by Cara McKenna
“Ah.” The trashy-sexy bartender. Did you fuck her, ever? Christ, of course he had. Kim wasn’t sure if she could follow that act. The woman would look perfectly at home on a mechanical bull.
“Then a couple of us stuck to the straight and narrow,” Vince went on, “while I veered off after trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Kind that gives you a record.”
She lowered the camera, feeling naked as their eyes met without the safety of the lens. “Have you done time?”
He nodded. “A bit. Two years, total, over three sentences.”
“God, how awful.”
He shrugged. “Not really. I’m good at prison, you might say. Kind of world I’m built to navigate.”
She could imagine it—he did seem the type to rise to the top of a brutal male hierarchy. “What were you in for?” Not drugs, not murder, not drugs, not murder.
“First time was a bar fight—well, like the third bar fight in two weeks. Before that, I never got more than a night or two in county, but the sheriff was getting real sick of my pretty face.”
“Fights? Who with?”
He shrugged. “Like-minded assholes. Purely recreational.”
“And the other sentences?”
“Bookmaking.”
Okay . . . not the worst thing ever, if a touch unsavory. “I thought betting was legal in Nevada.”
He took a deep drink from the Thermos. “Let’s just say I never got around to getting licensed.”
“Why not?”
“No patience for paperwork.”
She stared at him for a long moment, trying to figure out why she wasn’t unnerved by any of this. In fact, all she felt was intrigued. “You’re a very unusual man.”
“You’re a very attractive woman.”
She felt her cheeks heating at that, and promptly hid behind the camera once more. This massive, sketchy, shameless man wanted her. For a night, likely—nothing more. It wasn’t as if he knew her well enough to have an actual crush on her. A collision, that’s what he was after. A sex collision. She strained for reasons to run away . . .
She might be embarrassed, bumping into him afterward. Though that wasn’t such a high price to pay.
Or the sex might be awful and disappointing. Like that hasn’t been true with nice, normal guys? Maybe the sex would be just like Vince—brash and loud and exciting and fast, and larger-than-life itself.
You could just kiss him. More often than not, that told you everything you needed to know about how two people would fare in bed together.
When the last of the dawn’s colors bled to pale blue, and the hide of Lights Out looked common as terra-cotta, Kim dropped the camera to her lap and turned to her perplexing tour guide.
“Well, you win.”
A smirk. “Do I then? What’s my prize?”
“You were right,” she reiterated. “That’s got to be the best view in town. And I never would have found it myself. Thank you. Can I give you some gas money?”
“Nah. But I’ll take that breakfast you mentioned.”
She nodded, eyes dropping to his stubble-dark chin, his mouth.
“What?”
“What, what?” she bluffed, hauling her attention back to his eyes.
A smile—very faint, very approving. “You know what. So tell me, and then we’ll both know.”
Fine, busted. “I was . . . just wondering . . . if you were any good at kissing,” she finished in a mumble.
“Oh were you then?” he asked with overdone surprise.
“Don’t act so satisfied.”
“Quit giving me reasons to.”
“Shut up and let’s kiss,” she decided. “Then at least we’ll know whether or not all this flirting is a waste of time.” It’d probably be too hard—his mouth mashed against hers, a crushing, toothy, awkward assault. Or too wet. Too much of something, with this too-much man.
But his approach was measured, nothing like the battering ram she’d forecasted. He leaned in slowly, lips parting as he drew close, the temperature only rising as he cast a shadow over her. His gloves were on, his palm clad in beat old leather, fingers bare and warm as they curved along her jaw. She shut her eyes and breathed him in—earth, coffee, sweat, skin. The very scent of anticipation. His other hand grazed her neck, making her shiver, then swept up to her cheek. She was dying for his lips, but it was a different, unexpected contact he offered. Gently, slowly, he slid her glasses from her face, something about the act so odd and intimate, she gasped as though he’d cupped her breast. Her eyes opened, finding those hazel ones so near.
He was unlike any man she’d ever been this close to, and somehow she knew, after this kiss, something inside her would never quite be the same. Like that electric color he’d shown her, whatever happened next was going to rewrite her perceptions. Expand her understanding of what kissing meant.
With neat, almost prim motions, Vince folded her glasses and hooked them to his own collar. Now those hands were free to hold her jaw, the contact crackling bright, stealing her breath. Shutting her eyes. His rough thumbs stroked her cheeks; then his lips glanced hers in a scalding whisper.
Nothing like she’d imagined. Light and teasing. Then just a bit more, his lower lip brushing both of hers, urging them to part. Her fingers sought his jacket, curling around his lapels. Tugging. He took the hint, giving her a first taste of that kiss she’d been expecting. More of everything—more pressure, more intention. She drew his lip between hers, released it with a graze of teeth and earned herself the hottest little reaction—a flare of surprise in his exhalation. The unmistakable sound of a man rousing.
She felt possession in those hands, and tasted hunger on his lips. He angled her head and took the kiss deep—a bold sweep of his tongue, but so much more sensual than the intrusion she’d anticipated. He was dark and sweet from the coffee, same as her, perfect somehow. Wanting more of him, she found his jacket’s zipper and eased it down, letting her palms seek his chest through his tee. He was burning hot despite the cool bite of the morning, and she felt his heart beating behind smooth cotton. As his mouth explored hers, his hands roamed lower, until those big fingers were fanned across her waist, seeming to urge her in subtle pulls, mimicking the thrusts she’d guiltily let herself fantasize about, with this man. Now she imagined everything. Every inch of his bare body, braced above hers. Every noise. Every motion.
And this kiss told her every last thing she needed to know about how he’d be, in bed. And she couldn’t wait to find herself there with him.
When he let her go with a final, soft nip of his teeth, she was panting. Desire was pulsing hot between her legs with an urgency she hadn’t felt in ages—maybe not ever. And she saw evidence that the feeling was mutual, in the dark flush of his lips, the cast of his lids, the pitch of his breathing.
“Well,” she murmured.
“Well what?”
“That was . . .” She stole her glasses from his collar with a shaking hand, and put them back on. “That was a pretty fucking good kiss.”
His smile cracked wide, dimpling one cheek. “Agreed.”
She remembered those words whispered against her temple.
“Ask me in,” he’d said.
Like the trips she’d dreamed about and the adventures she’d promised herself she’d have once she’d finally cut the cord with her dad, Vince’s body was an invitation to the unknown—scary and thrilling and, until now, something she’d have written off as not for me. He was meant for someone bolder than her, braver and more wild—somebody like that Raina woman. But all at once, the reality of it came crisply into focus.
I could have him.
This morning, tonight, tomorrow—whenever she chose to haul the gate up and let the bull charge her. She could get herself goddamn gored and maybe discover that not only could she handle it; maybe she’d like it. Something blunt and blatant, when her world had come to feel so murky and unsure, so quickly. Sex as hard and stark as the landscape that had
built this man.
He grinned, licked his lips, his gaze moving all over her face. “I think it’s high time we took this to its natural conclusion. How about you?”
“High time? You met me two nights ago.”
“Funny. Feels like I’ve been wanting you for fifty years.”
She swallowed hard, and spoke the truth. “I know the feeling.”
“That a yes?”
She glanced behind them at the deflated husk of the air mattress.
“At the motel, I was thinking,” Vince said, amusement warming his voice.
“Thank God.”
He caught her chin with his fingers, turning her face so their eyes met squarely. “So. Is that a yes?”
She stole a breath, then took that heart-pounding step off the cliff’s edge. “Yeah. That’s a yes.”
He grinned. “Well, then. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
Chapter 9
They climbed down to the desert floor, the feat far easier in the light, and Kim could see Vince’s bike properly now. It was a hardworking sort of machine, spare and beat, and it made her rethink her biases about motorcycles and their owners. This one’s rider certainly kept a few surprises hidden behind the two-dimensional façade. She pursed her tender lips and watched his back and legs and ass until he turned to hand her the helmet.
As she strapped it on, a thought broke through the hormonal haze—the other point of this rendezvous.
“You’d said you wanted to ask me stuff about Sunnyside. Anything in particular?”
He was pensive a moment, hands going to his hips as his attention shifted back toward town. “You’ve been around the sites, I imagine. Taking photos of the construction.”
“Yeah, all day, yesterday. I bet I’ve seen most of what’s happening. Why?”
“Any of it struck you as . . . I dunno. Anything strange? Anything that made you think the development or the construction’s not on the up-and-up?”
“Don’t you sound coy? Want to come out and say exactly what it is you think’s going on?”
“Wish I could, but that’s the problem.”
“Use your words, Vince.”
He rolled his eyes. “This is gonna sound paranoid, but fine. A friend of mine was killed this past week. Car crash.”
“Oh. He was a cop, right?”
“Deputy in the Sheriff’s Department Alex Dunn.”
“I saw that on the news. I’m so sorry it was someone you knew.”
“Everybody here knows everybody else . . . but yeah, he was a good friend. One of us five I mentioned.”
“Oh no.”
“He called me that night—an hour before the crash, give or take. Told me he’d been spooked by something he saw around one of the sites, something about bones.”
“Bones—”
“Don’t bother asking. That’s all I know.” He stowed the Thermos, seeming to avoid eye contact. “Never got a chance to talk to him about it. But he saw something . . . something that disturbed him, and he was a hard man to rattle when he was on duty. It sounds crazy, I know, but part of me wants to know if he saw something bad enough to get killed over.”
“Whoa. Like somebody faked the car crash? That is a little crazy.”
His gaze caught hers. “So I keep getting told. But still, I’m wondering—you seen anything that looked sketchy out there?”
“No, not remotely—no bones, certainly. Then again, I go where the marketing people tell me to—they have to clear it with the foremen first, for safety reasons. It’s not like I’m just wandering in, unexpected.”
“Sure.” Defeat dulled his expression, making Kim’s chest ache. Poor guy. Grief could do a number on a person’s rationality, she knew. Her dad had been living that truth ever since her mom had died—nearly sixteen years now.
“Sorry I can’t be much more help.”
He smiled, stepped close, closer. Close enough for the toes of his boots to bump her sneakers. Close enough to underline just how sturdy the man was. “For the first time this week, I’m looking forward to something. So don’t worry about it. You want to help me, invite me back to your room. Get my mind off all the shit and drama of my life for a little while. Let me get lost in that bed with you. Clear my head, before I go nuts from wanting this.”
A hot tremor swayed her from her cheeks to her feet. “I can do that.”
He nodded once. “Good.” Big fingers curled under the strap at her chin and tilted her face up. His kiss was brief but searing, leaving her dizzy.
Vince climbed astride the seat and Kim did the same, fumbling with a little hop. The engine roared and the journey back toured an entirely different landscape, the darkness replaced with pure blue above and relentless red in every other direction. She twisted to glance behind them at the plume of dust rising in the bike’s wake, rousing that powdery scent of clay.
Just as they reached the dirt road, Kim caught herself—her chest and middle warm against this near stranger’s body, her breathing deep, mind peaceful despite the rocky ride and the relentless noise. More serene than she’d felt in . . . months? Why, she couldn’t guess. Perhaps the relief she’d guiltily expected to feel after breaking up with Ryan had been on a delay. Maybe the thrumming of the motor, or the hour, or the awe of witnessing that sunrise had knocked it loose. Maybe the relief of having made a decision on the whole to-fuck-or-not-to-fuck question surrounding Vince. Whatever the reason, she—
Whoa.
Her arms had shifted, from his belly to his chest, but it wasn’t some trespass of familiarity that had launched her out of her reverie. It was the hard shape strapped just below his left armpit that she’d bumped with her forearm. She palmed it through his jacket, heart beating fast.
“Are you wearing a gun?” she shouted over the bike’s growling.
He turned his head to say, “Yeah.”
“Why?”
“It’s wild in the badlands. I wouldn’t take you out here without a little backup. Don’t worry about it.”
Don’t worry about it? She was about to start worrying in earnest—about the particulars of his parole, chiefly—when she felt something else. A vibration in Vince’s breast pocket, a phone. He ignored it. Not that she expected the man to ride one-handed across this craggy terrain and take a casual call over the blare of the bike. It went still after five rings, then started up again.
Vince swore.
He brought them to a halt and cut the engine, and Kim released him a beat later than she probably should have. He dug the phone from his pocket without checking the screen.
“Yeah? Hey. Did you j—” He paused, listening. Kim wondered who could be calling so urgently, so early on a Sunday.
Vince sighed loudly. “Calm the fuck down, Case. I’m on my way . . . Big Rock. No, she’ll be fine. Just chill the fuck out and get Nita. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” A pause, a frown. “Doesn’t matter—I’m coming now. Put some pressure on it.” He lowered the phone and hit a button, blackening the screen.
“What’s going on?” Kim asked, the question cut off by a blast of throttle. She hugged him tight, avoiding the hard reminder of the gun at his ribs. Avoiding wondering if he might need the thing wherever they were headed.
“Gotta bring you with me on this,” he shouted. “Sorry. I’ll make it as quick as I can.”
“Where are we going?”
“My mom’s house.”
“Oh.” Her heart slowed some. Bad things didn’t generally go down with moms in attendance. “Okay.”
“You wait outside and I’ll get everybody calmed down. Then we’ll go get that breakfast.”
“Sure.” Whatever you say, Captain Mystery Thug.
They hit the paved two-lane, then turned off before they reached Fortuity’s town center. It looked like a residential stretch, with trailers and small houses dotted every few hundred yards, dry yards full of wild grass and succulents, about four vehicles per property and perhaps a quarter of them on blocks. Then the houses grew closer together,
a wild sort of neighborhood.
“Home sweet home.” Vince slowed the bike before a faded green house, a one-story modular with a carport and a large yard. There was a gnarled, dead tree in the middle of the scrubby lawn, with about thirty crows roosting in it. Another motorcycle was propped out front, a silver one, not as old as Vince’s. She let him go as he knocked his kickstand down; then she fumbled to the ground so he could dismount.
“Stay here,” he ordered her, pointing at the dirt beside the bike.
A man appeared on the front stoop, dressed in a tee shirt and boxer shorts. Coppery dark blond hair, red beard. He looked livid.
“Get the fuck in here!” he shouted at Vince, scattering half the spectating crows. “She thinks I’m a fucking burglar or some shit.”
“It bleeding?” Vince shouted back.
Kim noticed the man’s hand clutching a purple dish towel to his thigh.
“Yeah, some. Bullet’s still in there.”
“Oh my God,” Kim said. “He’s been shot?”
“Just get inside and calm her down, already,” the redhead said. “Before she reloads.”
“She can’t reload—I keep one round in that thing and the rest is locked up.” Vince strode up the walk. “What happened?”
With reloading off the menu, Kim followed at a generous distance, thinking they might need a calm voice to call for an ambulance. That, and plain old nosiness.
“I got up to take a leak,” said the guy, “stopped in the kitchen to see what there was for snacks. Next thing I know, there she is in her bathrobe with Dad’s rifle aimed at me, telling me to get the hell out. What the shit, Vince? You said she’s bedridden.”
“I didn’t say that exactly. Where’s she now?”
“Locked herself in her room.”
“And where’s Nita?”
“Couldn’t remember her number,” said the man Kim now took to be Vince’s brother, “and I guess she didn’t hear the shot. Maybe she’s not home.”
“She’s always home,” Vince said, sounding distracted. “Whatever. We’ll get her after things chill out.”
“Where the fuck were you, anyway? You should’ve been here to facilitate all this shit . . . Coulda sworn you got home last night,” the brother added, seeming to question the previous evening’s events as he studied Kim.