It never even occurred to Nick that he could have that. Good thing, too, because he’d never met anyone he could feel about the way Jake felt about Marja.
But just suppose…he eyed the car in front of him, which Charity was driving just a little too fast for her ability and her tires. It was just like her—flares of unexpected fire under a soft, unassuming exterior.
Suppose he settled down? And just suppose he settled down with Charity? Living with that beautiful woman in that beautiful house in a pretty, peaceful town.
Nick waited for the feeling of constriction, of claustrophobia that always took him when he thought of settling down. It wasn’t coming.
Charity zipped down her street and pulled too fast into her driveway. Nick gritted his teeth and parked right on her back fender. If she wanted to get out again, she was going to have to ask him. And as far as he was concerned, she wasn’t getting her hands on another steering wheel until the weather cleared.
He was at her door before she could get out, hand outstretched. “You drive way too fast,” he complained. Damn, that sounded like a whine in his voice.
She laughed up in his face and poked him in the ribs. “And you drive way too slow. Boring. You might as well be driving a Fairlane instead of that beautiful car.”
Nick had worked as a development test driver for a car manufacturer one summer. Once he’d gotten a racing car up to 175 miles an hour on the straightaway.
He smiled down at her. “I guess I’ll just have to work on my driving skills.”
Nine
Parker’s Ridge
Midnight, November 20
“More?” Nick whispered into Charity’s ear Sunday night. From behind her, he shifted a damp lock of her hair to one side and licked the skin just behind her ear. She shivered.
More? Good God, he was buried so deeply inside her it almost—but not quite—hurt. How on earth could she want more? More of anything he could give her?
She was already completely his, completely in his grip. He was arched around her back, one muscled thigh between hers, opening her up. One hand held her breast, the other was holding her labia open around his penis.
“This feels so good, I don’t even want to move,” he murmured, his lips so close to her ear she could both hear his voice and feel the vibrations in his chest against her back. “But maybe—” the hand at her groin moved, opened her even farther, “maybe you want more.”
His hips tightened against hers and, impossibly, he slid in a little farther, to a place deep inside herself she had no idea existed.
Heat blazed from her groin and she could feel herself getting wetter by the second, just from having him there, inside her, hot and heavy and unmoving. So still she could have sworn he wasn’t even breathing.
Everything about this was a delight. His big, strong hands, powerful yet delicate. Capable of touching her just so. His chest hairs tickling her back, the rough hairs at his groin scratchy against her bottom. The strong, hair-roughened legs against hers. And of course, the biggie. Literally. His penis buried in her to the hilt.
She closed her eyes as her body spasmed helplessly around him. He reacted instantly, growing even longer and thicker inside her in the space of a heartbeat.
More. He’d asked her if she wanted more and was giving it to her. She hadn’t answered him, but her body had. And his had responded.
He withdrew, just a little, the friction against the walls of her sheath like painless fire, then moved back in. Oh God, she was starting that delicious slide into orgasm already. How did he do it?
She’d always been so slow to climax. A lover or two had even complained about it. She wasn’t slow now. All Nick had to do was touch her, enter her, and she was primed to go off.
Nick started slow, languid pulls and thrusts, lazy and leisurely, his chin nestling against her shoulder. Breathing relaxed and deep. Heart thumping hard and slow against her back. Muscles hard but not tense.
Experience told her that he was settling in for the long haul and could keep this up for hours. Recent experience. A lot of it.
She couldn’t keep it up for hours, though. No, in an instant her heart started racing, heat prickled in her veins, everywhere he touched her, inside her vagina, against her back. The musky smell of sex clouded the air. She was starting the slide…
The phone rang.
Nick stopped for a moment on the outstroke and Charity wanted to scream. So close, she was so close! She needed him back inside her, now. A whimper escaped her. Her thighs shook. She tightened around him and felt an answering surge.
The phone rang again. Nick was still, unmoving. What was he waiting for? His penis was barely in her, at her entrance and her sheath contracted sharply, anxious for him to fill her again.
The phone rang again.
It was just far enough away so that she couldn’t stretch out and turn the handset off. If she reached for it, she would pull away from Nick’s penis. Unthinkable.
The phone rang again.
Her heart pounded, her lungs felt tight. She was shaking all over now. So close. She was so damned close—
Her eye happened to fall on the big clock on her dresser drawer. Twelve fifteen. Past midnight. Who on earth—
Suddenly, reality crashed in on Charity, chilling her.
The only person who would call her at that hour was Uncle Franklin. And there could only be one reason to call. He needed her.
Charity moved, pulling away entirely from Nick’s penis, worry rising in her like a dark tide, so overwhelming she didn’t even have time to mourn leaving his embrace.
“Sorry,” she gasped and lunged for the cordless handset. “I have to get this.” How long had it been ringing? Was she too late?
“Hello?” Her voice sounded breathless to her own ears.
“Charity?” Uncle Franklin’s soft, quavering voice sounded dim, as if he were speaking from the bottom of a well. Her anxiety ratcheted up a notch.
“Uncle Franklin? What’s wrong?”
Holding the handset between her ear and her shoulder, Charity scrambled to get dressed. Whatever had happened was bad. She needed her clothes for this. Panties—where Nick had thrown them in a corner. Pants—over a chair. Sweater—at the foot of the bed.
“Your aunt, honey. She’s gone. I don’t…” Uncle Franklin’s shaking voice drifted off, the last word said away from the phone.
“Uncle Franklin!” Charity’s voice was sharp with worry. “Where? Where has Aunt Vera gone?”
Silence.
Desperately hopping on one leg to pull on her pants, Charity spared a second to look out the bedroom window at the heavy sheets of snow falling from the sky. A delight while in bed with your secret lover. A nightmare for an elderly and confused woman.
Uncle Franklin’s voice came back, a little stronger. “I’m sorry, honey. I thought I saw her out the window, but I was mistaken.”
“How long has she been gone?” Boots. Charity looked around frantically for boots. She dived for the closet and pulled out a pair of waterproof boots, shaking with urgency.
“I-I d-don’t know.” Uncle Franklin’s voice shook so badly she could barely understand him. “I woke up and wanted a drink of water. But I’d forgotten to put my usual water bottle on my bedside table because we had a leak in the downstairs bathroom and I had to call in a plumber, and by the time he left, it was time for dinner and I just completely forgot.”
He could keep this up forever. For an instant, Charity mourned the Uncle Franklin she’d known all her life. Judge Franklin Prewitt, sharp-minded, sharp-tongued. Steely intelligence wrapped up in a take-no-nonsense demeanor; a rapier wit, which he often flashed in court. Woe betide the defense attorney who hadn’t done his homework. He’d leave the courtroom with his hide in strips.
She saw that man less and less.
And Aunt Vera—elegant, ironic, well-read. Devotee of chamber music and the theater. Who read Rimbaud in French and Isabel Allende in Spanish. That Aunt Vera was gone forever.
“I’ll g-go outside and l-look for her—”
“No!” Charity said sharply. God, the last thing she needed was for Uncle Franklin to get lost in the snow, too. “You stay put, now. I’m coming right over.”
She clicked off so he wouldn’t have time to protest. It was entirely possible that Aunt Vera was in the basement or had wandered into the cellar. It wouldn’t be the first time.
Charity yanked out her down parka from the closet, rattling the hanger, and turned around with a heavy heart.
Through the haze of anxiety, she could still feel Nick inside her, that warm column of hard flesh making her glow with heat, his large hands gripping her, the feel of him hard against her back. The signs of sex were still in her body—her panties were damp, her supersensitized nipples grazed the sweater she’d pulled on—yet her body already felt bereft, lost and cold without him.
This might actually be the breaking point. When Nick decided she was more trouble than she was worth. There was no time to explain that she had to rush off, that it was her duty. He’d have every right to be annoyed. Bed partners aren’t supposed to disappear in the middle of the night. Certainly not in the middle of making love.
He was too good to be true, anyway. Maybe the sooner he left, the better, before she started hoping—
Zipping up the parka, she turned her head toward him as she rushed to the door. “Nick, I’m sorry, I really am, but I have to—”
But he wasn’t on the bed. He wasn’t anywhere in the room. Oh, heavens—had he somehow left while she’d been fumbling in the dark? Wouldn’t he have at least said good-bye?
She switched on the overhead light and there he was, fully dressed, waiting by the front door. Oh God, he was going.
“Nick, I’m really sorry, but my aunt Vera is missing and I have to leave. Believe me I wouldn’t go unless I had to.” She swallowed heavily. “But, wouldn’t you like to stay the night? I might not be too long.”
Just the thought of coming back to an empty house made her heart clench.
He didn’t answer, just opened the door. “Let’s go, Charity.” He had a grim expression which she couldn’t decipher. She was in a hurry, but she stopped when she saw his face. Was that anger? No, not anger. But what was it?
“Go?”
Snow was already accumulating in the foyer through the open door. “I’m not letting you drive in this weather. You can tell me all about this in the car. Now move.”
Charity started at his tone. “But—” She was talking to the empty air. He’d disappeared into a white swirl.
Charity locked up and followed Nick as fast as she could over the slick ice-covered path down to the street where Nick’s car was parked. What a nightmare of a night.
Her heart squeezed and she prayed to the god of good, elderly women that Aunt Vera had simply wandered into the basement or the garage.
It felt like forever but was probably only a minute before the shiny black fender of the Lexus appeared between sheets of snow.
It looked like they were taking Nick’s car. This was good news and bad news. His car was undoubtedly better equipped to deal with bad weather than hers. It was powerful and would hold the road much better than hers. That was the good news. The bad news was that Nick was a poky driver, overly cautious. Charity wanted to get to her uncle’s house as fast as possible and Nick was guaranteed to take forever getting there.
In good weather it was a twenty-minute drive. In bad weather forty minutes. Nick, slow, careful driver that he was, could take almost an hour. In that hour, Aunt Vera could die.
Nick was behind the wheel, the engine running, windshield wipers clacking back and forth, passenger door open. Charity poked her head down.
“Nick, um, do you want me to drive? I know the way and—”
“No,” he answered curtly, jaws clenched.
“But—”
“Get in. Fast.” There was real command in his voice, flat and imperative. “Now, Charity.” He glanced at her briefly. One look was enough.
Charity instinctively obeyed, scrambling into the passenger seat as fast as she could. The powerful engine idled, the vibrations a low hum of power under her. It was like sitting on a tiger in the instant before it leaped.
“Buckle up.” Charity turned her head. Nick’s face was completely impassive, devoid of all expression. She was so disoriented and frightened she’d forgotten to buckle her seat belt. Driving in a snowstorm without a seat belt was just asking for trouble.
“Tell me where we’re going.” Nick’s tone was flat, remote.
“Ferrington. It’s a small town about fifteen miles—”
“I know where Ferrington is. Hold on.”
Hold on? Charity reached for the pull-down handle over the door, wondering why she had to hold on, when the car suddenly shot forward violently, pressing her against the seat back like an astronaut during liftoff. In a second, it seemed, they were at the end of her street, still—amazingly—alive. A miracle considering she’d never dared to drive this fast on a sunny, dry day, and she was a woman who liked her speed.
On icy roads and in the middle of a snowstorm, this speed was suicidal.
A scream vibrated in her throat and she clamped her lips shut. A scream might distract Nick and that could prove fatal at this speed, in this weather. One wrong move and they’d die.
Nick continued gunning the big, heavy car, somehow knowing the next corner was near, though it was almost impossible to see past the white flurries. You could only see the road ahead in fleeting moments when the curtain of snow parted for only the briefest of instants. The Lexus was shooting ahead at an impossible speed, rounding the corner onto Wingate inside a couple of seconds. She clamped her lips shut against a scream. They were sliding wildly out of control….
No.
Not sliding out of control. The car straightened and remained steady on the road, traveling much too fast, but in a straight line.
Braced to die, Charity finally pulled in a deep breath, her first in what felt like forever. Nick was driving so fast it terrified her, but he seemed to be in total control. Just when she thought they’d crash into a van parked on the street or would climb onto the sidewalk and hit a tree, Nick somehow righted the car without braking. He seemed to have a sixth sense for what the car could do on the icy roads and pushed it to those limits and never an inch further.
“What’s in Ferrington and why are we going there?” Nick’s voice was utterly calm as he corrected for a skid the instant the wheels slid under them. Thank God there were no other lunatics on the road other than them, or they’d already be dead. Charity braced herself as they whizzed around another corner and Nick took what she recognized as a smart shortcut to Ferrington.
She had to remember to breathe, transfixed by the bright columns of the headlights creating two yellow tunnels in the white nightmare.
He’d asked something….
Charity had been staring at the road ahead, ready to shout useless instructions to Nick. At the sound of his calm voice, she turned and watched him for a second—steady, in complete control—and relaxed a tiny bit, just enough to gather her thoughts.
“My aunt and uncle live in Ferrington, or rather in the country outside town. They’re elderly. My uncle called to say that my aunt is missing. He can’t find her anywhere.”
“How elderly?”
“Uncle Franklin is eighty-seven and Aunt Vera is eighty-four.”
A muscle jumped in his jaw. “So you’re telling me that an eighty-four-year old woman might be out in this weather?”
Impossibly, the car picked up a little more speed while Charity’s heart leaped into her throat.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Aunt Vera gets a little, um, confused at times.”
This was so hard. Uncle Franklin refused to accept even the idea that his beloved wife was deteriorating mentally. Each time something happened, he would put it down to her having the flu or to not having slept well or having accidentally forgotten something. He refused to ackno
wledge her failing mental health to the outside world, to her, and—perhaps most tragically—to himself.
It was why he called Charity instead of the police when his wife disappeared in a snowstorm. In this case, Charity understood. He was probably right. Ferrington’s police force consisted of an overweight county sheriff who drank and lived twenty miles away. His clueless, borderline retarded deputy would be of even less help. Sheriff Hodgkins could never find Aunt Vera, not in a million years. He could barely find his way home after a night on the town.
And by the time Uncle Franklin got through to the Highway Patrol or some law enforcement authority that could actually be effective, hours would have passed and Aunt Vera could die.
“Confused, how?” Nick didn’t look over at her but she could feel his attention on her like a hand touching her.
Confused, how? Very good question. Uncle Franklin would be devastated if she gave too much away. What was happening to his wife was eating him alive. He didn’t want Aunt Vera exposed to criticism or ridicule. “She, um, sleepwalks. Sometimes.”
“Sometimes? How often?”
More and more lately. “Some. I think that’s what must have happened tonight. Uncle Franklin woke up and she wasn’t there. I’m really hoping that she didn’t go outside in this weather. Once we found her in the basement. Another time she’d, um, climbed up into the attic. He needs me to help look because his knees aren’t very good and the stairs down to the basement and up to the attic are very steep.”
He was frowning. “Doesn’t she trip the alarm when she leaves the house?”
“Um.” She took in a deep breath. “The house isn’t alarmed.”
“Jesus.” The frown was deeper, deep grooves between his eyebrows. Heavens, even his eyebrows were gorgeous—thick, black, finely arched. God, how could he be so impossibly good-looking even while frowning and driving a billion miles an hour over ice? And how could she even notice it when she was terrified for Aunt Vera and, frankly, for herself, whizzing at insane speeds on icy roads?
The Dangerous Boxed Set Page 10