Born To Be Wild

THIRTY-NINE

Jack twisted in the air to land on his side and rolled. He lay on his back and mentally checked his parts. Fine, he was fine, nothing broken or maimed. But still, it was probably wise to lie here for a little while, breathe in the nice ocean air, clear his head, like that was possible, curse her. He cocked an eye open to see Mary Lisa standing over him, hands on her hips. “Are you all right?” She smacked her palm to her forehead. “Of course you are, you’re indestructible. If a missile brought you down, you’d chew on it like a cigar, and jump up again. Isn’t that right?” She kicked a clot of sand on him. “Don’t you pay attention to where you’re running?”

He didn’t say anything, just lay on his back watching the moonlight play over her face and streak through her red hair, most of it free of her ponytail, curling wildly around her face. Then he closed his eyes.

“You aren’t hurt, are you?” She fell on her knees beside him and slapped his face, not all that lightly. “Come on, stop faking. You’re as bad as Puker. Open your eyes. Tell me I’m an idiot again. Give me more orders, you do that so well. Open your eyes, or at least wiggle a finger.”

He opened his eyes again and grinned up at her. Then he started laughing, so hard he nearly choked himself. “I can’t believe you came dancing back to the big bad man. Not smart, but then you’ve loaned your brain out, haven’t you?” Fast as a snake, he grabbed her arms and pulled her down on top of him.

He was aware in a sliver of his brain that there wasn’t any more laughter or hoots or advice coming from the back deck of Mary Lisa’s house. There was nothing but silence, the sound of the waves breaking gently onto the sand maybe three feet from his head, and the moonlight splashing down, haloing Mary Lisa’s head.

She pushed up on her elbows and stared down at him. “When you first came to Goddard Bay, we used to call you the Big Bad Wolf. You were always strutting around, looking all sorts of tough and hard, a real chick magnet, the Big Bad Chief of Police. I know, it’s not very original, but there you have it.”

“Strutting around?” He grabbed her hair and pulled her face down to his. She stretched out on top of him and felt her nerve endings hum, knew her blood was flowing through her thick, heavy and sweet. She felt wonderful and wanted more.

Suddenly, she jerked back. “Good grief, this is nuts. What are we doing? You’ve come to L.A. and, look at me-lying on top of you and I’m not all that eager to move and that really should bother me, on some level.”

He laughed. “What level is that?” He lightly chopped her elbows to land her back on top of him. He put his hands in her hair, pulling her down, and it wasn’t much of a pull because she wanted it too, wanted to feel him against her again, maybe even wanted the waves to flow gently over her toes, make them sizzle, she was that hot.

She pulled away again, and said close to his face, “You know this is crazy. You don’t even like me. And you know what else? I haven’t decided if I really like you either.”

“Now, that’s good to hear.” And he began kissing her again, and his hands molded on her hips and he was moving her against him, slow, then faster. He pulled forward, then back, and Mary Lisa couldn’t believe the wild urgency roaring through her. She pressed down against him as much as he let her, felt the hard slide through his jeans, felt his hands raising her away, driving her mad, then pushing her hard against him again.

She came, fast and hard and loud. He grabbed the back of her head with one hand and kissed her hard, taking her hoarse cries into his mouth. He was so close himself, he was heaving with it, nearly bursting, but-

“Oh my,” she whispered into his mouth, beyond herself. “Oh my.”

“Yes,” he said, and he kept kissing her, both hands molding her hips now, pressing her against him, for him this time, not her. But he had to stop, knew it, or he’d come too, and that wouldn’t be smart-

They both froze at the voice filled with irony, a familiar voice, way too familiar. Mary Lisa twisted to look up into John Goddard’s face. She felt dazed, limp, incredibly energized, all at the same time, and she felt every hard square inch of Jack’s body beneath her and never wanted to move.

“Well, John,” she said, pleased she could talk, quite relieved that she sounded all sorts of normal, “if this doesn’t beat all.”

And he knew, of course, from those vague eyes of hers, the flush that he could see in the moonlight, the pain on Jack’s face, knew exactly what had happened. “I was thinking along similar lines myself.”

Jack let her go. He wanted to curse and weep with the loss of her against him, the deep ache in his groin. She climbed to her feet, straightened her clothes, slapping off the sand, and grinned at him. “Well, hello, John. Long time no see. You know this big guy sprawled down there, grinning like a fool? Well, he’s not really grinning, is he?”

“Hi, Mary Lisa. Yeah, I know this guy. My question is what are you doing lying on top of him on the beach?”

“I was running away from him, and he caught me. He was pissed because I did something useful.”

Jack shook himself, got slowly to his feet, tested out that all his moving parts were, thankfully, in good working order. “Actually I was pissed because she stole my line.” He managed to grin now, and buffeted John Goddard’s shoulder with a good deal of strength, a guy greeting, which, in Mary Lisa’s study of life and men, could mean best friends or worst enemies-but guys. “Hey, Pitty Pat, what brings you down to this neck of the woods?”

“As in here on the beach, watching you trying to get your tongue down Mary Lisa’s throat?”

Jack thought about how very fine it had felt, how incredible it had felt when she came and shuddered and quaked and he’d felt every quiver, tasted every moan out of her beautiful mouth, and slowly he nodded. “Yeah, I guess that’s about right.”

Mary Lisa smacked Jack’s arm. “Talk about unprofessional. Well, you hardly did anything that I noticed all that much. Well, maybe some things, but-so, what are you doing here, Pitty-John?”

“So he told you he calls me Pitty Pat?”

“Yeah, I did. I also told her you call me the Goon Leader.”

“I want to know what Pitty Pat means.”

John shook his head. “Not in this lifetime. I flew down here this afternoon for an overnighter, to see how you are, see what Jack here has accomplished. Apart from getting you on top of him on the beach, of course, and-well, never mind that. Your father sends his love, practically ordered me down here since you won’t let him come down himself.”

“That was very nice of you, John. I really should call my father. We have some good news for him. The guy’s gone, left L.A.”

Jack looked at her like she’d lost her mind.

“What?” Mary Lisa turned on him, hands on her hips. “Why are you looking at me like I’m the village idiot?”

Jack loooked her straight in the eye. “Stop trying to pretend everything’s okay now. You don’t really believe that guy’s gone any more than I do, any more than Daniel does. The tide’s coming in. I need to get my stuff before the water does. Then let’s go back to the house. John needs to hear what’s going on.”

John looked more bemused than pissed, Mary Lisa thought as they walked back to the house, which relieved her greatly. John said, “I’ve heard bits and pieces from Lou Lou and Daniel already, and this old guy, Carlo, offered to give me surfing lessons.”

Mary Lisa rolled her eyes. “You already met Lou Lou and Daniel? And made friends with Carlo? How long have you been here, John?”

“Not that long. I was watching with the rest of your friends from your back deck when Goon Leader here tried to catch you. You looked really graceful, Jack, going airborne like that. Like a ballerina, and you landed soft and rolled. That was well done. Oh, by the way, there are a lot of gorgeous women in your house, Mary Lisa.”

“All Jack lacked was a tutu when he did his grand jeté. Yeah, this place is loaded with both gorgeous guys and girls.”

Jack grinned at her as he rubbed his left shoulder, rotated it a bit. “Did you see Little Miss Ego come flitting back because she thought I was mortally wounded?”

“Little Miss what? Ego? You call me Little Miss Ego?” She’d watched Chico do it a dozen times, and she’d tried it twice as often herself that afternoon. She presented her side, rose onto her toes, and lashed out at his side with her left leg. It wasn’t badly done, but she held back a bit because, she supposed, her insides still felt so gooey and fluid, and Jack grabbed her ankle before it landed in his belly and flipped her. She went down, and he snagged her wrist to pull her up again. He stared down at her. “So that’s why you had such bad muscle cramps on Friday. Some martial arts instructor has been beating the crap out of you.”

She’d lost her kicking shoe. She jerked away from him, picked it up and shook it at him. “Next time I won’t hold back, Jack Wolf. Next time I might get you but good.”

“Why were you holding back?”

His voice was sexy and deep and she wanted to jump on him and kiss his face off and kick him at the same time, the jerk, but all she could do was stand there, without a word to say, because John was standing only two feet away, watching them.

John said, his head cocked to one side, understanding in his eyes, “Er, can we go back to your house now, Mary Lisa? Jack, you’d best move fast and rescue your boots before the waves drown them. You need any help, old man?”

Jack laughed at that.

“What’s this? That wasn’t all that funny, Jack. Why are you encouraging him?”

“An old joke,” Jack said.

“I’m one month older than Goon Leader,” John said.

“It still wasn’t very funny,” Mary Lisa said; she turned and began to walk back up the beach and paused to pick up Jack’s boots. He saw them in her hand as she began trotting toward the surf, whistling.

“No!” He stopped between her and the water, panting, his arms out, like a basketball guard. “No, not my boots. Please, Mary Lisa, they’re new.”

“They’re beautiful. I wouldn’t hurt them. You, however, are another matter entirely, but I guess that will have to be later.” She laughed, dropped his boots on dry sand, and ran back to her house, up the deck steps to her friends.