Page 24 of Mercenary
I arrive without further incident, return the car, and take a cab toward the beach and the Corpus Christi Inn. I didn’t prearrange for a room, erring on the side of caution before leaving Tucson, but again cash talks and the clerk is more than happy to book me into an ocean side room. The room is beautiful, with a small kitchen, a balcony with gulf views, and an air of normalcy about it.
Are you ready to begin again?
My eyes sweep across the suite, coming to rest on the stovetop in the open-spaced kitchen, and I immediately know how to cheer myself up. My way of christening my new hometown. My new life.
Everything seems better when cupcakes are involved.
* * *
There issomething about makings lists that I find soothing. Maybe it’s because I like being organized, having set goals and a plan. I find comfort in writing them and reassurance in knowing how, with patience and perseverance, everything can be resolved if you’re clever enough to fit the puzzle pieces together. It’s an either/or situation. Every hypothesis will be validated or proved false, right? It’s my way of controlling what I can even when the long, brutal string of events say otherwise.
As I lick homemade icing off my fingers, I’m careful not to leave vanilla-bean fingerprints on the two sheets of paper set out on the desk before me.
Lists, peace of mind, cupcakes. The perfect trio.
What’s at the top of the first one is cause for celebration. A job opening for a gift-shop clerk at the Texas State Aquarium. Though I’ll be dealing with stuffed animals rather than real ones, I’m optimistic my boss will move me into a more suitable position once he or she discovers I’m a marine biology major. That is, once I get the job and apply for Texas A&M’s program. But first things first.
As backup, I’ve also jotted down other potential employers like the Corpus Christi Marina and Give Paws, a rescue center for four-footed land animals. On the bottom I’ve written “Contact Admission Office.” A no-brainer, yet I add it to remind myself what I’ve been forced to temporarily give up.
I polish off the last bite of cupcake and shift my attention from the must-do list to the second one. For the time being, I’m renting long-term accommodations at the Corpus Crispi Inn, but finding a cheap apartment would need to be added to the list. I have access to money—a bank account in San Diego that I set up and transferred my inheritance into a few weeks before winter break—but living in a hotel isn’t lying low. If I do land a job in Corpus Christi and am able to stay here for a long period of time, I can also focus on the shorter, much more challenging compilation, list number two: my FIO list, for “Figure It Out.”
It’s no surprise Kylie’s the headliner. “Where is she?” and “What has she done?” are written as subcategories. Number three reads: “Who wants to harm me?” Three dots connect the question to the word Shelby and another to the word Cabo. If I can just make some of the pieces fit.
With a sigh, I stand and move away from the small desk in my room and over to the small refrigerator in an equally small kitchenette, thinking about the last item I need to figure out.
“My Stranger.”
Heck, he probably deserved his own freaking list after everything. How did he fit into this whole thing? So far all I really know about him is narrowed down into four bullet points:
A friend of Kylie’s
A man of few words but big on action.
My hero.
My fantasy crush.
I pause and shake my head, carefully covering the remaining cupcakes with plastic wrap. Psychologist might as well be added to my to-do list. He’s just a man you’ve placed on a pedestal. A man who has forgotten you. You are on your own, Madelyn.
Tomorrow my life will begin all over again. I’ll pursue my passion while coasting on cruise control and hopefully, with time and a new perspective, figure things out.
The kitchenette window faces the beach, and with the window cracked, I can almost smell the salt air. Tomorrow, I promise myself, I will go down to the beach and be normal.
But for now, I let the last rays of sun setting over the horizon wash over me. A few teenagers try to surf the calm gulf waters. A couple just ahead of me and to the right is making out and looking like the lovers featured in the classic movie From Here to Eternity. Otherwise, the beach is quiet.
I close my eyes, imagining him. Imagining his tongue on my neck, on the sensitive hallow of my throat, on the top swell of my breast. The naughty, playful grin he gives me when he looks up. The lust in his eyes before he returns to touching me, caressing me, suckling one breast then the other. His fingers moving lower across my abdomen and between my legs.
I run my fingers across my inner thigh, feeling the promise of his touch. My nipples harden and my core grows moist. For a second, I wish I were brazen like Kylie or uninhibited like Luciana.
In my mind, my body would still as he slides a digit inside me, moving in and out, in and out. I imagine his low, husky voice telling me he’s going to take what’s his, how he’s going to fuck me six ways to Sunday.
A rush of warmth spreads across my body and my heart begins to wildly thump with excitement. Yes. Please.
Off in the distance, a kid shouts. I open my eyes, and my lover is gone.
And I need a cold shower. Pronto. Wet daydreams won’t help me get a job or find my sister. Twenty minutes of lukewarm water later, I’ve pushed my dream lover from my mind. Mostly.
As I open the bathroom door, dressed in my oh-so-glamorous tiny sleep shorts and a worn-thin tank that my sister gave me as a gift years ago, I pause. There’s a faint smell of citrus in the air laced with pleasant yet distinct hints of linseed oil. Like the kind of scent-infused oil used to treat leather.
