by L. B. Dunbar
“I’m sorry.”
Rita shrugs, not glancing up from chopping, and I slowly round the kitchen island. There have been updates to this large home which is too big for a single person. Coming up behind her, I cover her wrist with my hand.
“Stop.” Rita stills her rapid slicing, and I press my nose into the crook of her neck. “You don’t have to share if you’d rather not.”
“It’s just difficult to talk about, but I’ve actually been meaning to ask you something. I just didn’t know how to bring it up. I don’t even know if I want to discuss it.”
The ominous tone raises the hairs on the back of my neck. “Ask me anything.”
“Ian died in a fire. I was wondering if you worked on his case.”
Suddenly, the air around me fills with heaviness. “I don’t know. I don’t recall every case, but if you give me more details, I can try to remember.”
“He was—” Her phone vibrates on the counter, and Rita glances over at it. With my arms still around her waist, she reaches for the device and answers. “Hey, Scarlett.”
A feminine voice filters through the phone, and I shift to release Rita from my hold, but she catches my forearm around her middle, and I still.
“I’m with Jake.” Her voice softens as she says my name, and I’m assuming her friend knows a bit about me. I’m curious what she’s told her, and I smile into the curve of her neck again. Tenderly, I pepper her skin with kisses before reaching the shell of her ear and nipping at it. Rita tips her head against mine, and a smile fills her voice.
“Yes,” she says at first.
Pause.
“Not yet.” She giggles.
Pause.
“Okay, next weekend.” She laughs again and then hangs up after saying, “Bye.”
“Scarlett?” I murmur into Rita’s neck, working my way to her shoulder and tugging her shirt to the side to suck a trail along her skin.
“She’s my best friend and wanted to know if I wanted to go to the farmers’ market next weekend.”
“That was a short conversation. Why were you giggling?”
“I don’t giggle,” she retorts, and I spread my hands over her belly, digging in my fingertips. Rita lets out a squeal and then that heavy snort she has on occasion.
“That sounded like a giggle.”
“I sound like a piglet,” she says, spinning in my arms and imitating the snort that escapes her on occasion.
“Here, piggy, piggy,” I tease to her face, rubbing my nose against hers before pressing my lips to hers. Her arms wrap around my shoulders. “Tell me what she said that made you blush.”
“She asked me if you were the same Jake I might have mentioned once or twice.”
“Ah. Did you tell her I was handsome?”
“I might have called you a stud.”
My lips curl as a brow hitches. “A stud, huh? Gonna ride me?”
“That was the not yet part.”
I stare down at her before rubbing my nose along hers again. “Are you hoping to get something from me?”
“Whatever you’re offering,” she says, her voice dropping with an edge of seriousness. What am I offering her? I’m an ex-con without a job, living with my brother. I don’t know what she could see in me.
“Should we finish talking about what we were discussing before the phone rang?” I ask, not wanting to return to a conversation about her ex but also not wanting her to think I’m blowing it off.
Rita’s eyes focus on my mouth, and she shakes her head.
“Good,” I state. “Because you have a riding lesson. Right now.” With that, I scoop her up, and she squeals again. Reaching awkwardly over at the oven, I turn it off and carry Rita to her room on the upper level.
14
Rita
It should have felt strange to have Jake in my bed. I’d lived in my parents’ home until I moved out in my thirties to live with Ian. Their house was large, and we didn’t get in each other’s way much. My parents moved their room to the first floor when my father had his first heart attack, and I moved home to help them out. Ian never spent the night here, never slept in my bed with me, so this was a new experience—just like everything else with Jake.
I hadn’t ever had sex at a project site, and I certainly never had sex against a fire pole. I didn’t make out under a covered bridge or kiss between fishing casts. Jake didn’t keep his hands or his lips off me, and it was a new sensation. Ian and I weren’t reserved, but PDA wasn’t something he often did. He had a reputation to uphold, and I respected his position.
Impressionable young minds are watching, he’d say if I went to a school function with him.
Jake was everything opposite Ian. For one, the way he moved over my body, especially in my bed, made me feel cherished. It was a reminder he’d been locked up for seven years, but was his solitude any different than the prison I’d put my own heart in? I didn’t want to feel things for him like I felt. I didn’t want him to be that rebound May mentioned, but there was no denying I wanted him.
His mouth moved over my body, sucking at my jaw, down my throat, and along my collarbone. Commenting about the purple color of my undergarments, he quickly undressed me, and now I lay naked and sprawled out on my bed. His mouth moves to a breast. My legs spread to accommodate his body between them as he traveled down my middle, licking and nipping at me as he goes. Eventually, his teeth scrape at my inner thighs, and he spreads them wider.
“God, sweet,” he groans, rubbing his nose over coarse hair before dipping lower with the tip of his tongue. I almost sprang from the bed at the first lap. He outlines slick folds before his lips clamp over my clit and a finger joins the ministrations. He retreats to delve deep with his tongue and then returns to that nub with his lips while two fingers thrust into me. My hips buck, and my head tips back. I don’t remember the sensation of oral sex. The wetness. The slurping. The licking. It is too much and not enough, and I rock into his face as he lavishes me with that wicked tongue of his.
When I finally break, Jake redoubles his efforts, sucking me harder, working those two fingers faster through my soaked entrance.
“Another one,” he demands against my lower lips, and I nearly scream as my body bows, and I release just as powerfully as the first time. Silver speckles dance before my eyes, and I’m not convinced I didn’t pass out for a second. Jake tenderly bites the inside of my thigh before he brushes his scruffy jaw against the opposite one and crawls up my body. His mouth covers mine, forcing me to taste myself on him, something I’d never done before. It’s dirty and delicious, and I realize my previous sex life had been slightly refined compared to Jake.
He pulls back, and I fear he’s read my thoughts. Scooping his arm under my lower back, he flips our position and drops his voice. “Riding lesson.” My legs straddle him on instinct. My drenched core meets the hard length of him, bare and thick. Coasting over him, the heavy moisture he created between my thighs dampens him. The movement drags my already swollen, ripe center in a striking manner against him. Like a flint to rock, I’m ready to spark again.
“Need inside you, sweet.”
“Condom?” I question, and Jake twists his head on the pillow.
“My pants.” We’d stripped out of our clothes as we stood at the end of my bed, and his pants are somewhere in that pile.
“Do we need one?” My voice hesitates. It was a risk. Even on the pill and with a condom, my best friend had gotten pregnant. “I have an IUD.” I had one inserted a while back for feminine issues.
“Are you sure?” His question answers mine, and I slide to his tip, catching on the thick bulge before lowering my hand to guide him inside me. Gliding over his stiff length, bringing him into my body, he tips his head back as mine does when he’s entered me in the past. A vein strains along his throat, and I lower to drag my tongue against the roughness of his jaw.
“Sweet, you’re going to be the end of me.”
I have no idea what that means, but my body knows what it needs
to begin. I rock up his length, drawing myself to his tip as if I might release him. Then I lower to draw him deep inside. I repeat the movements, the rhythm building. Walking my hands down his chest until I sit upright over him, I use my knees to lift and lower me. Jake glances down to where he disappears inside me.
“Might be the prettiest sight I’ve ever seen.” His eyes flick up to my face. My hair is all over the place as I roll my hips over him, moving faster with short, sharp thrusts. My fingertips dig into his belly while his hands pinch my hips, forcing me to rock harder. “So deep like this.”
His stuttering tone tells me he’s getting close, and I want him to give in to me. I want to feel the power of breaking this man. I want to be the end of him, as he said.
“I’ll pull out,” he warns around a shaky breath, returning his gaze to where I ride him.
“No,” I hiss, afraid to lose the edge I’m experiencing, the crest that’s climbing. Jake glances up at me.
“Sweet?” he questions, but I’m lost in my head, riding him for all he’s worth, giving in to the all-consuming sensation of us joined together. I don’t want to end the connection.
“Jake.” His name catches in my throat, but I repeat it three more times before I still, clenching at him buried to the hilt inside me. His fingertips dig into my hips as he follows my lead and bucks upward, drilling himself deeper before coming alive within me.
Heavily breathing, Jake jackknives upward and grips the back of my neck. His mouth takes mine, fierce but tender.
“That probably wasn’t smart,” he mutters to my lips.
“For once, I wanted to use something other than my brain.” My heart made me do it.
Jake seems to understand, and he returns to kissing me, tugging me down to my side on the bed. We stay just as we were, joined as long as we can before thoughts get in the way.
The week passes in a whirlwind of Jake and sex, and sex and Jake. I can’t seem to stay away from the worksite, and Jake pulls me into a corner or empty space every second he can to kiss me silly. I’m drunk on this man who is dangerous for a recovering alcoholic. We’re warned in AA about replacing one addiction for another, and I am heavily addicted to him.
The following Saturday, I give into some separation and attend the Norwich farmers’ market with Scarlett as I promised. I meet her here as we came from different directions, and she has baby Harley with her. The market is in full swing as we saunter, and I babble on and on about Jake. How he invited me to his nephew’s graduation from my alma mater. How we’d spent time together on a hike, cooking dinner, and hanging out. How the sex with him is incredible.
“You’re quiet, lady,” I tease as Scarlett has hardly said a word. “Bull stampede over you last night?”
Scarlett stops walking and turns to me. “Rita, we need to talk.” The directness of her tone startles me. My comments can be over the top at times, but Scarlett knows this about me. Still, I quickly apologize, concerned by the tenor of her voice. My best friend waves it off as she leads us out of the mayhem of the crowd.
“I don’t know how else to tell you this other than being straight with you.” She reaches for my wrist and holds on tight once we stand off to the side of the vendors.
“Whatever it is, I can handle it,” I assure her, but genuine fear creeps into my veins.
“I know you said not to look into him, but I couldn’t help myself.”
“Scarlett,” I hiss, tilting my head.
“You’re my best friend. You’ve been through a lot, and I just don’t want to see you hurt.”
“What did you do?” I ground out. The fine hairs on my arms rise.
“I did a little research.”
My heart races faster. My belly feels ill. I should scold Scarlett for playing sleuth. I want to remind her that snooping into people’s lives could lead to misinterpretation and misrepresentation, which is exactly what she did to Bull before she knew him. A reprimand would be justified, but I don’t do it. Curiosity has the better of me.
“And?” I pause, trying to laugh off the anticipation but sickly sweat breaks on the back of my neck.
“Rita, he went to jail.”
My shoulders fall, and relief washes over me. “Duh, chickie. I know this.” So does she, as I’ve told her how he is a worker in the restorative program of Building Buddies.
“He went to jail for setting a fire.”
My brows pinch. “He was an arson investigator,” I state to defend him. He was a fireman. Firemen don’t set fires. They put them out. Still, my heart hammers faster.
“He set the fire at Waterson Community High School.”
“No,” I whisper, my body breaking into feverish perspiration.
“I’m sorry, honey,” Scarlett whispers to me, still clutching my wrist.
“I don’t believe you,” I say too quickly, too emphatically. My nostrils flare. My chest heaves. This cannot be true. Scarlett has been wrong in the past. She’s skewed information. It’s what she did as a gossip reporter. She lied.
“I don’t believe you,” I repeat, louder while my tongue grows thick, and my throat burns. Bile churns in my stomach.
Scarlett stares at me, pinning me with those large dark eyes of hers. “Remember it was an accident. I’m certain there’s an explanation.” The weak hope in her voice does nothing to dispel the anger rising inside me. There could be no excuse, accident or not. There can be no justification for killing an innocent man.
A man inside a high school, working late one night as the conscientious principal he was, double-checking something during his summer vacation when the building caught on fire. When the high school burst into flames, and a portion exploded, taking with it the life of the man I intended to marry.
Ian.
Incredulous. I do not want to believe any of it, but I break away from Scarlett, racing away from the farmers’ market. I don’t want to think anything until I speak to Jake. I’m a woman of facts and principles, and the best solution for answers is to go to the source.
I didn’t know Jake’s exact address other than he lives in Ashbury, a small town on Montpelier’s west side. Calling Albert, I make up some excuse for needing Jake’s address. Seconds after hanging up the phone, I don’t even remember what I said, certain the excuse was not feasible but necessary.
Pulling up in front of the small, run-down home, the ramp before the house hardly stalls my ire. I stomp up the slight incline and harshly knock on the front door. When a man in a wheelchair opens it, I’m still not deterred although my breath catches at the similarity between brothers. Fuller in shoulders and rounded in face, he’s still a twin to his older brother minus the salt-and-pepper scruff.
“Well, hello beautiful,” he says, immediately flirting with me and giving me the charming smirk of a Drummond.
“Don’t hello beautiful me, cookie. Where’s your brother?” My body vibrates as I speak through the screen door. I’d like to open the barrier and let myself inside but refrain.
“Rita?” The questioning sound of my name and the smile I hear within his voice quickly fades when he sees me standing on his porch. “Rita, what’s wrong?”
Jake steps outside, and I step back, putting much-needed distance between us. My body hums while the sickening sensation coils through my veins. I let this man enter my body. He’s crawled into my heart. He stole my soul.
“Tell me why you went to prison, Jake.”
“Rita,” he whispers, taking a step toward me, hands lifting to touch me, but I stalk backward down the ramp, keeping space between us.
“Tell me,” I demand, fisting my hands at my sides.
“I was accused of setting a fire.”
I shake my head at the simplistic answer. “Not enough, handsome.” The endearment is bitter, and Jake flinches at the term.
“What did you hear?” he questions, but I’m not here to speak. I’m here to listen.
“Talk,” I command.
“There was a fire at a local high school.”
&nbs
p; “Which one?” I snap, not wanting anything left out and briefly closing my eyes as I brace myself for the truth.
“Waterson Community. It was a misunderstanding. I’d seen the blaze and stopped to investigate. As I was around the back of the building, an explosion happened.”
My imagination runs wild. Visions of Ian I don’t wish to see haunt my thoughts like ash floating in the air.
“Because you started the fire,” I clarify, shaking so badly I’m surprised words even form in my mouth.
Jake sighs and tilts his head for the ground, shaking it side to side. “I was seen on the school surveillance cameras. It looked like I was exiting a side door and then wandering behind the building when the blast occurred, but I had not been inside. I’d been driving home after an arson investigation—”
“How ironic the arson investigator committed arson,” I interrupt, not happy with his quiet tone or the sketchy holes in what he’s telling me.
“It is ironic,” he snaps back at me, his head lifting. “I didn’t do it. And I wasn’t allowed to investigate a crime I hadn’t committed because it was determined before I was even tried that I had done it. There were holes all over the reports. It was completely inconclusive to catch me on camera at a door without proof I ever entered or exited the building that night, which I did not.”
“There was someone in that building,” I say through clenched teeth. “He could have let you inside.”
“He didn’t. I didn’t know anyone was inside until after . . .”
“Until after the building burned and he died in those flames.” My voice carries as my too-calm voice recounts what happened. Tears stream down my face at the truth.
“You set the fire that killed the love of my life.”
15
Jake
“What?” I step toward her, hands primed to grasp her arms, but she backs up again, putting even more distance between us. “Rita, no.”