Big Guns Out of Uniform (26 page)

I worked him up and down, squeezing and rubbing, gripping the base of his staff hard when I thought he was about to come. I held him off until his hips began moving in short involuntary thrusts, then I worked him fast and hard with both hands, rising to kiss him fiercely even as he shook and spurted his seed onto my stomach.

He washed me again, turned off the water, then reached outside for the towels that hung on the bar next to the shower. He knotted one expertly at his hips and used the other to dry my hair a little. He wrapped it around me then, effectively trapping me, and lifted me high into his arms.

I spared a momentary thought for how much it would hurt if he slipped and dropped me, then gave myself up to his strength and dexterity. He carried me into my bedroom, depositing me on the far side of the bed, then climbed in after me. I was sleepy, and drifted off into a doze before he'd finished arranging the quilt at the end of the bed over my damp body.

“D
on't you have to work?” I asked hours later as I sat at my kitchen table. The clock on the stove said it was a quarter to eleven. I had a photo shoot in Point Loma at four, but I thought Marshall (I figured that I should call him by his first name now) would've had to go into the office by now.

“I took today off. I went in last night and took care of some paperwork. Besides, I will be working. We're going through your files, remember?” He cast a smile at me over his shoulder.

“Yes,” I said to his back. He was making omelets, and the smells filling my kitchen were heavenly. “So, you never answered my question.”

“I know,” he said, cracking an egg against a glass mixing bowl.

“You're not going to tell me?” I asked in disbelief.

“No, I'm just thinking.”

I shut up then, and sipped my coffee. He finished the omelets, sliding mine expertly onto a plate and setting it down on the table in front of me. I'd gathered up the photos in a file folder the night before and would have brought them to the station already if Marshall hadn't come over.

I picked up my fork and dug in, moaning ecstatically at the taste of cheddar cheese, ham, green pepper, and tomatoes. He paused on his way back to the table to sit down, his plate held in one hand, his coffee in the other.

“That's the noise you make when I'm inside you,” he said gruffly.

It took me a minute, but I managed a calm rejoinder. I was going to get a couple answers from this man before I fucked him on my kitchen table. “You should hear me when I eat cheesecake.”

“I'll bear that in mind,” he said, and sat down across from me, hard knees bumping mine beneath the small round table. I didn't pull away.

I laughed shakily, knowing he was serious, and that I might very well find myself eating cheesecake off various parts of his anatomy. I couldn't say I found the idea unpleasant.

“You asked, why now?” he began.

“Yeah, I thought you didn't like me very much.”

“It wasn't that exactly, honey,” he drawled out, and I was tempted to say fuck the conversation, take me now, but I didn't because I desperately wanted to hear what he had to say.

“After you recovered, and you came to thank me for saving your life, I'd already been to see you in the hospital a couple times. Always while you were sleeping. I felt like it was my fault you were there; I should've known Johnson was drinking.”

“It wasn't your fault,” I began, but he waved me to silence. I got the feeling he didn't talk about his emotions much. Well, that made two of us.

“I know that now. It's taken me a while, but I don't feel guilty about you anymore, or about Johnson's death.” Johnson had killed himself shortly after his resignation. I'd been in the hospital still, awake, but not fully recovered. He continued with a little half-smile in my direction, and I felt my heart stutter. “I was mad at you, though. There I was trying to be noble, and not take advantage of you, but you didn't seem to want anything more from me or anybody else. You were so angry.” He shook his head self-deprecatingly. “I thought I was just someone you wanted to use to prove that you were alive. I had these awful dreams that I would finally give in and take you, and then I would see a double-page spread of my dick taped to my locker at work.”

“It would take a double-page spread,” I said, dead-pan, and he laughed.

“And then you'd come to a crime scene and look gorgeous and make cracks like that and it was all I could do not to haul you to my car and take you like a madman.”

“I wouldn't have minded.”

“I know, you made that abundantly clear, but I knew from Stevens that you were pretty messed up. What is it about that guy? You women are always telling him everything.”

“He's got a sweet face.”

“Humph,” he snorted. “And you were always flirting with the guys at work. I was sure you were sleeping with most of them as well. The ones you dated always came in to work with happy smiles on their faces. It wasn't until Stevens's wedding that I found out you never slept with any of them.”

“Who told you that?”

“Adams. After I punched him out in the bathroom.”

“That was what that was all about? You punched him over me?”

He shrugged. “You were dancing with him most of the night. And laughing.”

“And you frowned at me from the head table every time I came by to take a picture.”

“You kept calling me ‘The Repressive Detective' and sticking your tongue out at me when no one was looking. Feel free to try that now by the way.”

It took me a second to get it, but when I did, I stuck my tongue out and crossed my eyes for good measure. He kissed me heatedly, pulling my tongue deep in his mouth and sucking on it. He released me a minute later with a smile and a parting nibble on my lower lip.

I sighed.

He took my hand. “You'll have to tell me about those years after the accident sometime. I know it wasn't easy for you.”

“Okay,” I said, but inside I was trembling. I didn't want to explain myself, and the thought that he wanted to be with me, that he was already planning on having other deep conversations, made me want to jump with joy and run away at the same time. “So that's why you changed your mind? You found out I hadn't slept with your friends?” I asked, mildly insulted.

He poked at his eggs, “Well, that made it easier, but no, not exactly.”

“I want details,” I said, pointing my omelet-laden fork at him.

He leaned forward and took the fork in his mouth, sliding the food off slowly. I inhaled sharply and he raised an eyebrow at me while he chewed.

“You're not always going to have the upper hand, you know,” I muttered, and stabbed at the omelet again, bringing my fork to my lips with the inner knowledge that I was tasting him as well, and it made that bite all the better.

“I overheard your conversation with Burtis after Darla and Stevens took off that night.”

“Oh,” I muttered, and took a big gulp of my coffee. I had been in rare form during the reception. A little tipsy from champagne, delighted for my friends, and desperately lonely. All I'd done the entire evening was take pictures of the happy couple and the love shining from their faces. I recognized love even when I didn't really recognize them, and the sight of it, the power of it, had made my heart ache.

I danced like a loon to make the feeling go away, but the sight of all those unfamiliar faces swirling past had made me dizzy with nausea and fear. I was lost, lost, and surrounded by strangers.

Burtis found me hyperventilating in a corner, and I'd sobbed into the familiar curve of his shoulder as I hadn't done in years.

I got up, not wanting to think about this anymore, but Marshall tightened his grip and I sat back down. He put one hand under my chin and lifted my face. “I didn't bring this up to make you hurt, baby, it's just that when I heard you crying, I realized that I felt the same way, lonely and kind of empty, and I'd just punched out one of my friends in a jealous rage for suggesting that he could score with you that night. It seemed kind of ridiculous to stay away in the face of the evidence.”

I blinked back tears and smiled at him. “But that was a month ago. What else happened?”

“I went to the gallery showing down in the Gaslamp a week ago that had some of your work on display. It was beautiful. I wanted the one you'd taken of yourself, standing with your back to the camera and looking over your shoulder, with your face kind of in shadow.”

“You would like that one.” I smiled. My ass was a prominent feature, if I recalled correctly.

“And then you showed up yesterday wearing that hot skirt and those ridiculous shoes, and you were such a smart-ass, bending over just to aggravate me. I wanted to push you down on your hands and knees and take you.”

“With a naked dead man right there? That's romantic.”

“You know by now that death makes a lot of us horny. Why do you think you got harassed by the guys so often after you finished with your photos?”

“I just thought you were all pervs.”

“Well, we're that, too,” he said, and grinned.

“Thank God.”

 

I
ALREADY WANTED
him again by the time we finished breakfast, but I thought we should get started going through my files if we were going to make any progress before I had to leave. I thought about canceling the shoot, but it had taken me months to get permission to use the old lighthouse on Point Loma, and I wasn't sure I'd be able to get it again.

Marshall told me to go ahead and start looking; he wanted to call Stevens and ask him if he'd made any progress with the tattoo parlors. I doubted it, since I didn't know of any tattoo parlors that opened before noon, but I shrugged and went cheerfully enough, feeling a deep inner excitement that had nothing to do with solving the case and everything to do with the thought of having him again. I knew he'd take me again before I had to leave. It was only a matter of when, and how. I shivered and opened the door to my studio wondering what his reaction to it would be. With my luck he would get irritated rather than horny.

I'd moved the pictures of his hands to an easel in the center of the room in preparation for matting. I smiled at them dreamily, thinking of the places they had been just hours earlier. I shook myself and went to a nearby closet where I kept cardboard file boxes of my work. There were at least twenty, all filled with photos, journals, contact sheets, and carefully labeled negatives in three-ring binders.

I thought the contact sheets might be the best place to start. They were a print of all the negatives on a roll of film without enlargement. A lot of commercial photo developers added them now when a customer requested photos on CD. It prevented a photographer from wasting a lot of photo paper on a shot that didn't turn out so great. It was also a handy record of what photos had been taken. Unfortunately, there were probably hundreds of contact sheets in the boxes, and even more prints of the negatives from my medium- and large-format cameras, which were larger than 35mm film.

I was dragging out a box dated six months ago when I heard footsteps coming toward the room. I turned around.

“Jesus Christ,” he said, stopping dead, and I bit my lip to keep from laughing.

He looked at me and shook his head. “A little warning would have been nice.”

“What's the fun in that?” I said cheekily.

“I'll show you fun,” he said, and grabbed me and tickled, making me squirm and buck as I shouted with laughter.

“No, stop, please. I can't breathe.” Tears were streaming down my hot face as I giggled and sputtered. He smacked my ass and let me go, wandering around the room and looking at the pictures on the wall. He looked delicious in the black silk boxers I'd loaned him. They had bright red lips on them and were too tight, being mediums. I hoped he had clothes in his car; otherwise the neighbors were going to get a show when he left.

“I don't mind the women,” he said after a minute, “but all those dicks make me feel like I'm being watched. Look at this guy,” he said, pointing to a dick as big around as a beer can. “I got nothing on that.”

I had collapsed on the floor after he let me go, but managed to drag myself to a sitting position while he looked around. I smirked at his comment and flipped the lid off the box. “Don't be an idiot, I like what you've got just fine.”

“Well, I like it, too,” he said, rubbing himself absently.

I smiled and shook my head.
I love men, I truly do.

“Are you going to help or compare yourself to all of them?” I asked waspishly, when he still hadn't bothered to come and help. So far I'd gone through half the box and didn't see anything remotely similar to the design we were looking for. I thought I would dig out the 2000 box next. That was the year I'd done the shoot with the tattooed models for an out-there gay mag in the East Village.

“What's this?” he asked, and I looked up. He was standing in front of the easel and looking at the photos of his hands.

I waited, wondering what he would say.

“I like these,” was his comment, and I stared at him wonderingly.
Can't he see that they are his hands?

“You did someone else's hands, too. I saw them in the showing. An old woman's.”

“She's not old,” I said, and he looked over at me inquiringly. “They were my mother's hands. I gave them to her for her birthday.”

“They were beautiful. You really love her, huh?”

“Yes, I do,” I said simply, and went back to sorting through the files. I didn't know if I could explain what that picture had meant to me. When I woke from the coma they'd kept me in to keep the swelling in my brain under control, the first thing I'd seen was a tiny blond woman with blue eyes looking down at me. She was crying and laughing at the same time and calling me her baby. It took me a minute to recognize her voice, and when I did I became even more frightened than before. I didn't recognize her. This stranger had my mother's voice. I panicked and jerked away, screaming, and the doctors came in and sedated me. It took days to sort out what was wrong with me, and I cried every time I looked at my mother and didn't see the woman I loved more than my own heart.