Golden Trail (23 page)

When he dropped his hand, he said, “You’ll
need to stock decent beer, baby. Bud, Coors, Miller, bottles or
cans, I don’t give a fuck.” He lifted his bottle. “This shit
sucks.”

Then he walked by her and into the living
room.

Two weeks and he saw that Raquel had
transformed it. He didn’t even know you could get furniture that
quickly. Couch against the back wall, deep purple color,
deep-seated and cushiony, inviting. A chair in a dark gray with a
big footrest in front of it, just as inviting. A big, black
lacquered, square coffee table, papers spread all around, her kids’
work. A big-bowled wineglass, half-filled with red wine and some
red pens amongst the papers. Candles here and there, all of them
burning, making the place smell like berries.

He walked to some black lacquered shelves
next to the fireplace where there were some books and a stereo. He
belatedly noticed that music was playing. Rock ‘n’ roll but playing
soft. He switched off the music, spotted the remote sitting at the
base of a stylish lamp on an end table, also black lacquer. He
walked to it, nabbed it, turned on the flat screen that was on a
stand in the corner and discovered she’d already had cable
installed. He found a game and stretched full body on her
couch.

It was comfortable, the cushions soft, his
body sinking in, fuck, he could sleep there. He grabbed a big toss
pillow patterned in grays, purples and blacks, shoved it behind his
head on the armrest and his eyes went to the game.

He was making a point.

Rocky missed his point.

It took her awhile but he felt her approach
and, even though she wasn’t in his line of sight, he felt her
presence when she came to stand beside the coffee table.

“Maybe you should go home,” she suggested
quietly.

“Nope,” Layne replied, keeping his eyes on
the TV, he took a sip of beer then dropped his hand and rested the
bottle on his abs. “Rutledge lives in unit G, apartment one. I
didn’t look when I drove in but, he’s out, he has to drive by your
parking spots. He’s in, he can see my truck from his front
window.”

She didn’t respond. He heard her move but
didn’t look at her. Some minutes later, he saw her left hand reach
for the glass of wine. His eyes slid to her and he saw her sitting
cross-legged on the floor by the coffee table, head down to the
papers, a red pen in the fingers of her bandaged hand, her left
elbow on the table, wineglass held high.

“What’s with the bandage, Rocky?” he
asked.

She didn’t look up from her papers when she
answered, “I’m fine.”

“That wasn’t what I asked, sweetcheeks.”

Her head turned to him and she put down her
glass of wine. She wasn’t wearing makeup and it sucked but he
couldn’t help but think he hadn’t seen her looking prettier since
he got home.

“It was hurting last night,” she answered.
“I woke up and my wrist was swollen. I went to the clinic first
thing. They did a scan and said it was sprained. They bandaged it
and gave me some pain pills. Nothing big. I’m fine.”

Then she looked back down at her papers.

Layne looked back at the TV, took another
sip of beer and tried not to think of Rocky injuring herself in a
desperate attempt to get away from him and Melody, waking up all
alone with a swollen wrist, taking herself to the goddamned clinic,
again alone, and being in physical pain.

He tried not to think of it but he fucking
failed.

Minutes slid by and he heard her say softly,
“I’ll come over, for Jasper.”

Layne kept his eyes on the TV. “Right.”

“Just tell me when to be there,” she went
on.

“You got it.”

She fell silent.

More time slid by before she asked, “Have
you had dinner?”

“Nope, but I had enough junk food watchin’
games with my boys to preserve my body until the end of time.”

She hesitated before going on. “Do you want
something decent in your stomach?”

His head turned to her. “You’re hungry, Roc,
eat. But I’m good.”

“I’m not hungry,” she whispered.

He held her eyes.

She looked to her papers.

Her thick ponytail had fallen forward, over
her shoulder, curling around her neck.

Looking at it, Layne had the overwhelming
urge to roll off her couch and pull the holder out of that ponytail
then pick her up, take her back to her couch and press her body
deep into it, under his, then bury his hands in her long hair then,
after doing other things to her, burying his cock in
her.

He didn’t want this urge but he had to admit
he had it.

He lifted his beer, took another slug then
rolled off the couch. He put the beer on an open space free of
papers on the table. Her head tilted far back to look at him but he
straightened, scanned her place and saw her keys on the
counter.

He walked to them, grabbed them and when he
turned toward the door, he saw her torso twisted to look at
him.

“I’ll be back,” he muttered, left the
apartment, jogged down the stairs and to his truck. He bleeped it
open, went into the passenger side, pulled down the door to the
glove compartment and nabbed his smokes. He jogged back, let
himself in and walked directly to the balcony doors without looking
at her, bending slightly to drop the keys on the table on his way.
“I’m havin’ a smoke.”

He twisted the fancy-ass lock, noting, with
some annoyance, that if someone managed to scale the wall to the
balcony, not hard with tall trees on either side of it, they could
break a window, reach in and open that lock. An exterior door like
that should open only with a key. His eyes lifted, checking for
security sensors and he saw them on the windows but not on the
doors. Asinine mistake and shoddy work. No one would shatter those
huge glass plates to breach the apartment, they’d go through the
fucking door.

He set this aside to talk to her about
later, pushed down the handle and stepped out on the balcony. He
pulled the lighter out of his packet of smokes, shook out a
cigarette, put it between his lips, cupped his hand around the
lighter and fired up.

He slid the lighter back into the packet,
set it on the railing, lifted his head and exhaled smoke, scanning
her view and wondering what to do next.

One could say he had
not
handled that
with care and they were in this for the long haul. He was sensing
she definitely got where he was coming from but something had to
give. They couldn’t go on like this. Firstly, he needed to know a
lot more about her life and he didn’t want to know. He did, he
admitted, but he also
didn’t
. But he had to keep her safe
while this shit was going down and knowing the little he knew about
her life, her friends and her schedule, that would be difficult.
Secondly, they couldn’t work under this cloud. The air had to be
cleared and he didn’t want to do that either.

He looked from the view to her. She was
still looking down at her papers but she was holding her right
wrist in her left hand and doing it gingerly.

Fuck.

She was in pain and she thought his
attention was elsewhere. She didn’t do that when he was lying on
the couch, she did it when he was outside. She was hiding it from
him. She didn’t want his attention and she didn’t want it with the
added reminder of how she hurt her wrist.

He looked back to the view. He should give
her that play. He knew he should.

But he wasn’t going to.

He took another drag and prepared to flick
the mostly unsmoked cigarette out into the landscaping when he saw
movement.

He stilled, only half a moment, then he
brought the cigarette to his lips and took another drag. He kept
smoking as he pretended to scan the view, lost in thought, when he
saw him. Mostly hidden by a bush on the top swell of a hill, a man
with a camera snapping photos.

What the fuck?

Excellent positioning, the hill was high, he
was looking right into Rocky’s apartment.

Jesus.

Layne finished the cigarette, flicked the
butt out into the landscaping and made a decision.

He turned, his eyes going to each side of
the windows as he opened the door. She had no blinds.

She was getting blinds.

He entered and her head came up.

“If you’re going to smoke, I have ashtrays.
You can take one out with you.”

He didn’t answer and skirted the coffee
table.

Her head went back and back as he got
closer.

She kept talking, “I have garden furniture
ordered from Violet at the Garden Center. It’ll be delivered –”

She stopped speaking when he bent double and
put his hands to her pits, dragging her legs out from under the
coffee table, he lifted her to her feet.

“Layne! What –?”

“We’re bein’ watched,” he mumbled right
before his head came down and his mouth went to hers.

His hands went to her hips and he kissed
her, long, hard and closed mouthed as she held onto his shoulders.
Then he turned her, backing her into the couch, she went down and
he went down on top of her.

“Layne,” she whispered, her fingers
clutching his shoulders.

“Go with it, sweetcheeks, he has a camera,”
Layne muttered against her lips, ignored her body going stiff under
his, he slanted his head and kissed her again.

Her lips tasted like wine and he liked that
taste. The longer he kissed her, even without tongue, the softer
they got, the stiffness went out of her body and it melted into
his. Because of that, he did something on instinct and it was
something stupid. Stupid and dangerous.

He touched his tongue to her lips.

They opened instantly.

Heat flooded his blood and that blood rushed
to his cock.

His tongue slid between her lips and the
show was over. This kiss was real. It was real and it was fucking
great.
She tasted good and she kissed not in the hungry way
she kissed when they were together. She kissed like in his dreams,
giving, her tongue dancing with his, not dueling, her body relaxed
under his, their legs tangling. He gave up her lips to taste her
neck as one hand went down and under her shirt then up the soft
skin of her back, skin he’d wanted to touch since he saw it last
night. His other hand went to the band in her hair, tugged it out
and then buried itself in her thick, fucking mane and after he did
this, her hands did much the same.

He wanted her mouth again, took it and when
he did she arched her back, pressing her tits into his chest, her
soft hips into his hard ones and she moaned against his tongue.

He growled against hers.

Then he took the kiss further, made it
deeper, wetter, harder, demanding more from her and she gave
it.

He felt her nails drag his back and he
groaned into her mouth, his lips sliding down her jaw and her head
turned so her mouth was at his ear.

“God,” she breathed, “I forgot how good you
tasted. Tobacco.”

At her words, his hand fisted in her hair
and he held her head to kiss her again, his other hand moving in,
over her ribcage and up, to cup her breast, his thumb rubbing hard
against her tight nipple.

Her body jerked, then arched and she
whimpered into his mouth.

Fuck
but she was hot.

Too hot.

This was not fucking good.

He tore his mouth from hers, pressed his
face into her neck and tried to order his thoughts. This was
difficult with her breast in his hand, her body under his and her
hand trailing his back.

He rolled to the side, partially off her,
his hand leaving her breast to move to her waist and he said
against her neck, “Rocky.”

Her hand kept moving for a second then
froze.

He gave her a minute, giving the same to
himself, and her hand slid out from his shirt to disappear
entirely, her bandaged hand moving from his hair to rest lightly on
his neck. She turned her head away.

He lifted his up. “You okay?”

She was looking at the coffee table but she
nodded.

“Roc,” he called and she waited a few beats
then righted her head to look at him.

Lips pink and bruised, cheeks flushed but
her eyes were blank. He was lying mostly on top of her but she was
hiding from him.

He decided to give her that play.

Then he sought to lighten the
atmosphere.

“You’re a nut, sweetcheeks. Only you would
think cigarettes taste good,” he joked.

“You smoked when we were together, Layne.
You were my first kiss, my first everything. I’m conditioned to
think they taste good,” she replied, her voice funny in a hard way,
he took that shot to the gut and, while he recovered, she slid out
from under him.

He got up on a forearm and watched her grab
her wineglass and walk into the kitchen. She went to the bottle of
wine opened on the counter and poured more in. She took a sip, her
back to him, dropped her hand and stayed where she was.

He pulled in a breath, rolled off the couch
and went to her.

She didn’t move so he fitted his front into
her back and rested a hand on the counter in front of her.

“You gotta put in blinds, sweetcheeks.”

“Yes,” she agreed quietly.

“You also need to text me the number to the
management office of this place. They need to send someone to put
in sensors on your doors and change the locks. You’ve got
vulnerability there.”

He felt her body stiffen in front of him and
he put the hand not on the counter to her hip. If someone was still
watching, they’d think this was a post-make out session, lover’s
conversation.

“Rocky,” he called.

“I’ll text you the number.”

Layne pulled in breath and his fingers at
her hip pressed in.

“We gotta talk about what happened on the
couch.”

“Not now,” she replied instantly.

“Roc –”

“Not now, Layne, I have papers to
grade.”