Rough and Tumble (19 page)

“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.

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 wasn'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.

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.

As he tugged at her panties, destroying those, too, she dully noticed that the heavy drapes were parted, leaving only sheer curtains to hide them from anyone who might walk by.

The threat of exposure pumped her until she was slippery, aching, and she jerked at the top of her bra until it was almost off—but not quite.

He was a madman—but was it because of the idiotic stunt she'd pulled in the bar after he'd bitten off her head for calling him “Beau”? Or was it because she'd asked him about his past? Was he attempting to get her mind off the questions again with sex?

Cash whispered in her ear, harsh, demanding. “Tell me what you want.”

Her imagination ran buck wild. For so long, she'd been afraid to ask for anything from her partners, and here Cash was, giving her every chance.

When she paused too long, he pressed her down to the table, and as she reached for the far edge, everything on it crashed to the floor. She hugged the surface, her breasts crushed, her cheek flush against the wood. Her lack of panties left her bare, her dress around her waist, his hand on her ass, caressing her.

“You did a bad thing in that bar, Molly,” he said.

His thumb strayed to her pussy as he kept his hand splayed over her cheek, almost like he was getting ready to . . .

Spank
, she thought, mentally adding another written word to her skin.

But that hadn't ever been one of her fantasies, and she reached back, swatting his hand away.

He laughed, and it wasn't a pleasant sound.

“Not your thing?” he asked.

“No.” So this was another game to him. Forget what she'd seen in his gaze before they'd stumbled in here. There'd been a wish of some sort—to have her in more ways than physically? To . . .

Not love her. What they were doing could never be about love.

“If I punished you,” he said, “would that make you angry?”

Her face was beating with a deep blush. “Are you trying to
make
me angry with that question?”

“Maybe.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because I think you wanted to slap the shit out of me earlier, and I'm seeing if you're still in the mood.”

So this
was
about her getting hurt by the whole “Beau” thing. Okay, then, he was right. She'd wanted to strike back at him for stinging her, so she'd set out to flirt harmlessly with someone in the bar, anyone. Warped move, but it'd obviously worked.

She smiled in spite of herself. She couldn't help it.

Cash leaned down to her, his hand on the back of her thigh now. He trailed it up and down, riding over her flesh.

“You wanted to make me pay,” he said.

“Didn't I?”

“Not enough.” He kept petting her. “Why don't you take it out on me now?”

What?

She slid a glance up to him, pushing herself partway off the table. “Are you telling me to . . . spank you? That's ridiculous.”

“So was spilling that beer on that gorilla.”

“I'm sorry I did that.”

“No, you're not.”

Without thinking, she twisted around and smacked his chest. Then she froze. She hadn't meant to
hit
him.

He bunched his hand in her hair, and she sucked in a breath as he brought her face close to his. It was almost as if he wanted her to be angry, wanted her to say enough was enough and walk out that door.

That perverse part of herself she'd discovered on this trip made her surge toward him, pulling him to her and crushing her mouth to his. He didn't seem to know what to do, and he loosened his grip on her hair as she slowed the kiss, fiercely savoring this last night she'd have with him.

She didn't think about what it'd be like tomorrow, when he pulled in front of her door to drop her off. She only wanted to feel the now.

With infinite care, she eased her hands under his T-shirt, loving the new, clean scent of it. She drew it up until he had to raise his arms to get it off, but she stopped him before that. The who-is-this-Molly? part of her—or maybe the her she'd just discovered—was turned on by the sight of the hair under his arms.

She smoothed her thumbs over the indentations of him, feeling rough silk, making him flinch. “So you're ticklish,” she said. Even tough guys had their weak points.

Once again, he didn't seem to know how to react. It was as if no one had ever gone slowly enough with him to discover this one little thing, and she was overjoyed at the possibility that she might've been the first.

After he slid off the shirt and discarded it, she sat back on the table, her legs dangling as she summoned him closer, his body between her thighs. She rubbed her cheek against his sleek, hard chest.

“You're smooth, just like a whippersnapper,” she said.

He laughed quietly, and she skimmed her mouth to a nipple, coasting her lips over it until it nubbed. She circled her tongue around it as he dug his fingers into her skin.

“I'm old enough to teach you a thing or two,” he said.

Now she laughed, traveling his back with her hands, tracing muscle, taking as much of him in as she could. And when she came around to the front of his jeans to unbutton them, he gripped her harder.

“You have to admit,” she said, “that what I'm about to do to you is much better than a spanking.”

He was already semi-erect when she brought him out.

“Much better,” he said, his voice taut.

She looked up at him, moving a thumb around his moist tip. God, she loved how he felt. She'd never been all that impressed with male equipment before, but Cash fit her just right.

And he didn't only fit her in
that
way. She'd never been so comfortable riding in a car, sleeping in a bed, simply being around a man. Too bad they didn't have more than one night left. . . .

As she eased off the table, sitting in a chair and pulling his jeans down at the same time, she tried to shake the idea of staying with him out of her head. The interview was on Monday, and there was no way she would miss it.

No way.

She licked the dew off the head of his cock, and when he groaned, a spiral of power filled her so completely that she knew she'd never feel this way again. Bolstered by a confidence that only seemed to appear when she was around him, she stroked her tongue under him, then swirled over him, and he fisted her hair. Her mind went blank, shutting out everything else but this.

Taking him into her mouth, she sucked at him, driven on by his stimulation as she brought him to rock hardness. More kisses, more laving and loving, but he was holding himself back from coming.

In the next instant, he lifted her, spinning her around until he was sitting in the chair and she was straddling him, just as they'd done in the Thunderbird that first night.

But, this time, he was watching her in a different way—with an inexplicable depth to his gaze that he couldn't seem to hide as he opened a condom. She helped him slide it on, and he entered her, slick and easy.

“Princess,” he said, pulling her to him, guiding her hips in slow circles.

She ground against him, so full of him. Pure joy popped in her, coming out in a smile, a laugh, as they moved together.

“A princess,” she breathed. “That's the . . . last thing that . . . comes to mind right now. I'm more . . . like a . . . wench.”

“You're everything,” he said, smiling at her as if he was daring her to ask him where all the dirty words had gone.

But his gaze told her he wasn't kidding. . . .

As he leaned back his head, ready to come, she couldn't resist arching against him, urged on by his turn of attitude.

He came into her with a force so powerful that she gasped with him, feeling like she was never going to be able to separate from him.

He massaged her to completion, stoking her, enflaming her, bringing her to a peak before she tumbled back down to him, clasping him to her in that chair.

For a while, there was only the sound of a TV mumbling through the thin wall—something she hadn't noticed earlier. Her skin stuck to his, her hair damp against her face and neck.

He kissed her breast, talking against it. “Back at the Rough and Tumble, I didn't think you were even gonna glance my way, Molly P.”

“Why?”

When he looked up at her, surprise shadowed his gaze. “Women like you never see guys like me.”

He'd given her one of the answers she'd been asking for—how he felt about her. Maybe she'd never known what he was truly running from, but she knew this much now: he definitely thought she was too good for him.

And as she ran her fingers over his stubble-rough face, she saw the raw emotion peeking out, saw that this trip wasn't just a fantasy anymore.

This was as real as real was, and maybe that's why she and Cash got along so well—because realness tended to come out when they were together. He'd always lived on the fringes of society while she'd always lived in her books. He lived in the moment, teaching her to do the same. They both understood isolation of different kinds.

But even in the thrall of this realization, she was still a woman who'd been hoping to find herself during this trip—and she was more lost than ever.

Neither of them spoke for a while. Cash merely used his finger to skim a word he'd written on her upper stomach this morning:
sin
.

“Did you get in touch with your friends?” he asked.

Shit.
Was it past suppertime? How long had they been in here?

“No,” she said, glancing back at the old digital clock on the scarred nightstand, which told her that it was past six and Sofia and Arden would be expecting a message. They'd probably even left texts or voice mails by now. Why hadn't she heard her phone, though?

Shit!

She reluctantly disentangled herself from Cash. Her dress was in shreds on her, but when he looked at her, she felt beautiful and even perfect.

With a wistful smile, she said, “I can't believe it's almost over. I wish . . .”

“Don't say it.”

She clamped her mouth shut, feeling like she'd been kicked in the gut. But she understood—he was relieved they were almost done. She'd served her purpose.

Molly turned her back on him, walking away, trying to hold in her sadness.

Before she knew what was happening, he pulled her back to him, his face against her chest. Surprised, she held on to him, too, realizing that she couldn't leave—not if ten muscled men started pulling her away.

“If you really knew me,” he said against her skin, “you'd be glad this is ending.”

***

At a small sushi diner in suburban Green Valley, a hop, skip, and a jump away from Vegas, Sofia stirred wasabi into a dish of soy sauce with her chopsticks.

Both her and Arden's phones lay on the Formica table between them like a small bomb, both of them waiting for the cells to go off at any time.

Arden had already pushed her California roll away from her, but when the waiter stopped by the table, she picked up her chopsticks like she was going to eat more.

The chopsticks were back on her plate the next second, after the two of them were alone again.

“Molly was so good about calling before,” Arden said.

“She's still got time to check in tonight.”

“She usually calls before dinner.”

“Her dinner or ours?”

Sofia and Arden had been like two old hens these past couple of days, taking a swim in the motel pool in the mornings to get the blood flowing, doing something nongambly like visiting Lake Mead to hike or the Hoover Dam during the day, then coming back to eat and crash in bed, sleeping soundly with the knowledge that Molly was safe. Both of them still had vacation for the rest of the week, so that hadn't been a big deal. What worried them was Molly, Molly, Molly.

Arden stared out the tinted window to the dusky traffic outside, a minimall across the street. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

News to Sofia. “You mean you finally want to kill Molly, too?”

“I didn't want to before. It was all fun and games, but now . . . Maybe it's still too early to get freaked out about her.”

Once again, worst-case scenarios paraded in a surreal formation through Sofia's mind: dead Molly, sex-slave Molly, Molly in trouble in some godforsaken corner of Nevada without a cell phone or any money, totally ridden wet and hung out to dry by Cash, who'd played a long con game on them, pretending he was a decent guy when he really was not.

She and Arden had joked about those possibilities yesterday, laughing by the pool, taking guesses about what exactly was happening on Molly's big adventure, even though Sofia had joked only reluctantly, trying to have fun while not worrying. But the two of them had been less jokey this morning at the hotel's continental breakfast after Molly had left them a short text revealing her latest location on Highway 95, saying that she'd get in contact at dinner. By the time they'd gotten back from the Hoover Dam tour and come to this restaurant, Molly hadn't made that call. They'd stopped joking altogether, phoning her and getting only voice mail.