ZERO HERO (The Kate Huntington Mystery series) (17 page)

            Skip came out of the bathroom. He had wrapped a towel around his waist–also not his usual behavior. He walked over to the chair in the corner of the room and picked up his robe. He donned it and dropped the towel on the floor.

            His eyes darted toward her, then away. Her heart was in her throat as he came over and sat down on his side of the bed, his back to her.

            “You need to tell me.” She struggled to keep the tears out of her voice. “I hate to push you, but my mind is conjuring up all kinds of possibilities.”

            He glanced back over his shoulder. “I didn’t cheat on you.”

            “I didn’t think you had,” she lied.

            He leaned his elbows on his knees and put his face in his hands.

            Kate made herself keep quiet while he sat that way for a full minute. Then the story came out, in bits and pieces.

            “It was disgusting. One minute we were talking, and the next she was wiggling on my lap, and...” He was silent for several seconds. “Another gal was in the bathroom, taking pictures.”

            Kate sucked in her breath.

            “I destroyed the camera. Stomped it to pieces. She said Frederico had put her up to it.”

            Kate rolled halfway over and put her hand on his broad back. She wasn’t sure what to say. It did sound disgusting, but still... why had the experience rocked him so?

            She flashed to a memory from college–a party her freshman year. A strange boy had rubbed himself against her butt on the dance floor. It had freaked her out a bit. She’d gone home and showered, and washed her dress. She’d probably thrown her underwear in the washer for good measure.

            Still his reaction seemed extreme. She’d been a naive eighteen-year-old. He was a forty-four-year-old ex-cop.

            She rubbed her hand across Skip’s back. His muscles were tight under the terrycloth. She moved over to kneel behind him and started massaging the knots in his shoulders and back. They gave no signs of relaxing. If anything, his shoulders tensed more.

            Understanding suddenly dawned. She resisted the urge to smack herself in the forehead. She’d been a trauma recovery specialist for two decades and it had taken her this long to realize what had happened?

            Her stomach unknotted. This she knew how to fix.

            “Skip, turn around and look at me,” she said in the voice she used when giving the children medicine–gentle but firm, brooking no arguments.

            He threw one leg up on the bed and turned halfway toward her, looking over his shoulder.

            “All the way around,” she said, spinning her finger in a circle.

            Sighing, he turned the rest of the way around, sitting cross-legged in front of her. She put her hands on his thighs, covered by the terrycloth robe.

            “You’ve never had unwanted erections before?” she asked gently.

            He dropped his gaze. After a moment, he said in a tight voice, “All the time, in my younger years, when a pretty gal walked by. This was different.”

            She waited for him to continue. When he didn’t, she prompted, “How so?”

            “I wasn’t... I didn’t find her at all attractive. The whole set-up was... I was thinking about how I might pick up bed bugs from the grimy bed, and how sad she was. And then she jumped on me. I was repulsed...” He trailed off.

            She picked up one of his long slender hands and held it between hers. “I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve listened to rape and incest survivors shamefully admit that their bodies sometimes responded to what was being done to them. Even as their minds were reeling with disgust and a dozen other negative emotions.”

            He was staring at their clasped hands.

            “Our bodies are primitive, and rather simple things in a way,” she said. “Expose them to certain kinds of stimulation and they may respond, without being all that discriminating about the source of that stimulation.”

            “So if my body’s so damned simple and primitive,” he said through clenched teeth, “why did it respond to
her
, and now it
won’t
respond to you?”

            She frowned. “I wish I had a good answer for that one, but it seems to be the way things work. Those same rape and incest survivors often can’t respond later to the men they love.” She paused. “At least not until they forgive themselves, and their bodies.”

            Skip was still looking at their hands. He gave his head a small shake.

            She reached up to comb the hair back off his forehead. Then she slid her hand down his cheek and under his jaw to nudge his face up. He closed his eyes and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.

            After a moment he opened his eyes. “So I have to forgive my body. How the hell do I do that?”

            “You start by admitting that you’re pissed at it for betraying you that way.”

            Skip digested that for a moment. Then he tried to smile at her but didn’t quite pull it off. “Comes in handy sometimes, being married to a therapist.”

            He glanced past her shoulder at the alarm clock on her nightstand. “Well, despite the roller coaster ride this evening has been, we’re still going to be able to get a good night’s sleep.” He started to shrug out of his robe.

            “Not so fast, buddy.” She ran her hands over his muscular chest, then shoved the robe further down on his arms to trap them against his body. “That’s just the first step.”

            “Kate, I, uh, really don’t think–”

            “Thinking is not required. We’re not leaving things this way. You know how you have to get back on the horse when it throws you?”

            “Heard that line a few too many times lately,” he muttered. “Kate, I–”

            She put a finger on his lips. “Hear me out. I don’t work with sexual dysfunction
per se
, but I did take some classes on sexuality in grad school. There are some techniques that go all the way back to Masters and Johnson. The idea is that you let yourself just relax and enjoy, with no, um, assumptions it’s going to lead to intercourse or orgasm. As a matter of fact, you’re prohibited from having intercourse in the first exercise. So the pressure’s totally off.”

            “So you think we should do this first exercise tonight?”

            “As you pointed out, the night is still young.”

            “Okay, what do I do?”

            “Not a damned thing.” Hands on his shoulders, she turned him around and gently shoved him back on the bed. She shrugged out of her own robe and straddled his waist. “This time, I do all the work.”

            He tried to reach for her but she was kneeling on his robe and he couldn’t move his arms.

            Kate decided she liked that set-up, for now at least. “Huh-uh. You lie still now.”

            She continued the massage she’d started on his shoulders, kneading his chest muscles slowly with gentle hands.

            He stared up at her for a moment, then his face softened and he closed his eyes. “I could get used to this,” he murmured.

            Finally she’d kneaded the tension out of his upper body. She lightly kissed his shoulder, then lifted one knee slightly to tug his robe off that arm. Draping it across his chest in front of her, she began massaging his bicep.

            She felt a quickening in her abdomen.
Whoa there, sugar. You’ve got a long way to go yet.

            Ignoring her own body’s reaction, she massaged his arm and hand until they were as limp as a noodle. Then she repeated the process with the other arm. When that one was also completely relaxed, she touched her lips to his palm, a feather light kiss. His eyes sprang open and he started to reach for her.

            She put her hands on his forearms and leaned her weight forward, pushing him down into the mattress. “Lie still!” But she was smiling down at him.

            He bit his lower lip and closed his eyes again.

            She swung her leg off of him and knelt beside him.

            “Are you sure we’re not allowed to make love?” he whispered.

            “Absolutely
verboten
,” she said softly. Passing over his rock-hard abs for the time being, she moved down to massage his legs.

           
Note to self: let’s do this again some time.

            “What happens if I fall asleep?”

            “I’ll wake you up.”

            She rubbed his feet for awhile, until she thought he might indeed be almost asleep. On her knees, she scooted back up to his waist. The movement brought him around. He opened one eye and looked up at her, his smile dreamy.

            She smiled back and placed one hand on his belly. Both eyes shot open and he sucked in his breath.

            “Shh, relax.” She began to knead his abdominal muscles, carefully avoiding the full-blown erection now waving at her. He closed his eyes, but his periodic gasps told her he was nowhere close to falling asleep on her now.

            Her hand stopped moving but stayed on his belly as she leaned over and trailed kisses across his chest. His eyes shot open again.

            She threw her leg over him, just below the rib cage, and took both his hands in her own. She pinned them to the mattress on either side of his head, then leaned down to once again touch her lips to his chest.

            His body bucked a little, almost dislodging her.

            “Relax and enjoy.”

            He groaned and closed his eyes.

            Keeping his hands pinned, she moved her body a little further down, lifting some of her weight off of his stomach. They had completed the first exercise and she was moving on to number two, but she wasn’t planning on telling him that. She trailed more kisses over his torso.

            His eyes still closed, he gasped. “Dear God, you’ve got to stop.”

            “Do you really want me to stop?” She murmured, then resumed the trail of kisses from one large tan nipple across to the other.

            “Yes, no, I don’t know.” He was now squirming under her, but his eyes were still closed.

            She gritted her teeth as she almost lost control. When she could trust her voice again, she whispered, “Okay, I’ll stop
that
now.”

            Keeping her face close to his chest, she lifted her weight completely off his stomach. He moaned at the loss of contact with her. She licked one nipple. His body bucked again. She licked the other.

            “Dear God, that’s worse,” he forced out through clenched teeth.

           
Or better.

            A quick glance to make sure he still had his eyes closed. She let go of one of his hands to use her own for another purpose. She guided him into her and settled her weight on his hips.

            His eyes flew open. This time she let him pull her down against him as they started moving together.

            She raised her lips to his and kissed him fiercely.

            After a moment, he twisted his head gently to the side to break the kiss. “I thought we weren’t allowed to do this.”

            She lifted up on her elbows, her breasts just barely brushing his chest, and looked down into his eyes. She grinned. “We’re not. I’m cheating.”

            His laugh was cut short when she tightened around him.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

            Dolph’s phone buzzed in his pocket as he was leaving the office on Wednesday.

            “Tyrell’s had no luck locating Roxie, but one of his snitches came through,” Judith said before he could even say hello.

            He recognized the tone–brusque with an undercurrent of excitement. Something was starting to break their way.

            “Turns out our Freddie Boy’s connected to some guy in Scranton, PA. At first, Ty got the run-around from the PD up there, then he’s suddenly talking to their chief, and then the local FBI office.”

            “Whoa,” Dolph said.

            “Yeah, they tap-danced for awhile, then agreed to an info exchange. Looks like Freddie might be in bed with a guy who’s trying to resurrect a defunct mob family in Pennsylvania.”

            “Who’s the mobster?”

            “Tony Donati, son of Benito Donati, who was a capo under the last boss of the Bufalino family. That boss, one William aka ‘Big Billy’ D’Elia, is currently a guest of the federal prison system, as is Daddy Donati.”

            “Is that what did in the family?” Dolph asked as he headed out of the building. “Usually somebody else steps into the void when the boss goes to prison.”

            “Yeah, except this time, the boss turned state’s evidence on some of his own people, to get a lighter sentence.”

            “
That
would strike a lethal blow.”

            “Yeah. D’Elia gets out in 2014. Tony’s daddy will be a guest of the government for quite awhile after that. Meanwhile, Sonny Boy’s been running daddy’s operation, pretending to be just a legitimate businessman.”

            Dolph hit the button on his key fob to unlock his car. “What businesses does he own?”

            “Just one. Benito’s Plumbing Supplies of Scranton, PA.”

            He climbed into his car but didn’t start it yet. “I’m assuming since you’re telling me all this that it’s okay to share it around.”

            “Definitely. Ty’s gonna try not to foul up the FBI’s investigation, but he wants Frederico off the streets of Baltimore. He said the more people investigating this, the better. Just be discreet. His lieutenant’s a lot more territorial than he is. Anything you guys find out, let him or me know right away.”

            “You got it.”

            “Hot-diggity. We’re finally cookin’ here.”

            Dolph laughed. “Did I just hear you say ‘hot-diggity’?”

            “No, and if you say I did, I’ll deny it.” Judith disconnected.