Back in Black (McGinnis Investigations #1) - Rhys Ford Page 0,26
tight as a gift, ready to spill apart at the seams when Jae began to shake. He bit me, definitely adding to the contusions on my skin, and the sharpness of his teeth into my flesh made me lose control. Wrapping my arms around him, I rocked into him, taking him with me over the edge.
When we both lay panting and wrung out, I realized I was half off the bed, and at some point, the dog had not only brought her wet tennis ball into the room, I’d apparently ground it into the floor with my foot. I wasn’t sure what was more damp—my toes from dog spit or the rest of my body from making love to Jae.
“I stepped on your dog’s swamp ball,” I gasped into Jae’s ear. “It feels disgusting.”
“That’s exactly what someone wants to hear after having sex,” Jae muttered, not so gently pushing me off of his torso. “Kick the ball downstairs and we can go take a shower.”
“Last time I took a shower, we ended up here on this bed getting sweaty again.” I rolled over, trying to get more of my body on the bed. “How about if we just skip the shower and go right back to what happens after it? Minus the tennis ball.”
He propped himself up on his elbow, studying me. I knew what I looked like. As hard as I worked to keep my body prime and in shape, I’d taken a lot of damage over the years. The keloids along my ribs stretched around like kelp tendrils over my skin, twisting down into my muscles in the most inconvenient places, often going into spasms when I moved the wrong way or firing off the wrong signals for shits and giggles. I had starbursts along the ridge of my shoulder, souvenirs from the night I lost both my best friend and my lover. Jae had a matching scar on his opposite side, a battle wound taken during one of my cases. It was smoother than my healed-over wounds, leaving me to wonder if bullets soaked in betrayal and hatred scarred the flesh.
“I love you, hyung,” Jae whispered, pressing his mouth against mine and stealing away my breath in more ways than one. “I think you’re right. Let’s skip the shower. But get rid of the tennis ball first.”
THE MORNING came in fits and starts, sunbeams breaking through the low-lying cloud layer with an enthusiasm I normally only saw in sullen teenagers dressed in all-black baggy clothes and trudging behind their parents while shopping at the Grove. With daylight expressing a fierce reluctance to participate in the sun’s scheduled rise, I dressed as warmly as I could, pulling a leather-and-wool Chicago Cubs jacket from my closet. I’d gotten halfway down the stairs when Jae spotted me and made an all-too-familiar turnaround motion with his index finger.
“What?” I looked down the stairwell, then at my clothes. “Black jeans, gray shirt, and a Cubs jacket. The jacket’s gray and red. This should all go together.”
“That shirt isn’t gray. It’s closer to Pantone 559, and it belongs to Bobby. He must’ve left it here, and it got mixed up in your laundry.” He made the motion again, emphasizing his point by stabbing at the air toward our bedroom. “It’s like the universe hates me. I got rid of everything in colors you can’t see, and they still show up in your dresser. Go change your shirt. You look like a washed-out Christmas tree.”
I came back downstairs and got permission to leave the house after grabbing another T-shirt I was fairly certain was gray. I wasn’t sure if they were all just fucking with me or if they were really greens I couldn’t see, but since everyone including Claudia had opinions about my sartorial attempts, I just changed my clothes.
Opening the front door, I found Bobby standing on the stoop, about to ring the doorbell. He grunted a quick hello to Jae, who offered to give him a cup of coffee, but he held up a steel tumbler, sloshing it about.
“What are you doing here? Did you want to come with me to the hospital?” I checked the time, calculating how long it would take me to get to the medical center they’d taken Arthur Brinkerhoff to. I wouldn’t be allowed into the ward for another hour, but it would take me about that just to get through the Wilshire traffic. “Isn’t your car at the shop? How’d you get here? I didn’t