Golden Trail (The 'Burg #3)(2)
Then his eyelids closed and sleep took him.
Chapter One
Dreams
She rolled him then her mouth was on him, her tongue, her hair trailing down his chest, she nipped his side with her teeth, sexy, hot, Christ, she’d devour him if she could.
He hauled her up and rolled her back, his lips taking hers, his tongue shafting into her mouth. He f**king loved the way she let him kiss her, let him take, did nothing but give. It was contradictory to the way she f**ked him, a tussle, a battle for supremacy.
Not, of course, when he made love to her, that was different.
But now, they were f**king.
Both her hands slid down his back to his ass, fingers curling in, he could feel her nails, all the while she arched her back, pressing into him. She wanted it, he knew it and his c**k was so f**king hard, aching, if he didn’t give it to her soon, he’d come on her belly.
His hand moved down her body, between her legs, down the inside of one thigh, pushing it open and his h*ps moved between.
Her mouth broke from his, lips sliding across his cheek to his ear.
“Yes, Layne, come inside,” Rocky rasped.
* * * * *
Layne’s eyes opened.
He was on his stomach, in his bed and his c**k was rock hard. Aching.
He rolled to his back.
“Christ,” he muttered into the darkened room.
He lifted his palms to his forehead and pressed in.
Every night, every night for six weeks since he saw her in his hospital room, he had these dreams. Always sex, hot sex, wild sex and not what they had eighteen years ago. These weren’t memories. She wasn’t twenty and he wasn’t twenty-four. They’d had hot, wild sex back then, the best, the f**king best he ever had, by a mile. But, in the dreams, she was who she is now and the same with him. And the sex was better.
Far better.
Out of this f**king world.
He stared at the ceiling, concentrating on bringing his body under control.
Layne didn’t understand these dreams. He hadn’t even seen her since that night. He’d seen her brother Merry and father Dave dozens of times but not Raquel. He hadn’t talked to or asked Merry or Dave about Rocky’s visit either. After days slid into weeks and she didn’t show, he’d actually tried to convince himself he’d been hallucinating, especially after seeing that look, smelling her perfume so close, feeling the touch of her hand, her hair, her lips.
But he knew he wasn’t hallucinating.
He rolled out of bed and got up, walked to the bathroom, took a piss, washed his hands, splashed water on his face then brushed his teeth as he stared at his torso in the mirror.
The wounds were fading, still red, the violence of a bullet tearing though flesh still visible. Three inches down from the middle of his right shoulder and another at his upper gut. His pajama bottoms hid the wound to his right thigh. They joined the stab wound he got in his right side in San Antonio and the deep graze wounds from the shrapnel he took to the left hip and side of his thigh after that car bomb went off in LA.
He bent his neck and spit, rinsed and wiped his mouth with a towel he took from and threw back to the counter before he raised his head and looked into his eyes in the mirror.
“I need a new f**kin’ job,” he told himself.
Then his head cocked and he listened.
Nothing.
He walked into the room, his eyes at the drawn curtains, seeing weak light coming around the sides, through the slit in the middle. His eyes went to his alarm clock.
Six thirty.
He listened again.
“Fuck,” he bit out and strode fast from his room, a huge master suite that had a bedroom that held his king-size bed, a low dresser and another narrower, higher dresser on which he’d put a flat-screen TV. If he wanted, he could put a chair and couch in there, which he didn’t, so there was tons of empty space making the room seem cavernous. This led to a master bath that had a double sink, a huge mirror in front of it, acres of counter space between the sinks, cabinets underneath separated by a space where the woman of the house, if there was one, which there wasn’t, could put a bench and have a dressing table. Behind the sinks a room with the toilet, giving privacy – to the left, if you were facing it. Across from that, a shower stall big enough to fit two. In between and up two carpeted steps, a huge, oval sunken tub. Beyond the bathroom was an enormous walk-in closet nearly as big as the bedroom.
Layne threw open one of the double doors that led out to the large open area at the top of the stairs that held his weight bench, weights, a treadmill, a wall filled with in-built shelves, cabinets and a desk unit under the wide window where his computer was, a beat up swivel chair in front of it.
He walked through the room and to one of the doors at the opposite side of the stairs. He knocked loud, twice. His hand went to the handle, he pressed down and pushed in, swinging his torso into the dark room, he saw his youngest son Tripp dead asleep in bed.
“Tripp, up, shower,” he ordered, his voice loud.
Tripp’s body moved, rolled. “Wha?”
“Up, boy, shower. You’re late. You gotta get to school,” Layne told his son.
“Right,” Tripp mumbled and rolled back to his stomach.
“Now, Tripp,” Layne demanded, pushed the door all the way open and walked down the hall to the next door.
He knocked, twice again, and then opened the door. There was movement immediately but this was Jasper’s dog, Blondie, a way-too-friendly yellow lab. She jumped from Jasper’s bed and moseyed to the door, her body swaying with the force of her wagging tail. His son, however, didn’t move.