Page 13 of Girl in the Water

The whiskey had potential.

“Hey, Ian.” She flashed a smile that said the bottle was his, along with anything else, for the asking.

“Hey…” He tried to remember her name. She’d introduced herself twice already this past week.

“Nicole,” she said. “Wanna have a drink?”

She was maybe a year or two younger than Ian. She was a big girl. Safe to assume she knew what she was doing. He unlocked his door and opened it for her.

She sashayed into the kitchen like she lived there, and grabbed two glasses from the counter, rinsed them in the sink, all very domestic.

His eyes strayed to her breasts. “You came to do dishes?”

“I came to come.” She winked, smiling from ear to ear.

“Gotta appreciate a straight-talking woman.” He walked up behind her and caught her around the waist, pressed himself against her round ass, rubbed a little while his hands snuck around for the girls.

She giggled and poured them each a glass.

He let her go long enough to knock the whiskey back. Then he knocked back another. Then a third. A comfortable buzz began to build in his brain.About time.He’d been dry all night.

She walked her fingers up his chest, her voice breathy as she said, “Hey, handsome.”

He lifted her onto the Formica counter. Her short skirt was flouncy enough to slide up without trouble when the time came. She’d been thinking ahead. He had a feeling they were going to make great neighbors.

“You got a boyfriend?” He hadn’t seen one around. Didn’t care either, just wanted to know if he should keep an eye out for a pissed-off dude kicking the door open behind him.

“Shithead ran off.” Her mouth tightened, but only for a second, then her smile came back. “I’m hoping you’ll help me take revenge.”

He put his hands on her knees and parted them. “I try to step up to the plate for others if I’m in a position to help.”

And he was in position. Between her legs.

He ran a hand up her skirt. No underwear. “My kind of woman,” he murmured.

“Yeah?” She tugged his shirt out of his pants.

“Yeah.” He grabbed his wallet out of his back pocket, then he unbuckled his pants and shoved them down to his knees, along with his underwear. The next second, the wallet was on the counter, he had a condom in hand, and the second after that, he was protected.

“You need a little warm-up…Nicole?”

She flashed a look that began shy and ended up anything but. “I warmed up a little while I waited.”

“I think we’re going to be friends,” he said as he pushed into her.

And then she moved on him, like she’d taken lessons.Damn.

He pulled down her tank top, no bra either, and sucked a raspberry-size nipple into his mouth as they rode off into the sunrise together.

When they finished, they reconvened to the couch and polished off the bottle. A damn good night, all things considered.

Unfortunately, the good vibes didn’t last long. As soon as Ian got to work the next day, the boss called him into the office.

Chandler, the club manager, was short, pudgy, and bald, which he tried to balance out with a beard. A garden gnome in Gucci loafers.

Two beat cops, both black, waited with him: one man, one woman. Ian knew the mostly Irish cops in his own neighborhood, but not these two, not here on the better side of the tracks.

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