Paradise

Chapter One

by Belle
copyright ©2010

Nina Barclay, her knuckles white, struggled to breathe without looking to her right or left as she drove the topmost level of Dallas’ “High Five” interchange. She cursed herself once more for starting the divorce proceedings in Dallas, instead of Austin, where she’d settled after rat-bastard Ted had dumped her. If she’d only divorced him in Austin, she wouldn’t be heading in the wrong direction on I-635, terrified and hyperventilating and twelve stories above the ground.

Twelve stories. Her stomach lurched at the thought. She wished she had some music to take her mind off her predicament, but neither of her hands wanted to stop squeezing the steering wheel. She’d taken the wrong ramp and had gotten on the stupid highway by accident. Now, all she wanted was to be back at ground level, or as close to it as possible, but preferably not by crashing. She longed to be southbound on I-35, heading home to her safe little life. Some people might find safe boring, but she never had.

She quickly scanned the interstate for her options as her panic grew. She figured she could take the next exit to turn around, but first she needed to stop and catch her breath. Jesus, but she hated heights. And traffic. Especially Dallas traffic. She hadn’t lived here long when she and Ted were together, and she never had gotten the hang of all the roads.

At least she didn’t have to work tonight. Thank the goddess for small favors, like the fact that she was no longer high enough off the ground to trigger a nosebleed. Her heart no longer racing, Nina managed to pull one of her hands off the wheel long enough to fiddle with the radio. She scanned the dial for what was one of her favorite Dallas stations.

Meat Loaf’s “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” poured out of the speakers, the last song in the world she wanted to hear, because it had been their song, hers and Ted’s. She punched the off button, her stomach lurching. Now, she was going to puke. Damn it all, what else could go wrong today?

The interstate’s shoulder beckoned when her stomach jittered harder. She jerked the wheel, ignoring the honks, desperate to escape the car before she vomited all over it. Once she reached the shoulder, she slammed on the brakes, threw the car into park, jumped out without turning off the engine, and stumbled to the far edge of the shoulder, where she lost her breakfast.

At least she knew she wasn’t pregnant. It had been so long since she’d had sex that if it weren’t for her vibrator, she’d have forgotten what an orgasm felt like. No, she was sick to her stomach because of the divorce, because of Ted, and because of his broken promises.

The familiar whoop of a police car’s siren sounded. While glancing up, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, the flashing lights filling her sight. A state trooper had pulled up behind her car, damn it all. She stood upright, willing her heart to stop pounding. Her confrontations with authority figures never went well. In fact, just the sight of the trooper made her want to heave again.

“Yes, sir?”

He touched the brim of his hat. “Ma’am, I saw the way you swerved across the lanes. I’m mighty sorry you’re feeling sick, but I need your license and registration. Would you please return to the car?”

“Yes, sir.”

For some reason, her feet refused to move. His gaze settled on her like an iron weight. “Please get in the car, ma’am, and find your license and registration for me. Only this time, mind the traffic before you fling open the door. Have you been drinking, ma’am?”

The question stopped her short. “Drinking? What is it, noon?”

He touched the brim of his hat again. “You’d be surprised how early some people start. License and registration?”

She waited for a lull in the traffic before easing the car’s door open. Sitting down in the driver’s seat, she rummaged through her purse for the documents. She powered down the window and handed them to the trooper, keeping her hands on the wheel while he studied them. Saying nothing, he returned to his cruiser. No doubt he was checking her record, and he wouldn’t be happy to find her most recent violation, running a red light. She hadn’t, not really, it was just that the yellow light didn’t last long enough, and she’d meant to contest it in court, but court was the last place she wanted to be these days.

With her eyes on her rear view mirror, she watched the trooper return with something in his hand. When she lowered her window, he said, “Ma’am, would you please take a sobriety test?”

Great. Now she had to blow her vomit-scented breath into a tube. “Yes, sir,” she replied, taking the device from him. She blew into it as he instructed, wondering if there was any alcohol in the Egg McMuffin she’d scarfed so many hours before.

“Wait here, please, ma’am,” he said, carrying the thing back to his car. She dropped her forehead on the steering wheel. She just wanted to go home.

The trooper returned. “Ma’am, your blood alcohol level is zero, but you were driving awful recklessly.”

“You would be, too, if you were about to puke all over your car.” Realizing that she’d snapped at him, she quickly continued, “Officer, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sound rude, it’s just been the lousiest day imaginable, starting with lawyers and divorce – ”

One big sob interrupted her words as the tears hit her hard. Fishing in her purse for tissues, Nina struggled to regain control. “Honestly, I’m nuh-nuh-not usually luh-luh-like this,” she choked out. “Puh-please don’t give me a ticket.”

The trooper said nothing, abruptly shoving the license and registration at her. “You pull off at the next exit and get yourself under control, you hear me? I’m going to follow you, to make sure you do.”

She glanced up, startled by his softened expression. “Yes, officer, I will, I promise. I’m sorry I was driving so crazy. Thank you, thank you.”

“Let’s just say I’ve been there,” he said, touching the brim of his hat a final time before heading back to his car.

Wiping her eyes and nose, she pulled onto the road, driving five miles below the speed limit. The next exit had a Waffle House listed on the information sign. A ginger ale, and maybe some toast, might go down easy. When she took the exit ramp, the trooper honked and gave her a friendly wave.

She felt lucky that the trooper let her off. Maybe her luck was finally turning. Finally.

Bocephus “Hank” Riddles squinted at the food signs, the late afternoon sun in his eyes. His guitar cases rattled every time he hit a bump. He wasn’t hungry, not really, and he needed to show up early for his gig, but he had a powerful yearning for Dairy Queen.

Twisting the wheel of his old pickup in the direction of Lake Georgetown, he beelined to the DQ. He’d grown up on the stuff, and nothing satisfied him like a vanilla cone, the biggest they sold. Normally, he was a chocolate kind of guy, but he preferred Dairy Queen’s vanilla over their chocolate.

He parked, enjoying the weather – sunny, but not quite hot enough to fry an egg on the roof of his old van. The wind kicked up a few dust swirls as he took his place in line, right behind a redhead sporting freckles on the back of her neck, a neck that looked mighty kissable, with its graceful arch and curly tendrils springing out below the knot restraining the rest of her hair.

“Large vanilla cone,” he heard her say, exactly what he planned to ask for. Hank, taking a closer look at the woman’s curves, leaned in her direction, gratified to sniff a faint flowery scent on top of a heady mixture of soap, sweat, and Texas female.

When she turned, he had to jump back to avoid getting painted with the ice cream. The woman, startled by his closeness, dropped her cone, the ice cream splattering on the warm concrete.

“Oh, damn!” she cried, and he was surprised to see tears spring to her eyes. Tears over an ice cream cone? He didn’t care for women who cried over every blessed thing, but something about this woman, the fragility of her mood, and the wetness in her green eyes, drew him in. “My fault. I’ll buy you another cone. Two large vanillas,” he said to the teen behind the counter.

The woman used the heel of one hand to wipe her eyes. “Thank you. I’m sorry to be so silly, crying over an ice cream cone like I’m four years old, but my day hasn’t been one of the best.”

The boy handed two cones to Hank, who gave one to the woman before he paid for them both. He followed her to a nearby picnic table, saying, “Mind if I join you?” She didn’t answer right away, so he added, “It’s all right if you don’t want me to.”

“No, I do, want you to, that is. I don’t mind at all.” She sat on the red-stained wood, and he took care not to invade her space when he sat. He’d wanted this woman from the moment he’d spied her freckled neck. He didn’t want to scare her off.

He transferred his cone to his left hand and stuck out his right. “Hank’s my name. Hank Riddles.” When she took his hand, she smiled, her pert nose crinkling in a way he found sexy.

“Nina.”

“Nina what?” he asked, and she shrank away. Back off, don’t be so eager, flashed through his mind.

“Let’s leave it at just Nina for now,” she said.

The two of them ate their ice cream in silence until he couldn’t restrain himself any longer. “Look, I’ve never been any good at playing it cool. I want to get to know you, if you live within five hundred miles of Austin. Would you at least take my email address and promise to write to me?”

“You live in Austin?” she asked, and he couldn’t think of a good reason not to tell her where he lived.

“No, but I’m not that far away. I live in the place my daddy left me, outside of Rockdale. Today, though, I was on my way back from Dallas.”

Her eyes widened. “Me, too. Dallas, I mean.”

“And what takes a pretty lady like you to Dallas?”

It hurt his ears to hear her voice go flat. “Divorce court.”

Suddenly, she was concentrating hard on her ice cream, her gaze riveted on the cone. He wanted her to feel better, so maybe telling her about his sorry life would help. “I’m divorced, too. What happened with you?”

“He fell in love with someone else.”

Hank thought he saw a tear slip down her right cheek, though it was hard to tell, with her head bowed the way it was. If he had seen one, well, in his opinion, she was certainly entitled to some water works.

“You?” she asked.

His own voice went as flat and hard as hers had. “Let’s just say she reconsidered once she saw what the life of a small-time musician is really like, away from the applause and spotlights.”

Her head snapped up. “You’re a musician?”

Yep, definitely tear tracks on those freckle-dusted cheeks.

“Not much of one. I just barely get by. But it’s the most fun I’ve ever had.”

She sighed. “Your life must be exciting. Me, I just waitress.”

“Some of my best friends are waitresses. You familiar with Suzee’s Joint, downtown?”

“Know it! I work across the street from it, at the Sagebrush Diner.”

“I’m glad I was able to bring a smile to those lips of yours. Now, why haven’t I seen you at the diner? I always go there to eat after my show’s over.”

“I’m usually off by eleven. Will you be at Suzee’s tonight?”

“Sure will.” Hank wanted to curse when his cell phone trilled. But after he checked Caller ID, he frowned. “’Scuse me, but I think I’d better answer this.”

Ever since she’d stopped at the Waffle House back in the Dallas area and composed herself, Nina had felt good. Maybe even a little free instead of heartbroken. When she’d seen the DQ on the “Food” sign along I-35, the steering wheel had turned itself. What she’d craved had been a large vanilla cone.

Now, Nina no longer wanted ice cream. What she wanted instead was to lick this fine man’s lips. Maybe a few other body parts, too. Such thoughts shocked her because her ex was the only man she’d ever been with.

She shrugged. Now that she was divorced, she was entitled to a fling. And she’d always had a weakness for musicians. Her friends in high school had voted her “Most Likely to Sleep with a Rock Star,” because of the way she followed the bands she loved. Although she’d never slept with her rock-music heroes, maybe Hank was her chance to do it with the genuine article. So what if she’d never heard of the man’s songs?

Settling her flat-bottomed ice cream cone on a napkin laid on the picnic table, she waited until Hank was off the phone. With a frown on his face, he said, “Kitchen fire at Suzee’s, no gig tonight. Hell and Goddamn.”

Before she chickened out, she planted her lips on his. He tasted like vanilla and cream and something else she couldn’t place. The combination only triggered her appetite for more.

For a moment, she feared he might push her away – and how humiliating would that be? Instead, his mouth softened and opened, his tongue touching hers lightly, and she let her body melt against his, just the way her ice cream cone was melting on the picnic table while she enjoyed the first man, other than her ex, that she’d kissed in sixteen years.

When he broke off the kiss, disappointment washed through her until he whispered, “We’re going to scare the nice people at this Dairy Queen if we don’t stop playing tonsil hockey now.”

Her body more alive than it had been in a long while, she whispered back, “Where can we go?”

At first, he didn’t say anything, and again she thought he might be rejecting her. She forced her gaze back to his, thrilled to see the desire in his eyes.

“You sure? I mean, getting a room sounds good to me.”

She shivered when his fingertips slid from her collarbone to her ear, then back down again. “Yes, a room,” she said, while one part of her stood to the side, screaming, Nina Smith Barclay, what’s gotten into you? He might be dangerous!

He cocked his head. “This is your last chance to chicken out, honey.”

Again, the keen knife of disappointment – when had she lost all her self-confidence? “Do you want me to chicken out?”

His hands went to her hair – the curly hair she hated because it went all frizzy in the heat – and pulled it out of the knot she usually kept it in. “Oh, no, ma’am, not this country boy. You’re the hottest woman he’s kissed in a month of blue moons.”

He suggested a nearby motel, one of the nicer chains, and she agreed, following his van in her own car. Fifteen minutes later, they were both in the room. Ten feet apart.

Shaking his head, he said, “It all felt so right at the DQ. Why’s it so awkward now?”

They stared at each other until Nina got an idea that made her smile.

He noticed. “Tell me.”

“This place has a bar. I’ve always had a fantasy of meeting a stranger in a bar and being swept off my feet.”

“I’m game if you are.”

Amazed at herself, she replied, “See you there in five minutes.”

Hank watched her go, entranced by the sway of her hips, but unable to move. His feet felt frozen to the spot.

The sexiest woman he’d kissed since Chelle, and he literally had cold feet? “You got a free night, a hot redhead with one of the three best asses in Texas, and you can’t make yourself move? Man up,” he muttered out loud. “You need a drink, boy.”

He pulled back the covers on the bed, made sure the bathroom had enough towels at the ready, finger-combed his hair in the mirror, and then headed for the bar.

The place was dark and cool, with a fake-English-pub décor, sort of an odd choice for the Austin area. But he’d seen odder. Taking a seat two stools down from Nina, he let himself discreetly ogle her ass. He was supposed to be seeing her for the first time, and he figured a real stranger would check her out. Actually, he was a stranger – he knew her name, and that she’d been in divorce court today, but that was about it.

“Hey, there. May I buy you a drink?” he asked.

Not looking his way, she answered, “Thanks, got one.”

Thunderstruck by her cool response, he wondered what to do next. Maybe he should have asked her more about her fantasy because she wasn’t making this easy on him, and he wasn’t big on games of any sort. He liked plain old sex with a large helping of spanking, and the idea of spanking this one’s rear had him stiff as a fencepost.

He tried again. “Uh, nice day outside.”

She sipped her drink. “Yep.”

Damn it all, this was too much work. Did he need sex badly enough to play this game?

Yeah, I do. Besides, that kiss was incredible. Not to mention her cute little behind.

Well, one more question, and then he was outta there. “Do you like music?”

Her smile lit up the bar. “Very much. How about you?”

“Music is my life, but that’s a long story. I was thinking of playing something on the jukebox. Would you like that?”

Hopping off the stool, she said, “Let me help you pick something out.”

The two walked to the Rock-Ola jukebox, the kind with bubbles running through multicolored tubes. She pointed to the Foreigner song, “I Want to Know What Love Is.” “How about this one?”

The title of the song was enough to kick him in the gut. “Not that one. Anything but that one. How about this?” His finger stabbed, “Paradise by the Dashboard Light.” “It’s kind of funny.”

Her face went so white, he put his arm around her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

She shook her head. “Not that one. That was – our song.”

He thought a minute. “How about ‘Under the Bridge’?”

She exhaled, a long, slow blowing-out, as if she’d been holding her breath. “I guess the Chili Peppers won’t break my heart.”

She seemed distant now, and he longed to recapture their closeness, their heat. “Why don’t we dance?”

Her soft body leaned against his, and, although it wasn’t really a classic slow-dance song, he felt the magic between them again as his blood sang in his veins. Burying his face in her wild-woman hair, he inhaled, savoring the faint woodsy scent of her shampoo. He’d never smelled anything like it, and it intoxicated him.

She began singing along with the song, under her breath. “You have a nice voice,” he whispered in her ear.

“Thanks. I love to sing,” she said, snuggling closer to him. After a couple of minutes, the two of them didn’t bother to dance any more, simply rocking in place. He ached to take her back to the room and do dirty, crazy, and loving, things to her, and with her. Not since Chelle had his heart been so moved – or his cock so hard.

“Let’s go to the room,” he whispered.

Saying nothing, she removed his arms from her, settling his hand in hers.

Now what?

Her brain nagged her that taking a stranger to bed wasn’t who she was, wasn’t safe, and wasn’t the right thing to do, while her body argued, oh, yeah, it is. Besides, after the day I’ve had, I deserve to feel good.

Maybe it was time she enjoyed a one-night stand. She was looking at thirty-six next year, and her only lover, her cheating, rat-bastard ex, had promised, like the guy in the “Paradise” song, to love her until the end of time. Goddamned liar.

Maybe some wild sex would heal her.

She and Hank walked to the room at the same speed, arms and hands intertwined, as if they’d been a couple forever. But she couldn’t start thinking like that. Only a one night stand, only a one night stand – she had to keep that thought foremost in her mind.

Hank stopped walking. When she glanced at him to ask why, he spoke. “You sure you want to do this?”

Something in her body language must have signaled her ambivalence. She tightened her grip on his hand, saying with more bravery than she felt, “Of course, I do.”

His eyes, the color of cognac, looked a question at her. She couldn’t not be honest with him. “It’s just that you’re the only man, I mean, I haven’t slept with any man since my husband. I mean, my ex-husband.” God, she was making a mess of things. But no way she was telling him that she’d never slept with any man except her husband. Er, ex-husband.

Silently, he led her into the room. Once the door was shut, he placed his palms on both sides of her face, and kissed her forehead, the tip of her nose, and her lips, lightly. “Maybe you expect a musician to have lots of experience, y’know, groupies, but the fact is, uh, I’m not the kind to have a lot of different women. Maybe we’re a good match for what we’re about to do.”

“Okay.” She could feel the heat rising between them, the way it had at the DQ. “I’m sorry I acted weird in the bar. My fantasy was stupid.”

“No, it wasn’t stupid, just not quite right for today.” His hands slid to her shoulders, his thumbs stroking from the base of her neck to the hollows created by her collarbone, and back again. Hunger washed through her, as she thought how long it had been since she’d –

She threw her arms around him, her lips seeking his as if she were parched and he was a glass of icy, sweet tea. He gave back as good as he got, his mouth open, his tongue dancing with hers. Hands so unlike her ex’s – urgent, yet gentle – cupped her breasts. Touching her through two layers of clothing, it still felt electric; little shocks heading straight for her pussy.

Did I just think of down there as my pussy?

Ted used to try to make her say words like that when they made love, but she’d always been uncomfortable with frank language. Now, however, she wanted to shout them, to revel in their dirtiness, their taboo nature.

“I have an idea,” he murmured in her ear before he bit the lobe. While she writhed against him, he asked, “You ever been spanked?”

Oh. My. God.

Her mouth dry, she stuttered, “Uh-uh.”

His hands dropped to her backside, rubbing faster and harder. The friction of her skirt against her pantyhose heated her butt. She liked it.

He smacked her once, hard, and it stung even through her clothing. “Want me to?”

“Mmm,” was all she could manage.

To Be Continued...

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