by M. Q. Barber
“No, sir.” The comparison had chilled him. Boys letting their dicks rule their behavior. Trying to get in his sisters’ pants. “I’d pop ’em in the face the second they laid a hand on Jill or Sara.” He’d never again considered dating a numbers game.
“You don’t like what a gal offers, no law says you have to take her out again.” Daddy’s short nod and comforting squeeze had signaled approval since Rob had been small enough to ride on his shoulders. “But I tell you what, Robin. A girl whose company you’d keep for nothing but the conversation, the lightness of her laugh, and the scent of her hair—she’s the one you marry.”
The one standing in front of him now.
He knew the truth, even if a rocky relationship history blinded her understanding. His first flash of anger at being challenged and insulted, as though his whole standard of manhood and masculinity had been questioned and dismissed, had subsided. Training had taught him to lock down the hothead response and think through problems. He unlocked puzzles for a living.
Eleanora didn’t strike him as a mercenary woman who considered sex a business dealing. She must’ve married a lousy example of manhood the first time around to hold such a cynical opinion. The kind of man who maybe still needed someone to smack horseshit out of his head.
“—don’t you think?” Ponytail swaying, she glanced over her shoulder. “You’ve been studying the menu awfully hard.”
“I know you don’t mean to say I’m trying to buy your body.”
Startled confusion faded to a cringe that twisted her face. “I was—”
“Joking, I know.” He didn’t aim to lecture, but he wouldn’t have her thinking of herself as a tradeoff. A burger and fries for a night fondling her tits. A steak with wine for her lips around his dick. Not him, either. “Two things, Eleanora.”
He stepped closer as the couple behind them argued over the merits of licorice whips as drinking straws. “One, my mama and daddy raised me to be a gentleman, and nothing’ll happen between us faster than the pace you want to go.” He whispered to her, urgent and soft, the need to get the words out stringing him tight as a catch wire. “And two, I hope you wouldn’t devalue yourself like that. You have a beautiful body—trust me, I’ve noticed—but you have a lot more going for you than looks. I’m not gonna grab at one thing like a horny kid and ditch the rest on the roadside.”
Her face relaxed, but she didn’t speak.
He let her be. Silence fell between them. He kept a covert watch on her as the line wound them down one row and halfway up another. Longer she held her peace, the more convincing the shoulder-demon voice suggesting he’d fucked up grew.
She cleared her throat. “David used to buy me extravagant gifts.” Her whisper floated so airy amid the din he had to lean in to hear. “Anytime he thought I was being stubborn, he just…”
Tried to substitute money for love. Her implication came through loud and clear.
“After a while, we never talked anymore, not about anything that mattered. If we argued, he’d come home with pricey junk.” The muscles in her cheek twitched with the pull of a bitter smile. “I wanted”—the tip of her tongue touched her lips and retreated—“an apology. I’d have taken less. An acknowledgement he’d heard what I said and understood. But he never understood.” Blinking fast, she ducked her head. “I wanted a human connection and he brought me things.”
He hadn’t intended to push something so emotional in such a crowded space. To embarrass her. He swept her close and tucked her head beneath his chin. Strong arms might set straight what loose lips knocked askew.
“I don’t mean to paint you with the same brush, Rob.” She shrugged and burrowed into him. “I’m sorry.”
“You got your head wired on those paths.” He ran his hand over her back. Up. Down. Smooth strokes as he willed himself to ignore the tickle of her breath at his throat. “Change is hard. Trust is hard. I can’t give you an easy fix for reasonable caution, Eleanora.”
He tugged her ponytail. As she tipped her head back, he leaned away. No tear tracks, thank Christ. He hadn’t gone that far astray from his plan to give her a fun, relaxing night. But she wore shadows deep as Jilly’s after a damnfool hunter had sprayed their Chessie with shot. Jilly’s faith had taken longer to recover than the dog’s hindquarters.
“All I can do is show up every day and demonstrate the kind of man I am. Make some new pathways here.” He tapped Nora’s forehead with a gentle finger. “I think those are paths I’d like to explore.”
Hope shone in her eyes. Unless he’d glimpsed the imagined reflection of his own.
She lowered her head and snuggled against his chest.
He hugged her to him, despite the heat and the gap ahead of them where the line had moved. “With caramel corn,” he whispered.
She giggled, and he inhaled the honeyed sweetness of her hair.
Conversation. Laughter. Scent. She busted the chart for all three. One of these days, his daddy would be welcoming her to the family as a daughter-in-law.
* * * *
A third hand wouldn’t have gone amiss for each of them.
Eleanora toted the drink tray and the bags of popcorn, one sweet, one savory. Rob balanced cheeseburgers, fries, and slices of pie—apricot and strawberry-rhubarb, made fresh this morning—with consummate skill. With impressive juggling, he cradled the food in one arm and dropped the truck’s tailgate with his opposite hand.
Speed, skill, deft hands. Recalling the light pressure of his hand at her back, the way he’d traced the lower edge of her bra, made her shiver. Rob broadcast a subtle image of the kind of guy who could unhook a girl one-handed. The sexy charmer who’d gone from fumbling to seductive by eighth grade. He hadn’t been boasting about being good with his hands.
“Here, lemme get those.” He scooped the drink tray and popcorn from her, depositing them on the end of the tailgate beside the rest. Turning back, he extended his arms and paused. Inches from her waist, his fingers twitched.
She made a show of glancing down, daring him to touch her with her stance if not her voice. Her body begged for his solid, capable grip.
“You gonna hip check me again if I help you into bed?”
She jerked her head up. “If you—”
“Shit.” He swore with his eyes closed, shaking his head. “The truck bed, I meant.”
“Freudian slip?” Not one she minded, if so. Least she wasn’t alone in having trouble focusing. She gave him a broad, teasing smile. Whatever the girls at work—or David—thought, she wasn’t some stuffy, tight-assed bitch. “Guess I know where your mind’s at.”
“It’s not only on that, Eleanora, I promise you.” Honesty and sincerity poured from his eyes, from the sweet curve of his mouth, from the tiny furrow between his brows.
“I know.” Clasping his hands, she pressed them to the top of her hips. God, he felt amazing. The sun’s heat had nothing on the heat between her legs. “And yeah, you can give me a boost without fear of reprisal.”
She leaned into him and accepted temptation’s goad. Fingers slipping up his arms, she mapped the easy strength in his forearms. Teased the soft skin in the crook of his elbows. Gripped the roundness of his biceps and shoulders. Imagined how they’d enclose her as he moved above her.
Imaginary Rob smothered her with kisses and thrust. Real Rob stood unmoving. Thirty seconds passed. A full minute.
“I’m ready, Rob,” she whispered. Her brain caught up to her mouth half a second too late.
His fingers dug into her sides, and he uttered what might have become a groan if he hadn’t snapped off the sound almost before it began. His quick lift settled her on the truck bed.
Her legs dangled. Hot metal stung the bare backs of her knees. Raising her legs, she scooted deeper into the truck and slumped against the side. Breathing room. God knew she needed some. Rob’s nearness fed an uncontrollable spring in her. A bubbling well David had never touched, not once in the eight years they’d shared a bed.
Rob hoisted himse
lf in and leaned against the wall opposite her. One leg of his shorts gaped, showing off a solid thigh and a smattering of brown hair trailing into darkness.
Heart rate rising, she wrenched her gaze away and studied the neat precision of his shoelaces. Same size loops, same length ends, nothing long enough to drag in the dirt. As pleasing to the eye as a balanced ledger.
He passed food from hand to hand until her dinner sat between her tennis shoes.
She fished a ketchup-drizzled French fry from a red-checkered paper boat.
Rob bit into his cheeseburger.
They traded darting glances and ate in silence. She struggled to tabulate the feeling on her mental balance sheet. Not the comfortable quiet of longtime friends, but not the strained resentment of the silences between her and David, either. A tense silence. No—an intense silence.
Pregnant with possibility. Six inches separated their bare legs. He owed her three kisses. And when he’d lifted her, she’d thought she’d felt his—
Flushing, she sipped the old-fashioned lemonade she’d opted for instead of pop. If fitting the word in her mouth went beyond her comfort level, she sure as hell wasn’t ready for fitting—him.
But he’d said she wasn’t a commodity to him. He didn’t think of their date as a transaction, a loan of his resources in exchange for some interest from her, a down payment. A deposit, her mind supplied, and she’d never found banking so filthy. God help her keep a straight face at work Monday morning.
His consideration ought to have put her at ease. Instead, she occupied a heretofore-unknown position, having to square his gentlemanly restraint with the lust she simmered in thanks to his presence. Staring at him out of the corner of her eye raised her pulse. She breathed faster. Sipped her drink more often.
Maybe she was the predator, the one cruising for an easy lay. She’d never been the seducer. Hard to judge without trying the role on for size. Women her age initiated one-night stands after their divorces all the time. The magazine covers in the checkout line said so.
Conscience tugged at her. Using Rob—funny, sexy, thoughtful Rob—as nothing more than an outlet for the sexuality welling up inside her would make her miserable, not satisfied. Scanning the rows ahead of them, she searched for a spark. Dozens of men. Some of them well-groomed, well-muscled, attractive men.
Not a single one primed a reaction in her body the way Rob did.
If thirtysomething divorcees were supposed to be on the prowl for horny boys, her body hadn’t gotten the message. Chalk her indifference up to another failure. The rows beyond the teens and college kids held minivans and dusty sedans, a sea of parents and children all the way to the screen.
She belonged down front with them. Mom had been raising three kids by her age—heck, when Mom hit thirty-one, Eleanora had been starting kindergarten. Lil and Vi had been in diapers.
She didn’t hate her career. Arranging loans for aging farmers and eager entrepreneurs and young, in love, first-time homeowners made her happy despite the extra time she had to put in to make the numbers work. But every year she fell another tick behind. Felt a little more like the life she longed for had to be happening elsewhere, in a parallel universe where she’d done something right instead of wrong. The disappointment weighed on her, a lethargy beyond her ability to shake.
“Finished?” Rob squeezed her knee under his palm.
“What?” She cringed at the yelp in her voice. “Sorry, I mean—” Her hands sat empty, and so did the paper boat where her fries and cheeseburger had been. “I guess I am, yeah.”
“Good.” He tilted his head and studied her. Inscrutable, with his gold-brown eyes, his straight lips, and his squared-off jaw.
He examined her the way she pored over ledger sheets, but what she added up to in his head, she couldn’t say.
“We’ve got the best pie in town waiting, and you have to try both.” He switched sides, coming to rest alongside her with his legs stretched to the far edge atop the curving wheel well. The pie wedges sat in a paper boat he nestled in one hand. He picked up the lone fork. “Which one do you want to try first?”
She could’ve protested. Procured her own plastic cutlery and asked him to divide the slices. Demanded he pass over the fork and let her cut her own bites. “You choose.”
He raised an eyebrow and glanced from the pie to her. “You sure about that?”
“I expect I am.” She hoped, anyway. The usual effects of his proximity already trounced rational thought. A thumping rush danced between her legs. Her nipples stiffened, her bra rough and tight across sensitive flesh.
“Close your eyes, Eleanora.”
She exhaled on a shuddering breath. The gruff-but-coaxing demand in his voice twanged a response low in her belly. Might be enough to overcome her nerves. Trusting David would’ve been impossible. But Rob wasn’t David. He’d been nothing but trustworthy so far. With a slight nod, she closed her eyes.
Anticipation sluiced through her, leaving a cold fire burning in its wake. She strained to hear the scrape of the plastic fork on paper.
“Open up.” His low command drowned out all other sound.
Had the first bite been apple or peach or coconut crème, she wouldn’t have known the difference. Her heart ran the four-minute mile while every cell in her body, down to the ones in her taste buds, danced with excitement the second her mouth closed around the fork. Her shoulders unclenched, and she moaned without thought.
“Seems you’re a strawberry-rhubarb woman.” Rob’s intimate whisper lacked any hint of laughter. “If you like the apricot half as well, I’ll count my evening well-spent watching you sample pie.”
Her internal squeeze surprised her, an involuntary response to the passionate warmth in his voice. Leaving her eyes closed, she rolled her arm. Not much, but enough to rest the back of her forearm and her knuckles against Rob’s thigh. The resurgent thrill zipped through her.
“Have another taste.”
She opened her mouth. Sugary-sweet fruit with a buttery crust and juice coated her tongue.
“Best pie you’ve ever had?”
Best service, for sure. She licked her lips. “I might be biased. Can I expand the sample size before I decide?”
He fed her small bites at a languid pace matching the laziness brought on by the summer sun. She didn’t care to open her eyes, and he never asked.
Stretching her fingers, she curled them against worn denim. The thickness had to be a seam. The bottom hem. She traced the ridge with her index finger and grazed warm flesh.
His thigh flexed. “Last bite. Best make it count.”
She closed her lips and sucked the fork clean. Sweet, delicious strawberry. She swallowed it down and loosed an appreciative sigh. “Definitely the best I’ve ever had.”
Rob shifted his leg under her. “Can’t say as I remember it ever being this good before, either.”
“No, mustard!”
Her eyelids flew open.
A girl ran past the truck, spattering gravel. “Did you hear me? I changed my mind. Forget the ketchup.”
Eleanora flung herself out of her lewd slouch and into a proper, David-approved, straight-backed dinner posture. Dozens of people might have spied what she and Rob were doing. In public. God. If she ended up in another video online—
“Nobody’s paying us any mind.” Rob set the empty dish aside and squeezed her hand. “When you close your eyes with me, you can be sure I’m watching for the both of us.”
“I’m that obvious, huh?” She reached for calm with deep, even breaths. He was right. No one stared at her or accused her of enjoying herself too much. She comprised the whole class of people having trouble accepting fun and freedom.
“I’m trained to be observant, Eleanora.”
Comforting, but his answer skirted around a blanket no. She forced a laugh. “You must think I’m paranoid.”
His lips tightened as he watched her. He raised his hand from hers, slow and steady. Turning his torso, he brought both hands to her cheeks. No.
Not quite. His palms didn’t rest on her skin. He hovered, a hand on either side, a hairsbreadth away from touching.
She met his eyes, and her breath caught. Trapped. He cradled her like a firefly within his cupped hands.
“I think you’re noticing things that maybe didn’t get so much attention from”—he wrinkled his nose—“in the past. And ’cause you’re noticing now, you figure everybody else is.” Shaking his head in a slow sweep, he traced her jawline and held her transfixed with two fingers beneath her chin. “But all those others are wrapped up in their own noticing. The things you think shine big ol’ flashing lights give off faint sparks. No one’s looking for ’em but me, Eleanora.” He smiled, his teeth white and even and his lips full. “And I’m looking closer than an electron scope at integrated circuits.”
She matched his smile, letting his natural comfort lure hers out of hiding. “Pretty close, then?”
“Mighty close.” Dropping his hands, he dug into a pocket. “Here.” He passed her his car keys, one held between his fingers. “Pop the footlocker while I toss the trash, and we’ll make this perch more comfortable for movie-watching.” He gathered up everything but the popcorn and strode toward the garbage can at the end of the aisle.
Opening the box revealed two spongy mats folded accordion-style. She snapped them out, egg-carton side up, and created a soft base in the truck bed. A base not unlike a real bed. More rummaging uncovered a sheet and two pillows. She pulled them free and closed the footlocker.
She snuck in a sniff before he turned back toward the truck. Fresh. Sunshine and grass, as if he’d washed the linens yesterday and left them hanging on the line today. Him planning ahead didn’t surprise her. He seemed like a thinker.