That was it, Jessica snort laughed. “Oh my God,” she giggled.
“What?” Meredith glanced over.
Bianca grinned from where she sat. “You have to admit, you were very quick to ask her if you could read her stuff. Do you like to read that smut, Blackfoot? Are you holding out on me? Do you and Tyler act out scenes?” she teased.
“Maybe, but what I’m really getting at here is…can I read it?”
She had already gotten herself into this, and Jessica knew there was absolutely no way she was going to get out of it. By trying to be closer to these two women, she had opened her mouth and stuck her foot in it. “I’ll let you read some in a few days.”
“You say that now, but we’ll get back home and you’ll get busy and you won’t let me. I’ll have to sick my big, bad, hubby on you.”
“If she’s writin’ smut then maybe she’d enjoy it,” Bianca giggled.
The three of them busted into laughter that caused other patrons of the restaurant to take notice. They tried to quieten down, but the more they tried to stop laughing, the louder they became.
“We better get our check and get out of here,” Jessica laughed. “I would hate for you ladies to get kicked out of an eatery with an actress who’s trying to keep herself out of the limelight.”
Meredith giggled, holding her hand over her mouth. “I just had a thought. You can totally stay out of the limelight… in Layne’s bed,” she grinned. “Acting out the scenes that you’ve written or getting inspiration for the next ones.”
Her face a bright red, Jessica threw her napkin at the other woman. “Just shut it!”
The ride back to Bowling Green was peaceful as the three of them hit I-65 North. Jessica sat in the back of the truck, the other two women up front. It was nice to be by herself for a little while, especially given the secret she’d told them. She hadn’t meant for that to slip out, but when she had seen the look pass between Bianca and Meredith, she knew something had happened with the two of them in the past and she wanted to let them know she trusted them. There was something about these people—her writing had been one of her most closely guarded secrets for years, and she had just blurted it out. Instead of making her feel stupid, though, it freed her. Maybe they were right. Maybe she needed to hide away in the clubhouse, write her stories, and live her life. Maybe that would make her happy.
Stretching her legs out, she thought of Layne. He usually occupied her thoughts when she had down time—especially in a car. They had spent so much time together in a car when he had been in the military. When she came to see him for the weekends, he always had a car. Didn’t matter that he didn’t actually own one, he had always found one to take her around in. They loved going someplace quiet, parking, and just talking. She missed that. When they got back, she was going to ask him if they could do that again. No matter what had gone on between the two of them, she missed how it used to be. She wanted to get back there; she wanted to spend time with him in a place where they both felt safe.
“You okay back there?” Bianca asked, turning in her seat.
“Yeah, just enjoying the ride.”
“I love the ride from Bowling Green to Nashville and back. I don’t know why, but it’s my favorite. I love coming up on Nashville and seeing the hustle and bustle, and then when you leave, you hit the top of that hill right at the Highland Rim Speedway exit and you know you’re getting closer to Kentucky. It’s always a nice trip for me—except for the traffic.”
Jessica could see why she loved it so much. There weren’t concrete barriers everywhere. You could actually see both sides of the road; you could see trees and in some places nothing else. One day that would be replaced with “progress”, but it was so nice to not see bumper-to-bumper traffic and smell gas fumes. She realized that if she wanted to, she really could get used to life here. Going this whole day without her cell phone hadn’t even been a burden. It had been nice. It had been quiet, and it had been far less stressful than most of her days were.
“This is an amazing little drive,” she said as she shifted in her seat, turning behind her to pop her back.
As she turned, she noticed a group of motorcycles coming up on their left.
“Wonder who these guys are?”
Both Jessica and Meredith glanced over, both looking at the group of about fifteen guys on bikes.
“Can’t see their colors or patches.” Bianca squinted, but it was too dark to make out details, especially with the tint that Tyler had on his windows.
For some reason Jessica began to feel uneasy. The only guy on a motorcycle she had any affiliation with was Layne. “They seem to be getting closer.”
Just when Jessica would have said something else, they blew past the truck. The two lead guys stuck out a hand in acknowledgement. Jessica couldn’t tell if it was exactly a wave or something else.
“Well, what the fuck are the Vojnik doing down here?” Bianca asked, glancing over at Meredith. “Maybe we should call one of the guys?”
“You call,” Meredith told her. “Jagger is a little less apt to get pissed and beat some ass than Tyler would be.”
Jessica wondered who the Vojnik were and what it mattered where they were, but she decided not to question it as Bianca spoke to her boyfriend on the phone. It was a phone call that was filled with a lot of nodding and eye rolling on Bianca’s part. Finally, she flung it in the cup holder.
“They’re meeting us,” she blew out a deep breath.
“Well, if they meet us, that means they’re going to meet them first,” Meredith argued.
“Exactly what I said, but Jagger said that they wouldn’t even share words; they’re still in the middle of their truce. They just want a show of force.”
“That makes no sense,” Jessica said quietly from the back seat.
“Welcome to our world,” Bianca blew out another loud breath. “Where respect is measured by the size of your dick and how loud your bike revs. It’s just something that you learn to live with. Guarantee you they’ll be caught up with us in less than twenty minutes. They are probably breakin’ every speed limit law as they come out of Warren County.”
Desperate to break the tension yet again, Jessica grinned. “That’s something y’all have in common, huh?”
“You sure you aren’t a comedy actress? You’re pretty funny when you need to be.”
“Nope, but acting in comedies would have made things a hell of a lot easier.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“Shit, they’re waiting on the side of the road,” Meredith laughed.
Jessica scooted so that she sat in between the two front seats, leaning on the console. “Can they just do that? Sit in that construction zone where it says ‘no U-turn’?”
Bianca grinned. “You’ll find out with these guys, they kinda just do what they want.”
Meredith sighed as she flipped on her emergency lights and pulled off at the exit that proclaimed itself the Natcher Parkway.
“Umm, how are we going to get back on the interstate?” Jessica asked.
“It’s one of those that you can drive through if you take the wrong exit. It’s got direct access. They’ll just block it for anyone coming off the Parkway trying to get onto I-65, but hopefully we won’t even have to deal with that tonight,” Bianca explained.
They parked and waited for Tyler, Jagger, and Layne to make their way over to the truck. Meredith reluctantly let down the window and watched for the big Native American to make his way over.
“Hey, gorgeous,” he flirted, as he sauntered up the vehicle. “You have a little trouble?”
She rolled her eyes and gave him a saucy smile. “We had no trouble until we decided to call you boys and, as a courtesy, let you know that we had some company.”
He reached into the window and grasped her under the chin. “You ladies did the right thing. Just because we have a shaky, at best, agreement with the Vojnik right now, doesn’t mean we can let our guard down.”
“So what did they want?�
� Bianca asked from where she sat.
Jagger smiled from where he stood behind Tyler. “Not a damn thing, just wanted us to see them. I’m figurin’ we’ll hear more from them when they’re ready to let us know what they have up their sleeve.”
For some reason none of the women in the truck believed the words that came out of his mouth.
Jessica jumped when someone tapped on the back window where she sat. Turning to face it, she saw Layne standing outside. Meredith had shut the truck off, so she reached over and opened the door. “Hey.”
He chanced a glance over at the other two guys. “While they’re flirting with their women, I figured I would come over here and talk to you.”
She visibly swallowed. It wasn’t that she was nervous to be around him, but it was still slightly awkward between the two of them. “Do they flirt a lot?”
“Too much,” he admitted. Layne cleared his throat. “Really the reason I came over here was to see if you wanted to go for a ride with me? I have some things to say to you, and I would much rather do it without everyone around to listen to it.”
Did she want to go someplace with him where there weren’t people around? Was she comfortable with that? Pulling her bottom lip between her teeth, she thought about it for a few seconds “Okay,” she nodded. “I’ll go with you.”
He held his hand out to her, palm turned upward.
She looked at it for a second before putting her hand in his, grasping the leather that he wore over his hand.
Talk at the front of the truck stopped. “Hey,” Bianca yelled. “Where are you going?”
“I convinced her to come with me instead of hanging out with you bad influences,” Layne joked. Something he wasn’t used to doing anymore, but that little moment of carefreeness, it felt good.
“Bad influences?” Meredith asked. “She’s the bad influence. You watch that she doesn’t make you the lead character in her scenes.”
“Would you shut up?” Jessica shouted as quietly as possible.
“What does she mean?” Layne asked, looking back over his shoulder at her.
She trailed slightly behind him, still clasping his hand in hers. “Nothing, she’s crazy.”
Layne gave her a raised eyebrow, but said nothing. They got to his bike, and he handed her a helmet. “Maybe you can get on this time with a little more grace than last time.”
“Layne O’Connor, a real gentleman would not have mentioned that,” she huffed, gathering her bearings about her to attempt this without making a fool of herself.
He steadied the bike for her and held her arm as she got on the back. “Never said I was a gentleman,” he told her before getting on in front of her. “You better hold on tight.”
She squealed as he took off, causing her hands to grip tightly against his cut, her arms to squeeze around his ribs. A part of her didn’t want to squeeze too hard, afraid of what it might do to him. The other part wanted to squeeze the life out of him, to show him that she wasn’t going to give up on him. She wasn’t going to let him go, but in the end, she held on not for him, but for herself.
Layne focused on what Doc Jones had told him. When he got twitchy, he should remember his happy place. His breathing picked up speed as she squeezed her arms tightly around him, holding on when they took a turn too fast. In a flash, his mind went back to a weekend they had spent together, her arms around him in a hug before she left. His breathing leveled as he thought about it that way. It wasn’t suffocating, it was comforting, and he knew that was his way of dealing with this. That was his way of figuring out how to turn that part of his brain off that allowed him to go to those hurtful places.
He had driven them further down the road and into the county than she had ever been. They passed Sugar Maple Square and hit Highway 185 at a rate of speed that made her stomach tickle. It was difficult for her not to laugh from the way her stomach dropped when he would take a hill. It was like riding a roller coaster. Jessica couldn’t get a glimpse of most of the scenery as it whizzed by. She vaguely saw a convenience store and what appeared to have once been a black Volkswagen bug hanging from old chains along the side of the road. They continued on the highway until they got to a large rock wall formation, and he stopped the bike, turning it to the left. A sign welcomed them that read Richardsville.
“It’s just a little ways longer. If you need to stop and take a break, we can,” he offered over the roar of the bike.
“No, I’m fine,” she assured him, not wanting them to stop.
The night was muggy but held with it the promise of something different. They hadn’t been alone like this in a very long time. She couldn’t even remember. It was before he had been sent overseas and he was stationed in Georgia. It had been on a night like this. The Georgia and Kentucky humidity were interchangeable. Her clothes stuck to her, even though she sat on the bike with the wind blowing around them.
Layne pulled the bike into a cropping of trees, and she realized just how much cooler it was. She could slightly hear the sound of water. “Are we near a river?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he shrugged. “Kinda reminds me of Georgia.”
That caused a spot within her to warm. Georgia held so many good memories for them. Did this mean he wanted to make more with her? “Me too,” she whispered.
He got off the bike and situated the two of them back on it so that he faced her. Reaching up, he took her helmet off her head before placing it behind him. For the first time in a long time, he wanted to touch a woman. Not to just get his rocks off, but to actually touch her and give her pleasure too. He removed his gloves and stuck them inside his pocket. The idea that he wanted to touch her kept jumping to the forefront of his mind. He wasn’t sure he deserved that with her after what had happened, but he absolutely had to see how she would react.
“Can I touch you?” he whispered.
She almost whimpered. This was the one thing she had wanted since she had come to this place. It was confusing. One minute she was nervous that he would touch her, the next minute she was nervous that he wouldn’t, but she knew one thing for sure. Here in this setting, with the look he had in his brown eyes, this was the boy she knew, inside of the man that he was now. “Yes,” she whispered back at him. “Please.”
It was almost like he was reluctant to do so, even though she had given him permission.
“Are you sure?”
“I trust you,” she told him.
He lifted his hands up and cupped her cheeks, softly at first before increasing the pressure. Her skin was so soft against the roughness of his fingers. Her eyes were closed as he stroked her face. He wanted to see them. “Open them for me, please,” he begged her, the tone of his voice tearing her apart.
Her eyes popped open, their emerald color holding him hostage. “I know it’s you, Layne. It’s always been you, it’s only been you I’ve wanted, but you’ve never been ready for it.”
He swallowed roughly. The question hung between the two them. Was he ready for it even now?
Chapter Twenty-Two
Out of nowhere, the thought flashed across his mind that he had to be ready for something different. He couldn’t keep dragging her along the way he had been for years. It wasn’t fair to either one of them. He needed to man up or drop her, and now, after being with her, he knew he would never be able to drop her.
He trailed his hands from her cheeks down to her throat. The bruises were still evident, and he closed his eyes rather than look at them. Dropping his head to the hollow between her neck and shoulder, Layne ran his lips across the injuries he had caused.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered in her ear. “Please forgive me.” His voice was low and deep as his lips traveled from her ear to her cheek.
“I know,” she whispered back at him.
In this quiet place, where it was the just the two of them, it was easy to pretend that things hadn’t changed. That they were still the same young kids they had been when they first met. That was the feeling she wanted to give into, not
the feelings of fear that sometimes crept in. She had held herself still against him, until his lips captured her mouth. It was then that she felt the familiarity of his tongue, of the way his mouth moved against hers. Reaching out, she dug her fingers into the sides of his cut and pulled him so that he sat fully flush against her.
“I missed you, Layne,” she told him, before attacking his mouth with hers.
It was easy to let her take control, let her set the pace. He was scared to do anything else. Afraid that if he got too involved, he would hurt her again. With his booted feet planted firmly on the ground, he used his thigh muscles to scoot further up in the seat, pulling her legs over his. There wasn’t a part of their bodies that didn’t touch. Layne’s hand moved from her stomach to her back and then up her spine, caressing her neck as he buried his fingers there. A slight tug separated their lips, and he used that moment to tilt her head back, exposing her neck to his greedy lips.
Jessica sighed as his tongue bathed a hot path from her neck down to her chest, stopping only where the neckline of her T-shirt sat. It was like this with the two of them; anytime they started, it was hard to stop. Her nipples tightened against the lace cups of her bra, and she arched her back further to rub them against his chest, hoping for just a smidgen of relief. In answer, he rocked his hip against hers, letting her feel how much this affected him.
“Layne,” she bit out, her bottom lip between her teeth.
“I know,” he answered as his fingers skimmed the waistband of her jeans before lifting the sticky shirt off her body.
Her brain told her that they were out in the open, the middle of nowhere, that anyone could come down this road and see them. Her body told her that she really didn’t care. His hair tickled her skin as he bent his head far enough down so that he was even with the swell of her lace-covered breasts. Her eyes flew open when he stopped, and she glanced down, seeing that his finger had curved around the cup, his brown eyes glancing at her with the question in them…should he go on?
Heaven Hill Series - Complete Series Page 72
