Читать книгу Chasing Shade - Sommer Marsden - Страница 11

‘Oh, shit,’ Betsey said. Then she started to laugh. Luckily Archie was laughing with her. Within a minute they were hanging off each other like two drunks, laughing like lunatics.

‘Oh, my God!’ Archie whooped and then dissolved into even more laughter.

‘Are we laughing as a defence mechanism?’ she asked.

Archie was nodding. Nodding like a bobblehead in a car window. And she found it endearing. That hug had managed to heat her up and make her wonder. Wonder what that hug could have turned into had they added a kiss to the scenario.

‘Yes. Yes, we are. What is this, Betsey?’ He sat down on a milk crate and put his head in his hands.

‘It’s better than your truck, right?’

‘Barely,’ he snorted. He wiped his eyes and ran a hand through his hair as he scanned the employee ‘accommodations’.

‘And better than a…seedy motel?’ she asked, trying not to wince.

‘I’m not sure about that.’

‘I’ll help you!’ Betsey said, surveying the space. The swayback sofa crouched in the corner by the front door of the trailer. It was, not to put too fine a point on it, baby-shit yellow.

There were no other seats.

The kitchen was grimy, the cabinets hanging open to show nothing but bare shelves and a few cracked dishes. The curtains on the windows were threadbare. The rug on the floor matched. She poked a head in the bathroom. Dirty and bare-bones. No shower curtain on the stand-up shower. The bedroom was a bare mattress, a nearly empty bookshelf and a closet with wire hangers, no clothes. It was…a mess.

‘Not even you can save this, Betsey,’ he said, coming up close behind her. She felt his energy rushing around her like water swirling around her when she stood in the ocean. Betsey eyed the bed and wondered, what if…

She shook it off and grabbed his hands. What was it with her and touching him? She couldn’t quite help herself, it seemed. ‘After my breakfast shift tomorrow we can go to the thrift store. I promise, for very little money I can make this place more like a home and less like a…’ She looked around and sighed. ‘Life sentence.’

He was watching her and she became supremely aware of her body. How she was standing. What she might look like. And the fact that she was still holding his hands in hers. Squeezing. Her heart kicked up a notch and she whispered, ‘I promise, Archie.’

When he put his hands on her face and looked into her eyes, she felt a little woozy. Her mind scrambled – stupidly, given the moment she was in – to remember the last time she’d been this close to a man. And, worse yet, this close and this attracted.

‘Betsey?’

‘Yes?’ His eyes were so blue. So, so blue. She didn’t know eyes could be that blue. Or jaws that strong, or stubble that dark, or smiles that…sexy. Jesus, so sexy.

‘I believe you,’ he said. And then he kissed her. A soft, seeking kiss that stole her breath and made her fingers curl in the hem of his shirt. They were that close. Close enough in the horrid trailer that she could feel the heat that drifted off him enveloping her. Close enough that she could sense his body growing chaotic and heated within, the same way hers was. Close enough that when she stopped standing so rigid and let her body melt against his she felt that he was just as attracted to her as she was to him.

She could also tell, based on the size of that hard-on, that if she ever slipped up and let herself get close…she wouldn’t regret it. Not for a second.

She gave herself over to the kiss. When his tongue slid against hers she wanted to wave the white flag and give into her desires. She pushed her body against his and him against her. Betsey swore for a second she could feel his heart pounding in counter time to hers. She gasped when his big hands slid low, caressed her hips and then cupped her ass cheeks. The sound seemed to clear both their heads. They jumped apart like two teenagers caught necking in a dark corner at a dance.

She smoothed her hands over the front of her sweater. Her nipples were ridiculously hard, she realised, and there was nothing she could do about it. So she crossed her arms in front of her chest. ‘Sorry,’ she said.

Archie ran both hands through his dark, already tousled hair, and groaned like a dying man. ‘Christ, me too. I’m sorry. I just…I am so grateful and it’s been so long and you smell so good and…’ He cocked his head at her, grinning.

It went straight between her thighs, that smile. Her pussy was keeping a steady wet pulse with her pounding heart. She felt like, if she gave into it, she’d push him back and have her way with him right there in the middle of his new, horrid hovel of a trailer.

‘And?’ she managed.

‘And you’re certainly not hard to look at, Betsey,’ he said softly, and touched her cheek.

The cheek touch rekindled the idea of riding him like a cowgirl. Instead she laughed nervously and tugged his jacket. Not his hand, not his arm, not anything that could ignite her nerve endings. ‘Come on. I think I have an extra set of sheets you can borrow. We can clean up a bit and tomorrow we’ll set about turning it into a home instead of a hole.’

He laughed. ‘I’ll definitely need your magic touch for that.’

Four hours later they were both covered in dust and grimy. The mattress had been beaten – within an inch of its life – and covered in clean sheets borrowed from Betsey. The sofa had been covered with a gypsy print throw on loan until she could get him to the thrift store. The floors had been swept and Betsey, God love her, had crawled around on her hands and knees with sanitising wipes to clean the small linoleum floor.

‘Sorry,’ she grunted. ‘My mop broke last week. I still need to get one, and, knowing Mr Booth, he won’t have one. He hires a lady from town to come in and clean his trailer once a month.’ She snorted. ‘Should be more often than that, if you ask me.’

Archie couldn’t stop himself. The whole time she was crawling around and he was dusting the high parts to get rid of spider webs, he kept watching her ass. It was impossible not to, now that he’d cupped it in his hands and held her close. His cock still ached if he let himself think about it. It had been almost a year for him. After the initial woe-is-me feeling of not wanting to date while living in his mother’s basement had passed only to leave him in a place – emotionally and mentally – where he just wanted to be alone. He’d been fine being alone. Grateful for it.

And now the thought of wrapping the night up and saying goodnight to Betsey made him a little sad. His chest ached worse than his cock if he thought about it.

It was thoroughly unsettling.

He stood on the small front porch of his new abode and watched her smile. It was a perfect smile.

‘I think we’ve done well. At least considering we had limited supplies and a few hours. Now…’ She rubbed her stomach. ‘I’m starved. Wanna go attack that Salisbury steak?’

His stomach growled. ‘As you can hear, that’s a yes. Hey, there was a liquor store on the way here. Want me to go grab us some beers? Toast all this hard work?’

Her dark-brown eyes clouded for a moment. Her happy face came down to sad. ‘I don’t…I don’t drink,’ she said. ‘But if you want to it’s fine by m–’

‘No,’ he said. Something in her gaze made him sorry he’d brought it up. ‘I can definitely go without. No worries.’

‘Sorry,’ she said, blushing. ‘Sorry to be such a party pooper.’

‘Hey,’ he said, grabbing her arm and giving her a soft hug. ‘People make a fun party. Not booze. It’s really no big deal, Betsey. Let’s go eat that food. I’m ready to drop.’

She took his cue and looped her arm through his as they walked companionably towards her trailer. ‘Thanks, Archie,’ she whispered.

Another hug. He tried to keep it brotherly. He found it hard to believe they’d met less than eight hours ago. ‘Thank you, Betsey. You have single-handedly turned my world around in a single day. You’re amazing.’

She seemed uncomfortable with the praise and quickly changed the subject. ‘We definitely need to get you a shower curtain. It’s the only thing I didn’t have.’

‘Yeah. Not sure how I’m going to handle that one.’ Archie chuckled.

She squeezed his arm. ‘You can just take one at my place tonight. Tomorrow we’ll get you your own.’

Don’t think dirty things…don’t think dirty things…

But Archie failed and ended up, in the back of his mind, thinking dirty things the whole way to Betsey’s trailer.

The Salisbury steak was to die for.

‘I didn’t believe you,’ he said, forking into a big bite. They sat at her tiny two-person table and the fairy lights were twinkling. The whole place made him feel a peace and serenity he hadn’t felt in a very long time.

‘No one ever does,’ she said, winking. ‘They think I’m just talking up the diner’s food. Then they eat it. And they go, “Ooooooooh.”’ She laughed.

‘So tell me, Betsey who saved my ass today Smith, how did you come to be working here? Why is it the waitressing life for you?’

There it was again. That small frown he’d seen earlier and then again when he’d offered to go buy beer. Before she could even attempt to speak, Archie held up a hand. ‘Never mind. Strike that question.’

She cocked an eyebrow at him and he saw that she twirled her long honey-toned hair around her finger when she was nervous. She was twirling it now. Making a tight twist of her hair and then letting it go before repeating the manoeuvre.

‘Why do you say that? Why take the question off the table?’

‘Because your expression says you don’t want to talk about it and I can respect that. I, for some bizarre reason, wanted to talk about life crap when we started talking.’

She chuckled. Ate a forkful of potatoes.

‘Oh, trust me,’ Archie said. ‘It shocked even me. But I did.’ His voice broke a little and he hated how vulnerable he sounded. ‘But I did and I’m grateful for it.’

She blushed and looked down at her plate, at the floor, at the kitchenette. Anywhere but at him. He realised she was a very good person who was very uncomfortable with anyone knowing it.

‘I’m glad I could listen. And maybe…’ She twirled her fork through her potatoes but didn’t eat them. ‘Maybe I’ll want to talk one day soon. To you. I think I will. But it’s hard for me – the talking part – I’m still not one hundred per cent with who I am. Better than I was once upon a time, but still, I think I could be better.’

Archie rubbed his eyes, unsure of what to say. What could he say to that? How someone as good as Betsey Smith could feel that way, think she could be better and in some huge way, judging by her tone and her expression, was beyond him. It hurt his head.

‘I doubt that.’

She patted his hand but quickly withdrew her fingers when he jumped slightly. Her touching him, it always affected him. ‘It’s true. Now about that shower. You’re all done with your dinner. I could make us some quick brownies while you take one. If you want. If not, I can loan you an old tablecloth to drape over your shower-curtain rod until we get you one.’

Until we get you one…

Why did that ‘we’ make him so utterly happy? It frightened Archie.

‘Sure. I’d love to shower in your shower. But it’s really the brownies I’m after,’ he said, clearing his plate.

‘Typical man,’ Betsey said and laughed.

Her laugh made something warm glow in his chest. He rubbed it and followed her directions to find the clean towels. And found himself whistling along the way.