by Sybil Bartel
“Strawberries are bright red.”
“Yes, they are. There’s no accountin’ for the English language, is there?”
He didn’t answer. He fingered another strand and stared at me.
When he looked at me like this, like I was the only person in the world, I didn’t have words to describe that kind of sense of belonging. He made me feel like I was the most important thing to him with a single look. I wasn’t naïve. I knew he could have any woman. And maybe from an outsider’s perspective, it’d seem like he needed me more than he wanted me, because of where he’d come from and everything he didn’t have.
But in truth, this man standing in front of me was a thousand times tougher than my own daddy, and until I’d dragged him clear across the swamp, I’d never met anyone tougher than my daddy.
And he didn’t need me.
As much as that stung when he’d said it, I needed to remember it, because there was no better soothing balm for my unfounded jealousy when it came to him than those very words.
Tarquin Scott did not need me.
He chose me.
He chose to be standing right here, right now, and he chose to tell me he’d never seen hair my color before. That was Tarquin-speak for feelings.
And I needed to embrace it.
Yes, there were a million questions I wanted to ask him and a million more answers I wanted to know about him and his life and everything in between, but more than anything, in this moment, I hoped he saw in me what I was seeing in him.
“Thank you,” I said quietly, not sure how else to say my heart was full.
“I did not do anything.”
“You saved my life today.” Those men in the groves would’ve killed us as sure as daylight.
“You saved mine,” he countered.
A shy smile touched my lips. “Now we’re even?”
“I will never take count nor tally.”
My heart slipped even further away from my grasp. “Is it too early to tell you how I feel?” Would it scare him away? Turn him off? Make him angry?
“You may always tell me how you feel.”
Maybe I should’ve kept my mouth shut. Maybe I should’ve waited. Maybe I should’ve done a million things different, but I didn’t hesitate with what I did next because I needed to get the words out. I needed them to be free and out in the open, and I needed them to be heard in case I never got another chance to say them.
“I love you, Tarquin Scott.”
His hand, rough and warm and sure, cupped my face. Then his voice dropped to the deepest, sexiest kind of rumble I ever did hear, and he laid a truth on me I didn’t see coming.
“I have never kissed another woman.”
Fire and ice.
Bitter and sweet.
Pain and joy.
Every conflicting emotion hit me all at once, but none more profound than a single word he let slip.
Woman.
Woman.
His last word replayed in my head, eclipsing the heartfelt sentiment he’d given me before that single word destroyed everything, because all I could think of was its meaning to him.
He didn’t say female.
He’d said woman.
And he’d said it on purpose because Tarquin Scott never spoke an untrue word.
“I….” My mouth opened, I started to speak, but then I couldn’t say anymore because the heart I’d just given away was breaking from a brand of jealously that hurt too bad to think about.
His thumb stroked my cheek. “That upsets you.”
Mud on my pretty boots upsets me.
The baby bird who flew into my bedroom window last month upset me.
Mama getting high every night upset me.
Tarquin Scott sleeping with countless women before me didn’t upset me, it devastated me.
I wanted him to be mine alone.
I was his alone.
But I couldn’t undo the past no more than I could undo who my heart decided to fall in love with.
“Yes,” I admitted. “It upset me that you said woman.” I dropped my gaze. “I know what that means.”
Grasping my chin, he tipped my face up. “It means that I have not ever taken another woman’s mouth.”
Oh God, that hurt. “But you’ve taken other women.” My traitorous eyes welled, and a tear fell as my voice broke. “Lots of other women.” I pulled out of his grasp.
She pulled out of my grasp, and I let her.
Betrayal I could not rectify shown on her face. “I am not apologizing for my past.”
“I’m not askin’ you to.” Her back to me, she reached for the side bag on her motorcycle as mosquitoes swarmed overhead.
“We should take shelter inside the building.” It would become uncomfortable soon, and there was nothing more I could say out here that would ease her emotions surrounding my past.
“That buildin’ is locked.” Searching through the side bags, she came away with a metal flask, opened it, sniffed it and made a sound of disgust before emptying the contents in the dirt.
“What are you doing?”
“Keepin’ myself from makin’ the same bad decisions as my mama. I don’t need alcohol, and neither do you.”
I had never had alcohol, but I did not argue. It was not allowed on compound and everyone was warned of not only the ill effects of consumption, but the repercussions if caught with it. “Wait here.” I walked toward the front of the building.
Two locked doors, a metal sink with a spigot on the wall between them, and higher up where you could not see in were openings for windows that were covered with screens instead of glass.
My woman came up behind me and went to the sink. “Thank God for water fountains.” She turned the handle and water bubbled up. Letting it run a moment, she drank from it, then rinsed out the flask and filled it. “Here.” She handed it to me.
I took it and drank all the water from it.
Without comment, she refilled it and held it out again for me.
I drank, then handed it back to her. “Thank you.”
“More?”
“No, thank you.” I glanced from the water fountain to the screened opening, then I pulled out my knife and tested the strength of the fountain with my foot.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting us shelter.” Using the fountain for leverage, I grasped the window’s ledge and pulled myself up. Two quick slices with my knife, and the screen gave way.
“Sweet Jesus,” my woman murmured. “Add breaking and entering to our growin’ list.”
I crawled through the opening and landed in a darkened room that smelled of septic and disinfectant. By the light of the moon, I found the door and unlocked it. Pushing it open, I gave my woman a command. “Come inside.”
“Well, with that kinda invitation, how can a woman resist?” With a natural sway in her hips that women on compound did not have, she walked inside.
I shut and locked the door. “There will be fewer mosquitos in here. We will be more comfortable.”
“I’m not sure I ever equated a public restroom with comfort before, but I can’t deny the truth of what you’re sayin’.” She eyed the toilet.
Reading her body language, I tipped my chin. “Go ahead.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “In front of you?” She laughed uncomfortably. “Yeah, no. That ain’t happenin’.”
If this were a female on compound, I would have commanded her to do as I said, and she would have done it. But this woman was unlike any woman I had ever encountered. “I will give you privacy,” I conceded.
Unlocking the door, I stepped out and went back to the motorcycles. Hungry, I searched all the side bags, but all I came up with were some tools, cigarettes, and what looked like a pair of pants and a jacket to wear in the rain. Slipping one of the guns in my waistband, I heard the toilet flush, and I went back inside.
My woman was standing at the sink rinsing a piece of material I recognized.
I stated the obvious. “If you did
not wear undergarments, you would not have to wash them.”
She looked over her shoulder at me. “If I didn’t wear undergarments, I’d be standin’ here rinsin’ my jeans out, and that’d be a whole heck of a lot more uncomfortable to wear soakin’ wet.”
I did not respond. I leaned against the wall and watched her.
“Figures you got nothin’ to say to that.” She returned her attention to her task. “You’re not the one rinsin’.”
Her hips full, her body curved like no woman I had ever seen, she was every desire I did not know I had wanted before a fortnight ago. Aroused, I stepped behind her and leaned my chest into her back.
She flinched. “Don’t sneak up on me in the dark like that.”
I covered her hands with mine and took the material from her as my body surrounded hers.
Stiff at first, she yielded to my presence. Then her voice softened. “What are you doin’?”
Her hair brushing against my face, her scent in my head, I rinsed the material and spoke quietly against her ear. “I do not want you wearing undergarments. I do not want you in pants when you are not on a motorcycle. I do not want you to confuse my past with my commitment to you, and I do not ever want your hair tied back.”
Chill bumps arose on her neck, and she exhaled slowly through her mouth. Gripping the edge of the sink, she inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly two more times before she spoke. “I don’t know what you’ve done to me, but when you touch me like this, speak to me all quiet-like, I want to do whatever you say only so you’ll keep touchin’ me. Sweet Jesus, I want you to keep touchin’ me.”
“Did you hear what I said?”
Her body stilled. “I heard.”
“Do you understand?”
Her voice quieted. “Yes.”
“I will always tend to you.” I could not stop myself from touching her now if I wanted to.
“Is that a promise?”
“Yes.” I shut off the water and wrung out the material before placing it on the edge of the sink. “Are you sore?” I wanted to come again, but more, I wanted to make her release. I wanted to show her my past was behind me, and that she was my present.
She paused. “I’m good.”
“You hesitated.” Brushing her hair aside, I touched my lips to the back of her neck.
She shivered. “I’m fine.”
“Unbutton your pants and push them down, then grasp the sink again.” I kissed the other side of her nape. She smelled most like herself where her hair hid the soft skin of her neck. Warm, female, flowers I had never scented in real life—I dreamt of her scent.
“Here?” she asked anxiously. “You want me to push my pants down in a public restroom?”
“You have already done it.”
“Y-Yes, but I was….” She cleared her throat. “That was different.”
I wanted to take her hard and rough. I wanted to mark her flesh with my teeth. I wanted to release inside her over and over. But that was not what this was about right now. “Unbutton them. Now.”
“Yes, sir.” Her words gave me attitude, but her voice shook as she unbuttoned her jeans and pushed them down a mere few inches.
I slid my hands down the length of her arms, then I grasped her waist before slipping my fingers between the material in my way and her soft skin. Her heart beat faster as I pushed her pants over her hips and down her thighs.
I stilled my palm flat on her stomach. “Do you know what I expect?”
“No,” she whispered.
“When I am tending to you, I expect you to do what I say, as I say it, without hesitation.”
“You may want that, but I—”
I shoved two fingers inside her.
She jerked in my embrace and let out a yelp.
“Without hesitation,” I repeated. “Do you understand what that means?” I stroked inside her front wall where I knew she would feel it most.
“I—ohhh.” She pushed her hips back into mine and ground against my hardness.
I grabbed her waist with my free hand and held her at a distance from me. “Do you understand?”
“Yes, yes, yes,” she moaned, rubbing against my hand. “Please don’t stop.”
“Tell me what it means, woman,” I demanded, maintaining pressure inside her.
Her knees bent, and her back arched. “Oh God, it means, it means…” She sucked in a sharp breath as I increased the pressure. “It means I do what you tell me.”
“It means you are submissive,” I corrected, stroking my thumb across her clit once.
“I don’t know what you’re doin’ to me, but sweet Jesus, please don’t stop.”
“Are you going to do what I say from now on?”
“Yes, please God, yes.”
I stroked hard inside her at the same time as I rubbed a circle on her clit. “Come now.”
Her hands left the sink and gripped my wrist as she bent at the waist. She let go with a moan that was part desperate cry, part whimper, and constricted around me.
My cock throbbed, and my balls drew tight as her release pulsed around my fingers.
“Tarquin, oh my God, Tarquin.”
I stroked her until her cunt stopped pulsating.
Biting her ear, I withdrew my fingers. Then I said something I had never said to another woman. “I want you to swell with my child.”
“Oh, sweet Jesus.” Shaking, short of breath, she gripped the sink. “You can’t say things like that to me after doin’ things like that to my body.”
I would say what I wanted, when I wanted to her. “You will swell with child.” I had already come inside her several times.
“Not if you keep holdin’ back from me, I won’t.” She pulled up her pants and fastened them.
“I was not holding back from you.”
She turned to face me. Her face flushed, she looked up at me with more shyness than attitude. “Then what were you doin’?”
“Giving you a release.”
Her eyebrows drew together. “Without givin’ yourself one?”
My arms at my sides, my cock painfully hard, I let my gaze fall to her erect nipples. “I have not been making myself release.” I wanted to take her rough and hard until her cunt constricted around my cock in another orgasm. “You have been doing that.”
Her face flushed deeper, and her voice dropped to a whisper. “I like doin’ that.”
“I know.”
For three heartbeats, she stared at me. Then she looked away. “You’re not kissin’ me or holdin’ me.”
“I am also not fucking you.” I could not erase my past, but I could show her how I would tend to her.
A smile touched her lips. “You don’t usually use that word.” She blushed. “I like it.” Seriousness took over her expression, and she looked back up at me. “But how come you ain’t takin’ me?”
“I felt how swollen your cunt was earlier. I tasted the cry on your lips when I entered you. Despite you telling me you are fine, I know you are sore. I am giving your body a rest before I release inside you again.”
She bit her lip. “How much of a rest?”
“Until tomorrow.”
“I may be inexperienced compared to you, but I ain’t naïve.”
“Meaning?”
She glanced down at my hard length pressing against my jeans. “Meanin’ I know there are other ways to get a release. I may have never done anythin’ like that, but I can learn.”
The thought of her on her knees with her hair in my hand and my cock in her mouth made me harder. And knowing I would be the first man to be in her mouth made me possessive. But I did not reach for her. “Not tonight.”
She frowned. “Why?”
“Because I need to stay alert.” If I released again, I wouldn’t be.
“And not comin’ is gonna make you alert?”
“No.” The painful erection straining my pants would. “Have a seat and get some rest.” It was going to be a long night before we made it to the cabin.
“Sit
?” She looked affronted. “On a public restroom floor?”
“Yes.”
Her face twisted with disgust. “Do you know what happens on these floors? It already smells like an outhouse in here. I’m not puttin’ my backside or anythin’ else anywhere near that floor. Nope, I’ll stand, thank you very much.”
I stared at her a moment, but she simply stared back in defiance.
I picked her up.
“Hey!” she yelped. “What are you doin’?”
One arm under her knees, the other behind her back, I sat down and leaned against the wall. “Close your eyes.”
“Is this your way of gettin’ me on the floor?”
“Yes.”
Keeping her feet tucked together, she leaned into my chest. “Well, it’s workin’.”
“Good.”
She was quiet a moment, and despite the pounding need to release, I closed my eyes.
“You think God knows we killed those men today in self-defense?” she asked after a long moment.
“I do not know what God thinks.” Or if there was a God, but I did not say that thought aloud.
“I’m hopin’ he does. I mean, it was us or them.”
I did not disagree.
She pulled back from my chest and looked up at me. “You’re not sayin’ nothin’.”
“What is there to say? If I did not pull the trigger first today, I would be dead and you would have been sold.”
Her voice quieted. “Do you have any regrets?”
“No.”
“Do you think we’ll still get into heaven?”
I stared at her pretty green eyes for a moment. In the moonlight streaming in through the screened window, they were forest green, not new leaf green, but they were no less pretty. “I think it feels like heaven when I am inside you.”
A smile spread across her face. “Why, Tarquin Scott, be still my heart.”
“Why do you do that?”
Her smile faded. “Do what?”
“Use both a first and last name at the same time.” I was the only other person in the room. I was the only Tarquin I knew. I was the only Tarquin she knew. “What is the purpose of using two names when one suffices?”
She thought a moment, then she shrugged. “I really don’t know. For emphasis, I think. Or maybe it’s just a Southern thing, being formal and all.” She laughed once. “I honestly don’t know why I do it. When my mama was mad at me growing up, she’d use my first and middle name together. That’s how I knew I was in serious trouble.”