Through A Glass, Darkly (The Assassins of Youth MC #1)(39)

“Provocative? A movie is provocative. Think of a better word. You can’t think, can you? Is your mind on something else?”

Oo, I wanted to slap him then! He was so suave, so accustomed to toying with women like that! I cast him a smoldering look. “You know what I mean, mister. You can feel how I became very stirred up.” But even I had to smile then. “You know what a sensual, handsome, rugged bastard you are. I’m not about to add to the list of women who’ve told you that. I want to be different. Oh!”

He hit a sweet spot then, and the smile vanished from his face. He was all about the business now, and his fingers seemed to blur against my clitoris.

I came then, like a heifer in heat, all squatted on top of him with my skirts flowing outward on the surface of the water. My shoe would never be the same, although I’d managed to keep the other shoe out of the water for balance. It was a long, drawn-out orgasm, like a flower blooming in slow motion, waves of ecstasy rolling up and down my inner channel, erotic hands clutching at my uterus.

Field had never bothered making me come, and I’d never felt closer to a man. Our gaze seemed to say “I care about you. I want to make you feel ecstasy more blissful than the joy of heaven.” As the waves finally ebbed, I released my hold on his shoulders, and sort of sat in his watery lap. He had a grin that just could not quit, and his fingers moved to unbutton the first few buttons of my bodice. I kissed him, and it was soft and gentle. If we were a regular, normal couple, this was when we’d spoon and take a nap together.

But all would never be normal in Cornucopia, and insistent knocking came, coupled with someone frantically trying the doorknob. “Mom! What’s going on in there?”

I sat up bolt upright. Was Vonda truly so clueless that she couldn’t guess? “Vonda! I’m sorry, I must’ve locked the door by accident. Hang on.”

Gideon whispered, “Like your sopping wet dress won’t give it away.”

“Oh, my squash,” I whispered back. Clambering out of the tub, I streamed rivers of water down the cement slab toward the front door. No one had ever gotten around to carpeting the guest house, a lucky stroke. But there was no denying that more than half my entire dress was wet. I wrung out handfuls of my skirts into the kitchenette sink, but the dark discoloration of course remained. I had no choice but to open the front door.

“What’s going on?” Vonda asked, exasperation coloring her voice.

I played dumb. “Nothing. Why? What’s so urgent?”

Bronson Carradine, that federal agent, stepped out from behind my daughter. He actually had his cowboy hat in his hand, as though already begging my forgiveness.

“I know Gideon’s recuperating from a gunshot wound,” he said. By letting me know he knew this, he gave me no choice but to let him in. Right off the bat, it was an unspoken threat: he’d report the gunshot, and perhaps even details about Breakiron’s death, if I didn’t let him in. “But I’ve got an intriguing proposal he definitely wants to hear.”

“Let him in,” Gideon bellowed from behind me, leaving me no choice at all.

I didn’t feel good about closing the door behind me. That federal agent was bad news, and I wondered how he’d even gotten onto the compound property again.

Vonda snickered as we walked back to the main house. “Your whole dress is wet. I heard sloshing around in there.”

“I was giving him a bath. Listen, Vonda, I got an extension on your sealing to Orson Ream. But we’re going to have to face it eventually.”

That made her face fall. I instantly felt bad for using that particular subject to distract her. “I know. Is there nothing that Gideon Fortunati can do about it?”

How did she know? “Actually, there might be, Vonda. But you’re going to have to keep this completely close to your vest, you hear?”

“I hear.”

We stopped walking. I was going to have to trust my own daughter not to blab a matter of such vital importance. “We’re trying to find a way to get us out of here. Maybe even Kimball, Rayd and the rest of them.”

Vonda’s eyes were round. “Seriously? Oh my God, that would be beyond great, Mom! Are you serious? Are you frickin’ serious?”

I took her under my arm then, laughing. “Yes. We’d stay in Gideon’s house, but I haven’t figured out yet where the Manwills will stay. Now, this is just between us, hear? Don’t even mention it to Kimball, although she knows something’s up, too. Just don’t take the risk of anyone overhearing any talk.”

My mood became elevated after the illicit tryst with Gideon. Oxytocin flooded my brain with feel-good hormones, and stayed that way for quite awhile to come.





CHAPTER TWELVE




GIDEON


It was a f*cking shock to my system, going from the arms of that goddess to the shady, devious face of Bronson Carradine.

“How did you get in?” was my first question.

“Well,” he barked in that slick-tongued, sandpapery voice. He liked to amble around my bath tub in a superior, swaggering way. Each time I met the guy, I liked him less and less. Bikers have an inborn loathing of officers who upheld traditional laws, because we had laws of our own to follow. “Since the name of Reed Smoot seems to have finally been deleted from your security software, the name of Immanuel Zabriskie came in handy getting through the gate.”