The Hookup (Moonlight and Motor Oil #1)(3)

It was then he said softly, “Izzy, baby, there’s a good possibility I’m gonna bite you. But just to say, trust me, you’ll wanna get outta my truck, because I can guarantee you’re gonna like it.”

A tingle drifted between my legs that must have been a lot more powerful than it felt, because it forced those legs to the side.

Johnny got out of my way as I got out of his truck. He guided me to some wooden, open-slat steps at the side of the building, and he stopped me halfway up to kiss me.

The rest was a haze of nothing but goodness.

During that goodness, on more than one occasion, he had bitten me.

And he’d been true to his word.

I’d liked it.

And after three times of having sex (but four orgasms for me), I fell asleep naked in his arms.

Now there I was, still naked in his bed, and he was deep in contemplation of the creek and woods that surrounded his home, cocooning it in nature, looking a part of it with his bearded-man-because-he-was-a-man-who-wore-a-beard, sweats-wearing, coffee-drinking casualness in his space.

I looked away and spied my panties tangled with my jeans on the floor by his bed, and not far away from them was the T-shirt he wore last night.

I scooched to the edge of the bed, holding the sheet to my chest, and kept scooching, and reaching, as I extended out a leg as far as I could stretch, toes pointed, to drag his T-shirt my way.

I managed this, leaned over, grabbed it and pulled it over my head.

Only then did I get up.

I was tall. He was taller but I was tall. He had very broad shoulders, so the shirt bagged at mine and down my chest, but it barely covered my rump.

That wasn’t the only reason I bent and nabbed my panties.

I slid them on, surreptitiously looking out the windows only to see Johnny had moved, but only to be in the act of lifting his coffee mug to his lips. His eyes were still trained to the distance, his back partially twisted toward me.

Thus I took in the room, which was one big room (huge actually) with kitchen, dining area, lounging area, a reading area, and bed. But there was a mouth to a hall to the right of the kitchen.

I headed that way seeing three doors down the hall, two to the right, one to the left.

The first to the right was open. I glanced in and saw a big long room that had a lot of stuff. This stuff was a furnace, water heater and a Wi-Fi setup, but also a bunch of man things. Jackets and fleeces on hooks. Boots and running shoes in an untidy pile on the floor. A gun rack with four places for rifles, only two of them taken. What appeared to be a bound up tent and some folded camp chairs in the corner. A camp stove. Camp lanterns. Fishing nets. Fishing poles. A big backpack.

I walked a couple of steps down the hall and looked into the room at the left.

The bathroom.

I entered and was astonished.

The front room I hadn’t fully taken in. The ceilings, however, were wood. The walls, stone. It was a room you would expect in this building made of cream, tan and brown stone that had a water wheel.

The bathroom had been completely redone, and even to my inexpert eye I could see it was recently.

And it didn’t look like it belonged in this building.

All white.

Everything.

Shiny white, subway tile walls. A large shower (actually mammoth, with five sprays, two slanted in at the top sides, one at the ceiling, and two more coming from the walls). A white with gray veins marble-topped double sink with illuminated mirror. A toilet behind a half partition that hid it mostly from view. And a big (actually huge) corner tub with a narrow platform built around it where it met the wall, where a woman would put candles, plants, decorative jars with bath salts.

The last I knew because there was that there. The only thing on that narrow platform. A decorative glass jar with a handsome chrome top half-filled with blue bath salts.

This was not Johnny’s.

This was someone else’s.

Right just then I didn’t want to think of the possibility of “someone else.”

I looked away from the bath salts and the fabulousness of this huge, clean, gleaming, gorgeous bathroom that was any woman’s fantasy and so incongruous to the furnace/water heater room that was a mess of men stuff and outdoor gear, and I used the facilities. I washed my hands. I opened Johnny’s drawers until I found some toothpaste and used my finger as a brush. I rinsed and stared at the mirror into eyes that really needed the makeup removed, and in a further quick and as noninvasive as I could make it perusal, I searched for facial care products that might go with the bath salts.

There were none.

There was, however, some mouthwash so I used that.

I wanted to leave the bathroom, but after seeing it in all its glory, curiosity overwhelmed me, taking me to the door at the back between the tub and shower. A door that was closed.

But I couldn’t do it.

Johnny Gamble had bought me four margaritas. He’d brought me to his home. He’d then given me four orgasms and held me in his arms while I fell asleep (this didn’t take long, then again, I’d had four margaritas and four orgasms).

I owed him privacy.

If he offered me a tour of his home, I’d take it.

But those bath salts notwithstanding, there was no indication from him or anything else that I needed to pry just in case he was hiding something.

He might have a woman who was off on a girl’s weekend or away for work and he felt safe to go on the prowl and in doing so, being as he was, looking like he did, knowing he’d get lucky, he’d hidden the evidence and forgot the bath salts.