“Right.” I rested my hands on her hip. “You know I want your sweet tits in my mouth, right?”
Hope cleared her throat and sat up on my lap, and I found my glass. The head was gone from the ale and it went down easily. She peered over her martini glass at the pair of guitarists who were organizing themselves on the stage, and at the men clustered around the table, each competed for a Valentine’s Day card.
“Brought you something,” I said, eased Hope off my lap, and sat her on the chair. “Be right back.” Had to work to get the bartender’s attention, and then he pointed his finger at me and asked, “Hat and box?”
“Just the box for now, but I should be back for the hat pretty soon.”
I dangled the hatbox behind me and picked my way back through the crowd. I laid it in Hope’s lap, and her friends broke off their conversations to watch.
Hope looked at me and held her hands up without touching the box. “This had better be a straw bonnet, Cowboy.”
DeeDee leaned over Hope’s shoulder to watch, and I could just hear her say, “You’re being complicated again. Open the damned box.”
Once Hope had that hat on she didn’t care if it was a bonnet or not. She used her phone to pose herself, adjusted the rake, and gave me a look from under that wide brim that made me catch my breath.
The guitarists on stage started their show, and Hope stood on her toes. She hung her arms around my neck and kissed my throat, and her voice under the music tickled my ear. “I like the hat, Cowboy.”
Hope was the first to play her card. Her friends watched her drop to her heels and pull an envelope from her jacket pocket. The card inside was a childish thing that made me laugh. A sparkling pink pony pranced across the outside, and inside she’d written, “Take me for a ride Cowboy! I want to wake up with you.”
“So we win the Valentine’s game?” I asked, and Hope’s eyes glittered by the light from the bar. “My place or yours?”
“Let’s go to my place, and Barfy can be happy, too.”
The bartender must have been watching. He was waiting with my hat when I pulled Hope to the bar, and Barfy was waiting for Hope when she opened the door to her little house off Acequia Madre. He snuck under her long skirt and wrapped around her ankles while she hung our hats and our jackets.
Hope’s desk was strewn with notes and sketches. The mess was out of place among her crystals and batiks. “It looks like a storm hit here,” I said.
“It feels like a storm hit.” Hope shooed Barfy away and stepped close. “I’m ready for some R and R. Are you?”
“I can give you the relaxation, but ‘rest’ isn’t part of the picture—’til tomorrow, anyway.” I looked past Hope and found a splash of pink in the kitchen window. A single flower was open on her Christmas orchid.
Hope’s eyes followed mine. She smiled, unbuttoned the top button on my shirt, and then the next. “That bud’s been there for more than a month without opening. I think it waited for me to bring you home again.” She stopped and stroked my cheek. “I put a new blade in my razor. It’s only been used once.”
I took that hint. I shaved then turned off the bathroom light and left my shirt behind. Hope closed the drawer in her bedside table and tossed her tube of edible lotion onto her pillow. She dropped her dress off one shoulder and then the other, lifted it over her head and left it on the floor.
She turned her back on me when I stepped close. I slipped the bra straps off her shoulders, and she asked, “If I weren’t there tonight, who would you have gone home with?” I unhooked her bra, and dropped it to the floor.
“That question’s a trap. I’m not answering.” I rested one hand on Hope’s hip and untied the bow that held her cotton knickers. They slipped down her legs to the floor.
“It’s not a trap,” she said. “Someone’s going to ask. How do I answer? You seemed real interested in May.” I reached around Hope to throw the bed clothes back, and she squawked a little when I scooped her up in my arms.
“So, who would I have gone home with if you’d left with Steve or something?”
I set Hope down on the mattress, and she propped herself on her elbows. “No, like if I’d kicked Steve so hard they arrested me for assault and took me away.”
“Kicked him with these?” I pulled off one of Hope’s soft shoes and then the other and dropped them by the bed. “I would have gone to the courthouse to make sure they gave you a nice cell.”
“You’re frustrating,” Hope said. She reached to tuck her hand in the waist of my jeans and pulled until I fell over her onto my hands and knees. “It’s like when DeeDee wanted us to talk ‘relationship’ and you talked ‘hat.'”
“Worked for me,” I said. “You got a hat, and I got a relationship.”
I tried kicking my boot off without looking and it didn’t work, so I tried to push the boot off one foot with the other. “What are you making that face for?” Hope asked. I must have been concentrating.
“I’m making a face?” One boot hit the floor. “Like what?” The other boot hit the floor.
“Like this,” Hope said and screwed her face into an expression that made me laugh. I caught her wrists, held them against the mattress over her head, and I kissed her lips. I kissed her throat, and I kissed the tender spot below her ear.
Hope ducked her jaw against her shoulder. “Stop! You’re making me shiver.”
I let her go and climbed off the bed to push my jeans off, and she sat up and patted the mattress to get Barfy to jump up. She wrapped him in her arms and scratched his ear. His big purr seemed to shake the bed.
“Are cats and bare skin a good combination?” I settled back onto the bed behind Hope and wrapped her in my arms and legs.
“Barfy’s OK. I think he forgot how to put his claws out.” Hope glanced over her shoulder at me. “What are you doing?”
“You take care of Barfy,” I said and stroked my hands down her arms, “and I’ll take care of you.” Hope leaned back against my chest, and I stroked the soft skin inside her arms up to her small, sensitive tits. I ran my fingertips around her nipples and felt them grow firm.
The lotion that Hope tossed on her pillow was still waiting for me, and I warmed a bit of it in my hands. She caught her breath when I cupped her breasts and let her nipples slip between my fingers. First my breath brushed her skin then my lips; her shoulder, her neck, the back of her ear.
Barfy wasn’t getting the attention he wanted. He stopped purring, climbed out of Hope’s lap and jumped to the floor. “You made me disappoint my cat.” Hope said, but her voice trailed off far away.
She stroked her fingers up inside her thighs and touched herself. I wasn’t sure, at first, if she even knew what she was doing. I pulled and rolled her nipples between my thumb and my fingers. Her muscles—once so supple and relaxed—grew tight.
I matched the pace that Hope’s fingers set between her legs, and she threw her head against my shoulder. She clenched her teeth. A long groan escaped her lips, and she was soft in my arms again.
Hope was still at first, but when she moved I lifted her small, soft hand to inhale the scent from her fingers. I kissed her fingertips and sucked her delicious juice from her skin.