian accent. “I’m Dingo from down under. That’s pretty freaking brilliant, Richard. I bet most girls really go for that.”

“See, you are mad. No one calls me Richard unless they’re mad at me.”

It was weird—that flat California accent coming out of his face, his mouth.

He glanced at her, several times, probably because she was staring at him. “What?”

“You’re a good kisser,” she said.

“Oh, no,” he said. “No, no, no, no, no.”

She shrugged expansively. “I’m just saying. Kissing isn’t sex.”

“Mads,” he begged. “Please. Can we just…not?”

She sighed heavily. “Can Dingo come back now? Because you’re right, I think I like him better than you. You’re a buzzkill.”

“Can’t have a buzzkill without a buzz, love,” he said in his fake Australian accent.

“Whatever,” Maddie said, sinking down in her seat. “Why should I have anything good or nice or happy in my life?”

“I’m not good or nice,” he whispered.

Maybe not. But when he’d kissed her, for the first time in a long time, she’d felt happy. Or at least less relentlessly alone.

Shayla surrendered.

At first, she was a little weirded out—going into that grown-up version of a bouncy tent with the deliberate intention of taking off her clothes and having some happy-fun time with the Navy SEAL. This was a man to whom she’d not so much as spoken two words until last night.

And now she was going to let him plant his face between her legs.

How do you do?

He hadn’t just brought blankets and pillows into her backyard along with his air mattress. He’d brought a hurricane lamp—an electric one that wouldn’t catch fire, but could still be turned down low. He’d also brought condoms and some towels and a bottle of wine. Pinot noir—how did he know? He’d brought a pair of stemless glasses, too, and he poured her one as the romantic light from that lantern played across his handsome face.

“I turned off the gas in both our houses,” he told her as he handed her the glass of wine. “Just to be extra safe. Everything looks good in yours—just a few things broken—a couple framed photos. Books fell out of bookshelves. Nothing big fell over.”

“There’s nothing big to fall over,” she pointed out. She’d purposely gotten rid of anything tall before the move to California. Now all of their bookshelves and cabinets were either built-in or low to the ground. “How about your place?” she asked.

“I had a few expensive casualties,” he told her. “Maddie’s computer was on the kitchen counter. It hit the floor and did not survive.”

“Oh, no.”

“Better hers than yours,” he said.

“I don’t know about that,” she countered. “I’m militant when it comes to backup. You know, I was thinking. About Maddie? That in the morning, we should push. Just a little. See if she’ll take a call—talk to me on the phone.”

Peter nodded. “I also want to touch base with that lawyer—Fiona’s aunt.”

“I thought you did that this afternoon.”

“No,” he said. “I tried, but she wasn’t in—she was at the courthouse. I was going to wait, but then I got the call to go to the base. And then everything took too much time. It’s okay—I seriously doubt she’s going to tell me anything new.”

“I’d like to go with you,” Shayla said. No way was she making that I’ll go if you want mistake twice.

He smiled because, like always, he was paying attention. “That’s great,” he said, “because I’d like for you to come, too.” He lifted his wineglass in a toast. “To good communication.”

Shay smiled back at him as they clinked—and the earth shifted again. It was hard to know if that was real or an illusion created from the heat in his eyes. Either way, she felt safe.

He took a sip, so she did, too, and…“Wow, that’s excellent.”

“A reminder that California’s got a lot more going for it than earthquakes and black widow spiders.”

“And crazy people who ride around in their trucks with a bucket of feces to throw at sailors?”

“That was another first for me,” Peter admitted. “My day’s been full of them—some significantly better than others.” He smiled at her, leaning back on his elbow, but then wincing, because, yeah. That was the elbow he’d scraped, saving her from the flying shit-bucket of doom.

“Let me see that,” she said, putting her glass down on the ground beside the air mattress, and he smiled, because yes, again, he knew that she wanted to touch him, and this was an easy way to get that party started. He obediently held out his arm as she scooted closer, letting go of the fleece blanket that he’d draped around her shoulders to keep her warm while the mattress inflated.

Shay took his arm and angled it toward the light. The scrape was still raw, but he’d cleaned it well and although it looked angry, it didn’t look infected. He leaned back, in order to set down his own glass beyond the edge of the mattress, and all of his many, many muscles shifted and flexed as he did a halfway, diagonal equivalent of a sit-up, pulling her attention away from his elbow.

When he sat back up, his face was right there, so she took it between her hands, and kissed him.

It was a kiss of the same variety as the one he’d first given to her—sweet, practically chaste. She’d liked it—not just the sensation of only their lips touching, but the very idea of it. It held a subtext—no, actually it held a message that was unmistakable in its inherent respect. I’d like to kiss you, and I think you’d like to kiss me, too, it said. But if I’m wrong about that, please let me know, and I’ll back it down a notch.

And sure enough, as Shayla pulled back to look into those blue, blue eyes, Peter smiled. He leaned in to kiss her again, this time with a gentle mingling of their tongues, and he said, “Mmm. I was right. That wine is good, but it tastes even better on you.”

There they sat, then, her fingers back in his hair, just smiling at each other, on a cheap air mattress in the pop-up tent that she’d gotten during Tevin’s oh-so-brief camping phase. The boys had slept out in their Massachusetts backyard maybe half a dozen times—and always with her sleeping between them, right in the middle.

Tonight was going to be an entirely different, completely new experience. “Huh,” she said.

Peter nodded as if he could somehow read her mind, as he lightly ran his hand down her arm, from the narrow straps of her top to her wrist and then back. But then, as he used just a few fingers to trace her collar bone—a sensation that made her breathless—he asked, “Have I apologized yet for this afternoon?”

Shay shook her head, no, as he ran his fingers along her tank’s neckline, his fingers warm against the tops of her breasts. “You don’t have to.”

“Yeah, I kind of do. I wanted…this. And I was too afraid to just say it.” He smiled, but he didn’t go any further. He just ran his fingers back the other way. “In my defense, I was, well, it’s kind of like, you don’t try to kiss the prettiest girl at the party if you’ve just puked. I was a little too aware of the whole shit-caked-in-my-ears thing.”

Shay laughed. What he was doing to her felt so good, she returned the favor, but since he was shirtless, she trailed her fingers across his stomach, along the top of his shorts.

It was his turn to draw in a deep breath as she did go farther, tucking her fingers—just a little, just the tips—into the waistband right below his belly button.

Peter was looking down at her bare legs, touching her with his gaze from the edge of her shorts all the way down to her toes before following with his hand—his full palm this time, and God, that nearly made her eyes roll back in her head, so she touched him the same way, running her hands from his shoulders down his arms, down his chest.

“Babe, your hotness factor has at least seven zeros regardless of what’s in your ears,” she whispered. “Although, I have to confess, I do like you hosed down and squeaky clean. And lying on your back.”

Oh dear God, had she really just said that? It was a line of dialogue one of her extra-feisty heroines might say.

But, damn, it was effective, because he gently pulled himself free from her hands, and lay back on the mattress. On his back.

He was close enough to touch her, and he did—reaching for her, and pulling her toward him. “I’m not sure how I like you yet—I’m reserving that for after I conduct a thorough investigation—but I strongly suspect that you, naked, on top of me, while I’m on my back, is going to vie for my favorite.”

She resisted—just a bit. “I’m sorry, aren’t we skipping ahead in the whole hat-trick thing?”

“Just reversing the order.” Peter smiled as he gently tugged the strap of her top down her arm, kissing her shoulder as he finally—finally—moved his hand to her breast. His touch was still gentle so she pressed herself more fully into his palm even as she straddled him, and yeah, God, there he was. Long and hard and already weirdly-but-wonderfully familiar, except this time she wanted all that gentlemanly accessoriness deep inside of her as she came.

Peter obviously wanted that, too. He’d let go of her so he could push down and kick free from his shorts, and she climbed back off of him, both to get out of his way, and to do some clothing removal of her own. Tank up and over her head, and boxers down her legs.

It was a good thing she wasn’t a man, because she’d be feeling mightily intimidated by his naked perfection. All those muscles, right where they were supposed to be, every part of his body perfectly proportioned to his extra-large size. She’d felt his penis against her, but seeing him for the first time, erect like this, made her laugh, because damn.

But then she flashed both hot and cold because, God, she was naked, too, and the light was on, but the way he breathed, “Jesus, you’re beautiful,” helped. That was his opinion, and even though, like most women, she could list her flaws and imperfections on a full page, single-spaced, who was she to say what anyone else should or shouldn’t find beautiful?

She had lovely skin—she knew that. It was smooth and soft and a beautiful, rich color. And maybe her stomach was a little too soft and full but it seemed to work nicely with the curves of her hips and breasts. Also? She was forty, and she’d lived well and joyfully—borne two beautiful sons with this body that Peter was now studying with real heat in his eyes.

She laughed again as they both reached for a condom, their hands colliding. She pulled back. “You do it, I’ll take too long.”

“Too long sounds fun, but yeah, another time,” he said as he tore open the packet.

She shifted back, just a little, to watch, her hands on the hard muscles in his thighs, his gaze hot as his attention flickered from that task at hand to her body and up into her eyes and back again. He smiled again. “Best earthquake ever.”

She had to agree.

As he finished, she reached for him, wanting to touch, wrapping both of her hands around him as she looked into his eyes. He made a noise of pleasure and his hips rose off the mattress, and she knew he had to work it—hard—to form actual words, even as he reached down to take her by the wrists. “That, too, will be fun, but right now, I want…”

Yeah, she wanted the same thing.

So Shay didn’t wait. She straddled him, reaching down to guide him as she took him deeply inside of her. They both made noise at that—it would’ve been impossible not to, it felt that incredible.

As she began to move against him—with him—she leaned down to kiss him, and he met her halfway, sitting up and pulling her closer to take her mouth with his. His hands were everywhere, touching, skimming her skin as she did the same to him, wanting to touch and, God, taste every inch of him. It was hard to tell where she ended and he began. Her soft fit against his hard with perfection—and she was not one to throw that word around lightly.

And maybe, just because it had been close to four billion years since she’d last done this, it merely seemed so amazing, but she doubted that as she broke their kiss so she could push his shoulders back so he was lying down again. Because she wanted more—and she opened herself wider even as this new position gave her access to that more-of-him that she desperately wanted. They both cried out again, and then both laughed—she in wonder, because they were so in sync.

Peter’s hands were on her hips, and he tried to slow her down.

“Nuh-uh,” she told him, their gazes locked.

“I’m gonna—” he breathed. He was close—she could see it in his eyes, but he didn’t want to go first.

“I know. Me, too,” she gasped. “Tell me when.”

“Ah, Jesus!”

She took that for the now that it was, and immediately shifted gears, slamming them both to a stop, and then lifting herself up off of him and languorously pushing him home. Again. And again. And again. And again.

She came in slow motion, for damn near forever, and she wasn’t sure but she thought maybe he did, too, because he kept saying, “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus…”

And when she couldn’t hold herself up anymore and collapsed forward onto him, he put his arms around her and kissed the side of her head. She could feel his heart beating—pounding as hard as her own—and she felt him laugh a little even as he, too, struggled to catch his breath.

But then he started moving again—or at least she thought it was him—but he tightened his arms around her, and said, “Another aftershock.”

Sure enough, it didn’t last long. She lifted her head to look down at him and smile. “You know the sex is crazy great when it creates an aftershock.”

He smiled, too. “For the record, I’m pretty sure that, by the end there, I was tasting words.”

Shayla laughed in surprise, because again, he’d been listening.

She had to climb off of him then, and she muttered something about avoiding the human error factor when it came to the efficiency rate of condoms. But really, she settled onto the mattress beside him so that he wouldn’t have such an unfettered view of her face. This man was so damn good at reading her, and she didn’t think she could hide how much she liked him.

Like him? Pfft. Get real. You love him.

And no, that wasn’t Harry. He was too polite to show up at an intimate moment like this one.

No, that was all her.

She didn’t do casual sex, never had, never would—and to think that she could was sheer idiocy. Oh, God, what had she gone and done?

“You okay?” Peter asked, picking up on her silent freak-out—maybe because for the first time, she wasn’t babbling about something like the ability to taste words. He’d taken care of the condom, and was using one of the towels he’d brought out there to clean himself up.

“Yeah,” Shay said, trying to sound normal, like someone who really was okay about having just had incredibly hot sex with the neighborhood Navy SEAL. “Just…starting to feel the chill, and way too tired to do anything about it.”

“Here.” He put one of the blankets over them both, making sure her feet were covered, even as he wrapped himself around her, spooning her back against his front. She was instantly warmer.

Oh, good. Now the man that she’d already fallen for ridiculously too soon was taking care of her. That would bring her to her senses. That—and the way he kissed her neck, right below her ear, after he’d doused the light…

He sighed a sigh of perfect contentment, and even murmured a sincerely appreciative “Man,” before he instantly fell asleep.

Man, she was screwed.

Harry, where were you? Why didn’t you stop me?

Harry popped in. Oh, please. Like I could’ve. And besides, good for you! You needed that. A little hot sex to wash away the last memories of Carter.

She hadn’t thought of her ex-husband at all. Not even once.

Doubly good for you.

And it wasn’t a little sex. It was gargantuanly, enormously great sex—no, it wasn’t just great sex, it was the greatest sex. Ever.

It’s been a while. Your ability to judge is probably at least a little impaired.

Okay, that was probably true. She might have to recheck that. Maybe first thing, when they woke up…

Good plan.

He was just so great. It was hard not to…

Don’t say the L-word again. Don’t make that mistake! L-l-l-lust. Call it lust. Because that’s what it is. LUST. Yay, lust!

Yay. Lust.

Oh, come on. Peter is a lovely distraction, a nice little stop on the train ride of life. A Navy SEAL. Hoo-yah! Just keep reminding yourself that this is not your forever home.

Shayla was not a shelter dog, thanks. Also? Kind of obvious, considering they were in a tent.

You know what I mean. Love him hard, have some fun, but when it’s over, it’s over. Just be ready to let him go.

Yeah, and how had it worked out for Harry, when he’d done that?

Badly, because I’m a character in a romance novel. You, however, live in the real world, with its shades of gray. With that, he was gone.

Shayla sighed and muttered, “Man.”

Peter’s arms tightened slightly around her as he roused himself. “Y’okay? Was there another aftershock?”

“No,” she said. “It’s all right.”

He lifted his head. “You sure?”

She turned to see that he was looking down at her, suddenly fully awake.

“We didn’t get a chance to do, you know, a debrief of the earthquake. Sometimes, talking about it can really help,” he said, then asked, “You want to talk?”

Shay shook her head, filled with more of that feeling that she shouldn’t be feeling, damnit. “Just…kiss me,” she said.

And he smiled, and did.

Someone was following him.

Daryl had had that feeling all night, and it was annoying as hell. More so, now that it was three o’clock in the morning and he was heading home on foot.

Fucking Dingo with his fucking jonesing for jailbait Maddie Nakamura. Normally, when Daryl worked this late, he’d call up the Ding-man and toss him a few bucks for gas, get a ride back to Sheryl-Ann’s apartment, where he was crashing on the couch.

But tonight, Dingo had been piloting his boat-on-wheels northward up the Five. Heading for Van Nuys, no doubt, where if he cried loud enough and long enough, Mummy would donate to the Support Dingo Super PAC.

As he crossed the street, there was no traffic moving in any direction, red lights stretching into the distance as far as the eye could see. So that someone’s-following-me feeling must’ve been a figment of his imagination, triggered by that encounter with Maddie’s Navy SEAL father in the mall parking garage.

“Hey, Daryl.”

Daryl jumped and screamed as a shadowy shape emerged from a storefront. It was Cody O’Keefe—not quite a friend of Dingo’s, but more of a work associate. Assuming Dingo’s on-again-off-again consignment-style drug sales for that moron Bob Nelson could be considered a job. “Shit, man, you scared me! What the fuck?”

This was a weird coincidence—except, fuhhhhck, it was probably not any kind of coincidence, considering the whole matter of Fiona stealing ten thousand dollars and trying to pin it on Maddie.

“Sorry, bro,” O’Keefe said without an ounce of sincerity behind his apology. He wasn’t quite as tall as Daryl, but he weighed twice as much, which was intimidating, especially since he had that schoolyard bully attitude.

“A little late to be doing business,” Daryl said, hoping against hope that he was wrong, and that O’Keefe’s being here was a coincidence.

But “No such thing as too late,” said another shadow who’d appeared behind Cody.

Shit, it was Eddie Facciolo, a fucking skinhead, along with his creepy twin brother, Stank Stedman. They weren’t really related, but the shaved heads made them look it. Eddie had a nose ring, and Stank had a neck tattoo. Or maybe it was the other way around…?

“You out here making a delivery for Nelson?” Daryl asked, but his heart sank as Eddie and Stank moved back behind Daryl, so that between the two of them and O’Keefe, there was nowhere for him to run.

“Information gathering,” O’Keefe said with that smile that didn’t touch his eerie pale blue eyes. Reptilian, Dingo had called it. Dingo could be an idiot, but in this case, Dingo was right.

“Maybe I can help you out,” Daryl said quickly.

“I know you can,” O’Keefe said. “That’s why you been hiding from us, bitch.”

“What?” Daryl said. “Hiding? No, man, I haven’t been hiding from anyone.”

“We’ve been looking for you,” Eddie said, “and you’ve been fucking hard to find.”

“Full transparency, Ed,” Daryl said. “I’ve been working the kitchen for Yuri, you know, like I have for, fuck, five whole weeks now? He runs that high-end card game over by the Hyatt and the Hilton? You know, where the Richie Riches stay when they come to town?”

“I thought you worked at the Irish,” O’Keefe said.

“Nah, brah,” Daryl said. “That didn’t last. And this is way better. It’s all under the table. The walking home is for shit, but I’ll get my license back in another four months.” He cleared his throat. “So how can I help you? And I do want to help you. Let me guess, this is about Fiona’s friend Maddie, and some missing money?”

O’Keefe crossed his ginormous arms. It was meant to intimidate, and yes, it did.

“If I had to guess,” Daryl said, “Fee took that money. She hated Maddie because Dingo has a thing for her.”

“We’re not looking for your guesses,” O’Keefe said. “We’re looking for the girl.”

“Well, okay,” Daryl said. “That simplifies things, because I don’t know much about her. Her last name’s Nakamura. Her father’s in the Navy.” He almost said SEAL, but he suspected that wouldn’t be well received, so he didn’t. “Let’s see, his last name’s Greene, they live over on, um, Janson Street, yeah. I was with Ding and Fee, and we dropped off Maddie, once.”

“What’s the number?” O’Keefe asked.

“Dude,” Daryl said. “I don’t know. I wasn’t in remembering-numbers mode at the time, if you feel me. It’s kinda yellow stucco, Spanish style, with pink and orange what-cha-call-it—barrel tile roof. Her dad has a truck, it was in the drive. I think it’s blue…?”

“What else?” O’Keefe asked.

“Uhhhh, Maddie used to live in Palm Springs?”

“Are you telling me that or asking me?” O’Keefe said.

“A little of both?” Daryl shrugged, and gave him the smile that had won him friends and influenced people—particularly enemies—through the years. People liked him for a reason. “I don’t really know her—Maddie.”

“But she’s fucking Dingo?” O’Keefe asked.

“I didn’t say that,” Daryl backpedaled. “Dingo likes her. He’s probably, yeah. He says he’s not, but…Come on. Right?”

“So where’s Dingo?” O’Keefe asked.

Okay. Okay. Daryl’s mouth was dry and he wet his lips. “To be honest, that’s the question of the evening. He usually picks me up from work and drives me home. Well, not home. I’m staying with these girls and, um…whatever. But when I called him tonight, he told me he was heading north on the Five.”

“Was he with the girl?”

“Yeah, I, um…He didn’t say. I didn’t ask. Didn’t want to know. Maddie’s father, you know? He was a little scary.”

“North on the Five to where?” O’Keefe asked.

Daryl was a lousy liar. “Fuck,” he said. “Man, I’m only guessing, and you said you didn’t want me to—”

“Guess,” O’Keefe ordered.

“Dingo’s parents live in Van Nuys. If I had to guess, he’s heading there.”

“Address?”

Daryl hated himself as he recited it. He and Ding had been friends since seventh grade. But if he knew Dingo, and he did, Dingo would understand.

Stank wrote the address down in his phone.

“Anything else I can help you gentlemen out with?” Daryl asked.

“Yeah,” O’Keefe said. And punched him in the face.

Daryl felt his nose break as both Eddie and Stank began to pummel him, too.

“No fair, brahs, I helped you,” he tried to say, but something heavy hit him in the back of the head and the world went black.