Ace Is Wild (31 page)

“You’re ticked off because you want to do something stupid, and I won’t let you.”

“And you’re stewing because you couldn’t get your hands on one of the hit men, and now you’re getting off on pushing me around.”

“I’ll let you know when I get off.”

“If there’s a God I won’t be anywhere in the vicinity when you get off.”

That wiped the smirk off his face.

“Don’t talk to me anymore,” she snapped before he could say something else to inflame the situation. “You’re being a jerk.”

“And you’re being a pain in the ass.”

“Get out of my way and your ass will stop hurting.”

“My ears would be happier, too, but I guess my ears and ass will have to put up with you for a while longer.”

“Gee, that was such a lovely invitation, but I’ll have to say no.”

“No isn’t an option. If not for me coming to your rescue today—”

“You! I wrestled the gun away from Flip—”

“The powder puff hit man,” Daniel said. “Maybe you should have sicced your grandmother on them. Flip probably would have run away screaming.”

“The gunshot did that,” she snapped at him. “My gunshot.”

“It was about damn time you did something useful. You keep saying you’re here to save my life, but you won’t take action until yours is in danger.”

“I almost committed vehicular manslaughter to keep you safe. I jumped off a roof for you.”

“Don’t forget trashing my house. I especially enjoyed that one.”

Her mouth flew open and she sputtered for a minute without forming any actual words.

“Speechless,” he said. “My life’s work is done.”

Vivi stalked over and drilled a finger into his chest.

Daniel caught hold of her wrist, but he wasn’t quick enough to clamp his hand over her mouth.

“You’re a—a—stubborn, pigheaded, tunnel-visioned, failure of a federal prosecutor,” she yelled at him.

“And you’re a crazy, irritating, sideshow freak of a psychic.”

“Idiot.”

“Stalker.”

“Jackass.”

“Lunatic.”

One minute they were in each other’s faces, the next in each other’s pants. Hands were everywhere, clothes came off. Daniel wasn’t wasting time getting to the bed. He scooped Vivi up, his hands supporting her backside, and slid into her, hard and fast, making her gasp and throw her head back. A hollow thud sounded, since she was against the door. She didn’t seem to notice. She braced her hands on his shoulders, dropped her mouth to his neck, and the world narrowed down to the feel of her lips and tongue on his skin, the heat of her body against and around his, her soft moans and the tension building in her until she snapped like a bowstring.

Daniel could have followed her over the edge, but what good was self-discipline if he couldn’t hold off long enough to feel her convulse around him, to hear that final moan trail off into a contented sigh. Her body went soft, curling into his as he made those last strokes that took him to where she was. Pleasure flooded in and tension drained out, taking his strength with him.

He staggered to the bed, barely able to support his own weight, let alone Vivi’s. Not surprisingly, when they got there, strength came roaring back in. He figured it had something to do with Vivi lying there without a stitch of clothing on, a blissful expression on her face. And nothing whatsoever coming out of her mouth.

She opened her eyes and looked up at him, one eyebrow rising lazily. “Finally, something we can agree on,” she said, pushing him over onto his back.

Okay, she was taking control, and it was going to get him what he wanted. But he couldn’t let her get away with it scot-free. “Maybe I want to be on top,” he said.

“Maybe you should just lie there and let me run the show for once.”

“Every time I let you make decisions, someone gets hurt.”

“True, but it hasn’t been you.”

“Not yet.”

“You want to do this, or would you rather argue about it?”

Daniel pretended to consider his choices.

Vivi pretended to get out of the bed. Or maybe she wasn’t pretending, since when he caught her around the waist she wasn’t all that cooperative. At first. He cupped one of her breasts and ran his hand across her nipple and she stopped trying to pull free. He tugged her back down on the bed and kissed the side of her neck, working his way up to her ear, and she relaxed beside him. He raised up on one elbow, and she shoved him onto his back.

She straddled him, braced her hands on both sides of his head, and took him in. And he didn’t object. Not that he was letting her do all the work. Especially since her breasts were right there, just inches away from his mouth.

She went a little wild. That crazy, no-holds-barred personality of hers took over and Daniel rethought his decision to let her be in control because the wilder she got the less control he could find. He flipped her onto her back and picked up the pace, his hand slipping down between them. She cried out, hands fisted in the sheets, back bowed, abandoning herself to the climax as completely as she threw herself into everything else.

Daniel felt the pleasure rip through her, and when she opened her eyes, he saw it and felt it for himself. He swore he did, swore there was a split second before his own orgasm hit that he was feeling her pleasure, as if she’d shared it with him when her gaze met his and she lay herself bare.

He shifted to his side and gathered her against him, her back to his chest. Vivi snuggled her head into the crook of his shoulder, wiggled around until she was comfortable, and gave a little, contented sigh.

Daniel had the sudden urge to read the paper. Of course, he’d have to go out to buy a paper first, and maybe pick up dinner. There was a great Chinese place across town . . . And if he tried hard enough, he could stay away for the rest of the night—and then he wouldn’t have to deal with what he was feeling. But he’d have to admit that Vivi was right— he ran away from his emotions. It worked for him though, and he saw no reason to change it.

“I think I’ll take a shower,” he said to Vivi. It was only another way to run, but at least he didn’t have to get dressed and go out. Or defend himself to her.

“I don’t think I can move,” she mumbled, sounding half-asleep.

Daniel got to his feet, pulling her up with him, surprising himself more than Vivi. “C’mon, a shower will make you feel better,” he said.

He was right, too. She felt impossibly better in the shower, wet and sleek and hot, gliding to peak more gently this time. He fell over with her, sliding into an orgasm that wasn’t as explosive but seemed to go on and on, until every nerve ending in his body hummed with it.

Even then he wasn’t completely satisfied. He wanted more, and wanting more was always a problem. Worse, it wasn’t only about sex. Holding her in the afterglow had felt pretty damn good, and that just complicated matters all to hell. But then, nothing about this situation had been simple.

IF IT HAD BEEN VIVI’S INTENTION TO SIDETRACK Daniel from the fiasco in the Common, sex wasn’t the answer. Sex burned off the leftover adrenaline and relieved the tension, but it didn’t distract either of them. Daniel went right back at the problem at hand, worrying it like T-Bone with one of Rudy’s Italian loafers.

“I don’t know why they went after me instead of you,” Vivi said for at least the fourth time. “It makes no sense.” Unless Sappresi was behind the hit. Sappresi was the only one who would want her taken out because he was the only one who knew that she could hurt him. And Sappresi was the only one who would know she was helping Daniel.

“Maybe we should go over it one more time.” Daniel was prowling the apartment, mind working deep into steamroller mode. There was no way to get through to him when he was like this, working through a problem, refusing to let it go until he had an answer. Worse, he was still in phase two. Phase one was fact-finding mode, peppering her with questions. Phase two was repeating the process to see if there were any details left out.

Since it was after midnight and she’d had a full day, phase two was pissing her off. So she decided to add some details she’d left out the first time. Okay, they were impressions not details, and they were unflattering to Daniel, but he was keeping her awake. And not in a good way.

“Well, first you were a pigheaded jackass who made all the decisions,” she said, “including the part where I was staked out in clear sight halfway across the Common from you and Officer Jelly Donut.” She was lying on the bed, eyes closed, and not only because she was exhausted. Imagining Daniel’s reaction was always the safer bet.

“You were supposed to stay beside the tree and keep out of sight.”

“I was hiding, just like you ordered me to. You went off to the baseball diamond.”

“I was trying to stand out. And I wanted you near the truck . . . in case.”

Vivi snorted. “What, you thought Maxine would protect me?”

“Let’s just say the two of you always seem to scrape through trouble. Maxine leaves a path of damage big enough to name a hurricane after, but you don’t get hurt. You’re in the eye of the storm.”

“I’ll tell her you said so. She’ll be flattered.”

There was silence. Vivi cracked an eye and found Daniel watching her, arms crossed, eyebrows raised, waiting for her to continue the narrative.

“We were at the part where you were supposed to be blending in,” he prompted helpfully. “Try to keep the sarcasm to a minimum if you want any sleep tonight.”

“Fine. I was trying to blend in,” Vivi said, “but you also wanted me to get a reading. That meant I had to shut out everything physical in the Common, so by the time I saw Hatch and Flip coming and realized they were headed for me instead of you, it was too late. I tried to get your attention . . .”

Daniel made a dismissive gesture with his hand. Vivi couldn’t tell if he was repeating what he’d done earlier or if he was blowing her off again. Probably the latter since he didn’t say anything for a couple of minutes.

“Did you get anything from Flip?” he finally asked.

“I got the gun.”

More silence from Daniel, the kind that had an attitude and the attitude was “not amused.”

“I was busy panicking,” she said. “There was a lot of confusion and a lot going through my mind.” Like blind terror. “I’m sorry, maybe if I’d had more time . . .”

“Tell me what Flip said to you.”

“We covered that already.”

“The exact words. Try to remember the exact words.”

It was Vivi’s turn to go silent.

“You can get back at me later,” Daniel said.

“I’m not getting back at you, I’m trying to remember.” Not to mention factor in what she’d told him earlier. Lying was never a good idea, especially when you had to repeat what you’d told when you were exhausted to begin with. “Everything happened so fast,” she stalled. “Hatch and Flip were coming from opposite sides. You were coming from the baseball diamond, but I knew you wouldn’t get there in time, and I figured Flip would be easier to deal with than Hatch.”

“You did okay,” Daniel said.

She opened her eyes and raised up on one elbow. “Was that a compliment?”

“That was an observation. I thought you were going to kill him with your bare hands.”

“Panic and terror. He had a gun, and I decided I should get to it before he used it. We were fighting over it when it went off.”

“Too bad you didn’t shoot one of them, even accidentally.”

“I’m just happy I didn’t shoot anyone else accidentally,” she said. “Anyway, Flip just said he wanted me to go with him, that they weren’t going to hurt me. Yeah,” she added when she got a load of the look on his face, “I didn’t believe him either.”

“I think they wanted to use you to get to me,” Daniel said.

“I guess they’re not aware of the probability you’d thank them instead of rescuing me.”

“I think there’s a higher probability they’d give you back after being stuck with you for a few hours. Unless they know who you are, and they know you’re helping me. If that’s the case, they were just saying they only wanted to talk to you in the hope you’d go along peaceably. Then they’d probably drive you to the nearest landfill.”

Daniel went back to pacing and thinking. Pacing and thinking weren’t going to do him any good since nothing had been accomplished by their conversation, but pacing and thinking seemed to make him feel better.