Tara Janzen - Loose And Easy

Oh, for the love of God and Patsy freakin’ Cline - she brought her hand up to cover her face. She couldn’t believe she’d just thought that, about his…

Oh, hell -there she was again, remembering his…

“Are you okay?” he asked, and under her hand, she felt her face turn hot with a blush.

No, she wasn’t okay. She was mortified. He was the first boy she’d ever seen naked, and in her naiveté, she’d thought all guys were built like him.

They weren’t.

Not even close.

“Esme?”

Not that size mattered, really, at least that’s what everyone said, but how in the hell would she know? Every guy she’d ever been with had been about the same, size-wise anyway, and she’d never been with him, not really, not with him actually…

Oh, geez, Esme, she told herself, grow up, get a grip.

But there was no way to get more grown-up than the thought she’d just had, of him inside her, of everything she remembered about him, and everything she’d learned about men since. The combination was sheer, erotic meltdown, a wall of heat crashing into her and washing through her body, triggering a deep, sensual reaction that was going to be her undoing, right here in his bucket seat.

He’d kissed her, and she’d been poleaxed, frozen in place, because his mouth had felt like coming home. The taste of him, the smell of him, the sound of his breath-the slow slide of his tongue over and around and down the length of hers, it had all said, “Here’s your place, girl, here with me.”

Wrong. Impossibly wrong. It just simply couldn’t be.

He’d done a great job tonight, and it had been a good decision to stick with him for the delivery to Isaac Nachman’s, but beyond that it was crazy.

Crazy to want to kiss him again, right now, while the warmth of him was still in her mouth.

Crazy to feel desire like a weight on her chest, a longing she wasn’t getting past, even though it had only been a kiss.

Just a kiss.

One kiss.

“I’m…um… feeling a headache coming on. It’ll pass. They usually do. If I just rest quietly.” And don’t talk to guys who get me hot.

She was pitiful.

Of course, not talking to guys who got her hot was her signature modus operandi. That was the problem. Almost one hundred percent of the time, she was only ever in the company of guys who didn’t get her hot-and now she knew why. Johnny Ramos was the guy who got her hot, and she hadn’t been in his company since high school.

Good God.

“Here,” he said, and she heard him lift something into the front seat from the back.

She glanced up from beneath her fingers, then reached over and took the small red canvas pack he was handing her.

The stoplight changed, and with a press of the gas pedal, the Cyclone ramped back up to chassis-shaking life. Geezus, she felt it everywhere, the slow, deep rumble curving around her in the seat, the sound of it sliding down her spine.

“Look in the mesh pocket inside,” he said, shifting into second gear. “You’ll find aspirin and Motrin. Take your pick. Have you had anything to eat lately? Like in the last three or four hours?”

“Uh, no.” Breakfast had been coffee. Lunch had been light, and dinner had been nonexistent.

“Well, open this up.” He stretched his arm into the backseat again and brought up the last thing she’d expected to see.

She lowered her hand from her face to take the package he was offering.

“Um, thanks.” It was an MRE-Meal, Ready to Eat. She glanced into the backseat. Four more MREs were stacked in the corner-government issue, no commercial resale allowed. A guy couldn’t just go to the grocery store and buy a few MREs to keep in his car. She should have noticed them before, and she might have, if she hadn’t been so busy noticing the Locos in the alley and trying to keep them all in view.

She had noticed how nice he kept the interior of the Cyclone. The dash looked as if it was regularly detailed with a toothbrush. Every knob and dial gleamed. There wasn’t so much as a gum wrapper in sight, and if she wasn’t mistaken, the upholstery on the seats was new. Considering what a wreck his car looked like from the outside, he took surprisingly good care of it on the inside.

He’d been taking good care of her, too. Dax had been right, and she’d noticed. Even taking her to Baby Duce’s hadn’t been a bad idea. It had given her a chance to catch her breath someplace safe- and not much could have surprised her more than that she’d been safe in Locos land.

At a clear place between a couple of cars, he pulled over to the curb and put the Cyclone in neutral before engaging the parking brake and reaching into the backseat again.

“You should have this, too. The more of it you can get down, the better you’re going to feel. I can guarantee it,” he said, bringing up an eight-pack of a bottled sport drink.

Electrolytes, just what she needed.

She let out another small sigh, watching him pull a bottle out of the plastic ring harness and unscrew the lid for her.

“Thank you,” she said and took a sip-grape, her favorite.

This was crazy.

He lifted the red pack out of her lap and unzipped the main compartment, revealing an incredibly well organized first-aid kit, of all the darn things.

Watching him, she screwed the lid back on the bottled drink, curious as hell.

“Blowout kit?” She read the label off a sealed plastic pouch in the pack. The pouch was only slightly smaller than the MRE.

“In case one of the good guys gets hurt, me included,” he said, moving aside a package of sterile bandages set above a number of elasticized bands and pockets, each of them fitted with some kind of medical supply.

“What about the bad guys?”

He let out a short laugh. “I don’t spend a whole lot of time worrying about saving the bad guys.”

A little harsh maybe, or maybe not-MREs, blowout kits and first-aid supplies, a pistol he carried concealed in a shoulder holster, for crying out loud, and the way he had of taking charge… especially the way he had of taking charge.

“Do people get hurt a lot in your line of work?”

“Sometimes, yeah,” he said, unzipping one of the kit’s mesh pockets.

“And what is that exactly? Your line of work, I mean.” They’d been rolling through lower downtown pretty much at a dead run for the last hour together; she figured it was time to ask, probably past time.

He gave her a brief glance, and without missing a beat said, “I’m currently between assignments.”

Oh, right. Between assignments. Sure. She’d been there.

Well, actually, she’d never been between assignments, but she could see how some gangster from RiNo could end up “between assignments.”

Bull.

He’d just given her a perfect example of misinformation by omission if she’d ever heard one-and she’d heard plenty. Some days in the private investigation business were just chock-full of all the things people weren’t telling you.

“You’re not one of the Locos, are you?” She just couldn’t get that to line up, him being a street thug, a gang member. It didn’t fit with what she’d been seeing since he’d walked into her dad’s office, no matter how easily he’d fit in with those guys in the alley off Delgany.

He pulled two small brand-name packets out of the mesh pocket and held them up. “Aspirin or Motrin? What do you want?”

“An answer to my question.”

He held her gaze, and, after a moment, handed her the aspirin packet. The Motrin went back in the kit. Then he took the MRE out of her lap and ripped open the top.

“Drink more of your drink,” he said, pulling a tightly sealed package out of the MRE and ripping it open as well.