DEAD SEXY Read online

  She felt Blake’s cock pulsing as he shot thick white come into her. His groans and sighs echoed through her office and her legs went limp, dangling from the desk. Jenna could have slept forever, could have just closed her eyes and sunk into the golden languor that came from the release that she had been given.

  She opened her eyes and his face swam into her vision. His strong white teeth were sunk into his bottom lip and his eyes were still narrowed. The red flush that lit his forehead and cheeks was the same one that lay in her skin.

  With vision came clarity. She had just fucked the guy who could cost her everything! What was she thinking? Blake was having the same thoughts, he had just had sex with the woman he might be sending off to a long prison term, that was beyond unprofessional, but so was what he felt about her.

  He backed away slowly and helped her to her feet, neither of them spoke. Jenna straightened her clothes, her hands jerking at her skirt until it looked almost right again. Tendrils of her hair hung against her sweat slicked cheeks and her panties lay crumpled and discarded on the floor.

  The smell of sex rose into the air and the smell of his cologne lingered on her clothes and skin. She could still feel his seed dripping from her slit, it smeared her inner thighs and ran into the top of her stockings. The time drew out slow and thick with tension.

  “I am not that person anymore.”

  The words broke the silence. Blake tugged his jeans back together and fastened the button and pulled the zipper, it made a long and final sound. “That is not for me to say.”

  Jenna bit her lip. What would it take to convince him, and why the hell did she care about convincing him? He was just a random guy passing through her life. What did he matter?

  He mattered, for some reason, and she was not sure why and even that confused and upset her. Blake was as sensual as sin and just as tempting, but what could a man like him know about a family like hers? She doubted he’d ever done the wrong thing in his entire life.

  “You should go.”

  Yes, he should and he knew it. He didn’t want to go though, he wanted to stay right there and …and what? Ask her to dinner? He would have loved to take her out, but the situation was, to put it mildly, awkward.

  A knock on her door put an end to their standoff. Jenna, relieved beyond words, called out, “Come in please.”

  The door swung pen to reveal Tom Pitt, a scrawny older man who had been with the company for almost twenty five years. Everyone knew he was coasting these days but he was smart enough to take the credit for other’s work and ideas and keep himself in the corner office that he occupied.

  “Jenna, did you have a meeting with…oh, I’m sorry, I did not realize you had a client.”

  “I was just leaving.” Blake’s soft drawl sang out. He left, not looking back and Jenna did not dare say anything, the last thing she needed was Pitt wondering what she was doing with a man in her office at that hour.

  Chapter Two

  It was after midnight when Jenna stood in her shower with hot water streaming off her body and lilac scented suds rising from her loofah. Her hair hung in a long sheet down her back, filled with the scent of lavender and honey. Despite all of that she could still smell Blake on her flesh, and over that there was another set of smells: cheap hamburger meat and marijuana, vodka and cigarettes.

  The smells of her childhood.

  Looking back as an adult Jenna knew that none of it had really been her fault. Her entire family was made up of thieves, whore, pimps and hustlers. They had a network of others just as bad, and visits to her cousins usually entailed long nights spent boasting of the money they had made, the schemes they had helped to carry out and the even bigger things their respective parents were planning.

  Jenna had been taught that lying was not only necessary but a good thing, all of her cousins and siblings practiced that art on each other and their parents and everyone else that came across their path. They were commended when they lied well enough to fool a parent—the biggest reward given was a trip to a Dairy Queen for a hot fudge sundae and Jenna had craved ice cream, mostly because most of her meals were made up of stale potato chips, unheated cans of ravioli or beefaroni or spaghetti, and jerky—all things that were cheap and fast. She had needed something sweet, and not just because of the food she was given but because her life had so little sweetness to it.

  Like all children she had needed love and affection and the only way the grownups around her gave it to her was if she did well. The first time her mother had told her she loved her was after Jenna managed to lift a purse from a cafeteria counter and get away with it. Her father had told her he loved her as he was leaving her behind—running out on her and leaving her to take the blame for the drugs he had been holding.

  That had been the charge that had landed her in juvie for three years. The first few months that she had been there had been hell, a hell she was not able to withstand. Then a miracle showed up, in the form of a tough and fast talking woman whose past was as checkered as Jenna’s, but who had learned how to make something of herself anyway.

  Leslie Koppel had been a teacher at the facility and she had seen something in Jenna, and had nurtured it when Jenna herself had not wanted to, or known where to begin. They had slowly began to like each other, and Jenna had begun to trust the older woman enough to listen to her and to begin to think of a life after juvie, a life away from her family and its criminal proclivities.

  Turning off the shower she got out and went into her bedroom to put on a pair of pajamas before going to the kitchen to make some green tea. She could not stop thinking about Blake, and her family, and the two things made her feel both depressed and angry. She had work to do and plenty of it yet there she was, mooning over her past and a man she had no future with.

  Maybe that was what wrong, she thought as she put her cup in the microwave and set it. Maybe she was starting to worry about her life because she was getting older and she spent far too much time working and far too little time playing. Maybe she was starting to hear the ticking of her biological clock or something.

  She took her tea and went to bed. Five am came early, and she knew it but still she lay awake, her mind reliving every moment of the encounter she had shared with Blake in her office.

  * * * *

  “Put that gun by his body, and make sure you get the position of it right because this is going to matter when Internal Affairs comes down on us.”

  Blake looked over at Kevin; sure he had not heard him correctly. He looked at the body of the man at his feet and then back at his partner. “He did not have a gun.”

  “No, but he does now. Dammit Lewis do it!”

  Kevin had been his partner for a decade, and longer. They had joined the Army together at eighteen, doing their duty to their country in a three year stint that saw them heading over to Afghanistan and Iraq. They had come home, or rather they had come to New York, which was Kevin’s home and had joined the police department. Blake’s rise had been meteoric to say the least and Kevin had risen right along with him.

  They were both detectives working Homicide and neither of them were quite thirty yet. They went to work every day to battle the bad guys but there they stood, staring down at the dead body of a drug dealer and talking about planting a weapon.

  Blake knew that this moment had been a long time coming. The whole department was rotten with corruption, the Vice cops were battling against dealers who got tip offs from people right there in the squad, the cops all looked after each other rather than the people they were supposed to be protecting and serving and most of the honest cops had been run off to either other departments or retirement.

  They had gotten to this moment because the dealer lying on the ground in front of his feet had owed a hunk of money to the Vice cop that offered up his ‘protection’ to the street dealers. The dealer had said no thank you, and kept working.

  That had not only not set well with the cop; it had set off a chain reaction from the streets. The dealer in q
uestion was a cocky seventeen year old, the nephew of a man doing hard time and others had followed his lead. Soon the cops were really busting dealers, and they retaliated by bailing out instead of paying protection fees, setting up a complex warning system and jumping on the cops they had once paid—beating two until they had required major hospitalization.

  It had become an all-out war and there had been only one solution, kill the leader. Blake knew all of that, then, but he had not known it at the start of the night. He could not believe what Kevin had just told him, nor could he believe he was being asked to go along with it, to condone it and help cover it all up.

  “He’s just a kid.” His words were hoarse.

  “Look, I know what you’re thinking but you have to look at it this way: we had to put a stop to this. Now that he is gone the streets will cool out and decent people can rest easy again.”

  Blake shook his head. “We have to do the right thing.”

  “This is the right thing,” Kevin said. “Put the gun down beside him.”

  Blake sat up, his heart pounding and his head slowly clearing. The dream haunted him, and always had since that night. He knew there was only once cure for that but that cure was not one he was willing to take on.

  Coward, he told himself as he got up and brewed coffee. You are so eager to put other people in jail… he closed his eyes, trying not to see a young man sprawled across gray asphalt, his life blood leaking away from the hole in his chest and his palm facing up to the sky.

  He had walked away that night. He had handed the gun back to Kevin and walked away. What he should have done was go to the Internal Affairs and tell them the whole of it. Instead he had resigned and walked away.

  That act was the single largest regret of his life. He had not just walked away from the force, he had walked away from the justice that that kid had deserved.

  He sighed and pulled a cup out of the cabinet then poured himself a large shot of coffee. Spiking it liberally with cream and sugar. He looked in his refrigerator and found a sack of oranges, a dozen eggs and a hell of bread.

  “I definitely have to go to the diner,” he muttered.

  The idea depressed him. Lately a lot of things did. He would wake up in his large bed and roll over into the cool sheets and reach for someone who was not there. He had poured himself into his job, into building a company and making it profitable. He had buried himself, if not his remorse for his actions that night and what did he have to show for it all?

  A profitable company and an empty bed.

  Somehow it felt like an empty trade.

  * * * *

  Jenna had no idea that Blake was feeling many of the same things she was feeling, and had been feeling throughout the night. She was also awake and drinking coffee and staring into an almost empty refrigerator and considering going to the diner for food.

  She took a look at her watch, it was barely five thirty. She could go for a half hour run then duck into the diner. She would make it back in time to shower and head out the door. Her body was brimming with anxious energy and she was feeling the effects of too little sleep, some exercise would help her calm down and give her some healthy energy all at once.

  She hastily tossed on running shorts, a sports bra and tank and shoes. She wound her hair up into a loose knot and tucked some cash into her bra top before heading outside.

  The sun was barely up, peeking over the tops of the buildings and lighting the streets. Sleepy-eyed commuters stared at her from bus and car windows, tourists with bleary faces staggered down the streets pulling suitcases, heading in or out of town. Food carts opened their doors and windows, sending the smell of coffee and doughnuts, eggs and cheese out into the air.

  Horns honked and her breath rattled in and out of her mouth. The streets blurred past and she found herself stretching out, enjoying the feel of her muscles gaining oxygen rich blood. She finished running five blocks from her destination and slowed to a walk, letting her breathing come back to normal as she strode along.

  The diner was open but not yet busy and she walked to the counter to place her order, her eyes going to the handsome man with the red running shorts and the sweat stained tee shirt already in the line. Below his baseball cap his black hair was soaked and curling slightly, just as she stepped up he turned around and she stared in dismay into his face.

  “Good morning,” Blake said, doing his best to keep his eyes at her face. That was hard though, it was already warm outside and she had been running hard from the looks of it, so hard that her tank and shorts were stuck to her body, outlining her magnificent figure. “Nice day for a run.”

  Great, this was just what she needed first thing—to run into this guy, Jenna said, “Yes it was. Are you finished? I need to order.”

  He stepped back but before she could pay for her food he had. She glared at him but he seemed to be immune to the power of her angry eye look. In fact, the infuriating man had the nerve to say, “You look cute when you are sweaty and pissed off. Maybe you should be that way more often.”

  Jenna was too hungry to just walk out so she waited for her order, grabbed her bag from the girl behind the counter and stormed out. Blake looked at the girl who said, “Wow, like not even a thanks dude, that is harsh.”

  “Yeah it is. Good thing you do not serve caviar and steak. I would have been broke and crushed.”

  There were people behind him so he took his own bag and followed in Jenna’s wake. He had to admit that it was not a bad place to be; from where he was he could see her tight ass cheeks lifting and dropping with each step. That view alone was worth the cost of her meal.

  He caught up to her as she was unlocking the door to her building and she paused when his hand touched her arm. “Listen, about last night, I know I was an asshole for just leaving you like that.”

  Jenna looked away, embarrassed and nervous. “It’s okay. We’re both adults.”

  “I know that’s not something you do often.”

  Jenna did not have to ask how he knew; her body had showed him that truth. “No, it’s not. I have to get ready for work now.”

  His hand was causing electric tingles to run along her spine and when he moved it she wished he would put it back. “I’ll see you there,” he said then turned away.

  * * * *

  Jenna stared at the building as she approached, her brows knit together. There were police cars out front, had they caught the embezzler so easily then? That was a relief, that meant that life could get back to normal and she could stop worrying that someone would find out who she was, or point a finger at her. After all, once a thief always a thief was the way most people thought.

  As she got closer she saw that there were far too many police officers for a simple arrest. There was a Coroner’s van there too, and why would that be there? An ambulance sat there, its doors open and its attendants were pulling out a white sheeted gurney from the building.

  There was something on the gurney, a body. Jenna’s throat clenched and her belly filled with acid as she stared at the body from behind a wall of onlookers. She spotted a security guard from the building and made her way over to him.

  “What is going on?”

  The guard looked at her and then over her head, he motioned in the air with one hand and a cop came over. Jenna, thinking that the guard did not recognize her, said, “I work here…”

  “I know. Are you Jenna Lewis?”

  Mystified by the question she answered, “Yes why?”

  “Ma’am we need to ask you some questions.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Did you see a man named Tom Pitt last night?”

  “Yes, why?” She stared at the cop, he was a hard faced man in his forties. It was obvious he was a detective, he wore plainclothes: a badly rumpled off the rack suit and loosened tie, scuffed loafers and a jacket that hung too loosely.

  “He was in your office?”

  She opened her mouth to reiterate the why she had already asked and then she closed it again. It was
clear he was not going to tell her anything and if there was anything she knew from hard experience it was that a cop asking question and not giving answers was bad business.

  “Kevin, what is going on here?”

  Blake! Relief swamped her. She turned to him and saw the look that passed between him and the detective. They knew each other, and they did not like each other. Shit, this was hardly working out to be the best morning she had ever had.

  “I need to talk to this lady.”

  “Jenna? Why?”

  “Because a man who was seen going into her office is dead, he was found by the cleaning staff last night, in her office with a knife in his chest and a pair of panties in his hand.”

  All the color drained from Jenna’s face. Her panties? Tom was dead? In her office? “He left my office! He was alive when he left!” The words came out in a rush and she winced, they had all run together so that it sounded like a different language. She wanted to take a breath and start over but Blake was looking at her, his eyes dark with suspicion and the uniformed paramedics were loading the gurney up. The thing made a horrible jangle as it rolled into the ambulance and Jenna felt the world beginning to slide away from her.

  Blake’s arm caught her as she swayed, she looked at him only to see that he was covered by a fine gray veil. She shook her head to rid her mind of that fog but the physical weakness remained. That weakness bothered her, she had never been the fainting type and the last thing she wanted to seem was the fainting type. Blake and a few of the men who would have loved to take her job were all standing far too near for her to show any signs of weakness.

  “I can tell you that he came to my office and he left. When I left, around ten thirty, I was alone in my office and I did not see him, or anyone else for that matter.” There, her voice sounded calm and natural, authoritive even. “Now, I have no idea how he would up in my office—dead—but I can assure you I had nothing to do with it.”