Cut Throat

And she dreamed.

He was behind her. She could feel the warmth of his breath against her neck.

“Wilson…I—”

When he lifted the hair from the back of her neck, she choked.

“Shh,” he whispered, as he cupped her breasts and pulled her close against him, then rolled her nipples between his fingers.

Heat shot through Cat so fast she gasped, then staggered.

“Is that good, baby? Do you like that?”

All she could manage was a groan.

When his hands went south, Cat shuddered, then closed her eyes and let herself go. Wave upon wave of unbelievable pleasure began to build, adding to the aching, white-hot pressure already deep within her. Cat wasn’t accustomed to letting anyone control her body, but she couldn’t find the words to make him stop. The feeling was so good it was frightening, and when she heard Wilson groan, she knew she wasn’t the only one affected by their lovemaking.

A minute passed, then another and another, while Wilson’s hands and mouth marked a trail of heat all over her body, leaving her almost blind with need. Then, between one breath and another, she began to burn and Wilson sensed it. Before she could think, he dropped to the side of the bed, pulling her with him until she was sitting in his lap, riding his erection.

She wanted to turn around—to watch his face while they did it—but she was coming so fast she couldn’t breathe. She didn’t want it to be over, but she needed it to stop. And then she screamed.

Cat woke up with a jerk just as the orgasm rolled through her. Breath caught in the back of her throat as she grabbed onto the sheets. A moment passed in a wave of confusion as she tried to orient herself within the starkness of an unfamiliar motel room—along with the place she’d just been in her head.

“Damn, damn, damn,” she said with a groan, then rolled over and sat up in the bed.

She’d left Wilson McKay behind for a reason, only it seemed he wasn’t as easy to ignore as she’d planned. The digital clock on the bedside table clicked over onto six o’clock just as she glanced at it. It was early, but after that dream, there was no way she was going back to sleep.

Still weak and shaky, she pushed herself up and off the mattress and staggered to the bathroom.

It was a plain, inconspicuous room about the size of a small closet. The dripping showerhead had left a rusty streak down the side of the tub, which should have been a warning for what was to come.

Deciding that the wisest thing to do would be not to look into corners too closely, she unwrapped the tiny complimentary bar of soap, then palmed it as she stepped into the shower. She pulled a clean washcloth down from a small shelf, then turned on the water. When she had it adjusted to the warmth she wanted, she pulled up the shower button on the faucet and then gasped when it sputtered rusty water in her face before emitting a somewhat steady stream.

“Fucking perfect,” Cat muttered, as she washed the rusty gunk from her face.

A short while later she emerged from the shower and dressed in a warm, comfortable turtleneck sweater and a pair of jeans. She packed, then headed out the door, leaving her room key and a couple of dollars on the bed for the cleaning lady. The air was chilled, the sky gray and overcast. She pulled the collar of her coat up around her neck and hunched her shoulders as she hurried toward her SUV.

Breakfast came from the drive-through of a doughnut shop, along with an extra-large cup of coffee. Cat ate with one hand while driving with the other. By the time she was finished, her dark blue sweater was dotted with bits of sugar glaze. She brushed the sugar from her clothes onto the floorboard, washed down the last bite of doughnut with the last of her coffee, then took out her cell phone. There were two messages, both from Art, one telling her to call and let him know she was okay, the second complaining that she hadn’t returned his first call. She grimaced, then shook her head as she laid the phone back down on the seat. Art was a good friend, as well as her boss, but sometimes he treated her like a helpless girl and not the self-possessed woman she really was. She would call him later when she was further down the road. Right now there was nothing to tell.

The laptop she’d come to rely on was on the passenger seat, powered up and running. Every so often she would glance down at it, just to make sure the blip she was following was still where it had been the night before. It was. It was not lost upon her that this whole trip could turn out to be a bust. The blip could be nothing more than a leftover bug that her friend Pete had placed in a piece of clothing or a pair of shoes belonging to Mark Presley. After she’d taken Presley into custody outside of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, anyone could have come across his belongings. She had no way of knowing what had burned in the fire and what had survived. Someone could have come along and claimed the discarded clothing, unaware that some of it had been bugged. One way or another, she would soon find out.

About an hour south, she began to be aware that the traffic in front of her was slowing down. When she drove up over a hill and saw that there’d been a wreck, and that for now both lanes of the highway were being shut down, she frowned and pulled off to the shoulder.

One highway patrolman was stopping traffic. Another was down in the ditch with the wrecked cars and a tow truck. She eyed the situation carefully, then put her vehicle back in gear. While the patrolmen were otherwise occupied, she shifted her SUV into four-wheel drive, wheeled around the parked vehicles and drove onto the center median, bypassing the line of cars and the wreckage. When she was clear of the pileup, she drove back onto the highway and continued her trip south.

Wilson had nightmares all night and, in one way or another, every damn one of them related to Cat Dupree. His first phase of sleep revolved around Cat ordering him from her house. That nightmare evolved into a good two hours of being lost in a maze and hearing Cat screaming for help, but being unable to find her.

He got up before daybreak feeling like he’d been run over. The last time he’d been this bummed about a woman, he’d been all of thirteen and learning to come to terms with the fact that his pretty, eighteen-year-old neighbor was probably never going to return his affections. Back then, a big breakfast of blueberry pancakes had gone a long way toward curing the heartache. Unfortunately, it would take more than his mother’s cooking to assuage the pain that loving Cat Dupree had left behind.

By the time he got out of the shower, the streets outside his apartment were already beginning to fill with traffic. As he went to the kitchen to start the coffeemaker, he glanced out the living-room windows, judging the weather by the thin wisps of clouds and the gray, overcast sky. Whatever was going to happen today wasn’t going to be good. He could feel it.

He poured his first cup of coffee, thinking of how his mornings used to be when he was a kid back home. The kitchen had been warm and full of noise and great smells. His mom would be standing at the stove cooking bacon or pancakes or something equally tasty, while keeping her rowdy, growing family down to a dull roar.

In comparison to that, his place was a mausoleum. He turned on the small TV he kept on the corner of a kitchen counter just so he could add some voices to the silence, even if the news they were broadcasting was less than heartwarming. As usual, in a city the size of Dallas, the night had not been kind. Someone was dying, while others were already dead. He listened just long enough to assure himself that the suspected perps were none of his bonds, then opted for food.

But when he went to the fridge to get some eggs, he saw a half-empty bottle of beer on the lower shelf and, once again, lost focus. His heart kicked painfully against his chest as he stared at it—remembering.

It had been in his fridge for at least two weeks, maybe more, but he knew who it belonged to. It was Cat’s. She had been drinking from it to wash down a bean-and-beef burrito when he’d taken it out of her hands, picked her up in his arms, then carried her to his bedroom. The ensuing session of lovemaking had been gut-wrenching—a mixture of passion and lust that he wished to hell he could forget. Frustrated with himself for being such a loser, he emptied the beer into the sink. The desire for food was gone. If only he could rid himself of Cat’s memory as quickly as he’d dumped that bottle, he would be a lot better off.

“Christ Almighty,” he muttered, then threw the bottle in the trash. “How in hell do I get past this?”

Frustrated with himself for letting a woman get under his skin to this degree, he turned off the coffeepot, ignored the ache in his gut and went back to his bedroom to dress for the day.

Solomon Tutuola sopped up the last of the beans with his last bite of tortilla, then eyed Paloma as he licked his fingers.

“Got any more?”

Paloma frowned as she shook her head. This food had been meant to last her at least through tomorrow. He’d eaten it without thought for her situation.

“No more,” she said, frowning as she glanced at his teeth then looked away. It seemed unnatural to file one’s teeth like a wild animal, but, as she remembered, Solomon was as close to an animal as any human could be.

Solomon frowned. The pain pills he’d taken earlier were beginning to wear off, and what wasn’t hurting was itching. He glanced around the simple dwelling, frowning even more as he looked back at Paloma herself. Years ago, when they’d first met, she’d been a curvaceous woman with dark, flashing eyes and a rowdy laugh. The woman before him had run to fat, and the displeasure she was feeling was reflected on her face. He was tempted to say to hell with her and take his leave. But he still needed to rest, and he needed some help doctoring his healing wounds.

“I’m going to sleep now,” he announced, and rose abruptly.

“But the day is just beginning,” Paloma said.

Solomon glared at her. “Then maybe I need some entertaining to keep me awake in this no-place of a town.”

“No one asked you to come here,” Paloma muttered.

Solomon slapped her.

“Don’t backtalk me, woman. You’re not pretty enough to get away with it anymore.”

Paloma’s chin lifted. She might not be pretty anymore, but age had given her something else—something she’d been lacking when she’d first known him. Backbone.

“You don’t talk about pretty to me, Tutuola. Your face looks like your heart…dark and ugly.”

Solomon grabbed her by the throat and squeezed.

Paloma glared back at him.

Suddenly he shoved her aside and strode from the room. She watched him go, then turned and left her house as abruptly as he’d left her kitchen.

Solomon heard her leave and thought nothing of it. She was of no consequence to him other than furnishing a free place to rest. He popped some pain pills, downing them without water, and lay down on her cot. Within a few minutes, he’d fallen asleep.

Paloma was not as easily assuaged. Still, the crisp, coolness of the morning air was calming as she stormed from her little house out into the dusty streets. She paused in her front yard, glancing back one last time at her doorway, then doubled her fists and headed south to the casa of Maria Sanchez. Maria was a witch, and Paloma needed a sure cure for the devil who’d darkened her doorstep.