“I pennied us in.”
“Excuse me?”
“Didn’t you do that in college? Tons of fun. You stick a penny in the door crack and it won’t open.”
She was touched. “That was thoughtful. Thank you.”
They didn’t say anything for a minute. This is so awkward.
“Now I’m having performance anxiety,” she said.
“You can’t expect me to do all the work here. You’re the one who insists—”
“I know, I know!”
“I’d seduce you in a New York minute, if it was my idea.”
“Well, it wasn’t my idea to go to your room two nights ago!” she burst out and then bit her lip. “I mean,” she said more quietly, “it wasn’t. I was so drunk I couldn’t think straight.” She considered saying, And I thought you were taking me to my room, but decided it wasn’t true.
He said, “Okay, you’re right, I made a mistake there. I had this foolish plan to, I dunno, break the ice between us. Get you to loosen up a little.”
“I do not need to get any looser,” she stated.
He looked at her and she turned her head warily to meet his eyes. In a gentle tone he said, “You can get tense on the job.”
“That’s because it’s a job, not a con or a game or a—”
He said hastily, “But I saw how wrong I was when you explained it. So I want to stay your partner.”
He didn’t say any more. She digested this. He’s not pushing for sex. He wants to stick with me.
That felt weird. Weird, but good.
“Is that why you’re... not helping me here?”
“I’ll help you. I want to help you.” He said with quiet sincerity, “I just don’t want to wreck our working relationship.”
She drew a deep, shaky breath. “Okay. Here’s the thing. Once you can tell Randy’s starting to, um, manifest, would you be willing to go outside and wait til we’re done? He’s not, like, solid, like, fully in this world, until I, um. But maybe you can tell before, um. Because you don’t like when he’s between us, anyway, right?”
“Sure. I wouldn’t want to be in the way,” he said in a saintly boy-next-door voice.
She squeezed his hand. “Thanks, buddy.”
Then he smiled.
“You booger! You are so yanking on me!” She dove at him and stuck wriggling fingers into his armpits.
He squirmed and ducked his head. “Hey! Quit!” He tried to cover his armpits with his hands.
“You’re conning me and yanking on me and messing with my head!” When he tried to turn on his belly she threw a leg over him and pinned him between her thighs, going for his stomach, his sides, and the backs of his ears.
“I’m very ticklish! Help! Help, I’m being assaulted!”
“Shut up, do you want to get caught?” she said, laughing.
“Help!”
His belly was all muscle, which made it a lot easier to tickle him, and she threw herself down on him and stopped his mouth with hers. Those big poochy lips met her halfway. He stopped protecting his armpits and put his hands on either side of her face, so tenderly that she forgot to tickle him, and she thought, Okay, I can do this, and then he made a little happy sound in his throat. She settled over him so the banana in his pocket made contact at the right spot between her legs and then his kiss opened up and she forgot about other things.
She wondered if he was getting off on this the way she was.
I don’t want to figure you out, she thought, I want to get you hothothot. If she could peel away his fake humility and his fake boy-next-door innocence — she popped the fly of his khakis and he pulled the red silk tee over her shoulders — if she could make him be real for just twenty minutes — she tossed away the top and then wriggled as he tickled her under the elbows and went for her bra.
She took her mouth off his to say, “In front.”
“Ah.” Their eyes met as he worked the front clasp on her bra and she realized with a start that she didn’t have any pictures in her head at all.
All she saw was a humble, innocent boy next door. Huh. Was that the secret to being a great con artist? Be yourself?
That, and lie a lot.
He got her torso naked and she pulled off his khakis. She kicked her twisted panties and jeans down to her ankles. Then she snuggled down against him, still breathing hard. He patted her back. Her heartbeat slowed to a hard, hot thump. Thump. Thump. Cuddling. Why have I never tried that?
“You’re being too nice,” she murmured. “I think I’ve been ruined for nice men.”
“Bet?” He kissed her forehead and her eyes closed. She moved against his smooth skin, enjoying his warmth and the uncomplicated way his big hands kneaded her buns, stroked up and down her back, squeezed her buns, and stroked back up again, as if he too loved the feel of acres of skin on skin.
Honestly, she wouldn’t mind if he speeded up a little.
“Didn’t you have something for me?” She bumped her pubic bone against his woodie, smiling at the way he squeezed her all over when they hit.
“No rush.” He slid his hand up her side, warmly cupped her nipple, then cradled the side of her face. The look in his eyes made her breath catch.
I can’t be feeling this, she thought in rising panic. I don’t know you. You’re a crook. You’re not my type. You—
He kissed her and she shut her eyes against her own thoughts, clasping her thighs around him, willing him to enter so that she could stop feeling so close. One of Randy’s favorite questions came to her: Are you afraid because you are aroused, or aroused because you are afraid? Caught in the paradox, she let Clay kiss her, kissed him back, My God, I’m kissing him back, like, duh, why was this scarier than the fifty-seven crazy things she’d done with Randy and fifty-seven guys before him?
But it was. And he kept doing it over and over, the kiss that made her hothothot, letting her squeeze tight against him but never squeezing too tightly in return, the skin-on-skin marathon of their hands all over each other, then the pullback and that look in his eyes, until she couldn’t take any more and had to kiss him, so she could shut her eyes and not see it, not feel the rise of something bigger than fear inside her. Her heart heated up in her chest. I know you.
What a lie!
But panic couldn’t talk louder than the things he made her feel.
She struggled for self-control. So this is what being conned in bed is like. The haze was too pleasant, too confusing. She knew she was being conned. Her breath came short. She could let it happen, go along for the ride the way she did with every other man. Appreciate it.
So she appreciated it, wallowing in the slow kisses, marvelling at their power, as wild as doing it under a restaurant tablecloth, as potent as sex with a firebreathing dragon. Her lips swelled and grew so sensitive that she felt the pressure of his lips like a hot, firm thumb on her trigger, how did he do that? Was she going to come from kissing? Her whole body throbbed. For some reason she could barely breathe.
And then he pulled away and looked into her eyes again and she forgot to be afraid. Her heart thudded in her ears. She forgot her name.
“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing.” Her breath began to come in long, slow, deep pulls, and she knew she was one inch away from orgasm.
To her relief, he glanced at her mouth. “Thank goodness. I was hoping one of us did,” and leaned in for another kiss as she started to laugh.
Technically, she came one half-second before their lips met. She forgot to shut her eyes. This close, his eyes were wild and white-rimmed as a panicking horse’s and, at the thought that he too was scared, the throbbing spasm in her hoochiesnatchie bounded ahead, faster, harder, making her breathless, shutting down her brain. She waited it out, thinking, I’m fine, this is okay, I’ll breathe again later, but when he pulled back for another look, another kiss, she shut her eyes and turned her head away, trembling, sucking air in great heaves. To her horror, she felt a tear leak out of one eye.
They held each other in silence.
She said, “Can we fuck now? I need to clear my head.”
“Well, sure,” he said, sounding as calm as ever, which had to be a lie. She’d seen the panic in his eyes. She couldn’t look again.
She heard foil rustle. A moment later he was sliding into her, and she hooked her chin over his shoulder so he wouldn’t see the tear, and they banged and banged and banged.
And that was good, too.
Some time later, Clay rolled his head on her bare shoulder and said, “I think he’s embarrassed.”
“Your dick? Whatever for?”
“Randy,” Clay said.
“Ohmigod. What time is it?” She glanced at her wristwatch. “I have to see if Nina sent me a swimsuit before this beach picnic thing. To hell with Randy.” She pushed him off her and sat up. “I think he’s not here at all. No way could we have got away with all that and not a peep out of him.”
Clay stretched. “Plan B then.”
“What’s plan B? Do this on every bed in the house?” She hunted around the bed for her clothes. This would not be a good place to leave anything behind. “I don’t think so.”
“We could get that tracking unit from Ed and see where the anklet is.”
She dropped her bra on the floor in surprise. “Duh!”
“Ah, officer. I can see why you were celibate for six months. Sex clouds your mind.”
“Who told you I’d been celibate for six months?”
“Your best friend, Nina.”
“I’ll kill her. Where’s my goddam bra?”
“Think I’ll keep these,” he said. “In memory of a special occasion.”
Standing up with her bra in her hand, she saw Clay with a pair of Sovay’s underpants on his head. She burst out laughing.
The door opened.
Sovay stood in the doorway, both hands full of shopping bags, her mouth ajar.
Naked Jewel and naked Clay stared back at her.
“Oops,” Clay said.
Sovay’s jaw flapped as if she couldn’t get words out. Then she backed up a step and slammed the door.
Scrambling into her jeans, Jewel said through her teeth, “I thought you pennied us in.”
“I thought it would relax you to think we were pennied in,” he said. “I’m sorry. You were so tense. It seemed like the decent thing to relieve your mind of at least some of your wor—”
She socked him on the arm with one hand, pulled up her jeans with the other hand, and stuffed her feet into her pumps. “Did I bring a purse in here?”
“No.”
“Are you sure, or are you saying that to make me feel better?” She snagged his arm as he was reaching for the bedroom door. “Wait a minute—” She yanked him close so she could hiss in his ear. “What did you steal while I had a pillow over my head?”
He widened his eyes at her and pooched his lips out. “Not a thing.”
“If you stole anything, that’s a green sheet in your file. I’m not kidding about this.”
Rustling came from the other side of the door. Sovay, waiting.
Jewel said, “This screws our cover, you realize.”
Clay shrugged. “So we change it. Now that your green tones are through the roof, you can’t resist sexualis imaginarium, so we’re having a little fling. It wasn’t your fault.”
“That’s lame, but we’re stuck with it.” Jewel sent her eyes around the room. “I wish there was another exit.”
“Why? She knows we’re in here.”
“I can’t stand walking past that bitch. She’ll needle me about this for ever.”
“Leave it to me. I’ve got a story cooked up already.”
“Of course you do,” she muttered, and let him open the door.
Jewel bolted past svelte, perfumed, lovely, seething Sovay, not fast enough that she didn’t hear Clay say, “Sorry about that. I’ve been trying to get into her pants since she got here. I found out she has a fetish for other people’s beds.” He winked and aimed a pistol-forefinger at Sovay. “I’ll make it up to you.”
Over her shoulder, fumbling at her own bedroom door across the hall, Jewel hissed, “Green sheet!”