“Thanks.”
Tracy was talking on her cellular phone in the lobby. That worried look hadn’t left her face. Her eyes met his as he entered the lobby. “I’ve got to go. I’ll call you later.” Then she hit a button and folded the phone up. “Hi,” she said. She tried to smile.
“Hi yourself.” He kissed her. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” She nodded. “That was my mom,” she said, indicating the phone as she deposited it in her purse. “I… she gets worried about me and I had to tell her what happened.”
“And worry her even more?” Despite the gravity of the situation, Vince couldn’t help but try to keep the tone light.
It worked. Tracy smiled. It seemed to lift her spirits a little. “I… I guess I just had to talk about it, you know? I had to tell somebody what happened, and that I was okay. It made me feel better.”
“I’m sure it did.” He took her in his arms again, holding her close to him. It felt good holding her. He felt the presence of somebody behind him and turned around. It was a uniformed officer, a young man in his mid-twenties with a black crew cut and piercing brown eyes. “You’re our ride home?”
“I’m Officer Ruiz,” the cop said. They shook hands and detective Staley approached them, dragging Vince’s luggage. Vince thanked him, taking the handle. “I’m taking you to Ms. Harris’s place, right?”
The officer stowed the luggage in the trunk and drove calmly while Vince and Tracy sat in the back seat, listening to the squawks of the police radio. “There’s an unmarked car following us to make sure we aren’t being tailed,” Officer Ruiz said as they headed down the 55 Freeway to Newport Beach.
“How long will I have to be in hiding?” Vince wondered aloud. He traded a glance with Tracy, who still looked worried.
“Hopefully not for long,” Officer Ruiz answered.
Tracy Harris lived in a gated community of luxury town-homes. She punched in the code in the security gate, and Officer Ruiz drove through the complex according to her directions. He parked in the guest parking area near her town home and Officer Ruiz opened the trunk. He escorted them to Tracy’s town-home and stood at sentry duty as she unlocked the front door. “I can check the place out if you want.”
Tracy nodded her approval, and Officer Ruiz searched it quickly. He emerged from upstairs a moment later. “You’re fine.” He nodded at Vince. “You have detective Staley’s card?”
“Yeah.”
“Does he know where to reach you?”
“His partner has my phone number,” Tracy said.
“Good. Anything happens, you know how to reach us.”
When Officer Ruiz was gone, Tracy went to Vince. He held her for a moment. “I can’t believe what happened.”
“Neither can I.”
They moved to the sofa. Vince stretched out, suddenly feeling the weariness in his bones. Tracy couldn’t seem to stop touching him, as if she realized she’d almost lost him and that keeping in contact with him physically would keep him there with her forever. It was something Vince could understand and he welcomed it. “Did they question you?” he asked.
They compared notes as they sat on the sofa. Tracy had been questioned as strenuously as Vince had. No, she couldn’t tell them why somebody would want them dead. “I thought he was shooting at both of us,” Tracy said, holding his hand. “But the more I think about it, the more it seems that—”
“I was the target.”
Tracy nodded. She looked fearful again. “Why would someone want to kill you, baby?”
“I don’t know.” And now, for the first time since the horrifying event, Vince almost did break down. He felt himself beginning to collapse emotionally and Tracy sensed it. She took him in her arms and kissed him, holding him, offering soothing words of comfort to him. Vince clung to her, wanting to lose himself in her.
He found her lips and kissed her, tenderly, softly. She kissed him back, her green eyes deep and reflective. He looked into those eyes and he could feel himself getting lost in their depths, and then she kissed him again and this time he did get lost.
He didn’t know how long they sat on the couch in each other’s arms; it might have been minutes, it might have been hours. Tracy broke the kiss, a look of yearning on her face. She rose to her feet, pulling him up. Then she led him to the stairs.
Once in her bedroom she pushed him playfully onto the queen-sized waterbed. “Wait there for a minute.” She disappeared in the bathroom.
She emerged in black lingerie that was so tantalizing that he practically got hard right there. The brassiere pushed her breasts up provocatively. Her panties were black and slinky, the stockings clung to her legs like they’d been dipped in ink. “Well? What do you think?”
“I’m… speechless,” Vince said. Tracy smiled at him and he felt his heart thudding in his chest. The sexual tension between them had been building over the past week or so, and it was now finally leading to this.
He went into it with as equal a passion as she, kissing her tenderly, hungrily. His skin tingled as her fingernails traced down his chest to his belly, exploding in feathery sensations as she ran kisses down his belly. He leaned back, his mind reeling as she fumbled with the buckle of his slacks. And it was at that moment when panic set in and he thought this moment would be doomed to failure.
As she took him in her mouth, his penis withered like a shriveled stalk until she finally stopped and looked at him with those remarkable green eyes. The minute they’d started with foreplay he began thinking that, one, this was the first time he had made love to another woman since Laura’s death and, two, for all he knew, whoever had tried to kill him could be setting them in their sights now. Tracy seemed to read his thoughts. “You need to relax,” she said, moving over him and pushing him back down on the bed gently. She straddled him, running her hands softly along his chest. “Just relax,” she whispered. “Everything is all right. It’s over now. We’re safe. I’ll take care of you.” She whispered this over and over until he closed his eyes, listening to the sound of her voice, feeling her fingernails tracing across his chest lightly, creating a tingly feeling.
She got out of bed and headed to the bathroom again. When she came back she was holding a red candle. She placed it on the bureau and lit it. Then she joined him back in bed. “Turn over on your stomach.”
He complied, and with the cinnamon scent of the candle perfuming the room, she gave him a long, slow massage. Her expert hands kneaded the tension out of his muscles. When she’d worked over his entire body, she told him to flip over on his back. He complied. She massaged him from head to toe, avoiding the genitals, telling him to just lay back and relax, drift in the pleasures of the flesh, empty your mind.
He closed his eyes, the candle creating a waft of scent that was both pleasurable and relaxing. In no time he found himself floating in ecstasy. He felt so good that he barely noticed when she started on the blowjob again.
He stayed hard. And when he’d maintained his erection for three minutes she stopped working him with her mouth and mounted him. He felt himself slipping into her warmth effortlessly. She moaned, moving over him, and he lay back, enamored by the scents, the sensations, the sounds. He stayed hard and as her passion grew wild he began to meet it. When his orgasm came it was with sweet release, plunging him into further depths of pleasure.
They lay in each other’s arms as it ebbed. Vince cupped Tracy’s face in his hands and kissed her deeply. “You are so beautiful,” he said.
“No, you’re beautiful,” she said, grinning.
Vince could feel his heart racing in his ribcage. “That was so intense,” he said. “I think my chest is going to explode.”