Chapter Six
“Jesus. What the hell is she wearing?”
West blurted the question to himself as he stomped on the brake of his Silverado and pulled to the side of Haymaker Road. On the dirt shoulde
r across the street, Roxy, Kenny, and Dobie gathered around the open hood of Dobie’s piece of shit Honda. West craned his neck and blinked. If his eyes could be trusted, she wore the red cowboy boots she used for cigarette storage, a barely there bikini bottom emblazoned with the stars and stripes—guaranteed to inspire patriotic impulses in any straight man with a pulse—and a white T-shirt knotted at the waist. The black ink of some sort of tattoo peeked out from old glory. Wings, or maybe flames?
He should have stuck to the main road, but no, he’d opted for the scenic route home from a day of sweat and sawdust. Entertaining as it had been to trade insults and bullshit with Tyler, Shaun, and some other locals at the build, his mind had constantly strayed to Roxy.
Three heads swung his way when he whipped a U-turn and pulled in behind the Honda. Kenny and Dobie recognized his truck and saluted.
Roxy’s expression remained a good deal more cautious, and she kept her eyes hidden behind mirrored aviators that transitioned from blue at the center to deep purple around the edges. He lowered his window. Dobie ambled up with Kenny on his six. Roxy hung back.
“Dude, you’re so on it, saving us two days in a row!”
His eyes were half-mast, his smile crooked. Four-twenty had come and gone with the proper acknowledgment in Dobie’s world. West briefly considered calling one of the officers on duty to come out, search Kenny’s car, and try to hit the fool with a Class B misdemeanor, but decided it would be pointless. Kenny and Dobie didn’t have the money or ambition for trafficking. They fell into the personal use category, and at least one of them had obviously taken care of whatever stash they’d set aside for this afternoon’s adventures.
“What are you doing out here?”
“We were showing Roxy around the Browning place,” Kenny piped up. He looked marginally less wasted than Dobie but had a longneck dangling from the hand he used to gesture in the direction of the former horse farm.
“That’s private property, not a community swimming hole.”
“No doubt.” Kenny raised a hand, palm forward in a placating gesture. “We just walked the perimeter.”
Yeah, right. “How’d your clothes get wet?”
“Sweat, man,” Dobie interjected. “It’s muggy as hell out here.”
“Anyway,” Kenny continued, “when we came back to the car, the bitch wouldn’t start.”
West closed his eyes and counted to ten. “I hope you weren’t planning to drive.”
“I’m fine, dude. No problem.”
He pointed to the beer. “Open container, dude. That’s a problem.”
“I was going to drive.” Roxy’s silk-lined voice slid into the conversation.
“Your driver’s license is expired.”
She had the good grace to blush. “Oh. Right. I forgot.”
“But nobody drove,” Dobie pointed out, clearly impressed with his flash of genius, “so everything’s cool. Or it will be, if you could give us a lift to town and drop us at the Gas ‘n Go. Roscoe can’t get out here with his tow truck for at least an hour.”
“You don’t mind, do you?” Kenny asked as he tossed his now-empty beer through the open back window of the Honda. “You’re headed in that direction anyway.”
He’d known as soon as he’d pulled over that he wasn’t pulling away without Roxy. He tipped his head toward the bed of the truck. “Go on. Climb in. Not you,” he added when Roxy made a move to follow them. He leaned across and opened the passenger door. “In here. Two’s the maximum number of riders permitted in the bed of a pickup,” he added when she hesitated. Not true, but he doubted she’d look it up.
Still she held back, fingers twisting the knot in her T-shirt as she considered the passenger seat.
“I’m wet.”
His attention automatically dropped to the V between her legs. Holy shit, his head was going to explode—or some part of him—even as his last rational brain cell acknowledged she meant the comment innocently enough. She didn’t want to sit on his leather seat in her wet swimsuit.
“It’s fine.”
She undid the knot in her shirt and pulled it over her head, which had him dragging his gaze up her body. Her naval ring only snared him for a second, while a vision of those wings taking flight as she straddled his lap and rode him straight to heaven flashed through his mind. But the star-spangled triangles stretched over her tits stalled him longer. The damp fabric revealed every contour. A couple strings disappeared around her neck and a couple more around her back to tether the top in place, but her breasts swayed precariously as she arranged her shirt across the passenger seat. He sat, paralyzed, while she climbed into the truck and carelessly tortured him to death with cleavage—front cleavage, side cleavage, even a lung-hollowing glimpse of under-cleavage when she twisted her hair up in a topknot. Finally, she settled into the seat and tugged the bikini into place. His imagination subjected him to a ruthlessly graphic vision of hauling her onto his lap, pushing the bikini out of his way, and replacing it with his hands. In his fantasy, she sank her fingers into his hair and guided his mouth to one eager peak. He could almost hear the grateful sounds she’d make as he drew it deep into his mouth.