Getting Caught in the Rain

by Barron, Melinda

  Dex snorted out a laugh and said, “How could I forget? It was at the Fourth of July party when we were sixteen. She told us to not get caught. Then she told me to keep my tongue in my own mouth.”

  They fell into a fit of laughter. Dex dropped the beer he’d been holding and it spilled all over them, which made them laugh even more.

  “I didn’t know what I was doing,” he said. “I just knew I wanted to kiss you. It wasn’t until the next year that I used my tongue.”

  “That’s because you didn’t kiss me again until the next year,” she said. “I think it was Agatha’s comment about not getting caught. We were both worried our parents would find out and tan our hides.”

  “You’re right,” he said. He took her hand and squeezed it gently. “Why did it take us so long to actually have sex?”

  “Well, you were working with your father at his business, and I was at school.” She shivered when he lifted her hand to his lips. “I think Agatha knew when it happened, too. Although she never said anything to me. She just seemed to look at me differently.”

  “Well, it was just weeks after that when we started dating,” he said.

  “Yeah, we did it backwards,” she said. “We had sex, and then we started dating.”

  She stared at the blank TV screen, and when, after moments of inactivity the screen saver popped up, she turned to him.

  “How did we just drift apart?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “We’ve never been good at doing things the way they were supposed to be done. But Agatha’s right. We belong together.”

  She didn’t answer him at first. He was right, of course, but would it work this time? “This will be the third time we’ve tried,” she said.

  “If you count the time when we were teenagers,” he said. “It was just kissing and petting then. But when we were in our twenties, well, that was good. Until we drifted apart.”

  “Should we analyze it, try and figure out what happened? Or should we just move on and start again?”

  “I think we should do what Agatha said,” he replied. “We should fuck like bunnies.”

  “Bunnies with benefits?” she asked. “Or more than that?”

  “We shouldn’t analyze too much,” he said. “We should just let things happen, roll with it and see where we end up.”

  “So just benefits right now?” She could live with that. She’d had two lovers in her life, one that was easily forgettable, and Dex. She would never forget Dex. “That sounds good, for now. As long as Agatha is not watching.”

  They both laughed, and then he said, “So shall we go upstairs and get back into the swing of things?”

  “That’s romantic,” she said. Then she remembered the thing she liked so much about sex with Dex. He liked it rough—just like she did.

  “So?” he asked.

  Rachel stood and backed away from him. She narrowed her eyes at him and, just to liven things up and work off some of the tension they were both feeling, she said, “It’s sex you want? I’m going to make you fight for it. If you want to go upstairs and fuck, you’ll have to catch me first.”

  Chapter 5

  Rachel turned tail and ran for the stairs. One of the worst things about the loft, though, was it was all one room downstairs, except for the half bathroom, and all one room upstairs, except for that bathroom.

  She had reached the middle of the stairs when she realized he wasn’t following her. Instead he’d stood and gone to the refrigerator. He pulled it open and peered inside.

  “Did you get any of that cobbler from this afternoon, the blackberry one? It was delicious, and I think I’d like some.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “Here it is.” He pulled out a container, and then closed the door. He pulled open the freezer. “And look, vanilla ice cream to top it off after I’ve warmed it in the microwave. Do you want some?”

  “Wow, I guess you don’t even want to be bunnies with benefits.” She put her hands on the railing and watched as he searched for a bowl, found one, and then served up a giant helping of the cobbler.

  “Should I serve you up a bowl?” he asked. “Warmed up with ice cream. It’s the best.”

  “Better than sex?” she asked. “I have to say that you’re putting a huge dent in my ego right now.”

  “Ice cream it is,” he said. He took down another bowl.

  When he was back at the kitchen island, he filled another bowl, and then, just when she thought she was going to tell him to take his pizzas, and beer and get the hell out of her house, something cold and wet hit her in the face.

  “Oh.” She put her hand up to her cheek and pulled it back, along with blackberries and a smattering of the crust that accompanied the cobbler. “You little… what…”

  “Well, we were just talking of our memories of Agatha, and I thought, why not have a food fight, just like she taught us after we saw Animal House.”

  He flung a spoonful at her. This time the cobbler hit her in the stomach.

  “It’s going to stain my blouse!”

  “You mean that tee-shirt that you can buy a hundred times over?” He flung one more, and she tried to duck and it hit her neck.

  “You jerk!” She rushed down the stairs and thrust her hand into the cobbler. She didn’t bother with a spoon, instead she scurried on top of the island and pushed her hand into his face.

  He sputtered, and she imagined the berries going into his nose as well as his mouth. It didn’t take long before his sputtering turned into laughter. She grinned and reached for another handful but he grabbed her by the wrist.

  “Enough,” he said.

  “Not likely.” She kicked out her foot and knocked a pizza box to the floor.

  “Wait, wait,” he said.

  She reached into a second box and took out a slice, or was it two? She wasn’t really sure. She pressed it against his face, and then she laughed as he took a step back, peeled away the pizza and started to eat it.

  “Should we add some ice creams to the cobbler?”

  She was just about to let him know what she thought of his idea when he grabbed her and kissed her so deeply she thought he might suck her lungs out of her body. Rachel threw her arms around him and kissed him back. They broke apart and tore at each other’s clothes. When her top was gone, he expertly popped the hooks on her bra.

  “You were always good at that… oh.” He attached his mouth to one of her nipples, sucking it hard, nibbling on it, and then biting just enough to make a wonderful shiver of pain run through her. She wanted to damn him for knowing exactly what she liked, for knowing how to please her after so much time apart. But it proved one thing to her—that he had thought of her as much as she had of him.

  He pulled her bra off and gathered her breasts together between his hands, moving from one nipple to the other as he sucked and licked and bit.

  Rachel threw back her shoulders to give him better access. When he moved his lips up to her neck she put her hand between his legs. Even though he still wore his jeans she could feel the outline of his hardness against her palm.

  She wanted to tell him to fuck her, to take her hard and fast, but she wanted to let Dex take the lead, to do with her as he pleased. He moved his lips all over her body, the smell of cobbler and pizza mixing together and assaulting her nose. Even though the smell was not pleasant she couldn’t help but smile.

  When his hands went to the button and zipper on her jeans, hers did the same for his. He pulled her jeans and panties down to her knees, and expertly flipped her toward the island. Once he’d pushed her legs apart, he pushed inside her so fast she gasped as if all the breath had come out of her body.

  Dex grasped her hips and thrust hard, moving back and forth at a pace she thought would knock them both off their feet. And then suddenly he was gone. He slapped her ass, first one side, and then the other, back and forth and back and forth as Rachel thrust her hips in his direction.

  Just when the harsh sting was about to drive her
over the edge, he stopped spanking her and started to fuck her again.

  “Use your fingers,” he said in a guttural tone.

  Rachel obeyed, fingering her clit until her orgasm burst forth, making her feel as if her body would shatter into a thousand pieces. Dex followed immediately, pounding into her harder and harder until he collapsed on her back.

  “Some food fight,” she whispered as she laid her head on the cold marble of the kitchen island.

  “The next one will last longer,” he said. “You have my word on it.”

  “I’ll hold you to it,” she said. “Now, let’s go take a bath and then go to bed.”

  “Are you inviting me to spend the night?”

  “I have no idea what you had to drink before you got here, but I think you’ve had too much to drive,” she said.

  “That’s a pitiful excuse,” he said. “I’m not drunk.”

  “Then have another beer, because you’re not going anywhere tonight,” she said. “Call Tommy and tell him to take care of whatever stock you need help with while you’re gone. I want you here tonight.”

  For a moment she thought he would tell her no, instead he kissed her gently, then pulled up his pants, and pulled out his phone.

  * * *

  Rachel nestled against Dex’s chest and savored the feel of the rise and fall of his chest as he slept. She’d never thought to be in his arms again, much less feel the wonderful completeness that came from making love with him twice that evening.

  He would be leaving soon, she knew that. It was just past four in the morning, and he’d told her before they’d fallen asleep that he had to be home by eight, at the latest. He had work to do. He had to tend to the bison, the cows he owned, and the chickens that produced eggs.

  “Tommy and Carrie will be there, but I can’t expect them to do it all,” he’d said.

  If there was one thing about Dex that she knew to be true, it was that he took his duties to heart. And she had things to do, also. Their first weekend auction with Mrs. Ping had gone well, and the second one was coming up.

  They had other customers, true, but Rachel knew she could trust her employees to take care of them. What she had to do right now was look through Agatha’s belongings and try and decide if they should do an auction, or if they should have a smaller, online sale. But to do that she would have to examine the items, put a price on them.

  The idea of doing that with Agatha’s belongings made tears sting her eyes. She’d done it for so many other people, but never for someone she knew and cared for so much.

  “Your mind is whirling at ninety-to-nothing,” Dex whispered. “Are you trying to decide if you should kick me out before morning?”

  “I’m trying to figure out a way to tie you to the bed and keep you here,” she said with a giggle. Better not to tell him what she was really thinking about. But just as that thought crossed her mind, she pushed it aside. If things were going to work between them this time they had to be totally honest with each other.

  “I’m not the one who gets tied up, as you well remember.” He ran his finger up and down her arm and she snuggled against him.

  “I’m also thinking of having to do an inventory of Agatha’s things,” she said. “It’s not a job I’m excited about.”

  He turned so that they were facing, and then he kissed her forehead. “Wait until tonight and I’ll go with you. If I know Agatha she wouldn’t have left a list of things. She was never the organized sort.”

  “I wonder if there’s a diary,” she said. “Something that might tell us about her son.”

  “I think my parents know and there’s some big story behind it.” He kissed the end of her nose. “That’s why they left. Mom wanted to tell me, and Dad didn’t, or the other way around. I hope we can find something, or someone, who will tell us the truth behind it.”

  He ran his fingers through her hair. “Truthfully, I’m ticked off that no one told me about this before now. I’m thirty-three years old. You would think by now I would have discovered all the family secrets.”

  Rachel stroked the soft hairs on his chest. “If this were a gothic novel, Agatha would be your mother, and the son mentioned in her obituary would be a red herring to keep you from finding out the truth.”

  When he didn’t respond she touched his cheek. “I’m just speculating. I read too many books, and that is Agatha’s fault. She’s the one who got me started on the gothics, where the young maid goes to a haunted house to be a governess and ends up almost getting killed.”

  She giggled. “Maybe Agatha was a governess and her employer got her pregnant.”

  “It’s not a joke,” he said. He propped his back against the headboard. “There’s a big part of me that wants to go riffle through her papers right now, to see if we can find anything that tells me the truth.”

  “You don’t really think what I just said is the truth,” she said. “I was just—I’m sorry, it’s not the truth.”

  “How do we know?” he asked. “It would explain why my dad wouldn’t push her to get her own place. It would explain why my mother was so angry because she was there.”

  “Stop!” Rachel jumped from the bed and started to pace. “It was a joke! You are taking my words seriously and you should not. We’ll find out the truth. The first thing we’ll have to do is find out when the young man was born, and where. From there we will be able to find out the name of his father. You need to text your father tomorrow. Tell him you have questions that he has to answer.”

  But as soon as the words were out of her mouth she knew that was not the right thing to do. Before she could tell him she’d been wrong, he voiced the same opinion.

  “We need to go through the papers first.” He held out his hand and she took it. Then he yanked her back onto the bed and covered her body with his. “I’d like to be armed with information before I talk to my father again. And now that he’ll be halfway across the country it will be easy for him to ignore me, just hang up the phone, or not answer my calls.”

  He nuzzled her neck and she giggled. “Stop trying to distract me,” she said.

  “But I’m so good at it.” He stood and went to the end of the bed. His cock jutted out and he stroked it gently. “Do you remember the game we used to play?”

  “How can you be hard again?” she asked with a laugh. “We’ve done what Agatha said, and fucked like bunnies last night, and yet you’re hard, again.”

  “You make me that way,” he said. “When I had no one to help me get off, no one I wanted to be in bed with and I had to take matters into my own hands, it was images of you that got me off.”

  He stroked himself again, moving his hand up and down. Rachel fastened her gaze on his prick, wishing it were her hands on him. She knelt on the bed, then leaned forward and crawled over the mattress toward where he stood.

  “Stop.” His voice was soft, yet commanding.

  She did as he asked and sat back on her knees.

  “Do you remember the game we used to play?” he asked.

  “Which one?” She wiggled her eyebrows. “There were quite a few that we brought to the bed, and other places.”

  Oh how she loved those games. They gave her great pleasure, as they did him, she knew.

  “Do you want to play a game?” she asked.

  “Do you have a BOB in your nightstand drawer?”

  Rachel’s mouth dropped open. She hadn’t expected him to ask that question. She hated to admit that she’d bought quite a few toys after their relationship had ended, and used them when she thought of him.

  “Do you not plan to service me?” she asked. “From the looks of that,” she wiggled her finger toward his cock, “you’re perfectly capable of giving me what I want. And you don’t require batteries.”

  “You didn’t answer my question,” he said.

  “And you’re acting like you’re in charge, in my bedroom,” she said.

  “Am I not?” He licked his palm, and then stroked himself again.

  “Wha
t color is it?”

  His question made her insides turn. Their earlier lovemaking had been so fast, without any foreplay, unless you call a food fight foreplay. But this—she knew Dex well enough to know that he could draw out foreplay for hours. Which meant she would wiggle like a worm on a hook until he finally decided to put her out of her misery by making her come so hard she thought her body would split at the seams.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” he said. “What color is your battery-operated-boyfriend?”

  “Why, do you want to have a threesome with it? Would you rather it was pink? Purple? Blue? Red? Or flesh colored? Do you want it to be plastic, or life-like?” Rachel turned and crawled toward the head of the bed, making sure her ass wiggled with each step, so that hopefully it would entice him even more.

  She took the place where he’d sat earlier, with her back against the headboard. She spread her legs and stroked her clit.

  “Answer my question,” he said.

  “Make me,” Rachel said with a smirk.

  The shocked look on his face made her laugh. “Didn’t expect that, did you?”

  “No, I didn’t.” He let go of his cock and shrugged his shoulders. “If you don’t want me, then maybe I should leave.”

  She knew he wouldn’t, that, like the food fight downstairs, this was just the start of a new scene. Or at least she hoped it was. She glanced at her bedside clock and saw that it was now just after five.

  Did they have time to play the game he wanted? She knew Tommy was expecting him soon, that he had his land to take care of.

  When he moved toward his pants she was sure that he’d decided the same thing. Until he pulled his belt from the loops. She watched as he undid the buckle and tossed it to the floor. Then he doubled it over and turned his gaze on her.

  “You were saying?”

  “I think the words were quite self-explanatory,” she said. “Make me. And if you think you’re threatening me with that belt you know better. I love the feel of leather against my ass.”

  “Who said it was going against your ass?” He cocked his head ever so slightly, and Rachel swore she would have an orgasm right on the spot with no one touching her. His cock was still hard, and she licked her lips.