Don Winslow - California Fire And Life

They stroke each other, she starts to move against his hand, she presses up and her eyes get wide as if she's surprised. And her skin is hot and she arches her back and reaches her other hand for his and holds it tight as she cranes her neck back and comes.

He keeps stroking, touching her where she's now so wet but she moves his hand away and says, In me, I want you in me, and she guides him inside her and Jack is surprised at how good she feels, hot and ripply as she moves up and down against him, and her breasts flatten against his chest and she doesn't close her eyes but she looks at him as he moves slowly in and out of her. Her black hair rippling on the pillow; he reaches out to grab it and clench it in his hand, bury his face and kiss her neck, lick her salty skin there. She clasps the back of his neck and pulls him close to kiss her. Her mouth is hot and her tongue is hot and her thighs feel fiery against his and he starts to move faster and harder because he wants to feel the heat of the core of her. He can feel it when he lunges hard deep into her. She can feel it too, because she jams herself against him and pushes him up deeper into her. He can feel the head of his cock touch this deep hot place inside her that touches some deep place in him, and she's holding his neck and his ass and rocking with him and he's gripping her neck and her ass and can feel her wet against the tips of his fingers there, and then it feels like inside there is this heat flowing, flowing, and she grips him harder saying, Yes, baby, it's okay, as he moans and starts to move faster and harder. There's this heat in him, he feels like he's falling, he feels like he's on fire and falling as she rocks him in and around her, there's that heat so deep inside her, so lovely, inside her so lovely, her face so lovely, this falling like riding a wave of flame, Yes, baby, it's okay, come in me, you can come in me, and then he is, it's like falling off the world, like a wave of flame crashing, rolling him over and over under this unbearable wave of pleasure, not letting him up, he's crying out, she's cooing, Yes, baby, he's under this ocean of pleasure, somewhere up above the water he hears his long scream, he feels his soul race out ahead of him, he's drowning, she's saying, Baby, and when finally he comes up it's like he washes up on the white beach of her body, white neck and white breasts, her stomach slick, their sweat like smooth wet sand, and her face is flushed red and her eyes are wet. Black hair sweaty wet clings to her neck and he sees those eyes searching for his and then he finally breathes.

Tears come. Drop from his eyes onto her neck, her chest, her breasts, she holds him tightly to her as he sobs, as he weeps twelve empty years.

Jack wakes up in Letty's bed.

At first he's like, Where the hell am I, but then he smells the Mexican coffee and remembers. Rolls out of the rack and comes into the kitchen and she's standing there by the toaster sipping on the strong coffee.

"I don't do the bacon-and-eggs thing," she says. "But I can offer you toast and coffee."

"Sounds great."

He plops down on a stool by her curved kitchen counter and looks out the window. The land slopes down through big, old black oak trees to some open pasture. Across a fence, horses are out grazing.

"Your horses?" Jack asks.

"The neighbor's," she says. "I ride them sometimes. You ride?"

"Just surfboards," he says.

"To each his own ride," she says, handing him a plate of buttered toast. She sits on the stool next to his. "What are you going to do now?"

"I'm going to go in to the office," he says, "and clean out my desk."

"You think they're really going to fire you?"

Jack says, "If they don't, I'm going to quit anyway."

"You don't have to do that," she says.

"Yeah I do."

They sit and look out the window. It's pretty out there, Jack thinks. The trees and the pasture. Mountains in the background.

After a few minutes she asks, "So what are you going to do?"

"Dunno."

A few minutes later she says, "You could come here."

"You don't have to-"

"The house needs a remodel," she says. "You could be doing that. You know, fixing things-"

"Sleeping in your bed…"

"Well, that would be a bonus."

"For me."

"How gallant."

More coffee, more silence, more window gazing. Then she says, "It's a serious offer."

"Serious?"

"Sincere," she says, looking into her coffee cup. "And sudden. But look, how often do you get a second chance? I mean, me as well."

"Yeah," he says. "Same."

Thinking, you romantic bastard. Same. Nice going.

"Yeah?" she asks. Looks up at him now.

"Oh yeah."

"So," she says. "It's a serious sincere offer."

"Thanks," he says. "Can I think about it?"

Because he knows she's offering the whole package. Like this instant life — the home, the woman — and he knows she hasn't given up on the kids yet. Which is bad, because she should.

"Letty?"

"Jack?"

"You're not going to get the kids," he says. "It's over."

"For you maybe," she says. She gets up and starts to clean off the counter.

"Letty-"

"Look, you took your best shot and you lost," Letty says. "I'm not blaming you for anything, okay? I'm not calling up what you did twelve years ago and saying that cost me the kids. All I'm saying is that I owe those kids my best shot, even if you think it's a loser. I'm going to find a lawyer who'll take this in front of a judge, and if I lose I'll find another lawyer and another judge, and if I lose…"

"Okay."

"Okay," she says. "I gotta go to work. You want to come back here tonight?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah, you heard me? Or, yeah, you want to."

"Yeah, I want to."

They stand there looking at each other.

"So this is probably the moment when we kiss," she says.

"Yeah."

So they do kiss and then hold on to each other for a minute and he says, "What I did twelve years ago? It was the wrong thing to do. I should have just dropped the case."

"Probably."

"I mean that old man was more important than the case."

"I know that's what you meant."

She walks him out to the 'Stang and he takes off.

Back to California Fire and Life.

Jack goes out to Billy's office.

Hotter than hell out there in the cactus garden.

"You ain't fired," Billy says. "They can't fire you until they fire me."

"See you on the unemployment line."

"Shit, I'd just retire," Billy says. Gives this private little smile. "Fade into the sunset."

"I'm quitting, Billy."

"Nah, don't do that."

"They gonna pay the demand?"

Billy says, "Probably."

"Then I quit."

"Shit, Jack-"

Billy snuffs out the cig and struggles to light another one. Has to turn against the wind and cup his hands to do it. Sucks down the first drag and says, "Just let it go."

"Can't."

Phone rings inside Billy's office. He says, "That's probably Herlihy again. I got Claims, Agency, Underwriting, and SIU all banging on me about this claim."

"You better go talk to them, then."

"Don't go anywhere."

"I'll sit out here until the vultures take me away."

Jack takes the files off the chair and sits down.

Letty sits in the front seat of her car getting a last sip of her coffee.

She'd rather be doing something else than hiking up some trail in Cleveland Forest to meet a Vietnamese punk teenage chop shop artist to get the word about two of his missing homeboys.

Although I guess I asked for it, Letty thinks as she sets her cup on the floor below the driver's seat. I put the heat on him.

Since busting him in the chop shop, she's cranked up the DA, the Orange County Anti-Gang Task Force, and the little moke's probation officer. Plus she's popped three more chop shops, a gambling room, and a massage parlor to get Uncle Nguyen wound up. So she wasn't all that surprised when she got the call.