After what seemed like hours, he found a deserted farmhouse, its roof torn open to the sky. He’d found a tattered blanket, spread it on the dirt floor. And he’d held Cybele in his arms through the night, praying she wasn’t injured more seriously than he’d thought, praying for Joe. Praying Joe had gotten away, praying for his soul, praying that he, Charles, would never have to do what he suspected Joe had done—fire that single shot and put an end to a good friend’s suffering.
Tom was home.
He’d been home for an hour.
Kelly had been on the balcony when he’d pulled the van into the driveway. She’d watched as he’d parked alongside the garage, watched as he’d climbed out.
She’d watched as he went into Joe’s cottage without even a glance up toward her windows.
She’d watched the light go on in his bedroom, watched it go out.
And still he didn’t come.
He didn’t want to talk to her. He’d rather stay away.
Kelly turned off her own light and climbed into bed.
She refused to be so pathetic as to cry herself to sleep.
So she didn’t go to sleep.
They were supposed to be taking pictures.
But David couldn’t bring himself to stop kissing Mallory.
They were standing in his apartment, both nearly naked, and the sensation of her fabulous body pressed so tightly against his was mind-blowing. Her breasts against his chest, her thighs against his, the softness of her stomach against his arousal, the silkiness of her skin beneath his hands.
Breathing hard, he pulled back from her. Or at least he meant to pull back from her. Somehow his hand got tangled in the string of her bathing suit top.
It was completely, entirely unintentional, but as he pulled, the string untied, and . . .
It had been tied so tightly that, with the bow gone, the knot slipped free. One second she was wearing the top of the bikini, and the next she wasn’t. The next she was standing in front of him, completely bare breasted.
As a twenty-year-old heterosexual man, David had a natural affinity for breasts. He enjoyed them immensely, whether covered by a T-shirt or a sweater or a bathing suit. Breasts were like a happy, pleasurable living party. They were a blast of loud, pulse-racing salsa music in the otherwise too-solemn dirge of life.
Mallory’s breasts were all that and more. So much more. She was beyond beautiful, with large rosy pink tips and milky white skin.
“Oh, God,” David said. “I’m sorry, I’m—”
“I’m not.” She didn’t move to cover herself. In fact, she reached up and untied the second string that was around her back. “This suit’s too small. It’s really uncomfortable.”
She wasn’t as matter-of-fact about this as she was pretending to be. David saw uncertainty and a trace of something else—fear, maybe—in her eyes. As if she wasn’t sure he’d like what he saw.
Was she nuts? “How could you not know how beautiful you are?” he whispered. He touched her. He couldn’t stop himself from filling his hands with her, from leaning down and tasting her. “Don’t you know what you do to me?”
He suckled harder, and she gasped, pulling him closer, her arms around him, her legs opening to him, the soft, sweet inside of her thigh against his.
He couldn’t believe this was real, that this was truly happening. Slow down, he warned himself. Don’t push her too far. Don’t assume this means she wants to go all the way. Don’t make that choice for her. Be ready for her to change her mind.
But she put her mouth close to his ear. “You know, I do know.”
He lifted his head. “What?”
“I know what I do to you.” Mallory smiled at him wickedly. She pulled apart from him slightly and pointed down between them and . . .
His skimpy bathing suit no longer covered him. There he was, in all his dubious glory, emerging from the top of the suit. He quickly reached down to tug up the suit, but that didn’t help. The suit was too little and he was too aroused. “Oh, God, I’m sorry, I’m—”
“Can I touch you?”
She was serious. She was actually asking if she could . . .
David nodded. He couldn’t speak.
She reached out with one finger. One finger. Yet it was almost enough to make him lose it as she lightly ran it down his entire length.
“Whoa,” she said. She did it again. “You ever, um, used this thing before?”
He found his voice at that. “If you’re asking if I’m a virgin, the answer is no. Believe it or not, I’ve done this before.”
“Hey, I didn’t mean to imply that you hadn’t or insult you in any way.” She touched him again.
David couldn’t stand it. He kissed her, pulling her close, pressing her hand fully against him as he filled his own hand with her breast. Filled to overflow . . . He remembered the first time he’d spoken to her. If someone had told him then that he’d be doing this now . . . He laughed aloud.
She wasn’t done with her questions. “So who was she?”
“No one.” He kissed her again. This was so not what he wanted to discuss right now.
Mallory pulled her mouth away from his again. “She had to have a name.”
“It was Janice.” David looked down at her and knew she wasn’t going to stop asking until she got the entire story. So he told her. “She was Brandon’s girlfriend back in high school. The summer after freshman year of college, she used me to try to make him jealous. It didn’t work.” The only one who ended up getting hurt was him.
And Mallory somehow knew. “That really must’ve sucked. Did you love her?”
He looked into the softness of her eyes and told her the truth that he’d never told Bran, never told Janice. “Yeah.”
“I’m sorry.” She nodded, so serious. “Yeah, I didn’t think you’d do it with someone you didn’t, you know, love.”
He had to be honest with her. “Mal, I’m a guy. There’ve been times when if I could have—”
“But did you?”
“No. I didn’t exactly have the opportunity.”
“So how do you know,” she asked, “if you really would’ve done it?”
That was a good point.
“This Janice bitch,” she said. “You know, honestly, I’m not sorry she didn’t love you, too. Because then where would I be? In love with some guy who’s already got a girlfriend.”
David couldn’t breathe. Did she just say in love with? . . .
Mal tried to hold his gaze, her chin at a challenging angle, but she couldn’t do it. She looked away from him, briefly closing her eyes. “Say something, David. Don’t leave me hanging here like this.”
He pulled her chin up so she had to look at him. “You love me?” His voice cracked, but he didn’t give a damn.
She shrugged, her movement pure Mallory. “What? You didn’t think I’d want to do it with someone I didn’t love, did you?”
Do it. She wanted to do it. Desire crashed into him, making his bathing suit even more ridiculously useless.
He was speechless again for just a little too long, and uncertainty crept back into her eyes. “I mean,” she said, “that’s assuming we’re going to . . . you know. Do it.”
And David knew. His entire life had been leading up to this very moment, this one night. Mallory loved him. She wanted him. He wanted to cry.
Instead, he took her hand and pulled her toward his bed. “I love you, too,” he told her, fighting to get the words past the emotion that clogged his throat.
She kissed him, slowing them down. “I know,” she said. “I mean, I hoped you did. . . .”
“I fell in love with you that day I first came to the Ice Cream Shoppe,” he admitted. “I remember the moment I knew. It was when you told me to fuck off.”
She laughed. “What?”
“You didn’t really mean it. Well, maybe you did, but you said it to be funny, and I realized right at that moment that you had a wicked sense of humor and I . . . I fell in love with you.”
/> He couldn’t wait another second, and he picked her up to take her the last few steps to his bed.
“Oh, my God,” she said, clinging to him, “we’re going to get oil on the sheets!”
“Do I look like I care?”
She looked down at his bathing suit and laughed again. “Um, no?”
He kissed her as he sank back with her on the bed, ready to take his time. He wanted to worship her, make love to her reverently, explore every inch of her body with his eyes and his mouth and his fingers.
But she was in a hurry, tugging at his swimsuit, freeing him from its elastic confines. She struggled to get her own suit down her legs.
He helped her, and then they were naked. Both of them. In his bed. David laughed. He couldn’t help himself. This was too good, too amazing, too damned wonderful.
“Do you have a condom?”
He stopped laughing. Oh, doom. He didn’t. He wasn’t at all prepared for this. “No. Mal, I never dreamed—”
“I did,” she told him. “I dreamed. And I stopped at the drugstore on my way over tonight.” She pointed to her bag, over by the kitchen table. “Would you mind? They should be on the top.”
No, he so didn’t mind. He pushed himself off the bed and found a box—an entire box!—of condoms. He tore the outer plastic, tore the little foil wrapper.
Mallory had pulled his sheet up over her body—how funny that she was so modest—and now she watched him cover himself.
But no sooner was he done than the sheet was off. She pulled him down alongside her and kissed him, long and strong and sweet.
He would’ve been happy just to kiss her all night, but she was the one who urged him on. “Please, David . . .”
He’d been certain she would prefer to be on top, to take control, but she didn’t seem to want that. So he shifted on top of her, gently pushing himself between her legs. She opened for him and he touched her with his fingers. She was so smooth, like satin.
Like heaven.
He couldn’t wait. He pushed against her, sliding slowly into her, and then—
That was strange.
He pushed again, but he couldn’t go any farther. It was as if he’d hit a barrier.
He pushed a little harder—resistance. Definitely resistance.
What the hell? . . . And then he knew. Realization dawned.
“Mal?” His voice shook.
She opened her eyes and looked up at him and he saw the truth. He was right.
Oh, God.
“You’re a virgin.” Even though he said it, even though he could feel her tight around him, he didn’t quite comprehend it. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Why didn’t you ask?”
He’d assumed she was experienced. With her attitude and that body, he’d believed . . . And she knew what he’d believed. God, he was a jerk.
“You love me, David.” She searched his eyes. “Right?”
He nodded, scared to death, humbled, ashamed, exhilarated. “I don’t know if I can do this. The thought of hurting you, even just a little . . .” He truly didn’t want to hurt her, but the idea that he was the first—ever, only, because there was only one first time—was a total turn-on. She, Mallory, had chosen him, David. She could have had anyone, anyone, but she’d wanted him. And he wanted her, now, more than ever.
He moved inside of her, just the little bit he could.
“Tell me you love me,” she whispered. “Please, David?”
“Oh, Nightshade, I do love you,” he breathed. “With all my heart.”
He kissed her mouth, her face, her breasts until the room spun around him, until his need and his passion for her outweighed his fear, and then he thrust, hard and deep.
He felt the resistance give, heard her cry out, and he held her tightly, buried impossibly deep inside her.
He was trembling as much as she was. More.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “Because I’m okay. I’m really okay.”
He lifted his head to look into her eyes. “Are you sure?”
She smiled tremulously, then kissed him, raising her hips and pushing him even more deeply inside of her. “Is this what I’m supposed to do?”
God, yes.
David moved with her. Slowly at first, then faster. He kissed her, touched her, loved her. Loved her. For her first time.
It was amazing—knowing, absolutely, that she loved him, too.
David could see the rest of his life, stretching out in front of him, a perfect, endless comic strip of laughter and song. And Mallory was there beside him, in every frame.
He felt her release, felt her cling to him as she exploded. It was all he’d been waiting for, and he crashed into her with such a surge of pleasure, his eyes teared.
“Oh, David, thank you,” she breathed.
She was thanking him.
David couldn’t speak for fear she’d know he was crying.
But then she used the sheet to wipe her face, and he knew. Tough-as-nails Mallory was crying, too.
Because she wasn’t tough as nails. She was soft and sweet. She was a total romantic—who had saved herself for love.
Charles was in pain.
It was enough to wake him up. Enough to bring tears to his eyes and keep him doubled over and gasping. Enough to make him grab the bottle of pills on his bedside table, to shake more than one into his hand and swallow them down with the glass of now warm water that was sitting there.
He also grabbed the phone. He clung both to it and to the knowledge that his daughter was just a speed-dialed phone call away as he waited for the pills to work.
He hated needing her. He hated needing anyone.
But it would take a while for the pills to kick in.
He groaned aloud. Maybe this was it. Maybe he was dying. Right now. Tonight.
He almost dialed the phone, but then he remembered. Kelly and Tom. Tom and Kelly. She’d invited young Paoletti to her room tonight. He was probably there right now.
Charles saw the way they looked at each other. Tom was definitely there right now.
More reason to call her. Stop them from going past the point of no return, from falling in love. It was so obvious they were dead wrong for each other. Either that, or they were a perfect match. Charles couldn’t decide, couldn’t deny that he both wanted them to marry and wanted them to run as fast and as far from each other as they possibly could.
Although, if they married, Charles wouldn’t have to worry about Joe.
The pain grabbed him again. Christ. He clutched the phone. Joe. He could call Joe.
Yes, he could always count on Joe. Joe had been there for him, loyal and true, for an entire lifetime. Joe had forgiven him for all his indiscretions. All of ’em.
Charles was the one who had never truly been able to forgive Joe.
Or Cybele.
Cybele. He closed his eyes, praying for the pills to start working, trying to help along that drifting, free-from-pain feeling by remembering Cybele as she was in the sunlight.
He’d seen her far too infrequently in the light of day.
But that one day, that one bright, golden summer day, she’d belonged to him and he’d belonged to her—in the sunlight.
It was the morning after the explosion gone wrong.
Dawn had come and gone by the time Charles awoke, still exhausted, still in pain, still afraid of being discovered by the Germans.
He opened his eyes and saw the late-morning sunlight playing across the charred beams of the ruined farmhouse. He felt Cybele stir beside him and . . .
Cybele.
He’d been sleeping with his arms around her, her back to his front, his leg beneath hers, her head tucked beneath his chin, his hand possessively on her breast.
She turned now to look up at him as he gazed down at her.
He moved his hand, smiling weakly. “Sorry.”
She didn’t smile back. She just looked at him.
“Are you all right?” He asked it twice, once in English, once in his p
athetic French.
She nodded as she pushed herself up, but then she sank back down, holding her head with both hands as if trying to keep it all in one piece. “Where are we?”
He immediately missed the warm intimacy of her body next to his. “Well, I’ve narrowed it down to . . . France.”
He wished he had water to offer her, but all he had was the whiskey in his hip flask. He took it out, and she shook her head. She had her own water, he realized, in a canteen left over from the Great War. The War to End All Wars. Hah. She took a sip, offered it to him.
He shook his head, preferring the hot jolt from the whiskey.
Cybele moved even farther away from him, leaning back against what was left of the kitchen wall. “What happened?”
“Luc must’ve had a faulty fuse,” Charles told her, struggling with the French. Still, she understood from his sign language. “His bomb went off too soon.”
“Luc Prieaux.” There was pain in her dark brown eyes. He wanted to hold her again, but he didn’t dare. “Is he dead?”
“I think so. I’m not sure, but . . .” He could still hear an echo of that single gunshot. Why raise false hopes? “Probably, yes. I’m sorry.”
She took a deep breath. “What of Henri?” she asked. “And Guiseppe?”
“I think Henri got away,” Charles told her. “As for Joe . . . I don’t know. Last I heard, he was leading the Germans in the other direction so I could get you to safety.”
She closed her eyes, and he wondered if she believed in God. He wondered if she were praying. For Henri and Luc. For Joe. For her own safety.
She was grimy, her face still streaked with the soot she’d used to blend in with the night. In the dark, dressed in men’s trousers and a coarse work-shirt, with her hair tucked into a cap, she could pass for a boy—provided the person looking at her was old and half-blind. But in the sunlight her femininity was even more obvious. The graceful line of her neck, the delicate curve of her cheek. Her too-slender wrists, long elegant fingers.
If the Germans found them, they’d have plenty about which to question them, particularly with last night’s sabotage fresh in their memories.
“We should wash,” Charles said abruptly. He wanted to get her to the safety of her home even more than he wanted to hold her again.
The Unsung Hero Page 34