Recharged

by Lulu Pratt

  So here we were, bundled into the car, with him once again dropping me off at my home — only this time, I wasn’t borderline unconscious from stress, and I wasn’t in his arms, not yet, anyways. No, on the contrary, every part of me was blisteringly awake.

  The ride passed in relative silence. I think both of us were too afraid to talk, in case it led to something more. And yet, in spite of that fear, when we finally pulled up to my house, I found myself saying, “Let me thank you for your help.”

  As floated previously, I’d changed my mind. A man like that, with manners and abs like those… I couldn’t resist the temptation of having him join me. While the civilized part of me understood all the reasons why not, the animalistic part of me didn’t give a flying fuck.

  “That’s not necessary,” he replied smoothly. “Like I said. Happy to oblige.”

  I took a breath, and murmured, “You said I had to come around to the Fallow Springs way of thinking — hard work and whiskey. Can I offer you some of the latter?” I paused, and added, “It’ll warm you up.”

  I studied his face. To my dissatisfaction, Dylan was impossible to read.

  Relenting, he replied, “Okay. A glass couldn’t hurt.”

  I nodded eagerly, too eagerly. He parked the car and turned it off. We walked up the red brick garden path to the front of my house. I fumbled the keys nervously in my hand, his hulking body close behind me. Every ounce of my flesh wanted to yank him closer, press him up against my ass, and — no, I still wasn’t convinced this was a good idea.

  I forced my mind to stop providing bountiful images of what could come next. Instead, I supplied for myself all the reasons this couldn’t happen, running through them like roll call.

  His wife had died recently. He was probably a mess.

  I’d been cheated on by a total cad and was also probably a mess.

  He was the police officer on my case.

  I repeated the reasons like a mantra, but I still couldn’t shrug off the attraction. It was affixed to the base of my skull and emanated erotic vibrations throughout my body. Fuck.

  And besides all the arguments against our coupling, what if it turned out to be perfect, absolutely, undeniably perfect? Was any barrier in the world important if we had the real deal?

  “Come on in,” I said shakily, opening the door wide to let him pass by me.

  “Thanks,” he replied, and scooted in, his exposed arms pale from the cold.

  The house was all mucked up, but he knew that from last night. Somehow, we’d already acquired the comfort and familiarity of intimate friends, because here I was, not even worried about the mountain of dishes in my sink or the overflowing garbage.

  “It’s a lovely home,” Dylan said.

  I grinned. “Don’t be polite, it’s a shithole right now.”

  He shook his head. “I couldn’t see it in the dark before, but now, with the lights on — I think it’s got character.”

  I conceded that point, the walls were covered in various posters and trinkets, pieces of art made by friends back home, throw pillows from flea markets. When I’d moved here, I’d packed up my whole life. Any less would’ve meant I wasn’t really committed to the move. And while I was pleased with my decorations, I was less than pleased with my cleanliness.

  “It feels like you,” Dylan added. “Complicated. Full of surprises.”

  I blushed at this description. It was strangely tender. I broke the moment.

  “Whiskey?”

  “If you don’t mind,” he returned.

  I moved to the well-equipped kitchen to pour us two glasses. “Hey,” I called across the room. “You can put some vinyl on. There’s a stack in the corner.”

  “Really?” he said with a grin.

  I twisted over my shoulder and shot him a grin. “Yeah, really.”

  I reached for the top shelf — only the good whiskey for this man — as he sifted through my collection.

  “Damn,” he said so quietly that it might have been to himself. “You’ve got good taste.”

  Pouring the whiskey into two tumblers, I called back, “I do?”

  “The Doors, Bowie, Queen… you’ve got all the classics.”

  Glasses safely in hand, I moved across the room, around the plump couch and plain coffee table, to the shelving unit where he sat. He was on his knees, eagerly burrowing through the stack, moving from rock to folk and back down to rock. Despite being a grown man, he struck me as remarkably similar to a little boy on Christmas.

  I passed him a glass. “Here. Drink up.”

  He chuckled, and replied, “Gladly.”

  He downed the drink in a single large gulp, and my mouth dropped open.

  “Where’d you learn how to do that?” I asked in amazement.

  “I was born with whiskey in my veins. It’s mother’s milk.”

  I couldn’t help it, a giggle escaped my mouth. “You’re such a country boy, you know that?”

  He raised an eyebrow, and smirked. “I know that, and I’m damn well proud of it. What about you, city girl? You taking to small-town living?”

  A challenge underpinned his words, one which I accepted. I tossed back my own glass of whiskey and replied, “Like a fish to water.”

  Our eyes met, and I watched his slowly travel from our locked gaze down to the mountains of my lips, over the length of my neck, coming to rest around my breasts. With a clearing of his throat, he reaffixed those roving eyes to my own.

  “Yes,” he said throatily. “I reckon you have.”

  I averted my gaze, his stare had grown so hot it threatened to burn me.

  “So,” I offered, veering off into calmer waters. “You picked out a record?”

  “Pour us some more whiskey,” he instructed, “and I’ll put it on.”

  I obliged, moving back into the kitchen to grab the liter of liquid. I was about to dispense some more whiskey into the glasses, when I elected to streamline the process. I grabbed the whole bottle and returned to the living room.

  Lifting it to my lips, I threw back a swig and held it out to Dylan, who was carefully placing a record onto the player. Without moving his eyes from the task at hand, he reached, palmed the bottle and took a drink.

  “You ready?” he asked mischievously. His hand hovered over the machine.

  “Always.”

  He hit play, and I only needed two meters to recognize the tune.

  “Lou Reed,” I breathed. “Transformer. It’s my favorite.”

  “Really? Mine too.”

  Dylan stood, and I helped myself to another serving of whiskey, after which I was confident enough to strip off my thin sweater, revealing only an abbreviated white tank top beneath. The spaghetti straps were so thin that they couldn’t conceal a bra, so I simply wasn’t wearing one. The fabric hugged every inch of my torso and breast and was just sheer enough to suggest the hint of my nipples.

  He sucked in a breath at the sight, and immediately took a step back. Good. He was feeling it, the pull, as powerfully as I was. We were on even ground, squaring off in this sexual pas de deux.

  He regained his composure and asked, “Care to dance?”

  I only had time to manage a slight nod of my head before he whisked me off my feet — literally. He spun me through the air, twirling and dipping me along the way. We shimmied and hollered, keeping time with Lou Reed and the low intonations of the vinyl. I shook my hair out, let it fall in front of my eyes, and kicked my feet up over and over. I was freer than I’d ever been before.

  And Dylan… the man knew how to move. His hips gyrated and swung madly, carving a path for him throughout the small room. Those arms flexed, and his shirt rode up so that I could see every ab working to keep the beat. I licked my lips, wondering what his sweat would taste like. Would it be as delicious as the woodsy scent that lingered on his jacket?

  “You’re a good dancer!” he shouted over the music.

  “You’re not bad either!”

  Grinning fiercely, he two-stepped his way back ove
r to me and took me in his arms. In time with “Take a Walk on the Wild Side,” he lifted me up once more, intending to spin me across the floor. His foot must have caught on some discarded boot or fortunately placed cushion, because just as the song reached its crescendo, we tumbled down, rolling over one another until at last we hitched up against the foot of the couch.

  Dazed, I looked up, and found Dylan’s face hovering over mine. Before I could figure out what I was doing, or if I should really be doing it, I reached up and touched his face. He lowered it willingly, and all at once my mouth was on his and we were kissing.

  CHAPTER 16

  Zoe

  His lips, strong and supple, encircled mine, and his tongue made patterns in my mouth. He tasted like whiskey and strong coffee. I pressed my hands against his stubble-covered cheeks, rejoicing in the roughness of that brown hair, and wrapped my legs around his hips, pulling him closer and closer.

  He moved his firm, commanding lips from my mouth to my ear, where he leaned in and whispered, “I’ve been wanting to do this since the moment I arrested you.”

  “Do anything you want to me,” I murmured back, relinquishing any ideas of control. “I’m yours.”

  He needed no further urging. He pinioned my hands over my head, clamping my wrists together, and let his mouth wander down to the bottom of my light tank top. His teeth bit the frayed hem, and slowly, so slowly, dragged it up — over my belly button, over my ribs, over my breasts, and finally, over my head.

  “Oh, fuck.” Did I say that? Did he say it? I was pass the point of caring.

  Crouched over me, he tilted down until his lips were almost at my nipple, which had become erect to the point of pain. I wanted to grab the hair on the back of his head and smash him forcefully into my breast. But I resisted, allowing him to lead the dance.

  “Do you like this?” he asked. His breath pulsated over the surface of my sensitive tits, causing each individual nerve ending to spark.

  “Yes,” I replied, in a tone so low it was nearly inaudible. Not that I needed to say anything, my body was talking loud and clear.

  “What was that?” he asked teasingly, obliging me to whimper for his touch. Bastard.

  This time, on the brink of desperation, I said, “yes, yes and yes and yes. Please, Dylan.”

  That was good enough for him. He caught my nipple gently between his teeth and began to lap at it, slowly and then rapidly, swirling around the tip, all while cupping the other breast in a hand and squeezing it until I bucked upwards with arousal.

  Desperate for his lips once more, I dragged Dylan’s attentive mouth off my breasts, and up to meet my mouth. We locked lips, and I forgot everything except for the present, except for Dylan and his beautiful body.

  He drew back from my lips, just far enough to ask tauntingly, “How about this?” I felt a hand trail down my stomach as a finger positioned itself over the top button of my jeans. “Do you like this?’

  “Please,” I begged simply. “I want you.”

  He unbuttoned a single button. I couldn’t wait for him to feel how wet I was and to fucking do something about it. My body tensed with anticipation.

  And that was when the phone rang.

  “Shit,” he muttered. My eyes, which had been nearly rolling back in my head, quickly refocused on his face.

  “What?” I questioned frantically, anxious to have his fingers crawl into my underwear, and move into darker recesses of my body.

  He didn’t answer my question, but rather clambered off me, shifting into a crouch position, and reached into the pocket of his jeans. He sifted out a phone from his pockets, tapped the screen, and began speaking to someone on the other end.

  “Yeah, Ma, what’s up?”

  Pause. Silence.

  “Really?”

  Another pause. I was beginning to get nervous. Why was his mother calling? Didn’t that seem weird?

  “All right. I’ll be back in twenty, maybe thirty. You good ’til then?”

  Pause. My hackles were raised.

  “Sure thing. See you then.”

  He hung up with a frustrated growl.

  “What?” I said urgently. “What is it?”

  He rubbed his temples, shot a frustrated glance at my naked breasts — which I now sensed were entirely inappropriate for the situation — and averted his gaze to the floor, as if suddenly polite and restrained. I crossed my arms over my chest, protecting the exposed nipples from the chilly air and stood up.

  “That was my mother,” Dylan said slowly.

  “Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah, it’s fine. It’s just that…” he hesitated. “Well, I have a son.”

  My heart thudded in my chest. A son?!

  Just when I’d thought our situation couldn’t get any more complicated, there was a child in the picture. Dylan was a father. I began getting ahead of myself, wondering if I could date a dad, whether I was mature enough for everything that entailed. The ceaseless stream of over-analytical problem posing was interrupted by his voice, thank God.

  “I have a kid,” he repeated. “And my mother usually watches him, but she needs the night off for some kind of mahjong game. Girls’ night, I guess. And she’s done so much for me, in terms of taking care of Danny — that’s his name, Daniel Bradley Robertson — she’s been great since, since… the death.”

  He skidded to a halt, unable to go further. I wavered a little, unsure what to say that would make the situation better. What could I say? While I debated how to respond to this new information and coming up with a long list of what not to say to him, he typed a text. When he looked up from the phone, his face had turned illegible.

  “I texted Tom for a ride, I’ve had too much to drink,” he said in a low voice. “He’ll be here in a minute. We shouldn’t have done this. It wasn’t fair to your criminal case, or to Danny. He needs a mom, not a girlfriend.”

  “But—”

  “I have to go.”

  He grabbed his jacket, slung it over his shoulders, ran his hand through his hair and stormed out the front door, leaving me bare-chested and disoriented.

  Were we not, only seconds ago, making out on the floor, grinding into one another’s pelvic bones and losing ourselves in ecstasy? It had all changed faster than I could fathom.

  He’d left me high and dry — or in my case, high and extremely wet.

  I slid from my standing position, down the back of the sofa, until my ass landed on the floor, knees firmly crooked in front of me. Languidly, I allowed my hand to lift from the chilly wooden floor, to rest on my thigh. From there, it traced the soft gooseflesh of my inner thigh until it was resting on my mound.

  If Dylan couldn’t finish the job, I thought resentfully, I’d just do it myself.

  Although I was angry with how things had changed so quickly, I hadn’t been this aroused in months and I wasn’t about to waste this feeling on resentfulness.

  His face and body flooded my mind. I allowed an image of him to appear before me, clad only in a pair of jeans. My hungry fingers inched their way to my clit as the ghost of Dylan removed his jeans, leaving him in only spectacularly well-fitting boxer briefs. He looked like a twenty-foot-tall underwear advertisement that had shrunk to a life-size version in my living room.

  I began to pluck at my clit, using my hooked ring finger to strum my clit while my longer fingers found their way inside of me. My various digits worked in unison as my body began to tense and shudder.

  The vision of Dylan swiveled his hips, dancing as the real Dylan had danced in this room only minutes ago. Although I was a fan of movie classics, it didn’t mean that I wasn’t imagining Dylan’s face and body moving a bit like Channing Tatum’s in Magic Mike.

  “Oh, Dylan,” I moaned, my eyes squeezing shut. “Oh, God.”

  I strummed harder with my fingers, digging them into my pliant flesh, willing their pace from a walk to a canter.

  Dream Dylan looked on quietly as I brought myself to orgasm in under a minute, writhing and screami
ng with delight on the floor of my living room.

  CHAPTER 17

  Dylan

  Tom arrived at Zoe’s house less than three minutes after I’d texted him. Almost as if he’d been sitting around, waiting for something to go awry. I hated that I’d proven him right.

  I slid into the car wordlessly, hoping that we could avoid discussing the obvious implications of him picking me up from her house.

  I hoped in vain.

  “So,” he asked the moment I’d clicked my seatbelt in, “why am I here?”

  “Because I had three drinks and needed a sober ride home.” That answered the question, technically.

  Tom was having none of it.

  “Let me rephrase. Why am I here?” The emphasis on location couldn’t be dodged, even by me.

  “She needed a ride home.”

  “Oh yeah? Then why were you drinking, and drinking enough that you couldn’t get home safely?”

  Shit. I couldn’t smooth talk my way out of this, Tom was too insightful in general, but he knew me especially well. Nothing would escape his notice.

  “Tom—” I began.

  He cut me off. “Don’t bother answering, I know what you were doing.” He sighed deeply, the way only a man who’s seen too much of the world can sigh.

  “Kid,” he continued. “You can’t do this. I taught you to do the right thing above all else. To conduct yourself admirably. And what you’re doing with this young lady? It ain’t admirable. It’s putting her case in jeopardy.”

  I hung my head, staring at the leather upholstery between my thighs. The logical part of me knew that he was correct, the animal part of me didn’t care.

  “You got anything to say for yourself?” Tom asked. His tone was fatherly, but not patronizing. I knew he meant well, for whatever that was worth.

  “No, just… take me home, please.”

  He nodded, understanding that when you had nothing good to say, you best say nothing at all. Before long, we came to a rolling stop in front of my house.