Chasing Shade Part 10

Betsey woke a while later. Her head ached. Her mouth tasted like something had died in it. She remembered why once she got her eyes open and her bearings. She was tucked in the corner of the sofa with a blanket. The TV murmured in the background. A note was stuck to the front door with a Band-Aid. She laughed softly to see it.

'I guess he couldn't find the tape.'

WORKING ON MY HOVEL. COME BY IF YOU WANT. YOU NEEDED TO REST.

The clock told her at least two hours had pa.s.sed since she'd fallen asleep on his lap. It was early evening, the sky going down to a lavender colour. Her body protested when she got up, having gone stiff from the chill in the trailer and her position.

Betsey pulled out some cheese and crackers and stood at the counter eating them. Her stomach wasn't the best. She felt better than expected, though, considering she hadn't had wine in ages. Let alone that much of it.

Once there was something in her stomach, she made a cup of tea and swallowed two pain relievers with water for her head. In the bathroom, she stripped off her clothes, ready to get out of them and be clean. Clean body, clean clothes, clean mind. Her mug steamed on the sink and she turned the water on as hot as she could.

She shampooed her hair, letting her eyes drift shut. It was easy to begin beating herself up. Very easy. But then Betsey thought of what Archie had said.

She couldn't negate four years for an hour of her life. Marie coming to her home pleading her father's case had triggered all kinds of things. Fear, anger, sadness and flat-out rage. Her urge to flee from that had been utterly human. Flawed, but human.

She took her time. Sure, her tea was cooling but that's what microwaves were for.

'And what about Archie?' she said to herself, pressing her forehead against the back wall of the shower. Hot water beat down on her back and she sighed, relis.h.i.+ng the feel of it.

Archie...he'd come into her life just two days before. Which shocked her. It felt like weeks...years, even. She felt so in sync with Archie and that scared her. But it intrigued her too.

Someone in a local Narcotics Anonymous meeting had once told her: 'You only accept the love you think you deserve.'

'Not love,' she said aloud. But was that to rea.s.sure herself or the truth?

What did she deserve? She'd taken a bad situation and let it run her. She'd let herself devolve further and further into pain and fear and addiction. Someone she loved had died during that period. Had died because of it, you might say.

'You say,' she said. Then: 'Time to get out of the shower and stop talking to yourself,' she said. 'You drank the wine, you puked, you regretted it and now you need to get on with it.'

She briefly considered the local meeting at the nearby Methodist church, but shook her head. She felt stronger after her f.u.c.k-up and she had no further urge to use anything. Best let things be. Not to mention that the last few times she went to meetings she felt out of place. Her belief in a higher power wavered at best and sometimes that made her feel like an outcast.

Best plan was to bake. So she got dressed, drank her tepid tea, and heated up the oven.

She knocked. Her stomach was nervous, her hair steaming under his small porch light. It was so cold and her hair was still wet and warm. That's quite the image, she thought. A woman with steam coming off her head standing at the door...

It made her laugh, so when Archie opened the door he caught her mid-snort. 'What's so funny?' he asked, grinning.

Betsey shook her head. 'Nothing.'

'Come in here, Betsey, it's freezing.' He pulled her in by the crook of her elbow.

When she was inside, and the door was shut, she shoved the foil-wrapped plate of cookies at him. 'I made you these.'

Archie peeled back the foil and eyed the sugar cookies. They were shaped like hearts. 'Thanks.' When he grinned at her Betsey felt her knees go a little saggy.

'The only cookie cutter I have is a heart,' she blurted. 'So, um...sorry. But hearts are so much more interesting than circles. Which I could have done with a cup. Or even the lid of the cooking spray. But I thought that circles are so boring. Run of the mill, average, everyday circles are no fu'

He shoved a cookie into her mouth.

Betsey squeaked and Archie chuckled. 'Breathe, Betsey. Why are you nervous around me?'

He popped an entire cookie into his mouth and began to chew. While he chewed, he unwound her long scarf from around her neck.

His TV murmured in the background. An old action movie. She smelled food and realised she was interrupting. 'Oh, s.h.i.+t!'

'What?' He hung her scarf on a hook by the front door.

'You're about to eat.'

'And you can eat with me. It's a meatloaf. I ran up to that small grocery store by the post office while you were sleeping. They only sell huge portions, no reason you shouldn't help me eat it. My plan was to come wake you and tempt you into eating with me. But then you showed up with cookies.'

'I can't,' she blurted. She felt tears sting her eyes and hated them. Hated herself for them.

'Why not?' Archie took her face in his hands and kissed her. It was the softest kiss Betsey had ever received. She almost feared she'd imagined it. Until he did it again.

'Because I've done enough today. I'm sorry, Archie. I should leave you in peace.'

'But I want you here,' he said. He kissed her across her forehead. It was such a soothing sensation her eyes drifted shut.

'I've already fallen asleep on you today. Don't lull me, I'm liable to go unconscious again.'

He wrapped her in his arms. 'Fine by me.'

'Archie ' She pushed back, stared him in the eye. 'I'm a big, big, big mistake.'

He frowned again. It made his eyes crinkle around the edges. Somehow it only made him more handsome. 'Stop that.'

'I am. I'm just...' She waved her hands around, feeling very close to losing her s.h.i.+t and crying all over his newly spiffed-up trailer.

'What?' He grabbed her upper arms and stared at her. His lips were pressed hard together, making his handsome, kind face, look almost menacing. 'The person who reached out and gave me a hand when I had no earthly idea where I was going? The woman who took me from homeless truck-driving drifter to gainfully employed, home-tidying, cookie-eating, feeling-happy man?'

'I '

'I nothing,' he said, cutting her off. Betsey's mouth snapped shut so hard she heard it clack. 'I'll hold your hand and listen to you and let you work s.h.i.+t out. I will do any of that, and do it happily, but I will not listen to you badmouth yourself.'

She was breathless.

'I...OK.'

'Good. Now sit. I think this loaf of meat is ready. I hope you don't mind boxed mashed potatoes. When I try to make the real ones I end up with a pot of what resembles wallpaper paste.'

Betsey laughed. She fingered a set of salt and pepper shakers and ran her palms over a bright oilcloth on the table. 'Where'd you get all the stuff? We didn't buy all this at the thrift shop.'

'Nah. Turns out Charlie has a whole slew of stuff people have left behind, in the storage room behind his office. When I came home there was a note stuck in the door jamb addressed to "Kid". He told me to help myself if I needed any more stuff to, and I quote, "spruce up this s.h.i.+t shack".'

Betsey laughed. 'Sounds like Charlie.'

She watched him work. He was gorgeous to watch. Long, lean body that moved with grace and purpose. She wasn't sure if she'd ever seen a man with so much physical grace. His hands worked easily on measuring, pouring and stirring. And then he plated their food and brought it to the table, smiling all the way. 'I have water, water, water or tea.'

'Tea.'

He levelled a finger at her. 'The lady has excellent taste.'

'We could have had wine if I weren't defective,' she muttered. Shame burned her cheeks and then sorrow cracked something in her chest.

He put her tea on the table and touched her hair. 'You're not defective. Everyone has their Achilles heel. Wine is overrated. You're worth infinite bottles of wine,' he said and sat.

She found herself blus.h.i.+ng. Blus.h.i.+ng and swallowing hard because those tears were still threatening. 'Meatloaf, eh?'

'Yes, my ex hated it.'

Betsey choked on her first bite. 'Oh, is that important?'

'You bet your pretty little a.s.s it is,' he said, grinning. 'I love it. And she'd never make it. Don hated it too.'

'Who is Don?' His meatloaf was really good. Even his boxed potatoes were really good. Archie had hidden talents beyond being the nicest guy and a stellar deliverer of o.r.g.a.s.ms. World-cla.s.s hugger, too.

'I'll tell you who Don is if you tell me why you're blus.h.i.+ng.'

'I was thinking dirty things.'

He waggled his eyebrows at her. 'Good to know. Now Don...Don is the boyfriend of my mother who wanted me gone. So I'm gone.'

'Oh, so since he hated meatloaf...'

'Again, poor me, never having the meatloaf.'

'Well, here you go. Supplier of your own meatloaf,' she said.

'Exactly. That's how you need to be in life. If you want something and no one will give it to you, you need to give it to yourself.'

She stared at him, her mind churning. 'I think you're right,' she said. 'Completely.'

They ate, and he told her about his bas.e.m.e.nt dwelling at his mom's. How it flooded once and the cat kept peeing on his clothes. He made her laugh, he made her forget that she was disappointed in herself. It made her remember to be happy that she'd sensed something in him and asked him to come with her to the trailer park.

Betsey did not believe in kismet. But now she kind of did.

'What are you thinking?' he asked.

'Nothing.'

'I don't think I believe that.'

The longer she watched him, the more she craved him. Craved deep down in her bones. The feel of him over her, under her, inside her. She s.h.i.+vered.

'Cold?'

'Nope. Far from it.'

'Everything OK?'

She stood and cleared her plate. 'Everything's fine,' she said, was.h.i.+ng it quickly. 'I think I want dessert, though.'

He laughed. 'Well, I know this woman, she's smoking hot FYI, and she brought me these homemade cookies.' He offered her the plate. She took it, set it on the table and dropped to her knees. Betsey felt a rush of power and control slam through her.

'I'm not hungry for cookies,' she said, pulling at his belt buckle.

He watched her, his eyes suddenly darker with arousal. 'No?'

'No,' Betsey said, and pulled his zipper down slowly.

Chapter 14.

'Betsey,' Archie said. He put his hands in her hair and just as her mouth blissfully warm and soft touched the tip of his c.o.c.k, he pulled her free. Made her look up at him. 'You '

Her face grew grave. 'If you tell me, Archie Rader, that I don't have to do this, I will pinch you.'

He blinked at her stupidly.

'I am not doing this because I have to,' she said. Archie was having some trouble focusing on what she said because of the fact that her hand was stroking his hard-on. Pleasure swirled through him even as he tried to keep his mind clear. 'I'm doing this because I want to. I mean...' She grinned at him and his stomach dropped quickly with l.u.s.t. 'I really want to.'

She squeezed again to emphasise her point and he groaned. The groan was loud enough to rattle him down to his bones. Her lips touched him again and he forgot everything else. The sight of her lips sliding past his c.o.c.khead, moving down his shaft, taking him in, was almost as good as the sensation. And the sensation was breathtaking.

He put his hands in her hair, holding her head lightly. Her mouth slid along his skin, her tongue caressed him. Archie moved his hips in counter time to Betsey and felt the warmth of her throat embrace him. She inhaled deeply through her nose and it only allowed him deeper.

He groaned, tightened his fingers in her hair. His hips slammed up and he gasped. 'Let's go to the bedroom. Let's '

'No,' she said, her mouth still full of him. His c.o.c.k was gliding across the wet velvet of her skin and Archie's mind went utterly blank for a second. 'I want to finish.'

Emotions warred inside him. Greed, for one. He wanted her to finish. He wanted to come in her mouth, yes. But he also wanted to come on her face, on her chest, in her hair. He wanted to make her messy and then he wanted to clean her up. He wanted to come with her mouth on him but he wanted to f.u.c.k her until she cried out his name. Archie realised his hands were shaking.

She drew on him roughly and he felt the resounding tug in his gut and his chest. His body ached to let go. His brain chattered, urging him on. His body's constant conspirator in release.

He exhaled loudly. He'd been holding his breath.

Her fingers stroked down over his b.a.l.l.s and Archie shut his eyes, it felt so good. He hummed softly and only realised he was doing it when Betsey laughed, the vibration of her amus.e.m.e.nt skittering across her skin.

Her fingers moved back further. He thought his mind would shut down completely. The way she touched him...Jesus, the way she touched him made him practically vibrate. 'Betsey.' He felt his fingers sink deeper, pull harder, but he seemed unable to stop it. She gasped on her own, not in pain, it seemed, but in apparent pleasure.