Unzipped? (8 page)

“C
OME ON
, H
AL
,” S
HANNON
bullied him. “We’re almost done.” It had been a very long afternoon and she was tired. Spike-heeled boots might look killer, but they felt killer, too.

“Correction. We
are
done.” And her client dug in his own heels. The formerly malleable Hal became a mule, and no matter what angle she took she could not find the carrot to move him forward.

She finally installed him back in her moldy beemer and put on some reggae music in the hopes that he’d unwind a little. She drove to a nearby strip mall and left him in the car with the packages while she went in and bought him some basic workout clothes in dark and neutral colors. She added white socks to the mix and then went and got him. “I can’t just buy the cross-trainers and running shoes for you. You have to actually come in and test them for comfort.”

She got him into this last store, stuck him on a vinyl bench and brought him several pairs of gym shoes. Then she drilled a rule into his head:
Thou Shalt Not Wear Running Shoes With Jeans.

“Why not?” asked Hal.

“Just repeat after me. ‘I, Hal Underwood, will not under any circumstances pair my running shoes with jeans or any other slacks.’”

“What about sweatpants? Shorts?”

She sighed. “How about, ‘I, Hal Underwood, will
only
wear running shoes with sweatpants or shorts.’”

“I still don’t understand why.”

“Just promise!”

“What about cross-trainers?”

“Those are okay with jeans in extremely casual situations. But try to avoid that look. We’re aiming for cool elegance.”

“Suave School sucks, you know that? Gym shoes are comfortable. These lace-up things are not. If my little toes stay numb and eventually fall off, I’m suing you for replacements.”

“Fine.”

They at last agreed on one pair of trainers and one pair of running shoes. While the salesperson boxed them up and ran the total, Shannon patted Hal’s shoulder. “This bill won’t be so bad. You can even keep your eyes open. I’m just going to run out to the car for a sec, okay?”

He eyed her suspiciously.

“What?” she asked, all innocence.

Hal squinted.

She widened her eyes. Then she turned and walked out to the car. Keeping an eye on him through the large plate-glass window, she found the bag that
contained his old clothes and shoes. She waited for him to look down and sign the credit card slip. Then, bag in hand, she sprinted for the Dumpster in the corner of the parking lot.

“I knew it!” he shouted, running after her. “You’re evil!”

She picked up speed. The spike-heeled boots didn’t help, but this was her only shot.

“Give me that bag!” Hal yelled, his footsteps getting closer and closer.

Crap! She was five feet from the Dumpster and closing. She looked over her shoulder. His blue eyes blazed at her, less than a yard away.

Shannon used her back heel as a springboard and leaped forward. He lunged at the same time and caught her by the back of the sweater and one silver leather belt loop.

She twisted, yanked and heard a disturbing rip—the sound of stitching giving way. Her pants! He was ruining her four-hundred-dollar designer pants!

Furious and more determined than ever, Shannon vaulted forward and up, slam-dunking the bag of clothes into the filthy Dumpster and hanging from it by the armpits.

A sickening smell assaulted her nose just as Hal grasped her around the hips. “You—you—you! I can’t believe you just did that!”

There was a half-gnawed potato skin under her left arm, and her right hand had landed in what looked like the remains of a chicken sandwich, gar
nished with rotted lettuce. “I can’t believe I did, either.” But she saw with satisfaction that the bag containing his awful clothes had spilled during flight, and the contents lay scattered in a deep, stinky central crater.

She relaxed, intending to drop backward into Hal’s arms. Mission accomplished!

Except…his hands weren’t easing her down as she’d expected. No, they were—
Oh, God! Oh, no!

Hal was boosting her upward. And forward. And—

“Help! Nooo!”

“Gosh,” he said. “I seem to remember yelling that word, too. But it didn’t do any good.”

“Nooo!” she yelled again, scrabbling among paper drink cups, oily wet wrappers, a bag of lawn clippings and a rusty hubcap. The potato skin and the chicken sandwich had only served to grease her way forward. Oh, dear God— Was that a…?
No,
if she touched that she would just die.

A scuffling sound toward the left corner of the Dumpster reminded her that she probably had rats in there for company.
“Heellpp!”
she shrieked. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Don’t drop me in here, Hal,
please!
”

“I don’t know a single reason why I shouldn’t,” he growled. “You so deserve it.”

“I will be your
sex slave
for the next entire week if you’ll just pull me out,” promised Shannon.

He hesitated.

“The next month! Two months!”

Just as she almost lost her struggle to keep her face
out of a mound of barbecued chicken bones, Hal tugged on her ankles and pulled her, inch by inch, back over the rim of the Dumpster.

Her sweater was coated with sour cream and coffee grounds. She had potato peels in her hair. Her silver leather pants were streaked with ketchup, mustard, rust, grime and something utterly unspeakable. But Shannon had never felt so grateful.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she said, panting for breath.

“Are you okay?” he asked gruffly.

She nodded. But along with her breath, a natural urge for revenge returned. All she was guilty of was getting rid of some perfectly awful, dated clothing! She’d done the guy a service. And he’d pushed her into the garbage….

Shannon stood up and pushed the hair back from her face. She looked at Hal, who looked back at her with a combination of anger and sheepishness.

“My hero,” she said soulfully. Then she hugged him.

S
HANNON LAY
neck-deep in scented bubble bath in her Avon apartment, surrounded by a fashion magazine, a lighted candle and a glass of wine.

She’d dropped her own clothes into a plastic garbage bag this time, and it sat near the door, ready to go to the cleaners. Though she’d tied the top of the bag into a knot, eau de Dumpster still wafted through the air.

She submerged herself and blew the scent, along
with some bubbles, out of her nostrils. When she came up, water streaming off her face and shoulders and freshly washed hair, the air seemed better.

She thought of Hal’s outraged expression when she’d hugged him and laughed. He had announced she was fired and barely spoken to her on the ride home in the now doubly defiled beemer.

Shannon watched water drip off her breasts and back into the tub. She’d always wondered where she’d gotten these honkers. Rebecca Shane was flat as a board, and her father’s mother hadn’t had a lot in the chest, either. So who did Shannon have to thank for her boobs?

They’d been dangling over several hundred pounds of garbage this afternoon—her first ever Dumpster-diving experience. But what if her real father was a sanitation worker? And maybe her real mother cleaned houses or worked as a data-entry clerk or did sewing alterations for a living?

She had no idea. She had to track them down. While she didn’t want to hurt her adoptive parents, they had lied to her by omission.

All she knew was a few sketchy details and the fact that she’d been fostered by the New England Home for Little Wanderers for a few short weeks. So at least her biological parents hadn’t sold her on the black market. She supposed that was something to be thankful for.

Shannon added some more hot water to the tub and felt tears trying to form in the backs of her eyes. She blinked them away.

Hal’s voice echoed in her head.
I’m here if you need to talk.

“No, you’re not,” she said aloud. “You just fired me.” She stuck a toe out of the water and peered at the chipped purple polish on it. She plunked it down into the bubbles again.

But did he really mean it? He’d probably just said it in the heat of the moment. He didn’t want to fire her—he needed her too much. And…oh, no. Finesse needed her to keep this gig. It was her responsibility, same as Jane’s, to keep their doors open.

She clenched a wet, soapy fist and brought it down on her knee. Great. She’d been impulsive and irresponsible again, gone and hugged him to smear him with garbage. She might have done it to get even, but they wouldn’t have been near the Dumpster at all if she hadn’t thrown his old clothes into it.

Shannon stood up and reached over to the bathroom countertop for her cordless phone. Then she settled back into the water and dialed Hal’s number.

“Am I really fired?” she asked when he answered.

“I haven’t decided yet.”

She swallowed. “Oh.”

“Is that the reason you called?”

Well, I kind of wanted to hear your voice.
“Sort of.”

“That doesn’t tell me much, and I’m really annoyed at you,” he said.

“Yeah. I know. But you don’t want to fire me, really.”

“Why not?”

“Because I promised to be your sex slave, remember?”

She heard a swift intake of breath, and then only dead silence on the other end of the line. “I don’t have any clothes on right now,” she said. “I’m in the bathtub with the lights turned low, wearing nothing but bubbles.” She heard him exhale, but still he said not a word.

“Would you like to come join me?” she prompted.

“More than anything.”

She smiled in satisfaction. He was a typical, predictable man. He wasn’t going to fire her.

“But I’m not coming over.”

Her smile faded. “Why not?”

“Because for one thing, I’m still pissed. And I have yet to hear an apology. Those clothes might have been rags to you, but did you ever stop to think that they might have had sentimental value for me?”

“No,” she admitted. “I’m…I’m sorry. In my experience guys aren’t too sentimental over stuff like that.”

“Yeah. Let’s
talk
about your experience with guys. Because that’s another reason I’m not coming over. You complain that you get used for your looks, Shannon, and I’ve seen the hurt that causes you. But you’re stuck in the same old cycle. You use your beauty, too. What did you do when you heard I might fire you? You played on your looks and offered me sex.”

She swallowed and felt the prick of tears again.

“Well,” Hal continued, “I’m not going to be like
the other guys you’ve known. The other guys who just want to screw you. I’m only human, and I have a hard time turning you down in person, but I’m not falling for it this time. I want to actually make love to you, not just have a quickie on a desk or in my kitchen. A
screw.
”

It was her turn not to say anything.

“I’m not firing you, Shannon. But that decision has nothing to do with your looks or with sex. I’m making my decision because even though you’re arrogant and somewhat unstable—not to mention being a denim thief—you’re damned good at what you do.”

“I’m just a failed actress with an attitude, Hal.”

“I disagree. I really will fire you if you don’t stop talking to yourself like that. Got it?”

“Yeah.” She reached for her glass of wine, making a small splash, and took a sip.

Hal’s voice changed on the other end of the line. It thickened. “What did you say you were wearing again?”

“A few bubbles. Why?”

“Because…I’d like to make love to you right now, but without seeing you. I want to give you an orgasm over the phone.”

S
HANNON’S MOUTH
went dry, and she licked her lips. “You do?”

“Oh, yeah. And I will.”

“How?”

“First of all I want you to close your eyes and lie back in the tub,” he said in husky tones.

She did.

“You have a sponge?”

“Yes.”

“Take the sponge and let it absorb water. Let it float with you. Now, move your hand to your knee and stroke up your thighs. Touch your stomach, trail your fingers around you to your waist so that you’re hugging yourself. Move them to your shoulder.

“Your breasts are heavy and they’re squished inside your arms. It hurts just a little, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“But in a good way. Ease your hand off your shoulder and move it down to cup your breast, squeeze it like I want to, caress that smooth, tender skin.”

Shannon did.

“Now rub your palms over the nipple, around and around, and imagine it’s in my mouth. I’m sucking hard, pulling your desire from it and drinking it in. I’m flicking my tongue against it and loving it. Keep rubbing…mmm.

“Now the other nipple’s in my mouth and I’m scraping it lightly with my teeth. I’m doing everything to it that I want to do to you between your legs. I am all tongue and wet heat and I want you spread out for me like a feast.”

She couldn’t help a moan as she pleasured her own breasts, her steps choreographed to the sexy vibrations of his voice. She could feel the tones of him in the very center of her, as if he were delicately strumming her clitoris, heating it like an hors d’oeuvre.

“Move your hand from your breasts down to your ribs and belly. Then slide it under you and over that hot, sweet ass of yours, Shannon. Caress that like I want to…imagine that’s my hand there. Curl your fingers into forbidden places and stroke yourself where it’s slick and plump and ready for me to eat.”

She gasped as she touched herself, slid her fingers back and forth along the submerged folds, imagining his mouth there as he talked dirty to her.

“Now move your hand around to the front and touch your clit, but only once. Don’t be greedy.”

She whimpered, wanting to stay there and play a little. She touched herself again.

“Get your hands out of the cookie jar, naughty girl,” Hal said into her ear, and she jumped.

“How did you know what I was doing?”

“I just did. Because I want to do it, too.” He chuckled. “Now get the sponge and spread your thighs…arch your back and poke out of the water just barely. Feel the cold air? Squeeze water out of the sponge onto yourself.”

Hal was breathing heavily into the phone now.

“Are you hard?” she whispered, once again submerged in the water.

“Yes!”

“Do you want me? To be inside me?”

“Yeah… Now, move. The. Sponge,” Hal said in tight, strained, tones. “Back. And. Forth. Between. Your. Legs.”

She did, and the soft sea-foam tickled and teased, awakened and tortured every sexual nerve she had. Water sluiced out of it, too, adding to the sensations.

Her breathing became rough, ragged.

“Are you touching yourself?” Hal asked. “Imagining it’s me?”

“Yes…”

“My mouth, even?”

“Mmm-hmm. Yes,” she agreed again, moving the sponge faster and raising her hips from the water again. Her foot knocked the stopper from the drain, but she didn’t care.

All she cared about was Hal’s voice, and the pleasure she was steeping in, and the tension that climbed higher and higher. She cared about the sponge and
the swirling, eddying, just-out-of-reach climax that she knew was coming.

“Aaaahhhhhh,”
he breathed into the phone.

She agreed with that, too.

He let go a string of heartfelt curses followed by a long groan, and the sounds he made turned her on so much that she slipped over the edge. She exploded with him in perfect harmony.

H
AL HAD NEVER
had phone sex until these past few minutes. He figured that for a computer geek with only semiexistent social skills, he’d done pretty well. Shannon’s soft sighs were still audible through the receiver of his phone.

Part of him wished that she lay naked beside him, here in his bed. Another part of him was still aroused that she’d let her own fingers do the walking…with his guidance.

“This was a hell of a lot better than going to meet some personal trainer,” he said.

“I called him and told him we weren’t going to make it,” she murmured drowsily.

“Well, we
did
make it. Just not with him.”

“Ha-ha.”

“Don’t fall asleep in that tub,” he warned.

“’Kay. It’s getting cold in here anyway, half the water’s gone and I’m turning all wrinkly.”

He chuckled.

“Hey, Hal?”

“Hmm?”

“Thanks for not firing me. And if you promise not to wear them in public, I’ll take you to the Goodwill store to see if we can locate your other old jeans.”

“They’re probably gone by now,” he said, his tone pessimistic.

“Well, yeah,” she agreed. “I’m counting on that. But I thought I’d make the offer.”

He choked. “You are not a nice woman.” He could practically hear the grin spreading over her face.

“I never claimed to be the kind of girl you could take home to Mama, Hal.”

“Are you kidding? My mother would love you. She wears black leather pants, too. She’s a poet. She even performs in public, God help us all.”

“That’s so cool!”

Hal snorted. “She speaks only in rhyme. Now, the iambic pentameter stuff I can deal with—it’s the haiku that sends me right over the edge.”

“Mom sounds fascinating. Where does she do her readings?” Shannon actually seemed interested.

“At a progressive nightclub down near the city and in an artsy café/bookstore in Hartford. She has a thing coming up that I’ll have to go to. Wanna come?”

“It’s a date,” said Shannon. It sounded like she was drying off with a towel while she talked. The thought of her naked body aroused him all over again, but he sternly turned his thoughts elsewhere.

Shannon Shane was only marking time with him, and he needed to accept that. But he’d enjoy it while it lasted.

L
ATER
, because he couldn’t sleep, Hal drove to the office to continue his search for the information leak. Greer Conover had announced the development of a product series far too close to what Underwood Technologies was offering.

He’d tried to tell himself he was paranoid, but the timing of the man’s announcement was just too suspect. While he wasn’t a bad programmer, Greer was simply not innovative enough to have dreamed up a similar product. And with the IPO around the corner, Underwood Tech’s stock would take a nosedive if Conover’s package hit the market within a few months. They’d lose their competitive edge.

Hal had already spent countless hours looking for signs of outside hackers, but he’d turned up absolutely nothing suspicious. He was forced back to the conclusion that the information leak was internal to his own company.

He was now facing probably weeks of detective work, checking the exchange server. Rubbing at his eyes, he went to the machine in the lobby of the building and bought not one but two sodas, full sugar and full caffeine.

Time to hit the e-mail server and sort in descending order by size. He’d have to look at every single e-mail, to whom it was sent and what had been attached. If that didn’t turn up anything, he’d have to sort in ascending order by addressee and see if the names of Conover or any of his staff turned up.

However, the guy would be stupid to be that blatant. Which meant that Hal was going to have to look at the Internet logs of various individual workers at Underwood Technologies. That was hit or miss and he’d go cross-eyed and then blind during the process.

He popped the top on one of the Cokes and inhaled half of it, while the worst possibility hit him. Anyone in the company with access to the server could have burned files onto a CD or a flash card or an external hard drive and simply walked the information out of the building.

The theft would be virtually undetectable.

Hal cracked his neck and wondered if he was going to have to install hidden security cameras in every corner. It went against the grain, not to mention the prohibitive expense involved….

He sighed, went back upstairs and got to work. Things had been easier in a lot of respects when they’d been a three-man shop, not a company of forty-five employees.

He wished he could access even a smidgen of the code Greer was using. Because every programmer wrote code in a different way…and Hal would be able to tell if Conover had pirated work done by a programmer at Underwood Tech. He’d recognize the sequences just like handwriting.

He drained the rest of soda number one and popped open the second can. But if he hacked into Conover’s info to check on the guy, he’d be descend
ing to his level. And while Hal might need some sessions at Suave School, he was not a cockroach.

His thoughts turned to Shannon again as he entered commands into his computer.
Focus on the problem at hand, you dumb son of a bitch. Shannon Shane is in your life right now because you are paying her. You’d best remember that, even if you’re getting some perks on the side.

S
HANNON PULLED
on a pair of flannel pajamas and twisted her hair into its habitual knot. She made a bowl of microwave popcorn and flopped on her couch, where she fell asleep watching reruns of
Will & Grace.
Three hours later, she found herself sitting at a White House dinner. She was dressed in a ripped World Peace T-shirt and ratty jeans, and she’d acquired a tattoo of a sunflower on her left arm.

She looked up from her endive salad to find that she, a lone Democrat, sat at a table of fifty disapproving Republicans. They didn’t like her toe ring, they didn’t like her tattoo, and they wouldn’t pass her the salt. At the head of the table sat the president.

“See what I mean?” he asked the rest of them. “I did the right thing by giving her up for adoption.”

She awoke in a cold sweat and blinked. A bad movie unfolded on the television—something to do with a psychic mule. She shut off the set. Her popcorn still sat in front of her, along with the saltshaker that nobody in the dream would pass.

She grabbed for this, dumped a quarter of the container onto the popcorn and began to munch.

Horrid dream. She checked her arm, just in case, for the sunflower tattoo. Thank God it wasn’t there.

But it was obvious she couldn’t go on like this. She’d go nuts wondering about her biological parents if she didn’t take some steps to find them. She supposed she should start with the adoption agency.

Shannon went to her laptop and logged on to the Internet. She found the Home for Little Wanderers site easily and discovered that she could, in fact, do a search.

She began to proceed and then froze. What if…what if she didn’t like the results? What if she discovered things she didn’t really want to know?

She logged off, feeling nauseated, and folded her hands on top of the laptop. Warm from the electrical current and batteries, it hummed under her palms, which began to sweat.

She could do one of two things at the moment. She could write a letter for the Home’s files, which would give her biological mother or father an update on her life and/or even grant permission for them to contact her.

Or she could initiate a full-fledged search by the agency to locate her true parents. Either way, they would have to agree to any request by her to contact them. Their privacy had to be respected.

Shannon slowly ate another handful of popcorn. If her parents had been young college students at the
time of her birth, then they very probably had other families by now. Each of them could have two, three or four other children—and spouses that they’d never told. She couldn’t simply turn up one day and disrupt their lives.

What if neither parent wanted to meet her? Or perhaps only one did? What would she do? Would the sense of rejection grow even stronger and eat her alive?

On the other hand, there might be a letter from one or both of them in her file, just waiting for her to discover it and contact them.

The Home for Little Wanderers was located in Boston. Did her mother still live there? Her father? Did she have siblings?

Her mind took her back to Rebecca Shane, and how she’d imparted this earth-shaking information so calmly over a salad of field greens. Shannon began to shake. She should have dumped the salad over Rebecca’s head.

But, no. Her mother hadn’t been as calm as she’d liked to have been. Her hands had trembled as she lifted her wineglass, and deep, dark shadows had marred her lovely eyes. It hadn’t been easy on Rebecca. And at least she’d forced herself to finally tell the truth. She’d faced her daughter, unlike Shannon’s father.

Shannon reached the very bottom of the bowl of popcorn, which now contained only hard kernels. She put a couple into her mouth and crunched on them, staring once again at her computer.

Go on, do it. Start a search.

I don’t know if I can handle the results. I just don’t know.

Coward. How can you just not do anything?

I’m not a coward. The people who raised me are my parents. For better or worse. Whether or not we agree about fashion, politics or even religion. My mother is my mother…and I feel that searching for another one dishonors her, somehow.

That’s a cop-out.

No, it’s an opt-out. For the moment. After all, I’m the wild and unpredictable Shannon. Who knows how I’ll feel tomorrow?