Nothing Personal (The Kincaids)

by James, Rosalind

  “Good,” the voice said. “Send the box, shred the address. Good for one time only anyway. Don’t input it anywhere, do you understand me?”

  “Sure you don’t want me to eat it?” The insult rankled.

  “No. I want you to shred it, and this phone number too.”

  “How will I contact you, then? When I’ve got the beta?”

  “Don’t worry,” the voice said. “We’ll be in touch. We know where you live.”

  Travel Trailer

  Alec climbed the metal steps to the trailer’s narrow door, pushed it open. He heard the sound of water running, saw her suitcase set on the bench that ran along one wall, and put his own bag down next to it. He considered turning on another light, dismissed the idea. The dim illumination provided by the single bedside lamp would do just fine, however this worked out.

  He looked at the double bed that took up half the space in here, the flannel sheets folded back neatly over the top of the puffy down comforter encased in a cover woven to look like a Navajo blanket. Not too cold right now with a space heater chugging out the BTUs, but they’d be glad enough of the cozy bed later that night.

  If he were sleeping in here, of course. He eyed the folded sleeping bag and pillow lying ready by the door, thought about sitting on the bed, and took a seat instead on the bench next to the little dining table. Leaned back, let all the remaining tension flow from his mind and body, and waited for Desiree to get out of the shower.

  Desiree turned the water off, shoved the curtain covering the tiny metal stall to one side, and reached for a fluffy white towel. It wasn’t a long reach. Mira had told her that she and Gabe had lived here all autumn. That must have been cozy.

  She toweled herself dry, used the lotion Mira had left on the triangular shower shelf along with shampoo and conditioner. Pretty good service at this hotel, considering that they’d been last-minute guests.

  She took her time combing out her hair, wrapped the towel around her as best she could, wishing she hadn’t left her old robe at her grandmother’s. She twisted another towel around her head, opened the door of the cramped bathroom, saw Alec sitting in the shadows beyond the bed, and just about closed the door again. Paused for a long moment, then came out, hitching her towel around herself.

  “Guess that answers that one,” he said resignedly. “Looks like it’s the sleeping bag, because we obviously need to work up to this again. Dinner, wine, candles, all that, see where we get. Where you want to go.”

  She stood at the foot of the bed and looked at him. Leaning against the wall, long legs stretched in front of him, arms crossed. All that power on a leash, held back tight because he thought she wasn’t ready for it.

  Well, he was wrong. She knew exactly where she wanted to go. And she knew that she wanted him to take her there.

  She came the rest of the way around the bed, sat down on its edge, facing him. Took the turban off her head and threw the towel over by her suitcase. It didn’t quite make it, fell to the floor, but she barely noticed. She reached both hands to her hair, ran her fingers up through it, lifted it behind her, and let it fall. Drew her arms down slowly, and saw him sit up straighter, pull his feet in, and push off his bench without even seeming to realize it.

  “What kind of a kidnapping do you call this, then,” she asked him, “if you’re not even going to ravish me?”

  So he ravished her. Still slowly, still carefully, but oh, so thoroughly. He started by pulling her up to stand, taking her towel off and tossing it. She had no idea where it landed, because she wasn’t looking.

  “This is my favorite kind of ravishment,” he murmured, pulling her head gently back with a fistful of hair, closing his mouth over the side of her neck and biting. “The kind where you start out naked.”

  He took his sweet time with her, kissing, touching, stroking, until her legs were trembling underneath her. Every time she thought about stepping back so she could unbutton his shirt, he kissed her again, moved his hand to someplace even better, and she got distracted.

  At last, though, she had one hand running through the short hair at the back of his head, thick, dark, and soft as the pelt of an animal, feeling so good under her fingers, and had managed to get the other hand under his T-shirt, trailing over the smooth skin of his back.

  “Alec,” she sighed, lifting her mouth from his with difficulty, shivering at the feeling of his hand cupping her bottom while the other one took its leisurely time at her breast. His thumb was moving, he had her on her tiptoes, and she was melting inside. “I need to . . . take your clothes off. I need you naked too. Please. I don’t need you to be so careful, or so gentle either, not tonight. I need you to hurry.”

  He kissed her one last time, then stepped back from her, leaving her rocking down off her toes. He stood back and looked at her, a slow smile growing. “Mmm. I don’t think we’re going to hurry. Because how much fun would that be?”

  “Alec . . .”

  “No,” he said. “No hurrying. I think you’re still kidnapped, and that I’ve got some more ravishing to do. I think you’d better pull the covers back and lie down on that bed, don’t you? Right in the middle, because I’m going to need room if I’m going to ravish you the way you deserve.”

  She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again. Who was she kidding? She needed more, and if this would get him naked faster, it was exactly what she was going to do. So she turned around and did it. Lay down in the middle of the bed, started to pull the sheet back over her.

  “Oh, no,” he said. “No covers. I want to look at you.”

  So she lay there, naked, a shiver of anticipation running through her, and waited for him.

  He sat down on his bench again, pulled off his shoes and socks, then stood.

  “I’ve got all this work to do still, though,” he said, his hand on the top button of his shirt. “I’m going to need some inspiration.”

  “What?” she asked, her anticipation replaced by confusion.

  “Why don’t you put your hand on your breast,” he suggested. “Show me what you do when you’re alone. When you’re thinking about me, the same way I think about you.” He was undoing buttons now. “Because you do think about me when you’re lying in bed, don’t you?”

  “Yes.” She could feel the heat rising from her chest, up her throat, into her cheeks. “I think about you.”

  “Then show me.” He finished unbuttoning. “Put your hand on your breast, Desiree. Please. Show me what you do.”

  She couldn’t believe she was doing it, but she did it anyway. She started with her fingertips on her stomach, traced them up her rib cage, then, slowly, over the curve of her breast. Circling. Teasing.

  She’d never been voluptuous, never the kind of woman men stared at on the street, but seeing the hunger in his eyes as he watched her hand move closer made her feel like that. Made her feel powerful, and so sexy. And watching him pull off the flannel shirt, revealing the arms she hadn’t seen since that basketball game, was a pretty good incentive too.

  He stared as her hand closed in. As it circled, then came back, drifted teasingly over the erect nipple. The sensation of it, the way it set up answering echoes straight to her center, the look in his eyes, they were all pushing her higher, and she shifted on the bed, felt her thighs parting as she kept on.

  “Other hand, now,” he said, standing in his white T-shirt and jeans, his feet bare, watching. “Put both of them up there and show me how you do it. Because you’re so beautiful, and that looks so good, and I want to watch you.”

  “I need some inspiration too,” she managed to say. “Take off the T-shirt first, then maybe I’ll do it.”

  He smiled. Got both hands under the hem of the white tee, and pulled it up and over his head. Not making any kind of performance of it, but what a show it was anyway. The narrow waist, the flat brown belly she’d seen in a brief flash, now fully revealed to her with its hard horizontal ridges, the extra, delicious diagonal slash of muscle on either side, dropping i
nto the waistband of his jeans, asking for her fingertips, her mouth to trace it the whole sweet way down.

  Her gaze would have stayed there, but it had to move to his chest along with the shirt. There was no choice, really, because the slabs of pectorals, the bulge of shoulders needed to be looked at. And his arms. The sculpted shapes of biceps and triceps, the dark, silky hair revealed as he lifted his arms over his head. All of it. She wanted to touch it all, move her mouth over every bit of him.

  “Both hands,” he reminded her, and she did it for him, because he wanted it, and she did too. Her hands stroking, circling, the liquid fire pooling inside as she saw his gaze hot on her, the breath rising and falling in that broad chest.

  “Tell me,” he said as his hands went to the top button of his jeans. “Tell me what you think about when you’re doing that at night, at home in bed.”

  “I think about you,” she whispered. “About you.”

  “About me what?” He was unbuttoning, but he’d slowed down, somehow. “Come on, Desiree. Help me out here. Inspire me.”

  “About you . . . touching me. At work.” She wouldn’t have thought she could blush more, but she could tell that she was, and it didn’t seem to matter, because saying the words was making it even better. “When I come into your office, I imagine . . . that you put me on the desk. When I wear a skirt . . .”

  He’d finished his unbuttoning at last, was shoving the worn jeans over his hips. They were falling to the floor, and she was seeing the thighs she’d imagined so often. Just as strong and hard as she’d pictured them, dusted with black hair. And he was in his briefs, and they were . . . really something.

  “Move that hand down now,” he said, looking down at her with so much heat in his eyes, making her feel like the most desirable woman in the world. “Touch yourself. Show me how you come. Show me now, Desiree. And tell me the rest.”

  Her hand moved, barely aware that he’d told her to do it, just knowing that she had to. Because he was pulling off the briefs now, and that was better than she’d imagined too.

  “I think about you,” she said again, her voice soft and husky as she watched him watching her. “I think about you putting me on your desk. Unbuttoning my blouse, and . . . touching me.”

  “Mmm. That’s what I do. Yeah, I can imagine that. That’s good.” He was reaching into his overnight bag for the paper bag with the box in it, ripping the end off, and pulling out a packet. “Keep going. What am I doing now?”

  “You’re . . . unfastening my bra, and holding me. Kissing me there.” Her own hands were doing pretty well themselves, but it was watching him that was doing it.

  “I’ll do that,” he promised, rolling the condom on, and she couldn’t look away. “We’ll lock the door, and I’ll do it all to you. Tell me what happens next.”

  “You . . .” She was having trouble talking now. “You push me back on the desk. So I’m on my back. And you shove my skirt up. And you . . .”

  “Tell me. Tell me right now, and I’ll come over there and do it to you.”

  “You . . . stand between my thighs. And you . . .” She was climbing now, her entire body straining with effort, and she was gasping. “Alec. Please. Come do it.”

  “Not until you tell me. Not until I watch you come. Come on, Desiree. Come on, baby. Say the word. Tell me what I do to you.”

  “You . . .” she got out. “Oh, Alec. You . . . fuck me. Please.”

  And then she was there, and her hand was still moving, and he was moving towards her too. Coming over her, sliding inside, hot and hard and so deliciously much of him, while the contractions were still gripping her, and gripping him. And it was as if he started it all over again. She held onto him, felt him filling her, so much better than she’d ever imagined.

  He pulled one of her legs around his waist, was reaching around to touch her, and it got even better. Still moving slowly, his other hand twisted through her hair, his face urgent and beautiful above her, a dark archangel, falling fast.

  “Do you want to know what I think about?” he murmured in her ear.

  “Oh,” she moaned. “Yes.”

  “When you come into my office,” he said, still moving, his hand still on her, his fingers going unerringly to the perfect spot, “I make you lock the door. I have you come over to my desk, tell you to get on your knees. I’m hearing the guys out there, all talking and working, not knowing what’s going on. That in my office, you’re on your knees, unzipping me. You’re taking me in your mouth, and I’m holding your head, and you’re taking me so deep. All the way inside. I’m looking down at you, watching you do it. And it feels so good.”

  “You need to teach me,” she got out through her rising excitement. “How to do it the way you want it.”

  “So much I want to do,” he said. “I want to love you every way there is. Desiree. I want you so much.”

  And then he wasn’t talking anymore, because they were both past that now. She had both hands around his back, stroking over all that muscle, that smooth dark skin. Down his sides, his arms. Holding him, and loving him. Feeling him move in her, the heat and the fullness of it. He was saying her name again, and she couldn’t say his, because she couldn’t talk anymore, because it was all too much. Until she was calling out, broken and urgent, and hearing his answering groan as he emptied into her.

  “Damn.” He was lying on his back beside her, breathing hard. Had pulled the covers over them, finally, because their bodies were cooling down now, the heat dissipating. “I always knew that would feel good. But it felt . . .” He laughed a little. “Really good.”

  She was laughing a bit herself. “Mmm. What would you call that, though? Self-service ravishment?”

  “Hey.” He felt the slow grin growing. “I serviced you pretty good.”

  “Eventually.” She leaned over him, kissed his chest, ran her hand over it, and that felt good too. “I’ve never been kidnapped before, though, so I’ll admit that I don’t know the rules.”

  “That’s right.” He smoothed a hand over her damp curls, twined one around his finger, exactly as he’d always imagined doing it. “Luckily, I’m an experienced kidnapper.”

  He considered staying where he was, changed his mind with reluctance, flipped the comforter back and swung his legs around.

  She reached for him. “Don’t go,” she protested. “Stay with me.”

  He leaned over and kissed her, slow and soft. “Just going to take a shower,” he promised. “Then I’ll come back and sleep with you, so we can keep the monsters away.”

  “No monsters tonight,” she said. “I’m good.”

  “I wasn’t talking about your monsters.” Which made her laugh, exactly as he’d hoped.

  Then he stood up, but she had a hand around his thigh, was pulling him back to sit again. “Alec. Wait.”

  He began to turn, stopped at the touch of her mouth at the very base of his spine. Then her tongue, licking over the sensitive skin there, making him shiver.

  She ran a slow hand down his back, stopped at the bottom, her fingertips delicate against his skin, and touched her lips to him again.

  “Now you can go take your shower,” she told him. “Now that I’ve kissed your birthmark.”

  You Only Need One

  “Morning.”

  It looked like Gabe and Mira were finishing up breakfast. Alec sighed a little as he shut the side door behind him. One of these days, he was going to have to learn how to cook. Oh, well. That’s what restaurants were for.

  “Mind if I borrow a couple things? T-shirt, underwear, socks?” he asked his brother. “And a laundry bag?”

  “Sure.” Gabe pushed back from the table, handed his brother a plastic bag taken from a wire basket nailed to the cabinet door under the sink, and led the way into his bedroom. He opened a few drawers and pulled out neatly folded items, handed them to Alec in a stack.

  “It just gets worse and worse,” Alec complained. “Not only do you have a special holder for your grocery bags, you fold your
underwear.”

  “I do.” Gabe clearly wasn’t the least bit disconcerted. “Prepare to be shocked, because I fold Mira’s too. I match up her socks and fold the tops over. I am Laundry Man, and I am proud.”

  Alec snorted. “Good thing you found each other.”

  “So.” Gabe sat on the bed and watched his brother strip down. “No sleeping bag.”

  “What was that thing you said to me once?” Alec wondered, buttoning the fly of his jeans again, pulling the clean T-shirt over his head and yanking it down. “Oh, yeah. None of your business, and you know it.”

  Gabe laughed. “So you got that figured out? The working-together thing?”

  “It’ll work out.” Alec sat beside him and pulled on the clean socks. “I’ll make it happen.”

  “You always do,” Gabe agreed. “The Midas touch. Not always as easy with those tricky human emotions, though.”

  “No worries.” He was on top of the world this morning. It would work, because he would make it work. “I’m good.”

  When they got back to the kitchen, there was a cup of coffee waiting for him in a white stoneware mug.

  “Thanks,” he told Mira, taking a grateful sip. Strong, black, and scalding, exactly the way he liked it. “I was telling Gabe last night, the remodel turned out great. Very homey.”

  “It’s nice, isn’t it?” she said, looking around with satisfaction.

  “It looks like there should be, I don’t know, things hanging from the beams in the ceiling,” he said. “Like in the cabin. A side of bacon, maybe some of those plants.” He gestured. “You know, bunches of them, hanging upside down.”

  “Herbs,” she said with a smile. “I think we’ll pass on the bacon, but Gabe’s going to make me raised beds in the spring so we can do some gardening, so who knows? You might see your herbs drying in here someday. He says he’ll build me a fence, too. I thought, sunflowers, sweet peas up against it. Won’t that be pretty?”