by Ada Scott
“I’m twenty-five, by the way,” he adds. I frown in confusion.
He must be getting loopier by the second. “Uh, okay?”
“So it wouldn’t be a midlife crisis on wheels. Only a quarter-life crisis, thank you very much,” he explains, grinning at me. I can’t help but smile back, shaking my head.
“My sincerest apologies,” I tell him.
“So, where the hell are we going?” he asks, and I swallow hard, unsure how to answer.
“Good question,” I reply quietly. “Do you have, like, a safehouse or something? A hideout? Secret underground lair or something like that?”
“I’m not Batman, you know,” Caleb retorts.
“I was thinking more James Bond, but whatever. So you don’t have a secret mafia doctor who will tend your wounds and stuff on the down-low?” I ask, getting more concerned.
“Well, even if I did have access to that, considering the fact that it was the mafia who put this bullet in my shoulder…”
“Ah. Yeah. Got it. We’re not on the mob’s good side at the moment,” I sigh.
“We?” Caleb prompts, raising an eyebrow.
I look over at him, fixing him with a serious expression. “You’re bleeding from enemy fire and I’m driving the getaway car. So, yes, we.”
“This isn’t your battle to fight,” he says, more softly now.
“Yeah, yeah, we’ve been over that. Doesn’t matter. You paid for a week with me and I’m not about to go AWOL on my end of the bargain,” I answer simply, shrugging.
“Wow, you’re the best escort a man could ever need. This is truly above-and-beyond service,” Caleb says, half-joking. “I’ll be sure to leave a fantastic review for you.”
“Okay, asshole, don’t push it.”
He laughs gently. “I’m sorry. I mean it, though. You didn’t have to do any of this. I would never have intentionally dragged you into it with me.”
“I know. I know. But I’m here now, at least until the end of the week. Let’s just hope the rest of our time together is a little less double-oh-seven,” I tell him. “Now, where the hell can we go?”
I think about it for a long moment and then it hits me. “Oh my god. I’ve got it. I have an old friend from freshman year who transferred out of LA and back home to Nevada. He’s pre-med now, working his way through a bachelor’s degree in trauma medicine at UNLV. He lives somewhere out here in the desert, I think. No, I know he does. I went to his house for a party once in sophomore year when I was home for the summer. I bet he’s home.”
“Your circle of acquaintances and mine are about as different as night and day,” Caleb comments. I give him a smile and reach over to pat his arm gently.
“We’re gonna fix this. I’m gonna fix this. Just lay back and try to relax, okay?” I tell him, kicking the car into a higher gear as I pick up speed.
We rocket down the empty, dusty highway toward the tiny town of Indian Springs where I know my old friend Miguel is probably still living. He’s always been a bit of a hermit, and he loves the idea of living out in the desert, away from the neon lights and constant noise pollution of the city. Especially once he starts working in the emergency room for real, I imagine it will be nice to go home to a quiet, empty part of the state to decompress and relax.
“Where are you taking me?” Caleb pipes up.
“Don’t worry about it. We’re going to go see someone who will help us. Miguel is a quiet guy. Discreet. He’ll patch you up without telling anyone about it. I promise,” I assure him.
We drive for another half hour or so before I make the turn toward Indian Springs. I’m basically relying on a vague memory a couple years old now, so it’s a little nerve-wracking, but finally we arrive at the little red cabin out in the desert. To my infinite relief, Miguel’s ancient blue Subaru is still parked outside, telling me that he’s almost certainly home.
“We’re here,” I tell Caleb, smiling. I unbuckle my seatbelt and his, then hop out of the car to help Caleb out, as well. He seems to have stabilized a little bit during the drive, and he’s not as shaky on his feet. He walks almost perfectly upright to the front door and stands there patiently with me while I knock. There’s a long silence that follows.
“You sure anyone’s home?” Caleb asks, a little dubiously.
“Pretty sure,” I murmur, trying to peek through a front window. But the curtains are all dark and drawn, the complete and utter privacy Miguel always keeps. I come back to the front door and knock again, then say loudly, “Miguel! It’s not somebody selling something! It’s me, Jane. From sophomore year? Remember me? Please open up!”
There’s another long silence, and my heart sinks. We’re just about to turn away and walk dejectedly back to the car when the knob turns, several locks clicking as the door opens just a crack to reveal Miguel’s bearded, bewildered face.
“Jane?” he says, his brows knit together in confusion. “What the hell?”
“Yeah, nice to see you, too. Can you, uh, give us a hand?” I say, gesturing toward Caleb. Miguel opens the door wider and his eyebrows shoot up as he takes in the blood-soaked tourniquet Caleb’s holding pressed to his shoulder. Caleb gives him a cavalier grin.
“Okay. I’m gonna skip the obvious Q and A for now because that looks really, really bad, but just know that I will have to ask some questions,” Miguel sighs, beckoning us to come in. We hurry inside and he closes the door, quickly setting a column of locks. “Go sit on that bar stool by the kitchen counter,” he instructs.
Caleb swaggers over and sits down, clearly doing everything in his power to seem casual about the massive blood loss he’s suffering at the moment. Miquel follows him, carefully removing the scarlet-soaked fabric to get a better view of the wound.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” I ask sheepishly, peeking over his shoulder.
“Yes, actually. Two things. First, can you go in the kitchen, look in the cabinet under the sink, and bring me the first aid kit in there,” he says.
“Okay. What’s the second thing?” I ask.
“While you’re in the kitchen, bring us a few beers. Normally I would try to be, you know, stone-cold sober when I’m stitching up a gunshot wound, but since I’m already a couple bottles in, I might as well go the other direction. Besides, it might make this a little less nightmarish for your bloody buddy here,” Miguel explains, shrugging as he squints into the hole in Caleb’s arm, his eyes mere centimeters from the wound.
“Got it,” I answer, and run into the kitchen to grab the supplies and bring it back.
After cleaning up the wound a bit, Miguel takes a swig of his beer and declares, “Well, I’ve got good news and bad news.”
“Lay it on me,” Caleb says.
“Right. So, good news: I’ve located the bullet and it’s not in the worst position. Bad news: it’s gonna hurt like a bitch when I take it out of there,” Miguel concludes, giving Caleb a sour look. Then he turns to me. “Jane, your job for the next, oh, five minutes or so is to hold Caleb’s hand and let him squeeze it as hard as he needs to. Except, don’t break her hand or anything because my first aid kit doesn’t come with an x-ray machine and I can’t help you there.”
“I don’t think I’m gonna need a hand to squeeze,” Caleb scoffs, but as soon as Miguel starts rooting around in the hole in his arm he lets out a bellow of agony. I rush to his side and take his hand, and he actually does give it a squeeze.
“Yeah, I don’t care how tough you are, this is not an enjoyable process sans anesthetic,” Miguel comments. “No judgement, man. I’m a doctor and you’d still have to knock my ass out cold to do this shit to me.”
Over the next half hour, Miguel removes the bullet, disinfects the wound, and begins the painstaking process of stitching up the hole in Caleb’s shoulder. All the while, Caleb’s face slowly regains color and I can tell he’s starting to feel better. Things are looking less dire.
Once he’s finished, Miguel washes his hands and then comes back to tell Caleb, “Alright. You’
re all patched up. Now, I don’t have my doctorate yet and so far I’ve only practiced stitches with a suture kit in class, so don’t sue me if that doesn’t turn into the prettiest of scars.”
“I’m not particularly concerned with it looking pretty,” Caleb replies, shrugging. He winces in the process and I hand him his beer.
Miguel says flatly, “Yeah, I suppose with those muscles you’re not too worried about some scar detracting from the overall package.”
“Thanks, man,” Caleb says. “Genuinely. You saved my life. Or at least my arm.”
“No sweat. Well, a little sweat, maybe. But it’s cool. Was kind of nice to get some practice done on a real live person. My classmates are gonna be so jealous when they see how good I am at this in class next time,” he answers, chuckling. “As I was saying before, I do have some questions. But after seeing how bad that gunshot was, I don’t feel as excited about asking them anymore. Let’s just clear up one thing, though, real quick: you guys didn’t put me on some government watch list by showing up here and getting me involved, right? Like, the Nevada State Police aren’t gonna bust down my front door and arrest me, are they? You’re not a fugitive or anything?”
“Not really,” Caleb says.
At the very same time I say, “Kind of.”
Miguel looks back and forth between us, sighing. “Okay. Good enough. No more questions. I don’t think I wanna know. Now, it’s my day off and I wasn’t exactly expecting company, so—”
“No worries,” I interrupt, standing up. “We’ll get out of your hair. Miguel, thank you so, so much for this. Seriously. I don’t know how I could ever repay you.”
“Me neither,” he says, in typical deadpan Miguel style. “But look after that wound, okay? I cleaned it really well, but I don’t know how long you were bleeding before you got here. If it starts to smell weird or look funny, go to the ER. You don’t want that shit to get infected.”
“I sure don’t,” Caleb agrees, standing up beside me.
“Okay. Well, let’s go,” I say, smiling. Miguel follows us to the front door and lets us out, waving from the doorway before he ducks back inside. Caleb and I get in the car.
“Where to now?” I ask, glancing over at him.
“Go back to the hotel. I’ll give you directions as we go,” he instructs.
“You got it.”
We drive in relative silence back to the hotel, both of us lost in separate thoughts. My mind is still reeling from the shock of the day. It’s barely two in the afternoon and already so much crazy shit has gone down. A week didn’t sound so long when I first signed up for Innocence For Sale, but I’m realizing now just how long a week can truly be when it’s as action-packed as this.
When we get back to the hotel, we go upstairs in the elevator, Caleb taking my hand in his as we ascend to our floor. Once we’re inside the room, I’m reminded again of the horrible scene that unfolded here... that guy attacking Caleb, me attacking him with a toilet lid. To my horror, the lid has been returned to its place on the toilet by one of the cleaning staff.
“You didn’t leave a “do not disturb” sign on the door?” I ask incredulously. Caleb laughs.
“That would’ve just made it look more suspicious. Don’t worry. These ritzy hotels have seen way stranger things than what they found in here,” he says flippantly. He walks over to sit down on the edge of the bed. The pull-out sofa bed has been folded back into the couch.
“You handled that really well,” I say, pointing at his shoulder. He shrugs with his unharmed shoulder, deeply exhaling.
“I’ve had worse.”
“Worse than that? When? How?” I ask, surprised.
“In the army. Field medicine is rough. You learn to deal with a lot of pain with not a lot to distract you from it,” he replies simply. “But it’s all worth it. To learn how to deal with shit. To toughen up and become a stronger man. To know that every moment of pain is a moment I can be proud for protecting my country. Every drop of blood my body shed was for this country. That’s the distraction. That’s the best anesthetic you can hope for out there. Just knowing you’re doing it for the country you love.”
“That’s beautiful,” I say softly.
“It’s the truth,” he replies. He shakes his head. “And now look at me, dragging an innocent girl like you into some tangled-up bad business you have no reason to be involved with.”
“Hey,” I interject. “Don’t think about that right now. I’m here because I chose to be. I’m the one who signed that contract.”
“Yeah, but none of this was in the fine print,” Caleb says, fixing me with a meaningful look. I walk over to stand in front of him, cupping his stubbly cheek in my hand.
“I don’t blame you, you know,” I tell him softly. “I don’t know how I got here. But I don’t know how you got here either. I don’t understand how you went from a soldier to a guy running business for the mafia. Something had to have happened to you.”
Caleb sets his jaw and looks defiant for a moment, a warning flashing in his blue eyes.
“I can’t talk to you about that right now, Jane. It’s not a story I enjoy telling.”
“And that’s okay. You don’t have to tell me anything. You don’t owe me that,” I assure him, even though it does hurt a little to see him suddenly clam up after everything we’ve been through together.
“In fact, you don’t owe me anything,” I go on, getting an idea. “But I owe you a week’s worth of sex, and I think you’ve certainly earned some relaxation after today.”
I kneel down in front of him, looking up into his handsome face.
He smiles, and I can’t help myself.
Jane
I place my hands on his thighs, slowly sliding them up toward his groin, never breaking eye contact with Caleb. His blue eyes watch me intently, that little flickering flame in his gaze gaining heat with every passing second.
He’s so fucking sexy without even trying, even with his arm bandaged up over his shoulder, even with those weary lines just beginning to show on his face. That smooth jawline, sharp cheekbones, and gently sloped nose, with his blue eyes and dark, thick hair, form a combination one might expect to find on some old-timey classic movie star. Watch out, Cary Grant. Watch out, Gregory Peck. Caleb Sharpe is every bit as handsome, every inch the suave, dashing hero. But he’s got something not many guys have, and that’s his rough edges. That fog of mystery and intrigue that mists around him when you bring up his past, when he’s hurting or deep, deep in thought.
God, I could write a poem about the way his smile warms me up from the tip of my toe to the top of my head. The starving artist that I am, I find myself wanting to set up a canvas and paint him in all the colors that suit him.
But right now, I’m going to find another way to express that feeling.
Our bodies will be a canvas this time, and I can’t wait to see what beautiful, sensual masterpiece the two of us become when we move together.
If there’s one thing I know for sure after the harrowing events that played out today, it’s that life can change in an instant. And your life can end before you even get a chance to say goodbye. Danger lurks around every corner, and no matter how careful you are, there’s no way to tell the future.
And so I’m not going to hold onto this any longer. I’m not going to keep putting it off, keep waiting and waiting until some sign from above tells me it’s time. I’m deciding for myself that right now is the time.
I don’t want there to be any chance of me dying a virgin.
“I want you now,” I tell Caleb, my voice low and soft.
“I know you do,” he answers, reaching down to push the hair back out of my face. “But are you sure? Once we start, there’s no going back from this. Once you fall over the ledge, you can’t climb back up, Jane.”
I nod. “Yes. I’m ready. I want to fall off the ledge with you.”
And with that, I unzip his jeans, tugging them down. Gingerly, almost lovingly, I take off his shoes, socks, jean
s, and boxers. I kneel in front of his massive cock, nearly licking my lips with anticipation. I never dreamed I could want anything—or anyone—the way I long for Caleb.
I always wondered why it was so hard for other people to wait. What was so irresistible about sex, anyway? Why couldn’t everybody else just cool their jets? Why was everyone so obsessed?
But I get it now. Oh god, I definitely get it.
I wrap both hands around Caleb’s cock, reveling in the warmth of his glorious shaft. I slide my hands up and down slowly, letting my thumbs drag down the underside of his cock, then circling the head. Caleb groans, tossing his jacket across the room and peeling off his stained shirt, letting it land into the same pile. I look up at his taut stomach, his muscular chest, and let out a little whimper of desire. I can’t help myself. Caleb is almost too much man for me to handle. Too strong. Too handsome. Too sexy.
“I can’t wait to taste you on my tongue,” I murmur, leaning over to gently kiss the tip of his shaft. Caleb’s hands reach down to tangle his fingers in my hair, carefully nudging me down, urging me to suck his cock. I smile, looking up at him with wide, innocent eyes as I move my hands up and down, stroking him a little faster. I lick the glistening bead of precum, tasting his tangy sweetness in my mouth.
“Fuck,” Caleb swears quietly, opening his eyes to look down at me. There’s a longing in his gaze, almost pleading. The fact that a girl like me could make a man like Caleb feel this good is so intoxicating. Empowering, even. I lean forward and pull the head of his cock into my mouth, letting my tongue swirl over the tip as I suck him in.
Caleb gasps, his fingers tightening their grip in my hair. I bear down on his cock, slowly taking him deep into my mouth until the tip is tickling the back of my throat. I have to struggle not to cough at first, but then I start to find my groove, bobbing up and down as my hands meet my mouth stroke for stroke.
“That’s so fucking good, Jane,” he growls between gritted teeth. “Your mouth is fucking fantastic, baby.”
I moan with his cock in my mouth, sending vibrations through his body. He responds with an appreciative groan, his fingertips pushing ever so slightly against the back of my head. I can tell it’s taking all his willpower not to just give in and fuck my throat. I know he wants to. I can feel his whole body tensing up, fighting off that primal desire.
