Page 30 of Roads Behind Us
The warm bath water allowed my hand to pump smoothly while adrenaline pulsed through my bloodstream.
I wanted to give him more. Wanted to build him up and jump off this cliff with him. I wanted to feel his cum spill over my fingers, wanted to watch how the pleasure I gave him changed his face. Would he close his eyes when he came and clench his jaw? Or would his gaze stay on mine so that I could really see what he looked like when he let go?
Drawing the hardness of his cock through my closed fist over and again, I squeezed and pumped gently, then let his soft skin slide back down the palm of my hand.
I kissed him again, our tongues moving in rhythm with my hand working him, until I was moaning into his mouth and pressing my thighs together, but then we heard the kitchen door creak open and clap closed, and a familiar female voice called out.
“Bax? Son, where you at? I’m back from my retreat, and I brought chicken.”
Rushing to dress a man twice my size with wet skin and only one leg to stand on was a skill I never knew I’d need.
“It’s my mom,” Bax whispered. “Jesus, how embarrassin’.” But then he raised his voice and aimed it at the bathroom door. “Yeah, Mama. I’m in the bathroom. Be out in a sec.”
Whispering back, I said, “Yeah, I got that. I met her last year.” I’d never forget Mervella Lee’s gruff smoker’s voice, but Brand had told me she’d recently quit.
Still, the sound of her bustling around Bax’s kitchen was an unwelcome interruption.
“Want me to hide in here?” I asked as I reached up on my tiptoes to towel-dry the droplets of water dripping down the back of his neck from his hair.
“No way,” Bax said, watching my eyes as I placed my hand on his chest for leverage so I could rub faster. “If you go out there with me, she’ll leave sooner. If you hide, she’ll be here all night.”
The non-paint-covered Wile E. Coyote pajama pants I’d snagged from his laundry basket when I went to find the cup and washcloths fit over his cast easily, and when he was fully dressed in them and a clean black T-shirt, I opened the bathroom door and walked ahead of him into the kitchen.
Bax’s mom’s eyes flared when she turned from the open fridge and saw us together, but she didn’t address me directly. To Bax, she asked, “Who’s this?”
“Mama,” he said as he lowered himself into a kitchen chair at the table and set his crutches against it, “this is Bea. She works for Brand.”
“Oh, that’s nice,” she said and she walked over to kiss his cheek. “Your brother sent you a nurse? How are you, honey?” She looked at me when she said it, at the apron I’d found hanging on the back of the laundry room door, which fell to my knees and was now covered in wet, yellow splotches, but then she focused solely on Bax, like I wasn’t even in the room. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you hurt yourself. I would’ve come sooner if someone would’ve called me. I had to hear it from your sister this mornin’ when she stopped by the trailer to make sure I’d gotten home from Montana.”
Bax tried to hide a guilty grin, and I laughed right out loud at her fawning over him like a five-year-old with a skinned knee.
“Uh no, Mrs. Lee,” I said, “Brand didn’t send a nurse. I’m the forewoman at Lee Construction. We met last year when you visited.”
Finally, her full scrutiny landed on me. With her hands on her hips, she looked me over, seeming to question something about me, possibly why I’d just been in the bathroom with her son who was not my boss. She must’ve come to an answer, because then she forced a smile and turned to close the refrigerator.
“Oh, that’s right. Your name’s Sweetie, ain’t it? I do remember a woman who worked for my son.” Under her breath, it sounded like she said, “Seems my other son has a sweet tooth when it comes to women.”
Did she think we couldn’t hear her?
“Mama,” Bax warned.
“My name is Bea,” I reminded her, but I had a hunch she hadn’t actually forgotten that fact. “And I’m the person in charge of makin’ sure your house gets built.”
She didn’t like that. She scowled. Did the woman ever smile? “What happened to the man who did that job before?”
“Man?”
“Zach or Zeke or somebody.”
I sat in the chair next to Bax’s, watching his mom carefully and how she tried so hard to hold on to the way things used to be. “You mean the guy who quit and started up a rival company and then tried to steal Brand’s crew? His name is Zach Brinley, and he’s the reason the position was open when I applied… two years ago.”
“Oh,” she said.
Yeah, oh. I was picking up what she was putting down. I was a woman, so surely I couldn’t do the job, right? I remembered getting that gist from her when she and Abey visited, and I distinctly remembered how much it had pissed Abey off. Brand told me his mom changed her tune somewhat after she and Abey had a “come to Jesus” moment, but seeing her now, I wasn’t so sure how much she’d changed. But for Athena’s sake, I hoped I was wrong.
Maybe her prickly disposition didn’t have anything to do with sexism or bigotry. Maybe it was about seeing Bax with a woman who was not his wife. It wasn’t like we were making out right in front of her or even touching, but the undercurrent from what we’d just been about to do hung heavily in the air between us.
My attraction to Bax was like a live wire, zapping and buzzing around me. I thought I could even hear it crackling until I realized the sound was coming from an old box fan in a living room window, blowing cool fall air into the house.
