Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
G enesis…
It took me a moment to rise from my slumber. Like a submarine coming up from a deep dive, I almost returned to consciousness in stages. I was warm, pressed up against something warmer and much harder than me. I breathed in the spicy, woodsy scent that was Chainsaw and opened my eyes.
He was out , which allowed me to visually drink him in.
He had a strong, aristocratic nose that gave him a solid profile – his cheekbones high and his jaw strong beneath his ginger beard.
His hair was more brown than red, and shaved at the back and sides, but long on top.
An undercut, I think they called it. He kept it in a ponytail, most of the time, but had let it back down when he’d taken me in to shower after our trysts the night before.
A sound from the living room made me raise my head from his shoulder, which was all it took for his deep blue eyes, the color of a bright summer sky, to open up.
“Shit!” he sat up, spilling me to the bed, and scrambled off the end. I laughed a bit as I realized it was his phone ringing.
I got up and wrapped myself in the top sheet, modesty winning out, despite the fact that he’d seen all of me and then some the night before.
I leaned against the bedroom doorway and drank in the unruined line of the back of him, growing flush at the sight of his perfect ass.
He turned around and said, “Yeah, sorry, I went to bed last night and accidentally left my phone in the living room. Say that again, where was it? Yeah. Yeah, no problem. Shit goes down out that way in just about every storm, and it’s usually an easy fix.”
He smiled at me, and I smiled back, drifting into the kitchen to get a pot of coffee going. It sounded like the day job was calling.
“I’ll meet Clayton Biggs and his crew out that way. Just let me put some fuckin’ clothes on and suck down a cup of coffee, and I’ll be on my way.” He held the phone down and stared at the screen, his frown deepening. “Yeah, fuck you too,” he muttered and looked in my direction.
“Duty calls,” he said.
I nodded. “Sounds like it. How many missed calls?”
“Six,” he answered unhappily.
“Shit, you’re not in trouble, are you?”
He lifted his shoulder in a shrug and said, “Fuck ‘em if I am.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at that.
“Go get dressed. I’ll have coffee going just as soon as I can.”
“You’re a fuckin’ angel,” he said, and he gathered up some things from inside his bag, taking them into the bathroom with him.
I finished setting up the coffee and got it brewing.
He found me just a moment later, in the kitchen – one hand on the counter, the other holding up my sheet.
He turned me into his arms and said, “Drop it, please?”
“What?” I asked, looking up at him.
“The sheet. Don’t you ever hide that beautiful body from me.”
I let the fabric go, and he pulled me into his arms.
“God, you’re beautiful,” he said, and I could see in his eyes that he meant every word.
“Thank you,” I whispered, and he lowered his mouth to mine.
The kiss was just as good as it’d been the night before, maybe even more, considering this one was in the light of day, the cover of darkness stripped away, and the light bathing us in golden warmth from the kitchen skylight.
“I want you to stay in the house today for me. Can you do that?”
I nodded solemnly and said, “I want to clean anyway, and after last night? I’d rather not do too much walking. I’m hoping the delayed onset muscle soreness doesn’t wait until tomorrow to kick my ass when I need to be working.”
He chuckled and said, “Suppose I need to let you rest up before we do that again, huh?”
“You want to?” I asked carefully.
“As often and as long as I can get,” he reassured me, tipping my chin up with gentle fingers to keep me from looking away.
I smiled and said, “Sorry, I guess I’m insecure when it comes to sex and…” I hesitated, “Whatever this is,” I finished. “I don’t know the name for it.”
“We’ll figure it out in time,” he said and pecked the tip of my nose.
I smiled and nodded.
“Sounds good,” I said.
He let me go, and I could tell it was reluctantly. He fixed himself a cup of coffee and sipped at it, blew on it, and sipped again.
“Gah, hot,” he complained. I giggled. I had to.
He kissed me again, and I had to press my hands against his chest before we wound up doing it right here on the kitchen floor.
I didn’t think I’d ever been so passionate about another person in my life.
“Fuck, you’re irresistible,” he growled, and the sound alone from his lips nearly did me in.
Holy shit.
“And you’re already late,” I chastised gently.
“Mm,” he started, and I held up a finger to stop him.
“No, not fuck ‘em.”
He grinned, laughed, and tried his coffee again, sucking it down in record time and sliding the cup in my direction.
“Gotta go. I mean it. Stay inside, and I’ll be back before you know it.”
“Be careful,” I told him.
“Always,” he promised, and he went out the back door. I drifted down the back hall and locked it behind him, just as his bike fired up outside.
I gathered up my sheet, went into the bedroom, and fought Charlie to strip the bed. Once everything was in the wash, I took another shower. This time mostly to ease my sore muscles from the unexpected and unfamiliar rigorous activity the night before.
When I got out, I dressed for the day, and with nothing else to do, scrubbed my bathroom.
I hadn’t really intended to go anywhere today, but now that I was under promise not to go anywhere, all I wanted to do was get out of the house!
A knock at my front door startled me as I was rinsing the tub, and I swallowed hard.
I opened the hasp of the little hatch in the front of my door and looked out. A delivery driver stood on my stoop, and I remembered that I had that necklace coming! The emergency one!
“Hi, give me just a second to put up my cat. I don’t want him pulling a runner out the door.”
“Hey, yeah, sure – no problem.” The driver didn’t even look up from his tablet thingy, and I felt uneasy. I couldn’t really see his face, not from beneath the curved bill of his baseball hat.
I went and scooped Charlie off the couch and tossed him onto the unmade bed, closing the bedroom door before returning to the front door and unlocking it.
I took a deep breath and opened it. The young man held out his tablet for me to sign, which I did. With a smile, I took the box.
“Thank you,” I said. He gave a short, polite nod and bounded down the steps. I quickly shut the door and relocked it.
“Phew!” I muttered and went and let a yowling Charlie out of the bedroom.
I spent the next little while on my laptop at the dining room table, completing the registration of my necklace with the company and ensuring it was functional by testing it, with my phone nearby for the call, as part of the setup protocol.
Let me tell you, that button was stiff and very hard to press, which made sense. If you were going to trigger a device like this, you didn’t want to do it accidentally. You only wanted it to go off with intention.
I put it on and slipped it under my shirt. It was a pretty thing – a round disc with a peridot gem at the center serving as the thing to press. It was well-made and looked like an ordinary piece of jewelry. You would never guess its intent.
One of the things I liked about the company is that they wouldn’t even let you choose your jewelry until you were signed up. – That was the last step in the process, and they had their site security protected against taking screenshots.
I suppose if someone really wanted to be an asshole, you could take pictures of a separate screen with your phone – but I liked that they’d gone to the extra trouble to make things difficult for the jerks of the world.
I read a book for the rest of the day, made lunch when I was hungry enough for it, and listened with ears straining for the rumble of Chainsaw’s Harley.
He called me in the middle of the day to check on me, which was nice. As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t give me a window on when he might return… the nature of the job. Still, it wasn’t too late into the evening when I picked up that familiar rumble and roar at the back of the house.
I stood and went to the back door, throwing the lock and opening the door before he could even round the corner.
“Hey.” His blue eyes lit up, his smile shone like the sun coming out from behind gray clouds.
I couldn’t help but return it.
“Hey, yourself,” I murmured.
He came to me, leaning down and pressing his lips to mine in a lingering, if entirely too chaste, kiss for my tastes.
“Hungry?” I asked.
“Starving,” he affirmed, and we trailed into the house, out of the oppressive heat and humidity.
I shut the door and locked it behind us.
“Do I have time for a quick shower?” he asked.
“Of course! I still have to make the rice.”
“Cool.” He touched the side of my face and made for the living room, dropping onto one end of the couch with a lingering sigh that spoke of exhaustion.
“Long day?” I asked, returning to the small kitchen to get the rice going in my small rice cooker.
“Too long away from you,” he said, and I couldn’t help but chuckle.
“Same,” I said gently, and he twisted, looking over the back of the couch at me.
“You’re beautiful,” he stated, and I blushed all the way to the roots of my hair.
“You’re not so bad to look at yourself,” I said back, trying to make light of things. I wasn’t sure why taking compliments was so uncomfortable for me. It just was.
He got up, stretching his arms over his head, his shirt riding up and exposing the flat expanse of his stomach where his jeans hung low. I momentarily forgot what I was doing, the pan overflowing in the sink where I washed my rice, the cold water hitting my hands snapping me back to reality.
I stared down into the water, cloudy with excess starch, and carefully poured it down the drain, sparing the rice as best I could.
It was as I swished the rice around the rice cooker’s bowl for the second wash, that his hands fell onto my hips and his warmth pressed to my back. A second later, the scent of a long day spent in the punishing heat, along with the slight, acrid tang of metal and tree sap, tickled my nose.
His lips touched my shoulder, where it sloped upward into the curve of my neck, where my tank top left my skin exposed. I closed my eyes as a light, tingling wash of pleasure zinged up my neck and spilled down my back.
“Mm,” he hummed in appreciation, and the vibration of it sent a thrill through me.
I stilled, soaking in the moment.
“Been wanting to do this all day,” he growled into my ear, and let his lips trail softly against my skin.
He nuzzled behind my ear and breathed me in.
My hands slipped from the task in the sink to cover his and press them closer to me.
I twined my cold, wet fingers between his, and he wrapped his arms tighter around me, pulling me back into the shelter of his bigger body.
“I missed you, too,” I confessed, and he chuckled lightly.
“I need to get cleaned up. You keep doin’ what you’re doin’, baby. I’ll quit distracting you.”
“Let me finish this up and set the table. Then I’ll be all yours,” I said.
“I like the sound of that,” he said, and he sounded… joyous. He kissed my neck and tickled me purposely with his beard. I couldn’t help but burst out laughing and cringe from the sensation.
I hated being tickled, but somehow, from him, I didn’t mind.
He let me go and went for the bathroom, and I sighed contentedly.
I didn’t have the first clue what we were doing, or where things would go, but I couldn’t help but enjoy myself.
Whatever this was, it was comfortable in the way I had only dreamed it could be.
It was both exciting and daunting.