by Natalie Ann
She was evil. He climbed off the bed. “Stay there, just like that.”
“What are you doing?” she asked when he grabbed his jeans. “If you take a picture of me…”
“Condom,” he said, holding it up. “No pictures. Ever.”
“Good. That’s another thing that is off limits,” she said.
“Agreed. Now stop talking,” he said, climbing on the bed behind her, grabbing her hips, and easing right in. She’d kept up her smooth routine down there and he loved every bit of it.
“Riley?”
“Hmm,” she said, her head hanging down, low moans coming from her throat.
“You can be weak any time you want.”
“Only if you’re strong.”
“Always,” he said, his hips moving in and out. She was sliding closer to the headboard with each movement until she had to put her hands up on it so her head didn’t bump.
There was a haze filling his brain right now. The two beers he had, the walk here, the dance, their words in the bar, and just now. Everything was colliding at once, making him want to take her with him. Hold her hand and bring her where he was so desperately trying to go.
Instead of her hand, he gripped her hips tighter, moved faster, watched as both of her palms were bracing her on the headboard now. “Am I hurting you?” he asked, panting out.
“No,” she said. “Don’t stop whatever you’re doing. Move faster if you can.”
“I’m moving as fast as I can.” He was hitting the gas, speeding down the road, climbing the mountain as fast as he could, and taking her there with him.
He wasn’t going to crash. He was in complete control because he was at all times. Even when his mind was foggy, even when his heart was bursting, he was in control.
“Trevor,” she said, her voice rising above the ringing in his ears. The bed was squeaking, his knees were going numb and his hands were leaving marks, but nothing was stopping him.
“What?” he asked, through his teeth.
“I love you. Don’t ever leave me.”
For once in his life, he lost control. He pulled out, flipped her over onto her back and came down on top of her, entering her swiftly, his hands holding hers over her head, his eyes drilling into hers.
“Never,” he said. “Tell me that. Tell me you won’t leave me.”
She lifted her legs up and wrapped them around his waist, pulling him down closer, almost hugging him now. “Never,” she whispered. “Now finish what you started.”
He did. He had no choice. Emotions were heightened to a completely different level than ever before, both of them moving rapidly, both of them cresting, and both of them tumbling down at the same time.
But he was there to hold her tight. Because he couldn’t let go, even if he wanted to. Even if he was forced to, he’d never let go.
***
“Are you sure you’re okay with just shopping today?” she asked on Saturday morning. He’d gone to a lot of trouble to plan this weekend for them. To take her hiking, but with rain in the forecast today, she didn’t feel like it.
Not to mention a mild headache from the four glasses of wine she’d consumed last night. It was well worth it in her eyes. She’d never seen Trevor so out of control as last night. She got shivers just thinking of it, and wondered how she could get him there again.
There was no fear seeing him like that last night. Almost possessed, consuming and wanting to consume her. There was only want and need and a survival that took over. That inner voice that told her she could finally let go.
“Whatever you want to do. This is your weekend,” he said.
“I want it to be our weekend, though.”
“It is. I’m just glad to be out of town. Food first, then a plan.”
He looked relaxed to her right now. Not tight and tense. Not stressed. Of course, she didn’t know what he’d look like if he was stressed, because he never seemed to be.
“Trevor,” she said.
“Yes,” he replied, his eyes questioning hers.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For just being you. For letting me know I can be who I want without worrying.”
“Worrying about what?”
“About everything. I’m just so tired of worrying.”
He pulled her forward. She couldn’t remember ever letting her guard down this much before in her life. It was draining and liberating at the same time. Terrifying.
“There will always be something to worry about in life, Riley. But don’t waste your time worrying about us. If you talk to me, if you open up, then that will help.”
“I’m more open with you than I’ve been with anyone in my life.”
“I know,” he whispered. “I know.”
All Mixed Together
“How much further?” Riley asked.
“I thought you liked to hike.”
She looked around the trail they were on. Since they’d already checked out of their hotel and had to drive home afterward, she didn’t want to overexert herself and get too hot and sticky…not to mention stinky. They were still in a new relationship in her mind, and he didn’t need to see her looking that nasty just yet.
“I do. I’m just getting hungry,” she said.
“You had a huge breakfast.”
“I know. But we’re burning a lot of calories right now. Reach into my backpack and grab me a granola bar, would you?”
She felt him moving around in there, then hand it over. She ripped the wrapper off and took a bite and held it out to him.
“Are you done with it?” he asked.
“No. I’m just sharing,” she said.
“Want me to bite the other end?”
“What? No. If you don’t want any, just say so.”
He took a bite, then grinned at her. “There was a time you wouldn’t share a brownie with me after I bit it. Or you had to bite an area that my mouth hadn’t touched.”
She laughed, surprised he remembered that. Then again, he seemed to remember everything. “That was before.”
“Before what?” he asked, tugging on her ponytail and pulling her in for a kiss. “Before we started to have dirty hotel sex?”
He was so adorable at times. Had a sense of humor that she’d never experienced with another man. “Did I really say that Friday night?”
“You did. I thought you remembered everything.”
“I remember the important parts. Not sure talking about germs and my naked body touching them was important, though.”
“Everything about our time together is important.”
She eyed him for a minute, grinned, then started to walk some more on the path. He was so confusing at times to her. He was this big tough chief of police. A laid-back guy that handled neighborhood disturbances with ease, and took bigger men down in a flash when he had to. He could be tender and rough, sweet and hard. He had it all and none of it seemed like it should blend, yet it all mixed together so smoothly.
There was no one like him on the face of the earth. She was positive of it.
“Does this trail take us in a circle, or will we have to turn around and come back down?” she asked.
She didn’t want to do the guided tour, didn’t want to be held up by other people. Instead, they’d decided on a smaller trail that they could start and stop at their own pace, and still get home by early afternoon.
They’d passed a few hikers already, and even more passed them. For the moment they were alone, but could hear voices, too. It was both comforting to be alone but secure knowing they really weren’t. Then again, she had Trevor and that was all the security she needed.
“Either, or both. We can go to the top and come down this same path, or take another path that brings us around.”
“Okay. Once we get to the top, we can decide.”
“Sounds like a plan,” he said.
They walked another twenty minutes in silence. Birds and distant voices could be heard, but nothing more than their
feet in the leaves or crunching on branches. What might seem eerie to some, especially considering what was going on in her life, felt oddly natural. Like when she was a kid in the South running with Max around her grandparents’ property.
Max had to have been in his teens, her, barely elementary school. But he chased her around, stepping on twigs and throwing leaves. The sounds and the smells that went with it were flowing through her memory banks.
She couldn’t remember ever having those thoughts before when hiking. Of course, she didn’t remember it ever being this quiet.
Before, when she got out of the city to hike, friends went with her and they were always laughing and joking the entire time. If not just talking.
Jason was the same way. He didn’t mind hiking—when he was in the mood—but he hated the silence.
She was finding the silence soothing more than anything at the moment, realizing now that the noise of her old hiking partners had still been quieter than the noise of the city. But here, in Lake Placid, the noise was so much less that this was what she needed for the break.
They reached the top where there was a little lookout area, so they stopped and sat for a minute. She took her backpack off and set it down, grabbed her water and took a big swig, then handed it over to Trevor without a thought.
“This is beautiful. I think it’s exactly what the doctor ordered,” she said.
“I’m glad,” he said. “Sorry there is no mining expedition this time.”
She giggled, remembering that from their first hike together. “No worries. I didn’t have much luck finding anything other than coal.”
He reached in her backpack and pulled out a small pouch. “Here.”
“What is it?” she asked, loosening the strings and peeking inside.
He took the pouch and turned it over in her palm. There was the purple stone he’d found on their first hike. It was shinier though, with a chain through it.
“You seemed so bummed over the coal that I wanted you to have something from that day. Maybe something to remember this weekend with. And purple is your favorite color, too, right? It didn’t seem fair I found this that day,” he said, smiling at her, a touch of something else deep in his eyes.
“Did you do this yourself?” she asked, looking it over carefully, secretly touched more than she could express.
He undid the clasp and put the necklace around her neck and then closed it. “No. Kennedy is friends with one of the artisans on Main Street. The woman sells beads and stones, makes jewelry and whatnot. I asked if there was anything she could do with this. She said it was amethyst. Has all these meanings. She babbled for a few minutes, but what I heard and what stuck with me was that it’s known to soothe and relax the mind. It encourages calmness and bravery. There was something about preventing drunkenness, but I just remembered that now. I liked you with a few drinks, so we’ll forget about that meaning,” he said, brushing her hair over her shoulder.
She reached up and ran her fingers around the stone on her neck. It was so smooth to touch. “I know this is the same stone, but it looks so different.”
“She drilled a hole in it, slid the chain through. It’s just sterling silver, but it’s sturdy. The stone doesn’t have a lot of value, but she polished it up and made it pretty. It’s meant as a token more than anything,” he said, almost looking embarrassed now.
“I love it, Trevor. It’s unique, and it’s so much you.”
***
On the drive back to town, Trevor was wondering what was going through Riley’s head. She’d been quiet on the hike. Quieter than normal. And when he gave her the necklace, she almost looked like she wanted to cry for a second. Until she clasped the stone in her hand, took a deep breath, and laughed.
Then she kissed him, hot and hard—solid even—grabbed his hand, and said, “Let’s go home now.”
They walked back down the same path, passing people again, but not really talking. Nothing more than a few words here and there.
Now she was looking out the window at the scenery. “What are you thinking about over there? You look lost in thoughts. Anything you want to share?”
She turned her head and looked at him. “Just enjoying the drive. Dreading the end of our weekend and going back to the real world.”
“Nothing stays peaceful for long, Riley. Life has to continue on. This was a detour for us.”
“I know. It was a nice detour. A good one. It just stinks to go back. Whenever I went on vacations before, I felt the same way when it was time to return home.”
“That’s good.”
“Why’s that?”
“It means you’re back in your normal place. Your normal routine. Not so much is changing around you as you think. Adapting is the word I’m looking for. When so much changes, we forget about normal reactions to things, but our body remembers. Yours is.”
He’d traveled enough in the army. Change was all around him, but some things he just remembered. Like the tension leaving every muscle when he walked through his door each night on the lake. It didn’t matter how long he was gone, or how often, his body felt the same each time he opened that door.
“You’re probably right. Still, I wouldn’t have minded a few more days with you. Your phone never went off with work issues.”
That was the idea. “I told them not to call me unless it was an emergency. That means life or death.”
“And they listened?” she asked, smiling.
“They do when I say that.” He didn’t go away often. He wasn’t out of reach much, but when he wanted that time, when he needed it, his officers listened.
“You should say it more to them,” she said.
“Does it bother you that I’m called as much as I am?”
“Not really. I mean, I get it. But wasn’t it nice to have these few days and not worry about work or what was going on?”
It was nice, but he’d known no other way. It was part of the job; he’d accepted that going in. “When I’m in town I can’t distance myself from it, even if I wanted to. Everyone knows I’m right there. Your surroundings remind you even when you want to forget or shut it off.”
“I get it. But when you’re gone, they figure out how to handle things on their own?”
“Exactly.”
“Maybe you need to train your staff a little better to do it on their own more.”
“Where are you going with this, Riley?”
“Nowhere. Just talking.” She put her hand on his arm. “I’m not judging, or mad, or asking you to change something because it bothers me. I’m just making a comment that though I know this weekend was for me, I think it was for you too. That you were different, too. I wonder if it’s because there was no worry about when the next call would come in.”
He never thought of it that way before. Never had a reason to. “Could be. Maybe we can do these little weekends away more often.”
“I’d like that a lot,” she said. “Or we can tell people we’re going away and just lock ourselves in the house and hide.”
“I don’t think that will work as much as you hope, but it’s a nice thought.”
The rest of the drive was taken in relative silence, until they pulled through the gates of her development. “Stop at the mailbox when you pull in the driveway so I can grab the mail from Friday and Saturday.”
He did as asked, parking while she reached in and pulled a few things out. He hit the garage door opener on her SUV and waited for it to open all the way before moving forward.
“Trevor.” He turned his head, looked at her white face, then down to the envelope on her lap. “He knows where I live.”
Break Something
This couldn’t be happening. Why did such a wonderful weekend have to end like this? She’d thought since the past couple of weeks had been quiet that maybe things were ending…finally. That it would go away because she was ignoring it.
All those happy thoughts and past memories she’d been hugging tightly in her chest over the past forty-ei
ght hours just lifted up in the air like a child releasing their favorite balloon. She wanted to scream and grab it back, but it was already gone, sailing into the sky never to be retrieved.
“Don’t touch it. Leave it right there on your lap,” he said, closing her garage door and putting the car in reverse.
“Where are we going?” She didn’t care that her voice was cracking. She wanted to chuck the mail out her window but did as he said instead.
“To the State Police barracks. We’ll open it there. We’ll let them open it and take it.”
“Why can’t we go in the house first?” She was hot and sweaty and needed to change and shower. Funny how that was the thing she thought of first.
“Because he knows where you live. This was personally addressed to your home. Not forwarded, and not to your place of business. We aren’t going in the house until I sweep it.”
“What do you mean by sweep it?” Her hot sweaty skin suddenly froze. “You don’t think he’s been in my house, do you?”
“Don’t know and I’m not willing to risk it. I’m not willing to risk you. We’ll do this my way.”
“You’re right. I know you are.” She took a deep breath. “What a slap in the face to come back to this.”
“It’s not going away, no matter how much you want it to,” Trevor said.
“I was hoping.” Why wasn’t she crying right now? Shouldn’t she be crying? Instead, she just wanted to break something.
A few minutes later, they were pulling into the barracks. Trevor took the whole pile of mail from her lap and brought it in, the mysterious letter sandwiched between everything else.
Cole was there at his desk and looked up when they came in, saw her white face and Trevor’s stern one, then dropped his gaze to the mail in Trevor’s hand. “Let’s go out back. I’ll call in the captain.”
“Thanks,” Trevor said.
She found herself sitting at a conference room table while Cole, another man—a detective, she thought—and Cole’s captain were in the room. They were talking amongst themselves. She heard voices, but not words. Nothing was penetrating through her brain.
