The Number

"I just think it's weird," he shrugged, "that we've been fucking for like two weeks already, and I've never seen you naked."

I glared over at him, a crick starting to irritate my neck. "Jesus. What are you, twelve? I mean, I've always known you were kind of immature, but can you get your mind off my vagina and on your job for just a couple of fucking hours? Please?"

"It's just weird, is all." He raised the binoculars again and stared out, taking care to keep back from the window. "Most of the time when I fuck a girl, I see her nude."

"Tell me about this fantasy you've got built up for tonight, DiMaggio," I smirked, "so that I can smack it down."

He twisted around to face me. "We get nude. We shower together. I lay you on the bed and fuck you slow. Then we do it anal. Then we snuggle all night. Then I wake up and stick it in your mouth, let you wake up choking on me." A wink, then he whipped back around to the binos. "Though, I'm open to suggestions."

"This anal fixation of yours is just weird, dude," I told him mildly. "I know my pussy's tight enough for you; I just can't figure out what you'd get out of doing my ass."

"No," he gloated, "it's not about what I'll get out of it. It's what I'll put into it." We both laughed. "See? Made you smile. And now you're thinking about it."

I stretched high. "You're not fucking me in the butt, DiMaggio." I rolled my neck. "I'm heading out for a stroll, maybe get some ice. Want anything from the vending machines?"

"Nah." He was scribbling at his clipboard again. "Have fun."

I debated whether I should bring my gun, tossed carelessly in my holster under the TV, but if I did I'd have to put on my jacket, and I wasn't into that just then. I rose from the hard hotel chair, my knees angry, and made my way to the door. "See ya."

He said something in reply, but the heavy-duty clunk of the closing door cut him off. The hallway was pretty quiet, but then the evening rush was still about an hour away and I wasn't expecting much bustle on a weeknight anyway. I strode to the hallway intersection, past the laundry room, and into the short corridor with the ice and soda machines.

And, at the end, twin doors with chicken-wire glass: the pool and the gym.

I don't know what compelled me to creep over and look through those doors. Partly it's because I'm a detective, and nosy, though it's always been hard to tell where one of those began and the other ended. Do you become a cop because you always want to be in peoples' business, or do you want to be in peoples' business because you're a cop? Whichever; the pool was empty, but a little trail of puddles at the far end showed me where someone had gotten out and walked across to the sauna earlier. Nothing happening in there.

The other door showed me a small gym with a rack, a treadmill, and a pair of ellipticals. There was more equipment in there, but I couldn't see it just then. What I could see was a woman on the treadmill, jogging along at a nice even pace, her body sheathed in tight workout clothes. I couldn't see her face, but I could tell she was nicely put together: short platinum-blonde hair, narrow shoulders, the fluid motion of a dancer or an actress. I could make out the lines of a sportsbra through her shirt, but she looked chesty enough... and her ass! It was a thing of splendor, smoothly rounded in exactly the right way, bobbing pleasantly as her long legs churned evenly below.

Something nagged. Something about the shoulders. The way they were set. Or? Maybe it was just my cop senses tingling, getting me psyched up.

I stared.

I'd never met Traci Golden. I knew her description, of course, and I'd seen grainy surveillance photos of her. I knew her height and weight, her hair color, her rapsheet. Tony had told me, in nauseating detail, about her body, its shape and texture. She'd worked at (and stolen from) Cheeks and Company, a restaurant known for the skimpy attire of its waitresses, and she'd stripped part time: she'd be a woman at ease with her body. I'd gathered up witnesses who had told me about her liveliness, her energy.

I stared. At her hair.

Fugitives do things to change their appearance, and detectives quickly learn that a blonde woman with short hair might be trying not to be a dark-haired woman with long hair. I focused, standing well back from the little chicken-wire window, making sure the gym mirror would show nothing from me, and studied her hair, looking hard. Searching for dark roots.

Quickly, I whipped out my phone and snapped a few pics. Part of my brain told me there was no way I could be this lucky, to stumble on Traci Golden working out, but a louder part of me had seen a lot of weird coincidences in seven years as a cop. I hesitated, a wild idea coming my way, then decided why not? Sometimes, epiphanies give you the best plans.

My thumbs twitched over my phone, texting The Number. I kept it innocuous, a simple little piece of cat-and-mouse: Haven't seen you around lately, I typed, pausing a moment before I hit SEND. My eyes darted up to watch the chick on the treadmill, willing her to look down, to check her phone...

"Fuck," I sighed to myself, elated suddenly as she stumbled, caught herself, and then slid her phone out of one of those little plastic pouches people wear on their biceps. I saw her glance at its face, her head cocked, then she laid it down in the cupholder and went back to her jog. Holding my breath, I sent another text: It's fine. I'll catch up one of these days.

SEND.

She picked up the phone again, whipped a fast peek at it, and this time when she put it away I could see the side of her face flexing, her cheek rising: the bitch was smiling.

But that was fine, because I was smiling too. I'd found Traci, and that meant I'd be finding Tony very soon. And then I'd get off fucking night desk duty.

* * *

It was understandable that DiMaggio was pissed I'd taken so long: I walked in almost an hour after I'd left him. "What the fuck!" he demanded.

I forced my face to stay neutral as I slid back into the chair behind my laptop. "I was chilling by the pool," I lied. Not really: I'd been waiting to trail Traci back from the gym, all sweatily oblivious with a towel around her neck. She was in room 102, I now knew. I'd lingered at the door for a few minutes, straining to hear anything from inside once she'd gone in, but no. Nothing. No Tony.

Didn't matter. I knew it was her: she'd sent a text on her way back past the ice machine, as I'd lurked across the hall in the Business Center, and my phone had vibrated a few seconds later. And she'd lead me to Tony. So it was one very fucking elated Detective Julie Lindberg that now stared thoughtfully over at my partner with my brain on fire. I felt alive. He caught my look. "What?"

I smiled slowly. Like a predator. "Still want to see me naked, DiMaggio?"

He cocked his head, instantly on guard. "Why?"

I answered simply enough, by getting to my feet and lifting my shirt straight over my head. He gaped at my chest as I kicked off my shoes, and I was glad I'd picked out a decent bra. Cop instincts! "Because I feel like being naked," I purred, undoing my jeans, "if you don't mind." The panties didn't match the bra; my instincts hadn't gone that far, but I'd learned Aaron DiMaggio was a simple man, sexually. He just needed a hole. That hole waited for him behind a simple pair of black Secret Whispers Active briefs, which I now teased him with. My fingers traced under the waistband, back to front. "Yeah," I murmured, my lip curling into a smirk, "you don't mind. What do you want to see first? Tits or ass?"

"Tits." It came out immediately, a flat rasp. He already had his hand on his junk. "I've been wondering about them." He'd groped them and mauled them, licked them and bitten them, but always hastily. Always with my shirt up under my chin, during quick fucks in the Division bathroom or the backseat of our car. I nodded, feeling the thrill, turning away from him.

"You can undo my bra, then." My voice had gone as husky as his, with a catch in my throat. I swept my hair aside, neck curving before him. I could feel him looming there, too close, his fingers certain as they traced up my sides, over my ribcage. I shivered. "Now, dammit."

"Relax." It was a hiss, too close, but I was already losing myself as his big hands moved around, clasping my breasts, gripping hard. "You're so fucking sexy."

I didn't even realize I'd backed into him until I felt the lump in the front of his pants, pressing against my panties. "Take it off," I ordered, and my voice didn't even sound like mine. I let out a moany gasp right after that, though, for his fingers curled around the lace at the top of my bra cups and wrenched them down, the straps digging hard into my shoulders. "Shit," I managed.

He answered with his body, pressing hard against me as his fingers found my nipples and his lips my neck. I leaned my head back against his, eyes closed, cursing the way he was making me feel. My breasts were pure liquid fire, quick and responsive at his touch, sending lightning bolts straight to my pussy. I hoped I wouldn't do anything as theatrical as moaning, my hand finding its way straight down my underwear.

Fuck, was I ever wet.

"Let me," he rasped in my ear, his beard digging into my neck as his hand grasped my wrist and tore my hand back out. His fingers were inside me in seconds, big and confident, two of them ripping straight into me. I felt my legs wobble as I tried to jam myself down onto him, but by that time his other hand was back around at my bra clasp, working to free me. I felt him succeed in a rush of release, the straps falling off my skin like cuffs coming off a perp.

"Oh my god!" I mewed, overpowered, my panties dragging down my legs. He pushed steadily and hastily until they cleared my knees, then fell damp to the carpet. I stepped right out of them, my legs still like water, and lurched over to the nearest horizontal surface: the table my laptop was on, still patiently grinding through its license plate search. I threw my upper body onto it, hands scrabbling for the far edge, knowing I was about to be absolutely railed.

And needing it.

He stripped fast, but he fucked faster: he was still dropping his pants when he stepped up behind me, greedy hands hooking my hips, and drilled his dick into me like I was a twenty-dollar street whore. I gave one of those long, seething gasps as my soaked pussy stretched wide around him, my ass wagging desperately to get him all the way in. "Fuck yeah," he exulted, his voice frat-boy calm, hands tracing the lines of my hips. "Look at that fucking ass," he muttered, voice thick with lust, his hips already driving me hard into the table.

He didn't spank me this time, and he didn't try to play with my butthole. No, he just jammed me hard, his balls a blur as I looked down my body and watched them swing against my flesh. The fact that he wasn't wearing a rubber was a distant, troubling cloud on my horizon, but the demands of my body were far too loud to ignore as I backed into him, trying desperately to match his rhythm. But he was too fast, and I was just a limp slut for him to rut into. I closed my eyes and rested my cheek on the cold, hard table, feeling my body stir into the wild, needy orgasm I needed. It didn't matter that I had cum for him last night, that I would cum for him tomorrow: there was nothing for me in the moment but his meat, stuffing me. "Holy fuck," I whimpered.

"I'm not done with you," he warned, thrusting viciously. "This time, I want to see your face." He leaned down, and with one more punishing thrust into my pussy he grabbed my arm and twisted it behind my back like he was cuffing a mugger. "Onto the bed," he commanded, dragging me up and around before he literally threw me onto the mattress like a bag of garbage. I lay there, blinking, a helpless wet rag doll with a spasmodic cunt, watching in disbelief as he finished undressing. DiMaggio was about my age, with a nice hairy body and that stiff, questing cock still gummy with my juices.

Fuck. No condom.

"Just lie there," he snarled, "because I'm going to fuck you like the needy little whore you are." I scrambled to get onto my back, my legs spread, mouth open as he hiked his knee onto the bed between my feet, his penis pointing at me like a gun barrel. DiMaggio's eyes speared me like his dick was about to, wide and bestial like they'd been that one time when he beat that drug dealer to within an inch of his life: Aaron DiMaggio was a man of hooded power, and I was seeing all of it now. He grabbed my legs contemptuously, hauling me down to meet him, and before I knew it he was hunching low, dipping his hips.

I stared up at him, both of us feral and totally unaware of anything but our merging bodies, gritting my teeth as I opened around him. He felt good going in, and when I rolled my eyes down between us I could see his dark pubes all tangled up with my red ones. Goddamn, I marveled, he was already balls-deep, but by then I was feeling the gust of his breath in my face and watching the sweat slide among his chest hair as he backed out, set his knees, and drove back into me with scary, vicious strength.

On instinct my knees rose, feet seeking leverage against the backs of his thighs, my body needing to open for him as wide as I could. He fit perfectly between my legs, dick sliding eagerly into me, my hands clawing trenches in his back as, without any warning, I came. "Holy fuck!" I cried, my lips searching for his, and I sucked his tongue into my mouth just as the wave smashed into me, curving through my body like a flame.

I'd never felt this with my ex-husband. Never with any of my early boyfriends, the nice ones, the ones I was supposed to like. I only came when I wasn't supposed to.

It blitzed through me, an uncoiling spring, hot and cold at the same time, a feverish wave of blurry pleasure that overwhelmed me. I could see his eyes, the triumph there: he was proud of himself for making me cum, and he fucked me through it with powerful, brutal strokes that nailed me to the bed, pinning me helpless as an insect on a card.

He was still driving into me as I began to come down, my pussy rippling around his plunging dick, his rhythm crumbling. He was speeding up and pushing hard, looking for that deep cum in my hungry cunt, and I was completely powerless to tell him no, stop, get out, don't shoot it inside me... and my body paid no attention, craving sperm, tears squeezing from my eyes.

I had them closed tight as DiMaggio, with the last of his self-control, ripped his dick from my grasping pussy. He was already shooting as he pulled out, his hot cum coating my swollen lips, the load jerking frantically out of his cock and up my body in a molten rain. He grunted a long, sighing moan into my mouth, painting me, our sweaty bodies heaving while our eyes stared wildly at each other.

"God fucking damn," he managed between panting breaths. I couldn't even get a syllable out, the two of us clinging together on the soiled hotel bed. "Just... fuck." I didn't try to answer. I just melted into the bed and, in turn, let him melt into me.

The shower wasn't bad, either.

* * *

That evening, while DiMaggio was out grabbing some tacos for us, I snuck down to the gym and checked access. It had just the one door, plus another one that led to the pool; it looked like nobody had been through there in awhile. The pool side had a latch, so I headed back to my room satisfied on that score.

I grimaced as I passed the workout machines. DiMaggio had left me so deliciously sore, I was pretty sure it would be two days at least before I was walking smoothly.

Then I headed out to the parking lot and leaned on a tree, counting windows. Room 102, I determined, had to be the third window along on the south side of the building. Lights were glimmering in a lot of the room windows now, the evening rush basically over; I'd made DiMaggio record all the rest of the plates, which we'd run later for the sake of completeness, but I was pretty sure their car was the one we'd aimed the camera at earlier, with the plastic bags full of clothes in the backseat.

After all, it was parked at the exit right near 102.

When I trudged back into our room, I smiled at the wet stain on the comforter. I'd left a fucking pond there. Then I sat on my chair at my laptop, picked up my phone, and called the local PD to update them on what we were doing. And to request a little help the following morning.

The plan was coming together. I was about 85% sure I'd have Tony Massacoli in custody by this time tomorrow.

* * *

We collapsed late into bed, the last of the license plates run and my progress reports typed up. DiMaggio and I didn't have much to say as we worked, speaking in the police jargon of acronyms, slang, and crude jokes. It was difficult to remember that this man had given me two good, sound orgasms in the past thirty hours, and I was more or less sure he'd try to fuck me again that night. I had not told him I knew Traci was in the hotel; I like to keep my secrets, and he had to understand that I was still a much better fucking detective than he was.

But still. I threw him a bone.

"I'm thinking that if they're here, we'll find they're in one of the rooms near where that car is parked," I told him over dinner. "I'm going to head down in the morning and stake out that hallway while you go through and figure out which cars have left. We'll do it around nine, once most people have checked out," I yawned, "then we'll meet again here and figure out the next move."

"Sounds good." He was putting his surveillance camera to bed for the night, calibrating the night-vision. My plan was to tell him tomorrow that I'd spotted Tony coming out of 102 when I'd staked it out, but my actual scheme was a little more devious than that. And he didn't need to know about it. "I'm all set here."

"Cool." I frowned thoughtfully, staring across at him. "If I let you sleep with me, will you promise to let me get some actual rest?" I asked him quietly.

"No."

"Then fuck you."

He laughed. "I'm kidding. I need some sleep too, Lindberg." He yawned (a bit theatrically, I thought) and scratched at his chin. "We don't have to stay up and continue the surveillance?"

"No," I shrugged, lying rapidly, "the camera will get it, and it's not like we don't have every plate number in the lot. If they bounce, we'll just issue a BOLO. They'll be found." I looked at him, my eyes shining. "I'm really confident we'll nab the fucker, DiMaggio."

He smiled and pushed himself out of the other chair. "I'm going to brush my teeth and go to bed. Early wakeup tomorrow?"

"Not too early," I yawned. "Seven? Little before? No rush, really." I arched my back in the chair, regretting that I'd bothered to put my bra back on after he'd fucked me. "You messed up my bra," I complained, shrugging my shoulders. "The straps."

"You didn't mind." He gave my right boob a fond squeeze as he headed for the bathroom. "You pick the bed, Lindberg. I'll warm it up."

I smiled despite myself, gazing into the big mirror alongside the familiar plaid wallpaper, wondering once again what the fuck I was doing. And I was still wondering it about fifteen minutes later, as he pulled me into the circle of his arms and clasped my body up against his after I switched the light off. He felt good, the sheer animal warmth of lying naked with someone, something I hadn't felt steadily since I'd divorced Scott... I frowned suddenly. "Dude. Are you hard again?"

"What?" He sounded defensive, or as defensive as a man can be when he's got his arms and legs around you and his cock wedged in your buttcrack. "You know how I am. I'm not going to apologize for wanting to fuck you, Lindberg."