4

He shouldn’t resist. Why should he? He’d felt used and abandoned when she’d betrayed him. Now he would return the favor. Do a little digging about Chris and then move on. She’d go back to Boston.

With a large gulp he finished off the last little bit of Scotch. Direct from the bottle. The glass he held was not needed. The room-temperature liquid burned his throat as he swallowed. Erica’s lips touched that absurdly sensitive spot on his neck again. His body reacted as if not one moment had passed. He channeled his thoughts in on that so his head played no part in his existence for a moment. How far would she really go with this?

He opened his eyes and found her watching him, that jewel-green gaze as piercing as always, her expression questioning. Her nails barely scraped just under the edge of his waistband. He didn’t have to look down. He could visualize all of it. Her ivory fingers against his darker skin.

What he wanted was … her. Her to be in Boston where she belonged. Out of his life.

“Please.” She was pressed against him from chest to ankle. The word was a breath on his neck, her body a temptation. Femme fatale.

His body was overusing blood flow at the moment. His brain moved slow. She knew how to take him right to the edge even with only her touch. She always had. But he was an easy read, like a billboard.

“Erica …” He knew it sounded desperate. He dug his back into the cold metal edge of the cabinets to hold himself upright and looked down at her. As much as he deserved a down-and-dirty grudge fuck …

“No deal.”

With more of a groan than he intended, he pulled away from her. Took a breath. She fell back into the chair. Her eyes were about to fill with tears again. Maybe he was an ass. But their past … his pain was not fixable with a little tickle and squeeze.

Annie got up, stretched, and resituated on his desk. She was looking down her kitty nose at him. Rarely did she approve of his morals. Tonight was no different. He’d left Erica hanging. Served her right.

She’d walked away when he needed her most. Left him to hang. When he pawned the ring he’d bought for her, he’d been glad he’d never proposed. She strung him along for two years.

Her shirt was unbuttoned, her head cut. She looked at the ground. “Let me embarrass myself before stopping that, huh? A little payback? You enjoy it?”

He hadn’t really. Hadn’t intended it.

She sniffed and wiped her nose on her sleeve. “I don’t care. I’ll beg. No time for pride. I need you. Chris needs you.”

He felt a wave of shame. He had momentarily enjoyed her humiliation. In the end, Jim was not that guy. “There’s a restroom.” He tilted his head toward the hall that led to the rest of the townhouse house. “Go clean up.”

She nodded, her face still beet red as she put herself together.

But then there was Chris. Could he tolerate Erica for a day or so until he found out why Chris had disappeared? He needed the cash. Bad. He wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead with a napkin from an old Burger King bag. He tossed the whole mess in his trashcan and plopped to his chair. His space. His life. His crappy office.

The office was really a converted one-bay garage attached to a shitty little townhouse in a shitty little neighborhood. It was the unit on the end of a row. The end where the traffic came and went. Not the end by the pool or the playground. He didn’t care about the pool or the playground. He was usually the traffic, coming and going at odd hours. His was the corner lot. Faced two streets and an alley behind. Room for all four of his cars parked on the road and the bike in the alley behind. No one complained.

The fuzzy black cat was up on the cabinet now, sniffing around his empty Scotch bottle. “I believe you are absolutely correct, Ms. Annie.” He opened his top right drawer and pulled out a new bottle. He cracked the seal and poured another half glass. “I’ll have another.”

Annie tilted her head and one eye closed as she scrutinized him. Her irritated expression gave Jim the impression she disapproved of his sound reasoning. “I can spend a few days giving her hell and then send her packing. We need the money. Don’t give me that look. Meow Chow ain’t free.”

The cat shook her head and turned tail to wander off toward the front of the house. In the same direction Erica had headed. He took a big ol’ swallow. Yep. If he kept this all business and made sure she didn’t trample his heart again, this might be a profitable few days after all.