Rock Chick 04 Renegade (19 page)

At the final thought, my breath went funny.

“Jules.”

“What?” I said to the ceiling.

“Come here.”

I thought about fighting it and decided against it. Don’t ask me why but it had been a weird day, in fact, it had been a weird four months. With my work, my training and my nightly patrol and now my head-to-head battle with Vance, I was tired and I simply didn’t have it in me.

I scooted closer. Vance’s arm came around my back, curled me into his side and I had no choice but to rest my head against his shoulder. I laid there, body tense. I didn’t know what to do with my hands so I tucked one arm underneath me and stroked Boo’s side with the other.

“How’s your leg?” I asked.

“I’l live,” he answered.

“I’m sorry. It’s my fault you got shot.”

“It isn’t your fault Sal Cordova is a moron.” This was true. I went silent.

Vance reached up and turned out the light. In the darkness I felt his heat seeping into me and my body began to relax.

I laid there for awhile and listened to Boo purring. I stopped stroking him and rested my hand on Vance a few inches below my face. I was getting the impression that nothing was going to happen at this juncture to continue the night’s sexual activities. Vance was action man, if he meant to make a move he would have done so by now.

I took a deep breath and let it out and my body relaxed more.

“I ruined our second date,” I whispered.

He didn’t say anything.

I went silent again.

Then for some bizarre reason, I started talking.

“I told you I went there for my sixteenth birthday. Nick took me.”

He stil didn’t say anything.

I kept talking. “It was five and a half months after Auntie Reba died. We had been…” I hesitated, “it wasn’t good.

She died sudden, unexpected. It seemed the clouds over our lives would never clear.”

Vance stil stayed silent.

I went on. “Nick wanted to make the day special. The sixteenth birthday, for a girl, is important. He bought me a dozen pink roses, because they’re my favorites, and gave them to me in the car. Made me take them with me to the restaurant so people would know it was my day. He had them bring me a cake with sparklers on it.” Somewhere along the line, while I was talking, Vance started stroking my back.

I relaxed deeper into him. “We had fun. It was the first time since Auntie Reba died that we forgot the hole she left for a couple of hours and enjoyed ourselves. We even laughed.”

Boo got tired of being petted, walked across my waist and settled in a kitty curl at the base of my spine.

“As a present, he gave me a diamond necklace made from Auntie Reba’s engagement ring.”

Vance stopped stroking my back, his arm went tight around me and he rol ed to face me. This trapped my hand between us and his other hand went to rest on my hip.

There was a smal window at the head of the bed and I could just barely make out the planes and angles of his face in the moonlight.

He stil didn’t say anything but I could see he was looking at me.

“I’m sorry about the tequila,” I whispered, changing to a different subject.

Final y he spoke but quietly. “Don’t worry about it.”

“You licked my lip,” I reminded him.

“You tasted of cherries,” he told me.

Oh right, Jet’s lip balm.

“I forgot.”

“Drinking is my problem, I won’t make it yours,” he told me, his deep voice was relaxed, even sleepy, but there was stil that fierce undercurrent that he used when he was talking to Roam.

I didn’t say anything.

I waited, a few minutes passed and then I went on. “I can’t believe you shot Sal Cordova in the ass.” I couldn’t help myself, I thought it was funny even though I knew I shouldn’t.

I smiled at him in the moonlight.

“Seemed a good place to aim,” he told me and I felt my body go slightly stiff.

“You
meant
to shoot him in the ass?” I asked.

“He
is
an ass,” was Vance’s reply.

“That’s true,” I told him and then relaxed again.

I sighed and was silent for a few beats.

Then I said, “What did you mean when you told me you never expected to get the chance at something so sweet?” I whispered in a voice so low I thought maybe he wouldn’t whispered in a voice so low I thought maybe he wouldn’t hear it.

His hands slid along the silk of my nightgown, down over my bottom then I felt the fingers of one hand curl into the material. He pul ed it up and then one of his arms went tight at my waist, the other hand skimmed over my bottom and pul ed me deeper into him.

What he didn’t do was answer.

Or, maybe, that
was
his answer.

I held my breath through his movements, my bel y fluttering but then his hand and arm went stil .

“Vance? Did you hear me?” I said a little louder.

“I heard you.” That’s al he said.

“Um,” I started, knowing it was likely rude but finding courage in the dark and saying it al the same, “from what I hear, you’ve had a lot of sweet things.”

“No. I’ve had a lot of easy things.”

“I know a couple of girls you’ve –”

“None of them smel ed of melons, tasted of cherries or ended up worth the effort,” he said bluntly.

I blinked at him in the dark. “Are you saying I’l be worth the effort?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he responded immediately.

I blinked again, stunned and feeling weird, good weird, bad weird, scary weird, Rottweiler snarling weird.

“How do you know I’l be worth the effort?”

“I know.”

“How?” I pushed.

“I just know.”

“How?” I didn’t let it go.

“You eat shit most your life, work, sweat and bleed for anything you could get the rest of it, you know sweet when you taste it.”

Oh my
God
.

I didn’t know what to say to that so I didn’t say anything at al and fel silent.

“You done talkin’?” he asked after a few minutes.

I nodded.

His hand at my waist slid up my back to my head. He tucked my face into his throat and he held me.

I laid there awhile.

Then when I thought he was asleep, I took my hand from where it was pressed against his chest and I wrapped it around his waist.

When I did this, his arms went tight, he yanked out my ponytail holder and my hair spil ed over his hand. He ran his fingers through it then I felt him twirling a tendril somewhere in the area between my shoulder blades.

I guessed that meant he wasn’t asleep.

Whatever.

I closed my eyes and settled in.

He kept playing with my hair.

Before I knew it, before I even would have thought it possible, I fel asleep.

I woke up with a bel y in the state of advanced fluttering.

In fact I was pretty certain in the recesses of my deep sleep I’d already experienced some significant flutterings and thought they were a dream.

I knew by now with Vance’s relentless pursuit of me and al that had happened during that pursuit that what I was feeling was very,
very
turned on.

This had to do with the fact that Vance’s body was pressed close to my back.

It also had to do with the fact that Vance’s hardness was pressed against my bottom.

But, mostly, it had to do with the fact that Vance’s hand was at my breast and his thumb was stroking lightly back and forth across my nipple.

I moved slightly and so did Vance, pressing into me.

With his mouth at the back of my neck, he said,

“Mornin’.”

At the same time his thumb stopped stroking, it was joined by his finger and they pressed together. Also at the same time his other hand slid into the front of my panties and went deep.

I felt a shockwave shoot from my nipple and detonate between my legs.

“Oh my God,” I whispered.

He didn’t stop, both his hands worked me and I pushed back into his body, nestling my bottom into his crotch. I started breathing heavily, my stil -sleepy mind completely muddled.

I tried to turn, to touch him but his arms tensed and he held me where I was.

I gave up, giving into the sensations. I felt his teeth nip my shoulder, catching the strap of my nightgown. His body moved as his mouth pul ed down the strap, exposing my breast. He was now skin-against-skin at my breast, one of his fingers slid inside me and I felt heat slice through my body.

I tried to turn again but he kept me where I was, finger moving in and out and instinct made my hips move with it, riding his hand.

“Jesus, Jules,” he said at my neck, his voice hoarse and his finger slid away and touched me again, moving, swirling and I felt it coming.

I’d had orgasms before, self-induced, but it was nothing like this, nothing at al . It overwhelmed me, I sucked in breath and Vance knew it was going to happen.

He rol ed me to my back, his hand stil between my legs, I wrapped my arms around him, bucked my hips, his mouth came to mine and it hit me.

And when it did I moaned his name.

The minute I finished his name, he moved away and I made a detached mew of protest at the loss of his heat and hand but he wasn’t going anywhere.

I was stil in the throes of my orgasm when he tore my panties down my legs, spread my thighs and he came up between them and fil ed me.

It didn’t hurt, not at al . Instead it felt beautiful.

I whispered his name again. He pul ed up my legs at the knees, pushing deeper, moving rhythmical y and my hips matched the movements of his.

“Jesus Christ, you’re tight,” he muttered into my neck and I wrapped my arms around him, pul ing my knees back further so he could slide deeper

He went up on his hands, grinding into me, looking down at me, his eyes dilated, his hair around his shoulders.

Looking up at him, at that moment, he was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

“Come back to me,” I murmured and the minute I asked, he did, his hand moving between us, touching me, pressing into me. I was sensitive there, ready again. I started panting, it was too much; I thought it would shatter me.

“Vance,” I whispered in an urgent voice.

“Let go,” he told me, deep voice husky, eyes staring into mine.

I did.

A few minutes later, he did too.

* * * * *

We did a lot of horseback riding.

Maybe Indy was wrong and it
wasn’t
an urban myth.

Whatever. It didn’t matter.

What mattered was the fact that I just discovered that sex was great. Sex was wonderful. Sex was
the best
thing ever invented.

Vance’s weight was on me, pressing me into the bed.

He was stil inside me, my arms wrapped around his waist, thighs tight against his hips and I was thinking stupid thoughts, my mind racing, my body spent.

Vance slowly, gently slid out of me and shifted to the side, taking me with him. I lifted my chin to look at him, maybe even smile at him but with one look I knew something was definitely not right.

Damn.

Maybe I’d done it wrong.

“Vance…”

His eyes were intense, more intense than his normal intense. Something was in his face, something not right and I didn’t know if it was good or bad but whatever it was, it was immense.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked.

So that was it.

I shook my head.

His hand moved between us then between my legs, touching me gently and my hips jerked at his touch because I was stil tender.

The whole time he looked into my eyes, staring at me in that intense way.

“What are you doing?” I whispered.

“Checkin’ for blood.”

My breath caught.

Oh crap.

He knew. He knew I was a virgin.

How did he know?

It was my turn to stare at him.

“Are you on the pil ?” he asked.

I shook my head again.

His hand came away, his eyes went to it then he moved to the bottom of the bed and dropped over the edge silently. I stared at him while he did this, stunned immobile then his hands wrapped around my ankles and he dragged me down the bed, caught me when I came over the side and put me on my feet.

“What are you doing?” I asked, unable to keep up.

He grabbed my hand and pul ed me into the bathroom.

“Am I bleeding?”

“No.”

“Then, why –?”

He stopped in the bathroom and nabbed a rol ed washcloth (mint green, Egyptian cotton, my towels were
lush
) out of a basket on the back of the toilet. He threw it into the sink and turned on the tap.

“Vance, for God’s sake, what are you doing?” I snapped, my patience spent.

He came at me, face clouded.

I took one look at his face and retreated. Without far to go in the smal room, my back hit the bathroom wal and his body came up against mine.

“You were a virgin,” he said.

I opened and shut my mouth three times not knowing what to say.

“Don’t deny it.”

“How did you know?” I whispered.

“No one’s that fuckin’ tight. Jesus, Jules, why didn’t you say anything?”

“Turn off the faucet,” I said in an effort to stal . I did
not
want to have this particular conversation.

“Answer me,” he demanded. Vance was apparently intent on having this particular conversation.

I gave in to get it over with. “I tried, last night but things got…” I started then stopped, “and this morning things were advanced –”