by Carol Devine
He raked a hand through his hair in a gesture of frustration. "Why do women try to read men's minds? We're really not that complicated. I don't think the same way you do, Mariah. I deal with the future whatever way it comes. I'm like a rock that gathers no moss. Every day, I wake up and do what I need to do to make my business successful. I train my horses, I buy and sell, take tourists on trail rides and give the kiddies lessons so they don't fall off and kill themselves. That's about it."
She noted the uncharacteristic impatience blighting his face. "I think you're avoiding the question."
"Yeah, I'm picking up on that but it really is true." He rose. "Now, do you want lo Mein or fried rice? I'm getting real tired of asking."
"I'd rather have Mexican food."
"Good. Get it yourself."
He slammed out of the house.
* * * * *
Shane returned home well after dinnertime and found her busy at the kitchen table, as usual, finishing her invoices for the week. She didn't lift her head when he came in.
He laid his hat on the table in front of her where she couldn't miss it. "I'm sorry I snapped at you," he said. "It shouldn't have happened."
Mariah stacked her notepad and laptop together, a gesture of resolve. "Except it did."
He sat down opposite her, showing concern. "What can I do to make it better?"
Now that he was sitting across the table from her, navy-eyed and somber, working to understand, she was having a difficult time meeting his gaze while saying 'thanks for the memories' and 'see you around.' "If you want me to move out…"
He interrupted before she managed to get to the part where she'd be glad to cut her losses and go. "Do you want to move out?"
Reaching for steady self-control, she studied her hands, trembling in her lap. "It's your house. If it's not working, I should leave."
"I want you to stay, Mariah. Stay with me."
Simple and straightforward, without his usual joking around, it brought tears to her eyes. Rather than allow him to see, she grabbed his cowboy hat and streaked upstairs.
He followed, taking the stairs two at a time and caught her at the top of the landing. She shrieked as he snaked his arms around her, laughing rather than crying, thank goodness.
She held his hat away from him. He boosted her off her feet like she weighed nothing and tickled her in the process. She squealed, managed to keep hold of the hat despite his best efforts at grabbing it.
The next thing she knew she landed flat on her back, bouncing on the mattress. She scrambled to her knees and clamped the hat down onto her head. Rather than aiming for another quick grab, he went for her clothes instead, making short work of ripping them off. In the end, she flung the hat away in favor of ripping his clothes off, too.
Naked, she climbed on top of his obvious arousal, uncaring about whether her body was ready or not. She needed him inside her.
He sensed it, too. He gripped her hips and forced her still, stimulating her with his big cock. She caught her breath, desperate for immediate entry, rejecting the buildup in favor of positioning him where she needed contact most. Getting the message, he spread her thighs wide and lubricated her with the tip of his cock, then rammed into her.
She cried his name, Shane begging for more, more. He drove deep, speed and friction both, melding two bodies into one. She clutched him, swamped by a tumult of feelings:, not simply physical but emotional, too large and raw to understand. The love-fucking robbed her of breath, robbed her mind, becoming an intense journey into the stratosphere where nothing existed except for the two of them.
It was exactly the place she was looking for. It was exactly the place she needed to be.
Fire consumed her core, sending blood spilling through her arteries, filling her ears, blinding her eyes. She sang without knowing it, expressing in pure sound what she couldn't say in words. His pounding was a counterpoint. Red color swirled behind her eyelids, heightening into floods, vertigo to the max.
It pushed her over the edge, soaring. He knew it, too, and strained for his own release. His entire body stiffened in that moment of freefall, her inner walls in spasm. He shuddered, groaning in ecstasy, an ecstasy she shared. Liquid heat gushed through her pelvis, a mix of fluids, rippling through her in waves.
Insensible, she wilted, draped over his chest. He smoothed her trembles down her back with broad hands and palmed her ass, wrapping it tight, preventing her moving. As if she wanted to. Between their bodies, sweat made them slick.
Her first coherent thought was if they showered together, what they'd just finished would happen over again, only this time with soap and water cascading through the experience.
She knew he would chuckle if she told him. She wasn't able to, not in the throes of makeup sex. Being with him this way was like shorthand, crowded symbols of meaning she refused to identify or examine too closely. Nothing that felt this good could last. What she knew for certain, though, was that she wanted to stay embraced for as long as possible. Speaking was unnecessary. Speaking would spoil it, spoil it as it almost had tonight.
After the fight and the reconciliation that accompanied it, she became Mariah again, generous of body and spirit. She stopped caring about what Bird might say or whether she'd get hurt in the process. What mattered was the life-affirming sex she shared with Shane, the heat he gifted her with, spreading sparks of pain and pleasure, the latter nullifying the former.
coming down on the side of perfect lust rather than self-preservation
CHAPTER eight
Nearly finished getting ready to attend a business luncheon at the local Chamber of Commerce, Mariah skipped down the stairs in her unzipped black dress, carrying her heels. She found Shane eating a second breakfast in the kitchen.
"I can't believe how much you eat."
"Was out the door at 5 am this morning. Five hours later means this meal is actually lunch."
"I'm glad you came in. I need you to zip my dress." Mariah checked her purse, making sure she had everything she needed. "Would you mind putting a sandwich together for me to take with? I'm running late."
"I thought you were having lunch there."
"They like to call it a luncheon but they do it on a shoestring budget. We're talking American cheese, saltine crackers and canned fruit." She found her touch screen, making sure it was fully charged.
Shane glanced at his watch. "I'm pressed for time."
"Some meat and cheddar on whole wheat is all I ask."
"If you ask, I'll deliver." Shane rose, set his empty plate in the sink and opened the refrigerator door. "You want mayo?"
"Yes, and a slice of tomato. And my zipper, please."
She gave him her back, focused on her phone. He zipped fast, catching her skin at her shoulder blade. "Ow!"
"Sorry." He sounded grumpy rather than sorry. She checked his face, seeing she was right.
"What's got into you?"
"You want me to put your pantyhose on, too?"
"Pantyhose? I barely know what that is." She made sure her ponytail was out of the way and held the back of her dress together to make it easier for him. "Can you finish?"
"Hold your horses." He slapped together the sandwich and shoved it into a plastic keeper. "I'm tired of you telling me what to do all the time."
"Excuse me?"
He slammed the sandwich keeper on the counter in front of her and settled on the edge of the sink as if, suddenly, he had all the time in the world. "Okay, I'll put it this way. You seem to take great pleasure in directing me, like I'm a puppet on a string. I get dragged out whenever you have an itch to scratch."
Mariah found a way to zip her own zipper, clueless about what might be behind his abrupt change in mood. "If you're accusing me of using you for my sexual pleasure, then I will happily raise my hand and admit to this grievous sin. But you're scratching the same itch. Don't accuse me of leading you on."
"That's exactly what you did."
Affronted, Mariah was speechless. She slapped her hee
ls on, stomping them on the floor. "You are completely out of your mind, you know that?"
"Am I out of my mind to want you in my life as well as in my bed?"
She glared, disbelieving that he was bringing this up now, now when she had finally managed to find a balance between their relationship and her future life plan. "I'm heading out the door and you need to get back to work, too. We talked about this, ad nauseum. I laid down the rules…"
"You laid down the rules, Mariah. I never had a say."
"Don't give me that. You were there. It was the morning after the first night we slept together."
"Yeah, I remember it, too. You woke me up at the crack of dawn to lay down the law about what you would and wouldn't do. Excuse me for living, but I had some other things on my mind at the time."
"I can't believe this! You're using your horniness as an excuse for not participating in a discussion you freely admit we had."
"You took advantage of the situation for your own personal gain. Isn't that the epitome of being a tease?"
Angered beyond reason, she absolutely sputtered. "A tease is the last thing I am. I was completely upfront with you. I told you exactly what I wanted. If you wanted something else, you had a million opportunities to say so, not just then, but every minute of every day we've been together since. How can you possibly justify your position that this is somehow my fault?"
"It is your fault. You lied to me, Mariah."
"Oh, my God. I'm sorry but I am not going to stand here and be insulted by you."
"How is it an insult when I'm pointing out the fact that you laid down such stupid rules?"
"They are not stupid! Can't you get it through your thick head? Rules are good. They make human relationships possible. If we didn't have rules, then, then..."
"Then what?"
"Then people end up doing exactly what we're doing! Arguing about stuff that doesn't matter, like who said what when. I knew you had issues, issues we even have in common, but this is crazy!"
"Is it crazy to love you, Mariah, or expect you to love me back?"
"Now you're talking about love? Where is this coming from? Where the hell do you get off telling me how I should or shouldn't feel about you?"
"I'm simply asking. Do you love me?"
"Don't!"
"Don't what?"
"Ask me that!"
"Good because I thought you were telling me otherwise; that you don't love me. You had me going there."
"I don't love you! Can I say it any plainer? I don't love you, I never loved you, I was using you for sex and I was upfront about it from the very beginning!"
She stormed out of the kitchen, zoomed straight to the bedroom, dragged out her suitcase from under the bed, and began to dump everything into it.
He settled against the doorway, watching.
"Are you going somewhere?"
"Yes!" she screamed. "I'm moving out!"
She couldn't get away fast enough. She kicked the suitcase closed, deciding to leave it behind. Her belongings weren't worth the shame of standing there in front of him, red-faced and out-of-control. She tried to make it through the door without touching him, but he was still standing there, the big lug.
"Get out of my way!"
He stayed where he was, the stubborn beast, widening his stance. "We started as friends. You could at least be civil."
His calmness in the face of her lack of coherent thought was infuriating. She shoved him. He just stood there, holding his ground. She shoved harder. He held up his hands in surrender but he still wouldn't get out of her way.
Her martial arts training kicked in and she crouched, going into a balanced stance that would give her the power to get past him and even incapacitate him if necessary.
Mariah seethed. "You don't know who you're dealing with."
"Oh, yes, I do. You talk a good game, telling me how much you hate liars and how you need to have rules to make our relationship work. What I'm saying is I get to have rules, too. You want to lie to my face, go ahead. Just don't expect me to lie to your face, Mariah. Not anymore. I've come to love that face too much. I love what we have. I love who you are, even though you won't let me in. If you want to get out of here, go ahead. I won't stop you. But don't come back unless you mean it. Don't come back unless you love me. You don't even have to say it, not until you're ready. But you have to make the effort. You have to show me like you've been showing me all along, but without the bullshit about us being a couple of sex maniacs whose most important goals in life are giving each other orgasms."
She launched herself at him. Even without defense training, he was a superior enough athlete that he spun and sidestepped her, allowing only a glancing blow. She staggered because of it but quickly regained her feet, because she was running for the door like she was being chased by demons. Big demons. Awful demons.
Thank God she carried her key in her pocket, always prepared for a quick getaway. In her world, she never knew where the bad guys were, and she'd spent a lifetime learning how to be vigilant so they never came close to hurting her.
She slammed into the SUV and backed out of his driveway fast enough to knock down his mailbox. Shifting into four-wheel drive, she peeled away, deliberately leaving tire marks. She wanted him to know exactly how furious she was.
After her burst of adrenaline, she kept both hands steady on the wheel at the 9 and 3 o'clock positions, adopting the rules of following a fleeing suspect on a high speed chase. She checked her rear view mirror to make sure she wasn't being chased herself, but Shane's pickup was nowhere in sight.
That's when she started shuddering. It always ended like this, after that first shot of fear and adrenaline, the calmness kicked in, and she could do her job to the best of her ability. But after the chase or the arrest was over, she escaped to her car and the shuddering began.
She expected it and dealt with it accordingly. Deep breaths. Earsplitting music. She turned her player volume way high. It was a physical response to a stressful situation, experienced by first responders everywhere. Driving fast helped. She headed for the highway. The surging of the engine was emotionally satisfying.
Her own engine was surging, too, trying to block out some of the things he'd said, the words he used. Liar. Fornicator. Well, he hadn't used that, but he'd meant it, talking about sex maniacs and orgasms and something about loving her even though she was a nutcase.
A maniac of a nutcase?. Who could possibly love that?
She skidded over to the side of the road, stopped the SUV and jumped out. Running the 100 yard dash at full speed also helped. Even wearing heels, she went for it, pumping her arms and her legs in a rhythm that was familiar, if not comforting.
Unfortunately, the piston power of her legs on pavement wasn't loud enough, distracting or draining enough. She recalled expounding on the fact that she didn't love him, had never loved him, and she always told the truth.
Her knees wobbled and she fell. She landed in the dirt on the side of the road, her arms and chest taking the worst of it. She couldn't move for a second, afraid that maybe she truly was hurt, but it was mostly skinned palms, knees and a blow to the heart.
She did a slow push up and sat on the ground with her head in her stinging hands. She couldn't get enough air. She inhaled fully and exhaled fully but it didn't help.
Her cheeks were hot and wet. The ground was dusty, packed dirt. The asphalt was a few feet away, black with a painted white line that marked the edge. Thankfully, not many people used this road because it didn't go anywhere very interesting, like Aspen to the west, or Denver to the east. It was a highway in the middle of nowhere, near the place where she grew up.
All her life, she tried her best. She liked to think she never gave in. If a door closed, she found a window. There was always a way out if she kept her wits about her. No drinking, no drugs. She was better than that. She deserved better than that.
Bird wasn't going to drag her down. She refused to live an aimless life, a life like he did; pining o
ver what she could not change. It was her mantra. She wasn't going to let anyone or anything keep her from fulfilling her God-given purpose in life. She was put on this earth to hold people accountable, to help them if they wanted help but if they didn't, to keep them from hurting others. Every step she'd taken had been in pursuit of achieving a life she could be proud of.
Hugging herself, Mariah rocked in place.
She loved law and order. She loved the black and white nature of it, loved learning about people and what made a good person a good person and a bad person a bad person. They did the things they did for reasons they often couldn't articulate. She'd spent her life studying those reasons. Given a certain scenario, her ability to anticipate how a criminal would react was second-to-none. Anticipating Bird's reaction was easy as pie. If she went home needing a shoulder to cry on, Bird's response would be to go on a two-week bender.
She had another shoulder to cry on but she wasn't going to think about him. Somehow her mind kept going back to Bird McBride, to his weaknesses. She had identified every one over the years, and used the lessons she'd learned to turn his weaknesses into her strengths.
Was that what Shane had been talking about? She'd somehow turned his weaknesses against him?
He was right. She had lied. Lying wasn't such a terrible thing if done for altruistic reasons. Human beings couldn't live and work together or get things done if they didn't grease the wheels with an "atta boy" or "how are you today."
That's why she didn't like compliments. They were often fake, said to flatter, motivate or manipulate. She couldn't recall the last time someone gave her a compliment that was, at its core, true.
