Page 57 of Absinthe Dreams
I kissed her then, I couldn’t help it. But when she let her hand drift down my chest, past my stomach, to wrap sure fingers around my swelling cock, I went to stop her.
“Mm-mm,” she protested, slipping to her knees, and fuck if she didn’t let me claim that luscious mouth of hers…Goddamn.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Genesis…
I guess prison or death wasn’t honestly the thing I needed to worry about most when it came to keeping us apart. Work seemed to be doing just fine in the following days. I had to work an extra day, mandatory overtime, but Chainsaw was kept up on a line job that was far enough upstate that he’d had to get a hotel.
That part sucked. Even though it’d only been a couple of nights, I’d gotten used to draping myself over his body. The scars on his shoulder that’d first brought us together years ago had become a comforting thing beneath my fingertips, a touchstone to how everything could be so much different.
I got into my car at the end of my last shift before two, whatshould have been three,glorious days off, and drove myself home. I parked and went up the back steps, where Charlie boy met me, twining himself around my legs and whining for his dinner.
“Come on, kitto, let’s get you some wet food,” I murmured and went into the house.
It was too quiet, and I wondered if and when he might make it here, considering I hadn’t heard from him since hours andhours ago when he’d said he’d finally finished up and was on his way to me.
I was midway through getting Charlie his food out of the tin when my phone started vibrating withChainsawflashing across the screen.
I snatched up the phone, abandoning Charlie’s dinner for just as long as it took me to answer it, which incensed my cat to the point that when I answered the phone, it sounded a lot like, “Hell –Have you lost your little fuzzy mind!?”
Chainsaw’s laughter boomed in my ear over the line even as Charlie was jumping right back down off the counter to lick at the mess of his wet food now splattered against my cabinets and lying in a soggy lump against part of my kitchen rug.
“Sorry,” I said. “Charlie just dumped his dinner all over the kitchen floor.”
“It’s all good, baby.”
“You, okay?” I asked.
“Yeah, baby, yeah! I’m all good. I stopped by the bayou house to get some things, and the gang’s all here. They got a big seafood boil going on and a bonfire. Wanted to see if you were up for comin’ out here tonight?”
I thought about it and said after a long pause, “How far is it, again?”
He gave me the address, and I put it into my GPS while Charlie worked on his dinner mess at my feet. About an hour, not too bad… I made the decision.
“Am I good to stay there with you tonight? I don’t think I’ll have it in me to get all the way out there and back.”
“You got it, baby. Whatever you want.”
“Okay,” I said. “Let me clean up after Charlie and throw some things together and I’ll be out.”
“Sounds good. Drive safe for me,” he said.
“Bet,” I told him back. “See you soon.”
He hesitated, a pregnant pause, and finally said, “Bye for now.” It felt like he’d wanted to say more. I felt that. I really did.
The call ended, and I looked at the cold, impersonal, generic screen that simply flashed his name and number until the screen went dark. I wanted a picture of him. Stupid couple’s shit, you know?
Was all of this movingincrediblyfast? Yes, but despite the speed of it all and how it may or may not look to any outsiders, it was completelycomfortable,except for the notion of outside judgment occurring.
I quickly handled Charlie’s mess and went into the bedroom, throwing some random shit into my tote – clean underwear and the basics – before I took the time to change out of my scrubs and into something more appropriate for a biker bonfire party.
I made sure Charlie was secure for the night and got into my car for the long drive, checking my GPS and making sure everything was right.
I listened to music and sang along to some of it. When I turned down the rural highway at the edge of the swamp, I spotted the orange glow from the road. The glint of my headlights off the chrome of the line of bikes let me know that this was, for sure, the place I’d been with Chainsaw only days, if not a week before.
I pulled up, and he was already halfway across the yard coming toward me, before I came to a complete stop, let alone put it in park.
