My Everything (3 page)

Completely naked now, Grace went down onto her knees next to the suitcase and flipped it to the side, unzipping the front, searching for the toiletry bag. When she couldn’t find it, she pulled her clothes out, piling them onto the floor.

At last Grace found the bag. She opened it and grabbed the plastic bottle. Her head felt like a giant had it in a vice grip.

Grace stumbled to the bathroom, the bottle of pills in her hand. At the last minute she remembered the hotel had soft water. The thought of the salty taste of soft water kicked her gag reflex into overdrive. She couldn’t take the pills with soft water, and she couldn’t swallow them without a drink. She turned to the small refrigerator and threw open the door. The refrigerator was empty. Grace whimpered.

God, she was pathetic.

She thought she’d passed a vending machine down the hall. If she had a dollar she could get herself a Coke or something else cold to drink. Suddenly that’s all Grace could think about, something cold and bubbly. Yes, that’s exactly what she needed.

Grace dug a dollar out of her purse, at least she thought it was a dollar, set the open bottle of pills on the desk and headed to the door. As she reached for the knob, she remembered she was naked. Grace was almost beyond caring, but she returned to the pile of clothes and found a tank top and the threadbare boxers she used for pajamas.

Movements slowed by pain, Grace pulled the tank over her head and then stepped into the boxers, rolling down the waistband a couple times to keep them up. She grabbed the dollar off the floor and left the room.

Peering through her one good eye, Grace wove her way down the hall, following the sign to the vending machine. Once she found it, she leaned close, trying to tell what was what. With difficulty, she stuck her dollar in the slot. She had to shove the dollar in a few times to get the machine to work, but at last an ice cold Coke dropped down.

With a sigh of relief, Grace grabbed for the plastic bottle. She wove her way back towards the room, when she suddenly stopped in her tracks. She’d forgotten her key card and her room number.

Grace wanted to scream, but her head hurt too damn much to utter a sound. She pressed the cold plastic bottle against her temple with one hand while she used her other hand to count doors. She hadn’t the faintest idea how many doors she was from her room, but she made a half-hearted effort anyway.

After stumbling twenty feet or so, Grace leaned her back against a door and sank to the floor. She’d gone as far as she could go. If somebody found her and called the police, then so be it. She only hoped that was the worst they would do.

My Everything◊J. R. Barrett

Ben drove to
the rear of the hotel, looking for a parking space. There wasn’t a single open space. He parked in a lot separated from the main lot by a thick hedge. He stepped out of the car and waited in the shadows, simply looking and listening. There didn’t appear to be another soul around, so he grabbed two of his bags, locked the car and strode to the nearest entrance. He passed under the lighted archway to the rear door, used his key card and climbed the stairs to the third floor.

So far so good.

Tom must have felt this would be the safest place, otherwise he would have sent Ben to his old apartment‍—‌Evan Spencer’s old apartment, Ben reminded himself. The apartment was in Evan Spencer’s name, not his. Even Julie had only been there once, and she didn’t know Ben had lived there before they were married. She’d assumed it belonged to one of Ben’s co-workers.

“Shut up about Julie.” Ben opened the door to the third floor hallway, closing it behind him without a sound. He rounded a corner and stopped dead in his tracks. His room was three doors down on the right. Sticking out of the little recess where the door to his room should be were two long, bare, very shapely legs of the female persuasion.

Ben took a quick glance behind him and listened for any noise, but he saw and heard nothing. He turned back to the legs. One long but delicate foot arched upwards and then came back to point. The other leg bent at the knee just slightly. Then both knees were drawn up and slender, naked arms wrapped around them. A tousled head of gold-brown hair fell forward to rest on delicate hands.

Ben heard a quiet whimper. Without making a sound, he approached the woman. He walked right up to her, but she didn’t acknowledge his presence. Long hair obscured her face. He perused her silently. She didn’t appear to be a threat. As a matter of fact, other than a plastic bottle of Coca-Cola in one hand, she held nothing. She wore so little that, as far as Ben could tell, she wasn’t hiding a weapon unless she was sitting on it. He didn’t think so. He’d seen enough bad guys, that despite his innately suspicious nature, all his senses were telling him she was harmless—unless she was a decoy, a distraction. That was a possibility. She was most definitely a distraction. Ben’s body and his mind were both quite aware of that fact.

He heard his brain say, “Down boy,” and he almost laughed, almost. He hadn’t laughed in a very long time.

Ben lowered his bags to the floor and crouched beside her, both hands free and loose, ready to fight if necessary.

“Have you been drinking?” he asked in a low voice.

“Mmmmmph…”

He leaned a little closer, and he heard her say, “No.”

Ben inhaled, checking. She didn’t smell like alcohol. Her hair smelled like vanilla.

“Sick?” he asked, and he found himself automatically reaching for her forehead. He drew his hand back before he touched her.

She lifted her head. Even though her eyes were half-closed, he could see that her pupils were dilated. Ben wondered if she was on drugs.

“Mm-m-migraine,” she stuttered, her voice pitched as low as his. He had to strain to hear.

Ben sat back on his heels and considered the situation. He didn’t believe in coincidence. Why, of all the places in the world, would this strange woman be sitting on the floor in front of the door to his hotel room at one in the morning half naked, her long, slim, leanly muscled runner’s legs reminding him of things he believed were best left forgotten?

“Where’s your room?” Ben asked.

“Can’t remember,” she mumbled. She moaned softly, and pressed the Coke bottle to the side of her head.

“Your room key?” Ben could be nothing if not persistent.

“In my room.”

He saw tears squeeze out the corners of her eyes and roll down her cheeks. Ben saw her teeth begin to chatter. It was cold in the hallway. Either she was a very good actress or she was telling the truth.

He decided the woman was telling the truth. He couldn’t leave her in the hallway. She was a sitting duck for any unscrupulous male who happened to walk by. But he couldn’t take her down to the front desk either. He couldn’t risk drawing that kind of attention to himself.

Reasonable or not, his only option under the circumstances was to bring her into his room and put her to bed. If it was a migraine, she’d be better in the morning. Julie had suffered occasional migraines, so Ben was familiar with the symptoms.

He’d search the woman once he got her inside and make sure she didn’t have a knife blade stashed away, maybe in the rolled down waistband of her boxers. They sat very low on her hips and didn’t cover much.

He could see the margins of a tattoo on her back, and he wondered about the rest of it. He felt himself stir at the thought and then admonished himself. If she was really sick, he’d put her to bed and get rid of her as quickly as he could in the morning.

There went his good night’s sleep.

Ben reached over and helped her to her feet. She swayed and sagged against him. Supporting her with one arm, he used his key card to unlock the door. He scooted his shoulder bag against the door to hold it open while shoving his other bag into the room. Ben lifted her off her feet and carried her to the king-sized bed. He kept an eye on her as he retrieved his shoulder bag and closed the door. He bolted it behind him. The woman was already trying to burrow beneath the covers, but she couldn’t get the heavy quilt out of the way.

Ben removed the bottle of Coke from her hand and assisted her, taking advantage of the situation to gently run his fingers along the twisted waistband of her boxers. He felt nothing but frayed elastic. He tried and failed to ignore her warm silky skin when his fingers brushed her stomach and hips.

At his touch, she turned onto her stomach, burying her head under a pillow, providing him with the opportunity to quickly feel beneath the back of her tank top. There was nothing. He didn’t bother to check her chest. When she’d sagged against him, she’d inadvertently given him a view of her naked breasts, a view that had his cock straining against the zipper of his trousers.

He now knew with certainty the only thing under her scant clothing was skin, smooth tantalizing skin.

One thing disturbed him. He’d noticed a café au lait spot, a birthmark, high on the outside of her left thigh. It was shaped like the continent of Africa. There was something familiar about it.

Ben leaned back on the bed and searched his memory files. He possessed an eidetic memory. He remembered things in pictures. There was a trick he’d used since he was a kid. Whenever he couldn’t place something, he went into his head as though entering a file cabinet. He began to thumb through past files of women he’d encountered, female clients, co-workers, foreign agents, former lovers, even co-eds he’d dated back in college.

He stared at her tapering back with its enticing arch, her slender waist and her lovely, rounded, barely covered behind. Something clicked. He found the memory file he was looking for, and he opened it.

Ben looked up,
shading his eyes from the sun, and he saw her shapely bottom clothed in a tiny yellow bikini decorated with a pattern of multicolored flowers. She stood before him, skin bathed in sunlight, facing slightly away, topless. Her long golden brown locks spilled down her back and across one breast, leaving him an enticing view of its rounded curve. He held his breath, praying she’d turn so he could see her nipples. He knew they’d be pink.

As if she could hear his thoughts, she turned, and her nipples were exactly what he expected‍—‌a tender, sweet pink like the gentle hue of apple blossoms in the spring. Perfect.

She caught him looking at her and smiled a self-conscious smile. Her arm moved as if to cover herself, but she dropped it and tried to appear nonchalant.

He and Tom were sunning in the topless section at Barton Springs, enjoying the view. They had a month off before they were due to report for advanced training and they’d decided to spend it in Austin with Ben’s family.

Barton Springs was the first place Tom wanted to go. He’d panted over the topless area on the grassy hillside since his first visit as a freshman in high school.

Ben couldn’t disagree with his friend. The view was beautiful. He glanced at Tom. His friend was busy eyeing the girl’s well-endowed companions as they approached.

Ben had eyes only for her.

In the sunlight her thick hair gave off glittering gold highlights. It tumbled to the middle of her back in a riot of curls. His fingers itched at the thought of petting those long gold-brown strands.

As he watched her, she slipped a section behind her left ear and waved to her friends. Her arms were slender and nicely muscled, her hands slim, fingers long and tapered. She had the hands of a piano player, and he grew erect, imagining those long fingers playing him. He reached over for his folded towel and pulled it over his lap.

From behind his right shoulder, Tom snorted. “Go get in the water,” Tom said, laughing. “That should cool you off.”

Ben ignored him. Instead, his eyes returned to her. He found immense pleasure in simply looking and fantasizing. She stood less than ten feet from him, facing him now, waiting for her friends to catch up to her.

She shot him a quick glance and Ben got a look at her eyes. They were the color of her hair, golden brown, and tilted up at the corners. Her cheekbones were prominent and slanted. That and the very slight red undertone to her skin gave him the impression that somewhere in her background was Native American blood.