Rough and Tumble

by Crystal Green

  And she was damned well going to feel it good and hard until she had to go back to real life . . . .

  16

  Molly had always been anxious about getting out of someone else’s bed. She’d never had to worry about prodding them out of her own because she rarely had anyone but Sofia and Arden or her sister over to her condo.

  But tonight, in a hotel in the middle of a neon desert, she was in no hurry at all.

  First time for everything.

  As Cash nuzzled her neck, still holding her while her leg slid off his sweat-misted arm, she rested her cheek against his head. When they’d first entered this room, she’d already been feeling pinned down by her sister’s text. “How’s the interview situation?” Margaret had written. The message had made Molly feel like that flamingo in a bear pit, finding herself in a place that made her want to run because she wasn’t comfortable after all. And that feeling had nothing to do with Cash, either—she’d been uncomfortable with herself, with how her desires and needs had taken her over the past couple of days until she’d become this irresponsible . . . whatever she was now.

  Cash was bringing something out in her she’d never known she’d had. Was this the real her, burning off a wonderfully sticky, insanely woozy afterglow in bed with a man she barely knew? One who drove her to do things she’d never dreamed of doing?

  He nipped at her neck, and she made a small, agitated sound, bucking against him. That made him laugh, dig his hand in her hair, coasting the other one up her back, then down her spine, his fingers like a trickle of soft rain over each vertebra.

  “Now I know what the p in your name stands for, Molly P.” Another laugh. “Perfect pussy.”

  “That’s two ps. Also, it’s Paula, for my dearly departed grandma.” God, she didn’t want to be talking about Grandma in bed.

  “How long would it take for that perfect pussy to get wet for me again?” he asked against her throat.

  She shivered deliciously. A part of her almost told him not to talk to her like that. A part of her embraced it, and that’s the side that won out.

  “I don’t think it’d take much,” she said.

  He cupped her butt—no, her ass—giving it a squeeze.

  “As fast as you are,” he said, “I need a little more time to get back in fighting shape.”

  When he patted her butt cheek, she jolted, and he took the opportunity to unravel from her, rolling away, his back to her as he cleaned himself up.

  All right. Molly wasn’t sure what his closed body language meant. He must not be a cuddler, but what was she expecting—Prince Charming? She could dream, though, as he got to his feet, pushing his damp brown hair back from his face and moving to the dresser by the flat-screen TV.

  Molly sank to the mattress, reaching for the sheet and pulling it up to cover herself to the breasts. She was still beating between her legs, slippery and juiced. Discreetly, she reached over to the nightstand for a Kleenex.

  When she was done, she shot the tissue to a nearby can, scored, then put her elbow on the bed, propping up her head, watching him.

  Every muscle on him was streamlined, like an artist had studied an Italian Renaissance statue and decided to mold Cash Campbell in the same way. Okay, she was romanticizing this, but why not? A bad-boy god had just screwed her silly, and she wanted to revel in those strong, long legs that came up into an ass that begged for a love bite. She wanted to dwell on the flat stomach, the wide, hairless chest, the broad shoulders, and the back with deltoids that did something even more wanton to her.

  Wet, hot jungle sex, she thought. And she’d finally had enough of it to understand why everyone seemed to want it.

  He twisted off the top of a water bottle from the honor bar, turning around and sauntering back to the bed. Her gaze took in his penis . . . cock . . . and she couldn’t help smiling, her pussy contracting, remembering how he’d felt inside of her.

  Raising his brow, he offered the bottle. “Looks like you could use something wet, too.”

  She sat up, taking the water from him, gulping down the liquid. She’d whipped up a thirst along with everything else.

  When she was done, he drank, his throat working with every swallow. She smiled, then looked away during an intimate moment of oh-my-God-we-just-did-it modesty. She glanced at the jeans near his feet. A couple items had spilled out of his pockets when he’d thrown the denim to the floor: his Bettie Page lighter, for one.

  Molly could almost see the siren winking at her. Well done, sister.

  But then Molly spied a blond glint near the lighter . . . her hair?

  Cash put the water down on the nightstand and shrugged. “Haven’t decided what to do with that yet.”

  “You banded my hair up,” she said, her heartbeat quivering. “Carried it around with you.”

  “Well, I wasn’t about to throw it away.”

  Should it disconcert her that he was speaking to her as if they were having any old conversation . . . except with his clothes off? Or should it bother her more that he was keeping her hair with him as a keepsake?

  A trophy.

  Was that what she was to him? Or could it be that there was more to his gesture . . . ?

  She didn’t allow herself to speculate any more. This situation was what it was—a two-night stand. Fini.

  It was a good time to lighten the load that’d suddenly fallen on the room, so she laughed. “How chivalrous of you, Beauregard.”

  “Shit. I regret ever signing your napkin with my real name.”

  “Beauregard is just so . . . Mr. Darcy.”

  “Not half as stuck-up as that guy, though.”

  She almost dropped the sheet she was keeping over her breasts. “Why, Beau, it almost seems as if you have a passing knowledge of your Austen. You mentioned Jane back at the Rough and Tumble yesterday, too.”

  “Yeah, well, some teacher made me read Pride and Prejudice back in high school, but all I did was scan the CliffsNotes.”

  She sent him a doubtful glance.

  “I’m more the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy type,” he said. “But they didn’t have that on any English class curriculum.”

  “You like to read?”

  “I wouldn’t say like. But it can pass the time.”

  “I’ll bet you were smart, but you couldn’t care less about school, so you didn’t invest yourself in it. That’s why your teacher pushed you to read the classics.”

  He shrugged again, then apparently decided it was a good time to occupy himself with scanning the contents of the nightstand, touching the pen and pad of paper near the phone.

  “Wow, Beau,” she said. “A real-life reader. That’s a nice surprise.”

  “Big damned deal.”

  “Did your mom give you the name Beau in the hopes that you’d be all refined and bookwormy?”

  He picked up the pen, holding it tight, then loosening his grip. “A mom was never in the picture. Same with whoever shot the sperm for me. My biological mother gave me up for adoption right away, and my first set of parents sucked ass. They proved they had shitty senses of humor when they named me, too.”

  Oh.

  Suddenly Molly was ultra-aware that both of them were naked, exposed, and he seemed to realize it at the same time, because he started absently twirling that pen through his fingers as if it were a cigarette.

  “There’re better things to be talking about, Molly P. Or do you want to spend the next couple of hours leading me through a therapy session?”

  He was giving her a rogue’s stare, intense and provokingly fiendish. Damn him, he always knew how to change the subject.

  Ambling toward the end of the mattress, he sat with his back to her. But she could see him in the mirror on the opposite wall, and she made eye contact with him there.

  He grinned, twirling that pen. “Why don’t you come over here, prince
ss.”

  She couldn’t say no. She brought the sheet with her as she got to her knees, moving over the bed to him, her lungs tight because she was holding her breath again.

  He yanked the sheet away from her, and she gasped at being left so bare. And when he pulled her to him, bringing her over his lap and in between his thighs so they were both facing the mirror, a tiny implosion convulsed in her. It left her with the sensation that her core was sifting sand, crumbling, as her ass nestled against his . . . cock.

  He eased a hand over her back as she watched him in the mirror, his expression a study in concentration. He explored her skin, then came around the front, mapping her stomach from just above her pubic hair and up, until his fingers were brushing the underside of her breast.

  “What’re you doing?” she whispered hoarsely.

  “You like words,” he said. “Fancy ones, ones you learn from your books. I like words, too, except mine are a little different.”

  That wasn’t an explanation, but when he focused on her back again and she felt the distinctively smooth tip of the pen against her flesh, she flinched.

  “What’re you doing?”

  He buried his mouth below her ear. “What kind of words have you learned these past two nights?”

  She didn’t move as he kissed her tender spot, then pulled away, ready to write on her. He’d touched the pen near her waist, as if he was ready to mark something where no one would see it in public.

  The thought of having her own souvenir to take away from this room tonight pleased her, and she played along. Who would ever know?

  “I learned . . .” She still had trouble saying certain words.

  “Pussy?” he said.

  In the mirror, he raised his gaze to hers, and the pussy in question gave a jump.

  “Yes,” she said.

  He wrote it on her waist slowly. P-U-S-S-Y. The word tickled, every pen stroke gliding against her, skin-deep.

  When he was done, the letters seemed to blush out of her like a tattoo or a private neon sign.

  Her nipples throbbed, her clit pounded, and it was as if he knew that she was getting restless for him again. He guided her leg over his, opening her, letting her see herself in the mirror, all pink and gleaming with slick desire.

  “What’s another word?” he asked against her ear.

  This one was already on the tip of her tongue. “Orgasm.”

  He chuckled, probably because it wasn’t such a dirty word, and instead of writing on her back, he slid his hand under her arm and put the pen to the inside of her upper thigh.

  O-R-G-A-S-M.

  While he took his time writing, he asked, “You’ve had them before, right?”

  “Orgasms? Sure, but not with other guys.”

  “With toys?”

  She nodded. “Once I started to have one with an old boyfriend, but it didn’t go anywhere, so I just went ahead and counted it.” She wasn’t embarrassed to admit that. How could she be when there was a man writing a sex word only a few inches from her twat?

  Hah. Twat. Another word.

  As he smoothed his fingers over orgasm, his other hand got busy, idly separating her folds with his fingers, strumming her. She watched in the mirror, elated at the sight, rocked that he was doing all of this as if none of it was a big deal.

  “How did coming make you feel tonight?” he asked.

  “Good.”

  “That’s not a description. Go deeper.”

  He slid a finger into her, and she leaned her head back against his shoulder, moaning. But he was only teasing her again, because, after he removed the finger, he didn’t slip back in. He didn’t have to, though, because the sound of him stroking her now was enough—she could hear how aroused she was, and the raunchiness of the situation, the badness of seeing herself all pink and simulated and exposed in the mirror, stirred her beyond reason.

  “Freedom,” she finally managed to say, even though he hadn’t asked a question. “That’s what I feel now.”

  He kissed her neck, then guided her down to the bed, languidly reclining beside her. As he wrote the latest word on her belly, her muscles leaped with every touch of the ballpoint.

  “Freedom’s the best word in the dictionary,” he said quietly. “It’s better to be free than chained to a job or a house or—”

  “Everyone needs a job.”

  He paused between the d and the o in freedom. His palm brushed the hair between her legs and she bit her lip so hard she almost drew blood.

  “Screw material things,” he said. “What do you really need in life that you can buy?”

  She tried to recover, to talk normally. “You have that shiny car of yours.”

  “It gets me places. We all have to leave in a hurry sometime or another.”

  He was downplaying the car, but she’d come back to that later. “Money helps you to survive, to make yourself and your family comfortable.”

  “Do you have a family to support?”

  She thought of her sister. Thought of how Cash had already told her that he didn’t have a family. She and he were coming from two different directions in this world, colliding during two incredible nights.

  And that was all it’d be. They didn’t have anything else in common.

  “My sister Margaret,” she said. “She needs my help right now. Hell, I need my help. I’ve got condo payments, I need to invest for the future, I need . . .”

  “What? What do you really need?”

  This, she thought as he nonchalantly rested the heel of his palm on her mons. It was as if he didn’t even realize he’d done it because it’d been the norm with a thousand women before her.

  He added, “And if you need it, how much do you really have to have?”

  The answer came easily: she needed a lot more than what she’d get tonight. And she wasn’t talking about money.

  The realization felt so true that she wondered where it’d been all her life. Lonely nights in her nice but sterile condo; every day the same, going to work, eating lunch, coming back home, maybe seeing a movie or going to dinner with her friends or, God forbid, going on another useless date.

  The impetuous streak that had taken her over lately reared through her now, and she blurted, “I’m not ready to leave, Cash.”

  He hadn’t written any more on her since they’d started talking, and the pen dipped to the side in his hand.

  His gaze . . . She was seeing the truth there, too, wasn’t she? A bare confession of how much he wasn’t ready to let her go yet, either?

  Then he laughed softly, giving her that side-swipe smile she’d grown so used to. “Princess, I’m not staying around this vacation paradise. I’m hitting the road, remember?”

  “I remember.” And the notion made her pulse quicken.

  “Then what’re you saying?”

  Just let it out, Molly!

  She forced herself to say it before she lost her courage. “Take me with you, wherever you’re going.”

  Usually, it was her mouth that fell open after he said something crazy. This time, it was his.

  She blazed ahead. “I’m not talking about an extended road trip. Just a few days, because I have a job interview Monday. We could take in some sights, hang out until we got sick of each other, then I’d find my own way home. It’s what I need—a few days away from everything. A few days of real freedom.”

  When he sat up, she thought she’d overplayed her hand. And when he tensed, every muscle immovable, it was only confirmation of her fear.

  But, dammit, he still had that look in his eyes—a yearning that had to be for her. She’d never been as sure about anything as this.

  He glanced away. “You know I don’t take baggage on my trips, Molly P.”

  So full of shit, and that actually encouraged her. “I travel light, Beauregard.” Now she sat up,
boldly grabbing his chin and making him look at her. “Four days, that’s all. It’d give me enough time to settle in at home before my interview. On Saturday, you can even just dump me off at the nearest travel hub, but until then?” She smiled. “Goddamn, we could have some fun.”

  A laden second passed, and a tick of the hope that’d been gathering in her chest seeped out of her. Why had she even opened her mouth? She felt like a loser, the girl on the playground in the ugly clothes who everyone stared at and mocked.

  But then . . .

  Then he smiled, too, getting off the bed, going to her purse on the nightstand, and taking her cell out.

  The half word he’d written on her belly beat on her skin as she got up to call her friends.

  Freed.

  Hell yes, she was.

  ***

  Sofia and Arden were surrounded by pink, orange, and white trimmings at Serendipity in the Caesars Palace courtyard. Roman columns were lit up nearby, the whir of traffic on the Strip accompanying the very satisfying decadence of pigging out on hot-fudge sundaes.

  This was totally going in the blog.

  When Molly’s Mozart ringtone went off, Sofia dropped her spoon into her dish and sprang to her cell.

  “Molly?”

  Arden leaned over the table and loudly whispered, “Speakerphone!”

  Sofia obliged since Arden had been such a good, nongambling girl, and since they were the only ones out on the patio, enjoying the misters floating relief into the waning day.

  Molly’s voice came through loud and clear. “Hey. Are you ready for the show?”

  Arden said, “Yup. We’re heading over in a few minutes.” Then she performed some whacked-out, good-spirited Frankie Valli dance move.

  Sofia cracked up. No matter what Arden’s faults were, this was why they’d be friends forever. Major fun. “Wish you could be here, Mol.”

  No response from the other end. Sofia gave Arden an okay . . . look. Arden returned it.

  “Are you ready to come back this early?” Sofia asked.

  “Well . . . that’s why I’m calling.”

  Sofia slumped in her chair while Arden clamped down on a laugh. She shook her finger.