by Naomi Niles
“I get you,” his head was nodding in understanding. “But what does it mean for the future?”
“Well, she seems to think it could mean some endorsements. That’s big money, buddy. We play it right and it could mean a nice little nest egg for you. Might be enough to get you started in some little business when your ridin’ days are over,” I said, bringing up a sensitive subject and hoping he would take it well.
“Yeah, I get you,” he said.
“So? You in?”
He thought a moment and just then Corrine called from inside the house to say that lunch was ready. That seemed to seal the deal. “I’m in,” he said abruptly. “Can’t get no worse than it is, I guess.”
I nodded and reached forward to shake his hand. “I’ll be in touch,” I told him and handed him the empty beer bottle.
“Stayin’ for lunch?” he invited.
“Nope, but thanks. Ate just before I came and I got a few more guys to talk to. I’m building just the right group for this. I don’t want to stand out, and neither do you. Group publicity is much safer, as you know.”
“You whip that herd into shape, Blake,” he urged and watched me as I got into the truck and turned around to pull down his drive.
I paid a few more visits that afternoon and wound up at the ranch just before dinner. Silver didn’t hear me come in; she was napping on the chair by the pool. I took advantage of the time by studying her. Her long, dancer’s legs made me hard and I longed to kiss the inside of her thighs. Her tummy was flat and I could see the blonde hairs on her arm glisten in the late afternoon sunshine. I let myself go there; that valley between her full breasts which were now in a soft-pink bikini top with ruffles at the bottom. It was like seeing her as a young girl and a beautiful woman all in one package. I wasn’t sure what she was blocking about her childhood, but I had a feeling it wasn’t good and it made me want to protect her.
She stirred and her eyes opened sleepily, making me want to hug her to my chest. “Hi,” she murmured.
“Hi, yourself.”
“You just get home?” she asked and it stirred me to hear her refer to the ranch as home.
“Yup.”
“I’ll get up and start dinner.”
“I’ve got a better idea. How about you get dressed and let me take you out on the town?”
“You sure? I mean, that’s really not like business, is it?” Her brow was crinkled as though she was trying to keep things professional but her heart wanted to do otherwise.
“We’ll call it a business meeting,” I told her and she smiled and nodded.
“Be right with you,” she said and disappeared inside. I took a quick dip and then hit the shower and dressed myself. I splashed on a little cologne but wouldn’t let myself ignore what I’d done.
I was having a glass of wine in the living area when she came in. She could have knocked me over. Her perfect figure was encased in a tight, black dress and those legs ended in high spiked heels. Her silver head was piled atop her head and held in place with a single gold pin. She literally glittered from head to foot. My entire body groaned internally to take her into my arms.
“Wow,” I breathed in a soft tone.
“You like?”
I could tell that my next words would somehow make or break a huge part of her life. “You are stunning.”
She smiled, as much to herself as to me and nodded. “Thank you.”
We got into the Escalade and she let me drive. I took her to the best restaurant in Dallas and we ordered a half different entrees and picked a bite from each, just to be extravagant. I ordered a selection of wines to complement each of the foods and we sampled these as well. There was a small orchestra next to the dance floor and that night I held a silver angel in my arms.
It was well through the night before we pulled back into the drive and I went around and opened the door for her. She turned to get out and instead, I scooped her into my arms and carried her indoors. I turned down her hallway and laid her on her bed. I wanted my silver angel.
Chapter 11
Meli
Blake stood over me, looking down as if I was made of precious glass. The light from the entryway spilled into my room, but it was otherwise dark. He bent down and pulled the golden pin that held my hair atop my head. It felt so good and so decadent to be released and I gently shook my head to spread it across the pillow.
He was kicking off his shoes and socks without even bending over. His jacket hit the floor and I reached upward and removed his tie and unbuttoned his shirt. We both knew this was coming; we were both ready. The tension all evening had been unbearable.
Blake’s hands moved down to the hemline of my dress and slowly raised it, kissing the inside of my legs and thighs as it went upward. Careful not to tear the fabric, he eased it upward and caught his breath as he discovered I was wearing nothing beneath. He stopped as he reached my breasts, using one hand to touch me as if I was something rare and precious. His fingertip circled my nipple and I felt the electric shock down to my woman’s grotto. With a patience I didn’t think him capable of possessing, he removed the dress over my head and then ran his fingers through my hair, fanning it out even further. It was as if he’d had a fantasy of an image of me for some time and was just now unleashing it for himself.
I reached toward him and looped my fingers inside the waistband of his pants, sliding them slowly from left to right. His head went back as he savored he sensation and I took this moment to hook the zipper and lower it, unbuttoning the waistband at the same time. His penis sprang forward and I could see it straining against the fabric of his underwear. With one hand, I gently reached up and lowered the shorts and he kicked them off his thighs.
His magnificent penis was hard and calling for my touch. I longed to run my hand over its length and finally gave in to what I’d wanted to do since the night he had dived into the pool naked. I sat up and slid my fingers around its base, slowly circling and stroking it higher and higher until I’d reached the tip. I opened my mouth and used both hands to stroke him into the depths of my throat. He groaned and I knew there was hot blood coursing through every part of him.
“I want you,” he whispered and I took one of his hands and ran it up between my thighs, parting my legs at the same time. His head snapped forward and the gray eyes sought the image of my opened womanhood. His mouth opened as he caught his breath and pulled himself from my throat and dove into me with his mouth.
I lay back against the cushions with my eyes closed, relishing in the sensation of his sucking mouth manipulating the tender flesh of my tunnel. I ran my hands over his torso, memorizing the pattern of scars and the thickness of the hair on his chest. I was laying claim and I knew it.
I opened my eyes and in the dim light I saw a tattoo. Puzzled, I finally made it out to be a hawk. “A hawk?” I whispered, the curiosity seemed to enhance the sensations he was feeding into my body.
“Childhood pet. Hush now, Silver. I want to be inside of you and for once, please let it be without arguments.”
I smiled and nodded, welcoming him and pulling his head against my breasts.
Blake ran his mouth along my skin, licking beneath my breasts; the sensation was almost more than I could handle. I could feel the heat building inside and my legs parted even further of their own accord. He knew what he was doing for at that moment he rose high above me and then … the bull rider lowered himself into the creature … into me.
I rocked my hips and his breath came in gasps as the sensations rolled through him. He kissed me softly and then rose again before plunging deeply inside. He was claiming me, just as I had him. Moreover, I adored it.
His rhythm increased and with a furious possession, he drove into me, time after time after time. I could feel myself gushing and I raised my hips to meet him. His hands were all over me and I realized what stupendous control he had to support his torso. There could be nothing better than the almost artistic use of his body as he entered me and all I knew was that I want
ed more.
At some point, my eyes rolled back and the lights from heaven lowered into my head, bringing with them a convulsive heat that let me leave my body. I felt him stiffen and his heat flooded me. Together we had reached the highest arches of heaven and we clung to one another with the realization that there had never been anything that compared to what we were feeling.
He collapsed next to me and I curled into the hollow between his heaving chest and muscled arm. It was then that he uttered the words that brought the heavens crashing down upon us.
“I love you, Silver.”
Chapter 12
Blake
I felt different when I woke up that morning, although it took me some time to put my finger on exactly why that was. I wasn’t in my own bed; that was my first clue. I was naked, which instantly triggered my memory of the night before, but when I looked, Silver was missing.
“Hey, honey …” I called to her, wishing she’d stayed in bed with me for a little morning reunion. She didn’t answer. “Hey, honey …”
I was pulling on my pants as I went into the hallway and didn’t see her. I looked out to the pool but she wasn’t there, either. I figured she’d probably had some guilt about the night before and had maybe gone for a run. I put on the coffee and waited.
She didn’t come back. I knew something was very wrong and decided to go looking for her. Maybe the heat got her; she wasn’t used to the climate here yet and probably went out without enough water or anything over her head.
I ran to my room to get my keys and that’s when I found the note and the keyring.
I’m no good for you—you deserve better. I didn’t expect the drop-off. I took five hundred dollars; figured it as wages due. Please don’t look for me. ~Meli (Silver)
I felt gut-kicked. The breath went out of me and I got dizzy, swirling pictures of Silver went through my mind. The day at the park when we’d danced at the wedding, when she snapped my picture at the event, her in the pool, at the stove and then, beneath me in bed.
I grabbed my keys and went looking for her, no matter her request. The Escalade sat mutely in the drive. There was only one road leading to my ranch and I drove ten miles in both directions: she couldn’t have gotten further than that. I headed downtown to the bus stop and she wasn’t there, but there had been two buses out of town already that morning. The guy at the ticket window wouldn’t tell me anything; even when I tried to bribe him. I drove to Jill’s apartment and banged on the door until she finally came and opened it.
“She’s not here,” she responded to my question. “You guys have a falling out already?” She seemed a bit bitchy in this remark, as though it somehow made her happy to hear it. I left in utter frustration.
I went back to the bus station to get the routes for the buses that had left. I chose the more likely, which was headed north where she would be going back to familiar territory. She was a gorgeous woman; I knew men would remember her. Stop after stop I followed the route but no one who was still hanging around could remember seeing her. The guys at the ticket windows were equally unhelpful, but finally one guy burst my gut entirely. “You know, fella,” he said, “she could have gotten off anywhere. A hundred different places. You can ask the driver to let you off anywhere along the way, not just the official stops.”
I headed back to the ranch, knowing that every inch I drove past could have been where she’d stopped. Hell, she might be sitting in a window somewhere watching me drive by that very moment. I felt sick at my stomach and so entirely useless. At the same time, I was beginning to realize how much I loved that woman. I’d never said those words to anyone before, not even my own mother. It was that one thing I’d saved back my entire life. To me it was like a talisman, because once I said those words, that would be it … for life.
When I got back to the ranch, I dug out the bottle of whiskey I’d kept in the back of the kitchen cupboard. It was considered the same for me as bottled water and dehydrated food would be for a prepper. At that moment, it was the only thing that would keep me alive.
I must have passed out about three quarters of the way through the bottle. I woke up on the floor and I’d been sick as the stench surrounded me and caused me to lose it again. I couldn’t remember ever feeling that miserable; not even when the bulls had kicked in ribs, lacerated my gut, or knocked me into month-long headaches. Nothing compared … absolutely nothing.
I checked my phone for messages, made sure the volume was as high as it would go and that it was completely charged. There had been nothing. I had called her number a hundred times in the previous hours, and she must have blocked me because it continued to go to voice mail. I was worried how she would survive. She had practically no money on her. She’d left the clothes she’d bought with my money and had no transportation.
I went for a soak in the pool, aching to see her come through the slider and smile, call out, “April Fool’s,” and then leap into the water beside me. The doorway remained empty.
I got things cleaned up and went back to Jill’s. I banged on the door and when she finally answered, I held out a thousand-dollar bill. “Here. I’m hiring you,” I told her. She snatched the bill before saying a word.
Cocking her head she asked, “You’re hooked, aren’t you?”
This was no time for pride. I nodded.
“What do you want for the money?” came the suspicion in her voice.
“Find her for me. If you do, and I can get to her, there’s another five thousand in it for you.”
I was pretty sure I had Jill pegged. She was a sellout, obviously, judging by the string of assorted company that filtered in and out of her bedroom. I counted on her need for money and what it could buy her to be stronger than her loyalty to her sister.
A slow smile came over her face. “Why does she always get the good stuff?” she said to no one in particular. “So, when did she leave?”
“Sometime early this morning.”
“Did you screw her?”
“Yes.”
“Did she want it?”
“Yes.”
“Then why did she leave?”
“She said she wasn’t good enough for me.”
“Agh, that old shit again,” Jill said, and didn’t seem surprised.
“What’s that all about?”
“Did she tell you anything about our childhood?”
“Very little.”
She looked at me, waiting. I peeled off another thousand-dollar bill and she motioned me inside the stinking filth that was her abode.
Jill motioned to the couch and I sat, if only to get her going.
“Our mother was a whore. Mostly sailors who made port in the harbor, but that’s what she did to take care of herself. Meli and I are only half sisters, different dads, neither one known. Me? I deal with it. Her? She can’t. It has ridden her ever since she was hold enough to understand what a whore was. One of the sailors came after her one night. I don’t think he screwed her, but he came damned close, and that’s when she ran. She was gone for days and finally showed up at my school one day, just as I was leaving for home. She begged me to come with her; said she’d found a place for us to live. I loved her more than our whore of a mother, so I went with her.
“Turned out to be a Chinese restaurant. They had a little apartment upstairs that constantly stunk like soy sauce and rancid grease. We cooked, we cleaned the place and we lived like two mice in an attic. In winter we just about froze to death and in the summer, there wasn’t a breath of air. It was hell, cowboy—hell. We were always on the run from the people at the child welfare offices. They suspected we weren’t living with our mother and tried to grab me at school. Meli is six years older than me, you see. She was old enough to drop out, but not me. She forged papers and moved me from one school to another until I was finally old enough to drop out. After the Chinese restaurant, it was a Jewish delicatessen, and then a whole string of other places. Always the same gig, always the same problems.”
I felt my stoma
ch turn at what she was telling me. I had no idea from Silver’s behavior that she’d gone through what she did.
Jill wasn’t done. “Well, finally one day I’d had enough. I told her I was getting out of town, going south to where it was warm. I hitchhiked and walked and finally found myself here, in Dallas. I went back to the same restaurant gig until I could afford this place,” she held out her arms to indicate the apartment. “Meli somehow got herself into a GED program and then City College. She graduated with honors because she’s damned smart. Must have got that from her bastard father. She was with Jeremy and then he dumped her and she came down here with me. You know the rest.”
“Find her for me, Jill.” It was all I could think to say, and she was the only one who knew her sister’s tendencies well enough to pull it off.
“Won’t be easy, cowboy. She goes to ground without thinking twice.”
“I can have her driver’s license tracked,” I realized aloud.
Jill laughed. “Where did you get the idea she has a driver’s license? She’s smarter than that, cowboy, and anyway, she’s a New Yorker. People in our income bracket don’t own cars in the city. You don’t have a hope in hell of finding her if that’s the way you’re gonna think.”
I stood up and pointed my finger into Jill’s face. “Find her,” I said evenly and left the stench behind me.
Chapter 13
Meli
I couldn’t seem to stop crying. For a woman who never sheds a tear, that was tantamount to a nervous breakdown.
I could still feel his hands on my breasts and his mouth feeding off the tender skin behind my ear. He had been gentle and yet assertive; he had been everything I had ever wanted a lover to be. Moreover, I knew I had laid claim to him; as much as a brand. Only, I wouldn’t be the woman in his arms ever again. He deserved so much more than a bastard from the inner city. He was made of good stuff; no matter the drinking or the women, he was still, simply by being born, better than I. I should have recognized this before I agreed to be his publicist. My roots wouldn’t touch him as long as it was all business. But once I lay in his arms, the game had changed. He would be judged by the trash he took to bed every night.