Free No Limits by Alison Kent Page A

spending her weekends alone. Lorna kept her busy enough during the week that she didn’t mind heading home to a bowl of popcorn, her bed, and whatever DVD Netflix had sent from her queue. But there was only so much yard work and housework and reading she could do on her days off without going totally insane. She did sew, and using the scads of decorating magazines Lorna let her take home every month, she’d turned her small rental into a funky Project Runway–styled Extreme Home Makeover showcase.
    But she had no one to show it off to, no one to enjoy the wild mixture of colors and patterns and textures, and she’d avoided getting a cat because it seemed so desperately single-girl pathetic.
    She knew about Red’s, of course. The bar was a Bayou Allain institution. But going out for a night on her own? Again with the desperately single-girl pathetic. She’d served a whole lot of drinks to a whole lot of women who were trolling, and she would not ever be one of them.
    Then came the night when the popcorn turned into ice cream—one bowl, then two, then another…. And that was it. She’d had to get out of the house. She’d worn blue jeans, a white T-shirt, Scottish plaid flats, and no makeup save for mascara. She hadn’t thought about the apple-green mesh of her bra shimmering through her top’s cotton fabric, but it had.
    Men had noticed. Women, too. Apparently apple green only played in the Big Easy. A beer in her hand, she’d swiveled around on her stool, determined to enjoy the zydeco band and ignore the curious stares.
    She hadn’t been in town but a few months and probably remembered only a handful of people she’d met through her connection to Lorna. She knew the deputy and his wife, Lisa, who lived across the street, but that was because Terril helped keep her Mustang running.
    If she’d seen King Trahan before her visit to Red’s, she would not have forgotten. He was older than her by ten years at least, and she loved what age had done to his eyes, the way he looked at her, the things he said without speaking, the potency in his gaze that was frightening.
    He’d been sitting in the far corner, leaning back in the booth, both arms flung wide on the padded headrest, one long leg stretched out where anyone walking by could easily trip if the person wasn’t paying any mind.
    She could see it happening, someone caught by his full-of-bul shit-and-promises gaze and missing the big, bad challenge of his foot. She’d never been sure if it had been the shake of her head or the shimmer of her bra, but he’d slipped out of the seat and crossed the room with a roll of his hips that had left her needy and her mouth bone dry. They’d talked at the bar for hours, their heads close, their breath a single exhalation of air, their laughter tangled up like puzzle rings, their hands touching, fingers and wrists and palms, once a shoulder, then his to her neck.
    He’d walked her to her car, hovered over her when she’d stood with her back to the door, his forearms on the metal roof, where his fingers drummed. She’d wanted to pul his body flush to hers. She’d wanted to melt into his skin, to feel his weight, to measure the length and width of the erection she was certain he had; as wet as she was, how could he not be just as ready for her?
    It had seemed forever that they’d stood there like that, still and wondering and silent but for the need to breathe deeply and to stay. The moment had been magic, sex waiting, tension living, all in the air.
    Finally he’d stepped forward, moved his hands from the roof of the car to the button of her jeans. He’d opened her fly, put his hand in her panties, and she’d let him, just like she’d done in junior high with Robert Benton when they’d cut study hall to make out in the locker room.
    It was so much better this time. King was older and wiser and knew what to do. She’d dropped her head back, and as much as she’d wanted to close her eyes and do nothing but feel,