Chapter Nineteen
There was a lot of traffic in Cox’s head, and no one in there directing it. Autumn stood before him, looking up at him with eyes both fretful and curious. Her wrist was still caught in his grip. He had to figure out what the fuck was going on in his head.
He’d stopped her from chasing after her boss. The words that had come from his mouth had suggested that he was worried for her safety—and he was; that shithead was behaving like a bratty middle-schooler, and he’d already assaulted her once—but the real truth was he’d grabbed for her without thinking. She’d been ready to run away, and he’d had to stop her. If there had been any thought at all in his gesture, it had been only stop her.
She’d stopped. The boss was gone, it looked a lot like he meant not to come back, to leave Autumn behind, and she was standing still, waiting for him to make sense of why she was.
Like a traffic cop herself, she got his thoughts moving in a more orderly fashion. Casting an irritated look at the road, she sighed impatiently. “Well, I’m going to have to find a new way home, apparently. What a jerk.”
At some point, Cox had noticed that Autumn didn’t really cuss. An occasional ‘damn’ or ‘hell,’ maybe an ‘ass,’ but rarely anything more colorful. She wasn’t a prude, didn’t twitch at his or any of the Horde’s much more robust collection of obscenities, but she didn’t use them herself. He found it curious.
“D’you need to go earlier than you planned?” he asked.
As if the answer could be found here at the groundbreaking, Autumn slipped her wrist from his hold and looked around. Cox looked, too. Her boss’s tantrum had cut the ceremony itself short and subdued the crowd for a minute or two, but no more than that. The event was shifting into party mode—people had wandered away from the dais to stand in line for a beer, or to lead their kids to the play area, or were gathered in small, friendly groups to chat—and likely to gossip.
“I honestly don’t know,” Autumn eventually said. Her voice took on a dreamy softness as she continued, like she was thinking aloud more than conversing with him. “Part of me thinks I should get to the airport as fast as I can and try to talk to him, but most of me feels exhausted at that thought. Chase has never been mad at me like that, and I cannot begin to guess what mischief he will wreak while I’m away—but I know him well enough to know he will be trying to wreak mischief. I’ve seen him when he feels he’s been disrespected, and it’s not pretty. I just don’t know if it’s too late to stop him.” Her next sigh was thick with weariness. “Right now, I just feel ... over it.”
“Then stay.”
As soon as those two words were out of his mouth, Cox slammed his lips closed. They sounded like an invitation so much bigger than he’d meant. He’d meant today, tomorrow, not forever. This was why he didn’t like to talk: a measly two words could hold far more meaning than he could control.
Autumn clearly heard the echo of that vast invitation. She tipped her head to one side and squinted up at him. “Stay?”
He took the chance to clarify. “I mean, you’re booked at the inn for two more nights, yeah?”
She took a beat to process the correction; he watched as she did. Her head came up straight again, and a small, wry smirk played at a corner of her pretty mouth. “Yeah—assuming I still have the reservation. I never checked in last night.”
“Shannon knows why. You’ve still got your room.”
Again, she looked down the road as if she expected her boss to pull his head out his ass and return. The only traffic, however, was the usual scattered passage of country vehicles into and out of their little town.
“Good thing I got my bags out this morning to change my clothes and freshen up.”
Cox glanced down at her ‘City Girl in the Country’ outfit: a pair of mossy-green jeans that stopped about six inches from her ankles, little tan suede shoes with a not-ridiculous heel, and a dusty pink blouse with a floral scarf. He wondered if she dressed like she’d just stepped out of a magazine every day of her life. Did she own a t-shirt? Sneakers? Those stretchy black pants women wore everywhere?
“Yeah, good thing,” he said aloud.
“Okay.” She dragged her hair to one side and set her hands on her slim hips. “Okay. You know what?”
She looked at him like she expected an answer. Cox tipped his own head to one side, lifted his eyebrows, and let that stand for one.
“Fuck it,” she said. “I’m staying.”
Apparently she did cuss, under particular conditions.
She slipped her hand into his. Cox looked down at her slender, soft fingers, tipped in pearly pink. Because it felt right to do it, he wove his thick, rough fingers with hers.
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~oOo~
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With the groundbreaking unceremoniously ended, what was left was a dress-rehearsal version of a town event. Cox wasn’t on the clock anymore, and he hated being at these things when he didn’t have anything specific to do. He felt doubly awkward following Autumn around, especially after she’d dropped his hand so she could shake Martha Broward’s hand and had kept it free as they moved through the crowd, so she could shake all the hands she encountered.
She was in work mode, mingling and schmoozing, which Cox of course hated. Yet he was impressed to see how quickly and completely she’d cast off the scene with her boss; she wasn’t showing any kind of embarrassment at being yelled at in front of everybody. For a while, he thought she really didn’t care about her boss’s antics and wasn’t burdened with worry for what awaited her in Indianapolis.
Then she said she needed the bathroom and headed to the Porta-Potties they’d set up at the back. Not knowing what else to do, Cox waited for her nearby. Because he was hovering there, he saw her come out, saw the flash of a moment before that schmoozy mask of outgoing friendliness fell back into place.
She was tired, and worried, and generally upset. She was simply a master of hiding it.
Cox had no such skill, and he tended to be suspicious of those who did. He didn’t like an expression to be a lie. It was why clowns had always freaked him the fuck out, that painted-on face obscuring what was really happening beneath. He and Billy had watched the TV miniseries It on DVD when they were kids, and Cox had tried to bail during the first episode, until Billy had shamed him for being a pussy. So he’d watched every episode without hiding his eyes.
He'd had nightmares nightly, waking screaming and terrified, for almost a year. Billy felt awful for teasing him and tried to help, but Cox had had to weather that trauma on his own.
He’d experienced far greater traumas since, his scale for horror had been forcefully reset, but even so, Cox didn’t fuck with clowns.
Autumn was walking toward him, smiling brightly. But now he saw the tension around her eyes—and were they a little red?
You know what? Fuck this. Cox walked toward her and caught both her hands when they met.
“Let’s get out of here.”
A layer of tension loosened, but she shook her head. “I can’t leave early. I’m part of this project.”
Somewhere along the way, she’d stopped calling it her project. Now she said our project, or something similar. When the Horde had signed on, they’d become part of the team. He thought it said something about her that she’d ceded some of the credit—and the responsibility—to them.
“The groundbreaking happened.” He turned and gestured toward the scattered crowd. “Now they’re just partyin’. They won’t take it any kinda way you’re gone.”
She stared at the scene for a minute, then freed a hand to do that thing with her hair, pulling it all to one side. “I do have to check in at the B he could manage all that for such a short trip. Getting her bags without a truck was impossible, but he could call one of the club girls to bring them over.
The thought of getting her to the inn and having her to himself again made his heart kick in his chest.
“Do you trust me?” he asked.
Autumn looked up at him, her eyes narrow. She took a long, deep breath.
She nodded.
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~oOo~
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Autumn approached his Breakout like it was a snarling, rabid bear. By her reaction he knew the answer, but he asked anyway.
“You ever been on a bike?”
She reached out a hesitant hand and touched a handle grip with her fingertips. “Of course! I had a Huffy, a Schwinn, a Trek in college ...”
He chuckled. “Thought so. Doesn’t bite, promise.”
“Have you ever crashed?”
“Crashed, no. Dropped it a few times, sure.”
She looked up at him. “What’s the difference?”
“Depending where you do it, you can usually pick up the bike and ride on after a drop. Not so much after a crash.” He stepped close. “Scared?”
“I don’t know if it’s braver to say yes or no.”
“The truth is always the bravest thing.”
Her gaze seemed to deepen. “I’m scared.”
Cox sensed that she meant something bigger, but he wasn’t brave enough to explore that. Instead, he cupped her cheek—goddamn but her skin was soft—and said, “I won’t let you be hurt.”
For a moment she rested in his palm and said nothing. Then she lifted his hand from her cheek and pressed her lips to his palm.
Cox had to close his eyes as an electric charge surged through his arm and punched him in the chest.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s ride.”
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~oOo~
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He hadn’t sufficiently considered what it would be like to have her sitting before him, snugged up close so her little ass was tight against his crotch, her whole body cocooned within his. From the moment he’d mounted behind her and got her settled so he could operate the bike without trouble, he knew he’d be having trouble anyway.
He was acting like a teenage virgin with this woman. What was it about her that pulled his attention her way, even when she was hundreds of miles to the east? He’d never given much thought to ‘having’ a woman, one to call ‘his.’ It had all seemed like a whole lot of hassle for shit he didn’t need. He had no need for a constant companion, no need for a second earner to bring more money in. He could cook and he didn’t mind housework. And when he needed more than his hand, he had a clubhouse full of willing women. He didn’t need a woman in his life, and he hadn’t wanted one, either.
So why the fuck was he so fixated on this particular woman?
When she shifted on the seat, she could tell exactly how hard he was—and didn’t seem to mind. Cox sent out a silent thanks to anyone who might be listening that he wasn’t used to riding tandem; his need to focus on the bike kept him from focusing too strongly on the way her little body fit perfectly within his, the way his helmet looked so cute on her small head, the way her hands dug in at his knees, the way he felt the warmth of her body all through his legs, his chest, his arms, the way her hair danced in the wind, casting the scents of wildflowers and honey around him.
She had his heart racing like ... a teenage virgin, yep. Christ.
The trip was short, but it was long enough for Autumn to shed her nerves about her first bike ride and grow comfortable. Her body softened against his, and her grip eased a bit, allowing her hands to stroke his thighs.
When he made the turn at the entrance of the inn, he took it more sharply than he had before, because his attention had dropped to her hands on his legs and he’d almost missed it. Autumn gasped and grabbed his arms, nearly pulling the front wheel to the left. He corrected without too much shimmy, but she’d gone stiff again.
“Easy,” he said at her ear. “I got you.”
She turned her face toward his, and Cox couldn’t resist finding her mouth. But she was tense, and he contented himself with a brief brush of his lips over hers.
The final thirty seconds of the ride lasted as long as the seven or eight minutes before them, but Cox finally parked the bike on the inn’s lot and cut the engine. Then, by tacit mutual decision, they simply sat there. He couldn’t seem to pry his body from hers, and she seemed in no rush to be set loose.
Now that they were stopped, he could indulge some urges without dropping his bike on the road, and them with it. He let his hands fall from the grips and slide over the tops of her thighs. Again she turned her head to his, and this time he didn’t have to worry about working the bike, and she wasn’t worried they’d fall. He found her mouth and claimed it thoroughly.
Still wearing his too-big helmet, Autumn sighed and twisted to him, snaking her arms around his neck. Cox slipped his hands under her thighs and lifted, trying to turn her completely to him, but it was awkward, and he didn’t want to stop kissing her, drawing her sweetness like nectar into him.
Autumn handled it herself, more or less, an elastic, twisting move that brought her legs to one side to drape over his right thigh, all without breaking free of his mouth or loosening her clench around his neck. Her hands slipped into his hair, nails scratching his scalp and making half his brain cells explode. He drew a hand over her thigh, slid his fingers into the seam between her legs, found the source of her hottest heat.
That made her pull back—just an inch, but Cox wasn’t ready for her to go even that far away. He chased her, trying to reclaim the kiss, but she set her hand on his chest.
“Wait, wait.” Her voice was soft as a breeze, brushing gently past his ear.
He opened his eyes and found her looking at him, copper irises glowing with heat.
“What?” he managed to ask.
“Come to my room.” Her hand moved up on his chest until her fingertips could hook into the neck of his t-shirt. “I don’t want to do more out here. I’m ... I don’t like to make a show.”
Remembering himself at last, Cox took a breath. “I don’t, either.”
She smiled. Her lips had puffed up a bit and taken on a wine-dark hue. “You’ll come up?”
“Yeah,” he said, because it was the only word anywhere in his head.
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~oOo~
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The check-in process nearly had him raging with impatience, but actually it went smoothly. It wasn’t Shannon at the desk but Marilee, an assistant manager. There must have been a note in Autumn’s reservation, or Marilee had heard it through the grapevine, that Autumn still needed the room despite missing last night. Marilee didn’t mention the boss’s room, either.
Cox had a bad second when the thought hit his head that maybe there had only ever been one room, but he was quickly able to brush that away. At no time had Autumn given the slightest sign that she would ever have agreed to share a room with that shitheel.
While Autumn checked in, he remembered to find someone to bring her bags over. He reached Gia Lunden, Isaac’s kid, at the clubhouse, and she said she had shit to bring up to the inn anyway, so she’d add Autumn’s things to her load.
Cox was glad he hadn’t had to ask one of the club girls to help another woman out. Any one of them would do it, and with a smile, but he also knew that some, maybe most of the club girls had a hope or a dream of claiming a patch for their own. They could be shitty to women they considered outsiders, and they could do it in a way he didn’t understand. He’d seen it as a third-party observer, and he wasn’t in a hurry to get a closer view.
Finally Autumn was checked in, her luggage was on its way, and Cox grabbed her hand and dragged her upstairs. He’d expected her to have the same room as before, but at the top of the stairs she pulled him down the corridor in the other direction, to a smaller room with a view of the rose garden and gazebo behind the inn.
When Autumn keyed the lock and they finally got into the room, Cox kicked the door closed and gave up all pretense of patience or restraint. Whatever was happening with this woman, whyever it was happening with her in particular, he was sick and fucking tired of thinking about it. He wanted to fucking feel her.
He grabbed her, yanked her to him, and slammed his mouth over hers. Surprise drew her taut, but only for a second, and then she jumped headfirst with him. Their mouths clashing wildly, their tongues seeking and meeting, they started tearing clothes off—each other’s and their own.
When he was out of his boots and everything but his now-open jeans, when she was down to a pair of lacy panties and nothing else, their mouths still dancing, their hands still painting sensation across each other’s skin, Cox walked her backward to the brass bed with its puffy, rose-patterned comforter. He lifted her and took her down to that soft landing, immediately moving on top of her.
Before he could go for her mouth again, or explore anywhere else, he felt a small hand on his shoulder, its arm wedged between them, holding him back.
“Cox ...” she gasped.
Gathering himself for a moment, he looked down at her. He wanted to tell her to hush; too much talk would get his brain asking questions again, and he didn’t want that. He wanted to savor her, only that. Completely that.
But he also didn’t want to overwhelm her.
So he said, “Unless you’re stoppin’ me, don’t talk.”
She perused his face for the span of two breaths. “Okay.” With that, the hand holding his shoulder slipped up to his hair, and she drew him down to her.
When he thought about this evening in the ink-dark days that followed—and he thought about it frequently, in desire, in regret, in sorrow, in need, in virtually every emotion he was capable of feeling—Cox would remember every detail of every second, but without photorealistic specificity. The afternoon, the whole night, would become like a raincloud in his mind, holding every atom of memory, but each softened in a misty haze.
He would remember the feel of her, her small, lithe body, the way it arched high when he sucked her tits, the way she squirmed when he tucked his face between her thighs and fed; the way she always twisted her legs around him, around his legs, his hips, his neck; the way her hands were never still, constantly seeking, stroking, pulling his hair, plowing bloody furrows up his back, flinging backward to grab the headboard when he threw her legs over his shoulders.
He would remember the sound of her, the soft sighs and bright cries, the whispered pleading and gasping encouragements, her sobbing scream when he made her come the fourth and final time that night.
He would remember the scent and taste of her, wildflowers and honey at her hair, her chest, mingling with musk between her thighs, the salty-sweet taste of her sweat.
And god in heaven, he would remember the sight of her, lying beneath him, sitting atop him, kneeling before him. He would remember her flashing metallic eyes, the thick velvet of her auburn hair, the deep flush across her chest and up her throat each time she came down from a climax.
He would remember his dumbstruck awe at how deeply he felt, how tightly he clung, how powerfully he came. Like nothing he’d ever experienced in his life. He would remember wondering if he’d been wrong that he didn’t want a partner. He would remember the way a powerful notion, as exciting as it was terrifying, had skittered through his head, disappearing through a crack in his mental baseboards before he could chase it down.
He would remember it all, the recollections at once keen and hazy, every day.
And he would remember exactly how he fucked it all up.