by Tracy Ellen
He stared into my eyes, a slight smile forming on his lips. “You can show me tonight. And it won’t be a quickie.”
I frowned slightly. “I wasn’t aware we had plans for tonight.”
“I’m sorry; in all the excitement the past couple of days I didn’t get around to officially asking you out, but it’s your birthday. I definitely have plans for you.”
“Shoot, another misunderstanding.” I shrugged a shoulder and thinking over the busy upcoming calendar in my head, added dubiously, “Maybe we can find a night sometime soon for your plans, but Jazy and Tre J have first dibs on me tonight.”
“I see.” Luke looked a little taken aback, but then he joked, “So what, are you going to be out all night?”
We’ve been known to stay out all night partying on someone’s birthday and I was trying to compute an average time I may be home. When I didn’t answer immediately, Luke’s eyebrows came together.
“Hey, what can I say?” I raised mine in return at his frown. “The girls saved the date months ago, and all I know is they got tickets to something in Minneapolis.”
“Saved the date, huh,” Luke remarked, a little ruefully. “Is this the whole ‘I’m an ass for assuming’ thing?”
“Kind of,” I agreed softly with an answering smile, “but always bear in mind I do love your ass.”
“Noted.” Luke sat back and regarded me. “I’m a man, Anabel, and I like to be able to assume some things. Save every birthday from here on out.”
“As long as we’re talking only birthdays, do the same for me.” I quickly warned, “I want no part of assuming on Valentine’s Day, though.”
“Why, do you have plans with someone else for that day already, too?” Luke asked silkily.
“Oh no, I just despise that holiday.” I shook my head in sadness for lovers everywhere. “Love should never be dictated. What fun is a forced date? I feel sorry for the men that feel forced to declare their love on February 14th and for women that force their men to buy flowers, candy, and heart-shaped jewelry to prove their love.”
“You do?” Luke’s smile had a cynical edge. “I never thought I’d meet a woman that didn’t want flowers, chocolate, or jewelry.”
I scoffed impatiently. “That’s because such a woman doesn’t exist. Of course I want those things, but not on only one designated day per year in February,” I hugged his biceps on one arm and stroked softly, “and certainly not by twisting your arm. Can you imagine the stifling boredom that perpetuates in a relationship?” My smile was full of admiration as I traced his lusciously full lower lip with my finger. “Luckily, I met a man who’s shown his creative brilliance since our first date. You would never fall for that commercial crapola or be anything less than passionately inventive throughout the entire year.”
“Of course I wouldn’t,” Luke agreed with hooded eyes and a straight face.
“This whole ‘thinking like a couple’ thing is weird, isn’t it? It didn’t cross my mind to tell you that I had other plans for my birthday tonight, either. I’d invite you to join us, but I do know the tickets were sold out ages ago.” I leaned sideways to whisper in his ear, “Let’s forget about taking me out for my birthday this year, but if you want to sleep here tonight, I promise to wake you up when I get home.”
Luke had no expression on his face when he turned his head to face me. “Let me be sure we understand each other. Listen to the evening I had planned for us, okay?”
“Okay,” I readily agreed, looking down at the granite countertop to give him my undivided attention.
“You’re dressed up in something short and pretty, and wearing the lingerie I bought you underneath.” With my hair up, Luke’s breath tickled a little against my ear, and then his voice lowered even more and the tickle turned into a shiver. “We’d talk over drinks in the bar of the restaurant, and then share a meal at a secluded table where we could sit next to each other. I’d order lobster for you because it’s your favorite.” He nibbled at my lobe. “Then I’d share a few bites of my steak, since I know it’s your close second.” I didn’t glance up; although I was sure he could see my small smile. I love surf and turf. “I was hoping my sharing would persuade you to pull up your pretty dress to show off your panties. There would be a tablecloth to cover you, but our waiter’s attentive. Unless I wanted him to see your cha-cha, I would have to be careful. So I’d probably only look, not touch. Would you let me look, Anabel?”
After a short pause, I nodded slightly, not wanting to break the spell he was weaving around me.
I heard the faint smile in his deep voice when he continued, “After we were done eating, I’d take you dancing at a club. Did you know I’ve been thinking about watching you dance again since that night in my barn? The way you move your body, Anabel…,” his voice trailed off for a moment and I strained to hear what he’d say next. “During the slow songs, I’d hold you in my arms and we’d kiss. I’d be hard against your stomach, and your nipples would scrape against my chest with every move we made to the music. I’d see your nipples, too, poking through the silk of your dress because your new bra doesn’t cover anything, does it? It’s a bra meant to show off your tits to me and I’ve already noticed them bouncing under your T-shirt this morning.” I had to bite back a moan when he kissed my neck. “It pleases me you’re wearing your present, Anabel. When we leave the club, I’d help you into the truck. You’ll let me pull your dress up again.” His tongue swirled the tiniest bit along my ear. “This time I can look and touch, and I will.” Genghis leaned back a little and put a finger under my chin to turn my face up. His sensuous mouth curved upward at whatever he saw on my face and I swallowed hard. “But I want to be completely sure we’re on the same page here. We can forget the date? You’re okay with only meeting me in your bedroom sometime later tonight just for sex?”
“Boy, am I!” In the face of his self-satisfied amusement, I added saucily, “Or anywhere else in the apartment works for me, too.”
“Christ, I feel used,” he quipped, as his finger lazily stroked my cheek, “but I’ll try and handle it.”
“That’s the spirit, my lovely meat puppet.” Aware my cheeks were hot, I was proud my voice stayed light since what I really wanted to do was bounce him off the kitchen appliances again and take him to the floor.
Luke’s eyes were glittering and his hands squeezed my waist again, but Reg’s sharp whistle put a stop to any further torment he intended to inflict.
“Alright, alright, enough with the bathroom breaks and the whispering kissy face. It’s present opening time.” My brother picked up a bag and handed it to me with an air of barely contained excitement. “Here, do mine first.”
“Classy wrap job,” I commented with a grin, as I unfolded the twisty tie wound tight around the white plastic bag from Walgreens.
“It’s a new trend called recycling and you girls should try it,” Reg returned piously, looking pointedly at the other wrapped boxes on the island. Stella erupted into a coughing fit over her bottle of water.
“Yeah, I think I’ve heard that word somewhere before,” I replied, pulling out my gifts. The cloying, potent smell preceded them. Reg had given me a handful of car air fresheners in the shape of trees and a premiere package gift card for multiple car washes.
“Thanks, Reg. Are you hinting that Lady Liberty is stinky?” I motioned to Anna who had giggled. “I swear your beloved lost a few shrimp quiches somewhere inside the back cargo area last week during a catering job.”
“Yeah, that’s what all the girls say when they smell fishy,” my brother agreed with a snicker.
“Anna, his vulgar, immature mouth is now your responsibility,” Mac declared with a disgusted wince in Reg’s direction. “You get first shot at doing something and make it good, or I will.”
Anna obeyed with alacrity.
My brother yowled in pain and rubbed his T-shirt over his left nipple while Anna stated with satisfaction, “I’ve wanted to do that since we were twelve and you grabbed my boobs when
I wasn’t looking.”
“You’ll always be my first grope.” Reggie’s grin was unrepentant as he explained to Luke. “I was nine and the minx ruined me for other women.”
Anna rolled her eyes. “Then what do you call the nonstop parade of women I watched for the next sixteen years?”
“A man has to be sure of these things, my love.”
I heard Reggie cry out again in a mixture of pain and laughter when Anna gave him another titty twister, but I didn’t look up from opening one of Stella’s presents. Reg and Anna had been carrying on this way for twenty years. The only difference was now they had sex, too.
Luke said to Anna, “My God, you are a violent woman. I thought females got all soft and nurturing when they were pregnant.”
“What are you talking about? That was soft,” Anna retorted with a grin.
Luke laughed as Reggie made a pained face. “Yeah, that was nothing. This woman will kick my ass all the way to Faribault if I do anything wrong once the baby’s born.”
“If?” Mac, Kenna, Jazy, and Tre shouted out in unison.
Anna gleefully rubbed her hands together. “I can’t wait.”
Luke eyed Reg with sympathy, but my brother grinned again and kissed Anna soundly, placing a protective hand on her belly. “Olivia Dare will save me.”
Luke nodded admiringly. “Great name.”
Anna threw up her arms in despair as everybody laughed.
“Look at this.” I displayed the LED headlamp on a neon pink band for everyone to see. “Nice, Stell. I’ve always wanted one of these for camping or for jogging when it’s getting dark.” I waved my hands and joked, “Look, Luke--no hands.”
“The color makes me gag,” Reg ribbed our niece with a sideways look, as he took the headlamp from my hands to look it over, “but other than that, it’s the best, reliable brand. I use mine all the time. They’re really slick for working on car repairs or for changing a tire on the side of the road. By the way, Junior, changing a tire is up next for you to learn.”
“Sure, Reg.” I couldn’t resist baiting him. “It will be an awesome skill to have when every man on the planet is dead.”
“You mark my words, Anabel Axelrod,” Reg warned, and then swept his finger around to include the circle of laughing women, “and all the rest of you cackling harpies, too. There will come a time when a man is not available to bail you out of trouble some dark night on a deserted back road and you’ll wish you listened to your brother.”
“Is it only me,” I tapped my ear, “or did anybody else hear our brother channeling Jack Banner just now?”
Jazy responded, “I was scared.”
Kenna laughed. “It must be Jack because Reg knows us all too well. I mean, come on. Why would any of us ever be on a dark, deserted back road in a car at night--unless a man was already there?”
“Hear, hear!” I called out, tossing Luke a little flirty smile and toasting with my latte. “To deserted back roads and dark men in cars!”
After the women toasted, I glanced over to thank Stella for the gift only to see her exchanging furtive grins with Mac and Anna.
“Oh, Anna, you’ve got that look,” I sing-songed, going immediately for the weakest link. “What’s going on over there?”
“Nothing,” she replied hastily, straightening up. “I don’t have any look.” Her trademark guilty smile turned on and off. “What look?”
“That chipmunk in the headlights look,” I said, and then pounced, “See, like that! Why did you look over at Luke just now?”
Anna blinked rapidly. Her mouth opened and closed as she sought an answer. It was a sure sign she was hiding something, but I’d had my fun and didn’t press anymore. I didn’t want to ruin whatever new surprise the girls were trying to pull off.
To her relief, Luke intervened with a smile. “You do look guilty as hell about something, Anna, but I’m more concerned right now at the thought of Anabel running wild in the dark with that headlamp on.” He put his arm around my shoulder. “Stella, you do know your aunt is prone to head injuries, don’t you?”
“That’s so true--how could I forget?” Stella’s hand was propping her head up, so she nodded towards the second gift I was unwrapping. “Maybe you’d be safer using this one camping in the dark woods, Bel, and walking, not running.”
“Thatagirl, Stell,” Luke praised warmly while she giggled half-heartedly.
“You two are no fun,” I retorted, admiring the huge LED flashlight, also in hot pink. There was a matching portable radio, as well. Both operated on batteries, but had manual cranks to generate power should you ever need that function.
Jazy hefted the flashlight. “This would make a hell of a weapon.”
“Just please don’t bash your own head in with it, Bel.”
“Gee, Mac, tempting as that sounds, I’ll try to stop myself.”
Luke’s hand squeezed my thigh under the island. He was grinning at the banter, although his glance had rested appraisingly on Stella. Her earlier giggle lacked its usual delighted gusto and my observant war-god had noticed. I patted his hand resting on my thigh. Luke looked at me inquiringly and I smiled reassuringly with a little nod towards Stella.
Luke’s probing gaze was now on me while I opened Mac’s gift. I could sense he was equal parts irritated and reluctantly intrigued that I could read him. I tried not to smile, I really did, but it was too funny he got offended by my ability to do so.
His hand moved up to my butt for his next hard squeeze, and I laughed out loud. He had turned away to answer a question of my brother’s, but not before I caught his small answering smile.
Mac’s gift was a 268 piece emergency first-aid kit. It had enough supplies that I could perform minor surgery in a pinch, if I could figure out how 260 of the supplies were used.
“Hmm, I’m sensing a birthday present theme developing here.” I looked around the island at my family. I received only stoic faces in response because Reg had forced Anna’s face into his chest with an arm around her neck, even as she yelled in muffled indignation.
Tre J’s gift was an insulated, compartmentalized duffle filled with emergency foods and drinks. Off the top, it contained beef jerky, cheese and peanut butter crackers, granola bars, trail mix, chocolate bars, pop tarts, bottled bubble waters, and a dozen Sambazon energy drinks.
“Sweet! Thanks, Tre. These are the best,” I pulled out one of the acai berry energy drinks and smiled at my niece, “and Stella approved.”
She nodded. “Yep, Sambazon acai palm plantations in South America have been USDA organic since 2003, and they’re fair trade certified.”
“And they taste good, too.”
Before I pulled the tab, Mac said, “Hey, wait. Aren’t those supposed to be for your truck?”
“Tre?” I asked, holding up the purple can and giving it a little wiggle. “Your gift, your call. Do you think eleven cans will tide me over if I ever have to wait for a tow truck?”
Tre laughed. “I think you can get by drinking one today, but only one. The rest stay in the bag for an emergency.”
Anna’s gift was another kit in a case, but this one was emergency equipment to survive being stranded in severe weather. Rope, a miniature folding shovel, road side flares--there were all sorts of interesting items in the kit, even disposable human waste bags.
Jazy’s present was a gas gift card and a self-pumping gas siphon. In the zombie novels I read, every character would give their right arm to have one of those pumping siphons. The characters were always choking and gagging on the gasoline they had to siphon by mouth suction.
“How cool,” I exclaimed, opening the box and checking it out. I held up the pump in one hand and the gift card in another. “Doesn’t this one,” I waved the pump, “make this one,” I waved the gift card, “rather redundant?”
“That’s my licentious sis, always looking for the angles,” Jazy laughed in agreement.
“Licentious?” Mac repeated in strangled voice. “Don’t you mean larcenous?”
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br /> “I don’t know, Mac” Luke answered thoughtfully, “I think either word works in Anabel’s case.”
“Yeah, so there,” Jazy gloated, glaring down Kenna and Reg’s hilarity before she flashed her wicked grin. “The gift card is to keep in the glove box for emergencies and the siphon is for everyday use around town.”
Mac moaned and covered her face. “You two won’t be happy until I can’t show my face anywhere.”
Luke reached over and briefly squeezed Mac’s shoulder. “Newer cars have an anti-siphon screen in their gas tanks.”
“Thanks, but somehow that doesn’t relieve me with those girls,” Mac complained.
“Anti-siphon screen in the gas tanks,” Jazy mocked gleefully. “You’ll take out the back seat and go through the fuel pump, right Bel?”
“Sure, Jaz, but only after I bust the car window first to get inside,” I responded merrily, lightly stroking the huge LED flashlight from Stella.
“See, Stella! I told you that flashlight was too dangerous to buy for Bel,” Mac groaned and buried her head in her arms.
Chapter IX
“Take Me To Church” by Hozier
Tuesday, 12/18
10:40 AM
Reg quickly changed the subject. “Is that all the presents then, Bel?”
“No,” Kenna spoke up. She handed me a gift with a smile. “Happy Birthday from Mustang and me.”
In the silence while I removed the paper covering the box, I heard the dog’s snores from the other side of the island where Kenna sat. If I didn’t know it was a real dog emitting those incredible noises, I would have thought cartoons were playing on a TV.
“Oh, thank you. It’s so cute of you both.” Laughing, I inspected the framed picture of Kenna and Mustang posed in front of a Christmas tree. They wore matching red and white striped stocking caps and leaned against each other. I passed the photo around to share with everyone.
I was bending over to pick up a piece of tissue paper when I heard Mac hiss, “What’s up with the picture, Kenna? I thought we agreed everybody was supposed to get Bel a gift for her truck.”