Racked and Stacked

by Lorelei James

  He swatted her ass hard. “I’m all for it . . . if it drives us toward hate fucking.”

  Ike insisted on helping her with her coat “one last time.”

  She figured he’d be equally disappointed if the cast didn’t come off today.

  They held hands on the drive to Casper. She’d fielded phone calls from her brothers—triple-checking to see if she truly was on the way to her appointment—and Jade, who was so over-the-top happy that Riss wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d been performing herkeys during the call. Aunt Bernice called to remind her to call after the appointment. And Tito called—Ike’s cell phone, oddly enough—to make the same request.

  At the doctor’s office, Wanda was sweet as pie to Riss but gave Ike the stink-eye. Even his charm and arsenal of smiles didn’t thaw her attitude. But Riss enjoyed the hell out of watching him try to win her over.

  This time she let Ike wait in the exam room with her. He said nothing as she paced the enclosed area. He had developed an innate sense of when to order her around and when to keep his mouth shut.

  A nurse—or maybe it was a PA—took them to a different room, where they put hospital gowns on over their clothes as well as protective face shields.

  “How much plaster you plan on throwing on us?” Riss joked.

  “The mask is to block some of the smell from your arm being encased in plaster for three months,” she said with no humor at all.

  When the high-pitched whine of the saw started, Riss wished she would’ve asked for earplugs.

  Ike held her hand and her gaze as the techie ran the saw. When the pressure in her arm vanished, indicating the cast was off, Ike grabbed her chin and said, “Focus on me,” during the next step of cleaning the plaster and stench away.

  Then were the X-rays.

  So Riss didn’t get a complete look at her arm and hand under full lights until she returned to the exam room.

  It didn’t even look like her arm. It looked like a diseased appendage. Wrinkled. Chalky white. No muscle definition at all. Just a weak, limp noodle crisscrossed with surgical scars.

  Her hand hadn’t fared any better. In addition to the pasty color, she had red scars where they’d pinned her bones, or re-fused her bones, or whatever the hell they’d done.

  So not only didn’t it look like her arm, it didn’t feel like her arm. She could open and close her hand, but not easily and not without pain.

  The doctor sailed in and oohed and aahed over her handiwork while Riss remained in shock. She heard little over the roaring in her head. And she glanced at Ike to see him nodding at the doctor.

  “. . . the sling for a few more weeks until your physical therapist indicates you’ve regained some normal mobility.”

  At least she could hide the hideousness of her arm in the sling.

  Riss couldn’t focus on the dismissal or the aftercare instructions. Somehow Ike convinced Wanda to take his number as the main contact for the PT people.

  Ike put on her coat, just as he’d done at the house, and led her to his truck.

  She said nothing. Not a word until they reached the farthest outskirts of Casper. “I wanna go home.”

  “We are, baby.” He kissed the knuckles on her left hand.

  “No. I mean my home. I want . . .” She swallowed the tears. “I need to be in my own space, surrounded by my things, and sleep in my own bed.”

  If that upset him, he didn’t show it.

  Half an hour later he pulled into her driveway and shut off his truck.

  They sat there and stared ahead at her trailer.

  Finally, Ike said, “Are you gonna get out?”

  That was when Riss realized that she’d gotten so used to him doing everything for her, she’d forgotten even how to open her own damn car door.

  She burst into tears.

  The ugly kind of tears where her mascara created black rivers that ran down her face, snot dropped from her nose and she hiccupped instead of spoke.

  And calm and laid-back Ike vanished. He seemed utterly at a loss for how to deal with her in this state.

  She fumbled with the handle on the door—using her right hand, which hurt like a motherfucker—and snatched her purse off the floor. She half ran, half walked like a shambling zombie as she crossed the porch to her front door. Thankfully she’d remembered to put her keys in her left pocket and she was inside her haven within seconds.

  She threw off her coat, kicked off her boots and cranked the heat to high on the way to her bedroom. There she stripped down to her camisole, panties and socks before she slid between her flannel sheets and pulled the comforter over her head.

  Even as Riss silently berated herself for the stupid tears that didn’t solve anything, she cried.

  When she realized she was cradling her formerly broken arm to her chest, she cried harder.

  Eventually the heat from her tears created a sauna beneath the covers, forcing her to fling them back so she could breathe.

  She heard the hallway creak and knew that Ike had followed her inside. Not that she’d expected anything different from him. She glanced up as he leaned in the doorway to her bedroom, a gentleman cowboy waiting for a formal invite into her private space.

  He’d ditched his hat and coat. Probably his boots. He studied her with a mix of bewilderment and determination. That was what she loved about him: his hidden complexity beneath what appeared to be a placid surface.

  Wait. What? Love? Had she just said she loved him?

  Well, duh. This man gets you and still seems to like you anyway. Did you really go into this believing it’d be nothing more than a fling?

  “Larissa?” he said softly.

  “Don’t.”

  “Don’t what, baby?”

  “Don’t say my name like that when we’re not naked.” At his confused look she said, “I like that you only use my full name when we’re intimate. Before, you said my name in three syllables like . . . La-riss-a . . . when you were pissed off at me. Now it’s different. It’s like my name belongs to you.”

  “You gonna let me into that bed so I can hold you?” he demanded softly.

  “Yes. But take off your shirt so I don’t smear mascara all over it.”

  “I don’t give a fuck about this shirt.”

  “I do.” She sniffed. “You look really handsome in it.”

  Ike pulled and the pearl buttons popped, opening his shirt. He tossed the shirt on the floor, shucked his Wranglers and slipped beneath the comforter, immediately drawing her body to his.

  “Ike—”

  “Sh. We’ll talk later. Let this be enough for now.”

  As she drifted off, she murmured, “You’re more than enough. You’re everything.”

  * * *

  * * *

  Riss jolted awake.

  But she had steel bands wrapped around her so she barely moved.

  “See? I’m getting smarter. If I lock you down like this, I don’t get smacked in the face nearly as often.”

  “I’m sorry I’m such a wild sleeper.”

  His lips brushed the shell of her ear. “Well, you’re wild in bed when you’re awake so you ain’t gonna hear me complaining that you’re wild when you’re sleeping too.”

  She felt the warmth of his palm on her right forearm and tried to twist it out of his hold.

  “No, baby. Don’t.”

  “Ike. Please. I don’t want you to see it, let alone touch it.”

  “Fair warning: I’m about to give you that tough love you’re so good at givin’ me. So let’s get this over with so we can move on.” He whipped the covers back and held her right arm close to his face, as if he was inspecting it.

  “Dammit, Ike! Let go.”

  “No. Tell me what’s wrong.”

  “What’s wrong?” she repeated. “You can see exactly what’s wrong.
This . . . appendage looks like it belongs to the Elephant Man! All wrinkled, gray, scarred and useless. It’s hideous.”

  “First off, you’re bein’ hypercritical. Your arm is supposed to be weak. That means you didn’t overdo it during the cast phase. The next phase is physical therapy. You’ll learn how to strengthen it. And it’ll be back to normal—heck, better than normal—before too long. Same with your hand. You could be facing a year or more of intense therapy. Instead you’ll have a couple of weeks.”

  “That’s what the doctor said?”

  He frowned at her. “Weren’t you listening to her?”

  “No. I was too horrified by the big reveal of my Frankenstein arm. I imagined little kids running away from me screaming. I wondered if I could hide beneath a black cloak or if people would think I’m a Harry Potter fanatic. I can’t even wear a red cloak because of the whole Little Red Riding Hood connotation and I already have enough people callin’ me Red.”

  His lips twitched, but he didn’t stop stroking her arm. “Anything else run through that entertaining mind of yours?”

  “I almost made a promise to the universe that I’d stop creating alternate realities, since this deformity might require an entire sleeve of tats to cover it. Sorta seemed like karma coming back to bite me in the ass for becoming Bootsie, even when I’d probably go with a crocodile tat rather than a snake.”

  “Almost made a promise to the universe?”

  “I’m weak, okay? I couldn’t make a promise I couldn’t keep. So I figured the universe was punishing me. My brain couldn’t stop obsessing on the nightmare scenario where I’ll never regain my arm strength or the flexibility in my hand and I’ll have to stop driving trucks entirely. Then what would I do? I mean, the first time I was in the doctor’s office when I was so pissed off at you and Lonnie, I saw a flyer that dealt with surrogacy. And I thought that might be an option while my arm was healing, to sit around and gestate someone else’s baby. But now I know that’s not an option because a couple lookin’ to hire a surrogate would automatically dismiss me on account of my deformity outta fear that I might pass that on to the baby.”

  Ike stopped his tender caresses on her arm. He knocked all the pillows to the floor and rolled on top of her. “Okay, that is enough. Christ. Surrogacy is not a viable career change for you.”

  “Do you know how much they’re payin’?”

  “I don’t give a damn. You wanna be pregnant? I’ll knock you up. But that’s not the issue, is it? The real issue is you’re scared you’ve already lost your career and part of who you are. Guess what? It happens. It sucks ass. But until you’ve completed the physical therapy, you won’t know the outcome. And refusing physical therapy—because I’m sure you could do the exercises on your own because you probably read it in a damn book someplace—ain’t happening. You can call me bossy, get pissy with me, but I will hound you to keep those appointments.”

  “My insurance coverage only pays for one physical therapy session every two weeks,” she retorted. “And yes, I did read up that I’ll need two to three sessions a week for the minimum length of time that my arm was in a cast. How am I supposed to pay for that without a job?”

  “I won’t insult you by tellin’ you that your brothers would be more than happy to help you out. I’d offer to pay, but I’m short on funds myself. So . . . we’ll have to get creative.” He smirked. “You any good at hustling pool?”

  “Nope. I’m a craptastic pool shark.”

  “What about gambling? You naturally lucky or have a secret method for counting cards?”

  Riss knew at that moment, without a doubt, she was hopelessly in love with this man. He listened to her crazy rants, fueled them with logic and now used the same type of crazy thinking to make her smile.

  Tell him you’re unlucky at cards but lucky in love.

  But she couldn’t. Not now. Soon, though.

  “Sorry. I have a terrible poker face.”

  Ike studied her face. The intensity in his eyes had her wondering if he’d read her thoughts.

  “What?”

  “Yeah, baby, you do have a terrible poker face.”

  “So that leaves a couple of options. We rob a bank.”

  “Eh, no. My dad bein’ the bank-robbing jailbird in our family . . . not the footsteps I wanna follow in.”

  “True. We could kidnap a physical therapist. Take really good care of him or her, but keep them chained up when they’re not workin’ me over.”

  “They would turn us in after we turned them loose. And we’re back to the jail scenario.”

  She sighed. “I could go to work for a big company as a long-haul driver. I might have enough miles under my belt to qualify for one of those new automatic transmissions. No more shifting; all the controls are computerized right there on the dash with the push of a button.”

  “If you’re drivin’ long haul to god knows where, then when would you do the PT that you could finally afford to pay for?”

  “Shoot. You blew a small hole in that option, but I am gonna put a pin in it for consideration, because it’s the best idea I’ve had so far.”

  “If you’re considering that, then you oughta consider becoming part of a truck-drivin’ team. You’d stay on the rotation until you were fully healed.” He twisted a piece of her hair around his finger. “We got along great on the Omaha run.”

  “That we did.”

  “We make a good team.”

  “That we do.” Without thinking, she ran her hand through his hair and realized that she’d used her right hand.

  Before she could yank it away, Ike clamped his own hand over it and said, “I’ve been waitin’ for you to touch me with both hands.” Then he turned his head and kissed her skinny, wrinkly wrist. He glided his lips up the inside of her arm, to the bend in her elbow. Then he rolled onto his back. Shoulder to shoulder, he raised her right arm so they could both look at it. “It’s beautiful, Riss, because it’s part of you. Even if you end up struggling to adjust to a new normal with this arm, it’ll never diminish the beauty inside you.”

  “Ike.”

  Then he rolled to his side and kissed her arm, from her biceps down to the tips of her fingers. The gentleness of his kisses belied the heat of them that set her on fire.

  On the last pass, that clever mouth traveled across her shoulder and up her neck to her ear. “Larissa,” he breathed. “I’m gonna fuck you hard. I’m gonna fuck you sweet. I’m gonna fuck you face-to-face and I wanna feel both of your hands all over me as I’m doin’ it. Are we clear?”

  “Yes.”

  Riss insisted on stripping him out of his T-shirt.

  And his boxer briefs.

  Then she gave him a hand job with her right hand. Using her left hand to stroke his balls and to follow his happy trail up to pinch his nipples. She didn’t need to use her mouth on his cock at all. Because her arm worked just fine to get him off as he shot his load on her tits.

  Her right hand maintained a firm grip on his hair when he went down on her.

  Twice.

  Her right arm could hold on to him tightly as he fucked her hard and sweet face-to-face.

  Her right arm supported her when Ike fucked her hard and sweet from behind.

  By the time Ike was finished with her, she couldn’t hold either arm up.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Ike had waited impatiently for Riss to get home from her girls’ lunch with Jade.

  For the past week, after Riss’s cast removal, he’d set the wheels in motion to . . . well, get the wheels in motion.

  Tito had taken a liking to him, mostly because Ike had taken a liking to Riss, or more accurately, Ike had fallen head over heels for Riss. Tito had a soft spot for the redhead as well as a romantic streak.

  His idea was a temporary solution, but it’d give them both time to think about where they wanted to go from here.<
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  As he paced he squeezed the racquetball—aka therapy ball—that Riss had left after her last PT appointment. While he’d asked to go to the appointments with her, she’d refused. She said she’d be too busy trying to impress him to listen to what her therapist said.

  When he heard the front door open and her call out, he counted to ten rather than skipping to her with barely concealed excitement.

  She turned the corner into the living room and his heart just stopped. This woman was everything to him. He wanted to spend every moment of every day showing her just how special and precious she was.

  Before he could say a word, Riss was off and running her mouth. “I was lookin’ forward to a three-margarita lunch with my BFF, planning to be too tipsy to drive so I’d have to call my hot man to come and pick me up, earning the envy of every woman in the bar. But no. Jade didn’t ‘feel’ like drinking, which was totally lame. And there was no way I was gonna get hammered alone so I drank stupid iced tea. So bein’ annoyed about the situation, I jokingly asked Jade if she was pregnant—and that’s why she hadn’t been drinking the last couple of times we’d gotten together. I expected her to laugh it off. But no. She gets this super smug look and says . . . ‘So what if I am?’”

  “Riss. Baby—”

  “Yes, that’s exactly it! Jade and Tobin are havin’ a baby! She’s so damn proud of the fact she got pregnant on her honeymoon because they planned it. I mean, I sort of understand why. Jade wants her kid to know her grandma Garnet before the woman gets too much older and Tobin wants his kid and Streeter’s to grow up together.”

  “Last time I spoke to Hugh? The man couldn’t utter a sentence without the word ‘baby’ or ‘pregnancy’ or ‘kid’ in it.”

  “What in the hell is goin’ on that everyone is so excited about pumping out puppies? Even Geena from book club is knocked up. I tell you, it’s a freakin’ epidemic. I’m headed straight for the bathroom right now to shower off pregnancy hormones in case they’re contagious. And, dude, I’m putting two condoms on your dick—just to be super safe.”