The Living End (Daniel Faust #3)(17)
“Daniel?” she said, her voice exhausted.
“I was just thinking. About the first morning we woke up together. You remember that? When we showered together?”
Her lips curled in a faint smile. “Of course I do.”
“The steam curling around us in white clouds,” I said. “Our naked bodies sliding together, wet, slippery. The way your skin felt as I ran that bar of soap slowly along your hip.”
A faint touch of color tinted her cheek. She got what I was doing. I knew she would.
“I was surprised you could stand up,” she said, “after that night. I remember the way you gasped, the way your muscles tensed and you clawed at the sheets while I rode you, again and again and again.”
“Guys,” Pete whined, “c’mon, knock it off, would ya?”
I found the strength to reach out and take Caitlin’s hand. Her fingers squeezed mine, meeting with a faint electric spark.
“Remember that dinner at your place last week?” I said. “Both of us drunk on red wine, watching a John Hughes movie, making out on your leather couch like a couple of teenagers. Just all over each other, hungry for each other.”
Caitlin’s shoulders straightened. She sat up, leaning forward, turning to me with her eyes bright and her face flushed.
“I remember when I got your clothes off. The warmth of your body, pressed between mine and the black leather. Then you sank to your knees on the carpet and kissed your way up my inner thigh…”
Pete winced and covered his ears. “Guys! Ew. Come on!”
The lethargy drained away, replaced with something new. Heat. Need. A feedback loop of hunger that coursed between us, desire riding on a groundswell of magic.
“I want you,” I told her. “I want you so badly I can barely breathe. I need you.”
Caitlin stood up. She tugged at my hand.
“I have so many pleasures to show you,” she said, breathing fast. “So many sensations you haven’t even imagined yet. Just thinking about it makes me shiver.”
I looked up at her like a supplicant before a living goddess.
“Show me. Right now.”
She pulled me to my feet, and I slipped my free arm around her waist, wanting to embrace her, but there was no time. We moved together, cocooned in our lust, headed straight for the front door. Pete hurled a handful of Cheetos at us, but they all landed short, scattering across the filthy rug.
“Fine!” he pouted. “You guys suck. Don’t come back if you’re not here to watch TV. And if you do, bring some corn chips and some Coke, okay? Make sure it’s diet. Hello? Guys? Are you even listening to me?”
Eight
We half ran down the walkway, barely pausing to slam the door closed behind us. The fresh desert air, arid and pure, washed away the filth and the stench and left me feeling cleaner than I’d felt in weeks. Caitlin hauled the car door open and grabbed me by the arm, shoving me into the backseat. She pressed me against the hot vinyl and straddled my lap, stealing my breath with a ferocious kiss.
“Cait,” I gasped. “Someone could see—”
She clamped her hand over my mouth. Her other hand worked at my belt buckle, yanking at the clasp.
“Shut up. The only thing I want to hear out of your mouth in the next ten minutes,” she hissed, “is you screaming my name. Anything else is not interesting.”
I squirmed out of my pants, fabric pooling around my shoes, while she hiked up her skirt. Then she grabbed my lapels and tugged, sending the top two buttons of my shirt flying, pressing her sharp teeth to my bared throat and growling like a wolf as she lowered herself onto me.
I lost track of time and everything else with it, everything but the feel of her body against mine and the scent of her skin. Finally we just clung to one another, shuddering, wet and disheveled, our hearts racing together.
“I liked that,” she whispered, caressing my cheek.
“Feeling’s mutual,” I said. “But now we’ve got a serious problem.”
She nodded. Her dreamy smile faded. “Naavarasi.”
“No,” I said. “Problem is I think my legs are asleep.”
Somehow we got ourselves looking more or less presentable and accomplished the long and awkward migration to the front seats of the car. I drove Caitlin back home to her penthouse at the Taipei Tower. She leaned in to kiss my cheek.
“Winter,” she said, “tonight. We’ll have a stern talk with our esteemed visitor.”
“I’ll meet you there. Right now I need to get a little work done on Pixie’s problem.”
That was my second stop. First stop was Bentley and Corman’s cluttered apartment over the Scrivener’s Nook for a new shirt and a quick shower. I was glad nobody was home.
I kept ties with a few contacts on the street. Some I met working for Nicky Agnelli, some I crossed paths with in my days of busking for change on Fremont Street. I had a reputation as a man who could be useful to know.
One of those contacts was Laika. She was six foot one, wore her blond hair in cornrows, and said she was descended from Russian aristocracy. I thought the accent was a put-on. Three in the afternoon and she was already out on the stroll, poured into a purple PVC halter dress and smoking a cigarette on the corner of a dead-end street.
Lots of tourists come to town thinking prostitution is legal in Nevada. They’re half-right: it’s legal in twelve counties, but not one of them is anywhere within a hundred miles of the Vegas city limits. You take a limo out to the ranches if you want a certified disease-free pro, assuming you’ve got the cash to afford her. In the city it’s the same old street game, all risk and barely any reward. Like chutes and ladders, but the chute probably looks like a pimp’s fist or a heroin needle.