by Amber Burns
“Us?”
It was a pointless question, and I knew it was just a distraction to keep me from thinking about what was really bothering me. Namely, Vanna shutting everyone out.
And here I thought I was getting special treatment.
Now massively conflicted, I tried to concentrate on what Violet was saying.
“Wes can be a jerk sometimes, but we’re kind of used to it. Still, I guess to an outsider it looks like we’re all this close,” her thumb and pointer were a fraction apart, “to killing each other, right?”
“Basically, my thoughts exactly,” I answered as we entered through the door Violet had opened. Finally getting a good look inside, I let out a small whistle. “And I thought your back room was messy in the morning.”
“Well, if that’s your standard of sloppy…” She stopped short of finishing that sentence, letting the laughter in her tone do it for her. Violet’s heels then carefully maneuvered her through to the back of the room where she shifted not one, but two mannequin busts out of the way to get to the window behind.
I knew that the fresh air she was letting in would take a while to circulate with all the clutter. The room, which was about the size of the small reception downstairs, had walls painted the color of spring grass broken up with strips of white. It might have been more of an eyesore if I could have actually seen most of the wall.
Instead, my line of sight to the ugly green/white walls was broken up by innumerable cardboard boxes. Some of the boxes were burgeoning open with clothing while others acted as temporary hampers. I also spotted two chipped wardrobes from another time period and several more wire mannequin busts that called this space home. On top of everything was probably a year’s worth of dust.
“It was stuck,” Violet said to me while gesturing to the window. “I guess we should come up here more often… well other than to toss stuff up here.”
The air, I noted, was stifling. Violet seemed to feel the same and fanned her face as she made her way back to where I was standing.
“Man, it’s stuffy in here,” I pointed out, unnecessarily.
“Very.”
I felt the sweat congealing above my lips. Tugging at the collar of my already damp long sleeve didn’t provide any relief from the heat, so I rolled the sleeves up around my forearms. It was funny how underdressed I was for Albany’s autumn, yet there I was, drenched with sweat within minutes of entering the room I was now calling the Sterling dump yard.
“You wouldn’t happen to have central AC?” I inquired hopefully.
“I wish…” Violet’s voice gave away her distraction.
I follow her attention to my now visible ink. I mused at her mouth opening and then closing and then opening again as she finally asked, “Did that hurt?”
“Not any more than it should have.”
“I’ve been really considering getting one. Wes has two super tiny ones. He’s only shown me one, but he can talk when he’s drunk. It’s certainly not a sleeve like this though.” She was touching me now, mumbling, “That had to hurt…”
I got none of the sensual electricity sprinting over my flesh that Vanna caused when Violet touched me. Even attached to a pretty girl, Violet’s deep purple nail was just another finger trailing over my tat.
Why couldn’t Vanna be that unabashedly easy? Even Wes was more likely to be stroking my arm. I’d have to ask Vanna to do it, or start her going before she would consider it.
Thinking of Vanna had me steering our conversation away from my body art.
“So, what happened to piss Wes off? And don’t say nothing, because none of what I saw implied nothing.”
Violet dropped her fingers away and backed away into her own polite space. “Take the words from my mouth, why don’t you?”
Her teasing was flat. The jocular tone masked something darker, sadder, and more potent; it was the emotion I sensed from Vanna, that and her own Vanna-like uncertainty.
Violet opened the gaping flap of the box closest to her. Her fiddling was part of her process. She was building up to share whatever she was bottling up. I’m patient. I could wait. Oddly, it was easier with Violet than Vanna. Probably because I didn’t have any other ties with Violet. I had more riding on Vanna if I wanted to make her my wife and the mother of our children.
“Screw it.” Violet’s decision was loud and rude; my kind of style, too. She met my gaze. “Screw Wes and what he thinks. You’re with Vanna anyways. I mean…” She paused, there was a threatening gleam in her eye. “You’re not going to go around and blab to anyone, are you? Because if it gets back to me…”
“You’ll kill me? Hide my body up here, maybe in that dresser?” I pointed to one of the two wardrobes.
She grinned and shrugged. “Hey, you said it.”
We laughed. There was never tension to begin with, but the laughter eased the oppressive warmth in the room; that and the open window might have been working a little of its magic.
“It’s stupid. You’ll laugh if I tell you.” She rolled her eyes. “One of our clients invited me to an early dinner to talk business. He’s thinking of new designs for his cleaning service’s uniforms.”
“Like maid outfits?”
“Ugh, men.” Violet shook her head, her amusement strong. “As I was saying, new designs for his maid uniforms, and he wanted to talk. It was strictly business. Although the Salisbury steak was the deal-breaker, and I’m not going to complain or counteroffer if someone is willing to pay for my dinner. I can’t help how other people will interpret it.” She breathed through her nose hard. “Someone in particular took the dinner as evidence of mixing pleasure with business.”
“Nothing wrong with doing that, too,” I said while my thoughts drifted to Vanna, our now cancelled reservations, and of her drawing away from me.
Violet continued, “If only people were less like the Kingstons and more like you. I’m sorry if her grown-ass son doesn’t know what mommy wants or not.” She was murmuring by the end of her rant.
Kingston. I recognized the name.
Something in my expression must have given away my thought as Violet smiled. “You know who I’m talking about. Yeah, well… her. Mrs. Kingston.” Then she tilted her head. “Who told you? Vanna? I don’t picture her talking about it anytime soon.”
“You picture correctly then. No, it’s not Vanna.” I almost added that I wished it were. Instead, I was looking around the room and vying for a topic change. “I could clean up in here. It’d give me something to do, especially now that I feel bad from your tale of woe and all.”
“That wasn’t my plan.” But Violet’s smile widened anyways, flashing a row of pretty pearly whites. “Are you sure?”
“Would it help if I said I want to be here when Vanna comes back? And it makes me look good. The helpful boyfriend who so deserves something in return for his hard, generous work.” I stopped shy of wagging my brows. I didn’t have to. Violet was laughing towards the door. Her head was thrown back and her long blonde curls shivered with her mirth.
With that, she left me to it.
The thing about the small, dusty room was that I couldn’t track time. It reminded me of waiting in the car for Vanna on her visit to Mrs. Kingston. That had been my first encounter with this old woman who was driving the Sterlings to the loony bin and their business to hell.
At one point I glanced at the window and noted that the air was colder and the outside world darker. Then the next time I looked up, it was to swipe the back of my hand across my sweaty brow and admire one corner of cleared floor.
I worked methodologically. The Marine in my blood framed the problem, broke it into divisible sections, and then worked slowly, but efficiently, until the project was completed.
Vanna caught me starting step two of the Sterling dump yard cleaning.
“Violet,” she mumbled and skidded to a stop more than an arm’s distance from me.
I wanted to hug her, dusty and sweaty as I was, but Vanna’s body gestures told me that she would
close up if I touched her now.
“I volunteered,” I told her in an effort to clarify. “Did she tell you that?”
“She did.” Vanna’s brows were raised. “I didn’t believe her though.”
“Believe it.” I heard the note of irritation that clipped my response. Yeah, I was pissed. All I’d shown her was my good side. I was close to calling it, grabbing her, stealing a kiss, and bending her will with my cock until she was craving me as much as I was her.
6
Some things were better settled with words. Others with pure, hard, sweaty physical contact.
“I’m sorry,” she said. Those two words brought me to the present and drew me from seriously acting out on the short fantasy of taking her on the floor, or against the wall of the corner I just cleared. I was right, the green paint was an eyesore; plowing into Vanna would have kept me from focusing on it though.
She continued, “…and I shouldn’t have assumed anything. Especially as you’ve been such a help.” She blushed when I pinned her with what I hoped was a hard stare. My resolve to hold onto the annoyance and hurt from earlier was melting, quickly.
She had changed out of the Henley and jean skirt. The riding boots were now tucked in with her dark jeans and a faded orange sweater was warming her upper half. But it was her hair that took my eyes away from the ugly sweater and plain jeans.
I already knew that Vanna could wear a flour sack, and she’d still be stunning. She radiated mystery, and then once she had you hooked, there was nothing you’d want more. Vanna was a rare prize. To think, if I’d prowled and continued my search the way I had been going, I might never have met her.
“Amos?” I ignored her and grabbed a box to heave it atop the pile I was creating while clearing my next work area. I leaned over the box, pretending to check how the added weight affected the others below, as if the stack could tip over.
“Amos?” she asked again, moving closer. Like a heat-seeking missile, I could feel her closing in. Luckily, I knew the exact moment to act.
I moved quickly from feigning the box-check to circling her wrist and tugging her into me. My arms were waiting, and my chest was ready for the impact of her small, soft form. Now wrapped in my embrace, her chest was rising rapidly, and her was breath shallow. All this before I had even started anything. Why was it that Vanna’s body knew what it wanted, but her head stopped her from seizing it with abandon?
She tried to step away, which only to prompted me to pull her back. I kept her head to my chest as my fingers laced into her dark, soft waves. The fruity shampoo she used wafted up teasingly and demanded that I bury my nose into the source.
I did.
“Amos…” My name was a shuddered breath. A stronger gust of cold wind swayed to us. I wrapped my arms more tightly around her to keep her warm and greedily steal her attention from everything but me.
“I missed you,” I breathed out as I put my lips to the top of her head.
“You keep saying that,” she whispered back. I heard that curious note tinting her reply.
She can’t seem to believe that I like her. Or is it that you don’t want to believe, Vanna baby?
“Do you want me to stop saying it?” I asked. Her headshake was immediate. Short, but immediate. “Still, I’ll stop saying it if you kiss me. Can’t say much if my mouth is busy, can I?”
I didn’t expect her to do anything, but her lips sprung up, and barely on tiptoes, she closed the distance between us. After a moment, she wobbled on her toes and her concentration on the kiss was broken. Her yelp cut off on an ‘umph’ when her mouth banged my chin. I held onto her arms, helping her regain her balance before checking her out.
“You’re not bleeding,” I observed as I leaned down. My face was inches from hers and my thumb brushed her lower lip, twice. The second time I drug it out and brought her lids fluttering together. “Want that kiss?”
She pushed out her pursed lips as an unspoken answer. I smiled and obliged. Our lips mushed together, and her moan vibrated through my mouth on an undeterred course to my confined erection.
She held onto my forearms for support and the extra touch drug me further into our connection. I deepened the kiss, and she was thrilled by the electricity rushing between us. She was taking this kiss seriously, but I was forced to come up for air on account of my burning lungs.
“You’ve got tattoos! Lots of them,” she said as she traced the ink near where she had been holding onto me for support. Her awe widened her eyes, and the laugh was bubbling out. She stared at me, perhaps deciding which shocked her more, the ink or the laughter.
“I’ve got more. Happy to show you if you want.” I was grinning through my comment. It slipped out when Vanna nibbled her lower lip and caused her fingers to stop their sensual progression up my arm.
“Can I?”
My first instinct was to jump up and yank off my shirt, just so I could be naked in front of her. I reined in that urge and offered a confident, “Sure. And how about for every article I remove, you take off something as well? Sorta like a dirty Simon Says.”
She was quickly trembling with embarrassment and uncertainty. I leaned in and kissed her soundly, the smack cocooning us in our intimacy. I needed to distract her, to keep her from overthinking things. I had to give her the confidence that she was so sorely lacking.
“Let’s call it… Amos Says,” I suggested. “I’ll start.”
I crossed my arms on my way to grabbing the hem of my shirt. I pulled it up, slowly, and watched her until the shirt over my head cut off our staring match. A moment later, my shirt laid forgotten on the floor, and I ran both hands over my shaved head. I watched her go over each inch of my exposed skin. Her gaze traced out the outline of the ashy wings over my pecs, the ‘Gods of War’ skulls over my abs, and then they followed the line of hair that became hidden at the top of my low-riding jeans.
“Amos says,” I said, pulling her attention away from my torso, “shirt off.”
I was in the middle of wondering whether I had pushed her too far when she finally acted. Vanna was slow; her timid nature rearing its ugly and unwanted head. I didn’t want to get too excited yet, but the sweater was coming up.
Patience, Fuller.
I heard my version of a drill sergeant in my head and snagged my fingers around the belt loops of my jeans to distract myself. I watched her as she struggled to separate the undershirt from the sweater for a moment. And then, blissfully, she was sitting only in a simple, but figure-hugging, light gray tee. The faded logo advertised a family restaurant I’d never heard of. I would ponder on it, but I was raring to start the next leg of our new game.
“Amos says,” I brushed my fingers across my fly and grinned as her leaning forward and swayed in place. My fingers danced from my bulging crotch, and then I stooped to unlace and tug off one boot, then the other. “Amos Says, boots off.”
Vanna unzipped her riding boots from the sides, balanced on one foot for each boot, and then set the worn brown leather footwear aside when she was through. I noted the lack of hesitation and then chuckled when I noticed her socks. She wriggled her colorful toes, and her soft giggle brought my blood to a steady simmer.
Not shockingly, I was hard for her. I wanted this girl. I wanted Vanna so fucking badly that I was losing interest in our game. But she was reacting for me, and I didn’t want to imagine losing her to that overthinking head of hers. Right then, it was all about feeling.
“Amos says lose the shirt.”
Vanna shook her head, wrapping a soft strand round and round one finger. I was afraid for a moment I had lost her when she said, “I can’t. You’re not taking off your shirt.”
She’d got me there, so I improvised. “What if Amos says lose the fucking shirt or he’ll rip it off?”
Vanna’s inhale was sharp. Her lids fluttered, and her dark lashes brushed together as she lowered her hands to the bottom of her tee and lifted it.
I’m was too busy admiring the expanse of pale, soft flesh of her bel
ly to notice she was hesitating. Her shirt was half-on, half-off, and she was completely frozen, caught up in whatever was going on in her head.
“Amos says keep going, baby. Show me more of the fucking beauty you are,” I tried as encouragement.
Twin pink splotches washed over her cheeks and then colored her neck in a familiar pattern. I was starting to formulate a new plan when Vanna fit her head through the hole of the tee and pulled it away from her body. With the material bundled in her hands in front of her, she shook out her dark, wavy mane before moving her arms down. Vanna’s chest was raising and falling with her short breaths. She was excited, and I could empathize.
A black bra sliced the pale soft flesh that was finally exposed to my hungry gaze. I imagined her pebbling nipples indenting the cups of her bra. I was now curious if my command to have her take off the damned feminine article would work as well as the t-shirt. I decided to try.
