Page 11 of A Shot in the Dark (Fated Mates Collection | Triple Threat #1)
T he fever that undulates through me, sweeping me along, keeps traveling through my veins at faster and faster intervals, a sense of desperation rocketing through me and only intensifying with every passing moment. Desperation becomes panic too easily.
“Aren’t you going to pull over? Fuck me a few times?”
“No.”
“Please, Boots…”
“ No .”
“I’ll let you use the first condom I chose…”
“You will not ,” Boots says firmly, though his grip has tightened on the steering wheel, knuckles going pale. “I doubt that would do the trick anyhow,” he grumbles.
“We can make it quick…” I offer.
“No, princess,” he remarks almost sadly. “What you need always requires a little time at least. And a certain level of finesse.” His phone rings. He glances at it but doesn’t pick up. Instead, he holds the phone by the steering wheel, lost in thought.
“You shouldn’t text while driving…”
He ignores me, speaking into his phone instead. “Thank god.”
“Sounds like news good enough to celebrate.”
“You will be the death of me,” he snaps.
“Nooo,” I say from where I’ve sprawled out in the backseat, skirt up, panties down, and rubbing frantically to relieve the tension building in me. “The cigarettes will probably do that instead.”
He barks out a laugh.
“Boots can laugh,” I wonder aloud, awed.
The laughter is cut short and I feel the car turn onto an exit. I brush my skirt down and sit up. “Where are we? This isn’t Greenbriar…”
“No, it’s not.” We turn into a decidedly seedy part of town and bump along a pothole-marked street, the bouncing of the car eliciting fresh moans from me and a “Jesus fucking Christ,” from Boots.
We pull into a parking lot.
A sign tilts awkwardly over the all-but-empty parking lot, a busty silhouette of a long-legged woman sprawls across words reading Adult Fun Zone.
“Is that a sex shop?” I ask a little too eagerly.
Boots turns in his seat, his expression pinched. “I am going inside. I will be there five minutes—no more. You will stay here. In this car like a good girl. Do you understand me?”
“If I go in there with you there may be a back room where we can?—”
He pulls back, looks at me strangely. “I would never fuck you in a place like that,” he says, oddly stricken. Then he regains his composure. “Five minutes. Stay here.”
“I want to come…”
“I. am. working . on that!” he snaps. He releases a sharp exhale, jumps out of the door, and before I can reach for the handle, I hear an electronic beep and the doors trigger, locking me in.
Outside, Boots’ hand is shaking as he pulls out a cigarette and punches something into his phone.
“You did not tell me what the package is. You absolute fucker . She doesn’t even know what she is…
What is her affiliation?” He pauses, listening.
“ Shit ! How could you not tell me how deep into the gray I’d have to go?
! Fucker !” he fumes. Then he stalks away, disappearing into the shop.
He’s sliding back into the driver’s seat in three minutes, smelling of smoke, and still twitchy, but he tosses me a box. “Got you a gift.”
I turn the box over and find myself in possession of a vibrator.
“It’s pink,” he comments as he starts the car up. “I know how you like things that match.”
He’s noticed.
He’s absolutely right but— “I don’t own anything pink …”
“Yeah, you do. Those nipples of yours and your pussy are the prettiest shades of pink that exist in the whole fucking world,” he says coolly.
“The shade of your toy pales by comparison, but it was the closest color I could find that’d do the trick.
And we need to make up some miles for me to hit my deadline.
I think I can still do it…” He bows his head and rubs his forehead. “Put it to good use.”
Boots turns up the music as I follow his suggestion.
As excellent as his taste in gifts is, no matter how high Boots cranks the music, it doesn’t stop him from nearly plowing us headfirst into a median when I come with a howl.
“Fuck-fuck-fuck,” he whispers angrily as he gets the car back under control. Pounding the steering wheel, he catches his breath, then reaches back across the seat to pry the toy out of my hand, saying, “That’s enough of that .”
I give a little “hmph” of protest, but drift happily down into a heady afterglow that always cools my blood.
At least temporarily.
We drive in silence for a while, skimming past more state welcome signs as one set of mountains flattens into foothills then stacks back up into another mountain range—each different, each unique.
Boots mentions some of the differences in the rocks that built them up and the forces that tear them down—everything a sensual but violent metaphor.
And lots of those metaphors include the word “fuck.”
It is most certainly his favorite word.
It’s not that Boots is incapable of a more “socially appropriate” vocabulary, he is—he even occasionally mumbles poetry.
Fucking poetry.
The first time I catch him, we’re paused at a light, a line of cars with their headlights on streaming across the intersection.
Boots’ words are soft, nearly breathy when he utters them, watching the vehicles roll by, and I nearly miss them.
“The carriage held but just ourselves — and Immortality. We slowly drove — He knew no haste, And I had put away, My labor and my leisure too, For His Civility…”
“What was that?”
He startles and glances my way. “Momentary lapse.”
“That was poetry,” I accuse. “You were reciting poetry .” I search my memory, the high school and college classes that touched on such things. “Was that Dickinson?”
He shrugs.
“It was …” I am agog. Boots is so much more than the face he shows the world, and I’m getting another precious peek behind the curtains he most often keeps drawn. I cannot help staring at him.
“Quit that. Shit . A man makes a mistake and he never hears the end of it…”
I let it drop with a roll of my eyes. “I need to pee.”
He puffs out a breath. “Next exit.”
We stop at a fastfood joint and he lights up a cigarette the moment he’s outside the car.
“I’ll just be a minute,” I guarantee as I head for the restaurant door.
Car doors begin to open and I notice men standing up, looking at me. They’re all smiling. So friendly!
“Shit-shit-shit!” Boots is beside me, arm tight around my waist, saying in a loud, deep voice as he gets the door for me, “Sorry, boys, the lady’s with me.” He ushers me inside and straight back to the restrooms. All along the way men turn or glance in my direction, smiling.
“Everyone’s so friendly here,” I comment.
“Yeah, that’s what it is,” he grumbles as he opens the women’s room door and checks the stalls. “All clear,” he announces, pushing me towards a stall door. “I’ll be right outside.”
“Smoking?” I ask as I close the stall and take down my panties.
“No. Right outside,” he specifies.
“Okay.”
Coming out of the bathroom, I nearly bump into him.
He stands, feet spread shoulder-width apart, arms crossed over his chest at the bathroom door, blocking everyone who needs to use it.
“You’re being rude,” I murmur and he again wraps an arm possessively around me, this time tucking me under his coat and tight to his side.
Something hard presses into my ribs and I look down as he hustles me straight out to the car. “Why do you have a gun?”
He opens the door and shoves me into my seat, reaching for my seatbelt. “Maybe,” he theorizes, “because every man with any bit of the wild in him is being drawn to you like bees to the first flower of spring. Or maybe because I should’ve shot you when I started to realize who you are.”
“You can laugh and joke,” I say. “Wait. Is that why you’re being the way you’re being with me? Because of the wild in you ?”
He freezes, speculating, the seatbelt’s buckle in his hand and that hand wonderfully close to my breasts.
I squirm, the warmth beginning to spread in me again.
I nip his wrist, catching the edge of his glove with my teeth and give a playful growl.
His head snaps around, his nose pressed to mine.
For a moment he simply stares at me, transfixed.
I can nearly see his eyes through the dark glass shielding them.
His nostrils flare. “No,” he snaps, fastening the buckle together and yanking his hand away.
“No, no, no .” He closes the door and moves quickly to start the car.
The doors lock in unison.
“The way you act—it’s not because of the wild in you. And it’s not because you like me…?”
“No!” he snaps, throwing the car into reverse.
“‘Methinks the lady doth protest too much,’” I tease.
“Shut. up.”
“You like me.”
“Quit it.”
“Why is it so wrong for you to like me?”
“I don’t,” he grinds out. “I don’t like you. I’ve just grown used to you. This is only a temporary arrangement. I don’t care a bit for you—and if you keep suggesting otherwise you’ll be in for the hatefuck of your life the next time I have to fuck you.”
I’m already simmering and a serious hatefuck sounds intriguing… “Wait.” I sit straight up, searching for a glimpse of his glasses, his eyes, in the rearview mirror. “You have to fuck me?” I stammer, stricken. “I thought you at least liked that … Even if I am just some ‘rich bitch’ to you.”
We’re stopped at a red light when Boots crosses his arms over the top of the steering wheel and leans his forehead against them. He groans, the sound pained and brimming with exhaustion. He straightens just as the light goes green and we vault forward once more.
And then I think about it: Boots nips me and bites me and fucks me every few hours—as he says: “seven ways to Sunday”—but he never kisses me.
And he never comes.
Hours later our road cuts through a thick swatch of forest and I catch Boots rubbing at his eyes beneath his glasses and whispering, “The woods are lovely, dark and deep…”
I lean towards him as subtly as I can and am rewarded for my stealth by another snatch of Robert Frost.