Just a City Boy (Midnight Train Series) (12 page)

“You’re not wrong,” Zack said. He got out and opened the door for me, since my reaching across with my left hand was looking really awkward.

“Brenda, I can’t thank you enough,” I said. I looked over my shoulder and smiled at her. She waved.

“You’re in good hands, Lulu,” she said.

I cringed. I might have to ask her to change the marquee sign. Other than the doctor, Ray was the last person to use my stage name, and the sound of him saying it made me nauseated.

Zack waved to Brenda too, and walked me up the steps.

Since it was considered a domestic violence issue, the cops didn’t have to put up police tape or take evidence or anything. Apparently Ray had cooperated, because the door looked fine.

I walked in with a little anxiety, but my apartment looked strangely normal. My teapot was on the kitchen floor, but that was the only thing out of place.

Zack said, “Wait here a minute,” and he walked further into the apartment, checking the bathroom and my bedroom. I locked my door, sliding the deadbolt home with satisfaction. Finally, Ray was out for good. Zack came back.

“All clear. Why don’t you get some rest?” he asked me.

“I’m sorry, Zack. I don’t have a sofa for you to sleep on anymore,” I felt tears forming in my eyes. What was wrong with me? Why was I crying all of a sudden? The worst part of the night was over, and I was hoping that only good things were on the horizon for me.

“I kept trying to get Ray to move out,” I said, as the tears just started rolling down my face. “Three months I’ve been trying. I told him to move out. I asked him to move out. I warned him to move out. Then I finally sold my couch so he wouldn’t have anything to sleep on!” Now that the story was coming out, I couldn’t stop the flowing words. “He slept in my bathtub and he made me pick up all the soap bottles!” Little sobs were shaking me, and Zack looked like he accidentally walked into a women’s restroom during a baby shower in the Sears lingerie department. “He slept in my b-b-bed naked!” I wailed. He approached me like a zoologist approached a rhino and patted my back softly. “He would never leave, and then he took my insurance, and he ate
all
of my bacon!” I fell into Zack’s waiting arms, and he held me while I cried it out. He didn’t need to say a word, he just held me and it was enough. It felt so wonderful to be in his arms and to know that Ray was gone and he wasn’t coming back.

Once there were no tears left, Zack walked me to my room. He made me lie down, took off my shoes and socks for me, and covered me with a thin sheet. He turned off my lamp, my overhead light and my alarm clock.

“You’re not going anywhere tomorrow,” he told me with a firm voice. I sighed shakily and nodded my head, and then he left my room and closed my door.

Where was he going to sleep? What did he think of me now? I had a busted lip, cheek the size of a softball and a broken wrist and I was crying over bacon? Oh well. Now he knew where my true priorities lay.

I tried to get comfortable, but I couldn’t exactly sleep in my torn evening gown. The fabric was heavy, and I’d sweated all kinds of perspiration in it last night. I sat up, threw off the sheet, and tried to get it unzipped in the back. I cussed.

While I had only dreamed to get to a place where Zack was undressing me, this was not the circumstance I had imagined. I took a deep breath.

“Zack?” I called.

He came instantly and entered my room.

“You okay? Did you have a nightmare already?” he asked. I thought that was a strange thing for him to ask.

“Um no? I can’t get out of this dress. I, uh, need your help please,” I said, looking down at my plush gray carpet.

He cleared his throat. “Oh okay,” he said. He came over to me and kind of raised his hands but stopped, not knowing what to do.

“There is a zipper in the back. There’s just no way…” I let my voice trail off. I stood and turned, and used my good left hand to pull my long hair away from my back and neck. I shivered in anticipation, guessing that his fingers would send electricity rippling up and down my spine like Edison’s first light bulb. I was right.

His fingers brushed against my skin, and I delighted in the thrill, as brief as it was. The zipper went all the way down to the base of my spine. My eyes popped open and I held my breath. I forgot which underwear I’d put on yesterday morning…was it my terrible holey grandma brassier with extra support? Or was it the black lacy demi bra that gave me the cleavage to rival today’s hottest model? I closed my eyes and prayed. Oh right, the cleavage. I needed cleavage to pull off this dress’ look. I sighed in relief. I would have worn my matching black panties too, not that he could see those. I still had my leggings on, which quite frankly, were beginning to make me itchy and uncomfortable. I might be able to swing getting those off myself.

I was just standing there, and he hadn’t left yet, so he must have been still standing there too, but I didn’t feel any hands on me anywhere.

“Zack?” I asked him.

“Um,” he said.

I waited.

“What else do I do?” he finally asked.

Ohhhhh. I realized he would actually need to unhook my bra too. He was just too polite to say the words.

“Um, yeah, go ahead and unhook that for me, would you?” I asked him as matter of fact as I could manage. His nearness was blowing me out of the water. I wanted to turn around and attack him so bad, but I was through with Mama’s posthumous lectures. I was not doing another single cotton-picking thing that would cause one of her finger-pointing chastisements to enter my head. No ma’am. Not turning around. Not chasing. Not being too forward. Not saying too much. I stood there.

“You probably need help with everything else too, huh?” he asked, resigned.

Oh thank God. I had to get those leggings off before I screamed for mercy.

“Please Zack. These leggings are sticking to my legs like white on rice, and they itch so bad!” I said. I remained standing with my back to him, and I felt his thumbs hook my leggings just outside my lacy panties. He had to squat down to peel those bad boys off my legs, and once he got them all the way down to my ankles, I had to hold out my left hand to his broad shoulder to balance, just so I could pull my feet out, one at a time. I was so embarrassed. Did I smell? Stupid question. Of course I smelled. I’d been running for my life, on the People Mover, at a hospital, singing under hot stage lights…Lordamercy I probably smelled like Detroit’s waste management headquarters compost bin. Just kill me now. “I’m sorry, Zack,” I said.

“What for? You haven’t done anything wrong,” he said, fiddling with the legging on my right foot. It was stuck around my toe.

“I probably stink to high heaven,” I whispered, embarrassed.

He paused with the fabric at my foot. I could hear him breathing. Was he smelling me now? Should I have just shut up? Oh my gosh yes I should have shut up! All of those years, Mama was
right
. When will I shut my darn mouth?

He yanked the legging off my foot and stood up. Gently placing his hands on my bare waist, between the open fabric of my unzipped dress, he turned me around.

“Lauren, you’re standing here in the most beautiful underwear I’ve ever seen in real life, with your gorgeous legs and your bra undone, and your luxurious hair,” he brought a hand up and played with ringlets. “And you’re worried that you don’t smell good? It’s all I can do not to throw you down on that puffy cloud of a bed and kiss you until you pass out,” he murmured.

I must have turned five shades of pink and my mouth started watering. He wanted me? I wanted him! What were we waiting for? I met his gray eyes with mine, and started to sway again. He was almost close enough…

He began to take my dress off.

First one side down over my shoulder, then the other side with my cast. He let go of the heavy crepe fabric, and it fell in a puddle of black shimmer at my feet.

And then I was just standing there before him, like an offering to the God of Army Rangers, with my demi bra barely covering what it was intended to cover, and me with my unnaturally white skin for a Texan, holding my wrist over my belly so it wouldn’t bump into things. I had to know…what did he think? I looked into his eyes again. They were dark as night, and he looked angry. I took a step back.

“What did I do?” I whispered.

“Do?” Zack repeated. He followed me a step, and brought his hands to my naked waist again. They felt hot to the touch, and big and strong. What had those hands done? What were they capable of? I closed my eyes and no longer cared if he kissed me or not. I was loving the feel of his hands just holding my waist, and then he pulled me closer, and one hand slid up my back to my shoulder, and the other hand slid down a few inches to cup my butt, and he was kissing me.

I gasped at first, and his lips overtook my own. He had a firm touch and a sure directive in mind, kissing the corners of my mouth, and lowering himself a little to get bolder. His mouth opened, and my mouth opened, and our tongues touched delicately, searching, wondering, questioning, in that ancient dance of first love wonder. He sipped at my mouth, trying the water for the first time, and I drank from his kisses, and I was all sorts of on fire from my bare feet to my weak knees to my barely covered ass all the way up to the tips of my ears. This was what Mama was warning me about all those years ago when she told me not to go riding in cars with boys.

Well Mama, I wasn’t in a car. I was in my bedroom with sexy lace underwear on with a boy, and I escorted her out of my brain so fast, my head was spinning. Or maybe it was the way he started kissing my chin and down my neck, and my collar bone.

I moaned in pleasure, and he stopped.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice ragged with unslaked want.

“What?” I asked. Was he doing the I’m sorry I kissed you we need to be friends thing? Because no.

“I forgot about your lip, did I hurt you?” he asked, his eyes soft and pleading, his expression so serious.

I chuckled. “No! No, no, no, no, no. You are not hurting me,” I whispered and went in for another kiss. Did they teach kissing in Army Ranger School? This guy was a master.

He kissed me gently, mindful of the split on the right side of my face, and then he pulled back, caressing me with his hands until they rested in neutral territory on the middle of my back. Oh great. Now he was going all Switzerland on me.

“Lauren, I really want to continue this interview. You have no idea,” he said, looking me in the eye. Actually, I kind of did have an idea, but I didn’t interrupt him. If he broke up with me, I was going to clothesline him with my wrist cast.

“You’re on pain medicine, you haven’t slept all night, and you were accosted
twice
last night, in case you don’t remember. I don’t want you to do anything that you’ll come to regret,” he said. He pulled me close again, and wrapped his arms around me, and held me as gently as a lamb.

I got all choked up.

“Oh Zack,” I said, tears coming again.

He shushed me and held me to his body. His hands stroked up and down, and I knew, I just knew, that he was thinking about what it would be like to slip his hands under my panties or let the straps of my bra fall off my shoulders, and it would be so nice, so wonderful, and I had dreams about what he could do after that, but he was right.

All of a sudden I felt like my eyelids were made out of cement; my limbs felt heavy too, and I just started to sag.

“That’s my girl,” he whispered. He helped the rest of the way, and slipped my stiff underwire all the way off my arms, navigating around my cast like an astronaut fixing the Hubble, and pretended not to notice the way my body was responding to his feral animal call of the wild. He replaced my sheet, pulled the coverlet up, and sat on top of it, preventing me from throwing it off should I decide I wasn’t too exhausted after all.

“I have no words to express how much I want you right now,” he told me, looking at me face. He leaned over and brushed some wild curls out of my face. “I thought you were beautiful the day I met you, and now that I know you better, I can’t keep my eyes off you. You’re not like anyone I’ve ever met,” he said.

I nodded. I got that a lot.

He spoke some more, of feeling unsure, of fear of the future, of something about leaving for Maryland and I was out like a light.

Chapter Nineteen

Walking out of her room was the hardest thing he’d done in the last year. His body was singing love songs and drinking tequila shots, trying everything under the sun to get him to go back and take care of business. But what he wanted with Lauren had nothing to do with business.

To him, Lauren was all about sunshine on a cloudy day, happy chatter in a room full of strangers, laughter instead of awkward discomfort. She’d given him all of those things. His body wanted momentary satisfaction, but his heart wanted something longer lasting. He wondered if he could get her to see it the same way.

He looked around her apartment, and saw the bags in the front room. There was a rectangle smashed into the carpet where the couch must have been. He smiled thinking about what she’d said about trying to get rid of the loafer. Ray’s bags still lay scattered about, and Zack had no problem stuffing the clothes and things back into the bags and setting them all outside the door. He didn’t want Lauren seeing any reminders of that low-life in her place.

While he was awake, he tidied up for her too, replacing the teapot on the stove, wiping up the bit of water that had puddled on the floor, and rinsing out the teacup. He found the tea in the cupboard, and noted the honey on the counter. He knew what he was making her as soon as she got up. He found her novel and read the back blurb, smiling.
The Patriot and the Princess
was about a bookworm falling for a national hero. Would their past ruin their future? Would their love withstand the test of trial by fire?

He didn’t know why, but that novel had his heart melting. A woman who read romance novels had to have hope for lasting relationships. He didn’t know why her relationship with Ray went south, before he turned into a possessive jerk, but he hoped he could be worthy of Lauren’s love and loyalty.

He found some pillows and a big quilt in the hall closet, and made himself a pallet on the floor. He’d slept in worst places, and had no problem collapsing on her plush carpet.

He needed to sleep when he could, because unless he missed his guess, she would wake sometime in the night with nightmares. He would be there to comfort her and hold her until the terror passed. Maybe there was a purpose to his PTSD. What if the reason he got a severe case was just so he could help Lauren when she needed him? It was a nice thought, a productive thought. He could hang on to that and make use of it.

About three hours later, he heard sniffling and moaning. Sure enough, when he pressed his ear to her door, he could hear muffled crying. He walked in and lay beside her, on top of the covers.

“I’m sorry, I woke you,” she said between sobs.

He wrapped a strong arm around her and told her to shush.

“I’m here. I know what it’s like, trust me. Go ahead and cry. No one is getting by me, Lauren baby,” he said. And no one did.