by Rie Warren
“Good, because I’m taking Shay home now.” He remembered his mama-bred manners to ask, “If that’s okay with you, darlin’.”
“Yours or mine?”
“Mine.” His look sent goose bumps prickling along my body.
Ransome and Cash didn’t even try to hide their shit-eating grins, so I joined right along with them.
Hands tucked under his head of close-cropped black hair, Ransome smirked at me. “I would stand to send you off, but…” He motioned to his legs without an ounce of self-pity. “Perhaps you’d be kind enough to give me your hand instead?”
I leaned over, displaying my hand. Faster than a water moccasin strike, he had me fully prone across his lap.
Giggling, I scrambled aside. “You’re one fresh son-of-a–”
“Now, now.” He leaned onto his elbows. “Don’t let Charley hear you cussin’.”
“Why, you don’t seem so hard up to me ’t all anymore, Ransome.”
“Sassy Miss Shay, you’d be amazed what I get away with.”
“Somehow I doubt it.”
Reardon escorted me away to mumbles of, “Did you just use the words hard and up with my brother?”
I punched his arm. “He was asking for it!”
“Little–”
“Shit,” I concluded.
“Yeah.” He hugged me into his side. “Yes, he is.”
The ride back to Mt. Pleasant was quiet.
Halfway home, I tried to not think about...everything. About Will, about Delilah. About how alike we were in our pain.
I blew out a breath. I really wanted a cigarette.
Glancing over, Reardon released my hand. “Go ahead.”
“Huh?”
“Have a smoke.”
“You sure?” I was already sifting through my bag when he hit the button to lower my window.
“Yeah, it’s a lot to take in.”
The intense intensity of it all ramped up the closer we got to The Tides. By the time we were outside his door, we were rubbed raw by emotions and desperate for a physical anchor.
Fumbling with the keys, Reardon swore under his breath and spun me in his arms. Possessively kissing me, he trailed a sizzling line to my breasts.
The key finally found the lock and he jerked the door open. Lifting me over the threshold, he slammed it shut, pinning me against it with his body.
I ripped at his shirt to pull it over his head.
Once freed, he carried me to the bedroom, the edge of desperation in his tone. “I want to take it slow, Shay, but I have to fuck you now.”
“Do it.” I tore off my clothes and his too. His hands all over me made my body scream for him.
On the bed, he hauled my knees to his hips, nipped the tips of my breasts. “Can’t be gentle.”
I stroked his face, cupped his jaw. “I want it, I want you.” I bucked under him. “I need you like this too. Right now.”
“Right now?” He rolled his length against me.
“Yes, yes!”
Delving into the slinky material of my panties, he yanked them off. I moaned at the hot onslaught of his fingers drilling into me.
“Like this? You want me, like this?” He punctuated with his first rigid plunge parting my engorged flesh.
“Uhhh, yes, goddamn it.”
He flexed his hips, grinding his pelvis to mine, hitting every single sweet spot I had. My heels dug into his ass, my fingers burrowed into his hair with each sure, long stroke.
There was a ringing in my ears, he was that good.
But then…
He stopped.
Why did he stop?
I wasn’t done!
I wanted my money back–or wait, it was his money–whatever. He couldn’t have come already, not with his stamina.
The ringing became more shrill.
“Your phone,” he rasped.
Ma Bell was a motherfucking cock-blocker.
Pulling out of me, stroking my wetness all over his deep red throbbing shaft, he urged, “I don’t care if it’s the damn Pope, turn...it...off.”
“Well, I’m not a Catholic so I don’t much care if it’s the Pope either.” Captivated by the sight of him working his cock, I lent a hand to the cause, massaging his velvety sac. “Still, it would be rude not to answer.”
His head fell back, and he groaned with our combined caresses.
“Besides.” I kneeled before him, tonguing his ripe, ready head. “I can multi-task.”
His head snapped up, eyes fiery as kerosene flames.
Hollowing my cheeks, I sucked his hot flesh into my mouth with an obscene slurp. Lapping his shaft until it stood shiny and pulsing, I looked at the cell he’d thrust in my hand.
“It’s my momma!”
“Turn it off.”
“You don’t understand, she won’t talk to The Machine.”
“The Machine?”
“Voicemail, answering machines, anything modern.”
“Shay.” He laid me back on the bed, spreading my legs. “Don’t answer.”
“She’ll just keep callin’.”
Grabbing my hip and his cock, he stroked a hard trail through my slit to my clit, leaving me to gasp, “Momma.”
“So glad I caught you, Shay.” She took off straightaway. “You know I hate to call that mo-bile phone of yours, never quite sure where I’m gonna end up. Could be one of them call centers they got in Indonesia.”
“Mother.” I used my I’m busy inflection, to no avail.
Didn’t help Reardon sat across from me, legs splayed, watching me while he fisted his length. I licked my lips, keeping my eyes on him and one ear on Momma’s anti-bureaucracy tirade.
“FBI, CIA, keepin’ tabs, and they’re always askin’ for my zipcode at the CVS whenever I–”
“I told you, you oughta be shoppin’ at Walgreens.”
Reardon beckoned me with two fingers.
I shook my head. “What you gotta tell me, Momma?”
He approached, crouching over me, his breath against my ear playing havoc with my respiration. “I want to put my face right into your sweet, wet pussy, Shay.”
He licked the shell of my ear.
I stuttered into the phone, “Wha-a-at?”
“We sold Mimi’s house! One of them damn brokers bought it. That Saint Joe sure came through. You gotta remind me to make a donation to Saint John the Baptist downtown.”
“The Lord does work in mysterious ways.” I offered my Sunday morning praise.
Reardon worked down my body, stretching the beaded pearls of my breasts with his teeth, letting go to tongue bathe me, telling me, “Time to say goodbye now, Shay.”
I cut Momma off. “Sorry, I’m in traffic. Congrats on the house!”
With a punch to the keypad, he tossed my phone across the room. His lips met my swollen folds. “That took way too long.”
Grabbing my ass in his hands, he swiped up and down before burying his tongue inside me. He bit and thrust, opening me with his fingers, detailing all my sensitive nerves with the tip of his tongue. A sexy grin lifted one corner of his mouth while he watched me, holding my hips down, flicking my clit, fingering my wetness.
“Good?” His face smeared with me, he twisted his fingers one final time inside me.
“Good God!”
With the mirror above uncovered–thank you, Jesus–the last thing I saw was his broad back rippling as he surrounded me.
The best thing I felt all day was Reardon surging into me with a long sigh. “Shay.”
As the hours ticked down and night dropped its black veil, after we’d made up and made out and held each other under the sheets, he became more and more tense beside me.
“I’ll stay with you,” I said.
“Okay.” His chin dipped into my hair. His whisper was weighty. “Tonight or for longer?”
“Not just tonight, baby. But not just now, either, you know?”
“Yes.”
“Because there’s still Palmer.”
He
clenched me harder, his voice scratchy. “I know.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about Will?”
He swung his forearms over his face. “I didn’t want you to pity me, and I don’t ever talk about it. I don’t ever...I can’t think about him.”
“Oh, baby, I don’t pity you, not one bit.” I pulled his arms away. “I hurt for you, Reardon.”
“Don’t want you to do that either. You’ve got enough of your own.”
“In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m a pretty strong woman.”
Levering himself above me, he met my eyes. “Yes, you are.”
“So, the night of the soiree-thingy, when you were outside with Leila, what was that really about?”
“I asked her not to mention Will.”
“I’d never want you to hide the most important person to you, baby. Not talking about him hurts you.”
His eyes cranked closed.
“He was your life.”
Reardon nodded, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
“Hey there, look at me.”
Damp and vulnerable, his eyes returned to mine.
“I hate that you couldn’t tell me yourself.”
“I know.”
Coiling under the blankets, our arms circled and our fingers braided and our bodies moved, mirroring the waves finding shore outside.
When we lay replete, after he strummed his fingertips along my back, humming a low tune, he must’ve thought I was asleep. “Don’t let me lose you too, darlin’.” But I heard him. I heard him, and my heart burst.
Waking next to him was splendid, especially since his continued slumber meant I could gawk as long as I wanted. Which was a really long time, until I smelled the bacon.
Temp stood at the stove with a griddle over two burners, her fluffy cakes flipped, and bacon fat sending out a greasy bugle call to the breakfast table.
She skidded a mug of cream-filled coffee along the bar. “Mornin’, Miss Shay.”
“Good morning, Temperance. Sure smells good in here.”
“Full breakfast, like my own mom used to make. You want a fried tomato too?”
My mouth watered. “If you please, ma’am.”
“Mr. Boone still asleep?”
“He was too angelic to wake.”
“To be sure, that man doesn’t get enough rest, between you and me, of course.” She piled two plates with food.
“Of course.”
All but licking the plate clean, I wiped my mouth and set the napkin aside. “I have a favor to ask.”
Her hand curled over mine, and it was the first time I noticed the faint spread of liver spots that had once been girlish freckles on her skin. “You know about his son.”
“Yes.”
“Will, the darling little lamb.” Her pretty features fell.
“You knew him?”
“I worked for Leila first, and I was so pleased when they got married. I suppose you can tell I’ve got a soft spot for Reardon. And then, well, Will was a real bandit, he was. Mischievous, but very loving.”
“Like his daddy?”
“Oh yes, exactly like him.”
Temp took out a tissue and I made my request. “Where are the photos?”
“You sure he’s ready for it?”
“Not one bit.”
She nodded. “I’ll fetch ’em.”
Half an hour later, I sat with my legs crisscrossed next to Reardon’s bed, memorizing his sleeping face.
In my lap I held a large wooden box. The joins invisible, just like the winding staircase outside, its inlaid design was a delicate replica of Ransome II, sails billowing under a brisk wind.
The intricate chest itself wasn’t the real masterpiece.
Inside were all the pictures of Will his daddy had packed away.
Stretching and yawning, Reardon rolled to his side and patted behind him. Dragging a deep breath, he opened his eyes and when he saw me, he smiled. “What time is it, darlin’?”
“Just past nine.”
“You wanna come back to bed?”
His devilish invitation was tempting, but I shook my head.
“No?”
“No.”
Seeing the chest cradled between my legs, he woke completely and went rigid from head to toe. “What are you doing with that?”
Before I could explain, he jumped out of bed, yanking the closet doors open, pulling pants over his legs. “Get it out of here.”
“No.”
“Don’t make me do this,” he begged, hands pushed out to ward me off.
“He’s your boy, Reardon.”
An almighty crash echoed after he overturned the breakfast tray I’d set on the stand.
Spinning at me as the dishes bounced and spilled all over the floor, he bellowed, “I can’t fucking look at him! Don’t you understand?”
I opened the lid and lifted the first photo. It showed Will swallowed by a hospital bed, surrounded by balloons–his face was puffy, his skin sallow, his eyes feverish.
I quickly delved to the next.
“I don’t need a photograph to remember him, and I don’t need you snooping around.”
I blanched but didn’t move.
He gave a jagged sigh. “I didn’t mean that.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I whispered.
Putting the chest on the floor between our feet, my hands rubbing his thighs, I looked up at him. He wouldn’t relax. He only resisted more when I tugged him down beside me.
I gripped his fingers to keep him near, a small burst of hope lighting my insides when he turned toward me, toward the memories of his son. “How old was Will here?”
His eyes wild, he scanned the photo, then stared at the walls. “Charlestowne Landing. He was three. We couldn’t drag him away from the galleon they’ve got out there.”
The stark emptiness of his voice growing warmer, he snagged the picture from me. “He loved anything to do with the water, same as Ransome. The ocean, the creek. Will was our little otter.”
I pointed to another. A Christmas tree was in the background, and the washed-out figures too close to the camera lens were cheek-to-cheek. “Your ma and Will?” I guessed.
“Yeah. Just before his diagnosis. Look there.” He tapped the photo. “Leila was hiding behind the tree. It was near midnight at Ma’s, and we’d started putting the presents out, but Will woke up. Ma decided to soothe him back to sleep with stories about real life sugar plum fairies.” He laughed. “You can imagine how well that worked out. We were up all Christmas Eve night answering questions about how Santa got his big belly down the chimney, even when there was a fire lit.” The light brush of his fingertips on their faces was reverential. “One of the last good sleepless nights.”
I nodded and sniffed, bringing out another.
Sometime later, he pulled me between his legs, reaching around me to dig through the jumble of pictures.
Studying one in particular, he said, “Here he is with Ransome.”
The sun was at their backs, their silhouettes framed in golden light, matching fishing poles cast out to sea off the dock.
“He was beautiful, Reardon.”
“He really was. Christ, Shay, I miss him so much, the only way I can stop it is to pack it away.” Wet threads of tears trailed down his face. His shoulders slumped. “The only way was to stop loving.”
I had no platitudes and nothing the least bit lighthearted to offer. All I could do was comfort him, the quietest condolence, the saddest communion of one bereft parent to another.
Leaving him sitting in the plush chair by the opened windows with the box balanced on his lap, I took his ruined breakfast back to the kitchen.
Temp gave me a quick pat and prepared something fresh. “Mr. Boone okay?”
“He is.” I reconsidered for a moment. “He’s gonna be.”
His black hair ruffled, his eyes a subtle shade of shale, he inspected me closely when I returned. Underneath his mouthwatering appearance and all his money and swagger, he was just a man
. One whose heart hadn’t merely been broken, a man whose very spirit had been destroyed.
I sat on the arm of his chair and drifted my fingers through his hair. “What happened with Leila? To make her have an affair?”
“She changed. We changed. It hadn’t ever been great. But with Will, it was easy to overlook the fact we were completely incompatible. After he died, I made myself unreachable to everyone. Unattached.”
“And you stayed that way.”
“Until you.” His eyelashes fluttered low. “I think Leila did it for comfort, any port in a storm. Maybe to force some emotion from me, but there was nothing.”
“Why were you looking at me that way when I came back in, Reardon?”
“Suppose I was thinking the same thing.” He rose, hands raking through his hair to linger behind his neck. “Am I just a port in a storm to you?”
“No.”
Disbelief tainted his expression. “What are you getting out of this, Shay?”
“I’m getting to know you.”
He was unconvinced, his head hung low.
I made him look at me. “I’m getting you, Reardon.”
A hint of his usual confidence infused his quick grin. “You sure you want me?”
“Such as you are, yeah. I do.”
“That’s a low blow.”
“I’ll give you a low blow.” My palm pressed his thick length for a few seconds. “But not now. Get in the shower, baby.”
“Scrub my back?”
“Don’t believe that’s in my job description.”
He popped his head around the bathroom door. “Wanna bet?”
Consummate cocksucker may have been in my professional qualifications. Back scrubber? No. “I don’t think so, buster.” I flicked open his weekly dossier on the dresser. “Says here you got a flight to catch in two hours. Wouldn’t want to make you late.”
He appeared in the doorway, totally nude and dripping wet, glistening rivers down his sinews and muscles and straining... What was I saying?
“I own the plane.”
’Course he did.
He finished showering, and I tucked a snapshot of Will into his wallet before meeting him in the entryway on our way out.
“Where are you going again?”
In the lobby, he stopped to straighten his tie. For once he did a piss-poor job. Only when I brushed his hands aside to do it for him did I catch his half-smile and realize he’d intentionally mucked it up.