But Ry managed to leave for college in one piece. And Saylor was... Saylor.
Neither Judge or Rev ever discovered the kids were humping like rabbits while everyone else was passed out or sleeping.
Shade wished that was something he could forget, too.
You there? came the flat female voice from his phone. Name the time and place.
Now, he answered. But where? At the crematorium.
Address? she asked. You came to the house for Pumpkin, I didn’t come to you. Remember?
How could he forget? But, for fuck’s sake, he didn’t know the address.
Before he could come up with another location or admit he didn’t know the address where he fucking worked, another text from her came through. Never mind. I Googled it.
Of course she did.
He rolled out of bed, pulled the first T-shirt he could find over his head and searched for his jeans. In ten?
He found his jeans and was yanking them up when his phone dinged again and the voice said, That won’t give me time to shave. Just an FYI.
His answer? Don’t give a fuck about hairy legs.
I wasn’t talking about my legs.
He snorted and snagged his wristband off the table before hitting the button on his phone and trying not to chuckle when he answered, Don’t give a fuck about that, either. He quickly covered the scar on his wrist with the wide leather.
See you in ten, the computer voice read.
He might have to convince her to use voice messages instead of texts. He’d rather hear her voice announcing her pussy wasn’t clean shaven instead of a damn computer.
Or, hell, he could just call her. A primitive method that worked well way before text messages.
He shook his head. No matter how they exchanged messages, the fact was he was as hard as a goddamn rock now. He’d zipped up his jeans just in time. He double-checked to make sure he replaced the wrap in his wallet after using the last one behind the shed, then shoved in a second one, just in case.
As he reached for his cut hanging on the back of the door, he paused and stared at it. He probably shouldn’t wear it. He would need to take it off before getting into her cage, anyway.
Fuck, he didn’t know what she drove.
If she drove one of those Smart Cars, they were screwed because they wouldn’t have enough room to screw.
They could always use the back of the crematorium van, but that was kind of...
No.
He did have the key to the crematorium. But if they fucked in there, he’d never be able to concentrate while at work again. He’d always be thinking about bending Chelle over the desk. Or having her against the wall.
Or having her straddle his lap in Cassie’s leather office chair.
Yeah, no.
They could head over to The Grove Inn. Maybe Ozzy had an empty room. The only problem with that was, once he got Chelle in a bed, he might not let her back out. At least not until morning. Maybe not even then.
If he could work out a whole night with her, if she could come up with an excuse to give her girls for why she was gone all night, he’d consider that for a future fuck. But not tonight.
Tonight he’d take what he could get.
Even if it was a quickie in a fucking cage behind a pet crematorium.
“Thank fuck,” Shade muttered as Chelle turned off the lights to her mom mobile. He never thought he’d be so fucking excited to see a station wagon in his life.
But here he was. He had a raging hard-on and was about to get laid in one.
A first.
The passenger side window powered down and she dipped her head so she could see him sitting on his sled as she called out, “Here?”
“Yeah.”
She glanced around the back lot of the crematorium. He had parked his sled in front of the rear loading dock, and she’d pulled into the spot on his left. “Um... I’m not sure I can do it here.”
“Gonna forget where you are in a few.”
A little snort-laugh bubbled from her. “You promise?”
He grinned. “Promise.”
“Then hurry up,” she demanded, now wearing a wide smile.
She began to roll the window back up but he stopped her with, “Put a coupla windows down. Otherwise, they’re gonna steam up.”
“Are you talking from experience?” she teased.
“Nope.”
“Then how do you know?”
“Saw it recently. Up close and personal.” Too up close and way too fucking personal.
“Oh.” All the windows powered down at once and the engine went quiet.
He swung a leg over his sled, shrugged out of his cut, and draped it over the seat. He had decided to wear it because it felt weird riding his sled without it. His colors were an important part of him now.
He stepped up to the station wagon, what he guessed might be a Subaru, but wasn’t sure, and began to work out the how-tos in his head. Luckily, this vehicle had more space than Ry’s, which was a tiny sedan.
Ry had been sitting in the back seat with Saylor on his lap, riding him like a naked rodeo queen. Shade figured Chelle could do something similar.
But tonight he really wanted to get his mouth on her first. He was dying to get a good taste of her, something he could remember later. When he needed a good memory to rub out one of the bad ones.
Or he just needed to rub one out.
The driver’s door opened, Chelle climbed out and immediately opened the rear driver’s side door. When he didn’t move, she looked over the roof of the car and said, “Get in.”
Get in.
Damn.
He liked this woman.
He didn’t waste another second and climbed into the back seat. Once both doors were shut, he asked, “You had sex in a cage before?”
Her perfectly shaped eyebrows pinned together. “Car.”
She probably thought he’d fucked up the word for a vehicle. “We call anything other than a sled a cage.” He sighed and formed his words carefully again. “We call any vehicle other than a bike a cage.”
“Oh. Then, yes. I lost my virginity in a rusty Ford Pinto wagon behind a Taco Bell.” She shook her head. “Man, that was a long time ago.”
“Worth it?”
“No. It... Well, it sucked. It was painful and awkward and the boy just wanted to get off. Which he did in less than a minute, thankfully. Worse, the car had vinyl seats, it was summer and sweltering hot. I thought I left all of my skin behind on that damn back seat.” She turned and faced him. “It took me a long time before I wanted to try it again.”
“This ain’t gonna suck. Glad you didn’t give up sex ‘cause of one selfish asshole.”
“It wasn’t only one selfish asshole, there were a few. Then I met...” She sighed and shook her head again.
“You met...” he prodded. Until you met the man in the picture. The one who claimed you by puttin’ a ring on your finger after you vowed to be his wife ‘til death. The man whose children you carried inside you ‘cause you loved him that much.
“Another time,” she said softly. “Now isn’t it.” Her warm, slender fingers cupped his cheek and her thumb brushed over his lips. “Now I want to concentrate on you. On why we’re sitting in the back seat of my Subaru Outback at the rear of a place where you turned Pumpkin into ashes.”
He opened his lips and touched the tip of his tongue to the pad of her thumb. “Yeah, puttin’ it like that, this is a shitty decision.”