Jaded (23 page)

She opened her eyes and watched Jase sink naked into the frothy bubbles. Her heart fluttered in her belly. He was such a man. And, for the moment, her man.

“I was wondering when that libido of yours would kick in.”

Jase grinned like the bad boy he was. “My libido has been just fine, thank you, and you can beg all you want. But no sex for you until your ribs are healed.”

“Ha! I’ll bet you won’t get out of the tub with that erection of yours intact.”

Jase grinned and slid close to her. “If I don’t, it will be by my own hand.” He scooped up two handfuls of lathery bubbles. “I think, though, you need some help bathing. I’m here to help.”

Jade smiled and carefully turned around in the tub, presenting her back to him. “Be gentle.”

Jase extended his legs and gently brought Jade against his chest, where she semireclined. His erection speared her in the back. She smiled when Jase rubbed against her and groaned.

He lathered up the soap in his big hands and slowly he spread them across her skin. He was careful around her ribs, but when his hands, slick with lather, crossed over her breasts, Jade gasped. The hitch in her breath hurt, but the feel of his fingers playing with her nipples was worth it. She wanted his mouth on her. She wanted to turn around and slide down on him.

It took every ounce of restraint she possessed not to arch her back when his mouth laved down the side of her neck, or when his hands submerged beneath the water and caressed her thighs. She opened her legs in a wanton display. “Please, Jase, touch me there.”

His fingers swept softly across her mound. Jade closed her eyes, forgetting her pain. Jase steadied her from behind, his left hand pressed against her belly while his right hand played with her slick folds. She wanted to open wider and arch, giving him greater access to her body, but the pain was too intense. She settled for his light petting, his wanton mouth, and his erection rocking against her back.

“Jase, let me turn around.”

The tension in his body lessened. Carefully, she got up on her knees and turned around, his blue eyes boring into her and his glorious erection standing up straight and proud. As much as she wanted to slide onto him, she knew the minute she did her body would tense in sublime pleasure and her ribs would protest in sharp pain.

She settled on the other side of the big round tub facing him and smiled. “Touch yourself, Jase.”

He didn’t need to be told twice. He wrapped a big hand around his erection. “I wish that was your hand.” Slowly, he pumped. “Or those sweet lips of yours.”

His body jerked and he moved his hand faster, his strokes long and sure.

Heat generated at her core and just as swiftly as Jase’s hand moved up and down his shaft, it infiltrated her nerve endings. Her hips responded in silent rhythm.

“Jase, that turns me on, watching you like that.”

“Touch yourself, Jade.”

She hesitated only a brief moment before she touched her fingertip to a nipple. It hardened. Jase groaned, the sound of his enjoyment dissolving her modesty. Her hands cupped both her breasts and rubbed them as Jase’s hand moved faster up and down his burgeoning shaft. His eyes speared her, the planes of his face hardened in sexual tension.

She wanted to touch him, to be the one to make him come. Jade slid up on her knees and moved toward Jase. His eyes widened and he slowly shook his head. “Don’t tell me no, I’ll stop if it hurts.”

Carefully, she positioned herself over him. When she lowered herself to him and he impaled her, she sucked in a breath and yipped as a stab of pain zinged her.

“Stop, sweetheart, I don’t want to hurt you.”

She opened her eyes and smiled. Taking his face into her hands, she brought his lips to hers and kissed him, and she slowly moved down the long length of him. The sensation of him filling her up was almost more than she could humanly bear. If she died right now, she could not feel more content.

“You feel so good, Jase.”

His wet arms slid around her waist, steadying her. He nuzzled her breasts. The urge to flex, to arch, to give more of herself to him had her at her breaking point. But he steadied her, and slowly he moved beneath her, doing all the work.

The undulation of their bodies sloshed the water up and over the tub. Jade wrapped her arms tightly around Jase’s neck, digging her fingers into his damp hair, wanting to be as close to him as humanly possible, ignoring the pain in her ribs. She wanted him more than it hurt not to.

Their lips met, their tongues clashed, and their bodies slammed against each other. “Jade,” Jase breathed as he thrust deep into her, “I promise you, we’ll work everything out.”

He kissed her then and she felt the overwhelming urge to weep. He meant it, and she truly believed that if any man could come to her rescue it would be Jase. But she didn’t fool herself. This time together would be their last time together.

Her orgasm hit her hard. Her body stiffened and she cried out in sublime pain. Jase came right after, pushing up into her, his fingers digging into her ass, steadying her while one spasm racked through his body after another.

The next morning, Jade woke to find her head resting in the crook of Jase’s arm. He was on his back, snoring softly. She smiled and would have reached up to kiss his lips but the movement would have caused her too much discomfort. It occurred to her that for the first time in her life someone was taking care of her and asking for nothing in return. Well, except that she lie in bed and get better.

She almost believed what he said last night, that it would work out. That there would be a “them” when she recovered. But she remembered her plans. And he would be on the next plane to Louisiana in less than twenty-four hours. If she had any intention of staying, she’d have a big problem with that. As it was, she was not.

She’d agreed that she would stay at his place while he was gone, but when he returned she would be in Costa Rica. Jade hated lying to Jase. She let him think he’d find vindicating evidence in Sykesville. That way he’d go on his journey of closed doors, thinking she awaited his return with her ‘get out of jail free’ card.

She’d called Tina the day Jase brought her to his home and explained she had been in a very minor fender bender and that was what had kept her. And while her sister had insisted on flying up and tending her, Jade assured her there was no need to. When Jade called Tina later in the day, she would tell her she’d be down the following day. Jade didn’t know how she would manage to sit in an airplane for the hour or so it would take to fly down, or even manage her luggage.
Forget the luggage,
she thought. She forgot she had enough money to buy ten wardrobes.

And so that was the plan. Jase was leaving later in the morning. She’d argued with him, asking what the point was to go, but he insisted that he needed to know all of the facts.

It didn’t matter. She would be long gone when he returned and he would not be able to arrest her.

When Jase kissed her good-bye, he did it slowly. When he ended it, he took her face into his hands and whispered, “I don’t know how, Jade, but somehow this will all work out. I promise.”

Tears welled; they came easy these days. She smiled and knew that while he believed he was her knight in shining armor, he could not cast a spell and erase her past.

The hot Louisiana air hit Jase like a sheet of plywood when he exited the terminal. He rented a car and headed north on the interstate toward Sykesville. He’d made contact with Sheriff Taylor. The old boy remembered quite clearly the death of Ruby Leigh’s mother and said he’d be happy to chat about it. And by the way, Sheriff Taylor asked, did the detective know where Ruby Leigh was these days? There was a warrant out for her arrest for the murder of her mama…

Two hours later, Jase sat in the office of the good ol’ boy who had been sheriff for more than two decades.

“Now, tell me again who you are?” he asked Jase.

For the second time, Jase showed the rotund man his ID. “I’m working on a homicide that may involve your Ruby Leigh Gentry. I’m here to find out if the suspect we have using an assumed name is one and the same. Do you have pictures of Miss Gentry?”

“As a matter of fact, I do. You gonna tell me Ruby Leigh’s new name?”

Jase grinned and nodded, but his smile faded as Taylor slid him pictures of Ruby Leigh in middle school. There was no denying the similarities. It was Jade, unless she had a twin. Next, Taylor slid pictures of Bobbie Jean Gentry and the sister across the desk. Luckily for Jade, she didn’t resemble her mother. Except for the eyes. Those big green eyes were prominent in all three of the Gentry women.

“How’d she die, Sheriff?”

“Not sure if she died from the blunt trauma to her head or if the fire did it. Either way, she didn’t die of natural causes. Witnesses say they heard Ruby screamin’ at her mama.” He opened a file folder, shuffled some papers, and read, “‘I won’t let you do it to Crystal. I’ll kill you first.’”

“And what do you suppose Ruby meant by that?”

The sheriff shrugged his wide shoulders. His cheeks flushed red. He suddenly found the floor more interesting than looking Jase in the eye. “We live in a depressed area, Detective Vaughn, ain’t much that keeps us going except for the few oil fields still wet. The colonel had two on his property, an’ he owned the mineral rights to ’em. He kept the locals employed.”

“So, because of that, you all turned the other cheek while he exploited underage girls?”

“Now, listen here, son—”

Jase stood up and swiped his hand over his face. “Let me get this straight. You stand by and let Bobbie Jean Gentry turn her fourteen-year-old daughter over to a dirty old man, and then when her mother wants to turn the seven-year-old sister over to him, too, and her big sister has a problem with it, you all have a problem with
that?”

“Well, sonny boy, if Ruby had stuck around for us to question her, maybe she would have shed some light on the topic.” He scratched his big belly. “Coz ’round here, even us Southern folk know two plus two equals four. And since we’re that smart, we figured that added up to Ruby Leigh killin’ her mama to protect her sister. So don’t think I don’t have a problem with the threats, Detective, I just have a problem with the fact that the girl carried them out.”

“How do you know the old bat didn’t fall and hit her head?”

“Maybe she did, but she didn’t set that fire. There were accelerants used. It was deliberate.”

“How long after the fight did the place go up in smoke?”

“Well, I don’t rightly know.”

“How can you
not
rightly know? If what Jade—er, Ruby says is true, after the fight, she took her sister and ran and never looked over her shoulder. That would mean someone else set the fire. What was the official cause of death?”

The old sheriff sat back in his old wooden chair, the slats groaning under his considerable weight. “The coroner’s report was inconclusive, the body was so badly burned. But the skull showed definite signs of blunt trauma. Entire back of the head bashed in. Witnesses said after the screaming, there was the fire.”

“I’ll bet you my pension Bobbie Jean Gentry was alive when that fire was started, and it wasn’t Ruby who started it.”

“Well, now, son, why don’t you bring that girl back here and we’ll figure it all out?”

“I plan to, Sheriff Taylor, but before I do I want all of the facts. How well did you know Otis Thibodeaux?”

“Well enough. He took over the running of the oil fields when his daddy the colonel died suddenly. He wasn’t the good soul like his pa, though.”

“You call a man who buys girls from their hard-luck parents ‘a good soul’? C’mon, now, Sheriff. Even in California we aren’t that deviant.”

The sheriff pushed his ponderous bulk up from the groaning chair. “I don’t need to take your insults, son. See your way out.”

“I apologize for that. Had you heard old Otis kicked the bucket in sunny California?”

Taylor squinted and blew a low breath out. “Let me guess, your two plus two equals Ruby Leigh Gentry.”

“Maybe.”

Jase left the station and jumped into his rental car. The heat was oppressive and the AC in the small car didn’t work. Afterward, he took his map and headed down to the old trailer park where Ruby Leigh Gentry had grown up. As he pulled up to the third-rate motor park, he cringed. From the derelict looks of the place, it wasn’t fit to house animals. He drove past it to the paved road that he knew lead to Bleak Hill, the colonel’s palatial plantation house.

Jase whistled as he pulled up into the big circular drive. The large white house rose from the verdant greenery around it, the doric columns holding up a large wraparound veranda. It looked just like he envisioned the colonel: old, overfed, and lazy. Despite that, the house held more than a hint of grandeur. It must have been very intimidating to a fourteen-year-old girl. The pervert that owned it would have been, too.

He gave the rental some gas and headed back down the paved road to the Last Chance Mobile Home Park. No shit. It sure lived up to its name.

He drove down to spot number 31. Another trailer, a puny single-wide, sat on the cinder-block foundation. He got out of the car and walked up to the trailer on the spot next to it and knocked on the rickety door that hung from one hinge. An ancient snaggletoothed woman answered the door. She was so hunched over, her upper torso was horizontal with the ground. “Wha’ chu want, Fancy Shoes?”

Jase bent over to make eye contact and flashed his badge. “I’m Detective Jason Vaughn, from California.”

“Lordy, lordy, what does a fancy detective want with the likes of us here in Sykesville?”

“I want to ask you about Ruby Leigh Gentry and her sister, Crystal.”

“A ha! Ruby done settled in California? She always was too smart for the likes of us.”

“Do you remember the last night she was here?”

“I remember. Do you want me to tell you out here in this heat, or do you want to come in where it’s cooler?”

Jase smiled. As she ushered him in, the screaming swamp cooler did little to cool the stuffy confines of the trailer. It smelled like fried catfish and pickles.