Chapter Fourteen

 

 

Simone wished she was a nail biter or a hand wringer, but her mother had drummed both bad habits out of her at an early age. Either gesture would have helped ease some of the tension she now felt. Brax had come home. He drove up, but hadn’t entered the trailer, not for an interminable ten minutes.

When he did finally come in, a paper bag crushed beneath one arm, Brax had pointed at her, told her to get her stuff, and said he’d drive her home. Then, as if belatedly remembering his manners, he’d asked Chloe to stay with Maggie for a little while longer.

No one argued, not even Simone. Chloe shooed her out with a flap of both hands.

Now the paper bag sat on the armrest between them. She trapped the questions racing through her mind in her aching, parched throat. Half her brain wanted to know all the answers. Now. The other half—left or right, she couldn’t be sure—wanted to crawl into the backseat, lie down, and sob until neither a tear nor a single thought remained.

The silence in the 4Runner shouted out her guilt.

She’d betrayed Maggie by writing that fantasy. Instead of bringing Carl and Maggie together in bliss as she’d intended, Simone had most likely driven a wedge of lies between them.

Her tummy flip-flopped with every turn of the wheel. It sank, then climbed back up to her throat. It wasn’t a clichéd description, but an actual roller coaster in her stomach, that same sudden seesawing fear that hit upon first realizing you’d done a terrible thing or made a horrible mistake. It could be a life-on-the-line thing like changing lanes only to suddenly hear the shimmy of air brakes and see that semi’s grill up close and personal in your rearview mirror. Or it could be something as simple as suddenly remembering the Visa bill was due yesterday.

That’s how she knew she’d done a very bad thing to Maggie and Carl. Now Brax knew, too, signs of his knowledge riding his tensed lips and his narrowed eyes. He bore the implacable look of a patrolman who’d stopped her for speeding. He didn’t even need the mirrored sunglasses to pull it off. That look and the paper sack between them—chanting Open, open, open—said it all. It wasn’t a funny commercial running through her head.

He wheeled into the gravel drive and came to a stop behind her truck, boxing her in should she try to escape.

He reached across her, yanked her door handle, his arm brushing her belly. She shrank at the contact and his stiff command of “Inside.”

Not “Get out of the car,” or “Could we please go inside and talk,” just that hard-edged order.

In other circumstances, she would have given him the finger and a dirty word. Instead, she had only one thought. I wrote a fantasy, Carl’s dead, and I sent him an email saying he’d be buzzard bait.

Okay, that was three thoughts. If she could have limited it to one, she might have been able to forgive herself.

Brax stood at the passenger side door, holding it open, waiting. So intent on her own thoughts, she hadn’t moved, hadn’t heard him shut his own door, or seen him walk around to her side.

She climbed out, staring at his chest then his boots as she clutched her purse to her chest.

He graciously extended his arm for her to proceed, but slammed the car door. She’d left her door unlocked, stupid girl. Jason Lafoote’s obnoxious aftershave still wafted out as she opened the screen, as if he’d been waiting once again on the sunporch. Of course, that could have been from the other night. The man’s essence lingered like a bad smell.

The sun having gone down behind the hills, her trailer lay in near darkness. She flipped the light switch to banish both the intimacy and the fear.

Of course, her fear remained. Her beloved Goldstone had been struck by tragedy. Tragedy always came in threes.

She hadn’t cleaned up. The sofa cushions were askew from her mad search for the portable phone. Last night’s wineglass sat on the coffee table, lipstick stains smudging the rim and the evaporated remains of white zin like sludge at the bottom. Cracker crumbs dotted the wood surface.

Brax bypassed her, dropping his paper bag onto the table. It landed with the soft plop of lightweight contents.

He pointed to the couch. “Sit.”

She wasn’t a dog, but she sat obediently, legs together primly, feet curled up against the sofa bottom, and hands clasped on her thighs.

Brax did not ease her discomfort by sitting beside her. He remained standing, the overhead light behind his head keeping his eyes in shadow.

“The fantasy you wrote for Carl. Tell me about it.”

She twisted her hands in her lap. The fantasy. The bane of her existence, the harbinger of bad things to come. “Didn’t we already go over that the other night?” Sort of?

“Quite frankly, I don’t remember what the fuck we went over the other night. All I remember is kissing you. Then finding out Carl is dead the next day.”

Bam, bam, bam. He shot her down, picked her back up, then blew her away, all with three devastating sentences.

She didn’t know what to say. The ridiculous urge to hum a toneless tune came over her, but she held it at bay. Maybe if he hadn’t given her such an open-ended question. “Could you ask me something that requires a yes or no answer, because I really don’t know where to start.” Her eyes started to cloud up.

“How about this?” He bent, grabbed the grocery bag, ripped the top open, and dumped the contents on her coffee table.

Rolled pieces of paper scattered all over the table and onto the carpet, some squashed, some in perfect scrolls, others tied with pretty silver and red ribbons.

She touched one, picked it up gingerly, as if it were a snake that might sink its fangs into her if she moved too quickly.

“You did write that, didn’t you?” He indicated the pile with a stab.

Unrolling a scroll, her own words jumped out at her.

He slid his fingers into her creamy center, taking her gasp of pleasure into his mouth, tasting his own essence on her tongue.

Oh my God, it was the end of the blow job scene. And the start of another one. She looked at Brax and almost asked if he’d read it. Oh my God, he’d probably read the whole story. The whole darn story. She blushed, heat spreading through her entire body. She remembered writing the scene. She remembered how she’d grown moist writing. It hadn’t involved Maggie and Carl. There’d been only herself with her dream lover, and her body had ached for his touch. Her heart had ached for a figment of her imagination.

“That was a yes or no question.”

“Ye-es.” Her voice cracked.

“Did he give you instructions on what to write? Doodle says his wife gives you instructions.”

She swallowed, but couldn’t get her voice above a whisper. “Yes. And yes.”

“How explicit were his instructions?”

“That’s not yes or no.” God, her voice sounded all wobbly, and hot tears burned at the backs of her eyes. She knew her reactions didn’t make sense. But she couldn’t think, she could only feel. Somehow, that fantasy she wrote for Carl set off a horrible chain reaction that led to him falling into the gorge. An untenable thought, but she couldn’t help it.

Brax shoved the coffee table out of the way and hunkered down beside her. She realized she had been staring at the paper, the ink suddenly running down the page from three wet splats.

He took her forearm in a gentle but firm grip. “What did he tell you to write?”

She was going to start blubbering. Any minute. And then she wouldn’t even be able to think, let alone talk. She rushed in before the onslaught. “He wanted something out in the open on a long walk. He described what he wanted the characters to look like and what they should be wearing and where he wanted them to stop, then he told me to make up the rest myself.” She bit her lip and sniffed. “The...you know...the sex part.”

Brax jerked to his feet, and, his back to her, ran both hands through his hair. Then he turned to her, his eyes stark, pained. “What was he going to do with it?”

Her lip trembled. She sucked it in and bit down hard, hoping the ache would fight away the tears. Then everything inside her rushed out at once. “He was supposed to read it to Maggie. At least that’s what I thought he was going to do. Della said Maggie was upset about stuff, and I could tell she was. Then Carl asked me to write a story, and I thought it was for them, so that they could make everything better.” She hiccupped and sniffled and started blubbering like she’d been afraid she would. “I wanted to make it all better, but neither of them would tell me anything. And it didn’t sound like Maggie even knew about it. So I got scared he didn’t have me write it for Maggie, but for someone else. That he’d been having an affair, and I’d actually written a story he read to some...some...bitch. Now he’s dead, and I sent him the most awful email. I feel so terrible.”

Her nose ran, her eyes hurt, and beside her, Brax smelled so good, like...well, it wasn’t like anything she could describe, a little sweet, a little sharp, a clean male scent that made her want to bury her face against his shoulder.

“So you sent him a nasty email because you thought he’d tricked you into writing something for his lover. That’s all you did. It wasn’t a crime.”

She sniffed and nodded and stared down at that paper with all her erotic fantasies and dreams running down the soggy page. There was so much of her in it.

She’d failed. Again. Worse than putting all her eggs in one basket and losing her business, her career, and her fiancé. Worse than being a screamer. She wanted to make things better for everyone, for Maggie, for Carl. She’d failed miserably at that.

And now Carl was dead.

 

* * * * *

 

“If I hadn’t written that fantasy, none of this would have happened,” Simone said through her tears.

Brax stroked a finger down her wet cheek, then murmured in her ear, “You keep telling me I’m not to blame. Well, same goes for you. What happened to Carl wasn’t your fault.”

The tension across Brax’s shoulders had eased. Simone was neither a liar nor a cheat.

She looked at him, mascara smudges beneath her eyes, her nose reddened, and tear tracks down her pink cheeks. “It’s not?”

Money had played a role in Carl’s demise. Brax felt the truth of that as if it were written in Carl’s own blood. “Writing a fantasy for him doesn’t make you responsible for his death.”

Christ, he was an ass. He’d browbeaten her confession out of her only to find that she’d been playing the Good Witch of the North and waving her magic wand to fix everyone’s problems. If it were that easy, Maggie and Carl would have done it themselves. Simone had said it herself, but she hadn’t believed her own words.

He smoothed her cheek dry even as another teardrop fell. “If he didn’t use it the way you intended, that was his fault, not yours.” He tapped the paper on her lap. “The fantasy is beautiful.”

She gasped. “Oh my God, you read it.”

“Yeah, I read it.”

“All of it?”

“Every single word.”

She dropped her head, burying her face in her hands. “This is awful. This is so awful.”

“I’m an idiot. I saw your last email, and I wanted someone to blame for Maggie’s pain.” He touched her hair. “I was wrong.”

She sniffled, then raised her head slightly to look at him, a hand still covering her mouth. “Did Carl kill himself?”

He had no idea how much to tell her, but he couldn’t let her go on thinking that. “No.” He pushed her hair away from her face. “Carl left behind a lot of unanswered questions, but that isn’t one of them. Not in my mind.”

“What about Sheriff Teesdale’s mind?”

“No one thinks that. Whatever happened to Carl, he didn’t do it to himself.”

She shuddered and closed her eyes. “Did somebody kill him?”

“I...” Maggie would say it tomorrow, even if he didn’t say it tonight. “It is my considered opinion that someone murdered him.”

Tears spilled over her lower lids once more. “Oh my God, oh my God. No one in Goldstone would hurt him. Nobody.”

He steeled himself to handle her emotion. Simone would never do things half-measure. When she smiled, she did so from the inside out, and when she cried, she sobbed. Brax did the only logical thing he could. He gathered her into his arms. Pulling her onto his lap, he rode out the pain with her, whispering all the while. “Don’t cry. It’s okay. There’s no need to cry. Don’t cry.”

But she didn’t stop. Helplessly, he ran his hands up and down her back, through her hair, along her arms, but he couldn’t stop the flow. She’d run from the big, bad city to the safety of Goldstone, and suddenly found that the secure place she’d built for herself had fallen apart. Carl’s death had rocked her trailer off its foundation.

His T-shirt moistened beneath the onslaught. Her body shook, and she pulled her legs onto the sofa, curling into him, into herself. Powerless to do more for her, he murmured soft nothings against her hair, pressing his lips to the silky strands.

When her sobs faded to snuffles against his chest, he raised her chin with his finger and kissed the tip of her nose.

“I’m a mess,” she whispered, wiping her eyes.

“Yeah. Your nose looks as red as Rudolph’s.”

She laughed, then hiccupped. “I’m sorry for going off like that.”

Her gentle laugh loosened the knot in his abdomen. “Don’t be sorry.” He pulled a tissue from the box on the side table. “Here. Blow.”

That done, she held out her hand. He plucked another, which she used to wipe the mascara smudges from beneath her eyes.

“Trust a woman to have the tissues handy,” he said, hoping to make her smile a little.

She did. Softly. Too sadly. “Sappy love stories always make me cry.”

She’d admitted that, and he’d witnessed. She’d almost cried when Dorothy sang “Over the Rainbow.”

Balling the tissues, she put them on the table, then smoothed the flat of her hand down his chest. “I got your shirt all wet, and it’s covered with lipstick.”

“It’ll dry, and lipstick won’t show on the black.”

“You’re awfully understanding.”

Right. The most he’d been able to do was let her cry in his arms.

“Thanks for letting me get that out.”

She was thanking him for doing nothing? “It was my pleasure.” He’d almost broken down himself. First Maggie, now Simone. He felt beaten to a pulp.

Her tangy shampoo tickled his nose, her bare skin against his arm heated him, and the gentle swell of her breasts suddenly seemed to mesmerize him. When she cried, he’d offered the comfort of touch. Now, with her lying across him, her breath caressing his neck, his body started doing some thinking of its own.

Shit. Maybe the right place, but certainly not the right time. He patted her arm in a hopefully comforting gesture, then tried to ease her off his lap.

She burrowed deeper, her face to his throat, her arms wrapped around his neck. He didn’t have the heart to push her away, and instead pulled her closer still. God, she smelled good. In a world that had suddenly gone sour, she was fresh and clean and everything his mind and body craved.

A few more moments, that’s all he’d take, one more deep breath to fill himself with her scent. He nuzzled her hair, then grazed her forehead with his lips. She tasted salty. In all that sobbing, she’d gotten her tears all over herself.

Damn, she was beautiful. She took him to a place where death, murder, pain, guilt, and anger didn’t exist. There was only her woman scent and her baby-soft skin.

Brax cupped her throat, tracing the line of her jaw with his fingers, then down to test her pulse. It was racing. So was his. And he knew he would never be able to resist her.

 

* * * * *

 

Simone lifted her head. She couldn’t have said whether she raised her face or he tipped her chin, but their lips met. Mouths closed. Gentle. Sweet.

She felt as if she’d been alone and untouched forever. His taste was a balm to her soul. Just a kiss, just one.

She threaded her fingers through his hair, massaging his scalp. Then licked his lower lip. Only this. She wouldn’t ask for more. He groaned, tightened his hold on her, and opened his mouth to her tongue. He bent her over his arm, kissing her with his lips, his teeth, and his tongue, his hands at her back, his chest to her breasts, and his erection riding her hip.

Okay, so that was a little bit more than she’d planned, but God, she could almost believe he kissed her with everything he had. Reverently. In a way she’d never been kissed except in her fantasies.

Her breasts rose and fell against his chest. Leaving her lips, he pulled back, his hot gaze touching her flushed skin. He trailed a finger down the slope of breast to the scooped neckline of her T-shirt.

Please, please, please, more.

But there he stopped. Waiting for her permission. Gentleman Brax. Darn it. She almost wished he’d do it, touch her, so she didn’t have to make a decision.

What if she never got another chance? She’d die a shriveled prune. Living on fantasy didn’t cut it. Not now. Maybe tomorrow, she could return to her Goldstone way of life. Right now, she needed Brax.

“Second base,” she whispered. Then she guided his hand to her breast, cupping his palm over her tight nipple.

It wasn’t enough. It was too much.

“Jesus,” he breathed against her hair.

Lying back against the arm of the sofa, she offered herself like a meal. “I know I’m selfish, but I don’t care right now. Please touch me.” She was almost beyond thinking.

He smoothed a hand across the flesh above her T-shirt. “What happened to heightening the anticipation until we’re crazy?”

What had happened to her sense of decorum? Poof, gone.

She bit her lip, wriggling in his lap. “This is crazy. We shouldn’t. I shouldn’t make you. I know Carl’s gone, and Maggie’s hurting terribly. I know it’s wrong to want this.” Wrong, yes, but she steered his hand once more to her breast, rubbing his finger back and forth against the tight, aching bud.

His blue eyes darkened, blazed with heat. “Don’t think about the rest. Not right now.” His body surged beneath her. “Just think about how goddamn much I want you.”

His words. They were almost out of control. The way she felt.

Then he pulled aside the lace and cotton of her bra and bent his head to take her in his mouth. Crying out, she held him to her. He sucked her like candy, searching for the sweet center. Cradling her shoulders against his arm, he plumped her breast, stroking the underside with his thumb, its texture rough, but oh so sweet. He soothed her skin with his fingers, then took her nipple with his mouth and tongue.

She almost shouted with the pleasure, only at the last moment clamping down with her teeth on her lip. Raking both hands through his hair, she used the tips of her fingers, her nails. A soft moan fell from her lips.

He found the strip of exposed flesh above her waistband and dipped his finger into her belly button. It tickled. She jumped, her stomach quivering with the anticipation. Fire exploded inside, consumed her.

He threw his head back and held her down, rocking his cock against her. “I want third base.”

“I don’t remember what it is.” But she wanted it, whatever it was.

He stilled, his gaze roaming her stomach. “My hand in your panties.”

“Yes, please.” Her voice came as a tremulous whisper.

Shimmying, she pulled up her skirt for him, baring her need and her desire as blatantly as she revealed the white thong riding her hips and intimately cupping her sex. “Want me, Brax,” she whispered. “Want me badly. Until you feel like you’re gonna scream if you don’t have me.”

With a fingertip, he traced her along the cotton panty, pushing deeper until he found the nub of her clitoris. A hum vibrated in her throat, and her head fell back, exposing her neck to his lips. He nipped, then licked, still playing her through her panties. Then he palmed her, shoving his hand between her thighs. Tightening her legs, trapping him, she soundlessly begged for more.

“Christ, you’re hot down there.”

She opened her eyes to his deep blue gaze. He was so beautiful. “Uh-huh.”

Dragging his fingers over her once more, he teased the skin along the elastic line across her belly.

She lost every last one of her inhibitions as well as her fear. “It doesn’t count as third base,” she murmured, “unless you’re inside my panties.”

“What’s it called when it’s outside the panty?”

“It’s called the shortstop tease, and it isn’t a nice thing to do to a lady.” She wasn’t a lady, not the way he made her feel, not the way she wanted to cry out. But she didn’t care. She wanted to feel good for a little while.

He stroked back and forth, back and forth, until she thought she’d die if he didn’t delve beneath the darn elastic. She wanted all of him.

He wasn’t going to reject her. At least not yet, not until...later. She’d deal with it then.

He grinned down at her. “Are you sure it’s not nice?”

Her skin tingled, and her body heated, moistened, readied. She became one of those heroines in her stories. She licked her lips, wriggling in hopes his fingers might slip beneath the panty line. “I guess it’s nice. But it could be a whole lot nicer.”

“Isn’t the anticipation better? The wanting, the needing, like your whole body’s going to explode. The feeling that you’ll die if I don’t put my fingers inside your sweet, hot, wet—”

She slapped her hand over his mouth. “I think you’re throwing my own words back at me.” Slightly altered, of course. But oh my God, it was how she felt.

Pulling her hand away, he grinned, like a feral animal, all white teeth and predatory eyes. “Yeah. Ain’t it great?”

It was. She ached for his touch from the inside out. On its own, her body moved in rhythm to his stroke, building toward climax with nothing more than his heady male scent, the tactile memory of his mouth on her breast, and the rough texture of his big, beautiful hand against her stomach.

Don’t think, just do.

She grabbed the back of his neck and pulled his head down until his mouth touched hers. “It’s perfect.” She nipped his lip. “Make it more perfect. Please. Pretty please.” She shouldn’t beg. Begging wasn’t done. It suggested a girl was about to lose control.

Simone couldn’t help herself.

She probed his mouth with her tongue, greedy for his taste, and pressed her breasts hard to his chest. Her heart raced, and she gave voice to the breathless pant of approaching orgasm.

He tugged on her hip, working the panties down, while she wriggled, helping him and driving herself crazy with all the squirming.

Tingles like fireworks sparklers accompanied his touch all the way back up her calf and thigh. He slid a finger over her clitoris, then deep inside her, and she went off like a Fourth of July display. Thighs clamped, inner muscles contracting, spasming, she cried into his mouth with unladylike abandon. He took it all, took her kiss, made it his own, drank in her screams, devoured her like the predator he was. With short, sharp movements of his hand, he forced her to ride the edge until she trembled with orgasmic exhaustion.

Then he held her, caressing her lips, nuzzling her cheek with his nose, and soothing her tensed limbs with gentle strokes. She was warm and tingly and snug and...

What had she done?

Had she screamed? Sort of. Against his lips. Which was better than having him put his hand over her mouth. But still. She’d been in a fugue state. The sobbing, the crying, then his touch, his kiss. She’d lost her mind.

This was the problem with letting hormones and emotions take over. She didn’t care how she behaved while she was under the influence, not until it was all over. Then splat, she came down off the high.

She tugged at the bottom of her skirt to at least cover her pantyless state. “Well, that was incredibly embarrassing.”

Brax kissed her eyelids. “That was heaven.”

“You barely touched me, and I totally lost control.” She’d screamed. She closed her eyes, too embarrassed to look at him.

He rubbed his nose to hers. “This is very unmanly to admit, and I probably shouldn’t, but I’ve never made a woman orgasm like that in my life.”

“That’s why it’s embarrassing.”

He held her chin. “Look at me.”

“I can’t.”

He shook her lightly. She opened her eyes to his laser-bright blues.

“That was too fucking incredible for words,” he whispered, his hot, husky voice caressing her.

She blinked. “Oh.”

“I want to make you do it again, but this time I want to be inside you.”

No one had ever taken everything she had to give and asked for more. No words had ever made her feel so special. He couldn’t possibly mean it. Her heart beat faster and her eyes clouded up. “But it was so unladylike.”

He gave a short bark of disbelieving laughter. “Don’t tell me your mother dictated orgasm etiquette to you.”

Not exactly. “Why would you bring up my mother at a time like this?”

“I swear I heard her voice coming out of your mouth.”

She gasped. He hadn’t figured out who her mother was, had he? “You’ve never even heard her voice.” She worried her lip. “Have you?”

“I know a quote when I hear one.”

“Oh.” She squirmed. It wasn’t a quote exactly, more like an overall rule of permissible behavior. “Nothing, including sex, should ever be done to excess.”

He laughed outright this time, throwing his head back. She wanted to lick his throat.

“There is definitely one thing that should be enjoyed to excess, and that’s an orgasm.” He tipped her chin, holding her gaze. “The world would be a better place if everyone came like you just did.”

Oh my God. He didn’t care she was a screamer. He wasn’t like her ex-fiancé. He resembled one of the heroes in her fantasies, actually enjoying that she was exuberant and excessive. She could hardly believe it. “What does that mean, Brax?”

“It means, make love, not war.”

“I think that’s a sixties slogan.”

“Smoking too much of the happy weed or not, they did know a good axiom when they heard one.”

“You might have a point.” Wriggling until she could lean an elbow on the sofa arm, she put space between them. She wanted him to throw his arms around her and hug her till she popped. She wanted to give him everything she’d been holding back for three years. All her exuberance. “I know another good axiom.”

He slid down, resting his head against the couch to watch her through hooded eyes. “And what’s that?”

She trailed a finger from his throat to his belt, then laid her hand on his buckle. “One good turn deserves another.”

His gaze turned hot, a fire sparking beneath those seemingly lazy lids. “What did you have in mind?”

She drew a hand down the bulge in his pants, then cupped his erection. She felt bold and free, like one of her characters. “What base are we on if I touch you here?”

He covered her hand, pressing harder. His gaze captured hers in an endless moment.

Then he whispered, “We’re halfway home.”