After Hours (23 page)

Something hot wriggled low in my belly. “That works.”

I imagined staying the night, and following Kelly in to work the next morning, our
pulling up together, strolling into hand-off with a secret buzzing between us. I’d
wasted my earlier chance to foster that conspiracy, but I didn’t have to waste it
again.

And with the promise of another round in Kelly’s bed leaving me with the focus of
a caffeinated sparrow, the rest of the day dragged on toward eternity.

I had another chance to play cards with Lee Paleckas and I could tell he was doing
better. More lucid, equally glib. Any hope he felt, he hid it behind a caustic persona,
but he didn’t fool me. I asked Jenny if she’d heard any updates on his plan, and she
said Dr. Morris had him tentatively scheduled to graduate to an outpatient program
at the end of next week. I’d miss Lee; the first patient I’d forged a real connection
with. Whose stay I knew I’d made more pleasant. But that was the way of the ward.
The encouraging cases were always the first to fly the coop, the lost causes forever
lingering.

It felt like midnight by the time seven arrived. Kelly and I dawdled behind our coworkers
after hand-off, taking our time changing.

We met in the sign-in room once everyone else had filtered out. “Ready?” he asked.

“Ready.”

We headed out to his truck. I cast paranoid glances around the lot as we climbed inside,
scanning not for escaped patients, but colleagues. Which was silly. If anybody saw
us, all I’d have to do was tell the truth—Kelly had fixed my broken car, and we were
going to get it.

“How was Don?” I asked, buckling up.

“Not bad at all.”

“I saw you were on special obs. I didn’t know if that meant he’s still on suicide
watch or not.”

“Better safe than sorry, after a break like that. But Doc Morris has been seeing him
for daily one-on-ones, and they’re making progress. That and some distance from Lonnie,
and his paranoia’s been way down.”

“I wouldn’t mind a bit of that myself, some days—a break from Lonnie.”

Kelly smiled as the engine came to life. “He likes you.”

“Oh, great.”

“Not like, he’s hot for you.” Kelly leaned out the window to key us through the gates.
“But you got him where Jenny does, worked your feminine wiles and let him feel like
he’s impressive.”

I smiled. I’d thought maybe that was the case, but he was a wily one himself. It wasn’t
wise to let myself think I had him pegged, when maybe he was just blowing smoke up
my ass and biding his time. But if Kelly thought I did . . .

“I like hearing his stories,” I said. “All that stuff he knows about Vietnam and Korea.”

“And I bet he likes feeling like a scholar. No way he enjoys that on the outside.”

“I hope I’m not doing him a disservice, inflating his ego.”

“Treating a man with respect can’t be a bad thing,” Kelly said, turning us onto the
back road.

“No, I guess not.”

“Plus his ego’s all that man’s got left to his name. And if believing some pretty
young nurse is impressed by his stories keeps him feeling human, I say keep it up.
We could all stand to feel more human than we do.”

With a psychic flash, I felt that punch as my eye collided with my side mirror. Yeah,
we could all stand to feel well treated.

“Lonnie’s had a hard road. Broken home, lies about his age so he can go off to ’Nam
at seventeen, and a few little paranoid whispers turn into full-on screaming demons
inside his skull.”

“I know. What a place to come into your illness.” I conjured James Mahoney’s grainy
mug shot, and my lips twitched with a dozen un-posable questions about what I’d read.

“He tell you his platoon nicknamed him Loony?”

“No.”

“Don’t ever use that word around him. Not even if you’re just talking about Bugs Bunny.
Like a trip wire in his head.”

“That can’t be good, what with all the new residents bitching about being sent off
to the loony bin.”

“No, it’s not good at all.”

I sighed. “He’s not ever going to get better, is he?”

Kelly flipped his headlights on as the road snaked into the woods. “Not unless some
new drug comes out that clicks for him. His voices are real loud. Way louder than
any scrip can keep muffled for more than a couple days, not without turning him into
a walking vegetable.”

“That’s so sad.”

“It’s a sad job, sweetheart. I know you and that new guy Lee hit it off, so focus
on that. The ones you can get through to. And just remember that sadness is like rain.
Keep reminding yourself it’ll pass.”

“Do you feel anything on the ward? Aside from . . . I dunno. Alert?”

“Sure, I guess. I just don’t do anything with the emotions. Like I said, it’s all
just weather patterns. Keep yourself separate, like self-control’s your little house,
and you can watch them pass through like storms on the other side of the windows.”

My storms didn’t always stay outdoors. Sometimes they stole inside my very body, fisted
my car key and dragged it down some asshole’s shiny red hood. “You make it sound so
simple.”

He merged us onto the quiet highway, sun already dipping low. “Maybe my little house
is just built sturdier than most.”

Indeed, with thick walls and good locks. But I’d peeked through the curtains, and
caught little glimpses of the man who’d raised those walls. There were moments during
those two days at Kelly’s place when maybe he’d even cracked the windows, and let
a little of what he was feeling blow inside and stir things up.

A thought slipped past my lips, utterly unintended. “Sometimes it’s like there’s a
wildfire blazing outside my little house.”

Kelly glanced at me, streetlights wiping across his stern face in orangey strokes.
“Outside? Not inside?”

I let myself feel a little flash of my Mom-ness, that boiling anger that jerks like
Marco could rouse when I was too worn out to keep my cool. All that hot, red hate
seeping into my blood, poisoning my better judgment until my temper found an outlet
and bled me clean again. “Sometimes it gets in. Other times I’m quick enough to barricade
the door.”

“That’s not so bad. Plenty of people’s doors have fallen right off their hinges. They
don’t even know they got a choice about letting that shit in. And I don’t mean the
mentally ill. Regular old everyday hotheads and crybabies.”

“How come your house is so weatherproof? How’d you do that?”

“Growing up in my stepdad’s orbit . . . He lived in a fucking lean-to, if we’re sticking
with this dumb-ass metaphor. Everything got in, and the place was always so soaked
in alcohol, every lightning strike started a fucking fire.”

“And it sounds like it had a corrugated metal roof.”

Kelly laughed. “Yeah, I suppose it did. Anyhow. You grow up with other people’s rainstorms
pissing all over you, you get eager to put up some nice thick walls.” We were quiet
for a long time, then Kelly broke the silence as we entered downtown Darren.

“You think I’m cold?”

“I think you’re . . . controlled. And if you sometimes seem cold, I actually kind
of envy it. It’s not a bad temperament to have, on the ward.”

“How about when it’s just you and me?” Another glance, and his eyes in the dying light
cut straight to my bones.

“No, you’re not cold then. Sometimes you’re mean. You know, during the sex. But not
cold.” Scalding hot.

“Good.” He shifted his gaze to the road. “I’ve been admiring
your
cold shoulder the past week,” he added with a smile.

Be a stubborn jerk about it or own up? I’d own up, at least partway. “I’m just trying
to keep things how they were. I can’t let all that stuff that happened between us
mess up how I do my job.”

“Some filthy little glance in the break room wouldn’t have hurt my ego.”

A warm tremor of pleasure rippled through me. “Sorry. I’m a girl, whether I like admitting
it makes a difference or not. I have to work hard to keep all that stuff separated
in my head . . . Do I seem like a wreck, to you?”

He laughed. “Hell no. You seen where I work? You’re just fine.”

Good to know . . . though it still felt like a windstorm was blowing around inside
my little emotional cottage every time I let Kelly get close. The Big Bad Wolf, huffing
and puffing, rattling my shutters. But at times I actually liked the chaos. It was
exciting.

“Even if you are a wreck,” Kelly added, turning onto his street, “you crazy chicks
are always fucking rabid in the sack. So I’ll take my chances.”

I shook my head, miming all the annoyance and disapproval I’d have felt if he’d said
that back when we first met. But I didn’t feel that anymore. I felt too much other
stuff for Kelly to muster irritation, or indeed to take his provocations too seriously.

Instead I just sighed and scolded, “You shouldn’t say ‘crazy.’”

“If the diagnosis fits . . .”

“You know your chances with me always get worse, the more you talk.”

And Kelly finally shut up. For a block, anyway.

Chapter Fourteen

We pulled up to Kelly’s house just as the last of the dusk light drained from the
sky. I slammed my door and waved to my Tempo, parked along the curb. “Hi, car.”

Leading me up to the front steps, Kelly said, “I changed your oil and rotated your
tires.”

I tried my best to sound exasperated. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“Course I didn’t.” He grabbed his mail and unlocked the door, flipping on the lights
as he stepped inside. “That’s what makes me so dreamy.”

“Well, thank you. I may just add a bottle of Scotch to that twelve-pack.”

Kelly shut the door behind us, then came close. Real close. I stared up into his eyes
and swallowed. I’d hoped I might see that look, but I hadn’t expected it until the
burger-grilling portion of the evening was done.

“Yes?”

“Just looking at you.”

There was a tiny glimmer of helpless, post-sex Kelly in his expression, tender and
rare. It melted me far faster than any dirty threats he might have on tap.

“C’mere.” He grabbed my wrist and led me to the couch, then gently pulled me onto
his lap. We were kissing before I even got settled—deep, sexy kisses that made his
tongue feel as base as his cock. He let me hear him, every ragged, needy breath, every
grunt and groan as his hips shifted between my thighs. By the time he pulled away,
I was already wet.

“I’m surprised you’re letting me do this,” he murmured, stroking my hair and watching
his fingers. “The way you’ve been on the ward, I figured all this fun was over.” His
gaze moved to my eyes.

“You sort of presented it all as a one-time deal. I was just sticking to our unspoken
agreement.”

“I don’t remember saying that.”

“I thought it was implied.”

“And I thought we had fun, and kinda hoped we’d do it again. But if you’re strictly
a cold-hearted, strings-free sort of feminist, maybe you better get off my lap.”

I smiled. “I could be persuaded to make it a two-time deal. In light of your being
such a gentleman about my car troubles.”

He grinned, attention dropping to my mouth. “I guess I better get busy persuading,
then.” A soft kiss, then deeper. Then a growl. “Jesus, you smell like a cherry paczki.”

That’d be my Chapstick, but who was I to break his little Polish heart?

As we kissed, my arousal crested from nerves to eagerness, then dropped low, leaving
me hungry. Hungry for another taste of helpless Kelly, of that proof that I knew his
body, if not his secrets. I bit his lip, then wriggled back on his lap until I made
it to my feet. He watched, expectant.

I smiled down at him, a strange sensation in itself. “Stand up and I’ll prove myself
a very grateful woman.”

Kelly didn’t need a second invitation. He got to his feet, and I stroked my palms
over his shoulders, down his chest and abs to his hips, then dropped to my knees.
I heard him blow out a reedy breath, a hiss of dark anticipation. His fingertips grazed
my temples, smoothed my curls behind my ears.

I freed his button, my knuckle tracing his erection as I lowered the zipper. Kelly
did the rest, easing his jeans and waistband to his hips and fisting the base of his
cock. I put my hand over his.

The first time I’d done this, I’d been so intimidated. Now I felt just the opposite—powerful.
Capable and eager. I wanted to own his pleasure the way he could own my body with
his. Without a trace of misgiving, I let him slip past my lips.

Tension ran through him, a wave of powerlessness clenching his muscles before his
groan signaled the return of mean Kelly. I took him deeper, triggering a harsh gasp.

“Good. That’s good.”

Once I found my rhythm, he let his cock go and began softly pumping his hips. Kelly
became the world—his smell and the taste of his skin, the faint pulse I felt in my
grip, the pained sounds of his breathing. So familiar now, the feel of him; that smooth
head, thick shaft, the sweet ache in my jaw.

He gathered my hair in both hands. “Fuck. Nothing in the world looks as perfect as
this. I could watch you suck me for hours.” Nasty words, but his voice was strained
and soft.

With my mouth I told him,
I love this. Let me serve you.
For once, I trusted a man would give as good as he got, even after he’d enjoyed his
payoff.

I trusted
Kelly
, and that scared me a little. Skepticism and distrust had been the walls keeping
my heart safe, keeping falling for him a convenient impossibility. If I trusted him,
was attracted to him, respected him and felt respected in return . . . Fuck, what
else did a woman need? But I couldn’t stand to want a man that much, to have it this
close—in my fucking
mouth
—but know it might all be a tease, a sample of something I couldn’t have, not for
real. The idea was too much, so I emptied my head and got lost in the act. In the
simplest language, spoken without a single word between our two bodies.

After a couple minutes, he stilled my head. “Enough.”

I eased him from my mouth, looking up with curiosity. He tugged at my arm. “C’mere.”

He helped me to my feet, peeled my shirt up and away a moment later. Big fingers fumbled
with my fly, and as he slowly pushed my pants and underwear down my legs, he trailed
kisses from my neck to my breasts, my belly and hip. He stood and I kicked my jeans
aside, and I let him lead me to the couch, straddling his lap once more.
I know this couch already,
I thought, the fabric soft under my knees.
I know this home and this body. I nearly know the man they belong to.

“We need—”

“Yeah.” He shifted to wrestle his wallet from his jeans. Seconds later he had the
condom in place.

Kelly held his cock steady and I took him slowly and deeply, wincing through a brief
pang. But the next time he eased inside, the friction was nearly gone, and by the
third we were gliding. I found an angle I liked and looped my arms around his neck
so my breasts stroked his chest.

He held my waist, following the motions, but not dictating for a change. His hands
drifted up my back and shoulders, and he held my hair in that soft, reverent gesture.
It seemed laughable I’d ever found it gruff and possessive, when all I felt now was
cradled.

“Goddamn. You’re beautiful.”

I didn’t say a word, afraid to scare this person away. One in a hundred glances, this
was the man I saw in Kelly’s eyes, and he never stayed long. I kept my mouth shut
and let him deep inside, welcomed him with the motions of my hips.

“Just like that. Don’t stop.” His eyes shut, lids fluttering. My hair fell free and
he squeezed my shoulders, massaged them, stroked his thumbs along my throat.

“Kelly.”

“Don’t stop. Please.”

“I won’t.” I said it so quietly, I wondered if he even heard.

“Lemme feel you. Come for me.”

Any part of what I was doing that was for show, I cast aside. I held his shoulders
and scooted back, making the friction more explicit. Only a few selfish strokes and
I was getting close. His skin against mine, his moans warming my ear. This wasn’t
the man I’d agreed to submit to, in the previous life better known as last week. But
I liked him all the more for his neediness. I loved being needed, after all.

He cupped my breasts, making me feel tiny against his broad palms. These same big
hands that kept me safe at work and fixed my car. These hands that pleasured his cock
when I wasn’t here to do the job. They couldn’t give him what I could. Weren’t as
warm or wet as my body, just as my fingers were but a sad facsimile of what I craved
from Kelly.

“You feel so good,” I mumbled into his shoulder.

“So do you. You’re so tight. Make me feel so fucking big.”

“Kelly.” My face was hot, head foggy. My hips were sore but my clit was begging—begging
for more, for relief. I held the back of Kelly’s head and clawed his arm, skin slick
under my nails. I used his cock just as I had that morning in his bed, pushing toward
the edge in a barrage of shameless, sloppy thrusts. Then he was kissing me, swallowing
my moans and grunts, coaxing them from my mouth with his tongue. I came so hard it
frightened me—so intense I was bucking, pleasure like hot, flashing sparks. When I
escaped his kiss and opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was red—two beading scrapes
along his biceps, my fingertips sticky.

“Oh my God. I’m sorry.” Even our most equitable and tender sex drew blood.

“Shhh.” He showed me his priorities, urging me to keep fucking him. “Don’t stop. Make
me come. Please.”

I went back to how I’d been before I got greedy, but he pushed at my thighs.

“No, like you were. When you were using me.”

My clit could barely take the friction now, my hips aching, but I gave him what he
wanted.

“Talk to me,” he said. “Tell me how I feel.”

I held back the first word that came to mind—
wonderful
. “Big,” I said. Big, strong body beneath me, big and hard and excited inside me.
And fucking wonderful.

He shifted between my thighs. “What else?”

I huddled closer to speak just below his ear. “You feel good, Kel. I love when you’re
excited. And needy. I love the way you lose control, right before you come.”

“Good,” he breathed. “Good. I’ll show you that. Just keep fucking me.” The hands holding
my waist slid down to my butt, kneading for a moment before he gave me a slap.

I gasped, naive enough to have thought I was in control here. Even seated he was thrusting,
mirroring my motions at first, then losing the pace. In seconds flat it felt as though
our bodies were fighting, a frantic flurry of driving flesh and grinding bones, nails
digging and palms smacking, sending all my fond affection scrambling for higher ground.

“
Fuck.
Talk to me. Say my name.”
Smack.

“I wanna see you come, Kelly. I wanna watch your face when you lose it.”

“You feel so fucking good.” He closed his palms over my waist, pushing me back so
the angle was even sharper. His bossiness gave me a dark thrill. All at once, I actually
missed the way he’d been that first night, here on this couch. There was still room
for that, with the gentler impulses shunted aside.

I leaned back to smile at him. “I would’ve sucked you off, if you’d let me. Without
asking for anything in return.”

His eyes shut. “Yeah. You love sucking my cock.”

I leaned in to drag my lips along his jaw. “Yeah, I do.”

“Maybe I’ll let you have that,” he muttered, still driving my hips. “Maybe I’ll just
give you what you want. Nice big mouthful. That what you’d like?”

I drew my tongue along his jugular. “That’s exactly what I like, Kelly. Pleasing you.”

I didn’t know who the fuck this woman was, speaking these words. Some me I’d never
met. Some me who spoke the truth even as it undermined my self-image. Felt fucking
good, letting her steer. I felt loose and naked, utterly liberated with all that rigid
self-possession cast aside. His hands told my body what to do and I surrendered to
their orders, so much nicer than resisting.

His steady moans began to crescendo, sweaty palms slipping as his motions grew sloppy.
“Fuck. I’m so close. On your knees.”

He nearly toppled me to the floor, but I caught myself. He was on his feet, fist in
my hair, the other stripping the condom. “Open up.”

Two pumps and he was there, slick crown pushing past my lips, warm release basting
my tongue.

“Yeah.” He said it again, and a third time, his grip on my hair loosening as his voice
trailed to a low moan.

I licked his head clean and swallowed, working hard to suppress a supremely cocky
grin. I admired his flushed, spent body as he sank back onto the couch with a delirious
huff.

He curled a finger between us. “C’mere.”

I complied on sore hips, straddling his thighs. Stroking his sweat-damp hair, I smirked.
“Whatever happened to you being Mr. Control, and me just keeping my pretty mouth shut?”

“Guess I like what comes out of your mouth, as much as I care about what might go
in.”

I smacked his arm and he laughed.

“I dunno,” he said, shrugging. “I like the way you fuck. You’re even more fun when
I let you do stuff.”

“Well, well.”

“I like how you’re all . . . grabby. Physical. Like we’re scrapping, sometimes. But
not always,” Kelly murmured, starting to kiss my neck. I cupped his head, welcoming
the contact.

“Does it distract you, when we’re on the ward?” I asked. “Our messing around?”

“I’m extremely good at compartmentalizing my life.”

Figured. “Lucky you. I have work my ass off, trying not to think about sex every time
we’re in the same room, in case I fuck somebody’s meds up.”

A smug
hmmm
warmed my throat. “Do you now? What a terrible influence I am.”

Kelly urged me from his lap and onto my back on the cushions then got braced above,
framing my ribs with his forearms, hands cupping my shoulders. He smiled, an easy,
swoonifying grin I’d never seen before.

“What?”

“Nothing.” He dropped his mouth to mine, the kiss brief. When he pulled away his smile
had gone, but his eyes were placid, nearly warm, like the ice had finally thawed.
“You hungry? I lured you over here for dinner but we rushed straight to dessert.”

“Yeah, I’m hungry.”

“You’ve fucked all the ambition out of me. Okay if we go out instead?”

“Sure.” Inwardly, I was embarrassed by how much the idea pleased me. It felt like
a date, far more than being invited over for sex and hamburgers had. As dumb as it
was, I wanted to be seen out someplace with Kelly. He might kiss me, with witnesses,
and make it known that I was Kelly Robak’s woman. And shocking as it should have been,
I wanted to let him. Even if the illusion only lasted a night.

We tidied ourselves and dressed, then climbed back into his truck. He drove us past
Lola’s for a change, pulling up to the curb a couple blocks farther along the main
drag, in front of a casual Italian place. Kelly held the door then led me past the
bar to one of the booths against the back wall. I wanted wine, but I wasn’t sure if
I was driving home or not, so when the waitress came by I stuck with a light beer.