CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“Yes, Mr. Nachman… No, Mr. Nachman… Absolutely. I have it with me now, and it is beautiful. I’m quite thrilled, and I know you will be, too.” Smoothing feathers, that’s what Esme was doing, smoothing eighty-two thousand feathers, and after her last stammering bit of embarrassed idiocy in the alley, she was also doing everything she could to avoid having to talk to Johnny Ramos ever again for the rest of her life. “Within the hour, yes, sir. I’m leaving downtown now.”

But despite her dearest wish to remain utterly occupied while in Ramos’s car, there was only so much verbal genuflecting she could manage, and with her last “yes, sir” she’d met her quota.

She should have gotten a damn cab, and the reasons she hadn’t were reasons… well, they were reasons she wasn’t going to examine too damn closely. She knew they wouldn’t pass any test of actual reason, so she wasn’t going to put them to the test. Given the night she was having, she figured she deserved a break, and it sure as hell didn’t look like the universe at large was going to give her one.

“Thank you, sir. I’ll see you shortly.” She ended the call and checked her messages, hoping for some, especially one from her dad, but there was nothing, which left her at a momentary loose end- dammit.

“Solange and I have made the run to Genesee in half an hour, if you need to be there quicker,” Johnny said to her from his side of the car.

Solange? She glanced over at him.

Who in the heck was… oh, she got it. The Charger had been named Roxanne. Solange was the Cyclone, and yes, she supposed if a person sort of squinted and didn’t look too closely, possibly the “sleeper” looked French. Good God.

“I think regular speed will be fine,” she said. “It’s why I told Mr. Nachman an hour, in case there were any… uh, any more extenuating circumstances.”

Extenuating. Right. She guessed that was one way to put the night so far, one damned unexpected extenuating circumstance after another.

“Even if there is a delay, we should be okay.” Yes, she’d just said that. “We shouldn’t hit traffic, though.”

And that was it.

“Not at this time of night,” she added, and that really was it. Nothing more needed to be said, which left her at another momentary loose end- dammit.

While Johnny downshifted for the next stoplight, she busied herself with rummaging through the pockets on her messenger bag until she came up with her PDA. She really needed to upgrade to an all-inclusive system. A quick check of her calendar proved she was heading in the right direction, toward Genesee, but running a little late, over half an hour. No news there.

She let out a very quiet sigh, which in no way indicated her current level of stress.

He’d kissed her, and on top of everything else she had going wrong tonight, she’d liked it-a lot. So everything was A1 perfect: running late, Bleak gunning for her, Dax in the boondocks, and she’d liked kissing a guy she’d known in high school who, despite her initial hopes, had turned out to be a street gangster.

She had to be certifiable. She didn’t have a love life, true, and she resented that she’d all but told him as much, but on those nights when she dreamed about having a love life, she usually dreamed a little bigger than old muscle cars with big engines, and bad boys with big…

Oh, for the love of God and Patsy freakin’ Cline- she brought her hand up to cover her face. She couldn’t believe she’d just thought that, about his…

Oh, hell-there she was again, remembering his…

“Are you okay?” he asked, and under her hand, she felt her face turn hot with a blush.

No, she wasn’t okay. She was mortified. He was the first boy she’d ever seen naked, and in her naiveté, she’d thought all guys were built like him.

They weren’t.

Not even close.

“Esme?”

Not that size mattered, really, at least that’s what everyone said, but how in the hell would she know? Every guy she’d ever been with had been about the same, size-wise anyway, and she’d never been with him, not really, not with him actually…

Oh, geez, Esme, she told herself, grow up, get a grip.

But there was no way to get more grown-up than the thought she’d just had, of him inside her, of everything she remembered about him, and everything she’d learned about men since. The combination was sheer, erotic meltdown, a wall of heat crashing into her and washing through her body, triggering a deep, sensual reaction that was going to be her undoing, right here in his bucket seat.

He’d kissed her, and she’d been poleaxed, frozen in place, because his mouth had felt like coming home. The taste of him, the smell of him, the sound of his breath-the slow slide of his tongue over and around and down the length of hers, it had all said, “Here’s your place, girl, here with me.”

Wrong. Impossibly wrong. It just simply couldn’t be.

He’d done a great job tonight, and it had been a good decision to stick with him for the delivery to Isaac Nachman’s, but beyond that it was crazy.

Crazy to want to kiss him again, right now, while the warmth of him was still in her mouth.

Crazy to feel desire like a weight on her chest, a longing she wasn’t getting past, even though it had only been a kiss.

Just a kiss.

One kiss.

“I’m…um… feeling a headache coming on. It’ll pass. They usually do. If I just rest quietly.” And don’t talk to guys who get me hot.

She was pitiful.

Of course, not talking to guys who got her hot was her signature modus operandi. That was the problem. Almost one hundred percent of the time, she was only ever in the company of guys who didn’t get her hot-and now she knew why. Johnny Ramos was the guy who got her hot, and she hadn’t been in his company since high school.

Good God.

“Here,” he said, and she heard him lift something into the front seat from the back.

She glanced up from beneath her fingers, then reached over and took the small red canvas pack he was handing her.

The stoplight changed, and with a press of the gas pedal, the Cyclone ramped back up to chassis-shaking life. Geezus, she felt it everywhere, the slow, deep rumble curving around her in the seat, the sound of it sliding down her spine.

“Look in the mesh pocket inside,” he said, shifting into second gear. “You’ll find aspirin and Motrin. Take your pick. Have you had anything to eat lately? Like in the last three or four hours?”

“Uh, no.” Breakfast had been coffee. Lunch had been light, and dinner had been nonexistent.

“Well, open this up.” He stretched his arm into the backseat again and brought up the last thing she’d expected to see.

She lowered her hand from her face to take the package he was offering.

“Um, thanks.” It was an MRE-Meal, Ready to Eat. She glanced into the backseat. Four more MREs were stacked in the corner-government issue, no commercial resale allowed. A guy couldn’t just go to the grocery store and buy a few MREs to keep in his car. She should have noticed them before, and she might have, if she hadn’t been so busy noticing the Locos in the alley and trying to keep them all in view.

She had noticed how nice he kept the interior of the Cyclone. The dash looked as if it was regularly detailed with a toothbrush. Every knob and dial gleamed. There wasn’t so much as a gum wrapper in sight, and if she wasn’t mistaken, the upholstery on the seats was new. Considering what a wreck his car looked like from the outside, he took surprisingly good care of it on the inside.

He’d been taking good care of her, too. Dax had been right, and she’d noticed. Even taking her to Baby Duce’s hadn’t been a bad idea. It had given her a chance to catch her breath someplace safe- and not much could have surprised her more than that she’d been safe in Locos land.