53. Chapter 53
Naked on the cold linoleum, Theresa reached into the cupboard behind her and pulled out a dusty bottle of whiskey.
“Weird,” she said, testing the door. “I swore this was broken.”
Jason took the bottle from her and tried reading the label in the dark.
“It’s something my dad was saving,” Theresa told him. “I can’t think of anything better worth saving it for.”
She stood, grabbed two glasses off the drying rack, and sat back down, draping a bare leg across Jason’s knee. He opened the bottle and poured a few fingers into each glass.
“Smells good.” They clinked glasses and sipped. Whiskey mingled with the taste of Theresa on his tongue. “How long ago did you say they…”
“The accident? Just over three years,” she said, and Jason set his hand on her leg. “Should we move this to the bedroom?”
He leaned over and kissed her. “No, I want you right here.”
“Where do you go, anyway?” she asked. “When you ride.”
“Depends on the day.”
“Any places I’d like?”
“Probably not.” He squeezed her calf and pulled her closer. She had the softest skin he’d encountered in all his miles, and he wondered if it tanned or stayed the same peaches-and-cream all summer. “I wouldn’t want you to see some of the dives I’ve ended up in.”
“Now you’re loaded, as long as nothing happens to that check before you put it in the bank. You can find better places.”
“Why are you so worried about the check?” he laughed. It had scared him at first too. She always tiptoed around his bag as if the check at the bottom was going to reach out and bite her. “Nothing’s going to happen to it.”
“It could get lost. This place could start on fire. Someone could steal it. You don’t know. It’s driving me nuts just sitting there.”
“Why? If something happens, I’ll have Whitcock cut me a new one.”
“I don’t know about you, but I’ve never had ten million dollars lying around on the floor.”
“Now that would scare me. It’s just a piece of paper, T.”
T. It slipped off his tongue.
She said after a beat, “No one’s ever called me T.”
“What did your folks call you?”
“Terry, sometimes.”
“You want me to call you Terry?”
“No. T is good.”
She sipped her whiskey, hiding her smile behind the glass as if she was shy about a name, when they were naked and Jason had spent about twenty minutes with his head between her legs.
“Me too,” he said. “T.”
“And it’s not just a piece of paper,” she insisted. “It’s a very expensive piece of paper I wish you’d put in the bank already.”
He knew he should, but he didn’t want to do it here. Once this rendezvous was over, she’d make it impossible for him to come back. At this rate, there wouldn’t be much of the map left where he was welcome, except places that were too swampy, too wet, or too cold to ride.
When he left, it would be forever.
Forever. He hated that f word.
“I will,” he said.
“Good. And then what?”
“What do you mean?”
“You have life-changing money, Jason.”
He finished the whiskey in his glass and refilled it. “What would you do with it?”
“I don’t know,” she sighed. “Most people would travel the world or become an actor or write books—”
“Write books? That’s not a bad idea.”
“I’ve never been anywhere or done anything. What would I write about? You, on the other hand? You’ve been places. You’ve…done things.”
“Not anything anyone wants to read about.”
“You could…write about Rosie.”
She found ways to bring up the tattoo on his chest every night, as if he’d finally tell her what Rosie inked over his heart meant.
He doubted she’d believe it was from his favorite Dion song, a single lyric he wore like a badge to remind him that he could have his favorites—like Billy and Maggie and now Theresa—and still move onto the next. Still be free to roam around.
She traced the pink letters and suggested, “Smut for prison inmates.”
“I’ll give you smut,” he said, laughing. “Come over here and give me something to write about.”
She laughed and thrashed in his arms, spilling whiskey down her chest. He licked from her breasts to her throat, and from her throat to her mouth, sucking the sweet liquor from her tongue until she giggled and pulled away, telling him how much the pervs in prison were going to love his work.
“I’m serious. Instant bestseller,” she said.
“The only problem is I don’t want any other men jerking off to stories about you.”
Jason sat back against the cabinets and realized it was true. He didn’t. There wasn’t anyone on this earth worthy of her body, himself included.
“That’s the sweetest thing any man’s ever said to me,” she said with a light, flirty voice. He pinched her thigh, and she squealed and drew her legs up to her chest. “I mean it. You’re a regular poet, Jason.”
“Christ, you’re a pain the ass,” he teased. She was a pain in the ass, and he loved it.
“You really want to know what I’d do?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Do I?”
“I’d buy a big house in the country, close to water. I want to sit outside and watch the birds…and read my prison smut in private.”
He groaned. “You’ll pay for that.”
Jason sucked hard on a nipple, drawing another squeal out of her.
She tossed back the rest of her drink and asked, “You really want something to write about?”
Theresa curled a hand in his mussed-up hair and climbed in his lap. He finished his whiskey and set the glass on the floor.
“If I had ten million dollars, I’d buy that big house,” she said with a quick kiss to his lips. She reached down and guided his dick between her thighs, but barely let the tip inside. “And I’d go places.”
“Where would you go?”
“Anywhere.” She fell over him, taking him one inch at a time. “Everywhere.”
“Christ.” He gripped her hips and worked her down his shaft, watching his length slowly disappear. “More.”
It was a plea, and she sank deeper until she was fully seated, her warmth closing around him.
“Tell me more,” he coaxed, unable to hide the strain in his voice.
Theresa held her breath as she found a rhythm that buried him inside her with every twist of her hips. He clutched the soft flesh of her thighs and moved with her.
“I want to see the coast,” she said.
“Which one, honey?”
Her lips trembled. “All of them.”
“That’s good. Where else?”
“The redwoods. Big fucking trees.”
“Big fucking trees,” he grunted. “I’ve seen ’em.”
“I want you to take me to the woods—”
He lowered his head to her nipple and sucked it between his lips. She gasped and her rhythm stuttered, dropping her deep into his lap.
“Fucking Christ,” Jason hissed, kissing his way to the other nipple. “The redwoods?”
“Yes, Jason. Take me to the redwoods and take me.”
She was shaking, close to coming. It took a practiced, iron will to hold himself together at the breathy sound of his name on her lips. It wouldn’t take much to finish her off. His fingers on her clit, or…
Jason spread her ass cheeks and traced a finger between them. She gasped, and it was a surprised, choking sound, an I-can’t-believe-he-did-that-and-I can’t-believe-I-loved-it kind of cry.
“Where?” she asked, her voice shrill and cracking. “Where else would you take me, Jason?”
He was about to take her somewhere he was certain Theresa had never been.
Her mouth opened in a silent moan as he slowly slid one finger inside her ass.
When he stopped at his first knuckle, the cry she’d been holding back spilled out of her chest. He let her get used to him touching her there before urging her to keep going.
She didn’t go buck wild on him. She did something even more beautiful.
Theresa closed her eyes and took her time, as if relishing the feel of his dick and finger filling her with each slow, deep thrust. Her chest fell as she sank onto him, her breath hitching at the bottom when she was stretched and full and being touched as far inside as he could reach, and her lungs filled on a gasp as she lifted her hips and emptied.
Before she sank onto him again.
“I’ll take you,” he told her. “In the redwoods. Against a big fucking tree.”
“Yes,” she whimpered.
“Come on my dick and my hand, T,” he said.
She was shaking so hard it was a fucking shock she could still speak.
“Where else?” she managed to say.
“Anywhere, honey.”
The first beats of her orgasm squeezed his dick and finger, and Jason let himself go with her.
“Anywhere?” she cried, quaking around him.
“Every-fucking-where.”