A Lover's Secret

by Bloom, Bethany

  They sat in silence for several moments. Jess leaned back against her chair and took her coffee in her hands. She looked at the window, at the way the sun shone through and revealed streaks on the glass.

  “You know…” His voice was gravely and low. “When I got my first royalty check, and it was so… fat, the first thing I thought of was you. I thought, ‘Now, I can come and find Jess.’ I thought maybe I would have a chance with you if I were rich and successful.”

  “Please.”

  “No, really. I did.”

  “You have so many great lines, Jake. But you can be real, you can be honest with me. I am your friend. I want to share your burden with you. I want to know you, all of you. The real you.”

  Tears shimmered in his eyes then. “Look at me, straight in the face, Jess, and tell me you think I’m feeding you a line.” He leaned forward. “You are all I’ve ever wanted. For years, I imagined that you were a fantasy, that I had created something out of you and out of your memory that so eclipsed anything a person could truly be. And then I met you, and I can’t get enough of you. I need you….like a drug. I need your arms around me. I try to hold myself back but I can’t.”

  She looked at the table again. Why did she get the feeling there was more he wasn’t telling her?

  “So about that two hundred and seventy thousand, I’ll have Margot wire it to your bank account. You can do whatever you please with it from there.” He took another bite of pancake, and the syrup trailed down, from his fork to the plate. “So as of right now, Jess, you are free. And…” He pointed his fork toward her. “You know all of my secrets.”

  Jess nodded, reached her hand toward his and realized that she doubted this very much.

  ***

  “So how about that skydiving, huh?” Jake asked as they left the restaurant.

  “No way.”

  “C’mon.”

  “Nope. There are just some things I have no desire to do.”

  “Well, we have to do something. I promised you this grand adventure. Something so earth shattering it would change the way you see yourself. You’ve just shot down my best idea. And we have to leave tomorrow.”

  “About that,” Jess said, “what’s the rush?”

  “I just… I need to meet with some people.”

  “You need to get back for Elizabeth. She told me I had to get you back.”

  “Did she?”

  “Yep.”

  “What else did she tell you?”

  “Let’s see… First she asked me if you had ‘told me anything.’”

  “Well, now I have. I’ve told you my secrets.”

  She surveyed his face, his eyes. Then she continued. “And, let’s see… what else? Oh, yeah, she told me that you not supposed to drink. I’m not real sure how that ties in to the story you just told me. So, see, I’m not sure you’ve spilled all of your secrets.”

  Jake rubbed at the back of his neck and squinted toward her. “How about if I’m your international man of mystery?”

  “I find that I don’t really need one of those.”

  “Well, for one…” Jake sighed. “I need to get back to L.A. to do some business things. To make sure your wire transfer goes through, so you can pay off your student loans.”

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you’re using the prospect of the loan payment as a way to change the subject.”

  She tried not to change her expression, but she couldn’t stop thinking about it. Was he really going to pay off her loans? A warmth flooded her face. What if he did? What if she were free now, to start over? To do whatever she wanted…

  But she was sure there was more to Jake’s story than he was telling her. Was the story he had just fed her simply designed to throw her off the scent of something else? Like whatever he was up to with Elizabeth?

  “I know!” Jake said with a start. “How about horseback riding?”

  “You know, I’ve never done that either.” Jess said thoughtfully.

  “You have never been on the back of a horse?” He laughed and grabbed for her hand. “And you call yourself an American?”

  “I know. Pathetic.”

  “It’s either that or skydiving. You have to try at least one new thing today. That’s Lassiter’s Law.”

  “Horseback riding it is.”

  He winked at her and pulled her close to him. He smelled warm—peppery and piney. Her chest opened and she breathed his scent. She could worry about Jake’s secrets another day. For now, she would open up, enjoy herself, and allow the notion that she might have a benefactor. A super sexy one.

  “There’s a stable just outside the gates, where we can take the horses out by the hour,” Jake said, pointing. “But the guy who owns the place is a little grouchy, so just be cool.”

  He took her by the hand then and they raced forward together, down the gravel path where they had entered only the day before. Jess’s hair beat against the top of her head as they ran, and she recalled the animalistic way Jake had chased her along the path the evening before. Then the way he had caught her and kissed her. Her breath snagged in her throat, and they slowed to a walk.

  Just beyond the gate, a barn stood, weathered and sun beaten. Jess could hear impatient rustles and whinnies just inside.

  They entered the barn, and it took a few moments for Jess’s eyes to adjust to the darkness. Before long, a man came into focus. He stood with his arms folded. His face was thick-skinned and tobacco brown, and his mouth was lined with deep wrinkles. He had a toothpick thrust between his teeth and he shifted it from one side of his mouth to the other as Jake began to speak. “We’d like to take a couple of your finest horses for the afternoon.”

  The man flicked the toothpick once again. “Can’t do it today. Storm’s coming.”

  “We’re seasoned riders,” Jake countered. “We’ll be back before the storm.”

  Jess watched, her eyes volleying between the two men, noting how easy lying came to one of them.

  Jake took a fold of hundred dollar bills from his pocket then. It filled his entire palm. The man looked at the cash, then back to Jake.

  “Storm’s coming,” the man said again.

  “No worries.” Jake flashed a smile. “Like I said, we’ll only be gone a couple of hours.”

  Jake peeled off the top few bills, watching the man with his eyebrows raised. He peeled off another bill, slowly.

  “These mares will do,” the man said as Jake shoved the bills into his open hand. The man nudged toward a corner and Jess squinted to see. Then the man looked at Jess and tilted his head. Her stomach dropped. Could he tell she was no expert rider? Of course he could, she thought. She was a terrible liar. She hated lying.

  “But you have to beware,” the man said, his tone sharp. “Spring runoff is high. Very high. The arroyos can fill up and the rivers can run over their banks.” He snapped his fingers. “Just like that.”

  “Sure,” Jake said, bobbing his head.

  “Come back well before the storm. And get boots.” The man gestured toward a shelf of battered footwear along the wall. Jess busied herself with trying on a pair.

  Within moments, they were out in the bright sunshine again. “Do you really think it’s going to rain?” she asked. “There’s not a cloud in the sky.”

  Jake shrugged. “Nah. I told you. He’s a grouch.” He stood, poised to help her into the saddle, but she mounted the horse the way she had seen in countless John Wayne movies, which she had watched, over the years, with Grandma.

  “Are you sure you’ve never done this before?” he asked.

  “Oh, I’m sure.”

  “You’re a natural then.” Jake mounted his own horse and struck with his heels. The horse whinnied and burst ahead.

  “Loping is more my speed, actually,” she called after him, and Jake slowed then, until they were riding side by side. Every now and then, Jess’s horse turned its head back toward the barn, as though silently timing them. Two hours.

  From the saddle, she could
see everything. The chalky cliffs. The depressions in the soil, which, Jake explained, marked the sites of long-forgotten pueblos. Here and there, pottery shards, still vibrant with dark striped patterns. “They say some of these pieces are more than eight hundred years old,” Jake explained.

  Jess listened to his voice and allowed her body to rise and fall with the cadence of her horse. A cool wind swept past her and she imagined it to be the voices and laughter of these ancient people, still echoing through the valley.

  Another gust took her breath away and she surveyed the sky once again. Still clear but for a gathering of clouds deep on the horizon. A hawk circled overhead and Jake pointed upward, not saying a word.

  “Where are we going exactly?” Jess asked, finally. “How much time do we have left?”

  “Oh, don’t worry too much about the two hour thing. Every time I’ve taken his horses out, that guy has been grumpy. And,” he laughed, “each time, he warns me about the weather.”

  Had he taken another woman? She imagined him, then, leading a beautiful figure—Elizabeth, maybe, or this Margot person—the same way he was leading her. Off into the distance, around the bleached cliffsides. She wondered if, then, as now, the red earth had turned to beaten clay under their horse’s feet.

  “You’re awfully quiet,” Jake said to her then, turning slightly in his saddle. “How are you feeling?”

  “Fine. Good. I just… the insides of my legs are kind of sore.”

  “You need to relax your body. Really. Stop clenching your thighs together.” He laughed and turned to her. Then he said, “I just got an image of your thighs, clenched around my chest, your feet around my back, as I enter you.”

  She took in a sharp breath. Wow.

  “I’ll bet your thighs are so strong,” he continued, “The way you run…”

  Another gust of wind buffeted her and she noticed the storm clouds were beginning to move closer. She shifted in her saddle.

  “You know, Jake, I don’t know if I’m dressed for a storm. Maybe we should turn back now. Go back to the room?”

  He squinted toward her. “Just a little farther and we will. There’s a place just up here I want to show you.”

  The horses mounted a plateau. The clay was softer here and Jake’s horse lost his footing once, then twice.

  “It’s pretty steep,” she said.

  “Stop worrying, Jess. Really. I’ve done this before, plenty of times.”

  The wind roared in her ears, and she felt a splash of rain on her back. Then a deep rumble of thunder.

  “I don’t think we should climb any mesas, Jake.” She tried to keep the edge out of her voice. She tried not to hear Monica’s voice in her head, chiding her for being afraid of everything. “Let’s wait out the storm down here, and then we can continue once the storm passes.”

  Still Jake continued on, as though he hadn’t heard her. They crested another hill. “It’s just up here,” he called. “I can see it. We just need to cross the river.”

  That’s when the sky opened up and rain lashed the earth. Icy drops blasted down, as though trying to shear her from her horse. Hailstones popped onto her scalp, her spine.

  “I’m going back,” she shouted toward him, willing him with her mind to turn around. To follow her.

  “No,” came his reply. “We’ll never make it. Just up here, there’s a place for the horses to get a little shelter. We’ll wait out the storm. You’ll see. Just don’t worry. We’ll be perfectly safe. We’re almost there.”

  More hail, larger now, pelted off her back and pinged from her head. The rain fell from the sky in sheets so thick she could hardly see. As she drew near, she could make out Jake, astride his horse at the river. She squinted as she approached. The water was roiling, churning; crashing frothy, over boulders and stones.

  Jake yelled toward her. “It’s running high. Too high to cross. We’ll have to find shelter on this side…”

  A sudden flash and a splintering clap of sound. Jess’s horse reared back, then snapped forward. Her head did the same, violently, and she lost hold of the reins. She tumbled forward, her arms and legs lashing through the air. A sudden emptiness all around her. Then the river. Bitter cold. Glacial. A flash of pain. She flailed her arms. For a moment, daylight, Jake’s voice. Then a deep sucking pull. The current. A pull that surpassed her imagination, groping at all sides of her. Taking her.

  An arm now, a shadow, reaching, in the air above her. She thrashed for it. Felt it. His grip tightened around hers. Then nothing. Her head struck something that forced it backward. Daylight. She sputtered into the air, then was pulled downward once more. A noise, muffled, muted. Another burst of light. A single branch, looming above.

  This was it. This was how she would end. At the mercy of this pulling. This pulling that couldn’t be seen. Just a force, deep, deep underground, taking her. Claiming her.

  Something surged through her then. A final burst of strength. She snatched at the shadow above, and it held, though it was a single spindly branch. Then his arms around her waist, pulling. The earth beneath her body. Hard and red. She heaved to her side and she choked and brayed and then the feel of his head, heavy, on her belly. The movement of his lips, tight against her skin, as he murmured her name, again and again.

  She lifted her head. Slowly, slowly. Small hailstones popped all around her, striking the ground, ricocheting in a hundred different directions. Her eyes rolled heavenward. She expelled a huge breath; took in another. Never had she felt so alive. She longed to stand, to yell, to stomp her feet, to throw her river-soaked boots in the air. Her heart raced, nearly exploding in her chest.

  To nearly die, and then to live.

  Her senses ripped open. The earth shimmered with vibrant light; with color. She noticed everything: the way her tongue felt in her mouth; the way her legs responded to her every command. She wiggled her toes and her fingers. She drank in the scent of the plants and the herbs and the freshness of the rain.

  His face loomed above hers. She traced his jaw with her finger, as though she were seeing his face for the first time. Her hands trembled as she outlined his nose, his cheekbones. She pressed her finger to the fleshy part of his lower lip. She searched his eyes, and she saw something there; something she always longed to see in another.

  He was weeping now. A single teardrop fell to her chest, and she placed her hand where it had fallen. Each moment passed slowly, as though she were moving through glass, etching each movement and detail in time: the red dirt, the freshly laundered landscape, the scent of sage and of sweat and of life.

  “Jess,” he murmured. “I nearly got you killed.”

  “No, Jake. You saved me.”

  He shook his head slowly. “I couldn’t save you. You saved yourself.”

  Jess raised up then and rolled, pushing him onto his back. Her eyes searched his, and she held his gaze for a moment, and then she kissed him gently, pressing her closed lips to his. He moaned and pushed his tongue up to reach hers. She accepted for a moment, and then she backed away, sitting astride him. She moved her hips gently back and forth, and she could feel his hardness beneath her.

  She tossed off her blouse in a single motion, then locked into his gaze as she unbuttoned his shirt, first one button, then another, slowly. She pushed the fabric from his shoulders and tilted her head to let her hair trail along his neck. She slid her hands along his skin and pressed another gentle kiss to his tanned chest before letting her breasts bob just over his face, over his mouth, teasing him. Then she plunged downward, skimming his pecs with the lace of her bra, then pushing her breasts hard against him.

  He groaned and bucked from beneath her, flipping her instantly onto her back. He ripped at her jeans and her bra until she was lying naked on the red earth, bare and prone. He pinned her hands onto the dirt as he explored her body, trailing open-mouthed kisses along her jaw and the underside of her neck. He stared at the ample bounty of her cleavage, then took the burgeoning swells into his mouth, lashing the tip of her nip
ples with his tongue and then slurping and sucking with hunger.

  She wriggled her hands free of his grasp, and pulled at the skin on his back, as though trying to pull him into her. She marveled at the breadth of his shoulders, at the strength of his arms, his chest, the warm pulsating manhood pushing against her. She moaned as he cupped his hands around the silky peaks of her breasts; kneading them, now, stroking and clutching.

  She parted her thighs then to receive the hard pulse of his arousal. There was a sharp burst of pain as he entered her and then sheer pleasure as he sank into her, moving slowly with the rhythm of the earth and the river beside them. She writhed with pleasure and bit her bottom lip as his motions surged in intensity. He pounded inside her now, deeper and deeper. And then, a swell. A wave. She leapt toward it, as though toward an unfathomable passage from which she would never return.

  A thunderous jolt, as they both cried out. Undulating waves of pure feeling, velvety and warm. Then all was still.

  ***

  Jake

  He lay there. In the dirt. He could hear her short, choppy breaths, just beside him. Oh, Jess. This was the moment he had been living for. To feel himself inside her. To come with her. And all he could think about was the river. It had nearly whisked her away, taken her, stolen her. And he hadn’t been able to save her. He had been powerless, which meant it had already begun to happen. It was already the beginning of the end.

  ***

  Jess

  “So where’s my horse, do you think?” Jess asked, finally, still naked and staring at the sky.

  “In its own stable by now, I’m sure,” Jake replied, low. “Comfortable and dry.”

  “And if not?”

  “I’ll replace the guy’s stupid horse. With a better one. One that doesn’t buck you into the river and run off toward home at the first crack of thunder.”