Adonis Line: Filth series

by Dakota Gray

He hums. “The couple that interrupted us saw what we were doing.”

  My cheeks warm. “Did they?”

  “And they wanted to talk after you left.”

  Intrigued, I roll over so I’m facing him. He’s propping his head up with one arm, his face in his palm, his gaze intent on me.

  “Did they want to talk about public indecency?”

  I would put my hand on a Bible and swear his eyes glint. “They wanted to talk about exhibitionism.”

  I’m a bit unfiltered and open to almost anything, but this is something else. “They just brought that up?”

  The left side of his smile quirks up. “I don’t know why, but people seem to think they can confess anything to me.”

  “Well I met you not too long ago, and in that time I’ve begged you for help, let you pin me in a pool and kiss me, listened to a dirty romance in a car with you, gave you an unfinished handjob, and now, I’m naked under a cover.”

  He gives me the brow. It is so fucking cocky, annoying, and…hot. I narrow my eyes and try to pinpoint why he’s so—why am I being this openly reckless? One does not know a man until they know the good, the bad, and the monster. Every man has a monster. Some are better hiding it than others. Some only have pesky monsters.

  The question isn't what is Tarek’s, but why do I feel safe in not knowing?

  The answer comes to me like someone whispered it in my ear—he hadn’t judged me. He’s been practical, a little mercenary, and sometimes, painfully reasonable. I can see him letting Duke and Nate know without hesitation they were being pieces of shit, or that they’d crossed a line. With me, though, he does the equivalent of a shrug and rolls with my neurosis.

  “What is it, Nina?” He steals an inch of space. “You’re looking at me like I’m under a microscope.”

  “Because I am trying to figure you out.”

  He lifts his hand and brushes his fingertips over my cheek. I tremble and my nipples become aching points, needing the same kind of caress.

  “Wh-What about the couple?”

  “They started kissing, touching. After she moans, the man looks at me to see if I’m still watching.”

  The heat between my thighs slides up to nestle around my clit. “And were you?” I ask, so thirsty for his answer.

  “I was.”

  I bite my lip for a second and ask the question I’ve wanted to since I’d seen the way he kept his gaze on me. “Do you like watching other people fuck, in person?”

  “Depending on the couple or person, watching can be very arousing.”

  He closes his thumb and forefinger on my chin, lifts my head up, and sinks his gaze into the depths of mine. An unasked question hangs in the air. Do I find this scenario arousing? I check in with my body, and goose flesh has turned my skin into a sensitive landmine. Any touch can set me off. Oh, yes. I am very aroused.

  “Nina, should I have asked them for a key to their room?”

  He moves his thumb back and forth. I can almost feel the gentle petting between my pussy lips. My heart’s racing. This is not what I had in mind when I asked him to guide me in the wilds of California, but I’m not horrified or turned-off by the offer, which is pretty damn telling. I’ve never been a voyeur.

  It just feels like too big a step. “Maybe another time.”

  Since he made me wait, I clutch the comforter tighter and roll to my side like I plan to sleep. He lets out a huff of laughter.

  “Sleeping Beauty?” he asks in his low rumble.

  I adjust the pillow to get comfortable. “Hmm?”

  He shifts behind me. His hips press into my ass. I can’t say if he’s hard or not, the comforter is too thick, but the heat of him settles along my bared skin. “Am I to take this as a rejection of sex or an invitation to rip off your makeshift chastity belt?”

  I turn my head. He still has one arm propping his head, his mouth lifted in a smile.

  “You made me wait.”

  He leans into me until he closes his teeth on the soft flesh of my jaw. The teasing bite doesn’t hurt, but a tingle ripples through me. We both know if he were to tear off the blanket, I’d fuck him. I’d let his hands rove over my skin until I’m dripping and achy. I’m pretty sure he could make me beg. I want to beg.

  The heat of his mouth lessens. “What do you want, Nina?”

  He doesn’t know me well enough to realize how loaded that question is. I want my past to not haunt me in vulnerable moments. Right now, I’m not my soft spots. I’m in complete control. “When I left the pool, I was ready to climb on top of you, and now, I’m having second thoughts. What if you suck? The next two weeks, I won’t take you seriously because you were crap in bed.”

  “I can see how that would be hard for you.”

  I bite my lip to keep from laughing at his dry, serious tone. “What if you dick me down really good?”

  “How is that a problem?” he says, a laugh following his question.

  “Then for the next two weeks I’ll be thinking about the next time we can have sex. I’m not focused on the photography, but what’s swinging between your legs.”

  “Is that all you’ve been thinking about?”

  “That, and I honestly didn’t know dicks could float. Now that I know you were working to see someone else’s pussy, I’m just—”

  “Wet.”

  Yeah. “Not the point.”

  “I have to get you back in the mood?”

  “No. I’m saying you need to make amends.”

  He pffts at me. “I’m not sorry. I picked up condoms.”

  “I don’t wait for anyone, Tarek.” There’s my pride again. I can’t help but think this is the moment before the fall.

  “Fair enough.” He pulls back, taking his heat with him. “What do you want for dinner? I can pick it up, and we’ll relax before this journey begins.”

  And that’s how we leave the sexual tension humming between us. Or rather that’s how he rolls with my indecision. He came bearing orgies and kisses, and I cling to the comforter to hide my nakedness. He did it all with good humor and no underlying frustration directed my way.

  He scares me.

  Men that look like him, who spend all their time in gyms—in his case literally—should make an argument about just putting the head in. They should call me a dick tease under their breath. He doesn’t, and I don’t know how to brace myself. It makes sense for me to change the rules just to test his reaction. It makes all the sense for me to desperately need to know the mettle of the man before I allow myself a single vulnerability with him.

  But Tarek doesn’t make sense. So my stomach remains in knots as we watch a mini-marathon of White Collar while stuffing our faces with Chinese food. Before I drift to sleep, all I can see is his bare broad shoulders, and his dark fathomless gaze watching me.

  9

  Tarek

  * * *

  “Is. This. Where. We. Are. Camping?” Nina pants a few feet behind me.

  I glance at her. It’s amazing how extreme physical exertion can break down someone’s defenses. Her hands are on her knees, sweat drips from her face and her gaze begs me for a reprieve. I should let her know the torture is over.

  Like most places in Northern California, everything is uphill. Then downhill and then uphill… then more of the same with thin, moist air. Covering three or four miles is easy in theory but adding twenty-pound packs makes all the difference. It only gets worse when having to climb over rocks.

  Hiking breaks down who you are. It forces you to drop any pretense, to push yourself and see where your cracks are. I know my weaknesses intimately. Doesn’t matter how many times I try to shore them up, there are always more.

  And this is who Nina is. She’s sweating like a mutherfucker. Her lipstick isn’t marred. Though there is a plead in her gaze, I know she’ll keep pushing herself until we hit the destination. Not until then will she be completely useless. Nina doesn’t break easily, and I’m starting to really admire the fuck out of her.

  I stop, spread my
legs, and breathe in as deeply as I can. “Is this where you want to camp? Your waypoint is about half a mile...” I squint at the tall tress as though I can see through them. The bark is red-brown, most covered with sea-green moss. The hard dirt beneath my boots resembles fine, crumbled chocolate, but I know if I dig my hands into it, I’d find almost black wet dirt. “No. A quarter of a mile that way.”

  “God. You’re. Disgustingly. Happy.”

  “If I had the choice, most weekends I would hike five miles in rugged terrain, perch on a cliff, and read. Blame my siblings who didn’t believe in—no, who don’t believe in peace and quiet. Or privacy. Or personal space. Or minding their own goddamn business. They leave me be now, because they believe most days all I have is a satellite phone and a client or clients. Who am I to disabuse them of that notion?”

  She glares at me. “You just did a whole soliloquy. How are you not tired?”

  I can’t help but laugh. “I do this for a living. You need to stretch, or you won’t be able to move by nightfall. I’ll set up camp.”

  Instead of stretching, she plops down and uses her pack as a back pillow.

  “You are going to be in a world of hurt if you stay like that.”

  “I promise I won’t. Or I’ll be dead from exhaustion, in which case, stretching would be the least of my worries.”

  Amused, I go through the ritual of setting up camp. Since we’re surrounded by trees, dead leaves and twigs are ripe for the picking. I clear three spots for the fire, latrine, and tent.

  Nina is a woman of her word. She stretches as I go through the paces. By the time I’m inflating the small mattress, she’s pulling out her camera equipment. When I’m done with that, she’s taking what I can assume are test shots.

  Her dimples deepen right before she turns the lens to me.

  “Nina,” is all I say.

  “You haven’t signed a release. I’m the only person who will see these.”

  I frown at her anyway. “Then why take them?”

  “Because I’m a perfectionist. You’re a cocoa brown shade. If I can adjust my filters to pick up your hue, in a rich and deep way, I’m going to be good when I get to our spot.”

  “What?”

  She drops the camera to her side. “Camera lenses were not made with black people in mind. It takes some adjustment. So if I can get the cut of your cheekbone, the glint in your eye, and the way your muscles flex when you’re working, then I can get the detailed layers of a cliff or water droplets.”

  I had never thought about the subject of camera lenses. I never thought what made a good picture. She didn’t have to tell me photography was her passion. She’d just showed it was. I grumble in reply.

  “Oh, he’s speechless now.” She takes another picture of me.

  I ignore her and finish setting up a simple way to store our packs in the trees. I check the sun, and it’s well past noon, but we have plenty of sunlight to burn. “Up to hitting the waypoint today?”

  Her gaze skims over our surroundings. “Will it be like this, or more of an open space?”

  “This.”

  “Lush, green…looks like a place you’d find in Ireland where people go missing because the wee folk have taken them.”

  I don’t see it, but I’m not the artist. I grunt in a way that I hope sounds like agreement.

  “Just trust me,” she says.

  “You can wander around to do what you need to. You won’t get lost.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because I won’t let you.”

  “Oh, shit,” she whispers. “The game you just hit me with.”

  I tilt my head, so fucking amused by her. “Nina, go.”

  I keep my eye out in the direction she disappears and climb into the tent to dig out the satellite phone. Nate, as always, is my first contact. I give him my coordinates and expected second contact time. It’s a safeguard we set up after he left the military, around the same time I started to take people out and a story of a man sawing off his arm had buzz. I prefer to keep all my limbs.

  After the usual exchange, there’s a pause on his end. “Have you fucked her yet?”

  I am reminded of Nina’s sister with the question. “Where’s Robyn?”

  “Visiting my mom.”

  His mother lives in Georgia, which isn’t exactly around the corner. “Why?”

  “To be honest, I don’t know.”

  “How do you not know?”

  “I’ve learned to not get involved when it comes to my mother and Robyn. I still have PTSD from when they planned the wedding.”

  I cringe. Duke had provided Robyn and Nate’s mother with photos of his tuxes, and he was deemed more than capable of dressing himself for the occasion, which meant all that focus had fallen to Nate and myself. “Well, find some other obsession with your wife gone.”

  “You’re telling me there’s nothing going on between you and Nina? Are you forgetting I’ve met her? She’s smart, cunning, has dimples, and smells like freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. She’s dick bait.”

  “She’s taking photos of mythical woodland fae.”

  Silence, then Nate laughs. “Artists. Good luck.”

  The line falls quiet and I know Nate’s ended the call. I pack everything away and then climb out of the tent. The air is still. I find Nina’s tracks and follow them. She’s about a hundred feet from the waypoint. I can only guess she’s taken plenty of shots of the Oregon/California sign plastered on a tree. She’s alone on the trail, since we’re too late in the year for the professional hikers and too early for the normal crowds. In a few weeks, though, I can imagine this place teaming with amateur hikers. It’s probably going to be the same at most of the waypoints.

  I move to her line of sight, but she doesn’t look in my direction. “Everyone takes a picture of the sign. I can’t fault them. The moss surrounding it is a lush green. The wooden plaque is aged and brings out the rugged atmosphere. There’s a million ways you can spotlight the sign, but it’s such a gimme.”

  The path here is well-worn, sloped in some places, but it opens the further you get from the sign. Like any tourist spot, it’s littered with signs of humanity, a lost hat here or there, tissue, and the odd water bottle. I won’t lie and act like I know the vegetation by name surrounding us, I can only say it’s not poisonous. And truth be told, I’m dying to see what she sees.

  Eventually, she digs small holes into the dry dirt, sets up a small tri-pod, and plops onto the ground.

  I ask, “What are you doing?”

  “Waiting to see if I get any interesting light.”

  I squint up. The sun isn’t close to setting though it’s well-past noon. The crisp air threatens to make our night here almost freezing. With nothing better to do, and guessing she’s going to be here until almost nightfall, I settle in. My phone is fully charged, and because I know better, I’ve downloaded as many books as my phone’s storage could hold without an internet connection.

  Every now and again, she takes the camera from the tripod and snaps a few pictures. An hour before dusk, I sense the shift of tension in the air before the snap of her camera lens goes off with a consistent click-click-click.

  Whatever she’s seeing has turned her part woman, part machine. She’s watching her step, but her hand remains curved around the lens and steady under the flat bottom.

  I have so many fucking questions. Like anyone who has lived a sheltered upbringing, I had this preconceived notion of the kind of woman who fell prey to an abusive man. She was soft-spoken, a little shy and had a limited life experience.

  But it’s not just brides-to-be who have flocked to me over the years. Too many are women who want to build strength to protect themselves, especially from men who are bigger and meaner.

  But Nina doesn’t flinch at my touch. She doesn’t cower when I show any kind of displeasure or anger. She practically dragged me along on this trip, even though I’m a stranger, a male one. I want to know how this woman managed to be reborn in the
ashes of her previous life.

  I forget my books to watch her work. Dusk brushes along the sky by the time she drops the camera to her side then roll her shoulders. She’s sweating but smiling when she turns in my direction.

  Her step hesitates, and the smile drops when our gazes clash. “You’re such a voyeur.”

  “Can I see the pictures?”

  “How about we get back to camp, first? I’m starving, and I need to pee.”

  “But are you ready to pee outside, in the woods with someone less than thirty feet in hearing distance?”

  Her dimples flash. “I was, until you pointed that out.”

  With that, I lead the way back to camp. I find something to distract myself in the tent when we make it and allow her semi-privacy to do her business. When all I hear is her rustling through her pack, I come out.

  She glances at me. “Are you cooking tonight’s four-star meal, or am I?”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “I checked out Pinterest for some ideas.”

  I try to hold back a cringe, but I’m not successful. “Should I be horrified at the thought?”

  “I have chili sans beans, some tomatoes, lettuce, cheese, and some bags of Fritos. Dinner will come in a chip bag tonight, if it’s up to me.”

  That actually doesn’t sound half bad. “Fresh food?”

  “Fresh, but kind of wilted, though I kept most of the stuff in the icebox in the trunk before we headed out. I figure we’ll blow through that, first, and stick to whatever we can make in the hotel. Leftovers on hikes isn’t the best idea, but it’s better than hotdogs and marshmallows every night.”

  My respect for her grows. She’s a novice, but she’s thinking ahead and planning. I’ve done tons of treks. There are some people who are aghast at pissing in a hole of dirt because they simply hadn’t thought about where they’d go once leaving civilization.

  “Then I guess dinner is on you tonight.”

  “I honestly don’t know why that excites me.”

  I’m getting to know Nina. She celebrates any triumph, small or big. That’s just who she is. “Revel in it.”