Burned Gasoline (7 page)

              “$92.58, dear.” The nice old lady in the check-stand was someone she hadn’t met before. Truly, whom she’d spoken to the first time she ever got here was serving another customer in the other line. Jefferson.
Who else?
She thought as she grabbed her bags and turned to walk out to her old car on the parking lot.

Nova was strapped into her car seat and the large numbers of bags were finally loaded.

              “So, how’s the car working for you?”

She jumped on the spot and turned to the car parked a few spaces away from hers.

              “Thanks, it’s working great. The ‘light thingee’ too. I can finally see clearly at dark when I have to drive.”

              He was smiling again, hiding his face under a baseball cap rooting for some football team she barely knew existed. She closed the trunk of her car and brushed her hands nervously against her hips and turned in his direction.

              “Um,” she took a few steps over to where he was parked. “I actually make a mean Chicken Fried Steak, believe it or not.”

              “Oh, yeah?” She still couldn’t see his eyes under that cap, but that hint of a smile he had shoved right in her face inside the store earlier stayed put.

              “Perhaps, instead of… Hungry Man, or whatever, want to eat some real homemade steak instead?” Wow, she had managed to say all that without going up in flames. The light chill surrounding them outside might have helped somewhat.

              “You asking me out?” He said and placed the last of his bags in the back of his truck before he shoved the cart into the closest shrub.

              “You can’t do that!” She blurted out, raising a very questionable eyebrow.

              “Oh, that’s alright. Ian will get it. He needs the exercise anyway.” He came back around the driver’s side and opened the door to the truck.

              “I’m not asking you out, by the way,” she answered, “I’m asking you over for dinner that’s all.”

              “Tonight? What time?” He’d already started his truck.

              “Let’s say 7:30. Nova will be asleep by then.”

              “Be there. See you then.”

              She watched him drive away across the parking lot until his blue truck vanished around the store corner before she turned to walk the few short strides back to Nova, all warm and snug inside the car. As she opened the car door she noticed something in the corner of her eyes hiding in the bushes but brushed it off with being just another thing people threw away and expected Ian to come and get, just like Jefferson had done with his shopping cart. But with her nosy personality she simply couldn’t resist peeking to get a glimpse of the somewhat large box-like thing pushed down far under a branch. Perhaps she’d get a reward if she found something good she could return to its owner?

              “What the hell?” She pulled out the item from beneath the shrubby passage and brushed of some of the dirt covering the side. “It’s my mailbox! I can’t believe it!”

              Her address and last name was still printed in black across the beige metal, just as she had written it when she moved in. Not that anyone sent her anything, and that’s why she must have missed it being gone. That must have been the thing she’d questioned today as she drove out from the house, but couldn’t quite figure out.

              Standing there she wasn’t sure what to do about it. Probably just some teenagers who had nothing else to do than mess up things for others, especially when they knew you were somewhat new in town and didn’t know many people.

              She placed the mailbox across the passenger seat and decided to give the offender a break this time, but if this kept on going, she’d have to go to the police with it.

Chapter Eight

              The very casual dinner she’d planned for Jefferson had gone haywire as she had already downed two glasses of wine and was starting on her third in pure nervousness, or horniness to be frankly honest. The clock on the wall had already chimed ten, and the food on their plates had been gone an hour ago.

              Still, here they were. Drinking wine, talking about the most random subjects of the world; from the Roman Empire’s road building techniques, frozen foods that could actually be consumed without vomiting, dogs and their habits, and taste in music. The latter had unfortunately steered them into the path of sexy attire, as a result of comparing rock band’s stage performances and to whom different band members had been married, or slept with.

              “Define kinky?” He said with a small smile, rolling his finger in a circle on top of the glass standing on the table, looking up into her eyes underneath his dark eyelashes. He resembled a hungry wolf, just dying to jump over the table and devour every part of her with his hands and mouth.

              “Well,” she said, unsure of how to answer him. “Doing things normal people won’t do. Sexually.”

              “Define normal?” He said calmly, the light from the candles on the table gave his eyes a wicked appearance.

              “…things you hear people getting turned on by, that are not too common, perhaps?”

              “Things you hear about, huh. So you believe media and society dictate what is supposed to feel arousing or not?”

              “No, well… maybe. I don’t know.” She said low, looking at his fingers now rubbing over his stubbled chin. Still eyeing her suspiciously.

              “Kinky or not, I have things that turn me on, society deciding they’re arousing or not.” With a small smile, he looked down at his other hand still creating a circle around the top of his glass.

              “Like… what?” She asked, almost regretting her question as soon as it left her lips. Did she even want to go there?

              “Hmm… “ He said, and let his tongue slip out between his lips and lick his upper lip before slipping back in again. “Like shaving my face with my razor in the morning, knowing you might have used it between your legs the night before.”

              A gasp escaped her lips, and in stunned silence she observed his penetrating look across the table.

              “How would you know I would do that?” She said astonished. She thought that secret would go with her to the grave if she’d do that...

              “If you ever stayed over I’d make myself well acquainted with your scent. I could smell you on my razor, Raylyn.”

              “Oh, my God. Stop talking. This is so dirty. Too… weird.”

              “It’s not weird. I just wouldn’t mind your scent on my face in the morning. It’s like an aroused version of you following me around for the rest of the day after a shave like that. Sometimes I would find myself with a raging, painful, hard-on in the middle of the day, while working on a car, and want nothing else than to widen those thighs of yours and bury my face in that sweetness.”

              “Stop.” She said, rubbing her hands over her face. Walking away she placed her plate on the countertop before she simply stood there quietly. When she leaned over the kitchen sink and washed the rest of the food on the plate down the drain she felt the heat of his body before his hands even touched her.

              Strong, warm hands slid slowly up her sides and circled around her waist, pulling her into a tight embrace. His face was buried in the nook of her neck, nibbling lightly on the thin skin below her ear. She couldn’t resist it, let out a faint gasp, and closed her eyes as the tip of his nose traced the path his lips had just taken.

              “Kinky things don’t have to happen behind closed doors, in fancy clubs, or in expensive lingerie. Honestly, I’d prefer you without anything underneath your clothes rather than knowing your body is covered up tightly in underwire and lace. Watching your nipples pucker up underneath your shirt or feeling how wet you get through the fabric of your pants when I rub my hands between your thighs are way beyond exciting. It amazes me how lingerie stores stay so successful? Just more things to take off your body until I have you the way I want to. The way I want to see you. Without a single thread going across your soft skin, nothing to stop my hands sliding over you, and nothing interrupting my tongue tasting you.”

              Her breath stayed shallow and short, and his hands moved slowly up to cup her swelling breasts softly. Then one of his thumbs went up to flick lightly over her nipple, tightening it even harder, if possible.

              “Kinky things can happen in the laundry room on a Thursday afternoon using a broom handle, or next to a car parked in my shop during lunch hour, or in the check-out line at the grocery store during a busy day. I think you’re underestimating my ability to find and give you pleasure at any place or time of the day.”

              Without a chance to respond to his sultry statement, one of his hands left its light cupping of her breast and joined hers in the warm water filling the sink. Collecting a few soap bubbles on his fingers he gently traced them up her arms until there were no more left, and his hand had to move back into the water and scoop up more. His index finger balanced a large bubble on its tip, and with a slow move, making sure her eyes followed his hand, he placed the bubble lightly on her right nipple letting her t-shirt damp under the soapy water.

              “Broom handle…” She suddenly said, breaking the bubbly seduction of her nipple. His large wet hand covered her breast completely, letting the fabric of her shirt soak in the sudsy wetness, making her nipple poke hard at his palm.

              “Out of everything I’ve done to you right now, that’s what stuck to your mind?” He said, trying to sound assaulted, but failed miserably as he kissed her neck once more, squeezing her breast firmer with his hand.

              “I’m just… what on earth can you do with a broom handle?” She kept her eyes shut, but felt his lips grow wider creating a smile at her neck, before he mumbled low into her skin dividing her hair apart with his nose.

              “The possibilities are endless, sweetheart.”

              “But…” She started getting antsy under his continuous teasing of her breast, but he cut her off.

              “When do you do laundry?” He mumbled into her hair at the back of her head.

              “When I’m out of clean things to wear.” She mustered to answer, before releasing a groan from him pinching her nipple between his fingers.

              “Let me rephrase that. What day will you do laundry this week?” Pinching her harder, he let his other hand grab her tighter around the waist. Holding her steady against his body, pressing his erection into her lower back.

              “Thursday! I do laundry on Thursday!” She panted fast, and leaned back against his chest when he pulled at the nipple with his fingers.

              “Thursday it is then. The day I’ll let you in on that sweet little secret of mine. How to use a broom handle in any other way than cleaning.” He kissed the back of her neck once more, and pulled his hands up to her shoulders and gave a squeeze. “Thanks for having me over, again. I’m starting to like this. You?”

              “No problem. I… you’re welcome anytime. Anytime at all.”

              “I’ll remember that. I have to go though, it’s getting late. I’ll talk to you soon… thanks, again. It was really good.” With a last kiss at the back of her head, he turned to grab his jacket hanging over the back of his chair by the table, and with a smile and a nod he headed out through the front door.

Chapter Nine

              “It’s Thursday today.” She played the idea over and over on repeat in her head. “He hasn’t called, perhaps he forgot what he told me about today. That’s okay.” She reassured herself. But something desperate inside her screamed out of curiously for what may or may not come. What he had said during their sensual hand dance with the soapy bubbles last Saturday was locked up tightly on her mind. Wherever she went for the last week she saw things resembling broom handles, or something similar to it, and her thighs clenched together just from the look of it. She knew the strong hold his words had on her mind when she almost choked on a piece of steak the other night listening to a TV commercial for Orchard’s Hardware’s sale on cleaning supplies and… detachable broom handles.
Why the hell had he said that
? She thought, pulling out the wet laundry from the washer and placed it in the dryer for fluffing.

              Dinner was devoured quickly and Nova was put to sleep. The clock on the wall already showed 8:30 pm. Filling up her second glass of wine she vaguely listened to the TV in the background reporting snowfall over night and some cold weather for the next few days. She was happy to just have the electricity working correctly this far out of town during the cold fall weeks, all thanks to a certain good looking handyman who’d checked the connections going into the house during his last visit. She grabbed another armful of fleece blankets, and flannel bed sheets, and with the help of her feet managed to push the heaping pile in her arms and on to the floor into the laundry room for the second wash for the night.