“Probably not metal, but plastic or some composite material, don’t you think?” Lance took his sunglasses from a pocket and slipped them on as he tracked their cousin’s progress. “But the lance he’s holding looks to be painted wood.”
Trey barely heard him over the roar as Jake whipped past again, trailing a cloud of dust. “Both dangerous in a crash then.”
Lance pivoted on one heel as he tracked Jake’s progress. “Looks like he’s going for it at the end of this round.”
“It does.”
Trey could barely hear his own answer as Jake flew past where he and Lance stood once more. Engine roaring like a jet plane on takeoff, their cousin made a wide turn and then sped straight down the track laid out as an approach to the series of rings dangling from the archway which had been moved to the arena’s center point to prevent hitting the end wall. The idea was to catch one of the rings on the lance. If the thing came loose as it should, then Jake could carry it away with him. If not, he was supposed to drop the lance before he could be dragged off his bike.
The sun gleamed on the rider’s make-believe armor, slid along the blue and white painted wood of the lance Jake clamped under his right arm, and flashed over the chrome of his bike. Wind from his passage fluttered the plume that sprang from the top of his helmet. The dust that rolled upward in his wake was like a cloud of powdered gold. His spinning tires left a plowed furrow in the soft ground. The noise was incredible, drowning out the cry of a hawk from overhead and the buzz of a wasp not two feet from Trey’s face.
Everyone in the arena stopped what they were doing to watch. No one spoke; the very air shuddered with the grumbling power of the bike hurtling down the track that led to the rings.
A weird sense of something not quite right swept over Trey. It felt like the time he nearly stepped out of his boat onto a cottonmouth moccasin, or the one when he stopped at an intersection when the light was green, and narrowly missed being hit by an eighteen-wheeler running the red.
He took a step forward. Then he plunged into a run with a shout rising in his throat, though why he was yelling and what he meant to say he had no idea.
Jake never heard him. His front tire hit something under the dirt and reared up like a wild stallion. Jake dropped the lance and snatched for the right handgrip, but was too late. The front wheel wrenched around, spilling Jake off. Then the heavy motorcycle crashed down inches from his legs.
Trey sprinted toward the wreck. Lance was right beside him, and the rest of the bike club not far behind. They arrived in a jostling group, yelling, shouting, spouting questions and advice, none of it very helpful.
Dropping to one knee beside Jake, Trey cursed the knight’s helmet that might be photographic as all hell but offered no protection compared to a biker’s helmet. As gently as possible, he slid the tin can from his cousin’s head, taking care not to shift the position of his neck.
Jake’s eyes were closed, his face pale, his hair matted with sweat. He seemed to be barely breathing.
“Jake, buddy. Talk to me. Tell me where it hurts.”
There was no answer.
Lance, who had dropped to his knees across from Trey, sprang up and took out his cell phone. As he turned away, he punched in the emergency code.
Trey felt for a pulse at the carotid artery in Jake’s neck. It was there, but seemed weak. Quickly, he ran his hands over his cousin’s lax arms and legs as he’d seen Beau do so many times as an EMT. They seemed okay. Gingerly, he began to probe Jake’s scalp, reaching down under his neck on both sides to test the back of his head.
His questing fingers ran into the warm wetness of blood, enough that he felt his heart shrink. But that was not all. Beneath it was something hard. A careful brushing of the sand around it exposed a length of wood. It appeared to be a 2 x 6 board set on edge and with the dirt then pounded hard to set it. A third or so of its width had been left unburied, but camouflaged with loosely packed earth.
Jake’s bike had hit it and rebounded, throwing its rider backward onto the hard edge as he fell.
It was a booby trap, and it was Jake’s misfortune that he’d been the one to spring it.
Trey lifted his head, his gaze bleak as he met Lance’s eyes where he had come to stand over him. They shared the same conclusion, unspoken but obvious.
Jake should not have been the first rider to try the stunt. As president and leader of the club, that duty was Trey’s.
The booby trap was meant for him. It should have been him lying silent and defenseless in the dirt.
Chapter 11
It was later, much later, when Trey reached the Watering Hole. The place was closed of course, but a light still glowed upstairs in Zeni’s apartment. He let himself in at the back with his key and made his way through the storeroom and into the front with its familiar obstacle course of tables and chairs. He didn’t turn on the lights; he didn’t need them, for one thing, but he also didn’t want some concerned citizen noticing through the window and banging on the door, maybe asking for news of Jake.
Sustenance was his purpose, and he moved around behind the counter to the refrigerator that sat beneath it. He’d just come from the hospital in New Orleans. They had a cafeteria there, but it was closed by the time he realized he was hungry. A plain ham sandwich, tall glass of milk, and a piece of Zeni’s coconut pie were what he needed now, and the sooner the better.
He knew when she started downstairs because the staircase light came on. He’d figured she would come down, which was another reason he’d stopped instead of going home—or to the house he called by that name. He’d called to tell her what happened, but she’d want the details.
That was probably all she’d want, but it didn’t much matter. Information in exchange for a sight of her in the white robe-like thing she’d worn before, one that skimmed her curves but left plenty of room for imagination, would be a fair exchange.
“I thought I heard you down here,” she said as she came around the corner.
“Who else?” He didn’t look up as he was carefully transferring two pieces of pie to a plate at one time.
“Right. You’re the only thief who raids the refrigerator instead of the cash register.”
“And a good thing to, since you don’t have even a baseball bat with you for protection.”
He paused to enjoy the view as she stood with the light behind her, outlining her curves with indelible precision. He stored the memory away with care, figuring he might like to bring it out now and then for, oh, the next hundred years or so.
“The last thing I’d need against you.”
“I don’t know so much about that,” he muttered as he reached for a carton of milk and tore open the top.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
The look she gave him held dark suspicion, but she let the comment pass. “How is Jake?”
“He’s okay.” He folded a slice of ham into a piece of bread and wolfed down a big bite, chasing it with milk before he went on. “Poor guy will have to wear a neck brace for a while, and can’t ride in the tournament. But he’ll be good to go in a month or two.”
“A neck brace?”
“Cracked vertebrae.” He finished his half sandwich. “He was damn lucky he wasn’t paralyzed. A few inches lower—” He shook his head.
“People have been saying that it should’ve been you.” She walked closer, maybe to see his face in the dim light of the neon window signs advertising beer, soft drinks, and various other tipples and edibles.
“Could be, who knows.” Trey didn’t intend to make a lot of the possibility, not until he and Lance figured out who was behind this supposed accident.
“They also say that board he hit was planted. Who would do such a thing?”
So much for keeping that part quiet. “Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. We don’t know for sure.” He started working on the pie.
“If it was, I can’t imagine how they hoped to get away with it,” she said with a frown. “I mean the board w
as right there. Did they think no one would notice?”
“The thing could’ve been left behind from some old rodeo event or repair project. At least, the culprit probably depended on people thinking that.”
Her face was tinted with blue and red from the signs, while her eyes glistened with a dozen colors. “What matters is that it was there, and was probably meant for you to hit. You might have been killed.”
“I didn’t and I wasn’t.”
She shook her head so her hair that drifted around her shoulders gleamed with colors as well, more fascinating than the dyes she affected so often. The need to touch those rainbow strands, to run his fingers through them, was so strong Trey curled his fingers around his fork until the handle almost cut into his palm.
“It could happen,” she said. “One minute people can be living, breathing, working, going about their lives without a thought, and the next they are just gone.”
She was really upset; he could tell from the quiver in her voice more than from what she said. Finishing the pie, he put his plate in the sink. He tossed the empty milk carton into the trash before he turned to her. Trying for a light note, he said, “Hey, don’t count me out. I have fight left in me yet.”
Tears appeared in her eyes, gleaming in the semi darkness. He stepped from behind the counter and eased next to her. Using his thumbs, he brushed away the moisture that had gathered in the hollows under her eyes. She turned away for an instant, but then swung back suddenly and came into his arms. He folded her close, uncertain if he was worthy of her trust, much less the task of soothing her fear.
“Ah, Zeni,” he whispered against her hair. “Don’t cry.”
“I was so worried,” she said her breath warm against his neck. “Everyone was so sure at first that it was you who had been hurt. But then they said it was Jake. I felt so guilty at the relief, because I was glad—glad it was him, not you.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said quietly against the top of her head. “It’s a natural reaction, being glad someone you know missed being hurt.”
She was so very soft and warm, the smooth resilience of her a tender enticement. The heat and shape of her that fit so well against his body sent such need arcing through him that he nearly groaned with it. On so many occasions—too many—he had imagined boosting her onto one of the Watering Hole’s tables. Once he had her there, he’d pictured skimming up under the short jean skirt she usually wore to touch and hold what lay underneath. He’d step between her spread legs and she’d clamp them around him, and then—
He’d tried so hard to keep a decent employer and employee relationship between them, to accept that she wanted nothing more and pretend he felt the same. He’d sparred with her, exchanged barbs and honey coated insults with her, and enjoyed every second while knowing it was a perverse form of courtship.
He’d allowed her to run the Watering Hole and his life, up to a point, in the half-acknowledged hope she might realize it could become a full-time job. She hadn’t taken the bait, and he wasn’t sure she ever would. He had the feeling she might be gone one day, drifting away from Chamelot like the dandelions of the tattoo on her back, going who knows where, seeking the answer that was blowing in the wind.
Prickly yet tenderhearted, sarcastic but concerned; she was everything he’d ever wanted or needed. Why she’d avoided him since the rainy night she’d taken him on as Zenobia he couldn’t say, but his heart clamored inside him with the need to see that it didn’t happen now.
The taste he’d had of her then merely whetted his lust for more instead of satisfying it. The days of being unable to touch her, to hold her, raised his need to an unbearable ache. These things coalesced in his mind, pushing at him until fantasy turned into reality. One moment he was holding her with no thought of anything beyond comfort and reassurance, and the next they were mouth to mouth and he was lifting her onto the table behind her.
She stiffened, pulling away from him. “What are you doing?”
Something I thought about so many times—you’ve no idea how many.”
“Getting it on standing up?”
“Getting you on top of a table, here where I’ve watched you moving back and forth, day after day.” He smoothed his hands up and down her back, easing them to her hips in an orgy of touch, before sliding them along her thighs. His every sense was alive to the realization that she wore nothing under her robe except some kind of silky slip of a nightgown.
“You mean—”
She seemed to lose whatever thought she might have had as he leaned to taste the skin of her neck, running his tongue down its curve. He smiled against the enticing spot where her neck joined her shoulder, not from ego satisfaction but from sheer joy that he was able to distract her. With that, in spite of his disclaimer, ran the exultation of being alive and well when he could just as easily be lying in a hospital bed or dead.
“I do mean,” he said against her skin.
“With me, not just any female in an apron?”
She was gripping his tattooed shoulder with one hand while rubbing the other over his chest, each small pass sending waves of fire over him. “Only you,” he said, the words so low he wasn’t sure she could hear them. “No other.”
“You’re not such a bad boy then,” she murmured, bringing her hand up to plow her fingers through his hair.
“Who said I might be?” Not that he cared about that; he only asked so she might not notice the slide of his fingers under the raised hem of her robe.
“The girls who come in here,” she said a little breathlessly, “teenagers impressed with your daredevil ways, your biker club and tattoos.”
“One tattoo.”
“Really? None here?” She shifted her hand from his shoulder to his back, and then down to grasp the curve of his backside. “Or here?”
“You should know better.”
“Except I don’t remember noticing the back so much as the front.”
“Zeni—”
It was a groan. Sometimes imagination could be painful. “I think you need to see just how good I can be.”
“Or how bad?” She asked on a gasp as he put his hands on her knees and spread them apart.
He showed her instead of answering, pulling her gently rounded bottom to the edge of the table and pushing her back until she lay down. Then he dropped to his knees.
She was succulent and delicious, tart yet sweet, as heady as some fruit-flavored liqueur with a mind-bending hint of coconut pie. He enjoyed her in slow indulgence, probing with his tongue, applying suction, biting gently. He brought his fingers into play until she moaned with a musical sound of need and the pulsation of internal muscles. She writhed in extremity and escalating fervor until she cried his name and her thighs quivered as she fought his grip. And when that paroxysm began to fade, she pushed up, reaching for him as he stood, releasing his belt and zipper while he stripped away her nightclothes and then retrieved the condom he’d replaced in his wallet days ago.
She took it from him and sheathed him with shaking fingers. Then she drew him between her legs and guided him home. She dragged him closer with both hands while inhaling so deep that the warm surfaces of her breasts surged against his chest. Yes, and then flattened against it as he sank deeper still.
And it was every bit as miraculous as he’d expected. It was purest surging magic that he fed by laying her back again, watching the play of neon light in red blue and green on her breasts, her belly and thighs, watching her face as he touched her, took possession of her with fast, jarring thrusts. And she watched him, her lips parted and swollen as she panted for breath, her face flushed and beautiful, holding his eyes with her own.
That was until she convulsed around him, until he pumped a final time before bending protectively over her. She let her lashes fall then, shutting him out.
Chapter 12
One corner of the big exhibit building being used by the movie company for reception and registration had been set up as a cantina. Zeni’s arrival there had a t
wo-fold purpose. She’d delivered warming trays of biscuits stuffed with sausage or ham, and open trays of doughnuts, muffins or homemade granola bars, setting them out on the serving table next to the industrial sized coffee and juice machines provided by the Watering Hole. Then she sat down to wait for her early morning appointment that Derek had set up the day before.
He was nowhere in sight, but she didn’t mind; it was good to be off her feet for a few minutes. She’d been up for hours, baking for the movie crew as well as for her usual customers. The last pans of biscuits had still been in the oven when she left, though Gloria had arrived to see they came out on time and to make any special breakfast orders from the retirees who congregated every morning at daybreak.
Gloria could handle it just fine, Zeni knew, but she still hoped the run-through of the dream sequence wouldn’t take long. She usually caught up with her paperwork between the breakfast and lunch rush hours on Gloria’s eight-hour shift days. If she didn’t get back to it fairly soon she’d be working late tonight, as well as getting up early again in the morning.
Just the thought of it was enough to make her yawn, though sleeplessness the night before could have had something to do with it. She might as well not have gone to bed, for all the good it did her. She’d lain awake for hours, thinking, wondering and remembering. Heat rose in her face and the blood fizzed in her veins, even now, as she thought of the use Trey had found for one of the coffee shop tables.
Never in her life had she felt anything that came close to the moments they’d shared. The closeness in her apartment had been a revelation, but the encounter on a table in the dark had changed her in some way she couldn’t quite understand. That he’d wanted her as she wanted him, that he’d needed her so desperately he would risk public exposure, had sent her soaring.
She’d thought she wanted nothing from Trey if she couldn’t have it all. She was wrong.
Tristan on a Harley (Louisiana Knights Book 3) Page 12