Leave a Trail

by Fanetti, Susan

  Broad, with a barrel chest over a beer belly, his grey crew-cut covered by a dirty cap, Hank Ness looked like ninety-percent of the men in Signal Bend. An aging farmer. But the Ness family had lost most of their land, Badge had told her, and now Hank worked another man’s farm. Darlene did housekeeping at the Millview Motor Inn to help make ends meet. They could not have been more different from her maximally-educated, cultured, world-traveling parents if they had been born on another planet. And yet, though she’d only spent a few hours altogether with them so far, they felt so much like a family, like her family, the way it had been when her mom was alive, that it made her ache all the way to her marrow with homesickness.

  But she was trying not to think about her family these days. No point in being homesick for a place that wasn’t home anymore.

  She looked up at Hank and met his eyes—which were just garden-variety brown, but crinkly and kind. “Would it be wrong to ask what happened?”

  “Not sure. Not much of a gawker, myself. Justin will tell us what he can, don’t you worry.” He nodded past her shoulder and smiled. “Here he comes now—and he picked up a tail.”

  Adrienne turned and saw Badger walking quickly toward her, with a much broader, slightly taller man with short blond hair. Too happy to see Badger in one piece to be interested in the stranger, she ran forward, into her man’s arms. Her man.

  “I’m okay, babe. Everything’s gonna be okay.”

  “What happened?”

  “Isaac’s hurt, but I think he’ll be okay. I’ll tell you what I can later.”

  They had a lot of talking to do later, it seemed, what with the drama at the church quilts and now this. But she wouldn’t push for more now. “Okay.”

  The man who’d followed Badger was still standing there, and now he was grinning like an idiot. Adrienne gave him a look to let him know he was being creepy, but then she noticed his eyes. Like Badger’s and Darlene’s. So the next thing Badger said didn’t surprise her at all.

  “Adrienne, this is my brother, Jason. Jason, this is Adrienne.”

  Jason smiled and held out his hand. “Nice to meet you, beautiful. I’ve been hearing about you for years.” He winked. He was blond and handsome, and probably flirted with women by default, accustomed to their interest.

  Still creepy, as far as she was concerned. “Interesting. I think he’s mentioned a brother once or twice.”

  When his smile broadened and morphed into a look that said touché, she decided maybe he wasn’t a total knob, so she smiled.

  His arms still around her, Badger looked over her head. “Dad, I got club stuff. Can you take Adrienne back to the B&B for me?”

  “Sure, son. You do what you need to do.”

  Badger put his hands around her face. “Sorry, babe. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can, and I’ll explain what I can, okay?”

  “Okay.” He took her hand, and Adrienne and the entire Ness family walked through the Spring Fest grounds toward the parking lot.

  Darlene drove an ancient Suburban, and they were headed to it when Badger pulled up to a hard stop, yanking on Adrienne’s hand to get her to do the same. She’d let her mind wander a little, running over the tension of the day, and his sudden, forceful movements startled her.

  “Fuck.”

  She looked up and saw him staring across the lot, so she followed his eyes and saw a police car—or, she guessed, it would be the Sheriff out here, not the police—pulling into the field that was a makeshift parking lot.

  Again, Badger said, “Fuck.” Then he turned to his dad. “You guys get moving.” With a quick kiss to Adrienne’s head, he headed back, walking quickly, toward to heart of the fair, and, she assumed, the Horde.

  ~oOo~

  Badger wasn’t home for hours. When he finally came in, he came right to her, and she knew what he needed. He wrapped her up tight and lifted her off the floor, his face buried in her hair where it lay on her shoulder. For a moment, he simply held her, and she him. She knew not to question him. He would talk when he was ready. In the meantime, she could feel the tension in his muscles, the way they vibrated under his skin, and she hooked her legs around his hips, giving him permission.

  When she did, he relaxed a little and carried her to their nest. Since she’d already been dressed in what passed for her pajamas—a pair of Badger’s boxers and a plain cotton camisole—he had her undressed in seconds. She lay and watched him take his clothes off, too. He had a little ritual, even when he was hot and horny like this. He folded his kutte and laid it on the back of the loveseat. He pulled off his boots and set them neatly next to the love seat, their toes tucked underneath. He took his socks off, then his jeans and his boxers. His t-shirt he always left for last. She’d never asked why, but she didn’t think she had to. It was his chest. Even now, after weeks—months—of being together, even though she’d caressed and kissed it, had rubbed into it the special cream Tasha gave him to keep the scar as supple as possible, even though she’d lain sleeping on it, her cheek on the uneven flesh, even so, he had a small, lingering shyness about it, and his shirt was always the last thing he took off.

  When he, too, was naked, he came down to the floor and lay on her, his hard length insistent against her stomach and side. Wet and ready as soon as he’d picked her up, she tried to shift so that he was positioned to enter her, but he stopped her with a hand on her hip.

  “Hold on, babe. I need more than a fast fuck.”

  She raised her eyebrows. A ‘fast fuck’ is usually exactly what he needed when he came in and grabbed her right away. “What do you need?”

  “I need to give you what you need.” He brushed her nose with his, then brushed his beard over her cheek. “I need to make you come and come. I need to feel you need it. I need you to need me. What I do to you.”

  Her cheeks flamed, which sucked. She hated getting blushy. But she was a little embarrassed. They hadn’t done much talking during sex, other than random cries of “Yes!,” or “Oh, God!,” or whatever. Badger was even quieter than she was, usually, his own sounds little more than grunts and groans. Not that those weren’t outrageously sexy. He’d never talked like this, though. And she had no idea what she’d even say if he wanted her to.

  It wasn’t the idea of sexy talk that embarrassed her nearly so much as the way her entire lower half had clenched hard at his voice, low and raspy with desire, saying words like that. She could feel wet trickles moving over her folds as she lay under him. He must have felt it, too, on his leg, because he grinned and pushed a hand between them, sliding over her. She gasped and clenched again.

  “Yeah. That’s what I need. Okay?”

  Not knowing quite what she was agreeing to, Adrienne nodded.

  He flicked one finger over her clit, making her whine. “That feel good?”

  She nodded.

  “Tell me, babe. Tell me how it feels.”

  He did want sexy talk. She didn’t know what to do. She was twenty-four years old, and she might as well have been ten years younger, for all she knew about this stuff. How lame was it to have been a twenty-four-year-old virgin?

  Plenty lame. She knew that for a fact. Despite what she’d wanted with Badger, she’d tried to be with other guys. She’d had boyfriends, who thought her reserve was mysterious, or a challenge, or just cute. And she’d never overtly intended to—what, save herself?—for Badger. She wasn’t that stupid. She’d practically thrown herself at him for the first couple of years. Scratch that—there was no ‘practically’ about it. She’d thrown herself right at him, and he’d set her aside time and again. So she’d intended to find somebody else. And she’d thought she had a few times. Until it got to the getting squelchy part of the relationship, and she’d freaked every time. And every time, she’d been dumped on the spot or shortly thereafter. Guys did not like to be told no when they’d gotten their hands in a girl’s pants. Apparently, that was a deal-breaker. At least no one had ever tried to force her. One had tried to persuade her a bit vigorously. That had been a
dumping-on-the-spot.

  She and her friends had never been the kind to dish about boys much, so what she knew about sex she’d learned from romance novels she’d read as a teen. Or from movies and television. Or the internet (though after a couple of scary sites, she decided that was a terrible place to learn anything about sex). No. What she knew about sex she’d really learned here in Signal Bend. With Badger. And knowing how to talk dirty had not been part of it. Until now, apparently.

  His fingers left her clit and moved downward, into her. Two fingers—she could feel them flexing and scissoring insider her, making her squirm. “Adrienne. Tell me. I want to hear. Is it good?”

  She nodded.

  He pushed deeper, finding that extra-sensitive spot, that place where the pleasure was so deep it almost hurt, and she moaned, biting down on her lower lip. With a chuckle, he lowered his head to hers and sucked her lip out from her teeth, then bit down on it himself, his fingers still moving hard on that spot inside her. She felt hot and flushed as her blood surged through her body and straight to her core.

  “Tell me how it feels.”

  She wanted to give him what he was asking for, so, her cheeks afire with more than arousal, she whispered, “Like…like…um…fire. Inside me.”

  “Yeah, I like that. You feel like liquid fire on my hand. So hot and wet.”

  Wow, the sound of his voice when he talked like that. It was totally hot. His hand moved harder inside her, and she wasn’t going to be able to think about anything else sexy to say, because she was starting to make the little grunts she always made when she was close.

  “Fuck, I love it when your body gets all tense and squirmy like this.” Suddenly, he moved downward, his hand still moving, pistoning his fingers as he scissored them inside her, and he latched onto her left breast, sucking her nipple deep, his tongue working it as his fingers worked inside.

  “Oh, God, Badge. I can’t talk. I can’t…I can’t…”

  He didn’t answer except to do everything he was doing to her a little bit harder. And then he bit lightly down on her nipple and pulled.

  He’d never done that. If he’d asked if he could, she would have said no, because that seemed like it shouldn’t be a sex thing. Like it would hurt too much.

  It didn’t.

  It hurt a little, but it was the kind of hurt that was so totally worth it that you sought it out. In her frenzied mind, she had a scant second for the thought that it was kind of like the way getting a knot rubbed out of a muscle hurt a lot at first, but you were glad and wanted even harder rubbing because you knew you’d feel better when it was over. The pain meant something awesome was happening, and so the pain itself was awesome. Or something like that.

  Then her mind stopped thinking completely and went to white noise. Or fireworks. She came so hard she screamed, and her legs drew up and kicked out in tandem again and again. She almost felt like she needed to run away from it, the feeling was so intense.

  He let go of her breast when she started really jumping around, and she was glad for that, even as she missed the sensation of his teeth clamped on her. She didn’t want to end up bruised or bleeding. When she was able to come down and find her mind and her breath, she opened her eyes to see him grinning proudly down at her.

  “That’s what I’m talking about.”

  She laughed. “That was excellent.”

  “I’m not done yet. That was just the warm-up.” Again, he scooted downward, but this time he didn’t stop at her breasts. He kissed each one, then kept going, painting light circles on her belly with his beard until his head was between her legs. Sliding his arms under her thighs, he held her close and looked up, along her body, to meet her eyes.

  “You ready to go again?”

  He didn’t wait for her to answer; he just buried his face between her legs, and she felt his tongue lapping through her folds. She loved this, maybe most of all. He’d told her he’d never done it for any other woman, not ever. Almost everything about sex was new to her, so everything she experienced, Badger could claim as his. He, on the other hand, was much more experienced. This was the only thing that was just hers. She loved it.

  Since Badger was the only man who’d ever gone down on her, she didn’t know what it was like any other way. But still she felt that she could endorse the benefits of the bearded man. As his tongue moved over and through her folds, tasting her, teasing her, entering her, she felt his beard all around, especially on her clit, the soft hair rubbing and rubbing, not abrading but sending her quickly higher. She moaned loud and long, arching her back and rolling her hips.

  He pulled away just as she was starting to really ramp up. “Tell me.”

  She looked down her torso at him, and saw how wet with her his face was. That was so hot. But he wanted words again. And she didn’t have any.

  “You taste so good. Sweet and salty, like caramel. I could live off the taste of you.” He brushed his chin over her clit, making her jump and gasp. “Sometimes, when I’m out, I catch your scent—like it’s still on me, even after a shower. I get so hard I have to go take care of it. I’ve even pulled off the road a couple of times. And I think of you. Your hands on me. And being inside you.” He bent his head, and she felt his tongue run through her folds, bottom to top, ending with a firm lick of her clit. “Tell me, babe.”

  She couldn’t. She didn’t know how to talk like that. It was so good, so hot to hear him. He was great at it, and she’d had no idea. But she wasn’t good at it. It made her embarrassed, and it made her feel like she was letting him down.

  And then she thought of something she could try to make up for it. She sat up, surprising him. He sat back on his heels. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. But I want to try something. Can we?”

  “You bet.” He grinned and combed his fingers through her hair. With all the thrashing around she’d just done, she probably looked like Sybill Trelawney.

  Before she changed her mind, she said, “Okay, lie down.”

  With a cocked eyebrow, he did as she asked, lying on his back. His erection was enormous, and his tip was wet. He’d been sacrificing himself for her. Well, no more of that. After taking a moment to consider the logistics of what she planned—she knew it could work; it was famous, after all—she crawled over and straddled him. Backwards. With her knees at about the level of his chest.

  He saw what she intended as she maneuvered into position and, with a murmured, “Ah, babe,” he slid his arms between her legs, bringing her bottom half farther up toward his head and holding her snugly, his arms wrapped around her thighs.

  She circled her hand around his base and lowered onto her other elbow. When she sucked him into her mouth, he clutched her hard, spreading her even wider, and absolutely devoured her.

  He was too big for her to take into her mouth completely—or maybe it was just that she hadn’t figured out that whole deep throat thing, which, frankly, freaked her out. But she’d figured out how to use her hands and tongue in ways that he seemed to like just fine. Whenever he started getting thrusty, she’d back off and use her hands to finish him.

  It was much harder to concentrate with him sucking on her clit at the same time, though. She kept stopping to focus on how he was making her feel, and to flex on his face, until he’d pause and, without taking his mouth off of her, grunt, and she’d get back to work on him. Finally, she simply could not multitask any longer, and she dropped her head to his thigh, one hand still gripping him, and let the climax overwhelm her, carbonating her blood and making it explode right at the point where his tongue touched her. To hold back her scream this time, she bit down, as she often did into a pillow or a blanket when she was turned away from him. But this time it was his thigh she had between her teeth, which she realized when she tasted blood.

  That realization cut the waning end of her orgasm short, and she sat up and scooted down a little, so she wouldn’t land on his face. She looked at his thigh: a perfect, bleeding imprint of half her teeth, tops and bottoms.
<
br />   He was laughing quietly. “Ow, babe.”

  “I’m so sorry.” She made to move off him, humiliated, but he held on.

  “It’s okay. Totally worth it. But…” He made himself bob in her hand.

  Oh, right. The least she could do was finish him. Straddling his chest now, she bent forward and took him into her mouth. Now she could focus, and she listened and felt and could tell what he liked best. His favorite thing was both hands around him, wringing with moderate pressure in opposite directions, while she sucked his head and a few inches more. Getting her off—twice—had him close already, so it was only a matter of minutes before he was bucking under her, trying to pull her away.

  “C’mon, babe. I can’t hold…” He didn’t finish. She could hear in the tense strain of his voice why not.

  He’d never come in her mouth. She was curious, but he always pulled her away. This time, though, in this position, he couldn’t. So she stayed on him. How bad could it be? Lots of people swallowed. She sucked harder, squeezed harder, and then moved one hand down to his balls and gave them a squeeze, and that was it. His fingers dug into her hips and his legs stretched to tautness. He made an unholy growling sound that she could feel rumbling in his chest, against her core, and he shot into her mouth. She swallowed and kept sucking until he was twitching erratically under her, and then she let him go. When she did, he relaxed completely, going so slack that if she hadn’t been rolling off him already, she might well have fallen.

  Well. It didn’t taste like caramel, that was for sure. But it wasn’t bad. And she really liked what it had done to him.

  She felt his hand ease around her arm, and she turned to him. He was smiling dopily, but there was a crease of worry between his eyes. “You okay?”

  “Totally. I liked that a lot. Are we done?”

  Laughing, he pulled her to his chest, under the strong shelter of his arm. “I need a couple minutes now. But no, we’re not done until you say we are.”

  With her head pillowed on his chest, Adrienne felt sated and content—a far cry from how she’d felt earlier in the day, when she’d been cowering under a picnic table, wondering if Badger was going to get hurt or worse.