Woman on Top [McQueen Was My Valley 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (21 page)

“Of course not. The artifact job probably pays ten times as much, for one thing.”

“Twenty times,” Adrian admitted. “But that’s not important, Brooke, if it means I’m running through a souk carrying an Assyrian prism with nothing to come home to.”

“When you put it like that, it sounds romantic and dashing.”

“Well, I just named the first object that came into my head. But you get the picture. What point is all of that when it’s just a never-ending cycle of work, work, and work?” He took her shoulders in his palms. “It’s just a harsh, brutal, bitter life. These guys, fellow security contractors like Nathan, do you think seeing their faces provides any solace when I come back from some grueling mission where I was shot at while using a decaying donkey’s carcass as a breastwork? The guys like Nathan are happy to see me alive, but a woman provides a comfort that a coworker can’t. It gets old, Brooke, the camels braying, the muezzin singing, the flies buzzing, and the smells smelling.”

“I imagine. To outsiders it sounds romantic, but to you it must just be maddening.”

“I’d like to try my hand at this long-term relationship thing. If you’ll have me.”

It looked as though her eyes brimmed with unshed tears. “Of course, Adrian. Why did you think I was such a blabbermouth about being so madly in love with you from the start? I wasn’t ashamed. The opposite, in fact. I knew I
should
feel weird and ridiculous admitting I was in love with a man I barely knew, but I didn’t. I felt proud. I told Xandra about it a long time ago.”

Adrian didn’t feel embarrassed, either. He rubbed Brooke’s sultry lower lip with his thumb. “One reason why I didn’t tell you about the ranch is there’s another surprise. Course, I only hammered out the job offer yesterday , but Nathan was there and gave me a new idea.”

“Idea?” Brooke was even more beautiful when her curiosity was piqued. “To do what?”

“Well, it’s obviously just an idea.” Since Adrian didn’t want Brooke asking him any more questions about his surprise, he kissed her. He drank her in, taking long sips from her lush lips, slowly swirling his tongue against the tip of hers. A surge of emotion he could only call love swelled in his chest, and he crushed her probably a bit too hard against him.

He pulled back, remembering her condition. “I don’t see Doug, but I want to get you back to the lodge. I should consult with Gabriel about luring that asshole out of the trailer, or storming in there.”

Brooke froze, her hands entwined at the back of his neck. “Don’t. He’s got a pistol obviously, and God knows what else is in that trailer.”

“He could stay in there for awhile, little one. This could turn into a stand-off like Ruby Ridge, with the fanatic holding his ground inside there.”

“Doesn’t someone usually throw tear gas into the window? There are windows in the trailer.”

“Sure, if we had tear gas. We didn’t exactly go skiing expecting to gas someone.”

“Yes,” Brooke said thoughtfully, “I thought neo-Nazis didn’t ski. Boy, was I wrong.”

The next thing Adrian knew, half of the entire sky was filled with shooting, flaming debris. Instinctively he crouched, pulling Brooke down with him, throwing his body in front of hers and brandishing his weapon in the direction of the trailer.

But the Crowd Pleaser was exploding. There was nothing to shoot at.

As Adrian and Brooke gaped in awe, first the back half of the trailer exploded, sending jagged pieces of aluminum siding and particle board sailing through the air. High-pitched whistles and trailers of sparkling light went shooting from the trailer, dazzling against the bluebird sky. Thousands of simultaneous cracks and pops filled the air. A piece of siding about five-feet square crashed to the snow near Gabriel, and this gave Adrian an idea. He had to let go of Brooke for a few split seconds to scramble out and grab a fairly large piece of particle board that still had a pipe for a sink attached to it. He held this over their heads as more pieces, smaller ones now, rained down around them.

“Fireworks!” cried Brooke, when an entire box of untouched smoke bombs landed with a plop nearby.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Adrian suggested wisely as the front part of the trailer now began to split and explode into a hundred thousand projectiles. Holding the board over their heads, they ran as fast as was possible wearing ski boots, hunched down low in the snow. Now strange torn and smoldering pieces began to fall around them—a raccoon’s tail here, a bear’s paw there. Adrian realized Wade had been storing not only fireworks but poached animal parts in that trailer. A cougar’s head hit the particle board that served as Adrian’s roof and bounced off it, landing ten feet away, staring glassily at them.

“Turn around! I want to look!”

Adrian knew the temptation to watch a toilet trailer full of fireworks exploding was too great, so they stopped and turned around to watch from reasonable distance, peeking out from behind a pine. Streamers arced against the deep blue sky and flowers burst much lower over the ground than they were meant to, sending their petals horizontally like speeding rockets where they smashed into trees. Boxes of fireworks exploded all at once as columns of sparkling light. Fewer animal parts rained down now, and only the pathetic front wall and stairs of the Crowd Pleaser remained upright.

“Ooh!” Brooke cried. “Grand finale!”

What must have been the biggest boxes of rings and spiders were set off. There was one deafening explosion that surged upward in a crackling, blinding ball of light. The cumulative bangs, crackles, and whistles combined into one earsplitting sonic boom that had Adrian cradling Brooke’s head to his chest with his free arm.

He wondered where Gabriel had gone. Last he’d seen Gabriel was hiding under the piece of siding, but he wasn’t in that spot anymore. Items were pelting Adrian’s board roof again, bits of brightly colored paper and clods of fur sprinkling down around them. Adrian fervently prayed there wouldn’t be any body parts to traumatize Brooke. A toilet seat that smashed into the snow twenty feet away seemed to be the last airborne object, so tentatively Adrian moved their roof aside to peer about. The skeleton of the trailer still smoldered, and the occasional crackle and pop lit up the remaining two-by-fours still standing, but only seatless toilets and sinks remained on the foundation, maybe a smoking hull of a metal file cabinet.

Adrian allowed Brooke to slowly crawl out into the snow. The first item she picked up was the “No Smoking” sign, now telling them “N Smo.” “Wow,” she breathed. “I guess Wade started jonesing inside the trailer and decided to light up.”

“Yeah.” Adrian stood and brushed his ski pants free of debris. “And I don’t think he smoked cigarettes. He never asked for one the whole time we hauled him to the Monticello jail.” He picked up a jagged glass tube coated with milky white residue that had no doubt been a meth pipe mouthpiece. Adrian didn’t run into meth during the course of his job, but Gabriel unfortunately did, so he pocketed the broken glass and yelled, “
Gabriel
!”

“Whoa!
Dude
!”

It was Doug Ostrovsky skiing over the rise, followed by two beefy guys in goggles with mirrored lenses. They slalomed professionally through all the fallen trash and swished to a stop near Adrian and Brooke. Doug moved his goggles to the top of his head and shouted enthusiastically, “
Dude
! That was epic
sickness
! Kabloom, shit flying everywhere, just like in a Bruce Willis movie!”

“More like a Leslie Nielsen movie,” said Brooke soberly, tossing aside the sign to pick up a smoldering red fox’s tail. “‘Keep on moving. There’s nothing to see here.’ I wonder how many damned animals he had in that trailer? I’m assuming—and hoping—they were all already dead when the trailer exploded.”

“Epic sickness,” agreed a security guard, high-fiving his coworker silently with his gloved hand.

Adrian literally sighed with relief when Gabriel came stomping down the rise from where Doug and his cronies had emerged. Adrian stomped up to meet him and they collided like two Frankensteins, trying to throw their arms around each other with all the padded layers of clothing separating them.

Adrian even dared to kiss Gabriel on the mouth, if only briefly. “Thank God.” They had taken off their gloves while waiting for Wade to leave the trailer, so they now wrung each other’s icy hands.

“That fucktard,” panted Gabriel, “must’ve been really craving a hit off his pipe. You okay?”

“Fine. But I think Brooke should go see the lodge doctor pronto.”

Brooke had stamped up the rise, and she now kissed Gabriel’s face as well. She was so fresh and rosy cheeked from the icy air, simply a ravishing snow bunny. Anger welled in Adrian again to see the purplish knots shining on her forehead, but now he could console himself that Wade Rivers had just laid down in a bed of his own making. “Darling,” she said to Gabriel, joining the group hug. They all leaned in, noses nearly touching. “I think Wade just saved you a lot of paperwork.”

Gabriel laughed. “Now I don’t have to arrest him.”

Two snowmobiles came over the crest of the hill, the red-jacketed ski patrol alerted to their location by the fireworks display.

“Listen, little one,” said Adrian, wringing Brooke’s hand, “that ski patrol guy will drive you back to Walden Camp. You don’t need to be here answering ridiculous questions.”

Gabriel added, “Yes, go with them, Brooke. We’ll be the ones to answer the idiotic questions.”

Brooke was hesitant. “Gabriel, did you know Adrian accepted a job at the ranch?”

“No.” Adrian hadn’t told him. Gabriel wrapped a hand around the back of Adrian’s neck and squeezed. “Good for you, buddy. Good for you.”

Brooke added, “
And
there’s some surprise at the ranch. He won’t tell me what it is.”

“In due time!” cried Adrian. Good things came to those who waited. He didn’t want to play all his cards at once and risk his lovers growing tired of him. Adrian knew he’d have to keep things interesting if he wanted these two on their toes.

“Yo!” Doug was yelling. “Dudes. We’ll need to, ah, get some kind of explanation as to what transpired here. Darius here will take Brooke back to the lodge.”

Adrian waved his assent to Doug. He kept a grip on Brooke’s arm as he led her to the snowmobile. “You go back and listen to what the doctor says. Take the painkillers. I don’t want the woman I love to be in any pain.”

Brooke paused and looked at him sideways, mischievous. “So you love me, eh?”

Adrian looked sideways down at her. “Always have.”

She nodded briskly. “I knew that.” And she stalked off to the waiting snowmobile.

Adrian sighed deeply. He was the one who was going to have to stay on his toes if he wanted to keep up with Brooke McQueen.

Adrian had only come indoors to grab a wine opener, but now he was pressed up against the granite countertop by a hulking male body.

Gabriel bit his earlobe and whispered, “You wouldn’t believe how hot this view is getting me.”

Adrian hung his head to give Gabriel access to his neck. He shivered with delight when Gabriel nibbled there. “That was the plan.” Adrian had worked with an architect to situate the house with optimum views from all windows. He had quickly decided that the great room, kitchen, and master bedroom should face Prism Canyon with its vast vista of layered red rock formations. A forest of eroded monoliths and sandstone pinnacles played out before them any time they washed dishes or chopped garlic. During storms, an ever-mutating kaleidoscope of shadows passed over the panorama of white-topped domes and spires.

Adrian had chosen a “Mountain Craftsman” design modeled after Utah houses he’d admired as well as the “chalet” Nathan had already started building for Xandra and Julian back in January. Adrian had jumped in headfirst so precipitously to this home-building that their home had been completed nearly the same week as Nathan’s “Bait and Switch” home, just one mesa over from their chalet. Adrian’s new family hadn’t come up with a name yet for their beloved chalet with its breakfast cupola, river rock fireplace, meditation room, and twenty-foot windows.

He had saved quite a bit of money in his private military years, having nothing really important to do with it. He had even been fine driving his 1999 Jeep, now parked outside the new chalet. He had sold his New Canaan house and land—he could always stay in a hotel when he had to go to DC for company work. Xandra McQueen owned all of this land, and it was a snap to convince her to deed over a parcel of it for the use of the new Kinsey family. Adrian and Brooke’s wedding was next month in October, so as to give people plenty of time to recover from last December’s Horowitz-McQueen nuptials. The Kinsey-McQueen vows would blow the first ones out of the water.

Gabriel ran his tongue up the side of Adrian’s neck. Taking a big handful of Adrian’s ass in his palm, he squeezed. “You don’t need that butt plug anymore,” he observed, dry-humping Adrian’s ass, clutching Adrian’s thigh between his own two powerful ones.

“Don’t get so cocky.” Adrian chuckled at his own corny joke. He had still not allowed Gabriel to take him up the ass. Since turnabout was fair play, he did allow Gabriel to fuck Brooke wearing a condom. Now, of course, Gabriel was wanting Adrian’s ass all the time. In the shower, out at the ranch, on horseback.