Complicated

  “Okay, baby, I kinda like this,” she admitted huskily.

  “I do too,” he growled the obvious.

  He just caught her turned-on smile before he yanked her to him with his hand at her neck, starting to kiss her hard, but he lost it, groaning into her mouth as he shot, his hot cum landing on his stomach.

  She was kissing him when he began to power down their strokes but he kept their hands moving on him as he took over the kiss.

  Finally, he released his hold on her hand on his dick but only to reach out, still kissing her, to cup her pubis and draw her gently closer to him.

  She broke the kiss, took her hand from his cock, put it to his chest and whispered, “Hix.”

  “Straddle me.”

  “You don’t—”

  He released her but only to dive into her panties at the front, going deep, encountering what he felt on the outside, that she was drenched, and filling her with his middle finger.

  Her back arched, a gust of breath hit his lips, and she scrambled up as he dropped his legs to give her access to come astride him.

  He cocked them again and watched her face from close as he finger fucked her, felt her warm breath get heavier against his mouth, her hips begin to sync with his movements. He slid another finger in to join his other and kept at her.

  “Yeah?” he asked.

  “Oh yeah,” she whimpered.

  “Clit?” he asked.

  She didn’t answer that time. Just nodded and did it fast.

  He grinned and slid his fingers out to move to her clit.

  Once he put on pressure and started circling, she emitted a sexy, quiet cry and lifted her hand from his chest to clamp it around the side of his neck.

  “Yeah?” he asked, even though he knew.

  She ground into him.

  Yeah, he knew.

  “You got a toy, baby?” he queried. “Somethin’ I can slip inside you while I work your clit?”

  “I . . . the night—” She cut herself off as she mewed, bucked, pressed her neck against his hold there, and damn, this was almost hotter than her sucking him and jacking him. “Yeah, in the—”

  Again she didn’t finish because all of a sudden her head dropped. She dug her forehead in his neck where it met his shoulder, moaned, and her body trembled over him, her hips grinding her clit into his fingers as she came.

  He took her through it and cupped her when it was leaving her.

  He also twisted his neck to tell her what he wanted.

  She lifted her head, met his mouth, letting him have hers for a deep kiss.

  When he was through with her, he used his hand at her neck to press her forehead back into his shoulder and they both stayed right where they were as he listened to her breath even out.

  “You’re gonna be busy, I’ll go buy condoms,” she declared.

  He felt his body get tight.

  “Greta.”

  She pushed against his hold still at her neck so she could catch his eyes through the dark. “I know, Hix. I know. Message received. And that was hot. Like, serious hot. But, you know, just in case we get bored of the idea of handjobs.”

  “You’re not my booty call,” he said low.

  “Again, message clear.”

  “Not sure I can make it that, naked with my cum dryin’ on my gut, my hand still in your panties, which is all you’re wearin’ except that sweet bra.”

  He saw her eyes sparkle through the shadows. “Right. I can see your dilemma.”

  “This is serious to me, Greta.”

  The sparkle died and she slid her hand down to his chest and pressed in but not to pull away.

  “What happened before that made you feel like a dick, that’s over, Hix. You’re not gonna have to pay for it as long as whatever is happening with us is happening. Stop kicking your own ass. The only person who has the right to do that is me and I’m over it. Let yourself be over it too.”

  “Babe—” he started, withdrawing his hand from her panties and gliding it around her hip to the small of her back.

  “You had a bad day and I like you.” She pressed into his chest again. “I like you, Hix. I like talking to you and listening to you, and what I like most of all, tonight, even after what just transpired, which was awesome, I liked that you came to me after a bad day. I’m not reading anything into it and I’m not feeling used. I led you up here because I wanted to give you what I just gave you and it was a conscious decision. I’m delighted beyond measure you returned the gesture, although it was unnecessary. Just let it be what it was and relax.”

  Jesus.

  There was no other way to put it.

  She was just freaking great.

  “All right, sweetheart,” he muttered, trying not to smile.

  “Now, just to say, your Bronco has been at my—”

  “Babe, I’m spending the night.”

  She fell silent.

  “Unless you don’t—” he started.

  “I do,” she whispered.

  “Then get off me, Greta. I gotta wash up. Then I’m beat and I need some sleep.”

  He caught her grin before he caught the brush of her lips against his and she pushed away.

  He rolled off her bed and watched her as she sat on the side of her hip, hand in the bed, eyes on him as he went to the bathroom.

  He turned the light on this time and understood why the bathroom was one of the reasons she bought the house.

  Tongue and groove all the way up the walls painted white. Big, claw-footed tub. Wide-plank wood floors. Broad, spindle-leg sink. Built-in, window-front cabinets. Toilet open to the room but the shower discretely tucked away so the bathroom had one but it wouldn’t mess with the old-fashioned look of the room.

  He pulled a thick washcloth that was a soft beige color and rolled up in an arrangement with a bunch of other ones out of a steel pail and cleaned his stomach. He rinsed it, draped it over the edge of the sink, turned to the door, switched off the light and walked back into her bedroom.

  She was down, moon and streetlights coming through the windows to show her on her side, body pointed to the bathroom, head on a pillow, legs curled up, arm in front of her over her breasts, and Christ. Even seeing that through the shadows, he wished he could sketch so he could have that image, frame it and look at it whenever he wanted.

  She reached out the arm at her breasts to yank down the covers, pushing up as she did to get under them herself.

  Hix hit the bed, stretched out on his back and hooked an arm around her waist to pull her into his side.

  He slid his hand up, encountered bra and asked, “You sleep in this?”

  “Not usually.”

  He unhooked it, and with a few deft movements, had the straps down her arms.

  He tossed it to the floor then curled her into him.

  “Well, uh . . . all I can say about that is that you should teach classes on how to do it,” she remarked. “I don’t think I’ve ever been divested of a bra that expertly.”

  Hix chuckled.

  He’d started the day on the news a man had been murdered.

  And in bed with Greta, he was ending it chuckling.

  “That was a pretty one, sweetheart, but they’re always better off than they are on.”

  “Mm-hmm,” she mumbled against his chest, pressing her now-bared breasts to his side.

  As with everything he was discovering with Greta, it felt great.

  He stroked her up her spine, over her shoulder and down her arm as far as he could reach since she’d curled it around his middle.

  “You good?” he asked.

  “Yeah, Hix,” she answered, underlining that by snuggling closer. “You need me to set an alarm?”

  “I won’t sleep in.”

  “Figure not,” she muttered.

  She was worried he wouldn’t sleep at all.

  He gave her a squeeze. “Just . . . it’s good. Don’t worry about anything.”

  “Okay, darlin’.”

  He held her close, smelli
ng her hair, hints of her perfume.

  She cuddled closer.

  “Greta?”

  “Yeah, Hixon.”

  He lifted his head, twisted it and kissed the top of her hair.

  “Thanks, baby,” he said there.

  Her arm gave him a squeeze but she didn’t otherwise reply.

  He relaxed.

  Her weight melted into him.

  He stared at her ceiling, felt her softness, her warmth, smelled her, and finally, his eyes drifted closed and Hix slept.

  Headway

  Hixon

  HIX WOKE UP to a dark room.

  The first thing he noticed was that he was in Greta’s bed.

  The next thing he noticed was that he was alone.

  The next was that he felt refreshed.

  After that, he saw from her bedside clock it was before six in the morning. He also saw her wineglass and his bourbon glass were no longer where they’d set them the night before.

  Last, he smelled bacon cooking.

  Having woken on his side facing Greta’s side of the bed, he rolled to his back, did a stretch then rolled again and threw his legs on the floor.

  He went to her bathroom, flipped on the light, used the facilities and then headed to the sink.

  He washed his hands, splashed water on his face and dried it with a fluffy, white hand towel.

  A quick survey of all her cabinets told him she didn’t have a spare toothbrush but he found some mouthwash in her medicine cabinet. He rinsed with it, spit it out and headed back into her bedroom where he got dressed, all the way down to his boots.

  He found Greta and the bacon in the kitchen.

  She had her hair in a messy bun at the top of her head, tendrils floating down, and she was wearing a simple, short robe in gray T-shirt material.

  A robe that clung to her hips and ass in a way Hix was going to have to expend a goodly amount of effort in order to ignore.

  The bacon was in a frying pan on her stove and she had her back to him, tending it.

  “Babe,” he called.

  She turned to him, looked him up and down and smiled.

  It was lucky he’d made it to the island which gave him an excuse for the fact her smile made him stop dead.

  Not to mention, the robe clung to her tits almost better than it did her hips and ass.

  Fortunately, she took his mind off of this by announcing, “If you think you’re leaving my house without a good breakfast in your belly, Hixon Drake, think again.”

  The good of her smile shifted away as he replied gently, “This is not what you want to hear. And it’s brutal, sweetheart, so I hope the indications you’re giving me that you can take it mean you can actually take crap like this. But as much as I appreciate you lookin’ out for me, I know Nat Calloway’s last meal from getting the coroner’s report, which included the contents of his stomach. I’m grateful for your concern but stuff like that makes a man’s appetite not what it used to be.” He hated to see her pale so he finished, “It’ll pass.”

  “You need to eat, darlin’.”

  “I’m not hungry, baby.”

  “I don’t mean to be flippant in the face of certain tragedy, Hix, but I simply cannot believe even murder beats the smell of bacon.”

  On her words, he felt his stomach rumble.

  She might have heard it, she might not and just was bent on her need to look after him when she repeated on a tender push, “I get what you’re saying, Hix, darlin’, but you need to eat.”

  “Right, I’ll let you feed me, Greta, but not to be rude, please, God, no biscuits and gravy.”

  Her brows shot up. “Are you telling me you, a Hoosier, do not like stick-to-your-ribs biscuits and gravy?”

  “White gravy should be smothered over a chicken-fried steak and that’s its only use.”

  “How weird,” she murmured.

  “Not weird, just my opinion,” he replied.

  “No, Hix, it’s weird because I agree.”

  He stared at her.

  No one in the entire state of Nebraska agreed with that.

  She shot him a grin. “So, rest assured, no biscuits and gravy. Just eggs as you like ’em, bacon, toast, and ranch-style beans, you’re in the mood.”

  Suddenly, he was starving.

  “Beans sound good,” he muttered.

  She tipped her head to a full coffeepot and said, “Mugs in the cupboard. Creamer in the fridge. You want sugar, it’s in that canister on the island, spoons in the drawer by the dishwasher.”

  He moved to the coffee. “Gotcha.”

  “Egg order?” she prompted.

  “Fried, over medium.”

  “Toast order?”

  He was pulling down a mug and looked to her. “Toast order?”

  “Light, medium, toasty, burnt,” she explained.

  “You do toast to order?”

  “It’s not hard. There’s a little dial to the side, you see,” she teased. “You want burnt, I’ll turn it all the way to ten.”

  He shot her a grin. “Medium.”

  She gave him a brief nod and he made his coffee while she moved around, dealing with bacon, eggs, beans, toast, butter.

  He took his mug to the end of the counter closest to her where the sink and dishwasher were, catty-corner to where she was at the stove in the middle of the back wall, and he leaned a hip against it.

  “You always get up this early?” he asked.

  “I do when I have a good-lookin’ hunk of man in bed who has to wake up and face another shitty day and I know he didn’t eat the one before.” She looked over her shoulder at him, eyes bright, and he could see the happy there was partially forced to hide her worry for him. “Though, just saying, I’d do it even if you ate yesterday.”

  “This is my job, Greta, you don’t need to worry about me,” he informed her quietly.

  “Someone has to do it,” she returned in the same tone.

  “No they don’t.”

  “Okay then, I have to do it, so please let me.”

  He held her gaze as he ignored how that made him feel too, lifted his mug to his lips and muttered, “Knock yourself out.” He took a sip, but when he was done, he saw her mug by the stove was half empty, so he offered, “Want a warmup?”

  “Yeah, darlin’. Just a splash of creamer.” He got her a warmup, slid the mug by the stove, and she requested, “Stools by the door, I pull them to the island when I eat in here. They get in the way otherwise. Could you bring them over, please?”

  He looked to the two half-Windsor-back stools, side by side next to the door then back at the kitchen.

  It wasn’t a small space and there was plenty of room around the island.

  “Okay,” she went on, and he turned his attention back to her to see she was looking like she was trying not to laugh as she watched him. “So they mess with my aesthetic.”

  “Right,” he replied, his word shaking with his own laughter.

  “I’m dishing up, get on those stools,” she demanded.

  “She’s bossy in the mornings,” he mumbled, moving to put down his mug on the island in transit to the stools.

  “Just like to eat my food when it’s hot, snuggle bug,” she retorted.

  He stopped, turned, stool in hands, and asked, “Snuggle bug?”

  She awarded him with another big smile. “You snuggle.”

  He did?

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Uh . . . you were there,” she reminded him.

  “You snuggled me.”

  “You hooked me around the waist and put me there.”

  He did do that.

  “We fell asleep that way because a man does that after he’s bedded down with a woman as good as you are with your mouth . . .” he paused, and finished, lips twitching. “And hand.”

  She planted that exact hand on her hip. “Woke up with you wrapped around me.”

  Come again?

  He’d never wrapped himself around Hope. He moved around in sleep. She did too. It w
as go-to-sleep cuddles and then they went their separate ways.

  “You did not,” he declared.

  “Okay,” she was still smiling and turning back to the stove, “tell yourself that . . . snuggle bug.”

  He set the stool down and asked, “That stool placement work for you, gum drop?”

  She whirled around, spatula in hand. “Gum drop?”

  He headed back for the other stool. “Not sure you want the meaning of that.”

  “Try me,” she dared.

  He brought the stool to the island, setting it beside the other one, and shot her a different kind of grin. “You taste sweet.”

  Color rose in her cheeks, it was more indication she could be cute, and she turned back to the stove.

  “You’re right. Maybe I didn’t wanna know,” she muttered.

  “Better than the alternative,” he pointed out.

  She faked horror with her, “Ohmigod.”

  “Can’t say I’m wrong,” he noted.

  “Ugh,” she pushed out.

  “Could call you donut,” he said to her back.

  “Blech,” she said to the stove.

  “Cupcake,” he suggested, sliding his ass on a stool, enjoying the hell out of this.

  “Gag,” she declined.

  “How about pumpkin?” he offered. “That wouldn’t give anything away.”

  “Please, no,” she said, bending down with an oven mitt on her hand and pulling out one of the two plates she was heating in the oven.

  Greta heated plates.

  Jesus.

  “Gum drop it is,” he stated, forcing his mind from heated plates.

  She shot him a look, her face severe, eyes amused, and straightened.

  She dished up. He got off his ass again to get cutlery for both of them.

  He sat down, she set his plate in front of him and went back to make her own.

  He didn’t give her any more shit as she grabbed her mug and sat opposite him.

  “Babe,” he called and her eyes went from picking up her fork to him.

  “That one works,” she declared. “You go with another one, I’ll have to bounce from snuggle bug to stud muffin, depending on the occasion.”

  The day after Hix stood, near to that very hour, next to a dead man, he sat on a stool in a country kitchen next to a beautiful woman who’d made him breakfast and he busted out laughing.