Angel Falls (Angel Falls Series, #1), Babette Jongh [books for 6 year olds to read themselves .TXT] 📗

“Hmmmm?” I mumbled vaguely. Protection? My parents had encouraged me to keep a handgun, but I refused to have anything like that in my home. Too many children would have access to it. Lizzie would be a much better protector than...

“Sweetheart.”

“Mmmm...” I liked the way he said sweetheart. The long E sound was drawn out and the R had a slight burr.

He took his hand away and adjusted my panties back into place.

Reluctantly my mind began to clear.

“Are you on the pill?”

“Well no, because I haven’t had sex in...” and then I realized. The fact that I hadn’t had sex lately didn’t matter, because I was for damn sure about to. I brought my legs together and sat up. Here was my chance to back out. I could come away unscathed and almost uninvolved. But my body was still under his control, including, apparently, my mouth. “I think there might be something in the bathroom closet.”

Naked except for a scrap of damp panties, I scrambled off the bed, ran to the bathroom, and yanked open the closet door. Standing on tiptoe, I could see it—The Pink Box—perched on top of a pile of stuff at the very, very back of the top shelf.

Dimly aware that Ian had come into the room behind me, I dragged out the step-stool and climbed on. I could hardly reach The Pink Box, but I managed to knock it down. It bounced off my shoulder, and Ian caught it.

“Contraceptive Sponges,” he read aloud. “Expiration date... about three years ago.”

“No,” I wailed. Taking the box from him, I read it for myself. “The ink’s a little faded. Could be an eight instead of a three. Do you think...?”

“I wouldn’t chance it, lass.”

“Don’t you have anything?” I punched him on the shoulder. What kind of man takes a girl out to dinner without bringing along a just-in-case-condom?

He gave a humorless laugh and laid a consoling hand on mine. “If yours is out of date, mine has turned to dust by now.” That got a desperate laugh out of me as we stood there in my bathroom, more than an hour away from the nearest all-night drug store.

“I hate small towns,” I whined, slowly becoming aware that I wore only a small bit of skimpy lace and elastic, while he was still fully clothed.

“I know exactly what you mean.” He caressed my shoulder.

I slapped his hand away. “Weren’t you ever a Boy Scout?”

He laughed and put his hand right back on my shoulder. “If I’d been prepared, wouldn’t you have thought it a bit presumptuous?”

“I’d have been hopping mad and thrown you out.” I wouldn’t have even noticed, as we both knew very well. But I appreciated his effort to save my pride.

“I could give you some relief,” he offered gallantly.

“No, thank you.” I tossed the dusty pink box into the bathroom trash. “It’d just be torture for both of us.”

*

Sunday morning, I woke with a headache. The headache, I could handle. What threatened to kill me was the overwhelming case of unrequited lust.

I felt incomplete.

Desperately... unfinished.

I was familiar with the standard remedies for this ailment. Most left me more frustrated than ever. The only things I could count on to relieve my condition were those that left me too tired to do anything but pass out from exhaustion.

With this goal in mind, I dragged the lawn mower from the shed and gave the back yard its weekly crew-cut. Then I hauled out the hedge trimmers and attacked the red-tip photina along the back yard fence.

In the early afternoon, I picked up the last pile of severed branches and staggered toward the heap of limbs already stacked at the curb. A cloud of glowing floaters hovered just in front of me. I was about to pass out, but that was okay, since the remedy was working. I walked into the house to guzzle a few glasses of water and some iced tea with lemon, congratulating myself for a job well-done. I had hardly thought of Ian at all during the last twenty feet of shrub trimming.

Shit. I’d just thought of Ian. And sex. And lack of sex.

After Ben, I’d only had one sexual partner, a fellow-dancer-friend-with-benefits, and I hadn’t seen him in months. My heart might not be ready for sex with another person, but my body was way past due.

It was time for another form of distraction.

I called Lizzie away from the rabbits she was chasing in her sleep. We were going to my parents’ house, where I could count on chocolate, cherishing, and cheering-up.

And if that didn’t work, my mom had Valium.

When we got there, the driveway was empty. I parked at the curb so my car wouldn’t block the drive, and went in the always-unlocked back door. Lizzie splashed into the swimming pool before the gate clanged shut, and I decided to do the same.

Being human, I had to locate a swimsuit first.

Tossing my keys and purse on the dryer—the closest horizontal surface to the back door—I went into my old bedroom and rifled through the dresser in search of the raggedy bathing suit I’d been wearing for years. I found it, but it seemed to have aged since its last wearing. Stretched-out leg openings, wavy waistband, dry elastic that had lost the will to snap back. I should have bought a new one when Melody and I...

My knees quit working. They didn’t give one shit when I fell to the plush pink carpet beside my old canopy bed.

Stupid, selfish, over-sexed bitch.

Guilt and shame twined in my stomach and climbed up my throat.

I’d forgotten.

For hours, almost a whole day, I had forgotten Melody was dead. A reservoir of tears bulged behind my eyes. My skull felt like a dam about to burst. I made desperate choking sounds that I heard in a strange, detached sort of way as my mind tried to hold onto the last thread of sanity. I could see myself going completely crazy, losing it totally. If I really let my