“Your grandmother didn’t like him very much, did she?”
Cynthia made no effort to hide the next shot of her elbow to my ribs and forced me to grab at my side.
“I’m Cynthia, and my not-so-charming friend here is Olivia.”
Cynthia offered him her hand, which he immediately reached out to shake.
“My name is Jonathon.”
He smiled at Cynthia and ended the handshake and then looked at me. He looked unsure and a little nervous and I found it cute enough that I offered him my hand. He said nothing as he reached out and covered my hand with his as he gave me a relieved smile.
“I know Olivia seems a little harsh, Jonathon, but I think once you get to know her—well, you’ll find that she’s actually kind of harsh.”
I was suddenly the one who wanted to give Cynthia a shot to the ribs, but the big guy took it in stride.
“That’s OK. To be honest, my grandparents were married for over fifty years, but I’m pretty sure you’re right. I’m not sure my grandmother ever really liked him. She loved the jacket though, and it always seems to be a hit with the ladies.”
The waitress cruised by our table at top speed but he was able to flag her down and give her the universal sign for another round. He did it without asking, which was the gallant thing to do. But the empty cosmo glass on the table represented my third, and I was pretty sure what was left of my inhibitions was swimming under the last remaining cube of ice. Cynthia gave me that dismissive look that told me she knew exactly what I was thinking about and not to worry.
He turned to speak to Cynthia, which was the perfectly predictable sequence of events. I was probably two to three minutes from feeling like a third wheel and would have to abandon ship once the two of them started talking. That left either going across the bar to talk to Carhartt or heading outside to thumb myself a ride. And right now, a little fresh air wasn’t sounding like that bad of an idea.
“I still don’t think your friend likes me much, Cynthia.”
“Don’t worry about her, Jonathon. She broke up with her boyfriend about a year ago and she’s been a little lonely. She just gets a little funny around men.”
He nodded in understanding.
“Ah, I get it, I get a little funny around men too.”
They were leaning closer to each other and talking about me like I wasn’t even there. It would have been cute if it wasn’t infuriating.
“Uh, hello. Sitting right here, hearing every word you’re saying…”
Jonathon ignored it, and Cynthia played along. And the waitress stopped by our table and put another round of glasses in front of us. I grabbed the fresh cosmo, knowing as soon as the alcohol hit my lips that it wasn’t going to help the situation. He leaned closer to Cynthia again.
“This guy that she broke up with last year—was he a snappy dresser or something? I mean, did the guy own a tweed jacket?”
Cynthia looked at me conspiratorially.
“I don’t think her last boyfriend ever wore an outfit that his mother didn’t lay out in the morning for him.”
Ok, it was funny. Kind of. It might have even been true. But I was getting pissed and the newly arrived cosmo wasn’t exactly helping. I looked over his broad shoulder and could see his friend watching intently from the other side of the room. Jimmy the bartender was next to him, and as Carhartt watched, he leaned over to speak to Jimmy, no doubt updating him on Tweed’s progress.
The noise of the crowd was getting louder because Clint Black, or Tim McGraw, or whoever was crooning from the jukebox was starting to wind down. The guy with the straw hat took his cue and ambled back over to the corner where the jukebox sat waiting for him.
“Maybe you could tell your friend Olivia that I broke up with my longtime girlfriend a couple of years ago too. And I haven’t dated since.”
Cynthia looked at me and I could see her raising an eyebrow. I looked away because I knew what she was thinking and I didn’t have a witty thing to say to either one of them. The guy with the straw hat dropped a quarter in the jukebox and Kenny Rogers started singing “Lady.”
Straw Hat was one hell of a romantic son of a bitch. It was the quintessential Huddy’s love song. I had a feeling “Lady” was responsible for more babies being born in Madison County than Pabst Blue Ribbon was. Couples started to form spontaneously from the crowd as they moved to the dance floor to slow dance.
Jonathon stood up and straightened his tweed jacket like I imagined his grandfather had done a hundred years ago. I was still waiting for him to turn towards Cynthia because that was the way it always happened. I was pretty sure Cynthia was waiting for it, and even Carhartt probably anticipated it from his seat across the bar. But when he stuck his big hand out, it was palm up and hovering directly in front of me.
“Come on Olivia, one dance. And then I promise that I won’t leave you alone.”
Chapter 3
Olivia
He was tall. Jesus, he was tall. And I needed to put my arms around his neck out of necessity because four cosmo’s worth of vodka was doing its thing inside my bloodstream. And part of me still had to consciously try to ignore the muscles that I could feel under that damn shirt.
“Listen, Olivia, I know this might be hard to believe, being as I’m such a smooth talker and all. But I don’t really pick up women in strange bars. This might actually be the first time.”
“I’m shocked. Really. I had you pegged as a gigolo as soon as I saw you in that jacket, but please go on.”
“Right. Well here’s another shocker for you. I suck as a dancer. Like really bad. I know that is a hard one to wrap your head around, given how smooth I am and all. But if anything faster than ‘Amazing Grace’ comes on after this slow song, I’ll be off this dance floor so fast it will make your head spin.”
“Not a dancer, check. You seem to be doing alright so far, though.”
“You’re a good partner.”
He smiled at me when he said it and I felt myself blush and I immediately hated myself for it. I hadn’t blushed because of a guy in like—forever, probably.
“Is what you said true? About breaking up with a girlfriend a couple of years ago?”
“Yeah. She was actually my high school sweetheart. In fact, she looks like your friend Cynthia, although Cynthia seems like she is probably fifty IQ points higher.”
The drunk lovers that were late getting to the dance floor were filling it out and sucking up whatever space was left. We were getting closer to each other out of necessity and I wasn’t complaining. I could feel his big hand on my back and I was thinking about what Cynthia had asked me only an hour before.
“You haven’t been with a man since the end of last year?”
“And your boyfriend?”
“What?”
I needed to look up and he needed to look down and all I saw were blue eyes and a smile looking back at me.
“This guy of yours you dumped last year. What’s the story there?”
“College sweetheart, we were supposed to be married, blah blah blah. Let’s talk about something else.”
“Alrighty then…”
Kenny Rogers was wrapping up his ballad and for a second I thought people were going to applaud. Jonathon started to pull away reflexively, no doubt anticipating a faster song. But another slow song came in and I immediately loved Straw Hat all over again. It was Bryan Adams and he was singing about everything he wanted to do for me.
Or he wanted to do to me. That was probably wrong but that was where my mind was heading…
Jonathon stopped his retreat when the slow song started and we stayed on the dance floor with most of the other couples that remained.
“I really don’t feel like talking about my ex, Jonathon. And I don’t feel like talking about your ex. I’m only going to be in town for a few days and right now I’m just enjoying dancing with you.”
I felt his hand pulling me closer as he rubbed my back. For a guy that said he wasn’t a player he was doing ju
st fine. And I returned the favor by running my hand along the back of his neck and twirling my finger through his dark hair. I needed to get up on my feet just a little and I wobbled against him.
Almost accidentally.
“That’s fine with me, Olivia. I wasn’t even supposed to be out tonight. My friend Bobby talked me into coming out. I was actually supposed to be helping my father tonight but I’d rather be here dancing with you.”
“The way you dish out those compliments, I think you’re a lot smoother than you give yourself credit for.”
“I’m not.”
“But you made yourself a cool twenty bucks tonight just by coming over to our table.”
“I lost twenty bucks by coming to your table.”
I was looking at him as he said it and I was wondering if I could reach his bottom lip if I craned my neck high enough.
“How’d you lose twenty bucks? I thought you said your friend bet you to come over and talk to us?”
“It was a half-truth. He bet me I couldn’t come over and pick up your friend. I knew when I was half way across the dance floor and I saw you that I was losing that money.”
Nice answer Stretch—I was now starting to wonder what kind of pistol he was packing under all that tweed.
Bryan Adams was wrapping up. I had two slow dances and four cosmopolitans running through me and the room was dense with pheromones.
“I’ve got to leave, Jonathon. It’s time for me to go home.”
It was kind of a test. And the look of sadness on his face had him passing with flying colors.
“I thought you were a gentleman? What kind of grandfather was this guy of yours?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re supposed to offer to drive me home, you big dummy.”
Chapter 4
Olivia
“Here, turn here.”
He put on his turn signal and turned left, like the well-mannered, law abiding citizen he was. The road was dark and it didn’t look like there was another car around for five hundred miles and that was fine. That was actually perfect.
We drove for another two miles on the country road until I saw the sign. It was a sign I saw thousands of times over my childhood and I had listened about throughout my time in high school. Cynthia had probably been up here with boys a hundred times. I had been up here exactly three times, and one of them was now. And reflecting on it almost caused me to make him miss the turn.
“There, that sign. Turn there.”
“That sign says Potter’s lake. Are you telling me you live at Potter’s lake?”
“Not exactly…”
He smiled and made the turn, knowingly exact what it was I had in mind. He drove down the long winding road that ended up nestled back at the lake. He put the car in park and killed his lights and leaned over to turn on the radio.
The car was dark and the inside was illuminated almost entirely by the moon over the lake. He finished fiddling with the radio and landed on some eighties station and I watched him as he sat back and looked at me. I knew what he was thinking. I knew he was trying to figure out what his next move was. He was sitting there, he was a little bit nervous, and Huey Lewis was asking him if he believed in love.
I should have been the nervous one. I was sitting in a car with a guy I just met getting ready to make the first move. But I was riding high on four cosmos, a year’s worth of celibacy, and the knowledge that I wasn’t coming back to Madison County any time soon.
And I had at least 6’ 4” of man staring me right in the face…
“Listen, Jon…”
“Jonathon.”
“Right, Jonathon. You remember what you told me in the bar when we were dancing? You told me that you weren’t the kind of guy who picks up girls. And that you were a bad dancer.”
“Yeah, that’s because I don’t usually pick up strange women in bars. And I suck at dancing.”
“Right. My point is, you were making an excuse for doing something you wouldn’t ordinarily do. You went out of your way to tell me that isn’t the way you would ordinarily act.”
“I’m not sure I follow you, Olivia.”
“My point is, this isn’t the way I usually act either.”
I was on him before he even knew what had hit him. I had been watching that lower lip through two slow dances, and I lunged at him, wanting to taste it between my teeth. His mouth opened partly out of surprise but we both melted into a warm twisting of tongues as I started to run my fingers through the dark hair on his collar.
I was doing as well as could be expected, considering the fact I had just lunged over the console between his front seats to get at him. But bless his heart, I felt his strong hands wrapping themselves around my body as we continued to make out. And it occurred to me that was exactly what we were doing. We were making out.
In a car at the lake.
Like a couple of kids in high school.
The last time I had been at Potter’s lake had been in high school. It was nervous and clumsy and I was still a virgin and nothing we had done in that car had been natural. But I ran my hands over his face and felt his stubble and I knew I was going to make it different tonight. This would probably be the last time I would ever be with a man in Madison County. I was drunk and I was horny and I was never going to see this tall glass of water again.
And then I felt his hands move over my ass and up to my chest, and I silently thanked God that he wasn’t all that much of a gentleman after all.
I pulled away from our kiss as soon as I felt his hands, and I saw that pained look in his eye. He thought he had taken things too far. He thought I was getting ready to drop the flag. Little did he know I was just getting started.
“Backseat?”
He was confused, and for a second I didn’t know if he maybe didn’t hear me. If he was feeling anything close to what I was feeling, his heart was beating through his ears.
“Backseat—can we take this to the backseat? I have an emergency brake touching me in a place where your hand should probably be.”
It was like a light bulb came on.
“Right, backseat.”
We scrambled out of each other’s arms long enough to take it where it needed to be. One of us hadn’t been drinking and was 6’ 4” and got out of the car to get into the back. The other one thought she could crawl into the backseat with all the seduction of Cleopatra, and she ended up getting her foot stuck in the steering wheel. I struggled with it and heard the sound of the horn reverberating off the lake and then he had his hands around me, lifting me effortlessly into his lap.
God, I fucking loved big strong men…
I suddenly realized there was another reason I liked tall guys. The car was big. I think it was a Cadillac or something. Which meant the backseat was bearable. I perched myself on his lap and put my hands on his face and looked into his big blue eyes. Rod Stewart came on the radio and started singing about young Turks falling in love, and I opened up my mouth to devour him.
I loved the way that he kissed me. I could feel Tweed’s warm tongue in my mouth as his hands continued to move over my body, and I wanted to just eat him up. And as his hands kept up their exploring I decided to go on a little expedition of my own.
I had his head cradled in my left hand as I kissed him and I started to run my right hand down his chest. I half expected soft skin under his tweed jacket but what I found felt like a solid mass of muscle. I felt his hands sliding over my ass as we kissed and I moved further down his body and eventually found what I was looking for. And I wasn’t sure what thrilled me more, the enormous bulge underneath his jeans or the excited jolt of his body as I casually discovered it.
I broke the kiss to speak to him and saw him start to open his mouth. I wasn’t sure what he was about to say, but I knew what was on my mind. And I was absolutely certain that I could be direct and to the point. I brought both hands to his face and clamped his lips together with my fingers, and felt myself stifling what I realiz
ed was a laugh underneath.
“Listen Johnny, I’m not like this usually. I’m really not. But I don’t know you and you don’t know me and I’m not sure when I’ll ever be back in Madison County, Colorado. So I’m here to offer you the night of my life.”
I felt his lips move under my clamped fingers and couldn’t make out the word that he was trying to say. So I did the polite thing and released them long enough for him to speak.
“It’s Jonathon.”
“Right, that’s what I said, Jonathon. Take off my shirt, Jonathon.”
He laughed and his big hands were on my shirt trying to fumble with my buttons. His task wasn’t made any easier by the fact that I was yanking down on his zipper. Even with four cosmopolitans coursing through my veins my hands were making more progress than his were, and in several glorious seconds, I had unzipped far enough to get a glimpse of what I had been feeling underneath the jeans. And even in the dull light of the moonlit lake I could tell that I was dealing with something bigger than anything I had ever seen before in my life.
“Sweet Jesus, it’s true what they say. Everything is bigger in Madison County.”
“I thought they say that about Texas.”
“Shut up and take off my shirt.”
He was still struggling to get past the fourth button, and in his defense, I wasn’t doing any better getting his pants the rest of the way to the floor. I stopped him just when I thought he was getting ready to rip the shirt off of me and negotiated a quick truce.
“You take off your pants, let me worry about the shirt, OK?”
He was nodding at me with the expectant look of a teenager as I finally slid off of his lap. I finished unbuttoning the shirt, trying to ignore the last button that was now laying on the backseat floor. My hands were at the back of my bra, unhooking and slipping the straps off my shoulders. But my eyes were on him—every glorious inch of him—as he pushed his jeans and his cotton briefs to the floor.
He was still watching me. I think he was still watching me. Although he could have been looking out the front windshield for all I knew. My eyes were still locked on the gorgeous cock of his that was rising between his legs, and I almost fell off of the seat as I struggled out of my jeans.
Dirty Neighbor Page 2