Ballistic(99)

“Trained? What do you mean?”

“Never mind.” Shut up, Gentry. Just stop fucking talking.

“Do you think most people go through training for this?”

“No . . . I just—”

“Do you think I am an expert of some kind?”

“I didn’t mean—”

“You are strange, Six. I really like you. But you are very strange.”

“Yeah.”

Court was self-conscious for a while longer, even distracted when he heard footsteps in the hallway. But the footsteps melted away, and his inhibitions followed them down the hall.

He felt her small fingertips on his belt, then he felt it removed from around his waist. She unbuttoned his khakis, and he did not stop her—he just watched. When his pants were off, she began moving back up his body. She put her right hand on his left thigh, and he winced loudly.

“I’m sorry,” she said, then inspected his leg. Drew a delicate finger tip up and down the length of a deep cut that was, by now, nearly three weeks old.

“What happened?”

“Crocodile,” Gentry said, his mind a million miles from the Amazon tributary right now.

Laura laughed. “Crocodilo.” She said it in Spanish and laughed again. “I don’t believe you. So many secrets you keep.” She put her hand on his chest, over his heart. Then she moved it away and began kissing him there. “You can have your secrets, Six; you can hold them in your heart. But please make a little room in there for me, too. Okay?”

“Okay,” he said, and now he could resist no more. He sat up slowly, kissed her lips, and rolled her gently onto her back.

Her body felt warm and firm, but the tense, hard muscles were shielded by soft, compliant flesh. He felt her racing heartbeat, and it comforted him, made him realize that they were in this together, that she was not just dispassionately watching him like an instructor grading his actions. When he slowed down, she grabbed at him, pulled him forward. When he took a deep breath, she covered his mouth with hers. When he turned his head towards the door or the window, she took his head in her hands and turned it back to her. When he winced with the pain in his thigh, she just pulled him down on top of her and kissed him until the pain went away.

Until, finally, there was no more door and no more window. No more danger and no more pain. There was only the two of them, here, on a little bed and safe from all harm.

They made love for hours.





Gentry woke from a sleep deeper than any he had experienced in years. He felt the sun warm the bed around him.

She was there, wrapped up tightly against his body, her little face in the crook of his arm, her left hand flat on his chest. Her breathing, her body’s warmth, the smell of her skin. It was all amazing.

Court had not even known that skin had a smell.

She did not move. He looked down at her face and just saw her full lips and the tip of her nose. Her short, jet-black hair lay tussled; a small rubber band held the longest strands tight behind her ears.

He thought about Eddie, and a panic washed over him. Was this wrong? Emotions of romantic guilt attacked him from nowhere; he’d never felt this way in his life. He thought of standing at his friend’s burial plot, just there to say good-bye, and then, three days later, screwing his friend’s younger sister, the thing in this world his dead friend had most endeavored to protect while alive.

Her eyes opened, and she looked up at him.

“Are you okay?” he asked tentatively.

She kissed him. He forgot his panic.

“What time is it?” she asked.

“Late. We need to get moving.”

“Where are we going?”

“We need a car. We need it gassed and ready to go. As soon as we meet with Pfleger and get the docs, we are heading up towards the border. We’ll sleep in shifts, go straight on through the night. We should make it by three p.m. tomorrow to meet with your family.”

“We are stealing a car?” she sighed. “You are going to have to help me find a job in the U.S. to pay back all these people for their vehicles.”

Court realized she assumed he’d be crossing the border with her family. He’d told them he didn’t have papers, but for all she knew that was something he’d arranged with Jerry.

Shit. He didn’t want to mislead her. But he could not tell her that he would be in as much danger in the United States as she was here in Mexico. New guilt hit him from a new angle. Did she only make love to him because she thought they would be together when this was over?

Was there any way he could be with her when it was over?

She squeezed him tight as she yawned and stretched.

“Do we really have to get up now?” she asked with a smile in her voice.