respite of sorts to Adrian. Conservative, intelligent, easy to please.
No weird stuff, just straight screwing, and usually once was all it took.
Adrian sighed and rubbed at the tension between his brows.
Inexplicably he thought of the reporter, of her wide, green eyes and pointed chin and the tenderness in her expression, a permanent disadvantage for someone working in the slick world of media. He pushed her image aside, confused by its appearance.
Later that night, as his second client shuddered beneath the slow, circular thrusts he’d learned she favored, Billie Cort crept back before his mind’s eye. Her reluctant smile, the stubborn wave of dark hair that fell against her cheek, the softness of her breasts pressed against him when they danced…
The way she said his name.
Adrian buried his face in Mary Ellen Frazier’s damp, perfumed neck, unprepared for the fierce climax that coiled in his groin and struck, wrenching a groan from his throat.
When Mary Ellen left, a thousand dollars lighter and sweetly deluded that she’d brought him more ecstasy than he’d known in a lifetime, he showered, dressed again, greeted the senator, his final client, and mustered the energy to wrap up this day he’d thought would never end.
At midnight he climbed into his BMW and took the long way home, through side streets slick and glossy with rain, where he could pass row houses with glowing windows and wonder at the families that gathered behind them, living everyday lives with everyday desires. The back roads reminded him of home. Reminded him of his family, and the past he’d so ignobly discarded.
Approaching his condominium building from the rear, he parked in the back lot, then realized he’d left the security card on the console for Lucien’s benefit, and God only knew if his friend had pocketed it, gone out and never returned.
The doorman would have to let him in.
Annoyed and weary, he strolled, head down, in the tepid misting rain, up the sidewalk and around the corner toward the main entrance, only to be greeted with the cobalt and crimson flash of five different police squad cars. A fire engine. Two ambulances. All parked in the circular drive and lining Connecticut Avenue.
Ahead on the sidewalk, a figure lay sprawled beneath a paramedic’s sheet.
Adrian’s heart quickened and he knew instinctively that someone had fallen from one of the balconies. He stopped, stared up at the jigsaw puzzle of black and illuminated windows checkering the mammoth building. His gaze narrowed on his own balcony, found the windows dark, then darted back to the figure again. Uneasiness 39
Shelby Reed
coiled in the pit of his stomach; a film of perspiration broke out on his skin and sent a shiver through him.
But his mind wouldn’t translate the dread into one solid realization.
Although the flurry of activity focused around the victim, the authorities all but stepped over the covered body as they talked and moved around, as though that person hadn’t been a person at all, but always splattered on the concrete, always lifeless, always a tragic, run-of-the-mill statistic.
“Sir?” A police officer in a yellow slicker approached Adrian, features dogged with weariness and disgust. “You’ll have to cross the street and use the other sidewalk.”
“I live here,” Adrian said absently, his attention riveted on the shapeless lump covered by the sheet. Another, harder shiver ran through him, and in its wake, the dark suspicion he hadn’t consciously grasped until now. It stole the breath from his lungs.
He took another step closer to the corpse, and the officer moved in front of him, clipboard in hand.
“Your name, please, sir.”
“Antoli. Apartment fourteen-oh-one.”
He stood in dull silence while the policeman scanned the sheet of residents, then the officer peered up at him. “May I see some identification, Mr. Antoli?”
He handed the man his driver’s license, waited while he studied it, then took it back
No weird stuff, just straight screwing, and usually once was all it took.
Adrian sighed and rubbed at the tension between his brows.
Inexplicably he thought of the reporter, of her wide, green eyes and pointed chin and the tenderness in her expression, a permanent disadvantage for someone working in the slick world of media. He pushed her image aside, confused by its appearance.
Later that night, as his second client shuddered beneath the slow, circular thrusts he’d learned she favored, Billie Cort crept back before his mind’s eye. Her reluctant smile, the stubborn wave of dark hair that fell against her cheek, the softness of her breasts pressed against him when they danced…
The way she said his name.
Adrian buried his face in Mary Ellen Frazier’s damp, perfumed neck, unprepared for the fierce climax that coiled in his groin and struck, wrenching a groan from his throat.
When Mary Ellen left, a thousand dollars lighter and sweetly deluded that she’d brought him more ecstasy than he’d known in a lifetime, he showered, dressed again, greeted the senator, his final client, and mustered the energy to wrap up this day he’d thought would never end.
At midnight he climbed into his BMW and took the long way home, through side streets slick and glossy with rain, where he could pass row houses with glowing windows and wonder at the families that gathered behind them, living everyday lives with everyday desires. The back roads reminded him of home. Reminded him of his family, and the past he’d so ignobly discarded.
Approaching his condominium building from the rear, he parked in the back lot, then realized he’d left the security card on the console for Lucien’s benefit, and God only knew if his friend had pocketed it, gone out and never returned.
The doorman would have to let him in.
Annoyed and weary, he strolled, head down, in the tepid misting rain, up the sidewalk and around the corner toward the main entrance, only to be greeted with the cobalt and crimson flash of five different police squad cars. A fire engine. Two ambulances. All parked in the circular drive and lining Connecticut Avenue.
Ahead on the sidewalk, a figure lay sprawled beneath a paramedic’s sheet.
Adrian’s heart quickened and he knew instinctively that someone had fallen from one of the balconies. He stopped, stared up at the jigsaw puzzle of black and illuminated windows checkering the mammoth building. His gaze narrowed on his own balcony, found the windows dark, then darted back to the figure again. Uneasiness 39
Shelby Reed
coiled in the pit of his stomach; a film of perspiration broke out on his skin and sent a shiver through him.
But his mind wouldn’t translate the dread into one solid realization.
Although the flurry of activity focused around the victim, the authorities all but stepped over the covered body as they talked and moved around, as though that person hadn’t been a person at all, but always splattered on the concrete, always lifeless, always a tragic, run-of-the-mill statistic.
“Sir?” A police officer in a yellow slicker approached Adrian, features dogged with weariness and disgust. “You’ll have to cross the street and use the other sidewalk.”
“I live here,” Adrian said absently, his attention riveted on the shapeless lump covered by the sheet. Another, harder shiver ran through him, and in its wake, the dark suspicion he hadn’t consciously grasped until now. It stole the breath from his lungs.
He took another step closer to the corpse, and the officer moved in front of him, clipboard in hand.
“Your name, please, sir.”
“Antoli. Apartment fourteen-oh-one.”
He stood in dull silence while the policeman scanned the sheet of residents, then the officer peered up at him. “May I see some identification, Mr. Antoli?”
He handed the man his driver’s license, waited while he studied it, then took it back
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