“Molly, oh God, you’re amazing.” My face pressed into her neck and kissed softly while I shuddered through everything she’d done to me.
“You should be giving master classes on your technique,” she mumbled against my forehead.
“I’m glad I didn’t have to bruise you this time.”
“You didn’t last time either, but this was incredible.” Her lips skated over my face. “I’m not walking away from this tomorrow, foxy. You better not want to either.”
I tilted up to look into her eyes. “Not going to walk away.”
“I’m not talking about a friends with benefits thing, either.” Those intense brown eyes got my heart pumping. They would never hide how much she cared about me.
“I get it, and I’m in.”
“How in?” She smiled and her eyes flared.
I swallowed to keep my mouth from drying out. “All the way in.”
She nodded and tipped her head up to kiss me. “Me, too.”
Her hand slipped into mine, the feel both soft and strong. I looked over and caught her smile. She squeezed my hand once then let go, placing hers on my back to guide me ahead of her on the sidewalk as another couple passed. That had always been my role. Always taller than my dates and girlfriends, always adjusting my stride to match theirs. It felt odd having Molly make these same gestures, her face bobbing beside mine at the same height. Odd, but pretty wonderful, too.
“What next?” she asked. Normally she had suggestions. She knew this town much better than I did, but she was asking what I wanted to do. Yet another question I’d usually ask my dates.
“What do you feel like doing?”
She smiled, knowing I’d just done what she was used to doing. Lust flared in her eyes. What she wanted to do became suddenly clear, but I was having too much fun edging the pleasure and forcing her to edge. I doubted anyone had made her do that. I loved being different for her in all ways.
A familiar face drew my attention across the street. A man stood in front of the library, acting as if he owned the street. His familiarity was slightly clouded being older with less hair and more flab. When his eyes met mine, I came to a sudden halt. Molly’s shoulder brushed against me, surprised by my standstill on the walkway. Someone grunted behind us as a couple had to make their way around our little roadblock.
Brock Porter tipped his head and disappeared into the evening stream of pedestrians through town. My mouth popped open, disbelief hanging in the air.
“What’s wrong?” Molly’s hand came up to glide over my back. “Did you roll an ankle?”
I swallowed hard, tension tightening my chest. I blinked to clear my head, staring at the spot where I’d seen the man who’d recruited me for the burglary team. He’d gotten five more years than I had. How was he out? Was he really out or was my imagination playing tricks on me? A lot had happened in the last month, and stress always made things a little too vivid for me. Nightmares had plagued my dreams recently. It was possible that I made someone on the street look like Brock.
“What is it?” Molly searched my line of sight.
“Nothing,” I said then thought better of it. Should I tell her? Our relationship was just getting to solid ground again. The subject of my record and storied past wasn’t a good one for us. Keeping something from her, though, might be a more ill-advised.
My eyes scanned the area again. He wasn’t there. A few guys with the same color shirt walked among the slow moving pedestrians. I must have imagined it. Even if he was out, he couldn’t be here. He’d be tied to Denver like I was on parole. He didn’t know anyone in Aspen. My eyes had to be playing tricks on me. Paranoia and relief mixed together to make me see things that weren’t there.
“Nothing,” I repeated, shaking my head. “Thought I recognized someone, but it was my imagination.”
Molly tipped her head once. “Everyone starts looking familiar after a while. There aren’t that many of us in town.”
Yeah. That had to be it. It couldn’t be someone from a town four hours away after so many years when there was nothing but bad memories left between us.
“So? What do you feel like doing?” Molly wriggled her eyebrows, suggesting more than the agreed upon dinner date. Her playful question snapped me back to the wonderful present.
“Hmm,” I stretched out coyly. “We could head back to your place and…”
“Yes.” Her eyes glittered.
“Watch another episode of that show that Viv and Nat were on.”
Her laugh was loud enough to startle a guy passing by. “You didn’t even like the show.”
“I didn’t get it. How can the word ‘housewives’ appear in the title when only two of them are actually married?” I joined her laughter, remembering the numbing feeling I experienced while watching the first episode of the most pointless show I’d ever seen. The six minutes that Vivian, Dwight, Natalie, and Miguel appeared as the star walked through the renovation, acting like she was the one doing most of the work wasn’t enough to make me want to see the rest of the show. “And how can they spend more time out of the title city where they were supposedly housewives? Shouldn’t they just call it Bratty, Spoiled Attention-Whores?”
“Hey, those attention-whores made our friends a pretty penny on that contract.”
“I know, but come on. I assume Viv manages to make it through the season without killing anyone. She sure looked like she might lose it with that bimbo.”
“You should have been here when they were going through it. She needed a night at the bar three or four times a week. It was great.”
“I’ll bet.”
“The show’s not on until Thursday.” She reached out and slid her hand down my arm like she couldn’t go another second without touching me. I really liked this about her. Her touch set off all kinds of delicious sensations inside me. “That leaves us with a big gap in our schedule tonight. What else did you have in mind for tonight?”
“Hmm,” I repeated, loving the look of anticipation in her deep brown eyes. “How about we take the bikes up Smuggler Mountain?”
Her face fell for just a second. It was pretty cute to see her get all worked up and not get what she wanted. She’d learn that she needed to voice what she wanted instead of leaving it up to me to decide. I liked winding her up too much.
I leaned forward and kissed her lips quickly. “You had the chance to tell me what you wanted to do. Next time, speak up, hot stuff.”
She laughed and cupped my nape to bring me in for another kiss. “You’re too much fun, foxy.”
Dwight and Molly were bickering again. It was far more entertaining than any television show I’d seen recently. They had bickering down to an art form. It didn’t seem to bother them that the bickering was always about inane stuff.
“Just be thankful that Natalie let Falyn borrow her truck. Otherwise, you’d be riding the jump seat in my king cab, and I know how much you hate that.” Molly reached back to smack one of his long legs to emphasize how uncomfortable he would have been if we’d taken her smaller pickup.
“I am grateful, but I’m also thinking it would have been better if you’d just loaned me your truck to pick up the armoire and you two skipped the trip.” He leaned forward and rested his elbows on the backs of our seats. “I could have found more stylish clothes for you without any whining. I wouldn’t be about to go into a western store for the first time in my life. And I wouldn’t be arguing with you for the entire afternoon.”
I knew we’d horrified him with our shopping habits in the mall. I chose some casual clothes to retire my worn-out khakis and Oxfords. Molly got some nice things, too, but apparently they weren’t stylish enough for the clotheshorse that was Dwight. Since neither of us liked shopping, we appeased him by purchasing a few of his choices and letting him drag us through some shops for him.
It felt so good to have the funds to build on my fairly nonexistent wardrobe. I would be paying rent soon, but Natalie’s place was the best of all worlds, affordable and decent and roommateless. With the new contract, I wasn’t worried about her keeping me on out of obligation. I could afford some new clothes and needed to expand my work wardrobe. All summer, I’d been forced to run laundry every three days for a clean pair of jeans to work in.
“You’re not putting me in a dress, Dwight,” Molly shot back.
We all laughed at that. Molly in a dress. Something would be terribly wrong with the world. I didn’t wear them either, but I had worn a few skirts for weddings and funerals in my lifetime. I doubted Molly had ever been in a skirt before.
“I could put you in something other than cargo shorts.”
“I have jeans.”
“And cargo pants. Let’s get you into something that doesn’t have useless extra pockets.”
“Shoulda left your ass at home,” Molly muttered, turning back and catching my grin. She slid her hand over and grasped mine.
“You would have left that first store with two pairs of pants and three shirts that didn’t fit if I weren’t here,” Dwight told her.
I watched his slim face break into a smile that wasn’t at all smug when he saw Molly’s hand in mine. I was overjoyed that none of her friends objected to us together. I thought protective Vivian might have a slight issue or maybe Dwight. They both liked me, but Molly was their good friend and I was an ex-felon. Even her parents, whom she’d made me talk to on the phone, seemed thrilled about me. When they said they were coming up for Molly’s birthday in November and wanted to get to know me, I nearly threw up. It wasn’t the fact that her birthday was still months away, it was meeting her parents. I’d dated my ex for more than a year before she had me meet her parents, and that was only once I’d upgraded to a condo lease and let her furnish it. Molly just wanted me to meet the two most important people in her life because we were together.
“They would have fit fine,” Molly assured him of the clothes she’d picked.
“They were a size too big, and I’m still waiting for you to thank me for making you try them on.”
And the bickering continued. Neither seemed to mind that I couldn’t stop chuckling after almost everything they said.
I pulled the truck to a stop in front of the western store that scared Dwight. I didn’t make a habit of going to western stores either, but it was the only place I could find that had both a wide selection of work clothes and work boots in the same place.
“God, please make this stop,” Dwight moaned before sliding out of the backseat. “I swear, woman, if you try to get a sleeveless western shirt with snaps, I’m storming out of here.”
“Hey, good idea,” Molly teased as she slipped her arm around my waist.
I had to agree with Dwight on this one. I much preferred her formfitting t-shirts, sleeveless polos, and short sleeve button-downs to a western shirt. “We’ll keep her in sight at all times, Dwight.”
Molly shot me a surprised look but smiled when she saw that I was kidding to keep the peace. “Drop your guard, D. We’re here for Falyn.”
And almost everyone on my crew. When they heard where I was heading this afternoon, they each gave me a boot order and cash to cover it. No place in town sold work boots, and the shipping costs online were too expensive. They took advantage of anyone running out to Glenwood Springs.
We pushed through the door. I went straight for the work boots section. Dwight lingered by the rack just inside the door. Molly came with me until she spotted the kind of shirts he’d kidded her about and made a beeline for the rack. Jeez, those two.
“Can I help you?” A tall, beefy guy in complete western garb came up to me.
I waited for him to ask if I was shopping for my husband because a lady like me couldn’t possibly need work boots. That happened often enough in the past. When it didn’t come, I relaxed and started in on my list. His eyes widened. I needed boots for everyone on the crew except Miguel, whose wife had picked some up on her last trip.