“That’s hard to imagine,” I admitted, thinking of his scruffy little beard all dotted with white powder from his jelly donut.
“Well, let’s hope you don’t have to see it. Why don’t you sit? I just have to throw some things together,” he told me, finding some bags from under his bed, then going through his dressers before collecting some of his things from the bathroom. “You okay?” he asked, pausing before zippering his bag. “I know this is a lot.”
“No. I mean, yeah. I’m okay. And no, it’s not a lot. Not really. I was just thinking… I don’t have anything,” I told him.
It was bad enough to just have the clothes on my back and a couple bucks in my pocket to get from Raúl’s place all the way to Navesink Bank. I’d been fully in survival mode then. If people looked at me funny or silently judged me, I was too focused on following the next steps to really notice or care.
Now that I was safe—at least for the moment—I was able to see just how little I had in the world. Borrowed clothes from one of the club princesses and my old clothes that probably needed to be burned.
And, well, that was it.
I’d never had absolutely nothing to my name before.
Very little, yes, but not nothing.
“Hey, look at me,” Cary demanded, then waited until I could force my gaze to lift. “Don’t worry about all that shit. I’ll handle it.”
“I can’t ask—“
“You’re not asking. I’m offering,” he cut me off.
“You’re already doing too much for me.”
“Getting you fed and a safe place to stay is the bare fucking minimum here, love.”
“Still. I’ll…”
“Relax and let me handle it,” Cary cut me off again, this time with a teasing little smile.
“I… okay,” I agreed when his brow raised at me. “But I’m going to pay you back someday when I get a job.”
“Sure. You can think that. Go ahead,” he offered, getting a small laugh out of me. “Tell you what. We will drop my shit at the hotel. Then we can run back out to the store so you can do some shopping. Figure maybe that is something you haven’t been able to do for yourself in a while,” he added, reading the situation perfectly.
“That would be nice,” I agreed.
“Alright,” he said, grabbing both his bags. “We can borrow the SUV for the shopping trips, but we will have to drop it back off and pick up my bike later. Scared?” he asked, reading my face.
“Of a motorcycle? Yeah, kind of,” I admitted.
“It’s not a long ride,” he assured me.
I appreciated that. Not undermining my feelings, or telling me I was going to love it. Just giving me the facts to wrap my head around. If it wasn’t a long ride, no matter how miserable it made me, I could get through it.
“Okay,” I agreed, nodding.
“Okay,” he repeated. “Let’s get this shit going.”
So then we did.
I opted to wait in the car while Cary tossed his bags in the hotel room. Because, quite frankly, I didn’t want to waste any time checking out the room. I was more than a little excited to be going shopping.
Did I feel more than a little bit of guilt at the idea of spending the money of a man who most definitely did not owe me, someone who was already going above and beyond for me? Yes, absolutely. But I comforted myself with the fact that I could and would pay him back someday.
Oh, and it didn’t hurt that Dezi had sort of let it slip that the members of the club had a lot of disposable cash. So it wasn’t like getting me a couple of things was going to hurt Cary’s bottom line.
I’d always liked shopping when I was younger. Before Raúl kept me locked in his mansion.
True, when I was a kid, and later when I’d been married, it had been hammered into me never to spend money on myself for anything other than essentials. And to those people in my old community, that meant I didn’t get to buy new clothes until my old ones were threadbare or ripped.
Still, I got a certain amount of joy walking up and down the aisles in the big box stores, window shopping, looking at all the pretty things.
It had been so long since I’d been able to have something as simple as that.
I was eager to get a chance again. Even if I was going to be very careful to only choose the bare minimum of items. And even then, get them as cheaply as possible.
It wasn’t long, though, until Cary seemed to pick up on what I was doing. In fact, he turned the big red shopping cart away from where I was flipping through the clearance section of clothing, and came back a moment later with the back of the cart loaded down with every item I’d looked at or reached out to touch.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Absolutely not. That’s too much.”
“You need clothes,” he said, shrugging like it was no big deal.
“Not that many clothes,” I insisted.
He went ahead and ignored that. “Do you like them?” he asked, waving down. “Or you want to trade anything out?”
“Yes, for things off of this rack,” I said, waving toward the clearance section.
“Honey, what the hell are you doing?” a lady half a row over asked, looking over at me with drawn-together brows. “If the man wants to buy them for you, let him,” she told me.
“See?” Cary asked, smirking.
“I think she might want some shoes and pajamas while you’re at it,” the lady went on, clearly a bit taken with Cary. And, really, who could blame her.
“You know what? I think you might be right,” Cary agreed. “Shall we, love?” he asked, shooting dancing eyes over at me.
“Oh, ‘love,’” the woman swooned, pressing a hand to her heart. “Honey, grab on tight to this one, and don’t you let him go,” she said before pushing her cart away.
“Don’t gloat,” I said, shooting him mock-angry eyes as I followed him across the little aisle toward the pajamas. I was going to go ahead and sneak a quick look at the underwear while he was hopefully distracted. I didn’t have time to try on any bras. But, honestly, with the weight loss, I didn’t have a whole hell of a lot in the breast department that needed the support anyway.
“Hey, not my fault strangers in the clothing department clearly see how right I am,” Cary said as I went to move away from a cute pajama set I’d been looking at. “Nuh-uh. Pick it up, and put it in the cart,” he demanded.
“There are other—“ I started.
“And by other, you mean cheaper?” he asked, brow raising because he knew he had me there. “Listen, Abs,” he said, moving to stand in front of me, leaning down a bit so he could keep his voice low. “There’s no way for me to say this without sounding like a dick, so I’m just going to say it. I have quite a bit of money. So stop nickel and diming everything. Pick out what you like and put it in the cart. This,” he said, waving at the pile of clothes already in there, “is probably less than I spend on vegetables every week.”
To that, I nodded. “Dezi said you, ah, liked your vegetables.”
“No,” Cary said, shaking his head. “That was not what Dezi said,” he said, holding back a smile.
No, it was not.
“No, you’re right.”
“What did Dezi say?” Cary asked, making me wince. “Come on. What did he say?”
God, I couldn’t even think it without blushing, let alone say it.
“He said he didn’t know what you liked eating more,” I admitted. “Vegetables or…”
Nope.
There was no way I could say it.
Cary, though, didn’t seem similarly afflicted with embarrassment.
In fact, he leaned down just a little closer, creating a bit more intimacy, then just went ahead and said it. In that deep, intoxicating voice of his.
“Pussy.”
“I, ah, yeah,” I said, turning so fast that I rammed into a clothing rack, jamming my shoulder hard enough that I knew there would be a pretty bruise there in a few hours. “That was what he said,” I added, moving fur
ther away.
But when Dezi had said it, it had been kind of matter-of-fact, just a throw away word, with no real emphasis on it at all.
When Cary said it, though, there had been something like dark delight in his eyes, in his voice.
And something about that look and that voice, well, it made my belly do a strange, unexpected flip-flop.
Because my mind, which had a million other things it needed to be focusing on, conjured up a truly scandalous image.
I was a long way away from my upbringing, from my naive, girlish views on what happened between a man and a woman.
Raúl had been sure to erase all of that.
But, still, there were things that had simply not been a part of my life before.
Like, you know… that.
In fact, I couldn’t fathom a man actually being willing to do it, let alone be happy to do so.
In my experience, men were more about the taking than the giving.
Though, admittedly, my experience was extremely limited. And if you compared it to the experience of a man like Cary, well, yeah, I might as well have been a naive little virgin all over again.
Frazzled, I glanced back at Cary who was busying himself with throwing pajamas into the cart, giving me a couple of seconds to rush over toward the underwear.
But I managed to grab a robe before I left the pajamas, so I could hide the undies in when I grabbed them. Why? I don’t know. Since he was clearly going to see them when we checked out, but I couldn’t seem to find the courage to just let him see all the cute little panties I was grabbing out of the display case and tossing into the robe.
From there, we went into the shoes. I put my foot down there and insisted I only needed one pair of shoes.
“Fine,” Cary conceded. “But then you have to get yourself something else. Books, some crafts, I don’t know. Something just for you.”
“This is all for me,” I told him, gesturing toward the cart.
“These are all necessities. You need to get yourself something that is to enjoy.”
“Believe me, after not being able to choose my clothes for so long, and being stuck in outfits meant to display and demean me, I am absolutely going to enjoy all of this.”
“Abs, I’m not budging on this, so you might as well give in now.”
“Does a nice, fluffy blanket count?” I asked as we strolled past the men’s department, then the electronics.
“No, but now you’re getting one of those too.”
“I need to keep my mouth shut, huh?” I asked, shaking my head at him even if I was actually delighted by him right about then.
“I want you to have anything you need and want, how about that?” he suggested, nudging me into the book section. “Do you like books?”
“I did when I was a teen. I was very limited in what I was allowed to read, though.”
“You’re all grown up now,” Cary said, gesturing toward the fiction as he turned to look at the cookbooks.
I went ahead and let myself be amazed at the fact that he not only knew how to cook, but enjoyed it enough that he was willing to buy books with new recipes in them for a long moment before I set my sight on the books.
“You’ve been staring for five minutes,” Cary said a few minutes later.
“I’m trying to decide,” I admitted.
“Between what?”
“Well, the thriller. Which is something I’ve never read. And the historical fiction, which I know I like. And this paranormal-sounding one. Oh, and this one,” I said, gesturing to the one that, from the blurb, sounded like it might be a romance or something like that, but the cover was tame.
“Well, that’s easy,” he said, and I was just about to ask him which he thought I’d like before he grabbed all of them off the shelf and put them in the fact. “Shush,” he said, grabbing the cart, and rushing off before I could say anything. “Here, take the cart and grab some snacks. I’m gonna go hunt down a suitcase for some of this stuff,” he said, gesturing toward that section.
“Can I get you anything?” I asked. “Kale? Spinach?” I teased, getting a surprised chuckle out of him.
“Smartass,” he said, smiling. “You see anything healthy, toss it in,” he said, then turned and left me.
By the time we left the beauty section, the cart was almost overflowing.
“No, really, I have the books!” I insisted when he turned down the craft aisle.
“So you can’t read and… paint a jewelry box?” he asked, gesturing toward one.
“I don’t know if I even like painting. Or sculpting. Or… whatever that is,” I said, gesturing toward what looked like a loom for knitting.
“Well, only one way to find out,” he said, then damn near cleared the shelves. “Relax, love,” he said as we made our way up to the cashier. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing,” I insisted.
“Listen, it’s—“ he started, turning back to me.
“No. It’s something. It’s a lot. It means a lot,” I added, finding the words clumsy on my tongue, but needing to say something, to let him know how much I appreciated all he was doing for me.
Seeing the sincerity in my eyes, his face softened.
“I’m happy to do it, Abs,” he said, reaching out to touch my hand on the cart handle, but pulling it right back, like he was worried that I might not like being touched.
From there, it was loading everything onto the belt, then refilling the cart with bags. And watching in stunned silence as the number flashed on the screen, and then Cary pulled out this massive wad of cash and counted it out like it was nothing.
I actually felt high off the whole encounter as we stood at the trunk at the hotel afterward, rolling and folding all the clothes into the suitcases he’d picked up, then arranging the toiletries and snacks before heading up.
The hotel was gorgeous, upscale, the kind of place that somehow managed not to look worn-in, despite how many people had stayed there over the years.
Our room was on a high floor with a floor-to-ceiling view of the Navesink River below.
The room itself was in shades of cream, spotless, and sported two queen-sized beds, a desk area, and a bathroom that was as big as my childhood bedroom. The soaking tub made me want to weep, and suddenly very thankful that Cary had the foresight to grab a couple bath bombs off an end-cap display.
“Wow,” I said after taking a long look around the space.
“I have to go return the SUV,” Cary reminded me, putting my books and craft supplies on the desk. “If you want, you can stay here. You will be safe for the fifteen—“
“I want to come,” I cut him off, voice a little desperate.
It wasn’t like I had any burning desire to ride on his motorcycle—in fact, I was dreading it—but the idea of being alone filled me with more dread than I could have anticipated.
Maybe it was because I’d been so alone and so scared for so long. If I didn’t have to be those things again, I didn’t want to.
It had nothing at all to do with liking being around Cary.
Nope.
Nothing at all.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Cary
I’ve been around for a while.
I’m saying this because it wasn’t like I was some young guy without life experience to teach him control and patience.
I had many years to get a handle of those things.
I generally prided myself on them.
But just three days in the hotel with Abigail was making me question everything I previously believed about myself.
It all started after the shopping spree.
When we went back to the clubhouse to drop off the SUV and grab my bike.
Yeah, I mean, it was little shit before that too, but the moment I finally convinced her to climb on behind me despite her reservations, that was when shit really took a turn.
Because, see, Abigail had been absolutely fucking terrified of the bike. That meant she scooted in real close, crushing her enti
re front to my back, her thighs pressing against the back of mine, her arms grabbing the sides of my cut.
I went ahead and made it worse for myself, of course, by reaching back, grabbing her wrists, and pulling her arms to grab me across my stomach.
Holding my cut would have been fine.
I was a fucking glutton for punishment.
But, yeah, the second her arms wrapped me up, and she pressed her face into my back, it was all over for me.
Any thoughts I might have had about being a good man, about being able to simply see her as a woman who needed some help instead of a woman I could be interested in went right out the window.
I tried to convince myself that I drove as slow as possible because she had been scared. The fact of the matter was, though, that I drove slow because I wanted to drag out the contact for as long as possible.
Was that fucked?
Yep, absolutely.
Especially given what she’d been through.
The last thing in the world she needed was another man who had less than pure intentions toward her.
So I told myself as we made our way back up to the hotel that I was going to keep a wide berth around her.
I’d been naive as fuck to think that would be enough for me.
Somehow I forgot that staying in a small space like a hotel together created forms of intimacy that I wouldn’t have had otherwise.
And it wasn’t just knowing she was naked a room away when I heard the tub running. No, it was that she was just a few feet away from me, tossing and turning in her sleep so her blankets slipped off. It was hearing her little murmurs as she did said shifting. It was hearing her little scoffs or sighs as she read one of the books she’d picked out. It was her laugh as we watched a movie. It was the way she mumbled to herself when she was frustrated that she couldn’t figure out the loom.
“Ugh. It’s hopeless. I would have made a terrible old-timey woman. I have no skill with yarn,” she declared, tossing the uneven multi-colored scarf she’d been trying to get right for several hours.
Cary Page 7