Take the Heat

“Where they found the body,” Sean said.

“You know where they found it? How?” She didn’t want to know.

Scooping up their garbage, Sean rose from the picnic table. “Like I said—they went over all this stuff, in detail, during my trial. Did you follow it on the news or anything?”

“No,” Lucy said, but that was a lie.

“Oh, they grilled me on the stand, especially about how my semen got into her body.” He dumped their trash in a bin and then took Lucy by the hand, leading her toward the path. “Those lawyers, I tell you, they didn’t want to believe the sex was consensual. Tamryn and I came here on a date—that’s why so many witnesses reported seeing us.”

“Oh. Okay.” Lucy wished he would stop speaking, but she couldn’t ask him to stifle himself. Who else could he talk to, if not her?

“She had a thing for sex in public, sex in the woods. I’d never done anything so daring, but she loved it and we hadn’t been dating very long so I didn’t want to seem like a prude.”

Lucy laughed. “You? A prude?”

“Not anymore.” As they dipped into a private nook of trees, Sean’s hand found its way to Lucy’s thigh, then slipped up her skirt, cupping her bum. “God, I love this ass.”

“How much?” she asked as he pressed her up against a tree.

His mouth found hers as he squeezed her bum with both hands. It wasn’t enough just to touch her over her cotton panties. He dug inside, touching her skin, treating it roughly, just the way she liked. Her pussy pulsed with every squeeze. She almost wished he’d take her over his knee, but this was hardly the place for a spanking. Too public. People might hear when she cried out in pain.

“I fucked Tamryn up against this tree.”

He pressed his hardness against her belly, but she didn’t react. When he kissed her this time, she didn’t kiss him back.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing.” Lucy plastered on a smile. “It’s fine.”

“Obviously not.” His hands found hers. “You don’t like me talking about it?”

“I’m sorry.” She fell into his arms, hugging him sweetly. “I’m an idiot. How stupid is it to be jealous?”

Sean crushed her to his chest. “Jealous of a dead girl?”

Lucy didn’t answer. It was getting hard to breathe.

“Don’t be.” He kissed her hair, then let go.

The summer breeze rushed into her lungs. She couldn’t get enough of that sensation: the inability to function, the waiting to see when he’d give her life, and then the sudden return from the borders of death.

“Come over here.” He took her hand and led her off the beaten track, down an incline that was slippery with pine needles, and then to a rocky terrain by the water.

>

Gravel-sized rock shards ran like spikes through the soles of Lucy’s ballet slippers. Her feet were killing her, but she didn’t complain. Her pain was nothing important.

“It was early afternoon, still nice and bright when she brought out her watercolor pad and paint pots. She liked this spot, for the sparkle of the sun off the lake, and the landscape across the way. She used lake water to paint. I thought that was really cute.”

“Yeah.” Lucy nodded. “It is.”

“I wanted to watch, but that made her nervous. She could only paint alone. No biggie. She stayed and I left. And that was the last time I ever saw her.”

“Alive,” Lucy added, though, Christ, what a stupid thing to say. “Sorry.”

Gazing across the lake, Sean stretched his arm around Lucy’s shoulder. “They found her faceup, right over here.”

When he walked, she went with him. What else could she do? She was trapped against his body. Also, though she didn’t want to admit it even to herself, her body began to tingle when he talked about the crime.