Chapter Twelve
Tracy woke feeling pleasantly sore and very crowded. Hoodoo slept on the very edge of the bed, he didn’t try to sprawl out or overtake the mattress, but sharing a queen-sized mattress with giant was problematic at best. The bed simply wasn’t big enough. She looked at the foot of the bed, and then at his feet. His feet, ankles and most of his calves hung off the end of the bed like a diving board stuck out in the air.
He lay on his back, on top of the sheets in the warm summer night, his naked form nearly gleaming in the ambient light that came through the single window over the bed. His muscled chest rose and fell as strong arms lay loosely around him. That was a problem, too. Not only was he too big for a bed, the thickness of his arms actually added to the problem, leaving Tracy very little room to move.
In Phoenix, he’d had a king, an extra-long king he’d bought because it almost let him have his feet on the mattress when he slept. It was also wide enough for Tracy to have a comfortable amount of room beside him. A queen-sized mattress was the largest most RVs could handle, certainly the sort of RV that can be rented. It was mostly luck of the draw what the agency had it available when her reservation came due, and she lay there looking at him thinking that she could easily ended up with a twin or double bed.
Hoodoo slept on his back, at least he had since she’d known him. That did have an advantage. In the darkness with the sounds of revelers in the background, the roar of motorcycles and the occasional laughing and partying sounds that marked any festival, she curled up beside him.
As he didn’t leave her a lot of room on the mattress, she lay her head on his chest and wrapped a leg and arm over him and nestled in. She inhaled the smell of his skin, earthy, a little bit of axle grease, perhaps, but it only smelled like motorcycle and that was a scent she’d grown up with. His chest rose and fell and as she began to drift off to sleep, his arm rose and wrapped around her as though she was a teddy bear to his dreaming slumber.
It was still odd, even after all this time to feel so small, yet so precious. He could have crushed her, and in the throes of passion, when they played rough, she sometimes wondered if he would forget his strength or if his need would overcome caution. Yet, his calloused hands, capable of squeezing a bolt cutter hard enough to cut chain, never so much as left a mark upon her skin.
Even the times when a little rough play was warranted, it was her who initiated it. Hoodoo’s lovemaking was usually very attentive, remarkable for a man whose favorite exercise was a bar-room fight. Well, ok, maybe second favorite.
Tracy sighed in contentment. She shouldn’t be feeling this good, she realized. There was going to be remorse come morning. Recriminations. But for now, in the languid state that came from being very well sated, she allowed herself the hope. The anticipation that this time would be different. That here, in the night, she could be a woman in love, and let the rest disappear until light of day.
Give me this moment. Give me now.
She wasn’t sure who she was even praying to. Did it matter? Somewhere, somehow the universe, God, whatever owed her. After everything her family had been through in the last two years with her father’s illness, with the constant money stress, the caregiving…she’d earned some measure of happiness.
Let me have it, then. Give me tonight. Just this much. And tomorrow…I will face tomorrow.
She sighed a little, and pressed her face against Hoodoo’s arm, shifting around so that her head rested on his chest. He smelled amazing, the musky sweaty outdoorsy blend with a tang of powerful machinery and paint that was pure him. She savored this moment, savored the warmth the way his arm came around to pull her in closer even though it was obvious he was still asleep, his head tilted back against the pillow, his mouth agape, letting out the occasional snore loud enough to be heard outside. She loved even that, although in the past she’d complained bitterly that he kept her awake at night, only to have him prove there were many other ways to keep her awake at night.
She smiled a little, and closed her eyes, snuggling in. I’ll rest a little while. Just let me enjoy this. Then I’ll get up and start the day. Then I’ll…
It was with some surprise that she woke with daylight streaming in through the window.
Tracy lifted up on her arm, and discovered it had gone numb in the middle of the night. Her neck had a crick from sleeping on his chest, but overall, she was feeling deliciously languid and her aches were less from sleeping and more from activities before slumber.
Hoodoo was looking at her. He was smiling.
“How…” her mouth was filled with cotton and her throat was stuffed with sand. She cleared her throat and tried to get enough saliva to form words again. “How long have you been awake?” she managed to ask.
“A while,” he said with a grin, fingertips tracing the path from cheek to nose, tender and sweet.
“You’ve just been lying there watching me?”
“No,” he smiled and nodded toward his phone, half lost in the blanket, letting her see that he’d been surfing as she slept. Tracy chuckled.
“I can’t say that you’re the softest pillow I’ve ever slept on.” She grinned at him as she shifted, nestling against him better. “But I seem to have slept pretty well, all things considered.”
“It’s a kind of tiny little bed.” Hoodoo looked down at what little mattress he could see under his bulk.
“No,” she shook her head, “it’s a huge, colossal, magnificent mattress.” She reached up and pinched his nipple. “You’re just bigger, huger and colossal-er.”
“And you’re naked.” Hoodoo said, licking his lips, “and you’re stunning. Especially in that light.”
She swallowed hard, not ready for horny when she wasn’t sure how she felt about last night. She cleared her throat. “And you slept with your arm around me,” she whispered shyly.
“It would still be around you, if I still had any feeling left in it.” Hoodoo said and leaned forward to kiss her. “It fell asleep a while ago.”
Tracy forced herself upright to free the arm pinned under her. “Why didn’t you wake me? I would have moved!”
“Hell, no.” Hoodoo said and then broke off to concentrate on moving the arm back over his chest. “Weren’t no way I was gonna wake that. You were just too damn beautiful. I was ‘fraid if I woke you, I would break the spell and you wouldn’t be lying on me anymore.” He smiled hugely, bright white teeth shining. “I like you lying on me like that.”
“I’m not that…” Tracy licked her lips. Pretty? Sexy? Attractive? What do I say? I’m just me.
“Yes, you are.” Hoodoo said with a certainty, “and I can prove it.”
“How?”
Hoodoo moved his gaze from her down to his own waist.
Tracy followed his eyes and her breath caught in her throat. “Oh my,” she said laughing. “Well, maybe I am after all.”
And just like that, in laughter and playful attacks, she forgot the misgivings of the night before, and her late night apprehensions. I’m too careful…I need to let go more…
So she let go. And found that spot on his side where he was ticklish and concentrated instead on an attack of sorts, because a good attack seemed needed right then. At least up until he retaliated and almost sent them both to the floor. She was still giggling when he rolled her over and then scooted her to the middle of the bed.
He proved to her how beautiful he thought she was and then proved it again. Breakfast was nearly at noon and consisted of instant ramen eaten naked, but it was a wonderful way to spend a rally.
They drank coffee in the chairs they’d had the evening beers in the night before. The day sped past them, bikes and bikers. The way time passed was like they’d found a quiet corner where the rest of the world allowed them to be alone.
It can’t last. I know it. But I am holding on to every moment, every second while I can.
Sometimes in watching the hurry of the rest of the world, Hoodoo reached over and took her hand in his. Her hand was engulfed, subsumed, and held as delicately as a china flower.
In that moment, the voice she’d ignored and stomped on all night and throughout the day returned and she heard it as clearly as a scream of triumph.
I’m in love.
Damn it!