by Cara McKenna
“This is wildly unprofessional,” she whispered, even as her hips stroked their centers together, friction burning bright.
“Tell that to the old Duncan. He might be idiot enough to care.”
“Hang on. Let’s get the boring stuff out of the way.” She escaped his groping, swabbed the tattoo, rubbed it with ointment, and dressed it with a neat gauze square framed in medical tape.
She snapped her gloves off, jacking Duncan’s pulse. “Now, where were we?”
“Somewhere rather unethical.”
She rinsed her hands, then twined his fingers with her damp ones. “Come.”
And as she led him through the apartment, it was strange to think this bedroom had ever been anything but theirs.
Yours and mine. Ours. Her covers, and now his overpriced sheets, full of scents and memories belonging solely to the two of them.
He pulled her down onto the bed, let her straddle him.
“Say it again,” he murmured, holding her waist.
She lowered herself to her forearms, smile growing wicked. When their noses touched, she whispered, “I love you, Duncan Welch.”
He shut his eyes and let those words warm him. Her breast glanced his bandage, and the tenderness it triggered felt so precisely, startlingly right. He held her tight, stroked her hair.
“Say it back,” she whispered.
“I love you.”
She sat up, smiling, and traced the tape framing the gauze with her fingertip. “Good. Now show me.”
And he rolled her onto her back, showed her with his body every thrilling thing she made him feel, with the window open and the sun burning bright, for that entire, endless blue desert sky to see.
See how it all began for Raina and Miah in
Cara McKenna’s next scorching-hot read,
DRIVE IT DEEP
A Desert Dogs Novella
Coming soon in May 2015 from InterMix in e-book.
Two summers back in Fortuity, Nevada
It was a lazy Tuesday in Benji’s. The drone of the dozen patrons chatting in the big barroom melded with the hum of the AC and the crooning of Merle Haggard from the jukebox, all of it blending into a comforting, timeless hum that Jeremiah Church knew well. The only bar he’d ever really known, the warm and worn-out heart of the only town he’d ever called home . . .
The underlit place fit like an old leather jacket, smelled of wood and whiskey, and felt like an oasis from the baking July sun still blazing outside, even now at suppertime. Everything a bar ought to be, Miah thought, glancing around. He’d had a beer already and a fresh one sat before him, and the sentimentality that alcohol always soaked him in with was ripening, filling him with memories and an easy feeling of belonging. There were angry drunks, sloppy drunks, weepy drunks. Miah rarely ever got drunk, but when he did, it made him softhearted and nostalgic, emotions he normally didn’t have the time for. Which was how alcohol ought to work, he felt. Like saddle oil for your soul.
There was just one thing missing from this scene . . . as elemental to this place as the wooden eaves or the sound of clinking glasses, and it had been missing since late January.
He turned to the front door as it swung in, and a grin split wide across his face.
“About goddamn time,” Miah called. He sat up straight and swiveled his stool around, watching his best friend stride in. His best friend, whom he hadn’t seen in his street clothes—or outside the penitentiary visitation room—in over five months. Vince Grossier, a free man once more.
A couple of the older drinkers in the corner shouted their greetings or waved, and Vince nodded their way.
Miah abandoned his untouched bottle on the counter and crossed the room. The two men’s chests collided in a violent hug set to the sound of hands whapping backs.
Miah stepped away, holding Vince by the arms. “Goddamn, they really let your ass out, huh?”
“Not a minute sooner than they could, but here I am.” Prison might diminish some men, but Vince looked just as he should in his jeans and boots and old leather bomber, his expression pure, eager mischief.
“Prison suit you or something?” Miah teased, leading Vince to the bar. “Aren’t you supposed to be all regretful and haunted-looking? Or at least skinnier?” If anything Vince looked bigger. Miah supposed that could happen when all you had to pass the hours were chin-ups and crunches.
“I regret nothing,” Vince declared, then slapped the bar. “Raina! Where are you, girl? Escaped convict in need of bourbon, here.”
“She’s changing a keg. Here.” Miah offered Vince his own beer. “Haven’t even tasted it yet.”
“Nah, we need to toast.” Vince slid the bottle back over. “I can wait.”
“Yeah, you would know something about patience by now, huh? Five goddamn months . . .”
“Don’t I fucking know it? And over an innocent little bar fight.”
“Well, for about six fights in, like, two months.”
Vince waved the semantics aside. “Whatever. Not a single one of them wasn’t asking for it.”
Miah took a drink of his neglected beer. “Sorry I couldn’t have picked your ass up, Vince. My dad’s hip surgery means I’m really on my own with all the stock duties.” The demands of the cattle business eased for no man, and Miah was now the foreman of his family’s Three C ranch, in charge of more than a couple dozen employees and the oversight of the stock and all manner of maintenance. He was lucky to have gotten off by seven this evening, but he still needed to be up and ready to start again by five.
“No worries,” Vince said. “I know how bad that place has you whipped.”
“And then some. So who brought you home?”
“Alex.”
Miah laughed. “Police escort, huh? That fits.” Their friend was a deputy with the Brush County sheriff’s department. It was his boss, Sheriff Tremblay, who’d arrested Vince, and not for the first time. “Where’s he now?”
“He went to drop his car back home. You know Alex.”
Miah nodded, mood darkening. “Yeah, I do.” And he knew if Alex Dunn was off duty and drinking tonight, he wouldn’t be driving home. He’d barely be able to walk, in fact. Alex was an excellent deputy and a good man, and he’d never touch a drop until his workday was done, but it seemed lately that more often than not, if he had a sip, he wouldn’t stop until he passed out.
It bothered Miah. A lot. He hoped his friend could get his shit together, but it seemed like the only time they saw each other nowadays was here in Benji’s, and a bar was a fuck of a setting to tell your friend to get his drinking under control.
But tonight wasn’t the time to be getting gloomy.
Tonight was a celebration. Miah had his best friend back again.
“Raina!” Vince shouted again.
“She’d better not hear you—” The sound of stomping boots cut Miah off, as the woman in question came marching in from the back room, door slamming shut behind her.
“Just who the fuck do you think you are,” she demanded, “shouting at me like I’m some servant in my own fucking bar?”
Vince stood roughly, stool tottering. “’Scuse me, bitch?”
She made a beeline for him, dark hair bouncing with every livid step. “I’ve got half a mind to call the sheriff and get you shipped back downstate.” But she dropped the angry shtick the second she reached Vince, grinning. “How you been, motherfucker?”
He hugged her hard, picking her up off the ground and swinging her around. She smacked his arm when he let her go. “Goddamn, it’s good to see you.”
“You too.”
“What are you drinking?” she asked as she circled around to go behind the U-shaped bar.
“Beer and a shot.”
“You got it.” She cracked open a longneck, then grabbed a bottle from the highest shelf.
“
Whoa now, don’t break the bank,” Vince said. “I got fines to pay off still, and no job yet.”
“On the house.” She poured three shots of the best bourbon and slid two of them across the wood. “Welcome home.”
Miah lifted his. “Welcome home.”
“Good to be back in this shit hole,” Vince said, and they all drank, glasses clacking the wood in unison.
“Goddamn.” Vince thumped the counter with his fist, his mouth surely stinging from that shot just as Miah’s was. “Now that tastes like Fortuity.”
Raina leaned on the bar, low enough to flash a deep shadow of cleavage between her breasts in that snug tank top. That was like her personal uniform—black tank and tight jeans, cowboy boots—and her wavy hair fell wild around her shoulders. Like Miah, she was half white, but her dark hair and eyes came from a Mexican mother, whereas Miah’s came from his own mom’s roots, Shoshone and Paiute.
He could remember the first fight he ever got in, and it had been because of Raina. He’d been in maybe fourth grade, Raina in second, and some boy whose name Miah had long forgotten had called her a mutt. The boy had been older, but Miah had busted him one in the nose and made him cry. He’d also nearly gotten grounded, until he’d reluctantly confessed to his mom what the fight had been about. Then her face had gone all funny, like she couldn’t choose between a frown and a smile, and she’d sent him to his room with a half-assed order to go think about what he’d done.
The lesson he’d taken away from that had been if you’re going to punch someone, don’t punch a tattletale. But the real takeaway had been Raina—they became friends a few years later, and had remained close ever since.
She’d always been sexy to him, though he’d never fixated on her too much—it was more of an objective fact, her sexiness. She was a little too wild for his taste, or had been, back in their teens and early twenties. He’d disqualified her then as potential relationship material on the grounds that she’d slept with more people than he had. Now that they’d both entered their thirties, it was hard to care. Part of what made Raina so magnetic was her no-shits-given attitude, and that allure trumped his outgrown insecurities. After all, Miah had dated steady girlfriend after steady girlfriend, never had so much as a one-night stand in his life, and where had that gotten him? He’d been single for six months now, and he could feel the lack of sex nagging at him. He liked to imagine he was more evolved than Vince about that shit, but every man had his limits.
And lately, he couldn’t seem to quit thinking about the woman currently standing just on the other side of this bar, smiling, laughing at a story Vince was telling. Single, like him. With no qualms about getting with someone for just one night, if that’s all an affair was destined to be. Miah couldn’t say if he wanted more than that, only that he wanted her. Badly. And the shot was wasn’t helping. Made his morals feel all fuzzy and his body warm.
Ultimately, what he wanted was a wife and children: an intimate, reliable family unit like the one he’d been raised in. A soft place to land at the end of a long day—and all of his days were long. But before all of that materialized, maybe just once he ought to find out what it was like to be with a woman like Raina. Try a taste of that—a taste or a feast or whatever she might be into—for as long as it was meant to go on.
Vince started beside him, rocked by a hard clap on the back. He and Miah turned as one to find Alex behind them, and both got to their feet.
“Started without me, I see,” Alex said, and accepted a half-hug from Miah.
“Making up for lost time,” Vince said.
“What can I get you, Deputy?” Raina asked, though Alex was dressed down in jeans and tee shirt, his badge retired for the evening. His brown hair was freshly buzzed, reminding Miah of how he’d planned to joined the marines, back in high school. See the world and all that. But a motorcycle wreck when he was seventeen had fucked up his knee and those grand plans.
Raina slid him the requested double shot of whiskey, her smile tight, if Miah wasn’t mistaken. Alex’s drinking bothered her, he bet, as did her role as his bartender. Couldn’t be much fun, having to cut your childhood friend off when he got messy.
“You know who ought to be here?” Vince asked, glancing at each of them. “My goddamn brother.”
“Good luck,” Raina said, smirking. Vince’s little brother had left Fortuity seven years ago and hadn’t been back since. Without that dumbass around, there was something missing. A certain foulmouthed levity. The five of them had been tight all through junior high, high school, and after. They’d named their little gang the Desert Dogs way back when Miah, Vince, and Alex had been in, what? Sixth grade, maybe. Raina and Casey had been a couple years behind, but tenacious in their tagging along.
“You tell Case you were getting out?” Miah asked Vince.
“Left him a message last week, but I was never gonna hold my breath.”
“Where’s he at? Not Vegas, still?” Alex asked.
“No, he’s been bouncing around, it sounds like. Same number though. Last I knew he’d moved to Texas,” Vince said. “Hang on—I need a smoke.”
Miah rolled his eyes.
“What? You think I’m gonna magically quit while I’m in prison? Everybody gets a vice, Church. Wish you’d find yourself one.”
Miah was glad Raina was busy with a customer. Her dad had died of lung cancer barely a year ago, and it felt insensitive, somehow. Then again, Vince had never been one to tone himself down out of consideration for others’ sore spots.
“I’ll make you a deal someday,” Miah said. “You quit smoking, and I’ll do most anything you could name, in exchange.”
“How about,” Vince said, smiling, “I keep smoking, and you go and get yourself laid and loosen the fuck up?”
“Ohhh,” Alex groaned, wincing, then laughing. “Fucking mean, Grossier.”
“Fucking true,” he said, standing. “How long’s it been, Church?”
Six long-ass months. “No comment.”
“I rest my case,” Vince said, and headed for the door.
Miah eyed Raina, struck anew by how everything about her body so perfectly matched her personality. She could be hard and stubborn, and you saw that in her shoulders and the bold shape of her collarbone, the set of her jaw. She was sexual, too, and that aggressive femininity was reflected in the way her hips and her backside flared out from her long waist. She moved like she spoke, with confidence and self-possession and no apology, like she had every right to be moving through this world and you might just want to keep out of her way. She’d always been like that. Known exactly who she was for as long as Miah could remember.
They’d never dated or really hooked up, though they had seen each other naked back in their days of group skinny-dipping in the creek—hardly a coup. The youth of Fortuity were not a modest crowd. Miah and Raina had made out once, too, in their early twenties, at a big barbecue at the ranch, but Miah barely remembered it. They’d both been wasted, and it had felt more like a dare than a romantic impulse. All he could recall about it was the taste of pepper and whiskey on her lips, and the sounds of their friends catcalling them in the background.
He remembered watching her at her dad’s funeral, last summer. He’d never seen her cry before, and she’d looked absolutely pissed off, like her own eyes had betrayed her. Her hug had been stiff as a statue that day, her hands cold as stone. He’d felt them through his shirt. He might have even begun falling for her a little, way back in that moment. She hadn’t gone to pieces sobbing, but in the rigidness of her body and in the tight, shallow pitch of her breathing, he’d felt something he’d not ever sensed from her before. Vulnerability. Softness hiding behind that hard, willful shell. She hadn’t clung to him; quite the opposite. But in that closed-up, cagey hug, she’d been as frail as he’d ever felt her. As real as she’d ever felt to him.
They’d known each other for ages, but until that hug,
he’d never been in danger of losing track of his head with Raina Harper. Sure, he’d noticed her body plenty of times, but he’d never really imagined what it’d be like to kiss her for real, or touch her hair, or feel the weight of her in his lap or those muscles moving against him. It had almost been as though he’d never noticed what color her eyes were. A revelation, discovering that feelings hid behind that attitude, that cool self-possession, that aggressive breed of femininity.
They had a past, too, countless shared memories. Twenty years or more of friendship, and that counted for a lot with Miah. History. She’d always been fun and a touch intimidating, but that day at the funeral, she’d become more. He hadn’t seen her the same way since.
Unlike his best friend, Miah couldn’t get hot over just any attractive woman. He had to feel something first. Attachment turned him on, and possession lit him on fire. Familiarity and affection got him as hot as a beautiful pair of breasts or a stunning face. As a result, Vince had called him a pussy a thousand times in the past fifteen years, but Miah didn’t care. If you were going to sleep with someone you didn’t feel something for, what was the point? Why not just jack off, if it was as impersonal as scratching some biological itch? Save everybody involved an awkward morning after.
Miah didn’t want sex to be convenient, or opportunistic. Sex should be memorable and meaningful, and hopefully kick off the start of something real and intense and maybe even for keeps. Not some in-and-out transaction of necessity, like pulling into a goddamn gas station.
He studied Raina, standing barely three feet from him, talking to Alex. Her smile made his body flash hot, and when her gaze met his, his breath was gone. Just as quick, she turned away.
These past two evenings, there’d been a little something, hadn’t there? He’d come by last night and the one before, needing a drink to dull his frustration toward a problem employee, and a little time away from the ranch. Her gaze had lingered on his longer than usual, he’d thought, and his own gaze had been lingering more and more, lately, as his celibacy wore on. Could she tell that something had shifted in him this past year? That his attraction was no longer a moment of curiosity now and then, but nearly an infatuation? Probably. She could probably smell it like a shark detecting a drop of blood through a mile of ocean.
