by Brent, Cora
While I was chewing on this idea I drove the short distance to the Emblem Mart since it was the only place nearby that carried food. Except for the gas station. And I wasn’t craving one of those reheated cheeseburger hot dogs the place was infamous for.
The cash register at the Mart was being run by one of the sons of the owner. He was all politeness as he rang up my soda, crackers and cheese dip. He looked like his older brother. When I was going to Emblem High, Raf Rivera was one of the football gods. Now he was in prison for shooting some guy after a parking lot argument. The news always bothered me whenever I heard about this or that boy I’d known who’d been lost to drugs or violence or swallowed up by the mighty barbed wire jaws of the prison.
“Thank you,” I said to Raf Rivera’s kid brother. I tried to remember his name but came up blank.
“Have a good afternoon,” he said cheerfully. He was still in high school, I knew that. I hoped he’d find his way to a better path than his brother had.
I ate my makeshift lunch in the car and decided to do something I rarely did. I drove through the heart of town and then kept going. Not towards Phoenix or Tucson, but choosing the two lane road that stretched beyond the limits of Emblem and into the surrounding desert.
As a child I’d never thought about the desert as being pretty. Ryan Jedson was the one who changed my mind, forever pointing out the name of a blooming cactus or reciting some obscure fact about the chuckwallas scurrying for cover. Celeste would worry when he would disappear on all day hikes alone but he’d always return with something amazing like a rattlesnake skin or a petrified hunk of wood. He loved the desert. He loved Emblem.
“Don’t you want to see what else is out there?”
“No. I’ll stay in Emblem. It’s home.”
He loved this place. This crappy town and this ragged, spiny desert. Leaving it must have devastated him.
I drove for a while, until the shadows began to change, signaling the height of the afternoon had passed and the sun was beginning to drop. And then I turned around and went back the way I came. I wasn’t going to the bar and I certainly wasn’t going back to the house. I knew exactly where I should go.
My nerves decided to wake up and go disco dancing as I listened to the echo of the doorbell chime. I should have called.
He answered an eternity later and I could tell at a glance I’d interrupted his workout. He was sweaty, clad only in gym shorts and sneakers and was it wrong that I desperately wanted to lick his glistening chest?
“Is this a good time?” I asked.
He cocked his head. “For what?”
I started to flip my hair over my shoulder out of habit. Remembered I didn’t have enough hair to flip anymore. I would need a new habit. “To stop by.”
“Is that what you’re doing?” Those black eyes of his possessed so much talent. They could undress me with one sweep. “Stopping by?”
I exhaled with fake irritation. “Just let me in, Ryan. With no shirt-surrendering prerequisites.”
He backed away from the door and strolled into the cavernous living room. “Did you just happen to be in the neighborhood?”
“We live in a small town.” I stopped and stared at the area rug that had hosted a dozen dirty deeds. “I’m always in the neighborhood.”
He sat on the couch, his long, muscular body occupying two thirds of the surface area. “Have a seat.”
I perched delicately on the edge. “I saw Misty today. She wanted me to meet her at the bar. She showed me something.”
A smile flirted with his lips. “What did she show you?”
“You already know. You guys shouldn’t have done that. I’d hate for you to get in any trouble.”
“Trouble,” he scoffed. “You really think those two chuckleheads are going to say jack shit to anyone after what they did to you? They’ll lick their wounds and count their blessings that they’re not waiting for a court date. And in case they had any doubts about how lucky they are I made it clear that laying low is in their best interests because my good will is not infinite.”
“Damn. Remind me not to get on your bad side, Jedson.” I’d meant it as a joke but the remark made him uncomfortable somehow. Or maybe not. He shifted slightly on the couch. Sometimes he was tough to read.
“By the way, what do you do?” I asked. “You mentioned something about real estate.”
He nodded. “While I was in the middle of getting my finance degree I sat in on a real estate seminar. I started out with classic property flipping, taking advantage of the volatile Florida housing market. Moved up to more exciting opportunities.”
I remembered when Ryan dropped out of high school. I was surprised to hear he now had a college degree and I was on the verge of asking him whether he was the patron saint of the Emblem Diner when he absently ran a palm over his very bare, very tan, very tattooed and very perfect chest. Then I found it tough to keep my mind out of the gutter where it begged so desperately to go.
“I should have brought your shirt with me. I washed it yesterday.”
He shrugged. “I told you to keep it.”
Actually I’d hoped I wouldn’t need to return it. I’d slept with the damn thing last night, curling it against my cheek like a security blanket.
“Did I tell you I’m staying in your old trailer?” I asked.
“No.” He was surprised. “How come?”
“I sleep better there. Actually I sleep in your mother’s room.” I wanted to tell him something about his mother, about the last conversation I’d ever had with Celeste Jedson. But when he tightened his lips in grief and swiftly turned away I took it as a refusal. That was Ryan saying some subjects were off limits.
“You sleep better in a stuffy trailer than you do in your own house?” he asked, still facing away.
“It’s my parents’ house.” It was Luanne’s house. “I can’t breathe in there.”
His hand found mine. Our fingers innocently clasped. He noticed the bracelet on my right hand, the chain Saylor Gentry had given me so I could wear Ryan’s medal. I wondered whatever happened to the original one. At this point I was sure I’d never know.
“So what have you been up to today?” he asked, lightening the mood.
“I lead a thrilling life. After Misty left I ate a decadent lunch of cheese and crackers in my car. Then took a drive. Then came here.”
“Cheese and crackers,” he said and for some reason that cracked him up. “Probably came in one of those kids’ lunchbox packages with the bright orange shit that tastes like salty plastic.”
“Exactly. God, it was good.”
“I have a top of the line built in gas grill in the backyard,” he said as if that had anything to do with what we were talking about.
“Lucky you.”
“I’ve also got a couple of premium rib eye steaks chilling in the fridge.” He raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t decide to become a vegetarian all of a sudden did you?”
“Never.”
“Then how about you let me make you dinner?”
“Really, you’d do that?” The wanton enthusiasm in my voice was painful for even me to hear.
Ryan’s fingers were still laced with mine. He gently brought my hand to lips and tenderly kissed the knuckles in the fashion of a true storybook aristocrat.
“Really,” he said with all seriousness.
“I would love to stay for dinner,” I said. It was the truth.
He stood up. “And so I don’t scare you off with my sweaty stink I’ll shower off first.”
Holy shit, I wanted to watch that. I would have paid all of the money to watch that.
But Ryan was in a chivalrous mood today, not a dirty one. He switched on the big screen television that had been hidden behind a wooden wall panel. Then he poured me a glass of red wine, which he delivered to me with a wink.
“Relax and make yourself at home,” he said. “I may be an asshole but I’m a hell of a cook and when I get back I’m going to grill you a dinner of unparalleled
perfection.”
“Sounds good,” I said.
I settled on the couch with the television remote and awaited his return. The smile on my face felt strangely permanent.
Chapter Nineteen
Ryan
When Leah showed up at my door I thought maybe Eddie had confessed. She might be furious, spitting nails, calling me every obscene word in the dictionary. The only reason I hadn’t told her about the Dirty Cactus myself was because I couldn’t bear to pile onto her troubles just yet. Being terrorized by a pair of knife-wielding crackpots and losing the family business all in one week would be too much for anyone’s sanity.
She and Eddie would have lost the bar by the springtime anyway if I hadn’t stepped in. And in the last forty-eight hours I’d been doing a lot of thinking, coming up with a plan that would keep her there for as long as she wanted to stay. I really hoped she would want to stay for a long time. I just needed to choose the right moment to present the idea.
But no, she wasn’t here to talk about the bar at all. Eddie hadn’t told her a thing.
She tiptoed into my house with a timid smile, wearing a very typical Leah outfit of jeans and an Arizona State t-shirt. I saw how her hand went immediately to her hair because she still wasn’t used to it, was still unsure about herself.
And goddammit my heart stood still.
As I sat there watching her fidget on my couch while wearing that damn medal on her wrist I couldn’t conquer the powerful connection between us. Something more than friendship and more than physical and more than the mutually twisted maze of our pasts. Something I’d never planned on but didn’t care to resist.
Leah could not mask her pleasure at being asked to dinner. She was amazed when I brought her a glass of wine, like this was star treatment she’d never encountered before. She was happy to be treated nice. That fucking got to me.
After showering I planned to dress casually and then changed my mind. The rack of pricey labels lined up in my closet hadn’t gotten any use since I returned to Emblem. I selected a timeless Ralph Lauren basic black two piece. White shirt. No tie. Not the most practical ensemble for tossing bloody hunks of meat on a grill but so be it.
Leah was clearly impressed. She blushed and attempted cultured sips of her wine while joking that she really should have dressed better before coming over. She joined me out on the back patio while I prepared the food. I was glad for the autumn weather. Grilling in a suit in the searing Arizona summer would not have been at all fun.
We ate off paper plates at the kitchen counter because even though I had seven figures to my name I hadn’t moved a set of dishes with me from Florida. Leah was charmed anyway. She allowed me to refill her wine glass and took dainty bites of her well done steak and grilled vegetables.
And as I watched her I considered what kind of man Leah Brandeis would dream about. Sure, she enjoyed getting filthy on my living room floor but she was completely bowled over by this romantic treatment, by a guy who was capable of regarding her like royalty. I could be that guy. The one who wasn’t just trying to satisfy his own pleasure but needed to make her smile, to make her feel good and safe and desired. And every bit as beautiful as she really was.
“You’ve got a look on your face,” she informed me, tapping my leg. “What are you thinking about?” She wasn’t drunk but the wine had relaxed her.
“It’s getting dark early these days.”
She looked out the window. “I hadn’t even noticed. Maybe I should get going in a little while. This wine buzz will wear off soon.”
I reached for her hand. “Do you want to go?”
She watched me caress her small hand in the palm of my large one. “No, I don’t want to go.”
I gently pulled her into my lap. “I don’t want you to go either.”
Leah fit against my chest as if it had been molded for her. She melted right into me before backing up, sucking her lower lip in and giving me a strange look.
“About the other night,” she said. “The fight we had.”
I wanted to ram my head into a wall when I remembered the things I’d said to her. And if I hadn’t left her all alone just then she would never have been attacked.
“Leah, that was my fault. I’m so sorry.” I was sorry all right. I was sorry for more than she knew, more than I could admit right now without crushing her.
She nodded once but something still bothered her. “I haven’t been with a lot of guys,” she said, heaving a deep breath. “I mean, there was Terry obviously. And a few college boyfriends. And, well, you. I know I talked a good game and let you think I knew my way around. But I don’t have a long tradition of casually screwing. I just…wanted you to know that.”
Leah didn’t owe me an explanation. I could care less if she’d slept with three guys or twenty. They were nothing. Old news. Just like anyone I’d been with before. She was here with me now.
“I deeply apologize for making you feel like you had to tell me that,” I said. “You didn’t. And since you laid your life bare I can do the same. You remember me the way I was before I left Emblem. I’m not the same cocky bastard I was back then. You weren’t the only one who talked a good game the other night. But I swear I’m not in the habit of treating women like toys.”
She examined me for a few seconds. Then she shook her head in disbelief. “It seems impossible.”
“What does?”
“That this could be real. That you’d be looking at me the way you’re looking at me now.”
I frowned. “Why?”
She screwed her eyes shut and turned away before asking the next question. “Do you pity me, Ryan?”
“Not at all.”
“Because I’m not a wounded little bird begging to be scooped up.”
“I don’t see you as a wounded bird, Leah.”
She faced me again, her eyes warning me that she wouldn’t be taken for a fool. “Then what do you see me as?”
“Beautiful.” I tucked her short hair behind her ears. I cupped her sweet face in the palm of my hand and brushed my lips across hers. “You’re beautiful.”
I opened her lips with my tongue and felt her soften in my arms. I’d never been big on kissing, found it a dull prelude to more exciting options, but I lost myself when I kissed this girl.
She was nothing like the women I was drawn to in my Florida life, all of them tall, voluptuous, confidently sophisticated. And my relationships with them were always pleasantly detached, anchored by social compatibility mixed with sex. The raw emotional roller coaster that accompanied Leah was a new sensation, one I couldn’t step away from. I refused to even pump the brakes.
She moaned into my mouth when I lifted her in my arms. After this hot and heavy make out session my dick was hard enough to bust through my zipper but I was in no rush. I carried her down the hall to my bedroom where the only furniture was one dresser and a mammoth California king sized bed.
I set Leah on her feet at the foot of the bed and gripped the side of her shirt, tugging up until it was over her head. I tossed it on the floor. Her bra was sweet pink lace and it would be joining the shirt on the floor in a few minutes.
“Lie back,” I whispered, easing her down on the bed.
Leah sat up on her elbows and watched while I removed my shirt. I opened my pants to expose the black boxers beneath but didn’t get rid of them just yet.
My hands slid up over her legs, separating them as I massaged her thighs, inching up until I reached the waistband of her jeans. I flicked the snap, undid the zipper, touched the cotton panties that waited underneath.
“Ryan.” Her head fell back as she moaned my name. Her arms stretched over her head while I stripped her jeans off and joined her on the bed, kneeling between her legs.
Fuck, I wanted to be inside. Yet I wanted to worship her more.
My mouth went everywhere, exploring the flatness of her belly, dipping beneath the elastic of her panties, rolling over her chest and uncovering one breast at a time to be sucked and cele
brated until she was going crazy, sliding her own damp underwear down, then trying to shove my pants away. I finally helped and issued a deep groan when my dick grazed her tender center.
I’d never entered anyone so tenderly, with such care. I kissed her while I gradually pushed in deep and her arms were wrapped around my shoulders, her legs tightly circling my waist. The link between us was so deep, so irreversible as I moved inside her body and crazy thoughts careened around my head. Thoughts about how Leah should be mine. Not just for a few minutes in my bed. For real. Like she wanted to be. And like I wanted her to be.
“I want to come inside you,” I whispered in her ear, thrusting slowly to make the moment last as long as possible.
I’d seen the birth control pills in her purse when I retrieved it the night of her attack. So the risk wasn’t huge. But it wasn’t one I ever took. The night when Leah stood in my doorway and defiantly removed her shirt something shifted in me and I couldn’t explain why touching her turned me inside out, or why my reaction to her was so powerful and primal that I set aside the guarded, careful attitude I’d kept for years and did things I never did.
“Yes,” she breathed, loving this, her hips rocking with mine and nearly sending me over the edge.
I withdrew then eased into her again, one unbearable inch at a time. “Yes, what? Tell me what you want from me, baby.”
She moaned. “Yes, I want you to come inside me.”
Hearing her say it did me in. No power on earth could have forced me to slow down now. The pace accelerated hard. She let out a cry and buried her face in my shoulder as she hit her limit and came. I couldn’t stop myself from following and I wound up punching the headboard with a roar because the force of that explosion was so fucking strong I couldn’t stand it and I was in her so deep I might never come out. I didn’t exit her body until there was nothing left.