15
Ally checked the time on her cell phone and
glanced back at the arrivals gate. Rob was due back any minute.
When Jackson had been called in for an extra shift, she’d borrowed
his truck and volunteered to pick Rob up from the Sacramento
airport. It was another hot and steamy day, so she’d worn a simple
patterned halter-neck dress and sandals, her hair loose on her
shoulders. It was nice not to be cleaning something and having to
wear her oldest clothes for work.
A crowd of travelers surged through the
gate, and Ally had no trouble spotting Rob, who towered over most
people. He wasn’t in uniform and had settled for an olive green
T-shirt and khaki shorts. Ally waved at him. He instantly turned
toward her, his bag slung over his shoulder.
“Ally.”
“Jackson was delayed at the last
minute. I hope you don’t mind me coming instead.”
Something flickered in the depths of
his light blue eyes as his mouth curved into a smile. “I’d much
rather see you coming any day.”
Ally found herself unable to look away
as his mouth descended on hers and he kissed her as if they were
alone and naked in his bedroom. His bag thumped down onto the floor
and he caged her in his embrace. She forgot where they were as his
hand edged down over her ass and flirted with the hem of her short
skirt.
An announcement crackled over the
public-address system, and Rob wrenched his mouth away from hers.
His expression was grim. “We’d better get going.”
“Okay,” Ally said
breathlessly.
He picked up his bag, took her hand,
and started purposefully toward the parking lot.
She tugged at his hand. “I parked
inside because of the heat. We need to use the stairs or take the
elevator to level four.”
Rob changed direction and soon they
were climbing the echoing staircase to the parking garage’s fourth
level. Ally let him lead her, her fingers held firmly in his grasp,
her heart pounding. He pushed open the door, and they were in the
quiet of the far left corner of the parking garage.
“My truck or yours?”
“Jackson’s, actually.” Ally pointed it
out. “It’s over there.”
“Keys?”
Ally handed them over, and Rob stowed
his bag in the back and then turned back to Ally. She was in his
arms before she even realized his intention, his mouth voracious
and demanding over hers. “I’ve been thinking about you all week,
thinking about fucking you.” His hand slid under her skirt and
tugged at the thin lace of her panties. “Are you wet for
me?”
Ally tried to see past him to the rest
of the garage, but she couldn’t, and she didn’t really want to.
Having Rob touching her in such a public place turned her on, and
he probably knew it. “Yes.” Two of his fingers plunged inside her,
and she gasped and grabbed hold of his arm.
He ripped the seam of her panties and
they slid down her legs. “I can’t wait, Ally. I need to be inside
you right now.”
He backed her against the low wall at
the edge of the structure and bent her over it. She felt warm air
on her ass cheeks as he flipped up her skirt, the sound of his
zipper, and then . . . God, he was inside her, shoving himself
deep, making her breathe hard through the sudden
impalement.
She opened her eyes and looked down,
and was amazed to see that there was no one staring up at them. Rob
slid a hand inside the top of her dress and palmed her breast,
pinching her nipple hard. She came for him and tried to scream, but
his other hand came up to cover her mouth and she writhed in
silence.
He kept up the fast pace, slamming his
length from tip to balls into her wetter and wetter sex. Even
through her desire, she heard the sound of the elevator doors open
and voices echoing, coming closer and closer.
Rob took his hand away from her breast
and fingered her clit. He nipped her ear and murmured, “You’re
going to come for me now, while these people walk right by
us.”
She wanted to argue with him, but he
had her pinned to the wall, his big body covering hers, his hands
and cock dictating all her emotions. The voices drew closer, and he
kept fucking her until she couldn’t think of anything else, would
have turned on him if he’d dared to stop.
She climaxed so hard she started to
shake and writhe under him, her teeth biting into his restraining
hand, which made him curse.
“You okay there, sir?”
She closed her eyes as Rob stroked her
hair. “Yeah, sure. My wife’s suffering from morning sickness. You
know what that’s like—when you gotta puke, you gotta puke. Sorry to
disturb you.”
“No problem. We just wanted to make
sure everything was okay.” A woman’s voice this time, the tone
warmer and more concerned.
Rob kissed the back of Ally’s neck.
“You okay, honey?”
She managed a weak nod and a wave and
Rob chuckled. “She’s a bit embarrassed. You know how it
is.”
“I sure do.” The woman laughed. “Well,
I hope everything goes okay.”
“Thanks, ma’am. I’ll take care of
her.”
Their voices faded and Rob continued to
stand over her, his cock still throbbing deep inside her. A car
started up and moved past them. Ally guessed Rob was giving their
unwanted friends a cheery wave. Silence fell back over the space,
and Ally started to breathe again. Rob pinched her clit and circled
his hips.
“I’m not done yet and neither are
you.”
Ally groaned as he drew back, until
just the crown of his cock was inside her, and then he slammed
himself all the way back in. He did it again, his fingers squeezing
her clit, and she came. With a curse, he started hammering into
her, each stroke lifting her hips, exposing more of her sex to his
powerful thrusts.
He climaxed, uttering a low, guttural
roar as he bit down on the side of her neck. “Ally . . .” He
collapsed over her for a moment and then moved away, scooped her up
in his arms, and dumped her into the truck. She sat there quivering
while he went around and got into the driver’s seat.
Ally blinked as they emerged into the
bright sunlight and waited while Rob paid the parking fee. She
wondered if she looked as disheveled as she felt, her panties gone
and her sex swollen and wet from Rob’s ministrations. She glanced
across at him as he chatted with the ticket guy. Despite the faint
sheen of sweat on his skin, he looked as if he’d been doing nothing
more strenuous than walking up a few flights of
stairs.
They pulled away and Rob headed for the
exit. “Do you have to work today?”
“No.”
“Then let’s take the long way home.”
Rob disregarded the entrance to the freeway and headed back under
the bridge toward the much smaller and slower back road. Ally sat
back in the seat and tried to relax. Rob put his hand on her
thigh.
“Open your legs for me.”
“I’m going to get Jackson’s seat all
damp.”
Rob squeezed her thigh. “Just do it. I
can guarantee he won’t give a damn.”
Ally relaxed her thighs, and Rob’s hand
slipped between them. He groaned as he encountered the slick
wetness. “I like this, like you being all wet from my come.” His
fingertip grazed her clit and she shuddered. “I wish you could feel
like this all the time.”
“Wet with no panties?”
Rob flexed his fingers. “Yeah. Totally
naked would be even better.”
“I don’t think the airport authorities
would like that somehow.”
He didn’t answer, just pushed one long
finger inside her and held it deep. “Touch your clit, honey. Make
yourself come around my finger.” Ally couldn’t ignore the dark
command of his tone, and her hand slid to her lap. “Move your skirt
out of the way. I want to see you.”
Ally pulled her already crumpled cotton
skirt to one side and stared down, entranced, at his big strong
hand, which disappeared between her legs and inside her body. She
tucked her fingers under his palm and found her swollen
clit.
“Before you start, undo my belt, unzip
my shorts, and let my cock out.”
Ally hurried to comply, but he didn’t
even look at her, his gaze fixed firmly on the road in front of
them. His cock was already half erect and wet at the tip, and she
couldn’t help but smooth a finger over it. He shuddered but still
didn’t look down.
“Stroke your clit, Ally.”
She slowly circled her own pulsing wet
bud and felt Rob’s finger push against the smooth walls of her
sheath. She touched herself again, and her hips almost came off the
seat. “I’m really sensitive . . . ,” she moaned.
“I told you what to do, Ally. Now do
it.”
She stroked herself again, got into the
slick motion, and started to moan with every fresh stab of
sensation that seemed to radiate from her clit to his encased
finger. He didn’t help her, making her do all the work of rising to
meet him, of pushing herself against the palm of his hand in
desperate supplication.
“Harder, Ally.” He pressed his hand
down, trapping hers over her clit, and ground his palm into her
working knuckles. Her climax made her back arch, and Rob kept
rubbing her until she came again. He took his hand away from her
crotch and cupped the back of her head. “Now take my cock in your
mouth and keep it there.”
She fought the constraints of the seat
belt as she leaned across his lap and opened her mouth wide to take
him inside. She started to suck him, and his grip tightened on her
hair. “Just hold me. Don’t make me come.”
Rob didn’t dare look down. Ally had
relaxed her mouth as he continued to grow, his thick length
crowding down her throat forcing her to breathe through her nose.
Every jolt of the truck pushed him farther in and made him want to
curse. There was no way he wasn’t going to explode soon, and he had
an aversion to losing control when he was driving. He saw a sign
for a motel and sped up a little.
He pulled off the highway and into the
parking lot. The motel looked like it had faded away in the bright
sunlight, its paintwork drab, the asphalt gray and the white lines
that designated the parking spaces hopeful haphazard dots. He
carefully disengaged his cock from Ally’s mouth.
“Stay here.”
He managed to make himself presentable
and strolled into the reception area of the motel, where a lone
teenager chewed gum and stared up at a baseball game on the small
TV.
“Hey, I need a room.”
“Sure.” The guy didn’t take his eyes
off the screen. “Thirty bucks a night.”
Rob peeled off three tens and laid them
on the counter.
The boy pushed a book toward him. “Sign
in here.” He pushed a large wooden keychain fashioned in the shape
of a banana across the desk. “Here you go, room thirty-two. It’s
just around the back in the shade.”
“Thanks.” Rob grabbed the key and
headed back to the truck, which he had left running in the heat. He
pulled around the low block of buildings and found the room. “Come
on, honey.”
He unlocked the door and stepped into
the faded chintzy orange glory of the seventies. At least
everything looked clean, and it wasn’t as if they were staying
long. He caught Ally by the shoulder and pulled her against him,
and his cock immediately kicked up again. He bore her down onto the
bed, spreading her legs with his as he fumbled with his
zipper.
Yeah, this was what he wanted, being
inside her, making her scream and whimper and beg him not to stop,
to never stop, to fuck her until he ran out of come. She wrapped
her legs around him and kept him close until he could no longer
hold himself back and climaxed in long, shuddering
spurts.
Eventually, he levered himself up on
his elbows and looked down at her. “You okay?”
She nodded, her gaze fixed on his. He
reached behind her neck and undid the ties of her halter neck.
“Take the dress off.”
He did most of the work, pulling the
now-crumpled cotton over her head, leaving her naked, her skin
white against the orange bedcovers. Her long legs rested against
his. He drew his T-shirt over his head and took off his shorts.
They’d both already lost their sandals on the busily patterned
carpet.
Before he tossed all their clothes onto
a nearby chair, he slid his leather belt out of its loops. Ally
licked her lips, and his cock twitched in anticipation. He knelt
over her, the belt folded in his hand. “Hell, I can’t decide
whether to use it as a collar on you or to spank you a little.” She
swallowed convulsively, her nipples hardening into tight buds.
“When you called the other night, you left me so hard I think you
deserve to pay, don’t you?”
“What about Jackson? It was his idea to
call you.”
“Don’t worry. Jackson will get his.” He
pictured his best friend fucking Ally. He of all people knew just
how to make Jackson sweat and beg.
“I just did what I was told.” She
fluttered her eyelashes at him. “I thought you’d like
that.”
Rob smiled at Ally. “Sure.” He reached
forward and swirled a finger over her swollen clit and she flinched
away from him. He didn’t retreat; instead, he did it again and
watched as she caught her breath. “We need to work on
that.”
He bent his head and licked her very
gently until she started to relax. “Need to get you so that you can
take all the loving me and Jackson want to give you.” Then he set
his teeth on her clit, and she grabbed at his hair so hard his eyes
watered. He backed off, leaving her gasping.
“Hands and knees, honey.”
He waited as she turned over and
presented him with the sweet curve of her ass. He folded the belt
in two and tapped her right ass cheek. “You enjoyed the thought of
me alone in that bed thinking about what you and Jackson were
getting up to, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
He raised the leather a little higher
and spanked her a little harder. “I was hard all week after that.”
Her hands fisted on the covers as he kept using the leather on her.
He watched her carefully, aware of every twitch and moan, bringing
her to a pitch where she was gasping his name with every precise
blow.
“Spread your legs a little
wider.”
He rubbed the leather in the thick
wetness between her legs, back and forth, back and forth until she
was arching her ass as if seeking his cock. He waited until she
stilled and then used the leather belt right against her
sex.
“Rob, oh God . . .” She screamed his
name again, and the sound went straight to his groin. He smacked
her pussy again, this time using the flat of his hand. “If you
liked that, tell me to do it again.”
“Please, do it.” Her voice was muffled
against the sheets, but he heard her just fine and obliged, a
little harder this time. She started to climax, and he grabbed her
hips and pulled her back, impaling her on his shaft, felt the
strength of her climax squeezing him like a fist. He hammered into
her again, aware that she hadn’t stopped coming and that he was
gritting his teeth against the inevitable climax that was gathering
in his balls.
With a groan, he held her tight and
released into her. He had no energy left to hold himself up, and he
fell on top of her, pushing her flat against the covers. After a
while he rolled over, bringing her with him. Sunlight filtered
through the partially closed drapes, and he stared up at the
yellowing popcorn ceiling. She felt so right there, against his
steadily pumping heart, that he didn’t want to leave.
His eyes started to close, and he
threaded his fingers through her long hair, only to groan and bring
them both to an upright position.
“Damn it, we’ve got to get back.
Jackson will need his truck.”
Ally stayed curled in his lap, her
breathing even, her face tranquil as if she hadn’t quite come down
yet from the place he’d sent her, the place where her sexual needs
were met by his dominance. He kissed the top of her head and
carried her into the small bathroom.
“Ally, we need to wash
up.”
“Okay.”
She smiled up at him, and the trust in
her gray eyes made him feel half proud and half ashamed. He’d given
her what she wanted in bed. Could he ever give her what she wanted
in life? He wasn’t even sure if he knew anymore. She’d seemed set
on getting out of town as fast as possible, and he hadn’t said
anything to persuade her otherwise. But could he survive it if she
left him again?
He turned on the faucets with more
force than they needed, and water cascaded into the shallow peach
sink. Ally bent forward to splash the water over her face. He’d
promised himself that he wouldn’t push her into making decisions,
and he intended to keep to that. Forcing her hand wouldn’t achieve
what he wanted, but would he ever find the right words to make her
stay?
Ally glanced across at Rob as he drove
the truck into the deepening sunlight. He hadn’t said much more to
her than the basic necessities. Within twenty minutes, they’d
showered, put on their clothes, and gotten back in the truck to
continue the journey. Ally stifled a yawn behind her hand, and Rob
glanced at her for the first time.
“You want to go stretch out on the
backseat?”
“No, I’m fine. It isn’t far
now.”
“Yeah, about another five
minutes.”
Ally gathered her resolve. “Are you
okay, Rob?”
“Sure.”
“You seem a bit quiet.”
“I’m tired, honey. I’ve been traveling
all day.”
“And then you had to fuck me as
well.”
“That was a pleasure.”
“Really?”
“Sure.”
Ally fought a sigh. Men were so hard to
have a conversation with. Rob’s lovemaking overwhelmed her, turned
her into a needy, sex-obsessed woman, and she loved it. Loved what
he could do to her with his hands, his mouth, his cock, his leather
belt . . . She squirmed in her seat. Did he even care?
Rob stole a glance at her. “Are you
sore?”
“A little.”
“But you’re okay with it.”
“Sure.”
“Now you sound like me.”
Ally smiled and looked out the window
as the outskirts of Spring Falls appeared. It wasn’t even that
late, about six according to the clock in the cab. “You can drop me
off at the corner.”
“Hell, no. I’ll take you to your
door.”
“Even if Jane sees you?”
He patted her knee. “I’m done with
hiding. If anyone wants to talk to me about my relationship with
you, I’ll meet them head-on.”
Ally bit down hard on her lip. “We
don’t have a relationship. You told me that. You said it was all
about sex and revenge.”
He turned the corner into her street,
his keen gaze fixed on the houses. When he shut the engine off, the
silence was deafening. He got out of the cab and came around to
help her out. His expression was difficult to read, the grip on her
arm more definite. He towed her around the side of the house and
approached the back door, his key already out. She went past him
into the kitchen and stood in the middle, her arms crossed over her
breasts.
He swung toward her and then stopped
and shoved his hands in his pockets. “It was never just about the
sex, Ally. You’re the one who said you were going to run off again,
not me. What kind of fool would want to get involved with a woman
who has already made up her mind to leave?”
After Rob left, Ally couldn’t settle
and found herself standing in the dining room staring at her
mother’s desk. Something made her pick up the last of the journals
and take them through to her bedroom. Even though she’d understood
where Rob was coming from, his words had still hurt her. It was as
if he still didn’t understand her at all.
She stared at the matte-black face of
the journal. But was she any better? She’d steadfastly refused to
believe that her mother could ever change, but from what everyone
in Spring Falls was trying to tell her, maybe Ruth had. Reading a
few of the entries in Ruth’s journal, painful as it was sure to be,
might at least help solve that mystery once and for all. She opened
the book in the middle and settled down to read. The entry was
dated about three years previously.
I’m wondering what’s
happened to Ally. She seems to have disappeared. If I try and
contact her, I know she won’t answer me, and that’s my fault not
hers. I’m worried, though, because in her pictures she’s been
looking thinner and thinner and her eyes . . . her eyes look as
dead as mine used to. I’m afraid she might be harming herself. And
it’s my fault. It’s all my fault.
The words blurred and Ally realized she
was crying. How dare Ruth be concerned about her? It was her mom’s fault, and she had no business making Ally
feel bad as well. Ally swiped at the tears on her cheeks with the
back of her hand and threw the book onto the floor.
She reached for a tissue, blew her
nose, and stared at the journal. But it wasn’t all her mom’s fault,
was it? The choices she’d made were her own, not Ruth’s, and she’d
paid for them just as Ruth had.
“At least I didn’t have a kid or anyone
who needed me,” she whispered. But was that true? She’d let her
friends and her business acquaintances down. Wasn’t that just as
selfish? Maybe not, but it hadn’t been very nice.
“Mirror, mirror on the wall, am I
turning into my mom after all?” she murmured, and then found
herself smiling at her own bad rhyme. Ally leaned over and picked
up the book. When exactly had Ruth changed? Despite her tiredness,
she knew it would be impossible to sleep. She replaced the book on
the bedside table and went back to check out the desk in the dining
room.
She switched on the lamp at the side of
the desk and took a deep breath before starting to sort through the
journals. They started when Ally was quite young but were very
patchy and incomplete. Ally found a journal that covered the period
from about two years after she’d left, and she sat down on the
dusty carpet to read.
It’s stupid. Ally’s
gone and I feel like there’s nothing left in my world. I thought it
would be easier not having her around criticizing me all the time,
but the weird thing is I miss it. At least she cared enough to try,
even though I didn’t like to hear it.
I can’t even say it’s
her fault I drink anymore either. I just like to drink. I’m going
to talk to Dr. Shalvis tomorrow. Things have got to
change.
When Ally closed the book, her eyes
were stinging again. How weird that Ruth’s words echoed Ally’s
earlier ones. It seemed that her departure had eventually led to
Ruth deciding to quit alcohol and drugs for good. It hadn’t been an
instant moment of revelation, but a gradual progression of her
mother realizing that without Ally’s presence, there was no one who
really loved her.
Ally stuffed the journal back into the
drawer and shut it with a bang. As if Ruth had ever cared that Ally
had loved her . . . She’d never seemed to notice. And she’d stopped
loving Ruth anyway . . . hadn’t she?
Too exhausted to think anymore, Ally
made her way to bed. Despite everything, she knew she was going to
keep on reading. Her mother’s words might open up old wounds, but
she’d learned that sometimes that needed to happen in order for a
person to move on. She was trying the same thing with Rob and
Jackson, wasn’t she? Ally halted at the dining room door and looked
back at the darkened room. If she’d replied to Ruth’s messages,
would she and her mother have found peace? Pain seized her heart.
It was too late to find out. Her mother was dead.