Traded Innocence

by Antonia Adams

  ‘With movies on demand, I’m betting your aunt won’t even miss you.’ He looked at his own watch. ‘And the complimentary pizza should be delivered any minute now, so what’s your hurry?’ He offered her the extra helmet that was hanging over the handle bars. ‘You afraid?’

  She stuffed her hands in her pocket, so he wouldn’t see them shaking and ignored the helmet. ‘Should I be?’ Her voice sounded breathless in the early evening stillness.

  ‘Not of me, you shouldn’t.’ He offered her the helmet again. ‘I can show you where the cranes are.’ He nodded to the seat behind him and revved the engine.

  Chapter Six

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER, VAL and Hawk were sitting side by side in the grass. To their right was a cornfield that had been harvested last fall. On their left, the Platte River mirrored a rising gibbous moon that shone in the fading blue of the sky. The plaintive call of a whippoorwill broke the silence.

  At last he spoke. ‘I can understand you being nervous with Beranger’s disappearance and all the rumours. No doubt you’ve heard. Everyone has.’

  ‘I’ve heard, yes.’

  ‘You an ornithologist?’ He nodded to the binoculars she now wore around her neck.

  ‘Studying to be one. My aunt thinks I’ve been studying too long, but there’s so much to learn. You?’

  ‘Me? No. I’m just a lover of nature. Since you’re an expert, perhaps you can tell me something.’ He scooted closer. ‘Assuming the alleged murderers didn’t eat this Beranger guy, you think the birds would?’

  ‘What?’ The knot in her stomach tightened.

  ‘Would cranes eat Beranger?’

  ‘Look, I’ve had to listen to this crap all day, then again at the garage. Just take me back, OK? This isn’t funny.’

  ‘Wait.’ He took her hand. ‘I’m sorry. My sense of humour can be a little off at times. I didn’t mean to make you nervous.’ He offered her a boyish grin. ‘It’s just, well, there are certainly worse things a man could do with his life than feed the birds. I figure feeding the birds might be the most noble thing that greedy-ass bastard ever accomplished. Assuming that’s what happened, of course.’

  ‘I read he was buying up adjacent land for an industrial site,’ she said. ‘And that’s just his latest atrocity.’

  ‘I see you’ve done your homework. Sounds like maybe he deserved to be crane food.’ He took off the bomber jacket and slipped it around her shoulders engulfing her in lingering body heat.

  ‘You think his murder was eco-terrorism?’

  ‘Possibly. Assuming he was murdered,’ he said. ‘Beranger was always unpredictable. Who knows what he might be up to.’

  They sat quietly listening to the approaching night. The high grass in the nearby fields was motionless. The air smelled of moist loam and new growth. Everything seemed to be holding its breath.

  He heard it first. She felt him tense. There was a shifting in the air, then the growing sound of distant cries and calls, accented by rattling woody trills. The calls of the sandhill cranes were nothing at all like the trumpeting sounds she had heard when she’d studied whooping cranes down in Port Aransas. It was like nothing she’d ever heard before, growing louder and more heavily syncopated, until she could feel it deep between her hip bones, down at the base of her spine. They were engulfed in a rolling sea of percussive trills and calls that sounded like endless, anxious questions waiting to be answered, and the moon disappeared in a sea of fluttering wings. ‘Oh my God!’ She rose to a half-crouch and squinted into the chaos. ‘It’s the cranes. It’s the sandhills! You were right. They’re here!’

  ‘Looks like they’ve managed to slip in under curfew again.’ He slid an arm around her and settled her back on the ground as the first birds landed and began feeding only yards from where they sat.

  ‘They’re huge!’ she exclaimed. ‘I mean I knew that, but actually seeing them, being this close to them, well, that’s different, isn’t it?’ Then she added, not taking her eyes off the cranes. ‘Did you know they’re the oldest known bird species still surviving? They found a Miocene crane fossil right here in Nebraska, ten million years old. Can you imagine? And it was structurally identical to modern sandhill cranes. We’re looking at the ancient past, Hawk.’

  ‘They make me feel a bit like a time traveller,’ he said.

  She nodded agreement, as a large male close by raised his red head and rattled his questioning call. ‘I think they could easily devour a greedy businessman – well chopped, of course.’ In spite of her tasteless joke, such an end for Beranger did seem like poetic justice.

  ‘They are the descendants of dinosaurs, after all, and a ravenous lot.’ Hawk said, looking out over the sea of cranes.

  ‘As far as some of them fly to reach their breeding grounds, a little extra protein certainly wouldn’t hurt.’ She pulled the jacket tight and let the feral aroma of leather and maleness caress her.

  Another wave of cranes landed nearby. The air pulsated with warm bodies, the scent of distance and altitude still on their wings. As darkness settled, the fields around them seethed with need and urgency that brought the birds back to this same place year after year, generation after generation, millennia after millennia.

  ‘My aunt thinks you killed Beranger.’ Her boldness surprised her.

  He laughed, cupping her jaw in a calloused hand and tracing her lower lip with his thumb. ‘I had to. You said it yourself, the birds could use the extra protein.’

  She nipped the tip of his thumb playfully and looked around at the feeding cranes. ‘Bon appetit!’ she called, uttering a startled gasp when he pulled her down onto the grass, his mouth covering hers as he engulfed her in his warmth and his scent.

  ‘Is this payment for what I owe you?’ she whispered when he pulled away.

  ‘Only the first instalment.’ He pushed the jacket off her shoulder along with the straps of her tank top and bra and bathed the sensitive hollow of her collar bone in warm kisses and nibbles, causing her to squirm against him.

  ‘It’s a big one then? The debt I mean.’ She was finding it more and more difficult to think in coherent sentences as he cupped and caressed.

  ‘You could be in the hotel room with your auntie and cousin watching movies on demand.’

  ‘Enormous then,’ she groaned, pressing up against him.

  ‘Mmm. I doubt if you’ll ever be able to fully repay it.’ He insinuated one knee between her legs and wriggled and nestled until his groin pressed against hers, until she could feel the hardness of him through the rub of jeans against jeans. Then he went back to work on her mouth, his tongue dancing over hers and lapping at her hard pallet, as they rocked and shifted against each other, until the friction was exquisite.

  He pulled away enough to shove her tank top up until her belly was bare, then he kissed her just below the waist band of her bra where her ribs came together, causing her to inhale in tight little gasps. He licked and nuzzled his way down to her navel, while he opened her zipper and slid a hand inside the low waist band of her panties, clearing the way for his hungry mouth. She arched up to meet his kisses, as he slid her clothing down over her hips.

  It felt as though she’d been waiting forever for this moment, as he caressed and suckled the landscape of her, exploring with his fingers, with his mouth, with his eyes, like Lewis and Clark discovering a new land, like Darwin discovering a new species.

  The little moan that escaped his throat against her clit might have been from the feel of her so engorged and open and receptive, or it might have been from the feel of his heavy penis pressing through his jeans. Whatever the cause, she returned the moan and curled her fingers in his hair holding him to her undulating groin. The cranes were all around them, so close she could almost touch a feathered neck or a slender leg. She felt their singleness of purpose as though it were her own, and Hawk felt it too, she was sure he did.

  He nuzzled and nipped and licked at the split of her, burying his face in the warm wetness of her, caressing her fullness with deep
, expressive lavings. And when she was practically in a frenzy with the want of him, he pulled away and looked up into her eyes, his face glistening with her juices. ‘I don’t want to play this time, Val. I want the real thing. I want all of you. I want to be inside you.’

  ‘Me too,’ she gasped. ‘I want that too.’

  And they were both on their knees fumbling with zippers and snaps, pushing and shoving at denim and cotton, all aflutter like the wings of the cranes around them. The need felt like a fast moving prairie fire, with too much heat to even notice the prickle of the grass and the scratch of last year’s dead vegetation still not quite surrendered to new growth.

  She heard the tear of the condom wrapper, and as she kicked free of jeans and panties he was already sheathed and ready for her, settling her bare bottom back onto his open bomber jacket and pushing into her with a grunt, which ended in an inhaled breath sucked between his teeth. ‘Oh God,’ he sighed. ‘Oh God.’

  She was slick and pouting, aching and heavy. She had been all day, ever since she first saw him stroking his cock behind the bathrooms at the rest area, and she took him with tight, yielding ease that rubbed and slid and gripped in all the right places.

  She lifted her legs around his hips and he groped and kneaded her ass cheeks in an effort to pull her still further onto him. ‘You’re so deep and tight, and God, you feel better than anything,’ he breathed.

  She grabbed his clenching buttocks, running trembling desperate fingers down the crack between, parting them, fondling them, teasing, making him suck air as her fingers brushed his anus and lingered to explore timidly.

  His thrusting had become tight, stiff, manic, and she was practically off the ground, wrapped around him so tightly, digging white knuckled fingers into the tense muscle beneath his shoulder blades. All breath was gone, all thought was gone. All that was left was instinct, hunger, need. It erupted in harsh cries that caused a startled rustling of wings and a few muffled squawks in the sea of feathers and sinew, but little more. It was as though the birds somehow knew they were no threat. They continued to feed and settle in to roost as though the earth hadn’t moved, as though the fireworks of hormonal chemistry between two humans had nothing to do with them.

  Chapter Seven

  THE NEXT MORNING, VAL was sore from the thorough riding Hawk had given her. But she figured walking funny was a sure way to get another lecture on chafing and the health benefits of cotton panties, so she cranked the hot water and lingered in the steam of the shower a little longer.

  There was something about wild animal sex with a mysterious biker in a field full of cranes that just seemed to energize a person. Apparently more so than pizza and movies on demand. Val was showered and ready to go by the time Aunt Rose and Sally stumbled out of bed, still talking about what a great time they’d had last night, in spite of the heartburn the pepperoni on the pizza had given Aunt Rose. Val sent the two across the street to scrounge breakfast at the diner, while she went over to pick up the car.

  It took a little longer than she’d planned. Mike, the mechanic, looked up from under the hood of a green SUV. ‘Won’t be a minute,’ he said, nodding to a panicked woman frantically pacing his Spartan office, glancing at her watch. ‘Brakes are acting funny on Mrs Martin’s Ford here. Got to get the little darlin’s to school on time.’ The little darlin’s appeared to be making every effort to murder each other in front of the waiting room television, which blared the Today Show at full volume while the oldest toyed with the remote he’d just forcefully extricated from his sister’s mouth. Val could understand Mrs Martin’s urgency. A top up of brake fluid, a reminder of the wisdom of regular check-ups, and the grateful mother and her brood were on their way.

  No amount of arguing would convince Mike to let Val pay for the work he’d done on her car. Hawk had settled it and that was the final word on the subject. The mechanic shook her hand with a grip of iron, offered her a broad smile and sent her on her way with her car as good as new.

  She had just parked in front of the hotel to pick up the luggage and check out when Aunt Rose and Sally stepped out of the diner with a take-out box. And a biker.

  Val did a double-take, her insides gave a little quiver and her pussy clenched with muscle memory. Sure enough, sandwiched in between Aunt Rose and Sally, with a battered rucksack over his shoulder and Aunt Rose gripping one sexy bicep with the claw was Hawk.

  Aunt Rose shoved the food at Val. ‘You took so long, we decided just to order you an egg muffin. You like egg muffins, don’t you? You did when you were a little girl, and I used to make them for you.’

  Val took the box and muttered her thanks, but her gaze was locked on Hawk.

  ‘Hawk here agrees with me that it’s not safe for three defenceless women to be travelling across the country alone.’

  ‘Oh he does, does he?’ Val shoved the hand not holding the take out box against her hip.

  He offered her a wolfish grin.

  Aunt Rose didn’t seem to notice any of the subtext as she continued. ‘Especially after our close call yesterday. Instead of such a nice man like Hawk, it could have been a murderer or a rapist or any kind of no-account who stopped out there on the highway seeing us all helpless and broke down. Anyway, keeping our safety in mind and all, and being the gentleman that he is, Hawk has graciously agreed to accompany us in the car for the rest of the journey. Turns out he was headed for Oregon anyway.’

  ‘Oh really?’ Val said.

  His smile would have melted frozen butter. ‘The world is so full of amazing coincidences, isn’t it?’

  ‘Isn’t it just. Val replied. ‘And what about your bike?’

  ‘Mike at the garage will take care of it for me. I leave it here about half the time anyway. No problem really. I have the use of a car in Oregon, and I’ll fly home when the time comes.’

  Before Val could interrogate Hawk further, Aunt Rose shooed him and Sally in to pick up the rest of the luggage and nodded to the box Val had practically forgotten about. Eat your muffin, dear. You’ll need your strength.’

  Val had a feeling Aunt Rose might be right. Besides, she was ravenous, and very relieved to find a hash brown patty along with the over-stuffed English muffin. Wondering if the gas problem applied to cold hash browns as well as cold French fries, she judiciously ate that first.

  Hawk stuffed the remaining luggage into the trunk, while Aunt Rose regaled him with stories of her poor Harry’s deviated septum. Sally came out of the hotel with a cardboard take out tray and four enormous cups of coffee.

  Aunt Rose took one of the offered cups, heaved a happy sigh and got into the car as Hawk opened the door for her. She called over her shoulder to her nieces. ‘Hawk here will take the first shift driving, since he seems all fresh and chipper, and you two can ride in the back. Sally, you can drive next. Val, finish your breakfast, honey, then rest up for your turn.’

  As Hawk walked past Val like he owned the world and everything in it, she elbowed him, nearly dropping her muffin. ‘Brown-noser,’ she whispered. ‘You did tell them that you killed Beranger, didn’t you?’

  ‘Are you kidding? They’d never believe me after pizza and movies on demand, now would they? Besides …’ he surreptitiously brushed her breast in passing and pressed in just enough to make sure she knew it was no accident. His eyes were suddenly dark and wicked, ‘I have ulterior motives.’ He sauntered over to the car, got in behind the wheel and pushed the seat back. Way back.

  In spite of the heat of his touch and his insinuations, Val felt a tiny frisson of fear in the pit of her stomach. Surely he was joking about Beranger. Had to be. And the way he touched her breast, the heat in his voice, surely she knew what his ulterior motives were. Surely they were safe with him. Surely.

  If there could be eye sex, then the glances Hawk was shooting Val in the review mirror had to be the hottest kind of eye-foreplay. She couldn’t believe that Sally hadn’t noticed, but then for the first hour of the drive, Sally was on the phone with her husband about the “D�
�� Ben Jr. had received in History. After that, she went into lecture mode with Ben, Jr. about the importance of education.

  Aunt Rose ignored Sally and just spoke a little louder, talking happily to Hawk, who was ensconced in the driver’s seat like he was the king of the world. Sally didn’t seem bothered. Neither did Hawk, and the mishmash of conversations made it easy for Val to squirm in the seat without anyone paying attention – though it was a bit more difficult to find the sweet spot in the back. Maybe it had something to do with being farther away from the engine. But the looks Hawk kept flashing her made it pretty clear he knew what she was doing. She wondered if his Cheshire Cat grin meant he’d already found what she was looking for. The thought of all those great vibes from the engine rubbing up against the clench of his tight little asshole and making his cock threaten the integrity of his jeans had her squirming all the more.

  In the mirror, Hawk touched just the tip of his luscious pink tongue to his upper lip, then ran his teeth slowly and repeatedly over his bottom one, tugging at its fullness, pulling at it gently, then releasing it. While Aunt Rose went on about high taxes and how the working man just didn’t get a break these days, he just kept nodding and tugging, nodding and tugging.

  Sally was now giving her husband a detailed description of the films she and Aunt Rose had watched and the pizza they had eaten.

  Val raised a hand to rest on her chest, then nonchalantly lowered it to cup her left breast, giving the burgeoning nipple a little pinch through the flimsy summer top she’d worn just because she felt sexy after last night’s orgy among the cranes.

  Hawk did a double take, offered another lick of his lip and never missed a beat telling Aunt Rose how his uncle had owned a farm in Nebraska when he was a boy and how, when his family went to visit, his uncle let him feed the chickens and gather the eggs, and how there was a rooster who would always chase him. Val was amazed he could talk about chickens and eggs with Aunt Rose and practically fuck her with his eyes all at the same time.