Chloe

I left the dig site with the younger children about four hours ago, expecting the rest to join us soon. Now the children I brought with me are washed, fed and asleep, and the stew I made for dinner is cold and congealed.

I'm just about to go in search of the others when I hear them coming down the ravine, Olivia and Ed in front, Pedro and Diego chattering excitedly with Rider a few steps behind them. They're all covered in dirt, and Olivia and Ed look positively dead tired. Rider, on the other hand, looks like he could still keep working if he had to.

I wave to them. "I made dinner."

Rider's the first one to look at me, and even at this distance I can tell he thinks I'm the only dinner he needs. I usher Pedro, Diego and the other older kids who stayed to help with the digging away to get them cleaned up before dinner. They're all big boys and girls, and they don't need me babying them like this, but I have to get away from the hunger in Rider's eyes. What he wants from me won't happen. It can't.

Once I get the kids cleaned up and into their pajamas, only Olivia is still at the cafeteria. The kids are still very excited about meeting Rider and doing actual, important work today, but I’m hoping they’ll settle down after they eat.

"How much did you get done?" I ask Olivia.

"I'd say not much at all, but your man Rider said we're making good progress," she says, smiling at me.

"He's not my man," I counter.

"Well, he only has eyes for you. And I think he was rather disappointed you didn't return to the dig site."

I don't know if hearing her say that makes me happy or scared. It’s bit of both.

"There's a couple of beers left," Olivia says. "Go take them to him. There's no sense in letting a guy like that go to waste."

She winks at me as she says it.

"You do it," I counter, mumbling the words. "I don't need any complications."

"I'd call him a lot of things, but complication isn't one of them. And I would go in a split second, but I’m sure he only wants you."

And that's a problem.

So I follow her advice, get the last two bottles of beer from the cooler and head to Rider's bungalow before I change my mind. It's time I made it clear where we stand.

And I was pretty clear on that, almost one hundred percent, until I reached the shower stalls. He's using the one with the ripped shower curtain.

Water is running down his back in snaking rivulets, pooling in the dimples on his lower back and catching the light of the setting sun. He's washing his hair and doesn’t see me, but in a minute he'll rinse off and turn. I want him to turn.

And that thought finally snaps me back to reality. I rush to his bungalow to wait for him on the steps. He comes a few minutes later, the tiniest towel wrapped around his hips. It just barely covers his cock, the flap gaping over his thigh. My whole face is burning, along with my neck and chest as I imagine it falling open.

He's grinning at me like he knows exactly what I'm thinking, which just makes it worse

"Here, I brought you a beer," I say, holding a bottle out to him.

He winks at me and takes it, then drinks the whole thing in one long gulp.

"That was great," he says and hands me the empty bottle. "Now go put on a dress. I'm taking you out to dinner."

I'm opening and closing my mouth, thoughts flashing through my mind so fast it's blank.

"But…but you already ate," I finally squeeze out.

"And your turnip stew was delicious," he says grinning at me. "But after all that digging, I need some meat."

This isn't how I pictured our conversation going, so I have no idea what to say.

"Come on, Chloe," he says, that insufferably inviting grin of his more of a smirk now. "Stop fighting it so hard. You know you want to come, it's all over your face. I'll meet you by the garage in fifteen minutes."

He runs up the stairs, taking two at a time and sending the whole bungalow shaking.

"And if I don't?" I yell after him.

He stops and turns, giving me a questioning look. "What?"

"Will you come back, if I don't go to dinner with you?" I elaborate. It's not an easy thing to ask, so my voice is all strangled and stern.

"I'll come back and dig this ditch for you like I promised," he says, not smirking anymore. "I don't need anything in return. But I'd like to take you to dinner."

He climbs the rest of the way and enters the bungalow without waiting for me to say anything else.

I only stop at my own bungalow long enough to comb my hair and change my shoes. But even as I wait for him in front of the garage I still don't know if this dinner is a good idea. But it's not a bad one either, and I know that.

* * *

Rider

No, it's not OK that she won't just fall into my arms like I can see she wants to. And no, it's not OK that she's not wearing a dress like I suggested she should. But it's absolutely perfect that she's waiting for me at the garage, so those two not-OK things don't matter very much at all. Well, the dress doesn't matter, she looks great in anything she puts on.

I take one look at my mud-caked bike, realize I should've cleaned that shit off this morning, and that it would take me at least two hours to do it now, and smile at her.

"Good thing you decided to accept my invitation," I say. "Because you're gonna have to drive."

"OK," she says, and I hear her relief loud and clear.

I lean back in my seat once we're driving, taking in the scenery and allowing her to start the conversation.

"I really appreciate all your help," she finally says, once the first thatched roofs of the village come into view. I can smell meat roasting over an open flame, and it has already more or less chased away all my annoyance at her insinuation that I'm only sticking around because I want to fuck her. I'm a simple guy like that, and very adaptable. Would I like to see those round breasts of hers bouncing, while I fuck her so hard she forgets whatever’s making her so uptight? Hell, yes. But I can live without it. I’d rather not, but I can. And since I'm clearly the only person who can prevent those orphans having a swimming pool instead of bedrooms and classrooms this rainy season, I'm gonna have to endure it. Won't be easy, but few things in this life are.

"Let's stop here and get some of this barbecue," I say, pointing at a group of villagers standing around the fire where a pig is roasting.

"No, there's a nice place near here," she says and actually speeds up.

"Why? I could talk some of those dudes into coming to help me dig tomorrow."

"They won't," she says very quietly.

"Let me talk to them, I’m good at talking people into doing things," I say and the sharp look she gives me actually wipes the grin right off my face. Clearly she assumed I'm talking about something other than what I said. Women will do that.

"I mean, you guys and the kids are great helpers, but if we actually want to finish this job fast, we're gonna need some real man power."

She casts me a glance like she's trying to see how serious I am then breaks hard and takes a sharp left into the trees. I'm just about to ask her where the fuck we're going when the jungle opens up into a clearing with a single hut-like structure surrounded by plastic tables and chairs. They have a pig roasting here too, there's music playing, people are dancing, and it seems like we're already late to the party.

"This is the place," she says and smiles at me for the first time since this morning. I wish she'd smile more often. And I want to tell her that, but she'll just take it the wrong way again and stop doing it.

Meat and beer is the only thing on the menu, and apart from a rather scared looking couple at one of the end tables, we're the only non-locals here.

"See, you should've worn a dress," I say, pointing at the two local, middle-aged women swaying their hips to the music like there's no tomorrow. I wouldn't mind watching Chloe do that.

"Yeah, after all that digging, I'm not really in the mood for dancing," she says, just as a waitress brings us each a large plastic glass of beer.

"To eat?" she asks.

Chloe rattles off something in Brazilian before I even open my mouth. I understand Spanish, but the language they speak here is not very much like it. I thought it might be, but I was wrong.

"So, what did you get us?" I ask once the waitress finally retreats again.

"Pork and bread," she says. "Isn't that what you wanted?"

I nod. "So, the digging wiped you out?"

"You're not tired?" she asks, her eyes lingering on my arms long enough to be obvious, and to once again remind me that whatever it is that’s keeping the two of us from having some nighttime fun, while I'm here has nothing to do with lack of attraction on her part.

"There's a lot of digging left to do," I say. "I'll be tired when it's done."

"Do you really not think we can do it by ourselves?" she asks, looking very sad at the prospect.

I take her hand, which she's conveniently laid out on the table. Just touching her skin is enough to make me reconsider all that about being OK with not fucking her. But the frozen look in her eyes makes me release her.

"I can dig the ditches by myself," I say. "It could take a couple of weeks though. You sure you want me around for that long?"

I'm not sure why I even asked her that. I added it as an afterthought, but it's a loud one. She needs me, sure, even came to dinner with me, but that ice in her eyes every time I try to get a little closer is telling me she just wants me gone as soon as possible. And I fucking hate seeing that. It brings up all sorts of shit from my past that I don't want to remember.

"Yes, I do. Why do you even ask that?" She grabs my hand and squeezes, but lets go immediately like it was an unconscious gesture. "I don’t know what I’d do without your help."

"You don't look it," I hear myself say, still not sure why I'm goading her. But she started this whole honesty thing as far as our relationship is concerned, and I do like to know where I stand.

Her face turns red, but the meat arrives just then, which automatically puts me in a better mood. We eat our meal in silence, and after I drink my second beer and clear up her leftovers, I'm perfectly content again. The only thing that would make me even happier would be her sitting on my lap.

"I can pay you for your time," she says after the waitress brings me a third beer and clears away the plates. "A hundred dollars a day, so fourteen hundred for the two weeks."

She sounds like she's been figuring this out all through dinner and getting up the nerve to actually say it. I could use some money, that's a cold, hard fact, but I won't be taking it from her.

"Just seeing the smile on those orphans' faces is payment enough for me," I say instead. Chloe would be a bonus, but I wasn't thinking of her giving herself to me as payment before, and I won't now.

She snorts. "That’s such a cliché, Rider."

I lean back in my seat. "It might sound like a cliché, but I mean it. I grew up in an orphanage a lot like this one. Well, OK, it was in Las Vegas, but we also didn't have much of anything." Though we could've had more if Father O'Reilly didn't drink so much. And here I go again telling her about my past. "So I am doing this for the kids, you can believe that."

The look on her face is something between sadness and wonder, but I think she doesn't really believe me.

"I'm sorry," she says and gives me the same smile I've seen her give the orphans when she talks to them. It makes her look as beautiful as any statue of the Virgin Mary, and makes me want her even more.

"For what?" I ask, since I want her to keep looking at me like that.

"For being an orphan," she says. "It's so sad not having a family."

"My mother's still around," I say. "She's married to some rich dentist and lives in the suburbs of Vegas. She just dumped me off at the orphanage, because I was getting in the way of her achieving all that."

Chloe’s eyes are actually misting over, and everything on her face is telling me she would never do a thing like that. Not to me, not to anyone.

"That's so horrible," she says in a whisper.

"I was seven years old when she left me at the bus stop in front of Father O'Reilly's church, saying she'll be back, and if she wasn't that I'm to go into the church and give them the letter she left with me. I sat on that bench from noon until eight PM when Father O'Reilly finally came out to see, if I was alright. I kept waiting for that bitch to come get me for the next eight years until Father O'Reilly died, and I went out on my own. She never did. She didn't even have the guts to abandon me properly. Just left me sitting on a bench in the middle of the city telling me she'll be back. They shut down the orphanage after Father O’Reilly died, but I didn’t want to go into the foster system, so I just set out on my own. And I've been riding ever since. Floating from place to place, never setting up home anywhere."

I told her the full story, since it's been floating around in my mind all day. I don't think I've ever told it to anyone before. But Chloe looked like she might understand. But after it's all out of my mouth, I realize I've just dumped a whole shitload of personal crap on her, and I've known her for less than a day. She struck me as someone who might understand and listen without judging. I’m good at getting the measure of people fast, had to learn how to read strangers, because I’ve been on my own since my teens, and I’ve never met anyone as naturally honest, giving and caring as Chloe.

"But that was more than fifteen years ago. I'm over it. Been over it for a long time," I add. "I just wanted you to understand that I really do want to help your orphans."

She nods, that saintly look still on her face. Our conversation flows better after that, and I get no more frozen looks as she explains about her work at the orphanage and where all the kids there come from. Sad stories, every last one of them, much sadder than my own.

"And why did you come here?" I ask, since I do want to hear her story too.

"I wanted to help. I’ve always wanted to do what I can for the orphans and the less fortunate of this world."

Like me. And I know just what she could do for me.

I'm tipsy enough to think it, but I won't say it. She sounds completely honest, and I believe she really does want to help. And in this world that's so full of fake, self-serving people, that's a very refreshing thing.

She waves the waitress over to pay. "We should go back and get some rest."

She lets me pick up the check, but not without arguing.

And the conversation keeps flowing easily right up until we're standing in moonlit silence in front of the garage back at the orphanage.

I want to kiss her. More than ever.

And since I'm no good at not doing exactly what I want to, when I want to, I lean in and pull her to me and do just that. She tastes about as good as the first girl that let me kiss her, only better, since that time it was mostly about the kiss, and this time it's all about the girl. And the best part is, she's returning my kiss, her hands resting on my waist, and her tongue very friendly with mine.

I'm just about to lift her up and carry her somewhere more comfortable, when she pushes me away.

"No, we can't do this," she whispers, shock plain on her face.

"Why the hell not?" I ask, grinning, since I'm still lightheaded from the touch of her lips.

"Just no, OK," she says. She sounds like she's pleading.

"Give me one good reason," I coax, then remember I might get the lie about the boyfriend, and add, "But make it a true one. I know you want this as much as I do."

"No, I don't," she says sternly. "Good night."

And then she just stalks off, leaving me with a raging hard on and no kind of fucking answer.

"I asked for the truth, Chloe," I call after her. "And that was a lie."

I follow her, could overtake her, but decide not to try when she starts walking even faster. I stop once she jogs up the stairs leading to her bungalow. And, yeah, the alpha male in me wants to go after her, kick down her door and show her exactly what she wants. But she's not ready for that kind of treatment yet.

So instead I spend the next several hours cleaning the mud off my bike until it's gleaming like new, and I'm calm enough to try and sleep. I'll respect her wishes, but it'll take a monstrous effort now that I've gotten a taste of her.