by Jett Munroe
This was new, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about it. A little embarrassed, even more shy, and a lot turned on.
“Beck…”
“Don’t get bashful on me,” he rumbled. “Pretend I’m right there with you.”
After a few more seconds while her inner good girl blushed and her inner bad girl kept nudging her, she transferred her phone to her left hand and slid her right into her shorts. As soon as her fingers hit the goal, she groaned. Her clit was already at attention and slickness coated her labia.
“God, that’s good,” Beck growled. “My tongue’s there, slidin’ through your wetness. Fucking into your heat.”
She whimpered and rubbed her clit harder.
“Now I’m sucking,” he stated. “Make yourself come, baby. Touch yourself and believe it’s me.”
“Beck,” she breathed and did as he said. Usually when she tried to self-pleasure she needed a toy, but tonight, on the phone with her man, he was able to get her from tingly to spectacular in an amazingly short amount of time.
After she’d come down and could actually pay attention again, she asked, “Um, do you want me to, you know, for you?”
“Already did, baby.”
She blinked at the pillows. “What?” she asked, her voice husky.
“Came just listenin’ to the beauty of you, remembering what you look like when you come, picturin’ it in my mind.”
Oh. My. God.
“But you can make it up to me when I get home.”
“I can do that,” she responded right away.
“Know you can,” he said, a grin in his voice. There was silence, then regret in his tone as he added, “Gotta go now, babe. Been up for almost forty-eight hours and need some shut-eye. I’ll call you when I hit stateside and let you know when to expect me back home, all right?”
She had to clear her throat before she could answer. “All right. I’ll see you soon.”
“Yeah, baby. Sleep tight.”
“You too.”
After she ended the call, she by habit plugged the phone back into the charger then lay down and hugged one of his pillows to her chest. He was coming home. He’d just given her the best phone sex she’d ever had—well, okay, the only phone sex she’d ever had—and she was going to make it up to him when he got home.
It would be the best damn homecoming he’d ever seen.
Chapter Eleven
The next morning Delaney got a call from her sister just after 9:00 a.m. “I hope you have time to pick me up at the airport this afternoon,” was Morgan’s opening salvo.
“This afternoon!” Delaney frowned. “You weren’t going to come home for a visit for another week. Or did I get it wrong?”
“No, you didn’t get it wrong. The modeling assignment I was on wrapped early. And since I’m in LA and so close, I thought I’d head over and we could spend more time together. Unless…” her voice turned hesitant, “…if this is a bad time for you, I understand. Things are so new with you and Beck…”
Delaney sighed. “No, it’s not a bad time. Beck’s not even in town, and don’t get me started.”
“He’s still out of the country?” she asked.
Delaney had talked to her sister about his work and reluctance to talk about himself. Her sister had given her pretty much the same advice that Lily had. Suck it up. If she wanted him, she’d have to learn to accept him the way he was.
“Yeah. He might be home sometime tomorrow. But who knows?”
“Well, my flight gets in to Tucson International Airport at two forty-five. Can you come get me?”
“Sure. It’ll be great having you an extra week.” She’d plan on getting down to TIA at least twenty minutes before the flight was due in case the plane was early.
At the appointed time, Delaney collected her sister from the airport, hardly able to keep from hugging Morgan for an hour, but she finally managed to let go of her long enough to collect her luggage from the carousel.
As they walked out to the car, Delaney rolled one of Morgan’s bags behind her while Morgan did the same with the other. Delaney had gotten a spot in the second row, right by the main walkway, so they didn’t have far to go in the sweltering August heat. They loaded the suitcases into the trunk and hopped in the car.
Delaney started driving toward the parking lot exit and grabbed a bottled water resting in the cup holder in the middle console. She handed it to Morgan.
Morgan shot her a look of gratitude and cracked it open. “Oh, that’s good,” she murmured. “Nice and cold. And dripping condensation all over me.”
“It’s as cold as it is because it was partly frozen when I put it in the car. But after sitting out in the heat, it sure did melt fast enough.” Delaney gestured toward the glove compartment. “There are some napkins in there.” She arrived at the booth at the exit, paid the fee, and drove away from the airport before she reached for her own partially empty bottle of water.
Looking out the windshield, Morgan gave a huge sigh. “God, it’s so good to be home. I miss the mountains, especially when I’m in a big city. All you can see in the city is steel and glass. And more steel and glass.”
That did not sound like a woman who enjoyed her work. Morgan had always seemed to look forward to the next trip to Paris. Or Milan. Or London. Delaney glanced at her sister. “Are you okay? Is there more to this retirement than you’ve let on?”
“No.” Morgan shook her head. “I’m just tired of the rat race, Laney. And sycophants. Maybe I’ve been in the business too long and I’m just getting old.”
“You are not,” Delaney scoffed. She stopped at a red light and looked at her sister. “Even if you have been doing this work for fifteen years, you’re not even thirty yet.”
“I’ll be thirty in a year.” Morgan crinkled her nose. “I have wrinkles. People in this business don’t like models with wrinkles. Of any kind, but especially those on the face.”
Traffic started moving, so Delaney eased the car forward. “You barely have any,” she scoffed. “Not deep ones, anyway. Not that I can see.”
“Oh, they’re there. But Botox does wonders and not just for the older crowd.”
Wow. Twenty-nine years old and already getting injections of botulism in her face.
Morgan must have caught her expression because she gave a short laugh. “Yeah, see, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. A week before a shoot I pretty much can eat one lettuce leaf and an almond, pieced out over seven days. Have you ever tried to cut one of those suckers with a knife?”
Delaney shot her a horrified look. “You’ve tried to cut an almond with a knife?”
Morgan laughed again, this time with humor. “No, I haven’t. And I do eat more than one lettuce leaf and one almond, though not by much.” She gazed out the side window. “I’m like a female Pinocchio, Lay-Lay. Not the lying part. The ‘I want to be a real girl’ part.”
“And hence the desire to quit.” Delaney had known modeling was hard work and not eating was pretty much a requirement, which was why she hadn’t ever been too keen on making a career of it.
She liked her carrot cake muffins too danged much.
“Retire,” her sister emphasized, looking at her. “I have a comfortable cushion to live on, but I do want to find a job.” She sighed. “And I’d love to get one of those bungalows in Sam Hughes,” she said, naming one of the city’s historic Midtown districts.
“Those are pretty expensive,” Delaney cautioned.
“I can afford up to five hundred K.”
“Boy, your definition of a comfortable cushion and my definition of a comfortable cushion are two different things,” Delaney muttered.
Her sister laughed. “I can afford up to five hundred thousand dollars as long as I get a job,” she qualified. She leaned forward and stared at the mountains. “Could we go up Mount Lemmon to Ski Valley?�
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“Now?” Delaney had thought they’d go back to Beck’s, no, her condo—no, their condo, she had to start thinking of it as hers and Beck’s, not just his—relax a little bit, then maybe go over to Coffee & Confections so Morgan could get reacquainted with Delaney’s friends. But if her little sister wanted to go up Mt. Lemmon first, that was doable.
“If you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind at all. I just thought you might be tired.”
“Nope. Not yet, anyway. I grabbed a nap on the flight.”
“All righty then. Let’s go.”
She reached Twenty-Second Street and instead of making a left to head downtown, she went straight until she reached Grant Road. From there a right took her to Tanque Verde, where she turned left then drove on until they reached Catalina Highway.
An hour later, after driving the winding mountain road, watching the flora change from saguaros to pine trees and aspens, she pulled into the parking lot of the Iron Door Restaurant. They got out of the car and walked up to the vertical log fence that edged the south side of the parking lot. Where they stood was at a little over eight thousand feet above sea level, and the air up here was close to thirty degrees cooler than on the valley floor. “Careful,” she cautioned her sister with a nod toward the logs. “There’s sap or tar or something on these, so you don’t want to lean on them.”
Morgan closed her eyes, leaned her head back, and drew in a deep breath. Then she stared out over the landscape, and Delaney did the same. From this vantage point, on a clear day like today, you could see mountains that were in Mexico. And there was still evidence of the Aspen fire that had burned for a month back in 2003 and charred almost eighty-five thousand acres.
She remembered driving up here about a year after the fire and thinking that it looked like a barren moonscape, with black stalks sticking up where proud trees once stood. No one had been hurt, but several people had lost their homes.
“Oh, Lay-Lay. You have no idea how good it feels to be standing here with you. No handlers. No hangers-on.” Morgan cut her a sideways glance. “No mother.”
“Is she giving you a hard time about quitting?” Delaney wouldn’t put it past her. The way their mom acted, the only purpose Morgan had in life was to support the older woman in a lavish lifestyle. She wondered how much more money Morgan would have if their mother wasn’t such a…such a bitch.
Her sister shrugged. “You know Mom.”
Which, in a word, meant yes. She was giving Morgan grief over it. “Well, it’s your life, not hers. I’m thrilled you’re coming back home.” She hesitated then met her sister’s eyes. “Less thrilled that Mom will probably come with you.”
“Not probably, sis. Definitely. I’ve already been instructed to buy a house that has a guest casita she can live in.”
“Oh, for crying out loud!” Delaney turned angry eyes out over a vista she no longer really saw. “You know that means she’ll be in your business twenty-four seven.”
Morgan nodded. “I know. But she’s our mother. What else am I supposed to do?” She turned to look at Delaney. “If I weren’t around, wouldn’t you take her in, despite how she treats you? Out of duty, if for no other reason?”
Delaney took a breath to dispute that then closed her mouth. She probably would; otherwise, she wouldn’t be able to live with the guilt. “Well, she’s almost seventy years old,” she finally muttered. “She’ll only be around another ten or so years if we’re lucky.”
She didn’t really mean that. Even though Rosemary Murphy Hogan had been a craptastic mom to Delaney, she’d mostly done all right by Morgan. And as Morgan said, it was their mother. She might not like her very much, but she loved her. She knew when Mom died she’d feel sad but, she thought, more because of regrets of a relationship that could have been so much more than grief for her passing.
Her sister’s giggling drew her attention. “She’s only sixty-five, Lay-Lay. That’s hardly ‘almost seventy’.” She burst out laughing at Delaney’s disgruntled look. “Wishful thinking on your part, sis,” she said, her voice still quavering with humor. “Anyway, I think she’ll hang on for a long, long time. Her mother was ninety-two when she died, and her mother was almost a hundred.”
“Oh Gawd,” Delaney drawled out, half in earnest, half in jest, because she wished their mother were living on the other side of the world but loved to see her sister laugh. “She’s just mean and ornery enough to beat their records.”
Morgan didn’t disappoint. She threw back her head and howled with laughter. When she managed to get her hilarity under control, she linked arms with Delaney and suggested, “Let’s go into the restaurant and get some coffee. Maybe pie too.”
“Fashion models eat pie?” Delaney asked as they walked arm in arm up the sloping drive toward the entrance.
“This one does today.”
At Delaney’s request the waitress led them to the outside deck, where they enjoyed the cool weather and watched hummingbirds flit around the feeders.
Half an hour later, after pie and coffee, they climbed back into the car and headed down the mountain. “You know, come Monday I won’t be able to spend as much time with you. Just the evenings. So if you want me to go house hunting with you, it’ll need to be evenings or wait until next weekend.” As the car started down a slope in the road, she downshifted so the engine could help keep the car at the speed limit. She tapped the brakes a couple of times, but the decline rate wasn’t that steep. Yet.
About a third of the way down the mountain, she had to press on the brakes again and frowned. The pedal seemed to go down a lot easier than it should. At the next curve she had to brake again, and this time her foot went all the way to the floor.
Her heart picked up a staccato beat, pulsing a mambo in her throat. Her hands went clammy and she tightened them on the steering wheel. She swallowed then muttered, “Hang on. The brakes aren’t working.”
“Oh my God.” Morgan’s voice was hoarse and from her peripheral vision Delaney saw her reach up and curl her fingers around the grab handle above the door.
Delaney threw the gear lever into second, the car jolting as the engine strove to keep the speed down. They took another curve doing about twenty miles over the suggested speed limit, which was manageable but barely. The tires screamed against the pavement and she could’ve sworn the car tilted up on two wheels. It was probably her imagination, which was in overdrive, envisioning them careening over the side of the mountain or smashing into it.
She downshifted into first gear, wincing when the car shuddered again. “I’m sorry, baby,” she murmured. “Poor car.”
“I can’t believe you talk to your car,” Morgan said. She was rigid in her seat, and though her voice was calm, it had an underlying tension that spoke of fear.
The same fear Delaney felt. Her pulse thundered in her ears; her stomach churned. After another mile, they came to a curve that she had to take on the wrong side of the road. Thankful there was no oncoming traffic, she blew out a breath of relief because the road on the other side of the curve was on an incline. By the time they reached the top, her car had slowed to nearly a stop. Before it could begin coasting down the other side, she steered it off the road into a small, paved pullout and shoved the gear lever into Park, apologizing to her car again when it rocked to a stop.
Drained, she sat back in her seat, fingers still clamped around the wheel. The sweat on her back made her T-shirt stick to her skin. “Are you okay?” she finally whispered, turning her head to look at her sister.
“You. Are. Awesome!” Morgan unlatched her seat belt and leaned over to give Delaney a long, hard hug. “I would’ve totally panicked,” she said as she leaned back.
“I’m actually a little surprised that I didn’t,” Delaney admitted shakily. “But I guess since I usually downshift when I come off the mountain, it was just second nature to do it when the brakes gave way.” With
shaking fingers she unfastened her seat belt and got out of the car. Her legs wobbled, and soon her entire body started trembling. She made it around to the passenger side of the vehicle; then, with a low whimper, she collapsed to the ground. Drawing in a deep breath, she held it a moment then blew it out between pursed lips.
Morgan immediately sat beside her and pulled her into her arms. “It’s okay, sweetie. We’re both okay.”
Now that the danger was over, tears bubbled to the surface and spilled over. “Oh God,” she whispered. “Morgan, oh my God!”
“We’re okay,” her sister repeated, rubbing one hand briskly up and down Delaney’s arm. “You’re a rock star.”
“I don’t know about that. Look!” She held out her hands, showing her sister how much they still trembled. “I bet Beck wouldn’t be sitting here crying and shaking.”
“Yeah, well, he’s a guy, so if he were, I’d think he was a wimp.” Morgan winked and tightened her arms around Delaney. “But he’s a former marine,” her sister said, “and was trained to stay cool in a crisis. You weren’t.” She quirked an eyebrow. “Unless you’ve been holding out on me.”
Delaney briefly closed her eyes and shook her head. “Once a marine, always a marine,” she murmured to correct her sister’s “former marine” comment. After a moment she struggled to her feet and said, “I need some water. And I need to call someone for help. If I can get any reception.”
“Oh yeah. I’d forgotten that about being up here.”
“Well, there are a lot of spots where you can’t get phone reception at all. And others where you can get it, but it’s spotty.”
Two cars went down the road; then a motorcycle screamed by, passing both cars on the curve.
“Idiot,” she muttered.
“Organ donor,” Morgan added. “Except for his brain.”
Delaney shot her a grin. She opened the passenger-side door and grabbed her purse off the floor. After pulling her cell phone free, she nabbed her water bottle from the middle console and took a couple of long draws.
