v Ashley - Golden Trail

Her neck twisted and her head tilted back to look up at him.

“Do you think we should go back tomorrow night, set up camera surveillance or something?”

Yep, she was cute.

“No, we aren’t gonna do shit. I run him tomorrow, I find dirt or even that he lied on his application, I turn it over to Merry or Colt or Drew and they run with it.”

“That’s it?” she asked, sounding disappointed.

He grinned at her and somewhat lied. “Baby, on TV, they make my job look exciting. Most of the time it’s done either sittin’ at a computer or sittin’ somewhere else. The action man shit is a stereotype based on total fiction.”

Her eyes dropped to his middle and, to hide what that said, she quickly turned and grabbed her beer, tipping her head back to take a sip.

When she put it down she turned back to him and asked, “What if there isn’t any dirt?”

“There isn’t any dirt, we go deeper.”

“Cameras?”

“Cameras are expensive, it’d take forever to set them up, I’d need the feeds to come into the office, I’m not set up to do that and I don’t have the cash to get set up so I’d need recording devices which are bulky, therefore hard to hide, and someone would have to go and collect the DVDs. Each time I go in, I court gettin’ caught. I’m good but the law of averages on that kind of operation are never on your side. And, I go that way, I got hours of DVDs to watch, most of the shit on ‘em not worth watchin’, and I don’t have hours to waste.”

She turned her body toward him and rested her bent arm on the couch beside him. “So what do we do?”

“Again, we don’t do shit, sweetcheeks. I’m workin’ this case because you’re worried and what I’ll do is send in undercover recruits.”

Her brows shot up. “Undercover recruits?”

Layne leaned down, reached around and grabbed her ponytail, giving it a gentle tug as he got close to her face. “Jasper or Tripp. I’m thinkin’ Tripp. He’d do good at bein’ a Jesus Freak. Not to mention, the Youth Group is filled with girls. He’ll be all over that.”

Tripp would be all over that for the girls but mostly Tripp would be all over it because his old man asked him to do it and Layne would let it slip that it was a favor for Rocky.

Her eyes got bright and she whispered, “That’s brilliant.”

He let her hair go, handed her the rosters and she took them. “Your job is to look over those rosters and call me tomorrow with Tripp’s target.”

“His target?”

He nodded. “A girl, on those lists,” he tipped his head to the papers in her hand, “who’s been goin’ to Youth Group awhile. Not a new kid, someone who’s been around, could have seen things, heard things.”

She nodded.

Layne went on. “And she has to be open to Tripp. A shy or plain girl who’ll be flattered at attention from a kid on the football team.”

She shook her head. “I’m not setting up some girl to –”

He put his finger to her lips and she fell silent but he felt her lips part under his finger as he watched the intensity shift into her eyes.

In about a week, or, hope to God, sooner, he’d kiss her after seeing her eyes get like that.

Now, he took his finger from her lips.

“I’ll coach Tripp, he won’t leave her high and dry. This is a friendly operation with no collateral damage.”

She was still looking at him with that intensity in her eyes when she whispered, “Okay.”

“Now, it’s late, baby. Go get me a pillow and a blanket and go to bed.”

Her back went straight and she asked, “What?”

“Get me a pillow and a blanket, I’m sleepin’ on your couch tonight.”

She looked at the couch then at him. “Why?”

“Because it’s after one in the morning, I’m wiped and you don’t have any security sensors on your doors.”

She looked at the doors then at him. “But –”

“Go get me a pillow and blanket.”

“Layne, you live five minutes away. You could be wiped and still walk that far.”

“All right, sweetcheeks, I can also walk as far as your bed. You got two choices, get me a pillow and a blanket or I walk upstairs to your bed.”

“But –”

“Three seconds.”

“Layne!”

“One.”

“This is stupid,” she hissed.

He started to get up. “Two.”

“What about –?”

“Three,” he pushed up further but she shot up, her hands going to his shoulders to press him down.

When his ass was on the couch, she muttered, “I’ll go get a pillow and a blanket.”

Then she whirled around and ran up the stairs.

Layne watched her ass move as she did.

He felt her hands on him, her mouth on him, her hair gliding across his chest following her lips.

They trailed up, then along his collarbone and his hands moved to her waist, down to her hips and in, over her ass as her lips went up his neck to his ear.

“You need to get home to your boys, baby,” Rocky whispered.

* * *

Layne’s eyes opened.

He was on his stomach on Rocky’s couch.

He rolled to his back and he smiled.

Then he rolled off the couch and stretched, looking out her huge-ass windows, the lights from the parking lot shining in, dawn not close but not far away.

He bent and replaced the back cushions on the couch. He’d been right, he could sleep there and he did, like a log. The seat was wide, especially with the back cushions off, plenty of room. Enough, Rocky could stretch out with him to watch a game. He remembered she loved football, she loved basketball and she loved baseball. It was chick love, it was cute, but there was no denying she liked her sports.

He turned to her stairs and went up, his bare feet silent on the steps. He’d taken off his boots, socks and tee and slept in his jeans.

The doors in the hall upstairs were all closed. One blank wall, the wall to the outside, three doors on the inner wall, another one at the wall facing him at the end. One of them had to be a bathroom.

He tried the first and found it was a bedroom. Nothing in it that he could see.

He tried the second and it was a linen closet, mostly empty.

He tried the third and found a bathroom. He used it then washed his hands, splashed water on his face, tagged a hand towel and dried his face, seeing she’d already decorated. Little chrome boxes on a shelf over the toilet, matching chrome soap dispenser and toothbrush holder. Thick towels, a color combo of a bright green and yellow. He was pleased she’d got herself sorted out before that asshole cut off her funds. At least she had what she needed around her while she worried about not being able to make the rent.

He turned off the light, left the bathroom and didn’t hesitate when he turned to her door and opened it.

He stopped when he saw her form easily in the queen-sized bed, her curtains open, the lights shining in. Her bedroom was on the third floor, not easy to peer in, but with a man trailing her with a camera, they’d be having a conversation about her keeping her curtains open.

He moved to the bed and then halted, staring at her sensing something was wrong. He kept his eyes glued to her as he tried to figure out what it was.

Then it hit him.

Growing up, she’d had a double bed. He knew this because he used to make out with her on it and she’d told him she’d had it as long as she could remember. She slept in the middle of it, on her belly, on a slight slant, one arm pinned by her body, one arm thrown out, one leg hitched at the knee. She wasn’t petite but she wasn’t a big girl by any stretch of the imagination. Sleeping like that, however, she took up most of the bed.

He knew she slept this way because she had not changed this habit when she’d moved in with Layne. He’d had a queen-sized bed but she did not stick to her side. She slept in the middle and the way she slept meant her arm was thrown over his abs, her hitched leg was resting on his thigh and her head was on his chest or shoulder. He slept on his stomach too but this position pinned him to his back on the bed and, since Rocky slept like the dead and didn’t move all night, that meant he was pinned that way all night.

This left him with two options, he moved her and trained her to sleep on her side or he got used to it.

Layne got used to it.

If memory served, it took two days.

Now she was lying on one side of the bed, closest to the windows and she was tucked into a ball so her frame was as small as it could be.

He stared at her and he knew she had ten years of that. Ten years of keeping her distance and protecting herself from Astley, even in her sleep.

Layne let the knowledge that she was herself with him, could sleep open and sprawled and close to him and she didn’t give Astley that same gift sweep through him and he felt another golden trail left in its wake. That might make him a dick and it sucked that she had ten years of that but that trail shimmered through him all the same.

He walked to her side of the bed and sat down. Her hair was dark against her neck and he slid his hand under it, through her hair and against her skin, pulling its heavy weight off her neck and to the back.

She shifted at his touch, legs straightening and her head turned, even in the dim light he could see the movement was fluid.

He knew her eyes had opened when she shot up to an elbow.

“Layne?” Her voice was husky with sleep at the same time openly surprised.

“Gotta get to my boys, baby,” he replied, his hand still in her hair, he cupped the back of her head.