Going Dark(45)

“If you’re really into salt, Frank, maybe you could try licking the dried sweat off my arms.” She held her right arm straight ahead like a sleepwalker.

Frank set the two margaritas back on the side table. “I guess I could start with your arms.”





EIGHTEEN





FOUR TIMES, OR WAS IT five? Frank lost count in the blur of flesh, thrust and counterthrust, his groans and hers, his cotton sheet knotting around his ankles, even the fitted sheet breaking loose from the mattress, at one point the mattress slipping off the box spring, tipping both of them onto the floor, which didn’t stop their grappling, didn’t slow them, in fact helped them discover fresh angles, new and surprising pressures, both bodies slippery with sweat, her fingernails digging at his shoulders, holding on, jabbing his lower back to keep the lock tight, thigh to rump, loin to thigh, Frank noting the pain in passing, thinking he’d tally it all up in the morning, the bruises, scrapes, and long, ragged scratches, then diving back into the unthinking convulsions, the wrestling match, every hold and variation Frank knew and some he’d never thought possible, Nicole slithering away, Frank pursuing, staying inside her, and with a sudden grinding thrust she was letting go, completely letting go, she twisted, hammered her hips and thighs against his, and rolled on top, arched into the cobra pose, carnal yoga, her spine bowed forward, shoulders thrown back, yipping until the throaty cowgirl scream came again.

Four, five, six. Who could count? Why bother? He didn’t. Only found himself considering it much later as she was dressing in the dark, how many times he’d come and she’d come, how many times they’d gotten close and pulled away, in the three hours—or was it four?—they’d been together, just something to consider while he watched her dress, Nicole not showering, saying she wanted to take a little bit of Frank Sheffield home, his smell, his dried fluids, his DNA, maybe scrape some off, run a lab check on him, see what came up in the National Crime Information Center, joking as she dressed, doing all the talking with silent Frank, exhausted Frank, propped up against the pillows trying not to plead, Do you have to go? Stay a little longer.

He knew how the back-and-forth would go: she had to leave, damn it; and, yes, he understood. It was late. It was tomorrow already. She had work. They both had work. Jobs to do. It was already Friday, for christsakes, practically the weekend. Hey, didn’t she take off the weekend? And she’d ask him, Do you think those ELF guys are taking off the weekend?

No, he couldn’t possibly blow off work for time in the sack with Nicole and her yips and her clawing nails and the lip-bruising kisses. None of that he said out loud, but he was thinking it, wanting to convince her, goddamn it, to stay there beside him, cuddle a little, milk the afterglow, but knowing that would be a mistake with a no-bullshit broad like her, Frank admitting he liked to snuggle, a tough hombre, special agent in charge, admit he was an inveterate cuddler. Spoon him just for ten minutes while they drowsed, all he wanted. But when Nicole was done, she was done and she was up and getting dressed, and who was Frank to judge?

She was over in the dark by his dresser, fumbling around, then went into the bathroom again, shut the door, switched on the light. In there for several minutes. Frank wondering, What the hell? Then she came out, the light turned off again, went back to the dresser.

“Everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine,” she said. “Better than fine.”

On the way to the door she came over, stooped, kissed him once more, her right hand pressed hard and flat against his hairy chest, then her fingers closed, gripping, tugging on the hairs, Nicole a little more into pain than he was used to, but he accepted it, enjoyed the novelty of it, didn’t question it.

“Do you have to go?” he heard himself say as she got to the door.

“You need your rest, Frank. You’re not as young as you used to be. You were huffing, heart racing, I thought I might have to call the paramedics.”

“Your heart wasn’t racing?”

She was at the open door. The room dark, the sound of the surf. He could only see her from the bathroom light, not enough to read her face. He could’ve gotten up and tried to coax her back to bed, but she was right, he had nothing left. Who was he trying to kid? But it bothered him that her heart might not have been racing. Bothered him a little, but not so much he mentioned it aloud, that she’d even noticed he was out of breath, because he’d noticed nothing like that about her, noticed only the sounds she made as she climbed up the octaves to that high note she hit and hit and hit.

In the dark she said, “What exactly are you concealing?”