“Don’t make me wait,” he whispered, leaning over and nipping at an earlobe. “I want you so bad I think it’s cutting at me from inside out.”
He felt her hesitate, and for a split second, he knew misery.
But then she brushed her ass against his erection in a beckoning gesture. She bent at the waist.
“That’s right. You are an angel. Put your hands on the bed,” he said thickly as he moved behind her.
***
Who in their right mind named a town Vulture’s Canyon? Katie Hughes wondered as she peered out her front windshield at the forlorn-looking buildings that comprised downtown Vulture’s Canyon, Illinois. She’d seen quaint-looking downtowns circa the 1930s, both in her road trips around California and on Hollywood movie sets. But Vulture’s Canyon’s storefronts appeared much older. She stared at the Dyer Creek Trading Company as she passed and wondered if she’d gone through a time warp back to the 1800s. A humid September evening and the soft, hazy lavender fall of twilight only added to the surreal feeling. The sensation of being lost in time was so complete that she gave a little sigh of relief when she saw the door of the Legion Diner open and a teenage boy step onto the sidewalk wearing a rock band T-shirt, jeans and tennis shoes.
The kid gawked at her as she approached. Katie gave him a wave, sympathetic toward a young man’s admiration of sex on wheels. It was embarrassing to admit, but she’d had a similar adolescent longing when she’d bought the shiny black Maserati. Maybe she’d always treasure the feeling of the open road and a fast ride surging through her veins, but at least she’d learned a measure of shame over her crush on sleek, mechanized power. She was a thirty-year-old woman, after all, not one of this kid’s classmates.
Something squirmed inside her belly when she recalled the look of incredulity and vague disgust on the manager’s face when Katie had whipped into the parking lot of the soup kitchen to volunteer for service a few months back.
Note to self: don’t show up for philanthropic service in an expensive car; it reeks of self-disgust and the need to fill the empty hole of a useless life.
Katie shoved the depressing thought aside and smiled when the teenager dazedly waved back at her. She hit the brakes and waited while the kid walked toward the curb with a stride that was all long, scissoring legs and arms. She recognized his awkwardness and felt a rush of warmth toward him. She lowered the passenger-side window.
“Hi,” she called. “I’m Katie.”
“Uh . . . hi,” he replied, his deep voice spiced with a slight twang. Southern Illinois was a whole different world from the northern part of the state. She saw him inspect her car, and then her, with brown eyes that looked curious, but also slightly alarmed, as though he thought she passed for normal, but hadn’t entirely discounted the possibility that an alien had just glided into Vulture’s Canyon in a Maserati.
“What’s your name?” Katie asked.
His Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed. “Derek Legion.”
“Hey, Derek. Could you tell me where I might find Eagle Perch Road?”
“Yeah. Just keep going straight through town, pass Dyer Creek and take the first right you come to.” He crouched slightly to get a better look at her. “You’re not going up to the Mitchell house, are you?”
“Yeah, I am. You know Rill Pierce?”
Katie thought she read a hint of belligerence in the kid’s expression, making him look older than he had just seconds before. “I know who he is. He manages to come down the hill a couple of times a week. Sees to the necessities,” he added, glancing pointedly across the street. Katie turned her head and saw where the boy was looking: the Last Stop Tavern.
She straightened in the car seat. She wasn’t surprised at the boy’s subtle judgment of Rill, but it still made her uncomfortable nonetheless.
Rill had practically been adopted by the Hughes family since he’d come to southern California from Ireland to attend UCLA. That had been almost twenty years ago. People usually gravitated toward Rill. Grandmas adored him and little boys begged him to rugby-tackle them. He could make a female of any age marvel at the wonder of her womanhood as she experienced the delicious contrast of her own sexuality and Rill’s easy charm and rugged good looks.
Things must be even worse than she’d thought if Rill’s behavior in the small town could cause this nice-seeming kid to glower so darkly.
She thanked Derek, assuring him that Rill was a longtime friend when he asked her if she was sure she should go up to the Mitchell place alone.
Twenty minutes later as she leaned over Rill’s mussed bed and stared blindly at the wall while his cock slowly carved into her flesh like a hot knife through melting butter, Katie distantly realized she should have heeded the boy’s warning.