As her own deep, sweet pulses subsided, Rhianna allowed herself to sink onto Jules’s chest, taking refuge in the warm press of flesh and bone. Peace stole over her and she drifted in a haze of serenity. Her breathing slowed. Lulled by the hypnotic thunder of Jules’s heart, she felt incredibly safe for the first time in months. For a long while, they lay communing like two solitary travelers who found themselves stranded on the same lonely road.
Rhianna felt a small pang as Jules’s hand eased free of its hot, wet cocoon. Holding her even closer, Jules said, “I can tell this was hard for you, and I’m not sure why. Is everything okay?”
Self-conscious, and surprised that this woman had picked up on her wavering emotions, Rhianna said, “It wasn’t anything you did. You’re a very good lover.”
“So are you.” Jules’s mouth brushed her hair and her cheek. “And when you get your breath back, I’d like to take advantage of that.”
Their lips met. Eyes closed, they kissed deeply.
“Will you do something for me?” Rhianna asked, then wished she had simply kept quiet. Did she really want to put into words the fantasy that preyed on her mind? What would Jules think of her?
“Talk to me,” Jules whispered. “Tell me what you want.”
“Can I tie you up?” Rhianna prepared herself for dismay and shock, but there was only the briefest hesitation.
“Do you want me to resist?”
“No. I just want to…” Rhianna thought,
Be serious.
A complete stranger could not be expected to consent to some kind of bondage scenario. She was puzzled by the urge to act out this fantasy. Normally, she was vanilla in her desires. Embarrassed, she said, “It doesn’t matter. Forget I even asked.”
But Jules was smiling. “Don’t try to make sense of a fantasy. I’m cool with being tied up, and if something doesn’t feel right, I’ll tell you I’ve had enough. And that’s when we stop. Okay?”
She was making it irresistibly easy. “Really?”
“So long as you don’t leave me naked and hog-tied for housekeeping to find in the morning.”
Rhianna giggled. She wasn’t sure if her reaction was from nerves, discomfort, or excitement.
“I’ll even help,” Jules said matter-of-factly. She detached herself and got out of bed. A few seconds later she returned with some nylon stockings.
“Do you wear those?” Rhianna asked.
“Sometimes. For work. Think they’ll do the job?” She looped one untidily around her wrist. All the while her gaze devoured Rhianna, a predatory glint calling into question who was really in control.
Rhianna sat up and took the stockings from her. “Lie down on the bed,” she said. “On your back. Spread your legs.”
*
Many hours later as Rhianna located her clothing, Jules asked, “Where do you live?”
“Near Vegas.”
“I’m based in L.A. but I work for a national firm. They send me all over.”
Although she sensed Jules intended the disclosure as an opening, Rhianna didn’t ask about her job. She didn’t want to start down that getting-to-know-each-other track. They were done, and in a few hours’ time she would be driving back to Oatman, “mission accomplished.”
She glanced toward the windows they’d opened during the night, when the hot tangle of the sheets was too much. The chill of the desert morning made her shiver, and she pulled on her panties and shorts, then looked around for her bra and realized she hadn’t worn one. Her breasts felt full and her nipples incredibly tender. She was sore, too. Every time she took a step her panties teased her still-swollen sex, and she could feel the imprint of Jules’s hands and mouth all over her body, smoldering reminders of the night before.
The sensations unsettled her. She had expected to wake up this morning with her sense of self at least partially restored. She had thought she would fully “own” her body once more, that she would feel inviolate and in complete control. Instead, she was aware of an unwelcome connectedness to the woman languidly watching her from the bed. Unable to separate memory from craving, Rhianna averted her eyes, feeling exposed.
“I’d like to see you again.” As if taking agreement for granted, Jules continued, “I was thinking we could come back here since it’s pretty convenient for both of us. Once a month, maybe, for a long weekend. I could probably make that happen.”
“I’m not looking for anything ongoing,” Rhianna said.
Jules elbowed her way up the bed until she was sitting back against the pillows. She was even more striking in the watery light of early morning. A little crumpled, her mouth slightly swollen and her eyes bedroom-heavy. She ran a hand over her hair, and Rhianna couldn’t help but recall the feel of those blue-black strands gliding silkily between her fingers the night before.
“I’m not asking you to marry me,” Jules said. “But I thought we were pretty good together.”
“I thought so, too,” Rhianna conceded. “And I appreciate the offer.”
“But this is good-bye?”
“It is.”
Jules seemed confused, then her eyes hardened with a flash of comprehension. “You have someone?”
Rhianna supposed she could just take the easy way out and let this woman believe she had cheated on a partner. But the idea was somehow unpalatable. “No, I don’t. And to be quite honest, I prefer to keep it that way.”
“I understand. Look, I don’t have time for commitment either, so we’re on the same page. And life’s short. Why not enjoy?”
“I’m sure there are plenty of women who’d be thrilled to take you up on an offer like that,” Rhianna said.
Jules studied her closely as if she found her responses puzzling. “Frankly, picking up women in bars is getting old.”
“Then maybe you ought to bite the bullet and get a regular girlfriend.”
“Is that an offer?” The arrogant charm of the night before was still in evidence, but it was tempered with a softness that surprised Rhianna and complicated her feelings.
She made a show of looking around for her room key. She felt awkward for all kinds of reasons, and she needed to terminate this conversation. The idea of seeing Jules again was far too tempting. Already she was rationalizing the possibility, thinking like a crazy woman. They could meet for another long weekend and get to know each other better. Maybe she could even invite Jules to Oatman sometime when the Mosses were away.
“You’re very determined,” she said.
“So I’m told.”
“And not used to a woman saying no?”
Jules laughed. “I don’t run into it too often.”
Rhianna slid her feet into the sandals she’d left near the bedroom door. “Well, don’t take it personally.”
Jules crossed the room to stand in front of her, tempting in a white tee and nothing else. She slid an arm around Rhianna’s waist and gave her a long, hard look. Then she kissed her like she mattered. “So, it’s good-bye.”
Rhianna leaned into her embrace, imprinting the feel of another body against hers. “Thank you for spending the night with me.”
“It was a pleasure.”
“For me, too.”
Rhianna drew back and studied Jules’s face. Close up, each feature was highly individual. Combined, they assumed an androgynous beauty that would turn heads, no matter who was looking. Rhianna committed every detail to memory. The gray-black eyes flecked with indigo. The sensual mouth. The strong chin and nose. The small vertical cleft in each cheek. A strange sorrow claimed her. She wished the numbness would recede from her chest so that she could feel more. It seemed wrong somehow that her heart insisted on beating no matter what. There was a moment the night before when she’d wished it would just stop, when her mind was washed clean by the tide of her senses and all she knew was bliss. She could have died in that instant and been happy.
She leaned in and rested her cheek against Jules’s. A hand slid over hers, clasping it gently. The eyes that sought her own were catlike in their unblinking calm.
“Take a chance and say yes to me,” Jules said very softly. “You never know what might happen.”
Rhianna could not find an answer that felt truthful or even honorable. She drew back, avoiding eye contact. “I can’t.”
Jules released her without further protest and Rhianna murmured a final good-bye. She could feel the gouge of Jules’s stare as she walked away, but she did not look back.
Chapter Three
Even if she hadn’t smelled the burro droppings as she drew close to town, Rhianna would still have known where she was from the sounds of hollering and gunfire. She had arrived back in Oatman just in time for the daily traffic jam. Someone’s Suburban was blocking the main street. The owners had probably fled at the sight of an armed gang approaching with guns drawn. Burros milled in anticipation, sticking their heads in car windows. A brawl between rival gangs meant traffic would remain at a standstill and passersby would linger to watch the drama unfold. For the wild burro population mayhem spelled one thing. Lunch.
Back in its gold-rush days, Oatman was a tent city jammed with miners who used the small, hairy beasts to haul their supplies. When the gold eventually ran out, they cut the overworked animals loose and left them to fend for themselves. Unlike their owners, the burros prospered, forming herds and successfully surviving in the wild. These days, their descendents roamed free in the hills around the town and wandered down each afternoon to beg for food.
Rhianna resigned herself to a long wait in the heat of the day while the male posturing went on. This afternoon one of the Bitter Creek boys had chosen to pick a fight with one of the Ghostriders. The rivals and their associates faced off in the middle of the traffic, cussing each other out.
Someone yelled, “You stole my woman!” and a volley of shots rang out. A man went down and all hell broke loose.
Uncomfortable in her stationary car, Rhianna opened the door and inhaled the familiar scent of desiccated poop and gun smoke. A gray burro immediately sidled up to claim the rest of the sandwich she’d purchased during the four-hour drive from Palm Springs. As the animal munched, various gunfighters blew each other away and, after the requisite death dance, collapsed onto the dusty street. The crowd cheered and clapped.
A woman in Victorian saloon-whore chic kicked one of the fallen men in the ribs and yelled, “Get up you lazy, no-good, cheap drunk. You owe me two dollars.”
When he didn’t respond, she strutted past a group of visitors standing beside a minibus draped with a banner that read
Ben Hur Shriners for Crippled Children Burn Unit, Galveston.
Today’s charity, Rhianna surmised, fanning herself with the sandwich wrapper.
After a few minutes, the dust settled and the “dead” rose to pass the hat around and show off their six-guns to city slickers who had never seen a Colt Peacemaker. The tourists who kept Oatman solvent were lured with staged shootouts, panhandling, sidewalk egg fries, ladies strolling in 1890s costume, vintage cars, and a main street that looked like something from a Wild West movie, only it was the real McCoy.
The town had been named in honor of Olive Oatman, a young woman kidnapped by Apaches and sold to the Mohave, with whom she lived for five years before being ransomed for a horse and blankets. Despite public pressure to denounce her “savage” captors, Olive reported that she had been treated kindly and was never subjected to “unchaste abuse.”
During the gold-mining boom, Oatman had a population of thousands, but when the mines closed in the 1920s a mass evacuation all but emptied the place, and the town’s demise was cemented thirty years later when it was bypassed by the new Interstate 40. Truly a ghost town, it struggled along like many on the old Route 66, until nearby Laughlin, Nevada, became a gambling success story and tourists flocked to the area.
Before long these visitors began showing up in Oatman on a quest for the Old West. The few mavericks left running the town were happy to oblige the heritage seekers with a dose of authenticity, and they didn’t even have to erect phony saloons, old-time general stores, or Western-façade dwellings. It was all here, and the ramshackle, forgotten-past glory of their town was virtually unmatched in the West. No one had spent a dime on maintenance for the past half century. Not on buildings and certainly not on roads.