ass off to please the neighborhood. He’d come so close, and she’d even made the video to show them at the meeting this weekend.
Then it hit her. Like a bag of obvious smacking into her. The answer had been under her nose and on her phone the whole time. She didn’t know if it would make a difference to the neighborhood association, but she had to try. As Brent finished paying, she fired off a quick text to James, grateful she still had his number from the first night they’d met.
Ten minutes later, she had an email address for Alan Hughes, and the video she’d made was on its way to him as they pulled back onto the highway.
A few miles down the road, a sign rose into view, the rays of the dipping sun illuminating the battered wooden billboard. Gateway to Death Valley, Beatty, Nevada. Established 1903. Population 1000. It stood proudly amidst the sand and rocks, the dryness and dust.
Twenty feet away, there was a sign for a Motel 6.
Shannon touched Brent’s arm and pointed to the sign, then wiggled her eyebrows.
He cut the wheel at the exit, and they checked into a fifty-nine dollar a night room at a hotel that boasted a coin laundry, free local calls, and morning coffee on the house.
As well as a bed that squeaked, she learned as she pushed down on the springs of the mattress inside room number fourteen, on the first floor with a view of the parking lot.
“Are you tired?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t want to sleep.”
“What do you want to do?”
She ran her fingers along the silky fabric of her scarf. “I want you to fuck the day away.”
His lips quirked up. “That is my specialty,” he said, and soon he’d stripped her naked and tied her hands with the scarf, knotting the ends to the headboard of the creaky motel bed. “I knew this gift would come in handy.”
“It’s a multi-use scarf,” she said, squirming, as he began to kiss her.
No, he didn’t just kiss her.
He worshipped her.
He caressed her breasts with his lips. He nipped her throat with his teeth. He adored her belly with his tongue, working his way across the landscape of her body, marking the territory of her with his lips, and his sighs, and his groans. As he traveled across her with his tongue, she let the day fall away. She gave herself over to passion.
Her hips shot up, seeking more of him, begging with her body for him to work his magic.
But it was more than just magic. He was more than just her sweet drug as he consumed her and sent her soaring into a state of ecstatic bliss that had her singing his name to the heavens.
He flipped her over, her wrists still bound to the headboard, and sank into her. She cried out, louder than she’d ever been, more aroused than she’d ever been, there on her hands and knees in a Motel 6.
Yes, it was so much more than mere intoxication. Sex with Brent flooded her brain with endorphins, filled her body with pleasure, and freed the past.
He wasn’t just fucking the day away. This connection, this deep and abiding love, was part of the letting go. As they came together in a mad carnal frenzy, the past crumbled to dust.
There was no more past.
It was done. It was over.
There was only the present, only love, only life. Her life together with her man.
* * *
As he lifted his fork for a final bite of scrambled eggs and hash browns at a truck stop diner an hour outside of Vegas, Brent’s phone rang. It rattled on the table, blinking Tanner’s name across the screen.
Brent groaned. He showed the screen to Shannon, and she simply shrugged. “Maybe it’s good news?” she suggested.
“Ha. Ha. Ha. I knew you were funny,” he said as the ringer sounded again. “I’m sure he’s calling to tell me I’ll never get a club approved in New York.”
Brent slid his thumb across the screen and answered. “Hey Tanner.”
“Congratulations,” the man barked.
Brent narrowed his eyes. Waiting for the sucker to come. You’ve been punked, you jackass.
A waitress in a starchy pink diner uniform stopped at their table, holding up a pot of coffee.
“Thanks. But for what?” Brent asked carefully, holding up his mug for a refill. It was early in the afternoon. They’d slept in late that morning, then extended the shower by a few orgasms, and didn’t hit the road