Rough and Tumble

by Crystal Green

  Ask him, she thought. Just do it.

  “Do you have anyone waiting for you?”

  He tensed up, and fear jolted her when she thought he might order her back into the car so he could deposit her in Vegas.

  Something withered inside of her at the very idea.

  Finally, in a stiff voice, he answered. “Let’s not talk about that stuff.”

  God help her but she pushed it. “Because you’re married? Engaged? Something?”

  “None of those.”

  As if to remind her that this road trip wasn’t exactly about getting to know each other’s minds and souls, he reached inside her blanket, cupping a breast through her T-shirt. She wilted, her entire body whirling with hormones she couldn’t control around him.

  Her mind wanted more—wanted explanations, wanted him to stop making this trip all about sex, and . . .

  What? What did she want?

  He pressed his mouth to her ear, biting her lobe, whispering in a dark, leave-no-doubt tone.

  “Don’t think about that crap, Molly. Don’t think about anything.”

  And for now, she didn’t.

  ***

  After Cash had made Molly stop talking for a good while during their stargazing, and even after they returned to the motel to fuck until dawn, he was pretty sure she wouldn’t be asking him any more questions for the time being.

  What made her think there was another woman in his life anyway? There wasn’t. Johanna had been gone for eight years now, longer than he’d even had the Thunderbird. Some shrinks might say that he’d used the car to replace the black spot in his chest that Johanna had left, but Cash wasn’t into symbolism or Freudian bullshit.

  He didn’t let himself worry about it, and the next day, after they’d left the Little A’Le’Inn behind and hit the road again, meandering up the 375 to where it met the 60 and ran west into the 95 south, Cash kept the car stereo up loud, letting music cancel out any conversation. But Molly didn’t seem to notice as they ate at yet another greasy spoon, checked out a ghost town, got back on the road, and stayed in another run-down motel with “a lot of character” that still had a VCR and tiny packages of flower-smelling white soap in the bathroom.

  By the time another day after that one rolled around, Cash would’ve predicted that he’d be done with the entire so-called adventure. But he wasn’t. In fact, every time he looked at Molly sitting in the passenger seat with her bare feet, wearing her newest T-shirt from the latest roadside attraction, he had that much more trouble tearing his gaze away.

  It wasn’t only his gaze, though. A couple of times, he’d thought about what it’d be like when he finally dropped her off in San Diego. Would she invite him into that condo she’d talked about? Right, like he’d fit in real nice with the professional single-girl décor as she cooked him a fancy meal.

  He wasn’t that guy. She had to know it, and he damned well should, too. So why was it hard to picture the T-bird’s passenger seat empty?

  Now, as they drove away from Rhyolite, one of the ghost towns around the Beatty area, Cash held tight to the steering wheel. Molly didn’t have any kind of hold on him, and he’d bet the T-bird on that.

  The afternoon sun gushed through the windshield, and he turned up the air conditioner. Molly was fanning herself with a souvenir map she’d bought back at the Little A’Le’Inn for under a buck—she’d been using it all day while they’d poked around Rhyolite’s offerings, such as a house made of beer bottles and a decrepit Old West bank building, which was just pretty much walls today. Molly had enjoyed learning the history of the town, which used to be a tent city that sprung up during the Nevada gold rush, and she’d even forced him to see the museum and art exhibit. In spite of his let’s-get-this-over-with mood, he’d managed to have some fun, thinking up words for every place they went.

  Smooth, for the glass of that bottle house.

  Deep, to describe the digging those miners did back in the day.

  Later, he was going to write them both on Molly’s body, adding to the growing ink collection, which faded a little more every night. But he was also going to make smooth and deep a part of their time in bed . . .

  Off the road, in the near distance, a ramshackle adobe building loomed a ways back from the highway, flanked by bikes. Behind that, a matching one-story pueblo motel sat even farther back.

  Cash turned off the Ryan Adams song on the stereo. “That’s the Coyote Moon Lodge. Ever hear of it in your guidebooks?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Even with the space between them during road time, he could catch Molly’s scent—delicate and clean, with a hint of sweat from the sun. His groin pulsed.

  “At night,” he said, “they have bands that play behind chicken wire. It’s the rowdiest roadhouse in Nevada.”

  “Worse than the Rough and Tumble?”

  “Exponentially.” That was his big word for the day, and it brought a smile to her face.

  But when her smile went personal, like she was thinking she’d uncovered something interesting or profound about him, he stilled his heartbeat, swinging the T-bird into the lot and driving to the motel.

  After he parked and killed the engine, Molly laid a hand on his arm.

  He wasn’t used to her touching him outside of sexual overtures, and the contact was so tender that he wasn’t sure what it was even about. The only thing he knew was that a flicker of emotion was fighting its way through him, battling for him to let it out.

  “Why do you always go dark on me like that?” she asked.

  Shit. She was breaking a rule he thought they’d established back at Area 51: no deep stuff. But she was a woman, and unless you gave them only one or two nights and then cut them loose, this is what happened.

  Questions. Neediness.

  He couldn’t take either one. Johanna had been enough needy for a lifetime. Unfortunately, around Molly, it was like his old girlfriend was bugging his brain more and more.

  “Let’s go,” he said, gesturing toward the motel office.

  “Cash . . .” Molly wrapped her fingers around his arm. “Beau.”

  He’d let only Johanna call him by his real name, but that had been so long ago. “I go by Cash.”

  At his harsh tone, her green-blue eyes filled with what he thought might be sadness. But at what? Because he wouldn’t let her use his given name? Because he kept dodging every personal gesture she’d started to make with him?

  Neither of them had signed up for anything else.

  “Come on,” he said while getting out of the car. “We can grab supper and a beer at the bar, get a room here, then head out to San Diego in the morning to take you home so you can settle in before that job interview.” When she didn’t open her own door, he leaned his arms on the car, poking his head inside, trying to get the mood festive again. It was their last fun road day before the final, six-hour-long haul tomorrow. “You might like to know that you can even leave your bra here for future generations of barflies to gape at. They hang ’em high from the rafters. Ava Gardner’s is even supposed to be somewhere inside.”

  “Leaving mine here would mean I have no bras at all.”

  “And that’s a bad thing?”

  He thought the trivia—and the joke—would’ve perked up Molly, but she only strapped on her sandals, her hair falling so that it covered her face, making her unreadable.

  “Okay, Cash.”

  Had she put extra oomph on the “Cash”? Like she was chiding him for making her use it?

  Maybe they were sick of each other by now. But that wasn’t true—at least not on his side. He couldn’t wait to get her to the room.

  He went into the motel office, checking in, paying in advance, and coming out with a key. He’d expected to find her outside the car taking pictures to send to Arden and Sofia during their tri-daily hello, but . . . nope.

&
nbsp; Molly was standing by the hood, and she’d stripped off her baggy alien T-shirt. Suddenly, he wasn’t so comfortable with her wearing the sundress he’d bought at the mall. Even though her shoulders were covered, it revealed her tanned, smooth arms and all that leg.

  “We’re in number seven,” he said, rocks in his throat.

  “Great.”

  She reached into the T-bird to bring out her scattered bags of toiletries and clothing—the no-suitcase philosophy in full force—then waited by the room door while he unlocked it. When they got inside, he put his few things on the wood table by the entry as she marched past him on her way back out.

  He’d recovered slightly from seeing her in the sundress by now. “Did you call Sofia and Arden yet?”

  “I did midmorning and told them I’d touch base again at dinner.”

  “Only two contacts today. They’re giving you some leash.”

  “They know I’m an adult.”

  Without looking at him, she strode away, toward the bar, leaving him behind.

  Okay. She could have it her way.

  He followed her to the front of the Coyote Moon’s bar. She yanked the door open, letting out the blast of a Mötley Crüe song.

  She was still mad at him for the name business, was she? She’d get over it.

  He walked into the bar, where bras of every color and texture dangled from above, a sea of wavering lingerie in the flow of the air conditioner. And judging by the smell of the biker bodies inside, the conditioner wasn’t at full efficiency.

  As Molly cruised past a line of bikers with beers in their mitts—and they weren’t weekend warriors, either—she smiled at them, then slid onto a stool at the end of the bar, near the chicken-wired stage, whisking her blond hair over her shoulder.

  Cash nearly rolled his eyes. Was she trying to piss him off? Flirting with every man here who was salivating, even the two young deviants who’d stopped in midstroke at the pool table to ogle her?

  Hell, if she wanted to light his temper, it was working. A misplaced sense of possession overtook him, but he slammed it back. This was the kind of thing Johanna would’ve done, and he didn’t want to deal with it.

  He leaned on the bar a few yards away from anyone else. You’d think Molly would have the smarts to keep to herself in a place like this, but she was already talking to one of the pool players who’d wandered over to order a beer from the bartender. Great—the man was an ape wearing a baseball cap with his MC patch turned backward on his head, along with a leather cut.

  Jesus, Molly.

  Cash decided to let her piss him off all she wanted. Whenever she finally realized that the biker wasn’t there to actually order a beer, she’d be savvy enough to cut this game off and come back to him again, right? Molly had to be more self-aware than Johanna.

  She smiled, laughed, flipped her hair again. The biker ordered her a beer, and that’s when Cash almost stepped in. Some men thought that buying a woman a drink meant they could take liberties.

  The guy leaned closer to her, and her laughter seemed to sputter. She finally glanced at Cash.

  See—this was all for his benefit.

  Jealousy-driven steam built in his gut when the guy reached over to run a finger over her dress, right where her bra strap was covered, and Cash couldn’t stand around anymore.

  Coolly, he sauntered over. The biker obviously noticed a change in Molly’s expression, and he turned to Cash, who mildly jerked his chin at him in greeting.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey,” the guy said, a growl. He had a fuzzy beard and ginger hair. It didn’t hearten Cash to notice that his eyes were unfocused from booze, too.

  Cash looked at Molly. You done?

  The biker spoke. “I was tellin’ her that bras aren’t for wearing in this bar. Every one of them comes off.”

  “I told her that, too,” Cash said. “She doesn’t listen so well.”

  “She yours?”

  “Yeah.”

  The biker shrugged. “Not anymore.”

  Cash sighed, nodding like he’d been waiting for this. He tensed his arm, ready to swing an elbow at the dick’s face and crack him hard enough to stun him, then drag Molly out of here.

  At the same time, the ghost of another day came back to him: defending Johanna, who couldn’t fight off a man she’d “accidentally” gotten into a bad spot with. Hearing her cry, “I’m sorry, Beau!” again and again as he tried to bring her down from her hysterics . . .

  But Molly’s voice cut into the memory.

  “Excuse me, but I really am his.”

  Both Cash and the ape glanced at her. She’d climbed out of her seat, the rest of the bar going quiet except for the music.

  The biker shook his head, then used a hand to push her out of the way, making her stumble. “Keep the fuck outta this, sweet-ass.”

  That was all it took for Cash to see red, but Molly was already on it.

  She’d taken her beer off the bar and flicked it at the ape so a splash of liquid slapped his T-shirt, leaving a wet welt.

  The man looked down at himself in disbelief.

  Sometimes it was time to fight, sometimes it wasn’t. Right now, due to the fact that the ape’s pool-playing friend could come on over and shove a stick up his ass and the rest of the crowd in this bar could join in, it wasn’t the time for a fight.

  He motioned Molly to get in back of him, and while she did, he calmed his voice.

  “Man, I apologize. She’s got a bug up her ass about something. Didn’t mean for you to be a part of our bullshit.” He signaled to the bartender then turned back to him. “Your tab’s on me.”

  This would either work . . . or it wouldn’t. He just hoped Molly had already gotten a head start to the door.

  “I’d teach that bitch a thing or two if I was you,” the guy said, pointing at her.

  Out of the corner of Cash’s gaze, he saw the biker’s friend holding the cue stick by the pool table. Screw supper and a beer in this place—Cash knew from experience there were snacks in the tiny gift shop in the motel office.

  After a conciliatory nod—was this really working?—Cash made a show of cupping his hand on the back of Molly’s neck, herding her to the other end of the room while digging money out of his pocket. On their way out, he stayed wary, just in case he was attacked from the back. When he wasn’t, he slid a few big bills on the counter and said to the bartender, “Those men get a night on me.”

  Then he not-so-gently guided Molly outside—and he wasn’t acting, either.

  “What the hell was that?” he asked after the door had closed behind them. He took his hand off her neck and grabbed her arm as he pulled her toward the motel. Now that they were out of the bar, his anger had piled on itself, catching fire. “Do you realize you almost started a fight?”

  “I didn’t mean to. The men I know . . . They don’t react that way.”

  “These men do—including me. Haven’t you noticed?”

  He kept playing over and over the moment when the biker had touched her—how Cash had wanted to knock his head off, how he shouldn’t want that.

  “Oh, believe me,” she said, “I’ve noticed.”

  She squirmed out of his hold, walking backward toward the motel, but he didn’t go after her. He only fisted his hands at his sides, just like he did every time she got to him.

  And when he realized that he’d been watching her with a staggering desire that had to be obvious, he broke eye contact.

  “See, there you go again,” she said, reversing course and stepping right up to him, nearly body-to-body, not afraid.

  “Molly.”

  Automatically, he tried to deflect any questions she might start firing at him, and he slipped a hand to her waist, wanting to put things back where they’d been before they’d pulled into this parking lot.

  But she wa
sn’t having it this time. She pushed his hand away, her tone thick.

  “What are you running from?” she asked. “And don’t you dare tell me it’s just that gambler Leighton.”

  It would’ve been so simple to tell her. Johanna. But Cash was still running, even if it was in place, going nowhere . . . and he didn’t know where to go now.

  She shook her head and stormed toward the motel, but he wasn’t going to let her get away, not after what she’d just put him through. Not after he’d been ready to defend her again after she’d ratcheted up his temper and jealousy.

  He caught up to her, pulling her into his arms, kissing her, telling her in the only way he could that he didn’t want to go anywhere without her for as long as she was still with him.

  19

  As Molly reeled under his kiss, clinging to him for dear life, her mind tried to grasp what this meant.

  He was running from something that was haunting him. It was in the way he was kissing her, the way it felt as if he’d been attempting to find something he couldn’t quite grasp in all the places they’d traveled. Most of all, it was in the way he expressed everything with his body that he couldn’t seem to express otherwise.

  And, dammit, she could never resist him anyway.

  Somehow, they got from the parking lot to the room, desperately clinging to each other, their clothes half-off by the time he fumbled the key out of his pocket and opened the door.

  They crashed inside, and he kicked the door closed. She only had time to absorb the damp chill of an air conditioner that didn’t work right, the smell of cleaning product and old carpet, before he pulled off her purse, throwing it away, then tore at her sundress.

  It ripped off her shoulders, partly shredded, but who cared when he was so expertly laving her earlobe, sucking it into his mouth, jellying her limbs until she nearly slid down him, a trickle of sugared sweat all over his flesh.

  He cupped her breast, bringing her nipple to a peak, then pulled at her bra. She tried to shrug out of it, but when she couldn’t do it, he turned her around, and she fell forward, her hands on the table near the window.