Complicated

  As he opened it and slid it out, she knifed up, got on her knees, opened his trousers and pulled them down his hips.

  It was a huge fucking relief when his heavy, hard cock bounded free.

  It was sweet, fucking torture when her hand wrapped around it.

  He shoved her hand aside, rolled on the condom and grasped her hips.

  Like she knew his thoughts, her fingers curled around his shoulders and she surged to him as he lifted her up. Her legs wrapped around. He let her go with one hand to grasp his cock and guide the way. Feeling her slick on the head, finding her, he drove her down.

  Her fingers gripped his shoulders, her head fell back, her spine arched and her legs tightened around his ass as she ground into him, a long, low moan ripping up her throat.

  Jesus, God, she was amazing.

  He drew out, sunk in, again and again, and her head snapped forward, her forehead falling on his, one hand sliding to clutch him at the back of his neck, fingers up in his hair, the other arm rounding his shoulders as she bounced into his thrusts, her heavy breaths clashing with his.

  “Need more?” he grunted, meaning did she want him at her clit.

  “Hell . . .” she puffed. “No,” she bit off her last as he filled her again.

  He grinned and drove deep, pounding her down on him as he did it.

  “Don’t look so pleased with yourself, Sheriff,” she huffed.

  “Baby, buried deep in you, no other way I can look.”

  “Stop turning me on when I’m about to come,” she demanded.

  “Stop makin’ me wanna laugh when I’m about to come,” he returned.

  Suddenly, on a downward movement, her body bucked in his arms and her hold grew tighter, her voice lowering, going even more breathy as she whispered, “Hix.”

  He dropped her to her back and fully took over, thrusting hard, the wet sleek of her convulsing around him, and he wrapped his hand around the bottom of her jaw, hoping like all hell she was as close as she seemed.

  “Greta,” he grunted when her eyes stayed closed even after he positioned her to look at him.

  Slowly they opened as she rocked under him, held on to him with every piece of her.

  She’d done that the week before, and Christ, but he loved how she did it.

  “Want you lookin’ at me when you give that to me, sweetheart,” he told her gruffly.

  “Okay, Hix,” she whispered, her nails digging in at his shoulder.

  “Fuck, baby,” he growled.

  Her nails felt great.

  Her hold felt better.

  But her tight, wet pussy contracting around him . . .

  The best.

  “Hix.”

  “Stay with me, Greta.”

  “Hix.”

  “Stick with me, sweetheart.”

  “Can’t,” she breathed, tightened her hold on him and arched into him.

  Her lips parted, her head took his hand with it as it turned slightly to the side, tipped slightly back, and the mewling rush of audible breath slipped out of her as she came.

  He forced her head farther to the side, ran the edge of his teeth down the line of her neck and then rooted himself in her, sinking his teeth into the soft skin between neck and shoulder, her perfume filling his nostrils, his groan deep and long, his orgasm un-fucking-believably tremendous.

  It took until he’d mostly recovered before the feel of her penetrated.

  She still had a hold on him, she hadn’t moved, but her intimate embrace felt somehow slack even as her body, which should be loose and soft under him, seemed braced.

  He lifted his head and looked down at her.

  Her eyes were open and her head was still turned to the side, but she seemed to be staring at nothing and not just because of the dark.

  His fingers were still wrapped around her jaw so he used them to right her and bring her focus to him.

  “You doin’ okay?” he asked gently.

  “Yeah,” she murmured, lying right under him, but still removed.

  “Greta—”

  “That wasn’t smart.”

  Hix traced her jaw with his thumb. “Maybe not, sweetheart, but it was good.”

  “Yeah,” she agreed quietly but not convincingly.

  “It wasn’t good?” he asked.

  “It was good, Hixon, but—”

  He moved his thumb from her jaw to rub it along her lips.

  “How about, when I’m still inside you, we not talk about how stupid that was and just be good with how good it was?”

  “Okay,” she mumbled.

  She gave him that easy, he pressed his advantage. “And how about, I’m no longer inside you, we still don’t focus on how stupid that was?”

  She pulled in a deep breath and let it go.

  He dipped closer to her and kept hold of her jaw. “We’re allowed to do this, Greta. And we’re allowed to feel how good it is.”

  “So when we talked earlier, when you said you wanted to be friends, what you meant was friends with benefits?”

  Stung she’d even think that, much less say it, he lifted away and slid his hand from her jaw.

  “No, that wasn’t what I meant.”

  She made no reply.

  He looked above her head and muttered, “Apparently I do like it complicated.”

  “It would seem that way.”

  He looked back down at her. “It’s too soon.”

  “You’ve said that already.”

  “I’m not in a place where I can know for sure I’d do right by you.”

  “You’ve pretty much said that too.”

  “But I’ve never had better.”

  He heard her swift, stunned gasp.

  “And you make me feel good in a lot of ways, including feeling good about bein’ me, and I don’t mean I feel that just from sleeping with you.”

  He felt the colossal shift in her mood even as he heard it in her whispered, “You don’t feel good about you?”

  “Sweetheart.”

  He said no more, not about to inflict a conversation that included mentioning his ex-wife on her while he was still semi-hard and inside her.

  “Okay,” she said quickly. “We’ll not go there.”

  “Thanks,” he murmured.

  “But, uh . . . Hix, you’re hot.”

  That made him grin as he repeated, “Thanks.”

  “No . . . like, really.”

  Shit, he was going to start laughing.

  “Like I said, thanks.”

  “No,” she repeated, lifted her hips slightly and stated, low, firm and hot, “like . . . really.”

  He couldn’t help it, his body started shaking.

  She kept talking.

  “I mean, baby, you lifted me up and planted—”

  “I was there.”

  “That was hot.”

  His body kept shaking. “I know, I was there.”

  “I have no idea how you got me upstairs, me walking backwards, the whole time kissing me and taking my dress off me,” she declared. “That only happens in movies, and they have choreographers for that kind of thing.”

  His laughter became audible with his chuckling.

  “Though,” she carried on, “you know, there are other things that are good about you, not just how hot you are appearance-wise and how good you are in bed. I’m just not in the position to point them out seeing as my mind is still a little scrambled from the huge, honkin’ orgasm you just gave me.”

  He kissed her quick and murmured, “Shut up, Greta.”

  All of a sudden, both her hands were framing his face.

  And just as sudden, her voice had changed when she shared, “I get where you’re at. And part of that is understanding you’re trying to protect me. That means something to me, Hixon. A big something. So this time, we both know what this is. And it was good. We have that again with a far less confusing ending. Now it was what it was, life is what it is, and we’re still friends. Right?”

  Jesus.

  Was
she for real?

  He sure as hell wasn’t going to ask that question and get the wrong answer.

  He was going to take what she gave him.

  “Right, baby,” he whispered.

  She ran her thumbs along his cheekbones and noted, “You probably need to get back to your kids.”

  “I do. I’m sorry, Greta. I wouldn’t—”

  “Hix, shh,” she shushed, one of her thumbs moving to his lips. “I get that too.”

  She was for real.

  Real and sweet and everything he needed right then, willing to take it and give it and not expect anything in return.

  “Move your thumb,” he ordered against it.

  She complied.

  He dipped down and kissed her.

  He continued to do it as he pulled out but ended it by lifting up and pressing his lips against her forehead.

  With his lips still there, he asked, “What do I say right now to make you know how fuckin’ great you are?”

  “I think . . . that,” she answered quietly, her arms she’d slid around him during their kiss giving him a squeeze.

  He looked down on her. “Got a robe?”

  He heard her hair move on the pillow with her nod.

  “Where?” he asked.

  “Hook on the back of the door to the bathroom.”

  “Stay here,” he commanded.

  “Okeydokey, smokey.”

  He was again chuckling when he rolled off of her, taking the corner of her comforter and throwing it over her when he got to his feet on the side of the bed.

  He hitched up his pants, made his way to a door that was open, blackness inside, and found when he hit it that he’d guessed correctly. It was the bathroom.

  He got used to the shadows, did what he had to do, fully righted his trousers, grabbed the robe and walked back out to her.

  He bent over her when he got to her and hooked her around the waist.

  Her hands flew to him as he lifted her out of bed and put her on her feet.

  He handed her the robe.

  She shrugged it on and took off her shoes while he found his things and got dressed.

  Then he grabbed her hand and tugged her out of the room, holding it all the way to her kitchen door.

  “Don’t care there’s no crime in this town, Greta, lock this behind me.”

  “Ten-four, good buddy.”

  He busted out laughing, hooking her waist again with his arm and pulling her to him for a kiss.

  When he ended it, he lifted away just an inch and said, “You’re really fuckin’ great, Greta.”

  “Thanks, Hix. You are too.”

  He gave her a squeeze, a touch of the lips, then he let her go, opening the door and moving through.

  He looked back as he did to see her standing in it, watching him go, the curls that were a mess at the nape of her neck were now still a mess at the nape of her neck with a bunch of them falling down her shoulders and chest.

  She looked magnificent.

  It was all her.

  And what he gave to her.

  Real and amazingly unreal.

  Theirs.

  For a really good night, a damned fine memory with not even a hint of shit attached.

  “Lock,’ he ordered.

  “I know,” she said, the words trembling with humor. “Yeesh. You can take the smokey out of his late seventies cop car and slap him in a late nineties Bronco, but you can’t take the smokey outta the smokey.”

  He didn’t think how her commentary oddly, but awesomely, fit with hints of what was happening in his life at that time.

  He just shot her a grin, lifted his hand in a low wave, and walked to his truck, hearing her door close and the lock go.

  He was in his truck, starting it up, when he saw her kitchen light go out.

  He reversed from her drive and scanned the streets both ways to see if the Mercedes that was in the Dew’s parking lot was anywhere to be seen.

  He drove away, rounded the block three blocks down and drove back, riding down her street, still scanning for the car.

  When he saw it wasn’t there, he headed home to his apartment and his kids.

  He had no idea what it meant, all that had gone down with Greta and him that night.

  He just knew he felt a whole lot better driving away from her this time than he had the week before.

  And most of that had to do with the fact he knew he’d left her feeling a whole lot better too.

  But part of it had to do with the fact that he felt good. Plain, straight-up good for the first time in a really long time.

  And he had Greta to thank for that too.

  Not Yet

  Greta

  LATE THE NEXT morning on my way to Sunnydown, my dashboard told me I had a phone call.

  I took it and didn’t even get out a “Hey,” before Lou said, “One-time thing?”

  I grinned at my windshield.

  “I take it that means Glossop’s gossip mill is running a lot quicker than last week,” I noted.

  “I told you!” she hooted.

  I shook my head, still grinning but also saying, “Don’t get excited. He likes to listen to me sing. And he’s a good guy. Funny. Sweet. We enjoy each other’s company. We enjoy other things about each other too. And that’s all there is. It’s not going anywhere unless it goes somewhere, and I’m not expecting it to do that. I just like spending time with him and dig the fact he likes the same from me. That’s where we are. That’s it. So don’t go planning any bachelorette parties.”

  “Girlfriend, I hear you. I don’t believe you because my guess is, even if Hixon Drake doesn’t think he’s doing something with a purpose, he doesn’t do dick without a purpose. But whatever. I hear you. You gotta live in that place in your head, you just do. And I’ll make you wear a T-shirt at the salon that says ‘She told me so’ with an arrow pointing to my chair when that time comes.”

  If that time came, I’d gladly wear that shirt.

  I just wasn’t going to hold out for that time.

  If Hixon Drake wanted to be friends and that friendship turned out it came with benefits, I was not going to say no. He was easy to be around. I felt like crowing at the top of my lungs any time I made him burst out into that gorgeous, deep laughter. He was spectacular in bed.

  And he looked out for me, me, not a citizen of McCook County, but me.

  So no.

  Hell no.

  I wasn’t going to say no.

  “And just to say,” Lou’s voice kept filling the car. “If this keeps going and next month you find the homecoming king and queen shoved right off their float with the ladies of Glossop slapping crowns on yours and Hix’s heads and installing you on those thrones, don’t be surprised.”

  “I’m sure that warning should bother me, but I’m not in the mood to care,” I replied.

  “I bet you aren’t,” she chortled. “Now give your girl something. On a scale of one to ten, how good is Hixon Drake in bed?”

  Seven thousand, one hundred and twenty-two.

  The lift-me-up-and-plant-me-on-his-cock thing?

  Forget about it.

  “That’s for me to know and you never to find out,” I answered.

  “You suck.”

  I started laughing.

  Lou kept talking.

  “Though if he sucked, at the good stuff that is, I figure you wouldn’t allow there be a take two and convince yourself you guys are taking it slow. You’d find your sweet way to say sayonara.”

  “We’re not taking it slow, Lou. There’s nothing to take slow. We’re just friends.”

  “Friends who do the nasty.”

  I laughed again. “Yeah, that kind of friends.”

  “You got that hair, those eyes, those teeth, that rack and that ass, so I already hate you. Now you’re friends with Hixon Drake, I’m not sure I can stand to look at you.”

  Please.

  She was tall, willowy and had a body that bore no testimony to the fact she’d had two kids. r />
  She also had a face free of lines even though she was forty-four years old, had had her fair share of life stressors and then some. Not to mention she had that pixie look with the bow-shaped lips á la Janine Turner circa the Northern Exposure years, except her short hair had thick bangs that brushed her lashes.

  She was gorgeous.

  I didn’t tell her that because she knew that’s what I thought since I’d already told her that ad nauseam.

  “You’ll get over it by tomorrow,” I told her.

  “I’ll try,” she replied then asked, “You headed to Andy?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Give him a hug from me and the girls.”

  Andy loved Lou.

  And the girls.

  Then again, Andy loved everybody.

  “Will do.”

  “Have a good day with your baby bro, Greta. And see you tomorrow.”

  “See you, darlin’. Later.”

  “Later.”

  We disconnected. I kept driving. And I did it singing to a Sarah McLachlan tune on the radio without a care in the world.

  This was because Hix was right. We were adults. We could have whatever the hell we wanted, however the hell we wanted it.

  So what, Glossop had more churches than it had bars (one of the latter, three of the former)?

  Somewhere else, not a small town in the Bible belt, no one would blink.

  He had kids but no one would make us their business. I suspected even Hope wouldn’t sink that low to score one on her ex.

  So it was what it was and I liked what it was. I’d only dated two guys since I’d hit Glossop and only slept with one. He’d been nice, a farmer that lived too far out to make it a problem after I ended it, and I’d ended it because he wasn’t all that interesting and he was terrible in the sack.

  I didn’t want kids and I didn’t need a husband.

  But friends.

  You always needed friends.

  So I’d take that.

  I drove into the parking lot of Sunnydown seeing what I always saw when it was my day to spend with Andy.

  My brother standing out front with a male staffer waiting for me.

  I smiled at him and waved through the windshield as I found my parking spot, seeing Andy wave enthusiastically back.

  I had two days off a week and essentially worked two jobs, so I didn’t have a lot of time.

  But anyway, Andy felt safer in the home, had been living in one for as long as his brain could competently remember, so it was a different kind of home to him.