by Gemma Bruce
Cas continued to kiss her as he walked down the hall and into the parlor, moving her backward like a clumsy dancing partner, until they reached the couch.
They fell onto the cushions together.
The couch emitted a loud raspberry.
“Damn it, Wes.” Cas fished under the cushion and pulled out the whoopee cushion. Threw it on the floor where it gave a half-hearted wheeze.
Then he pushed himself up the length of the couch so that Julie lay on top of him. He broke the kiss long enough to pull her T-shirt over her head. She shivered. The room was warm, but their clothes were wet and clammy. He unfastened her bra and she sat up to let the shiny fabric fall from her shoulders and down her arms.
Cas sucked in his breath, enthralled by the closeness of that creamy skin. She fumbled with the buttons of his uniform and in a deep recess of Cas’s mind, he thought of the consequences of ... then he lost his mind again as Julie’s hands pressed to his bare skin.
Her hands were cold and he took them in his and rubbed them against his chest until warmth spread to her fingers and she was rocking against him, breathing hard, smiling a seductress’s smile, her eyes never leaving his.
He reached for the button of her jeans. Fumbled. The wet fabric made it hard to navigate. She swung one leg off him and stood up. Unzipped her jeans and pushed them down her legs, keeping her gaze on his face. Then she leaned over, until the tips of wet hair brushed against his abdomen. She licked into his belly button, and his pelvis rose up to her, demanding its share of the same.
She unclasped his belt and unzipped his trousers. He lifted his hips and she pulled them down his legs, tugged off his shoes and socks. The air rushed across his skin. Julie crawled back on the couch and straddled him.
His hands reached for her hips, cupped her butt and rubbed warmth into her cheeks.
She nestled against his erection and began to move. Lightly, sliding up and down his penis until he was slick with her.
“Julie,” he said and tried to remember which pocket he kept his condoms in. Wallet, you fool. He let go to grope around the floor for his pants.
Julie laughed and leaned over, her breast brushing against his arm as she picked up his pants. He had to wrestle his wallet out of his back pocket. Sweat broke out on his forehead.
Julie continued to rock, like a boat on a quiet lake, he thought, and he finally pulled out the foil square. She took it from him, and just as efficiently as she’d removed his pants, she had the condom out and rolling down his cock.
“Oh, Jesus.” He bit his lip. He tried to think of chicken thieves, so he wouldn’t come before she got the condom on.
Then she smiled down at him. “Is this cops, cowboys, or pirates?”
God, he couldn’t think. He wanted all three at once.
“Cowboys,” he blurted.
She laughed and scooped his cock in her hand. “My, what a big saddle horn you have,” she said and impaled herself on him.
It nearly pushed him over. He gritted his teeth, gripped his toes. And then she began to ride, a rhythm so perfect that they could have been lovers for ages.
“Relax,” she breathed and tweaked his nipples between her fingers.
Cas reared up off the sofa. “It’s been awhile,” he grunted. “It may be ... a short ride.”
“That’s okay ... I don’t have ... far to go.”
He lifted into her. Slid his hands up her thighs until his thumbs opened her to his touch. She shivered, picked up the rhythm again, sliding up and down his cock while his finger slid against her.
And they rode, mindless of the rough couch cushions, of Smitty’s whine echoing down the hall, of the whoopee cushion abandoned on the floor. It was fast, furious, and Cas was just reaching the point of no return, when Julie cried, “Yeehaw,” and they tumbled over the brink together.
Julie collapsed onto him and he wrapped his arms around her while he floated into a place with no responsibilities, no warring families, no chicken thieves.
Finally he realized that Julie was shaking. Was she cold? Was she crying. Had he hurt her? Was she regretting this already?
“What? Are you okay?”
She rubbed her cheek against his chest and lifted her head just enough so that he could see her face. “I was just thinking. Wasn’t that better than peeking at my underwear?”
Cas’s arms tightened around her. “You have no idea how much better.”
She smiled. “I can hardly wait for pirates. You were always the best at pirates.”
Chapter 6
Cas’s first thought, when he could think at all, was that his ass was up the crick. His police car was parked in front of the house, the drapes were open. There was a crazed German shepherd in the kitchen. His parents were next door, possibly with binoculars—or a rifle—aimed at the house. And he was in Julie Excelsior’s parlor wearing nothing but Julie and his wristwatch.
He sat up. Julie rolled to one side and snuggled against him.
“I’ve got to go.”
“But what about my pipes?”
“Your pipes are great.”
She sat up and smiled at him. “I’ve got a Jacuzzi upstairs.”
“Some other time.” He nudged her off him and reached for his pants. They were soggy and wrinkled. Well, hell, if he were lucky, he could get home and change into his other uniform without anyone seeing him. Then Julie’s reputation wouldn’t suffer and he wouldn’t have to face his father’s recriminations.
His cell phone rang. So much for luck.
He stood up and Julie flopped back onto the couch.
“Sorry,” said Cas, rummaging through his shirt pockets to find the phone. He flipped it open and made the mistake of looking at her. She was sprawled along the cushions like an impressionist painting, curved in all the right places. His eyes rested on hers, then traveled down to her full pouty lips, her dusky nipples to the triangle of dark hair between her legs. His dick stirred.
“Cas. What are you doing at Wes Excelsior’s?”
His dick deflated. He turned his back on Julie and pulled his shirt to his crotch. Something about talking to your mother in the nude put him off his game.
“Report of a break-in. I was just leaving.”
“She’s there, isn’t she? It’s all over town.”
“Someone tried to break into Wes’s chicken coop. I’m the sheriff.” And I just had the quickest, greatest sex of my life.
“Well, your father is at the back door with his .22. And I really think you should come over.”
“I’m on my way.” He closed the phone, pushed his arm into his sleeve and shuddered. “Shit.”
Julie frowned at him, then stood up and yanked the shirt out of his hand. She picked up the rest of his clothes and carried them out of the room, leaving him naked, depressed and on the verge of panic.
He grabbed an afghan off the back of the wing chair and wrapped it around his waist as he watched Julie’s round butt disappear around the edge of the doorway.
“Where are you going?” he called after her, then ran after her, the afghan trailing on the floor behind him.
The hallway was empty and with a sinking heart, he knew she and his clothes were in the kitchen with Smitty. “Julie,” he called, his voice almost a falsetto. “Come out of there.” He expected to hear a shot any minute, and though his father had never managed to hit anything beyond a few pieces of gingerbread molding and the decorative weathervane on top of the gazebo, his balls shrank into peanuts as he ran down the hall.
He stopped at the kitchen door and knocked. “Julie,” he called.
The door opened and Julie stood in all her glory, looking a little miffed. Who could blame her?
“If it’s an emergency, Wes’s clothes are still in his bedroom. I don’t think he’ll mind if you borrow them.”
He heard the tumble of the dryer in the sun porch off the kitchen. “It’s my mother.”
Emotion flickered across Julie’s face. “Figures,” she said. She stepped aside. Smitty
pounced and Cas instinctively threw his butt back
“Watch the jewels, Smitty,” said Julie and turned away as if she didn’t care whether Cas was left intact of not.
God. He’d made another hash of what had been an incredible few minutes. He was his father’s son, a Reynolds to the bone. Family name always came back to bite him in the ass, when all he wanted was ... something he couldn’t have.
He started to follow her, but Smitty took hold of the afghan and dug in his paws. Cas yanked hard, but managed to do nothing but lose the majority of his covering. Smitty growled and wagged his tail.
“Not now,” said Cas.
Smitty looked up at him with a hurt expression, then dropped his mouthful of afghan and docilely followed Cas through the kitchen.
Cas heard the dryer stop and the door open. Clutching the afghan tightly around him, he went into the sun porch. Julie was leaning over the opening. Her butt was covered with goose flesh. Cas opened the afghan, walked into her, and wrapped it around both of them. His dick began rooting around looking for a warm place to stay, but Julie straightened up.
“Your mother’s watching. Reynolds, too.” She tilted her chin toward the window. And Cas saw two little figures standing on the back steps of Reynolds Place. His first impulse was to pull Julie to the floor out of harm’s way, but he doubted if they could see her. His mother was nearsighted and his father couldn’t see past his own prejudices.
She reached into the dryer and pulled out his pants. “You really want to wear these? Be my guest.” She shoved them at him. He caught them. The afghan dropped to the floor, and they both stood as naked as jaybirds in the sun that filtered through the windows. And suddenly the room was warm, not cold, and Cas couldn’t remember why he’d been in such a hurry to leave.
“Go,” Julie said, her voice giving nothing away, and left him standing alone, looking at his nutcase parents and wishing he and Julie could sail away.
He hurried after her. “Julie.”
She looked over her shoulder and lifted an eyebrow. Her expression was so distant, that he had to swallow twice before he said, “I guess I’ll borrow some of Wes’s clothes.”
Julie lay curled up among the pink pillows, dressed in a pair of sweats and her NYPD sweat shirt. She heard the door to Wes’s bedroom open and close, Cas pause in the hallway, then run down the stairs. The front door opened and shut and a minute later the police car drove away.
She pulled the comforter around her, feeling cold now that she was fully dressed and the heat was pumping out of the ancient radiators. He’d done it again. Well, duh, what did she expect? He was a Reynolds, wasn’t he?
Julie turned onto her back and threw her arm across her eyes. “Why did I do that?” She groaned, but couldn’t keep a smile from creeping across her lips. Because Cas was hot and she hadn’t had sex in the last century. Well, at least the last year. It wasn’t healthy. If she didn’t use them, her washers might corrode. She sucked in a shaky breath. So she got a little carried away. And what did she get for her trouble? He ran off to his mother.
Reynolds and Marian were such idiots, thought Julie. If they’d just left us alone for another year or two, we’d have gone all the way in the back seat of Reynolds’s Cadillac and there would be the end of it. Instead they had turned it into more fuel for the never-ending feud ... and been responsible for both Cas and her being sent away. She could forgive them for whatever happened a hundred and fifty years ago, but not for what they’d done to her. She’d lost her home and the only two people who loved her.
Well, to hell with them. Julie curled up again and pulled the comforter under her chin, thinking of Cas’s face when that phone rang. It would be funny if it didn’t hurt so much.
He’d reacted just like she’d expected him to, but had hoped he wouldn’t. Talk about going from hot to cold. Oh hell, maybe he was relieved. Maybe she’d been too forward. He was kind of a prude. Except he was damn good at finding the right buttons, which made her wonder about how prudish he really was. Maybe it was a case of too much too soon.
I came on pretty strong, Julie thought. I probably scared him. I acted like a hooker. No. Like white trash. She sighed. Maybe that’s why he’d given her up all those years before.
After a few minutes, she chuckled. She had to admit that the whole situation was outrageous. And he started it. He always started it. At least this time he finished it.
“I think it’s really finished now.” She pushed up to her elbows and threw back the covers. “That’s it. I’ve had my fun and now it’s time to flush some other pipes. I should have made him fix the leak before he got sex.” She put on her shoes and went downstairs to be her own handyman.
It took a while to clean up the kitchen. She swept water out onto the back porch and into the yard, then she used every dish towel she could find to soak up the rest. She took them, dripping, into the sun room. The top of the dryer was still open and Cas’s uniform lay crumpled and wet inside. She shoved the towels in with it and closed the lid. The dryer hummed backed to life.
It took even longer to change the washer, since the book pages had stuck together, and it was nearly impossible to separate them without tearing them. But after a few false starts and banged elbows, the pipes were flushed, the new washers were in place, the thingies were tightened on the pipes, the two valves, red and blue, were turned to the open position, and she was ready for a test run.
“Better stand back,” she warned Smitty. She turned on the spigot and jumped back. The pipes clanged but water ran out in a steady stream. Julie held her breath waiting for the explosion and when it didn’t come, she stepped cautiously toward the sink. “Hey, cool,” she said.
The pipes let out another groan and she jumped back. The water continued to flow smoothly. She turned it off. Waited a couple of seconds and turned it on again. Once again the water flowed out in a steady stream.
“Ha. Who needs men?” Julie lifted her hands in triumph. “I am woman. I am plumber.”
The dryer buzzed and the laundry tumbled to a stop.
She dropped her hands. “I am totally fucked.”
Cas had no idea what he was going to say to his parents or how he was going to explain the fact that he was wearing Wes Excelsior’s dungarees instead of his uniform. My uniform got wet while Julie and I were rolling on the floor, locked in a torrid embrace. Language they could understand. It would give them both coronaries.
Better to stick to the story about thieves and go back to Julie’s to pick up his clothes. Then maybe they could pick up where they’d left off. After all, she had a Jacuzzi; it was a perfect place to indulge in a game of pirates.
Then he remembered Julie’s expression and how he had stolen away without saying goodbye. Well, hell. She’d closed her door. Pretty obvious that she didn’t want to see him.
Actually, who could blame her? He mauled her on the floor, had speed sex on the couch, and ran off as soon as they were done. He should have ignored the phone. He’d just go back and apologize. Explain about the rifle. She’d forgive him and they could get on with it. If she’d forgive him.
Because he wouldn’t let it end again. He’d been afraid before, years ago. Had let weeks go by, pretending to ignore her, while his heart was trampled; acting like he didn’t care, hell, like he didn’t even know her, because Reynolds told him if he so much as looked at her again, he would send him away to school. He hadn’t looked at her and Reynolds had still sent him away.
When he came back on his first vacation, he rushed to Wes’s to explain, but she was gone. She had never come back—until now.
He had to knock twice before the door to his parents’ house finally opened. Melanie stood looking at him through raccoon-rimmed eyes, her black painted lips in their perpetual scowl, and Cas thought, I have to do something to get you away from all this.
She jerked her head, an invitation to come inside, and opened the door wider.
“They sent Larue to town for more liquor. They’re out back. I just got home from
the restaurant, but I didn’t hear any shots. He didn’t kill her, did he?”
“Jesus, Mel.” Cas wanted to shake her, she sounded so bored and uncaring. So like Julie, just before she’d shut her bedroom door. Not bored, he thought, but self-protective. “No, he didn’t shoot her.”
He stepped past her, then turned. “How did you know she was back?”
“She had lunch at the hotel. Christine was treating her like royalty. I thought we all hated her.”
“We all don’t,” said Cas with more edge than he usually used with his Goth sister, even when she was at her most obnoxious.
“Good, because she has a navel ring.”
I know, thought Cas. And his mind wandered away from his responsibilities to settle on Julie’s tight stomach, her tight everything.
“Thank God, you’re here.”
Cas jumped. Melanie shut the door and melted away.
His mother, dressed in a hostess gown of lilac swirls, her hair swept back in a new perm of metallic gold, picked her way into the foyer. She stopped abruptly, teetering on tiny strapped high heels.
“What on earth are you wearing? It’s cocktail hour, for heaven’s sake.” She flurried newly manicured nails at him. “Well, never mind. It’s better than that awful uniform. You know how it upsets Reynolds.”
Saying her husband’s name must have recalled her to her purpose, because her perfectly shaped brows knit together. “He’s on the back steps again. Why won’t Wes Excelsior just leave us alone? I mean the man’s dead, for heaven’s sake. Why can’t we have one, just one, cocktail hour without Reynolds taking his rifle to the back porch?”
Maybe if you didn’t have so many martinis, he wouldn’t, thought Cas, but he kept it to himself and let his mother lead him down the hall to the back of the house. She stopped in the great room and motioned him toward the door. “You go ahead. I’ll just freshen the drinks.”
Left alone in the room, Cas considered how he would relieve his father of the rifle. Right now, he felt like grabbing it and bashing him over the head with it. If it weren’t so absurd, it would be tragic. Actually, it was tragic. When Cas left for boarding school, his father had been a formidable, well-respected banker. Within a month, the bank closed and his father became a broken man, and then a lunatic. He still had his moments of lucidity except where Wes Excelsior was concerned. So lucid, that only his family knew exactly how off his rocker he was. And only his children admitted it.
