Within Miles

by K. J. Carrigan

  Now I got the whole 'natural' thing that Charles was referring to. I thought it meant that I hadn’t had plastic surgery. Charles had meant that I was real, and not fake like it seemed the rest of Miles’ past lady friends were.

  “You aren’t being egotistical Miles. You’re being real. I understand, trust me I do. Your parents are your family and I think the girls you have dated were maybe threatened by the bond you have with them. Let’s face it. It’s not every day that someone gets to date a catch like you.” Miles smiled at me then. All his uncertainty vanished.

  “You are so fucking awesome.” He said and took a long drink of his coffee. “Let’s go for a walk.” I nodded and stood, taking his outreached hand.

  We walked outside to the bright and busy Las Vegas strip. I still felt a little sore from our extracurricular activities last night and earlier this morning but I wasn’t going to let that stand in the way of me spending the little time I had left with Miles.

  I took my hand and tugged on it until we were at the parking lot of the hotel. We stopped by a new black Chevy Camaro. I gave him a questioning look. Miles gave me a half smile and dug into his pocket and pulled out car keys.

  “You have got to be kidding me!” I laughed and smacked his hard chest. “You made me walk a million miles yesterday and you had a car all along?” Miles pushed the unlock button on his keys and opened the passenger side door for me.

  Well yesterday, you didn't look sore.” He gave me a sexy once over with his eyes, paying attention to my private area. “But today I can tell you are walking a little funny so I figured we would drive. And besides we can’t walk to where were going.”

  I burst into laughter. I had to brace my hands on my knees to keep from falling over. “Oh my god Miles! I totally take back my comment about you not being egotistical earlier. You’re a charmer I tell ya, a real charmer.”

  I wiped the tears from my eyes as I got into his car. The interior was plush black leather. The one thing that stood out was a picture of his parents. It was hanging from his rear view mirror.

  I admired it as Miles shut my door and jogged to open his own. The picture looked as though it was taken maybe a few years ago. Back then Miles' hair was a bit longer and he had a dark goatee. He was wearing a tux, matching his father's and his mother was dressed in a beautiful champagne colored gown.

  When Miles seated himself in the driver's seat, I couldn't help but to ask him about the picture. “When was this taken?” I tapped the picture with my finger. Miles looked at it and immediately broke out in a wide smile.

  “Three years ago at my cousin John's wedding. Aren’t we some good looking people?” I laughed again. Miles never failed to make me laugh and smile. That was one of the things I loved about him.

  “Oh yes. You are some dashing looking people, kind sir. You love your parents a lot; I can see it in your eyes.” I couldn’t help the sadness that soaked through me at that moment. I would give anything to have my family back, to have more memories with them. To see Ares get bucked off a horse and land in a big pile of horse crap again, to see my mother in the kitchen at the holidays. To see my dad smoking his vanilla flavored pipe and reading a newspaper in front of the fireplace.

  “I love them more than anything.” Miles answered with honesty. He started the engine and looked over to me. I must have had a look on my face that matched my mood.

  “Thea, I'm sorry about your parents and brother. I don’t know what I would do if anything happened to my parents. Do you want to talk about them?” Miles asked with caution. Don't get me wrong, I like to think about my family but talking about them, hearing my own voice talk about them was downright painful. I wanted to give Miles a piece of myself. I wanted him to hear about the people I loved most but lost. I nodded my head slowly.

  Miles pulled onto the strip and drove with traffic. I could tell he was waiting for me to start the conversation. I took a deep breath and began.

  “My brother Ares was always the life of the party. He was three years older than me. After he graduated he wanted to go to mechanic's school but my father wanted him to stay in the family business of managing the cattle ranch. Ares was close to my father. Ares respected his wishes and began learning the business so when my father retired, Farris Ranch would stay in the family. Ares never resented my father because I think deep down that's what Ares wanted to do in the first place.”

  I looked over at Miles. He was nodding his head slightly in agreement. “You remind me of Ares somewhat. He, like you, knew what he wanted and went after it.” My statement rewarded me with a small smirk.

  “Anyway, Ares and I were very close. I remember when I started high school; Ares was a senor then and the football quarter back. His team mate used to talk about me in the locker room, I guess and Ares overheard them one day.” I smiled to myself at the memory. Ares was always my knight in shining armor.

  “What did he do, beat their asses? Cause I would have.” Miles said, taking his eyes off the road to take a quick glance at me.

  I laughed. “No, he did worse. At the next football game he made them all announce over the intercom that they were arrogant pigs and would stop down grading women or he would kick their asses and quit the team.”

  Miles laughed then. “I would have loved Ares.” He said through his laughter. After his laughter died he asked about my parents.

  “My dad was a barrel of laughs. He played poker and bluffed almost every game and won. He was a hard worker and had the best jokes in the world. Lancey, his best friend, took the job of looking after me when they died. I wouldn’t have made it through without him.” I was fighting back tears now.

  “They both sound like great men. What about your mother?”

  “My mother was beautiful, not just outside but inside too. She was sweet and loving and made bomb ass food. She was a stay at home mother and because of that; she was available whenever I needed her, which I did a lot. Like I told you before, she was born in Athens so she had a kick ass Greek accent.” I laughed again; my tears were safe within me, for now at least.

  My mother's accent was so thick that when my friends came over, I would have to translate what she had said to them.

  “So you can speak Greek?” Miles wiggled his eyebrows. Oh god he was so fucking sexy.

  “Yes” I answered. “When my mother would get pissed, she would swear to us in Greek so if we were around other people, they wouldn’t know what she was saying.”

  “Say something.” Miles said, as he looked both ways before turning a corner. Where the hell were we going?

  “Ok, let’s see, Eíste Séxi S’agapó” I said in my best Greek accent.

  “Fuck that was hot. What did you say?” We stopped at a red light and Miles looked over at me with his lust filled eyes.

  “I said you are sexy.” I simply said. Actually, I said that he was sexy and that I loved him but he didn’t need to know the love part.

  I looked through the windshield of the car and saw that we were driving in the residential part of Vegas. Cute little houses lined the streets. From a distance, all of them looked the same but as we drove by each one, you could see the differences in them and how each owner decorated them with their own personal style.

  Miles pulled into a stone driveway and put the car into park. The house was small and single level. The outside was stucco and painted a cream color. Dark blue shutters were placed on each side of one small window and a large picture window. Large, green palm trees lined the property.

  “Where are we?” I asked as I opened my door to get a better look at the cutest house I had ever seen. Growing up on a large ranch, I was used to our overly large house. A house that was way too big for me now.

  “This is where I live. I bought it a little over a year ago. Do you like it?” Miles smiled with pride. I could only imagine how it would feel to have a house of my own, to know that I had picked it and decorated it myself.

  “I think it's beautiful.” I said as I walked up the cobble stone sidewalk. I
f I were to buy a house, Miles' house would be almost the exact house I would pick. It was small, just enough room for one person. God, the dusting alone would save me about three hours, compared to my house.

  “Really?” Miles asked as he put his hand on the small of my back to guide me to the front door. His touch still gave me shivers.

  “Really. This house has your name written all over it.” I said, and it did. I could see Miles' masculine touches all over the front yard. He had a small flower bed, but not something overly feminine. The door mat was, of course, a sports team.

  Miles laughed and unlocked the door. “Wait til you see the inside.”

  “You don’t have stripper posters all over your walls do you?” I shot one eyebrow up at him. It would be typical that a twenty six year old male stripper would have something sexual on his walls. I had had an older brother for god's sakes. I knew somewhat how a male's mind worked.

  “No Thea,” Miles laughed. “I don't have that shit in here. I save that for my apartment I keep in the city where I take my clients.” He said seriously.

  Apartment? Clients? Did he mean his clients that paid for his stripping services?

  “Clients?” I asked as I walked through the foyer. Miles switched on a light that illuminated the decent sized living room. He gestured for me to sit on a large, overstuffed black leather couch.

  I looked around the room. The walls were painted a soft gray. His tables were a dark cherry wood and there was a large flat screen TV hung on the wall.

  Miles sat down next to me and turned his body so that he was facing me. He placed his hand on my knee.

  “I have clients, Thea because on top of being a stripper, I am a male prostitute.” My jaw dropped at that moment. Oh my fucking god! He was a prostitute? I had heard that Vegas were famous for their tolerance to prostitution but I would have never imagined that Miles would be one of them. Had Anna paid him to have sex with me? Oh god, I was so out of here.

  “Calm down cattle rancher, I'm fucking with you.” Miles laughed. It took a moment to comprehend what he was saying and when I finally did, I wanted to kill him.

  “You motherfucker!” I yelled and hit his shoulder. Miles just leaned back against the couch and held his stomach as he laughed uncontrollably. I was pissed, beyond pissed.

  “I'm so sorry but I couldn't resist. You make it too easy.” I smacked him again but this time on his stomach. My mood began to lighten as he took my hand from his abdomen and kissed my palm.

  “Am I forgiven?” He asked as he kissed each one of my fingers and began to kiss up my arm.

  Little did he know I had forgiven him the second he placed his delectable lips on my skin. I would never forget the way he touched me, even if I lived to be a hundred years old.

  My breath began to quicken as his kisses trailed up my arm to my shoulder. Every little touch, even if it was just him holding my hand, sent my body into sexual overdrive.

  “Yes,” I breathed, answering his question. “But under than one condition.”

  “Anything” He answered between kisses.

  “You have to make love to me on this couch, on the floor and everywhere else.” I moved my neck so that he could have better access to it.

  “Deal” He said and for the next few hours, he kept his word.

  The Last Night

  It was after four in the afternoon when we had filled ourselves with the sexual appetite we had for each other. I walked out of his small but cozy bathroom and couldn't help but to stare at a shirtless Miles standing in the kitchen making pancakes.

  “I should probably head back to the city after we eat. Anna is more than likely freaking out about the fact that I’ve been gone all day.”

  Miles poured more batter into a pan and turned to face me. I still couldn't get over how defined his chest was. I had heard about guys having to work out in order for their six packs to show fully but Miles' were defined naturally, which I thanked the heavens every second. Miles held up my phone. “Anna called when you were freshening up. I left the room key she gave me at the front desk. She will pack all your things and meet us at the train station in the morning.”

  I shook my head. What was supposed to be a 'girls' trip to Vegas had ended up a 'boy crazy' trip. I felt bad for leaving Anna behind with Cassie, Erin and Angie, well Angie mostly. I didn't want her to feel like I was ditching her for Miles. A man I will probably never see again after tomorrow.

  “Relax cattle rancher; I can see the guilt on your face. It was actually her idea. I was ready to take you back but she told me not to. She said not to feel shitty. And you owe her one.”

  I sat on one of the bar stools that lined the modern style breakfast bar and rolled my eyes. Owing Anna 'one' was not something I wanted to do. Her definition of owing her 'one' favor was the equivalent of twenty.

  “Do you not want to stay?” He asked, disappointment lacing his tone. If he only knew how badly I wanted to stay here, in his house, near him. I wanted to so badly, maybe too badly.

  “I want to stay Miles but what happens tomorrow when I have to leave? I don't know what we have here and going back to Montana will change everything.” God, I sounded like I was desperate and maybe I was but for fuck sake, I wanted this trip to last forever.

  Miles took the hot pan off the burner and came around the bar to stand next to me. My eyes were level with his perfect nipples. I wanted to take one into my mouth. Shit, I was a sex crazed maniac, even in turmoil.

  He lifted my chin so that I was forced to look into his amazing blue eyes. I wanted to look away. I didn't want him to see my feelings for him buried deep within my eyes.

  “Can you honestly say you don't know what we have between us Thea? I can tell you right now that I haven’t felt this happy in years. Usually I feel so degraded by my job, having dozens of women touch me daily but Thea.” He stopped and cleared his throat. I could see his delicious throat working up and down with emotion.

  He bent down and looked me square in the eye. “I have never felt anything compared to what I feel when you touch me, when you look at me, when you make me laugh. It's as if you consume me. I have feelings for you Thea. Feelings I can’t explain because I’ve never felt them before you.”

  His words made my throat swell and my heart ache. I was so fucked. I was so madly, completely in love with him that I would do something stupid and sell my family ranch to move here to be with him. I wanted to tell him, but again, I chickened out. He had said he had feelings for me, not that he loved me. Those were two totally different things.

  “I care about you too Miles and you do that to me too but we may never see each other again. My mother used to tell me that when your gut tells you something to go with it or you might live to regret it but what if what my gut is telling me is not possible? Then what? Do we just go our separate ways and just chalk up our memories together as just that, memories?”

  I couldn’t hold his gaze anymore in fear I would start sobbing. I wanted my mother here to tell me everything was going to be alright. I wanted her here to hold me through the heart break I knew was coming.

  Miles ran his fingers through his dark hair. “Christ Thea, I knew this was going to be hard but not this fucking hard.” He blew out the breath he was holding. “I guess all we can do is call each other every day and visit each other when we can. I want this to work, so fucking badly but for once in my life, I don't know what to do.”

  I could tell he was getting angry. He stood up and walked over to the stove where our pancakes were. He dished our plates up and nodded his head to the living room. “Why don't we just sit, relax, eat and watch a movie. My mind is too fucked up to talk about this right now.”

  I nodded. In all honesty, my mind was where his was at right now. I didn’t want to talk about the inevitable. I just wanted to be with him. Right now, in his house, eating the pancakes he made for us.

  Goodbye

  Day 5

  Miles and I ended up staying awake until one in the morning watching action mo
vies. When he asked me what I wanted to watch and I had said “anything with guns and shit” I would never forget the look on his face. It just so happened that that's all the kind of movies he had.

  We had eaten popcorn, watched movies, and laughed until finally, he carried me into his bedroom where we fell asleep in each other’s arms.

  “You all set?” Miles asked as guided he out his front door. I looked down at the sack in my hand, filled with my dirty clothes. Miles had given me a pair of his shorts and a shirt to wear to the train station. I could smell his sent on them as we walked to his car.

  I pondered the question he had just asked me. Was I all set? Not by a long shot. I wanted to stuff him in my baggage and take him home with me.

  I stopped right before I got into the car and turned to face him. I was finally going to grow some balls. If this was the last time I was going to be alone with him, face to face with him, I was going to tell him exactly how I felt, even if it would be the end of us.

  “No I’m not all set.” I said as I stood on my tip toes and crushed my lips to his. I ran my tongue across his lips, urging him to open up. When he did, my tongue danced frantically with his. I wanted to swallow him whole, to consume him in one toe curling kiss.

  I dropped my bag onto the driveway and I could hear him drop his keys seconds after. Suddenly I was lifted off the ground and my legs were wrapped around his waist.

  He was the one that broke the kiss. He rested his forehead against mine and sighed. “If we continue this, you will never make your train on time.” His breath washed over my face, smelling of mint and coffee.