Divine Evil

she was past thirty, had less than three hundred dollars in the bank, and was tired of living in the single cramped room over Clyde's.
    She liked the idea of having a house and a joint checking account. If she was going to take the plunge, she wanted it to be with someone who could stay hard long enough to bring her off and whom she could stand to look at in the morning. Barring that, she wanted it to be with someone who had pleasant things like stocks and bonds and a pocketful of credit cards.
    With a little smile, she paused outside the sheriff's office. Inside was a man who filled all her requirements.
    Cam glanced up as she came inside. He acknowledged her with a little nod and kept on talking into the phone. Her heavy perfume overwhelmed the smells of coffee and dust. He supposed he wouldn't have been human if his stomach hadn't clenched-if his gaze hadn't trailed along the naked length of her leg as she perched on the corner of his desk. She smiled, combed a hand slowly through her mane of hair-her roots shot through the platinum like dark snakes-then lighted a cigarette.
    “It's registered to Earl B. Stokey, Route One, Box Twenty-two eleven, Emmitsboro. That's right. A forty-five-caliber Colt. I'd appreciate that, Sergeant.” He hung up and glanced at the clock. He was already running late for dinner at Clare's. “Got a problem, Sarah?”
    “That depends.” She leaned over to toy with the badge pinned to his shirt. “Parker used to keep a bottle in the bottom drawer there. How about you?”
    He didn't bother to ask how she knew what Parker had kept in his desk. “No.”
    “You sure are running straight these days, aren't you, Cam?” Her eyes, sharp and mocking, met his. “Here you sit, so serious and official.” She rubbed the top of her foot along his thigh. “It sounds like you're actually investigating Biff's murder.”
    “That's my job.” He didn't wince when she blew a light stream of smoke in his face, but waited.
    “People are wondering if you might let a few things slide this time around.” As she reached over to tap her cigarette in a glass ashtray, her breasts swayed beneath her shirt.
    There was a flicker of anger in Cam's eyes, quickly controlled. “People can wonder what they want.”
    “Now, that sounds like the old Cam.” She smiled, looking at him from beneath long, heavily mascaraed lashes. “Nobody knows better than me how much you hated Biff.” She took his hand, set it on her thigh close, very close, to the edge of denim where her skin was firm and smooth and hot. “Remember? We'd sit in the woods, in the dark, and you'd tell me how you hated him, how you wished he was dead. How you'd kill him yourself. With a gun. With a knife. With your bare hands.” She felt herself getting wet just thinking of it. “Then we'd have sex. Really incredible sex.”
    He felt something stir in his gut. Old memories. Old needs. Old lusts. “That was a long time ago.” He started to remove his hand, but she laid hers on top of it, pressed it against her flesh.
    “You never stopped hating him. The other night at Clyde's, you wanted to kill him. I got so hot watching you.” She shifted so that his hand was caught snug in the vee of her thighs. “Just like old times.”
    “No.” The heat was seductive, but he had a flash, a vivid one, of her vagina edged with teeth like a bear trap, ready to spring closed over an unwary penis. He kept his eyes on hers as he pulled his hand away. “No, it's not, Sarah.”
    Her eyes hardened, but she smiled as she slid over into his lap. “It could be. Remember the things we did to each other, Cam?” She reached down to cup him in her hand and felt a shudder of triumph when she found him stiff and throbbing.
    He clamped a hand over her wrist. “Don't embarrass yourself, Sarah.”
    Her lips drew back over her teeth. “You want me. You bastard.”
    He took her by the shoulders, moving her up and backas he rose. “I stopped thinking with my dick ten years ago.” But because he remembered, because he had once thought himself in love with her, he gave her a quick, impatient shake. “Why the hell do you do this to yourself? You've got looks, you've got brains. Do you think I don't know about the business you run upstairs in Clyde's? Twenty bucks to have some sweaty, cheating husband bounce on your bed? You don't need this, Sarah.”
    “Don't tell me what I need.” For the first time in years, she felt a flush of shame. And hated him for it.