Bang Page 10

  “Keep going,” he instructs.

  Mari does. She shimmies out of her pants, then shakes her head slightly. “One day we ought to do this when I’m not wearing granny underwear,” she mutters in embarrassment, reaching down to hook a pair of stretched-out cotton panties off her ankle.

  “Mari,” Jack tells her, eyes on the dark triangle of hair between her legs—eyes on her everywhere, her thick thighs and the generous roll of her belly, the hips that were never remotely girlish even when she was actually a girl. “Shut up and get on the bed.”

  Mari gets, heart thrumming with anticipation. Jack’s still wearing all of his clothes.

  “Are you gonna…?” she trails off, waving a hand at his uniform. He unclipped his radio but his duty belt is still buckled in place, badge and gun holstered.

  Jackson seems to be considering it. Then he shakes his head. “Nah,” he says, undoing the belt and letting it drop to the floor with a thunk. “Don’t think so.” He unzips his fly and pulls his cock out without even unbuttoning, the tip already shiny. It looks lewd and obvious against his dark blue pants.

  Mari swallows. The instinct to spread her legs hits right in the bottom of her belly. “Jack,” she murmurs, shifting. “I’m gonna mess up your—”

  But Jack nods. “I know,” he says, hooking both hands underneath her knees and yanking her hips to the edge of the bed. When he leans over his nameplate is right in her face, Officer Ford in stitched white thread. “Gonna have you all over my zipper.”

  “Oh my God,” Mari murmurs involuntarily. She squeezes her eyes shut, then opens them again to find Jack’s gaze locked on hers. There’s the faintest hint of a smirk on his face. It looks not unlike he’s putting the theory of a crime together, all the evidence clicking slowly into place.

  “You like that?” he asks, sliding one rough palm up her thigh, then flipping his hand and sliding two fingers as deep inside her as he can get them, no preamble. “Yeah you do,” he answers when Mari keens. He sounds smug, but also clinical, as if he’s talking to a suspect.

  “I do,” Mari admits once she can speak again. She grinds herself down against his hand. She wants him to add another finger, wants him to stretch her out or turn her over or something, wants this feeling to never ever stop.

  “Good,” Jack says, pulling his fingers out again, digging around in the nightstand until he comes up with a condom. “Knees up,” he says, ripping it open. “Let me see you.” Then, tapping her thigh hard enough that Mari doesn’t know if it actually qualifies as a tap at all, “More.”

  “Fuck.” Mari whimpers and obeys, knees to her chest so he can see every private centimeter of her body as he rolls the condom down over his cock. “Please.”

  Jack grins at that, familiar and totally new both at once. It’s the first friendly expression Mari’s seen on his face since she lay down. “You’re kind of dirty, huh?” he asks, lining himself up but not sinking in, not yet. “I like that.”

  There’s already a burn in the backs of her thighs from holding them up. Mari cups both her knees then slides her hands underneath, yanking up as her legs start to slip out of position. “You do, huh?” she asks, then catches sight of Jackson’s expression. “What?”

  He shakes his head. His mouth is open just a bit, bottom lip gone cherry-red and shiny. White-boy mouth. White-boy eyelashes, orange and pale. “Good listening, Officer,” he murmurs roughly, nodding at her legs.

  Mari blushes. Then he sinks in an inch and she winds up gulping and biting her tongue all at once. “Hurry,” she murmurs, readjusting her grip. She feels overstimulated, like Sonya at the petting zoo last year, flitting from animal to animal in a frenzy then puking up blue slushie beside the goat pen. “They know we’re coming back in.”

  Jack puts his hands on her hands and pushes up up up. “Yeah,” he says distractedly, pushing in the rest of the way. Then, “Oh fuck, I can’t last.”

  Oh God, it is so good like that, the press of his hands on her body and the low delicious burn as he bottoms out inside. Mari digs her heels into his ass when he starts to move. It’s a full click rougher than he’s been with her any of the other times they’ve done this, fast, his hands trapping hers so she’s helpless underneath him. She feels like one raw humming nerve. It’s not a flattering angle, probably, her body accordioned up like this, every roll of flesh accentuated and her breasts flattened out against her chest. Mari doesn’t spend a ton of time obsessing about her body—she carried a child, she passes her department fitness test just fine—but the flip side of Jack taking charge is this sharp edge of vulnerability, the tired old worry that she’s big where she ought to be little and the other way around.

  Jack—yeah. Jack does not appear to see it that way.

  “Fuck, you’re hot,” he mutters now, mouth glancing off hers in an artless half-kiss, like he’s after the contact more than anything else. Mari tugs her hands free so she can yank at his hair. She’s not gentle about it either, biting at his salty neck hard enough that he hisses. He slams her wrists back down against the bed.

  Mari pants, giddy with something close to delight. “Is that how it is?” she asks. Her arms are stinging from the angle.

  Jackson nods. His pants are scraping against the inside of her thighs with each thrust, the polyester thick and abrading. “It is,” he confirms. Then he closes his eyes. “Fuck, Mari, hurry up and come.” His voice is strangled.

  Mari shivers. “Make me.”

  Jackson looks at her. Then he reaches up with one forearm and puts all his weight against her bent knees, practically folding her in half. “Is this it?” His thrusts click up another gear, the teeth of his zipper biting into Mari’s flesh. One of them catches and she yelps, but that feels good too, all rolled into everything. “Is that how you like it?”

  And—fuck.

  That is.

  Mari comes with a helpless yowl, muffling it against Jackson’s uniform shirt—how shatteringly, colossally good it feels but something else too, the full-body impact of it like getting in a car wreck, totally out of control. He loses it himself barely a second later. That “hurry up” wasn’t entirely for her benefit, then, Mari realizes. He needed her to come because he was about to, because they’re both getting off on whatever this is. She’s never wanted it this way before, not ever. She’s not sure what it means that she wants it this way with Jack.

  “Jesus Christ,” he mutters as he’s coming back to himself, hips slowing and his grip on her wrists easing up. “Shit, Mari.”

  Mari laughs. “Hi,” she says, the hot sting of the blood rushing back into her arms. She feels sore and sated, but also uneasy, like she hid a bad report card under her bed before going out to play. She isn’t sure if this means she’s off the hook or not.

  Either way, she feels way more naked than she did a second ago, so she shoves gently at his shoulders until he moves. “We’ve gotten better at that part, huh?”

  Jackson’s eyebrows twitch. It’s the first time either one of them has mentioned it, what an abject failure they were the first time, the weight of all that expectation drowning them like cinder blocks tied to their work boots. “Yeah, well,” he says evenly. “I’m a slow learner.”

  “I am,” Mari corrects him, and she means it about more than just the sex.

  Jackson loses the condom and zips himself back into his pants, kissing her briskly. “We gotta get back,” is all he’ll say. He leaves the bedroom before she can reply.

  So. Mari stands up and gets dressed on shaky legs, alone.

  Chapter Seven

  Sarge won’t let Jack into the interview room while Mari is giving her statement, so he bounces around the hallway by the lockers, debating changing into a fresh uniform. There’s sweat drying under his arms and behind his balls, the taste of Mari’s tongue in his mouth. His thighs have a post-sex twitch. Orgasms wind him up now, have ever since the shooting. He feels like he could put
his fist through a wall.

  “We’re gonna do it by the book,” Leo had said firmly when they first arrived at the station. “We’re gonna do it so by the book that the fucking book will have an existential crisis. Now go take a walk, Ford.”

  Jackson had resisted some choice words about how by the book the investigation had been until now—no real description, no facial sketch, softball questions and a gloss-over interview with the parking attendant—and had done what he was told. Before now, he had it in his head the perp was part of a gang or some shit. A skinhead, maybe, or some biker guy with neck tattoos. Which is fucking stupid considering he got shot in Great Barrington, town of 7,000 and home of three ceramics studios. Vague as it was, Mari’s original statement hadn’t exactly hemmed his imagination in. White with dark hair. Shit, that could have been anyone. That could have been Jack.

  He thinks about the kid’s skinny body, the resigned way he’d lain down on the floor. He was a full foot shorter than Jack.

  “Fuck,” Jack swears quietly, tapping his knuckles against the cinder block. He feels like a kid waiting outside the principal’s office.

  If he’s being honest, half of his frustration is Mari. The look on her face before she went into the interview room was closed-off and overly professional, like she was trying to compensate for what they’d just done. Why did you ask me over to fuck if it was going to embarrass you? Jackson had thought. Then he pictured the crap he’d just done to her and felt mean.

  “Ford!” That’s Gordy Punch, coming down the hallway from the front desk. Jackson startles and has to shake himself off like a retriever to recover. That’s happening more often, the loud noises thing. If it happens on duty again, with anyone else but Mari as witness—

  “Hey,” he tells Gordy, shoving both hands deep in his pockets. “How’s it going?”

  “Fucking terrible,” Gordy says amicably, shuffling by Jackson to slot some coins into the vending machine. Gordy, Jackson happens to know, drinks six Coke Zeros a day. “Some dick is up front trying to report his deck furniture as stolen. Telling me all about the teak finish.” He stands up and tips his can at Jackson. “Heard they got a lead on your guy, though. Anything solid?”

  That news travelled fast. Jackson feels his heart kick up for no reason at all. “Yep,” he says, clenching his hidden hands into fists. “De la Espada thinks she can ID him.” Mari’s last name already feels weird in his mouth, and they’ve only slept together five times. They can’t stay partners for much longer, that much is pretty fucking clear.

  “You’re up.” That’s Mari herself, coming through the hallway toward the vending machines, hair raked back into a tail so tight it looks like it must hurt her. In his bed this afternoon it smelled like cinnamon and sweat.

  Jack pushes himself off the wall. “Everything okay?” he asks. His voice comes out too short for friendly concern.

  Mari nods tightly, gaze flicking ever so briefly to Punch, then back again. “No problem,” she reports. Then, to Gordy, nodding at the aluminum can, “You got a death wish or what?”

  Jack heads into Leo’s office and gives his statement, earning a slap on the back and a “we’ll get him” for his trouble. He wants to compare notes with Mari, but when he gets done she’s taking a missing persons report from a woman in one of the interview rooms; then Zales needs somebody to help him out with a court appearance, so Jack plays judge in the kitchen for a little while. By the time he catches up with her in the pee-smelling hallway near holding, it’s quitting time.

  “You still want that drink?” Jack asks. He feels vaguely like he should apologize, but more urgently he wants to know exactly what she said to Sarge. It’s under his skin like an itch, the notion that he personally has to make sure their statements are letter-perfect.

  But Mari shakes her head. “Can’t,” she says. “My mom just called, Sone’s got a stomach thing.”

  “Are you sure your mom can’t—?” Jack cuts himself off. That’s dumb, he doesn’t need Patty to take care of her puking granddaughter so he can grill Mari about her witness statement for an hour. All at once, he feels like an asshole. “Gotcha. Poor Sone.”

  “Poor Sone,” Mari agrees. “Rain check?”

  “Sure thing,” Jack promises. His voice comes out too bright. Then, surprising himself, “You want company?”

  “What, tonight?” Mari looks surprised too. “You want to?” Her eyes narrow. “It sounds grisly, I’m warning you. It’s not gonna be, like, like…” she trails off then, making a funny little waving motion from which Jack assumes he is to infer the rough sex we had in your apartment during business hours. “You know what I mean?”

  “I know what you mean.” Jackson rubs the back of his neck. “Look, I wouldn’t have volunteered if I didn’t want to come, okay?” It comes out sounding sour, and Mari sighs.

  “Fine,” she says. “Suit yourself.”

  They change into street clothes and meet around back in the parking lot. Mari looks tired when Jackson catches up with her, a pair of faded jeans and a pull-on hoodie that used to be Andre’s. Mom clothes. He thinks about her body, all belly and thighs and deep, olivey skin. She has matching zebra stretch marks on both hips.

  “Hey,” he says, tapping her shoulder as she flips her hood up and walks toward the car. The air has gone from cool to truly cold, jacket weather. In two weeks it’ll be Halloween. “I’m sorry about earlier.” He isn’t sure if he means the sex or something else.

  Mari rubs at the bridge of her nose. “Okay,” is all she says. “Look, I mean it, this isn’t going to be fun. She’s not as cute when she’s sick, trust me.”

  Jack exhales, stung. “Do you not want me to come? Because you could just say so.”

  Mari raises her eyebrows. “Do you want to come?” she asks. When she’s especially tired or especially annoyed she lets a bit of Patty’s accent creep into her voice. Jackson can’t tell which she is right now. Probably both.

  “I do,” he says. “I am. I want to see Sone.” He feels stubborn about that, like he’s got something to prove. He knows she got a letter sent home last week for using her outdoor voice indoors and that her daycare is hatching tadpoles, but he hasn’t actually seen her since the night he drove Mari to pick up the morning-after pill. Before Mari’s divorce, he averaged about one Sonya sighting a year. It feels small of him now, to have avoided an entire tiny person just because her existence made him sad.

  Mari softens. “Suit yourself,” she repeats, shaking her head, the red-purple twilight casting shadows across her face. “I’ll see you at the house.”

  Jack climbs into the SUV and follows, stopping off at the Big Y for a box of popsicles shaped like Disney characters and a pint of the dulce de leche ice cream Mari likes. He isn’t great with kids. “Peace offering,” he says twenty minutes later, holding them out on Mari’s doorstep.

  Both her silky eyebrows pop up. “Are we fighting?”

  Jackson hesitates, standing there in her doorway. He wants to kiss her. He wants to yell. It’s all tangled up inside him, how bad he loves her and how angry he is, how the truth is that for all their fucking partner talk he almost doesn’t trust her worth a damn anymore. The worst part is, he doesn’t even think he’s pissed about the shooting. He thinks what he’s really pissed about is the nine years that came before it.

  “No,” he says finally, shaking his head ever so slightly and stepping inside the house. It’s fucked up, he can admit that. They were buddies; she was married. It’s not like he ever made a move. But he knows she always knew she could have him, and now that they’re actually together it makes him feel resentful as all hell. “We’re not fighting.”

  “Okay.” Mari looks uncertain, but she takes the grocery bag and makes for the freezer. She’s still wearing Andre’s hoodie. “Patient’s on the couch watching a movie. My mom’s already in bed. I gather it was not a good day for any of us.”

  “No
kidding,” Jack mutters, then immediately regrets it. “Had its highlights,” he adds. Mari snorts.

  Sonya’s curled into a ball on the sofa with a stuffed strawberry and an aluminum barf bowl beside her, the first musical sequence of Aladdin finishing up on the flat screen. In Jackson’s family, the barf bowl was a big, yellow Tupperware container. It feels important that he now knows about the de la Espadas. “Hey, sick girl,” Jack says to Sonya, tapping one small, fuschia-toed foot gingerly. “How’s it going?”

  “I threw up,” she tells him mournfully. “All over my bed.”

  Jack nods. “I heard.” With Sonya lying down, there’s not going to be enough room for all three of them on the sofa, but the chair feels far so finally he just sits down on the carpet, legs stretched out and ankles crossed in front of him. “This is a good movie, though.” He’s normally good at shooting the shit with Sone when he sees her, but suddenly he feels self-conscious, like this time it’s extra important she likes him.

  Christ. She’s four fucking years old.

  “It is a good movie,” Mari agrees, coming into the living room behind him. “Hey, Fancy Pants, Jack brought you some ice pops. Want one?”

  Sonya nods bravely and selects a popsicle shaped like Sleeping Beauty, biting the head off with not a small amount of relish. “Is it gonna make my puke blue?” she asks Jackson during “Street Rat”. Her hair is in a frizzy braid, held back by multiple butterfly clips. Jackson thinks they probably hurt to lie on.

  Jack considers it. “I mean,” he tells her honestly. “It might. I’m sorry.”

  Sonya’s face lights up. “Cool.”

  Sure enough, that’s exactly what happens half an hour later while Mari is upstairs in the bathroom. Jackson is watching Robin Williams’s genie doppelganger do impersonations of famous people from the ’90s when he hears the unmistakable sound of barf hitting aluminum. He scrambles to his feet in a panic, not sure what to do.

  Thankfully, Sonya seems to be aiming just fine on her own. “Look,” she says tearfully, holding out her bowl. Sure enough, it looks like she puked up Smurf.