Desire: A Contemporary Romance Box Set

by R. R. Banks

  “Bus should be here in about twenty minutes,” she says. “Why don't you go back to the employee lounge and grab a cup of coffee and a donut. I'll come get you when it gets here.”

  I grip her hand fiercely and want to say so much. Want to express my gratitude to her. But I've got a lump in my throat, tears in my eyes, and I'm on the verge of falling to pieces. The woman just looks at me warmly.

  “You're welcome,” is all she says.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Eric

  “If you'd told me you were coming, I would've at least gotten out of bed and put some clothes on,” Steve says, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

  “Least you could've done, you slacker,” I reply. “After taking a dawn flight to Denver and then a puddle jumper to this shithole, the last thing I need is to see you naked.”

  He shrugs. “Close your eyes,” he says. “Or marvel in this magnificence. That's the one benefit of dyin' – I can do whatever the fuck I want and nobody says shit. And if they do, I make 'em feel guilty because I'm dyin' and all. Check and mate, bitch.”

  I laugh and shake my head. Steve's always had a dark sense of humor. He was the guy in our unit who could always find something funny in the grimmest of circumstances. He kept us laughing and in a lot of cases, probably kept a lot of us sane.

  He's definitely not the same man I last saw back in the desert of Afghanistan. His thick head of hair was gone and skin that had once been smooth and darker than midnight was now ashen. Flaky. Back then, he was big, bulky – looked a lot like an NFL linebacker. Now though, he's bedridden. His body is thin and frail. I can probably snap his bones with one hand. Rather than a linebacker, now he looks like somebody in a concentration camp. He's in a bad way and I can tell just by looking at him that he probably doesn't have a whole lot of time left.

  “What the fuck are you doin' out here?” he asks.

  “Came to see you.”

  Steve nods, a grim smile on his face. “Death watch, huh?”

  “Somebody's gotta do it.”

  “Been a few already,” he says. “Gotta be honest though, I'm surprised to see you.”

  “Why's that?”

  He shrugs. “You were only with the unit about what, a year and a half?” he says. “Didn't track you as the sentimental type. Pretty sure I saw you doing cartwheels when they transferred you out.”

  “That's because I was doing cartwheels,” I say. “But that doesn't mean I don't remember the unit – or the guys in it. Especially the guys who saved my life.”

  “Guys? You mean, I wasn't the only one?”

  “Oh, did you think you were special? Sorry to burst your bubble.”

  “Yeah, I shoulda figured that,” he says. “You always were kind of useless with a gun.”

  I shrug. “My job was to take the bullets out,” I reply. “Not to put them in.”

  Steve's laughter breaks down into a fit of wet, phlegmy sounding coughs. He grimaces in pain, so I start rifling through all of the pill bottles on his nightstand, looking for something to help. Opening one of the bottles, I put a couple of the pills into his mouth and then help him take a drink of water to wash them down.

  He leans back on his pillows, his breathing shallow and ragged. He looks wrung out and exhausted.

  “I'm going to let you get a little rest,” I say.

  He nods. “Yeah, thanks,” he says, his voice weak and hoarse. “I'm just so damn tired anymore. How long you in town for?”

  I shrug. “A couple of days.”

  “Good,” he replies. “Come back tomorrow and maybe bring me a meatball sub from Tommy's, would you?”

  I laugh. “Yeah, let me ask your wife about that.”

  “C'mon, man,” he says and smiles. “Grant a dyin' man his last wish.”

  “I'll see what I can do.”

  He nods and lays his head back down on his pillows. He's asleep almost instantly. I stand there watching him for a few minutes, watching the rise and fall of his chest. Even in sleep, he grimaces, like he's in pain. It has to be as excruciating as it is constant.

  It's hard for me to reconcile this nearly hollowed out husk of a person with the big, burly, vibrant man I knew back in Afghanistan.

  I close the door softly behind me and step out into the living room to speak with his wife and express my condolences. I also tell her about how her husband saved my life because I think it's important that she know.

  She's in tears when I finish my story and embraces me tightly, thanking me for everything. I say my goodbyes and promise to stop by the following day to see Steve again – though, I don't tell her about his request. A man needs to keep some secrets – even from his wife.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Apparently, Steve's a hometown hero and something of a local celebrity in Fort Collins. At least, in this neighborhood. I'm staring at a picture of him in his uniform hanging in the wall behind the bar in a little dive called Molly's Place. When I asked about it, I was treated to a thousand and one stories about young Steve, from his exploits on the football field, to his exploits with the cheerleaders. The people around here love him. And they're taking his impending death pretty hard.

  It makes me feel good to know that he's surrounded by people who care for him. He deserves that.

  When they asked me how I knew Steve, I told them that I'd served with him and was in town to see him one last time and to pay my respects. That led to them asking me a thousand and one questions about his time overseas – he's apparently been very tight-lipped about it. I told them I'd only served one tour with him and couldn't tell them all that much. But I obliged them with the few stories I did have.

  “You have got to be shittin' me,” says a man named Hal, who's sitting a couple of stools down from me.

  I shake my head as I take a drink of my beer. “Swear to God. He hit that thing like a baseball.”

  I'd just told them the story of how Steve saved my life and they stare back at me wide-eyed, disbelief on their faces. It's like they're expecting me to tell them it's all one big joke. As unbelievable as it sounds though, every word of it is true.

  Our unit had gone into a neighborhood to clear out the bad guys. We expected a fight, so I'd set up shop in the bottom floor of what looked like it had been an apartment building. Steve was standing watch while I got set up and waited for the casualties to come in.

  As expected, the fighting was fierce and our guys started coming back to get patched up pretty quick. It was chaotic, but we were managing the flow of injured just fine. But then Steve saw one of the bad guys on the street in front of the building. He was looking at us through a large, busted out window.

  He'd yelled for all of us to get down, but I was trying to stop some serious bleeding on one soldier's leg wound. I saw the guy on the street pull the pin on the grenade and felt the knots in my gut tighten up painfully.

  Seems like a cliché, but time really did seem to slow down as I watched the grenade coming toward us through the window. I knew that when that thing landed and went off, we were all dead. There was no question about it. I remember just standing there like an idiot, waiting for the blast to hit.

  But Steve had his game face on and jumped into action. I watched as he grabbed his rifle by the barrel and swung at the incoming grenade. The butt of his weapon made contact with it, sending it screaming straight back at the man who'd thrown it at us. A couple of seconds later, the grenade went off and killed the bad guy.

  It seemed ridiculous. Absurd. Something straight out of a movie, or the imagination of somebody embellishing a story. But every word, every syllable of it is true. Steve did that. And that's how he saved my life.

  “Unbelievable,” the man behind the bar says, a note of awe in his voice.

  “Tell me about it,” I say.

  The men at the bar raise their glasses, so I follow suit.

  “To Steve,” says the bartender. “One of the craziest sons of bitches alive today.”

  “To Steve,” we all echo and then
drink.

  A moment later, the music comes back on, conversations re-start, and life goes back to normal inside the bar.

  “Great story,” says a leggy blonde as she slides onto the stool next to me. “It true?”

  “Every word of it.”

  I take a drink of my beer and look the woman up and down. She's good looking and probably in her early twenties, if I have to guess. Her blond hair falls to the middle of her back, she's got very nice, shapely legs that disappear under a short, tight skirt, and a midriff-baring shirt that clings to her in all the right places and highlights her ample cleavage. She sees me looking and smiles.

  “Wow,” she says. “Pretty intense.”

  “Yeah, it really was.”

  “Buy me a drink?”

  “Absolutely.”

  I order us another round and over a couple of hours and many drinks, we get to know one another a bit. She tells me all about her life, including how she became the most sought-after hairdresser in Fort Collins. But honestly, I don't really hear much of what she's saying since I'm more focused on her legs and tits. The girl likes to talk about herself, there's no question about it. And she's very aware of the fact that she's a good-looking woman. She seems to be enjoying the fact that I'm checking her out as closely as I am. She's obviously a girl who thrives on the attention of men.

  “Why don't we get out of here?” she asks, giving me a flirty little smile and runs the tip of her tongue along her lips.

  “I was just thinking the same thing,” I reply.

  I throw some cash down on the bar and they all wave and give me a knowing smile, as I head out with the girl – Aubrey – on my arm.

  “My hotel is –”

  Aubrey drags me over to a car and opens the back door, practically pushing me into the back seat. She climbs in after me and slams the door, turning to me with a look of absolute desire on her face.

  “I don't think I can wait that long, baby,” she says.

  “This is your car, isn't it?” I feel stupid for asking – but you just never know.

  “Of course it is.”

  She climbs into my lap, straddling me, and kisses me hard, forcing her tongue into my mouth. Our kissing becomes more urgent, frantic. She kisses my neck, nipping at it with her teeth as I slid my hands under her skirt, relishing the feel of the soft skin of her ass. She yelps when I give her a little smack on the ass and smiles at me salaciously.

  “Bad boy,” she says.

  “Sometimes.”

  Aubrey grinds herself down on my lap, rubbing herself along my cock which is growing harder by the second. She moans softly as she grinds the hot, wet center of her down on me. I pull her shirt over her head and toss it aside. Her bra quickly follows and then I lean forward, kneading her breasts, sucking on her stiff nipples.

  She slides a hand down and starts to rub my cock through my pants. I look into her glittering blue eyes, sparkling in the neon glow of the bar's sign, and she bites her bottom lip as she gives my hard cock a firm squeeze. Aubrey giggles as she draws a slow groan from me as she handles my cock.

  “Do I need a prescription for this, doc?” she purrs.

  I give her a small smile. “Not at all.”

  “Mmm – good.”

  She slides off my lap and lays down on the back seat. She unzips my pants and pulls my cock out. Smiling and looking me in the eye, she traces the tip of her tongue around the head before sliding her tongue up and down the shaft. Aubrey grips the base of my cock good and tight as she takes all of me into her mouth.

  “Jesus,” I moan as she starts bobbing her head up and down hard and fast.

  I tangle my fingers in her hair, giving it a nice hard yank as she tightens her lips around me, licking and sucking good and hard. She pulls my cock out of her mouth, looking at me with that sultry smile as she strokes me. I smile back and then pull her hair again before pushing my cock back into her mouth. She moans as I fill her up and push her head all the way down. I start to pump my hips, moving my cock in her mouth. I lean my head back on the seat, squeeze my eyes shut and moan as powerful sensations wash through me while I fuck her mouth.

  Aubrey pushes herself up and looks me in the eyes, out of breath, but smiling.

  “A take charge kind of man,” she gasps. “I like that.”

  Without a word, I turn her around and put her down on her hands and knees. Pushing her skirt up around her waist, I smack her tight little ass and then pull her panties to the side. It's cramped, but it's not the worst place I've ever had sex, so I'll just have to make do. She looks back at me over her shoulder.

  “Do you have protection?” she asks.

  I nod and pull a condom from my wallet, slip it on and toss the wrapper on the floorboard. Pulling her back to me, I guide my cock to her wet little opening and thrust myself inside of her good and hard. She gasps as I plunge myself into her firmly, driving my cock as deep as I can go.

  “Oh my God,” she says between breaths. “You feel amazing.”

  I reach up and grab a handful of her hair, giving it a hard yank backward as I start to thrust my hips, moving my cock into her. I feel her pushing back on me, taking me deeper inside of her. Pulling her hair harder, I start to pump my hips harder, slamming myself into her again and again.

  Though it's chilly outside, the inside of the car is getting hot. Humid. And the interior is filled with the sound of our bodies slapping against each other and our moans of pleasure. I feel the sweat rolling down my back, making my shirt cling to me uncomfortably, but I'll just deal with it.

  “Fuck me, baby,” she calls out. “God, yes, fuck me.”

  The windows are quickly steaming over, but I can see people milling about in the parking lot. I'm tempted to tell her that we should take this back to my hotel. She looks back at me over her shoulder and seems to intuit my thoughts.

  “They don't matter,” she says. “Ignore them, baby. Just keep fucking me. I'm so close, baby.”

  I do my best to put them out of my mind and focus on the sweet piece of ass in front of me. I drive myself into her hard and deep, making her moan and cry out. As I sheath myself deep inside of her, I feel her entire body tense, and a moment later, she screams and begins to shake as her orgasm comes crashing down over her.

  Her pussy is pulsing and tightening around my cock as she comes, making her feel even tighter and more amazing. Slowly, her orgasm subsides and she looks back over her shoulder at me, her face flushed, a wide smile upon her lips.

  “Your turn, doc,” she says. “Your turn to feel as good as you made me feel.”

  I give her a devious smile and grab her hips, my fingers pressing into her soft flesh. I start to thrust my hips again, harder and faster than before, pounding myself into her from behind. She's moaning and crying out as I fuck her. Reaching up, I grab her hair and pull it firmly again. The pop of my hand slapping her ass fills the interior of the car quickly followed by a small yip of surprise.

  I feel the pressure building up low inside of me and my balls begin to tighten. I know I'm getting close. I keep driving myself into Aubrey hard and fast, my own breathing becoming ragged with the exertion. I grit my teeth as waves of pleasure roll through me.

  “Come for me, baby,” Aubrey says, looking back at me with pure hunger in her eyes. “Come for me, doc.”

  I thrust myself hard one last time and feel myself explode. My cock is pulsing and throbbing as I fill the condom with my hot spunk. As I'm coming, I feel Aubrey start to tremble and shake. She cries out, in the grips of another orgasm herself. Together, with my cock still sheathed inside of her, we ride out the sensations coursing through us.

  My cock begins to deflate and I sit back on the seat, trying to catch my breath. Aubrey maneuvers around and drops down next to me, resting her head on my shoulder.

  “That was incredible,” she says, her voice breathy.

  I nod. “Yeah,” I reply. “That was really good.”

  “How long are you in town for?” she asks.

  I s
hrug. “Probably just another day or so.”

  “Pity,” she says. “I could go for another session like this.”

  “Maybe we can make it happen.”

  She looks up at me and smiles. Taking a pen from the middle console of her car, she grabs my hand and writes her number down on it.

  “Call me,” she says.

  I take that as my cue to go, so I button my pants back up and get out of the car. Aubrey jumps out and throws her arms around my neck, giving me a deep, passionate kiss. Smiling at me, she gives me a firm smack on the ass before walking back to the driver's side of the car and getting behind the wheel and driving away.

  There are a couple of guys standing near the door to the bar who are looking at me, laughing and flashing me a thumbs up. I grin and shake my head as I walk back to my rental car.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I'm restless. Not even my little tryst with the most sought-after hairdresser in Fort Collins was enough to settle me down enough to catch some sleep. Which is why I'm sitting in a diner playing bad music from the eighties and serving even worse coffee in the middle of the night.

  There's really not much else to do in lovely Fort Collins, Colorado – and I don't want to just lay in bed staring at the ceiling.

  “Get ya anything, hon?”

  I look up at the waitress and smile. I should probably order something if I'm going to be taking up one of her tables. Although, the place is virtually empty, so it's not like she's missing out on much in the way of potential tips.

  “How about a piece of chocolate pie?” I ask.

  “Good choice,” she says. “We got the best chocolate pie in all a Colorado.”

  I nod. “Sold.”

  I take a sip of the coffee and grimace at the cheap, burnt taste of it. I don't know how anybody can drink this garbage regularly. But then, maybe long-haul truckers – which seem to be the main clientele of this diner – don't really care as long as it's hot and has caffeine in it. Though, I will admit that I've always been a coffee snob.