Until You (49 page)

"Well, the other morning, I was watching you shave."

"Were you, now."

"Mmm." She lifted one hand lazily, brought it to his face and rubbed her fingertips lightly over the late-day stubble that had begun to shadow his jaw. The faint abrasiveness sent a shudder of delight along her skin. "It's very sexy, watching a guy shave."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Especially a guy who shaves in his shorts. Where on earth did you get all those muscles, O'Neil?"

"Clean living, Beckman."

Miranda laughed throatily. She undid the first few buttons on his shirt and slid her hands inside the parted cotton. His skin felt hot under her fingers.

"We're very conscious of things like that in my profession, you know."

"Things like what?" Conor said, biting back a groan as her hands stroked over his shoulders and across his chest.

"Oh, you know. Musculature. Body development." Her tone was serious, almost earnest. How long could she keep it that way, she wondered, as heat spread through her blood? "These muscles here, for instance." Her fingers danced. "What do you call these?"

Conor swallowed convulsively. "Pectorals."

"That's it. Pectorals." Gently, she tugged his shirt off his shoulders and eased it back until it dropped to the floor. "And these." He caught his breath as her hands moved downward. "The ones that feel like the ridges on a washboard."

"Miranda..."

"Abdominals? Is that what you call them?"

"Miranda, if you don't stop..."

She undid his belt and the button at the top of his fly.

"And then there's this," she said, her voice soft as darkness. His zipper hissed as she drew down the tab. "This wonderful, uniquely masculine part of you."

"Miranda." His voice was choked. "Miranda, I'm warning you..."

She dropped to her knees before him and took him in her hands.

"I love you," she said, "do you know that, Conor?"

"Baby," he whispered, "Miranda..."

She brought him to her lips.

The warmth and heat of her mouth enclosed him. He moaned softly and his head fell back.

"Miranda," he said, "sweetheart..."

When he could take no more, he drew her to her feet, undid her robe and fell back with her onto the bed.

"I love you," he said, as he parted her thighs. His voice shook with emotion, then turned fierce. "Will you remember that? Promise me, Miranda. Say you'll never forget that I love you."

"Never," she whispered.

She arched and took him deep inside her, where he exploded and burned with the shattering force of a thousand shooting stars.

* * *

He awoke hours later, with Miranda cradled in his arms. Her hair was spread over his shoulder; her hand lay curled on his chest.

Christ, how he loved her!

He wasn't a sentimental man and he didn't think of himself as an especially romantic one but he'd read his fair share of poets and poetry. He knew all about love and the power it was supposed to have to transform lives, but knowing and believing were not the same thing.

He had never counted himself among the believers.

Until now.

Miranda sighed in her sleep. She shifted in his arms and her hand rose and flattened against his heart.

Despite all the odds stacked against him in this random, unfeeling universe, he had found this woman. Her innocence and her love had healed him.

Conor put his hand over hers.

He had done a lot of things in his life and he'd truly believed some of them to be important for his country. Now, he knew that nothing he'd ever done in the name of survival or even of patriotism, had been worth a damn compared to what lay ahead.

Miranda was a pawn in someone's game. He had to keep her safe from the horror snapping at her heels, and he had to tell her the truth about himself without losing her.

If he failed at either, his life would be meaningless.

Chapter 18

John O'Neil, Detective-Sergeant, NYPD, Retired, sat in his high-backed chair and watched the flickering shadows on the screen of his television set.

The set was a Sony, a new one, and he'd paid a lot of money for it, but the reception was piss-poor. He'd called Crazy Howie's, down on 34th and 6th where he'd bought it, and after a lot of back-and-forth they'd finally sent over somebody to take a look. The guy had poked, and prodded, and taken a shit-load of readings with an Ohm meter as if he was a doctor taking its temperature, and then he'd shrugged and said there wasn't a thing wrong with it that moving it away from the window wouldn't cure.

"Too much light on the screen," the guy had said, and put his ropy arms around the Sony, and John had said, what do you think you're doing? "Movin' it over there, back against that wall," the guy said, as if he was doing him a favor, and John told him to leave the damn thing alone, that he was perfectly capable of moving the TV himself if he wanted to, which he didn't.

"Yahoos," Detective-Sergeant John O'Neil, NYPD, Retired, muttered as he changed channels.

Every TV he'd ever owned in this apartment, forty years worth of them, had stood over there, against the wall. What was wrong with a little change every now and then?

"Not a thing," he said, answering his own question, "not a damn thing."

This way, with the set and his chair beside the window, he could catch a breeze as the weather grew warmer. He could see down to the street, too, if he wanted, watch the kids playing stickball or whatever it was kids played today, see the young mothers sitting on the stoops, warming their round bellies and their babies under the spring sun.

Not that he watched what was going on for pleasure. No way. The street had changed, most of the Kellys and O'Briens and Guardinos gone now, giving way to names like Cruz and Rodriguez. Well, he was staying. He'd lived here the better part of his life and he'd be damned if he'd leave.

It was still okay here. Safe enough, even clean enough. Al Brady, who lived in 2G, said it was because people on the block were working to keep it that way but that was just because he was pushing what he called the Block Association. Truth was, John O'Neil was the reason things were all right on this street. Everybody knew he'd been a cop, knew he still gave a damn about doing things right. It was one of the reasons he'd moved his chair here, by the window.

"Nice to look out and see folks," Brady had said, when he'd come knocking on the door, looking for a contribution to the Block Association.

John grimaced. Did Brady take him for a fool? He hadn't been dumb enough to give the man money but he'd set him straight, made sure he understood that he didn't give a crap what "folks" were doing and never had. He wasn't sitting at the window for the scenery. It was so he could keep an eye on things. He was a man who believed in law and order. People knew that, and respected it.

He leaned forward, narrowing his eyes. Was that the boy from 4D? What was the kid's name? Juan, probably, hell, they were all named Juan. Kid was lounging against the doorway across the street, eyeing the girls, looking for trouble. Well, why not? Kid didn't have any rules to live by, none of 'em did anymore. No wonder everything was coming apart.

You had to raise your kids to know right from wrong, paddle them on the tail when they needed it, tell 'em what to do and how to do it if you wanted 'em to grow up right. Even then, there were no guarantees. Just look at what had happened with his very own flesh and blood.

Not that it was his fault. Conor had been born late in their lives and his wife, God rest her soul, had spoiled him rotten.

"Can't you be gentle, John?" she'd say when the kid would fuck up and need a lick or two with the belt. "Show the boy you care for him."

"I know what I'm doing, Kathleen," he'd tell her.

But it hadn't mattered. The boy was defiant, even more so after Kathleen, God rest her soul, had passed. He'd done what he could, tried to teach the kid to be obedient and God-fearing, but the more he'd tried, the worse things had gotten. Conor had run wild, got himself into one scrape after another, done his own thing and ignored his father's good advice. Finally, he'd announced he wanted to go on the job.

On the job, hell, John had said. He hadn't raised the boy to walk a beat. He'd put his foot down and said that would happen only over his dead body so the kid ran off and joined the fuckin' army, for crissakes, instead of going to college and becoming a lawyer, the way he was supposed to.

John O'Neil rose to his feet and went into the kitchen. The water in the kettle was still hot enough, and there was another dunk or two left in the tea bag from breakfast. He refilled his cup and went back to his chair, slurping down the lukewarm tea, watching as the kid—Carlos, that was his name—leaned away from the building and swaggered towards some pretty little thing with tits just starting to fill out her blouse.

It had damn near killed him, watching his son go wrong. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, such a fuck-up. In and out of trouble, then the army and a failed marriage to some la-de-da bitch, and even after the boy had finally come to his senses and gotten himself a law degree—and not at City College, either, oh no, that wasn't good enough—even after he had the degree, what had he done with it?

"Not a thing," John O'Neil said aloud, "not one damn thing!"

Was Conor an attorney, making a good living at insurance like the Murphy boy or raking in money doing accident claims, like the Donelli kid? Hell, no. Conor still hadn't grown up. He was running around playing spy games for some fancy government agency...

What the hell?

The tea sloshed over the dm of the cup and onto his fingers.

Was that Conor, coming up the block?

It couldn't be. They saw each other two, three times a year, plenty for the both of them, talked on the phone from time to time...

By God, it
was
Conor, come to pay his old man a visit.

It was a long time since he'd seen his son at a distance. He was tall, was Conor. Good-looking, too, like his mother, and he walked as if he owned the world.

John O'Neil felt an unaccustomed warmth rise within his chest.

Who was that, coming down the steps of the next building? Annie Genovese, that old gossip. She said something to Conor, who paused and stopped at the bottom of the stoop.

John's gaze flickered over Conor again and his expression soured.

Annie Genovese was always boasting about her sons, all three of 'em. The doctor. The accountant. The college professor.

What did he have to boast about? Not his son, the junior G-man, dressed like a bum in dungarees, leather jacket and a pair of boots.

Boots?

"Mother of God," John O'Neil said, and he drew back from the window, folded his arms, and waited.

* * *

"It's lovely to see you, Conor," Mrs. Genovese said. "It's been a long time."

Conor smiled. "Good to see you again, too, Mrs. Genovese."

"So," she said, "what are you doing with yourself these days?"

Ah, he knew this game. It was called, Can You Top This? And he never could, because it would have been rude as hell to have said,
Listen, Mrs. Genovese, if your sons are happy, living their lives in their safe little ruts, that's okay with me but I need more than that. I always did.

"Oh, this and that," he said pleasantly.

"That's nice." Annie Genovese's plump chest seemed to expand. "I'll be sure and tell my boys I saw you, Conor."

"You do that."

"Joey's teaching at Cornell. I suppose you've heard of it?"

Conor smiled. "I think so," he said. "Well, it's been nice talking with you—"

"Danny's opening his own business, did your father tell you?"

"No, no, he didn't."

"You know how it is. Why should a CPA work for anybody else?"

"Right," Conor said. "Well, you take care, Mrs.—"

"And Frank's a partner in a practice up on Pelham Parkway. Of course, he could have gone anywhere, bein' he's such a wonderful doctor."