'Her relationship with Lofland might relate to Starks's motive.'
'She's told you what their relationship is,' Dodge argued. 'Now can we move on?'
But Ski didn't look like he was prepared to move on, or to go anywhere, until he was completely satisfied on this point.
'Ben and I had a meaningless affair years ago,' she said. '
'Okay. Fine. Great. I'm glad that's cleared up,' Dodge said. 'Nyland, you happy now?'
Ski didn't flinch.
Berry took a deep breath. 'In answer to your question of earlier today--'
'Berry.'
'Dodge, sit down,' Caroline said.
'She has rights. She doesn't have to say anything else.'
'Maybe she wants to.'
Berry heard them, but only with half an ear. Ski's focus was riveted on her, and she couldn't escape it. 'In answer to your earlier question, I was fully clothed during dinner. I undressed only to get into the shower. It was that female EMT who suggested I might want to put something on. Before she called my attention to it, I hadn't realized that I was still naked.'
CHAPTER 11
THIS WAS DAVIS COLDARE'S LUCKY NIGHT.
'But not here where somebody might walk past and see us.' Lisa Arnold removed his hand from between her thighs, pushed him off her, and sat up, pulling her tank top back into place. 'In fact, not in the backseat at all. That is
Davis, his erection throbbing, his brain foggy with lust, couldn't immediately think of a suitable place other than his car in which to have carnal knowledge of Lisa Arnold. 'Uh ... I don't--'
'A motel.' Primly she readjusted her denim skirt to cover the area Davis had been exploring. It wasn't virgin territory.
'Motel?' he echoed stupidly. The concept didn't click because of the sensory clutter inside his head.
Lisa opened the car door and got out. 'Just drive. I'll tell you where to go.'
She had already switched to the passenger seat by the time Davis's cerebral synapses fired. Grimacing, he tucked himself back into his underwear, then, holding up his jeans with his left hand, got out of the backseat and into the front behind the wheel. He started the car and navigated it through the lanes of the drive-in theater, which was open only during the summer months, and where tonight a double feature of slasher movies was playing. Like Lisa and him, most people in the parked cars hadn't come to watch the films.
When the theater exit spilled them onto the highway, Lisa instructed that he turn left and reminded him to switch on his headlights. She reached across the console and slid her hand inside his jeans, squeezing him through his underwear. 'Don't lose this before we get there.'
'Not a chance,' he panted. She began stroking him, and his eyes crossed, making it difficult to keep the center yellow stripe of the two-lane highway in focus.
'Do you have condoms?' she asked.
'Uh...'
'If you don't, I do. But from now on, it's your responsibility to bring them, okay?'
'Okay.' He agreed--he would have agreed to anything--when actually all he heard was
'Just up there on the right,' she said. 'I don't know the name of it, but it's got a raccoon on the sign.'
He knew the place. The run-down motor court had been there for as long as he could remember, probably much longer than he'd been alive. He'd driven past it countless times without giving it a thought. Never in his wildest dreams would he have imagined he would be coming here with Lisa Arnold, the girl with the most promising put-out reputation in Merritt High School.
He pulled up to the lighted office, where a red neon Vacancy sign blinked off and on. Getting a room might cost him every penny he'd earned mowing lawns this week, but he shot one look across at Lisa and figured if it cost two weeks' income, it would be worth it to get on her. Guys who'd been with her said a blow job was practically guaranteed. But since she had insisted on someplace other than the backseat, maybe she was planning on doing more than her standard b.j. Thinking of the possibilities made his mind reel.
'Can you walk with this?' She tugged on him playfully, and he moaned. If she made him come too soon, he'd die of mortification and then he'd kill her for spoiling it. Giggling at his obvious discomfort, she said, 'Guess not. Give me forty bucks.'
She released him. He raised his hips off the seat and braced his feet against the floorboard so he could wedge his hand into the pocket of his jeans to get his wallet. He pulled out two twenties, which she plucked from his hand. Shooting him a cheeky grin over her shoulder, she got out. As she walked toward the office, he watched her ass, barely covered by her skirt, covered not at all by her thong, as he'd recently discovered. He groaned with desire.
Working the check-in desk was a fat lady with stringy gray hair and a blue tattoo that covered the entirety of her flabby arm. Looking miffed for being drawn away from the magazine she'd been thumbing through, she grabbed Lisa's twenties and slapped a key onto the counter. The transaction took less than fifteen seconds.
Davis was glad Lisa hadn't been required to sign a register or anything. He was gonna go through with this no matter what, but he'd just as soon his parents never found out about it. Lisa was the kind of girl his dad--his mom, too, during one especially embarrassing conversation--had warned him to beware of.
As Lisa got back into the car, her short skirt rode up her thighs, flashing him a glimpse of the heaven that awaited and obliterating from his mind parental lectures about common sense and morality. Banished by her wink were warnings about fatal diseases and unwanted pregnancies, either of which could destroy plans for a college baseball scholarship and, by extension, his life.
'All set,' she said. 'Number eight. Straight ahead, on the end.'
He got the impression she'd been here before.
He parked in front of room number eight. Lisa got out. As Davis alighted, he wondered if maybe he should pull his car around to the back of the building, where it couldn't be seen from the road. But his parents had gone to a card party at some friends' house tonight, and they lived on the opposite side of town. His parents wouldn't be driving past here on their way home.
Still holding up his jeans with one hand, he stumbled toward the door, where Lisa was waiting. She handed him the room key. 'Be a gentleman.'
'Yes, ma'am.' He took the key from her and made several stabs at the doorknob, missing the keyhole each time.
Lisa moved close and sandwiched his biceps between her fantasy-inducing breasts. She licked the rim of his ear and whispered, 'I hope your aim improves once we get inside.'
He rammed the key into the slot and twisted it, unlocking the door. 'Don't worry about my aim. I'll hit the target.'
