I had no idea why I shared my views on Catwoman. I should have kept my mouth shut.
I thought this primarily because what I said made Crowe’s face change. He wasn’t looking at me like he was the pissed off, badass boy trying to warn off the helpless, hapless female who dared enter his turf. He was looking at me in an entirely different way. A way that made me even more aware of his body pressed against mine.
“Where’d you learn to shoot like that?” he asked and even his voice had changed. It was deep and masculine but now it was also smooth, sliding across my skin like silk.
I decided it was best to go silent again.
He tried a different question.
“Why was Cordova chasing you?”
I kept my silence.
Then something else about him changed. It changed the way he looked, it even changed the atmosphere.
I’d been staring at him to keep a brave face and tough out a difficult situation. With the change, I was staring at him because I had to. It was like I was drawn to him. My body softened, even my arms, which he still held behind me and had been rigid with tension, relaxed.
“I could make you talk,” he threatened, his voice low, quiet and I knew, in that instant, he could.
“Let me go,” I whispered beginning to lose my fight.
This was a first. If Nick knew, he would freak out. He told me I’d been a live-wire since he met me at age six, always beating up kids on the playground who bullied other kids, sometimes losing, sometimes winning; always phoning and writing senators or congressmen and telling them what I thought and how they should vote; always having some cause that I’d fight with a passion that was nearly an obsession.
Crowe kept staring me in the eyes which kept me stuck to him by some magnetic, macho man forcefield.
“You need to stop what you’re doin’ or you’re gonna get hurt,” Crowe told me, his voice still silky low.
“I can’t,” I admitted, don’t ask me why but I had to say it.
“Then somebody has to stop you.”
Somewhere along the line, he’d let go of my hands and instead he was holding me. Actually holding me, his arms around me, mine lose at my sides.
It took a lot but I shook off whatever was keeping me entranced, I lifted my hands and pressed against his chest, hard.
He didn’t budge.
Fuck.
“Let me go!” I shouted.
His arms tightened with a jerk and my hands slid up his chest to rest on his shoulders. I immediately began pushing. This didn’t work but it sent a message so I kept doing it.
“I’ll let you go and I’ll talk to Hank and Eddie. But I hear you’re on the street, I’ll find you and shut you down.”
He could find me, I knew it. He found people for a living and, if word could be believed, he was really good at it.
I knew who Hank and Eddie were too. Both good cops, Hank Nightingale and Eddie Chavez, Lee Nightingale’s brother and best friend. I was guessing this meant Crowe would get me off the hook for shooting out Cordova’s tires in broad daylight in the middle of Broadway, one of the busiest streets in Denver. It had been showy and stupid and I knew better. Zip would be disappointed. Nick would be furious.
What I didn’t know was how Crowe would shut me down.
“All right, Crowe. Let me go, I’ll stop,” I lied.
At my words, he grinned.
I stared (again).
He had the most arrogant, shit-eating grin I’d ever seen in my twenty-six (nearly twenty-seven) years of life.
My belly fluttered.
A belly flutter? What was that all about?
“What?” I snapped and ignored my belly.
“You’re lyin’.”
“I am not lying,” I lied again.
He shook his head.
Then, to my surprise, he let me go and stepped back.
I stood there, feeling weirdly bereft.
“That’s it?” I asked.
“No,” he said.
I waited then waited more.
“Well, finish it,” I demanded when he didn’t say anything.
“I get the feelin’ I’ll see you again,” he told me.
Oh crap.
I didn’t figure that was good at all.
He pulled my gun out of his jeans, released the clip and with a casual, over arm throw, he tossed it well away. Then he leaned in, shoved the gun in the waistband of my cords, right in front, by my hipbone.
Then he turned, walked away, threw a muscled thigh over his Harley and roared off.
I stared until I couldn’t see him anymore.
Then I pulled my gun out, lifted up my sweater and checked to see if there was a mark where his hand slid against me.
I did this because it still burned.
* * * * *
I parked Hazel (my vintage, red Camaro) in the garage behind my house, scanning my mirrors while the door came down just to be certain I was safe. These days there was no telling.
I got out of Hazel and did the routine of walking the fifteen feet from the garage to the backdoor. Eyes open, gun at the ready (I had an extra clip in my glove compartment), listening and praying no one was out to get me.
I unlocked the door and walked through the shared back room of my duplex where Nick and I kept our washer and dryer, an extra freezer, tools, old paint cans and the kitty litter which Boo, my cat, could access through the cat flap in my backdoor.
I unlocked that door, unarmed the alarm and flipped the light switch to my retro kitchen. Pink metal cabinets, pink fridge, pink oven door, huge black and white diamond tiles patterning the floor. One wall was brick, the rest painted steel gray. It was cool as shit but not on purpose, only that it had been there so long, it had come back into fashion. I’d bought a high, fifties-style black Formica-topped table with gleaming stainless steel sides and kickass retro stools with black leather swivel seats because the kitchen demanded it.
Boo approached from the other door and began immediately to tell me about his day.
My cat was black with dense, soft fur and yellow eyes. He was too fat, unbelievably proud and he was the only clumsy cat I’d ever known. Boo pretended he meant to fall over and miss his leaps from furniture to table or whatever, but he was just not coordinated. At all.
“Meow, meow, meow. Meow meow. Meoow,” Boo told me, obviously having a full day and feeling I needed to be kept apprised of every second of it.
I threw my gun and bag on the table and swiped him off the floor.
“Meow!” Boo protested.
“Shut up, Boo. Mommy’s had a very bad day. She did something stupid, then got cornered by a hot guy and now she’s pretty much f**ked.”
“Meow,” Boo replied, thinking his news was more important than mine.