She felt the pressure of his mouth and chin on her pubic mound, knew he could feel how wet she was, how saturated the white panties were, how revealingly soaked she was, how drenched and dripping and desperate for him she was, and she thought For Christ’s sake fuck me already, unwilling to say the words out loud, saying them over and again in her head like a mantra, fuck me, fuck me, fuck me, damn it! He’s going to lose me, she thought, he’s going to tease me right out of an orgasm, he’s going to bring me there and strand me there, and it’ll serve him right, the son of a bitch, kissing the insides of her upper thighs on either side of the panties now, licking the tender flesh there, moving the panties aside just the merest fraction of an inch to lick the soft secret skin close to her pubic patch, please, she thought, oh please, just please, bunching the panties in one hand so that they created a narrow thong covering only her slit, yanking up on the thong to capture the slit, working her clitoris with the cloth, slit and clit and cloth so thoroughly shamelessly sodden now, please for God’s sake just...
And suddenly he grasped the panties in both hands, his fingers inside each leg hole, and tore them wide open over her crotch, exposing her completely. She whispered, “Do it,” as he lowered himself between her legs, “Yes, do it,” easing himself down to where she was waiting open for him, “Yes, fuck me,” entering her now, filling the wet aching void of her, “Oh Jesus,” she said again, and wrapped her legs around him, and lifted herself to him, and said “Fuck me, yes,” and realized she was still wearing the silly white socks. She felt herself cresting almost at once, dissolving moistly around him, felt his simultaneous explosion within her.
Later, as they lay spent and sweating beside each other, he murmured, “I love you, Sarah,” and she thought, Yes, that’s me, and felt completely herself for the very first time in her life.
The guilt overtook her some ten minutes later.
He had kissed her gently on the nose and the cheeks and the forehead and then had eased himself out of her and out of bed, and was walking naked to the bathroom when suddenly she was shocked by the realization that this was a strange man with her, this was not Michael walking across the room with his ass white against a lingering suntan, this was a stranger who had just fucked her.
She almost got out of bed that very moment. Almost threw back the covers and dashed naked across the room to where her boots were on the floor and her jeans and sweater and bra were on the back of the chair. Her coat and her handbag were, downstairs, but if she moved fast she could be dressed and out of here in a flash, disappearing from his life and reappearing in her own.
What time was it, anyway?
Was Michael already...?
In sudden panic, she looked at her watch.
No, that couldn’t be right.
Was it really only twenty to twelve?
Had they been here in the apartment for only twenty minutes?
Had what they’d done together taken only twenty minutes?
It had seemed like an eternity.
An ecstatic etern—
No, listen, she thought, are you out of your mind?
Get out of here. Get dressed and get the hell out of here before it’s too late. That man in the bathroom is not your husband. He’s a boy who momentarily turned your head, flattered you into thinking you were... you were... a... a passionate and desirable woman who... who...
God, I loved it, she thought.
Stop it, she thought. Don’t even think it anymore. Just get dressed and get out. Go home to your loving husband who’s been working all morning while you...
“Sarah?”
She did not turn to him at once.
He called her name again.
“Sarah?”
She turned. He was standing in the bathroom doorway. He had draped a towel around his waist. He looked very concerned. His serious little-boy look.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “But I have to go.”
“Okay,” he said.
He did not move from the doorway. She felt suddenly embarrassed, not wanting to get out of bed naked, not wanting him to see her naked again. But she could not imagine clutching a sheet to her the way they did in the movies, she was not a dumb college girl, she was a thirty-four-year-old mother, God, what had she done? Without looking at him, she got out of bed, her back to him, still wearing the white socks and the torn panties, and went swiftly to the chair where the rest of her clothes were draped. She put on her bra first, covering her breasts, and then her sweater immediately afterward and was reaching for her jeans when he appeared suddenly behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her in against him.
He was hard again.
She stood quite still, feeling all at once drained of all will, helpless to stop whatever was happening to her because the moment he touched her again, the moment his arms encircled her again, the moment he was there again with his cock hard against the torn cotton panties, she was instantly wet again.
She turned in his arms.
She looked up into his face.
He nodded.
She nodded, too.
For each of them, this was the true beginning.
Dominick Di Nobili’s body was found in the trunk of an Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme on Tuesday morning, the nineteenth day of January, in one of the parking lots at La Guardia Airport. There were two bullet holes in the back of his head, which — given Di Nobili’s recent gambling and borrowing habits — almost certainly indicated a gangland-style slaying. The detectives assigned to protect him had allowed him out of their sight only because he’d begged for a lousy two minutes to go say hello to his girlfriend in Queens. He’d gone into her building and disappeared — until now.
On the afternoon of that same day, Regan and Lowndes located the blue Acura with the FAV-TWO vanity plate parked in front of a lighting-supply store near Kenmare and Bowery. There were no parking spaces anywhere near the car, so they double-parked their Ford Escort on the same side of the street, some half dozen cars behind the Acura. At about three o’clock, two cops riding Adam One from the Fifth Precinct pulled up alongside the Ford and asked to see a driver’s license. Regan flashed his detective’s shield. The officers nodded and rolled on.
At twenty minutes past four, a tall, hatless man with brown hair approached the Acura. He looked a lot like the picture Michael had Xeroxed from People magazine.
“Bingo,” Regan said, and started the car.
Andrew Faviola, if that’s who the man was, glanced at the windshield as if expecting a parking ticket — small wonder, given his history — and then unlocked the car on the driver’s side and climbed in. The moment the Acura pulled away from the curb, Regan moved the Ford in behind it.
“Heading downtown,” Lowndes said.
Which was a big surprise, Regan thought, since Bowery was a two-way thoroughfare and the Acura had been parked facing downtown.
“Probably going to Brooklyn,” Lowndes said.
Another big surprise in that if the driver of the Acura made an immediate left, he’d be heading directly over the Williamsburg Bridge, or if he drove further downtown to Canal, he could take the Manhattan Bridge over the river, or yet further south, he could go over the Brooklyn Bridge, any of which would take him to Brooklyn, fuckin’ mastermind partner Regan had.