“I’m not playing Cupid. It’s just that I hired this new girl at the dress shop and she doesn’t know very many people in town. I’m guessing Brent here doesn’t either and nobody should be alone on a Friday night.” Her gaze shifted to Brent. “My friend’s name is Daphne. She’s really anxious to meet a good guy.”
His gut tightened and a frown pulled at his mouth. “I’m not a guy.”
“I know what you are.”
“Then you’ll understand when I say thanks, but no thanks.” He nodded at Dillon and then he turned and walked out because the last thing Brent Braddock needed was a fix-up.
He could get his own friggin’ date. If he wanted one, which he most certainly did not. He didn’t need company, he needed to feed again. Maybe then he could stop thinking about Abby and how badly he’d wanted to press her up against his car and feel her curves up close and personal.
His groin twisted, pressing against his jeans as he walked out of the shop. Hell, he still wanted to, a feeling that intensified when he pulled up at the Skull Creek Inn and saw her car sitting in the parking lot.
His stomach hollowed out and he sat there for a few minutes, staring, wanting.
What the hell was she doing here?
But he already knew. They were smack dab in the middle of small town central. Skull Creek wasn’t exactly a tourist mecca which meant the Skull Creek Inn was it when it came to motels. Damn straight she’d be here.
But understanding it didn’t make it any easier to swallow. He needed to stop thinking about her and with this new turn of events, he wasn’t placing any bets on that possibility. He stiffened as he caught sight of her through the lobby window. His muscles clenched and electricity sizzled up his spine. Anticipation coiled inside him and his gut contracted.
His fangs tingled as he watched her follow Winona down the concrete walkway toward his room. They stopped just one door shy and Winona shoved the key into the lock.
No way. No friggin’ way.
Even as the thought struck, Winona pushed open the door and led Abby inside. A switch clicked and yellow light spilled through the slats of the shade that covered the room’s one and only window. He caught a glimpse of Abby, her eyes sparkling and her lips slightly parted, before the shade closed. The air conditioning unit groaned and started chugging away, keeping time with the frantic race of adrenalin through his veins.
She’d checked into the room right next to his. Forget pushing her out of his head and avoiding her for the next few weeks. He was sure to run into her again. That and there was no escaping the fact that he was a vampire. Meaning, despite sheetrock and tacky wallpaper, he would be able to hear her. Smell her. Feel her. Want her. Like hell.
He keyed the ignition, shoved the car into reverse and peeled out of the parking lot. And then he headed for his brother’s place.
6
THE FAMILIAR ROAR of an engine echoed in Abby’s ears and awareness rippled through her. She glanced at the motel room door and fought down the sudden urge to haul it open and see who was outside.
But she already knew.
The notion struck and she quickly pushed it aside. Just because the engine was loud, didn’t mean it belonged to a ’67 Camaro. That was her own wishful thinking caused by deprived hormones and a desperate lack of sleep.
She gave herself a mental shake and forced her attention back to the old woman standing in front of her.
“…looks like you got lucky tonight.” Winona Adkins wore a blue and orange flower print dress, a pair of sagging knee-high panty-hose and white orthopedic shoes. “This is the only room we have open on account of the rodeo is in town, so we upgraded you. This here’s the executive suite.”
Abby glanced around the ancient room, from the king-sized bed covered with a faded patchwork quilt, to the scarred hardwood floor and the worn nightstand. It was old, but clean. “Executive as in mini-bar?” She’d left her chili dog behind to race after Brent and her stomach was none too happy.
“A full bathroom. All our rooms have a toilet and sink only, but you got the whole enchilada.”
Abby thought of a hot shower and how long it had been since she’d felt such a luxury. “Even better.”
“The only thing wrong with it is the air conditioner.” She motioned to the window unit that made a slow, churning noise. “It’s low on Freon, but Jimmy Joe Mercer can’t get out here to fix it ’til next week on account of he’s fishing at the coast. In the meantime, you’ll have to make do with the ceiling fan until another room opens up.”
“It’ll be fine.” She’d done a seven month tou in Iraq. A little Texas heat certainly didn’t scare her.
“Maid service is around noon,” Winona went on, “but not after two on account of I never miss Dr. Phil.” She set the keycard on the nightstand and motioned to a red plastic bucket. “Ice machine’s in the lobby and there’s a snack machine right next to it. We also put in a washer and dryer just down the hall if you want to do any personal laundry. But don’t go overstuffing the drum ’cause Merle—he’s the only washer repairman in town—is with Jimmy Joe.” She nailed Abby with a stare. “And don’t go stuffing no unmentionables down the toilet either ’cause they talked Lewis Thalman—he’s the local plumber—into going with ’em.”
“I promise to be very careful.”
“We also offer free muffins every morning.” Winona rounded the bed. Wrinkled hands reached for the comforter and folded down the edges. “But you have to get to the lobby before eight if you want the blueberry ones ’cause that’s my Eldin’s favorite. He’s my grandson.” She smoothed the blankets and shot a glance at Abby’s ringless finger. “He’s single, you know. Makes a decent living managing this place for my daughter who moved to Port Aransas with her husband last year. He’s got nice eyes, all his own teeth, and his plumbing works like clockwork.”
“All the qualities any woman could want in a man.”
“Exactly.” Winona gave her a sly grin. “I could introduce the two of you when he gets back from Bingo.”
“Thanks for the offer, but I’m afraid I already have a boyfriend,” she blurted, remembering the lie she’d told Brent Braddock. “I mean, we broke up, but I’m hoping things might still work out.”
Instead of giving her a skeptical look, Winona smiled. “Well, what do you know?” She pulled a business card from her pocket and handed it to Abby. “This just might be your lucky day.”
Abby stared at the card and a bolt of shock ripped through her. A purple penis, complete with a top hat and eyes, danced across the white vellum. Beneath the image, Winona’s name blazed in neon purple letters, followed by the title Pleasure Consultant.
O-kay.
“I got an official degree and everything on-line at PleasureConsultants.com,” Winona rushed on. “I help women by teaching ’em how to keep the sparks flyin’ in their relationships. Host a class right here in the motel lobby every Tuesday night. First one is free, but then you got to pay per lesson like everybody else. This week we’re doing BJ Techniques That Don’t End in a Trip to the ER. It’s all about watching the teeth, you know. That, or you can just take ’em out first.”
“I really hate to miss that,” not, “but I’m only in town for a few days.”
“That’s what they all say.” Winona waved a hand. “Don’t you worry. I’ve seen more than one guest add a few days to their trip once they see me in action on the motel’s informational channel.” At Abby’s surprised look, she added, “It’s a small town, sugar, not Mars. We got cable, too. ’Course, the reception ain’t all that great on account of we’re still using rabbit ears on our sets.” She motioned toward the 22-inch TV that sat in the corner. “You have to stand near the window and hold a coat hanger if you want to get rid of the snow. But that’s just for HBO. The informational channel comes directly from Eldin’s computer in the lobby, so the picture is crystal clear.”
“You have your own podcast?”
“It’s pre-recorded. We ain’t figured out how to do a live one just
yet. But my Eldin signed up for one of those on-line video editing courses last year. Took bits and pieces of all my classes for the past six months and put them together on one DVD that runs every hour along with check-out instructions, lobby hours and a listing of local attractions. There’s a bake sale over at the Lion’s Club tomorrow. Got the best German Chocolate cake around. I’m thinking I’ll pick up a few for Tuesday night’s class.” Sex and cake. It didn’t get much better than that.
Winona waddled over to a nearby closet and pulled a few extra blankets from the top shelf. She set them on a small chair before flashing Abby a narrowed gaze. “But just ’cause I believe couples should have plenty of sex, doesn’t mean I ain’t a decent, God-fearing woman. This here’s a respectable establishment.” She wagged an arthritic finger. “We don’t allow no parties or loud music or carrying on. And we surely don’t allow no swearing or cussing.” She turned toward the door. “Unless you’re telling off old Zeke Mitchell from the gas station next door,” she paused, hand on the knob. “Why, he sneaks over here every morning to snag our newspaper while my Eldin is picking up muffins at the bakery. Talk about a cheap SOB.” The click of the latch punctuated the statement. Hinges creaked. Shoes squeaked. And Winona was gone.
Abby blinked and stared at the piece of vellum in her hand. Thanks to the military, she’d been all over the world. She’d seen it all—power hungry czars, crazed dictators, brutal extremists.
But she could honestly say she’d never, ever seen a seventy-something-year-old pleasure consultant with a dancing penis business card.
Tonight was definitely a first.
In more ways than one.
The thought struck and Brent’s image walked into her head. Her stomach hollowed out and she remembered the intense desire she’d felt when she’d stared into his eyes. The overwhelming urge to forget everything—her duty, her plan, her objective—and act on it.
She’d wanted to.
She still did.
Electricity hummed over her skin and her nerves buzzed. She felt antsy. Wired. This close to the edge. As if something was about to happen and she was counting down the seconds.
She shook aside the strange sensation and headed for the bathroom. A shower and a good night’s sleep would fix everything. Her muscles would relax. The exhaustion would take over. And then Brent Braddock would be history.
That’s what she told herself, but the minute the warm water hit her skin, her senses fired fully to life. The hot rivulets streamed over her flesh and she started to tingle in all the right places. Or rather, the wrong places given her current situation and the fact that she couldn’t afford to lose her focus. Her thighs clenched. Her nipples tightened.
Don’t think. Just go through the motions and get the job done.
She reached for the soap. The ripe strawberry scent spiraled through her nostrils and the pink lather tickled the insides of her fingers. She slid the soap back into the tray and ran her soapy hands up and down her arms. Over her shoulders. Between her breasts. Down the planes of her stomach and lower. Until she reached the fleshy mound between her legs.
Her hands trembled and she twisted the tap. Cold water blasted over her, killing the sensations. There. That was better. Bearable.
She stood under the icy spray for several minutes, until her heartbeat slowed and her determination returned full force. She could do this. She could push him out of her mind and concentrate on her mission. She could.
Turning off the water, she reached for a towel and padded into the bedroom. She pulled on a tank top and panties, killed the lights and climbed between the sheets. She closed her eyes and tuned in to the slow groan of the air conditioner. It whined and sputtered, spitting out lukewarm air that soon had her kicking off the covers.
Laying there, she stared at the ceiling fan and tried to ignore the tickle of perspiration that slid down her temples, the undersides of her breasts. A fine sheen soon covered her skin and her breaths grew frequent and more shallow until she just couldn’t seem to get enough air.
Crazy.
She’d been stranded in the middle of a desert in the high heat of day before and never felt this feverish. But tonight was different. An edge hung in the air. Expectancy twisted her stomach tight. The stifling atmosphere closed in, pressing down and suffocating her.
She pushed to her feet, hauled on a pair of shorts and grabbed the ice bucket. She’d done hot before, but this was ridiculous.
Then again, the temperature had nothing to do with the failing air conditioner and everything to do with the Camaro parked in front of the motel.
She came up short in the open doorway and stared at the familiar black muscle car sitting next to her rental. She hadn’t heard him pull in because she’d probably been fighting her hormones in the shower, but it didn’t change the fact that he was here. And that on a deeper level, she’d been completely aware of his presence.
That’s why she’d been so restless.
So needy.
So hot.
She drew in as much oxygen as she could gather, steeled herself and hooked a left down the walkway toward the front office. A few minutes later, she arrived back in her room with a bucket full of ice. She fought the split-second urge to knock on his door before rushing inside her own and slamming and locking it behind her. Grabbing a plastic cup, she made herself a glass of ice water and chugged every last drop. She twisted the temperature knob on the air unit down as far as it would go, opened up the few windows that ran on the back wall and stretched out on top of the sheets. Closing her eyes, she concentrated on the coolness that lingered in her mouth and pictured herself on a snowy mountaintop in Afghanistan. Freezing and miserable and sweaty.
Wait a second.
There’d been no sweating on that mountaintop. No buzzing nerves. No tingling nipples. She’d been this close to freezing to death and her only thought had been survival.
Not him and the way his lips tugged slightly more at the right corner of his mouth when he smiled or the way his eyes glittered so brightly whenever they snagged on her mouth.
Survival, she reminded herself. Think chattering teeth and numb fingers and tingling toes—
Bam!
The slam of a door shattered her thoughts. Her breath caught and every nerve jumped to awareness. Her ears tuned to the steady thud of footsteps. The creak of a mattress. A radio flicked on and Tim McGraw started singing about bad boys and good men and, well, the last thing she needed to think about was either one.
Brent Braddock was back and he was right next door.
7
JUST BREATHE. She forced her eyes shut and did a deep breathing exercise to soothe her jumpiness. She’d learned the technique to deal with the extreme pressure of being in the field and it had always worked every time.
Until now.
With the song playing and the occasional thud and creak from next door, she couldn’t seem to slow her lungs enough to relax. Not when she kept picturing him stretched out naked on the bed. His tanned body dark and sensual against the paleness of the sheets. His muscles tight and bulging with sexual tension. His eyes blazing with—
She sat up and killed the image. With trembling hands, she reached for the remote and hit the ON button. Winona’s voice crackled over the speaker, drowning out the sounds drifting from next door. She cranked up the volume as loud as it could go.
“…when a marriage gets a little stale, it’s time for fantasy role play to spice things up. There ain’t a woman alive who doesn’t go all weak in the knees when she thinks about being captured by a pirate or forced into submission by a high falutin’ sheik. It’s the same for a man. While he would never nail a real milkmaid, especially since the only one around here has a mustache and goes by the name of Hank, he still entertains the fantasy every now and then. Not about Hank, but about his woman. He’d like to see her in a short skirt and little suspenders. That, or he’d like to see her as a sexy nurse or a gypsy or one of them there hot-to-trot flight attendants. So let’s get busy,
ladies. Dress up, turn him on and help him land that plane right smack dab down the center of that runway…”
Abby had a quick visual of herself clad in a flight attendant’s outfit sitting astride a very sexy Captain Brent and her thighs clenched. The temperature seemed to kick up a few blazing degrees and she reached for the glass of ice sitting on the nightstand.
She grabbed an ice cube and touched it to her lips. Icy liquid drizzled down the corner of her mouth, winding a path down her neck. She slid the cube down over her chin, to the pounding pulse beat. The hard chunk felt cool and soothing. Cool, as in the opposite of hot. If she could just focus on the sensation, she might be able to forget the fire burning her up from the inside out.
Moving the ice even lower, she slid it over her collarbone, down between her breasts. The frigid touch grazed the tip of one nipple and she stiffened. Electricity zipped up her spine and a gasp caught on her lips. Her skin grew tighter. Itchier. Hotter.
This was definitely not helping.
No, there was only one thing that would help ease her frustrated hormones—sating said hormones. Not that she was about to knock on Brent’s door and ask for a quickie. Hardly. While her body might crave him, the reality was that she could handle this all by herself. She’d done it before and it made the morning after a lot less complicated.
One orgasm coming right up!
She grabbed another piece of ice and touched it to the quivering bud of her clit. Hunger spurted through her and her nerves hummed. The air seemed to shimmer and her heart started to pound. She slid the hard coolness along the length of her hot slit. The ice melted against her blazing flesh, drip-dropping between her fingers and gliding down her palm as she moved back and forth. The coldness quickly disappeared, until only her fingertips rasped the swollen flesh.
She didn’t meant to fantasize about him, but she couldn’t help herself. Through a haze of pleasure she saw him standing there wearing nothing but a pair of jeans and a hungry expression. Watching.
The Braddock Boys: Brent Page 4
