AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I don’t mean to rush you.”
“And I don’t mean to tangle up your schedule. I don’t need special access. You have a job to do. I won’t get in the way. I won’t distract you.”
Carine made one of the strained cackling sounds she usually reserved for when Clay threatened to raise membership prices at the club. “Right. You won’t distract me. I spent all of yesterday chewing on my nails, thinking you were mad at me.”
Pausing at a flashing yellow light, Heidi pulled her phone away from her ear and scowled at it. She was convinced she’d heard Carine correctly and that there was nothing wrong with her phone. She put the phone back against her face and pressed the gas pedal. “What on Earth possessed you to think I was mad at you?”
“Because I went out there and lectured your neighbors the way I did. God, and did it whilelookingthe way I did. And I hope I didn’t embarrass you in front of your family. I was trying to be smooth and act like I belonged, but I think I might have come off a little… Shit, I gotta go. The asphalt guy’s here a day early. I’ll see you in a bit.”
“Come off a littlewhat, Carine?”
It was too late. Carine had already disconnected.
By the time Heidi arrived in Shora and parked at the side of the office and model house, Carine was waving the asphalt contractor onward. Fanning herself with a sheath of invoice forms, she drifted toward Heidi, wearing a troublemaking smile. Her hair bun sagged beneath the stifling heat, her eyeshadow was creased, and her silk shirt clung wetly to her torso.
Poor dear.
Heidi resisted the temptation to gather the woman’s nipples between her fingers to educate her on how immodest her professional attire was. She knew what would happen if she started down that road. Nipple pinching would turn into scolding, and Carine always seemed to get hot under the collar when she was scolded. Heidi had, at most, half an hour. She wouldn’t have enough time to do anything about Carine’s temperature problem. Or about her smile.
“North Carolina,” Carine muttered. “How many more generations do you think it’ll take for us peasants to acclimate?”
“I won’t do that math,” Heidi said. “Climate change keeps fouling up the equations.”
“Might be able to find some comfort on the edge of Antarctica.” Carine rolled the invoices into a tube and pointed it eastward. “Want to see lots?”
“I want to see lots. I also want you to tell me what you think you came off as at my place on Friday.”
Groaning, Carine rolled her eyes. She hurried up the steps, reached inside the office, and pulled out aBe Right Backsign. She fitted the sign’s hooks into the suction cup hangers on the glass door. She locked the handle and then joined Heidi on the ground. “You driving, or am I?”
“You can drive.”
Carine gestured toward her car. “Hop in. Just knock whatever’s on the seat onto the floor. I’ll clean it up later.”
Heidi held her tongue, and her hands, until Carine had buckled up and started driving toward the expansion site. While Carine carefully navigated around what must have been the very valuable hill, Heidi snaked her hand beneath Carine’s skirt and clenched her thigh.
“Okay.” Carine brought the car to a hard stop on the dirt path and, breathing heavily, put her forehead against the steering wheel. “Why do I never expect you to touch me?”
Her thigh muscle tightened beneath Heidi’s intensifying grip, then she was holding her breath and squeezing her eyes shut tight.
“You were going to tell me something,” Heidi prompted. “I thought I’d remind you.”
Carine’s thighs were warm and soft. In some other place or at some other time, Heidi might have enjoyed prying them apart and kneeling between them. Cars were cramped and often frustrated her whims. She loosened her grip, but advanced her hand deeper into the crease between Carine’s legs. “How can you drive with your knees together, Carine?”
“The better question is, how can I drive if you’re trying to give me a blackout orgasm?” The laugh Carine expelled as she sat up straight and opened her eyes was tense and hollow. “And I was going to tell you I just felt goofy sitting there on Friday, soaking it all in like I had any right to be there.”
“Why wouldn’t you? You had as much right to be there as anyone else.” Heidi removed her fingers from their warm niche only because she needed both her hands to fix Carine’s hair. She turned Carine by the shoulders, so her back was to Heidi, and pulled out the bedraggled hairpins and elastic ponytail holder.
“You know damn well I was just an intruder there to deflect attention away from someone else. But I got to be where the noise was for a night, and maybe I know a little too much about your family now, and I don’t know if that’s fair or if you hate me for it.”
“Oh, come on, now. If I hated you, do you really think I would have you back in my bed?” Heidi needed a brush to get Carine’s hair slick, but there didn’t seem to be one in the floor heap. She made do with her hands, the good Lord’s favor, and brute force. Carine had some of the thickest hair Heidi had ever seen. And the way the red masqueraded as copper in the oppressive sunlight was especially lovely. Heidi had a particular fondness for the way that color looked when spilling across Carine’s flushed cheeks.
Having a firm grip on Carine’s hair with her left hand, Heidi let her right hand drift to Carine’s cheek. That was warm, too, and it didn’t stiffen under her touch. It softened.
“You’re welcome at any Dowd situation, Carine. Though I suspect there will be times you wish you weren’t.”
“Did your…family say anything about me?”
“No. Of course they didn’t. They were too flabbergasted by the old lady with osteoporosis limping heavy-footed out of the closet. Give them time, though. I am certain my mother will remember you were there and who you were sitting next to. She’ll dig into your family history for explosive trash bonbons. My father will tell me I should flaunt my deviance less openly.”
