by Toni Blake
The assumption made her open her eyes a little wider. “Doesn’t it? I mean . . . a life is a life. No matter when it happened—it still matters. To me anyway.” She stopped, sighed. “You think I’m a goofball.”
“No, I actually think it’s . . . a real nice quality about you.”
She blinked. “That I’m a goofball?”
He let out a laugh. “No—that you . . . you have this ability to . . . what’s the word—empathize? You empathize with people. You get what they’re going through better than most people, I think. And that’s nice.”
She peeked up at him from beneath softly lowered eyelids, both shocked and pleased to learn he saw that in her.
“Now what’d you come out here for?” he asked her then. “I missed that part.”
“Oh—I was just going to . . . watch you fish or something. Since it’s such a nice night.” She gave her head a gentle, self-deprecating shake. Suddenly, she felt as vulnerable as Robert’s smile looked in the picture.
“Well, I’m done already and just carried my gear back up. Caught a few, too. And it’s getting dark anyway.” She nodded and he asked, “You ready to head back to the house?”
And she smiled. Just to be reminded that Duke was staying with her at the house again. And . . . maybe he would for a long while yet. Tessa’s words echoed in her ear. I thought I saw something special there.
Though Duke carried a string of four fish in one hand, he held Anna’s hand with the other as they walked. Maybe she was still emotional about seeing Robert’s picture or something, but she found herself savoring every moment, every step. It struck her that—whether or not your time with someone was limited, you should do that—soak it up, enjoy it for all it was worth, every day, every hour. And so she focused on little things like the warmth of his hand in hers. And the way she simply liked feeling him next to her as they decided to make the pizza tonight and grill the fish tomorrow. And how the walk through the lush, dark green forest as night fell was sweeter because she was sharing it with him.
And when they were about halfway up the path, Anna experienced the powerful compulsion to kiss him. So she stopped walking, released his hand, curled her fingers into his shoulders, and lifted her mouth passionately to his.
And there was no talking, from either of them—just heat.
At some point, Duke dropped the fish he carried. And then his hands were on her ass, through her shorts—and then inside the shorts. And all she knew was that she needed him in her, the same way his tongue was inside her mouth at the moment. She wanted it to make her forget every worry, every fear—for anyone. She wanted it to take away anything and everything but that moment.
They struggled out of their clothes, the noise of their labored breath adding to the cacophony of night sounds building around them. Darkness descended rapidly, but a sliver of moonlight angled through the trees to help her see his beautiful, hard-muscled body. She ran her palms down his chest, stomach—then took that hardest part of him into her hand.
A groan left him, but he tried to bury it at the nape of her neck, where he kissed her. And then his mouth was on her breast—kissing, sucking—and then he was lowering her to the ground with him.
Despite her past life as a city girl, Anna didn’t spare even a thought for what might be beneath her or around her in the dark as Duke parted her legs with his strong hands and lowered an openmouthed tongue kiss directly between her thighs. As the pleasure assaulted her, she closed her eyes, let her body move in the rhythm it wanted to, and felt like some kind of wild beast in the woods. Just as she’d once thought him.
But then she opened her eyes, caught sight of the moon up through the branches, then lowered her gaze to the man who was making her feel so good. She whispered his name—his real name. “David . . . oh God, David.” It was the first time she’d dared to call him that since they’d gotten back together and it hadn’t been a conscious decision; it had just happened.
In response, he looked up at her, and though it was hard to see each other’s eyes in the darkness, she felt the connection. Felt his fingers dig into her ass a little deeper, felt his ministrations go deeper as well. She cried out and gave herself over to the sensations completely—and the next thing she knew, she was whimpering and sobbing as a powerful orgasm rocked her from head to toe.
As he eased up over her body, kissing her breast, her neck, her mouth, this time she tasted the remnants of his affection on his lips, and she thrust her fingers into his hair and kissed him back for all she was worth. He made her feel wild, and free, and hungry for every adventure.
And then he was turning her body over, murmuring, “On your hands and knees, Daisy,” and she was happy to oblige, her knees digging into hard dirt for the best possible reason she could imagine.
“I’m gonna take you hard,” he rasped then, his hands exploring her back, hips, rear, all from behind.
“Please,” she managed to say through the harsh need spreading even more frantically through her now. “Please—hurry.”
The words extracted a low groan from him—just before he thrust his perfect erection inside her. Another cry escaped her throat as well. And as he moved in her that way, she thought it was the closest she’d ever come to experiencing heaven. The night was glorious, the air was sweet, the forest seemed to hold them, cradle them, surround them. And the man was . . . perfect. She never would have dreamed Duke Dawson could be her perfect man, but as she’d already learned so many times, life held a lot of surprises, and thank God this was one of the good ones.
When he came in her, she realized that—no, that was heaven. The sharing of that moment with him, of knowing she’d taken him there. As they gently collapsed to the forest floor, his arms closed around her waist and his kiss came on her shoulder.
She wanted to tell him she loved him; she almost needed for him to know. But even now she understood it was the sort of thing that might send Duke running, and . . . well, it just wasn’t the right time. She wasn’t sure when the right time would be, but it wasn’t now. Now was just about the heaven of it all.
As they put their clothes back on, she heard a distant noise, the shushing of a bush or tree branches. And she assumed it was a deer until she was zipping her shorts and Duke said, “Shhh—hear that?” The sound came again. Something large in the woods. And closer now than before.
They stayed still, frozen in place—and then the beam of a flashlight moved past them, and she heard the voice of her oldest brother. “Somebody back here?”
Trying to hold in her gasp, she looked to Duke and whispered, “Mike!”
“Shit,” he murmured. Then his breath was on her ear, his voice barely audible. “You don’t want him to find out about us, right?”
Anna’s heart beat a mile a minute. She knew Duke still wanted his presence here to be a secret. And if Mike were to find out about them, this wouldn’t be the ideal way. “Not like this,” she replied.
Then he wrapped her hand in his and said, “Come on—let’s get outta here, Daisy.” And they took off running through the woods in the dark, and Anna had no idea where they were going, but she didn’t even care.
“We must make ourselves as invisible as possible.”
Gaston Leroux, The Phantom of the Opera
Twenty-two
Duke led Anna toward the only place he could think of to get away from her brother right now—they ran hand in hand toward the edge of the lake. As they burst from the trees into the clearing on the bank, he flipped over the old rowboat that rested on the grass facedown and pushed it into the water.
“Um, are you sure this thing is seaworthy?” she asked, voice low.
“Yep, been in it a time or two,” he said, stepping down inside, then reaching a hand up to her. “Come on, Daisy.”
The boat wobbled as she entered, but she quickly sat down, allowing Duke to begin rowing away from shore. And he said what he thought she was probably thinking. “This can’t be the same one from your diary. It’s old, but not that old.
”
“And it’s aluminum,” Anna said. “Cathy and Robert’s was wooden.”
“There was even an old tarp covering this when I first found it. Your Cathy must have bought a new one at some point.”
He was surprised the speculation made Anna smile. “Maybe that means she wasn’t alone in the house, that Robert was with her and they shared the boat.”
He simply smiled. Just like his Daisy to get all caught up in somebody else’s adventure.
But then it was she who laughed a little—and then covered her mouth, clearly worried the noise would carry.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
“That was kind of . . . fun,” she said. “Racing away through the woods. I feel bad in a way, of course—he’s my brother and all. But it felt . . . exciting. And kind of forbidden.”
Duke couldn’t deny feeling the same way. Maybe not as much as Anna, but it struck him that of all the times he’d been on the run from somebody, this was probably the only such occurrence in his life that had been . . . fun, like she’d said. And so he gave her a grin and told her, “Yeah—it did.”
Then, all caught up in the night, he tilted his head, stopped rowing—because they were already far enough away now, and had gone around a little bend that would keep them out of sight even if Mike came to the shore—and said, “Anything else excite you tonight, Daisy?”
The soft moonlight allowed him to see the sexy look in her eyes as she said, breathily, “What we did in the woods.”
Duke still felt that, too, and the memory made his groin tighten again slightly. “That was hot, wasn’t it?” And actually, it had been more than hot—but he didn’t want to think about the more part now, or have to start labeling it, so he just left it at that.
“Probably the hottest sex of my life,” she said. Then added, “Except maybe for . . . other times with you. With you it’s just . . . always hot.”
Which was when Duke abandoned the oars altogether and leaned over to kiss her. And he’d always liked kissing Anna, but something about it right now felt different. More powerful, intense. And before he knew it, he’d laid her down in the boat, both of them stretched out side by side, just continuing to kiss that way.
As they made out, Anna’s hands roamed his arms, his chest, his face. And then he felt one fingertip very deliberately tracing the jagged scar on his cheek.
It caught him off guard. She’d never done that before. And yet something in the touch was so . . . tender. It made him stop kissing her and their eyes met, and she did it again—she traced his scar, slowly, from top to bottom.
“Does it bother you?” he heard himself ask. “It’s okay if it does—you can be honest. I know it’s . . . ugly.”
And the look in her eyes was like . . . damn—even in the dark of night, it felt like the warmth of the sun. “God, no,” she whispered. “It’s just . . . you. Part of you. I don’t even think about it or really see it anymore. I just felt it beneath my fingertips is all. And found myself wishing I could take away the reason you have it . . . so that you could be happier.”
“Maybe . . . maybe I’m getting that way,” he told her.
And as they floated along beneath the half moon shining down on them, they simply kissed, and kissed, and kissed.
About an hour after leaving, Duke rowed them back to shore and listened to make sure all was quiet in the woods, soon deciding Mike had long since given up and headed home.
He walked Anna to the house, where he got a flashlight before heading back out to look for the fish he’d dropped. Animals had probably taken them by now, but he’d had the luck of catching three big bass and a bluegill and decided it was worth it to check. He’d gone fishing with his grandpa a lot as a boy, and catching big bass in the pond on his grandfather’s farm was one of his better childhood memories—along with watching his grandma fry them up in a skillet for dinner.
He shone the light on the path and to either side as he walked, but had no luck. Damn. And before he knew it, he’d arrived back at the cabin.
He was about to start back when he thought of the picture of the boy in the rowboat inside. He wondered if maybe Anna would like to have it since it seemed to mean so much to her. Maybe she’d like to keep it with the diaries and other belongings of the girl.
He opened the door, using the flashlight to show him the way—when another bright beam lit on his face, practically blinding him. “Hold it right there,” Mike Romo said.
Well, shit. Duke held still, as commanded.
“I’m a police officer,” Mike said, “and this is private property, so I’m gonna have to ask what you’re doing here.”
Duke still couldn’t see a damn thing, even now holding his arm in front of him to try to blot out the harsh light. “Damn it, Mike, it’s me,” he said. “Duke Dawson.”
He sensed Mike’s flinch. “Duke?” Then he could make out Mike shaking his head. “You don’t look like yourself, man.”
“Got a haircut. Shaved my beard.” And got a bad scar now. But if Anna didn’t see it, if she really didn’t . . . well, maybe it didn’t matter as much as he’d thought.
Mike looked closer, but when Duke said, “You mind getting that light out of my eyes?” Mike lowered the flashlight—allowing Duke to walk over to his propane lamp and turn it on so that a low glow lit the space. There, that was better.
He turned back to find Mike seated comfortably at his kitchen table in his police uniform, where he must have been waiting quietly all this time. Talk about tenacious.
Now for the tricky part.
“So what are you doing out here in the woods, Duke?”
That was a damn good question. As good as it had been when Anna had first asked him—only he knew Mike wouldn’t let him off without giving a real answer. He and Mike shared a quiet respect for each other, and they’d even gone through a pretty tight scrape together a couple of years ago involving Lucky—but that didn’t mean Mike trusted him or would cut him any slack.
“I’ve been staying out here.”
“I saw the bike outside.” Damn, he’d forgotten about that—he’d recently parked it behind the cabin like he used to—just to get it away from Anna’s house. The road didn’t get much traffic, but it had just seemed like a good idea. “Thought you went to Indiana.”
Like when Lucky had asked, Duke just said, “Didn’t work out. So I came back.”
Mike raised his eyebrows, his expression rife with doubt. “And decided to live in a ramshackle old place in the middle of nowhere?”
“Needed some breathing room,” Duke told him. “Some fresh air.”
“There’s not even running water,” Mike pointed out.
“I’m not picky.”
“Did you know this place is on private property?”
Duke noticed Mike didn’t point out that it was Anna’s property. Probably didn’t want Duke to know that if he didn’t already. In case Duke got in the mood to go raping and pillaging, he guessed. “No,” he said. Since he actually hadn’t when he first picked the place—he hadn’t been in a state of mind to even wonder about it back then.
“Neighbor reported somebody lurking around out here,” Mike explained.
“Didn’t know there were any neighbors that close.” Which was one reason he’d thought he’d have privacy here in the first place. But then, Anna had proved him wrong on that a couple of months ago.
“An older lady up the road. Likes to take walks in the woods occasionally, do some bird watching.”
Duke said nothing in response, only nodded.
“Who were you with earlier?”
Duke flinched slightly, but hoped he could play it off. “Nobody out here but me and the birds. Why?”
“When I first got up here about an hour and a half ago, coulda sworn I heard voices. Who were you talking to?”
“Like I said, nobody.”
Mike just sat there staring him down, obviously not believing him. But he wasn’t gonna give Anna away. Mike would surely freak out if h
e knew Anna was seeing Duke—but it would be even worse if he found out they were running around the woods together in the dark, and he figured it was possible Mike had heard them having sex, too.
Finally Mike said, “You doing anything out here you shouldn’t be, Duke?”
Duke cocked his head sideways. “Like what?”
“I don’t know—a man with your background could be into about anything. Running drugs, or guns maybe?”
Despite himself, it pissed Duke off. Given their mutual respect, not to mention his connection to Lucky, it surprised him that Mike would bring up Duke’s long-ago past and use it this way. “You see any guns? Any drugs?” Duke held up his hands to motion around him. “Feel free to search the place if you haven’t already.”
“I have,” Mike confirmed. “And I didn’t find anything—but I still don’t quite know what you’re up to out here.”
“Fishing and sleeping mostly,” he said, though he knew his expression had likely hardened at Mike’s accusation.
Finally, Mike stood up, clearly preparing to go. About damn time. “I guess you’re off the hook for now, and I won’t make you clear out just yet, but fair warning—whatever you’re doing out here, you oughta think about moving on.”
Duke stood waiting for Mike to go, glad when the door finally shut behind him.
Damn. Mike knew he was in town now—which meant it was no longer a secret. And Mike would probably be keeping a tight watch around here after this, especially given how close the cabin was to Anna’s house. Man, if you only knew how close I am to your sister. You’d probably have me arrested. Suddenly his place to hide himself away—not only the cabin, but Anna’s place—felt a lot less private.
Turning off the lamp, he stepped back out into the night, closed the door behind him, and leaned back against it until he heard the slam of a car door from the direction of the road, then listened as Mike drove away.