Curtis (10 page)

She got up to take it from him and
stopped on her way to the door. “His name is Curtis, Curtis Hunter. He’s one of
the older men that own nearly all the businesses in town. They seem to be a
nice enough bunch of young boys if not a little too beefy for my tastes.”

She slipped out the door to leave him
wondering what she’d meant by beefy. He looked down at his hand and wondered if
he’d broken it.

The old man had been a little pissy with
him when he’d called him earlier today. Washington had told him that things
were looking up and that he need not call them anymore.

“Where is that daughter of yours?” Eric
had asked him. He had begun to think he could make her do what he wanted by
simply bullying her. “I want you to put her on the line right now so she and I
can get this settled.”

“She’s not here and you leave her alone.
That girl is mine and you’d be smart to leave what’s mine alone.” That from a
man who was in the crapper because he couldn’t run a damned business had made
Eric see red. “You stop calling here or I’m going to have my number changed and
have you arrested. I have your name, you…you mean person. Stop calling here.” Then
he’d slammed the phone down.

Eric still had the ringing in his ears
when he went out to get into his car. He’d never had anyone slam a phone down
before and had barely known what the term meant. He did now and was going to
make the shitty asshole pay for it. By the time he’d gotten to the house he’d
been spoiling for a fight and being met at the door with a rifle had startled
him into a temper. Jerking it out of his hands, Eric hit him with it and
Washington tumbled to the porch.

The man had been about to be dead when
Eric heard someone behind him shouting. He didn’t realize it was for a dog and
not him until he’d been about half a block away. He nearly turned and went back
to finish the job when he saw someone pull into the old man’s driveway and get
out. He didn’t stick around after that, knowing the police would be pretty
close behind.

And now he was afraid he’d left a bit of
his DNA behind. The stupid man had bitten him. And hard too. The skin was broken
and Eric couldn’t remember if he’d dripped any anywhere while he’d been there. He
was reasonably sure he hadn’t, but now that he knew the Hunters were involved
he was no longer so sure.

The older Hunter had been a thorn in his
dad’s side for years. Eric wasn’t sure what the man had done to his father, but
it had been enough to have his dad snarl at anyone that even mentioned the
Hunter name. Hell, he wouldn’t even go hunting.

Eric went to pull out the large notebook
his father had had in his desk that day. He’d never really looked in it, not
caring who did what to whom or when it was done. He looked now to see what he
could find on the Hunters.

He’d found it after several hours of
work. His father’s handwriting was scribbles at best and his spelling atrocious.
It took him nearly twenty minutes to figure out that “rubed” was actually
robbed and that “dollard” was dollars. His father had hated a man he thought
had taken eight dollars from him in a poker game. A game that his father, the
idiot, hadn’t even been sure of who had been there playing with him.

Moron. His father had been a moron. Never
mind that he couldn’t hold onto his own money, but to accuse someone else of
taking it too was idiotic. He tossed the book onto the table to have it slip
off the edge and hit the floor. Several sheets of paper fell out and he was
stuffing them back into the thing when he noticed something else. Something
written in much neater handwriting than his father’s would ever hope to be.

“The Biloxi building was never owned by the
family. It was owned by the organization. When we go and get the money, we have
to be quiet about it. If the organization finds out about it, they will take it
all.”
The note was signed by
“M.”

He turned it over several times, hoping
for more information. Then he tried to remember if he’d seen any “M”s in the
notebook itself. Nothing. He looked over the other two sheets of paper and
found that one was a receipt for some jewelry and the other was a claim ticket
to a locker in the bus station. The now closed down bus station.

Eric put the locker claim ticket in his
pocket and the notebook in the bottom drawer. There was a knock at the door
that startled him and, when he bumped his sore hand against the desk, he let
out a stream of cusses that would have made even the worst criminal blush. He
snarled for whoever it was to come the fuck in.

“The doctor is here. He is in the
hallway. Is it all right to send him in?”

Eric looked at her like he’d never seen
her before. When she repeated what she’d said, he nodded. Could she be “M”? He
knew she’d been around for a long time, but could she be? He started to search
for something she might have given him. A note or a list. He couldn’t remember
her giving him even a card for his birthday, but he searched anyway. When the
doctor and she came back in he asked her to write up a list of things that he
needed. When she raised her brow at him he told her his hand hurt. She wrote
out the list of things as they popped into his head. Dry cleaning to be picked
up, shirts to be bought, and something to organize for the next time he went to
New York.

He couldn’t think of every letter that
was written, but he had come up with a lot of them. The doctor left him with a
wrap and a prescription and as soon as he left, he sent Mary on her way. He was
disappointed to see that nothing even came close to what he had to compare it
to. “M” was not his Mary.

~~~

Kylie woke scared. She didn’t know where
she was, nor did she have any idea how she’d gotten here. She nearly fell over
the lump lying next to her. Would have too if he hadn’t grabbed her to keep her
from hitting the floor. As it was he lowered her to where he was on the floor
beside her.

“Damn, girl, but you’re noisy when you
wake up. Let me catch my breath and I’ll turn on the light.” She felt his body
move, shift near her. She wanted to reach out and touch him, but fisted her
hands so she wouldn’t. “Are you all right?”

“Yes. Where are we?” When he’d whispered,
so did she. He moved to face her. She could feel his breath on her face when it
suddenly hit her that she’d been seeing to her dad. “My father.”

“Hush, he’s asleep. I think so anyway. They
said so long as you didn’t disturb him, you and I could stay in here. But if
you keep squealing like a cat in a room of rockers then they might change their
mind.”

She jerked away from him only to be
brought back to his warmth. “I do not squeal.” She pinched his arm. “And I do
not appreciate you making arrangements without my consent. Who do you think you
are anyway? My keeper?”

She got up quietly and moved to the bed.
She looked down at her father and hurt for the bruising on his forehead and the
stitches she knew to be under the gauze. He’d been hurt because of the stupid
building and she wanted this whole thing to be over with. Kissing his cheek
gently, she stepped over Curtis to sit down on the couch. But he pulled her
down onto the blankets that he laid on. She realized there was a small cot
under him as well.

“You need a keeper sometimes, I think. He’s
going to be fine, Kylie. He’s getting the best care.” He moved her over his
body and she straddled her legs over his hips. When she started to move off him
she felt his hard cock beneath her. His moan confirmed what his body was
telling her.

There was enough light in the room for
her to see that he’d taken off his shirt. She ran her fingers up his arms to
his elbows and then under his t-shirt. She remembered the tattoos there from
when they’d had sex and touched them now. “Is this why you wear long sleeve
shirts all the time?” He nodded. “I would show them off to everyone if I had
one. Of course I don’t have the arms that you do, so mine would have to be much
smaller.”

“I’ve had them for nearly ten years. Sometimes
I forget that I even have them.” She watched his eyes close when she moved the
short sleeve up to see them. “They hurt like hell when I had them done. I was
nearly drunk out of my mind by the time he’d finished both arms. I had to go
back several times to get them finished up. I only had the barest of ink on
when I sobered up the first time.”

She’d bet he would have had to have
been. They reached from the shoulder to his elbows with a different one on
either arm. She looked at them closely and wondered what they were.

He laughed and told her that he hadn’t
known at the time, but had had to look them up. “The one on my right arm is a
tribal. Well, they both are, but the center of the one on my right is the
fraternity that I belonged to. See?” He moved the sleeve up and traced the dark
lines within the long, sharp, knife-looking ink. “The other is a black widow
spider and her web. I have no idea why I picked that one. I’m terrified of
spiders.”

She looked at his face to see if he was
serious and realized he was. Big, strong Curtis Hunter was afraid of spiders. She
grinned at him before leaning down and kissing the beautiful arachnid.

“I love them. The way they make
something so beautiful out of nothing. Did you know that spiders can make as
many as twenty webs in their lifetime? And those can withstand so much.” She
kissed his shoulder and licked at the pounding pulse at his throat. “They also
can lay up to thirty thousand eggs at a time.” He shivered and she sat up.

“I don’t want to be rude, but do you
think we could change the subject? I’m having a hard time concentrating on your
words.” His voice was husky and deep. She could feel it move over her skin like
he was touching her. “Come down here and kiss me. I find that much sexier than
spiders and webs.”

She leaned down to give him his kiss
when he wrapped his hands around her waist. Before she could figure out what he
was doing, he starting rubbing her up and down his thick shaft. His mouth under
hers was the only thing that kept her from begging him to take her now.

When he rolled her to her back and he
settled between her thighs, she moaned. His mouth moved along her jaw and to
her throat until she could hardly breathe past the pleasure. He was making her
want him in the most delicious ways.

He moved back up to her mouth and
gentled the kiss. He was breathing as hard as she was and his cock felt good
against her. He leaned up on his elbow and looked down at her. “As much as I’d
like to finish this, I don’t think now is the time. Not only could we be
interrupted, but we would more than likely be extremely sore tomorrow.” He
kissed her nose and smiled. “You’re going to hate me when I tell you what I’ve
done and I’d rather use sex to have you like me again.”

She didn’t like the sound of that and
frowned up at him when he prevented her from sitting up. “What have you done? And
don’t tell me that you’ve done it for my own good or, so help me, I’ll brain
you.”

“For the record, I wouldn’t have had to
if you didn’t keep secrets from me. We’ll take care of that when we marry. Husbands
and wives shouldn’t keep—what the hell was that for?” She started to pinch him
again and he stopped her by grabbing her hand. “Behave or I’ll spank you. Not
that I don’t think that would be fun, but we have to talk.”

She heard the door open behind her and a
blanket was suddenly over her. He talked with the nurse as she told him what
her dad’s blood pressure was and he also told her that she’d gone to the
bathroom. The nurse asked if he needed anything then, when he said no thanks,
the blanket was pulled off her.

“Why did you do that? It’s my father,
not yours.” He nodded down to her chest and she flushed hotly to see that not
only was her blouse open, but her breasts were exposed. “I can’t believe…how
did you do that?”

“I’m that good. And you were that
tempting.” He sighed heavily when she did up the last button. “We have to talk.
What do you know about the man who’s been calling your father?”

The question, so out of the blue, took
her a minute to think about. Before she could sensor her words she blurted out
what she thought of him. “His name is Eric Howe. And before you ask, no I don’t
think that’s his real name. I’ve never actually met him, but he has a real
hard-on for the newspaper.”

He kissed her nose again. “Please don’t
talk about hard-ons at the moment. Mine is about to make me hurt.” She giggled
and he swatted her ass. “I said to behave. Now, where were we? Oh yes, Howe. He’s
not the real Eric Howe. He died in nineteen eighty-two. We have a DNA sample that Jesse is working on. Your father hit him, we think. There was blood in his shirt
and on the butt of the gun.”

She looked over his shoulder at the bed.
Curtis assured her that he was fine and she nodded. He’d been so pale when she’d
seen him, and now… “I don’t think he’s going to give up. Howe, I mean. There’s
something about the building he wants. I don’t think it’s the paper, but the
actual building.”

“Why? What did he say that made you
think…when did you speak to him? The phone call he made to you here, or has he
called you at home?”

She glared up at him. “I’m not even
going to ask you how you knew he called me here. But you pull any more crap on
me like that and I’ll be the one that is spanking you.” He moaned and she had
to keep a straight face at the pain she saw there. “He came by my house. And no,
I didn’t let him in. He was pretty polite until I told him that I’d call the
police if he didn’t leave.”