Looking for Trouble (14 page)

“Now open your mouth.” She did as he asked, just as he’d known she would. Alex slid his cock between her lips and cupped her head with both hands. He pushed in as deep as he could. She didn’t pull away. She braced her hands on his hips and she let him fuck her that way. Slowly, carefully, her mouth the most perfect thing he’d ever felt. And when he finally came, the world collapsing into that drawn-out moment of climax, she swallowed every drop.

His head dropped, too heavy for his neck to support anymore, and he watched in shock as she drew back just enough to lick his cock clean. He shuddered at the swipe of her tongue against oversensitive flesh, but he didn’t stop her. He’d never do that.

When she finally sat back on her haunches, Alex let his legs give way and he collapsed onto the couch. “Holy shit,” he breathed, dropping his head back for a moment to catch his breath. Once the room stopped spinning, he tugged his jeans up, then reached down to pull Sophie onto the couch.

When he drew her close, she curled onto his lap, her body fitting into his like she’d always been there. He couldn’t move. He never wanted to move. Her fingers spread over his bare chest and her cheek was warm against his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around her and stroked her back, marveling at the softness.

“Are my hands too rough?” he asked, worried that the slide of his fingers over such perfect skin might annoy her. But she shook her head and sank a little more deeply into him.

He didn’t feel much like a loner right then. It felt nice here with her. Comfortable and warm. He wondered how late it was and didn’t particularly care. He just tucked her head under his chin and closed his eyes. “Sophie?”

“Hmm?”

“You open to me crashing here tonight?”

She nodded and Alex sighed. He didn’t want to move, much less get on his bike and ride through the cold night to his dreary hotel room.

But apparently Sophie wasn’t as ruined as he was, because a few minutes later, she stretched and sat up. “I’m going to take a shower. There’s beer in the fridge, I think.”

“Thanks.”

She stood as if her legs weren’t weak at all, but Alex didn’t take offense. Instead, he took the opportunity to watch her move nearly naked around the couch, picking up clothing as she went. Her little round ass made his mouth water.

She caught him watching as she walked out the room and flashed a smile over her naked shoulder.

“I should’ve taken a fucking picture,” he muttered to himself. He’d like to remember that sly look forever.

He must’ve dozed for a moment, because he snapped awake when he heard the pipes whoosh to life on the other side of the wall. After sex like that, he could’ve just tipped right over and slept on the couch for eight hours, but he didn’t want her thinking she’d ruined him, even if she had. A man had his pride, after all. Plus, a cold beer sounded damn good.

Alex forced his exhausted muscles to work and got to his feet. He fastened his jeans and grabbed a beer from the fridge and downed half of it within seconds. He hadn’t thought the night could get better, but the ice-cold beer was a perfect cap to the hottest blow job he’d ever had.

Smiling, Alex wandered the room to try to get a feel for Sophie, but everything here clearly belonged to her great-uncle...unless Sophie was an outdoorsy vampire who’d won the Snake River Fly Fishing Championship of 1963. He’d have to ask her about it later.

Still, he took in the old photographs and Western fiction and moved around the room, if only because he knew he’d fall asleep if he sat down again. The kitten jumped up and followed him.

He recognized a lot of the places in the photographs. They came from the same place, he and Sophie. The same place, the same circumstances, the same defining event. Funny that they’d turned out so differently. She took care of people. He cut them loose. She was a dreamer. He kept moving and didn’t dream about anything.

He was almost done with his circle of the room when he saw the open boxes near the small dining table. One box was filled with large photo albums of some kind. The other was overflowing with paper and scissors and tape and various sparkly things. On the table, one of the albums was open. He could see pictures.

Alex glanced toward the bedroom, feeling guilty, but it wasn’t exactly snooping if the thing was open, so he stepped forward and looked.

The picture wasn’t a photo; it was a postcard of a beach. Glittery script spelled out FLORIDA in green letters and ended in a colorful beach umbrella. The other side of the album featured a postcard of an alligator sunning itself in a swamp. Facts about the Everglades were printed out on paper shaped liked an orange.

Alex blinked and turned the page, only to find more postcards. These were from New York. The next page was different, though. This was a brochure for camping in national parks. Not at a campground, though. This was the chance to spend the night in an old fire tower, two hundred feet above the forest. Nothing decorated this page except pale green shading that disappeared halfway up the paper.

Another page was a postcard from a cave in West Virginia. Colored lights lit up the stalactites, making them glow. A trail of sparkly jewels swept across the page above it.

Alex glanced at the box full of albums and counted at least six. Were they all the same? Places she wanted to go, things she wanted to do? Why was she making these scrapbooks instead of just getting in her car and going to Florida or West Virginia or any other place she could drive to?

Just as he was reaching to draw another book from the box, the water shut off and he jerked his hand back. Looking at an album on the table was one thing, but digging through boxes was a whole other. She’d said he could spend the night, not investigate her life.

Alex finished his beer and went to set it by the sink and grab another. By the time she came out, wearing a little pink nightgown that ended just beneath her ass, Alex was dead tired.

“Want to watch TV in bed?” she asked, her voice sounding almost hesitant in a way that made him grin.

“Hell, yes,” he answered. He toed off his boots while she turned off lights, then stripped down to his briefs and joined her in bed. It wasn’t very big, so they had to stay close. He wrapped his arm around her and she snuggled close.

“Thanks for letting me crash,” he said.

She smiled up at him. “No problem. I wanted more later anyway.”

More
. All right. Then he didn’t need to ask if he’d been too rough or demanding. She wanted more. He’d do his best to give it.

They settled in as if they’d always fit together. Alex fell asleep to the sound of her laughter and the faint flicker of the TV playing against his eyelids. Despite the old bed and the television playing, it felt nothing like falling asleep in a hotel room. Nothing at all.

CHAPTER TEN

“H
EY, GIRL!”
L
AUREN
called through the front window. “I brought cinnamon rolls!”

Sophie froze and stared bug-eyed at the front door. The blinds were drawn over the window next to it, thank God, but Lauren knew Sophie was home. Her car was under the carport.
Shit.

Alex was still in the shower. She could probably get rid of Lauren in a few minutes. And at least she’d showered and dressed after she’d climbed off Alex that morning.

Sophie tiptoed toward the door, even as she wondered why the hell she was tiptoeing.

“Hi!” She meant to keep Lauren in the doorway, but Sophie had never kept her out before and Lauren just walked on in without an invitation. Sophie had never had to keep her out before. She didn’t bring men home. She didn’t let them hang out and raise suspicions. She went to their hotel rooms instead.

“Here,” Lauren said, holding out the tray.

“Your mom is still here?” Sophie asked, taking the tray of cinnamon rolls. They were still warm and she moaned as the scent finally hit her.

“You don’t think I made cinnamon rolls from scratch, do you? Mom is baking and I figured you could use some cheering up.”

“Buying my emotions with sugar. You know me well.”

“Yeah, it was a really brutal quest for the truth. Anyway, it’s in the paper.”

This time her moan had nothing to do with deliciousness. “The lawsuit?”

“Yes. Your copy was in the drive. I left it on the porch in case you wanted to ignore it for a while.”

“God, I wish I could. Maybe there was a freak windstorm that blew most of the newspapers away before people could read them.”

Lauren nodded. “Maybe. But I added an extra couple of cinnamon rolls just in case that doesn’t work out.”

“Okay. I’ll just stay home and stuff myself. It’ll help. Thank you.”

“Hang in there,” she said, pulling Sophie into a quick hug. “Jake and I are taking my mom up to Yellowstone before she has to leave, so text me if anything else comes up. But it’ll be over soon.”

That’s what Sophie had thought, too. She’d been wrong. It would never be over. But she smiled and said, “See you tomorrow,” as she led Lauren back to the door.

Lauren opened the door and Sophie was finally starting to relax when an awful silence fell over the house. She hadn’t thought an absence of sound could ring in your ears, but ring it did. Alex had turned off the shower.

Lauren froze. Her eyes flew toward the far wall. The shower door squeaked.

“Anyway!” Sophie sang, as if that would distract her friend. Strangely, her ploy didn’t work.

Lauren’s gaze began to stutter over different parts of the room. The man’s T-shirt crumpled on the couch? Check. The empty beer bottles next to the sink? Check. The bedroom door opening to reveal a big, naked, tattooed beast of a man wearing nothing but a white towel around his waist? Oh, fuck yes, that was probably a big check mark, too.

“Oh, shit,” Lauren murmured. “I guess that’s better than a cinnamon roll.”

Alex just raised his eyebrows.

Sophie thought she might die right there, but her heart kept rebelliously beating on. “All right,” she squeaked. “See you tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Lauren whispered, then tore her gaze off Alex to look at Sophie. “Sure.” She widened her eyes as if she could convey a hundred questions with that one gesture.

Sophie jerked her head toward the door, but before she left, Lauren took the opportunity to ogle Alex one more time. Once she’d looked her fill, she backed outside. “Bye!”

Alex raised one hand in farewell. Sophie slammed the door. The silence rang in her ears again. It must have been ringing for Lauren, too, because Sophie didn’t hear her footsteps head down the stairs for quite a while.

“Coworker?” Alex finally asked in the quiet.

Sophie turned and leaned weakly against the door. “Yes.”

“Damn. Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she whispered, then cleared her throat. “She’s a friend, so...”

“So she won’t tell everyone in town?”

“Exactly.”

“Good. I don’t want to fuck things up for you.”

She managed a smile at that. “That’s sweet.”

“You have a strange idea of sweet.”

She relaxed a little and laughed. It would be fine. Lauren might give Sophie shit for years, but she wouldn’t tell anyone else. And there was an upside. Now Sophie had someone to talk to. Because she had
so
much to tell.

Just looking at him standing there was enough to inspire hours of conversation, and Lauren had seen it, too. Yeah, this might get her through a few long, cold winters.

She pushed off the door and walked toward him. “Need something?” she asked.

Alex groaned. “I had to crawl to the shower. Are you trying to prove your superiority? I give. Uncle.”

Sophie laughed. “It was a genuine question! Coffee? Pants?” She wrapped her hands around his neck and leaned back to look up at him. “What’d you come out here for?”

“I don’t remember,” he said. She felt him growing hard against her. “Jesus, you’re a witch. The kind that can raise the dead.”

“Maybe you’re more of a man than you thought.”

He groaned again. “I’ll punish you for that later.”

“Promise?”

“No. I probably won’t have the strength.”

She laughed and kissed him as he closed his arms around her and lifted her a few inches off the ground. Yeah. He had plenty of strength.

“Mmm,” he hummed into the kiss before setting her down. “I remembered. I came out to tell you that I parked the bike on the side of your house, but I’d better get going now that it’s light. I guess I really screwed up that quest for discretion.”

“Well, you put on a nice show, at least.” She traced her fingers over the wide tattoo that covered most of his chest. This one was an ominous wave that covered nearly his whole torso. It looked like a Japanese woodblock print. Her own little ocean right here in Wyoming.

“Will I see you later?” he asked.

She bit her lip to keep from smiling triumphantly. This man was sex on a cycle, and he couldn’t wait to see her again. The feeling was nice and so very mutual. “The dedication is tomorrow. Won’t it be a busy day for you?”

“Shit. I guess it might be.”

“I’m working until seven tonight. I’ll get in touch later and see what’s going on.”

“Deal.” He kissed her nose and retreated back into the bedroom. She touched the spot he’d kissed and tried not to feel warm inside. It was just sex, and it would be over within days. And if that made her stomach knot up, that was only the kind of affection you felt for a man who was that spectacular in bed.

He was everything she’d always wanted. Things she’d touched on with other men, but the connection had never quite been there. She’d had intense, kinky sex before, but she’d never felt hollowed out by it afterward. And she’d never wanted to beg the guy to crawl back into bed and spend the day there, just talking.

Okay, not just talking. But mostly.

God. This wasn’t good.

But it didn’t matter what she wanted. He needed to go before someone spotted his bike. Sophie was alarmed to realize she hadn’t even considered where he’d parked it. She was losing her discretion over this guy. That was probably worse than the prospect of losing her heart. At least that would still be private. No one would see it. Any heartache would belong to her.

She watched him stop to look around the dim bedroom in confusion. “Your shirt is out here,” she said.

He flashed a smile and picked up his boots. “Thanks. That part was a bit of a blur. I mean
my
clothes coming off. I remember every moment of taking yours off.”

“Not many of yours came off,” she said drily.

“Ah. Right. Not very gentlemanly of me.” His lazy smile let her know he wasn’t apologizing.

“You made up for it later.”

“Yeah.” His smile faltered a little as he sat down and pulled on his shirt. “That was really nice last night.”

It had been nice. Having his whole big, naked body pressed against her, taking over all of her bed. It had been damn nice.

She watched as he pulled on a boot and tugged the laces tight. The muscles of his back flexed and bunched beneath his T-shirt as he worked. She liked the way he moved. He was so self-assured. So easy with his body.

She was confident enough about her body, but she was also conscious of it. Aware. Alex just
existed
. His body was his, to do what he wanted with. To use and mark.

She smirked. Maybe that described her body, too.

“All right,” he said as he scratched the kitten under the chin. “I’ll see you girls later.”

She absolutely, unequivocally did not melt a little at those words. She melted a lot. But she somehow managed to stay where she was standing and say goodbye from there. She didn’t need a kiss. She didn’t need a scratch on the chin.

But once he’d gone, she collapsed onto the couch and pulled the kitten close. “Why does he have to be so cute?” she whispered into the warm fur. The kitten purred in response. “I know. It’s terrible. We should stop seeing him.”

His motorcycle roared to life from a comfortable distance. He must have rolled it down to the street before starting it. His caution reminded her that she had bigger problems than this little crush.

She set down the kitten—who promptly curled up in the space where Alex had sat—and went out to grab the paper. Her brother had made the front page. Tweny-Five-Year-Old Mystery Revived by Brand-New Lawsuit.

Well, they’d damn well summed it up perfectly, hadn’t they?

Not much more was revealed about the lawsuit. It seemed that it was pretty straightforward. David Heyer was suing for a million dollars in actual and punitive damages for the untimely death of his mother due to the negligent or reckless driving of Wyatt Bishop. The lawsuit also mentioned that the accident had occurred on a private road on land owned by the Bishop family.

But the worst part of the article was that the reporter had used the lawsuit as an excuse to rehash the entire scandal. Now even the youngest generations of Jackson could experience the deliciousness of the story.

How Dorothy Heyer and Wyatt Bishop had disappeared on the same summer day twenty-five years ago after purchasing a camping trailer. How their months-long affair had come to light. The writer even listed some of the discarded rumors that had circulated over the ensuing years, though she failed to mention that every one of them had been perpetuated by Rose Bishop.

Eventually Greg Heyer had petitioned for his wife to be declared dead. Thankfully the article didn’t mention that the petition had started the very worst rumor of all: that Greg Heyer had discovered the lovers together and killed them both. Sophie had been surprised by that one. It had been sprung on her during gym class. She could still remember standing in the locker room clutching her sweatshirt to her chest and pretending the awful words had meant nothing.

The article then detailed the evening last summer when Shane Harcourt had found his father’s truck and the skeletal remains inside. There was even a picture of the crash site.

Sophie had managed to avoid the picture last time around, but this time she found herself staring at the grainy black-and-white photo of the crumpled truck nearly hidden by tall grasses and trees.

Had her mom died on impact? The truck had tumbled seventy-five feet before coming to rest nearly upright. Had she been unconscious, at least? Or had she lain there awake and dying for days?

Goose bumps rose on Sophie’s arms and spread over her whole body, then deep inside until she shuddered.

Sophie would never know. No one ever would. And no one would ever know what had caused it. Her brother had brought all this back to the surface for no goddamn reason at all, except money.
Money
. He didn’t even work for a living. He thought because of one tragedy in his life, he deserved to get everything easy.

She scowled at the page. She’d pay a million dollars for it all to go away. How could he have done this?

The article wrapped up with a paragraph about the dedication on Saturday at the Providence historical site. Sophie was skimming the ending when the bomb dropped, setting off an explosion in her chest. A quote from Rose Bishop. “After everything my sons and I have gone through, I finally thought we’d get some closure. This lawsuit is a violation of my family’s suffering. Clearly, no one in the Heyer family has any shame. They never have.”

God, the reporter must have salivated over that. It wasn’t often that feuds were laid out so gleefully for public consumption. And this one had everything. Sex, death, one of the founding families of Jackson, and now, money.

Sophie looked at the photo one more time. Her mom had lain in that truck for over two decades. She’d been lost. Forgotten. She still was, her ashes sitting on a shelf in a closet of the funeral home. Sophie didn’t want to bring her home.

She refolded the paper, carefully moving the front section to the back and stacking the lifestyle section on top. Then she went to the kitchen, plated two cinnamon rolls, and curled back up on the couch to eat them both. They stopped the burning in her stomach, but she still had to swipe tears off her cheeks while she ate. The kitten slept on, too wrapped up in the scent of Alex to care what Sophie was up to, but Sophie didn’t mind. She’d do the same if she could. In fact, she hoped to do exactly that tonight.

She just didn’t want to think about this anymore. She didn’t want to go to work and be asked about it, and she didn’t want to be around people who were pretending not to know. She didn’t want people looking at her, recognizing her, watching to see what happened. She didn’t want to run into Rose again. She didn’t want to pick up her mom’s ashes. She didn’t want to grab her little brother and shake him until his ears rang. She just wanted it to
stop
.

All of it.

Alex was right. She should leave. Walk away from everything like he had. Let these damaged people fight it out amongst themselves for eternity while she flew free.

But just the thought made her cry so hard she had to set the plate down and curl up into a pillow. She couldn’t walk away from her family like that. She was the only one her dad could depend on. If he were fifty, maybe that would be okay, but he was slowing down. He needed help, and her brother showed no signs of growing up and carrying part of the load. She couldn’t just leave.