"Benny, I can't do this!" Ray looked over the expanse of green felt at his friend and partner, his brow furrowed in consternation.
"You can't move the pool table?" Ben Fraser straightened up, glanced across at Ray. "Why not?"
"Not the damned pool table!" Ray dropped the end he'd been holding, it crashed down onto the wooden floor, set the china cabinet at the far end of the room shuddering noisily.
"Well, we have to get it out of the dining room before your mother comes home." Fraser was nothing if not completely logical, and for that Ray was usually thankful--but not now! Now he needed to talk about this because he'd been thinking about it all night and now it was just about eating him up inside.
"Would you *listen* to me?" Ray felt awkward even bringing this up, but it had to be said.
"I am listening to you, Ray," Ben replied evenly. "Could you just lift your end a little bit?" He hoisted the pool table so that it was tilted towards Ray, gestured with his chin.
"Alright." Ray caught the other end, moved to lever the immense table through the narrow dining-room doorway. "I can't be around when she gets here; I just can't do it."
Fraser grinned at him. "Exactly why not? She doesn't have horns, you know."
"No kidding. You--you're too funny, you are! Anybody ever tell you that?" It wasn't funny at all, why was Fraser making him do this?
"She's a nice girl. We've known each other for *years*! And besides--" Fraser's blue eyes were laughing "--I told her you'd give her a great tour of Chicago."
"That's not funny." Ray was beginning to sweat, the pool table was going to slip and flatten him; maybe it would fall on Fraser, yeah, that would be just *perfect*... "There is no way in *hell*--"
"*Ray*" Fraser gazed at him for a moment, thoughts chasing themselves across his handsome face. "Move it over to the right, I can't fit it through the door."
"I don't know why you're so upset about this." Fraser continued the conversation in the basement, just as if nothing had happened. Ray leaned against the side of the pool table, breathing hard. The table was damned heavy, getting it down those stairs... He tried to listen to Fraser over the hammering in his head, the queasy nervousness that he always felt when Fraser decided to introduce him to one of his old girlfriends. The man had no heart...
"I am upset because--"
"Because you think you aren't good enough. You have this *huge*--" Fraser gestured with his hands "--self-esteem problem where women are concerned." He reached into the fridge behind the bar, pulled out two beers and handed one to Ray. "It's just nonsense." He twisted off the top of his beer, flicked it into the trash. "Women like you. They really do."
"Oh, yeah. They just tumble down in heaps before my feet." Ray rolled his eyes. "I am not gonna meet her. Forget it."
"Alright." Fraser shrugged. "I won't pressure you." The Mountie grinned. "If you're insistent upon continuing your monastic existence--"
"Benny, would you just drop it?!"
"Fine. I'll drop it. That's just what I'll do, I'll just--"
"Shut up!"
"Fine. I'll shut up now."
"Thank God!"
"...and this is my partner: Ray, I'd like you to meet Sorcha."
Sorcha... What a beautiful name. And, oh God! It was happening to him again, that horrible pounding in his head, his palms were sweating, he was going to be sick, he could feel it, was that his gun digging into his ribs, what was going on here?
"Uh, Ray...?" Fraser raised his eyebrows. "I said--"
"Sorcha, hiya, nice to meet you." Just breathe, take a deep breath, it's okay.
"Ray..." Her palm was cool against his, that intimate press of skin against skin, her dark-green eyes amused, thoughtful. "I'm so happy to finally meet you. Ben has told me so much about you." Her smile, her perfect teeth, that one dimple in the smooth plumpness of her cheek....
"He did?" What did the bastard say? he raged inwardly, darted a malevolent glance towards Fraser, standing behind them.
"Yeah." Sorcha smiled, there was that dimple. "And here you are." Her fingers traced the smooth skin of his wrist, lingered for a millisecond before drawing away: a move so small, so quick, that it might very well have been his imagination. "Ben tells me you know Chicago pretty well."
Don't do this, he thought; don't entice me like this, don't make me think I'm good enough or we can be together, don't be that cruel... "Uh, not really."
Fraser erupted into laughter. "You've only lived here your entire life!" He glanced from Ray to Sorcha, not sure what was going on here. "He knows this city like the back of his hand," Fraser said.
But she was already drawing back from him, her green eyes thoughtful, her dark brows pulled together over her nose. She knew something; she had figured him out. So effortless: was he really that transparent? "It's alright, Ben, really." She turned to smile at the tall Mountie behind her. "I'm sure I can find my way around."
Then it was on to a restaurant that Fraser had chosen, a quiet spot with private booths, and damn him if he didn't plan it so that Ray would be sitting next to *her*... This was too much: I have a gun, Ray thought, I should shoot that Canuck bastard right now--
Christ. What was he doing? Fraser was his friend, this was nuts! He would just go along with it, smile, pretend to enjoy himself, then escape as soon as possible. It was easier that way. At least if he maintained some kind of veneer over his feelings he wouldn't get quite so horribly mutilated...hopefully.
Dinner...sitting next to her, entranced by her, oh God! why was this happening?! Already it was tugging at him, the sweet pull of imagination, dreams fueled by things like the feel of her hand, the perfumed scent of her hair; already he was getting irrevocably drawn in, dancing dangerously close to the edge.
"I gotta go." He got up abruptly from the table, bashed his knees on the edge, reeled dizzily out of the restaurant and into the cool sanity of the night air. He couldn't breathe; this was beginning to freak him out--
"Ray!" Fraser, calling from the sidewalk behind him, his voice edged with concern. "Ray?"
"I'm alright--" He waved the Mountie away without looking behind him; it was unforgiveable to allow Fraser to see him like this, so horribly undone. "I don't feel too good."
"*Ray*." Fraser caught his elbow and spun him around; the taller man seemed to tower over him. "You can't keep doing this. Running away like this."
"I'm not--what the hell do you know, anyway?" He wrenched his arm out of Fraser's grasp, gestured blindly at the cheery windows of the restaurant. "Go back inside." He felt sick; worse, he felt stupid. "I'm gonna go on home."
"Do you want us to come with you?" Fraser's face bore an expression of concern, a solictitious gesture that Ray appreciated.
"No."
The Mountie sighed. "Fine." He turned to go. "I'll tell Sorcha you're allergic to pasta, okay?"
"Tell her whatever you want." He watched Fraser's back disappear into the restaurant and leaned against the brick wall of an adjoining building. Cool, safe. Thank God for walls when you needed them.
"And here is the entry point." Sorcha's pencil sketched a ring of carbon on the surface of the photograph. "As far as we can tell, it was small-calibre, probably point-blank range." She pushed the photo across the table towards Ray.
"Point-blank range." He whistled softly, turned the photo sideways. "Nasty business. Looks like dum-dums to me."
Sorcha tilted her head, glanced at him over the rims of her glasses. "Dum-dums?" She laughed, tossed her head back. "What the hell are dum-dums?"
"You never heard of dum-dums?" Ray felt a slow flush creeping up his face. "What the hell they teach you up north, anyway?" He laughed nervously, teetered for a moment on the verge of hysteria. She was too damned pretty: plump and curvy and just plain gorgeous! Not like those stick-legged model types that Fraser went for--this was a *woman.* "Hollow point bullets."
"Christ." Sorcha flipped through the stack of photos. "Messy, eh?"
"Eh." He glanced across at her, grinned. Damn! but she was pretty... "Um."
"Yeah?" Sorcha slid her glasses off her nose, laid them across the stack of photos.
"About the other night, in the restaurant." His face was positively flaming now, he would probably have a heart attack right here--
"Your pasta allergy." She was laughing at him.
"Look, I dunno what Benny told you, but--"
"Ray." She leaned across the table. "You don't need to be afraid of me."
"I'm *not*--"
"Sh." Her finger came up, pressed against his mouth. "Stop talking." Her hand reached for his, her fingers clasped warmly... "Don't say anything." Something hummed between them, a discrete crackling energy, as she slipped his index finger into her mouth.
Oh.God. Don't *do* that-- A sudden rush of heat rolled over him, a definite prickle along his skin, that familiar beating pressure in his groin as she swirled her tongue around the tip of his finger, sucked gently. The dark cloak of her hair brushed the skin of his arm where he'd rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, and her mouth moved from his hand to his wrist, the warm wetness of her lips pressed against his skin, her tongue flickering, tasting his flesh, the tiny beat of his pulse.
"Ray, I want you." Her voice was husky, dark and dangerous: it tugged at him, a wicked vibrato, and he was clasping the back of her head and drawing her face to his.
His thumb traced the soft cushion of her lower lip, slipped briefly into her mouth, glanced along the sculpted curve of her top lip, the small indentation there. His eyelids flickered closed as he leaned close and kissed her, pressing his opened mouth against hers, tracing the satiny underside of her lip with the tip of his tongue. The beating pulse of desire shifted and settled firmly in his groin, straining against the fabric of his jeans... She smelled like heat, and sex; she smelled like life.
"God, I've been thinking about this from the first minute I saw you--" Her voice was a whisper at his ear as her hands slipped free the buttons of his shirt, parted the fabric eagerly. Her mouth left a trail of fire down the center of his chest, her tongue flickered around each of his nipples in turn, visited the hollow at the base of his throat. Her hands were on him everywhere, sliding up the hardness of his thighs, fastened on his shoulders, the hard bulge in his pants. Her mouth moved against his, a core of heat.
When he moved to unfasten the belt of his pants, her hands intercepted him "Let me do it" and she stripped him effortlessly. His fingers found the closure of her blouse, slid the silk away and let it whisper to the floor. God, so beautiful... He leaned forward and pressed his face into her breasts, the smooth warmth of her belly. Let me love you....
Whose bed was this? It didn't matter... Whose tangled sheets were these, whose walls, whose floor? It didn't matter... What mattered was the silken expanse of her, clasped against him, the warm weight of her breasts cupped in his palms, the hard nub of a nipple between his lips. What mattered was the intimate caress of her mouth as she took him deep into her throat, her skilful tongue, her hands that wrenched ecstatic groans from deep within his soul.
Love me. Yes. Do it. Let me slide inside you, feel the heat of you enfold me, draw me into your soul. Take the weight of me, wrap your legs around my waist, your arms around my back; feel this as we move together, so good, so good....
It called to mind a song he'd heard: some Canadian woman that Fraser was so fond of, some song that repeated now inside his head, an alternate reality...
Can you see my heart/beating in my mouth/Thank God the bones will keep it there inside/And you won't have to see this latest casualty/and you can get yourself away from all my/demolition love...
It hurt like that, this letting-go; it hurt and felt so wonderful, this raw delicious ache, this sizzling desire that raced along his skin, this precious sexual cadence of bodies joined, moving...
Be my lover/be my baby/be my wonderdrug
Be my flower/weeping silver tears/on my rusted heart...
This was insane! This music going through his head, this marvelous thing, this woman underneath him, around him, enclosing all the sensitive parts of his soul--
Oh.
God.
Now.
Yes.
Yesyesyesyesyesyes
Brilliant stars burst behind his closed eyelids as the whole of his desire collapsed down into a single point of ecstasy: these were arms around him, this body was this woman was this lover was
Here.
With me.
Oh with me, so with me
There you
Yes.
And holding her as she went over, too; holding her as her fingernails dug into his back, holding her as her knees pressed deliciously against his sides, washed both of them out in a tide of pleasure and release.
I love you, he thought.
The End.