Breaking the Rules (17 page)

They were heading downtown, to the station, where eventually they’d figure out who Ben was and where he lived. They’d also find out that he wasn’t home-schooled. He was cutting. As for Neesha, who’d run away from home because she was mentally ill? It didn’t matter how
long they held him. He couldn’t answer their questions, because he didn’t know where she was. And when they finally figured that out? They’d bring him back home and deliver him to Greg—who would beat the shit out of him.

Or at least try.

Only, this time, the creep would be ready for Ben to fight back.

This time, Ben was going to get flattened. And there was nothing in the world he could do to keep it from happening.

Unless …

He tried his vocal cords again, and this time they worked. “Do I get to make a phone call?” he asked through a throat that felt raw after the way he’d screamed like a girl from the Taser-induced pain.

“Depends,” Paul answered him, “if you’re under arrest. And that depends if you’ve got any priors.”

“I don’t.”

“We’ll see.”

“What happens if I’m
not
under arrest?” Ben asked.

“You call Mommy and Daddy to come pick you up, they bring you home and ground you for two years.”

“I live with my sister,” Ben said, which wasn’t quite a lie.

“Then you get to interrupt
her
busy day, and
she
comes to the station to pick you up and bring you home and ground you for two years.”

Okay. Good. That was good.

Or at least as good as it could get with his arms twisted behind his back and his face pressed against a vinyl seat that smelled like sweat and piss.

E
den’s shift was over after the bulk of the afternoon rush, and for once she didn’t push to get a chance to dance for another few hours. She just put on her clothes and took a deep breath, bracing herself as she pushed open the door that led out to the club’s parking lot.

But there was no one out there besides the valet attendant, who was sitting, bored and steaming, in the shade from a wilting umbrella.

Of course, if she were Izzy, waiting to talk to her, she’d be in her car with the engine running and the air conditioner blasting instead of standing in the hot Nevada sun.

Still, as she shouldered her bag and walked swiftly toward the bus stop, there was no movement from the lot. No tall, obnoxiously attractive Navy SEALs jumping out of their cars and shouting, “Hey, Eden, wait …”

And that was definitely relief she was feeling, not disappointment, as her feet took her farther from the club—although she really didn’t completely believe it until she hit the bus stop and looked around.

Nope. No Izzy. He hadn’t stuck around to talk to her.

She had no idea how he’d found her here—although Danny certainly knew she was back in Las Vegas. Plus she’d given her father her address and phone number when she’d called to ask if he knew if her
brother was okay. He’d no doubt given that information to Danny, who used it to call her …

Still, to have Izzy show up like that, at work?

She was mortified.

It was one thing to dance for strangers with their empty, hungry eyes, another entirely to know Izzy was in the house.

Lord, he’d looked good. His face was tan and his dark hair was longer than he usually wore it, but he’d neatly combed it back. He was dressed in a pair of khaki dress pants—and that was crazy weird because Eden couldn’t remember ever seeing him in pants even remotely like those. He usually wore cargo shorts and a T-shirt. Or his white dress uniform. He’d worn that, with rows of ribbons on his chest, when they’d gotten married.

But the shirt he had on today had a collar and buttons up the front. He wore the sleeves rolled to his elbows to fight the day’s heat.

It was crazy—as if he’d gotten dressed up because he knew he was going to see her but didn’t want to go the full-dress-uniform route.

Maybe she no longer rated.

But it didn’t make sense—for him to track her down to give her a handful of cash, take her figurative pulse, and then walk away …?

Unless his message had been visual.
Take a good long look at what you threw away, sweetheart …

He’d certainly taken a good long look at her—which had been so strange. Mostly because, in the past, he’d rarely looked at her without smiling. This morning he’d been grim and unamused. And yeah, he’d faked a smile at one point, but it hadn’t touched his eyes.

She’d always loved the way that the warmth of Izzy’s smile had echoed in his eyes.

But those days were gone.

Eden shouldn’t have cared. She didn’t want to care.

Yet still, even though Izzy had left the floor level of the club, she’d been self-conscious all morning long, and had tried to compensate for it—and succeeded, apparently. That success was reflected in her larger-than-usual tips.

Not counting that small pile of cash that Izzy had deposited on the stage. The pile that she’d fully expected to have the opportunity to give back to him after her shift was through.

As she waited for the bus, she dug for her cell phone to turn it back on, and saw she had both a missed call and voice message from the same local Las Vegas phone number.

It wasn’t either of her workplaces, and it wasn’t her new landlord …

She dialed her voice mail and listened to the message.

Eden. It’s Ben. I’m in trouble. I went to the mall to try to find … my friend, and I got picked by the police for not being in school and …

Oh, Lord.

Well, it’s more complicated than that; in fact, it’s beyond weird, but I’ll tell you later. Anyway, look, they ID’d me from my fingerprints—remember when you took me to that SafeKids program, because of my diabetes?

Eden did remember. It was right after they moved to Las Vegas from New Orleans. At twelve, Ben had been, by far, the oldest kid among all of the toddlers at the police station, and he’d been beyond embarrassed. But Eden had insisted. Because he’d participated in a similar program back in New Orleans, they’d been able to find him more quickly, after Katrina.

Well, congratulations, because of that, I’m in the system. And they now have my name and Greg’s address, and because I don’t have any other priors, they’re going to bring me home in some kind of police-department house call of shame, and deliver me into the hands of my loving parents
.

“Oh, crap,” Eden said aloud.

Yeah
, Ben’s message said, as if he’d heard her.
I told them that my mother worked until late, but that I also live with my real bitch of a drill sergeant older sister, who’s in charge of making me do my homework and making my life miserable. I didn’t mention Greg because, Jesus. But I told them that you’d be home in the afternoon—that you usually met my bus, like I’m a freaking kindergartner and they actually bought it. So please
, please
get over to the house by five o’clock—just sit on the front
steps, you know? Like you’re waiting for me? Bring ID—they’re going to want to see ID. And maybe, just maybe we’ll be able to pull this off. And Eden? I’m
so
sorry …

The phone system’s automated voice clicked on. “To replay this message, press—”

Eden hung up the phone and checked the time. It was 4:45.

The city bus was finally coming, but it was heading in the wrong direction, away from the squalid little house that Ivette still shared with Stupid Greg.

What she needed was a cab, pronto.

She started to run to the nearest hotel where there was a taxi stand, but in the middle of crossing the street, she stopped, realizing what she really needed …

Was Izzy.

Eden looked wildly around, hoping that he was still out there, somewhere, watching her. Just because she didn’t see him didn’t mean he wasn’t there.

If she’d had his cell-phone number, she would have called him, but she didn’t have it. Not anymore. She’d thrown it away when his response to her letter had been silence.

But here and now, he didn’t appear—like some knight in shining armor.

She was on her own. Which was exactly what she’d wanted, wasn’t it?

Eden quit hoping for miracles and hiked her bag farther up on her shoulder and ran.

Being in New York again was surreal.

It really hadn’t been that long since Dan had last been here—and yet it seemed like forever.

Jenn’s studio apartment was exactly the same as it had been last February—tiny. It was cramped with the bed folded up into the couch, and even smaller with it pulled out.

Jenn had clearly left the place in a hurry when she’d gotten the news he’d been injured, and the bed was out and open.

She now set their two bags in the minuscule nook of a kitchen—
that
had been fun, watching her hump his bag up the building’s front stairs while he’d stood impotently off to the side and seethed with frustration.

But he wasn’t allowed to lift anything heavier than the remote control—a direct quote from the doctor.

“Close your eyes,” Jenn had ordered him. “Just don’t watch.”

But he
had
watched—in particular he’d watched her ass, which looked awesome in the jeans she was wearing.

Except he wasn’t allowed to do any strenuous activity—including have sex—for another five to seven days.

Well, which was it? Five or seven? In some ways the point was moot, because as badly as he wanted some, he wasn’t getting any tonight. Although Danny was pretty damn sure that five days from now the was-it-five-or-seven question was going to matter pretty intensely.

“We’re going to meet Maria for dinner,” Jenn told him now, and his surprise must’ve shown on his face.

He was exhausted. He wasn’t normally such a baby, but the flight had been taxing and all he wanted to do was to crawl into Jenn’s bed and sleep.

And okay. Not true. What he really wanted was to crawl into Jenn’s bed, pull her down beside him, fuck his brains out, and
then
sleep for about fourteen hours straight.

“To talk about the custody thing,” Jenn reminded him.

Dan looked up from staring at the bed. “Oh, yeah. Right. Sorry. Great. Thanks for, um, setting that up.”

“We’re not meeting her until eight,” Jenn told him as she came over and peeled his jacket off his shoulders. “You look like you need
help here.” But then she took his T-shirt and pulled it up and over his head.

“What are we doing?” Dan asked as she efficiently went for the button and then the zipper of his jeans. He knew damn well that she wasn’t going to break any of the rules that the doctor had given him on discharge from the hospital. She’d sat in on the session and had actually taken notes. No sex. They’d exchanged an
aw, shit
look when he’d mentioned that.

“You are getting naked,” Jenn told him with that smile that he loved as she pushed his jeans down his legs, her gentle hands careful of his bandaged wound. “And
I
am going to give you a massage very different from the ones I gave you in the hospital with its curtain walls and zero privacy.”

Danny looked at her as she knelt before him, unfastening the laces of his sneakers. “Seriously? You rebel, you.” He sat down to help her.

She laughed up at him. “I cleared it with the doctor after reviewing his list of rules. I asked him to clarify and I was right. No sex means no strenuous intercourse. It doesn’t mean you can’t lie back and think nonstrenuous and relaxing thoughts while experiencing the time-honored tradition of the happy ending.”

Dan laughed as together they got him out of his sneakers and socks. “You said that. To the doctor.
Excuse me, Captain Chan, sir, I was wondering if it’s okay with you if I give Dan a happy ending …
?”

Jenn laughed, too. “Actually, the term
happy ending
didn’t come up. I also stayed away from
hand job
and
blow job
and even
fellatio
. I kept it more scientific and medical and asked was the no-sex rule merely about avoiding strenuous activity, or was there a medical reason you should avoid ejaculation. He smiled and said he had no problem with ejaculation.”

“Wow,” Dan said, slipping off his briefs. “If I’d’ve known that, I would’ve had you do me in the airport bathroom.”

She laughed again. “Always the romantic …”

He reached for her, but she moved back, out of his grasp.

“You have to promise to lie still.”

“I can do that,” he said.

“Absolutely still,” she stressed. “Or I stop.”

Dan thought about that. “Okay, yeah, that’s going to be harder than I thought.”

The last time they’d had sex in this very apartment, in this very bed, they’d come close to putting her furniture through the floor. It was one of the things he loved about making love to Jenni. She was passionate and hot-blooded and into being completely physical—and he could be equally ardent, with no fear of hurting her. She was no fragile, tiny thing that could be broken if he didn’t watch his every move. Instead he could damn near body-slam her and she would cling to him and moan for more.

And Jesus save him, but just thinking about it was turning his uncomfortable and annoyingly ever-present semi-woodie into a hard-on of epic proportions.

“Maybe it’s better if we just … Hmm,” she said as he lay back on her bed, as she saw his body in full salute. “
Don’t
, I was going to say, but …”

He looked up at her. “I missed you.”

He meant it as a whole lot more than just
I missed fucking you
, but it was easier to say in the impossible-to-ignore presence of this particular visual aid, because it was always easier for him to frame any romantic relationship around the sex.

And she smiled at his implied joke, but her smile was sad. “Did you?” she asked. But then she shook her head as if it was a stupid question.

“Very much,” he said, but he’d done the damage by bringing up this topic in the context of sex, and he knew she was thinking he still meant it as a joke, like
Check out this awesome measurement device that demonstrates from its massive length, tree-trunk-like thickness, and rocksolid hardness, exactly how long it’s been since I’ve had sex of the nonsolo variety …