“Wanna get a beer, Nikki? After I, um, get some clothes on?”
“Yeah.” He pointed to the end of the bar. “I’ll be down there. Under the tree.”
* * * *
By the time Madison and Tia were walking back to their low-budget room, their beer buzz was long gone. Most of it had worn off while they were taking turns dancing with Nikki, the rest evaporated while eating piles of fries at Denny’s. Tia had spent her non-eating time at Denny’s answering work emails. Madison, who’d turned off her phone in the hope of pretending the rest of the world—especially the part connected to the reunion—didn’t exist, had learned the names of all of Nikki’s sisters, what they all did for a living, which ones were married and which ones had kids. Then they’d started talking about books, movies and music. The music part was, no surprise, the longest part of conversation.
Madison pulled a napkin from her pocket and looked at the writing. “You think he really has a recording studio?”
“Yeah. I do. If he was lying about it, he’d still be with us, trying to get into your pants.”
True. “You think I should take him up on his offer, do the demo at his place?” she asked, digging through her backpack for the key to their room.
“He’s got the equipment, you’ve got the time. Of course you should. You need a demo.”
Too true. Too tired to talk, let alone deal with her non-existent career and even more unsettling non-future, Madison swung herself into their room. After shoving the door closed behind Tia, Madison threw her backpack down and made a beeline for the bathroom. About the time she was squeezing toothpaste out of her tiny tube of Crest, Tia screamed.
Not a super scared, a-snake-is-about-to bite-me scream, but an I’m-mad-because-I-saw-a-mouse scream. Madison ducked out of the bathroom, leaped over her backpack, and stopped at the end of the hall.
Lying across their bed, wearing nothing but a tattered pair of Levi’s, was a bleary-eyed guy who looked as though he’d been sound asleep seconds before. Half of his sun-streaked hair hung in his eyes, the rest stuck out in odd angles. Simply put, he looked hot in a seriously trashy way. Like some use-me-and-toss guy in an Abercrombie ad.
And that lazy grin, it was like he’d have all day and then some.
But still.
Madison stepped toward him. “Hello! This is our hotel room?”
The wiry guy rolled onto his side, propping himself up on a pillow and looking them over with half-closed eyes. The lean muscles in his torso rippled, lithe and fluid. Delicious.
But his attitude was a bit rude, considering he’d totally broken into their room and fallen asleep.
Madison took advantage of the fact that he wasn’t flying off the bed, wielding a knife and demanding they pass over all their valuables, to check out the room. Rumpled towels that weren’t there when they left dotted the weary aqua carpet, but, because Tia was such a neat freak, there was nothing to show that the room was in use. The balcony door had somehow been pried open wide enough to accommodate his nicely muscled, lean self.
Tia yanked the pillow he was hugging out from under his yummy arms. “You can’t just bust into people’s rooms and sleep on their beds.”
“I didn’t know it was y’all’s room,” he replied, showing no signs of doing the appropriate thing—leaving.
Madison sat on the rickety bamboo-style dresser and glared at the scruffy hillbilly stretched across the tacky floral bedcover. “You knew it was somebody’s room.”
“I thought it was jest messed up. There’s no clothes or nothin’.” He sat up, giving them a clear view of his tan six-pack abs, and rubbed his riotous brown hair. Kind of a hillbilly Jason Statham. If he’d just stop talking, he’d be sexy as hell. “Don’t y’all know it’s not safe to leave your patio door open?”
“I think we’ve figured that out now,” Madison snapped. Why couldn’t he just shut the hell up?
Tia advanced on him, fixing him with a stare. “Why don’t you have a place to sleep?”
He shifted on the bed, moving his hips and making his abs ripple. “I’m sorta between places, I reckon.”
Was that twang getting twangier?
Tia clutched the pillow to her chest and scowled, but Madison had hung out with her long enough to know when her interest was piqued.
Tia was looking him over, pressing her lips together as her gaze lingered on the guy’s crotch. “Please get off our bed,” she said, apparently not quite sold on him yet.
“But I’m liking it right here,” he said, shoving his hand down his pants.
“Are you grabbing your dick?” Tia asked, her voice high. Not hysterical, but definitely surprised.
“What if I am?” he said, his hand moving underneath his zipper.
Tia didn’t say anything. She just stood there, studying each solid inch of his lean, hard body, thinking, no doubt, about what she was doing to do about him. And about that hard-on he was tugging.
“Pull your pants down. Let us see it.” That was direct, even for Tia.
He slanted her a grin, and her face softened. She wasn’t about to look away from his fingers, now working the button, revealing more of that trail of hair. The guy moved his gaze to Madison, but she was over him. Of the two of them, Tia’d always been the one with the thing for trashy.
Tia tugged on the edges of the pillow, still clutched in her arms. “Hurry up.”
“Yes’m.” He peeled apart his jeans and thrust his hips high. His cock jutted straight up, thick and dark from all that squeezing.
“Do you mind, Madison?” Tia asked, not needing to say all the words.
Madison shrugged. “I have to finish brushing my teeth anyway.” Then to him, “But you have to sleep out on the porch when she’s done fucking you.”
“That suit you? My sleepin’ out there? Alone?”
Tia, halfway through getting her shorts off, paused. “Yes, it does. Once I get what I want.” She kicked off her shorts, ready to wiggle out of her thong. “You have a problem with that?” she asked him.
Madison pulled out her phone. “If you do, I can call the front desk, let them know you thought this room was vacant and therefore broke in and made yourself at home?”
Problem solved. Tia climbed onto him, settling over that hard dick with the grace of a porn star. Madison ducked into the bathroom and grabbed her toothbrush, still coated with Crest. After finishing her teeth, she peeled off her clothes and got into the shower.
When Madison came out of the bathroom, Tia was climbing off him, wrapping the sheet around herself. Like the good pet he was apparently accustomed to being, he offered them a sidelong grin, mumbled, “Night all,” and went out onto the balcony and lay down on the bare cement.
Tia tossed him the bedcover, then clicked the flimsy lock into place.
* * * *
The next afternoon, when Madison got back from making the demo at Nikki’s studio, Tia’s pet boy was still in the hotel room. He was, unsurprisingly enough, stretched out on the bed, naked, his twenty-four-seven hard-on sticking out while he held the remote in one hand and a mostly empty two liter of RC Cola in the other.
“Evenin’.”
If she weren’t carrying what even in her own overly critical mind was a damn good set of tracks, and the phone number of a solid contact back in Ohio, she would’ve wanted to shove his sweet, smooth-talkin’ self out of the door. Not the balcony door, where he would simply charm his way back in whenever Tia returned from wherever she was, but the real door. But with the recordings done, she was in a very generous mood and so she simply nodded.
Still. Why did a woman who earned six figures want to entertain herself with some low-level hottie?
“Tia’ll be right back. She told me to stay here and wait.” He grinned, content with his nowhere place in the world. “So here I sit. Waitin’.”
Oh.
It was a power thing.
Fine. Whatever.
At least he wasn’t going to move into Tia’s apartment, cheat on her, and br
eak her heart like the last guy.
Madison took a sidelong glance at him as she slipped the USB with her demo tracks into a zippered pocket in her suitcase. Was he that crafty? Better not be—she wasn’t sure she had the strength to get Tia though another break-up like the one with that loser Harvey.
“Hey, Madison,” Tia said, swinging through the door. After scanning the room and nodding hi to her pet, she crossed over to force open the balcony door and set some bags on the porch. “I got tacos.”
Pet Boy swung himself off the bed, slipped on his jeans, and ambled to the door. Lured by the white bags, and pushed by the hunger pangs in her very empty stomach, Madison followed him outside. The balcony was barely big enough for the three of them to sit crossed-legged, but they managed.
“I checked my voicemail—I have to be back at work the day after tomorrow. Sales meeting with a new rep,” Tia mumbled through bites of crunchy taco.
The third taco Pet Boy had been about to inhale stopped midway to his mouth. “Y’all’s leavin’?”
Tia answered him between bites. “Yep.” Then turned to Madison, “If we leave tonight, we’ll be able to get in at least eight hours on the road.”
Poor Pet Boy’s eyes went wide and his tanned face went white. “Y’all gonna drive through Georgia?”
No. We’re going to put our car on a barge and sail north.
Madison stuffed a taco in her mouth. No need to be nasty. They’d be rid of him soon.
“Tonight?” he asked, slightly panicky and slightly less southern sounding. “You’re gonna drive at night? In the dark?”
Tia didn’t share his concerns, whatever they were. Neither did she seem to notice his bizarre attitude. “If we haul ass,” she added, still talking to Madison, “and take turns driving, we might make it all the way through.” She smiled at Madison. “This’ll be better for you. The Swag ‘n’ Taggers need you.”
Before Madison could come up with a sassy retort, Pet Boy asked, “You goin’ through Tennessee?”
Madison’s annoyance tumbled out. “You studying to be a geographer?”
Pet Boy wasn’t put off by her sarcasm. He flashed Tia the photo ready grin. “No, I don’t want to be no geographer. But I am wonderin’ if I can catch a ride with y’all. To Tennessee.”
Tia started wadding up the white taco wrappers. “Is that where you live?”
That annoying, shit-eating grin slanted across his lips. “It’s where I need to be.”
Tia gathered all the trash and got up. “Okay with you, Madison?”
“Can I sleep first?” she asked.
Tia shrugged. “Sure.”
Chapter Three
Not Wanted—Dead or Alive
“What do you mean he’s not breathing?” Madison loosened her grip on the steering wheel, twisting to get a better view at the lump in the back seat. When the car swerved, she spun around and guided it back into their lane.
“He’s—like—totally not breathing.” Tia climbed into the front seat. “How could he be dead? How could we have a dead guy in our car?”
They couldn’t. Dead guys did not fit into the game plan. “Check again. Maybe you didn’t put your fingers on the right spot.”
Tia swore, inching back to stretch herself between the seats. Seconds later, she shrieked, freaking Madison out even more. The steering wheel suddenly had a mind of its own and the car lurched side to side. About the same time she got the car under control, Madison spotted flashing red lights in her rearview mirror.
Shit.
While Tia gathered herself up and clicked on her seat belt, Madison pulled over onto the shoulder. “Fuck. I really don’t have time to explain a dead guy. If the cop asks, say he’s asleep.”
“What the hell are we going to do with him?”
“After you get rid of the cop, we’ll dump him somewhere.” Tia frowned at Madison. “Don’t look at me like that. You got us pulled over, thanks to your crazy driving, so it’s your job to get rid of the cop. And”—she jerked her head toward the back seat—“what difference does it make what we do with him? He’s dead.”
Madison conceded—she was right about both the bad driving and that they needed to unload the passenger. After she rolled to a stop and cut the engine, she curved her mouth into her prettiest smile and waited. The cop pulled up behind them and swung out of his car, strutting toward them, ready for anything. The first glimpse of his sturdy, uniform-covered thighs almost had Madison forgetting about the dead guy in the back seat. Almost, but not quite.
In Madison’s sex fantasy book, cops rated above both cowboys and fireman.
Focus, she reminded herself. This moment wasn’t about her.
Distract him then get rid of him.
“Evenin’, ladies,” he said, bracing his solid legs in a way that forced the bulge in his pants front and center.
He had the same accent as dead Pet Boy, but coming from him it wasn’t bad at all. Even if it had been, the snug fit of his uniform would have more than made up for it. His shirt tugged on his biceps and the buttons were begging to be popped. Even the angle of his hat had Madison’s pulse skittering nicely.
Yum.
No wonder she had a thing for cops.
Thinking of those gleaming handcuffs, Madison glanced at his nametag, smiled into his long-lashed eyes, and got ready to say ‘Hi, Sheriff Mitch’ in her sexiest murmur.
But instead of grinning back and waiting to hear her purr, he rudely shoved his Maglite into the car, making her pretty smile turn into a squinty grimace.
Tia blinked when the beam flashed across her face. Dead Pet Boy did nothing when the light landed on him.
“You want our registration and proof of insurance?” Tia asked, pulling the cop’s attention back to the front seat.
Madison caught on, dug out her driver’s license and set it on top of the papers Tia had pulled from the glove box. Seconds later the cop was strolling back to his cruiser. Madison watched in the side mirror as his tight ass gradually faded out of view.
“This is getting way out of control,” Tia whispered, poking the lifeless hilljack. “I don’t like dead people.”
Who did like dead people? Besides vampires, satanic ritualists, ghouls, voodoo dudes, Goths, Alice Cooper and maybe werewolves.
Werewolves?
“Do werewolves like dead people?”
Tia’s face went red. “How the hell should I know?”
Behind them, Sheriff Mitch was holding a two-way radio in his hand and staring at their car. Damn, he looked yummy. Hot. Sexy. Like the kind of guy you wanted to hold your arms above your head and pin you to the wall. And the flashing lights cutting through the darkness made him look edgy and dangerous. Why couldn’t they have met under different circumstances?
Like maybe she’d been alone and only speeding instead of driving around with a screaming woman and a dead guy in the back seat of the car, and he’d pulled her over in a secluded, tree-lined side street. Hot night air swirled and crickets sang. He’d leaned in the window, his smooth tan skin damp with humidity, and—
A semi rumbled past, so closely that the car swayed. Tia poked her head out of the window. “Slow down, you ass!”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Madison asserted after Tia pulled herself back in.
“No? Not a good idea? What is a good idea? You have one?”
“Yes, in fact, I do. A two for one kind of thing.”
Madison fluffed up her hair, opened the top two buttons of her shirt, gave her black lace push-up bra a helpful shove in the right direction, then shimmied out of the car and wiggled her way to the patrol car.
“Please wait in your vehicle, Miss,” the cop said from where he stood by the hood of his cruiser.
Madison ignored his request and kept moving forward. Once she reached him, she tapped her fingertips across his solid chest, working her way to his nameplate then on to the gleaming police badge. “It’s boring in there,” she said in her best petulant schoolgirl voice, arching her back an
d letting him get a look down her shirt.
His posture stiffened but his gaze turned just the tiniest bit soft as he looked down at the tops of her breasts. As his gaze lingered, she rolled her shoulders, sighed and got just the reaction she was hoping for. His mouth dropped open and he practically dropped the two-way. Still fumbling with the two-way, he stumbled back, stopping by the rear passenger door of his patrol car. A stream of traffic roared past, making Madison’s hair whip around her face. She smoothed the strands back with a slow, leisurely sweep. After, she dropped her arm and stepped away from the side of the road, closer to him.
Reaching out to caress the gleaming badge pinned to his chest, she said, “I don’t like being bored…” Or the idea of getting caught with a dead guy in the back seat of my car.
“Um, Miss—you—you need to get back into your vehicle.” He looked down to her very open shirt. “You don’t seem to realize this is a very serious situation.”
Licking her lips, she leaned in and brushed her breasts again him.
“I’ll say it’s serious.”
He blinked.
Distracted. Just what she wanted. Madison took advantage of his state by snatching his two-way, tossing it through the open window of the cruiser onto the floor, then yanking open the car door.
“Wha—?”
With one solid shove, she had him sprawled across the front seat, his eyes wide, his legs spread even wider.
She bent down, cupped his stiffening cock and applied some pressure. “See how serious it is?”
“I don’t think…”
He looked from her face to her hands as she tugged on his shirt, untucking it with neat, quick pulls. The gentle but intent tug of her fingers helped him get the message.
Shut up and get ready to let me have my way with you.
She scooted in, nestled herself between his legs, then reached back to slam the door shut. It closed with a solid thump, promising as much privacy as two people could expect parked on the side of I-75 around eleven thirty at night.
As Madison started in on his belt, he finally showed some initiative and reached for her shirt. The remaining three buttons came apart quickly, within seconds his warm hands were gripping her midriff and pulling her down.
Off the Rails Page 3
