Page 7 of Edge of Ruin
Still, the idea of Vivi D’Onofrio in danger was a disturbing one. She was so small and delicate. Her skin was so pale against that red hair. I wondered if the color was fake. Its brilliance seemed a little exaggerated.
There was one quick, surefire way to find out. I tried to squelch the thought before my dick could swell to maximum capacity once again. Thank God for the rain poncho. Every detail of her figure had been visible in the damp tie-dye t-shirt. Those high, perfect tits, the kind that fit into a champagne cup. That classic, tender, just-enough mouthful. I cursed under my breath.
“You said something?” she asked.
I shook my head. I didn’t trust myself to speak.
“Did you build this yourself?” she persisted, waiting for my nod.
“Wow.” Her voice sounded almost reverent. We passed through the riotous array of spring flowers, blooming bushes, lush borders of aromatic herbs, flowers of every type and color. “Is, ah, someone in your family a gardener?” she asked delicately.
“I’m the only one who lives here,” I said.
“Ah. I see.”
“The barn is around the back.” I led her around the building, beyond which stood a large, freshly remodeled and painted barn. The apartment was on the top.
I’d lived in it myself for the time it took me to build my house. I’d been using the bottom floor for a garage and the apartment above it for storage, but last week, after another one of Duncan’s epic bullying sessions, I’d finally caved. I dutifully moved my book boxes and gardening supplies out and into the attic space to make room for Duncan’s future sister-in-law. I’d pictured her to be some uptight New York artistic type, all in tight black. But I’d never seen anyone as colorful as Vivi D’Onofrio. She glowed, like neon. Even when she was covered with mud, I needed fucking sunglasses.
I led her up the stairs, which I’d built onto the outside of the building, and onto the deck. I slid open the sliding glass doors and stood back to let her enter first. The place was plain, but freshly painted and simply furnished. She gazed at the living room that opened onto the deck, with the views of the river.
She slowly walked into the big bedroom that looked out over the garden, then into the bathroom, looked at the deep sink, the old claw-foot Victorian tub that I’d found at an auction a couple years ago. It had a transparent shower curtain with old-style botanical illustrations of flowers, complete with their Latin names, splashed all over it.
She sidled out the bathroom door past me, careful not to touch me, and walked into the spacious kitchen. She opened the freezer, sighing when she saw the automatic ice maker. She pushed the lever, grabbed a handful of ice, held it to her pink cheek.
“It’s perfect,” she announced.
She folded her arms in front of her chest, and waited for me to contradict her. Her face was battle ready. There was a streak of mud across one high cheekbone.
“Well?” she asked impatiently. “Spit it out, Kendrick.”
“Well, what?” I responded, bemused. “Spit what out?”
Her hair was drying, fluffing up into a fiery mane. “The bottom line,” she said. “Have we got a deal? You sounded like you weren’t sure, back there. Sounded like my tattoos scared you. Have you decided you have the nerve to endure me after all?”
I exhaled slowly and counted, refusing to rise to the bait. “I have to talk to Duncan,” I temporized. “He gave me a false impression.”
“I doubt that. I think you just made some stupid assumptions. And clearly, you’re still making them. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m cold, and I really need a hot shower and some dry clothes. Thanks very much for carrying my stuff.”
She gestured toward the door with a ‘buh-bye!’ kind of smile that would have irritated the hell out of me if I weren’t already so shaken up.
When I got back to my own kitchen, I tried not to visualize Vivi’s body naked in the tub, hot water streaming down her slim legs, her high breasts. Tried and failed. I felt flustered, sweaty, stupid. As unsure of myself as a teenager.
I was usually good at dealing with the unexpected, being flex, turning surprises to my advantage. The trick was to stay calm in my deepest center. That had helped me during those years on the task force with Dunc, back in Afghanistan. And before, in the military, in Iraq, in Africa. It had helped me negotiate my childhood and manage the unpredictable characters who had inhabited it. It had helped me navigate those bleak, lonely months I had spent on the streets of North Portland when I was a teenager.
I’d learned some hard facts back then, and I could never unlearn them. I knew, for example, that nothing lasted forever. That some people couldn’t stay in one place even if they wanted to, so there was no point in blaming or judging. Getting uptight about it was like blaming a leaf for being green.
I put on a pot of coffee, just to do something with my hands. A person like Vivi D’Onofrio was liable to climb into her truck, or motorcycle, or van and disappear in a cloud of dust at any time. With no hard feelings, of course. I sensed it on a bone-deep level.
That was not the kind of woman I wanted to be attracted to. I knew how that story ended before it began. I would not do that to myself. I would not be so fucking stupid.
I did not feel calm and still in my center when I looked at her. I wouldn’t be able to stay cool and detached. I’d get all wound up, tied in knots. I’d fuck myself up.
But still, I pictured water streaming down over her body, and I wondered. Curly ringlets? Straight swatches? Red pussy hair, or auburn brown? Tightly furled, secretive pale pink pussy lips, or a bright crimson one that burst proudly out of her slit like some sort of exotic flower? Shaved? Pierced? And her flavor?
I had to dangle my head between my knees for a second to manage the head rush just from imagining her flavor.
Chapter Three
