B. G. McCarthy - A Thief At Heart

by A Thief At Heart (lit)

  Suddenly the balloon popped and there was Robert Murphy, lounging beside her on a towel, holding out a rum punch and wearing nothing more than a sheen of suntan oil, nice lean muscles and a wide smile--

  Dammit. She muttered something else under her breath and tromped up the cold marble staircase. The dogs were barking like crazy. Hadn’t Alice bothered to feed them before she left? Usually they were curled up together on Mary’s bed.

  She wasn’t going to bother with them. She didn’t relish the thought of a face licking with their disgusting poodle breath. They were lazy little beggars and would settle down soon enough. They could do their business in their litter box.

  ~ * ~

  He was right. It was her.

  Shit.

  She’d just had to come back, hadn’t she? Damn her for doing that. Bloody predictable, unpredictable Riley Jane Turner. She was stubborn. Stubborn to the point of stupidity.

  Reckless girl thinking she was safe.

  He was here, wasn’t he? She’d come back because she was pissed at him and that pissed him off.

  Riley flipped on the television as she yanked off her jacket. He could see the television flicker through the shutter slats. Some sort of soap opera was on the television. She’d taped it.

  Passions if he wasn’t mistaken by the theme music. He’d fallen out of a third story window a year and a half ago, did a stint in traction and had gotten hooked on the damned thing. Hadn’t watched it since, but he’d lay odds that the plot hadn’t progressed too much. That little doll kid was likely still up to a lot of weirdness.

  He watched as she tossed the jacket on the chair. She was wearing a black lace camisole top of some kind. It hugged her body like a second skin; the stretchy fabric charted her curves, calling attention to the creamy tops of her firm breasts, long neck and toned arms. Beneath--no bra. The lace thing seemed to be support enough for her. He could see the outline of her nipples just obscured by black lace swirls.

  She bent at the waist and undid her shoe straps, kicking them off one by one. Satiny dark honey-brown hair flopped over her shoulder. She undid the side zip on her pants next. Why were side zippers so damned sexy? He found himself biting his lip, clenching his hands against his thighs. The teeth of the zipper slid down revealing the pale curve of one hip, the thin strap of a black lace panty that stretched as high as her waist.

  Something tugged hard in Rob’s groin.

  It was that old firecracker thing again. He bit back a moan.

  The silk trousers slithered down around her trim ankles. She stepped out of them, clad only in her tiny panties and that sweet little lace camisole thing.

  God... damn.

  She quickly divested herself of both and tossed them on the chair.

  Okay, poke me. I’m done, thought Rob.

  Riley was just so freaking beautiful.

  She bent and retrieved her clothes, breasts bouncing, her butt jiggling just a little because she wasn’t skinny. She was a real woman, rounded hips and lovely, curvy ass. Shapely legs. All in proportion. He knew she wore a size nine shoe.

  Her waist was thinner than it had been when she was a teenager, a sensuous curve, her smooth belly incredibly sexy. Rob’s breath caught again almost in an audible gasp as she turned and offered him a view of her back.

  His heart tripped. The sassy little birthmark was there, low on her back and right above one of those twin dimples near her spine.

  Hell, no wonder Todd wanted her in his bed. A man would be crazy not to. Rob’s sex was hard enough to pound nails now.

  Rob pressed his head back against the wall and tried to think of something really nasty: like a biker business meeting on a hot day after day-old sushi for lunch; or banana slugs; maybe rusted prison toilets.

  God. This was a first. Even thinking about his stint in prison didn’t help. But half the time when he’d been horny in prison it had been Riley Turner he’d thought about.

  God damn. He was in total lust.

  Maybe even love.

  No way this was love. He didn’t do that. He did not do love.

  Robin Butler was smart enough to know that love didn’t exist. And even if it did, it didn’t work out for anyone but a chosen few.

  He couldn’t remember a time when desire had hit him this hard. He longed to touch her smooth, moist skin, to taste her flesh, warm and scented from her bath. Hell, what they’d had as kids could be classed as nothing more than frenzied groping compared to what he wanted now. He wanted to explore Riley Turner’s body on a whole other level, a level one could only have at maturity.

  Cripes, he had to get his act together. If he screwed this up now Otis was going to have his currently aching balls on a silver platter, passing them around the office like burnt offerings, claiming that the unvanquishable Robin Butler had been vanquished.

  By a broad, yet.

  ~ * ~

  Walking naked across the room, Riley dug a cotton tee and panties out of the highboy intent on escaping into her private bath--a luxury she didn’t have to share with anyone--where the huge tub was filling with something decadent from the Lush soap boutique. The familiar scent of jasmine did little to calm her jumpy nerves, however.

  She’d checked this floor of the house but she felt strange and restless, like she wasn’t really alone. She was just paranoid about Todd, she supposed. She thought about calling Mary to see if everything was okay, but that was silly. She knew Mary’s close and caring friends would see to all of her needs quite admirably.

  Riley picked up her trousers, tossing them on a chair with a twinge of regret. They were going to get creased and she hated ironing. She looked after everything of a personal nature herself, but she never took any of it for granted. It was lovely coming home to these scrupulously clean surroundings each day and each day she remembered exactly where she’d come from and where she might end up should things not go her way.

  She recalled some of the places she’d lived with her mentally unstable mother, or in the foster care system. As far back as she could remember she’d lived in an atmosphere of upheaval and uncertainty. She supposed some shrink would tell her she was scared to get comfortable or feel good about things because it could all be taken away in the wink of an eye--or the slash of some social worker’s pen.

  She pinned up her hair, a dense not-quite curly mass that she struggled with on a daily basis, leaving the bathroom door open into the room so she could hear the soap opera she and Mary taped daily. Mary had gotten her hooked on One Life to Live and Passions. It was ridiculous to think that she would ever wait with baited breath to find out what the crazy people on Passions were up to each day. As she lowered herself into the tub she could feel the tension leave her stiff muscles. As usual her feet were killing her, her calves still crampy and sore.

  As her body was warmed and soothed, Riley’s mind went back unbidden to Robbie Butler again.

  Why did she keep thinking about him? It was like her memories of Robbie and her burgeoning feelings for Robert Murphy were inescapably bound. She didn’t for the life of her know why.

  The thought that they were one and the same flitted through her head again, but that was impossible. Totally ludicrous. Everyone in the world had a look alike.

  Riley remembered how she, a cynical girl who’d erected a chainlink and padlocked fence around her young heart, had melted like a Popsicle on a hot day at the sight of him. He’d been a lanky boy with a shock of medium-brown hair, broken front teeth and eyes of an otherworldly blue. Not perfection, but to her, damned close.

  He wasn’t really one of Aggie’s kids when she’s known him. He’d been almost eighteen then, and had come back to rebuild a rotted garage on a neighbor’s property, something to do with payback for a juvenile offense. Aggie had convinced the courts to give him a chance again, since his roll in whatever had transpired was a minor one. He’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time, so she’d argued. Robbie was sleeping in a beat-up trailer at the back of the man’s property when he wasn’t work
ing on the roof.

  Robbie had left the foster care system at sixteen, as was allowed in the province. With no family that wanted him, he’d been on his own for a while. Riley wasn’t going to leave the system until October. Her stepaunt and uncle wanted to take her and she knew why: they had four bratty kids under the age of five that they wanted her to care for so they could hang around at the beer parlor every night.

  She was determined to be on her own, too. Aggie had told her that she could stay as long as she liked, but Riley had known it would be too much of a burden. Aggie needed the room for a kid who could bring in the full monthly stipend, no matter what she said to the contrary.

  Riley hadn’t had a clue what she’d do with her life. Her dream was to get a degree in fashion design, but that was hopeless. She knew she wouldn’t have the money for extras that made a student special to her teachers and competitive with her peers, or the time to spend on her homework; she feared she’d wind up begging for money on the street or on welfare and living with a string of jerks like her mother had. “Two can live better than one,” her mother had always said.

  Her first glance of Robbie Butler drove self-doubt right out of her mind and she’d walked around in a daze that first week he was working on the garage, unable to keep her eyes off the shirtless boy. He wasn’t attractive in the conventional sense, but full of mystery and shadows, with his lean, agile body and long hair as shiny in the sunlight as a rich lady’s mink collar. The chipped front teeth were his only absurd feature and probably the reason he rarely gave anyone a full-on smile.

  He’d had this aloof way of holding himself, the brooding angle of his shoulders and the fierce look on his face off-putting to every adult but Aggie, a woman who could storm anyone’s personal form of defense.

  Because of that brooding quality, there were girls who talked about him and stopped by to flirt and Riley had just told herself there was no way he’d speak to her, let alone notice that she was interested in getting to know him.

  She told herself that she didn’t need to be interested in a troubled kid like him--a kid who was as poor and screwed up as she was.

  But it happened anyway. He became her first fantasy in the morning and her last at night, until the night of that crazy party at a neighbor boy’s. Robbie had been there and the fantasy had become real.

  Even across the room his face had been a bit of a blur to her, because she refused to wear her glasses. At the party she longed to get them from her purse and have a good look at him, see if her imagination and the real thing were in sync.

  She drank a lot that night. It was nerves. He seemed to be avoiding her. Finally she’d gotten the courage to go up to him and asked him to dance. It was a Bowie song. Ashes to Ashes. She still liked it to this day. The words were really rather appropriate now. They’d danced for hours to The Cult and The Jam and The Clash.

  He’d danced like a madman, like he was totally into it. No shame, no pretense. He pulled her in and made her feel crazy and happy and free for once in her life. She didn’t care what anyone thought about her. Except him.

  Everything about him, his energy, his touch, took her breath away. It was the first time that had ever happened. She’d always been aloof.

  She knew something had to be wrong. Reality was never that good.

  She’d kissed him on a tide of excitement; he’d thought she was offering up more than she’d intended. Maybe she had intended it, but it spooked her and she tried to cool it. Robin Butler didn’t walk away or reject her. He just smiled and pulled her onto the dance floor again.

  They’d danced some more and tried to talk over the din. He’d told her in a quiet moment that his favorite thing in the world was chocolate chip cookies. He said he’d been craving them for weeks but that Aggie wouldn’t bake any because he’d gotten himself into trouble again. It was a tough-love thing she used on him. Robin Riley was trying his best to be good so that Aggie would relent and make him some cookies again and, with that boyish confession, Riley had fallen even harder.

  She’d just up and decided Robin Butler was going to be the one. Maybe not forever, but he was her choice. It was her body and he was going to be her prize. She really wanted to get sex over with, find out what all the fuss was about.

  She’d gone home to Aggie’s house, totally drunk and starry-eyed, sneaked into Aggie’s kitchen and baked cookies. Then she’d marched over to that dank old trailer with her gift.

  She’d been scared at first, but touching him, hearing his soft, low voice thanking her for the cookies had boiled into pure, sweet chaos in her heart and her body.

  “No one’s ever done anything like this for me before,” Robbie said softly, brushing back a lock of her hair. There was a knowing look dallying in his half-lidded blue eyes; something that only intensified the sensation that she might be overstepping her limits. She almost turned and ran at that moment.

  But when he leaned in to her, his mouth taking hers in a way that compelled her toes to curl, Riley pushed aside all thoughts of escape. “How tall are you anyway?” he asked between kisses.

  “Um... I’m five-feet eight and one-half inch in my stocking feet. But not tall enough to go to New York and be a model” She told him that with reluctance. “That used to be a secret.”

  “I won’t tell anyone.”

  “Am I too tall for you?” she asked, nervous. They met almost eye to eye.

  “You’re perfect. I’ll just will myself to grow several inches by morning. Okay?” He tongued her earlobe, making her tremble in his arms. She gasped at what he was doing to her, what he was making her body feel, trying to wriggle away from him a little.

  Robin Butler nibbled at her lips, covering her mouth in baby-soft kisses, his mouth slightly open, his tongue flirting with her lips until she could almost not bear it, until she was desperate for more, breathing in little gasps. Finally he put his tongue fully into her mouth and kissed her again like he really meant business, his hands at her waist, pulling her flush against his masculine hardness.

  Riley slid her own tongue into his mouth. He abruptly groaned and she felt an enlightening surge of the power she held over him. She let her hands drift down his chest to his waistband.

  Her hands stole up inside his shirt, a little clumsily, but she wanted to feel the warmth of his bare skin, the light sheen of sweat covering the pleasing curve of his back. He smelled heavenly, like Irish Spring soap, shaving cream, Aggie’s ever present Snuggle Fabric Softener and what she guessed must be potently aroused male. She loved the smooth, satiny hardness of his chest muscles, the way he moaned and quivered at her untried explorations.

  “Want to take this slow? Or fast,” he whispered against her neck, sliding her tee down over her shoulder, his tongue laving the hollow below her collar bone, covering her bare skin in seductive kisses that set her skin on fire.

  “I’m not sure,” she said softly. She was glad that the trailer was dimly lit so he couldn’t see her face, see how scared she really was. She was kind of glad she couldn’t see him either. See if she was doing everything wrong.

  He read her mind. “Are you scared of me?” Robbie asked.

  “Yes. Maybe a bit--”

  “Don’t be. We’ve known each other for weeks. From a distance...”

  “Not like this.”

  “Oh, yeah, like this. In my dreams anyway.” It was the first time she’d really seen his eyes up close. They were as patient as his kisses were ardent, the blue of sun baked sky. “You’re in good hands. I’m more scared than you are, anyway. Being with you is unreal to me, Riley Jane. Being inside you is going to be so wild. I want to make sure that you’ll like doing this as much as I will.”

  Oh, God. Why was he saying this stuff? Being inside. “I’m not on the pill.”

  “It’s okay,” he said, smiling. “I have something.”

  Riley was thinking that it should have bothered her, the fact that he knew this would happen, but she was glad he made himself accountable for moments like this one. Rob
bie grasped her waist and turned them around, so that his back and shoulders were resting against the sloping wall of his tiny bedroom in the ancient trailer.

  She looked down at his body and shivered at how erotic he looked propped against the dingy wall, right against a poster of Bono Vox. His shirt was pushed up around his ribs--she wasn’t even aware that she had done that--his sexy, flat belly exposed above the faded and frayed band of his denim jeans. His mussed dark hair fell into his blue eyes, half covering his face.

  He suddenly pulled the shirt over his head, tossing it onto the floor. His breathing became labored as if had run hard for a mile or two. She could see the taut muscles of his chest heaving. Something intense and mind-blowing happened to her body as she looked at him, at his sleek, naked torso, the way his skin stretched over corrugated ribs and abdominal muscles. He was maybe a bit too skinny for some girls, but to her he was perfect.

  Riley swallowed hard as the stirring, quivering sensation took her over, weakening her legs. Her teeth even stared to chatter.

  His little male nipples beaded up tight as she touched them. She could see his armpit hair, long, thick and damp. How could that be so erotic? His skin was hot, taut, barely leashed-in energy vibrating beneath her fingers.

  She could hardly wait to get the rest of his clothes off so she could see him stark naked. She looked down at the button of his fly. She saw the hard ridge of male flesh straining the placket and almost changed her mind.

  He wasn’t scrawny in that department.

  His fingers skimmed the sides of her over-sensitized breasts as he eased her top up over her head, letting it float to the floor as if his fingers had lost strength.

  He just looked at her for a long time, not saying anything, his hands settling on her shoulders, skimming down her arms to take her hands, threading their fingers together. He kissed her knuckles then let go of her hands. “Oh, God... Riley Jane,” he said huskily. “Oh, God...” She knew he could see everything: her nipples, the shadowy cleft between her full breasts and she wanted to cover herself. “Oh, Jesus... damn, Riley,” he said. “I can’t believe you came here to me.”