In the Night of the Heat (6 page)

Six men were talking to me at once.

“Since the verdict, it's crazy, man…”

“…people done lost their damn minds…”

“…can't even open his mail…”

Melanie raised her hand, and the men fell silent. She was the smallest of any of us, but Melanie Wilde was in charge. She surreptitiously showed me a grainy five-by-seven color photograph, and I nearly recoiled. That photo had run in the
Enquirer
after a police source leaked it to the tabloids: Chantelle Jackson bound to a chair, her lifeless head
dangling to one side, taken inside the garage where she'd been killed. I was grateful the photo had been taken from behind, her face hidden from view. I'd already seen one dead woman too many.

“Where'd this come from?” I said.

Melanie leaned close to me. “Some coward slipped it on the table and walked away.”

“Wish I'd seen the motherfucker,” Basso growled, scanning the crowd. I scanned too: Nothing but well-dressed Taus patiently awaiting their turn to touch greatness. All smiles.

“T.D.'s getting threats,” Melanie said, voice low. “Not just this. Ignorant people unfamiliar with our system of jurisprudence don't understand the words
Not Guilty.
Anyway, Dorothea Biggs teaches Sunday school with me at my church, and she talks about you all the time. Her son told her he's never seen a…what? Close-Protection Specialist? Quite like you. You pulled him out of a fire, during the Afrodite thing?”

She said it like she was trying to jog my memory. As if I could forget.

Serena “Afrodite” Johnson's death still infuriated me—I had nearly gone to jail myself after she'd been murdered, since I had spent a precious afternoon with her the day she died. Serena and I hadn't seen each other in five years until that day, and it had been like meeting for the first time. We might have started all over again, both of us born anew.

“He was a bodyguard for who?” said Skeptical Basso, looking me up and down. He had fifty pounds on me. I'm not small, but it was like an oak talking to a pine.

“Devon Biggs,” Melanie told him. “And Afrodite.”

“Well, shit, that didn't work out too good.”

My eyes flashed fire. Knowing that I might have found a way to save Serena's life still sometimes made it hard to go to sleep at
night. Linebacker or not, I wasn't going to tolerate taunting about Serena.

T.D. Jackson laughed, but without mirth. His glassy eyes shimmered. “You got heart, man. Don't let Carlyle fuck with you,” T.D. told me, and shook my hand; almost holding it, really. “Melanie says you're the real thing, and my big cousin never steers me wrong. I need somebody I can trust, from way back in the day. The shit's gonna start all over with the civil trial. My boys got their own lives, you know? They can't keep babysitting my ass. That true about Devon Biggs and the fire? Six dudes shooting at you?”

“Three,” I said. The memory of the trap set for me and Devon in retaliation for Serena's murder forced itself to the surface. I had shot and almost killed a man that day. I could still taste the soot and smell the gasoline. “The fire's true.”

T.D. Jackson's face went slack with gratitude, the way he might have looked at a doctor who promised to cure a fatal illness. “
Yeah,
man. That's what I need, Tennyson. No bullshit.”

In that instant, T.D. Jackson felt like an old friend I could invite home to crack open a six-pack and watch a ballgame. That's the ugly truth of it: People aren't all bad or all good. You can dig down to find the saint, or the monster, in anyone.

A business card slipped into my hand. I glanced down:
Melanie Wilde, Attorney at Law.
She worked at a downtown firm housed in a glass tower on Sunset.

“Let me know how to reach you,” Melanie said. “We'll take you to lunch and talk details. We're not playing, so name your price.”

A piercing gaze somehow has physical weight. April's eyes were bludgeoning the back of my head. Instinct made me want to call her over, and say, “Hey, guys, this is my girlfriend, April Forrest.” But April didn't want an introduction. She wanted to know why the hell I
was talking congenially with T.D. Jackson and a woman who looked like an East African postcard. I wondered, too.

I'd almost forgotten that I had a steady job, and that investigating Serena's murder had soured me on the bodyguard business. I'd almost forgotten my respect for the dead.

I made a show of trying to give Melanie's card back to her. She refused it.

“Wish I could help,” I said, first to her, and then to T.D. “But I'm pushing the acting thing now. Might have seen me on the previews for next week's
Homeland
?”

T.D. blinked. No reaction at all.

“The Afrodite business was a onetime thing,” I said. “Sorry.”

“What?” T.D. said, genuinely puzzled. T.D. Jackson wasn't used to being refused. “You think I can't pay, man? I can pay.”

“It's not that. I've got a gig, T.D. Sorry.”

His eyes never wavered, but somewhere deep inside T.D. Jackson there was a seismic shift. For an instant I glimpsed a morsel of the rage his dead ex-wife might have known, whether or not he killed her. T.D. Jackson didn't have a Warm setting: He went from Cold to Hot. His eyes, which looked vaguely golden in that instant, were sharp as knives.

Melanie Wilde saw it, too. She moved toward T.D., standing between us, although her eyes never left mine. “Please keep my card,” she said. “We could really use you, Ten. You can imagine what the stress is like. First the loss…then the trial…” Melanie had been making excuses for her baby cousin her whole life, and she was good at it.

Mostly for her sake, I opened my wallet and nestled her card inside—although I didn't offer her mine. Then I tipped an imaginary hat. If I didn't tend to April soon, I was the one who was going to need a ride home.

I met T.D. Jackson's eyes for the last time. They still glinted, sharp. “T.D.? Good luck with the security, man. If I think of anyone else, I'll let you know.”

T.D. only shook his head with a scoffing, dismissive laugh. His eyes left mine, and I became invisible. He had exposed his heart to me, and beneath his armor he was sulking like a ten-year-old boy. “Triflin' motherfucker,” he muttered, walking away. Melanie winced.

Just that quickly, I was out of the club.

I didn't know it at the time, but my tally rose that night. Serena wasn't alone anymore.

Now there were two lives I might have saved.

I WAS SHOCKED
when April announced she would spend the night with me after the fundraiser. I made a mental note to attend more meetings with her. Apparently, I'd explained my brush with T.D. Jackson well enough in the car to keep her in a good mood.

We got home late, so Dad was already asleep, and Chela was wrapped in the wall of loud music behind her closed door. I'd eaten dinner with Chela and Dad, so a knock at Chela's door and a “whassup” were all she needed for the night. I confirmed that she was where she was supposed to be. Chela, like me, was self-sufficient and couldn't stand crowding. Maybe that was why we worked so well.

I didn't tell Chela that April was with me, and Chela didn't ask.

I regretted that I had sacrificed my old room, the master bedroom, to give to Chela. The former guest room that had become my bedroom always looked overcrowded because I'd tried to stuff my kettle-bells, heavy bag, and folding mats in, and there was hardly room for a queen-size bed. Chela's room, on the other hand, was the size of a generous studio apartment. If the room hadn't been upstairs, I would have offered it to Dad. But I figured that after living on the streets,
with only a dead grandmother and a soulless madam as her caretakers, Chela needed a space of her own. I was probably spoiling her, but everything is relative.

I could tell that April felt cramped in my room, but she didn't complain. I turned off the light and pulled her close for the kiss I'd been craving far too long.

“Let's take a shower,” I said. I wanted to wash myself, and I wanted April with me.

No small feat. The bathroom was across the hall. I pulled her hand into mine, unbuttoning my shirt with my other. But April's feet dragged behind me before we reached the doorway. “Ten, I want you to tell me what happened today. We spend all this time preparing for a meeting, and then you won't tell me anything? I didn't expect her to offer you the part on the spot, but still…”

“She never wanted to offer me a part,” I said slowly. “She offered me a piece.”

At first, April looked confused. Then she smiled, thinking it was a joke. But when she didn't see a return smile, hers evaporated. Her dark eyes flashed.
“What?”

The shower would have to wait. Maybe for a long time.

I sat April on the bed and started from the beginning, garment by garment. It could have been worse: At least April already knew about my sex-for-pay past. She'd learned my history from a police lieutenant, a former student of her father's who had tried to keep her away from me. I told April about everything in the hotel suite, except for my arousal. Erections are involuntary, but I knew better. The story was tough enough for April. I saw that in her face.

“You went to a hotel room with her?” she said. Hurt cracked her voice in a way I had never heard from her. It felt like breaking a rare crystal artwork. “And let her put her hands on you? Why the hell would you do that, Ten? You thought that was business as usual?”

You shouldn't have told her,
my Evil Voice said.

I put my arm around April to soften the way it sounded. “Baby, I didn't know. They'd used it for a press junket. In the back of my mind, I wondered, but…you've interviewed people in hotel rooms, April. You know most meetings don't include nudity. Be fair.”

But you could have guessed,
I heard her thinking, and she sat with that thought a while. I had culpability, too, and we both knew it. I could have left when Lynda Jewell first mentioned Pauline. I could have left when she unbuttoned her shirt.

“I was stupid,” I said. “I won't put myself in that position again.”

“I can't
believe
her!” April said finally, and I was glad her anger had found its rightful target. April's mouth moved like a fish fighting to breathe, speechless with rage.

That reminded me: I'd forgotten to feed the fish again.

April followed me downstairs. When she regained her voice, her mouth set loose a flurry of curses rhyming with “rich,” and some that never leave my mouth but rhyme with “runt.” My ears felt polluted to hear April's sweet voice wrapped around that language as we passed my father's closed door. It was almost as bad as hearing Chela curse.

“Shhhh,”
I said. “You're gonna get us both kicked out of my own house.”

“She called your agent for
that
?”

“It's over, April.”

“Trust me, it's not. If she was as mad as you said, she won't let that go.”

Len hadn't heard the full story yet. I'd managed to avoid his eager postmeeting calls because of the weekend, but he deserved a full disclosure by Monday. Len had always warned me my reputation was at risk. And if Lynda Jewell made good on her threat to bad-mouth me, my future in Hollywood was already my past. Hollywood is a small town.

Once the fish were safely fed, I led April back upstairs. Toward the shower.

By silent agreement, we were finished talking, or thinking, about Lynda Jewell.

The upstairs bathroom didn't have a double-headed shower like the one I'd given to Chela, but it was still a worthy meeting place. That night, it was sanctuary. Raising my finger to my lips, I locked the door behind us. Just in case Chela came looking.

To the untutored, sex in the shower can be a nightmare. It sounds great in theory, but too many passionate inspirations go awry against wet shower tiles. Luckily, I'd had great teachers.

While April undressed, I tested the water stream and temperature, keeping my eyes on my task. I knew April's body well by then—it was
mine,
as she liked telling me, and I loved to hear—but sometimes I denied myself the vision of April's nakedness as long as possible before lovemaking. I liked the surprise of her, new and fresh to my eyes.

“It's ready for you, miss,” I said, like the perfect hotel porter.

“Thank you, sir,” she said, and slipped past me in a blur of brown nakedness.

We were both playing the game of newness.

I peeled off the formfitting black shirt and black slacks I'd worn to the fund-raiser, my all-purpose L.A. Chic that saved me from the hassle of a suit and tie. Last, my black briefs. The small bathroom smelled like us immediately; a combination of perspiration, old cologne, and subtle body scents; some sour, some sweet. Already, the mirror was beginning to fog.

In the cabinet, I found two sea wool sponges I'd been saving for that occasion. I had been waiting to bring April back into my shower for a long time. Somehow, with the diminishing number of encounters, the shower rarely felt right. The bathroom was too close
to Chela's space, and it always seemed safest to pen April's ardor in the bedroom rather than to risk snuffing it by opening the door.

I made a silent apology for the water I was about to waste. I have a Takagi on-demand water heater, so I was planning to take my time. Showers are designed for bathing, after all, and there's no better way to begin a journey of flesh. Grooming is primal.

I sidled in behind her and assessed my favorite view. I can close my eyes and still see exactly how April's ass looked that night: perfect proportions of roundness and firmness, with cascading streams gliding from its mighty shelf like a gentle waterfall. April was slender everywhere except where she burst forth in compensation. The weak wand I'd had in Lynda Jewell's hotel room couldn't compare to the club rising against my belly, a genie summoned by a rub from April's bare, wet ass. I could have stared at her ass all night. Hell, some nights I almost did. It looked good by the light of the moon, but damp and gleaming?

Art.

I soaped up my sponge and touched the small of her back.

She gasped, feigning surprise. “Who's that?” She only turned halfway, as if she couldn't see me. She crossed her arms high to cover her breasts.

“The wind,” I whispered. I'm not sure she heard me over the beating water.

April was role-playing, but tight knots of muscles in her back showed me how tense she was. A sudden thought broke my concentration, almost as if it was hidden in the rushing water itself:
You're losing her.
My Evil Voice had followed me home.

No you're not,
my hand with the sponge assured me.
Not tonight.

I slid the sponge's coarse soapiness across April's shoulder blades. Up and down her spine. The sponge kissed the back of her neck. Her head nodded forward, and her face and hair were washed in the
shower stream. April usually didn't like getting her braids wet, but she didn't seem to notice. I heard her moan gently, appreciating the sponge's path.

I savored her ass the way I would a rich dessert, and I almost lost myself there. My slow circles met her curves as her contours took me by the hand. The sponge sank into the dimpled valley of her flank and rose again to the summit. A little pressure, and the sponge teased between the two halves that made her whole. I slid the sponge down deep through her thighs, then scaled the twin peaks again.

I already ached to slip inside of her, and we were just getting started. I gave my body a taste, pressing against her for a quick visit with her hot skin. Warm soap oiled us, electrifying each pore. This time, I was the one who moaned.

But I stepped away, and April turned around to face me. Still pretending to be blind, she patted my cheeks and nose. Next, she soaped up her hands and ran them across my chest. Beneath her fingertips, my abdomen locked tight, too, but not from stress—from a desire for release. While I moved my sponge to April's shoulders, her hands descended to grasp the firmness rising tall between us. Both hands. Like I said, I'm blessed.

I pulsed in rhythm to her fingers' caresses. April's first strokes were a nest of butterflies, gentle and fluttering, and I felt myself pressing harder against her for a more lingering touch. Her hand's strokes tightened with urgency. Her thumb explored every ridge as her palm clamped across my taut skin with a rhythm so delicious it was almost agony. April's confidence as a lover had grown during our time together, but it was more than that: She touched me as if she might never again have the chance. I floated in the sweet chaos of April's touch and the bath of hot water. My toes curled against the shower tiles.

My guest shower is built with a narrow elevated shelf in the cor
ner, probably designed as a shampoo caddy, but it has other uses as well. When April sat on the shelf, her face nestled my groin. Her tongue lapped at the beads of water that had washed away the soap. Any man knows that hot water makes testicles stretch and breathe, and April enjoyed having more skin to play with. Her hands roamed, and her mouth followed.

A slight adjustment of her face, coupled with my unconscious rising to my tiptoes, and I felt April's lips and tongue slide along my skin, then clamp tight. Gently, she sucked and caressed while wet fingers stroked above making spirals and counterspirals that made my breath catch. She was like someone new. After weeks of reserve, April had set herself free.

“Damn, girl…” I whispered, almost a plea.
Please stop. Please never stop.

Instead of falling shut, my eyes fought to stay open, searching for hers.

When our gazes caught, electricity broiled from my groin up and down my spine. The vision of her petite sweetness nearly overwhelmed me. Beautiful. Whatever that word meant to me, April defined it. April was beautiful.
You could marry a girl like this
, a new voice said, before my thoughts were swallowed in the void of sensation. It wasn't my Evil Voice, this time. It was a voice I had never heard before.

Gently, I held April beneath her armpits and lifted. “Stand up, baby,” I said. Following my guidance, April carefully stood up on the shelf, bracing herself against the wet shower walls. I held her waist tightly. “Don't worry,” I said, desire hoarsened my voice. “I've got you.”

Again, the shelf put us at the perfect height.

I don't mind unwashed skin—I can delight in a woman's 101 fla
vors. But freshly washed skin has its rewards, too, if only because women often worry that their taste won't be fresh enough. April's hips pivoted forward as she presented herself to me.

April never waxed, but she kept her pubic hair clipped low. Beneath my careful fingers, folds of dark brown gave way to the blood-fed pink hidden within. I explored her with the matching pink of my tongue, gently probing, lapping at the water in hopes of a taste of her. I lathered my hand with soap and reached behind her. While my tongue worked on April from the front, my slippery finger probed from behind.

April let out a gasp, shivering, and her arm fell from the shower wall, tightening around my neck. Her whole body went so tight that my index finger was held hostage inside of her.

“I've got you, baby,” I said again, and she relaxed. Freed from the tight clamp, my finger wormed its way deeper. Even after years of marriage, most women's bodies are
terra incognita
to their men. The vagina gets most of the attention, but there are plenty of nerve endings in its backyard, too. In a shower, there's no excuse to leave any entry untended.

April hissed into my ear, clinging for balance as her knees trembled. “Oh, God…Ohhh…” To keep from crying out as an orgasm jittered throughout her frame, she bit into my shoulder.

Biting from April was something new. The flash of near pain sharpened my senses, and my need to be inside of her surged. Carefully, I turned April around and helped her ease down from her perch. With one arm wound around her waist to help her keep her balance, I lifted her leg, resting the crook of her knee across my forearm. My body sought its way to hers. Penetration is much easier from behind in a shower, but I held April facing me. I didn't want to lose sight of the joy and wonder in her face, even for a blink.

We had plenty of soap, but I wasn't tempted. Soap is an irritant to a woman, and there's no quicker way to spoil the moment. Water isn't the lubricant it appears to be, either. Instead, I trusted the juices my foreplay had stirred inside of April. Her scent, a fleshy undertone in the shower's downpour, told me she was ready.