“I totally want to do that,” she said, “but I don’t have a suit with me.”
“Neither do I,” he said, “but I’m guessing we’re about ten minutes from downtown. We’ll find a store open. It’s a tourist town. Come on. Bring your robe. Steal it for a night, anyway. Robbery Lite. Shopping, a swim, and dinner sounds like a pretty good plan to me. This place is going to have vegetarian options. You can count on it.”
“In the restaurant,” Harlan said. He thought Owen got it, but when a girl looked at you like that, a guy could forget his better impulses. And although he wanted Owen to take Dyma out of here pretty desperately, and appreciated Owen’s outlining his timetable like crazy …
“Yes, Dad,” Owen said. “In the restaurant. And then I bring her straight home. After all of that.”
The door closed behind Dyma and Owen, and Jennifer sighed, sat down on the multicolored couch in front of the flickering fire, and shoved her hair back. “I should worry, I know,” she said. “But I really am too relaxed.”
He sat down beside her, and she was as aware of his presence as if he were touching her, as if the very air molecules between them were quivering. “Nope,” he said. “You shouldn’t worry. They’ll be OK. I’ve got this.”
“Mm.” She leaned back against the couch, put her bare toes up against the coffee table, and closed her eyes. “You say that a lot, you know. That you’ve got this. Is that your mission in life? Also, do you want some wine? It’s really good. Somebody sent it to me.” She gave him a sidelong look. He was sitting forward, elbows on knees and big hands interlinked, his head turned toward her, a smile on his too-beautiful face.
“I’m glad,” he said. “Yeah, I’ll get myself a glass.” He didn’t, though. He just sat there. “So tell me about how you got so relaxed.”
“I told myself,” she said, “that I’d talk to you about your parents and your sister tonight, if we had a chance to be alone. Help you talk it out, think it through. That was my plan.” She sighed and took another sip of wine. Silky-smooth, fathoms deep, rich and dark as sin, it drifted through her veins like smoke.
She’d thought she’d had wine before. This, though, was a completely different beverage. She didn’t know wine words, but it tasted almost as good as Harlan smelled. His hair was damp, and he must have taken a shower, because she recognized the faint cedar-y, sage-y scent. It had been one of the options in the very long shower she’d taken after her treatment. She’d checked them all out, but she hadn’t used that one. She’d gone for buttercream and French vanilla instead, and had slathered the accompanying lotion on afterwards as well. She smelled so good, she wanted to lick herself.
Or, possibly, to have somebody else do it. She’d bet Harlan could lick. She’d bet he would lick. Slowly.
She wasn’t going to do it. Nobody said she couldn’t think it, though.
Harlan said, “You don’t need a plan. Not tonight. This night is all yours. You just need to tell me about that treatment.” He was pouring himself a glass of wine, his long fingers strong and somehow … clever. A wide receiver would have to have hands like that, though, and Harlan was a very, very good wide receiver.
“Mm,” she said as he leaned back beside her. “My treatment.” Another sigh. “You know what it was, because you chose it. How did you know it would be perfect?”
“I asked,” he said. “What would be good for a woman who was extremely sore. A massage, now, when you’re that sore …” He took another sip of wine. “It works, not saying it doesn’t, but it’s not too comfortable, especially if you’ve got some bruises. I figured you’d been uncomfortable for about three days, and that was long enough. So tell me about it. Describe it to me.”
Another mouthful of rich, red wine, and oh, did she enjoy it. “They called it a hot towel infusion. You’re lying down in this cozy little room with another of these fireplaces, and they give you a sleep mask, so it’s really dark behind your eyes. And they play this music, a guitar and a flute. I think it must be Indian music. Hopi, maybe? It sounds like it, if I knew what Hopi music sounded like. Peaceful. Just from that and a hot shower, I was already getting more relaxed, lying on my back under this warm sheet, except that I still hurt everywhere, so I couldn’t actually relax. And then this lady came in and put these … these hot, wet, rolled towels and some kind of weighted hot packs, I guess, all around me and over me, so it all sort of sunk in. It smelled amazing. Sage and cedar and things, like the desert. A little like you right now. I like how you smell, too.” Another sidelong glance at him, and he was smiling just a little.
He had a very good smile. He had a very good mouth.
“Yeah?” he said. “Keep going. I’m liking this.”
“I guess it’s forty-five minutes on the front,” she said, “because then she has you roll over and puts more of those heavy hot packs on the back of you and around your sides for a whole long time more. The back of your neck. Your arms. Your legs. Your butt. I swear, that felt the best of all. It’s like it all seeps in there, and all those muscles that were knotted up, they just … get all soft, like you’re wax, and you’re melting. You get to stay there forever, and the feeling of it goes all the way down to your bones. You don’t have to move, and you can feel your whole body un-knotting. It’s like you loosen. I bet I’m taller now. My discs are loosened. It was the most amazing experience of my life. Better than sex.”
“Hmm.” His voice was a low, deep hum. “You sure?”
“Oh, I’m sure. So much better.”
“The boyfriend not much good there, then?”
She smiled, slow and lazy, that second glass of wine, the scent of him, the warmth making her boneless, and barely managed to turn her head to him. “Nope.”
“A little selfish?” he asked. His glass was on the table, not in his hand, and now, he took hers from her and set it down, too.
“A little. Though he said I didn’t communicate enough. That I didn’t tell him what I wanted, or do … enough myself to make it better. I’m not much good at … initiating. Or at saying. I never knew if … Anyway. Two sides to every story.” She was still relaxed, but she was also getting a little breathless.
“That can help,” he agreed. “Though his side isn’t convincing me. All a guy really has to do is slow down and pay attention. When she leans into your kiss. When she sighs and closes her eyes. Or later on, when her thighs start tensing up. Oh, yeah. Good times. Or a guy could just ask her …” He sent his hand out, stroked the back of it down her cheek. “To tell him when it feels good. Nothing he should like better than hearing you say, ‘Oh, yeah. Please. Do that some more.’ That’s music to a guy’s ears.”
“Then I’d be the one being … selfish, though.” She managed to get the words out, but barely, because his hand was moving down the side of her neck, over her softened, perfumed skin. His fingers were a little rough, the skin completely different from hers, but his touch was gentle.
“Oh, no,” he said. “That’s what he wants. Trust me.” His hand cupped the front of her throat now. Not scary, because there was no pressure. Dangerous, still. The thrill went through her like a shudder, and she made a little noise. It might have been a whimper.
“I … told you,” she said. “About that ‘trust me’ thing.”
“Mm. That’s right. You did. Something about losing your better judgment.” His hand moved slowly upward, and she was holding her breath until he was holding her face, his thumb under her chin, then leaning down and brushing his lips over hers.
Still soft. Still slow. And then her lips parted, and it wasn’t quite as soft anymore. It was still slow, though. He was halfway over her, still holding her head, kissing her like he didn’t want to stop, and she had her hand in his short hair, the other one around his shoulder, and if she’d been melting before—now, it had happened, because she was liquid.
She could sense that her robe was parting, but he wasn’t grabbing her. He was just kissing her. When his mouth left hers, she gave a little sound of protest, but w
hen he started kissing his way down her neck, the sound turned to a moan.
He whispered in her ear, “You’ve got a line here. What’d I tell you to say?”
“Oh.” It was a gasp. “Do … do that some more. Please.”
She could feel his smile against her skin. “Yeah. That’s right.”
She was so soft under him, she smelled so sweet, and her skin was so fine, he was almost scared to touch it. You could mark skin like that so easily.
He had his hand in those coppery curls, and they were soft, too. As soft as he’d imagined. He traced his tongue over that curvy upper lip, and she sucked in a breath. He bit down on her plump lower lip, and she moaned.
And then there was her neck. He could spend a long, long time kissing and biting that neck. So he did. He was halfway over her, and his hand was finally brushing its way down the vee of her robe. He wanted to know if she had anything on under it. He was guessing she didn’t, and the idea was heating him all the way up. He wanted to lay her down, pull that tie slowly open, and spread the two edges wide. He was going to do it, too. He was going to unwrap his birthday present. And then he was going to eat his cake.
He was going to do it slow, though. He wasn’t putting her on that bed until she couldn’t stand to be off of it one second longer, and once he did put her on the bed …
He was going to do it slow.
A brush of a hand down the vee of her robe, and then his hand was slowly edging inside. Coming close, and then coming closer. Circling, teasing, while he kissed her neck and she shuddered, which was when he thumbed a nipple that was exactly as hard as anything a guy could want to feel.
One second, he had his thumb there, had added a finger to the party so he could squeeze a little, was listening to her make some more noise, and was wondering how long he could hold out, or more like how long he could make her hold out, before he got his mouth there. The next, he was hearing the distinctive sound of a keycard swiping through a lock, the click of it releasing. And Dyma’s voice.
22
Too Much Information
There were interruptions, and then there were embarrassing interruptions. Somewhere beyond that was the lady’s teenaged daughter walking in on you when you had her mom halfway undressed and you had the kind of erection that wasn’t going away in a hurry, because you’d been working on it for about three days.
He sat up faster than Jennifer did all the same. She was still stretched across the couch, in fact, when Dyma said, “Whoa. Awkward. So I guess you weren’t having dinner.”
Jennifer gasped some more, and he pulled her up to sitting, straightened the top of her robe, and decided she’d better deal with the bottom, which was, yes, showing him that she didn’t have anything on under there. Which would have been welcome news in other circumstances, but at this moment … not so much. He considered his hard-on and decided Dyma was just going to have to deal with it, because there wasn’t much he could do about it, and said, “Well, we were going to get to it eventually.”
“Sorry, man,” Owen said. He was trying not to laugh, clearly. “I did text you. Guess you weren’t paying attention.”
“Nope,” Harlan said. He wanted to say, When you tell a guy you’re going shopping and swimming and out to eat, you’re damn well supposed to stay gone for at least a couple hours. He didn’t say it, though. Owen knew it. This had to be Dyma.
He couldn’t wait to hear the explanation.
Jennifer’s hand was in her hair, trying to smooth it down. The hand that wasn’t holding the edges of her robe together. She said, “We were just …”
“Yeah, Mom,” Dyma said. “I’m not even going to let you figure out how to finish that sentence. Sorry. I had to come back and grab some clean underwear. Owen bought me a really cute crochet bikini. It’s a very pale pink and has this fringe of pearls and puka shells, and it cost more than two hundred dollars, which you’d probably object to, except, wait, you let a guy take you to a resort for the night on a private jet, so …”
Jennifer said, “Excuse me. Underwear?” She didn’t say, “Owen didn’t take you lingerie shopping, too, while he was at it?” Harlan could tell she wanted to, though.
“Except,” Dyma said, “on the way back, my period started. Surprise! Owen was cool about it when I told him, which I’ve decided is why I’m glad I won’t be dating high-school guys much longer, but I can tell I’m kind of a mess, and it’s a little hard to enjoy a romantic evening with a guy when you’re thinking about your bloody underwear, so …” She made an airy gesture. “Here we are. Also, do you have an Advil? I’ve got cramps.”
Harlan said, “You know, girls in North Dakota weren’t nearly this forthcoming.”
“Well, that was a long time ago,” Dyma said.
He had to laugh. “Point taken.”
“Also,” she said, “period shame is just about the definition of misogynistic, so if you’ve got a problem with it, I figure it’s your problem. We all get born because women’s uteruses prepare themselves for implantation, and we shouldn’t have to hide our tampons up our sleeves or make up cute little euphemisms or spend five days in the menstruation hut so men don’t have to think about that. Also, I guess Owen had better not be planning on getting lucky tonight.”
“Dyma …” Jennifer said.
Owen said, “I’ve got a couple answers to that. I’m just going to say them right now, because your mom might want to hear them, and then I think it would be a real good idea for us to get out of here pronto. First, did I seem bothered? I’m an offensive lineman. I’m also a cattle rancher. If a little thing like a woman having her period was going to bother me—in any situation, let’s just say—I’d need to find some different lines of work. Second, I wasn’t planning on getting lucky tonight. I thought I’d made that pretty clear. I don’t sleep with high-school girls. I’m saying that again, since we’re being open. And third …” This time, he hesitated, and Harlan took a good hard look at him. If Owen was hesitating, this next part was going to be really special. He wasn’t exactly the mysterious type. He was right out there. Kind of like Dyma.
Who chose this moment to snuggle up to Owen, pull his head down, kiss his mouth in a way that wasn’t going to be helping him with his resolutions much, and breathe out, “I like you so much.”
He cleared his throat and set her on her feet, since he’d somehow lifted her all the way off them during that kiss. With one arm. On the other hand, he could probably bench-press two of her without any problem. “Right,” he said. “That brings me to the third thing, which I might regret saying, but I’m going to do it anyway. You’ve got a prom or something coming up, right?”
“Uh …” she said. “Right. End of next month. It’s probably an outmoded custom, but it’s prom, so there you go.”
“I think you’d better plan on going with me.”
For once, Miss Dynamite was lost for words. “What?”
Owen said, “I find I don’t much care for the idea of all those high-school guys you aren’t going to be dating much longer. I’d kind of like you to put an end to that career. Starting now.”
She had her hands on her hips. Not a good sign. “Uh … Owen? Excuse me? You aren’t going to date me, not for real, but I’m not supposed to date anybody else? Could you be any more … Mom, what word do I want?”
“Romantic?” Jennifer suggested.
“It is not,” Dyma said. “It’s like that dog in the manger story in the Aesop’s Fables book you used to read me when I was little. Like—you don’t want me, but nobody else can have me, either? Why, exactly? And why do you get to decide that?”
“I can go out with you,” Owen said. “I’m planning to do it, too. I just don’t get to sleep with you. And I don’t get to decide that. I get to ask you. Which is what I’m doing.”
“So, what can we do?” she asked. “Is there some number of … of …”
“Bases?” Jennifer suggested.
“What is this,” Dyma demanded, “the … the … I can’t even th
ink of an old-timey enough movie. Bases? You kissed me back, Owen. You keep on kissing me back.”
“Yeah,” he said, “I did. I’m probably going to do it some more, too, because I might not be as tough as I’ve always thought. You really want to negotiate how far we’re going to go and when in front of your mom? I mean, I’m down, but …”
“No,” she said. “I don’t want to negotiate it at all. What happened to letting things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like?”
“That doesn’t mean you don’t make choices,” Owen said. “Or set limits.”
“I hate you right now,” she said.
He grinned. “Yep. I get that. I kind of hate myself, too. And I want to go swimming with you anyway. Seems I’m a masochist that way. So come on. Change into your suit, grab those clean underwear, and let’s go.”
Dyma said, “I’m doing it because I want to. That’s why.” And Owen grinned some more.
Jennifer said, “Advil’s in my toilet kit, in my bathroom.”
Dyma disappeared into her bedroom, and Owen said, “Know what? I think I’ll wait out in the hall. Sorry, guys. Swimming, then dinner. I plan to take my time, so you know. Make the most of my date. At least two hours. Probably more.” And then he was gone.
Jennifer told Harlan after a second, “She actually is embarrassed. That’s why she said all that.”
“You know,” Harlan said, “I think I got that.”
“I keep forgetting that you’re perceptive,” she said. “Also, I’m pretty desperately embarrassed myself.”
He put an arm around her, and she leaned her head into his chest and sighed. Dyma came out again wearing a hotel robe and carrying a plastic bag, and said, “Not looking. Leaving.” Another wave of her hand. “Carry on. We’re gone. Swimming. Restaurant. Not having sex. Et cetera.”
Shame the Devil (Portland Devils Book 3) Page 18
