Perilously Fun Fiction: A Bundle by Pauline Jones (best fiction novels of all time .TXT) 📕

still hot despite the sun’s deference to the moon, turning their skin slick and hot as they brushed together. Then apart. The moon brushed soft light across her hair and face, deepening the shadows around her mouth. Making her mouth damn near irresistible.

“Mystery Girl” finished, but Mickey didn’t let go, just watched her until another tune filled the flower-scented air. He supported her body with his arms, the slow beat of the music requiring little from him in the way of skill. Holding her gaze with his, he steered their slow steps off the street, inside the gate, and under the canopy of a magnolia tree, where the light from the street barely penetrated.

She looked like she was going to say something. He gave her time. His mother had brought him up to be a gentleman. When she didn’t, he bent his head. Her mouth, that sweet, straight mouth, tasted different in the dark. More heat. More spice.

He could have stayed there all night, exploring, tasting, shaping and being shaped, but he went too deep and had to come up for air.

They fell apart, the world rushing into the space with a reminder of all the reasons he shouldn’t have done that. The look in her wide eyes the only reason he should have.

“I guess I’m more like my mother than I realized,” she said.

“I shouldn’t—have done that.”

Her hand lightly touched his cheek, the palm moist and soft against his skin, a gentle fire burning in the depths of her eyes. “You were provoked.”

She stepped back, then left him, but paused at the steps to add, “Do you think it’s a good idea to hit on your boss’s daughter?”

The ground rocked under his feet. “How did you know—”

Her lashes swept down, then up. “I didn’t. Not for sure.”

She was up the stairs and inside before he could choke. She didn’t slam the door behind her, but he still winced. And wondered if he was too old to join the Foreign Legion.

Because Donald put out the TV, they didn’t hear about the explosion until after they picked up a newspaper from a vendor. They read it over breakfast, too discouraged by failure to even think about regrouping until they’d had their coffee and a good long whine.

“Don’t care. I don’t want to blow her up from a distance anymore, Fern.” Donald glared ahead. “I want to do her face-to-face. I want to watch her die in front of my eyes. I want to empty my clip into her even after she’s dead. I want to empty several clips into her and then burn her body!”

Fern sighed, trying to shift her broken arm into a more comfortable position. “I suppose that means we head back to Teddy?”

“That’s right.” Donald subsided into a state of muttering and non-verbal grumbling as he nursed his Café du Monde café au lait. From the river, the steamboat hooted derisively. She would be glad, Fern decided as she swatted a mosquito the size of a bee that was trying to crawl inside her cast and feast, to leave this place behind. Focus on Disneyland, she told herself. Only on Disneyland. You’ll get there if you believe it, Fern. You’ll get there if you have to crawl on your hands and knees, girl.

Artie read about the explosion in the newspaper the hotel brought with his breakfast and his newly shined shoes. It added insult to injury to know the bump on his head and the blood on his shoes hadn’t happened in a good cause. It was hard to sound optimistic when he made his daily phone call to Helen. He’d never been able to fool Helen—well, at least not completely.

“You sound like your biorhythms are out of whack,” she said. “Are you remembering your bio-vitamins?”

“Wouldn’t dare forget them, my dear.” Just the sound of her voice in his ear made him miss her like a limb. He didn’t get it. He’d loved maybe a hundred women. Loved and left them, and not just for the money. After a while he just got bored with them and had to move on. He didn’t much like being married, but he liked having money, and his only real skill was convincing women to marry him and give him their money. Until Reggie handed him a foolproof scam and fate handed him Helen. What was it about her that was so different? If he believed in that yin and yang stuff, which he didn’t but Helen did, he’d think maybe it was that.

Helen said they knew each other in a past life or maybe lives. He’d refused to be hypnotized for fear of what he might reveal about this life, but Helen figured he’d been her Troy or her Caesar or maybe her Napoleon. He liked thinking of himself as Napoleon. Bet he had some great shoes in his closet.

“What about your prostate enhancer herbs?” Helen said in his ear. In the background he could hear her counting out someone’s change for the stamps they’d just bought while she waited for his answer. If she had a flaw, it was talking about his prostate while at work in the Butt Had Post Office.

“I’m taking it all, honey,” he said, “so I can be your love bunny when I get back.”

“And when will that be? I miss my love bunny terribly,” she said briskly, adding, in the same tone, “that will be thirty-two cents, Reverend.”

Artie winced. He was a traditional guy when it came to proper subjects for the ears of a Reverend. “As soon as I get this last bit of business worked out, I’ll be home to stay, sweet cheeks. No more business trips for this guy.”

Helen’s sigh was music to his ears. “I can’t wait.”

16

Mickey woke the next morning feeling surprisingly chipper for someone who would probably be drawn and quartered when his Captain found out he’d spilled the beans. If it happened, it happened. At least he’d had the best kiss of