Bad Boy Criminal: The Novel (4 page)

T
he guest bedroom
was just down the hall from my bedroom. We shared a bathroom.

This was how the Turner house went upstairs: a long corridor, carpeted, salmon. On the right, Hope and Bill had shared the same exact room for seventeen years (this was an oft-touted fact during spats). Across from their room was my room. Next to my room was the adjoining bathroom, connected to the guest room.

Pacing back and forth in front of the bathroom door, I wondered what Ash was doing. Maybe he was bored. Maybe he wanted to talk. Or something. And even though Hope had cleaned and re-bandaged his wound, that was several hours ago now. What if his stitches opened up? I was no surgeon. What if he bled to death in his sleep, and then we lost the dairy in the proceeding murder trial, and Bill and Hope were sentenced to life in prison, and I was cast onto the streets again, broke and unemployed, but it all could have been avoided if I’d just checked on Ash?

I had to check on him for the good of the farm. It was as simple as that.

Slipping over to the bathroom door and opening it silently—my own bedroom door was ajar, and even though the corridor which separated my room from Bill and Hope’s was carpeted, they still had ears like bats—I crept through the adjoining restroom and pressed my ear to the guest room door.

I didn’t hear anything.

I grasped the knob and turned it as gently as I could.

The door fell open, revealing the darkened guest room, lit only by the streams of moonlight coming through the single bay window. The bed, a white wicker travesty with a rosy comforter and sheer white canopy, dominated the room.

I crept over the carpeted floor and inched closer to the bed. I couldn’t see Ash, really, though I could hear his breathing. Was it labored?

I slipped to the side of the bed and brushed back the canopy. My eyes were adjusting now…

He was stretched shirtless on the mattress, his eyes closed and his expression tranquil. I leaned closer, admiring the way the soft, silvery moonlight laid on him, exposing his perfect musculature like a relief sculpture. I stretched out a hand, but I knew I shouldn’t. I couldn’t.

Just his forehead. To make sure he wasn’t piqued.

He looked like he might be piqued. And that was a sign of infection.

I trailed my fingers over his smooth forehead. There was heat exuding from his skin, but he wasn’t sweating. If he did have a fever, it was a low-grade fever.

As my fingers trailed away, they strayed to tuck an errant strand of dark hair behind his ear, and his hand shot to mine with the speed of a viper, wrenching me down onto the mattress atop him.

My breath caught in my throat.

“Did you need something?” he asked, husky and languid. Knowing.

“I—Because—” This was so embarrassing. “You look feverish,” I blurted.

“Mm,” Ash replied, smirking up at me. His eyes seemed even brighter in the dark. “I feel feverish, too,” he confided, pulling me into his shadowy embrace.

The covers came up over our heads, and the sensation of his warm mouth on mine was electrical in the absolute dark. Our bodies slid into place like they were designed for this. He bucked gently against me, his arousal also as exposed as relief sculpture, and the fingers from his good arm buried themselves into my hair.

I murmured an encouraging mewl in response, my mouth cracking open for his tongue, and I moved with the rhythm of his body. The two of us trapped beneath the sheet was unbearably hot. I tore my mouth from his to drag in a breath and heard a door open in the hallway.

Bolting upright, I tore the sheet from away from us and saw the thin band of light beneath the guest room door. The corridor was alight. Bill or Hope was awake, and they were both the type of person to nudge open someone else’s door—especially in their own house—and peek at them.

I glanced down at Ash to find him gazing back up at me impishly, grinning and biting his lower lip. He wiggled his hips beneath mine playfully, as if to say,
Well?

Dammit.

I signaled for silence with my index finger pressed to my lips, then ducked from the bed and darted back into my room.

Ash let me go.

I
woke
up to the morning sun streaming through the big bay window, directly across my face. I stretched, and my mouth melted into a shit-eating grin.

Izzy likes me, Izzy likes me,
sang like a vibration through my fingers, inciting me to touch her. To create light in the darkness.

Too bad the sun was up, and she’d slipped away like Cinderella at midnight.

I lay in bed, arms stretched over my head, and took deep, relaxing breaths, doing math in my head to deflate the erection popped beneath the cover.

The guest room door opened without a knock, and I glanced over at the proper Hope Turner, blushing furiously and staring intently into my eyes, never once acknowledging the morning wood.

“Ashton,” she addressed me starchily. “Would you like to come down for breakfast while it’s still hot, or are you a fan of leftovers?”

I glanced over at Hope and offered her a rakish smirk. “I’ll take it while it’s hot,” I told her. “Leftovers are the story of my life.”

Hope smiled slightly in spite of herself. “All right, Ashton, sure,” she said. “Then we’ll hold the morning prayer for you.”

As the door closed behind her, I closed my eyes and sighed deeply.

Morning prayer,
I thought.
That’s precious.
Rolling off the bed and swinging my feet back onto the floor, I dressed myself with a kind of chagrin. Because, dammit. What a shame. These were the type of people who had a little wooden sign hanging on a ribbon at the bathroom door which said, “Powder room.”

They had safe, adorable, country store-furnished lives; it was a reality of which I’d never been a part. And I never would be. I put on my boots. I’d be out of here before tomorrow morning, and maybe sooner.

As I strolled down the stairs and toward the sounds of breakfast conversation, I counted all the little things I’d never be able to have. The pictures on the wall: timeless courtships, extended family, roots. The orchard of fruit trees. I’d only ever be able to rent for the rest of my life, and from shady slum lords at that. People who wouldn’t check references.

As I rounded the corner into the dining room, I found one more thing in front of me I’d never be able to call my own: Isabelle Turner, as radiant as a dew drop at dawn, gazing into the doorway with obvious fondness. And Lord Almighty, what would I have given to be able to ruin her in good conscience? To ravage her body like a coastal storm?

But that was all.

That was all I’d ever be able to have from a woman like her.

“Morning, everybody,” I said, my eyes lingering on Izzy’s only an instant longer than they had to. I tore them away and rubbed my hands together. Licking my lips, I beheld the table, brimming with eggs, pancakes, hash browns, bacon, and sausage. It all looked to be homemade, and there was a pitcher of orange juice and another of milk in the center of the table. I dragged the savory notes through my olfactory, but I warned myself: things you’ll never be able to have.

Not when you’re a fugitive. A criminal.

“
H
ey
, Izz?” Hope called to me from the kitchen, where she was doing the morning dishes. “Could you go down and milk Rose for me?”

I took a step closer to the open doorway into the kitchen, almost certain that I’d misheard her.

“What?” I asked, cocking my head slightly to the side.

“Can you go milk Rose for me?” Hope repeated, this time enunciating clearly. “She needs it.”

“You called me Izz,” I said.

Hope smiled, but the smile struck me as defensive. “Did I?” She shook her head and shrugged. “I never do that.”

“Right.” I nodded, feeling numb. “You never do that.”

“So, will you?” Hope asked, blinking at me expectantly.

“Will I what?” I asked dreamily, elsewhere.

Hope sagged, becoming annoyed. “Milk Rosie,” she said, this time loudly and clearly.

“Right. Yes,” I said. Back to Earth. “I’ve got her. Sorry, Hope.”

I stalked through the dining room and into the foyer, flushed, almost slamming into Ash. “Hey,” I snapped. “Sorry. I’ve got to go handle Rosie. Excuse me.”

At this, Ash smiled. It rippled slowly to the corners of his lips, and even shone into his eyes. “Let me come with you,” he coaxed. His voice was conspiratorial and naughty, as if we were talking about doing it naked. “I’m great with women.”

“Rosie is a cow,” I replied flatly.

Ash laughed. “Of course she is.”

“Still think you’ll be great with her?”

“Uh, yes,” he answered, confidence only staggering for a split second. “I am great with all females.”

We strode out to the pasture, me with a stool, on which rested a can of Vaseline, and him with nothing.

“So, did you wanna get that ride into town sometime today?” I wondered as we moved through the fence and approached the cow.

“Not quite yet,” he replied. “Just waiting to hear back from—a friend.”

“A girl friend?”
SHUT UP,
I begged myself.

“Well, she’s a girl and she’s my friend,” he answered coyly.

I stroked Rosie’s side and murmured coos to her, hoping that this would have a calming effect. I loved the animals. I know that they experience us as fully and really as we experience them; their personalities are complex, and their actions have meaning relevant to their psychologies. The comfort of the bovine is paramount for a successful milking.

I rubbed my hands together in Vaseline and straddled the bench, positioning myself across from her swollen udders. Ash only watched as I massaged each teat. “It helps bring the milk down,” I explained. “Then, you just squeeze like this.” I showed him with a few gentle, yet firm, downward strokes.

“Let me get in on that,” he suggested, dipping down and shimmying onto my stool. “This is unreal.”

I glanced over at him and smiled, taking his hands and positioning them where mine had been. He was like me in many ways: I remembered experiencing the same child-like wonder when I’d first begun indulging my senses in an utterly organic lifestyle. We were children of the city, but we longed for the simplicity and satisfaction of country living.

“Hey. You’re a natural at this,” I said to him. He worked one set of teats while I worked the other. I couldn’t smother the smile of appraisal on my face. “That’s always a good sign. Helping another living creature comes easily to good people.”

At this, he went quiet, and we continued to fill the bucket in silence for almost two minutes before he responded. He looked at me, and when he turned his head, his mouth was close to my ear. When he spoke, his breath caressed my hair. “I’m not a good person,” he murmured.

I smiled and glanced at him. “I’m not either,” I confided.

“Ha! You?”

I gazed over at him—his face was very close to mine—and he was grinning unabashedly. I dropped my eyes back to Rosie’s teat. “You don’t know me,” I told him softly.

He didn’t say anything. In fact, he’d stopped moving entirely, but I could see him out of the corner of my eye—he was staring at me. And I, breathless, stared back. It was an unusually hot day for this time of year.

Rosie moaned with disapproval and shuffled forward, kicking the bucket from beneath her and sending almost four quarts of creamy milk directly into the dirt.

“Shit!” I sprang back from the stomping hooves as she continued flouncing forward, and Ash followed suit. “Cows,” I blurted, like an idiot, and cleared my throat. “I should probably head over to the rescue shed and freshen my blue jay’s food, and water, and bandage, in a few minutes; but I’ll let Hope know about the milk first.” I grimaced. “It shouldn’t have to be you. She already doesn’t like you. Anyway, offer to help make lunch. She’ll like that. I’ll be up there in a few minutes.”

“I’ll come with you to feed your blue jay,” Ash offered for the second time today. “You might need some help.”

“We need to at least get all this damn Vaseline off our hands first before we handle a sick bird then. Dirt just clings to it, and I can’t stand to be dirty.” As soon as I said the words, I heard the innuendo and blushed like a girl. I chanced a glance out of the corner of my eye and found Ash to be grinning slyly at me.

“That’s funny,” he murmured, seeming thoughtful. “You can’t stand to be dirty, but I don’t want to be clean.”

“Well…people are different in that way,” I murmured. “We manage to coexist.”

“Only as long as I don’t touch you,” Ash replied.

I hesitated and looked up at him. His eyes shone down on me hotly, as deep as a long fall, and Ash advanced on me suddenly, his lubricated hands driving beneath my shirt and tracing silky ribbons of petroleum over my stomach.

He leaned into me, pressing my back to the rough wood of the shed siding. It leaned with us, and his fingers crept halfway up my back as his hungry mouth caught mine.

“But I don’t know you, right?” he murmured against my ear, biting it gently.

I had to admit that it felt like he knew me, and knew me well. He pressed his open palms beneath the wire cups of my bra, glossy thumbs rolling over my nipples torturously. A high-pitched whimper came wavering out of my throat and I grimaced beneath the weight of my desire.

His mouth crept lower, lower, and I rested my head against the side of the shed, breathing raggedly and urging him to push me further. He wrestled open the neckline of my blouse, trailing like a famished beast over my receptive flesh.

“Kids!” Hope’s voice rang from one of the main house windows. I gasped and scrambled to shove Ash off me, readjusting my top. She hadn’t seen us—but still. “Lunch is going to be getting cold soon! It was ready before noon today…even if I had to make it all by myself!”