Free Someone Like Her by Sandra Owens

her. His taste, flavored by the malt beer, made her drunk with desire.
    Maria moaned, and he stilled. “Please.” She would beg if necessary to keep him from stopping.
    His mouth inched away and he leaned his forehead against hers. “No, we can’t do this.”
    Jake never turned down sex freely offered. Why was he saying no to her? She placed her palm over his heart, felt it pounding. He wasn’t unaffected.
    “We can. I want you, and I think you feel the same.”
    He put his hands on her waist and lifted her to her feet. “Go to bed, Maria.”
    She searched his eyes but they shuttered, blocking his thoughts. “I don’t understand.”
    “There’s nothing to understand.”
    Jake turned off the TV and the lamp, leaned his back on the sofa, and tried to wipe from his mind the look of confusion and hurt on Maria’s face as she left the room. I want you, and I think you feel the same. Damn straight he wanted her. He’d come close to taking her right there on the couch.
    But he was Romeo. He loved ’em and left ’em. In the end, he would hurt her, something he’d never much worried about with other women. Of course, he’d always made sure the women he chose knew the rules, understood the game.
    Maria didn’t understand the game, and he would never want her to. She was different—special—meant for someone who had long term in mind. A man who would put a ring on her finger and honor his vows.
    He didn’t believe he had fidelity in him. A day would come when some tempting little thing would cross his path, and he’d go and royally screw everything up. If he ever hurt Maria like that, he’d shoot himself, saving Kincaid the trouble.
    But, Jesus, she’d knocked the floor out from under him with that kiss.
    From the time he’d kissed his first girl at age thirteen, he’d loved the feel of soft feminine lips on his, had made it his mission in life to kiss as many girls as possible. Then at sixteen, he’d lost his virginity to his twenty-three-year-old neighbor and never looked back. Though he now understood she was wrong to seduce a teenage boy, she’d taught him how to please a woman and he had very fond memories of her.
    If someone asked him how many women he’d slept with, he couldn’t begin to answer. He couldn’t remember most of their names, though he’d always remember their faces as they came. Seeing their eyes dilate and darken, hearing their soft sighs and sometimes their screams, feeling the curves of their bodies as his hands explored them, it was what he lived for.
    No, he wasn’t the man for Maria.
    A ball of fur landed on his lap and began to knead his stomach. Jake sighed. “Yeah, cat, I guess we guys have to stick together.” He peered down at the creature. “You are a guy, right? Or have you been neutered? Maybe that’s what somebody needs to do to me.”

    Jake once again found himself standing next to Eddie as Detective Nolan questioned Angie and her mother. Nolan had agreed to hold the interview at the Davis house, his hope that it would put mother and daughter more at ease. Maria sat on the couch, her hand clasped in Angie’s.
    “When was the last time you saw him, Mrs. Davis?” the detective asked.
    “I’m not sure exactly, about a month ago.”
    Jake studied the woman who’d been Fortunada’s girlfriend. She was attractive, maybe in her midthirties. Her eyes, green like her daughter’s, were red rimmed and swollen from crying. Even now, she had a handkerchief clutched tightly in her hand, dabbing at the tears falling down her cheeks.
    Nolan handed her a mug shot. “Is this Hernando Fortunada?”
    She glanced at it and gave it back. “That’s him.”
    “Does he have a job?”
    “He’s a bartender at Missy’s Place. At least, he was a month ago.”
    As Nolan questioned Angie about her visit to Fortunada’s house, Eddie started bouncing on the balls of his feet, his hands curling into fists. Jake put his hand on the kid’s shoulder and pushed him into the