We found a suitable rock to sit on and pulled out our water bottles, comfortable in our companionable silence, until...
“So, will you let me read it?”
I un-squeezed my water bottle midstream. Swallowed. Took my time. I was cornered. In the middle of the Alaskan wilderness, with nothing but open space all around me, I was trapped.
“Nicely played,” I said. The wind at the top was stronger and it blew my hair into my face.
Mike smiled, tucked a strand behind my ear. “Thanks. So. Can I?”
“Do you really want to or are you just interested in word porn?”
He waggled his eyebrows. “Word porn? Is that what you call it? I like it.” When he saw me just staring at him, he must have realized I was serious. “If you wrote it, I'd really like to read it.”
“Why?”
“Because it came from your imagination. It will give me a little insight into who you are.”
“What I like to do in bed, more like it.” I looked down at my lap, played with a frayed spot on my jeans.
“Hey.” He lifted my chin with a finger, forced me to look at him. “I know what you like to do in bed and I like doing it to you.”
“Seriously,” I muttered.
“Seriously. What we do in bed and what's written in a fictional book, even word porn, are not the same thing.”
I blushed. I could feel it. “I know.” I lifted my eyes to his. “I do. But I'm afraid.”
There. I said it.
He frowned. “Afraid of what?”
Damn the man. Wasn't saying I was afraid enough? No.
I took a deep breath. “Afraid of what people might think. Afraid people will think I'm slutty or dirty or a bad person. Afraid you'll think that.”
“After what we did earlier?” He paused, took a sip of water. “You said yourself you're a good girl.”
I nodded. A big fluffy cloud moved in front of the sun and made the air cool.
“But you were a bad girl with me and I definitely wasn't running away screaming. If I remember correctly, you were the one screaming.”
Oh, yeah. I flushed.
“Did you like it?”
Oh, yeah. “Yes,” I whispered.
“Then what's the problem?”
“I only want to be a bad girl in private. I don't want everyone to know...to know what makes me tick.”
“Or makes you come?” Mike asked, his eyes hooded. Heated. He got right to the point.
I flushed even more and nodded.
“I know what makes you tick, what makes you come and I sure as hell am going to make you come again. And when you do, you're going to be oh, so bad, because I've got plans.” He looked away, off into the distance for a moment, then turned back, eyes blazing with heat and intensity. “I want you. Good girl and bad girl. Hell, it makes me hot just thinking about it. We've been apart ever since graduation, but Vi, you're the one I think about. After today, you're the one I'm never going to forget. Even when you acted all mad at me, I still wanted you. You're the one who I let get away. No longer. I mean it. You're mine.”
Holy shit. He hadn't outright declared his love for me, but it was pretty close.
“You're best friends with Veronica. Why did you avoid me? Or is it because we look the same she can fill in for me?”
Mike stood up from our rock, paced away and back. Ran his hand down his face. When he looked at me, he wasn't gentle anymore. His jaw was clenched, his muscles tense. “You're so unsure of yourself, Vi. I wish you knew how I see you. How strong, brave, kind...and hot you are. Saying something like that makes me want to spank you. ”
My mouth fell open in shock. Surprise that he'd even consider doing that, and surprise that the idea actually turned me on.
“Veronica is a good friend, but that's it. She does nothing for me. You do. The difference between the two of you is obvious to me. Always has been. She wants Jack. I want her to have Jack. You're the one I think is sexy as hell. I want you. Didn't I show you how much just a little while ago?”
Oh yes, he had.
I swallowed. “What about New York?”
Mike winced. “I don't know.”
“My life is in Bozeman. I go back to work in August.” The sun came back out and I squinted up at him.
“Come on, Vi, you don't really want to be a teacher, do you?”
My stomach plummeted. He was able to put into words something my brain had just floated around for years. “This has nothing to do with my profession.” I looked out over the open expanse of tall grass and rock, but we were alone at the top of the mountain. “You say I'm yours, but you're going to fuck me and then just leave. Again.” The words were harsh, and not remotely how I felt for him, but I wasn't going to expose myself, my feelings, to him if he was going to walk away.
“I'm definitely going to fuck you, as you call it. Lots more. And you want me to.”
I definitely wanted him to. “And then leave,” I added bitterly.
“Maybe.”
“Then maybe I'm not yours after all.”
***
We began our descent down the mountain in tense silence. I didn't have anything to add what we'd already covered. It was enough. I knew where I stood. Again.
I went first, leading us down the narrow dirt path, sometimes going slow over sections that were large boulder steps. In one spot, I had to put a hand out to maintain my balance. As I did so at one tricky section, I got stung.
“Shit,” I hissed, swinging my hand back and forth in the hopes to ease the pain. I forgot how sharp and intense a bee stick was.
“What? What's wrong?” Mike asked, who'd been a few paces behind.
I held my wrist of one hand in the other so I could look at my palm for the stinger. “I got stung.”
Mike was on me in a second, grabbing the wrist of my injured hand up so he could see. “Holy shit, Vi. Are you allergic?”
“Well yeah, isn't everyone?” I asked, wincing when he squeezed my wrist tightly.
I yanked, hoping to get my hand back. “I just need to see if the stinger's still in there.” He hadn't caught on yet that I wasn't panicked.
But he was. He still held my wrist, his head whipping around as if he could find an ER. “Okay. I'm going to carry you down the hill. How's your breathing?”
I looked up at Mike and realized he was completely freaking out.
“Mike,” I said, trying to get his attention.
He took two rock steps down and turned his back on me. “Climb on, Vi.”
I just stared at his back, confused. He wanted to give me a piggy back ride? Oh, God. He was afraid I was going to die on him like his friend from camp. He thought I was deathly allergic to bee stings. My hand might hurt, but I wasn't going into anaphylactic shock.
“Mike,” I pushed on his shoulder.
He darted a quick glance at me. “Hurry, Vi. There isn't time.”
“Mike!” I shouted. He turned around. “I'm not that kind of allergic. I just get a little swelling around the sting. I just take some antihistamine and I'm fine.”
He looked me up and down. His face was pale, he was sweating and his eyes had that wild look. He might be a doctor who could handle any kind of crisis, but put out into the wilderness with a possible allergic reaction and he was sixteen again.
“Really,” I said, trying to calm him down.
“Let me see.”
I placed hand in his, palm up. He studiously looked at the spot that was red. “Does it still hurt?”
“Well, yeah. But it's okay. Let's just get back to the house and I'll take some medicine.” It was my turn to wait for him to look at me. “I'm going to be fine,” I reassured.
Mike gave a stiff nod. “I'm still carrying you down. Hop on.”
I gave a quick laugh. “That's crazy. You can't carry me down this rocky section. We'll both be in the hospital if you do.”
He grumbled. “Fine, but once we get to the dirt path again, I'm giving you a ride.”
“You said that
earlier and I wasn't on your back,” I countered suggestively.
His shoulders loosened a little bit, but he was still tense. No kind of ride was going to ease his mind completely until we were back at the car, or even back at Jubal's. If he wanted to carry me, and that would keep him from having a heart attack, then fine. He could carry me. But I wasn't going to have our necks broken through the steep, rocky part of the trail. He held my good hand and very attentively helped me down to the dirt trail as if I was five and I'd never been hiking before.
He easily hefted me up on his back, my legs hooked around his waist, my arms about his neck. It wasn't as comfortable a position as I remembered from being a kid. Mike's long legs ate up the trail and we were down to the bottom quickly, which was a good thing because the clouds had been coming in and it started to sprinkle. By the time we pulled out of the lot, raining.
Mike took the slick, steep roads like he was Mario Andretti on a straightaway and got me to my antihistamine in record time. He was adamant that he watch me swallow the little gelcap, and then monitor me all night, checking on my hand frequently. He had a beer—I wanted him to have a very large whiskey—and kept glancing at me all evening as we watched crappy cable on Jubal's mega-sized flat screen, Jefferson's hairy body sprawled out on his own recliner, snoring. The medicine kicked in and I left Mike there and went to bed halfway through a shoot 'em up movie from the eighties. He didn't join me so he must have realized I wasn't going to die on him.
My body longed for Mike to be in the big bed with me, craved his touch. I'd been right all along. It was going to hurt too much when we parted. The sex had been amazing. Phenomenal. Earth shaking. He'd most likely ruined me for other men. I wanted him. In my life, not in New York City. It was as simple as that.
The following morning, to my complete horror and thrilled libido, I woke up sprawled on top of Mike. Again. My body seemed to have a mind of its own when it came to him. My brain, however, had different ideas.
“Shh,” Mike said, as I started to move. “Be still for just a minute.”
The rain hadn't let up all night and from my warm, cozy sprawl on Mike's body, I could hear the softness of it hitting the grass, rolling down the gutters. Instead of sticking to my side of the bed in an attempt to distance myself, it was complete deja vu from the previous morning. My head rested against his chest, and I could hear the steady beat of his heart. My palm was open and resting on his rock hard abs that jumped when I moved my hand, even a little. Our legs were entwined, one of his muscular thighs wedged between mine.
I wore my red silk pajamas again, thinking it would be a barrier between us unlike sleeping naked, which I so wanted to do. The barrier, however, was faulty because the tank top, silky and slippery as it was, had moved all the way up under my arms during the night so my breasts were once again pressed directly against his heated, hard chest. The little hairs tickled my exposed skin.
On top of all that, he smelled good. Male, as if he was giving off pheromones to lure me into sweet seduction. Ugh. He felt like heaven. He smelled like heaven. But it was hell being on top of him and knowing it was best to push away, to distance myself. To protect my heart.
Mike lifted my hand, turned it so he could look at my palm where I'd been stung. He must have been satisfied by what he saw because he exhaled a pent up breath.
“It's fine,” I murmured. It didn't hurt at all. In fact, I'd forgotten about it, completely distracted by my position across his hard body. We settled into quiet for a minute, lulled by the peace of the moment. But I didn't want to get too comfortable because it was like a mirage, you could see it, feel it, and then it was gone.
“Mike,” I murmured. My brain was screaming, 'He's leaving!' but my body was thinking 'Take me now!' “I want it all. Or at least a shot at it.”
“Meaning more sex is out of the question unless I turn down the New York offer.”
I exhaled, defeated. Pain lanced at my heart, just like it had all those years ago. I'd known this would happen. Known all along that he'd choose medicine again over me. He might leave, but what we shared couldn't be taken from me. From either of us. “You said turn down. So you heard last night. It's an actual offer now.”
He nodded. “They're going to get back to me about a time to go there and meet them.”
I ran my finger absently through the curly hairs on his chest. He placed his palm on top of mine, stilling my motions. “Both of us have problems with the past that are messing with us now,” I shared.
Mike was quiet for a bit, his hand running gently up and down my back, making my nipples hard. “Yeah, we do.”
“Maybe we need to work on those before we do...things.”
“We've already done...things, Vi. Hot, crazy, dirty things. Like you said, it's pretty damn hard to stop now.”
“The horse is out of the barn.”
Mike's hand stopped moving. “Huh?”
I pulled back, fixed my tank top as I watched his eyes heat at the view. “Nothing. I need to brush my teeth.”
Closing the bathroom door, I took a minute to just look at myself in the mirror.
I heard him call out. “What's with you and your obsession with brushing your teeth?”
I ignored him. I was pale with dark circles under my eyes. My hair was a mess, dark strands sticking up. What was I doing here? What was I doing with my life? I wanted Mike, more like craved him, deep down in a way I never had for anyone else. What we did together yesterday was...incredible. He'd filled practically every want, every need I ever had. Ever fantasized about. And he hadn't laughed or embarrassed me. He'd been right there with me, wanting the same things.
The feelings I had for him I never once felt with any other man. I tried, oh how I tried, to find a guy who would make me feel the way Mike had when we were teenagers. If he was out there, he was really hard to find. But I knew that there wasn't another man who would do it for me. Not anymore. Not after yesterday. There was no way I would forget— or my body would stop craving—Mike's hands on me. His mouth. His...everything.
Who would make my heart beat faster at just seeing him, being in the same room? Who could make my palms—and other places—damp by just thinking about his kisses, how his big hands roamed so gently, so possessively over my body? Who could make me scream like he did?
I was doomed to love a man who was pushing for something he'd never find in New York. He had to search inside himself to find it, and I was afraid he never would.
Oh, God. I loved him. I did. I was in so far over my head. I had no idea how I was going to recover from knowing he was going away again. I tried to steer clear, tried to protect myself. It had been a futile effort, like fighting a riptide. One look, one touch, one kiss and I was swept under. My body craved his, remembered it. Needed it. I needed him.
But it wasn't just that. Mike was able to see right through me, through the facade I'd built, to the real me. He was right. I didn't want to be a teacher. I wanted to be a writer. A writer. An erotic romance writer. But I was afraid. Worse than that. I was chicken. I had to let that asshat Todd stop ruling my life, stop letting words of a bad high school teacher get to me, even after all these years. I knew it, but it was hard. Really hard to do. I just had no idea how I was going to leave a good job to become Cherry Bottoms.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Jubal, the twins and Goldie were back by lunch. Mike updated Jubal on the FBI's visit the day before, but he didn't seem bothered. In fact, he fell asleep in his recliner almost immediately, so he clearly wasn't a wanted felon on the lam. The twins took Jubal's truck and left, no one knowing where. Ever since the baby announcement they'd kept their distance, which was fine with me.
Goldie, on the other hand, had become my sidekick, regaling me with all the details of the brown bears standing in the river trying to catch salmon swimming upstream to spawn. When she finished her play-by-play, she moved on to me.
Lucky me.
“Have you calmed down at all about the book?” Goldie asked, making herself a
sandwich in Jubal's kitchen. It was hard to concentrate on her words as I was picturing in my mind what Mike had done to me on that counter.
“Have you unpublished it yet?” I retorted.
She spread mayo on a slice of bread. “Now why would I do that? You're making a fortune.”
The thought of making money—lots of it—certainly had appeal. “Because I don't want the whole world to know me as Cherry Bottoms.”
Goldie chuckled. “Love that name.”
“People jump to conclusions about me and what's in the book based on that name. It's practically misrepresentation!”
Goldie eyed me. “Is that your problem? What other people think?”
I screwed the lid on the mayo jar and put it back in the fridge for her. “Of course it is. People are going to think that I...that I'm....” I couldn't say it.
“That you don't have a cherry bottom?”
“Exactly!”
“So what?”
I just stared for a minute. “So what? I won't be able to look my parents in the eye ever again.”
Goldie added a slice of tomato to her sandwich. “Have you ever been filmed for a sex tape, online video or porn?”
Was she serious? “No!”
“Then your parents know it's not real. It's a book, Violet. It's pretend. Not an autobiography.”
“But it came from my imagination. They'll know I came up with that...that story.”
Goldie put down the head of lettuce and turned to me. The look on her face was different than before. More serious. “This is bigger than just the pen name, isn't it? I don't know what it is, but it's kept you from writing. You're really, really good and people are buying something you wrote. I don't just mean one or two friends to make you feel good about yourself. Thousands of strangers. But you avoid writing because you're afraid and hiding behind your job. I'm right, aren't I?”
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