Take the Heat: A Criminal Romance Anthology Read online

  She traced her sister’s name in burning drops, but if Moore realized what she was up to, he gave no sign of it. Seeing Melly’s name burned onto the bastard’s chest gave Cassandra a satisfaction she’d never expected to experience this evening. But she knew she was taking a massive risk, so as soon as it was complete, she tilted the candle more steeply to make the wax run faster. Then she retraced her path with twists and curlicues and random patterns, obliterating the message she’d left on his skin, widening the area she covered and making narrow trails of wax down his stomach toward where his cock danced its eager dance.

  When his every breath became a moan, Cassandra blew out the candle and tossed it to the floor. She leaned forward with her hands on his shoulders and used her teeth to raise his blindfold. He blinked, unaccustomed to the light, staring up at her before glancing at the wax patterns that ornamented his torso.

  “Beautiful,” he whispered.

  Cassandra raised herself to kneel high above him and quickly slipped off her bra.

  Moore whimpered.

  “Please…”

  “You want me?”

  He nodded.

  “Tell me how much.”

  “More than I’ve ever wanted any woman,” he said, his voice hoarse with longing.

  His hands came up behind her hips, and he yanked her panties down, ripping them when he couldn’t get them out of the way. Cassandra was ready for him—and now she wanted him. She took his cock in one hand and held it steady so she could sink down onto him. He was large, but the force of gravity let her slide easily over his heft, the fit so tight that they gasped in unison. Slowly she pulled away and impaled herself again. And then again. And each plunge was accompanied by a grunt or a moan as Moore’s hips pushed up to meet her and his hands rammed her down hard onto him.

  And all the while he was staring at her face, never closing his eyes, never taking his gaze from hers. He moaned and winced and bit his lip. And finally he came with a roar so elemental that the sheer thrill of knowing she had caused it tipped Cassandra over the edge too. She rode his cock, clenching her muscles tight as if she never wanted to let him go.

  Would this be the only time?

  When his hands grew slack and slipped down her thighs, she leaned forward and rested against his chest. He stroked her hair in a gesture that surprised her more than anything else about him since she’d met him. Almost tender, just for a moment. Then he rolled her off him onto the hard cold surface of the table and swung himself round so he was first sitting on the edge and then standing back on the floor.

  Cassandra sat up and watched him. He walked across to the window and looked out into the darkness between a crack in the curtains.

  “Get dressed and go,” he said, not turning to look at her.

  “How much?” said Cassandra. “How much each time?”

  “I’ll be in touch.”

  Cassandra dressed as fast as she could, stuffing the ripped panties into her bag and pulling the door open with one hand as she smoothed her dress down with the other. She couldn’t get out of the place quick enough.

  Has the gamble paid off?

  Melly was asleep when she got back to the motel. Or, more accurately, sedated by the prescription drugs she’d been given to replace the street drugs. Cassandra doubted they were really any better. She showered and shoved her soiled clothes under the bed—she’d deal with them in the morning—but she couldn’t sleep. When she closed her eyes, all she saw was the name written in wax across Moore’s chest. And the scars. The marks of who he was. The wax with which she’d branded him wouldn’t leave a mark beyond a couple of days, but maybe that was enough.

  Maybe it wasn’t.

  At seven in the morning, after a snatched hour of sleep, her phone buzzed her awake with a text notification. She grabbed it and peered at the fluorescent screen. The text was from a number she didn’t recognize.

  Paid in full.

  Disposing of Donnie

  Elizabeth Coldwell

  “So you see, Mr. Mackenzie, life would be so much easier if Donnie wasn’t around anymore.”

  Luanne Palmer gazed at me across the diner’s table, looking up through mascara-thick eyelashes, her expression imploring. I’d seen that look from women before, and I’d never been able to resist its lure.

  “Yeah, I see exactly what you mean—and please, call me Mike.”

  “So you think you can do it for me, Mike? Kill the lousy son of a bitch?”

  Her voice had risen, thick with passion and contempt, and I shushed her, afraid of anyone overhearing even though I’d picked the booth farthest from the counter for our little rendezvous. Glancing round, I saw that no one was paying us the least mind, and I relaxed a fraction.

  I’d chosen to meet her at Nardiello’s for a couple of reasons. First, the diner was always quiet in the middle of the day, with less chance of any prospective client being spotted in my company. Second, they did the best damn apple pie in the state, so at least I’d get to eat well if Luanne Palmer turned out to be a no-show. God knows I’d had enough of those over the years: fantasists and time wasters who poured their hearts out over the phone to me about the man who just had to die, but lost their nerve at the last moment or couldn’t come up with the necessary green to turn that fantasy into reality.

  But when Luanne had come clicking into Nardiello’s on those sky-high heels, body hugged by a cute polka-dot blouse and black pencil skirt and eyes disguised behind dark glasses, I knew everything about this dame was serious. The wiggle in her walk had my cock lurching to attention in my underwear, and when she’d sat down opposite me, I’d caught a whiff of a perfume that spoke of midnight and sin.

  Preliminary introductions concluded, she’d assured me that no one knew she’d come here. Her husband was away on business, and she’d told the maid she was going into Charleston for lunch with an old girlfriend. Almost before the waitress had finished taking our order, Luanne had launched into a story I could have recited for her, I’d heard it so many times before. She’d been married straight out of high school to an older guy who satisfied all her material needs but not her physical ones. It was an arrangement that should have worked—he had the wife who made heads turn when she walked into a room on his arm, and she had financial security and high standing in the community. For most women, that was enough. But not Luanne.

  “You know, I can’t remember the last time he touched me.” She sighed. “And I can probably count the number of times we’ve fucked in the last couple of years on the fingers of one hand.”

  It seemed wrong for someone so ladylike to use a word as downright filthy as fucked, but I couldn’t deny I didn’t like the effect it had on my cock.

  “Some gals wouldn’t have a problem with that,” I pointed out.

  “Maybe so, Mr. Mac—Mike. But I have urges, you know? An itch that needs to be scratched.”

  And it was being scratched; I was all too certain of that. This was always the unspoken part of the story: some guy stepping in to provide the services Hubby no longer would, or could. Sometimes it was the pool boy, sometimes an old high school boyfriend. But he was always there, waiting for the day the sole impediment to their new life together had been permanently removed.

  I watched the ice cream melt on top of my pie, sticky yellow rivulets trickling down the crisp pastry. “Pardon me for asking, but have you considered getting a divorce?”

  Luanne shook her head. “Donnie would never agree to that. He’s very old-fashioned in these matters. Marriage is for life, as far as he’s concerned.” She paused to suck up her root beer float through a straw, her bubble-gum-pink gloss almost demanding to be kissed right off those pouting lips. “And so I thought if I can’t shorten our marriage, then the only thing I can do is shorten his life.”

  Put like that, it seemed almost logical. But I needed people to keep making this kind of decision. They kept me in business.

  “Plus,” she continued, “Donnie has a big life insurance policy, and I’m the ben
eficiary. So even after he’s gone, he’ll still be keeping me in the manner to which I’ve become accustomed.”

  “How did you find out about me?” I asked, forking up a piece of my pie. Catching sight of my reflection in the diner window, I saw sweat beading above the collar of my shirt. Even this late in September, the temperature was still in the nineties, and the slowly turning ceiling fan was doing nothing to cool me down. Unseasonable heat like this could make a man—or woman—do something they might later regret. Luanne Palmer didn’t strike me as a woman who had any regrets about her decision, but I had to make sure. Once the deed was done, she wouldn’t be able to change her mind.

  “Oh, you come highly recommended, Mike. Highly recommended. All you need to know is that Marcie Willington is a good friend of mine.”

  I knew Marcie all too well. Nine months ago, she’d asked me to sort out her own marital problems. A few days later, her husband and I had gone out for a friendly game of golf together. Only one of us had completed the round.

  “Well, that just leaves one last question. I hate to be indelicate, but do you have the cash?”

  Reaching for her purse, she took out a fat brown envelope. She pushed it across the table toward me as if it was red-hot. “Just like we agreed. Half now, and the rest when the job’s done.”

  I didn’t bother to count it, just tucked it in the inside pocket of my jacket. Nothing was guaranteed to draw more attention to yourself than rifling through a pile of unmarked twenties in public.

  For the first time, she turned the questions on me. “So how—how does this work, exactly? Where are you going to do it?”

  “Look, Luanne, for your sake it’s best if you don’t know too much. If the police come asking questions—and they will—you don’t want to let slip anything that might connect you to his disappearance. All I need to know is whether there’s anywhere he goes on a regular basis, anywhere I might accidentally bump into him.”

  She sipped her drink, flipping through some social calendar in her head. “Well, he does like to go to the Elliot on Fridays, meet with clients there. It’s that fancy hotel on the edge of town, you know it?”

  I shook my head. “No, but I’ll find it. I just need to know who I’m looking for.”

  Her icy demeanor cracked, and it struck me, beneath the artfully applied makeup and the expensive clothes, just how young she really was. Too young, I couldn’t help thinking, to be wanting her husband dead. But business was business; I didn’t judge and I didn’t condemn. I knew there were parts of any story I would never be told, and to keep my conscience clean, that was the way I liked it.

  “Of course.” Opening the purse again, she handed me a snapshot. I knew what to expect: some fat slob, a good twenty years older than his wife, who’d let himself go to seed while expecting her to keep her figure trim and her grooming impeccable. Donnie Palmer was none of those things. His smile was that of a matinee idol, his dark hair cut in a boyish style. If anything, the average observer would consider him even more attractive than Luanne. Something about this whole scenario didn’t quite add up, but my client wanted him out of the way, and what my clients want, they get.

  “Can I keep this?” When she nodded, I tucked it in my wallet.

  “Just one last thing…” Luanne lowered her voice, forcing me to lean closer to her. Her blouse was open one button lower than was strictly necessary, even in this heat, and I caught a glimpse of the tops of her breasts, cradled in a cream lace bra. Beneath the seductive perfume she wore, I smelled pure female, ripe and intoxicating. How Donnie Palmer could ignore this simmering little sexpot, I had no idea, but all too often you failed to see what was right under your nose.

  She licked those glossy lips. “I want to thank you…Mike. You can’t know how much what you’re about to do means to me.”

  As she spoke, she slipped a hand under the table and let her palm rest on the bulge in my hand. My breath caught in my throat, but I didn’t make any attempt to remove her hand. She curled her fingers, cupping me, and applied just enough pressure to take her touch from curious to exquisite. I couldn’t make a sound, couldn’t alert anyone to what she was doing. If she wanted to jerk me off, right here where I sat, I knew I wasn’t going to do a damn thing to stop her.

  “You like that, don’t you?” Those slender fingers worked back and forth, taking me closer to the edge. I clutched my dessert spoon so hard I thought I might snap it in half, fighting to retain some measure of control.

  “God, yes,” I replied, the sound coming out as a strangled moan. I was helpless, and she knew it.

  “Well, you know the terms of the contract, don’t you?” She grinned, revealing small white teeth. “Half now, and the rest when the job’s done.”

  With that, she pulled her hand away and stood. Confident she had me just where she wanted me, she turned and walked away, my last sight of her that round little ass of hers swaying in that tight-fitting skirt.

  I sat for a long time after she’d gone, partly because I was mulling over when and how I was going to make the necessarily brief acquaintance of Donnie Palmer, but mostly because Luanne had induced a hard-on in me that just wouldn’t quit. That cool, calculating smile of hers burned in my memory, just as the envelope of cash seemed to burn in my top pocket, and I began to wonder if I hadn’t somehow got in over my head.

  * * *

  The Elliot Hotel stood in its own grounds, a relic of a bygone age. It gave off the air of having seen better days—the potted palms in the lobby were withered and brown, and the whole place needed a lick of paint—but I wasn’t there to check in. Luanne had told me her husband liked to drink here after work, and if I was lucky, he would be drinking here alone.

  I spotted him almost at once, his good looks and well-cut suit a beacon of Hollywood glamour in these faded surroundings. He was sitting at the bar, nursing a glass of what looked like bourbon and staring into its depths as though it might contain the secret to all his troubles. Though why a guy as handsome and successful as Donnie Palmer had troubles, God alone knew. Maybe on a subconscious level he knew his wife wanted him dead.

  Hopping onto the empty stool by his side, I attracted the attention of an elderly, white-jacketed barman who looked like he’d been serving drinks here since the day the hotel opened. He set down a white paper coaster before me. “What can I get you, sir?”

  “Scotch on the rocks,” I requested, slapping a couple of bills down on the counter to pay for the drink.

  Once he’d served it to me, I took a long, contemplative sip, pondering my opening gambit with Palmer. Not every man likes to be interrupted when he’s drinking alone, but I didn’t get that vibe from him.

  “Excuse me,” I said, catching his eye as he looked up from his almost empty glass, “you wouldn’t happen to know if there’s anywhere decent around here to get a bite to eat, would you?”

  He turned that dazzling smile on me, seeming happy to be distracted from his thoughts. “That depends on what you’re looking for. The restaurant here’s pretty good if you like your seafood, but if you just want a burger, then I’d recommend Buddy’s, about a mile back on the highway. You probably passed it if you were coming out from Charleston.”

  I made a show of thinking about it. “Yeah, I saw the place.” Gesturing to his glass, I said, “Can I get you another?”

  He considered it, then nodded. “Sure, why not? It’s not like I have anything to rush home for.”

  “Don’t tell me, trouble in paradise.” I chuckled, letting him gain the impression I’d been there myself.

  “You know it.” The barman set another bourbon, no ice, down in front of him. He raised his glass to me in a salute. “I’m Donnie, by the way.”

  “Mike.” I held out a hand for him to shake. As our fingers touched, a kind of electricity seemed to crackle between us. It had been a while since any man had caused that reaction in me, and part of me welcomed it, even as I was pondering the absurdity of being turned on by a guy I’d been contracted to kill. “So, wha
t’s the little lady done to leave you drowning your sorrows?”

  He shrugged. “Oh, you don’t want to hear about that.” When I just kept staring at him, he said, “OK, but there’s very little to tell. I’m just another guy who thought getting married would solve all his problems, and found all it did was cause a whole ’nother set of them. Don’t get me wrong, my wife’s a gorgeous, sexy little thing, but she’s just not right for me. More than that, I’m fairly sure she’s cheating on me.”

  “And that bothers you?”

  “To be honest, not half as much as it should.”

  “Well, she’s a fool,” I declared. “Seems to me like any woman would be glad to have a guy like you in her life.”

  Donnie gave a bitter laugh. “Yeah, that’s what my mom said.” He glanced at his glass as if surprised how much he had downed in two long gulps; then he fixed me with his hazel eyes. The look he gave me was filled with a plea for understanding. More than that, it was filled with naked longing.

  “Well, you wouldn’t want to disappoint your mother, would you?”

  Donnie spoke so low that I could barely hear it. “If my parents knew the truth about my marriage—hell, the truth about me—they wouldn’t just be disappointed. They’d have me driven out of the county. They wanted me to settle down with a nice girl. How could I tell them what I really want is to settle down with someone like you?” He finished off the rest of his drink, clearly regretting what he’d just said.

  Now I knew why Donnie Palmer was so resistant to the idea of a divorce. His marriage to Luanne provided the perfect smoke screen. No one would ever think to question his sexuality, not when he had such a hot little wife by his side. He didn’t have to tell me why he came here every Friday night—or those other nights, when he told Luanne he was meeting a client. He was looking to pick up some guy like me, some passing stranger he’d never see again.