Every Waking Moment(23)
Author: Brenda Novak

“Would you get a load of that?” the man said with a low, soft whistle.

His friend turned to see what “that” was and spotted Emma in her black bikini. “She’s got one heck of a body, doesn’t she?” he said, and began to elaborate on the attributes he particularly admired, beginning with her “gorgeous tits.”

Preston hadn’t ogled a woman since he was a randy teenager. The conversation sounded almost foreign to him. Inconsequential. He’d been too busy with more important things, things that had changed or could change his life. Dallas. Vince. The truth. Occasionally, he had dreams about making love to Christy, but his physical appetites always took a back seat to the goal that consumed him from the moment he woke up.

Now that he allowed himself to think about sex, however, Preston realized he missed Christy’s warm body in his bed, her welcoming embrace. If he’d been less bitter, he knew he would have missed her more, maybe even a lot. Until Dallas died, their marriage had been a good one, full of comfortable companionship and peace.

But all good things come to an end….

Whoever said that was a freakin’ genius, he decided.

Shifting in the hot water, he leaned a little to the left to get a better view of Emma. The men across from him, truckers judging by their conversation, had already moved on to other topics. An encounter with a  p**n  star. Long legs. High heels. A hooker in Memphis. The women they talked about seemed interchangeable. But women weren’t interchangeable to Preston. They never had been. Maybe that was why he’d scarcely thought of sex since he’d split with Christy.

He closed his eyes and laid his head back, but Emma in that black bikini made it impossible to relax. Evidently his libido was making a comeback.

Opening his eyes, he studied her legs, the perfect br**sts his companions had already noted, her smooth golden skin—and felt his body react almost instantly.

You have a sort of stark beauty…. Your face, your body. He’d felt a definite sexual undercurrent during that exchange, but he’d also known he’d never take advantage of a woman with a kid. So he’d told himself she hadn’t meant anything by the compliment and immediately squashed his reaction.

But things were different now. They’d parted ways and, after tonight, would probably never see each other again. Which meant he was safe to let his imagination wander where it would. Considering his arousal, he couldn’t get out of the Jacuzzi right now anyway.

Hooking his arms over the sides, he hauled himself up a few inches so he could see her move deeper into the pool. She gathered Max into her arms, brushed his wet hair off his forehead and kissed him. Then she gave him a ride on her back.

The domesticity of the scene made Preston uncomfortable about the fact that, in his mind, he’d just pulled off her swimsuit. But not uncomfortable enough to stop the fantasy now that it was getting exciting. It seemed like an absolute eternity since he’d felt a woman beneath him.

He imagined Emma inviting him to her room. Conveniently, Max wasn’t anywhere around, which was the beauty of dreams. People could appear and disappear at will. And they could react in ways that were exactly opposite to what they’d do in reality.

He pictured her offering him a teasing smile as she slowly untied her swimsuit top and dropped it on the ground. She closed her eyes and let her head fall back when he stepped over to her—touched her. Suddenly Preston felt no guilt at all for leaving Emma and her son at the shabby motel down the street. Considering how badly he wanted her legs around him, she and Max were much better off without him.

THE OUTSIDE AIR and the water in the pool were warm, but Emma still felt chilled inside—too chilled to enjoy swimming. She tried to entertain Max, to act somewhat normal, for his sake. He’d already been through so much in the past two days. But she was too wound up, she could barely move or even speak.

Juanita’s gone. Do you think Manuel’s killed her?

Emma wished she could say no to that question with real confidence instead of the thin veneer she’d put on for Juanita’s sister’s sake. But the glint of excitement in Manuel’s eyes the night of their last argument, when he’d grabbed her hand and purposely burned her, was truly frightening. His expression in that moment, his lack of remorse later, had left an indelible impression. Although he hadn’t been physically abusive in the early years, the power his money afforded him seemed to be turning him into some kind of monster, a monster that fed on power and control.

And the more control Manuel achieved, the more he wanted. But was he capable of murder? The man she’d once loved? The father of her child?

She remembered the way he used to be when they first met, when he was apart from his family and they were on their own. He’d been sexy, confident, outgoing—a natural leader. Everyone had liked him, especially women. He still had those traits, but they were exaggerated now, stretched so far out of proportion they made him into someone dark and twisted, someone too warped to function normally. He acted as if he were above the law, as if he reigned supreme….

He said they’d have you back within a day.

“Mommy, watch me!”

She nodded absently at Max, still struggling to put her thoughts in order. Even if Manuel knew she was in Nevada, he wouldn’t be able to find her.

Or would he? There were only two main highways, and she hadn’t moved far enough, fast enough.

“Mo-om, are you looking?”

Emma forced herself to turn and focus, and that was when she noticed the men sitting in the Jacuzzi in the far corner. She’d made a mental note of them before, of course, when she’d first arrived. She was too afraid that she’d run into someone working for Manuel not to pay attention to the people around her. But something had changed.

The two who’d been talking were still talking. Their voices came to her as a low murmur. Nothing different there. It was the other man. He watched her a little too closely. She could feel his acute interest like the sun scorching her skin on a hot beach.

Throwing back her shoulders, she challenged his gaze—and finally recognized the eyes staring back at her. They belonged to Preston Holman.

Max’s hand swept against her as he swam by, and she pulled him to the surface.

“Hey, why’d you stop me? I was going to touch the side of the pool without taking a breath, like Daddy does.”

“We’re going back to our motel now,” she said.

“I don’t want to! We just got here.”