Seeing Red – Part 7
A/N: thanks for all of the encouraging reviews!>>>>
She knew how it must have shocked John to have seen the body with all that red hair. Imagining his reaction caused her respiration to speed up and she took another sip of her dirty martini. As she sipped she let her tongue briefly touch one of the firm olives bouncing at the bottom of her drink just waiting for her to take it into her mouth. As that word drifted through her hazy consciousness she blew out a long held breath with a hiss even as the drink sent tendrils of warmth through her limbs.
She hated the word "waiting" with a passion. Just as she passionately hated anything she was not good at, could not be better at than other people – which was her definition of being good at something. No score in and of itself, no win, was worth anything to her unless it was at someone else's expense. This was how she could measure it, know it, feel it, prove it. Waiting was never something she was better at, though, so it never became part of her repertoire.
She had never tried hard to be a planner because her impatience always got the best of her and pushing always got results. Except lately, pushing hadn't been working. Like when she was with John, she knew that if she just waited he would tell her he loved her. And ever since she started, well, she couldn't use the word failing, facing that difficulty other things in her life started to have some hiccups. Cases lost - ones she probably shouldn't have taken anyway since they were lost causes but her innate goodness and sense of justice wouldn't let her not take, she rationalized. Then her sister showed up in Llanview, not only increasing the chance that people would find out what she really did back in L.A., but practically distracting Antonio from his very improper attraction to her. Other things, difficulties, things she might have normally ignored, took on more importance than they warranted.
And it was all Natalie's fault. Evangeline sucked in and bit into an olive, reveling in the sour taste of the pimento as it spread across her tongue. Her lips pursed from the sour just as a shadow fell across her table.
"Is this seat taken?" A melodious voice asked.
Evangeline looked up to find an older gentleman standing over her. Older, in fact, than she normally went for, but something about the man caused a shaft of arousal between her legs. She shifted, letting the front of her tiger-patterned dress gape open and she held her hand out in introduction. "Evangeline Williamson." She licked her bottom lip and tilted her head up at him.
"Jerry Rider. It's lovely to meet you, though of course I've heard about your stellar legal reputation. What I had not heard about was how utterly delectable you are."
"Thank you." Evangeline's heart fluttered as he sat down across from her at the little table. His knees touching hers and his hard, dark eyes making her feel like a pin up star. She felt a chill run up her spine as she shook her empty glass.
"Let me order you another." He raised his hand and called over a cocktail waitress and ordered another for the lady and a straight gin for himself.
"Straight gin, I've never seen anyone drink that. Usually it's with tonic." Evangeline smiled, proud of what she thought was witty and sexy repartee.
Jerry, however, didn't seem to mind lines that clunked in the night and smiled at her and pretended to enjoy the view of her cleavage.
"Are you new in town?"
"Just visiting."
"What brought you here?"
"Business. Actually, you could say old legal business."
"Really? I'm a criminal attorney. Well, I also dabble in family law. Oh, and anything else that people want to pay me for. I'm really talented."
"I've heard. I was going to ask you to help me." He paused as their drinks were served, his expression never changing as she wrapped her hand around his bicep and said a breathy thank you. "But I wouldn't want to mix business and pleasure, now that I've seen you."
Evangeline smiled and let her hand slid down to his thigh. "Oh, don't be silly. We can do both." She held her breath, waiting to see if he would go for it. She usually wasn't this forward right away, but something about the man told her it was okay. He seemed well groomed, contained, one might even say debonair, rather how she thought of her father, but there was something underneath she sensed as a bit dangerous. Dirty even. It excited her as nothing and no one had, not since she had cornered John McBain in that basement sink.
Capricorn had sinks, she shivered at the thought, her eyes bulging even more.
"Maybe we could. That wouldn't be a breach of attorney ethics?"
"Oh." Evangeline shrugged and tilted her head more. She gave him what she thought of as her little girl smile, never knowing that it actually made it look like she had something in her eye. "I give my all to my clients. It's my obligation to justice."
"Really?" Jerry asked, his eye brows raised in query. "Well, then. Perhaps we can do my business together."
Evangeline smiled and slid her fingers closer to his crotch and took a sip of her fifth martini of the night. Well past actually tasting them, she never noticed this drink tasted just a bit different than the others.
>>>>>
Slow footsteps echoed in the dark.
Clomp.
Clomp.
Clomp.
Natalie shifted in the bed, her foot hitting John's leg.
A sharp point of light appeared and began to grow.
Clomp.
Clomp.
Clomp.
The light got brighter, lighting up the dingy brick walls.
Natalie's breathing sped up.
She and her friends huddled behind the car, street side, counting the cigarettes they had scrounged together. Something, she didn't know what, caught her attention behind her. She got to her knees and peeked around the back of the car. She saw the man walking out of the alley, something shiny in his hand. Not a knife, as she saw there were two pieces. He walked towards her and then looked up, his face lit for a moment by the one working street light as he slid the object into his coat. She ducked back down as he turned and walked past the car they were huddled behind.
"Hey," Natalie called to her friends. "Something's in the alley. I'm gonna look."
"Shouldn't go in the alley, they don't like kids around the drug deals," one of her friends warned.
"Or the hookers," another added.
Natalie shrugged and grabbed her share of the cigarettes, ignoring the complaints from her friends – she knew she'd be ripped off if the divvy went down before she got back. She dropped the sticks in her pocket and straightened her worn corn best she could and walked towards the alley.
"Natalie?"
In the dark she tripped over something, catching herself on the rough pavement and scraping her hands. Checking over her shoulder to make sure no one saw, she quickly hopped up and walked more slowly into the alley looking for whatever it was that had the man with the dark eyes so freaked out. As her eyes adjusted to the light and she covered her nose from the smell, she continued slowly into the alley.
Just around the metal trash cans there was a lump.
Her heart began to beat faster.
"Natalie!"
A hand clamped on her shoulder. With a gasp she struggled from the hand and sat up.
"Hey. It's all right. It's just a dream." He pulled her into his arms and onto his lap.
"John?" Natalie stopped struggling and focused on the man holding on to her. "Shit. You scared the hell out of me."
"Actually, I think that was the dream. You were whimpering and thrashing about. I think my shin will be black and blue in the morning." John kept talking, saying nothing of import, just talking to calm Natalie and bring her out of the dream.
"A dream?" Natalie whispered her arms circling John's neck and her legs circling his waist. "I don't know if that was a dream."
"What do you mean?" John stroked her back. She was wearing the pajama top that matched the bottoms he was wearing.
"It felt so real," she mumbled into his neck.
"Like a memory?" He brushed the hair off her face with one hand, his other hand cupping her back.
"Yeah."
"Do you want to tell me about it?" When she pulled back from his shoulder he cupped her face.
She described to him in halting words what she could remember of the dream that was getting hazier and hazier as she spoke.
"Can you remember what the guy looked like?"
"No. I just remember he had dark eyes, but that could be because it was dark. He seemed so familiar."
"Like he was someone you knew?"
Natalie thought for a moment and then shook her head. She let out a deep breath and whispered a soft "thank you." He smiled softly and continued to toy with her hair. They stared into each other's eyes.
"Can you get back to sleep? Do you want some water?" he asked.
"I don't think I'm ready to go back to sleep yet."
"What do you need?"
Natalie sighed and ran her hand across his shoulder and then to his chest, softly circling his nipple until it hardened from her ministrations. She felt his arousal thicken between her legs and she pressed herself down on him.
"Are you sure?" he asked, his voice gruff with desire.
Natalie nodded and pressed her lips to his chin, then higher, then against his lips. Softly she kissed his lips, little slides, changing angles and timing. She slid her tongue out and tasted him, just a little bit at first, then pressing between his lips to take them both deep.
She felt his heart speed up under the hand still pressed to his chest and her own nipples harden. Moistness flooded between her legs, still John did nothing but allow her ministrations. She began to move her hips back and forth, riding him slowly, urging him on and increasing her own desire.
"John," she whispered in his mouth. "Touch me."
John slid his hands under her top to rest on her hips. His fingers playing slowly up her sides until they touched the curve of her breasts. Her arms twined around his neck and she began to move more urgently over him as he moved along their fullness to brush her straining aureoles.
She pushed forward and knocked him onto his back with an "oomph" from him and an "aaaa" from her.
Their lips never parted, their kisses still deep and unhurried.
His hands slid over the warmth of her back and down until he was cupping her against him. Guiding the movements that down below were getting more urgent.
Feeling her body heat rising he slid one hand between then and began to rub her underneath her panties. He swallowed her squeaks and moans as he played her to the edge then he plunged two fingers inside her, up and in, out, in, reveling in the feel of her pulsing release. His other hand tangled in her hair.
As she came down again he hurriedly pushed her panties and his pants down and plunged himself up and into her. He rolled them over and gasped as her inner muscles grabbed and pulsed around him.
"John. John." Natalie chanted as he felt reason slipping out of their grasps. As the urgent need to be apart of one another was the only thing that mattered. He tasted of her as she pulled and drove at him, spurring his movements faster and deeper.
"I love you."
Those three words, he didn't know who uttered them, sent them both over the edge and spinning into the sky in a burst of color and sensation.
Later, when Natalie lay slumbering beside him, John's mind filled in the image that she couldn't describe. The picture of the dark-eyed animal Natalie had sent to prison all those years ago.