Foster Justice (15 page)

He waved a hand. “I'm fine. Better by the minute.” To prove it he stood up quickly from where he sat and smiled. “Not dizzy anymore.”

“That's good. Because you owe me.”

Chad was confused. She wanted him to pay her rent? He sat back down, getting a feeling he'd need the support for whatever was brewing between them. Whatever it was, he didn't recognize the taste but he knew it was going to be volatile.

“You never let me finish that lap dance.”

His breath caught as her gaze raked him from his toes to the top of his head. His voice was husky. “I don't have much cash on me.”

“I don't want your money.”

“What do you want?”

“Not much. A comeuppance first. Then an apology. And finally, honest emotions. No more games.”

The coat dropped to the floor. Beneath it she wore a lacy corset that barely reached her waist, panties topped with a garter belt, and black fishnet stockings. “We'll never see eye to eye on anything, even finding Trey, until we settle this between us. You despise me, right? You hate strippers because we use our looks to manipulate men.”

His hands curled into fists. He stuffed them beneath his thighs on the couch to stop the instinct to grab her. He compulsively eyed her breasts, straining against their black lace confinement. Since he was sitting and she stood over him, they were so conveniently near his mouth. He licked his lips.

All thoughts went out of his head. Even Trey . . .

She leaned down to whisper in his ear, her minty breath setting fire to his lobe. “Prove it. Sit still without touching me for one entire dance and I'll believe you find me distasteful. I'll tell you anything you want to know about Kinnard. And I won't ever bother you again.

“Time to go the full eight seconds, cowboy, or quit the rodeo.” Jasmine went to her stereo and turned on a soulful blues song by Nina Simone.

Chad wanted to get up and flee. He had to listen to the phone tap, he had to follow up on all his leads, he had to . . .

When she lifted her arms above her head and began to sway, his list of to-dos became a list of why-nots.

Why not let her dance for him? Why not see where it led? Why not end this burning ache in his gut and lower? Maybe if he fucked her he'd finally have a clear head and clean conscience to use her as ruthlessly as she'd used Trey.

And then even those hard thoughts melted away under the warming grace of a woman. Chad's reaction was immediate and physical, totally beyond his control.

Jasmine swayed in front of him, almost, but not quite, within reach, her hips moving slightly from side to side. She tilted her head, her eyes closed, as if listening to some inner instinct that guided the rhythm of her dance moves. As the music's rhythm quickened, so did her pace. Now her feet began to slide on the thick rug as her impossibly long legs, sheathed in the teasing fishnet, sinuously flexed with her flutter steps. While her lower body gyrated, her torso moved, too, but in the opposite direction, arms arching above her head until her body made an S shape so supple he had to touch her to believe. And the fulcrum holding the shape together was covered in a scrap of black lace, the lower part of a woman's body but the apex of a man's desire and aspirations.

He saw long arms reaching for her and looked at them dumbly as he realized they were attached to his own bewitched body. Luckily her eyes were closed again so she didn't see him haul them back to his sides. They felt disassociated, as if they didn't belong there any more than he did. He couldn't tuck his betraying hands into his pockets because the fabric across his crotch was stretched to the limit.

He tried sitting on his hands, but that posture only made his hips thrust forward, right where they wanted to be. Now she was cupping her breasts, hips still moving in the dance, her half-closed eyes appraising him as she seemed to offer them not just to him, but for her own pleasure as well. Her palms kneaded exactly where he wanted to touch. Her cleavage deepened above the corset until she was in danger of spilling out.

When the song crescendoed, she gave a husky laugh and spun on one heel only to end up facing him, arms flung out to the sides, legs firmly planted, head tilted back, long fiery hair brushing the upper part of her spine as she formed a bow about to fly free. The next song began even more softly, giving her an excuse to match it with subtle moves. Her arms reached toward him and undulated, mirroring the slow shifting of her hips from side to side. She seemed to have no bones, no banal earthly limits such as gravity, time, or space. She just was, as elemental as earth, wind, or fire. And he was swept away on every level.

Each nerve in his body was on fire as again he was reaching out to touch her before he caught himself and jerked away. Chad's erection had long since reached its full limit until it grew painful, thrusting imperatively against the confinement of his worn jeans. He was caught in that most atavistic of battles: fight or flight. Get the hell out of here before he was even more humiliated, or accept the living, breathing temptation she offered in a primal battle that was both aggression and surrender.

Which did she want, really? Surely no woman who looked at him like that, eyes at half-mast, licking her lips, body a living, breathing flame topped by fiery auburn hair, could portray such desire if, somewhere, she didn't feel it. As if to prove it, she wriggled between his slack knees, forcing them farther apart, and turned around to brush her supple buttocks, barely covered by a scrap of lace, over his erection.

It was his turn to arch against the couch with the torment, but some stubborn remnant made him draw back the hands that would have reached to her waist to force her curves down harder where he needed contact most. He stuffed his traitorous hands against the couch again, but she saw his torture, and, damn her, she laughed, tilting her head back to brush her long, clean-scented hair against his face and neck. He couldn't help it; a groan escaped his clenched lips. His hands came up of their own accord and reached around her for her breasts.

A husky, triumphant feminine laugh erupted and she danced away. She swayed, her hands gently gliding down all the curves and valleys he longed to explore, staying just out of reach of his long arms.

When she fisted a lock of that hair, so symbolic of the living flame of female passion, and used it to brush her own cleavage, he couldn't stand any more. Leaping to his feet with a growl, he hauled her into his arms. Her laugh of victory was crushed beneath his lips. He buried his hands in her hair and tugged to hold her immobile before the firestorm she'd aroused, her back arched as he forced her lower body into his erection, thrusting into her so she'd feel what she'd done to him.

But she didn't struggle. Instead she kissed him back, her mouth open and inviting. He accepted, his tongue taking her cue and dancing with hers, thrust, retreat, then plea, softly, gently, and finally penitence for his roughness, barely stroking. But her own hands raked through his thick hair, tugging hard, and he realized she didn't want gentleness.

She wanted him. Desperately. Primitively. Almost as badly as he wanted her.

Chad Foster had never been ruled by his baser urges, but for once something was stronger than moral fiber or even the continued nagging fear for his brother: sheer lust. And he couldn't control it, any more than he could control the woman who incited it.

He bent and trailed kisses down the side of her neck to the vee between her breasts, where the wiry corset impeded progress. Breathing as if he'd run a three-minute mile, he straightened to reach behind her back and unlace the corset. While he labored over her feminine fripperies, her task was much easier.

Untuck and unbutton his shirt. Slip it off his shoulders. Nuzzle into his center thatch of dark chest hair. Meanwhile her fingers adjusted his belt buckle.

While she worked, he tweaked and tugged, but seemed to only make the laces tighten. Finally the arousing sound of his own zipper undoing under her deft hands made his next move totally acceptable.

Gripping both sides of the lacing, he gave a violent tug. It ripped, eyeholes popping off. With a garbled “sorry,” barely recognizable because he was breathing so heavily, he pulled again and finally the corset parted and dropped to the ground, freeing her to his eyes and hands. He groaned, filling himself, hands, eyes, body, and though he wouldn't admit it, soul, with the scent and taste of Jasmine.

“I'll always love the scent of Jasmine,” Trey's voice whispered, but Chad quelled it violently. They'd been building to this moment for weeks, and an hour of reprieve wouldn't much affect his search for Trey.

Or so he told himself.

She stood before him in a scrap of lace across her hips, a garter belt, and fishnet stockings. He'd seen her breasts before, that time at the club, but surrounded by aroused men, he'd felt like a pervert. Now, with the warmth of her supple globes in his hands, in the dim lighting and comfortable privacy of her living room, this intimacy felt not only natural, but inevitable.

He leaned back to see what he touched, running a gentle fingertip around the flushed, aroused nipple. Her aureoles were small and pink, topped by a budding rose contracting as he watched, as if shy at the warmth of his hungry stare. As he watched, her nipple contracted further, pebbling her aureole with goose bumps. She inhaled sharply, going limp in his arms, bowed backward, her face soft and sensual as she tilted her torso up, wordlessly begging him.

Like a woman. Not a stripper.

She wasn't teasing. She was offering the most sublime surrender a woman could give a man, her weight totally supported by his embrace.

He knew what she wanted, and he wanted it, too. He bent his head and fit his mouth over her offering. He didn't suckle; he didn't even kiss. He closed his mouth over the little nubbin, feeling her heavy heartbeat through the contact. He held her nipple there like the precious thing it was to him, and brushed it very gently with his tongue, absorbing her more than caressing. As if in this simple exchange of male-female, the yin and the yang he'd sensed in their kiss at the hospital, they were two partial people binding as one. Never again would one be complete without the other. And he knew in that moment that this was the feeling he'd been missing with his other two girlfriends, a depth and intimacy he'd observed many times between his mother and father.

When she gasped, squirming under his hungry mouth, trying to reach into his underwear, he realized his pants had fallen about his ankles. He propped her up long enough to kick off his pants. She swayed as he switched hands on her shoulders so he could shrug out of his shirt, one arm at a time. Then he lifted her in his arms to take her to the bedroom, but she struggled so violently he almost dropped her. He stopped and set her down. His heart skipping a beat, he wondered if she'd changed her mind, but she only kicked off her high heels.

Then she took his hand. Again he moved toward the bedroom. But she drew him toward her wide leather easy chair instead. He hesitated, feeling awkward. “Here?”

“Here. Now.” She shoved him into the chair.

J
asmine's dance had aroused her, too. Never had she felt more free, more right about what she was doing. In the privacy of her home, there were no floodlights, no strangers jacking off beneath tablecloths. She danced instinctively for the man she'd selected, not to fulfill her role as headliner.

She danced to please him.

And oh, she'd succeeded, because he pleased her, too. She knelt with her knees on each side of his thighs, wearing only her stockings and underwear. He caught a full breast as she leaned close, and circled his tongue around the aureole without quite kissing, tempting the rascally little nubbin to a full salute. Her heart was pounding so hard she couldn't hear the soft music anymore. When Jasmine bent and kissed his own little nubbin of a nipple, he gave a soft curse and arched his back into her.

She ran her hands over his chest, leaning back to enjoy the view. He was perfectly muscled, not massive but lithe, a rancher's body built by sweat and toil, not in a gym. A sprinkling of hair coated his perfect pecs, gleaming a bit in the lamplight to match his thick, mussed dark hair. She sank against him, rubbing her breasts from side to side to feel the intoxicating touch of skin to skin.

She felt his hands at the elastic of her panties. It took the last of her resistance to scoot back to the floor and flee to her room for a box, which she brought back with her to the chair. Chad looked at the large box of condoms, then back at her. Something flashed in his eyes she didn't like, but he only took one from the box and tore it open with his teeth.

He reached for his underwear but she put her hands over his to stop him. Kneeling between his spread legs, she slowly, gently, pulled the cotton briefs down his lean hips. Inch by inch, she revealed the essence of his maleness, the masculinity that both started wars and guarded families. When it sprang free, he went to put on the condom, but again she stopped him. She cradled the heavy head in her palms, holding him gently, with a reverence that could not be faked.

He was, quite simply, beautiful. Not abnormally large, but circumcised and perfectly formed. The head was so erect, springing up from the dark nest of his scrotum, that when she ran a gentle fingertip over him she could barely bend the eager flesh. He leaped back into her touch, as if there, he belonged.

In a strangled tone, he teased, “Here, you do it. Mold it, sculpt it, you created it.” He caught her hand and brought it around the head of his erect penis.

She sensed he was making light because he was as overwhelmed by the moment as she was, so she responded in kind, happy to let him take the reins for now.

“So I can preserve it for posterity?”

He caught her about the waist and pulled her upward until her soft stomach pressed against him. He rubbed his loins up and down, enticing them both with the connection that would soon be much deeper. “Yes, but erected just for you.”

She did what her instincts bade her to do: she kissed him. Running her tongue about the tip, tasting the salty readiness. He bit off a curse and arched his hips upward. She kissed him more deeply and this time when he reached for her panties he would not be denied. He grabbed a hunk of hair to pull her insistent lips away. He ripped her panties down and off, pulled the condom on and lifted her onto his lap.

He paused, trembling with eagerness, but even then he had a care for her feelings. He tested her readiness with a gentle fingertip. She tightened around that shallow touch, pulling him in, and she was almost embarrassed, she was so moist. Lifting her easily with the strength of his arms, he inserted the head and gently began pulling her elastic flesh over his.

She didn't know why, but she didn't want gentle. She wanted raw, unadulterated passion. Some might call it lust, but she didn't care. Instinct ruled her now. She arched her hips down over him, hard, and her hungry femininity took him tip to testicles. The unadulterated sensation was so raw, so intimate, that both of them froze in the act. Their startled eyes met, his gray eyes smoldering, hers so dilated that her pale green irises looked more forest than dappled sunshine.

They sat that way for several seconds, in the most intimate position a woman can know with a man, his erect flesh pulsing with the vibrancy of his male power, deep inside her womb. Somehow, with that simple exchange of glances, as she'd instinctively realized, they hurdled over the impediments of pain and distrust. No matter what came, they would always have this gloriously intimate moment. Then he flexed up inside her as if he couldn't stop himself, and she flexed back with a tiny upward move of her pelvis, pulling him deeper.

The crescendo was inevitable then, their rhythm rocking the chair against the wood floor—and rocking the certainties of their world. He moved up, thrusting deeply, and she moved down on the down stroke. He was as deep inside her as she'd ever felt, but it somehow wasn't enough. She wanted to own him, to brand him, to imprint her being onto his so he'd never forget her.

When his breathing harshened to pants, she knew he was close. She felt him swelling inside her, and she was ready, too, but she had to lift free to complete them the way she wanted to. When she took her soft warmth away, he gave an instinctive, desperate, “No!” but when she pulled his hips forward so she could straddle him with her feet on the floor, he understood and gladly let her adjust him.

In one stroke, she took him in again, the movement now harder because she had leverage. Up, down, again, again, her “Oh god oh god oh god,” a rhythmic accompaniment to each downward thrust met by his hips arching upward. She ground her aching flesh against his shaft with each stroke, and the pulsing built to a fusillade of horns, cymbals, and strings, an orchestra of male and female, music only they could hear. With one last clenching of her femininity upon him, she went down as he flew up, her flesh suckling hungrily at his warmth. He gave it and cried out. She felt his pulsing inside her, wishing for a moment that she could feel the splashing sperm, but then the crescendo swept her away, too.

The room swam around her, and sparks danced behind her closed lids. For ten long seconds, she was weightless, her body a bow flying free under the hands that held her at the waist, locking her loins onto his. When the spasms finally abated, she opened lazy eyes and surprised a look in his that would imprint her as indelibly as his penis had. Possession, ownership, destiny, as if he'd known this would happen at her instigation, not his, and most powerfully of all, as if he welcomed it. Incredibly, she felt her cheeks warm, more embarrassed now than when she'd taken him inside.

He gave a soft laugh as she buried her face against the hair on his chest, still sitting on him. “I thought you didn't have sex with men in your place?”

She pulled lightly at his chest hair, not hard enough to hurt but enough to retaliate. “You made me lose my head. But I had to be gentle as you were weak, and all, from the concussion.”

He laughed, covering her hand with his. “You're better than bed rest any day.” They stayed still a moment longer, but the glow soon faded. He gently moved her aside. The moist slide of him leaving her felt like desolation, but she banned the feeling with a sleepy smile, unwilling to spoil the blissful aftermath.

He went to the bathroom and returned with a towel. He pushed her back in the chair on top of the towel and used a hand towel dipped in warm water to clean her genitals. Gentle strokes. He'd flushed the condom and knelt before her naked. She suddenly felt awkward, wearing only her thigh-high stockings and garter belt, which framed her in a view he obviously enjoyed.

She could only stem the red tide of her blush by teasing him. “So how long has it been, cowboy, since you rode the range?”

His cheeks went a dull red, but he admitted, “Over a year.”

She liked him all the better for it.

But when he said, “And you?” she couldn't lie to him.

“A few months. My last boyfriend was an engineer. We were not . . . compatible.”

Awkwardness grew between them as he finished his ministrations. Feeling her blush spread, Jasmine stood and hurried into her room for a dressing gown. She took off the stockings and garter belt, hesitating. She wanted, almost as much as she'd wanted sex, to bring him into her bed and snuggle into his arms. She'd violated her one inviolate rule with him, so truly sleeping with him now seemed a minor infraction.

Her skin feeling unbearably sensitive against the brush of silk, she walked back into the living room. He'd put on his underwear and jeans and was shrugging into his shirt. He gave her an uncertain smile. Was he shy?

She said almost inaudibly, “It's silly for you to sleep on the couch now. Would you like to sleep with me? I didn't sleep well earlier so I'm going to lie down.”

He considered the offer. Finally he nodded, but when she turned toward her bedroom, added, “But I can't. Not right now. I have to follow up on a lead.” He pulled on his boots, adding at the look on her face, “A rain check?”

She nodded. She faked a yawn. “See you later then.”

“Later.” He walked to the door, but from there he could see inside her room. At that safe distance he added, “Jasmine, you are the most beautiful woman I've ever been with.” He exited hastily, locking the door behind him.

Her laugh had a bitter edge. How many was that? She had a feeling the competition wasn't very steep. She climbed into her cold bed, and when she finally dropped off to sleep, her dreams were restless. A ranch house stark against a red Texas sunset, pumpjacks run amok, splashing the pristine land with pollution. And she stood there, knee-deep in grime, but when she tried to wipe the oil away, her hands dripped with blood.

 

The minute he reached his truck, Chad pulled his duffel bag from behind the seat. As he stared down at his Peacemaker and the recorder synced to the wireless transmitter he'd attached to Kinnard's phone, Chad forced himself to concentrate on the task at hand. He still had Jasmine's scent on his skin, even his hands, but he couldn't think about her now. She was already distraction enough. The ardor she'd given him, pinning him to her chair like a wild filly in heat, was both a blessing and a question.

No doubt she wanted him almost as badly as he wanted her, but it was obvious he was only the latest in a long string of conquests. How easily she'd produced the big box of condoms. He forced the memory away, taking several deep breaths to banish the last warmth of their embrace and bear down on the only evidence he hadn't torn apart six ways from Sunday.

He moved the tiny digital recorder to the middle panel of the seat, where a padded lid covered the deep recess. But before he hit Play, he recapped in his mind what Riley had told him. The evidence Riley had shared with him was flimsy at best. Even using their highly sophisticated databases, they'd found little on Kinnard, either, which in itself was a red flag. Anyone his age who had no digital footprint until ten years ago, when he suddenly appeared with money in California, had gone to a great deal of trouble to erase an earlier identity.

As for the Latino car ring, the one informant the LA gang investigation division had secreted into a gang known to be highly mobile but working in Beverly Hills, had mysteriously disappeared before he could give them solid evidence. Chad recalled the big rigs that had exited the warehouse parking lot shortly before he'd been clonked. He suspected he knew why the gang was mobile, even though when they ran the plates, the construction LLC that owned the trucks seemed innocuous enough.

Though he couldn't prove diddly, the thought tormented him that Trey could have been in one of those trucks while big brother came to the rescue by lying unconscious on the pavement. If Kinnard owned those trucks, he was a master at covering his tracks.

Chad hit Play on the digital recorder and listened. He had several days' worth of recording and thought about fast-forwarding through some of it, but he clamped down on his impatience and listened. He kept a pen poised to record time and date stamps of any interesting clues, but his hand grew tired of holding the pen as the hours passed.

Nothing. Boring meetings about art and artists, office matters, one phone call from the attorney's office to confirm a meeting with Larsen, social gatherings, blah blah blah. Chad was about to switch off the recorder and finish the rest tomorrow when an angry feminine voice left a message. “All right, Thomas, I know you're deliberately not returning my calls and I'm sure you also know there's no answer on that new number you gave me for Trey. If you want me to do your dirty work, quite literally, contact Trey and have him call my new cell phone. No later than tomorrow or I may just decide the money isn't worth it.”
Click
. A very definite, angry click.

Chad listed the time and date on his empty pad—yesterday at ten a.m.—switched off the recorder, and leaned back. Who the hell was that? Whoever it was knew Trey and seemed concerned about him. But it wasn't Jasmine . . .

Before he could pinpoint the source of the knot in his gut, his cell phone rang. He answered. “Chad Foster.”

“You're . . . Chad Foster?” The voice sounded like that of a young male teen, half scared out of his wits.

“Yes. Who is this?”

“Doesn't matter. Do you know someone who wears a gold nugget necklace engraved with ‘Family is all that lasts. Love, Mama'?”

The knot in Chad's stomach became a knife. “Yes . . . where did you find it?”

“On the I-10 toward Riverside. It had a note with it listing this number and a reward of two thousand dollars if you retrieved it. You got the money?”

“I'll get it and meet you in an hour. Where are you?”

“I'm in Riverside. There's a coffee shop right off the east I-10 at exit 445. I'll meet you there tomorrow morning, six a.m.” The kid hung up.