Isabel and the Wolf: (Part 4) (3 page)

“Nightcap?” Jed asked, as they left the restaurant. The cocktail bar looked to be winding down, so they went to Buffalo Bar, slipping into a booth at the back, away from Dan and the other bartenders’ curious eyes.

“Is this where you bring all the girls?” Isabel said, as they joked about the contrast it made with the elegant French restaurant.

“Only the ones I’m trying to charm,” he replied. They ordered a bourbon on the rocks each, and Isabel ran over to the jukebox and put on three songs in a row from
The National
.

“Hey, I’m getting my own back,” Jed said, as the second one started to play. He jumped up and selected several songs.

“You don’t like my favorite band?” Isabel asked, pouting. Jed frowned.

“They’re a bit depressing.”

“I prefer to think of them as moody and soulful.”

“They’ve got great lyrics though,” Jed said, deadpan, just as they sang something about eating brains. Isabel burst out laughing.

“What did you pick?”

“You’ll see!”

“Aw!” Isabel said, and poked him in the ribs.

A few minutes later,
Nine Inch Nails
was pounding from the speakers. Isabel started singing along to it.

“No way! I would not have pegged you for a Nails fan!” Jed’s voice was full of admiration.

“More from my semi-goth phase during my teens than nowadays, but, yeah, I’ve been to a few of their concerts. I’ve got pretty eclectic tastes, as it happens!”

“Isabel Alexander, you never fail to impress me,” Jed said, but the end of his sentence was drowned out by the bartender almost doubling the volume of the music. He groaned. “This wasn’t exactly the end to the evening I was hoping for!” he yelled, shuffling closer to her in the booth to make himself heard. His breath smelled sweet, tinged with bourbon. She looked into his eyes, tingling with anticipation.

“There’s only one thing to do at a time like this!” she yelled back. She touched his jaw, angling his face towards her, and pressed her lips against his. He responded immediately, returning her kiss, his arms going around her waist, pulling her body closer. His lips were soft, with an exciting hint of stubble beneath the lower one, and they parted on hers, allowing her to dart her tongue into his mouth. As it met his, she sighed, and her clit gave a little jolt. She gripped his muscular shoulders, and ran her hands down to the soft skin of his forearms. She longed to explore his body, to be naked with him in bed, taking her time. He began to kiss her more and more urgently, his hands stroking her back, pulling her hips towards him. The jolt in her clit became a throb, and then an ache, deep inside her.

Abruptly, he broke away from her.

“Wow,” he said, his eyes soft and unfocused. “We’d better stop before I get carried away again, and we create a second fountain of Silver City gossip!”

“There was gossip before?”

“Oh yes! It was like wildfire by the morning after the dance.” Isabel’s cheeks warmed, although she hadn’t really expected anything less.

“Can I call you a taxi, Bella?”

“Yes, please,” she replied, both relieved and disappointed that he wasn’t going to try to take her home with him. As she stood up to leave, he looped his arms around her waist and pulled her back down.

“May I have another date? Perhaps I could cook dinner at my place?”

“That would be lovely,” she said, her eyes sparkling.

“On Friday?”

“Perfect!” He caught her up in one more long, passionate kiss, which left her light-headed when she finally stood up.

Back on the main street, Jed hailed a taxi and, since they were out in public view, planted a fleeting kiss on her lips.

“Until Friday, Bella,” he said, leaning into the taxi. He blew her a kiss, and waved her goodbye as the taxi drove away.

Isabel lolled back in the seat of the taxi, glowing with happiness
. That had been the most romantic evening!
She couldn’t wait for their next date. She liked Jed more than ever. Her senses were alive with the scent and the feel of him, and she longed for more, much more.

But when she arrived home, her excitement flattened out. She wandered through her dark hallway, strangely deflated. It was as if good times with Jed reminded her of good times with Peter. And her house was full of him. She hadn’t been living there for long, and, in recent weeks, being there with him had made it a home. They’d done couply things together, like watching movies, and sharing a tub of ice cream on the sofa. They’d cooked together, and he’d given her amazing, skillful massages. And they’d had the most intense, satisfying sex. These memories were bittersweet though – good memories that she’d happily have excised from her head.

She took her make-up off and cleaned her teeth quickly, and slipped into bed, and, before long, sleep obliterated all the conflict in her mind.

Silver City was buzzing with gossip about the ‘giant wolf’. In the supermarket, in the shops on the main street, in the couple of cafes Isabel visited, speculation about what exactly had been glimpsed that night was everywhere, and she couldn’t escape it. Several people thought the person who’d seen it was crazy, or drunk. “Likes his beer, that one,” was repeated here and there in knowing tones. Some people thought it was a coyote; others explained its size with the suggestion that it was a black bear. Most people accepted it was a wolf, but a regular one, its size enhanced by the imagination. Isabel was the only one who knew the truth about the wolf, and every mention curdled inside her with a mixture of horror and self-recrimination.

She had a coffee with Mariana and Bill, on edge the whole time, and dissolving in relief when they parted ways and hadn’t alluded to the wolf. Apart from that, she was happy to stay at home, working hard and watching box sets of comedy shows, waiting for the gossip to die down, so she could move on and not have to think about it anymore.

Her upcoming date with Jed was a bright spark on her horizon, but it also made her uneasy, in a way she couldn’t identify. She and Kara had discussed it in detail, of course.

“You do realize you’re going to have sex this time, right?”

“On our second date? I don’t think so.”

“Um, you’ve met several times already, so it’s really equivalent to a third or fourth date.”

“I don’t know if Jed will see it that way.”

“Of course he will! That’s why he’s invited you over for dinner. Sex is what happens after a man cooks dinner for you!”

“Ah. I guess I’m pretty inexperienced at these things.”

“That’s why it’s a good job you’ve got me around to educate you!” Kara said, and pressed her face against her computer screen, her left eye becoming huge.

“I’m just not sure if I’m ready to have sex with someone else.”

“Girl, you were ready at the hoedown, and don’t deny it!”

“But that was before I had the boyfriend experience with Peter.”

“Peter was never going to be boyfriend material, let’s face it.” Isabel frowned.

“I don’t know. For a moment there, I really thought he could be.”

“Now, listen to me.” Kara tapped the screen like a bossy schoolteacher. “Peter was all about disappearing on mysterious absences and sleeping in the woods. That’s not boyfriend material. At best, that’s being a pain in the ass. And at worst, it’s – who the hell knows?” Isabel giggled.

“It does sound a little funny when you put it like that.”

“Don’t waste your chance with Jed. Life is short and all that.”

“It is a pretty nice feeling to know you could be about to have sex with someone for the first time, isn’t it?”

“The best!” Kara replied, her eyes gleaming. “Nerve wracking and exciting, all rolled into one!”

*

Isabel picked out sexier lingerie this time – a matching set in lilac satin, with an indigo lace trim. She chose black pants, as a low-key option. If she decided she wasn’t ready to have sex with him, she didn’t want to be taken for a tease. She teamed them with a v-neck fawn shirt with thin straps, a black rhinestone necklace, and black kitten-heeled pumps. She applied light make-up, with a sheer, rose-colored lip tint. Sexy, yet not trying too hard, the mirror told her.

She’d been worried that Jed lived in Black Peak City. She wasn’t sure if she could do the drive up there again. But, luckily, he lived in the hills, not far from downtown. It was a pretty neighborhood, verdant, with cute adobe houses. She pulled into his driveway, behind a battered pick-up truck. He came to the door, his pleasure at seeing her evident in his eyes. Impulsively she’d picked up some flowers, orange roses.

“A beautiful combination,” he said, taking them from her. His feet were bare, and he had a damp, tousled look. It felt intimate, him letting her see him before he was prepared for the world. He kissed her on both cheeks again and led her through to a large kitchen-diner. It had a nice, earthy feel, with a rustic wooden table, like a smaller version of the one Marianna and Bill had, simple white tiling, and a huge oven. There were racks of herbs and spices, and a shelf of cookbooks.

“Great kitchen!” she said.

“I actually chose the place on the basis of the kitchen,” he said. “As soon as I saw it, I didn’t care what the rest of the house was like. I’ve kind of got a thing for cooking.” Isabel grinned at him in delight. She always thought that a man being into cooking was very sexy. “Wine, or beer?”

“Oh, beer,” she said, and he handed her craft beer, icy from the refrigerator.

“I’m sorry, I’ve still got a few things to do before our food’s ready. Would you believe, today, of all days, I got held up at work, so I’ve only been home for half an hour?”

“That’s totally ok,” she said. “Maybe I can help you though?”

“Help, no. But if you want to sit on the bench there and keep me company while I cook, I wouldn’t object!” She hoisted herself up onto the bench and crossed her legs. He was preparing a kind of casserole, putting lots of herbs and spices into it.

“Are you ok with spicy?” he asked, hesitating over adding some chilies.

“You bet,” Isabel said, watching him with fascination. She loved the way his strong forearms flexed as he bent to put the heavy dish in the oven.

“Ok. That’s it for half an hour!” he said. He tore off a piece of kitchen paper and wiped his forehead. “Phew, it’s hot work!” He took a beer out of the refrigerator and clinked it against Isabel’s.

“Sounds like you had a tough day?” she asked, as they went out to his garden. It was prettily decorated. There was a small table and chairs in white filigree metalwork, and colored lanterns were suspended on brackets from the fence on both sides of the garden. Tealight lanterns were arranged here and there. The night flowers were opening as the dusk sky toned down to navy, and the air was thick with their heady scent.

“Oh, most of the day was fine. It’s rare that anything dramatic happens in this jurisdiction. There’s always some DUIs – partly due to the distances between places – and a few speeding tickets. Policing is mainly community liaison over here. But, just at the end of the day, an hour before my shift was due to finish, a girl came in, all battered and bruised. Her boyfriend was convinced she’d been cheating on him. She swore she hadn’t, but he knocked her about anyway. It was horrible to see her. She was a delicate little thing – built a bit like you – and she had a black eye and a cut lip. We left her with a female officer, and went to pay her shitbag boyfriend a visit. He didn’t hear us coming, because he was smoking dope and watching porn. When I got a-hold of him, it was all I could do not to – ” He broke off, the muscles in his jaw twitching. He looked like he needed a hug. Impulsively, she stood up.

“Hey, c’mere.” She stretched her arms towards him and, to her relief, he stretched his arms out too and drew her into an embrace. As he squeezed her more tightly, it seemed natural to slip onto his lap.

“I was so cut up about it, I thought I was gonna have to cancel on you tonight,” he mumbled into her hair. “But I’m so glad you’re here now.” She kissed his forehead.

“I’m glad I’m here, too,” she whispered. His hair smelled of sandalwood shampoo, and she inhaled the scent of his skin at his temples. “It sounds like a really grueling experience. I hope that poor girl’s ok, and won’t go back to that animal!”

“I’ve come across a few abused women in my time as a cop, and they do have a tendency to go back to their abusers.”

“But why? If a guy hit me, I’d run like hell. After I’d hit him back, of course!” Jed smiled.

“I don’t doubt it, feisty girl!” he said. “I think they’re in denial. They love these losers so much, and can’t believe that someone who claims to love them would hurt them. Either that, or they come from broken homes, and love and abuse have always been interchangeable in their minds.”

“And this girl?”

“I actually think she’ll be ok. The guy’s going to jail. He’s got a criminal history, so he’s probably going down for a couple of years at least. The girl said he was on his second and last chance with her, and I do believe her. She had a plan all set up if things didn’t work out. She’d already sent her kid to her mom’s place, and there’s a job for her over there too.”

“Well, I hope she finds some peace,” Isabel said.

Jed was looking at her in admiration, his forefinger lightly stroking her jaw. She bent her head and brought her mouth to his. He kissed her, lightly at first, then more deeply, his lips full and soft on hers and his tongue slipping into her mouth. Their tongues danced around each other, and Isabel sighed. His hand grasped her thigh and he pulled her closer, wrapping his other arm around her waist. Her hands rested on his shoulders, unconsciously massaging the bunched-up muscles. Their kisses became hungrier, more biting. As she adjusted her ass on his lap, she felt a hardness growing there. She couldn’t resist wriggling around a little, and he made a small sound, as it became more pronounced. Jed’s arousal increased her own, and she began to burn to feel him inside her. His hands moved up and down her torso, as far as the underwire of her bra. She willed him to move higher and caress her breasts, but he stayed infuriatingly out of reach.
Still being the gentleman
, she thought, with frustration. His pelvis gave a jerk and he moved back and forth a couple of times. Then, he stopped abruptly, breaking away from their kiss. He lifted her off his lap, and got to his feet, laughing.