L is for Lindsey
Lindsey tilts his old cowboy hat back on his head and squints up at the sun to judge the time. He's been out a couple hours, he figures, and the sun is climbing to its peak. He frowns slightly as he surveys the work he's done. Not bad for a boy who's been hunched over a desk for more hours than he is comfortable counting. Not bad for a citified lawyer with a new hand.

He pulls off his work gloves and tosses them to the ground beside him. His sleeveless plaid shirt dangles from the waistband of his well-worn blue jeans. He tugs it out, at first gently, and then with a more impatient gesture that pops open the top button of the buttonfly, already loosened by his vigorous exertions of the morning.

With one hand, his new hand, he drops his hat next to his gloves. With the other he uses his shirt to wipe the sweat from his face and chest, slowly, luxuriating in the sensation of the rough fabric against his flushed skin.

He knows he's not fully in shape yet -- the workouts in the gym just didn't have the same effect as honest manual labour, although they had left him leanly chiseled, with well-built shoulders, still muscular, tapering into a narrow waist and hips, from which now hang his Levis.

Over to his left is his pickup, and he moves towards it. The water in his cooler isn't as cold as he'd like, but anything to relieve the heat. He throws back a mouthful and grimaces. Not cool at all. He considers the distance from here to the farmhouse. But he's dirty. Very dirty, in a much better way than Wolfram and Hart could ever leave him, though it's still not the kind of dirt he wants to track into the house.

In a swift clean motion he raises the cooler and much more slowly pours the melted ice over himself. He shakes his head, spraying everything around him. The water caresses his sculpted body, glistening in the near noonday sun as it snakes its way down towards his jeans, where it soaks in, pulling the rough fabric closer to his muscled frame.

He's still thirsty, though. Unsatisfied. As he contemplates the drive back to the farmhouse, he hears a slow, sultry voice from behind him.

"You look like you could use some of this," she says, gesturing towards him with a tall glass of iced lemonade.

She is standing in the shade of the tree, with the condensation from the frosty glass trickling down her hand. She steps towards him, and he takes a half step back.

"I'm dirty -- I've been working." He's slightly awkward, surprised by her sudden presence.

"I know. I've been watching you." She raises her free hand and idly toys with her bottom lip.

As she moves forwards, he can see she had been standing in front of a fresh cooler of food and drink.

"How did you get that here?" he asks.

"I carried it," she says, her voice still slow and lazy.

She is standing inches away from him now, and he can feel her body heat, and he doesn't mind the increase in temperature. At all. It is obvious that she is very strong -- a tall, lean woman, whose body is used to exertion, used to work. But not now.

She raises the glass, and suddenly it is pressed against his bare chest. He inhales sharply and stares at her as he involuntarily tightens his six-pack abdomen in response to the cold.

"You need a change of pace." She is whispering now, and he is trembling, ever so slightly.

Attempting a distraction, a diversion, Lindsey tries to take the cold glass away from her, and away from his chest, where it is making all of his nerve endings come alive. Her grip is too strong, and she has leverage besides. All he succeeds in doing is touching her long wet fingers.

Desperate to regroup, to get the upper hand, he steps back again, to move out of reach of her hypnotic smile. The back of his legs hit the edge of his pickup, and he stumbles back into a seated position. Still sharing possession of the glass he has gained no ground.

He clears his throat.

"Who are you? Where did you come from?"

"How soon they forget," she shakes her head with mock sadness, but he can see a thread of sincere regret in her eyes. "You really haven't been gone so long you don't remember your first love, have you?"

Suddenly he is overwhelmed by memories of a long-limbed tomboy hellcat who had occupied his pre-teen days and dreams. He looks at her now, dappled in the sun where the lazy wind parts the branches of their shade tree.

She had a million different smiles. This one is patient, as she waits for him to catch up to her.

"Cathy?"

As if that is all she needs to hear, she closes the remaining space between them so she stands between his open legs as he sits on the pickup bed.

"Drink," she says. She loosens her grip on the glass slowly, sliding her fingers deliberately past his.

She watches him as he drinks. Her eyes are focussed on his adam's apple, as it bobs, keeping a strong and rhythmic up and down, up and down, beat. He hasn't relaxed completely, and errant lemonade trickles from his lips. She collects the bead with her little finger, and brings it slowly to her mouth. This time, he doesn't flinch.

He is watching her too. She is warm, tanned, and he can smell her musk. So different from the slight coppery tang of old blood that has haunted his lust recently. She is not, and has never been undead. She is real, she is vibrant, she is . . . feeling his chest!

He breathes deeply in reaction, and she presses her palm more firmly into him. Her fingers splay around his nipple, and she pinches lightly.

"So you never left?" His memories of her are tinged with the guilt at shutting her out -- he shut out everyone in his monomaniacal efforts to get free and clear of his home town and everything it represented.

"Why would I?" She talks much more slowly than anyone in LA could ever afford to, daring his attention to wander. It doesn't. His eyes close, and his world has nothing except her touch and her voice. "I like it here."

"My friends are here." Her other hand slides down his arm to where he is still loosely holding the glass. Without effort she frees his hand, and positions it on her hip. Her dress is damp with the water from his jeans, the same water that makes every touch on the denim radiate throughout his body. Or perhaps that's just the delicacy of her short fingernails as she rakes her hand up to his waist.

Her buttocks are firm under his fingers. He begins to slowly ride her skirt up. But her hands are at his button fly, and her mouth is hovering warmly at his ear. He can't think, he can't move, he can't react.

"I like working with my hands," she breathes.

"Uhh, yeah," is the best his highly-educated, well-paid brain can muster as button after button gives way to her agile fingers.

She pauses and cups his groin. Leaning forward, she presses her breasts into his chest, and he can feel her clearly through the wetness of her dress.

He has stopped breathing.

Suddenly, it's almost cold.

"Jackass." Her voice is brittle, and her hands harsh.

She pulls back with an abrupt motion. Her friction against his wet clothes causes him pain, but nothing compared to the ache in his groin.

"What?" He opens his eyes to her hard gaze.

"Oh, get over yourself." She leans past him to reclaim the glass. "I just came over to see what L.A. had made of Lindsey. Not much apparently. This is what you ditched us all to become? You're welcome to it."

He's no closer to reality than he was 5 minutes ago, but now he's shivering. In the time it takes him to summon the energy to react, she is well across the field, easily carrying her hamper.

He stands, snarling, and flings his cooler from the truck. He collapses heavily back into the flatbed, and drops his head into his hands.

Well, he's going to have to put his new hand through some paces now.

L is for Lindsey ... who never gets screwed