by Adriana Law
“Nah, use whatever you need to.” I cleared my throat and pretended to be mildly interested. “You look good in my t-shirt and boxers.” I released the hold I had on my shirt and dumped all the junk food out onto the table. “Dinner is served my queen!” Can drinks rolled and I lunged to catch them before they rolled over the edge of the table.
“Is it still raining?” she asked, walking over and pillaging through the junk food.
“Yeah.”
She sniffed. “You smell like a wet dog.”
I shook out my dripping hair close enough to purposely get her wet. She didn’t squeal. Instead she shoved my shoulder and laughed. “Oh, I have every intention of taking a nice long hot shower,” I said, giving her a wink before grabbing the hem of my shirt and lifting it off over my head.
“Good luck. There is no hot water.”
Perfect. I needed a cold shower. My dick stirred, very aware that her eyes trailed down over my bare chest, lower to where my damp jeans rode low on my hips. Turning toward the table my fingers skimmed over each item up for selection. “We have skittles, another Snickers—”
“Another?” she laughed. “There were two? Where’s the other one?”
“It never made it back to the room. Lays chips. Doritos….” I picked the bag of Doritos up and tossed it out as an option. Even toothpaste wouldn’t kill that odor. “Just in case.”
She dropped into one of the kitchen chairs. “Sawyer, ever thought I have no desire to kiss you?” She grabbed up the bag of Lays chips and tore them open. “I know you think since we’re stuck in this crappy hotel room together and bored....” she gestured down at herself then at my naked chest, “...both of us barely clothed, that that ultimately means you’re going to get laid. Give me your hand.”
I obeyed, smiling suggestively.
She poured chips in my hand.
I was expecting something better. “Speaking of getting laid,” I chuckled, cramming a hand in the pocket of my jeans.
She licked the salt off her fingertips. “You’re giving me back my cigarettes?”
I shook my head. “Better.”
“Better...huh...I am intrigued.”
“You should be. Hold up.” I dug. “Damn pockets are deeper than I thought. Ah ha! Food wasn’t the only thing The Bates Motel offers in its vending machines.” I drew my hand out and tossed a lifestyle condom on the table in front of her.
She picked the condom up and eyed it closely. “Seriously, they really have a condom machine?”
“Yep. Right next to the soda machine.”
“And you bought a condom why?”
“Hey.” I take the condom out of her hand. “As a souvenir. I paid a buck for that.”
We sat together and tossed skittles up in the air, catching them in our mouths.
“Damn, you’re good,” I told her after she easily caught her Skittles while I sadly missed mine. I tried another. The red skittle hit my nose and bounced off onto the floor. Her beautiful mouth opened and effortlessly caught a purple one in mid-air. She smiled. “I know right?”
“How often do you practice this technique?”
“Sometimes I like to switch it up. Use M&Ms instead.”
“So you’re a candy junkie?” I tossed another up, laughed when it bounces off my cheek. “You bad girl.”
“Candy helps.”
“Helps with what?” I asked, giving up and reaching for my can of Mountain Dew.
“With the drug cravings. I always have to be doing something with my hands to keep from thinking about using. That’s probably why I smoke so much...it’s better than the alternative. ” She drew her knees up and hugged them tightly to her chest.
I remember vividly what it was like seeing my brother strung out, his eyes dead and distant. When we got back to L.A. and Starr and me went our separate ways, if I ever heard about her returning to that lifestyle...I’m not going to lie, it would hurt. My chest tightened at the thought.
“You ok,” she asked. “Too much sugar?”
“I’m good.” I leaned the chair back, balancing it on its hind legs, my hands laced behind my head. “When was the last time you used?”
She tossed the candy wrapper on the table and chewed on her bottom lip. “Can I have my cigarettes now?”
“Yeah.” I realize it was a controlling dickhead move ever taking them in the first place. I dug the Marlboros out of my pocket and tossed them on the table in front of her.
“It’s been a while,” she said. “Since I used.”
“But you still think about it?”
“Oh God, every day. It’s not something that goes away overnight. It takes time. You have to want to stay quit.”
“Do you?”
“What do you think?”
“Think my brother will go back to using?”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” She shrugged a shoulder. “He seems happy.”
“Yeah, he does.” I noisily set the chair down on all fours. “Our father is a drinker. I’ve been drunk probably too many times myself, but I have never seen someone as out of it as my brother was that day I drug his ass out of that crack house. There’s no way, if Tori hadn’t been there that I would have left him alone after what I saw.”
“No one can keep him from using. An addict will do anything to get their drugs...if that’s what they want. Nothing gets in their way, not even those closest to them. They will lie, cheat, steal, manipulate...whatever it takes to get their next fix.”
“I understand.”
“No, you don’t. If Sterling wants to use...he’ll use regardless of who's sitting next to him..”
There was tension. I wanted to ask her more questions. I wanted to understand how someone would allow themselves to get to the point they would be willingly to stick a dirty needle in their arm. I wanted to understand my brother, and I was certain Starr could give me the answers to do that. “We all want something,” I said.
Her blue eyes held mine. “What do you want, Sawyer?”
“I want to get into the Academy and make it through. Then it’s serve and protect.”
“Good for you,” she laughed out as if I was being silly.
“No, I’m serious, Starr. It’s not just some silly fantasy to play cops and robbers.” I said slowly and distinctly, “I will do whatever it takes and nothing or no one is going to sidetrack me from my goal.”
“What’s the motivation?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Why be a cop?”
“I want to help people.”
She shook her head. “I don’t buy it. That’s not the real reason, Sawyer. There has to be more to this insatiable drive you have to go in that direction, and I don’t believe it’s about helping others. You could do that by going to any homeless shelter. Why risk your life?” She lets go of the t-shirt that covered her legs and returned her bare feet to the floor, leaning toward me. The palm of her hand pressed against my bare chest. Her hand was warm. I reached up covering that hand with my own. Her blue eyes were so magnetic, drawing me in. “Something is broken in here,” she whispered, two of her fingers softly mimicking a heartbeat over my chest. “Something you believe being a cop will satisfy.” Her mouth came closer. “What is it?” she asked.
I considered her question for a few moments. “Nothing about my childhood was predictable. Sterling and me never knew when our father was going to come home in a pissed off mood or worst...drunk. We never could let our guard down. Being around my father was like sneaking around on eggshells in the worst possible way, wondering when the next explosion would come. Sterling took his shit. I hid. I don’t want to ever feel that vulnerable, out-of control, or afraid again in my life. No one ever showed up to help us. So, you’re wrong... I want to help, but I also want to be the one in charge of putting the bad guys away. I want to be the one with the power to cart the drunk, deadbeat who beats his wife and lies about it off to jail. I want to experience the pleasure of cuffing his ass and reading him his rights while he swears he didn�
��t do it, that it was all her fault.”
“You saw your father strike your mother?” she asked.
I removed her hand from my chest and rocked back in the chair, my fingers threaded behind my head. The action was meant to expand my chest so I could breathe. Nothing sucked more than hearing it out loud. I wasn’t sure why I was saying it out loud. Maybe because I knew Starr and me were going nowhere, and as soon as we stepped foot back in Los Angeles we would go separate ways. Maybe it was because I knew all the shit she’d gone through and I somehow believed she would offer a simple solution to the hurt. “Which time are you talking about?” I asked.
“He hit her more than once?”
“Does it matter… isn’t once enough?” I inhaled deeply, scrubbing my face with my hands. “You’re his favorite though,” Starr said and I just looked at her. “It’s okay. It’s not like you would be saying your father is right. Parents always have a favorite.” Starr pulled her legs back up into her chair, stretching the fabric of her shirt over her bare knees. I wished she would stop doing that—my gaze kept automatically wandering to the area between her legs. I kept imagining her doing that same move…completely naked.
“Sterling talked to you about the dynamics of our family,” I asked.
“You're Sterling’s favorite too,” Starr said. I laughed out loud. Her blue eyes narrowed on my face. “I’m serious. Until Tori...I think you were the only thing that mattered, the only thing that kept him from completely surrendering to it all. All he ever talked about was protecting you.”
“I don’t need protecting anymore.”
“Maybe not from your father but—”
“But what?”
“I think someone needs to protect you from yourself.” Her words were loaded. All I could do was stare at her. “It’s okay,” she said, shrugging as she lit another cigarette. “Sometimes we have to be a little selfish. You’ll do your thing...chase after whatever you think is going to quiet all the shit inside your head, and one day you might succeed and finally be able to focus on someone else for a change. Hell, I know I haven’t reached that point. I’m still selfish as hell and completely consumed by my own misery.”
She made it all sound ugly, so desperate: I didn’t want to be a cop to help people: I wanted to be a cop to stroke my wounded ego. Wow. That kind of made me sound like a little pussy.
***
CHAPTER TEN
Missed Opportunity
An hour later we were in bed together feeding our selfish need with no regard for tomorrow. We forgot that being stuck in a hotel room with each other was the last place either of us wanted to be. It was late, sometime after midnight, hours away from the moment we would say goodbye.
The only light in the room came from the cracked bathroom door.
There was a loud thud, the headboard smacking the wall.
Moans.
Groans.
Heavy breaths.
Another wild thump.
Then a string of very loud, “Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes…” each built in intensity. My gaze widened. Starr clapped a hand over her mouth.
Bang, bang, bang—went the headboard as it assaulted the wall.
“Faster, faster, faster, oh God, that’s it…deeper, deeper!”
I threw an annoyed look over my shoulder tempted to scoot away from where my back rested against the headboard. I feared that the bed in the next room was suddenly going to throw a spring through the wall. Starr set Indian-style near the foot of the bed, facing me. I aimed a thumb in the direction of the wall, asking, “That doesn’t ruin your appetite?”
“It’s a shit-motel, what do you expect,” she said finishing off the last Snickers bar.
I raised a brow. “Does it turn you on?”
“Not while I’m in the bed with you,” she returned around a mouth full of chocolate.
“Not even a little. Admit it,” I pressed, grinning. “It does, doesn’t it?”
“Nope. Sorry. Not the least little bit.”
“Huh,” was all I said to her admission, determined to not let it phase me. We were opposites. We’d established that up front. “Moving right along,” I said, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a girl eat so much junk before.” I watched as Starr’s sexy-as-hell lips closed tightly around the tip of her index finger, then her thumb. My eyes were captivated by the sucking action going on as the last of the melted chocolate was cleaned away.
“I don’t usually eat this much,” she confessed. “In fact I’ve been known to starve myself, but for some reason…tonight I’m extra hungry. I think it has something to do with the fact that I know if I don’t go ahead and eat what I want…by morning…you will have finished all the junk food off.”
“So you ate it so that I couldn’t have it?”
She smiled. “Something like that.”
“You greedy little pig,” I said.
She caught me staring at her mouth and threw a wrapper at me. “Stop it.”
I rested my back against the headboard, crossing my arms over my chest. “I’m not doing anything.” I told her. Other than wondering if Starr was as wild and honest in bed as she was out of it.
“You’re staring at me like you wish we were doing…” she flicked her wrist at the wall, “what they were doing.”
“What were they doing?” I asked, amused. Admittedly I wanted to make her flustered and stumble over her words, but I’d forgotten who I was dealing with. Starr didn’t get giggly or embarrassed. It was my face that grew hot when she answers with one word, “fucking.” She then lifted and dropped a shoulder, explaining, “It’s just a word, Sawyer.”
Not when you say it. A breath escaped from my lungs. I liked the sound of her voice, too much; especially when it spouted vulgar words. Note to self: never ask Starr a direct question unless I want blunt honesty.
I gathered the empty wrappers, crushing them in my hand and discarding them on the bedside table, right next to the Holy Bible. “We should get some sleep. We still have a ways to go tomorrow,” I told her sinking my feet under the covers, I paused and gestured at the bathroom light spilling out of the cracked door. “Will you get that before you come to bed?” Ok, that sounded weird.
She didn’t move. I glanced at her to see what the holdup was. Our eyes met in the semi-dark room. I’d heard of time standing still, mostly in cheesy romantic movies past girlfriends forced me to go see. It stood still. Time. And me. Starr was unreadable, her eyes a deeper shade of blue. I couldn’t tell if she wanted to slap me or—without a word she crawled over the bed toward me like a Panther sneaking up on prey. She deliberately swung a leg over where I was flat on my back so that she straddled my waist.
She still wore my shirt and boxers.
The thin fabric of the boxers did little to hide the fact that I was instantly hard underneath her. As if they had a mind of their own my hands went around to the top of her ass on both sides aiding the action of her rubbing against me, not preventing it.
I cleared my throat, feeling awkward from the need already tightening my gut. It wasn’t like I hadn’t noticed her, I just chose to lie to myself and her by pretending not to. “What are you doing?” I asked when it was obvious. She lowered her upper body onto mine, and smiled seductively as she lightly kissed a corner of my frown. “Starr?” I kept repeating the name hoping something would click in my brain and I would remember the name belonged to the complicated ex-girlfriend of my brother. Don’t go there. Don’t go there. I really wanted to go there!
“I’m not going to yank your chain,” she said. Her hair fell forward around her shoulders, the tips of it sweeping over my skin. I itched to feel her under my fingertips and reached out, touching her temple, the feathery hair there. Breathtaking.
“Sawyer,” she whispered. “I’m not some virgin that’s going to be repulsed and push you away. You don’t have to feel guilty.”
“But what if I do?”
“You shouldn’t,” she answered. “We’re both single. There’s no reason not to—” I
opened my mouth to speak. I could think of several reason not to: One started with an S and ended with a g—I really wasn’t up to being compared to my brother. Two: I was careful where I stuck my buddy. He always popped up whenever I needed him, in return: I refrained from abusing him.
Starr pressed her finger to my lips, silencing whatever I was about to say. “I know,” she murmured. “You have no time to invest in a relationship. Lucky for you. I don’t want one. It’s one night.”
And that would be three: I wasn’t prepared to offer any kind of commitment, and since I tried to be a fairly decent guy; I thought screwing a girl and never calling after was a pretty shitty thing to do. “One night?” I asked, skeptical. Damn I wanted her.
“One night of some seriously hot mind-blowing sex,” she breathed across my lips. Electrical currents crawled down my spine, shooting straight to my dick. Her nails scraped over my flesh as she continued to persuade me, “Two willing grownups pleasuring each other. It won’t mean a thing.”
Like I needed convincing. I was already sold the second Starr straddled my hips. Her lips made their way over my chest, her eyes still locked with mine. “See,” I said, pausing to clear the horny-ass-hell quality from my voice. “That right there, what you just said was so unpredictable.” I pulled back a fraction and looked her directly in the eyes. Doing my damndest to figure her out. “I just can’t wrap my brain around you, pretty girl”
“Why do you say that?” she laughed. “OH. You mean my admitting I want to pleasure you?”
How could a guy refuse?
What sane guy would refuse?
Not a damn single one.
My body reacted to her warm tongue over my nipples, her roaming hands. “You like that word,” she teased, kissing her way up the column of my throat. “Pleasure,” she kept whispering, “Pleasure. Pleasure. Pleasure. It’s ok to accept it, Sawyer. Nothing bad will happen. The sky won’t fall. The ground won’t swallow us. Only me doing more of this…” she ran her tongue along my jaw, “…and this.” She hovered over me, teasing.
Holy shit! The girl knew how to make a guy loose his head.