Longshot

It doesn’t take us long to find a semi-respectable hotel and secure a room It doesn’t take us long to find a semi-respectable hotel and secure a room. I lock the door behind us and turn to find her barefoot, pulling her shirt over her head. I flash on Vince two days before, when he did the same thing, with the same objective in mind. She’s not wearing a bra, and her breasts are perfect. They fill my hands without vanishing under my palms, nipples and areolas the palest rose. I run my thumbs over them, feeling them tighten, then bend my head to suckle each of them, feeling them harden further as the wetness chills delicate flesh. It’s been months since I’ve fucked a woman, and I’m pleasantly surprised at how much I want this one. The subtle female taste of her nipples is noticeably different than Vinnie’s, and I decide to make a detailed comparison. I concentrate on her breasts and mouth while she unbuttons my shirt and unfastens my jeans, sliding her hands down inside over my ass. I do the same to her, relishing the sensual slipperiness of her silk underwear under my hands. I push her jeans down her long legs, crouching in front of her and nuzzling her belly as she catches hold of my shoulders and steps out of the pants. I move my head lower, towards the source of the spicy muskiness of her scent mixed with the faintest of perfumes that wafts into my nose. The heat between her thighs is sending the subtle scent weaving through my senses, intoxicating, intensely erotic. I definitely like girls. I particularly like this one. I can feel the crisply springy curls of her pubic hair through her panties, and I run my tongue over the fabric covering her labia. Her own arousal has soaked the material, and the taste of her is lemony, slightly salty, completely delectable. I feel her fingers thread through my hair, cradling my skull, and I hear her moan as I slide my fingers under the edge of the panties and into her. She’s dripping wet, slick, ready for me, eager. "God, Roger," she sighs. I pull my fingers out of her and glance up at her as I put them into my mouth, sucking them clean, savoring the taste of her. She laughs down at me silently, breasts bobbing enticingly with her amusement. I relieve her of the panties and bury my nose in the dark copper of her damp pubic hair, waxed into the narrow tell-tail triangle that tells me she wears a bikini. I knew she was a real redhead… I love oral sex. There’s an immediacy about it, a total involvement with a partner. You can sense every change of mood, readiness and pleasure. Women definitely taste different than men, delicately scented and flavored, exotic, while men are potent, pungent. It’s a little like the difference between tea and coffee. Tess is like jasmine tea, floral, smoothly acidic, exquisite in both bouquet and taste, and I linger between her thighs doing things that have her quaking, moaning, sweating, begging me for release. I back off again, determined to make sure she’s completely convinced of my experience as a lover of women, and slowly rise to a standing position in front of her, tasting the rest of her along the way, finally taking possession of her mouth again to let her taste herself. Her tongue flirts along mine and I take her full lower lip between my teeth gently, letting her feel the edge in me that’s never far away. It’s one of the things Vince and I have both discovered we like, the slight intimation of danger, the hint that pain and pleasure aren’t unrelated, the little rush of adrenaline that heightens sensation. Tess is apparently one of us. She nips me back just hard enough to make the point and I feel her hands inside my jockey shorts, warm around me. Now she slides along my chest, her breastsshinshing against me all the way down, and then takes off my jeans and underwear simultaneously. Her mouth on me is volcanic, her tongue and teeth demonic, and she has me at her mercy in minutes. Like Vince, she’s into prolonging things as much as possible, bringing me to the edge then pulling me back, only to lead me up to it n. n. And again. Until both of us are beyond waiting any longer. I pick her up and drop her on the bed, falling onto it beside her, pinning her legs with one of my own as I latch onto her breast again. She strokes my hair gently, running a fingertip along the edge of my ear as she opens her legs to me. I accept the invitation without bothering to remember to use the condoms I carry with me. I got out of the habit of using them with Vince, who tested clean in the hospital before they released him into my custody, and who has kind of a thing about them. As I move into her, I’m struck by the flash of recollection, the feel of a woman’s body around me, her juices and mine mingling in that primal biological dance. It’s incredibly sensual. We make love as slowly as we can, until we’re both at a fever pitch, and as her hands sweep down my back to my buttocks, she urges me deeper in, her body moving to meet me as she arches her spine, her head back, keening her pleasure with a trill like a mocking bird. She comes like an atomic explosion, and her orgasm triggers mine, pumping into her heat, quenching the fire in us both. I stay where I am, held by her legs wrapping around me, her ankles crossed over the backs of my thighs, feeling her caress over my buttocks as I soften within her. I go back to playing with her breasts, sucking on her still-hard nipples, teasing them with teeth and tongue. I feel her lips against my forehead, her hands stroking along my back. We lie there like that for a long time, feeling each other’s heartbeats as they slow to normal. I like facing my partner when I’m having sex, and it’s one of the things I consider a drawback when I’m with Vince. I want to see into their eyes, know that the universe has narrowed to just the two of us, that the earth has moved for them. Call it egocentric. But Vinnie’s eyes are like doorways into his soul; a blue so pure it could have been stolen from a summer evening. Looking into them at moments like that is like swimming in the heavens. Or maybe flying. Tess’s are emerald, flecked with amber, and right now, her pupils are dilated, the expression in them dreamy, like she’s still light years from the mundane world in whatever place it is she goes. "Mmmm," she sighs and focuses on me again. "God, it’s been a long time." "Since what?" I ask her, kissing her lightly. "Since I’ve been laid, smart-guy," she retorts, smiling against my mouth. This surprises me, and I draw back to look at her. "Not through lack of male interest," I deny. She laughs. "No, just my own lack of interest in the choices available," she tells me. "Are you trying to stroke my ego?" I ask, suppressing a smile. "If it gets me some more of whatever that was, I’ll stroke a lot more than your ego, lover boy." She eyes me with that same flare of sarcasm I saw earlier, and it unsettles me, making me wonder what I’ve gotten myself into, here. Is she a world class tease, or is she serious? She can tell I’m wondering, and the sarcasm lingers a moment longer before she smiles, dispelling both the attitude and the tremors in my fragile male ego. "We’ll see what we can do," I say. "What about your flight?" she asks, and I realize she was assuming this was going to be a quickie, hence the sarcasm. Well, hell, that’s what I assumed, too, but all work and no play makes Roger Lococco a very dull boy. And I definitely want some more of ‘whatever that was’. "There’s always another one," I tell her, cocking an eyebrow. She begins to laugh as her hands slip over my back. "Maybe I’ll make that the philosophy of my life," she says, then kisses me. We spend the next several hours making love, and I can’t help wishing Vince was here to share this little redheaded treasure with me. He’d’ve liked her. A lot. I wonder if she’d be open to the idea of a threesome as I hold her against my chest, her back to me, buried to the balls in her dripping cunt while I play her with the lightest of touches, alternating between the satin skin of the inside of her thighs and the taut little nub of her clitoris, making occasional forays over her belly and breasts for the sake of variation. I bring her to orgasm four or five times in rapid succession before my own release takes on an undeniable urgency, and I decide to press my luck and take her in the ass, pulling out of her and urging her onto all fours, then positioning myself. I hear her little gasp of surprise, then feel her press back against my thighs, allowing me in. I’m so slick with her juices that penetration is relatively easy. The fact that she’s willing, maybe even eager, and that I’m moving as slowly as I can to minimize the discomfort helps, too, and when I’m as deep as I can get, I reach forward between her thighs with one hand while I hold her around the waist with my other arm, and I begin to move. This time, there’s nothing gentle about it, and I focus on my own satisfaction, her tiny whimpers of pleasure as I stroke her assuring me that I’m not alone on this particular ride. We come together, a shuddering, heaving convulsion of pelvic muscles that feed each other’s orgasms before reaction kicks in and we collapse back on the mattress, breathless and sweaty. "Where have you been all my life?" she asks as she stretches, lithe as any cat, and guides one of my hands back to her breast. "I could spend the rest of my life in bed with you." I laugh silently into her thick silky hair, smelling the subtle fragrance of her shampoo mingled with that indefinable essence of her own. I have to admit, the idea has a certain appeal. "I wish you’d met Vinnie before he left," I say. She turns her head to look at me over her shoulder, one eyebrow arched. "He’s your friend? The one Davey was talking about?" she asks. "Yeah. Vince Terranova. You’d have liked him. And I can guarantee he’d have liked you." She pulls free of me, rolling onto her side to face me, and props her elbow on the bed, resting her head in her hand as she smiles down at me faintly, very obviously not missing the implication. "So you share everything with him?" she asks, curiously. I spend a few seconds thinking about how I want to answer that, knowing that saying yes is going to open a can of worms that still makes me squeamish when I think about it in company other than Vinnie’s. Having a male lover is not part of my self image, and it’s definitely not part of the image I cultivate in the eyes of others. I wonder what McPike would say, or what he did said, if Vince let him in on the little change in our relationship. I wonder if Frank has been down that road himself, maybe with Vince? Now I’m just rubbing salt in the wounds of Vinnie’s desertion, postulating a liaison with McPike. But it’s occurred to me as a possibility before, and maybe I’ll ask Vince about it some day. Meanwhile, Tess is waiting patiently for an answer, and the length of the silence is probably telling her more than a response would have. So I wade in with both feet, hoping — shit, I don’t know — that someday honesty now may see the three of us in the same bed. It’d be a hellova lot of fun. "Yeah, when he’ll let me," I say after a considerable pause. "When he’ll let you?" she repeats, confused. "We’re having an ongoing disagreement on how I should dispose of my ill-gotten gains. I want to split it with him, he doesn’t think money is important." In for a penny, in for a pound, I figure. She’s intrigued, now. "What does he think is important?" she wants to know. A good question, and one I’m still working on pinning down. But there’s one safe answer, and a true one. "Family," I say. "I don’t see that those two things are necessarily at odds," Tess comments, interested in the direction the conversation has turned. I don’t either, but Vince has an idiosyncratic take on honor that makes him resistant to the notion of accepting help, or in this case, half of a good-sized fortune. The money I did get him to accept, he used in a vain attempt at altruism by giving it to McPike to fund his wife’s liver transplant. Oh, the transplant worked, alright, but she left Frank as soon as she got out of the hospital. I think they finally got the divorce finalized just before Vince disappeared into the jungles of El Salvador. "In my opinion, they aren’t," I agree. "He knows I consider him all the family I’ve got, so what the hell is the problem?" The topic is pushing my buttons, and I roll onto my back to stare up at the ceiling of our rented love nest. No mirr tha thank god, not that I don’t like watching, but there are limits. "So how does he feel about you?" she asks quietly. That is the big question. And the truth is, I don’t exactly know. Not all of it, anyway. And I’m realizing the answer to that question is beginning to take on considerable significance, at least to me. "Good question," I say, more than a little sharply. "He didn’t exactly take off under the best of circumstances," I admit. She hesitates before she asks the next question. The one I’ve been dreading. "Are you sleeping with him?" she wants to know. "Yes," I tell her flatly. "It just kind of… happened. I saved his life a few months ago, and maybe it was his way of saying ‘thanks’," I say sarcastically. She thinks about it for a few minutes. "You don’t strike me as the type," she says at last. I can’t help the ironic laugh. "I’m not," I say. "It came as a major surprise to me to fall for him the way I have." She eyes me, considering this. "Was it his idea or yours? To sleep together, I mean." "That depends on your take on things," I answer. "He made the first move, but it wasn’t like the thought hadn’t occurred to me. I was pretty sure it was something I wanted, paradigm-changing though it was." She ignores the sarcasm, recognizing it for what it is; vulnerability and the associated fear. She runs a palm over my chest softly, as if she’s stroking a pet. "You love him?" she asks, then laughs at herself. "Of course you do, or you wouldn’t want him… sexually, I mean." Her expression is contemplative, focused inward on her own thoughts as she mulls over the whole discussion. After a while, she continues. "So why did he leave you?" "He didn’t leave me," I snap, stung by the same criticism I’ve leveled at Vince in the privacy of my own thoughts. It’s a whole different proposition to hear them voiced. By someone else. "His mother is in the hospital with some kind of chronic heart condition. He went home to see her." "Ahh," she murmurs, "the family thing again. Why didn’t you go with him to wherever it is?" "New York," I say shortly. "Because I can’t stand his mother. And I’m reasonably sure the feeling is mutual. She considers me a bad influence on her perfect son. And she may very well be right." The bitterness in my voice catches me by surprise, and her, too. "What about him?" she asks gently. "What about him? He’s not a bad influence on me, he’s perfect," I say with heavy irony. "That’s not what I meant, Roger," she says. "Does he think she’s right? What sort of influence does he think you are on him?" I turn my head to stare at her, not knowing the answer to that question, and realizing I should. "What sort of influence is he on you?" she wants to know. That one’s easy. "He gave me back something I didn’t even know I’d lost," I say quietly, looking back up at the ceiling again. The long silence prompts her to press me. "And what was that?" she asks. "My honor." I go quiet for a second, then rephrase. "No, make that my humanity, my soul. Honor is only a facet of a whole spectrum of things I lost somewhere along the way. And Vince forced me to face that. We’re… like reflections in a mirror, sweet thing. He’s the light, I’m the dark. Only, a little of his light’s rubbed off on me, like it or not. Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth it. A bullet to the head would have been a lot less painful." The bleakness in my tone troubles her, and she brushes the side of her forefinger along my jaw delicately. "And a lot less fun," she reminds me. "Is loving him really so scary you’d rather be dead?" I stare at her in silence as the words penetrate. Something in my chest aches, and my eyes blur. I blink rapidly to clear my vision. It takes a second to figure out what it is I’m feeling. Despair. Yes, I’d rather be dead than lose him, or realize he doesn’t need me in his life the way I need him, want him in mine. Permanently. Intimately. Inextricably. Jesus Christ, I really am in love. It’s a new one on me, and right now, it hurts like hell. "Losing him is," I say. "Have you told him that?" she prods. "Thin
n’t exactly a ‘guy’ kind of conversation," I laugh, the sound strangled. She scowls at me. "It the sort of conversation two people who love each other should be able to have, Roger, whoever they are. It’s not about ‘guy-ness’, or ‘girl-ness’, or ‘gay-ness, or ‘straight-ness’. It’s about love. And you are definitely in love, in case you hadn’t noticed." I have. Believe me, I have. But I hadn’t realized it was written all over me in letters ten feet high. I’m startled when she lies back down beside me, an arm across my waist, stroking my hair with her other hand. It’s oddly comforting in a platonic sort of way, and the warmth of her against my side eases some of the dull pain in my chest. I fall asleep with her holding me, something I’ve only done with two other people in my adult life. When I wake at dawn, Tess MacTavish is gone. I lie there wondering where the hell she went, and it takes me close to an hour to realize who she is, and why she went to bed with me the night before. My pulse skyrockets as I grope for the phone and start calling every number I have memorized for Vince. I leave messages for him at the little house he ‘inherited’ from his mother when she married the Godfather, then leave one for McPike and the Lifeguard. I wrack my brain to try and recall the name of the hospital his mother is at, failing as something like panic buzzes through my skull, making it hard to think. I get hold of my local pilot and tell him to meet me at the Lear in an hour for a trip to New York, then grab a shower in world record time and try to wrap my brain around the fact that Tess didn’t kill me last night while she had the chance. Frank catches me as I’m about to leave the hotel, and I take the call, trying not to let my apprehension show in my voice. "What the hell is going on?" McPike demands irritably, the equivalent of a good mood, for him. A shame I’m going to have to spoil his day. "I’m reasonably sure a CIA agent named Tess MacTavish is on her way to New York right now to kill Vince," I announce grimly. "If she’s not Company, then she’s freelance, and either way, she’s probably gunning for Vinnie." "Why?! Jesus Christ, Lococco, what the hell did you get him involved in?" Why he immediately assumes this is my fault escapes me, but it pisses me off, which helps counter the adrenaline levels some. "You want the whole list? It could be unfinished business with General Masters, or it could have to do with the Salvadoran thing he was mixed up in. I mean, they’ve already tried to eliminate him!" I retort sharply. "And that’s not even counting any of his mob connections that might have found a reason for icing him with that stupid eulogy of yours blowing his cover wide open." I’m starting to build up a head of steam, and it’s a good thing McPike is almost a tand and miles away, or I’d be inclined to reach down his throat and pull out his spleen. The silence on his end is thunderous, and I can almost feel him struggling to get a grip on that Irish temper of his. Despite the last name, my own ancestry is primarily Irish, so I share that trait with him. Both of us work on it for a minute, then he goes on. "What makes you so sure this MacTavish woman is an assassin?" he asks grimly. "Trust me, Frank. I recognize muscle when I see it." Even if I don’t always spot it right away. Particularly not when it comes in as appealing a package as Tess. "Run the name through your computers and see what you come up with, but I’m betting you won’t find her, not unless you look under a lot of rocks. The physical description may help, or at least give you and Vince some idea what you’re looking for until I can get there -" "If she’s after Vince, she’s probably after you, too. Just stay the hell out of the way and let me handle this," Frank interrupts. Like hell. "You don’t know what you’re dealing with, here, Frank," I snap. "Now do you want a description, or don’t you?" I take the silence as an affirmative and continue. "She’s about five seven, maybe five eight, red hair, green eyes, all hers, not the cosmetic industry’s. Double pierce in the left ear -" like mine "- small tattoo on her right hip. Slender build, in great shape." "How do you know she has a fucking tattoo?" Frank demands. "I thought she was trying to kill you, not sleep with you!" "Yeah, well, she kind of forgot the killing part after we tangled between the sheets," I snarl, beyond caring what he makes of that little tidbit. "Make that ‘tangoed’," I correct myself, then slam the receiver down and roar out of the hotel lobby to catch the first cab I see to the airport. *** Frank meets me at a west Long Island municipal airfield and drives me into Brooklyn toward the hospital Vince’s mother is currently terrorizing, the frigid silence suiting my mood perfectly. I use the twenty minutes it takes to look over the file Frank’s put together on Tess. Make that Theresa. Theresa MacTavish, thirty four, graduated in the top three percent of her class out of Stanford with a degree in political theory and economics and a minor in diplomacy. Held a high-profile job as an analyst for a Wall Street investment firm, until she disappeared off the maps at the age of twenty six. The information from that point on is sketchy, and none of it confirms her employment in the CIA, but it is plenty suggestive. I glance at McPike, whose attention is divided between me and the traffic he’s plowing through. "This it?" I ask. "So far," he agrees shortly. "If your girlfriend is a spook, she’s in deep. Maybe as deep as you were." "She’d hto bto be, if she’s cleared to execute sanctioned targets," I reply coldly. He’s quiet for another mile or so. "Did you really sleep with her?" he asks at last. This time he’s the one who takes the silence as an affirmative. "Why didn’t she kill you when she had the opportunity?" "That is the sixty four thousand dollar question," I admit starkly, unable to come up with an answer that’s even remotely plausible. I’ve been asking myself the same thing all day, my mind running around and around that single question like a greyhound on a track, following some tantalizingly out of reach quarry. I may be conceited, but even I am not vain enough to assume I was good enough in bed to make her think twice about her assignment. The best possibility is that she slept with me to get an idea where she could find Vince. What her agenda was beyond that, I’m not sure. Maybe he’s her only target. Maybe she figured I was so sloppy she could swing back and take me out any time she wanted. Or maybe… Maybe this was all about me leading her straight to Vinnie. I swear under my breath, furious that panic propelled me into action before all the ramifications of the situation had sorted themselves out. "Shit," I say aloud, and Frank turns his head to glance at me, frowning. "What?" he wants to know. "Shit. Shit. Shit." I stare out the windshield of the nondescript government issue sedan we’re in and try to put the pieces together. "She played me. One way or the other, she played me like a violin," I say bitterly. "Yeah, well that’s plenty obvious, Einstein," Frank responds, his endearingly scathing wit out and ready to be sharpened on my hide. "So what is it? What’s bugging you?" "Have you been checking for tails?" I demand. McPike glares at me. "I’ve been doing this a long time, Roger," he growls. "I don’t need you to explain how to do the job." "So what if our little redheaded trigger woman is out there, waiting to see which direction I run? Hoping I’ll lead her straight to Vince?" I’m gratified to see the color fade from his face. "Shit." My sentiments exactly. "It’s the easiest way for her to acquire him," I say. "It’s also one of the oldest tricks in the book: if you’re looking for something someone else doesn’t want you to find, the fastest way to do it is to convince them you already know where it is. When they go running off to make sure it’s where they left it, you tag along and help yourself." I don’t tell him I gave her the general directioreadready, me and my big mouth. That’s not the only thing that makes me cringe, inwardly, either. The idea of the CIA discovering my… extracurricular sexual activities with Vince makes my balls shrink into my abdomen. I’m on record as a womanizer, not a catamite. "Okay, we’re playing in your arena, Lococco. How do you want to handle this?" Frank asks eventually. "Drop me somewhere. Anywhere. Preferably not in Brooklyn. Then bring Vince to me at the Astoria tonight. I’ll meet you in the main lobby. I want to brief him myself," I add. I want a lot more than that, but first things first. McPike nods and noses the car onto the cross town throughway that’ll take us over the Brooklyn bridge into Manhattan.