CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The May sun glared already, but if construction work took a break for the heat, then nothing would ever get built in Phoenix. Jason handed me a water bottle from one of the coolers that were scattered around on-site. I took it gratefully as I listened to the foreman detail all the work completed this week.
“We’re ahead of schedule,” I said, pleased as I consulted my notes.
Barnes bobbed his sweaty head with a grin. “As of right now, yes.”
“Great job,” Jason told him, clapping a hand on his shoulder.
Barnes wasn’t one to brag, though. “I’m only as good as the guys we hire,” he said with a shrug.
“It gives us all a little bit of breathing room,” Jason said. “That’s something to celebrate.”
“Guys,” I broke in. “We can’t afford to take anything for granted, not with a project of this scope.”
Barnes nodded. He’d spent twenty years on construction projects. He understood. “Agreed,” he said.
“But you earned the weekend off,” Jason said. “So take it. I don’t want to hear that your shadow was glimpsed within a mile of here.”
“Sounds good to me,” Barnes said. “My kid’s got a Little League tournament tomorrow.”
Jason and I left Barnes behind to finish the rest of his workday and we headed for Jason’s car.
I pulled my hard hat off. “I’m sweaty.”
Jason turned on the ignition and set his hand on my thigh. “You could be sweatier.”
“Behave.” I pushed his hand away because a half-dozen construction workers were milling around nearby on their lunch break. A month had passed since Dominic and Melanie’s wedding, the night that always stuck out in my mind as the official beginning of our relationship. We weren’t denying that we were together, but I also saw no reason to set tongues to wagging. Management had asked no questions and I doubted they would. They’d been forced to reconsider their tacit disapproval of employee relationships when the chief financial officer married a twenty-two-year-old clerk from the purchasing department. These days, as long as the situation didn’t interfere with the job or result in any hysterical scenes beside the water cooler, it wasn’t a problem. Even if the personal relationship rule hadn’t been unofficially relaxed, The Man had been treading lightly around me ever since the Bracero incident, and I liked to believe he felt some remorse. There’d been some buzz around the office for a while, but now that it had died down I didn’t believe The Man would be interested in turning my relationship with Jason into an issue.
Jason was navigating traffic on the way back to the office when he said, “I vote that Barnes shouldn’t be the only one to receive a reward.”
“Jason, it’s daylight.” I laughed. “I’m not putting my head in your lap right now.”
“I’m not asking for a blow job.”
“Then what are you asking?”
He flashed that irrepressible grin he knew I couldn’t refuse. “Skip town with me for a few days.”
I hesitated. “Why don’t we just stay local in case anything comes up?”
Jason picked up my hand and kissed it. “No. Let’s get out of here. Out of the heat and the dust and at least a hundred miles from anything that has to do with the damn courthouse.”
“We could stay at one of the nearby resorts,” I suggested. “Wild Spring is only ten miles away and it’s so lavish it would be like being out of town.”
“Audrey, we both need a few days off. Come on, let’s just go. It’s not like we can’t be reached via cell phone. At this point in the process, any emergencies could wait until Monday.”
I tried one more time. “I thought you wanted to see your dad this week.”
“I did. I went to see him on Tuesday when you insisted on staying at the office late. We watched Bugs Bunny cartoons in the lounge for two hours and ate a bag of oatmeal raisin cookies.”
Jason was pulling into the parking garage at Lester & Brown. He swung the car into an empty spot and set the brake. “Audrey,” he said again, dipping into a serious tone.
I looked at him. Jason reached out and pushed a strand of hair behind my ear before running his knuckles along the side of my neck in just the right way to induce a slight shiver.
“Come away with me,” he whispered, no longer smiling, his eyes fixed on me with all the promise of a secret getaway.
“Where would we go?” I asked, knowing I didn’t have the power to refuse him. Not when he looked at me like that.
“Leave the details to me,” he said with triumph. “Just knock off work at a normal hour and run home to pack a bag. Oh, and make sure you include some comfortable clothes and shoes.”
For the rest of the afternoon I was guilty of letting my giddiness interfere with the long task list I’d set for myself first thing in the morning. At four o’clock I looked over the remaining items on the list, decided none of them were critical, and made the decision to take off early.
“Are you sick?” Marnie wanted to know when I told her I was leaving for the day.
“A little,” I lied, coughing once for effect.
Marnie recoiled. “Hope you feel better,” she said, already beginning to hastily wipe down the reception counter in case any of my germs had found a home there.
Jason had volunteered to drive to Mesa to pick up a minor part that was needed on-site. On the way back he planned to stop at his house to grab a few necessities. When I got to my apartment I texted him that I was ready and then I dashed around, tossing items into a rolling suitcase and feeling deliciously spontaneous.
“Ready?” he asked when I opened the door.
I jumped into his arms with a heated kiss. “Ready.” I would have been glad to head for the bedroom before traveling anywhere, but Jason wouldn’t be deterred from his plans. He broke contact and seized my bag from the floor.
“Let’s get moving. It’s a two-hour drive.”
“What is?”
“Sedona.”
The picturesque town full of towering red rocks and spiritualists was a favorite destination for both locals and out-of-state tourists. I wasn’t a big believer in things like healing rocks and auras, but I couldn’t deny the calming energy that hovered over the place and crept beneath my skin the instant we crossed into the Sedona city limits.
“Do you think there are really vortexes everywhere here?” I asked, peering through the windshield at a particularly majestic red rock formation just barely visible beneath the darkening sky. I snapped a photo with my phone. “Places where energy rises from the earth?”
“Don’t know.” Jason shrugged. “I’ve never been a student of New Age stuff.”
“They say if you come across one you’ll feel a wave of inner peace.”
Jason gave me a sidelong glance. “If you want, I can offer you some inner peace in a few minutes, Audrey.”
“I think your version is probably different.”
“I think you’re right.”
Jason had booked a room in a resort outside the busy downtown mecca, nestled against the peaceful Oak Creek. Night had fallen, but as I stood on the balcony overlooking the wilderness, it was easy to imagine the beauty just beyond my reach.
I smiled when Jason came up behind me, kissing my neck. “I’m glad you talked me into this,” I said.
“I’m glad you agreed,” Jason said, gently turning me around for a more complete kiss.
I leaned into him, stretching up and pressing my body against his, reveling in the familiar arousal that surged every time we got close. We hadn’t eaten dinner, yet another more urgent hunger claimed priority. Jason deftly unzipped my skirt and slipped his hands into my panties. I loosened his belt and began tugging on his pants, desperate to uncover the hard bulge within, my eagerness to feel him inside of me reaching a crescendo.
“Want you,” I whispered, then moaned as his fingers pushed their way in, teasing me almost to the brink.
Jason laid me down on the bed before hastily stripping his clothes off. I admired the defined expanse of his smooth chest, the muscles coiling in his shoulders as he settled his body on top of me. I gripped his waist with my knees, anticipating the powerful thrust that I ached for, but he took his time, slowly unbuttoning my blouse, unhooking my bra with care, rolling his tongue over each nipple and then covering my right breast with his hot mouth.
“Jason,” I panted, clutching his shoulders, bucking underneath him, ready to beg for satisfaction. “Please.”
Only then did he pull his mouth away and cup my narrow hips in his strong hands to deliver the hard push we both needed. But, for a moment, he hovered there. “Audrey.”
I looked up at him, getting lost in the dark eyes that could be playful and passionate all at once. This time they were neither. Jason looked at me with almost solemn reverence. We lingered in that peace for a moment and then, without warning, Jason drove himself in deep again and again. I welcomed every battering thrust and came with so much force a tiny scream ripped from my throat. Jason waited until I had my fill and then he convulsed with a string of curses and finished with a sigh into my neck.
“Every time,” I whispered with wonder, stroking his sweaty back. “It’s so good every time.”
He kissed my forehead. “Always will be.”
Eventually we did get hungry enough for a more practical meal. Jason ordered the most expensive room service items on the menu and we ate on the quiet balcony while listening to the music of the night.
Sleep came only after a few more energetic rounds of sex, and once I drifted off into unconsciousness in the shelter of Jason’s arms, I did not awaken until sunlight flooded the room.
“Let’s get out there,” Jason suggested while I was still rubbing my eyes and yawning. “Look at that view. Maybe we’ll run into one of those inner-peace-vortex things.”
“I’ll go anywhere with you if you just get me some coffee first,” I promised, still yawning.
Once I was fed, showered, and properly caffeinated, I became more eager to leave the room. Jason wanted to go hiking and enjoy a picnic lunch on the trail. I was a little dubious because I hadn’t been hiking in years, but to my relief he at least didn’t have any grand ideas about scaling the towering red rocks. The picturesque trail in the woods had almost a fairy-tale quality with its babbling brooks and canopy of wispy vegetation. Here and there it was possible to get a glimpse of the stunning rock formations that loomed everywhere. We shared sandwiches and bottled water while perched atop a pair of large flat rocks overlooking a creek. I didn’t know if the vortexes were real or if they really soothed the soul. People supposedly traveled to Sedona from all over the world in search of the opportunity to find out. But I did know inner peace was the most elusive human condition, and as I sat beside the creek in the company of the man I was crazy about, I thought this was about as close as I’d ever come to feeling it.
In a remarkable departure of habit, I didn’t check my phone for hours that afternoon. I told myself there probably wasn’t a signal this far into the woods anyway. That might have been true. Or if I had checked it sooner, I might have seen a message that would have crushed my delicate balance of harmony.