Kristen Ashley - Rock Chick

We tussled, tangled in the sheets, rolled, tussled more and ended up falling on the floor, me on the bottom. Luckily, Lee’s arm was around my waist and it tightened and he threw his other one out to break our fall, doing kind of a one arm push up with me in the middle. Still, my ass slammed against the floor and Lee’s hips mashed into mine.

This nearly knocked the wind out of me but I continued, rolling him over, then he rolled me over.

Then somehow arms, legs and rolling were joined by lips, tongues and groping and the wrestling match got interesting.

We were both breathing heavily, I was seriously hot and bothered, when all of a sudden, the flannel shirt was whisked over my head, my panties were gone and Lee slid inside me.

I instantly stopped wrestling, wrapped my legs around his thighs and my arms around his back.

He was moving inside me and I was moving with him, our lips touching but not kissing, our breath coming fast. I lifted my head to kiss him but he pulled away and kept moving inside me. Then his lips came back to mine and I tried to kiss him again but he pulled away again.

“Lee…” I whispered, I was going to tell him I wanted to kiss him and he should stop messing around.

He drove in deep and said against my mouth, “There it is.”

Then he kissed me.

* * *

After, my legs were still wrapped around his thighs, one of my hands was in his hair, the other one on his ass. Lee’s face was tucked into my neck and he was still inside me.

“Cherry’s a four. You’re off the scales,” he said to my neck.

I might have thought this was bullshit, but one thing Lee wasn’t was a bullshit artist.

“I shouldn’t have asked,” I said.

“No, you shouldn’t.”

He pulled away, carted us both into the bed and he settled me against him, full-frontal.

“I didn’t mean to flirt with Eddie,” I told his throat. “It was a reflex action.”

One of his arms tightened around me, the other hand started fiddling with my hair.

“I’ll try to do better… with the flirting,” I said.

“I’d appreciate that.”

“You need to do better… with the jealousy thing, not every guy wants to get in my pants.”

“You’re wrong, every guy does want to get in your pants,” Lee said.

“Tex doesn’t.”

“Tex isn’t every guy. Tex is a crazy guy and he’s old enough to be your father.”

“Duke doesn’t,” I tried.

“Dolores would chop Duke’s dick off if he so much as looked at another woman and he’s old enough to be your father.”

“Hank doesn’t,” I persevered.

“Hank doesn’t count. He thinks of you as his little sister.”

“Darius doesn’t.” I was a dog with a bone.

“Darius doesn’t fuck white women.”

Jeez.

I tried a different tact.

In a quiet voice, a very quiet voice (because I kinda hoped he wouldn’t hear me), I whispered, “You know it’s only ever been you.”

He heard me.

His body went still. Then his hand fisted in my hair and he tugged my head back. He kissed me, long and sweet and when he was done, he tucked my face back into his neck.

I took in a deep breath and then let it out.

“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” he asked softly.

It was harder than hell, it was scary and it made me feel vulnerable.

Since I felt I’d done my sharing for the night, I stayed quiet.

Lee let me have my emotional space.

“Ally tried to take the earrings back to Tiffany’s. They refused the return. I’m not approaching Coxy, for various reasons. You’re stuck with them.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “I’ve decided to give them to charity.”

“Good plan,” he said and then, “I was in the surveillance room and saw them come in. You thought they were from me.”

“Yeah.”

“You want anything, just say and we’ll get it. You can pick out what you want.”

I held my breath.

“Seriously?” I said when I let it out.

“I’m not gonna try to read your mind when there’s something you want. Just tell me and I’ll get it for you.”

Well, hell. That made things easy for him.

He didn’t have to ask clever questions, do any detective work, put any effort into it at all if I just told him what I wanted.

I decided to change the subject because that one very well might tick me off.

“What was Eddie so hot to see you about this morning?” I asked.

Lee rolled onto his back and I snuggled into his side, my cheek on his shoulder.

“Darius has some trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“The kind Eddie can’t get involved with. He’s got some pressure from the Department about Darius, they don’t like the relationship and they want Darius out of commission.”

“Eddie won’t do it?”

“Eddie’s a Mexican-American, family is all important. He thinks of Darius and me as brothers. It’s one of the reasons why he and I survived both of us being in love with you. Eddie would never take Darius down.”

I wrapped my arm around his waist.

“What happened to Darius?” I asked.

“After his father was killed, the life insurance covered funeral expenses and some bills. Not enough money comin’ in, standard of living crashed. All of a sudden, Darius and his Mom were responsible for a house and Darius’s three younger sisters. It was hard, he was young. Darius was offered an easier path and he took it. No one would have guessed he’d make that choice but after what happened to his father, Darius was one seriously pissed off black man. He was lookin’ for trouble and found it.”

“Can he get out?”

“Easier to get in than out, but yeah. Anyone can do anything if they want it bad enough.”

“Does he need help?”

Lee’s fingers had been drawing randomly on my back but they stopped, his arm came around me and his other hand tilted my chin to look at him.

“Do not try to save Darius,” he said.

I made a huffy sound then told him, “That sounded like an order.”

“The brothers are not fond of women messin’ in their affairs. Especially white women. This includes Darius. The guy you knew in high school is gone.” His voice got kind of scary.

“All right,” I gave in. “You don’t have to get all freaky about it.”

He let go of my chin and I snuggled into him again.

“I’m beginnin’ to feel my mother’s pain. I just have you to worry about and it’s doin’ my head in. She had all four of us,” Lee said.

“You’re a big, tough, badass dude. You’ll survive,” I told him.

He rolled into me and ran his mouth down my jaw to my ear. “Your job is to make it worthwhile.”

I had a feeling I could do that.

We were sitting in Lee’s teak chairs on the balcony. It was post morning sex, I was wearing one of Lee’s tees and a pair of hot pink lace hipsters, drinking my coffee, my feet up in Lee’s lap, zoned out with my gaze settled on the Front Range. Lee was also drinking coffee, but he wasn’t zoned out. He was reading the paper which was spread out on the table. He was absently stroking one of my feet and was wearing a pair of gray sweat pants and nothing else.

Even though it had been an active morning, I was still only on coffee number one and my mental processes hadn’t yet kicked in. Regardless of this, I realized the feeling I had was contentment and yes, even happiness. Maybe even real happiness. Maybe even off the charts happiness.

Lee put the paper down, sat back, stretched his legs out in front of him, crossed the ankles and took a drink of his coffee. His gaze leveled on me, although I wasn’t looking at him, I could feel it.

He put his coffee down and started to massage my foot, this time with both hands. It felt super nice, he had strong hands and he knew how to use them.

“I’ve asked Dawn to get some guys to come in and pack up your stuff and move it and your furniture to storage. Today, you need to pack anything you want to bring over and I’ll come around tonight and we’ll move you in.”

Happiness fled instantly and panic seized every cell in my body, my eyes moved from the Front Range to Lee and I stared, unable to speak.

Lee kept talking. “I know a property management service. I called them yesterday. They’ll rent your place, make sure it’s a good tenant and maintain it for a fee. We’ll get it advertised next week.”

I finally found my voice. “I know I promised to move in by this weekend but… isn’t this going a bit fast?”

Lee’s hands moved to my other foot.

“Yep,” he answered.

“Don’t you think we should slow down?” I asked.

“Nope.”

“Why?”

Okay, you could hear the panic edging my one word question, but still.

Instead of answering, he dropped my feet, bent double to get up and kissed my forehead as he did so. Then he walked into the condo.

I stared at him moving away from me.

He walked well, confident, close to a swagger but not quite. His sweats were drawstring and rode low. His back was beautifully muscled. I kept staring into the living room even after he was gone, zoned out again, the image of his back pleasantly burned on my eyeballs like after you accidentally looked directly at the sun.

Then I saw him come back.

He sat down, lifted my legs at the calves and put my feet back in his lap and threw a little pink case at me across the table.

I stared at it in horror.

My birth control pills,

I’d forgotten them, totally and completely.

Holy crap.

I grabbed it and looked. The last one I took was Monday. I was all over the place these days, I wasn’t in my normal day-to-day schedule. I was two pills behind, too late to catch up and I’d been having sex. A lot of sex. Apparently a lot of unprotected sex.

I slapped the pills back down on the table.

“I didn’t do it on purpose, I swear,” I told him.

“I know you didn’t,” he said, his hands back to massaging my foot.

“We have to stop having sex, like, immediately.”

His hands stopped massaging, “That’s not gonna happen.”

“Lee! What if I’m pregnant?”

He grinned “Then we’ll make a beautiful baby.”

I yanked my feet out of his lap, stood up and started to jump up and down.

“Ohmigod, ohmigod,” I chanted.

Lee stood and pulled me to him.

“Calm down,” he said but I could tell he was kind of laughing.

“This isn’t funny!” I yelled “We can’t get through a week without having a break. This is too new, too fast, too weird, too much. Ohmigod, ohmigod,” I began chanting again.

This was a serious, life changing moment and I needed Van Halen.

No, no Van Halen wasn’t going to do. This was a Metallica Moment.

I could tell by the feel of his body against mine that he was not kind of laughing anymore, he was flat out laughing.

“Why are you laughing?” I shouted.

“Because you’re cute,” he said, looking at me. “And you’re funny and you’re over-reacting. This isn’t the end of the world, you don’t even know if you’re pregnant and you’re moving in, for fuck’s sake.”

“Why’d you show me the pills?”

“Because if you’re pregnant, we shouldn’t waste time movin’ in together. If you’re not, we should take different precautions and we shouldn’t waste time movin’ in together.”

“Why do I have to move into your place, why don’t you move into mine?”

“I could do that.”

I stopped freaking out and stared. “What do you mean?”

“We’ll put my shit in storage and I’ll move to your place. Doesn’t matter to me.”

I was beyond staring and went straight to gawking.

“What about your view?” I asked.

He shrugged.

“I only have one bathroom,” I said.

“We could make that work.”

“I have a yard, you’d have to mow the grass. I don’t think Stevie will keep mowing my side if you live there.”

“Your yard’s the size of a postage stamp. I think I can manage mowing the grass.”

“It isn’t secure, there isn’t even an alarm system.”

“Vance will put one in.”

“What about the Command Center? I don’t have a room where you can put your top secret PI stuff.”

He started laughing again. “Do you want to move or do you want me to move, make up your mind.”

“I don’t know,” I said, and I didn’t.

“Well you have to figure it out now because one or the other of us is moving in tonight. No more fucking around.”