"Cowboys on the Prowl"
Copyright 2007 Penn O'Hara
M
Usual disclaimers apply.
A/N: I warn ye yet again, to avoid plotholes and ignore complete infeasibilities.
oOo
Chapter Ten
By the time they reached his apartment, the knots in Alex' neck were thick and painful with tension. There was unfinished business between them. He wanted to apologize but she wasn't sure why. She didn't know what she wanted. She liked him. She was attracted to him — the other night had indicated how much. Bobby said very little on the car journey there, only sharing inane pleasantries designed to put her at her ease, while Alex' repartee was monosyllabic at best, if not non-existent.
The evening was not off to a good start.
Opening his apartment door, he gestured her over the threshold, retrieving her coat as she walked in. Alex wasn't used to such service. A man opening her car door for her almost before she could and sliding her coat smoothly from her shoulders without her even being aware he was there, was foreign to her. He was now offering her a crystal sherry glass and she eyed the thickly swirling amber drink with misgiving combined with suspicion.
"I don't—" she began, taking an exploratory taste.
"—drink sherry? You should. It matches the color of your eyes."
Alex choked on the wine she had just sampled, and bent over double to recover. Instead of the expected thumping on her back, she felt Bobby's hands firmly massage her shoulders. They didn't stop the sherry going down the wrong way, but they felt good.
Putting out a hand, she signaled she was recovering and moved jerkily away. "I'm…" she hacked, "…oh…kay."
Rescuing the sherry glass from unsteady fingers, Bobby led her to his sofa. "Sit here and I'll get you a drink of water."
Settling, her palms splayed on the rough fabric of the sofa, she shook her head. "No, it's okay. I'm okay," but she was speaking to an empty room, albeit a cluttered one, with several reading chairs and an equal number of bookcases and magazine-strewn coffee tables setting off a large, heavily-curtained and darkly-carpeted room.
Bobby was back, holding a frosted glass, filled to three quarters with what she hoped was water, and not alcohol. Sipping it carefully, the trickle of cold fresh water was almost as soothing as his fingers on the back of her other hand still spread on the sofa's cushion. Slowly retrieving her hand, she wrapped it around the glass with the other one.
"Do you want to do it now or after dinner?" he asked blandly, and Alex choked anew on the water she had taken.
"Want…to…do…what?!"
He bent solicitously over her, once more rubbing her shoulders. "Logan asked me… was hoping I would…as Detective Barek's friend, you would know…what she…liked."
Alex gulped. "Liked?"
Bobby nodded sagely. "I think…ah…Logan really wants to impress Detective Barek. He wants to do it right. But the women he normally dates are…I believe…less…discerning."
Alex sat up straighter, smelling a rat. "You want me to…tell you what Carolyn likes so you can go back and—" She jumped up from the sofa. "This sounds too familiar to be a coincidence. Carolyn put you up to this, didn't she?!"
She barreled for the front door, but he moved past and in front of her, with a speed and agility that was at variance with his size. A gentle but nonetheless compelling hand clasped her upper arm and rooted her to the spot. His other hand came up to lightly touch her cheek.
"I haven't spoken to Detective Barek since…that night." His eyes closed as if in remembered embarrassment. "I'm doing this for…Logan."
"For Logan?"
Alex bristled that she was being manipulated yet again, but the warmth of his hand on her arm and the feather caress of his fingers on her face diluted her anger.
"And for myself," he added. "The other night…" He shook his head slowly. "All wrong. From start to finish. I usually do…much better."
It wouldn't be fair to either of them to dismiss an opportunity to get to know each other, and if she wanted to experience an evening with Bobby but still be able to distance herself from it, this was the perfect opportunity. She could fool everyone into believing she did it for Logan and Carolyn.
Even fool herself.
But damn her if she wasn't getting fed first!
She tilted her chin proudly. "Let's do it…after dinner."
Bobby bowed slightly at the waist, and flourished a hand toward the sofa. "Please…take a seat again. I'll put on some music…and get the ah…first course."
oOo
Flipping with some interest through the latest edition of Guns and Ammo, her head and shoulders kept time to the Bob Seger number, "Night Moves". She couldn't help but be aware of the delectable aroma coming from the direction of, she presumed, the kitchen. She quashed the urge to join him and see for herself a man cooking at a stove, not feeling comfortable enough with him to invade.
A slight noise made her look up to see him enter the living room sans coat, tie loosened and sleeves rolled up, carrying two entrée plates. He looked bigger without his coat and the sight of his brawny arms made her think of a man on the land, strong and sweaty from honest toil, totally at variance with his stigma of being one to intellectualize. Alex dragged her gaze from his broad shoulders to clear the coffee table and allow him to place the plates.
He straightened to wag a finger at her. "No tasting, 'til I get the wine."
Alex didn't taste, but watched him leave, admiring the sway of his body as he strode from the room with purpose.
Mind on the food, girl, she told herself. She appreciatively sniffed the vapor rising from a nest of button mushrooms dripping with herbs and a buttery sauce in a bed of wild rice.
Bobby came back with two tall goblets of red wine and two silver entrée forks. Alex eyed the cutlery and couldn't prevent a shake of her head.
"Logan doesn't strike me as a man who would own silver cutlery," she said, "so I doubt the benefit of you suggesting he cook and serve a meal if he doesn't have your…um…resources."
Bobby enthusiastically nodded. "Then I won't suggest it." He sat beside her and offered her a glass and fork. "This is good. You tell me what will work for ah…Carolyn and of course, Logan, and I'll…ah…relay it."
Realizing it seemed as important to Bobby as it was to herself, Alex entered into the role-play with a frown. "Would you suggest he serve her on the sofa? Instead of the dining table?" She looked pointedly at his own table, supporting an opened briefcase and a fan of files spreading from it. "He probably won't have the paperwork…?"
"I think it more…intimate…but if you, yourself, prefer—?"
"No, that's fine." Alex bit into a moist mushroom, the flavors exploding onto her tongue, and closed her eyes in enjoyment. She couldn't pick the spices he'd used, but the combination was heavenly.
"Do you like Seger?" Bobby enquired, gesturing toward the stereo unit. "I can change it—"
"Don't bother. I like some of his work." Searching for conversation, Alex complimented Bobby on his cooking. "Can Logan cook as good as this?" she asked. "'Cos if he can, he mightn't have to do anything else."
"Do I have to, Alex?" Bobby softly asked.
Alex' lips parted in confusion. "Do you have to…what?"
"Do I have to do anything else?"
Her heart lurched. "This is for Logan, right? And Carolyn?"
"Of course." Bobby sat back in the sofa, his plate in his lap and watched her as he bit into his mushrooms.
Alex' neck prickled under his scrutiny and heat raced up the skin of her throat. Hastily leaning forward for her glass of wine, her fingers tangled with Bobby's as he bent to retrieve it for her. Tilting her face, she found his jaw within an inch of hers, his mouth tantalizingly close.
"Wouldn't Carolyn like Logan to pass her her wine?" he asked, his breath on her lips.
Alex pulled back, tucking her hair behind an ear. "I…uh…I'm not sure."
She scooped up her plate and used it as a barrier between them, pushing air through her lungs and working on slowing her heartbeat. She was not going to allow a repeat of the other night, when she let her emotions run loose with her sanity.
"Carolyn would expect Mike to let her finish her food." Alex forced the words out past her shortness of breath.
Bobby smoothly withdrew the fork from Alex' nerveless fingers, speared the last mushroom from her plate and offered it to her lips.
Blinking at the unexpectedness of the move, Alex involuntarily opened her mouth and Bobby popped in the morsel of food. He watched her chew it, his eyelids half-closed and mouth softened in a small smile.
"I know what Logan would do now," he said, his lips barely moving.
Straightening, Bobby pushed himself to his feet and held out his hand for her plate. "But I'm more of a gentleman."
Mechanically passing him her plate, Alex dumbly watched him leave the room.
oOo
The next course was quicker, obviously prepared by Bobby earlier. A collection of brightly garnished sushi rolls bordered by four bowls of different sauces. Alex recognized soy and chili, but not the green sauce nor the yellow one. She didn't doubt they would be flavorsome, but she wasn't big on Japanese food and imagined Carolyn was less so. Still, that wasn't going to prevent her from experimenting.
Bobby's shirt was unlatched by a further two buttons and gaped to reveal the strong column of his throat and a tantalizing expanse of barrel chest when he bent to rest the plate on the coffee table. Alex dragged her eyes away from his flesh to the food with some difficulty.
"Would you like me to tell you what the fillings are?" he asked.
Alex shook her head. This had gone far enough. "Bobby, I appreciate the effort you've gone to, but no one's fooling anyone here. You don't give a damn about Logan and Car—"
"I care about you, Alex. I would like to know you better." He offered her the plate of sushi and she automatically selected one. "If you don't want to stay…?"
Alex sighed. She was being herded into her churlish corner again. "I'll stay," she said, disturbed by how easily she kept giving in to him.
"Have some more wine," he offered, passing her drink.
"Do I need to?"
Bobby's head swung away from the sushi plate to spear her with a look. "Logan might think that plying Detective Barek with wine will go in his favor."
"They've already—" Alex bit her lip, mindful not to tell tales out of work.
Bobby raised a brow and straightened. "He's a fast worker."
"If you ask me, they're both 'speedy gonzales'."
Bobby chuckled, offered her another sushi roll and sauce bowl, and sat back in the sofa. He placed an arm around the back of the couch and lightly fingered the hair at her neck. "If that's the case, then he would be considerably further advanced than…um…where we are…right now."
"That's not the point, is it?" Alex' heart thumped in her chest. Caught in the ebb of her attraction to him, she was tossed toward him by his magnetism and pulled away by her common sense. She bit into a sushi roll without tasting it.
"It's very much the point," he murmured. "What would Detective Barek enjoy now? A caress of her throat? His lips at her ear?" Bobby leaned in and matched actions to words. "His fingers tipping her chin to meet his?"
"Bobby! Stop this. It's ridiculous. We both know—"
"Are you sure?"
He moved to face her and Alex hurriedly took another bite of sushi before he could capture her chin, but Bobby merely smiled and waited. Chewing slowly, she wondered for how long. Time stood still as the chorus of Bob Seger's "We've Got Tonight" rose and settled in the room.
With the sushi gone and no way of scoring another without pushing him out of the way, Alex' eyes darted from Bobby's to his mouth and back again, holding her breath. He finally moved, his lips descending until they touched hers and the same fire that licked her veins the other night took hold now and rocked her to her core, reminding her she had no defense against this man.
Dredging up the last ounce of her control, Alex resisted him, remaining passive as his lips explored hers, rolled off to brand a path across her jaw and then slid back again to claim them more possessively. A hand down her spine pressed her to him so that they were joined from hip to thigh to knee.
"Stop me anytime, Alex," he whispered against her mouth, but it was too late. A word would have done it, a pull away from him, a hand placed between them, but she did neither of those things. Instead, she wrapped a palm around the back of his head and stretched back on the sofa, allowing him to follow her down.
She was conscious of his warmth heightening her senses, his heaviness pleasantly reassuring her reticence, his hands busy between them before she realized he was shirtless and her tank top was being slid upward over her head. Her bra disappeared as she was coaxed onto his lap and bent backward over his arm. Both her wrists raised with delicious lethargy to circle his neck, but he slipped from her hold to run his tongue over a breast. Alex was wracked by a violent shiver, and groaned, arching her back into him and catching her breath back again in a hiss.
Busy fingers dispensed with the rest of their clothes, but Alex hardly felt it happen, her concentration all centered on the uninhibited path his mouth was snaking across her body. Her blood was on fire, her fingertips and toes tingling with a raw pleasure that forced more moans from her. His fingers, no longer employed in undressing them, found new tasks to perform until Alex was gasping into Bobby's shoulder, her head abuzz and soaring.
"Does Logan need to use protection?" he murmured at her ear, sending fresh waves of desire through her.
Alex blinked rapidly and shook her head slightly to clear it, grasping at some semblance of sanity. Bobby was still role-playing and crazily, she was glad. It made it easier for her to give in to him.
"Um…ah…Carolyn's on the Pill. But I'm not…I didn't bring—" She was silenced with a firm kiss that drew the breath from her before his weight shifted slightly. Alex floated on a nebulous cloud aware of his slight movements and the tear of a wrapper but not really making sense of it. A transfer of his weight again and he was beside her, her supported on her side and snuggled into his. Flighty fingers tripped down her inner thigh and raised it, positioning her leg over his hip. Tucking her head under his chin, he drew another groan from her as he slid strongly into her.
"Geezus! Holy gee—" Alex gasped. She wasn't sure if her head was going to explode or her whole body. Without moving himself, he rocked her gently against him, taking all of the effort and giving her nothing but pleasure. Alex lipped his chest, her hands grappling at his shoulders while her body thrashed against his with abandon. Sensation after sensation cascaded over her, rippled through her veins, then froze, pooled and soared in a mindless rush.
Alex flung back her head as a cry was torn from her throat and, piercing her pleasure, came the sounds of Bobby's groans rumbling through his chest.
oOo
The next day…
Standing at Carolyn's door, Logan waited for his knock to be acknowledged. Carolyn had asked him over, so she was expecting him, but he didn't anticipate seeing Alex Eames on the other side of the door as it swung open.
A huge smile was plastered on her face. "Mike! Come in!" She jumped forward and gave him a bear hug before pulling away self-consciously and turning to Carolyn.
Carolyn laughed. "It's okay. Go on! Indulge yourself."
Alex whooped and turned back to Logan, placing her hands on his shoulders to give him a loud smacking kiss on his cheek. "Thanks, Carolyn! And thank you, Mikey, Mikey, Mikey." She giggled, and Logan had the feeling Alex Eames didn't giggle often. Tossing a wave at Carolyn, she breezed through the opened door.
"What the—?" Logan watched her go, his mouth agape, then rounded on Carolyn.
"Come over here, you big softie of a matchmaker," Carolyn called from the easy chair on which she was curled. "And lock the door!" She winked broadly at him and beckoned a finger.
Shutting the door, Logan gave up his coat to the coat rack nearby and loosened his tie and cuffs. "I don't understand…?" He headed toward her, drawn by the pull of slim legs uncovered by a short black kimono. "First thing Goren did to me this morning when he arrived at work was give me a huge clap on the back with a 'Way to go, man!', and now a hug and kiss from Alex and… Hell, what'd I do?" He stopped and cocked his head, pulling back his neck in suspicion. "What're you gonna give me?"
Carolyn lowered her eyes and smiled saucily. Standing up, she loosened the kimono's belt and flicked the garment from her shoulders, allowing it to pool at her feet on the floor.
Logan felt the blood drain to his nether regions. "Holy Mother of God!"
oOo
Fun finished and filed!
P.S. The protection additive is a tip of the hat to…well, she knows who.