Into the Storm (18 page)

Whatever she was doing to him, it felt heavenly. She started at his neck and worked her way down his back, her hands strong and sure.

“Did you learn to do this,” he asked, “when you were rehabbing your own shoulder?”

“What, you don’t assume just because I’m Japanese American, it’s hereditary? Like there’s a geisha gene?”

Jenk laughed. “That’s like assuming I play the bagpipes because my great-grandparents were from Scotland.”

Her hands stilled. “Yes,” she said. “It is.”

“Do people really think…?”

“Yeah,” she said. “They do. They also assume that I know all about acupuncture, too. Hello—they call it Chinese Medicine because it’s Chinese. China and Japan—two very different countries.”

“I hate bagpipes,” Jenk told her, “and the idea that I should automatically love them just because two relatives that I never even met used to live in Scotland is pretty stupid, too.”

“Yes, it is.” She began rubbing his shoulder again, her fingers moving down his arm. She had to shift her weight to do that, her thighs tightening around him, up higher now than his towel. She was naked beneath that shirt, and he could feel her, warm against his back.

It was all he could do to keep talking, to form coherent words. “’Course, most people don’t know I’m Scottish—part Scottish—just from looking at me. You don’t have that luxury.”

She was silent, just kneading his triceps, so he kept going.

“I can relate,” he told her, “a little, anyway. Because I’m short. Shorter. And because I look the way I look.”

“Youthful,” she said.

“Yeah. People make assumptions.”

“Tell me about it,” she said. “You know, this body right here?” She smacked his back. “This is a grown-up’s body. You should just walk around all the time with your shirt off.”

“You should, too,” he said.

She laughed. “I’ll still look Japanese,” she pointed out.

“Yeah, well, I’ll still be short.”

“Short is relative,” she said. “To me, you’re tall. Tall, dark, and handsome.”

So okay. Every time Jenk was convinced that this night couldn’t get any better, Lindsey said or did something to ramp it up another notch. He was getting a presex backrub from an incredible woman who called him tall, dark, and handsome with total conviction in her voice.

But asking her to bear his children was probably not an appropriate response.

Instead, he teased her. “Yeah, well, what do you know? Everyone’s taller than a hot Asian chick.”

She gasped her outrage, then started tickling him. Holy shit, her fingers were strong. He jerked away, twisting himself beneath her, so he could grab her hands—not an easy thing to do.

But finally he caught her wrists, one in each hand. They were both breathing hard, and she sat, now, straddling his bare stomach. His towel had come off, and the shirt she was wearing had slipped off one shoulder, exposing one exquisitely perfect breast.

Jesus, she was beautiful.

“You do know I was only kidding, right?” He had to make sure, even if he couldn’t manage more than a whisper.

Lindsey nodded. “Can I tell you something?”

Now? But he nodded. “Yeah.” He released her hands—big mistake, because she reached over and hiked her shirt back up her shoulder. Crap. But then she started rubbing his shoulder again, and leaning forward, she allowed him quite the view. Still, that shirt had to go. The sooner, the better.

“It really bugs me when people make ninja jokes,” Lindsey said.

Jenk worked hard to focus. “You mean, like,
Why did the ninja cross the road?
”

She laughed—and kissed him. Yes,
yes
…He found the buttons of her shirt, then realized as he fumbled with the first one, that the shirt was loose enough. He could just sweep his hands up the silk of her stomach and rib cage, filling his palms with the softness of her breasts.

The sound she made was all the encouragement he needed. He kept going, pushing the shirt up and over her head. And then she was as naked as he was.

He sat up—he wanted to hold her as he kissed her, as he ran his hands down the softness of her bare skin, as she touched him, too, shifting back so that his erection was pressed against her, trapped—God—between her cheeks.

He touched the hair between her legs, and she reached down to push his fingers lower. She was slick and warm and softer than the petals of a flower, and okay, where the hell had that poetic thought come from? Lindsey was a woman—all woman—not some delicate flower. And she was more than ready for him.

She made that clear by hiking herself up and putting his package in front of her, and—oh yeah!—wrapping her fingers around him like she was never going to let him go.

Jenk leaned back, reaching for the drawer that held his condoms, fumbling to grab one. No sooner did he have it in his hands then she took it from him, tearing open the foil package. Together, they covered him, and he would have lifted her up and pushed himself inside of her, but she stopped him.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Do you mind if we wait a sec? I don’t have sex that often, and I don’t want to come right away.”

Was she serious? “Linds, I’ll have sex with you whenever you want.”

“Gosh, you are
so
sweet,” she said. “But I know that’s asking an
awful
lot, so—”

“What, are you fucking kidding?”

“Yeah.” She laughed at him, with him. And she pushed herself down, thrusting him inside of her. “Both.”

Pleasure rocked him—it was mind-blowing. It was a moment he was going to have to replay over and over again—later—because his entire universe had shifted and changed. Pleasure had been redefined. Sex itself had just blown past all preassumed parameters.

There was sex, and then there was sex with Lindsey Fontaine.

She kissed him, her body pressed against his, her breasts soft against his chest, even as she strained for more of him, more, even more…

He tried to give her all she wanted—it was what he wanted, too. More.
More.

He kissed her, touched her, clung to her, rocked her, as she laughed and gasped and moved atop him.

“Okay, so this works for me,” she breathed into his ear. How could she speak? If he opened his mouth, he’d be able to do no more than make unintelligible sounds. “This working for you?”

“Yuh,” he managed, and she laughed.

Laughing during sex was dangerous. It took away a certain amount of self-control. He tried to stop her, to hold her still, to tell her, but he couldn’t, and then he didn’t want to, because, God, she was coming, just shattering in his arms.

“More,” she said, “oh, more…” and he gave her all he had, all that he was, all that he could, but then he realized he’d heard her wrong.

She was saying his name.
Mark.
With a catch in her voice, like he was something special, something she wanted. Like he totally turned her on, like just the thought—let alone the sensation—of him, hard inside of her, was making her come and come and come.

And it was over. He came, too, in a hot rush, just
blam.
Just crashing into her, no warning, with a total lack of control.

But Lindsey loved it. “Yes,” she breathed, “oh, yes.” She pushed him even farther inside of her, kissing him, holding him as tightly as he held on to her, as her laughter wrapped around him.

Tracy had a diamond ring on her finger as she wandered through Lyle’s suite at the Hotel del Coronado.

Lyle was on his phone again, talking to someone in Australia about a motion that had to be filed tomorrow. He’d get it done, he promised, before his morning flight to New York.

She was going to have to tell him that she couldn’t go back with him. She couldn’t just leave Troubleshooters Incorporated in the lurch. She had to give notice, let them have enough time to replace her. Of course, maybe Tom would be so glad that she was leaving that he’d let her clear out her desk and go.

Lyle’s room was beautiful—he didn’t stay anywhere that wasn’t five-star. And yet he left his dirty laundry on the floor. He never bothered to unpack, instead leaving his suitcase out and open on the luggage rack.

Tracy admired her ring as she put his socks and underwear into a plastic laundry bag and tucked it into the inner pocket of his bag.

And that was where she found it. Another jeweler’s box. Had Lyle already picked out their wedding rings?

It still felt surreal—an engagement ring, a wedding, maybe even a baby before the end of the new year. A home in Scarsdale—no, strike that. With the hours Lyle put in at work, he’d end up staying over in the city, and there was no way she’d trust him to do that. So instead, they’d make their home on the Upper West Side.

Lyle was still talking on his cell in his important voice. The defendant this, the prosecutor that.

Tracy couldn’t resist taking a peek at the rings he’d picked out and…

That was odd. Instead of a set of gold bands, the box held another diamond ring, identical to the one already on her finger.

Lyle closed his cell phone, ending his call, so she held it out to him. “What’s this?”

He looked at the diamond ring, looked at her, and smiled. But not before she saw an expression that was definitely not happiness in his eyes. He reached for the box. “Believe it or not, I bought the ring in two different sizes. I wanted to be absolutely certain it would fit. I’m going to return that one.”

It was possible that she’d imagined that unhappiness. It was possible that he was telling the truth.

Lyle was a perfectionist, and making sure the ring fit properly would matter to him.

Except he’d bought her a ring before. Her birthstone. Surely he still had her ring size in his Palm Pilot.

But it was his choice of words that sent up the biggest flare of mistrust.
Believe it or not
…

Heather, Tracy. Tracy, Heather. Heather’s a paralegal at the firm. Believe it or not, she just, uh, stopped by to drop off a file…

In a choice between
believe it
or
not,
Tracy had learned, the hard way, to select
not.
She held on to that ring box, pulling it out of his reach.

“That is so thoughtful,” she said, lying as skillfully as Lyle lied. “This ring
is
a little tight. Maybe this other one will fit better.” She forced herself to smile at him, to breathe.

Lyle didn’t have much of a choice. He watched Tracy take that second ring from its box.

Tracy held the ring up to the light, so she could read the inscription within.
Heather and Lyle forever.

Somehow she managed not to throw up. “What, did Heather turn you down?”

“Why don’t we have another drink,” Lyle said.

“Oh, yes. That will definitely help.”

“I can explain,” Lyle told her.

How often had she heard him say that? How often would she hear it? Every day for the rest of her miserable life?

Tracy threw the box at him and ran for the door.

“Why
did
the ninja cross the road?” Jenk mused.

Lindsey lifted her head. “You are so funny.” She took his lower lip between her teeth, gently tugging it back, and letting go. Fwack. She did it again.

“You having fun?” he asked.

“I love your mouth,” she told him as she rolled off of him. “You have a sexy mouth.”

She was incredibly good for his ego. Jenk kissed her, making sure she didn’t go too far away as he cleaned himself up. She didn’t. She snuggled up against him, her head on his shoulder. His good one. Which, he knew, was not by accident.

“What I meant by ninja joke,” she told him, “is this:
Hey, Lindsey, what are you some kind of ninja or something? Yo, Lindsey, way to ninja out there.
Six different people made a ninja comment at the Bug tonight.”

Jenk interlaced their fingers. “I’m pretty sure it was meant as a compliment.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I know. It’s just…It feels wrong. Like people telling Lopez that he’d pulled a Zorro, or saying that Alyssa did an awesome Harriet Tubman.”

He had to laugh. “No one would ever dare say that to her.”

Lindsey propped herself up on her elbow. “That’s my point. Why do they feel it’s okay to
ninja
me?”

He kissed the palm of her hand, enjoying the way the covered lamp made her bare skin glow slightly blue. Although she would look beautiful in any light. “Maybe because a ninja is the ultimate. A grand master. We’re all good at kicking ass, but a ninja…A ninja is something we all secretly want to be. I’d love to be
ninja-ed.
If you want, though, I’ll talk to the team about it. Tommy, too. We’ll make sure it stops.”

“No,” she said. “Thanks, but I’ll handle it. It just bugs me. Kind of like when anyone has a question about sushi, and everyone looks at me. I hate sushi, and no, I don’t know how to use chopsticks or a wok either. No, I don’t know kung fu or karate, but I can take a man more than twice my size to the ground if I have to—because, thanks to the LAPD, I’ve had training. Yes, I speak two languages, but they’re English and Spanish. The Spanish came in handy on the job in East LA.”

Silence seemed to ring in the room.

“Sorry,” she said. “I get a little passionate. I’m as American as you are, and I’m betting you don’t get asked recipes for sheep brains or whatever you crazy Scottish people eat. So that’s mine. What’s yours?”

Jenk knew exactly what she was talking about—or at least he thought he did. He checked to make sure. “You’re talking intimate secret, right?”

Lindsey nodded, chin in her hand as she watched him.

“A few months ago,” he told her, playing with her hair, pushing it behind her ear. “I thought I was going to die and…It was pretty eye-opening.”

She nodded again. “I got myself shot a few years ago, so I get it. A near-death experience can trigger major revelations. Mine was to quit the force. But, I’m sorry. Go on. It’s your turn. What did you discover?”

“I guess I discovered that there’s a lot I haven’t done that I still want to do.” Jenk touched the scar on Lindsey’s back. It was small, but he’d noticed it. “I was wondering what this was from. What’d you do to get back shot? Push someone out of the way?”