The Other Man

  I grabbed two glasses and a pitcher of orange juice on the return trip, but he still hadn’t taken a seat.

  I wondered if he’d eat standing up.

  I took my own seat, poured us each a glass of juice, and looked up at him.

  Finally, he sat, though he looked ill at ease, like he thought it was a mistake the second he did it.

  “Tell me,” I urged softly.

  Without a word he started eating.

  I began to eat as well, resigned to the fact that this was yet another subject he wouldn’t be opening up about.

  I was quickly distracted by the way he ate, as though this was his last meal on earth. It was strange. His manners were fine. He used his utensils and closed his mouth when he chewed. But his every movement was so economical and mechanical.

  I had a thought. “You’re military, aren’t you?”

  He pretended not to hear that one, finishing his food before I’d even salted my eggs.

  “The not touching me thing. Is that going to be a deal breaker for you?” he finally asked, shooting his eyes at me.

  His face was set in stone. So much so, that if he smiled right then, I thought it might crack.

  “I would like to touch you,” I said carefully. “Is that going to be permanently off-limits?”

  He took a deep breath. “It was a long time ago, but you see this scar?” He pulled his shirt up, baring his mutilated torso. He dragged his thumb along the worst of his marks, the long jagged one that went up his side that had to have come from something awful.

  I set down my fork and reached out, tried to touch it, but he grabbed my hand, holding it firmly in his.

  “I see it,” I finally answered, because he seemed to be waiting for that.

  “A woman did that to me.”

  I blinked at him. That I had not expected.

  “We were fucking at the time,” he added.

  Holy shit. “Why—why would she do that?”

  He grimaced. “She was hired to kill me. I guess she figured her best shot was to catch me when I was distracted, and it almost worked.”

  Holy shit.

  “Why would someone be hired to kill you? Tell me what you’re involved in, Heath. I have a right to know.”

  His mouth twisted. “For your own protection, I can’t tell you much. But . . . I used to be a spy for the government.”

  That did add up. “Are you still?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “What happened to that woman that tried to kill you?”

  “I snapped her neck.”

  He saw my face, took a deep breath, and added, “It fucked me up, but I was still inside of her when I did it.”

  He was watching me closely, like he needed to see my reaction.

  I was shaking, and it was an effort, but I kept my eyes on his.

  “I had to,” he continued. “I knew I’d bleed out if I didn’t get help soon, and if I’d passed out with her still alive, she’d have finished me.”

  I nodded, still trembling. I got it. It sounded like a clear case of self-defense, but it was completely awful and like nothing I’d ever been exposed to.

  This was heavy shit. Even heavier than I’d suspected.

  “And she wasn’t the only one,” he added quietly. “I’ve killed a lot of people.”

  I was outright shaking now. I didn’t know how to react to this. It was beyond my realm of experience. So beyond it, I’m ashamed to admit that some small, pathetic noise escaped my throat. It was quiet and involuntary, but Heath still heard it.

  And addressed it. Quite perfectly, I thought.

  “Shh shh,” he uttered quietly, one hand reaching up to stroke my hair away from my face. “Here’s why you shouldn’t be scared of me. Yes, I am a killer. I will never be a normal guy. I do not blend in. There are men out there like me, and God willing, you will never run into one, that blend in, that play normal, that would not trigger your instincts, or make you think they have the least thing wrong with them. Those are the ones that you need to worry about. I’m a killer, but I’m not a sociopath.”

  Either I was completely naive, or he was completely masterful at manipulating me, but his alarming speech helped.

  Still, it felt like something huge was stuck in my throat. I swallowed with effort. “But you’re only a killer because of your job? You killed, like, bad guys, right?”

  Jesus, I sounded like a kid that needed reassurance, I realized.

  But I did. I wanted badly to hear that he was one of the good guys.

  “I followed orders, and when you’ve killed as many people as I have, it’s impossible to assume that they were all justified.”

  This actually did make me feel better. At least what he did had been controlled and had been done at someone else’s orders, not some compulsion of his own.

  “I’m trying to be upfront with you,” he told me earnestly. “But, and I know I’ve said this before, you do not need to be afraid of me. I swear I’ll never hurt you.”

  My heart did a slow turn in my chest. The more vulnerable I realized he was, the harder I fell. I knew it was naive of me, but I believed him. Completely.

  “I know you won’t,” I returned.

  He took a very deep breath, sitting back, and as I watched him I witnessed some of the tension leaving him.

  “Thank you for that,” he told me solemnly. “Even my own sister is afraid of me, and while I understand it, it messes me up.”

  A sister. I tucked that bit of information away.

  I was content to learn about him slowly, if that was what he needed, just so long as we were making some kind of progress.

  “I’ll tell you what,” he began in a gruff tone. “I’ll let you touch me when we aren’t having sex. You let me tie you up when we are.”

  Oh God.

  With just a few words, he had me turned-on and alarmed in equal measures.

  But then . . . as much as I knew I was jumping in head first, I did trust him, at least with something like this.

  “Will there be exceptions to this rule?” I prodded. “Or is this an every time deal for you?”

  He ran a hand over his face, looking tired. “I’ll work on it, okay? I’ll try my best to be accommodating, but it might take some time. My wiring is off. Has been for a long time.”

  “I understand,” I said. I didn’t, not really, but we both knew what I really meant, which was, I’m trying to understand.

  We were sitting a few feet apart, our chairs aimed at each other. I moved mine, scooting in closer to him, until I was in easy arm’s reach.

  He sat stiffly, posture rigid, arms folded across his chest. He looked uncomfortable and mean, not the most inviting combination, but I pressed on.

  I placed my hands on him for the first time, one on his pectoral, the other on his neck.

  He twitched once, like a nervous animal, but let me do it.

  Progress.

  He was trying, undergoing something that clearly went against his nature, and he was doing it for me.

  My heart softened for him all the more.

  I’d always had a tender spot in my heart for wild things.

  When I was young, I couldn’t count the times I’d taken in stray dogs and cats that weren’t close to being tame.

  I had a patient nature, even as a child. I recalled how I’d handle those feral creatures, caring for them, feeding them, waiting endlessly until they came to crave the touch of my hand.

  My lover was not so very different. An untamed challenge, to say the least.

  But I could be very tenacious. If anyone was up to the task of housebreaking a man like Heath, I figured it was me.

  His flesh felt amazing under my hands, his neck corded and strong, his chest hard and soft in all the right ways.

  I rubbed my hands over him in small circles, staying focused on his chest and neck, massaging, soothing. I knew to take it slow.

  “Is this okay?” I asked, tone soothing, almost a croon.

  He let out the
breath he’d been holding, then sucked it in, out, in, out, finally saying, “It’s okay.”

  I kept going, stroking his body with a light touch. I tried to chat him up while I did it, but as usual, he was not too chatty.

  “It was nice waking up with you still here, for once,” I said.

  His only response was a less than encouraging grunt.

  “Do you have to leave soon? Or can you stay for a bit?”

  “I need to make a few phone calls tonight, but aside from that, I should have some time.”

  I leaned into him, hanging my arm over his nape so I could put my cheek to his chest. My free hand slipped down to his stomach, rubbing.

  “So we have the day together?”

  “If you’re free, yes.”

  “I can take the day off. I’ll need to make a few phone calls this morning, but nothing important.”

  “Perfect,” he said succinctly.

  We stayed like that for a long time, with me straddling his lap while I ran my hands over him tenderly, getting him used to my touch.

  At some point (something sneaky on Heath’s part) my top and bra disappeared.

  He was still fully dressed, and I was decent from the waist down, but it was one of the most erotic experiences of my life.

  I stroked his hair as he fondled me with both hands, his face buried between my soft, sensitive breasts, nuzzling endlessly.

  I cupped his head to my bosom. I was rubbing my sensitized nipple back and forth, back and forth, dragging it along his rough cheek until he moaned, snapped his head to the side, and took it in his mouth.

  I’d tried to prolong for as long as I could before it turned purely sexual, but our chemistry was an explosive with a very short fuse.

  I was kind of impressed we’d lasted as long as we had.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTEEN

  It was a strange day, but not strange in a bad way. For the most part, it was just the opposite.

  And surprisingly, we didn’t spend it all in bed.

  I worked a bit, and then we went for a long walk.

  Heath held ’Tato’s leash, and my dog walked just behind him, clearly showing deference to Heath’s dominant personality. I swear all Heath had to do was look at him and he dropped to his back in submission.

  In his other hand he held one of mine.

  Unfortunately, before we’d gone far, we happened to pass by one of my neighbors, Deborah Dillon, and I could tell by the way her squinting eyes latched onto our clasped hands that we’d just made ourselves the hot topic of the day.

  Dammit. I knew it was too much to hope that she wouldn’t notice how young he was.

  It was bound to happen with us walking around my neighborhood like this. I just hadn’t given it a thought until I saw my least favorite neighbor hanging out in her front yard, which was surely an odd thing for her to be doing, since most days her kids were outside, roaming the neighborhood. I couldn’t remember the last time she’d actually been caught out with them.

  Here’s why I (and the entire neighborhood) didn’t have much tolerance left for the Dillon family, otherwise known as The Dickhead Dillons. (I swear I wasn’t the one that came up with that.)

  No one blamed their children, who were nine, seven, and five, and boys, but that didn’t mean we had any patience left for them, either.

  The nine year old had recently slapped the neighborhood sweetheart, a precocious little eight-year-girl named, Gilley, who wouldn’t hurt a flea. I’d actually been witness to this (it was a hard slap and shocking to see), as I was walking ’Tato when it happened. His parents hadn’t reprimanded him. They’d blown the whole thing off with the disclaimer: ‘That’s a nine-year-old boy for you.’

  I’d had two nine-year-old boys of my own once, so I knew very well that was not the case.

  This wasn’t even the nine year old’s most grievous offense, just the most recent one I’d seen firsthand.

  The seven-year-old could be found on any given afternoon pounding his five-year-old brother senseless. Everyone, and I mean everyone, that saw this, tried to interfere and stop it, but the parents were adamant that the youngest brother needed said poundings, to ‘toughen him up.’

  And the five year old, who I pitied the most out of all three feral boys, was best known for digging beach ball sized craters in other people’s nicely tended yards, or in general just destroying property, as all three kids were left unsupervised most hours of the day.

  They were all bullies or headed that way, but you didn’t blame kids that young for things like that.

  Everyone blamed the parents. Because the parents were dickheads.

  Messy dickheads. The kind of messy that literally fell onto everyone around them.

  Literally because of the unruly dog they let loose to roam for hours, day and night, pooping in everyone’s yard and going after any dogs that crossed his path.

  My dog, ’Tato, left a mess in my backyard, but I knew said mess was my responsibility to clean up.

  Their dog, in typical dickhead fashion, left its mess everywhere except their backyard, i.e. every front yard on the block.

  When it was mentioned to them by Virginia Gant, a sweet old lady of sixty-four that lived three houses down from me, that this was perhaps a rude thing to do, their response was to send their three boys door to door, with custom made business cards, offering to clean up the dog poop around the neighborhood . . . for a fee.

  They’d turned being irresponsible parents and pet owners into a business. I almost admired their nerve for that one. And of course, the story made for a good laugh.

  The dad (when he was around) was the type you had to keep out of arm’s reach as he tended to find any excuse to get touchy feely with women who were not his wife.

  And the mom, who was always perplexed when anyone confronted her for her many, many messes, had backed her car into the side of the back bumper of mine just a few months back.

  My car was in drive, hers in reverse as she’d been zipping like a speed demon out of her driveway, music blasting, right as I’d been pulling away.

  I’d honked three times, loudly, but she’d slammed into me nonetheless, and later claimed I’d never honked.

  And then she’d claimed we were equally at fault, that we’d backed into each other, even though I hadn’t even been backing up.

  And then she’d claimed that, no, wait, she took it all back, because she was pretty sure suddenly that it had been me that backed into her.

  The entire incident had been wildly frustrating for someone like me, who tended to stick to the truth, because her story had changed about three times before we’d settled the issue, but eventually the insurance company had ruled her at fault, and I’d just been avoiding her crazy ass since then.

  The best way to describe the Dickhead Dillons would be to say they got off on conflict. They enjoyed negative attention, of any kind, as far as I could tell.

  They were the worst neighbors ever, but that being said they only rarely had the opportunity to bother me personally.

  For the most part, they were more amusing than anything else, hell, they gave the rest of the neighbors something funny to talk about on a regular basis, but add to that the fact that I knew Deborah had sided with my ex in the divorce, and would tell him what she’d seen before the day was out, and, well, all amusement quickly turned into annoyance.

  “Why don’t you like that woman?” Heath asked me when we’d passed out of her earshot.

  Of course he would notice something like that. I hadn’t said a word, hadn’t even made an unpleasant face, but I was sure my hand had tightened on his.

  Where to start with that question? I stuck to the pertinent issue at hand. “She’s friends with my ex-husband. She’ll be calling him to tell him all about seeing us holding hands by the end of the day, I guarantee it.”

  “Will that bother him? Is he still jealous over you?”

  I looked for the right words, knowing it would be easy to put my foot in my mouth on this s
ubject. “Not likely. It’s more that he’ll enjoy . . . rubbing your age in my face. He’ll use it to say nasty things to me, I expect.”

  “Want me to rearrange his face for you?”

  I smiled, assuming he was joking. I studied him for a moment, and the smile died. “No, no, of course not. My ex is a nuisance, nothing else. He doesn’t even bother me anymore. There’s certainly no need for violence.”

  That seemed to settle the subject, or at least he let me drop it after that.

  “Would you ever let me photograph you?” I asked him idly sometime later as I studied his stern face in the sunlight. It made me long for my camera.

  I shot a look at him as I waited for his answer.

  His expression told me clearly that this would never happen. “Not likely,” he said, and we both knew it was an understatement.

  We were still walking hand in hand, had been for quite some time, sort of like a normal couple. It was nice.

  “I’d keep the pictures for myself.”

  “No can do. Sorry.”

  He actually did sound sorry, so I dropped it.

  “You know, if we wanted to be normal, we’d do something crazy tonight like leave my house and go out on a date.”

  He stopped walking so abruptly that it jerked on my arm.

  “You want that?” he asked. I couldn’t read what he thought about the idea, not from his tone or expression.

  My mouth twisted wryly. “Most women like to be taken out on dates sometimes, Heath. It’s pretty normal.”

  He looked thoughtful more than anything, like he was taking it all in. “What would this date consist of?”

  Impossible man.

  “Dinner. Drinks. Maybe dancing.”

  He looked a little horrified by the last suggestion.

  It was exasperating. “Jesus, it was just an idea. Hell, just take me out to dinner and a movie. What is the big fucking deal?”

  “You pick the movie.”

  “I’d be happy to, just so long as you don’t complain when I pick a romantic comedy. You probably only like action flicks, I bet.”

  His face was caught somewhere between bewildered and stiff.

  I found it endearing that something this mundane was stressing him out.