Chapter Eight
Dallas
I’m still wrapping my head around the concept that this is Levi, my Levi, facing me in the tiny shower stall of a seedy motel, our child wriggling between us, and warm, comforting water raining down on us from overhead. Beads of moisture collect in his wiry moustache and beard, glistening like little crystals. He seems like another person entirely, someone I’m only meeting for the first time, yet know intimately.
Or do I?
Off-putting at first, I’m fast becoming accustomed to his wild appearance. Not that I wouldn’t prefer a clean-shaven, smartly dressed professional. But does that persona still exist under the Yeti-like armor he’s grown around himself? Either way, I can’t deny the primal allure of this rough, burly, mountain-man façade. Though I don’t relish those stiff beard-hairs rubbing against my skin, his sculpted, outdoor-hardened physique is lighting the pilot flame of a long-neglected sexual furnace inside me.
His teasing touches spin my arousal meter off the dial. It’s been too long since I’ve been with a man, any man. And the one I want is right here in front of me. My fingers wrap around his erect cock, squeezing its rigid but yielding mass in my palm. I stroke it gently, eliciting a rumbling sound from deep within his hair-covered chest. I need us to get out of this warm, steamy enclave, as sweet-smelling and safe as it is, put Mason to sleep, and get this aroused beast between the motel sheets as fast as possible.
“I’ll take care of Mason while you finish up,” I whisper, my lips mere inches from his.
“Meet you on the bed.”
Levi wraps his free arm around my shoulders and closes the distance between us, his hungry mouth meeting mine above the head of our infant child and enveloping me in the wettest, hottest kiss of my life. My senses reel as I sink into the wildness and urgency of it, taste the hints of mint and pine on his lips, while his tongue explores the hot interior of my mouth.
My heart is pounding as he finally breaks contact, stealing my breath away as he does so.
“That’s a promise,” he murmurs.
Mason starts to cry, and I pull aside the shower curtain. Levi holds my hand as I step out, ensuring I don’t slip and fall, before handing me our wet, squirming, squealing bundle of joy. I get one last, lustful look at his wonderfully muscled form, complete with full-mast arousal, before he slides the curtain shut again. My pussy clenches in response.
I dry us off with the clean but somewhat worn motel towels, and dress Mason in a sleeper from his diaper bag I’ve set on the floor of the bathroom. Thank goodness Mom brought several changes of clothes and a large pack of disposable diapers for us, as well as extra bottles, formula, and jars of baby food. I still have Miller’s applesauce as well. It should get us through a couple of days at least. I run a sink full of hot water to place one of the pre-filled bottles in to warm.
I pull on a clean t-shirt and panties, though I plan to be taking them off again very shortly. Mason makes pleading noises as he spies the bottle in the sink. “Hold on, little man, you’ll like it better if you wait a few minutes.” Who am I kidding? I’m not about to wait more than thirty seconds myself to get him down and sleeping. I make a kind of nest out of his diaper bag to set him in and hand over the bottle to his reaching, grasping hands.
He’s big enough to hold it himself, and sucks on it greedily. I fish for a comb in my purse so I can detangle my mane of wet hair, but can’t see a thing in the completely steamed mirror. There’s no switch for an exhaust fan in the dated premises, but I see there’s an old-style casement window. With the flip of a latch and a firm tug, I pull it open to let the steam out. The shower taps squeal shut, and I hurry to pull the comb through my hair and exit the bathroom to make room for Levi.
The main room seems much warmer than when we first got here. I lay Mason in his blanket in the middle of the nearest bed, still happily downing his milk. I sit and watch him as his eyelids droop and his feeding slows to the occasional sleepy pull of his lips. I can never get enough of looking at my son. His perfect little face is like a window to heaven for me. I smile as I remove the bottle from his loosened grasp, thankful for every moment since his birth and this chance for him to know his father.
The bathroom door opens, and I look up to see Levi’s frame-filling silhouette dressed in jeans but no shirt. A shiver of excitement tingles its way up my spine at the sight. Stray drops of water snake their way down his muscled abs, leading to the dark line of hair disappearing below his waistband. His hooded eyes are alight with desire. It feels strange and surreal, but right too that we should be here together. And why not? He said it first; we’re a family now.
“Asleep?” he says, nudging his bearded chin toward Mason.
“Out like a light,” I say, nodding.
“Good. Speaking of lights…” Levi hits the switch for the bathroom, throwing it into darkness. “Better if it looks like no one’s here.” He walks to the other side of the room to turn off the lone floor lamp as well. I blink as my eyes adjust to the sudden dark, only a dim glow of the property’s lights penetrating the drapes from the outside. I hear the rustle of denim as Levi returns, and feel his hand slip into mine, pulling me to my feet.
I lean against his bare chest, inhaling the heady mix of scented soap and musky maleness as he holds me close, his thinly shielded erection pressing hard against my belly. I’m excited but a little nervous, too. We haven’t done this in a long time, and there certainly weren’t any condoms in the supplies I’d asked my mother to bring. Am I being foolish, or paranoid?
“I want you, Dally,” he whispers, his voice husky. “Are you alright with this? With me?” His lips touch down on my forehead, my nose, my cheek, between each phrase.
I let out a shuddering sigh. Lord help me, I want this too. “Yes,” I whisper back. “Yes, I am. With everything.” He tips my chin upward and claims my lips in another soul-shaking kiss, the brush-like scouring of his beard on my face the last thing I care about. My arms twine around his neck, crushing myself closer to him, clinging to him like a lifeline in the storm of emotions swirling all around me.
His arms are around my waist and his groin is pressing urgently against my abdomen. His palms glide across my ass cheeks, roving in slow circles; his fingertips catch the lace edge of my panties and slip inside, pulling at the hem and sliding the material away.
“Dallas…” he moans, his warm breath caressing my ear.
My knees are shaking, threatening to collapse, when the sound of an engine rumbles outside and a beam of light slashes through the small split in the heavy drapes. Another guest pulling into the parking lot, I imagine, but I’m too wrapped up in our bodies’ needs to care.
Levi’s kisses trail down my neck and onto my shoulder, and his hands are now cupping my breasts through my shirt, his thumbs beading over my nipples that are tingling into stiff peaks. The beam of light dims with the sound of crunching gravel, and then reappears at a different angle, shining directly in my eyes. I turn my head away as Levi straightens and glances toward the window.
“What the fuck,” he growls, releasing me from his embrace.
“Just car headlights,” I say, the loss of his touch almost painful.
“Maybe.” He moves away and stands with his back to the door, pushing aside the edge of the drape with one finger to peer out. The headlights cut out again, but the rumble of a running engine continues.
“They’re just parking,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest to quell the anxious budding of my nipples. I need him back here, now.
“Did you say it was a gray van that you were being forced into?” he asks quietly.
“Yeah,” I answer.
“Do you know what make?”
“Dodge Caravan. I know because we used to have one, my mom and dad.”
“Shit.”
“What is it?”
“Get your clothes on. Grab Mason and go into the bathroom. Don’t turn on the light.”
Oh. My. God. What is he saying? Bullet-guy is here? How could that be? His words strike my heart cold. I’m not about to argue. I hitch up my partly-removed underwear and scoop Mason from the bed, blanket and all. I nearly stumble over my purse and Mason’s diaper bag and get down on the floor in the bathroom, feeling for my jeans still in a lump by the shower.
I hear noises from outside, footsteps, and see shadows pass across the stripe of dim light between the drapes. I hear Levi slip the chain on the deadbolt and his feet striding across the carpet toward us. “We’re leaving,” he hisses, entering the bathroom and silently closing the door.
“How?” I say, fastening the button on my jeans and gathering Mason in my arms.
“The bathroom window. My truck is about twenty yards away; we should be able to walk behind the building most of the way.” Moonlight filters in through the trees behind the motel, silhouetting Levi as he slides the window pane up and out, as though removing it for spring cleaning. The opening is probably about two feet square. He sets the frame gently on the floor next to the toilet. “You go first,” he says, pulling me to my feet. “I’ll hand you the baby, and I’ll go last. Hurry.”
I’m reluctant to let go of Mason, but I trust Levi. “The bags,” I whisper.
He lifts me by the waist to boost me out the window opening. I’m slim and able to fit through without a problem, but I have my doubts about him. I launch my torso across the sill and scramble out, dropping clumsily to the ground. I stand and reach for Mason as Levi passes the sleeping bundle across to me, then tosses the bags through. Thankfully he hasn’t woken. The leaves crunch beneath my feet as I move aside to make way for Levi. I’m pretty sure which direction the RV park is in, but I have no idea where he parked, and only vaguely know what the truck looked like. I’d only seen it once, shortly after he bought it for his trip.
Miraculously, Levi forces his broad body through the opening and slips to the ground. He snatches up the bags with one arm and scoops us up with the other as we race along the back of the building toward the RV park.
“Are you sure we need to do this?” I gasp. “You don’t know that’s him.”
“Not taking that chance,” he says, guiding me toward a dark, mud-splattered Chevy half-ton crew cab parked between an older SUV and a boat trailer. “I wasn’t planning on letting you stay the night here anyway.”
He opens the rear door of the vehicle and motions us in.
“There’s no safety seat,” I start to say, realizing the idiocy of my statement mid-sentence. “Never mind.” We were escaping, not going on a holiday.
As I climb in, Mason begins to wake, but his cries are cut off by the solid clunk of the door closing behind us. Levi slips into the driver’s seat and starts the engine. “Where were you thinking we’d stay?” I ask, staying down out of view and tending to Mason.
“I’m not letting either of you out of my sight ever again,” he grumbles, throwing the vehicle into gear. “We’re going where we won’t be found so easily. Where I can protect you and our baby.”
I didn’t really have to ask the question. I knew our destination without hearing him say it. We were about to disappear the same way he did all those months ago; become as invisible as him. I never thought I’d be a fugitive, but it’s better than being a captive. As we pull onto the 101 heading north, I watch the last vestiges of civilization, and my life as I knew it, fade away in the tail lights of a Chevy truck.