Breaking the Rules

CHAPTER

EIGHT



Eden’s shift was over after the bulk of the afternoon rush, and for once she didn’t push to get a chance to dance for another few hours. She just put on her clothes and took a deep breath, bracing herself as she pushed open the door that led out to the club’s parking lot.

But there was no one out there besides the valet attendant, who was sitting, bored and steaming, in the shade from a wilting umbrella.

Of course, if she were Izzy, waiting to talk to her, she’d be in her car with the engine running and the air conditioner blasting instead of standing in the hot Nevada sun.

Still, as she shouldered her bag and walked swiftly toward the bus stop, there was no movement from the lot. No tall, obnoxiously attractive Navy SEALs jumping out of their cars and shouting, “Hey, Eden, wait …”

And that was definitely relief she was feeling, not disappointment, as her feet took her farther from the club—although she really didn’t completely believe it until she hit the bus stop and looked around.

Nope. No Izzy. He hadn’t stuck around to talk to her.

She had no idea how he’d found her here—although Danny certainly knew she was back in Las Vegas. Plus she’d given her father her address and phone number when she’d called to ask if he knew if her brother was okay. He’d no doubt given that information to Danny, who used it to call her …

Still, to have Izzy show up like that, at work?

She was mortified.

It was one thing to dance for strangers with their empty, hungry eyes, another entirely to know Izzy was in the house.

Lord, he’d looked good. His face was tan and his dark hair was longer than he usually wore it, but he’d neatly combed it back. He was dressed in a pair of khaki dress pants—and that was crazy weird because Eden couldn’t remember ever seeing him in pants even remotely like those. He usually wore cargo shorts and a T-shirt. Or his white dress uniform. He’d worn that, with rows of ribbons on his chest, when they’d gotten married.

But the shirt he had on today had a collar and buttons up the front. He wore the sleeves rolled to his elbows to fight the day’s heat.

It was crazy—as if he’d gotten dressed up because he knew he was going to see her but didn’t want to go the full-dress-uniform route.

Maybe she no longer rated.

But it didn’t make sense—for him to track her down to give her a handful of cash, take her figurative pulse, and then walk away …?

Unless his message had been visual. Take a good long look at what you threw away, sweetheart …

He’d certainly taken a good long look at her—which had been so strange. Mostly because, in the past, he’d rarely looked at her without smiling. This morning he’d been grim and unamused. And yeah, he’d faked a smile at one point, but it hadn’t touched his eyes.

She’d always loved the way that the warmth of Izzy’s smile had echoed in his eyes.

But those days were gone.

Eden shouldn’t have cared. She didn’t want to care.

Yet still, even though Izzy had left the floor level of the club, she’d been self-conscious all morning long, and had tried to compensate for it—and succeeded, apparently. That success was reflected in her larger-than-usual tips.

Not counting that small pile of cash that Izzy had deposited on the stage. The pile that she’d fully expected to have the opportunity to give back to him after her shift was through.

As she waited for the bus, she dug for her cell phone to turn it back on, and saw she had both a missed call and voice message from the same local Las Vegas phone number.

It wasn’t either of her workplaces, and it wasn’t her new landlord …

She dialed her voice mail and listened to the message.

Eden. It’s Ben. I’m in trouble. I went to the mall to try to find … my friend, and I got picked by the police for not being in school and …

Oh, Lord.

Well, it’s more complicated than that; in fact, it’s beyond weird, but I’ll tell you later. Anyway, look, they ID’d me from my fingerprints—remember when you took me to that SafeKids program, because of my diabetes?

Eden did remember. It was right after they moved to Las Vegas from New Orleans. At twelve, Ben had been, by far, the oldest kid among all of the toddlers at the police station, and he’d been beyond embarrassed. But Eden had insisted. Because he’d participated in a similar program back in New Orleans, they’d been able to find him more quickly, after Katrina.

Well, congratulations, because of that, I’m in the system. And they now have my name and Greg’s address, and because I don’t have any other priors, they’re going to bring me home in some kind of police-department house call of shame, and deliver me into the hands of my loving parents.

“Oh, crap,” Eden said aloud.

Yeah, Ben’s message said, as if he’d heard her. I told them that my mother worked until late, but that I also live with my real bitch of a drill sergeant older sister, who’s in charge of making me do my homework and making my life miserable. I didn’t mention Greg because, Jesus. But I told them that you’d be home in the afternoon—that you usually met my bus, like I’m a freaking kindergartner and they actually bought it. So please, please get over to the house by five o’clock—just sit on the front steps, you know? Like you’re waiting for me? Bring ID—they’re going to want to see ID. And maybe, just maybe we’ll be able to pull this off. And Eden? I’m so sorry …

The phone system’s automated voice clicked on. “To replay this message, press—”

Eden hung up the phone and checked the time. It was 4:45.

The city bus was finally coming, but it was heading in the wrong direction, away from the squalid little house that Ivette still shared with Stupid Greg.

What she needed was a cab, pronto.

She started to run to the nearest hotel where there was a taxi stand, but in the middle of crossing the street, she stopped, realizing what she really needed …

Was Izzy.

Eden looked wildly around, hoping that he was still out there, somewhere, watching her. Just because she didn’t see him didn’t mean he wasn’t there.

If she’d had his cell-phone number, she would have called him, but she didn’t have it. Not anymore. She’d thrown it away when his response to her letter had been silence.

But here and now, he didn’t appear—like some knight in shining armor.

She was on her own. Which was exactly what she’d wanted, wasn’t it?

Eden quit hoping for miracles and hiked her bag farther up on her shoulder and ran.


NEW YORK CITY

WEDNESDAY, 6 MAY 2009

Being in New York again was surreal.

It really hadn’t been that long since Dan had last been here—and yet it seemed like forever.

Jenn’s studio apartment was exactly the same as it had been last February—tiny. It was cramped with the bed folded up into the couch, and even smaller with it pulled out.

Jenn had clearly left the place in a hurry when she’d gotten the news he’d been injured, and the bed was out and open.

She now set their two bags in the minuscule nook of a kitchen—that had been fun, watching her hump his bag up the building’s front stairs while he’d stood impotently off to the side and seethed with frustration.

But he wasn’t allowed to lift anything heavier than the remote control—a direct quote from the doctor.

“Close your eyes,” Jenn had ordered him. “Just don’t watch.”

But he had watched—in particular he’d watched her ass, which looked awesome in the jeans she was wearing.

Except he wasn’t allowed to do any strenuous activity—including have sex—for another five to seven days.

Well, which was it? Five or seven? In some ways the point was moot, because as badly as he wanted some, he wasn’t getting any tonight. Although Danny was pretty damn sure that five days from now the was-it-five-or-seven question was going to matter pretty intensely.

“We’re going to meet Maria for dinner,” Jenn told him now, and his surprise must’ve shown on his face.

He was exhausted. He wasn’t normally such a baby, but the flight had been taxing and all he wanted to do was to crawl into Jenn’s bed and sleep.

And okay. Not true. What he really wanted was to crawl into Jenn’s bed, pull her down beside him, f*ck his brains out, and then sleep for about fourteen hours straight.

“To talk about the custody thing,” Jenn reminded him.

Dan looked up from staring at the bed. “Oh, yeah. Right. Sorry. Great. Thanks for, um, setting that up.”

“We’re not meeting her until eight,” Jenn told him as she came over and peeled his jacket off his shoulders. “You look like you need help here.” But then she took his T-shirt and pulled it up and over his head.

“What are we doing?” Dan asked as she efficiently went for the button and then the zipper of his jeans. He knew damn well that she wasn’t going to break any of the rules that the doctor had given him on discharge from the hospital. She’d sat in on the session and had actually taken notes. No sex. They’d exchanged an aw, shit look when he’d mentioned that.

“You are getting naked,” Jenn told him with that smile that he loved as she pushed his jeans down his legs, her gentle hands careful of his bandaged wound. “And I am going to give you a massage very different from the ones I gave you in the hospital with its curtain walls and zero privacy.”

Danny looked at her as she knelt before him, unfastening the laces of his sneakers. “Seriously? You rebel, you.” He sat down to help her.

She laughed up at him. “I cleared it with the doctor after reviewing his list of rules. I asked him to clarify and I was right. No sex means no strenuous intercourse. It doesn’t mean you can’t lie back and think nonstrenuous and relaxing thoughts while experiencing the time-honored tradition of the happy ending.”

Dan laughed as together they got him out of his sneakers and socks. “You said that. To the doctor. Excuse me, Captain Chan, sir, I was wondering if it’s okay with you if I give Dan a happy ending … ?”

Jenn laughed, too. “Actually, the term happy ending didn’t come up. I also stayed away from hand job and blow job and even fellatio. I kept it more scientific and medical and asked was the no-sex rule merely about avoiding strenuous activity, or was there a medical reason you should avoid ejaculation. He smiled and said he had no problem with ejaculation.”

“Wow,” Dan said, slipping off his briefs. “If I’d’ve known that, I would’ve had you do me in the airport bathroom.”

She laughed again. “Always the romantic …”

He reached for her, but she moved back, out of his grasp.

“You have to promise to lie still.”

“I can do that,” he said.

“Absolutely still,” she stressed. “Or I stop.”

Dan thought about that. “Okay, yeah, that’s going to be harder than I thought.”

The last time they’d had sex in this very apartment, in this very bed, they’d come close to putting her furniture through the floor. It was one of the things he loved about making love to Jenni. She was passionate and hot-blooded and into being completely physical—and he could be equally ardent, with no fear of hurting her. She was no fragile, tiny thing that could be broken if he didn’t watch his every move. Instead he could damn near body-slam her and she would cling to him and moan for more.

And Jesus save him, but just thinking about it was turning his uncomfortable and annoyingly ever-present semi-woodie into a hard-on of epic proportions.

“Maybe it’s better if we just … Hmm,” she said as he lay back on her bed, as she saw his body in full salute. “Don’t, I was going to say, but …”

He looked up at her. “I missed you.”

He meant it as a whole lot more than just I missed f*cking you, but it was easier to say in the impossible-to-ignore presence of this particular visual aid, because it was always easier for him to frame any romantic relationship around the sex.

And she smiled at his implied joke, but her smile was sad. “Did you?” she asked. But then she shook her head as if it was a stupid question.

“Very much,” he said, but he’d done the damage by bringing up this topic in the context of sex, and he knew she was thinking he still meant it as a joke, like Check out this awesome measurement device that demonstrates from its massive length, tree-trunk-like thickness, and rocksolid hardness, exactly how long it’s been since I’ve had sex of the nonsolo variety …

He pushed himself up on his elbows. “Jenn—”

She sat beside him on the bed, gently pushing him back down, and then running the decadent softness of her hands down his chest, across his abs, and then even lower …

“Ah, God …”

“Shh,” she said. “Lie still.”

“I thought it went massage, then happy ending.”

“Oh, come on, Gillman, haven’t you ever had dessert first?”

“I wasn’t complaining, LeMay,” he said, because he loved the way she laughed when he, too, called her by her last name. “Just wondering if I’d just had the world’s shortest massage.”

She laughed again. “Sounds to me like you’re complaining.”

“Nope,” he said. “Just trying to figure out how to ask for it again.”

“Lie still,” she warned. “Or I’ll stop …”

It felt unbelievably good, the way she was touching him, and he had to close his eyes and fight the urge to reach for her, too, because Jesus, he didn’t want her to stop. He wanted … He needed …

He felt her shift as she took off her glasses and put them on the end table. Then he felt the softness of her mouth as she kissed him, licked him, and he opened his eyes because he wanted to watch. And—shit—he’d inadvertently lifted his hips because he wanted more of what she was doing—more in every capacity.

She pulled back to look at him.

“I’m trying,” he said. “I love this—I do, but what I really want is … God, remember when we did it in the kitchen?”

“Kind of hard to forget,” she said, still stroking him with her hands as she smiled into his eyes.

“One second we were having a conversation,” he said. “And the next …”

“Trust me, I remember.”

“I want to do that again,” he said as she lowered her head and licked him with the very tip of her tongue. “It was crazy, like I couldn’t tell where you ended and I began.”

“I was the one with the face pressed up against the toaster,” Jenn said, quickly adding, “I’m not complaining. It was actually … really hot. Not the toaster. The sex.”

She was so beautiful—the soft curve of her cheek, the graceful shape of a mouth that seemed always on the verge of quirking into a smile, those incredible far-from-average light brown eyes …

The look she was giving him was admonishing again, which was sexy as hell combined with what she was doing with her mouth—shades of dominatrix. And he could feel his impending release building. All she’d have to keep doing was … oh God, that … And he knew he just needed to say the word—she loved open communication of all kinds, but there was more he wanted to say besides yes, please, yes …

“No, baby,” he told her. “I’m not talking about the sex, although that was crazy, too. I’m talking about looking into your eyes and, I don’t know, knowing what you were feeling, because I was feeling it, too. And then … just letting it explode like that.”

It had scared the shit out of him at the time, and he’d told himself that it was just rocking great sex, when in truth there’d been a connection between them almost right from the start.

Not right from the start, because their relationship had begun with his intention to have a short-term fling. It hadn’t taken all that much to worm his way into her bed—he was a master when it came to seduction, and, for a wide variety of reasons, she was undeniably up for being seduced.

What he hadn’t counted on was liking her so damn much. Liking, and then falling in love …

“I missed you,” Dan breathed again, suddenly desperate for her to understand. “Jenni, I missed you …”

It was maybe the most romantic moment of his life, because she looked at him again and met his gaze, and he could tell that she believed him—believed him and loved him, and his heart actually lurched in his chest. He was just about to use the dreaded L-word—dreaded because the last time he’d told her he loved her, she’d accused him of overreacting to emotions caused only by her near-death experience.

But instead of saying it—I love you—when he opened his mouth he said, “Gahhh …”

Because, Jesus, he was coming, just like that, just wham—and he forced himself to remain relaxed, because the last thing he wanted was for Jenn to argue that they couldn’t risk doing this again, because he didn’t lie still. But she wasn’t going to, because he didn’t move at all and it was unreal the way his release blasted and roared through him in an overwhelmingly powerful sensation. He didn’t fight it, he didn’t try to ride it or steer it—he just let it be.

It was. He was.

And when it was over, it wasn’t really completely gone. It just changed into something calm and warm and he floated in a lovely place between waking and sleep.

But then he felt Jenn shift, felt the mattress give and then bounce back into place as she flipped a blanket up and over them both, as she stretched out beside him on the bed.

He opened his eyes and turned his head and …

Jenn smiled at him from where she lay, her head on the other pillow. And the feeling of calm intensified, and for the first time since Dan could remember, he felt completely at peace.

“I missed you, too,” she whispered, and reached an arm out from beneath that blanket to gently cover his eyes and force them to close—not that she needed to try very hard. “Go to sleep.”


WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 2009

LAS VEGAS

Ben’s heart sank as the police car he was riding in approached his house.

Eden was nowhere to be seen. She must not have gotten his message.

Greg’s ancient car was in the driveway, however, which meant that he was home.

This was going to be butt ugly.

“This one?” the police officer who was driving asked, peering out the windshield at their crappy shithole of a house in this crappy shithole of a neighborhood.

“Yeah,” Ben said, ashamed at what his two uniformed escorts saw.

Broken glass adorned the dust bowl of the front “yard,” shimmering in the afternoon light. The window it had come from was still boarded up with plywood that wasn’t weathering well after nearly a year of being exposed to the hot desert sun.

The steps leading up to the front door were cracked and chipped, and the metal decoration on the bottom of the screen had come off on one side and hung at a defeated angle.

The windows that weren’t broken displayed sorry-looking, mismatched, and badly hung curtains, blinds that were broken and bent, or an unsightly mix of both.

The paint was peeling, particularly on the windowsills, and the roof was sagging and discolored, with a badly attached blue plastic tarp that was covering a leak in an ineffective tangle.

And that was just their house. The others weren’t much better-looking.

Back when it was a new development, in 1969, this little enclave of winding streets and shiny houses had been called Pedergast Gardens. Ben had written a report on it for school after finding one of the original blueprints for their house up in the crawl-space attic, slipped in behind a now-sagging beam.

Thirty-six years later, the shine was long gone and the entire place devoid of anything even remotely gardenlike, as residents used their limited and shrinking funds for food and electricity, instead of paint, new roofs, or water for the landscaping. Some of their neighboring houses had been boarded up and condemned, and some had been decorated with deceptively festive-colored crime-scene tape.

But compared to their post-Katrina housing, it was home, sweet home. Or at least it had been for a very brief time, back when Ben was younger and too dumb to recognize that Greg was an asshat, and that he himself was doomed and already circling the drain.

The police officer parked on the street, out front, as Ben sat in the cage in the back and breathed. Inhale. Exhale. This was going to suck. Maybe he could seek asylum with the police. Confess that he’d failed to mention his evil stepfather, who was going to beat the shit out of him as soon as the cops drove away.

He should, at least, ask what the law was in regard to self-defense. If Greg hit him, he could hit Greg back. He knew that much. But how could he prove it if, after the fact, Greg accused him of throwing the first punch?

There were no handles on the inside of the door, so Ben had to wait until the second cop—the stern-faced woman with the cold, unsympathetic eyes—opened it for him, letting him out into the hot, still, afternoon air.

The male officer seemed nicer, more human, but he apparently wasn’t even getting out of the car, leaving his partner to complete this assignment.

And really, on the scale of horrible to really horrible, she was better than what he’d expected and dreaded—i.e., being driven home by the detectives who’d questioned him about Neesha in the mall.

But neither the bald nor the sunglasses-wearing cop had showed up at the police station.

And no one else so much as mentioned Neesha, or the fact that she was missing.

Which had been a little weird.

So Ben hadn’t brought the subject up, not with anyone.

“You know how when you go to the hospital and the doctor or the nurse takes you aside to make sure you really did just fall off your bike,” Ben said to the policewoman, about to launch into a description of life with Greg, when he heard a shout from down the street.

“Hey! Ben!”

It was Eden, coming to his rescue, thank you, thank you, baby Jesus.

She was on foot, and soaked with perspiration, her hair bedraggled—looking as if she’d run most of the way over here from wherever it was she’d been working.

“I’m so sorry I was delayed,” she called in an odd mix of half shout, half whisper, with her voice pitched slightly higher than usual, and Ben knew she was trying her best to keep Greg from hearing her or recognizing her if he did hear voices from out in the street.

And sure enough, when she came closer, she still spoke quietly in that higher voice. “Are you all right?” she asked him, the very picture of the concerned older sister.

He nodded and she hugged him tightly and said, “Thank the Lord,” even as she pinched him in the side. “Thank you, Officer, for bringing him safely home,” she added as she released him. “It’s been a rough few days. Our older brother, Danny, is a Navy SEAL, serving in Afghanistan. We just found out he’d been injured, but we didn’t know how badly, or even if he was still alive. Long story short, he was shot and he nearly died—but he’s going to be okay. Still … The stress took its toll on all of us, I’m afraid.”

The police officer softened—just a bit. She expressed her sympathy and then droned on and on, all about that not really being a good excuse for cutting school, about the dangers of running away from a police officer, about the value of this program called Scared Straight—yeah, no irony there—run by a local church, where teenagers were taken to a high-security penitentiary where they had conversations with lifers. It was a good program, particularly for boys his age, blah blah blah.

Ben tuned out, his focus on the house, checking the windows and the door. The longer they stood out here talking, the greater the chances were that Greg would stagger into the kitchen for another gin and lemonade, see them, and come outside.

He would take one look at Eden and start to scream. He’d hated her while she lived here, but he’d hated her even more after she was gone.

Eden showed the cop her ID—a passport that was several years old, with Gillman still listed as her last name and this address as her place of residence. She apologized to the police officer about twenty more times, and Ben himself even threw in a few contrite-sounding I’m sorries.

And then they were done.

Except after the police officer climbed back into the cruiser, it hovered there at the side of the road. And Ben saw that she was watching them.

“Oh, Lord,” Eden said even as she smiled and waved. “I think she’s waiting for us to go inside. Do you have your keys?”

He did, but: “I’m not going in there.”

“You don’t have to,” Eden said. “Just unlock the door for me and sit on the steps and pout, like I just told you there’d be no TV after dinner for the next five hundred years.”

“You’re going inside,” Ben said.

She nodded. She wasn’t kidding. “Someone’s got to. Come on. Do it. Unlock the door. Let’s get this over with so we can get out of here. Being back like this is giving me a rash.”

Ben took his keys from his pocket as he climbed the crap stairs and opened the crap screen door, wincing as it gave an unavoidable screech.

“It’s okay,” Eden murmured, standing at his shoulder as he put the key in the door and unbolted the lock. “Greg’s probably asleep. Besides, together we can definitely kick his ass.”

“This wasn’t entirely my fault—the thing with the police,” Ben had an overpowering urge to explain before she went inside. As if she were going to die or never come back out again. “I went to the mall to find Neesha, and these cops—not the ones who dropped me off but others—detectives, in regular clothes? They were there, looking for her, too. They had a picture of her. One of the mall guards saw me with her. That’s why they stopped me.”

Eden looked at him, with her hand on the doorknob. “Seriously?”

“It was beyond weird, Eed,” he said. “They said she was a runaway—that she was mentally ill, but I don’t believe it. Yeah, she told me this crazy story about being sold into kind of a slavery—as a sex slave, I’m pretty sure. And maybe she really does have PTSD or something, but whoever she was living with? If she really was adopted? One of her adoptive parents was doing something wrong. I’m sure of it. Still, after I was at the police station? Nothing. No questions about her, no pictures. The detectives weren’t even there. It was all about cutting school and running away from the police.”

“Maybe they were satisfied that you didn’t know where she was,” she suggested, then took a deep breath. “I’m going to be right inside. Open the door again when they’re gone, okay?”

Ben nodded and slumped down onto the top step.

And with one more deep inhale, as if she were about to enter a toxic zone and would need to hold her breath the entire time, Eden went into Greg and Ivette’s house and closed the door tightly behind her.