Home Sweet Gnome

by Jennifer Zane

  “It’s not actually the clitoris itself that’s pierced, but the little hood that covers it.”

  Every single man within a fifteen-foot radius stared at me. Coffee cups were poised halfway to mouths, hands stopped cutting pancakes. JT’s eyes flared with something a whole lot different than surprise. Even lust. It was a possessiveness I saw that had me taking a deep breath.

  The waitress, who’d been refilling coffee cups, broke the silence. “So, did it hurt? I mean, would you recommend it?” She bit her lip and eyed the other men, worried they’d judge her, but they didn’t even look her way, just kept staring at me.

  “I’d um…I’d talk to your doctor about that one. It’s a big step.” Yeah, a big step I had no interest in taking.

  “Can I get a picture with you?” she asked.

  Why a woman wanted a picture with me, I had no idea, but I just nodded my head. She pulled her phone from her apron pocket, handed it to a guy walking by the booth. She turned so she faced the camera and the guy got the shot.

  “Thanks,” she replied, then walked away.

  “Can I get one too?” The guy who took the photo asked.

  Once they saw pictures were being taken, guys lined up for one of their own. I was allowed out of the booth to stand with my fans and JT volunteered to be the photographer, snapping one shot after another. Ten minutes in, my face was hurting.

  “Thanks, Silky. I’ve already put this on my Facebook page. My friends aren’t going to believe me when they see it,” Arty said, phone in hand.

  “Yeah, I tweeted my picture,” Digger added, holding up his phone to show me the picture.

  JT threw some cash on the counter and grabbed my hand. “Gentleman, it’s been…interesting. Silky’s got to be going.” He put his arm around my shoulder in the way he’d done at the bowling alley. I just hoped these men were a little more civilized and I didn’t have to punch any of them in the face.

  “To answer your question from earlier,” JT looked to Arty. “She’s taken.” JT kissed my forehead in a way that was gentlemanly yet extremely possessive all at the same time.

  All six men stood, shook JT’s hand with accompanying manly murmurs. Way to go. Take care of her. Lucky bastard.

  They said their farewells to me, too. “Thanks, guys, for lunch. You’re all sweet.”

  JT tugged on my hand and we were out the door. “You put them in their place,” he replied, smiling. “I didn’t even have to do it.”

  “Oh?”

  JT opened the door to the RV, let me climb in first.

  “Sweet? No guy wants to be called sweet. That’s friend territory.”

  “And where do they want to be?”

  JT stepped closer so I had to tilt my head back to look at him. “Right here.”

  He lowered his head and kissed me, cupping the back of my head in his palms, his thumbs brushing over my cheeks. This wasn’t a sweet kiss. This kiss was an assault, aggressive and filled with all the frustration and anger over the past few days. It was also filled with all the lust that had been between us.

  No matter how much I wanted to deny it, I was attracted to JT. He made me feel things I hadn’t felt in a long time, perhaps ever. In fact, he made me feel. The men I’d been with in the past were safe choices, who were sweet and I could leave them without a backward glance, without any heartache. It was safer to leave first. Even Roger. I’d used him at the end for his apartment alone. It had been easy to stay away from him because my heart hadn’t been engaged. When I’d discovered he’d moved on with another woman, I was more upset I had no place to go than to have been dumped.

  With JT, he made me mad, made me hot, made me feel for the first time. I didn’t know what to do about it, and the way he was kissing me, I didn’t have the brain power to think about it. So I settled into the kiss. My nipples tightened, my skin heated, and the way JT maneuvered my head this way and that as he wanted was very caveman of him. All he had to do was grab me by the ponytail and pull me into the back bedroom and that fantasy would be complete.

  “Wait. Stop,” I said against his lips. He moved to my jaw line with little nibbles and I swear I didn’t intend for my head to tilt back to give him access to my neck and that deliciously sensitive spot behind my ear. “JT, we shouldn’t be doing this.”

  “Why?” he murmured, his tongue flicking out to taste my pulse point.

  “Because you’re looking for the girl next door and I’m looking for…I don’t know.” I couldn’t think straight when he fanned his breath along the shell of my ear and the sensation beelined straight for my hoohah.

  “You’re pushing me away now, aren’t you, before you can feel anything.” He didn’t stop his attentions, thank god.

  “I’m feeling an awful lot right now.”

  “Me, too.”

  Yeah, I felt a whole heck of a lot against my hip.

  I grabbed the sides of his head, his hair silky beneath my palms and pulled his head back. JT’s eyes were half lidded with desire, a little frown marring his brow.

  “We don’t even like each other,” I said.

  “I’m liking you more by the minute.”

  “JT.” I sighed. “You Tased me.”

  “You punched me in the face.” It was his turn to sigh. “Jesus, Daphne, I’m just starting to think you’re not so bad after all.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Why? Because I’ve got men falling over themselves to have me and you want to be first?”

  He stepped back and I let my hands fall to my sides. “That’s pretty low. I’ve done nothing but protect you from those lunatic fans. I’d say I’m getting quite possessive of you. Do I want you for myself instead of let any one of those guys have you? Hell yes.”

  “I’ll be leaving again for my next assignment.”

  “You mean run away. Look, you’re starting to like me and you don’t like it.”

  “I barely followed that,” I ground out. “Going to Sturgis and forgetting about life in the arms of Sarah is running away.” I put my hands on my hips.

  “I saw a family of four dead from a drunk driver.” He ran his hand through his hair, his eyes switching from lust filled to bleak in a heartbeat. “That family was everything I never had and everything I want, and now they’re dead. If I want to forget for a little while, then so be it.”

  He stomped to the back of the RV, opened the door to the bedroom. Hissing and meowing had JT slamming the door shut.

  “If a family—a normal family—is everything you want, then why are you kissing me?”

  “Damned if I know.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  All along Interstate 90 cars and motorcycles passed us, slowing down and staring, then driving on. I drove for this stretch as JT was working his phone, which was fine with me because his kiss not only stirred up feelings of lust that had been dormant, but stirred up old emotions too. An orgasm would be nice, a trip down memory lane was not. It didn’t take a psychiatrist for me to know I had abandonment issues. My parents left me when I was five. I could never live up to Aunt Velma since she was larger than life. I never measured up with anyone, never felt like I truly belonged, so I kept everyone at a distance. It was easier, safer that way. With a job that had me traveling all the time, it was easy to keep things simple. If things got tough, I just took the next assignment, the next plane out of Dodge.

  But JT had messed all of that up. I missed the plane to Thailand and, using Goldie’s line, everything went to hell in a hand basket from there. JT kissed me, Velma praised me, Esther had confidence in me enough to recommend me for a fill-in for the championship in roller derby, which she did not take lightly. Goldie entrusted me with her RV, which when I thought about it, wasn’t saying much.

  Because of the little Taser incident, it had made me start to think about my life and I hated when I did that.

  “You’re not going to believe this,” he muttered, breaking me out of my thoughts. “If you pull up your hash tag on Twitter, it’s saying you’re riding in a beat up silver dildo
-shaped RV that has a horn out the front like a unicorn.”

  “It’s not my hash tag,” I replied. “I said it was a metallic pickle. Esther called it a dildo.”

  “Whatever,” he countered. “You can’t go incognito in this thing. No wonder everyone’s honking at us.”

  My cell rang from my purse. “Get that, will you?”

  JT pulled it out, looked at the screen. “Goldie,” he muttered.

  “Put it on speaker.”

  “What happened to the side of the RV?” she asked.

  I glanced at JT. “What do you mean?” I asked warily.

  “It looks like you struck an iceberg.”

  “Where are you?”

  “A few hours from Fargo.”

  “Then how—”

  “You’ve gone viral. That RV is all over Facebook and Twitter. Seriously, Daphne, if you wanted to go all stealth with this Silky Tangles thing, it’s over now. The cat’s out of the bag.”

  “Speaking of cats,” JT said. “Tell Esther she forgot something.”

  “I’m not Silky Tangles,” I ground out through clenched teeth.

  “Whatever,” Goldie said like a teenager. “Is that George the Gnome in the windshield? How on earth did it get there?”

  “How viral are we talking?” JT asked, skipping the gnome question.

  “You’re just passing mile marker twenty-three in Wyoming.”

  “Holy shit,” he muttered, not realizing the abilities of social media.

  “I can’t sell the RV with that damage,” Goldie added. “It does look like a unicorn.”

  “You dented the front of it way before the iceberg incident,” I countered.

  She didn’t respond for a moment. “Just don’t let all this publicity slow you down. You’ve got to be here tomorrow night, remember. Velma and Esther are going to lose it if you don’t get here in time.” I heard grumbling through the phone.

  “The traffic is terrible, so I’ll try my best,” I countered. We were still over an hour from Sturgis and the road was like LA at rush hour.

  “All right, I’ll let you go. But, Daphne, change your shirt. If you’re going to be on Facebook, you need to at least show a little cleavage.”

  Goldie hung up and JT tossed my phone back into my bag and said, “She’s right. A little cleavage would be good.”

  ***

  “This isn’t going to work,” JT muttered as we pulled into a rest area for a pee break. It had taken us an hour to get fifteen miles. The Sturgis Rally was so popular, so big, the roadways were inundated. We’d just crossed into South Dakota, but at this rate, we were never going to make it to Sturgis.

  Because of the traffic, I hadn’t known we were being followed. This wasn’t James Bond style followed, this was Silky Tangles style followed. When we parked at one of the in and out spots, so did about fifty motorcycles and a few cars.

  “You can’t go out there,” JT warned. “I can’t protect you in the ladies’ room.”

  “I have to pee.”

  “Screw Goldie’s rule on the stupid bathroom. No one’s going to buy this wreck now anyway.”

  I glanced at the crowd outside, then at JT. “You’re right.”

  I climbed from my seat and made my way to the tiny bathroom. When I emerged, JT was on the phone. “I know. Yes. You’ve seen it. It is not a unicorn horn, it’s a garden gnome. Why?” JT was in the recliner, slouched in the way only men could. His tone was tired, but resolved. “Shit, I forgot about the bike. Forget it. I’ll get it fixed when you get back home.”

  He threw the phone in his lap, looked up at me. “I locked the outside door, in case someone gets a little fan crazy.”

  “What’s going on?” I asked, grabbing a soda from the mini-fridge. I offered it to him, but he shook his head. I sat down at the table.

  “I can’t leave you.”

  I popped the top and looked at him, eyes wide. “Some women would love to hear you say that to them.”

  He ignored my words. “This is insane. Have you looked out the window?”

  I pulled down a slat on the metal blinds behind my head. “Oh shit.”

  We were practically surrounded. Motorcycles and cars were parked every which way, people standing around talking, taking pictures.

  “The traffic is only getting worse and once we get to Sturgis, it’ll be so crowded you’ll never be able to leave town. Hell, you’ll never be able to leave the RV. This thing isn’t very subtle. You can’t fend off these fans yourself.”

  “I can just tell them I’m not Silky Tangles,” I replied.

  He gave me the look as if I had lost my mind. “That didn’t work for me.”

  “You believe me?” I asked.

  “Look, it doesn’t matter if I believe it or not. It doesn’t matter what I think about you or this situation. We’ve entered some alternate universe. I feel like I’m in Planet of the Apes.”

  I wouldn’t take the situation that far, but then again, he wasn’t the one who looked like a porn star. Well, he looked like a porn star, all hot and gorgeous and rugged and all, but people weren’t showing his picture all over Facebook.

  “We’re not going to Sturgis.”

  I put down the can. “What? Why?”

  “Because I can’t let you deal with this on your own.” He waved his hand around the RV.

  “What about Sarah, the dentist?”

  He sighed. “There’s always a Sarah somewhere.” I didn’t really like the sound of that, but who was I to judge? I wasn’t a hit with finding a man either—Silky’s thousands of followers aside. “Besides, I was kissing you a little while ago, not Sarah, and I want to do it again.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “We’re going to Fargo.”

  ***

  By eight that night, we pulled into a campground in western North Dakota. Fortunately, the few other people staying didn’t appear to be connected to the internet, or maybe there wasn’t wifi, because besides strange looks at the state of the RV, no one recognized me. Also good news was the showers. I stood beneath the hot spray to wash off not only the miles of traveling, but also the night in jail as well. The rustic shower was infinitely better than in the RV; the bathroom was so small I couldn’t lift my arms up over my head to wash my hair.

  When I got back to the RV, JT was tilting a bottle of liquor into a hole he’d cut into the watermelon. “It’s like being in college again,” he said. His hair was still damp from his own shower. He’d changed into a pair of cargo shorts and a gray MSU T-shirt. His feet were bare and his smile was relaxed.

  “How much have you had to drink already?” I asked. He looked too at ease with our situation to be completely sober.

  “Let’s just say I found Esther’s secret ingredient.” He grinned and I couldn’t help but smile back.

  I’d never seen him this way. Ever since the first time I saw him he was tense or aggravated or frustrated. Or all of the above. Moody JT was pretty hot, but laid back JT was working for me, too. Once the bottle was empty, he pulled it from the hole and shoved it into the corner by the toaster oven. Yanking open drawers, he found a knife, then set to cutting a section off the rind, forming a great big bowl.

  The knife was tossed into the tiny sink and he pulled two spoons from another drawer, handing one to me. Sliding in beside me at the table, he pulled the watermelon in front of us.

  “Cheers.”

  He scooped out a piece of dripping watermelon and ate it. I watched as he grimaced, then swallowed. I took a chunk of fruit myself and put it in my mouth. The secret ingredient most assuredly was grain alcohol because I swear I breathed out fumes of jet fuel.

  “Holy crap, that’s strong.”

  “Slides down smooth,” JT replied. “You know, I was thinking about your problem.”

  I arched a brow. “Problem?” Which one?

  “Why don’t you just get your own place in Bozeman? I mean, you’re old enough not to live with Velma anymore.”

  I scooped up some more watermel
on. “True.”

  “Your aunt is pretty crazy, but I’d think if you lived in town, but not with her, she’d be less…intense.”

  “Like Goldie, you mean.”

  He pointed his spoon at me, then poked the watermelon. “Goldie might be a little wacky, but you’ll never hear me talk bad about her. The way she helped me with my dad—well, she went above and beyond. I won’t forget that.”

  “Like how Aunt Velma took me in.”

  “You sound like you were an outcast or something.”

  The alcohol was starting to make my blood a little sludgy, my body relaxed, everything warm. And JT, he was starting to look mighty fine. “Not an outcast really, more like a cast-off.”

  “Have you seen your parents since?” He watched me closely, all of his usual angst toward me gone. At least for the moment.

  “No. Last I heard they were in Europe somewhere. I’m sure Aunt Velma heard from them when I was young. I never asked, so she never told.”

  “It’s not your fault they were terrible parents. It’s also not your fault Velma’s wacky.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh at that. “She doesn’t need any help from me to be crazy. She was that way before I was born.”

  “Then give her a chance. On your terms.”

  I swallowed another bite of watermelon. “What about you?”

  He put his hand to his chest. “Me?”

  “Yeah, you. Why don’t you take a chance on someone who’s not perfect?”

  “No one’s perfect, Daphne.”

  “Silky Tangles is perfect, because she’s not real. Everyone can fantasize about her, love her. Wish they were with her in bed. But the real Silky is probably just this woman with a really good stylist who has issues of her own. Bad boyfriends, crazy relatives. She might even get PMS like the rest of us women.”

  JT cringed. “No way.”

  “Way. If I were Silky Tangles, wouldn’t I look like this if I weren’t on scene? Wouldn’t I eat a liquored-up watermelon? Wouldn’t I want to kiss a normal guy like you?”

  JT’s eyebrows went up. “You want to kiss me?”

  I shrugged, modest all of a sudden.

  “What’s this about normal?” he kidded. “There are places on me I can guarantee aren’t normal.”