Chapter 2
She rode him up and down, playing jockey to his stud horse, sliding high and plunging low on his upright staff, wriggling joyfully upon his still ready cock. Lei's breasts rocked with the rhythm of her action, and her slim hips rolled from side to side as she pounded it to him.
This time, they had gotten as far as the bed. Behind them on the stove, the coffee pot was slowing its perks, but the fry pan still waited empty beside a glowing burner, eggs and bacon ready beside it, but unused.
Rush put both hands on her hips, enjoying the slide of them between his palms, reveling in the smooth friction of her silken flesh. Lei worked on his cock, moving forward awhile, then back again so that she might have more pressure on her clitoris.
Beautiful woman, first prize woman, she picked up speed slowly, stepped up her pumping degree by degree, and now she weaved her tail from side to side in an ever increasing beat. She loved her job, and he loved her for doing it so damned well.
Digging his heels into the bed, Rush arched his back and lifted her so that her knees were off the sheets. Lei pushed down with her feet so that she could hammer on him better, and ground her pelvis around and around in a frenzy that made her throw back her head and squeeze shut her sloe eyes. He heard the gritting of her teeth and the gasping of her breath, all mingled with the juicy, sounds of their stroking together.
Then he heard nothing but the roaring in his own ears and the pounding of his own heart as he dug his fingers into her waist and gave that final, driving thrust up into her vagina.
He came, and her contractions told him she was coming, too. He pumped into her, packed her with his release, and her own liquids mingled with him, blended with him, hot and squirmy and good, good. Oh man, oh man-he had never had it so good, never in his life.
Lei collapsed panting upon his chest, the pencil ends of her tits burrowing into his chest, that river of black-black hair tenting around him, caressing his skin, covering them both with the forbidden pleasures of midnights in pagan temples.
The years came snapping back at him as he held her on top of him with his rod slowly melting inside her box, all the useless, wasted years when he'd forced himself to stay away from girls because he was a stupid bastard dedicated to his profession, to the life and fortune he was going to bang out for himself with his own two hands.
Yeah-the young hermit sweating his balls off in the gym, playing punching bag to any old pro who'd let him climb inside the ropes. Yeah-the dedicated kid asking all the questions and working out all the answers in front of the mirrors until the guys who owned the gyms threw him out so they could lock up for the night.
While the really smart guys were getting into the nylon panties of girls, girls redheaded and girls golden haired, and young, hot broads with hair like this, the color of a storm cloud turned inside out.
Rush moved his fingers through Lei's hair, and she murmured against his throat. "Man-you are some far out lover. It's like you never had it before, or maybe like you've been cut off a long time. Mind you, baby, I'm not complaining. It's almost-well, almost as if I never was laid before, either."
He thought about her, about the way they'd come together last night. He thought about the joint sitting all wired and towered in, up in that windy valley by Soledad. Then he thought about the mast in the Shipwreck Club, the steel pole hollow in the middle, and there was cold sweat on his forehead as he realized the stuff could be gone, that someone else might have discovered it. He tightened up all over, and Lei moved off him, sliding his rod out of her regretting box.
"Do I bug you, taking so much?"
"No, no," he said. "I just can't get over how damned lucky I've turned, all of a sudden. I-" he stopped, not sure if he ought to tell her, afraid he might lose her so soon after he had found her.
He knew the fear was twofold, that some kind of vague plan was already forming in his mind to use her. It wouldn't be a snap, getting to that mast behind the bar; ginmills were about the best protected places around; that's what the burglars said. Bars had plenty of wired alarms and sometimes big dogs inside, and the fuzz checked them more often than banks, even.
"Hey," she smiled at him, "I feel lucky, too. But I'm also hungry, so if I can fix us some fish heads and rice this time-"
Graceful, smooth and unashamed, she swung off the bed and strode lithely into the bath. Rush watched the play of her butt, the evenly intriguing motions of flexing and unflexing and found it difficult to believe he'd just been up in between those cheeks, that he'd rutted and come between those sleekly whispering thighs.
Everybody was after a stripper; every guy got somewhat heated up by staring at her tits and tail and by seeing her shake it and bump it like she'd really enjoy doing it with a shaft inside her. Everybody dreamed about screwing a stripper, but how many men made it? Rush Scanlon made it-and he couldn't stop; he never wanted to stop. He wanted to stick it to her all the time, in all the ways they hadn't even tried yet. He wanted her to help him make up for the lonely years, the shot down years, the time in the joint.
She could help him get the stuff, too. But how the hell would he go about that? He couldn't just say: Look, doll, I'm a con just fresh out of the joint, and I know where maybe a quarter mill in heroin is, so how about us going partners?
Lei came out of the bathroom, looking scrubbed and fresh, and he got up to take his own shower, feeling a little funny at walking around naked in front of a woman, but a little proud of his flat gut and the heavy shoulders, the ropy arms and good legs of a middleweight. He'd kept in shape in the joint by roadwork and shadow boxing and working like hell.
But it was out of habit, when he thought about it. He knew he'd never get a license to fight again.
Showered and shaved with a delicate lady's electric razor, he came out and ate ravenously. The girl could cook, too; lots of hot buttered toast and good rich coffee, with all the bacon and eggs he could handle. At last he sat back and grinned at her. "Call me lucky."
"You said that. Besides, I get a kick out of watching a man really eat. I-well, I don't get to cook often." She stared at him then, sharp and direct. "Rush-I'm no teeny bopper who falls in love with every guy she lays. And I'm no whore, either; it's not often I make it with anybody, and when I do, it's my choice. Then I might tell him thanks and that's it."
Rush took a last sip of coffee. "And?"
She lowered her lashes, looked away. "And I hope to see you again tonight. I-I never said that to a guy; not for a long time, anyway."
"Hey," he said, "that's great. I mean-look, Lei-I'm no big winner. I've got maybe thirty bucks left, and-now wait. I didn't mean it that way. I'm also-" he hesitated; then plunged ahead, "I'm also an ex-con. I just hit the street yesterday afternoon."
Her dark eyebrows lifted. "Soledad?"
He nodded. "For two years, but I'm out clean; no parole."
"Should I ask what you did?"
Rush pulled the towel closer around his hips. He still felt a little odd, sitting half naked with a woman he barely knew and talking casually. "I beat up a guy, a man from here in Monterey. He had it coming, but his buddies told it a different way, and since I was a pug-"
"A fighter?" she asked. "A professional boxer?"
"Yeah; at least, I used to be. That meant I got busted for ADW-assault with a deadly weapon-my hands. That meant a fall in Soledad, after they ran me through the mill in the reception center at Vacaville. And I stayed my full time because I Kid to fight a couple of times in the joint-in prison. Now I'm an ex-con and an ex-pug, because I can't get a license to fight anymore-not in this state, not in any other."
Her eyes were soft upon his, deep. "That's tough, baby. What will you do now?"
For one crazy second, he was going to tell her about the stuff, the fabulously valuable junk hidden-maybe-in the mast of the shipwrecked fishing boat Bianca. But then he said, "That's okay; I might not have been good enough to make it all the way, anyhow."
He helped her with the dishes, drying while she washed, but he didn't know where anything went, and she had to put the stuff away. She was wearing a loose silk robe, and its material was no smoother than her skin; the robe fell open a lot, and her breast peeked out.
It was a small apartment-kitchenette and bath and bedroom, so they sat on the bed, talking awhile about nothing very important, just enjoying being open and free with each other. Then he kissed her on her full, ripe mouth, and the casualness came apart at the seams. Her tongue found his and raced over it, and her stiff nipples dug into his bare chest.
She pulled her mouth away to gasp it: "I don't know what it is with you, Rush-but I go out of my head every time you put your hands on me."
He ran his hands over her, in between the polished thighs, over the mossy center mouud. "Me, too. I can't get enough of you, baby. And I want to do things for you, to you. Look-I've never been down on a girl before, but I want to do it to you. I want to taste you and eat you and make you freak out, but if I do it wrong-you tell me, okay?"
The noise she made was half-moan, half-giggle. "I'll tell you."
He found her breast as she shed the robe and lay back on the bed; cupping it in one hand while the other played with her mound, he lowered his face to it and drew the hard nipple into his mouth, rolling it between his teeth, sucking it. Lei's hands stroked his hair, his cheeks.
Rush slid down her chest to the trembling belly, to the flawless, impossibly smooth skin waiting there for him, for the nipping caress of his teeth and the sliding tease of his tongue. Remembering what she had done to him, and how, he plunged his tongue into her navel and knew the surging response as her pelvis lurched upward to him.
It was exciting; his rod was swollen and once more threatening to split along its length. All the stupid, wasted time-the big no-no the kids made dirty jokes about, the queer thing, the perverted thing-but it wasn't, and now he knew it; now he felt the ancient untruths dissolving in the rising scent of her, the rising heat of her.
Her pubic hair was furry, springy, but delicately layered, piled so cunningly, entrancingly for him, and he went in there between her parted thighs as if it was a thing he had been doing all his life, as if he had always belonged there, and maybe that was true.
He licked his tongue down into that hair, and through it, and discovered the femaleness of her, the beauty there; he went on into her depths, feeling and exploring, while she rolled around and cried out, and used her hands on his head to guide him to that special place.
Rush worked it over for her, with her, knowing all her hidden flavors and all her secret bubblings until she arched suddenly and madly to him, coming as if she would never stop.
He lifted himself back up her squirming body then, and braced his cock to her mound, to that moist center he'd just left with his other end. She snapped him inside her, and they stroked together for a long time that way, fitting so well, wriggling and feeling and reaching for the great, wild thing that would be greater and wilder if they found it and shared it together.
They did; they came together, grasping and raking and slamming in that brutal kind of tenderness that made it all so fine, that made being a man and woman the marvel it can sometimes become.
Rush rolled off her, but she would not let him go. She clamped her thighs and contracted her cunt somehow to hold him inside her. They lay face to face, with her belly tight to his, with his cock slowly lessening in her.
They talked some more, and he told her about the brawl he'd been in, the one that got him busted; he told her it had taken place close by the place she worked, on Fisherman's Wharf, with the tourists scattering and yelling and the three guys coming at him from the fish-gutting joint.
Big bastards, all of them, with the captain at the head, not thinking he really needed the other guys, but playing it safe as always. Rush took the captain out from under his blue peaked cap with the first hook, not bothering to set him up with a jab since he was coming in so wide open.
The left hand felt fine; it didn't come all apart, but held together solid and substantial, and Rush knew then that the long fishing trip had paid off like it was supposed to. Not with money, because that's what the beef was about, but with a thick, salted skin over the knuckles and a layer of new muscle above and below. A real fighter's hands now, and Rush felt great as one of the other bastards got to him with a high right hand. Rush Scanlon's left hand didn't break any more. He slid around and fired the right to see how it was, and it was good, too, on the bastard's cheekbone.
He got in two solid shots on the third guy before that one took off with his buddy. That left the captain getting off the wharf with blood on his mouth-the smartass, tough guy captain of the Bianco who had ridden him and worked him more than any other three regular fishermen.
Captain Geegee Fallo wanted to run, too, but Rush wouldn't let it go; he had too much stored up, so he moved in on Fallo and punished his belly, He put a shoulder under Fallo's chin so the big bastard wouldn't fall again; then he set himself and really went to work-winging the punches, digging his toes into the wharf for leverage, in and out, down and up, glorying in the release of smooth, timed power that had always been his. He liked it even more because of the captain's big, rotten mouth, the captain's attempt to screw him out of the wages.
Maybe he shouldn't have hammered the guy so long. He should have been content to bang him a couple and forget it. Hell, he had good hands again, and what did five months' wages make, against good hands? Rush should have thanked Geegee Fallo for working him so damned hard and toughening the hands.
Instead, he beat the shit out of him, and when the fuzz got there, he didn't realize who they were and slammed one of them, too. They worked him over with a club and a blackjack and put cuffs on him.
In court, nobody'd seen the other two guys-only Fallo and the savage beating he'd taken. The captain showed up with scars and bandages and his head all out of shape. Yeah, Rush Scanlon was a professional fighter, or had been until his hands got brittle and he went tuna fishing to make them hard and usable.
Rush Scanlon's lawyer didn't much care, and Guiseppe Fallo was a hometown boy with a lot of buddies, and after that it was Soledad prison.
Soledad means lonely in Spanish, he told Lei as they snuggled together on her rumpled bed, and it sure as hell was. Maybe now she could help him make up for it.