The Perfect Husband - Lisa Gardner [85]
“You really don’t know anything, do you?” he whispered thickly.
“No,” she confessed. “No.”
“You’re too late,” he muttered. “You’re too late.”
“I know, I know.”
His finger slid deeper, penetrating, stretching, seeking. His palm pressed against her, rubbing rhythmically, giving her a tempo she instinctively understood.
She felt the mysteries press against her. She closed her eyes and saw unspeakable colors building behind her lids.
“J.T.” she groaned. “J.T.”
“Open your eyes. Look at me. I want to see it. I want to see everything.”
Her eyes cracked open, glazed and vulnerable. His finger moved faster and faster. There was no tenderness, just raw, primitive need.
She bit her lip.
And he whispered hoarsely, “Now.”
She climaxed, screaming and shuddering and melting from the inside out.
She was barely aware of being dragged to the floor. He tore off their clothes, then he was on her, his hands impatiently parting her legs. He rubbed against her, one last second of tantalizing pressure, then he whispered, “Hold on to me, Tess. This is gonna be rough.”
He thrust inside her, and she was filled. She was annihilated.
She grabbed his shoulders and hung on for dear life.
He pulled back, his arms trembling with the strain. He flirted with her again, rubbing against her, making her squirm. Her legs wrapped around him tightly, and she stopped simply receiving, instead arching to meet each demanding blow.
The climax slammed into them both, screeching through their blood for a long, suspended moment when they could not breathe, could not move, could not feel even the pounding of their pulse.
He pulled away abruptly, the way she knew he would. He rose quickly, as she’d expected. He looked down at her, his face an unreadable mask.
“You don’t have to say anything,” she told him. She felt bruised and battered, used and abused. And unbelievably satiated. Wise with the power of the mysteries and sense of her own self.
He strode away from her, already heading for the pool.
“I guess I don’t have to ask if it was good for you,” she called out proudly.
He paused, his hand on the sliding glass door. “Did I hurt you?”
“No.”
“I was rough.”
“I wasn’t complaining.”
“Maybe you should have.”
“Already blaming yourself, J.T.? Adding me to the long list of things you beat yourself over the head with late at night? I know you better than you think. I believe in you more than you do. So don’t bother hating yourself for showing me the wonders of animal sex. Really, I accept full responsibility for my actions.”
“Tess—”
“J.T., if you apologize now, I’ll never forgive you.”
He stiffened. “Fine.” He walked out the sliding glass door and jumped into his pool.
“Remember, Tess,” she whispered to herself, “you are strong. You are very, very strong.”
IT WAS A seedy place. Beat-up old trucks and battered blue Chevrolets dotted the parking lot. There might have been painted yellow lines once, but now they were obscured by dust and tumbleweeds. Removed from the nicely paved streets of central Nogales and the all-American McDonald’s, the bar sat back in the desert, framed by a distant hill covered with run-down shanties. No smooth adobe walls or cheery red roof. This was wood, gray, beaten wood haphazardly stuck together with gnarled nails and sheer determination. Rusted tin formed a brown-spotted roof. When it rained, the place sounded like a bongo drum.
Now faint sounds of salsa leapt from the cracks, as if even the music was desperate to escape the dreariness. Smoke wafted out, ghostly tendrils curling up to the sky.
A flickering red neon sign pronounced the joint MANNY’S. Just Manny’s.
Tired. Dusty. Forgotten.
Marion thought it was perfect.
Her sleek blue rental car looked out of place, but then, so did she. She pushed open the door without apology, entering the joint like the proverbial new gun in town. The music didn’t stop for her, but the patrons did. Two men to her left, hunched over a threadbare pool table, looked up from their game. Behind the bar, a short, bald man in a sleeveless denim