T Parker - The border Lords

"You okay?"

She shook her head and pushed through the gate and strode toward the parking lot and didn't look back. At home she found a yearningly sweet e-mail from Sean waiting for her. She forwarded it to Charlie, then answered it with a slightly longer one-how strange to not even mention the secret that was devouring both of their minds right now! It felt almost good. She thought she might be starting to get the feel of being undercover-its heady deceptions and secretive powers. No wonder Sean had gone half-crazy. Full crazy?

She packed, lightly, as she had told Sean she would. Three days of clothes, the ruby choker and earrings he had given her, toiletries, a floral nightie he liked.

Charlie wrote back a moment later, asking after her, his usual polite and understated self. This must be hard for you, Seliah. Please know that I am here for you as a friend. I know we both want what is best for him. She imagined having sex with Charlie, something long and exhausting, animal-like, then rebuked herself for it, then forgave herself because she could barely control her own actions that way, let alone the thoughts that swarmed up from inside her. She'd given up on controlling those two weeks ago! Not much she could do when she saw the cute mailman in his little blue shorts; or her hot, hunk, bachelor neighbor who had a different chick every week; or the barista at her favorite coffee place, who couldn't take his black eyes off her. She had varied her routine to avoid them. She had stayed home all day to remove temptation. But that was worse, because all she had thought about was Sean, hundreds of miles away, and the Flexi-Dong, a nominally fleshlike device she'd bought online, which was right there under her bed. Enough.

She endured a long shower and felt better when she stepped out and dried herself. In the mirror she saw a beautiful woman in her prime, shapely and fit, with a pinched expression on her face. But it was uncomfortable to look at her own reflection-it seemed… ghastly. What next, she wondered. She flung back her hair and blasted away at the roots with the blow-dryer and forced a smile. She thought of Sean. Pictured him walking into the bar at Rancho Las Palmas. Better.

She gassed the Mustang and circled the block a few times looking for Charlie or Janet or some other cagey little ATF agent trying to follow her. Nothing. She widened her circle up and down El Camino Real and saw no one, then made a series of arbitrary turns and U-turns that finally led her to Interstate 5. It was four fifteen P.M. She punched the Mustang V-8 down the on-ramp and hit the freeway at eighty miles an hour. She sat at the R Bar, nursing a Bordeaux in an oversize goblet. She'd taken a circuitous route to the resort hotel, then walked the grounds casually for nearly half an hour to make sure she hadn't been followed.

When Sean walked in, her breath caught in her throat. It took most of her self-control to remain seated as she watched him walk toward her. He'd traded out the biker gear for something more soulful-tight black leather pants and soft black boots and a cotton jacquard Robert Graham shirt open over a black tee. His leather messenger's pouch was slung across his right shoulder and hung down low on his left. A weapon, she knew. When he got closer she saw his cross and iron cross and the SEL on stainless steel chains around his neck. His hair was just washed and it flowed nearly to his back. It looked like it had grown two inches in the two weeks since she'd last seen him. The gunslinger mustache couldn't hide his smile.

He sat down beside her and set his sunglasses on the bar top. "I'm Sean."

"I'm Seliah. Let me buy you a glass of wine."

"I'd like that."

"You look very good, Sean."

"So do you, Seliah."

"You look like all of heaven squeezed into a man."

"You I won't even try to describe."

They leaned toward each other and kissed briefly. Seliah felt the rush of blood in her eardrums.

"Please once more," she said.

They touched lips again and she inhaled his smells into her when it was over. She saw the bartender glance at them.

"Where's Daisy?"

"In the Rover. In the shade. She can't wait to meet you."

The bartender brought the wine and Seliah paid for the round with cash. They pivoted their stools to face each other and she could see his whole front side now, his blue eyes and the wrinkles at the edges of them, his lightly freckled cheeks and his good strong chin and neck, the funny slope of the right shoulder he'd had his whole life, even in the boyhood pictures she'd seen. They drank the wine quickly and Seliah could see the wildness coming into her husband's expression, the same thing she'd seen in him two weeks ago. She understood it now. Or at least she knew how it felt to experience it. It was hers now, too, whatever it was. She heard the bartender talking quietly with a customer at the far end of the bar, the air conditioner humming, a mockingbird trilling from a lemon tree outside the building, heard the splashes of the swimmers in the distant pool and even the faraway pop… pop… pop of tennis balls being hit on a court she couldn't see. The sounds blended and separated and merged again as a new sound, melodic and nimble.

"We need to be alone," he said, taking her hand.

The suite was cool and spacious and the evening sunset pushed orange light through the blinds and fixed it in a soft glow. Daisy nosed her way through the rooms. Seliah used the bathroom but when she was done she couldn't stand to look at her own reflection in the mirror.

In the bedroom Sean was naked to the waist, hanging a spare blanket over the dresser mirror.

"It's weird, Sel. I can't look at myself anymore. Am I that bad?"

"You're beautiful. But I don't like myself, either. You look at me and I'll look at you. How's that?" At sunrise the next morning Seliah lay awake on the sheets beside her husband. He was naked and snoring softly and his hair was a damp, tangled mass on the pillow. Still wet from the shower, she thought. She stared at the ceiling. Her thighs ached and her butt ached and her jaws ached and her mons was sore and her insides were tender. All night. Hours straight. Just a few bathroom breaks and short naps and a shower and a few minutes for drinks and snacks from the minibar, then they'd fall to the bed and he'd be inside her again for another insistent hour and another tremendous climax that would leave him not spent but crazily starved for more.

Seliah timed her husband's breathing against the beat of her heart. For the first few minutes last night she had felt something like she had always felt with him-desire and an urgency slowly building inside. He always loved finding her rhythm and following it and he had found it last night, too. Again and again. After an hour, and five strong orgasms that left her legs trembling and her heart racing, she had felt that familiar sensation of pain and hypersensitivity that had always signaled her full satisfaction and no more now, please, but Sean had gently spread her arms out wide and interlocked his fingers with hers and used his weight and strength to demand more. And she had given more-eight, ten; what did numbers matter? They were pained things, twisting and nerve-sharp, and she gave herself over to where the pain might lead. She had looked over at the bedside clock. It was ten oh five.

After that Sean had made a wobbling raid on the minibar. He brought Seliah a bag of pretzels and a bottle of water and a little bottle of vodka, then took some candy and water and a bottle of gin to his bedside. Daisy begged most of the pretzels from her. Seliah could hardly drink the water but the vodka was good. She sat cross-legged on the floor with a bedsheet over her shoulders and wondered what wonderful/terrible thing was happening to them. At least they were together now, and things seemed possible and at moments, even good. Sean sat on the edge of the bed with a bath towel over his lap, breathing deeply and watching her with the wildness in his eyes. Black eyes, she had thought, eyes I want to climb inside of. While he ate and drank and told her about a nice young couple he'd helped down in Puerto Nuevo, Seliah knelt and brushed away the towel and took his unrested cock in her mouth. After a while she took it out and stroked it, saliva-drenched, in her strong good hand. She thought he could burst. Delicious. Then back into her mouth until her neck and jaws couldn't take any more; then she rose and pushed him back onto the bed and rode him. Later her arms and legs gave out and she lay all of her weight on him but he buoyed her easily and it was like riding a mountain of muscle. She laid her head on his chest and he stroked her hair.