by V. L. Brock
Hands fisted their way into his ruffled, dark, sexy hair before settling on the nape of his neck. “Fuck me, Kady. You look sensational.” While deepened eyes continued their lingered journey over my body, I trembled with a form of female triumph under his scrutiny. It wasn’t my intention to rouse the reaction which Walker was blatantly succumbing to, but it was nice to have that expression aimed at me. It was nice to know that I, for once, wasn’t the only one who was combatting something traitorous.
A shoulder hitched while I gave way to a sweet smile. The Indian Ocean hardened into sapphires before my very eyes. “NOTHING to be ashamed of, right?” I quoted his letter from that morning.
He shook his head deliberately, his lips curving into a megawatt beam. “No, Kady, nothing to be ashamed of, darlin’. Never.”
By the time I had turned around after pulling the front door closed tightly behind me, Walker had already reached the bottom of my front steps. I smiled my appreciation and chuckled inwardly with a form of incredulity, since he actually waited for me at the foot of the stairway, like a gentleman.
“You could have gotten into the truck,” I said casually, although, I was touched that he didn’t. And rightly so. My ankle twisted as I dropped down the final step. I should have been flat on my hands and knees, but I was saved by a strong and protective set of arms encompassed around my narrow waist. Hands set on his upper arms, my chest heaved and body began to tremble as shock thwarted my system. I lifted my gaze and came face to face with sheer, raw passion.
With his head tilted downward, his lips wavered after his tongue peeked out to moisten them. My eyes, lips, neck and chest, were combed by his stare, before he settled back onto my face. “Just as well I didn’t, ay, darlin’?”
Fuck me; the tone of his voice alone, had me squirming in his arms. My hips, with a mind of their own, opted for a gentle thrust forward, instigating a fleeting connection with his rock-hard body. Fuck, he smelled delicious, too.
“Yeah,” I forced a swallow, during which my chest continued to heave at an embarrassing rate. A twitch of his lips told me that my hands subtle grope of his burly biceps which then slipped down to his pectoral wasn’t so subtle after all. My lip found its way under my teeth. “You can let me go now, Walker.”
Making sure I was set firmly on my feet, his arms loosened around my body. “Fucking luck of the Irish,” he muttered with profound disapproval.
“What? Me falling?” I asked as we head to the driveway.
Proceeding toward the pick-up, we assessed each other over the roof of the car. “No, darlin’, having to let you go. Now get in,” he ordered, and then slipped in behind the wheel, while I lingered in the chilly breeze for a moment, assessing his words.
With high cheekbones and a megawatt beam of satisfaction, I hauled the door open and slid in next to the smooth-talking Irishman, who was rapidly worming his way into both my every conscious and unconscious thought.
We hit the Southie of Boston within fifteen minutes. That was fifteen undisturbed minutes of utter silence. Breaking at a red light, I peeked out the side window to a basketball court covered in graffiti and surrounded by metal fencing, the blue sky churned with dusky pinks and opal colors, while to the east, darkened clouds were briskly rolling in.
A calloused hand on my knee, urged me back from my glum musing. “You’re very quiet tonight. You alright, darlin’?”
Right elbow resting on the edge of the window frame, I fisted my hand into my hair and massaged my scalp. Drawing a breath, I simply shook my head; the air caused a gargling sound while my lips rolled over my teeth.
“What is it, darlin’?” he pressed again with tightened, worried eyes. My eyes shot down to the connection when he gave a reassuring squeeze of my leg, and an unfulfilled pleasure spiked in my body. A pleasure I knew I was never going to receive.
“Liam called earlier. He said he’ll be back tomorrow.” I couldn’t have possibly made those words sound anymore dejected. I should have been delirious with having my boyfriend back. Reality was: I felt like tonight was my last supper and tomorrow was execution day.
“Hey.” The rough, powerful yet so, so gentle hand was lifted from my leg, and was easing my head back with great care, a finger planted under my chin. My eyes burned when I stared back at him. I couldn’t describe the feeling if I tried. It was wrong, I knew that, and I could chide myself every day for the rest of my life for feeling the way I did. But it was refreshing, it was new, it was…it was what I needed. It’s what I felt was keeping me sane.
And tomorrow it was all going to be ripped away from me. I was hours away from becoming Alice, and spiraling down the rabbit hole into insanity once again.
“Kady, it’s okay. Don’t let that worry you. We still have tonight. Who knows, you could hear a song in an hours’ time and everything will fall into place.”
A tear rolled unbidden down my cheek as I sniggered at his optimism. After he brushed it away with his thumb, he leaned his body over the bench. With his hand set at the back of my head, he wrenched me closer so our brows were touching. His fresh, minty breath spread like wildfire over my face, while desire and neediness proliferated within. Try as I might, I couldn’t subdue it. Did I even want to?
In haste, my hand reflected his as I lost regard of the world, of the situation, and fisted into the hair at the back of his head. “Walker,” I breathed, the breath catching the lump in my throat, our lips distanced by a heady proximity. My nipples peaked and strained against the tightfitting material of my strapless dress.
Eyes screwed tightly as though wounded, he whispered, “Shush,” and I was soon battling with every ounce of resilience I had to stop myself from moving in, stopping myself from lifting my head and inducing a graze of our mouths which I pleaded would’ve enhanced into something more. “Let’s enjoy tonight, darlin’. Okay.”
I’m uncertain if it was deliberate, but as he shifted his head, the tip of his nose brushed against my lips before he pulled away entirely, leaving me breathless and giving refuge to an intense, paralyzing form of undiluted desire, as unreserved tears of longing wet my face.
Chapter Seventeen
Vibrations ran hand in hand with my ever present craving, when it came to the breathtakingly roguish man beside me, as we turned into the gravel surface of McGinty’s parking lot. When he maneuvered the pick-up into an empty space and shut off the ignition, the death grip which remained on the steering wheel didn’t, or shall I say, couldn’t, have gone unnoticed. Knuckles bloodless, his shoulders raised amid the expansion of his chest as he heaved the entire worlds oxygen supply into his body.
“Hey,” voice husky and broken, I attempted to pull him from whatever musing was making his jaw work ferociously, and discharge the wheel from his python-like constriction. Once I registered that words alone weren’t persuasive enough to reel him back, I unbuckled my seatbelt and slid across the bench a little. Hand hovering over his stretched forearm as his fingers connected with the wheel, I mentally braced myself as I lowered it, and grasped his leather-clad arm.
That worked.
Carefully watching him as he leisurely peeked down to the form of connection, he followed up my arm, to my shoulder, neck and face. “I thought we were going to forget everything and have a good time tonight?” I whispered with tapering eyes.
Twitching lips made me giggle while his eyes began to light with unmasked dry amusement. “Forgetting everything you say, darlin’?”
“Well,” I cocked my head and rolled my eyes simultaneously. “You know what I mean. You’re my fun box, Walker. So––” I strived so damn hard to forget about what loomed over me. I strived so damn hard to forget that tomorrow was execution day. I wanted tonight to go with a bang. “Show me some fun.” I forced a smile, and prayed to the heavens that Walker could feel the false conviction I attempted to back my statement with.
Swathed by silence for an age, the click as Walker undid his belt filled the small area. The leather of his jacket creaked and protested as he
released the wheel and turned onto his right hip to face me. My hand had fallen from his arm, and was resting snug in my lap. “Kady, Kady, Kady…” Again, his hand fisted into my hair, his thumb settled in the sensitive hollow behind my ear.
We were pushing it. I know that now. The sense of that night being the last of freedom made us embrace the things which we were too scared to, in fear of crossing the metaphorical line. But tonight it seemed that we were rewarding ourselves for our constraint for not passing that line…by indeed, passing that line. And did so without any regard of consequence.
During the time it took me to lift my hand up to encase his, and turn into his chaste touch, Walker’s head was already tipped, his brow laid against my own anew, distancing ourselves with a heady proximity, giving us a second chance to fulfill a deed which we strayed from and combatted because of that line in the sand. Well, we weren’t in sand anymore, we were in gravel, and that line was impossible to forge…it was damned near impossible to see.
Short, wild pants and forced gulps echoed. His hand tightened in my hair, inducing a groan steeped with longing to travel on an exhale and caress his face. Senses were hyper alert. I felt the way his brow crumpled against my own. I studied how the creases stretched from the corners of his eyes as he screwed them shut in resistance. I bathed in his minty fresh breath as he gasped for air in front of me, and breathed in my exhalation.
In my hair, his hand grew tighter and tighter. I shifted against the bench, closing the area between our lower bodies. I was practically in his lap when my right hand inched to press on his thigh. Shrewdly nudging each other with our brow, my lips floated over the prickly surface of his gruff which coated his mouth. I’d wanted to do that for so long. Now I had, I wanted more. I wanted to feel it…everywhere.
His nose trailed over my lips before her circled the tip of mine. “Kady…” I felt his lips form my name against my own with tiny, sweet presses.
“Walker…” I clutched hold of the denim on his thigh, our heads still nudging, and tipping, persuading and tempting the other to give in to what we both obviously awaited. Relinquishing the feel of denim beneath my hand, it was replaced with abrasive facial hair as I held the side of his face.
Licking our lips simultaneously, we were only a hairsbreadth away. His brow rolled over me as we inched further and further, closing the distance between our mouths, blindly seeking out the point we desperately wanted to explore.
“Hey, mate,” the voice was muffled, and a shadowed tap on Walker’s window forced us to halt our intentions. “Have you got a smoke?”
Our foreheads supported each other, but I still felt Walker’s head dip further. Our shoulders sagged in defeat as scrunched eyes renounced any sight. “Fucking Goddamn luck of the fucking Irish.” I giggled through my disgruntlement as he hissed his frustration under his breath. Twisting in his seat, he lowered the window. “WHAT!?” he shouted so very impolitely, which had me muttering for him to calm down.
I felt sorry for the poor man on the receiving end of a very frustrated Walker. Hands meeting his middle, the man held his palms forward in the universal langue of ‘calm down’, before straightening his baseball cap. “I just asked if you got a spare smoke, mate?” He shrugged his broad shoulders.
I stiffened, my breath catching somewhere in my throat as my body was set ablaze when he leaned over my legs to the glove compartment. Even I knew he was purposely torturing me as he loitered over my body, his arm grazing over my flesh. He finally retrieved a packet of Marlboro Red, slammed the flap up, and pushed himself back.
“Thanks, mate,” the man showed his appreciation around the stick hanging from his lips, before moving on.
“I didn’t know you smoked.”
He stuffed the carton into his jacket pocket. “Only socially, darlin’,” he grinned, setting his rough hand on my leg again. I squirmed at the connection, and attempted to brush off the throb which hit ruthlessly and traveled up my thighs to land between my legs, with an unconvincing smile. “You ready, darlin’?”
I nodded, and before I could even stop it, one word fled my mouth, “’Aye.”
“Fuuuuck,” he grumbled, tossing his head back onto the rest and took a deep breath. “You sound so fucking sexy saying that.”
“You think that’s bad?” Without pulling my focus away from the peeved man beside me, I pulled the release on the door, and pushed it open a crack. “That’s the second time today I’ve said that. I think you’re rubbing off on me.” I slid from the seat and was standing holding the door open as I lowered myself out of the vehicle.
“Rubbing you, you say?”
Exasperated, yet tickled by his sense of humor, I flailed my head, clucked my tongue against the roof of my mouth, and bit my lower lip. “Off. Rubbing off, Walker. Really, men, is that all you think about,” I feigned affront while battering my eyelashes.
“Well, Kady, I know I’m not the only one thinking it.” He opened the door and slipped out of the car, kicking the door shut behind him. Making his way around the hood, he came to meet me on the gravel of the opposite side of the truck. He towered over me, and suddenly my core temperature sky rocketed while my thighs became damp as I reveled in his intoxicating scent as it stroked and teased my sinuses. “It takes one to know one, darlin’.”
He proffered his hand. I knew it wasn’t a good idea, not with the walking camera’s that Liam had watching me. But tonight was my last supper…so I just smiled sweetly, and dropped my hand in his, as he led me through the lot, to the bar, with only the words of the folk song he sang to my last night, spiraling around my head.
The inn was heaving. That much could be said. Everywhere I looked was waves upon waves of people huddling and rubbing shoulders with each other. It wasn’t so much of a large bar, but I swore it was probably three times over capacity. I felt like I was flying coach, stuffed into such limited space.
I was led through the throng of people to the bar ahead. An oak veneer rim encased a green, smooth countertop, as people threw their orders at the flustered bartenders.
After asking, “What’s your poison,” I smiled and told him I’d have a white wine then informed him that I needed to use the restroom. Like the gentleman he was, he offered to walk me through the masses, but I declined and settled with a gesture. He pointed the way to the right of the building, passed a jukebox and gambling machine with flashing lights, to an old fashioned wood and wrought-iron paneled door.
Even with my back turned as I squeezed my way through the masses, his burning scrutiny set my body on fire, so I made a play of swaying my hips as provocatively as possible. Well, it wasn’t fair that I was back to being the only one affected, after all.
After taking care of business, I was standing before the mirror over the basin, dried my hands with a paper towel and began to puff my hair a little at the roots to add a little more volume, considering Walker managed to flatten it with his fisting. I didn’t need to pinch my cheeks. I was already flustered with the carousel of thoughts in my head as I replayed the events in the truck on the journey over. I brought my hand to my mouth, the sensation of his stubble, the warmth of his breath still plastered to my flesh as I closed my eyes with a diminutive whimper. “What am I doing?” I asked myself. If I could have split my body into two, one half play it safe, while the other was ruthless, I would have been more than happy to have done so.
But, I couldn’t. That sort of thing only happens in movies, or if you had a twin. Unfortunately, neither case applied to this maddening situation.
Heels tapped over the tiled flooring of the restroom. As I opened the door and stepped back out into the bar, the tapping of my heels was drowned out by the rumpus of merriment. I made my way back through the crowd to the bar and spotted Walker practically supporting his upper body over the emerald counter, deep in conversation with an old man with silver, thinning hair which reached his shoulders.
“I don’t have the time,” I heard him call over the bar.
I peeked down at my watch.
“It’s 7:15,” I told him with a grin, which he mirrored before draping his arm over my shoulder and pulling me into his side. Ours drinks already set on the dark green surface.
“Thanks, darlin’.” He planted a kiss on my head, before picking up his bottle of Bud. Smiling at the man behind the bar as he went about serving another patron, the man threw us a faint nod with an even fainter smile spread across his wrinkled face.
“So,” I propped my elbow onto the polished round table, and rested my chin on the heel of my hand. “Do you come here often?”
He sniggered and his eyes burned, while that God forsaken, sexy-as-fuck dimple on his left cheek made an appearance. “Are you flirting with me, darlin’?”
I tossed him a cunning look from over the rim of my wine glass. I think it’s safe to say we had crossed the line of flirtation back in the fucking truck.
“I suppose so,” he raised the dark glass bottle to his lips. “I live around the corner––”
“Really?” I lowered my glass and folded myself over the table, knotting my fingers. “I didn’t know that. Where to?”
He took a swig of his beer and set it back on the surface. “The Pavilion.”
“Sounds posh.” I raised my perfectly shaped eyebrow.
Sinking into the seat, I jolted as he eclipsed my tied fingers with his. In spite of everything, I was compelled to allow my fingers to stir beneath his. It was impossible to not have my body roused in some way when he was touching me. “Names can be deceiving, darlin’.”
“I thought that was faces?” I frowned derisively.
Head cocked, he looked almost forlorn as he muttered, “’Aye, they can be, too.”
I strained to push his statement as far out of my head as possible. Unfortunately, it took the aid of three additional glasses of wine to evict the thought permanently from my memory. He was in the process of stripping the fourth bottle of beer of its label when I started giggling. Head down as he concentrated on undressing the glass bottle, only his eyes lifted. With one simple gaze, he successfully managed to pin me to the seat and knock all the air from my lungs. “What?”