With Extreme Pleasure Page 13

“What else could he want? What else is there?” she asked, her voice rising with each question. “I don’t have anything for him to take away. I suppose he could set me up somehow, make sure I take the fall for something that would put me behind bars, but where would the fun be in that? I wouldn’t be as easy for him to reach. Then again, he may have a gang of butch inmates on call.”

  King waited several moments to make sure she’d spilled everything she was thinking and worn herself out. There was no way for him to disprove her theory, or to prove his own. But she was borrowing trouble her mental health—her physical, too—could do without.

  “Tuzzi doesn’t want you dead, Cady. He’s been put away for life. If you were in prison, his brand of torture wouldn’t be half as effective. You’d be looking over your shoulder for reasons a whole lot bigger. And if you were dead, you wouldn’t be there for him to torture at all.”

  She was quiet after that, as if letting King’s hypothesis sink in and get comfy enough to settle. A lot of road passed without a response. He couldn’t know what she was thinking; her mind wasn’t quite as simple for him to read as she’d apparently found his.

  But her stress level didn’t seem to be rising. She’d slumped in the corner of the seat, pulled her feet up so that she sat cross-legged. Her seat belt crossed between her breasts, and when he realized that’s where he was staring, he turned back to the road.

  Then he took a deep breath and said, “Until we know differently, Fitz is a good guy, okay?”

  Cady huffed, capped her empty juice bottle. “A good guy in that he’s on our side, you mean.”

  “That works.” Because she was right. That was the only thing King was going to count on, and he was only going to do that until Fitz screwed up and stepped in it. “Now that we’ve got that out of the way…you going to come back over here and snap up my shirt?”

  He wasn’t sure why he’d said it. Okay, that was a lie. He’d said it because he wanted her hands on him again, and he had no idea if their stop tonight would have them sharing one room or bunking in two.

  Knowing Fitz was looking out for them took away the fear factor that had sent Cady into King’s bed. He’d like to think she’d come back for a repeat of last night’s fun. She’d said she didn’t want to talk about the sex. Well, he could do without the words, as long as he had her body.

  He spared her no more than a cursory glance, one assuring him that he had her attention. What he got was way, way more, and set his blood on fire. Her eyes weren’t wide and shocked, but smoky, her lashes sweeping up and down as she considered him, where he sat, where she had him, caught behind the wheel of a machine running seventy miles per hour.

  “Sorry about that,” she said, clicking free of her seat belt and climbing onto her knees in her seat. She leaned across the center console, a forearm braced on his shoulder as she pulled together the plackets of his shirt and snapped. Slowly. Taking her time covering his tattoo. “I wasn’t thinking.”

  She may not have been thinking then, but he was definitely not thinking now, what with that blood rush thing, most of it leaving his brain, settling in a place that needed attention and made it uncomfortable to drive.

  He swallowed hard; his throat working to clear all that drool kept him from sounding off about what she could do with her hands once she’d finished with his shirt, or fuck the shirt, what she could be doing now.

  She got to the top, the snap at his neck, the very last one before she’d have no reason to stick around, and she leaned close, her mouth at his ear where she whispered, “Tell me something, King.”

  He would if he could find his voice. “Anything, chère. What do you want to know?”

  “Why can’t you have babies?”

  His gaze whipped up to her reflection in the rearview mirror. He’d later swear that was the only thing that saved them from roasting inside Hummer fireball number two.

  He’d barely wrapped his head around the picture of the car running up on his backside at goddamn way too many miles an hour before it was there.

  He slammed his right arm across Cady’s backside, flattening her against the center console, half in the backseat, half in the front.

  She screamed, a sound that was nothing compared with the banshee obscenities shrieking in his head as he watched the car barreling down on his tail.

  He was blocked in on the left and the front both, had nowhere to go but right and off the road. It was either that, or take one up the ass.

  He flung the steering wheel to the side and yelled at Cady, “Hold on!”

  Twenty-one

  Cady could not believe this was happening. It was what was supposed to happen, what Fitz wanted to happen. But she and King had only been on the road long enough to see a few miles of Pennsylvania.

  And now here they were on the side of the road, the wheels of King’s new SUV buried halfway up the rims in mud, the grill cracked where a broken tree limb half the size of a telephone pole had punctured who knew what in the engine compartment before piercing the hood and stopping short of the windshield on the driver’s side.

  That potentially lethal threat was one they hadn’t seen until climbing out from behind the deployed airbags. With the way she’d been flung over the console between the two seats, Cady’s had only popped against her ass. It was for the best. It was the only part of her not bruised.

  Fitzwilliam McKie was nowhere to be found, a realization that had Cady backing away from King who was cursing imaginatively again as he circled the Hummer. She watched him a minute, then looked up at the sky and waved.

  When King noticed, he stopped pacing and grumbled, “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Hoping to attract the nearest satellite,” she said, the hiss of steam from the radiator and the windy blast of cars whizzing by nearly masking the sound of wheels on gravel as a truck and two cars—one of them a Pennsylvania State Police cruiser with lights flashing—pulled to a stop.

  Cady glanced at King as he turned toward the new arrivals. “I guess we treat this as a one-vehicle accident and leave out Malling’s possible involvement?”

  “Since we don’t know that it was Malling, that’s probably best, though another call to that satellite might be in order.” King cast a quick look skyward. “Hear that McKie?”

  Since we don’t know that it was Malling? What the hell? Had he really just said that?

  Did he think their accident had been an accident? That some newly licensed punk with a hot car and no brains had been out for a joy ride and decided to take on King’s massive H3 for fun?

  “You folks okay?” called the Statie walking toward them, his question forcing Cady to put a hold on that train of thought. “Do we need an ambulance out here? Ma’am? Is that busted lip from the airbag?”

  Cady knew she still looked a mess, and knew from the way the cop was eyeballing King that he wasn’t thinking the airbag had anything to do with her mouth. “No, I’m fine. My roommate gave me this when she caught her boyfriend in my bed. The black eyes, too. I was leaning over to get something out of the backseat, so the airbag actually spanked me.”

  The Statie nodded, looked from her to King who she heard grumbling under his breath about the llamas again.

  “No ambulance,” King told the officer, slamming his hand into the H3’s back fender hard enough to make the metal ring. “But a tow truck for sure. Even if I could rock my way out of the mud in this ditch, I’d need a new radiator and who knows what else to do it.”

  “You might want to start with a chainsaw, though what that trash is doing out here…fell off a truck doing tree trimming, my best bet. You two are damn lucky, from the looks of things,” the Statie said, before making his way around the vehicle.

  King started to follow the other man while he checked out the damage and radioed for a tow truck, but Cady grabbed his arm to stop him. “What do you mean, we don’t know it was Malling? Are you kidding me?”

  “My first instinct is yes, Tuzzi was involved,” he said, keeping his voice low, his
words directed solely at her, his gaze fierce as he stared down, part insistence that he was serious, part ire that she’d chosen another really bad time to run her mouth. “My second—”

  “Hey-ho!” The driver of the pickup approached, pulling his ball cap from his head and smoothing back his thinning hair before the cap went back in place. “I don’t know where that guy thought he was going, damn stupid kid. He nearly clipped my front bumper when he cut in front of me.”

  “You saw what happened, then?” the officer asked, pulling a pen and notebook from his uniform pocket as he circled back to where King and Cady stood. “And the driver, too?”

  “I saw the car and the kid both,” said the second driver who’d stopped, a middle-aged woman, slightly hefty, wearing a loose floral thermal over navy sweats. “The car had no plates. Not on the front, or on the back.”

  “What about the make and model?”

  Since Cady had been snapping King’s shirt and wondering if they could stop somewhere so that she could climb into his lap for a quickie, she hadn’t seen anything of either one, so she listened to the three who had described the vehicle and the man behind the wheel.

  She hadn’t seen Malling since his trial. A lot of years had come and gone. People changed. Hair color and style. Weight was lost, muscles gained. Or weight was gained, and muscles turned to flab.

  Men grew sideburns or beards or mustaches. And at a distance, colored contacts weren’t easy to spot. But the one thing no one could change was skin color.

  And Jason Malling wasn’t black.

  She backed away from the group as they talked, hugging herself tightly and wondering whether to be relieved or more worried than before. King had said his first instinct was that Tuzzi was involved.

  Did that mean his second was that someone else had planned this? Or did he think they’d simply been in the wrong place at the same time that some brainless punk black kid had taken his hot car for a ride?

  And where the hell was Fitzwilliam McKie, she asked herself since no one else was around, adding a few choice words under her breath.

  “Did you just say something about llamas?”

  She turned to face King, noticing the Statie still talking to the man and woman who’d stopped. It had been nice of them to stop. It surprised her that anyone had.

  “I might have.” She nodded toward the group of three who’d come to their rescue. Unlike Fitz. “What’s going on?”

  “Mr. Lawman is taking their statements so they can be on their way, then he’ll wait with us until the tow truck gets here.”

  “And then what? What are we supposed to do?”

  “We’ll go with the driver to his shop, and see what it’s going to take to get back on the road.”

  “No government agent clearing the decks and producing another truck out of thin air? Considering he couldn’t even produce himself…“King?”

  “Yes, Cady?”

  “Do you think Fitz wants us back on the road?”

  “The thought has occurred to me that he may not. That he’s changed his mind. That he wants to keep us close rather than having us get too far away.”

  Too far away for what? was the question that came to mind. “Then he might’ve done this? Seriously?”

  “If he did, I don’t think he was counting on the tree limb putting us out of commission. We’re looking at needing a new radiator, new airbags, and whatever else went south when we did. Plus, now I’ve got insurance to deal with. We’re going to be stuck with a rental for at least a week. And I’m not taking a rental to Louisiana.”

  His last comment took several seconds to register. Somewhere along the way, Cady had forgotten that King’s time with her was temporary. That Louisiana, his true love, was calling him home.

  She couldn’t think about that now, about him leaving her alone when she was finally fighting back. “If he wanted to keep us close, wouldn’t it have been easier for him to reach you on your phone?”

  “When has the government ever done anything the easy way? Assuming he is government, and knowing that assuming anything is going to make an ass out of one of us. Though better an ass than a llama, I guess,” he said, and Cady laughed.

  He laughed with her, hooking his elbow around her neck and pulling her close. It was almost as if he knew she needed nothing more right then than to burrow into his chest.

  She didn’t stay long. It would be weak to stay long. It didn’t matter that he was solid and warm and smelled good, like the night they’d shared and safety. She couldn’t go back to being weak.

  And so she eased away, tilted her head, and called toward the clouds, “Got anything to say to us, Fitzwilliam McKie? What about anything to say for yourself?”

  At her side, King chuckled. “C’mon, chère. Tow truck’s here. The man in the satellite will keep. This one won’t.”

  Twenty-two

  The driver chatted all the way to the shop from where he’d been dispatched. Cady chatted back, leaving King free to brood. He didn’t like to brood. He was a brooding master, but he’d gotten over finding it useful.

  Whether or not it would turn out to be useful now, it fit his state of mind. Plus, his style of brooding did a great job of putting off both the driver and Cady, thus allowing him to think.

  Problem was, he didn’t know what he should be thinking about. Tuzzi and Malling causing the accident. McKie causing the accident. The accident being an accident, and how much worse it could’ve been. Or having sex with Cady.

  Thinking about sex with Cady was what had gotten the two of them into this trouble, so common sense would have him thinking about anything else.

  But his uncommon sense—or would that be his common nonsense?—said that if he mulled over, firmed up, and put away his thoughts of sex and Cady, he could move on to the business of keeping her alive.

  Unfortunately, knowing what he needed to do didn’t guarantee his success in making it happen. Especially when she was sitting crushed against his side in the cab of the overcrowded, standard transmission tow truck, and the only thing he could smell was her skin.

  He should be smelling diesel fumes and oil and hand cleaner, the musty dirt coating everything, even the driver who was not the cleanest thing he’d ever seen, but he didn’t. It was Cady’s scent filling his nostrils, making him sweat, making him ache with wanting to strip her down and breathe her in.

  When she’d been leaning over him just before the wreck, keeping his eyes on the road or his mind on navigating it had been next to impossible—proving that he had to get a grip on this sex thing before he got one of them killed. He’d come too damn close to doing just that already.

  “You may have to get a room at May Wind’s B and B,” the driver was telling Cady. “Not much else in the way of lodging in Cushing Township. Oh, there’s a couple of pay by the hour joints outside of town a ways, but you good folks don’t want to be staying there.”

  Until then, King hadn’t paid much attention to Cady’s conversation with the man behind the wheel, but he perked up at the mention of accommodations, and Cady’s snicker at the mention of an hourly rate. “This a small place? Your Cushing Township?”

  The driver nodded, rolled down his window, and spit a dark stream of tobacco juice into the wind, causing Cady to wince and turn her face into King’s shoulder. “Depends on your idea of small, but I can’t think of but one or two boroughs in the county with less folks callin’ ’em home.”

  Great. They were stuck in a nowheresville that King doubted rated more than a pinprick on the map. His home in Cajun country? Not much better when it came to progress moving beyond a snail’s speed, which justified the bad feeling he had about them getting out of here anytime soon.

  “What about the mechanic there? Or the body shop guy? Any clue how hard it’s going to be to get parts?” Or how long it’s going to take to get them ordered, shipped, and his wheels back on the road?

  “You’re looking at the mechanic. Jarrell Bradley’s the name. My brother-in-law’s your body g
uy. Delton Dreyer. I also drive this truck and do some hot shot deliveries. I’ll be the one picking up the parts once me and Delton figure out what exactly we’re going to need.”

  King wanted to suggest they keep going until they hit Reading and found a shop with parts in stock and a mechanic that worked full time.

  And if they continued on to Reading, he and Cady wouldn’t be forced to rent a room in close quarters where their business could too easily become a power source for the local gossip mill.

  But he kept silent, figuring if McKie wanted them to hole up in the middle of Bumfuck, he had his reasons. And if he wanted them to be somewhere besides Cushing Township, he’d make it happen.

  “Here we are,” Jarrell Bradley said, slowing the tow truck as they passed the township marker and the speed limit sign posted just beyond.

  Cady straightened to peer out the windshield. “Is there anything we should see while we’re here, Jarrell? Any historic landmarks or nature trails or museums to tour? Any restaurants we shouldn’t miss?”

  King rolled his eyes. The girl was deluded if she thought he was going to pack a picnic and take a hike, or treat this stop like a vacation.

  And he damn sure had no intention of letting her wander the township like a sightseeing tourist when Malling could be anywhere around.

  “Well, you’re gonna want to sample May’s breakfast buffet. She puts on the kind of spread that’ll see ya through most of the day.” The beefy man leaned across them to point out King’s window. “There’s her place, the B and B. I’ll give you a ride back down here once I unhook at the shop.

  “Oh, and there’s the McCluskey’s.” He pointed again, this time to a squat brick building with a hand-painted sign above the door that said RESTAURANT. “You want fresh fish with home fries? That’s your best bet. May will have some brochures about what’s close by for folks to see.

  “Here’s the shop,” he said, turning off the main street and almost immediately into a parking lot of cars King assumed were there for repair. A lot of cars. Pickups, tractors, ATVs. More than he would’ve expected to see in a place that was a pinprick on the map.