Page 244 of On A Manhunt: Complete Series

DANIEL

I came out of the bathroom, a towel around my waist, expecting Melly to be asleep. When I cut through the bedroom earlier, she hadn’t moved. Still out cold. But she wasn’t in the bed nor in the room.

She had to be somewhere unless she found her clothes in the dryer. Not wanting her to be alone in a strange house, I opened the door to my walk-in closet to get dressed and hunt her down, then froze.

There stood Melly in one of my flannels, her hands on the buttons trying to put it on. She looked at me as if a deer caught in front of an oncoming semi.

I wondered if my dick got hard because it was morning, because she was standing there in only my mostly-buttoned shirt–which looked hot as fuck–or it just did whenever I saw her again after any kind of break. Even just a few hours. Especially after the night before in the storage room. Holy hell.

Maybe all of the above. Definitely all of the above. Now I knew how perfect her pussy was. How wet she got. How much she loved it wild and was remarkably uninhibited. How she came so hard and–

“Shit, sorry,” I said, my voice rough. I hadn’t talked yet this morning and I sounded, yeah… growly. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

Her wide eyes dropped to my chest. Then lower. Then lower. Then jumped right back up to meet mine. I wasn’t shy or modest. If she wanted to look at me in just a towel, she could take all the time she wanted. Thank fuck I’d rubbed one out in the shower otherwise I’d be pitching a tent right now.

Either way, I’d even drop the towel so she had the full picture.

And that picture was growing seeing her in my shirt.

I thought I felt possessive the night before burning rubber to get to the bar, but now?

Holy hell. It fell to her knees, but the undone buttons offered hints of pale skin and thick thigh.

“I needed… where are my clothes?” she asked. Her gaze kept flitting to my chest. I was muscular from hard work. I owned a tree and landscape company, but I did the manual labor, too. I never spent my days behind a desk. I had scars and calluses. And every inch of me craved her touch.

“I had to wash them.”

“Why?”

I cocked my head. “You don’t remember?”

“I remember the stockroom. How I, how we… Then nothing. Did we… um, did we–?” she sputtered, circling her finger in the air.

I couldn’t help but smile because she was so fucking cute.

“How you rode my fingers until you came?”

She blushed and with my shirt so big, I could see the color creep all the way down her neck and past her collarbones.

I wondered how often she let people see her like this.

While I didn’t realize she wore makeup, because she always looked so fresh and natural in comparison to other women, she had small mascara smudges under her eyes.

Her hair was smooshed up on one side and she had a large crinkle up the right side of her face.

She looked pale and if I had to guess, probably feeling pretty rough.

I never got a taste for wine, but I would assume too much of it made someone feel like shit just like any other kind of alcohol.

“Fuck? I promise, if we did, you’d know.”

Her fingers fidgeted on another button. “Oh. Um, okay.”

I sighed. “Melly, I don’t fuck unconscious women. I really like it when you’re right there with me. Coming all over my fingers.”

She swallowed, stared down at her bare feet. I followed her gaze and noticed hot pink toenail polish. She might be small, but her legs–what I could see of them–were shapely. I didn’t think they’d even wrap all the way around my waist when I fucked her.

“Then, um… why did you take my clothes off to sleep?”

“Because you threw up all over them.”

Her head whipped up and she winced. Then she closed her eyes. She must have one hell of a headache.

Her eyes widened. “Oh my God. I forgot that. I got you, too, didn’t I? It’s… um, I remember now. I think it may have been better not remembering.”

“Then I won’t tell you what happened after that.”

Like her passing out. I’d caught her and I’d had to carry her out of the bar.

I wrapped her in the old blanket I kept in the back of my truck to keep the vomit from getting all over the seat and drove home with the windows down.

My jeans had been covered, too. I hadn’t dealt with projectile vomit since Danny’d been seven.

Until now. Until Melly. I’d wanted to make sure she was safe at the bar, but from passing out?

Not what I’d had in mind. But she’d needed me, and I had to be there for her.

Dropping her at her house hadn’t been an option.

No way could I tuck her into her bed and hope she wouldn’t aspirate if she vomited again.

No. I brought her to my house, stripped us both of our wine-vomit covered clothes and put her into my bed. I went into Danny’s old room and crashed there.

Yes, I’d noticed her fire engine red bra and panties when I got those prim clothes off. I also noticed the wet spot on her panties where I’d made her drip and gush as she came.

There were so many questions I had tied to that color and racy style.

I expected plain, pale pink cotton or maybe something with embroidered daisies on it.

Not satin and lace that had her secretly asking to be fucked.

Well, it wasn’t a secret to me how much she loved what I did to her.

Her body was made for me to worship… in the dirtiest of ways.

No matter how hard she made me, how desperate I was to sink into her, I meant what I said. I didn’t fuck unconscious women. I didn’t lust after them either. But I was certainly looking forward to her being sober. And finding out what other colors of panties she liked to wear.

And watching her when I finally sank into her for the first time.

But seeing her in my flannel? Sexiest thing I’d ever seen.

“Thank you, but I can imagine. I’m sure what I did has spread all over town by now. People are going to think–”

“–you have the stomach flu.”

She stared at me, confused. “What?”

I shrugged. No one had to mess with her for drinking a little too much wine. She’d been in a fucking bar, not driving a school bus full of children. But if she was worried about people talking, then I’d give her an out.

No one fucked with little Melly Harwood. No one but me.

“I hear it’s going around.” I had no clue if it was going around or not.

She looked down, rubbed her toe across the carpet, considering the out I was giving her.

So what if she drank too much? Sure, I didn’t want to get thrown up on every day, but she was normal.

Doing normal things, even with a slightly poor bout of judgment.

But it seemed she felt she had to be more than that. Perfect.

She wasn’t perfect, that was for sure. But who was?

I liked her quirks. Her shyness. No, she wasn’t shy, really.

She’d let me have it more than once, especially that phone call.

Skittish, maybe? Wary? No, she was cautious.

As if she was afraid to try things yet so damned eager to do so.

The prim clothes that hid racy lingerie said just that.

“Okay,” she said finally.

A woof came from the bedroom and in stormed Earl, nudging past me and going to Melly. He knocked her back a step and she laughed.

“Earl!” I yelled, but the menace didn’t listen. He nudged her hip with his big sloppy face, then stuck his nose in her crotch for a sniff.

Maybe the dog wasn’t so dumb after all.