“I know.”
“There are always so many other things happening, things that pull him this way and that. Not that he’ll stop trying to find out who’s doing this-you’re Lou Lou’s friend, after all, and trust me, she’s got lots of pull with Danny. It doesn’t hurt that he likes you, and you’re famous. He won’t let them put you on the back burner. But he just pulled a homicide in Calabasas, a particularly nasty one.”
Mary Lisa touched her can of soda to his. “I know Detective Vasquez wouldn’t let them forget about me. And unlike you, Chief, he doesn’t keep threatening to throw my ass in jail to keep me safe. In fact, he’s never even mentioned my ass and jail in the same breath.”
He spewed soda all over himself he laughed so hard, and coughed a couple of times. She pounded his back. He set his can on the counter next to hers and hauled her against him. He buried his face in her hair. “Don’t you understand I talk like that because I want you safe? I don’t want anything to happen to you. It would kill me if something happened to you, don’t you get that?”
“Yes,” she said, “I get that.” She kissed him, ran her hands up and down his back. She loved the feel of him, the long sleek length of him. She whispered in his mouth, “No one’s supposed to come by for at least an hour. Hey, sailor, you want to come check out the battle charts I keep over my bunk? Play some war games?”
Jack looked down at her mouth, only a touch of peachy lipstick left on her lips. “Battle stations, as in battleships and subs and periscopes?”
She nearly ran to her bedroom, Jack right behind her. The room was cool because she always kept the air-conditioning on. She looked at her watch. “Yep, we’ve got at least an hour.”
He laughed as she pushed him backward onto her bed. She fell down over him, pulling up at his light sweater until she got it over his head, and threw it on a chair, then leaned back on her heels, astride him. “Oh my. My own private treat.”
She splayed her palms on his chest, moved them lower to his belly. She looked utterly absorbed. Jack found himself both horny and amused, and grinned up at her like a loon. “You look like you’re ready to unwrap your favorite candy.”
She hummed deep in her throat as she carefully unzipped his jeans. “Don’t distract me. I’m busy here, okay?”
She was still dressed when she got his clothes off him and settled astride him again. She leaned forward and cupped his face between her palms. “I wanted you the moment I saw you, Jack, but you didn’t like me. And then I saw you at Monica’s party, and there you were looking all tough and gorgeous in that tux and I think you even smiled at me. I was a goner, I just didn’t realize it yet.”
“That’s okay. Some of us are a little slow.” He chuckled, jerked her down to his chest, and kissed her.
When she was naked and panting, and she couldn’t think of another thing to say, he whispered against her cheek, “Do you have any clue how good you feel to me?”
She moved over him, felt him shudder, heard him suck in his breath, and knew that when he came inside her she would go over the edge with him. “You were worth the wait,” she said. She arched up, and he came into her, slowly, touching his fingers to her as he moved deeper and deeper, and she wondered if her brain would explode along with her body. Then he touched her womb as his warm fingers moved over her, and she screamed.
He flipped her onto her back, and whispered into her mouth, “I love you, Mary Lisa.”
To her surprise, she said against his neck with absolutely no hesitation at all, “I love you, too, Jack. I love you more.” He started moving again, and she said, “Oh yes, I want more of that too.”
When he was lying sated and stupid, nearly asleep on top of her, he kissed her again, then his mouth slid off her face, and he nestled his head beside hers on the pillow.
FIFTY-NINE
Before When Harry Met Sally, Meg Ryan played Betsy Andropoulos on As the World Turns.
Mary Lisa woke up half an hour later feeling loose and ready to take on the world. Jack was spooning her, his steady breath warm against the back of her neck, the weight of his arm around her waist. She turned, kissed him lightly on the tip of his nose, admired his thick long eyelashes and that stubborn jaw of his. She eased back a bit, took in the whole long length of him. Beautiful, just beautiful. And he was all hers.
She wriggled out of bed without waking him, threw on a T-shirt and shorts, and was whistling when she walked into the kitchen. She took a bottled water from the fridge. She hadn’t taken two drinks from the bottle when she sensed him more than heard him. She turned, smiling, handed him the bottle, and marched out the back door, saying over her shoulder, “Hey, how many calories do you think I burned up playing war with you?”
He considered this. “Enough for a couple of carrots at least.”
“That sounds great if they were on top of a pizza. Maybe a thin-crust pizza would be okay.”
“Another war game and you can have a thick crust.”
Her eyes on his mouth, she said, “I’ll see what we can come up with.”
He sat down on a deck chair, took a swig of water, then sat forward, rolling the cold bottle between his hands. He watched her lean against the railing, taking in the glorious late afternoon sun, the light afternoon breeze ruffling her hair.
He got to his feet, walked to the railing, and stood next to her. She looked thoughtful, so he kept his hands to himself for the moment. He looked out at the half dozen teenagers playing volleyball on the beach, yelling and laughing, and listened to the soft hiss of the breaking waves, foaming onto shore like fine lace. He said, not turning, “Living here on the beach there’s always the echo of the waves and laughter and muted conversation.” He paused a moment. “It’s nice.”
“Yes, it is. When it’s overcast and dismal, though, it gets pretty quiet, just the sound of the waves. I like that too, though I like it with people more.”
He turned to face her, pulled her up against him, and carried her to the chaise. He stretched her on her back and watched her turn boneless as a kid, her eyes closed as she leaned her head back against the cushion rest. He looked down at her a moment, and lightly traced his fingertips over her eyebrows. Slowly, she opened her eyes and looked up at him.
“Nice eyebrows.”
“Do you know I’m told that all the time? Evidently the eyebrows are one of my best selling points.”
“I love your smart mouth.”
She gave him a sunny smile and sat up. She looked beyond him to wave back at a teenage boy who was clowning around to get her attention while another kid tried to stick a volleyball down his trunks. The girls hooted.
She said, “Did I tell you? Tomorrow I’ll have my very own SIG P232. The P stands for personal, you know. They’ve issued me a concealed weapons permit and I’ll be able to carry it in my purse.”
He leaned down, his hands on the arms of her deck chair, his face close to hers. He could see a light sheen of perspiration on her cheeks from the warm afternoon sun. “You don’t need a gun.”
She tapped her fingertips on the arms of her deck chair, kept looking out at the teenagers. “I bought the black hard-anodized aluminum alloy. It makes the SIG even lighter. Elizabeth has already taken me and Lou Lou to her shooting range three times now. She says I’m a natural, that I could compete if I worked at it. You should come with us, set your mind at rest.”
He actually hissed, and she looked him straight in the eye, her voice as serious as a claims adjuster’s. “I’ve got to be able to protect myself, Jack, okay? And there’s Chico-”