Otherwise Alone

  Of the times I have woken up with a woman in my bed – and I can probably count those on one hand – I have never woken up quite like this. It’s unsettling, but when I turn my head to look up into her eyes, the next set of feelings that course through me are far more unsettling.

  She smiles at me, and it feels like I’ve been turned inside out.

  She is unusually beautiful. Not text-book, air-brushed, model beautiful, natural and clear and…lovingly beautiful. It’s as if I have just looked into the face of the mother of God, and my Catholic days are far, far behind me. It is more than that, though. My muscles relax into her, and I feel safe. I feel comforted. I feel strangely submissive to her – like there isn’t anything within my power I wouldn’t do for her.

  “Hi,” she says. The sound is quiet and unassuming.

  I want to respond in kind. I want to be nonchalant. I want to ignore the churning of my guts inside of me as she looks down at me.

  “Hey,” I finally sputter. Her hand keeps running through my hair, and I almost want to shake my leg the way Odin does when I hit the exact right spot.

  Get a hold of yourself, Arden.

  I close my eyes briefly and take a deep breath. It doesn’t help at all because now her scent is all around me. It smells like me and her and sex all mixed up together, and I want to make good use of my morning wood.

  “You okay?” she asks, and I nod reflexively.

  “Just need to pee,” I tell her.

  When I push up and away from her, our skin makes a ridiculous sound as it separates. She giggles, and I make the mistake of looking at her again.

  I smile down at her, afraid to open my mouth, and then turn quickly to the little toilet in the corner. There’s no door – only a shower curtain attached to the door frame, which I don’t even bother to pull around as I relieve myself. I grab my toothbrush for a quick once-over before I head back to bed.

  She slips out of the bed when I’m done and heads for the bathroom area as well, first blushing and asking if she can borrow a toothbrush. I watch her ass as she walks away from me, and my fingers tense up a bit, wanting to grab a hold of it again.

  I’m not done with her.

  As soon as she gets close to the bed, I’m on her again. I sit up and pull her into my lap, grabbing both her ankles and wrapping them around my hips. Holding tight to her waist, I raise her up over my cock and lower her onto me. She rises up on her knees and moves slowly over me a few times, but it’s not enough, and I can’t see her ass.

  I really like her ass.

  Pushing her up and off of me, I position myself on my back as Lia straddles me. I shake my head at her.

  “Turn around,” I say. “Face away from me. I want to see your ass while you ride me.”

  She blushes. My cock is glistening with her juices, and she’s blushing at me. Holy shit, why do I find that so hot? She slowly lifts her leg over my hips and settles her knee down on the mattress. She shifts and moves down a little until she’s in the right spot, and I grip the base of my cock to help guide it back inside of her. She groans as she lowers herself, and after she’s adjusted to the position, I grab her hips and pull her down onto me.

  Tilting my hips upward each time I pull her down onto me makes for maximum depth, and I feel practically high, though I’ve never smoked weed in my life. I imagine this is what it might feel like as she slides up and down my cock, faster and faster as she moans and tosses back her head.

  I let go of one hip long enough to grab one of her hands and hold it in front of her, down by her clit.

  “Touch yourself,” I order. “Make yourself come on me.”

  The sight of her back and ass as she rides me and brings herself to orgasm is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen in my life. Not that I’ve really seen a lot of beautiful stuff because my life hasn’t led towards that kind of shit, but she is truly phenomenal. The curves on her…the way her hair moves…the tiny droplet of sweat cascading between her shoulder blades…

  I growl and cry out as I push inside once more, holding her hips against me as I fill her. My head drops to the mattress as I angle my hips a couple more times to milk the feeling a bit. I sit up and wrap my arms around her, letting her fall back against my chest as I roll us to our sides, almost dropping us both off the small bed in the process.

  She giggles through her rapid breaths, and the motion makes my softening cock fall out of her. She twists around to face me, and I push the hair from her forehead.

  “What do you do for a living?” she suddenly asks as she props herself up on one elbow with her head resting on her hand.

  “I’m retired military,” I respond automatically. It’s the truth, easily validated. I roll onto my back and try to catch my breath as she begins to pepper me with questions, and I continue to answer in the vaguest way possible.

  “That explains a lot,” she mumbles under her breath as her fingers trace over my bicep. “I like your muscles.”

  “The better to hold you down and fuck you with, my dear.”

  She laughs as I roll over her and take her nipple between my teeth. I nibble, but only lightly. Between last night’s numerous escapades, the lack of sleep, and the earlier morning romp, my stamina hasn’t quite returned yet. I prop myself up on my hands and lean in to kiss her a couple of times before I lay back on my side facing her.

  Her hand runs over my bicep again, then down my arm. Her head cocks quizzically to one side as her fingers trace over the slight dip at my waist right before they creep around to my ass. She gives it a bit of a squeeze before looking up at me with humor in her eyes.

  “I like this part best,” she admits as she blushes.

  Heh. Birds of a feather or whatever the fuck the saying is.

  I grab her butt, too, and bring us closer together.

  “I like this one better.”

  She giggles, blushes, and then stares at me again.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Nothing,” she mumbles back.

  “Tell me.”

  Lia hesitates before speaking again.

  “Can I try something?”

  I narrow my eyes and release her ass.

  “Depends on what it is.”

  “Just…roll over a minute.”

  “Roll over?”

  “On your stomach,” Lia clarifies.

  I glare at her a minute as she offers more encouragement. Finally I acquiesce and lay on my stomach in the center of the bed, watching her warily as she goes to the bag she has by the front door. I tense, watching her movements closely, and for the first time I feel agitated – sure for the briefest of moments I have been duped – she knows who I am and she’s here to kill me. I am a second from jumping out of the bed and maybe wrestling her to the ground when she turns and holds up a small, round, shiny coin.

  It’s a quarter.

  “What the fuck?” I ask. Lia giggles as she skips the fifteen feet back to the bed.

  “I’ve always wanted to try this,” she says. “You were in the military – it’s just like the quarter test on the bed after you’ve made it up.

  She cannot be serious.

  “What, on my ass?” I ask incredulously.

  “Exactly!” Lia giggles again.

  I drop my head into my hands and close my eyes. I can’t believe I’m submitting to this, but at the same time I cannot stop laughing.

  “Flex!” she orders, and I comply.

  I look over my shoulder and watch as she tosses a quarter at my backside…

  …and misses the bed completely.

  “Damnit!”

  I’m laughing so hard my gut is starting to hurt, and I barely feel it when she smacks my ass and tells me to be still so she can try again. I try to hold in the chuckles, but she smacks me twice more before I’m still enough for her. This time it works, and I’m a little surprised myself when the quarter bounces off and rolls under the bed.

  Lia jumps up and down, shouting and cheering. This makes her tits and her ass bounce
around, too, so I flip back over and grab her, pull her back into the bed, and cover her mouth with mine.

  “That’s the dumbest thing I have ever heard of anyone doing,” I mumble between laughs and kisses.

  “It was awesome,” she says. “I’ve always wanted to see that.”

  I want to fuck her again immediately, but now the laughing has worn me out, so I lay us both back down and just kiss her for a while longer. They are slow kisses, but they are just as hard and earnest as they were before. After a while, we are content to lay there and watch each other – breathless.

  Eventually, Lia goes back to her questions.

  “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-six.”

  “Where were you born?”

  “Ohio.”

  “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

  “Nope.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  “A couple months.”

  “Are you going to stay?”

  “Maybe.”

  She sighs and drops to her back beside me. I can feel her shoulder against mine.

  “Evan, why are you here?”

  Shit.

  “Well, the atmosphere is awesome,” I say, trying to pull off the joke and maybe change the subject as well. “The weather’s never too cold, and I don’t have to worry about any leash laws.”

  She looks at me for a long moment in silence. I turn my eyes away from her.

  “You live in a rundown shack in the middle of nowhere,” she says. “You have a laptop and a really freaky looking gun. You must have some money somewhere, so why would you choose to live here?”

  “Well, you know,” I say with a small, humorless chuckle, “if I tell you…”

  I let my voice trail off.

  “You’d have to kill me?”

  I shrug. It is probably true, though for the first time in my life I actually have an opinion about it. I wouldn’t really mind telling her and almost feel compelled to do so, but I know I can’t.

  “I was in the Marines,” I finally speak quietly. “I trained in Virginia, was injured in the line of duty, and honorably discharged. Please don’t ask me anything else.”

  Her fingertips cross my cheek gently.

  “I won’t,” she promises. “I’m sorry.”

  I know I am giving her the wrong impression, but it is better than an outright lie, and I can’t give her more details about my life afterwards. What would I say anyway? Oh, by the way, you just fucked an ex-Marine sniping expert turned hit man for a Chicago mob boss. Have a great morning.

  Yeah…not likely.

  Breakfast is quiet, and she joins me for a walk around the area with Odin after we’re done. I want to ask her what exactly she plans to do today, but I find I’m a little anxious about her answer.

  I don’t want her to leave.

  It makes sense, really. I haven’t spoken to a single person since I drove to Pinon for gas over a month ago, and I only asked the sales clerk to confirm the price on a liter of Gatorade. Before that I hadn’t said a word to a soul since leaving Chicago.

  “It’s temporary.”

  “What, until you find someone better than me and send them out to remove me more permanently? I’m not stupid, Rinaldo.”

  “So you claim, yet here you still stand.”

  “Fine. I’ll go.”

  There’s a touch against my arm, and her fingers slide from my elbow down to my hand. A second later our fingers are interlocked, and the sensation is both welcome and nerve-racking.

  “Do you regret it?” Lia suddenly asks.

  For a brief moment I think she can read my mind, but then I realize she’s thinking about last night. Or this morning. Whatever.

  “I’m a guy – we don’t regret sex.”

  She snickers and shakes her head as she looks down to the ground in front of her feet. Her mouth immediately turns down, and she bites at her lip. I squeeze her fingers slightly, and she meets my eyes again.

  “I don’t regret it,” I confirm, and she smiles genuinely.

  “I’ve never done that before,” she says softly. “I’ve never been that…spontaneous. You read me so well – better than he ever did.”

  “Does ‘he’ have a name?”

  She eyes me for a moment.

  “William.”

  “William is an asshole,” I say definitively. She smiles again, but the smile is a sad one.

  “He wasn’t always,” she says. “When we were in school, he was so sweet and so different from the other guys. He grew up on the reservation near my hometown. He was…exotic, I guess. I think I also believed all that talk of alcoholism in Native Americans was bullshit.”

  “Just because it’s a stereotype doesn’t mean it never fits,” I murmur.

  “Very true.” She nods her head. “My dad loved him, and I think when he passed away…my dad died of cancer two years ago…”

  “Sorry,” I mumble. I don’t even know why I do it – I’m not one for standard responses.

  “It’s okay; it was a long time coming.” She takes a deep breath before continuing. “My dad loved Will, and I know he wanted us to be together. I think…maybe I would have left him before it came to this if Dad hadn’t loved him so much.”

  “You going to tell me what he did?”

  “He drinks.”

  “You said that.”

  “Then he gets mean.”

  I wait for her to continue. I’ve already deduced most of this, though alcoholism would have been a guess only. There is nothing about her that points to his drinking as opposed to just him being a dick.

  “He did slap me once,” she says quietly. “I mean – it was a while ago – before we were engaged, so it’s not like it would be out of character for him to do again.”

  She huffs out a humorless laugh. I found myself wishing the fucker would track her down so I could pick him off from a mile away.

  “But even if he wasn’t violent, he was never there. When he did come home, he’d yell at me all the time and tell me what a crappy job I was doing as a housewife.”

  Another laugh without heart.

  “I was in school, so it’s not like that was all I was doing. We weren’t even married, just engaged. We’ve been engaged for almost four years.”

  “Why didn’t you get married?” I ask. I feel her shoulders move up and down in a noncommittal gesture though I keep my eyes on the horizon. Odin is nosing around a creosote bush a few yards ahead of us.

  “Lack of funds was always his reason,” she says. “He always said he wanted to give me the perfect wedding even though that wasn’t what I wanted. Dad was all for it though Mom was happy to have us stay as we were. Actually, she’ll be thrilled to hear I’m not going back to him.”

  “You aren’t?” I did not want to assume.

  “Not this time,” she says softly.

  “What aren’t you telling me?” I demand.

  She bites into her lip before responding.

  “When I told him to pull over, he did,” she says. “He hadn’t actually stopped yet when he reached over, opened my door, and shoved me out.”

  Lia goes silent, and I try to stop the feelings of rage inside of me. I haven’t had such feelings in years, and it had taken years for me to get them under control in the first place. I want to find this asshole. I want to annihilate him. I want to tear him to fucking pieces to make sure he can never hurt her again. It would be easy and might even be a decent distraction from hanging around here. She just showed up yesterday – he can’t be that far.

  “I took a bunch of Aikido classes in college,” she tells me. “I was always so…ungraceful. I thought it would help, but it never did. I did learn how to roll, though. That’s what I did when I fell out, and I managed to end up on fairly soft ground.”

  The edge of her mouth twitches slightly, and the corners of her eyes clench, though it’s barely noticeable. She still isn’t telling me the complete truth, but I am fairly sure she’s holding back some detail
. Did she start the fight? Was he drunk while he was driving her? Why was he so angry?

  Why do I give a shit?

  I don’t bother asking myself if I do care – it’s so obvious there is no point in denying it to myself. I just can’t figure out why. I haven’t cared about anything since seven men and one woman trusted me with their lives and I failed them.

  “I have to go to my mom’s,” Lia finally says. “She never really liked him in my life, and I know she’ll be supportive, and I don’t want her to worry. My cell doesn’t seem to work anymore.”

  “It won’t,” I confirm. “Not anywhere near here.”

  “I figured.”

  “You can still call her,” I suggest as I try to ignore the feeling in my chest when I think of her leaving. It’s ridiculous and idiotic. “There’s no landline here, but I can drive you into Pinon to call her.”

  “She’ll still worry,” Lia says with a shake of her head. “Will’s probably called her by now, and God knows what he’s told her.”

  “You want me to find him?” I say without thinking.

  What the fuck, Arden? You going to kill this girl’s ex?

  She looks to me, and I don’t miss her quick glance to the rifle. She is far too observant for her own good, and she knows what I mean as much as I do, even if it is a ridiculous notion.

  “No,” she says quietly, “I don’t think that’s really necessary.”

  I reach out and grab her fingers.

  “Sorry,” I mutter. “Reflex.”

  Oh great – that makes it sound so much better.

  She actually flinches a little, and I might not have even noticed if I wasn’t holding her hand.

  “I won’t do anything,” I promise.

  She nods.

  “I would never hurt you,” I add. It’s so fucking important to me she knows I would never, ever do anything to hurt her, and I have no idea why.

  She nods again.

  “I know.”

  “Come back?” My fingers grip hers a little tighter. I want the words to sound like a demand, not a question. “After you see your mom, you can come back here.”

  I want it to be a statement…a charge…an order…but my own bizarre feelings of insecurity win out.

  “You don’t have to-”

  “I want you to come back here,” I interrupt. I need her to understand, even if I don’t.