Bishop's Run Page 8

  Penny was in total control. She had me throbbing and engorged, would suck and tongue me towards orgasm, then back off, slow me down, begin again, steadily increasing her intensity each time. She knew exactly what she was doing, and I rode the waves, each one taking me higher until I came, gasping and rocking, under her mouth. My body felt as if it had floated down into this warm soft place, where nothing hurt, leaving me still, almost lifeless.

  "You're still with me, aren't you?" Penny asked from between my legs.

  "Barely," I managed to mumble.

  "Been a while for you, hasn't it?

  That was a statement more than a question.

  Penny made her way up to me. I wrapped my arm around her as she settled up against me, laid her head on my shoulder, stroked my arm as if she was petting an animal to calm it.

  "Baxter, what are these scars from? What happened to you?"

  I hadn't thought of the scars. The light from the windows was gentle but enough to illuminate the evidence of fairly fresh major trauma all over me, and I had not considered that I would be in this 'position' so soon, so I really did not know how to answer that. It took me a minute.

  "Um, well, I...sort of had an accident."

  That was a lie.

  It was no accident that my partner had lured me into a trap, had beaten the crap out of me, then shot me and left me for dead in a burning building. He wanted to shut me up, permanently, to keep me from telling anyone about his secrets regarding the work he was doing for the 'Company.'

  Penny sat up and turned around to face me, sitting cross-legged by my side. She studied me carefully, taking in all the scars and discolorations of my skin. I felt as naked as I'd ever had. A wave of embarrassment flowed over me.

  "It must have been awful for you," she finally whispered.

  I didn't know what to say. It had been 'awful' but the fact is, I didn't remember a lot of it. I had been morphined for the first three days, then gradually withdrawn so that I could participate in the anguish of physical therapy, slowly maneuvering my broken and beaten parts around the room and down the hospital halls. Vague recollections began to swim through my mind, of the therapy sessions, then my transport to Tenley on a dark and rainy night, heavily sedated, not knowing what was going on, where I was being taken, or by whom.

  I really did not want to think about it. The pain had subsided during my time in Jared's carriage house, and my better days followed, culminating in hard-core video game play and games of poker with Whyte and Fowler, watching TV with Tess in the evenings.

  "It's okay," I replied, quietly. "It's all over and done with."

  Penny was sensitive to my withdrawal, and she let it go. She laid back down against me, giving me soft kisses, lightly running her hands across my chest. I relaxed, not realizing I had tensed up during the conversation. I met her mouth, tonguing her lips and tongue with mine, each kiss longer and more fervent than the previous one.

  "Would you like dessert?" she asked, huskily.

  "Dessert?"

  She sat up, leaned toward the bedside table, and picked up the box with the apple pie in it. Popping the top, she scooped out a small mound of whipped cream with her fingers, seductively licking the white confection from them.

  I smiled. Now I knew what the extra whip was for.

  10

  It was late when we went to sleep, and late when we woke up. Bright light was streaming through the windows and through the skylight above the bed. I blinked my eyes clear, taking in the design of the bedroom. Besides the bed with its storage drawers, the walls were done in a beautiful light-stained wood that did not look like your average press board paneling. The lighting fixtures were brass and glass, and, if I did not know better, I would swear I was in a ship at sea. I liked it.

  I had boated with friends up in Baltimore, spending days, and nights, on the Intracoastal Waterway, fishing and drinking and screwing as we floated on the water. It was one of the best ways to spend time off I had ever had, and I'd looked forward to the annual get-together with great anticipation. I was never disappointed.

  I looked over at Penny, who was now awake as well, watching me take in the beauty of her room.

  "Like it?" she asked.

  "Love it," I replied. "I would have never guessed that this was inside a single-wide."

  "We, my dad and I, did all the work ourselves. He's a carpenter. We knocked out the sides and built up and out off the original foundation, shoring up what we needed to, then finishing the inside with wood from the trees we had to cut down to make room. He made this bed, too," she added, patting the headboard of the cannonball four-poster lovingly.

  "Your dad is a genius." I thought about Jared and how he had rebuilt the carriage house himself. There are some real artists in the world, and you'll find them in all sorts of places.

  "You hungry?" Penny rolled over on top of me, wrapping her arms around my neck and lightly kissing my lips.

  Considering that we had spent the majority of the night sexing each other, I could not imagine that she would be up for another bout this morning. That thought must have telegraphed across my face, because she laughed, kissed me once more, then sat up.

  "No, I mean, for real...food, coffee, eggs, grits, whatever you want," she listed, smiling. "I could really go for some coffee to start," I replied. I never could just wake up and eat.

  "Great! I'll go put on a pot," Penny rolled out of bed and padded across the room. I watched her appreciatively. "Give me a minute to pee and brush my teeth, then the bathroom is all yours."

  I settled back into the bed, pulling the pillows down behind my shoulders and realigning the blanket. I zoned out looking around the room, then Penny was back out, showered and dressed a few short minutes later.

  "I have a towel, washcloth, and a new toothbrush set out on the sink for you," she said, as she headed out the door to the kitchen. "Coffee in about ten, take a shower if you'd like," she called over her shoulder from the hall.

  I threw back the covers and headed for the bath. A shower would be good, considering I smelled like sex, and my stiff body performed better when it was warm. The bathroom was as amazing as the bedroom. The "ship" motif continued, this time with lighter paneling (tongue and groove upon close examination), brass lighting, a smaller skylight flooding the room with natural light. The shower was a three-sided free-standing, with white ceramic subway tile, an overhead, a handheld head, and two multi-spray bars on either side, directing the water to the center drain.

  Fucking amazing. In a single-wide.

  The shower was excellent, the water streaming to a variety of places all at once, like a car wash. I let the jets douse me for a good minute (or two) then soaped up and rinsed off. The towel was fluffy and smelled great, and I brushed my teeth with an herbal paste left out on the sink. I only had my shorts and t-shirt from yesterday's practice to wear, but by the time I made my way to the kitchen, I felt like a new car rolling out of the showroom.

  Penny was sitting at the kitchen bar, pouring a cup of coffee, which she handed off to me, having already poured one for herself. Acoustic guitar was playing low from a source, or should I say sources, that I could not locate as it seemed to be coming from everywhere. I took a closer look around the kitchen and living area. They had both been remodeled like the bed and bath, this time with white painted wood and blond molding throughout, and the living area extended about ten feet wider and longer than average, a large bow front bay window, its blinds open for now, overlooking the lake waters.

  "Damn, girl, I'm jealous," I smiled at Penny. "This is some house."

  Penny smiled. "Now do you see why I'm not in such a hurry to leave?"

  I nodded. "Most people are trying to run away to a place like this."

  I sipped my coffee and looked at the photos on the wall, able to really look at them now. Penny had a fantastic eye for light and shadow, for framing the shot at its peak of beauty. Now I understood that she didn't just work for a photographer, she was one.

  "You ha
ve an amazing eye," I remarked, as I moved from one picture to another, slowly taking in the details.

  "Thank you," she replied, somewhat quietly, which surprised me. I turned and looked at her. I had spent the night with someone who most certainly was not shy, and yet, here was this beautiful young woman who was almost bashful in accepting a compliment about her work.

  "I'd like to see more, you do have more, don't you?"

  "Oh, well, yes, I do, they're in storage at the studio. I have a portfolio here, with other subjects, these were the ones that I took out here, before we put the trailer in. It was why I decided to buy this property and move here."

  "You made a very smart purchase," I agreed. Penny nodded with me.

  I sipped my coffee, then sat down on the stool next to Penny.

  "So," said Penny.

  "So," said I in return.

  "So," Penny began again, smiling. "I was wondering if you'd like to go out some night next week, after practice, or whenever."

  Now there's the forward girl I had spent the night with.

  "Well, yeah, absolutely, I'd like that," I replied. Playing softball, making friends, it was just what the good Dr. Biggs had ordered and, having spent the last two months following doctors' orders, who was I to say 'no.'

  "Good, okay, we'll do that. Give me your phone and I'll give you my number."

  Phone.

  Oh, crap.

  My phone was in the Jeep, in the console. I told Penny I'd be right back and bolted out the door. The phone had 'critical' battery power but there was good signal. I flipped it open.

  Damn.

  Damn.

  Five missed calls.

  No need to wonder who.

  I cleared the read-out and headed back into the house, handing the flip phone to Penny.

  "Wow," she said, looking at the relic. "Free?"

  "Probably."

  "Probably?"

  "Well, it was a gift.

  "Um, okay, must be a helluva friend for you to actually be using it," she observed.

  I had no real answer for that. Tess was more like my keeper, but after spending so much time with her, between the surveillance and then the every-other-day follow-up checks, maybe she was more of a friend than anything else. My silence as I pondered that was not lost on Penny.

  "Okay, more than a friend, I get it," she said with a small smile, punching in and saving the numbers just as it beeped three times and went dead.

  "No, no, nothing like that," I replied in my attempt to classify exactly what kind of relationship Tess and I had.

  "It's none of my business," said Penny. "It's really not."

  "Penny," I started.

  Penny held up her hand, cutting me off. "Baxter, you don't have to give me any explanation. I picked you up, remember, for fun. That's all this was, just 'fun.' No strings attached." She snapped the cell phone shut and held it out to me. I took it from her, slipped it into my pocket.

  "Penny, I'm alone. I'm not in a relationship with anyone, I just moved here about three months ago. This phone was given to me by someone who did not want me to be without one, and frankly, until now, I didn't need to buy another one, because I didn't have anyone to call."

  Penny looked up at me, scanning my face for any hint of a lie. She must have decided I was telling the truth, because she moved into me, wrapping her arms around my waist. She began to speak, quietly.

  "Baxter, listen to me. Listen. This was just for fun, okay? That's all. I don't do relationships. I don't want to be involved in a relationship, it just gets way too messy. People get hurt, and things get broken, and I really don't want to go through that again."

  I had forgotten what relationships could be like, it had been so long since I had been in one. It was probably the main reason I had not been involved with anyone for a long time.

  The Drama.

  Sometimes it would go on for days, sucking the life right out of me, until I'd reached the point that I was too tired to care if she stayed or left. I remembered the relief I felt when I came home and all her stuff and her cat were gone, door key and a scathing note on the kitchen table.

  "Thank you, Jesus," I had thought as I showered and went straight to bed, the first time in days there'd been no yelling or door slamming or crying coming from the living room, the silence so welcome, the sleep that had followed so deep. It was days, or maybe it had been a month before I'd missed her, but when I finally did, I was more than a little ashamed at how long I hadn't, that I had just moved on without really giving the end of our relationship any thought, and I wondered if I was destined to spend my life alone, simply because I could not handle the Drama.

  So, here was Drama, raising its ugly head once again. This time, though, it wasn't mine, but Penny's. Something had happened to her and she was still hurting and wary of the possibility of it happening to her again.

  "I understand," I replied.

  "So," Penny said, pulling away and looking up into my eyes. "I've got something we could do together, and I think you'll get a big kick out of it."

  "Really!" I could only imagine what she would have in mind, but I found myself happy with the thought that I had something to look forward to. "Does it involve whipped cream? Because I got a really big kick out of that!"

  Penny laughed, a relaxed laugh that put us both back on steady ground. "Just you wait," she said, as she patted my butt. I pulled her close again, and leaned down, tilted her head up to me and kissed her, finding the warmth of her mouth inviting, and leading me to probe with my tongue, tasting her, feeling her giving back, both of us heating up in the sensations.

  My hands were under her shirt, wandering over her soft, taut skin. Our kisses grew longer, hotter and I eased my hand into the waistband of her shorts, reached down into the warmth between her legs, wet softness enveloping my fingers, feeling her grow and harden as I very gently rubbed her clit, applying more pressure and movement as I felt her legs start trembling. By now I was holding her up, supporting her with my other arm, cupping her round bottom with my hand as I pressed her against me. She came quickly, trembling and shaking, and I moved my hand around to her other cheek, holding her mound against my leg, slowly grinding her.

  "Damn," she whispered, breathless. "If you don't stop, I'm going to take you back to bed."

  I thought about that. I looked at the clock over the sink. Quarter after twelve.

  "Well, we've got practice at four, so..."

  Penny laughed. "We would so suck at practice if we stayed in bed until then, and Coach would give us hell and make us run laps!"

  "She'd do that?" I asked, still holding her pressed against me.

  "Oh, yeah, I heard she had the whole team running laps for the second half of a practice last year after they'd partied late the night before and kept screwing up defensive plays."

  "Ya know, I really hate running laps," I said, frowning.

  "Me, too," Penny agreed. "I hate to say this, but maybe you should go."

  I laughed. If I didn't leave, I would be carrying her back to bed, so I kissed her firmly but briefly on the mouth, told her she was the “best fun ever” and headed out the door to my uncertain future.

  Climbing into the Jeep, I remembered. My phone was dead. There had been five calls on it. I was definitely going to catch some hell of one kind or another.

  11

  I took a good look around as I drove back up 301, so that I would be sure to find my way back to Penny's. About two miles from the turn on to the highway, I passed Tess's father's store. The building had fallen into disrepair, weeds growing through the concrete parking lot and up against the building, the worn Hayes Grocery sign faded from the sun.

  I turned around at the next median break and made my way back, turning across the highway and into the parking lot. The metal gates over the doors had rusted, the paint was peeling away from the bars, and the windows were dirty, but I could still see inside. The empty shelving units were scattered around the store, short stacks of cardboard boxes off to the
sides. I could see the checkouts, the shelves behind where customer service must have been, now empty of product as well.

  I thought about Tess's father, how he must have worked so hard to raise his daughter alone and to give her the things she needed to make a good life for herself. He lost his life defending his store and, in the end, had affected her life as well.

  I thought about Tess, wondered how she felt each time she passed by on the highway, wondered how she could be immune to the images, to the memories of that night, and how, if she was, she managed to keep them at bay.

  I climbed back into the Jeep and headed for the carriage house, very aware that I was also now a part of Tess's life. She'd had enough to deal with, more than the average human, and I wasn't making it any easier on her. I vowed that from here on, I would do my best not to disappoint her or make her job looking after me any harder than it had already been.

  Of course, the Crown Vic was parked outside the gate. Tess, on the other hand, was nowhere to be seen. I grabbed the phone and headed into the yard, looking for the dogs to greet me. No response there, either. Smokey sat on the porch railing, his big owl eyes staring at me, reproaching me for not coming home last night, or was there something more in his glare.

  Oh, it was something more all right.

  Turning the corner from the mudroom into the kitchen, I came face-to-face with Tess. Standing with her hands on her hips, jacket off, her glare mimicking Smokey's, I knew that I was about to get another riot act read to me. Rosie and Sophie stood behind Tess, watching, wagging their tails, but not coming any nearer.

  I immediately began trying to repair the damage.

  "Tess, I'm sorry, I really am!"

  "Bishop, you just...you...just...dammit! Where the hell have you been? Do you have any idea what I've had to deal with the past sixteen hours? I had to tell my captain that I'd lost my witness and put out an APB on your Jeep. Do you know what that did to my credibility? I have worked really hard to get to where I am and, in one night, you damaged it, all because you--where were you? Why the hell didn't you answer your damn phone?"