Page 45 of Slow Burn

“You’ve been hanging around the hooker way too much.” She liked the unsteadiness in his voice. “Robby—”

She set her cup aside and came into his arms. His lips and tongue tasted of chocolate. He smelled of clean male skin with just a touch of sweat, and in the intimate body-to-body pressure she felt his erection nudge at her. His hands slid down under her coat and brushed over her sides, her breasts, her hips. Her breath sighed out into the hollow of his neck.

In one of those strange fits of chauvinism, he picked her up and carried her to the bedroom.

The afterglow left her lazy and jittery, more than an hour later. She had to concentrate to dip the wallet cleanly, concentrate harder to pass it to Jim’s waiting hand as he passed. The deft brush of their fingers made her smile. She turned off into a store and examined a rack of women’s suits—conservative, well-made, in solid businesslike colors. At the end of the rack a mustard-yellow jacket hung in forlorn exile. Robby’s fingers brushed it lightly, gliding over the wool. She draped the sleeve over her skin and made a face.

No matter how bold she became with Jim, there were some things she just couldn’t do. Bright tight clothes. Impractical shoes. The leather outfit still hung in the corner of her closet, as dejected as this mustard jacket. Perhaps she’d give it to Velvet. Someone ought to get some use out of it.

Perhaps—oh, naughty thought—she ought to wear it for Jim. Would he like it? She imagined herself in it, and felt embarrassment creep warm over her face. Robby the slut. No, it would never happen.

She chose a gray suit, held it up for the admiration of a mirror.

Velvet had seemed so surprised by the bright colors in her house. Was she that boring, truly? This morning the blues had seemed too bright, the reds too bloody, the whole house one long scream.

She put the gray suit back and went out into the mall, watching for Jim’s loose-limbed, stoop-shouldered walk. There, coming toward her. She moved her head a little to the right, and he crossed on that side, their empty hands slapping together in a fleeting touch. He didn’t seem to even notice her, but the afterimage of heat tingled in her fingers like money.

She went two shops down, paused to look blankly in the window, and turned to swim upstream through the crowd. Two scowling teenagers wearing belly bags; if they had any cash, it was pizza and beer money. A preoccupied mother dragged a squalling four-year-old toward her—a gaping purse, but the woman had enough trouble for one day. Behind her, a pinched-faced older woman in a designer dress and Gucci purse. Robby passed, fingers effortlessly drawn to the anorexically thin leather wallet.

The tingle was more like an electric jolt. She palmed the wallet into a sleeve pocket and walked steadily toward Jim.

Behind her, some kind of disturbance broke out. She didn’t look back, just kept calmly walking and watching Jim’s face. His eyes were riveted on what was unfolding behind her; if he changed direction, she’d run.

Something slammed into her back, sending her sprawling. She felt a sharp tug at her shoulder as she fell. Her knee banged painfully into cold concrete, her hand slammed down in an effort to save her head from the same impact.

The leather wallet slipped out of her sleeve and skidded two or three feet away.

The mugger who’d hit her ran on, head down, holding her purse like a football. He dodged around Jim—who tried to shove him off balance—and disappeared around a corner.

The wallet coasted to a stop next to a shiny pair of black shoes. The man who bent down to pick it up wore an ill-fitting black jacket with a silver badge pinned to the label.

Mall security.

Maybe he wouldn’t look—maybe—

He unsnapped the wallet and looked at the pinched-faced picture, at Robby, back at the picture. His expression went blank, his blue eyes narrow. He leaned down and hooked an arm under her arm and hauled her up. She felt a twinge in her ankle and played it for an ace, going limp against him, screaming in pain. A crowd congealed around them, a forest of craning necks. She couldn’t see Jim anywhere.

“Ma’am,” the guard said. His fingers dug into the meat of her arm like pliers. “Ma’am, you’ll have to come with me.”

“Me?” She poured all the Irish she could find into the word. “Me! When your own thug knocked me down and took me purse? They all told me, they said America was worse than Dublin, but I didn’t listen, no, I said it was a fine place, and look at you, drag-gin’ me off like a common thief. I’ve beenhurt!”

“Yes ma’am, I can see that. I’m taking you to get medical treatment.” The guard was playing to the crowd, but she saw the cold glitter in his eyes. No use trying to slither free; his jacket bulged over his pumped biceps, and he’d lost his neck in muscle.

He pinched a nerve. She glared.

Over his shoulder she saw Jim standing on the other side of the mall, close to an exit, the smart bastard. At least she wasn’t holding, thank god. She could talk her way out of it. Enough blarney and bluff. Musclehead would let her go before the police arrived.

Jim put his hands in his pockets and started walking.

Toward her.

No, she thought, frozen.No, no, you stupid man, no!

“Excuse me, young man, but that doesn’t seem to be any way to treat her,” piped up an older lady burdened under two huge shopping bags. She had kind eyes and a pug-dog face and an absurdly large diamond necklace that flashed fire as the woman leaned forward to pat Robby’s cheek. “Poor dear thing, knocked down like that. I’d bepetrified.”

“It was very sudden,” Robby agreed pitifully. A few faces in the crowd—a thin artistic-looking man, another grandmother, a perfect-faced model—nodded in sympathy and glared at the guard. “I just want to sit down. Dear me, I’ve gone all shivers.”

She wished she could burst into tears, but that level of acting wasn’t in her. The best she could do was bat her eyes suggestively and gulp for breath. The guard looked disgusted; it was a pitiful display.

---