Chapter 50: Chapter 50

He listens while I explain. I’m a road warrior. One of that special breed. Two, three hundred days a year living on restaurant fare; flying double, triple platinum. An existence so bizarre that even in so-called downtime,

I have to feel the asphalt under my tires, miles flying by as I go.

Go, and go, and go. Different places, different faces, another night somewhere else I don’t belong. Some hotel room echoing with the ghosts of ten thousand strangers, picking up my echoes for a night or three or five until I’m gone again.

Always on the road for money and for love. It’s why I’m here now: crappy diner with fluorescent lighting and blue plastic booths, the best this town has to offer.

Any port in a storm though, and boy is it a storm

out there. Enough to run even me off the road, mangle my tire against broken debris sloshing along the asphalt. Fate telling me to stop so that he could find me. With his pretty brown eyes and his blue-checkered shirt, coming out of the dark like a knight in a shining tow truck.

Not that I’m looking for a knight to rescue me. Not at all. I’m out there looking for adventure, for freedom, for the next big thing. Or maybe I’m looking for danger.

Danger. The kind you can’t find tied down safely where people know your face. The kind that happens in hotel rooms behind paper-thin walls, sound bleeding through all through the wee hours of the night when decent people are asleep.

Not that I’d ever dare ask anyway, even in those places where the girls and boys come cheap and nobody checks ID. Where if you’ve got American green, anything’s for sale. How does that song go? It makes a hard man humble? But not for me.

I never rock the boat, never tempt fate. I just keep hoping somehow…somewhere…

Why am I thinking it would be him anyway? Just because his eyes are the softest shade of brown and he towed my car for free. Called up his mechanic buddy and made him promise to fix the piece of crap by noon, offered to drop me off at a motel. Expecting nothing in return: money or otherwise. Even though by now I’ve seen his gaze stray more than once. Not obviously, not so I’d be offended. Still a Southern gentleman, even in jeans and flannel.

A gentleman isn’t what I need. But a stranger is.

And he nods like he understands, like he gets it, a knowing something in that gaze. But he can’t possibly. Can he?

Because I barely understand it myself.

I slide the scratched plastic key through the lock, surprised this so-called motel even has something so modern.

“Best you’re gonna get ’round here,” he said when he dropped me off at the lobby, apology in his voice. As if he wanted it to be something better. But I smiled and told him it was just fine.

Now I open the door, go inside, wedge a shoe between door and frame. And my heart beats much too fast.

I turn on the bedside lamp, take in patches of worn carpet, scuffs and scratches all over the corner desk, the coarse blanket on the bed, its off-olive shade hiding age and use. I drop my bag in a corner and my other shoe, and the crumpled bill from the diner falls out of my purse while I listen to the air conditioner hum like a factory and I think…I think this place is perfect.

I hear him come in. I don’t turn around.

He pulls my arms behind me and pushes me to the bed. Ties them with something rough, could be rope, but I’m too busy breathing. Too busy panicking. Am I sure? Really sure?

I don’t know, but I don’t give myself a choice. And

I’ve asked him not to give me one either.

So afraid he’ll do what I’ve asked. More afraid that he won’t.

I lie on my stomach, hands bound, nose full of the stale smell of the blanket, and feel him lift my skirt. His hands grip my thighs, push them apart, and through my panties his finger strokes my crotch. I hear him breathing hard.

Slowly, he pulls the panties down, stuffs them in my mouth. I gag at the cloth in the back of my throat, some- thing instinctive telling me it shouldn’t be there, and I feel him hesitate. But I shake my head.

No. Go on. Let’s do this now, before I start thinking.

Before I lose my nerve.

He makes a little noise as if he doesn’t quite believe this, before he flips me over. If only he knew, I don’t believe it either. Why am I here? Why am I doing this?

But I don’t have answers. All I know is that it has to be here, with him, in this small-town, godforsaken motel room or else it won’t ever be. And I want, I want it so badly.

Brown eyes alight with pleasure as he unbuttons my shirt and unhooks my bra. Squeezing creamy flesh between thick, strong fingers, nails still stained with car grease. Bared teeth on my nipple, pulling at the flesh until I moan. Flicking the dusky red flesh with his tongue, his finger. While I pant and stare at what he does. Feel my muscles clench, thighs wet with sweat and need.

Yes, I do want this. In the very worst way.

He takes my skirt off and spreads my legs wide. “Oh, babe.” As he touches me. One leg between

mine, leaning over me, his denim rough against my naked skin. Fingers rubbing my clit and the folds of my slit. Now gently, now rough. Never letting me get a grip on the sensation to where I can handle it and master it. Keeping me helpless.

Faster and faster. He won’t let me close my legs; won’t let me twist away. I’m flung open and at the mercy of lust. At the mercy of him as he watches my crotch.

As he jiggles his fingers on my touch-hungry clit.

As my breath comes shorter and my heartbeat races madly out of time.

As I feel the heat across my chest.

I know what comes next and I can’t stop it to save my modesty. To save my pride…

Oh, but he smiles when he sees me come.

Panting and writhing and wordlessly begging for more. Burning up with shame and pleasure and trem- bling all over. Every helpless twitch of my muscles that I can’t hide.

No one’s ever watched me like that before.

I see him unbutton his jeans. God, I’m not ready— but he is, and I want him.

He lies over me, smelling of cars and rain and coffee and sweat. Grips my hips hard and drives into me, grunting when I arch and grind against his cock. Yanks the panties from my mouth to kiss me.

Tongues twisting wet all over each other. Lips bruising against teeth.

He lifts my legs up in the air and flesh slaps against flesh. Dirty rhythm. I scream as loud as I can, hoping there’s somebody to hear. To know I’m being fucked like this, to know I’m loving it.

And to envy me.

“I’ll pick you up when the car’s ready,” he says behind me, loosening my bonds.

“Don’t,” I whisper through dry lips. He hesitates.

“Please.”

He drops my hands, still trapped by rough strands of rope, leaving me to free myself finally once he’s gone. He kisses my shoulder, puts his face into my hair for a moment, breathing me in before he leaves and walks out of my life for good. Because once I check out, this whole night is history.

At least, I think so.

I lie still, and the door clicks closed. He’s gone and here I am alone. Used and so tired, cum still sticky on my ass and crotch. I crawl under the rumpled blanket to sheets smelling of cheap detergent, ignore the voice that tells me to shower.

In the morning I’ll wash it off.

Scrubbed clean and decent again, I’ll pack up and be on my way. Clumsily, I turn off the lamp and remember I forgot to tell him “Thank you.”

Blind, in the dark, I wriggle and twist my hands until the rope slips off my wrists, leaving behind the memory of knots and fear and sex. I never leave loose ends hanging, never move on without closing the deal. Or minding my manners.

I toss and turn and feel his cock again. His tongue in my mouth. His hands on my flesh.

This place is cheap, free coffee and bagels, good place to stop for a night.

So I suppose I might be back. Just passing through.