Between the Sheets (6 page)

Five years of pent-up emotion threatened to come barreling through. I broke the kiss, breathing hard. His unfocussed expression amazed me, as if the passion riding me had grabbed him just as hard.

Voices from the trail broke open our mood. Randy’s eyes narrowed. Both of us stiffened. He groaned and rested his forehead on my collarbone.

“We should get to the outlook in another mile,” P. Kirk Ringdahl said, echoed by a choir of Sues. Because of course Kirk should wander by. Obviously.

“Doesn’t he have a class to teach or something?” I whispered.

“Or somebody else’s day to ruin?”

Randy didn’t move, and I didn’t move, and after a while the voices faded.

“I don’t think they saw us,” I said, though my visual field was limited to the trees overhead and a certain dragon tattoo.

“Doesn’t matter.” Randy sat up, mouth tight. He grabbed for his glasses and shoved them on. “We should probably get back.”

More than a little confused by where the act ended and his true interest began, I reached for my blouse. “Okay, yeah.”

On our way back to the cabins, the birds made more noise than we did. Randy left me at my door, saying he’d see me at the concert. I had a whole lot of curdled naughty to deal with, and decided I’d shower and go find Krista. She’d either straighten me out or confuse things further, but at least she’d listen.

Krista used a damp towel to wipe the steam off the tiny bathroom mirror. “With that kind of history, no wonder the guy’s a little flaky.”

“Right? Every time I think he might actually like me, something happens and we start play-acting again.” I tightened the second towel under my armpits and went out into the cabin’s stuffy main room. We had the door shut and the curtains drawn so we could walk around undressed without giving all the other music teachers a show.

Krista stepped into the room, tying the belt of her cute little vintage kimono wrap. “So? I mean, this isn’t a long-term deal anyway, right? Get laid and get out.”

I bent to dig through my duffel bag and the towel dropped to the floor. Frustrated, I just let it lie there. “It’s like the only reason he’s doing this is to jerk Kirk around.”

“Again, so? After tomorrow you never have to see him again.”

Somehow the thought made me a little nauseated. Randy had an appealing, grown-up kind of confidence, like he’d seen enough of life to separate the wheat from the bullshit, and the more time I spent with him, the more time I wanted to.

I dropped onto my bunk, hands resting between my knees. We were supposed to go watch three award-winning choirs perform, one from each age range, and while I normally loved to hear kids sing, my fountain of enthusiasm had turned into a murky puddle.

“Aw, don’t listen to me if it’s going to make you droopy. You know I’m only good at the fun part.” Krista eased into the bathroom. “If a guy starts to have actual feelings, I’m gone.”

I stood and slowly brought my clasped hands behind my neck, arching my lumbar spine into the stretch. I let my head drop forward and used my wrists to give it an extra pull. Krista was right about one thing. I needed to get laid, and get out.

“Geez, I never knew you were such a nudist. Go put on something cute,” Krista called from the bathroom.

I grabbed a pair of yoga pants from my bag, along with a stretch lace top. As a concession, I slipped into the pair of kitten-heel sandals from Target. I pulled my hair into a short ponytail and put on a gold chain necklace and small hoop earrings. The teachers, and Krista, and Randy, were going to have to live with my choices.

She popped out of the bathroom wearing a pair of pedal-pusher jeans and a blouse with the collar turned up. Since we were both decent, I opened the door and the curtains. A little breeze came off the water, replacing the musty cabin air with salt. Krista’s makeup ritual was more elaborate than mine, so I had time to kill. I sat cross-legged on my bunk and reached for the
Cosmo
magazine. It naturally opened to the pertinent article.

“Stupid J-Bone said his plans had changed
again
, and now he can meet us out in Langley tomorrow.” Krista leaned into the mirror, mascara brush in hand. “But when he canceled I made plans with Robbie.” The brush slipped. “Shit.” She turned to me, wiping away a smudge with the tip of her finger. “So now I can’t decide if I should tell one of them not to come, and if so, which one. Or maybe I should bag on both of them and take my chances meeting somebody new.”

I loved Krista like a sister, but her rotating cast of male companions exhausted me. “Maybe we should just go hear the band play and let nature take its course.”

“We’re going to go hear a band play? Where?” A male voice from the doorway startled me. Randy stood right outside. He knocked against the door frame a couple of times and grinned at me. I folded the magazine and shoved it under the pillow, my cheeks way hotter than they needed to be.

“Langley. Tomorrow night.” Krista raised her chin and stroked her mascara, a teensy smirk the only evidence of her intent to cause trouble.

“I thought the conference ended tomorrow afternoon,” he said.

“It does.” I stood, half thinking of greeting him with a quick kiss. Actually, I had to stand because really I had an overwhelming visual of what kind of tattoo he might have at the end of his treasure trail and sitting on a bed seemed like a really bad idea.

Damned
Cosmo.

“We’re staying an extra night so we can hear the Blues Revivalists play over in Langley.” I didn’t do any kissing and squashed the visualizing as best I could. “You should come with us.”

Did I really just ask a guy out?

His grin softened. “That’d be cool.” It took him three steps to invade my personal space, and when he got there, he ran a fingertip down the side of my cheek.

I smiled despite myself. Turning into his hand was just too easy.

“Are you staying here the extra night?” he asked.

I shook my head, brushing his knuckles with my lips. This—whatever it was—between us wasn’t going to last, but temporary didn’t mean I had to give up on right now. “We’ve got a reservation in Langley.”

He cupped my cheek with his palm. “Might be too late to get one myself. Can I crash with you?”

The elevator dropped out from under my tummy. “Sure.”

“Get a room,” Krista intoned. She came through the door and tossed her makeup bag in her suitcase. “C’mon, lovers. It’s time to go admire Jessica Freeman’s fabulous fillies.”

Randy bumped my forehead with his and I moaned. Kids choirs were
so
not where I wanted to be. With just a little more prodding from Krista, we all headed over to the lodge.

The best part about the concert was sitting next to Randy, and the best part about dinner was my anticipation of dessert.

And I’m not talking ice cream.

Actually, the dinnertime entertainment wasn’t bad, either. While working on our leathery lasagna, we were treated to the Kirk and Jessica Show, which involved fawning and giggling and at least one masculine sigh. The whole production got an under-the-table round of applause. For his big finish Kirk kissed her right in front of the fruit punch.

“He has all the technique of a mother bird delivering a worm to her chicks,” Krista said in my ear. I had to walk out of the dining hall to keep from embarrassing myself.

After dinner, Krista borrowed my car keys and took off. She’d renegotiated things with Robbie and was meeting him in Langley for some unspecified activity I really didn’t want to know too much about. Which left me and Randy.

Standing between our two cabins.

Where the setting sun was turning the ocean from aqua to navy to indigo.

Holding hands.

“So … goodnight?” he said.

Disappointment nailed me. “I should go in and do some reading.”
Because Sex Divas so often spend the night alone with a good book.

“Me too.”

Neither of us moved.

Time for me to be bold. Confident. Direct. And maybe try a compliment. According to the fine folks at
Cosmo,
A Little Sugar Goes a Long Way
.

“Guess what. I lied.” I faced him, which was an awkward choice because the faded amber light reflected off his glasses, hiding his eyes. “I don’t have a book to read. I was kind of …” I tugged gently on his shirt, right above where it tucked into his jeans. “Hoping you’d show me …” Nerves temporary disabled my ability to speak. I cleared my throat and pressed on. “Your tattoo is so amazing, and you said you had others.”

He wrapped his hands around my waist and drew me closer to his body. “I don’t show them off to just every girl.”

Though I couldn’t read his eyes, his firm hold and his half smile and the little gap between his lips told me he liked where I was headed. I slid my fingers into the front pockets of his jeans. “Can we go to your cabin? In case Krista and Robbie have a fight and she has to crash here.”

His smile broadened, but he didn’t give me an answer. The pause lasted long enough to make my heart stumble. Maybe I’d misjudged the situation, totally misinterpreted the cocoon of tension and heat wrapped around us whenever we were alone. All right, no. I’m not an idiot. The zoom-y sensations were real. There had to be some reason he was holding me off. I took a deep breath, struggling to say something lame to get us both off the hook.

And then I held that breath, because his lips locked onto mine like I was a fountain and he was a thirsty, thirsty man. Holding me in place with a hand to the back of my head, he caught me in a torrent of fierce kisses, tearing at my lips, drowning me in sensation. I gasped, which gave him an opening, and his tongue found mine. I tasted smoke and promise and savory man, and I returned his energy with a dividend, cascades of pent-up emotion surging through the connection between us.

When he finally broke the kiss, I sagged against him, my belly pressed against his, his hardness rubbing my thigh. “Your cabin, then?” It took me a couple of tries to get the words out, and when they came, my voice was a haggard whisper.

He didn’t even bother answering, just clutched my hand and dragged me along the path. We stopped on his front porch.

“How come you don’t have a roommate?” I asked, nerves making me pick at details.

Randy fumbled with the key for a moment, then pushed open the creaky old door. “The guy from Roosevelt canceled.”

He kicked off his shoes before going in, so I followed suit. Then we were inside, facing each other in the dusky twilight and saltwater air. His cabin had a dresser against the wall at the foot of one of the bunks and a small table under the window. We both sat, as if now that things were getting serious we needed a break before taking the plunge.

“I’ve got some sodas in the cooler,” he said.

“Could really use a shot.” I spoke mostly to myself, then pressed my palms together in front of my mouth when I remembered why he’d offered soda instead of something stronger.

Resting his palms on the table, he gave me a rueful shrug. “Nope.”

I covered his hands with my own. “Guess you’ll just have to deal with my nerves, then.”

Rueful gave way to naughty, and he flipped his hands over to grasp mine. He only let go long enough to slide his glasses off and toss them on the table. He looked younger without them, stronger, as if he could see deeper without his wire-framed shield.

“So you know my sordid story,” he said. The only other sound was the steady wash of the waves running over the beach. “What’s yours? You’re too pretty to be single.” He coughed a little after he spoke, clearing smoke out of his lungs.

I coughed, too, or rather choked.
Too pretty to be single? Right.
“Creighton Kleig.”

“Kleig? The piano guy?”

“Yeah, you know him?”

Randy shrugged. “I did a few gigs with him, before he left for L.A. He’s kind of an asshole.”

“We were engaged.” I let the thought peter out.

He rubbed a knuckle through the shadow of a beard on his chin. “Didn’t he, like, dump some girl at the altar?”

“Well, technically I hadn’t left the hair salon, but close enough.”

“You?” He squeezed my hand and looked me full in the face.

I could only meet his gaze for a second before I had to pull away. This was the big scary black hole I’d let dominate my life for the past five years, four months, and I’d lost track of how many days. I swallowed hard and squared my shoulders. “Cost my Dad a crap-ton of money.”

“Shit.” He drummed a finger on the table. “Well, shit.”

“I have some trust issues.” I hoped the cliché would help us laugh it off.

Neither of us even chuckled.

“Well,” he spoke on a sigh, “if dealing with MP and Vaughan has taught me nothing else, it’s that if I say I’m going to do something, I do it.”

Saying the words out loud made the hole smaller somehow, shrunk it, made it less dramatic and more of a manageable sadness. I laughed, breathing deep, surrounded by the combination of sea air and cigarettes I’d come to associate with Randy. “How is it you’re still single? Guys who call when they say they will are rare.”

“And girls who don’t freak out when a guy tells her he went through recovery and has kids with a lesbian couple are also rare.”

“Yeah, well … wait.” I jerked on his arm, using it to leverage myself to standing. “You didn’t tell me they were your kids.”

I closed the distance between us, and he shifted around so I could plant myself between his knees. It was a toss-up which of us had the naughtier grin.

He put his hands on my butt, holding me in place. “Is that a deal-breaker?” His steady massage stirred up all kinds of heat. “Because jacking off on a gurney behind a curtain in a clinic, well, it’s not the same as…”

As what?
All of a sudden I couldn’t think of much besides the more conventional way to make babies, and the way he kept stroking my ass made it pretty plain his mind had headed in a similar direction. A tiny thread of excitement got caught in my throat.

This was
it
.

Though I’d only known Randy for a day or so, I’d been waiting a good long time to get to this moment. Sitting in his little cabin, his eyes as dark as the forest at night, the tension vibrating from him resonated with the mix of fear and excitement dancing through me. The regular rhythm of the waves gave us a soundtrack, and for a long moment we paused, taking each other in.