After (28 page)

When the door is shut and they are alone, Eva's breaks down, sobbing into the hand she clamps over her mouth. John goes to her, wraps her in his arms, sinks with her to the floor, holds her as she cries.

“Lott,” she finally says. “It was him. What they did to Jake. Diego and Evan, too, I think. But Jake, god, he bragged over it. Every little detail. And I let him. I let him get off, fucking me, gloating over how he terrorized Jake.” For a long time John is silent, just holds her, lets her cry. Lets her be weak. Needful. “I thought Riggs was scary,” she says, her voice shuddery. “But with him, it's just that he doesn't care what it does to other people, going after what he wants. Lott, though. He just probed and probed until he found what hurt me. All he wanted, the only thing, today, was to hurt me. That's what got him off.”

After a long quiet, Eva says, “Ever since I got here, I've been wondering how there could be so many hard, cruel people in this little handful of men. Now I think I get it. I think maybe Lott's been playing this game with all of them. Touching their sore spots.”

“Like with Smith?”

“Smith?”

“It was Lott. He told Smith about Riggs.” Eva pales. “Smith will take care of him,”

John says.

“No.” John is patient. Waits for Eva to say what she means. “Lott's too smart. He didn't tell me that just to get off. He wants me to tell Smith.”

“Why?”

“I don't know. To stir things up. Disrupt the peace.”

“What, he's just playing a game? And risking... Do you know what Smith would do to him?”

“I don't know what he's thinking. But I'm sure, almost, he was trying to provoke me. To get me to make Smith take some action. And I have this feeling playing into that would be a bad mistake.”

* * * *

“Spread your legs.”

Eva hesitates, then parts her knees.

Both John and Smith have tried to convince Eva to take some time before rendezvousing with another man after Lott. Smith has even tried—again—to talk Eva out of the entire enterprise. And even when she was adamant, saying in her irrefutable way that she would go to every one of the men at least once, they tried hard to convince her to wait before taking on Baldwyn. To Smith, Eva merely said that she'd rather get it over with, that taking all the easy ones early on and saving the less savory men for last was not her idea of making things easier on herself. To John, she said that taking on Baldwyn—the one who'd helped Riggs in the orchard, the one who'd brought Nichols back at gunpoint, who'd forced Nichols to hold her down—was the best way to show Lott he hadn't wounded her.

“You like showing off that filthy cunt of yours, don't you?”

Eva brings her knees back together, but the soldier with the shaved head grabs them and pulls them apart again. Lying naked on the bed, Eva doesn't struggle. She just watches him, quiet.

“Rub it.” Eva is still. “Get your hand down there and rub that pussy for me,” he orders.

The whites of Eva's eyes go pink, and she is still and quiet. The man holding her legs open, watching her tear up, smiles.

“Take your hands off me,” she says.

“You aren't the one giving the orders here, you little bitch.”

Articulating her words, keeping her voice steady and low, she tells him, “If you don't take your hands off me, men are going to come in here and escort you out. And if they do that, you won't be fucking me today, or any other day.”

At first he doesn't move. But after a little bit, he takes his hands off her knees.

Eva rises from the bed, and leaning casually back against the dresser, faces the soldier on the bed.

“I think you're confused about something, Baldwyn. You're here because I chose to invite you. But you don't have one single thing that I need. So, if you want to stay, you need to make sure I'm having a nice time. Understand?”

He is breathing hard. His angry eyes challenge her.

“Do you want to stay?” she asks. There's no answer. “If you don't feel like answering me, you're welcome to go.”

Through clenched teeth he eventually says, “Yes.”

“If you can't get off without calling me 'bitch' or trying to embarrass me, there's no point. You sure you want to stay?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” she says, and offers him a smile. He doesn't smile back, but the flex in his jaw softens.

Holding his defiant gaze, Eva approaches. Slides a knee onto the bed beside him.

“I like to be on top,” he says, stern and gruff.

“Well, tonight it's lady's choice,” she says, her voice soft. Almost sultry. “But if I enjoy myself with you tonight, maybe I'll let you have more say next time.”

Baldwyn stays quiet, now, as she slips atop his thighs. Straddling him, she bring her hand between them, and when she wraps her fingers around his semi-hard cock, he twitches and grunts. As if she'd already taken him inside she writhes, so the motion of her body moves her hand over his stiffening prick. When he's hard, Eva rises up on her knees, then lowers herself, slowly envelops his cock in the grip of her wet sex. It takes her a long time to finish, but she doesn't let him come until she's climaxed. By then, he's grunting, flexing, panting for it, and when he finally lets go, his groans are almost sobs.

* * * *

Joey Washington comes to her like a john to a whore. Her efforts to joke, to connect, to flirt all roll off him. He's just there for the sex.

Eva lets him slip his hand up under her tee to caress her breasts, lets him slide his hand into her panties, lets him rub and finger her while he licks and sucks her nipples. Once she's naked, she even lets him go down on her, and after, when he asks her to, she takes him in her mouth. But she doesn't let him finish.

“Please,” he says, trying to coax her back to his cock with a hand at the back of her head. “Please.”

“Not like that,” she says, and smiles. She reclines on the bed and holds her arms out to him. “Come here.”

Washington hesitates, but not for long. Soon he is inside her, pumping his hips.

Little by little he winds himself around her, fingers weaving into her hair, an arm sliding around her waist, holding her against him as he writhes between her thighs sighing breaths of “Baby, oh, god, baby.” Those whispers soft as breaths flush and fill out as she curves a hand against his neck, as she strokes his back, pulling him close, stroking his sweat-slick skin. “Please, Baby. Please.” And, as he pants and groans and comes, shuddering and clinging to her, he whimpers, “Baby. Oh, god Baby. Please.” Wrapping her up tight in his arms he sobs, “Please. Please, Baby. Jen, Baby.” He goes on clinging and crying, “Jenny. Jen, Baby. Please. Please.” Eva holds him as he weeps three years of tears.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

When there's a knock on her bedroom door, Eva puts away her journal. Draws and releases a deep breath. Opens the door.

Riggs stands there, nearly filling the entire aperture, looking hostile. Almost angry. Eva makes an effort to smile.

“Hi, James.” He doesn't say anything back. “Will you come in?”

When she steps away, he comes through the door.

“Thanks for coming.”

Riggs looks around. “Where's John?”

“He isn't here.” For some reason, this information seems to unsettle Riggs. His sullen silence is eating away at her calm. Now Eva sounds nervous when she says, “I know you work a long day. So I appreciate you letting me cut into your evening.”

“Nothing else to do, anyway.”

“Mind if I ask you something?” He shrugs. “Are you still happy about the baby?”

Riggs clenches his teeth. His whole body goes stiff. And his breathing gets heavy.

“James?” Eva looks calm, but sounds scared.

“Why?” he growls. “Why are you asking me that?”

“Because.” She pauses, and when she starts again, she's mastered her voice. “I see a lot of John. And Major Smith. I mean, they both get to see me.” She rests her palm over her baby bump. “How big I'm getting. Sometimes we talk about the baby.

Sometimes they talk to the baby. I thought maybe you'd like to do that, too.”

Riggs huffs and turns his head away, back toward the door.

“I didn't get you here to lay a bunch of demands on you,” she tells him. “I just wanted to give you a chance to start to get to know your baby. You don't have to do anything you don't want to, though.”

Still keeping his back to her he says in a rough voice, “I thought you were going to tell me it was off.”

“What?”

“Me getting to be one of the fathers.”

“No.”

Cautious, Eva steps toward Riggs, reaches out until her fingers touch his. He jerks his hand away and turns on her.

Eva leaves her hand extended. After a few seconds, Riggs puts his hand out.

Lets her touch him. Lets her draw his hand toward her. With her other hand she lifts the hem of her t-shirt, bares her swollen belly. He stares as she presses his palm over the taut roundness bulging out between her raised tee and her low-slung slacks.

“I figure I'm four months in,” she whispers, still holding his hand to her.

“Have you been sick?”

“Just a little, right at first. But I feel good now.”

“My brother's wife, she was sick as a dog both times she was pregnant.”

“Yeah. Guess I'm lucky.”

Riggs says, “That's good.” Then, “Are you scared? About having it?”

“The birth? No. Not really. Maybe a little nervous.” Riggs doesn't say anything after that. They stand there in the thickening silence. “Do you want to talk to the baby?”

she asks him.

“What do you mean, talk to it?”

“Before they're born, babies can hear the sounds around them. If you talk to her, or him, they get to know your voice. Know you.” This is something John has taught her.

Riggs takes his hand away and crosses his arms over his chest. But then he looks up, meets Eva's eyes.

“John does that? Talk to the baby?”

Eva smiles. “Yes.”

“Major Smith, too?”

“Yes.”

“I don't know what to say.”

“Here.”

She leads him to a chair beside the window and gestures for him to sit. Raising her tee back up, she steps between his knees.

“Say anything. It's just so he hears your voice.”

Riggs sits there, silent, staring down at her full belly.

“I feel stupid,” he says in a low, soft voice.

“No. Tell her about yourself.”

“Okay.” He takes a deep breath. “I'm James Riley Riggs. I'm a corporal in the Army.” He clears his throat. “I'm thirty-one. I joined up kinda late. Um...”

“Where'd you grow up?” Eva asks.

“So, yeah, I was born in California. In San Diego. And we moved to San Bernardino when I was four, and that's where I grew up.”

“Were you an only child?”

“I had four brothers.”

“All boys, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“And what do you want? A boy or a girl?”

Riggs's eyes stay fixed on Eva's swollen belly, like the life inside has asked the question. “If things were different, I think I'd want a little girl. But not here. How things are. I hope you're a boy.” He's quiet for a while. “I don't know. I guess things are hard, either way. Boys. Girls. Maybe it doesn't matter so much.”

Another long silence.

Then, still gazing at her belly, in a quiet voice Riggs says, “You know, my dad was a real son of a bitch. And I haven't been such a good man. But I'm gonna be a good father. Boy or girl, I'm never gonna hit you. I'm never gonna tell you you're nothing. I'm never gonna tell you I wish you hadn't been born.” Then, looking away from the baby growing in Eva's womb, away out the window, “Boy or girl, I'm gonna love my kid.”

When he comes again the next week, when he runs out of things to say to the baby, Eva asks him, “James? What do you think of Lott?”

“I don't know. Why?”

“He's sort of...strange, isn't he?”

Riggs stays quiet for a while before he says anything more. “Honestly? I fuckin'

hate that guy.”

Maybe Eva wasn't expecting such an earnest assessment from Riggs. She startles a little. Goes a little pale. Then smooths herself out.

“Why?” she asks.

“I don't know. Don't know what it is about him, exactly.”

“Is he mean to you?”

“Him? Mean to me? That little boy?” Riggs laughs. “He knows damn well I'd pound him if he ever...” Riggs bites off the end of his sentence.

“But you hate him?”

“He's always, I don't know. He's trouble. Every bad thing that happens, somehow it's like he makes it happen.”

“Like what?” Riggs shrugs. “James? Please.”

“Like what happened in the orchard.” Riggs doesn't say, ”What I did to you in the orchard.” And he doesn't look at her. “I'm no saint. I know that. But I never did anything like that before. And every time I think about it, every time I wonder why it happened, I think of him. Lott.”

“Why?”

After a while Riggs answers, “A long time ago. Pretty soon after the dying, a bunch of us were talking. And Lott, I remember him saying something about how none of us were every gonna get to touch a woman again. That the lottery was bullshit, just some lie the major made up to keep us calm, and how if a woman ever did turn up here, she'd belong to Major Smith, and probably the rest of us would never even set eyes on her again once he got his hands on her. I remember he said something then, like, 'The only way any of us is gonna get a taste of pussy again, is if we take it soon as we see it, before the major sniffs it out.'”

Riggs actually blushes. “After that, all the guys were talking big, you know, how guys talk, about what they'd do if it was them that found a woman. And the talk got bigger and bigger. Dirtier, you know. And I remember Lott just sitting there, listening and smiling that fucking shit-eating smile of his. And somehow I have a picture of Lott like that in my head for every ugly thing that's happened here.

“Even for what Smith did to you that night. The night you first came here.”

* * * *

Smith locks the door as he leaves his office, his movement clean, efficient. As he goes from the administrative building to his quarters, his step is brisk, his gaze sharp.

But it's not until he unlocks the door to his room and steps inside that he seems really there, breathing and warm. Alive.