“How do you know Daisy and Nick?” Regan’s question shakes me out of my fantasy, and I drag my attention back to the table and her question. Be a human being and make conversation, I order myself.
“Ahhh, through friends,” I say vaguely, wondering if I could avoid the topic of Vasily Petrovich forever. Russia is one of the leading exporters of flesh, although the home of the brave isn’t so far behind. “You?”
“Daisy answered my ad for a roommate. She’s fresh off the farm. I’m worried about her. You know she hadn’t left her town in years because her dad was a big agoraphobic? She was running away from home at the age of twenty.” Regan laughs a little self-consciously, tucking a lock of hair behind her delicate ear. If I were a soldier home for a couple of weeks of furlough and had run across her, I’d have been on her like gravy on biscuits. Hell, I’d have had to fight off some of my squad mates to get to her. And now I’ve had a taste of her. I’d heard her sexy noises as she got excited, the soft, wet sounds as her fingers worked her pussy, the moans of relief and satisfaction when she came. And I’m gone again.
“Daisy seems . . . trusting.” Daisy and Nick were perfect for each other. He was a crazy psychopath, and she didn’t know any better that he wasn’t normal. I vaguely remember giving Nick dating advice at one time. He’d laugh—if he knew how—if he saw the state I was in.
“Yeah, too much so, I guess.” Regan sighs and then pushes her eggs around on her plate a bit. “I called my boyfriend when you were in the shower.”
Boyfriend? Oh right, the Mike dude who can’t keep it up for more than five seconds. That’s deflating. I’m cooking up fantasies about the fifty ways I could make Regan come, and she’s worried about calling the guy who’s never given her an orgasm. “That’s fine. Phone’s a burner.” I wondered if she was worried that we were going to get tracked down. “You should call your parents.”
“What can I say to them? I’m here in Brazil, but I’m on the run because some crazy guy with a blond-hair, green-eye fetish is preventing me from flying home? And by the way, Mike’s already moved on to my girlfriend Becca.”
“Sounds like she’s not much of a girlfriend.” I try to hide my satisfaction that Mike’s not in the picture. I wonder if I should off him, though. Just for being a douchebag. I think the world can only sustain so many asswipes, and I’d be doing a favor making sure the scales were even.
“Yeah,” she answers glumly.
I wonder if she’s the most torn up about Mike or Becca or her parents. Girl has a lot on her plate. Guess she has the right to be upset about any and all things. I make what I hope is a sympathetic face and continue eating. It’s either that or get on a plane and shoot Mike in the nuts.
“I’m in college, you know. I’m working on getting my CPP.”
Taking the last bite of my chorizo, I look disapprovingly at Regan’s nearly uneaten plate. I wonder if she doesn’t like the food or the company. Too bad. She needs the fuel. “Start eating. We have places to go.”
She frowns but mechanically starts eating again.
I lean back into my chair and stretch my legs out. Man, I’m tired. Regan and I need to get to Luiz, and then we need some serious sleep. Or I’m going to make a mistake—like touch her the next time she licks my neck. My fingers curl into my coffee cup as I think about that and her wet body and her pussy-slicked fingers pressed against my lips. That non-sex was just about the best sexual encounter I’d had in far too long.
“What about you?” She gestures toward me. “Did you always want to be a gun-toting maniac?”
“Nah. Thought I would go home after I got out of the army and help my dad out on the ranch.”
“So why aren’t you?”
“Because I was a hothead. I got into a fight my senior year with some guy, and I broke a few ribs. Jackass was making fun of my sister. Judge told me I could have a blot on my record or I could go enlist for four years. I chose enlistment. My dad was pretty pissed off, and we exchanged some angry words about me not being good enough to run the ranch and him being too much of a control freak. I ended up staying in the army and then . . .” I trail off. “Then something happened, and I haven’t been able to go home. But once I right that problem I’m heading for the ranch, and I’m not leaving.” I change the subject because I’m done talking about me. “What’s a CPP?”