The Green Lace Corset, стр. 21
After they’d finished the quesadillas, the waitress cleared the table and brought over the dessert. Anne closed her eyes and ate a chocolate truffle. The decadence tasted like passion.
She opened her eyes. There were two more on the plate.
“Finish them.” Sergio pointed and grinned.
She knew that he knew chocolate this rich turned her on. She knew she shouldn’t, but she couldn’t resist and ate every bite.
He moved to a chair beside her, swiped a chocolate drip from her bottom lip, and kissed her. “Let’s go to your place,” he whispered. She inhaled the scent of him, wanted to hold on, melt into his arms, and never let go. One night together couldn’t hurt. Tomorrow he’d get on a plane, and she’d return to being an independent woman. She stared into his deep-brown eyes and nodded.
When they reached her apartment, Thai greeted them at her door.
“Not tonight.” Anne pushed him away with a foot, and he skittered down the stairs.
Sergio stepped inside and commanded, “Alexa, play La Traviata.”
“Here’s La Traviata, act one,” Alexa said, and the opera began.
“Grazie,” Sergio said to Alexa, as he filled two wine goblets.
They clinked glasses, then sat on the daybed, drank the wine, and kissed again. Then Anne pushed the coffee table aside tipsily and stood facing Sergio. “Alexa,” she said seductively, and raised her eyebrows at him, “play ‘Do Ya Think I’m Sexy,’ by Rod Stewart.”
The music started. She raised her arms and starting dancing for Sergio. This was something she’d always wanted to do. She’d really show him how healthy she was. Even though she could be a klutz, she could do this.
She slowly took off her black velvet coat, walked to the corner, and let it drop to the floor. Sergio’s eyes lit up as she began to strut around the room in her silver shoes, singing the words to the song.
She stopped, raised her arms, and rotated her hips. Then she leaned over, pulled off her dress, swung it in the air, and tossed it across the room. In her black lace push-up bra and matching panties, she continued to dance. On the next chorus, she unhooked the bra, twirled it over her head, and threw it at Sergio. He caught it with a smile. As the song ended, she pushed him down, climbed on top of him, and kissed him deeply.
A few hot-and-heavy minutes later, he fumbled in her nightstand drawer.
“Where are they?” he asked.
She didn’t want to tell him that in her grief about their breakup, she’d thrown out their condoms. “Their expiration date had passed, so I tossed them.”
He sat up and stared at her. “But it was a new package.”
She shrugged and pulled him to her.
“Are you sure you didn’t use them all?”
Her one-night stand with Barn was a fuzzy, nightmarish memory that she still wanted to erase.
“How can you even think that?”
“You never know.”
She pulled him onto her and continued kissing him.
“But . . .” he started.
She wanted him so much. “It’ll be fine.”
15
Before dusk, just when Sally Sue was certain she couldn’t abide the bumpy ride one more minute, the stagecoach stopped at a ramshackle property. Two mangy horses stood in a corral. The cistern was full of bullet holes, fence railings hung off their posts, and a prairie schooner with a torn canvas top tilted on its side. Piles of snow still dotted the soil underneath the oaks.
Sally Sue hobbled to a tree stump and perched on it. Her body would be sore for ages. The driver and Cliff moved the crates, eight in all, to the back of a wagon. Cliff loaded his saddlebags on the floor in front and handed the man some cash.
The driver waved as he pulled back down the road. Sally Sue was tempted to run after him, but Cliff wouldn’t let her get far. Her shoulders slumped at the realization that she was now all alone with Cliff.
He wandered over to the corral, holding out an apple in each hand, and the horses trotted toward him.
“You pretty girl,” he said to the red one. “We’re gonna get to know each other quite well.” With his hand flat, he offered an apple to her. She swiped it and began chewing.
With his big head, the spotted horse nudged Cliff, who opened his other hand. “Aren’t you a handsome pinto.”
The animals’ open mouths revealed huge teeth. Obviously starving, the horses gobbled the fruit, including the core.
Cliff must really be daft. He talked to horses as if they understood what he was saying.
Cliff grabbed halters from the back of the wagon, put them on the horses, led them to the wagon, and hitched them up with ease. He took a blanket from a crate, folded it neatly, and laid it on the wooden seat in front. “Milady.” He held out a hand to Sally Sue as if she were the queen of England.
“No, thanks.” She brushed past him, and on her third try she hoisted herself successfully onto the wagon’s wood seat. He chuckled and climbed in beside her.
Although the chances were slim, she listened for the sound of horses’ hooves that would signal Sheriff Mack and his posse coming to save her before Cliff carried her even farther away.
Cliff clicked the reins, and the horses started down the road away from town. She clung to the basket on her lap. Where was he taking her? How far was this homestead? Would he kill her there? Her mind bounced along with the wagon on the rocky path, jumping to all sorts of possible situations. Fear overtook her senses. She could scarcely breathe. For a fleeting moment, she considered leaping off the wagon and rolling down the embankment away from Cliff, but she knew she’d never get far.
Without another person or even another homestead in sight, they plodded along the lonely road for what seemed like miles. The temperature continued to drop as they rode higher and higher up into the mountains.
Hoo. Hoo. Hooooo, an owl called. Tall