Tara Janzen - Loose And Easy

She unscrewed the lid on her bottle and took another sip, and when he handed her a four-inchsquare cracker, she took a bite.

“They’re a little dry,” he warned.

No kidding.

When she had about half the cracker washed down, he nodded at the aspirin packet she still had clutched in her hand.

At any time during the exchange, she could have told him that she didn’t really have a headache, but she was rather ridiculously enjoying his attention- emphasis on the ridiculous.

She took the aspirin, and when she was finished swallowing, she let her gaze slip to his mouth.

She was doomed.

It had only been a kiss, she told herself, a kiss that made her want more and more, until the more became more than just a kiss.

Her gaze drifted lower, down the strong column of his throat, down the gray T-shirt covering his chest, to his lap, to the zipper on his jeans. It had been a long time for her, since she’d been with someone, which she was absolutely positive would never have come into play tonight-except he’d kissed her, and now everything was in play, especially her response to him.

He’d grown quiet on his side of the car, and when she looked up, she found him watching her, his gaze darkly serious, his attention focused on her face.

Another wave of heat washed through her. Johnny Ramos, all grown-up, the promise of what he could be completely eclipsed by what he’d become- harder, calmer, with a solid confidence she felt coming off him with every breath he took. He wasn’t running wild anymore. He wasn’t running dice in the school parking lot or dope on the corner for the Locos. His world had gotten much bigger, whether he was between assignments or not.

“You don’t answer to Duce,” she said, so sure of it. He didn’t look like he answered to anyone who wasn’t at least as mentally strong and physically tough as he was-which she knew for a fact narrowed the field down to a couple of very specific skill sets, law enforcement and the military. He was either a cop or a soldier. It was in his bearing. She’d been picking up on it since her dad’s office, but she hadn’t put her finger on it until now. The businessmen she dealt with didn’t move like he did. They thought tactically, but their tactics revolved around making money, not survival. Lawyers jockeyed for position in court, not on the street. Accountants, like Pete Carlson, the guy whose office was next door to her dad’s in the Faber Building, or even her own accountant back in Seattle, spent their time anticipating the cost-benefit ratio of tax laws, not threats like Dovey Smollett.

Johnny moved like Dax, who would have seen Dovey zeroing in on her in a heartbeat.

“No, I don’t answer to Duce,” he admitted, handing her the other cracker from out of the package.

She took the cracker, but what she noticed was the ink peeking out from under the cuff of his shirt.

“Oh,” she said, surprised, but then quickly remembering. “I’d forgotten about that one.”

She reached out, her fingers making contact with the letter L inscribed on the inside of his wrist. Almost as quickly, she felt the warmth of his skin.

“This was before Dom got killed, wasn’t it?”

It took a moment, but when he answered, it was in the affirmative.

“Yes.”

“Can I see it?”

She glanced up, and after a moment, he silently obliged, unbuttoning his cuff and pushing up his sleeve to reveal the word “LOCOS.” The letters were styled in Old English, all capitals, ornately strung along a knife blade with “XX2ST” and “C/S” written on the hilt, all of it inked into his skin, the tattoo going from his wrist to his elbow.

Oh, yes. She remembered this.

She slowly ran her fingers up the inside of his left arm. “You were fourteen when you had this done,” she said. “We were both in Mr. Hawthorn’s American Literature class that year. I remember asking you if it hurt, and you told me no.”

“I lied.”

“Yeah, I figured as much.” A grin tipped the corner of her mouth. His tattoo was elegant, professionally done, far better than what some of the other boys had put on their bodies. “I thought you were so tough.”

“Still am.”

Her smile broadened. “C slash S,” she said, reading the hilt. “ Con safos, you told me, protected by God, and the XX2ST is for Twenty-second Street.”

“You remembered.” He sounded somewhat surprised.

She remembered everything about him, not that he would know it, and if at all possible, she was going to keep the news flash to herself.

“I think everybody who grew up around here remembers that the Locos started on Twenty-second Street.” His skin was soft, his arm so hard to the touch, the veins running down the length of it a confluence of strength underlying the elaborate design and stylized script of his tattoo.

He’d been marked hard by his heritage.

“Yeah, way back in the day.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Back in the day.”

Silence fell between them again, a silence underscored by the low growling rumble of the car- and anticipation. She felt it descending like a curtain, hot and silky, around them. He’d kissed her, and she wanted him to kiss her again-Esme the Desperate.

Oh, babe. Johnny looked down at the top of her head where she was bent over his arm, her fingers still warm on his skin. She had no idea how beautiful she was; she never had. Being smart, that had always been her personal claim to fame, and she’d completely missed what everybody else understood-that she was gorgeous.

She didn’t know it, but Kevin Harrell hadn’t been the first guy he’d fought for her. A number of young punks had set their sights on her over the years, la rubia, the blonde, starting way back in seventh grade. He didn’t know about the jerks in grade school, but he’d never doubted for a second that there had been a few. Lucky for them, he’d been at St. Catherine’s while Esme had been at Bennington. The playground had been safer for it.

Despite his chosen profession, violence wasn’t ever his first choice for conflict resolution, unless it was armed conflict-then violence came swift and hard. Winning was the only parameter in armed conflict, in combat. But the whole guy thing with girls was so physical it naturally lent itself to physical confrontation. Guys always wanted to get in a girl’s pants, and other guys knew this, and that’s why they got so pissed off. So when a thirteen-yearold cholo at Campbell Junior High had started talking like he’d had her in the band room, Johnny had called him out. It hadn’t taken more than a little half-assed scuffling to solve the problem, but a pattern had been set.

There was more than one reason she hadn’t had a date in high school. Most of it had been her reluctance, and her shyness, and her holier-bettersmarter-than-you attitude, and the rest of it had been him. He’d traveled the world with the U.S. Army, but from the first moment he’d laid eyes on her, in Ms. Trent’s class, his reaction had been pure barrio boy, and he’d never outgrown it, not where she was concerned.

Esme Alexandria Alden, the Unattainable One- when he’d left her in the car in the alley at Duce’s, he’d made it clear to the Arañas not to touch her. Next time he would be adding “Don’t breathe on her.” Those cholos had been breathing all over her by the time he’d gotten back to the Cyclone.

Yeah, he knew exactly why he’d followed her into the Oxford. He knew exactly what he wanted.

And now here she was, so damn close he could smell her, and not just the honeysuckle and summer garden scent of her perfume. He could smell her -the underlying female scent of warm skin and soft breath, of the back of her neck and the lace of her lingerie, a push-up bra and panties curved around just about everything he wanted to get his mouth on.