She dug through the ice chest between her and Sally and found a bottle of water. Aunt Rose was now talking about her days as a little girl on a farm in Missouri, and Hawk must have surely been about to dislocate his eyeballs keeping one eye on the road and one on Val. She opened the water bottle and gave the neck of it a good fellating before drinking heavily. Then she pulled back prematurely to let the water spill generously onto her peaking nipple, now clearly visible through her blouse along with the chilled stippling of her areola. She made a fuss about being so sloppy, but the only one who paid any attention was Hawk. As she wiped and caressed and fondled her heavy breast with one of the napkins Sally had nicked from the Starlight Diner, Hawk seemed to be having a little trouble breathing. Aunt Rose asked him if his eyes were OK, because she had some drops for eye-strain if he needed them.
He reassured her that his eyes were fine as Val’s hands-on inspection evolved to raking her nipple to new heights with the hard press of her thumb, ensuring that both nipple and areola were as visible as they could possibly be and still be clothed. Then, as though she had only just realised she was being watched, she returned Hawk’s hungry gaze from beneath heavy eyelids. All the while Sally and her husband discussed Meg Ryan’s best film roles and Aunt Rose got around to talking, once again, about her Harry’s deviated septum. No doubt her concern for Hawk’s sudden development of breathing problems raised the subject.
Not surprisingly, Hawk pulled into the next rest stop. He waited by the car with a restraining hand on Val’s arm until he was sure that Sally, gesticulating wildly as she spoke into her cell phone, and Aunt Rose, anxious to settle in with the newest copy of Woman’s World, both trotted off to the ladies room. Then he grabbed Val by the arm and hustled her behind the restrooms. This time, it wasn’t a wank he had in mind.
There was no talking, just shoving clothing aside far enough to do what needed to be done. And it was amazing how little shoving it took – panties and jeans down far enough for Hawk, with only his condomed cock and his balls jutting from his open fly, to turn her to the wall, bend her over and shove in to her sopping pout. And she was sopping. With one hand on her hip, he steadied her, with the other he groped, first the bounce of her breasts, then the cheeks of her exposed butt. At last the roaming hand came to rest on her heavy clit, causing them both to sigh and groan as though the hand had found its way home, tweaking and stroking and pinching in rhythm to each hard thrust.
‘I’ve gotta come,’ he growled between gritted teeth. ‘It was all I could do not to come in my jeans when you dumped water on your tit. I can’t hold back any longer.’
‘Glad you saved it for me,’ she breathed, straining as hard as he was. They both came in heavy humid grunts up against the cinder block of the restroom’s back wall.
It was only when the shuddering and gasping diminished they realised Sally was watching, cell phone clenched in her tight fist, eyes welling with tears, lower lip trembling.
Before she could turn to leave and before Val could offer any sort of explanation, Hawk, still tucking his tackle, grabbed her none to gently, pushed her up against the wall and landed a heavy kiss on the surprised O of her mouth. It was a deep kiss, a probing kiss with plenty of tongue. To Val’s surprise, Sally made no effort to repel his advances. Trembling all over, resting the hand fisted around the mobile on his shoulder, she kissed him back, until at last he pulled away just enough to speak. ‘If you wanted to join us, all you had to do was ask.’
His words made Val’s insides quiver with a strange mix of emotions. Sex was not something she and Sally had ever talked about. Sally was not someone she could even imagine talking about sex with. And watching the man she had just fucked fondle her married cousin was surreal.
‘Join you? Are you crazy?’ Sally’s voice was thin, high pitched. ‘I didn’t want to join you. I wouldn’t. I couldn’t.’
Hawk didn’t let her off that easily. ‘Don’t lie, Sally, you wanted to, didn’t you? You wanted me to fuck you like I fucked your cousin, didn’t you?’ He held her sandwiched tightly between the rub of his body and the abrading rough of the wall. ‘It made you wet, what you saw, what we were doing, and you wanted it too, didn’t you?’
She shook her head frantically, looking like a frightened deer.
He ran a hand down over her mons and began to stroke the seam of her jeans with a thick finger. When he spoke, his voice was harsh, demanding. ‘I know what you need, Sally. I’ve known from the beginning.’ He probed a little harder and Sally dropped her phone with a guttural gasp, wrapped her arms around him and took his mouth like it was food and she was starving. Suddenly she was trembling all over, and Val knew that kind of trembling had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with having the mother of all orgasms. Sally would have collapsed against the wall if Hawk hadn’t supported her, held her to him, soothed her. ‘There, there.’ He brushed his lips gently against the top of her head and held her until she could stand ‘That’s better, now isn’t it?’
Then Sally began to sob in earnest. ‘I haven’t … Ben and I don’t … I mean it’s not that we … This is the first time I’ve … in ages,’ she sobbed against his shoulder.
Hawk shot Val a quick glance, almost as though he needed her approval, then he lifted Sally’s chin and held her gaze, as she frantically wiped her nose on the back of her hand. ‘Sally, do you love him, your husband?’
‘Of course I do,’ she blubbered. ‘But with the kids and their school and our work and all it’s just that we’re always so tired and there’s never any time.’
He lifted her chin again and made her look at him. ‘Two words, sweetheart.’
‘Two words?’ she whimpered.
Still holding her gaze, he bent, picked up her mobile and handed it back to her. ‘Phone sex.’
She blinked. ‘Phone sex?’
He nodded. ‘You talk to him all the time, take advantage. Trust me on this, Hon.’
‘Valerieee! Salleee!’ Aunt Rose’s voice rose like a siren from in front of the vending machines.
Hawk gave Sally a reassuring nod. ‘A little sexting in the car, hmmm? And no one is the wiser. And then at the next rest area, well,’ he nodded down to her crotch. ‘I’m betting I haven’t even begun to stoke the flames, have I?’
Val found herself nearly in tears over what had just happened. How had she not seen what was going on in her cousin’s life when Hawk so clearly had? She laid a shaky hand on Sally’s shoulder. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll drive next, Sweetie. You text.’
They all three emerged from behind the toilets just as Aunt Rose let out another ear splitting bellow.
Chapter Eight
VAL HAD TO ADMIT, it was more peaceful having Hawk along for the ride. After the rest stop, she had taken over the driving and Aunt Rose was happy to browse through her growing stack of magazines, interrupting the quiet on occasion to enlighten Val with the latest shenanigans of some celebrity or politician. All was quiet in the back, with Hawk dozing peacefully in the seat behind Val and Sally texting away like a mad woman.
Every once in a while there was a little moan or a giggle. Wow, Val thought, who’d have guessed something as simple as sexting could bring so much peace to the journey, no more blaring country music, no more Montana ranchers, no more mail order brides, and no more loud phone conversations with misbehaving rug rats.
In their tranquil condition, they managed to put a lot of miles behind them that day. They weren’t interrupted by Aunt Rose’s sinuses or her hypoglycaemia. She seemed happy to stop when Hawk and Val thought it was a good idea. And by the time they crossed the border into Utah, Sally was positively glowing. There had been no conversations with or about the little darlings in miles, but Val feared there could be some repetitive stress problems in the future for Sally’s madly texting fingers. As for what else Sally’s fingers got up to at the rest stops and the café restrooms, well Val would really rather not know.
She couldn’t help noticing that when he wasn’t engaged amicably in
conversation with his traveling companions or giving Val the lustful eye when he thought no one was looking, Hawk did his own share of texting and emailing on a Blackberry he pulled from somewhere on his person, not unlike a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat.
Sally had just driven them through Twin Falls, Idaho when Hawk’s Blackberry rang. He answered it with, ‘Yes. Finally! Perfect. Thanks. Yes it’s fine by me if it’s made public.’ Then he switched it off.
‘Is everyone OK to spend the night in Boise,’ he said. ‘I know a decent hotel and restaurant there. Plus, I have some business I need to take care of when we arrive.’
In Boise, he left them at the little bistro across the street from the hotel. Strangely enough, Aunt Rose’s salmon was done to perfection and even the new potatoes satisfied her. She was practically purring over the fresh strawberry pie when Hawk slid into the booth next to Val, and ordered a burger and fries. The waitress was barely gone before Val felt his hand snaking up the inside of her thigh.
‘Hope you got all your business taken care of,’ Aunt Rose said around a mouthful of pie.
‘All sorted,’ he replied, dipping the tip of his finger into Val’s chocolate mousse and licking it off in a way that definitely made her squirm. ‘And faster than I’d expected.’
‘A nice hotel you found for us,’ Aunt Rose said. ‘A bit upscale for our budget, but I reckon we can afford to splurge a little every now and then. And the girls do deserve a treat for driving me all this way.’
‘Oh there’s no charge,’ Hawk said, helping himself to another taste of Val’s mousse. ‘I know the people who own it, and they owe me a favour. Besides it’s off season and the middle of the week. Trust me. They don’t mind.’
Val felt the knot in the pit of her stomach tighten again, the one that had been a constant threat since Hawk had arrived on the scene. ‘And now we owe you again.’
He offered her a look that made her insides quiver. ‘I told you. I like keeping people in my debt.’
Just then Hawk’s burger and fries arrived, and the tension was broken as he regaled them with the tale of the unseasonable blizzard he’d ploughed through on the rim of the Grand Canyon with nothing but the hog protecting him from the elements. Not nearly as pleasant, he assured them, as being shanghaied to Oregon by three lovely ladies. And in spite of wondering how much of what he said was true and how much was lies, and feeling unsettled at their mounting debt to the man, Val found that she could no more resist him than the rest of her family could. By the time he’d finished his own chocolate mousse and his fingers were making tight little circles on the inside of her thigh, she convinced herself that none of it mattered as long as his immediate plans involved taking her to bed.
At Aunt Rose’s insistence, he did at least allow her pay for dinner, teasing her that if he’d known she was paying he’d have had the prime rib.
Their rooms were down the hall from each other. Val hesitated in front of Hawk’s door. ‘Auntie, I need to talk to Hawk. I’ll be in later, OK?’
Aunt Rose rolled her eyes and shoved her hands against her hips. ‘I’m old, Valerie. I’m not stupid.’ Then she turned her attention to Hawk. ‘You got condoms? ’Cause I’m pretty sure Valerie doesn’t since she hasn’t had a boyfriend in quite a while, and if you don’t have protection then she can just march her little body right on down the hall with us for the night, and that’ll be that.’
Before Val could protest, Hawk gently took her hand and pulled her close. ‘Don’t worry, Aunt Rose, I’ve got condoms.’
‘Well, then. Good night.’ Aunt Rose turned on her heel, grabbed Sally’s arm with the claw and headed down the hall to their room.
‘God,’ Val said as he pulled the door shut behind them. ‘Did my aunt just give you permission to fuck me?’
‘No, silly woman,’ he said pushing her up against the door and ravishing her mouth. ‘Your aunt just gave me her blessing to make love to you.’
‘How do you suppose she knew?’ She spoke between kisses and nips, as he helped her out of her blouse and went to work on her bra.
‘Did you think she didn’t?’ He guided her to sit on the bed, his fly right at mouth level. ‘All anyone has to do is look at us to know.’ He curled his fingers in her hair and held her gaze as she released his straining erection, and it bobbed against her cheek. ‘I doubt if they even have to look us really. I bet they can feel the heat. I bet the receptionist knows and the waitress, and the –’
He sucked breath between his teeth as she lifted the cool weightiness of his balls free, still holding his gaze, feeling that same mix of outrageous lust and disquiet in Hawk’s presence that she had since she first met him behind the rest area toilets. But the slick twitch of her cunt made it hard to think about her disquiet when the object of her lust was here and now and free for the taking. As she took him into her mouth as deeply as she could, as his fingers tightened in her hair, and he groaned his appreciation of her tongue lapping the underside of his cock, she reminded herself that it actually wasn’t free for the taking, and as the debt mounted, she had no idea what the price would actually be.
He pushed her back on the cool slip and slide of the bedding, pulling away long enough to peel her jeans and panties off in one swift move before he began to lick and nibble a sensitive path up the inside of her thigh. By the time he’d arrived at his destination, by the time he slid his tongue up over the tight delicious threshold of her perineum to dip and probe into the back edge of her pout, by the time he tugged and suckled on her swollen labia and nibbled at her clit, she had forgotten all about her mounting debt and was already mounting the first orgasm.
‘There,’ he breathed, as she shuddered against him. ‘That felt good, didn’t it?’ For a second, he rested his cheek low on her belly, stroking her hip with one hand while he caught his breath. ‘You worry too much, Val. You’re constantly fearing the worst, constantly dreading what might be. You never let something just be what it is. So for tonight, this is a no worry zone. Tonight is all about getting totally blissed out together.’ He offered her his wicked smile, ‘And doing it without dried grass poking us in the ass.’
She kissed and licked the taste of herself from his face as he pushed into her, again the condom appearing in place almost as if by magic. The man was good with his hands, she thought. That was her last thought before he rode her to several more orgasms and convulsed his own release until she thought he’d break. In truth, when he was in her, when he touched her and held her and made love to her, she seemed to lose the ability to think, or to do anything really, anything that didn’t involve revelling in the pleasure of him.
He smoothed her hair away from her face and curled around her. ‘I’ve been fantasizing about this part more than any of the rest,’ he said, pulling her into a spoon position.
‘And what part is that?’ she asked, wriggling her butt against him.
‘Sleeping with you.’ He kissed her neck and cupped her breast. ‘I mean really sleeping with you and dreaming with you and waking up next to you. That part.’
The knot returned to her stomach with a vengeance, but this time for different reasons. She had never fantasized about sleeping in his arms, waking up next him. She had never allowed herself that. And now here he had brought it up, the one thing that wasn’t allowed. But then Hawk wasn’t much of a rule keeper, was he? Sleeping with him, dreaming with him, waking up in his arms – the thought felt close and tight and frightening. She might have panicked if he hadn’t held her so close, if the tight fit of his body next to hers hadn’t, in spite of everything, made her feel safe and cared for. Then last night’s lack of sleep settled into her brain like a heavy wool blanket and she slept. She slept in Hawk’s arms.
Val woke in the morning with a start, feeling like she was falling. Hawk mumbled something from the dream world, pulled her to him and continued to sleep. Early morning light seeped through the crack in the not completely drawn drapes, and the room was bathed in silence. She wanted to linger there in the
smell of their love making and their mutual sleeping and dreaming. She wanted to fall back asleep and let him wake her up in one of the many wonderful ways she could easily imagine him waking her up. She would have loved nothing more than to let the bliss continue a little longer, but the clock on the nightstand read 6:45. Aunt Rose was an early riser, and she was sure the woman would be pounding on their door at any moment now. Plus, she really needed to pee.
Val disentangled herself from Hawk’s embrace. He grumbled something incoherent and rolled onto his back, shoving aside the covers and throwing a forearm across his face giving her an exquisite view of the lines of his body and the easy rise and fall of his chest, the slope of his belly and the way his cock rested at half-mast against the soft down below his navel. Her insides melted like warm honey with the overwhelming intimacy of him there so close, so vulnerable. Perhaps she’d wake him for a quickie before Aunt Rose’s wake-up bellow, or even just a snuggle, a few more minutes to feel him next to her. It would be worth Aunt Rose’s displeasure. That’s exactly what she’d do after she peed.
On the way back from the bathroom, she noticed the complimentary newspaper that had been pushed under the door. She should have left it until later, maybe even ignored it altogether. But she didn’t. She picked it up, and the bottom dropped out of her world.
Chapter Nine
‘WHEN WERE YOU PLANNING on telling me about this?’ She tossed the newspaper on the bed next to him and began to pace back and forth, forgetting that she was naked. He stretched his way into wakefulness, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hands before he took the paper and squinted down at it.
The headline read; Beranger’s Loss is Sandhill’s Gain. Underneath was a photo of Hawk, freshly shorn and dressed in an expensive suit. The caption read; ‘With Industrialist Tip Beranger still missing, Eco-warrior, Daniel ‘Hawk’ Mercer, buys acreage earmarked for industrial site. Donates all to Gruid Bird Reserve.’
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