Skygods (Hydraulic #2)

by Sarah Latchaw

  “Justin, put up the top!” Caroline yelled as she pushed whipping black hair from her face, her voice swallowed by the cacophony of car horns and street music.

  “No way, Caro! This is a Bentley Continental GTC. You’re supposed to feel the summer wind in your hair with this baby!”

  “More like car fumes,” Caro bit out and scowled back at Samuel and me, looking for help. Her onyx eyes darted down to his hand on my knee, then up. “Samuel, we need the top up. Kaye and I have a lot to discuss before I leave.”

  I started, thinking I must have misheard her. Leave? Leave where?

  He merely shrugged at her, his fingers still stroking the underside of my knee.

  “Samuel, the top!”

  Samuel sighed, his fingers absently squeezing my knee. “Caro, you’ll have all the time you need with Kaye tomorrow,” he said loudly. “Give her a chance to relax and enjoy LA.”

  Caroline turned her glare to me and said something I couldn’t quite hear. I gave her an apologetic tap of my half-deaf ear and turned back to the lights and air rushing by. I probably should have given in and asked Justin to put the top up. But honestly, what was five minutes?

  Though the August air was heavy with eau de exhaust, the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel smelled heavenly, like tea and almonds. Before I even took in the staggering arched lobby or chandeliers, the scent pumping through their vents assaulted my nostrils. I’m not sure how I expected the Roosevelt to smell—something tropical to match palm trees and swimming pools, like coconuts. Chintzy, I know. The Spanish-style hotel towering around me, though, was not tawdry. Warm-hued woods, coffee and cream upholstery. Several guests milled about, posh in high-end lounge wear that probably cost more than my new shoes. Which, incidentally, I was seconds away from yanking out of my bag and shoving onto my feet.

  We walked into the softly-lit lobby, a bellhop rolling my luggage cart behind.

  “Normally we stay at the Biltmore, Caro’s favorite,” Samuel whispered. He shifted his guitar to his other hand. “But I thought you might like to stay here, given your love for ghost hunting and all things old Hollywood.” He placed a key card in my hand and wrapped my fingers around it. His eyes searched mine. “Your suite is next to mine. Charge anything you like to it—food, dry cleaning, spa time. Enjoy yourself while you’re here.”

  “Samuel you don’t have to pay—”

  “Yes I do,” he interrupted. “Please. Let me.”

  My eighth-floor suite was just as incredible as the lobby, but it wasn’t delicious-smelling air vents that made my jaw drop. It was the view. I waved good night to Justin and Caroline, then made a beeline for the wall of windows overlooking the neon-lit boulevard and the fanciful rooftop of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, and clapped my hands over my mouth in mute delight. Samuel laughed as he directed the hotel porter to put my luggage in my bedroom.

  “I thought you might enjoy that,” he said, plopping onto a sofa covered in plush, faux-fur pillows. He picked up one and smirked. “I don’t want to know how many synthetic animals had to die to make these things.”

  “Careful, Cabral. Now that I’m your publicist, the PETA ad is back on the table.”

  His eyes followed me as I hopped from room to room, inspecting the pocket of Hollywood history where I’d be dwelling for the next few days. The suite looked as though it had been doused in melted chocolate then pressed into a mold from an old Spanish mission—a mission with fireplaces and flat screen televisions built into suede walls. And the bathroom. With a running start, I could slide across the sleek granite in my sock feet and still not hit the opposite wall. I’d try out the spa shower tonight, oh yes.

  I jumped when Samuel’s cool hands snaked around my waist. His velvet voice echoed through the bathroom. “I believe your bedroom balcony overlooks the Tropicana, so you can do a bit of ghost watching when you’re not carting me and my nixie brood around LA.” He slipped the elastic band from my hair, letting it tumble over his palm. “Maybe Marilyn Monroe herself will make an appearance—at the Tropicana, not my book-signing.”

  I smiled. “Don’t get a big head.”

  His fingers toyed with the bottom button of my blouse, then deftly flicked it open. “Hmmm. You’ll have to keep me in check.”

  Just like Caroline does. I tried to squash the thought, but it refused to leave. I slithered from his roaming hands and made my way to the bedroom to unpack. Samuel stared after me, his brow furrowed. He sighed and followed me, then took the stack of folded shirts from my arms and decidedly set them down in my suitcase.

  “What’s wrong, Kaye?”

  I picked up the shirts again and stuffed them in a drawer. “Caroline mentioned she’s leaving next week. Where’s she going?”

  He exhaled slowly, then put on that gorgeous, lazy Cabral smile. “I don’t want to talk about Caroline right now.” Sitting on the edge of the bed, he grasped my hand and tugged me to him. He rested his forehead on my sternum, his warm breath trickling over my skin, making me tremble. A single finger crept up the back of my leg to tease me, but I was persistent.

  “She’s still handling your movie publicity, right?” I swatted his hand away from my skirt hem. “She’s not bailing on the tour?”

  Samuel ignored my hand and caught the back of my knees, pulling them until they were nestled on either side of his narrow hips. My skirt rode up and he gave me a cocky smirk, as if he’d bluffed his way through a poker game.

  “Yes, she’s still doing movie publicity. No, she’s not bailing.”

  I gave in to him, combing my fingers through his tangled mess of hair. Samuel all but purred under my fingers.

  “She’s flying out for a few days to meet with a new author. Now that she’s scaling back her work with me, she has time to take on an additional client.” Persistent fingers dug into my waist. “Now, Ms. Trilby,” he murmured against my neck, “kindly hold still while I find the zipper to this skirt of yours.”

  Oh flipping…whatever. I was going to lose myself in him. My arms snaked around his shoulders and I tried to relax.

  His fingers skimmed the thin white cotton of my blouse, coming to rest over the buttons. One by one, he undid the little pearls. He dropped his mouth to my chest, his tongue grazing the edge of lace on my bra. Cripes, I was tense. Not the good kind of tense, like I should have been with Samuel’s beautiful body inches from mine, seducing me, begging me to play. My gut told me it was wrong to go down this road, here and now. You have to be responsible, Kaye. The tiny voice of protest grew stronger as Samuel shifted me closer, until it was earsplitting.

  Threading my fingers through his hair, I halted, wavering. Finally, I tugged his mouth away. Cool air hit my skin and I shivered.

  “You really want to do this now?” I whispered, breathless.

  Samuel paused, his fingertips floating above the collar of my blouse. “Don’t you?”

  “Well, this isn’t exactly how…”

  When I didn’t finish, he wrapped his hands around my knees and spun us around, burying me into the soft feather down of the comforter.

  I searched his contorted, carnal face for a hint, a bit of love to let me let go. I wanted him to gaze down at me as he had the first time we made love in my old bedroom, the music of Planet Bluegrass still ringing in our ears. I wanted the Samuel of our wedding day, so considerate, so loving. I tried to match his hunger with hunger, his love with love. But there wasn’t love in his grinding hips, digging hands and greedy lips, no trace of the friend I’d loved my entire life. There was no tenderness, no give-and-take. Only hunger.

  I scrambled against him. “Time out.”

  He groaned when I slid off the blanket and stumbled to the living room, rebuttoning my shirt. Leaping from the bed, he adjusted his pants and followed me, his irritation painting the room red.

  “Samuel, I’m so sorry. I have a lot of work to do tonight.”

  He shook his head and fixed me with a bold stare. “Not good enough, Kaye.”

  “You have a talk show appearance fi
rst thing in the morning, followed by a book signing all the way down in Santa Ana. Then apparently you have dinner with your Water Sirens producers, which I didn’t find out about until tonight, by the way. After that is the conference call—”

  He shushed my mouth with his lips. His clammy arms clutched at my waist and I felt us stumbling backward, into the overstuffed couch cushions.

  “I have to prep for the conference call tomorrow,” I said in a rush of breath. “If I blow it off, there will be a lot of angry people.”

  His mouth paused over my neck. “People who work for me. Now shut up, Trilby, and enjoy this.”

  I felt his teeth graze along my neck, my collarbone, then down the middle of my chest. His long fingers teased the hem of my skirt, and we were back where we were five minutes ago. Lust shot straight up my body, in spite of myself. He slowly, deliberately traced the trim of my cotton underwear.

  “Samuel.”

  Hard blue eyes watched my reaction, waiting for me, daring me to shoot him down. Well, he did dare me. I pushed on his shoulders until I could breathe deeply.

  “You’ve waited three years to get laid,” I said, a touch too sarcastically. “You think you can wait a little bit longer?”

  A flash of hurt passed over his face. He braced himself above me, putting some space between us. “You don’t need to throw it in my face, Kaye.”

  I saw my opportunity for escape and rolled out from under him. “And I don’t want our first time in seven years to be a quickie on a hotel couch.”

  Samuel watched with petulant eyes as I moved across the room, straightening my skirt and smoothing down my blouse.

  “You were pretty willing last week,” he shot back.

  “Yeah, and you ditched me for your parents.”

  “Look, I already apologized for that.” Frantic hands tore through his hair and he jumped up from the couch and stalked toward me, his face twisting in bitterness. “But fuck, Kaye, how much longer are you going to string me along? There’s only so long a man can jack off to a fucking memory, and seven years is pretty damned close to my limit.” He paced the carpet, his muscles bunched with unfulfilled energy. “You need answers. You need friendship. You need time. Then you need my life story. What else do you need?”

  “What are you accusing me of?”

  He narrowed hot eyes on me. “You’re being a fucking tease.”

  Pain tore through my chest at his words, partly because there was truth in them, no matter how crassly they’d been spoken. I closed my eyes, trying to keep in my throat the harsh words I wanted to scream. “Out.”

  “Kaye—”

  “Out!” I pointed to the door. “How dare you degrade me? How dare you treat me like I’m some whore you picked up in a bar then screwed in an alley?”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “Yes you did. If you haven’t gotten any from me in seven years, it’s your own fault. Now please leave before I say something I’ll regret.” Too late.

  Samuel wavered, his hands clenching and unclenching in his hair, and I could see a battle being fought behind his eyes. He closed them, blinked rapidly, and swept a final, longing stare over me.

  “I’m sorry,” he mumbled and then fled the room, and me.

  Before the door slammed shut, tears stung my eyes. What was wrong with him? What was wrong with me? I’d been dying for this man’s touch the moment it was taken from me, all those years ago. Now I had his touch. Why had I sent him away?

  A wave of homesickness and self-pity washed over me. I’d only been in LA for a couple of hours, and already, I knew I didn’t belong here. I didn’t know what I’d expected, but it had been more along the lines of a relaxing evening spent on a fluffy hotel bed, Samuel writing his book, occasionally asking my opinion while I skimmed his tour schedules with a highlighter. Then he would smile down at me with longing, gentle eyes and set his writing aside, drawing me to him with his touch, his words of love.

  But his touch.

  His touch was a little too forward. A little too voracious. And his eyes. I couldn’t explain it, but it was as if someone had plucked the eyes from a defiant, lust-filled teenager and fitted them in the face I still loved beyond reason.

  Perhaps that’s the way he is, now, Kaye. Gooseflesh dotted my bare arms and legs, so I tugged the thin blanket from the back of the couch and swathed my body in softness.

  What if Samuel was simply more sexually aggressive than I recollected? My Samuel of seven years ago was a boy who’d barely been a man. Now there were seven people between us in the bed. Tack on seven years of changes in him, in me…

  No, a sobering voice persisted in my head. This is the Samuel of The Dream, hunched over the brunette in the brownstone as white powder fluttered across her skin. Like an apparition, The Dream lurked in the shadows of the hotel room. It breathed down my neck, dogged in its need for recognition.

  I ran a hand over the rumpled fabric of my expensive blouse, studied the haphazardly buttoned little pearls that Samuel had laboriously tried to unbutton. What did Samuel see when I pushed him away? I wasn’t a starry-eyed teenager anymore. I was a woman who had a sex hang-up. A woman who froze him out when things escalated. I’d made my share of mistakes with other men, and now knew the pain of using and being used.

  Striding to the bedroom, I stripped away my travel-worn clothes. Even my lace bra was uncomfortably tight, so I unhooked it and dropped it on the floor. The Dream prickled my skin, so tangible I thought I’d see it skulking behind me. I risked a glimpse in the mirror at my nakedness, from my mascara-smudged eyes to the vanity of my sculpted shoulders. There was only me. My skin was a gradient of whites and freckles and sunburn. Tan lines gave way to pale breasts and a torso that never saw the Colorado sun.

  Those four men I’d slept with after Samuel—had they seen me, Kaye Trilby Cabral, beneath my cotton sundresses and eco sneaks? Or had I been just another body to them: blond, shorter than the nameless writhing forms in porn mags and videos, but readily available.

  I plodded to the extravagant bathroom, feeling very small and exposed beneath its reach of granite. I twisted my hair into a frizzy mess on top of my head, then turned on the sink taps and splashed my face with hot water. I scrubbed my eyes, cheeks, neck, wiping away all traces of grime, and car exhaust, and foreplay.

  Did any of those four men have women waiting for them, women who’d loved them once, who wanted them for more than their bodies? With shame, I realized I’d never considered those women before I so callously used and discarded their men. I supposed it was the same for Samuel and his three flings. I’d been jealous of those women for so long, but now that I knew how he’d used them, I felt only pity. In the end, there was never anything nameless and easy about casual sex.

  I trailed a fingernail along the line of my calf, where a multitude of little bruises from rock climbing faded to green. As I slipped into my pants and sleep shirt, my mind ventured to the last time Samuel and I had sex, before he’d left for New York. The disconnectedness, the aggression of it had left me cold, sobbing in the bathroom. I’d escaped to Lyons for the weekend because I’d felt used by my own husband, a means to an end rather than loved and cherished—just as I felt now.

  The Dream was relentless in its stalking. It dragged over my temples, down my arms in a frozen trail. I saw Samuel’s blue eyes as cold as ice, his body single-minded and hungry for something I could never sate. I wrapped defensive arms around my middle, but it was too late. The last Other had left my dreams. It painfully jabbed me in the ribs to get my attention.

  You have to get over yourself, Kaye.

  So I thought…Seven years ago I never confronted him about what happened. Instead I hid, and then he left our marriage two days later.

  History has never been your strong subject, because what are you doing all over again?

  Hiding in my hotel room, expecting him to knock on the door and send me packing to Colorado.

  What are you afraid of?

  I pressed my fingertips to
my forehead, as if they could pull answers from my mind.

  You know this; it’s simple. You don’t want Samuel to leave you again.

  But rejecting his advances isn’t exactly an incentive for him to stick around.

  You believe he’s going.

  Was I rejecting Samuel before he could reject me?

  You see the changes. Already his mind is turning away from you.

  Yes. In the most vulnerable part of my heart, I thought he’d leave me again.

  But there’s more to it. Something has a hold on his mind, doesn’t it? You see it in his eyes. His words.

  And in The Dream. Holy hell. I fell back on the bed as the truth socked me.

  Even now, the last Other leered as Samuel and I slipped apart.

  Ten minutes later, the door to Samuel’s room slammed shut. I flew to my own door and whipped it open. He wasn’t there. I peered into the hallway just in time to see him pace in front of the elevators in a ratty T-shirt, running shorts and sneakers.

  Jogging at eleven? I moved into the hall to call to him.

  “Samuel!”

  He stared straight ahead and hurried into the elevator before I could catch him. I frowned. Yes, he’d heard me. I was positive.

  He wasn’t ready to talk—loud and clear. I would just wait for him to cool down. I sat on the hallway floor with my knees tucked under my chin, but eleven became midnight, and still, he hadn’t returned. When one o’clock rolled around, I admitted that I might not see him until tomorrow morning, and returned to my hotel room, fraught with worry.

  I wanted to burrow further into the blanket and hide my face in pillows. I wanted to drift away. Like bleached driftwood, I wanted to float to sea and not return. Because returning meant facing whatever monsters waited for me on that craggy shore.

  But I sat up and pulled myself together.