Golden Trail

Kristen
Ashley

Published
at Smashwords by Kristen Ashley

Copyright 2011
Kristen Ashley

Discover other
titles by Kristen Ashley:

Rock Chick
Series:

Rock Chick

Rock Chick
Rescue

Rock Chick
Redemption

Rock Chick
Renegade

Rock Chick
Revenge

The ‘Burg
Series:

For You

At Peace

The Colorado
Mountain Series:

The Gamble

Sweet
Dreams

Other Titles by
Kristen Ashley:

Lacybourne
Manor

Penmort
Castle

Sommersgate
House

Three
Wishes

www.kristenashley.net

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Fluid

Layne opened his eyes and saw dim light in
an unfamiliar room.

Groggy, he sensed movement and turned his
head to the left.

Rocky was sitting there. Her head bowed,
dark hair with fashionable (but fake) streaks of blonde pulled back
in a ponytail but that heavy fall at the front that wouldn’t fasten
back, as usual, covered one eye.

What the fuck?

His eyes moved beyond her to the walls then
they kept scanning and he saw the monitors, the drips and
cords.

He was in a hospital bed.

Shit, I’ve been shot.

He closed his eyes, feeling heavy fatigue
and not much else. It wasn’t like he just woke up. It was like he
hadn’t slept for a year.

When he heard rustling, he forced his eyes
open again and saw Rocky move, adjusting in her chair, putting an
elbow to the arm, her jaw in her palm, her fingers curling around
her cheek. Her head was up now and her face was flawlessly made up,
also as usual. Perfection. He hated it. When they were living
together years ago she would put on makeup to go to class, to go
out dancing, to go get a meal but it was light. If she wasn’t going
anywhere, or nowhere special, she didn’t bother. He preferred it
that way.

Her eyes skimmed over him and shot back,
fastening on his.

“Layne?” she asked, her voice quiet.

“The boys,” Layne said, his voice scratchy
and hoarse.

She stood, the movement liquid, the way she
always moved, full body or just lifting a finger to point at
something.

Fluid.

Her chair was so close, standing brought her
right next to the bed.

“They were here with Gabrielle. Dad took
them home,” she whispered, looked to his chest, her eyes lifting
again to his, “How are you feeling?”

“They okay?” He was still talking about his
sons.

“You’re okay,” she told him. “It’ll take
awhile but the doctors say you’ll be fine so… they’re okay.”

The exhaustion was nearly overwhelming and
the last person on earth, outside of Gabby, who he’d want in his
hospital room or anywhere near him, was Raquel Merrick Astley. He’d
rather go to sleep and wake up when she was gone but he struggled
against the sleep that wanted to take him because he had to
know.

“What do the docs say?”

“You’ll be fine. They hit you in the thigh,
gut, shoulder,” she answered. “The gut was the bad one but they
stitched you up.”

He took three. Now he remembered, he took
three. He felt each one.

He wanted to ask if it was her husband that
worked on him.

He didn’t ask that, instead he asked, “How
long am I gonna be in here?”

“Awhile,” she evaded.

“What’s awhile?” he pressed.

“Not too long. At most, two weeks.”

Fuck, he didn’t have any insurance.
Fuck.

Instead he asked, “Where’s Merry?”

“At the Station, he’s coming later,” Rocky
answered.

His eyes closed because he couldn’t keep
them open anymore but he forced them back open.

“He safe?” Layne knew he could ask her that.
Rocky and Merry were close, Merry told Rocky everything, she did
the same with her brother. They looked out for each other; they
kept each other’s secrets. She’d know.

“Yes, far as he can tell, you kept him
clean.”

Thank God,
Layne thought and his eyes
closed again.

Then he asked, “What’re you doin’ here?”

“Shh, Layne, just rest,” she whispered.

He forced his eyes open and to focus on her.
“What’re you doin’ here?” he repeated, now his voice sounded
scratchy, hoarse and as tired as he felt.

He watched her face change, her eyelids
descended to half-mast, her mouth got soft.

Layne stared.

Fuck, he remembered that look. She used to
look at him like that a lot, always it came unexpected no matter
how often she did it. While they were watching TV, across the room
at a party, but mostly across a table from him – any table: at her
Dad’s, at a restaurant, at their apartment, he’d feel her looking
at him and catch her eyes, see that look on her face and know his
life was beautiful. He hadn’t seen that look in eighteen years.

She leaned in, lifting a hand and placing it
gently against his cheek.

“Rest, Layne,” she repeated quietly.

His eyes slid closed and he wanted to tell
her to get the fuck out. He wanted to tell her to go to hell. He
didn’t want her near his sons, near him. They lived in the same
town again but that was as close as he wanted to get. Her brother
had been a family member, who, after Layne came back, turned into
an old acquaintance then a loose colleague and, finally, a friend.
Her father the same, without the loose colleague part. But a year
back in town and she hadn’t re-entered his life and he took pains
to keep it that way.

As these thoughts drifted through the
weariness, he felt her hand slide down his cheek to his neck.

Then, fuck him, he could fucking swear he
felt that heavy, soft fall of hair slide along his cheek, his
temple and he smelled her perfume, expensive, elusive then he felt
her lips brush his.

Jesus.

By the time he forced his eyes back open,
her lips were gone, her hand was gone but the scent of her perfume
remained. With effort he turned his head to the side and saw the
door close behind her.

Then his eyelids closed and sleep took
him.

Dreams

She rolled him then her mouth was on him,
her tongue, her hair trailing down his chest, she nipped his side
with her teeth, sexy, hot, Christ, she’d devour him if she
could.

He hauled her up and rolled her back, his
lips taking hers, his tongue shafting into her mouth. He fucking
loved the way she let him kiss her, let him take, did nothing but
give. It was contradictory to the way she fucked him, a tussle, a
battle for supremacy.

Not, of course, when he made love to her,
that was different.

But now, they were fucking.

Both her hands slid down his back to his
ass, fingers curling in, he could feel her nails, all the while she
arched her back, pressing into him. She wanted it, he knew it and
his cock was so fucking hard, aching, if he didn’t give it to her
soon, he’d come on her belly.

His hand moved down her body, between her
legs, down the inside of one thigh, pushing it open and his hips
moved between.

Her mouth broke from his, lips sliding
across his cheek to his ear.

“Yes, Layne, come inside,” Rocky rasped.

* * * * *

Layne’s eyes opened.

He was on his stomach, in his bed and his
cock was rock hard. Aching.

He rolled to his back.

“Christ,” he muttered into the darkened
room.

He lifted his palms to his forehead and
pressed in.

Every night, every night for six weeks since
he saw her in his hospital room, he had these dreams. Always sex,
hot sex, wild sex and not what they had eighteen years ago. These
weren’t memories. She wasn’t twenty and he wasn’t twenty-four.
They’d had hot, wild sex back then, the best, the fucking best he
ever had, by a mile. But, in the dreams, she was who she is now and
the same with him. And the sex was better.

Far better.

Out of this fucking world.

He stared at the ceiling, concentrating on
bringing his body under control.

Layne didn’t understand these dreams. He
hadn’t even seen her since that night. He’d seen her brother Merry
and father Dave dozens of times but not Raquel. He hadn’t talked to
or asked Merry or Dave about Rocky’s visit either. After days slid
into weeks and she didn’t show, he’d actually tried to convince
himself he’d been hallucinating, especially after seeing that look,
smelling her perfume so close, feeling the touch of her hand, her
hair, her lips.

But he knew he wasn’t hallucinating.

He rolled out of bed and got up, walked to
the bathroom, took a piss, washed his hands, splashed water on his
face then brushed his teeth as he stared at his torso in the
mirror.

The wounds were fading, still red, the
violence of a bullet tearing though flesh still visible. Three
inches down from the middle of his right shoulder and another at
his upper gut. His pajama bottoms hid the wound to his right thigh.
They joined the stab wound he got in his right side in San Antonio
and the deep graze wounds from the shrapnel he took to the left hip
and side of his thigh after that car bomb went off in LA.

He bent his neck and spit, rinsed and wiped
his mouth with a towel he took from and threw back to the counter
before he raised his head and looked into his eyes in the
mirror.

“I need a new fuckin’ job,” he told
himself.

Then his head cocked and he listened.

Nothing.

He walked into the room, his eyes at the
drawn curtains, seeing weak light coming around the sides, through
the slit in the middle. His eyes went to his alarm clock.

Six thirty.

He listened again.

“Fuck,” he bit out and strode fast from his
room, a huge master suite that had a bedroom that held his
king-size bed, a low dresser and another narrower, higher dresser
on which he’d put a flat-screen TV. If he wanted, he could put a
chair and couch in there, which he didn’t, so there was tons of
empty space making the room seem cavernous. This led to a master
bath that had a double sink, a huge mirror in front of it, acres of
counter space between the sinks, cabinets underneath separated by a
space where the woman of the house, if there was one, which there
wasn’t, could put a bench and have a dressing table. Behind the
sinks a room with the toilet, giving privacy – to the left, if you
were facing it. Across from that, a shower stall big enough to fit
two. In between and up two carpeted steps, a huge, oval sunken tub.
Beyond the bathroom was an enormous walk-in closet nearly as big as
the bedroom.

Layne threw open one of the double doors
that led out to the large open area at the top of the stairs that
held his weight bench, weights, a treadmill, a wall filled with
in-built shelves, cabinets and a desk unit under the wide window
where his computer was, a beat up swivel chair in front of it.

He walked through the room and to one of the
doors at the opposite side of the stairs. He knocked loud, twice.
His hand went to the handle, he pressed down and pushed in,
swinging his torso into the dark room, he saw his youngest son
Tripp dead asleep in bed.

“Tripp, up, shower,” he ordered, his voice
loud.

Tripp’s body moved, rolled. “Wha?”

“Up, boy, shower. You’re late. You gotta get
to school,” Layne told his son.

“Right,” Tripp mumbled and rolled back to
his stomach.

“Now, Tripp,” Layne demanded, pushed the
door all the way open and walked down the hall to the next
door.

He knocked, twice again, and then opened the
door. There was movement immediately but this was Jasper’s dog,
Blondie, a way-too-friendly yellow lab. She jumped from Jasper’s
bed and moseyed to the door, her body swaying with the force of her
wagging tail. His son, however, didn’t move.

Blondie skirted him and then stopped, her
body close, she wanted out.

The room smelled like teenage boy and dog.
Not a great combination.

“Jasper, get up. Time to get ready for
school,” Layne called, again loud.

Jasper didn’t move.

“Jas, get up,” Layne said louder.

Jasper’s body moved, only slightly, but he
didn’t make a sound.