Behind the Pines (The Gass County Series Book 3) (6 page)

“No, I’m not going to. My self-discipline is better than this,” he mumbled into the pillow, not wanting the sound to travel in the vents through the old house. His mind stirred and his fingers ran from his head down his chest to land on the comforter between his legs. He shook his head at his useless attempt to control his mind: he had an erection, and it was all because of Sunshine. He found it impossible to stop imagining what the front of her body might look like compared to her back. If her skin was just as pale, if there was a dusting of cinnamon-colored freckles across her chest, and if her nipples were the same rosy colors as her lips. His mind didn’t let up and there was no use fighting what was coming, instead he reached under the comforter and found his cock, hard and throbbing. With just a few strokes, he swallowed hard and imagined it being Sunshine’s hand instead of his, or even better, her mouth.

“Fuck,” he hissed and released the grip of his cock, letting it rest in his hand, knowing if Sunshine had been in his bed, the sheet around him would have stayed dry, and it would have been her mouth that would have been wet.

Chapter Nine

Brody was as handsome in profile as he was head-on, and while she couldn’t resist a glance in his direction, she made sure it was a short one before she shifted her gaze and looked out the windshield. Being in the same vehicle, sitting side by side, ratcheted her senses to a level of madness that nearly took her breath away. She’d noticed it before, during the visit at Hayley’s salon, when she’d sat down in the chair next to Brody, who’d been having his hair cut. Even being in the same room with Brody was like walking on hot, slippery lava, and when he’d turned to look at her with those eyes and said nothing but a hello, it had felt as if she’d grabbed hold of a live wire or poked a finger in a light socket.

He turned at the next light and rolled into a stop at the animal hospital. “This is your stop,” he’d said without looking over, his eyes focused on something at the horizon, his fingers drumming the steering wheel.

“Thanks for dropping me off. I’ll be off your back in no time.” Sunshine closed the door to the cruiser and got Brutus out from the backseat, who was ever so happy to sniff the air and the occasional pee stain at the sidewalk outside the veterinarian’s office. She walked around the cruiser and allowed enough time to let Brutus get accustomed to the environment and to relieve himself before she opened the door to the clinic.

“Sunshine.” Brody’s voice stopped her in her tracks and she grabbed a tighter hold on Brutus’s leash, the dog already halfway into the building.

“Yes?” she mustered, wrapping the leash around her wrist more securely.

“He’ll be fine. He’s a big dog with thick skin, in more than one way,” he said, and pushed his sunglasses up on his nose before placing the transmission into drive and pulling out from the curb.

“You too, I hope. Sorry,” she answered, feeling the light prickle of heat starting at her neck and blossoming on her cheeks.

She knew what he meant, but a dog, no matter the size, running across an icy pond in the late afternoon, just to go through the sharp edges and bathe in the cold water, could have hurt himself. She remembered how her voice had carried from the shore of the small lake, across the field, and into the backyard of Brody’s residence. She’d been lucky he’d been out back cleaning up the mess Brutus had made of his mother’s gnome garden, pushing over figurines and fairy houses on his quest to chomp up a squirrel that had had the nerve to run down the trunk of a pine tree and onto the largest of statues.

While out for a jog, Brody had seen her by the shore waving her arms frantically. Something was not right. Then he’d seen the dark figure out on the ice trying to hold on to a piece of cracking ice, and he’d sped up. He’d worked shirtless, rimmed in the last dazzle of sunlight, with his worn-out jeans riding low on his lean hips. She’d swallowed hard at the sight, palms sweaty, and not just because of Brutus’s situation. Her heart pounded with a longing she didn’t want to acknowledge, let alone give any more thought. He was a cop. She knew the type. She knew to stay away.

Yet her mind said otherwise, or was it her heart? Now
that
is a man. He’d pulled Brutus’s large body up on the ice and by scooting back on his bottom with the soaked dog in his lap he made it back safely to the shore. With a sigh, he retrieved the blue-and-red-checkered shirt from the shore and pushed his arms into its long sleeves, but left it open. The hard muscles of his abdomen rippled as he completed the process. Goosebumps spreading across his skin, prickling his nipples into hard rocks. She had a hard time keeping her focus solely on her dog, but when he looked over and noticed she was staring, he’d smiled and nodded to Brutus, telling her to keep a closer eyes on him.

Maybe staying in a rented room in town had its perks over going back to the trailer.

Chapter Ten

“It’s been so long since we’ve just had girl-to-girl time, you and I,” Hayley giggled and elbowed Sunshine in the ribs as they were sweeping up strands of hair from the floorboards of Hayley’s rustic salon. The place was straight out of a Country Western romance novel where wood mixed with flowers and bull horns on the walls. The woman wasn’t exactly an angel, but Holy God could she cut hair.

“Hardly a way I’d choose to spend the evening if I’d ever planned a get-together with friends,” Sunshine muttered, wiping off another drop of sweat making its way down her brow.

“Oh, come on!” Hayley shouted, crouched underneath a leather-covered seat, hand sweeping the metallic pedals. “We haven’t seen each other in way too long, and I’m sorry I didn’t bring you over to Rick’s for a drink.” Suddenly she stood, rubbed her long fingers with nails decorated in bright pink across her chin and smiled like the devil. “But I do have something else.” She smirked and crossed the floor to the front door, pulled the blinds shut and rechecked that the door was closed. “Follow me to the kitchen. I have something that would suit us just perfect after an evening like this.”

Sunshine held tight to her broom and watched her friend turn the corner into the kitchenette that held nothing more than a small fold-out table attached to the wall and two white chairs. A small fridge, a microwave, and a sink demanded space along the wall. Hayley was standing with her back against the doorway as Sunshine placed her broom in the corner and sat herself down at the table, admiring the miniscule angel at its center clutching a comb to her chest.

“This is the cutest little thing, Hayley. Where did you get it?”

Hayley glanced over her shoulder and smiled. “My mom gave me that the last time she was here from Austin. I’m her only girl and her angel. She might have also heard the possible rumor of not being an angel in this town, with the boys I mean.” She sighed, knowing how much the senior knitting group had disliked her too-short shorts and tight top, promoting fifteen-minute haircuts to all men of the senior center one morning.

Sunshine let her fingers touch the white porcelain of the figurine before a tall glass of white appeared at her hands, a lemony aroma filling the room.

“What’s this?” she asked sniffing the drink in her hand.

“Lemon drop martini, but in a tall glass. I don’t have the proper glassware for these things here, but tastes just the same, if not better, in a tall glass.” Hayley raised hers for a toast and waited for Sunshine to treat her to the same honor.

“To a long week of meager earnings and lots of back pain.”

Hayley laughed, clinked her glass with Sunshine’s, and took a long sip of the cold drink, a world of citrus and burning vodka coming alive in Sunshine’s mouth, and she breathed out a sigh of contentment.

“This,” she said to Hayley, “is exactly what I needed.”

One hour and a second empty glass later, Sunshine and Hayley rested their backs against the wall, swirling their glasses in their hands.

“Oh, Sunshine, you’re in love with Officer Jackass.” Hayley giggled and went up to mix another drink. Sunshine, too relaxed to care about the effects, sighed heavily and closed her eyes.

“How does anyone know if they’re in love, Hayley?”

“Haven’t you been before?”

“Yeah, but that wasn’t right in the end.”

“Well, maybe this is?”

“But he drives me nuts, Hayley. Crazy. He’s cold, bitter, and never smiles. Yet . . .” She sighed again and accepted the drink from Hayley. “Yet, he makes me want to do things I haven’t thought about in a long, long time.”

“Oh, how romantic,” Hayley snickered and placed a bag of potato chips at the table’s center.

“Hayley,” Sunshine said, grabbing a handful of chips, trying to stuff her mouth into muteness.

“Yes, dear,” Hayley answered and sipped on the drink in her hand.

“I need to get fucked. Hard.”

“I love that you say what you mean, Sunshine. This is why we need to drink martinis more often.”

“I’ve seen Brody in his underwear and I could lick that body from head to toe, use him to my own fulfillment.”

“He’s been single for so long I have a hard time seeing how he would even know what to do with a woman.”

“I would teach him, of course. Tell him where he should touch me, where he should . . .” Sunshine swallowed more of the elixir Hayley had poured in her glass and witnessed the glass in her hand turn into two.

“Yes, go on,” Hayley said, a slight slur in her voice, an unsteady hand grabbing for chips in the open bag.

“Get licked. Fuck, his mouth on me would be my highest wish. Tie me up, do all sorts of dirty talking, and taste me. All of me . . . also, I think I am drunk.” Sunshine looked across the table to find Hayley resting her head in her hand, glossy eyes staring back at her.

“Maybe we should become lesbians, Sunshine. At least we’d know what to do with each other. Are you lesbian, aren’t all hippies a bit homo?”

Sunshine laughed and emptied her drink just to have Hayley replace it with another from the pitcher standing on the countertop. Sunshine stood and aimed for another glass in the cupboard, hoping a tall glass of tall water would even out the amount of alcohol hidden in the drink. It was as evil as it was delicious. As she reached up, Hayley pulled at her arm slightly, and in one smooth move kissed Sunshine’s lips. Partly opened, mostly in shock. 

“So, are you a lesbian?” Hayley asked as casually as asking the brand of Sunshine’s laundry detergent and went back to pouring another drink for herself. “Because, you know, that kiss right there wasn’t bad.” She went to sit back down on the chair and eyed Sunshine from a short distance. Sunshine took a deep breath, gulping down the sudden intrusion in her mouth, and sat back down at the table. The glass of water was forgotten, and rightly so.

“Only checking out the field. Keeping my options open, that’s all.” Sunshine answered with a satisfied smile and let the tip of her fingers slide across her lips. They sat quiet for a moment, lingering in each other’s foreign taste. Sunshine tasted Hayley’s strawberry chapstick on her lips and as she licked her bottom lip, she noticed Hayley staring, something that made her giggle. In a haste to calm her jitters, her hand slammed into the drink Hayley had placed on the table and it rolled off the table onto the floor. Nothing but colorful, sharp splinters of glass remained of what had been.

“Are you okay?” Hayley stood in a rush and held on to the side of the table to steady herself. “Don’t touch anything, I’ll—”

Hayley didn’t have time to finish her sentence as Sunshine pulled her hand away from the sharp pieces on the floor and, with a slight yet growing buzz, grabbed the seat of her chair in order to not fall forward into the shiny mess.

“I believe I cut myself,” she said quietly and stared down at the colorful piece sitting tall and proud in the thick muscle at the bottom of her thumb.

Hayley took a few uneven steps over to the corner of the room where Sunshine had left the broom and with it in hand swiped away the most noticeable pieces of glass around Sunshine’s feet.

“I texted Brody earlier,” she confessed in a slight slur. “Let him know you needed a ride home.”

“When did you do that? I’ve been in this room with you the entire time.”

“You stared long and well into your glass earlier, admiring its speckles of color. You were very cute, and far-off.” Hayley sat on her knees at Sunshine’s feet, holding Sunshine’s hand. Before Sunshine had a chance to interfere, which she blamed on Hayley’s strong drinks, Hayley pulled out the fat piece of glass from her hand, wrapped the hand in a towel from one of many well-stocked shelves lining the wall next to the chair, and pulled Sunshine to her feet.

“Thanks,” Sunshine muttered in slight shame, for not only ruining a glass but also their evening. With her one good hand, she held the wrapped one to her chest.

“No worries, friend,” Hayley answered, and looked with soft, kind eyes at Sunshine’s face and kissed her. Again. Oh, she kissed her all right. Gentle lips, soft and sweet as marshmallow. Sunshine and opened her mouth, letting the heat of Hayley’s breath mix with hers. Kissing Hayley was not like kissing a man. Hayley’s mouth was smooth, competent, and tasted of woman.

Sunshine wasn’t sure how long they’d stood there. Hayley’s sweet, competent tongue to Sunshine’s virgin one. Sunshine stood frozen in the moment, feeling. Hayley’s warm hands slowly ran down Sunshine’s back to cup her bottom, squeezing, pulling Sunshine closer. A thousand thoughts ran through Sunshine’s mind, and she was suddenly not sure why she’d found men, exclusively, attractive. This, she thought, felt good. No, scratch that, absolutely amazing.