by Susan Stoker
He tore his gaze away and pulled out the rough blanket he’d found in the tack room. At least he’d thought to bring it or they’d be sitting on the dirt. He untied his rifle as well and brought that to a relatively clear spot. Leaning his gun between the branches of a palo verde tree, he spread the blanket and dropped the bag on it.
Adriana joined him, plopping her ass down next to the bag and opening it. “Hmm, not exactly fine dining, but it’s a picnic.” She pulled out the bread, meat, cheese, waters and strawberries then she tipped the bag upside down and shook. She looked at him. “That’s it?”
He shrugged as he sat cross-legged on the blanket. “It’s the best you get on the spur of the moment.”
She pouted. “And here I thought you’d been planning this all day. But a girl can’t be picky.”
She made short work of making up the sandwiches, using the plastic bag as her table. She handed him one.
“Thanks.”
“Anytime, cowboy.” She wiggled her brows before looking down to create her own sandwich.
He’d wolfed down half of his by time she finished making her own.
“Damn, you’re one hungry hombre. Let me know if you need another sandwich.”
He would definitely need another, but he could make it himself. He wasn’t going to have her interrupt her meal to wait on him.
They sat in silence for a while, eating their dinner and watching the butterflies and occasional bee flit between the flowers. There were other flying insects as well, but not nearly as colorful.
He finished his first sandwich and started making his second.
“Hey, I can do that for you.”
“No, I know how. You eat.”
“Because I need my energy?” She gave him a seductive look.
Shit, if she could make him horny over a ham sandwich, what would he do when it came to the strawberries?
He’d just started his second sandwich when she turned her attention to the luscious fruit. “Did I tell you these are my favorite fruit or was it sheer luck that you brought them?” She opened the plastic box and took one out, but stared at him.
He swallowed his mouthful. “Just luck.”
“Very good luck, I’d say.” She held on to the green leaves at the end of the strawberry and bit into it, her lips almost matching the redness of the fruit.
He couldn’t take his gaze from her mouth, his body tensing over the pure sensuousness of her action.
When she bit off the rest of the fruit and dropped the green leaves on the bag, he turned back to his sandwich, even though his hunger for food had disappeared.
Adriana held a strawberry out to him. “Open up.”
Two could play at this game. He opened his mouth and she eased the strawberry in. He made as if to close it then leaned forward and enveloped her fingers and pulled.
Her eyes widened, even as their warm brown irises darkened. She released the strawberry and pulled her fingers from his mouth. “You’re being naughty.”
He positioned the strawberry in his mouth to bite off the leafy end and spit it out onto the desert floor. He chewed the sweet fruit, losing all appetite for the rest of his sandwich.
Adriana took her time to enjoy each strawberry, occasionally feeding one to him. Her half-lidded eyes and sage scent drew him in. His cock was hard and he wanted in her pants, but he didn’t want a repeat of the other day. Hard and fast was not his norm. At least it never had been.
To break the seductive aura she created around them, he took a bite of the sandwich he no longer wanted. He swallowed and gulped down some water. “Why did you join the bordello?”
The question had barely formed in his mind when it came out his mouth, and he kicked himself for asking, especially when she gave him a startled look.
“It’s complicated.” She bit another strawberry in half.
Now that it was out there, he couldn’t let it go. “I have time.”
She gave him a disgruntled face and shrugged. “In junior high school, I discovered I was very popular with the boys and a pariah to the girls. By time I was thirteen, I’d lost my virginity to a fifteen-year-old.”
He stifled his surprise, careful not show any reaction. His instinct told him she was looking for a judgment she could argue with. When he didn’t say anything, she continued.
“It was my first time and his, and we didn’t have a clue about what we were doing, but we liked it enough to try again. We finally got it right and it was good, but there was something missing for me.”
“An orgasm?”
She nodded. “How’d you know?”
He smirked. “I was nineteen before I figured out that women didn’t have one just because I did.”
She laughed. “A lot of boys in my high school didn’t get that. After dating a few, of course I got a reputation, especially from the girls who now hated me with a passion. I was by far the most unique-looking girl in school.”
He didn’t doubt that for an instant.
“I decided I didn’t need the crap at school, so I stopped dating classmates. I started cocktail waitressing when I was sixteen. Of course, on paper I was bussing tables.” She winked. “But I could make over a hundred dollars a night in tips. That was a huge amount of money for someone my age.”
Shit, if he’d made that much when he was sixteen, he’d have been in heaven.
“It didn’t take me long to figure out I could make a hell of a lot more if I took some of the men up on their offers. Even then I wouldn’t sleep with a man who was married or had a girlfriend, but at that age, I was still naïve and thought it was fun.”
“What did your mother say?”
Adriana’s face closed up, the first time he’d ever seen that happen and it fired up his curiosity.
“There wasn’t much she could say. I did my own thing by then. She was always a doormat. Pretty, but no backbone at all.”
“Did your father know?”
Her face paled so much at the mention of her father that his gut tightened, afraid of what he’d hear next.
“He was dead. He died when I was eight.”
“Heart attack?”
She swayed and he steadied her. With his other hand, he shoved her water bottle at her. “Drink. It’s still hot out here.”
She did as he suggested, but her color didn’t return.
He was an ass for not telling her to forget it, but he wanted to know what had made her who she was. He didn’t question why, he just had to know.
She screwed the cap back on the water bottle. “He was working with coyotes to smuggle people into the US. Things went south. He probably didn’t pay them all the money he owed them or something. They killed him. It wasn’t pretty.”
His body tensed with protectiveness as he imagined what Adriana, the child, must have witnessed. “You’re lucky they didn’t hurt you.”
“I hid as soon as the door busted in. Even then I was smarter than my mother.”
He wanted to pull her into his arms. He understood. He needed her to know that. “I’ve seen a lot overseas. It can be hard to live with. Some guys can’t function at all when they get back. Others, like me, make it through somehow, but the dreams can really mess you up.” He looked away from her. “It changes you. You aren’t the person you were before something like that happens.”
Images of the men he’d carried to waiting helicopters came unbidden to his mind. They were still breathing, but blood was everywhere. Sometimes another soldier would run up, before the chopper went airborne, to make sure they had the limb or finger or whatever physical piece of the wounded man was missing. None of them wanted to leave any part of themselves behind.
But the fact was, they did. The first time he left his naiveté and innocence. The second time, he left his pride and his peace.
Her hand on his arm snapped him out of the dark path he’d gone down. They were talking about her.
He had to ask. “When did you decide to make a career of sex?” He figured that was the most diplomatic
way to put it.
She grinned, clearly pleased with herself and her color returned. “Oh, that’s easy. I was eighteen and agreed to meet this guy after work, to make that extra money. He was from Nevada and I was in Southern California at the time where prostitution is illegal. I hadn’t been caught, but the police had started nosing around.”
She took another strawberry and bit it in half, taking her time to chew it and swallow, her lips mesmerizing him as they moved.
“Anyway, this particular guy was a hunk from Reno and I was shocked he had to pay for it. When I got into his car behind the gas station, I gave him a condom and told him he had to wear it. He laughed and told me I should be in Nevada where they had whole counties where prostitution was legal.
I tucked that away in my brain, thinking I’d look into it, but that night, with him, I had my first orgasm. I was so thrilled, I offered to service him all the way back to Nevada if he’d take me with him. He did.”
She finished off a strawberry and took a sip of water. Hunter had a dozen questions he wanted to ask, but it was always best to let a suspect ramble. She wasn’t a suspect in his mind, but the techniques he’d learned on the force had come in handy more than once.
“As it turned out, he was a regular at Mrs. B’s. He said he paid for it there because the girls got to choose who they wanted to do and he knew they were clean. I think that’s what he liked about me.” Adriana gave him a sly look. “You liked that, too.”
He nodded, but still didn’t interrupt.
“He also liked it because he enjoyed sex, but women he’d been with always wanted a relationship and he just wasn’t there. I’m so thankful he was honest with me because he clarified exactly how I’d always felt. Sex is fun, but why did it have to come with all the baggage? I mean, I was eighteen and he was twenty-two. So I figured if he could go to Mrs. B’s to have sex and avoid a relationship, then I could work there for the same reason.”
His mind whirred with all she’d revealed. His therapists’ words echoed in his head about avoidance issues, but they never said anything about sex being used that way. She looked expectantly at him.
“If you were happy there, why did you leave?”
Adriana shrugged, showing more of her cleavage with the movement, and he wasn’t oblivious.
“When Kendra asked me to come here, I’d been at the bordello for over ten years and I figured it had served its purpose. I was ready for a change.”
He gave her a devilish grin of his own. “But you still love sex.”
“You can say that again, and again and again.” She laughed. He liked her laugh. It wasn’t just uninhibited, it was a full throated, husky laugh that made him feel good again.
She eyed him shrewdly. “So when are you going to show me that body of yours?”
He tensed. “It’s not a pretty sight.”
She waved his comment aside. “Oh please. I’ve already seen most of the back side and it was hot.”
He frowned. “When did you see my back side?”
Adriana’s smile faded. “The second time I broke into your casita. I haven’t done it again. I know you’re pretty touchy about that. Remember, I fell asleep on your love seat?”
She waited for him to nod.
“You were having a bad dream, so I crawled into bed with you. When you calmed down, I left.” She lifted her chin, daring him to make something of it.
Shit, he was too shocked to be angry with her. He’d never had anyone remain unscathed after touching him during one of his nightmares. Even the nurses in the hospital in Germany had called him “Biene” or bee because of his tattoo and because if they tried to wake him up from his nightmare, he came out of it swinging. They finally left him to wrestle his personal demons on his own.
He should thank her, but he just couldn’t make his mouth move as he attempted to grasp that she’d made them go away. That had to mean something.
Her look of defiance changed to concern as both her chin and brows lowered. “You have a lot of nightmares?”
He looked away and shrugged.
“I used to have them after my father died, but I think I grew out of them, mostly.”
He turned back to her at that. Her brown eyes reminded him of maple syrup, but they weren’t sweet, just filled with compassion. This was the Adriana beneath the brash façade. He cupped her face with his hand and brought his lips within an inch of hers. “I need you.”
She inhaled at his words, but she closed the distance between them and kissed him. It was a tentative kiss before he parted his lips and let her take the lead. She didn’t rush it. Her arms wrapped around his neck and she deepened the kiss, making it sensual… and caring?
He moved his hands to her waist as she sat, her legs bent and to the side. He wanted to keep this new Adriana with him, find out what she was like. He stroked her back where it was bare, enjoying the feel of her smooth skin.
When she pulled back, she gave him a shy smirk, but it wasn’t the practiced one she always used. “I want to see you, no matter how imperfect you are.”
His gut tensed. “No woman has seen me since I came home. Are you sure it’s what you want?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
He took a deep breath and nodded.
Her hands moved to the buttons on his shirt, undoing them one by one. When she reached the spot where it was tucked into his jeans, she stopped and placed her hands on his stomach. Slowly, she spread them up his torso, taking the shirt with them.
His body came alive at her touch, starved for the feeling. He closed his eyes, letting his body communicate to him its joy as she moved the material over his shoulders. Was it animal instinct or psychological need that caused such bliss?
“Nice.” Her voice was husky.
He opened his eyes as she moved her hands back down over his chest and across his abdominals. When she reached his jeans, again her gaze came up to meet his. Appreciation shone in her eyes.
“I have to see it all.” She pulled her legs under her to kneel and unbuttoned his cuffs. First, she smoothed the material down until his hands were free, then she ran her hands from his shoulders to his wrists.
He grasped her hands in his, intertwining their fingers. It had been so long since he’d had his skin touched, stroked. He wanted to savor every second. He raised his right hand with hers clasped in it and kissed her knuckles, bringing her gaze from his body back to his face.
Uncertainty flashed in her eyes before she looked at his left arm and turned that hand within hers. “Oh wow. I love this tat.”
He glanced down at his arm and grimaced at the five inch by four inch angry bee tattoo. “Really?”
She laughed. “Yes, really. Why the mean bee?”
“Let’s just say it was a leftover from my brief rodeo days.”
She shook her head and peered at it closer. “Uh-uh. I want the full story.”
“It’s not much of a story. I was a scrawny kid back then, but for some reason every time I got on a bull, the damn thing went nuts, as in, more than usual. My friends teased me that I was like a bee and I stung every bull I rode. No one wanted to ride after me because they couldn’t stay on for more than a second.”
She finally lifted her head. “But he has something in his hands.”
He turned his arm away. “Boxing gloves.”
She gave him a sly smile. “And…”
“The teasing got bad until I couldn’t walk by without the guys buzzing at me. One day, after a particularly bad ride, the wrong guy buzzed and I popped him one. Laid him out cold. It was a stupid thing to do, but I was pretty proud of myself. That night, my friends talked me into getting the tattoo.”
“I think it’s sexy.”
“Of course you do. What girl wouldn’t think an angry bee with boxing gloves was sexy?”
She gave him a quick kiss on the lips, squeezing his hands at the same time. “You are one hot cowboy with that mean tattoo, black hat and no shirt, but as tempting as you are right now, I’m determined
to see all of you, so…” She raised her hands with his. “You have to let me go for that.”
His mouth quirked. She’d made it clear she was not a submissive. He didn’t want a submissive. He wanted to share their bodies, not take her over like he had the last time. He released her hands, curious what she would do next.
She surprised him. Instead of reaching for his belt, she undid the buttons on her own shirt and slipped it off. Her breasts were perfect, but natural. Not too high on her chest, but full with dark-colored areolas that just begged for his attention.
His cock began to grow, but the need to have her chest pressing against his made it difficult to stay still and wait for her.
She threw her hat to the side and ran her fingers over her scalp before flicking her straight hair behind her.
He itched to feel its silkiness across his bare skin.
Then her hands were on his belt buckle, expertly unfastening it and unzipping his jeans.
His hard cock sprang loose.
She cupped it with her hand and leaned over to examine it. With her other hand, she traced the veins that throbbed with need like a palm reader followed a believer’s heart line. But there was no heart involved with Adriana. Or was there?
Impressions of her as he’d seen her, pitching in to help Kendra, teasing Andrew, educating Lacey, praising Selma, darted through his mind. These were the people in the pictures on her phone. She was connected to them. She loved them in her way, even if she didn’t know it.
In that moment, with her hands cradling his cock, he wanted to be connected to her more than physically.
She released him and tugged on his waistband. “Cowboy, you’re going to have to wriggle your butt out of these so I can pull them off.”
He shook his head. “Boots come first.”
“Tell me about it.” With those words, Adriana sat back on her butt and pulled off her own. She wiggled her toes and sighed. “I’m being spoiled this week, not having to wear these all day.”
He grabbed one of her feet and pulled it into his lap.
“Hey, what are you doing?” She tried to take her foot back.
“I’m massaging your foot.” He slipped off her sock and rubbed his thumb into her arch.