by Shaye Marlow
They adjusted the target—I couldn’t have told you exactly how far it was, a hundred yards maybe?—and then they repeated their performance with the rifle. Good shots, not great.
Then they handed the gun to Gary. His shoulders had looked tight, but the moment that rifle settled into his grip, it seemed like the tension drained right out of him. He looked ultimately comfortable with that gun in his hands. He knew exactly how to hold it; there was absolutely no awkwardness, no shifting about or hesitation.
He chambered a round with powerful efficiency even as he took up a solid stance that seemed to telegraph that he meant business. He lifted the rifle up to his shoulder in a smooth, practiced motion. He looked through the scope, his breath sighed out, and he fired. The recoil barely touched him, and what he didn’t do next was what I found most interesting.
He didn’t then drop the rifle to chamber the next round, fiddle with it a bit like the brothers had, and joke around as he visually confirmed that the next had gone in. No, instead he kept it right up to his cheek, and his hand did this crazy-quick motion with the bolt. He didn’t look up and he didn’t change his stance. He just chambered and fired, chambered and fired. I felt the muscles holding up my jaw loosening as he squeezed off five rounds faster than I’ve ever seen anybody shoot a rifle.
But when they brought his target back, I saw that he had missed, and missed, and missed again. He’d driven five bullets two, five, eight inches away from center-target. The last one didn’t even hit the paper.
What the hell? I looked at him suspiciously, wondering what the heck was going on. That rifle had looked like poetry in his hands, and he missed? He didn’t strike me as a man who missed.
My brothers ribbed him good-naturedly and he shrugged. He wouldn’t meet my eyes, and then when he didn’t give me another one of his steamy glances after I repeated my bullseye performance with the rifle, I absolutely knew something was going on.
What was this, PTSD from having been in the marines? The man said he had been deployed four times, to Afghanistan. That had to have been hard on the soul.
My brothers moved on to my .450 Marlin, each giving the painfully powerful rifle a go. Gary did it again, hitting a few inches off. Same for the Weatherby.
I had no idea what was going on with his shooting.
But I did know one thing: I wanted him to climb in my window tonight.
Chapte
r Thirteen
“Hel!”
I groaned, rolling over to bury my head deeper in the pillows.
“Hel, we’re going fishing! Wanna come?”
“Again?” I mumbled.
“Salmon this time. If you don’t come, we’ll just borrow your boat, no problem.”
I didn’t want to fish for salmon. Helping idiots fish for salmon was what I did for a living, so helping these three idiots do the same didn’t appeal to me at all. The only reason I could see for going with them was to protect my boat.
But it just wasn’t enough to pry me out of bed.
“You staying then?”
I groaned again.
A couple minutes later, the door shut with a bang. I heard my four-wheeler fire up—the idea of three grown men on it amused me—and then the engine sounds faded away into the woods.
Leaving me in peace. I sighed and snuggled into my pillows, drifting back to sleep with a smile at the idea of a day without my crazy siblings.
I didn’t get up until 10 that morning. I experienced a momentary pang of regret that Gary hadn’t visited me last night, but it didn’t keep my mood down for long.
Free of my brothers, alone for the first time in three days, I felt like dancing.
I plunked my wireless speaker on the bathroom counter, and turned my Sing-Along list up high. It was populated with hits from the sixties all the way through to today, anything that was catchy and upbeat and ultimately singable.
First up: I Kissed a Girl.
I stomped around the bathroom, wagging my hips, singing about cherry chapstick. My shirt came off first. It was kinda hard to get the pants off to the beat, but I did my best. I turned on the water and climbed in, glad I’d turned the music high enough to hear over the spray.
Still wiggling, I began to soap up.
I squealed on the opening guitar riff of Fat Bottomed Girls, grinning from ear to ear.
I was just belting out the hook, which was the only part I really knew, when something touched me. I squealed and jumped, almost porpoising out of the shower.
That something wrapped around my arm, keeping me upright until I stopped flailing. I looked down, blinking through the soap suds sliding into my eyes, to find a big, strong hand. Even through stinging tears, perhaps especially through them, I knew that hand.
A cool breeze finally announced a disturbance in the shower curtain, and another big, strong hand slid along my other arm. Then a big, strong body brushed against the back of me. I gasped, blinking stupidly at my tile wall.
Fat Bottomed Girls did its ending drum roll, and I was left in silence with the rushing water, and my pounding heart. The silence was incredibly loud.
Trust Gary to fill it. “Is this what happens when I give you orgasms?” he asked.
I didn’t have a witty comeback; honestly, I couldn’t even speak. The feel of his naked body against my back was short-circuiting my brain.
His hands drifted along my wrists, encircling them momentarily.
The move brought me right back to the night before last, when he’d pinned them next to my head. I swayed back toward him, and our wet skin melded. He already had an erection, and it rode along the upper slopes of my ass. He ground it against me, and I pushed back against him as images of a hot, fast fuck popped like soap bubbles in my brain.
I was getting ready to turn around and jump him when I heard it.
The opening lyrics of Unchained Melody.
I groaned, and he laughed, and I knew he recognized that song too. The song from Ghost, from the classic scene where Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore stroked and shaped a hunk of clay that bore a striking resemblance to a dong. Arguably the most romantic scene in a movie, ever. He’d been behind her, kissing her neck, his fingers sliding through hers as he got her dirty.
Just exactly the way Gary’s were suddenly sliding through mine.
I groaned again. “Are we really gonna do this?”
His lips were against my neck. “Why not?”
“Because that was romance, and this…” I lost the rest of my sentence as he moved both of our hands to my breasts.
“This?” he asked. Our hands plumped and squeezed and stroked me. He left my hands there while his slipped across my soapy skin. My belly, my sides, my upper thighs. He was touching me softly, exploring me. Enchanting me.
The melody soared. The shower steamed.
I panted. “This…” What the hell had I even been saying? Something about romance and how this was…not? He was scrambling my thought processes.
His nose or lips touched my ear. “Mmm,” he said. “I like the smell of your shampoo. But.” He dragged me back under the spray. The water sluiced over my head, driving the suds before it.
“I am forever getting you wet,” he said, his voice all deep and rumbly as his lips tracked across my shoulder.
I opened my mouth to deny it, but then his lips and teeth met my neck. I panted, tilting my head to give him better access as he did things to me that were probably going to leave a mark. My nipples stabbed into my palms, and sharp echoes of pleasure burned their way straight to my pussy.
His voice stroked into my ear again. “Are you planning on breaking me over the edge of the tub?” he asked.
My brain spun. I had no idea what he was talking about. Break him? Why would I do that? I wanted all his upright parts upright. I wanted to climb him like a fireman’s pole. Why would I…?
Oh. Suddenly I remembered my shower scene. The one I’d written when he’d been terrorizing me with his noise. The one that had morphed into a violent fight and e
nded with a green-eyed devil lying dead, broken over the edge of the tub.
My lips curved. Served him right for reading my stuff. “Does that thought excite you?” I asked.
He laughed softly against my ear. “After your shooting yesterday? Strangely, yes.” He bit me, making me shudder in his arms. My mind was filled with thoughts of praying mantises and mate-eating spiders, and somehow, it worked.
I moaned, every part of me hot and throbbing. I was close, just from the combination of playing with my own nipples and him teasing his way up and down my neck while his voice growled in my ear. And now his hands were wandering downward.
Pour Some Sugar On Me.
“You like the old stuff, don’t you?”
“Huh?” His voice was doing wonderful things to me, but trying to understand what he was saying was throwing off my Wa. I wanted him to stop working up to it and get to the main event.
“Quit talking and Pour. Some. Sugar on me!” I demanded with the chorus. I wiggled my butt against him, rubbing his cock.
He spun me around and pushed me against the cool, slick tile wall. The slope of the tub’s edge kept me off balance, and I would have slid into a puddle in the bottom without his hot, hard body pinning me in place. My moans went up in volume as my hands slid down his firm sides. I grabbed his ass, dragging him even closer, grinding his erection into my belly.
He grabbed my chin, just exactly like he had that night. And he kissed me. It was amazing. Wonderful. All-consuming. The song, the steam, the hot and cold…
His lips clashed with mine, slick and then velvety as I opened for him. He thrust his tongue into my mouth as if he owned it. He did it with a groan, as if he was enjoying himself just as much as I was. I loved that sound, loved the knowledge of what I did to him, loved sucking him, and digging my nails into his skin.
His chest hair abraded my nipples, and my pussy gushed with need. I slid a leg up the outside of his and hooked it around his thigh, trying to get closer. He caught it in his big, strong hand, and tore his mouth away.
“There’s no grab bar in here for you to sit on,” he panted, his hips nudging against me.
“Then pick me up, you slacker. Or do me from behind, I don’t care.” I yanked his head back down to mine, muffling his sexy laugh with my lips.
He lifted me up into his arms. I just about burst with excitement as I felt his thick cock nudge between my folds. He started to press up into me—and then he paused.
“Fuck,” he gasped, pulling his lips from mine. “I forgot a condom.”
“Goddammit,” I said, clawing at him, feeling almost frantic with need. “I don’t care! Just—pull out or something.”
He groaned, peering up at me through the steamy spray as his hands tightened on my ass. “You sure?” he asked.
“Yes. Yes!” I cried.
He slammed me down on him, and he was the most wonderful thing I’d ever felt. He filled me, stretched me, tested my confines even as he ground against my clit. And without the condom, he felt about ten times better, sliding perfectly into me. I threw my head back and he buried his face against my breasts as he lifted me a few inches, and brought me back down. He was nipping me, kissing and sucking on anything he could reach, supporting all of my weight as he fucked me.
I swiveled my hips, making him stagger, and I dragged his head back by his hair, kissing him without mercy. Our teeth clashed as I tried to pull him even deeper into me. The muscles in his arms and shoulders were flexing hard, lifting me. He slammed me down on his cock. I clawed at him. He growled into my mouth.
That’s when he stumbled. Or slipped, I’m not sure which. We unbalanced, and for a second I thought we were gonna slam into the tile wall. But no, we did one better. We tipped toward the curtain.
We plummeted, and the shower curtain screeched, and I grabbed for a towel to try and slow our descent. The towel pulled free, and with a loud squeak, we hit the floor.
And somehow—I have no idea how—I was unhurt. And laughing.
He growled again, and lifted his head, and his eyes were doing their sparkling thing. “I take it you’re okay?”
“Oh yes,” I said, strangely unperturbed by having my wet back pressed to the cool linoleum. My head and shoulder were jammed against the wall, and I was lying about a foot away from a toilet my brothers had been aiming at for a few days now.
But I was happy as a clam. Because my brothers weren’t here, my music was still playing, and somehow—somehow—Gary was still inside me.
He did some maneuvering and lifted me. He edged us forward and laid me back down on the plush pink rug in front of my sink. “Okay?” he asked. I nodded.
Then he lifted my hips and drove into me. His grip stung, and he was in me so deep, he stole my breath away. I moaned. Gasped. Arched my back and pulled my legs out of his way. His balls pressed against my clenching asshole as he delved even further into me.
Yeah, we were on the bathroom floor, and it was ridiculous, and unsanitary, and it was fucking great.
Awash in pleasure, I tried to find something to hold onto. I tugged on the surviving towel. It fell. I clawed at the sink cabinets. They rattled with Gary’s thrusts. My shoulder blades slid across the rug, edging back onto the cool floor. I pushed my hands over my head, trying to brace myself, but it was no use. He drove me before him.
I felt myself melting before his strong thrusts, softening under him. My vision was growing hazy.
“Oh, fuck,” I said softly. The toes I had jammed against the rim of the counter were going numb. My belly quivered.
“Fuck?” he panted.
“Fuck,” I agreed. I made a low keening sound as all of the sensations echoing through my body seemed to find the same wavelength. The shock of my orgasm hit me like a high, pure note, jolting me on Gary’s driving cock.
“Fuck!” I cried. My legs kicked.
Gary laughed as he caught them, leaning over me, watching avidly as I fell apart under him. I heaved and bucked, and the poor cabinet door creaked as I did my level best to tear it from its hinges. My foot caught against the toilet seat, making it slam. Something rattled as it fell over.
My eyes rolled back in my head as I was caught on a long, womb-clenching, back-arching spasm. Gary groaned, grinding his cock into me. I locked my legs around him, taking him with me.
“Fuck, yes,” he gasped. At the last possible second, he remembered he was supposed to pull out. He pulled back, prying himself free of my legs, and his cum spurted across my belly. I could feel his cock jerking and throbbing against my clit, felt each heavy surge of his release.
I moaned, shuddered with the last tremors of orgasm, and went still under him. My hand released its death grip on the cabinet door and flopped next to my head.
He groaned, and then fell across me, unheeding of the mess he smeared between us. He was big and warm, his skin wet. He was also fucking heavy, but at the moment I couldn’t bring myself to care.
I lay there throbbing all over, just trying to catch my breath, feeling his heart thump its fast rhythm against mine. I moaned again as my brain came back online. “You’re…trespassing again,” I gasped.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “Want breakfast?”
“Maybe…in a while. I’m not sure I can…walk.”
He lifted his head to grin at me, and damn if it wasn’t the most charming expression I’d ever seen. His damp hair was curling against his forehead, his white teeth flashing in the naturally-lit room, his eyes crinkling with mirth. Damn his gorgeous eyes.
I’d just had sex with the devil again, I realized.
And… he’d poured his sugar on me.
Chapter F
ourteen
Gary pushed his way into the shower after me. Now that we’d done the deed, I found his naked company slightly awkward. I didn’t really know what to say, so I kept my mouth shut.
I tried to finish soaping up. I say ‘tried’ because I kept finding him in my way.
My neighbor wasn’t exactly a small man. And he didn
’t seem to be washing up himself; he was just hogging the spray and watching me. When I bent down for my soap, he shifted a bit, and his bare ass bumped against my cheek.
I came to the sudden, irrevocable conclusion that my shower wasn’t big enough for the two of us. “Do you mind?” I asked, straightening back up with exasperation.
His brow rose in inquiry.
“You’re fucking big—”
“Why, thank you.”
“—and I’m actually trying to finish my shower,” I said, rolling my eyes. “You’re in my way.”
He took a step closer, looking at me innocently, now entirely blocking the spray. “Oh, I am?” he asked, invading my personal space.
“Yes,” I said, stepping back, “you are.”
He nudged even closer, and I wound up in the very end of the tub. My heel found the edge, and I couldn’t go any further. I put my hands on his chest, trying to hold him off.
He leaned into me, pressing me back against the cool tile. Earlier, I’d been too turned on to recognize an unpleasant sensation, but now I fully appreciated the contrast between my flushed skin and the chilly ceramic.
I shrieked and shoved at him. He leaned harder. Improbably, I found myself laughing. But I was miffed, too. Go ahead and explain that.
“Get off me, you bastard,” I said. I struggled between him and the wall until I finally pushed him back far enough to squeak out the side. I slid out of the tub through the back end of the curtain, and picked my way along the narrow gap next to the toilet.
He started to sing along to the music, taunting me with how much he was enjoying my warm shower. I thought about climbing back in the other end of the tub and reengaging. But a naked fight with my neighbor wasn’t one I could win. I needed a tactical advantage.
I needed a weapon.
I was still dripping as I leaned down to grab one of the towels off the floor. As he turned off the water, I started to twist it. When he slid the shower curtain aside, I let fly.