Dee followed his gaze and sipped at her own beer. ‘She’s a force of nature, Kendra.’
He smiled at the woman hard at work. ‘Don’t I know it?’ Then the smile disappeared and he felt the familiar fist-like clench at his heart. ‘I’m sorry this happened, Dee. I’m so sorry. You have to believe I would have never ever done anything to put her in harm’s way.’
‘Hey.’ Dee took his hand and gave it a squeeze. ‘It’s Kendra we’re talking about here. She makes her own choices. She makes her own rules. You’re not to blame for any of this. No one is.’
‘If I had just let her walk away when she found out it was me, that Tess is … If I’d only just let her walk away. She wanted to. I’m so sorry.’
She guided him to a heavy pine lawn chair and sat down in one next to him. ‘I’m not.’
He caught his breath and looked up at her.
‘I mean yes, of course I’m sorry about everything that’s happened, about this nutcase, Razor Sharp, about the press fiasco, but I’m not sorry you came into her life.’ Her smile became mischievous, and she chuckled softly. ‘I mean after I got over the fear of her sending you to the hospital in traction, that is. Garrett –’ She scooted closer. ‘You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to her. You’re the first man I know that she’s ever let in. That’s huge. You can’t imagine how huge.’
‘Why, Dee? Why am I the first? The woman’s amazing, she’s talented, she’s funny, she’s sexy, she’s … she’s so strong. She could have any man she wants. Why? Why doesn’t she let anyone in?’
‘And why are you so damn nosy?’
Both Garrett and Dee turned to find Kendra standing in the door with a Diet Pepsi clenched in her hand.
‘And why are you always sneaking up on people?’ he asked.
‘I didn’t sneak. You two were just so caught up in gossiping that you didn’t hear me, that’s all.’ She was smiling that wonderful smile that he always wanted to kiss until it evolved into something more demanding. He reached out his hand to her and she came onto the patio and settled on his lap.
Dee looked down at her watch. ‘It’s an early morning for Ellis and me tomorrow, so I’m going to hunt him down and coax him off to bed.’ She glanced up at the two of them and then at the darkening sky. ‘Should be good sky-watching tonight. The moon’s just past new. I bet you could get Galina to fix you a Thermos of hot chocolate, and if I’m not mistaken, she made ginger snaps yesterday. She knows Ellis loves them. That should give you the strength for some serious stargazing.’ Garrett was sure Dee knew it wasn’t stargazing they’d need strength for.
He shoved the hair away from Kendra’s face with an index finger. ‘You up for it?’
‘Very,’ she said with a smile.
‘Dee told me about this place,’ Kendra said, as Garrett spread the blankets onto the grass and then pulled her down next to him. ‘She said the two of you watched a meteor shower from here one night. And that –’ She pointed to the dome that housed Ellis’s telescope. ‘Will we use that?’
‘Not tonight,’ Garrett said. ‘Not sure Ellis would even let me play with his prize toy without him present to participate. Anyway, it’s a fairly complex piece of equipment, and I don’t want to think that hard. At least, not about anything but you.’ He pulled her into his arms so that her head rested on his shoulder. ‘Shall I give you the grand tour?’
‘Please do,’ she said, resting a hand low on his belly, just above the waistband of his jeans. It was a position that instantly made him think of things other than stars.
He laid his hand against hers. ‘For someone who doesn’t believe in romance, you do a pretty good job of going through the motions.’
‘What? This?’ She wriggled her fingers against his waistband. ‘This is about lust, Garrett, not romance.’
He hadn’t planned it. It was the epitome of poor timing, but the question was out before he could stop himself. ‘So why don’t you believe in romance? You never did tell me.’
She slid a finger beneath his waistband, and nipped his earlobe. ‘What? You want romance and scorching hot sex? You greedy, greedy man.’
Just as her fingers made contact with his pubic curls, he sucked a tight breath and captured her hand with his, moving it up to rest against his chest just above where his heart had suddenly gone mad. ‘I am a greedy man. Very greedy, and I’m nosy. Tell me what I want to know and I might let you have what you want.’ He nodded down to his fly.
This time her giggle was wicked. ‘What makes you think I want it that bad?’
He raised her knuckles to his lips and kissed them, then captured her index finger and ran his tongue over the length of it. She caught her breath in a quick jerk.
‘Because I know you, Kendra Davis. You’re insatiable, and I haven’t fucked you in hours.’
She pulled his hand to her mouth and returned the favor, sliding her tongue over his index finger then turning her head just enough to nip the pad of his thumb. He felt himself harden. ‘All right,’ she said. This time there was a slight edge in her voice. ‘It’s no secret, really. I don’t want to follow in my mother’s footsteps.’ She forced the words out fast, like maybe if she said them fast enough and ran them together, maybe he wouldn’t get what she’d just said, maybe he would be too polite to ask her to repeat it. But she should have known better.
‘All right, you don’t want to follow in your mother’s footsteps. What exactly does that mean?’
She sat up next to him, and for a long moment looked out into the woodland in front of them. Just when he thought she wasn’t going to say anything else, she spoke. ‘Garrett, did your parents love each other?’
‘Of course they did. They adored each other, actually. Ellis and I were lucky that way, I suppose.’
‘And you want what they had, then? You and Tess. That’s why you write what you do. That’s why you believe in happy ever after.’
‘Well, I don’t want exactly what they had, but something along those lines, yes. Why?’
She pulled her knees up under her and turned to face him. Though he couldn’t see her eyes in the dark, or her expression, he had the feeling she was studying him. She released a soft breath. ‘My mother was a romantic. She had a room full of romance novels, you know the ones that come once a month, four or five in a package, all delivered to her door. Not just those, though. She read all kinds of romance novels. And DVDs, she had a huge collection of those, and even videos. My mom owned every romance, every romantic comedy, every classic love story ever made.’
‘Lots of people do,’ Garrett said. ‘That’s what keeps Tess in business.’
‘No, you don’t understand. That room full of novels, those DVDS, that was romance for my mother, Garrett. My dad cheated on her almost from their wedding night. She told me that, years later, when she needed me to commiserate and feel sorry for her.’
‘Jesus, Kendra, I’m sorry.’ It was a hell of a thing to put on your daughter, he thought.
She waved his sympathy away and continued, ‘He said he couldn’t help himself, my dad did. He said he needed that little extra that mom couldn’t give him. But he said it didn’t mean anything. He said it was still her he loved, her he needed, that he needed his family. And she believed him.’ She laughed a humorless laugh. ‘My dad had his own version of romance, you see.’ She curled a tight fist into the grass, pulled up a tuft, and tossed it aside. ‘And my mom believed him until the day she died. And when she died, she died without a shred of self-respect, and without a shred of respect from anyone else, including me.’
‘I’m sorry, Kendra,’ he said.
‘Don’t be. I wasn’t.’ The air practically sizzled with her anger. ‘And Dad. He had the balls to show up at her funeral with one of his women, one who couldn’t have been much older than I was. He said he needed someone. He said he couldn’t bear the pain of his loss alone. His loss!’ She spat the last words out as though they were vile. ‘I haven’t spoken to him since. Mom and I weren’t enough for him. His
family wasn’t enough for him. But he never had the guts to walk away either, just in case. He knew when his chicks got tired of an old fart pretending to be young, and everything crumbled, he could always come home. And he could always count on Mom to forgive him, give him a place to brood and pout and lick his wounds until the next girl came along. Well, in the end he wasn’t enough for me either. He wasn’t enough of a father. He wasn’t enough of a decent human being.’ Garrett could hear her breath, fast and furious in the darkness. ‘So no, I’m not a big fan of romance because it never is what it really is. It’s an excuse. It’s make-believe. For me it’s just one more form of fantasy, one more type of escapism. That’s all. I’d die alone before I’d ever let anyone do that to me, treat me that way.’
‘My God, Kendra.’ He pulled her back down into his arms and held her tight until she relaxed. ‘No one would ever do that to you. Not you. Not ever.’
She rose on one elbow, enough to meet his gaze. ‘Not as long as I’m in control, they won’t, and I’m always in control.’
‘No you’re not,’ he said, running a hand over her cheek. ‘You’ve not been in control for a while now, Kendra, and you know it, and it scares the hell out of you, doesn’t it? And now I understand why.’
She pushed his hand away. ‘You don’t understand anything. There is no sweetness and light, no hearts and flowers. That’s a pipe dream. That’s for people like Ellis and Dee, people who live larger than the rest of us, people who dream big and then make it happen. It’s not for people like me. I know how dark it really is out there, and I can’t pretend just because Tess Delaney writes pretty words that the darkness doesn’t exist.’
‘No one’s asking you to pretend the darkness doesn’t exist. Of course it exists.’ He reached for her and she pushed him away again.
‘Look, I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I’m going back to the house.’
But as she started to stand he pulled her back down next to him. ‘No, you’re not. You’re not running away this time, Kendra.’
She jerked back against him, ‘Damn it, Garrett, I said I’m not playing, now let me go.’ She jerked again. He lost his grip on her wrist, and the momentum sent her back on her butt onto the grass, forcing the breath from her lungs. She let out a little yelp followed by a curse, but he was on her, straddling her, trapping her arms above her head with one hand holding her wrists. He took her mouth viciously, hard, the only way he could take her while she fought him, coming dangerously close to kneeing him in the kidney and toppling him off.
‘Garrett, damn it, stop it!’ The fury in her voice was exhilarating, and frightening, and he’d never behaved this way with anyone. He never would have. He took her mouth again and she bit him and bucked hard beneath him.
He bit her back. ‘You can’t control me, Kendra. If you want to share power that’s fine, but right now it’s my turn, and long overdue.’
‘Damn it, Garrett.’ She shoved and kicked and tried to roll out from under him. ‘You’re an asshole! You’re a jerk! You deserve what you get! You deserve it! You deserve everything,’ she sobbed.
‘Tell me, Kendra,’ he gasped, forcing her legs apart with his knee and wriggling in between to nestle down tight against her. ‘Tell me what I deserve.’
‘You deserve … You deserve …’ The bucking became shifting and raking, and her tongue darted into his mouth and they ate at each other until neither could breathe. ‘You deserve better than this.’ Without warning, she collapsed back onto the ground, threw her arm across her face, and broke into angry sobs.
‘Jesus, Kendra! No!’ He pushed her arm away from her face and cupped her chin, forcing her to look at him. ‘How can you say that? There is no better than this, than you, than us together.’ He kissed her throat, feeling her swallow back a sob. ‘How can you not see that? How?’
He held her there beneath him, her legs open to the press of him, her wrists cuffed in his hands until he felt her relax, felt the tension drain away, felt the shudders calm. And when he was sure she would no longer fight him, he released her arms.
She lay beneath him unmoving, looking up at the sky. Then he kissed her throat again, and her nape and the lobe of her ear. ‘I won’t let you have control, Kendra. It’s ours to share, and that can be good, that can be so good. I’m not your father, and you’re not your mother. You’re Kendra Davis and you’re stunning, and I can’t get you out of my head, not even for a minute. I don’t know how the hell you did it, but you did.’ He eased his weight slightly to one side, giving her space, letting her breathe, giving her room to come back to him from the dark space where she kept herself way too often.
He didn’t know how long they lay there together surrounded by the night sounds. A great horned owl hooted somewhere in the trees. There was a very slight rustle of the evergreens in the breeze, and there was the sound of their own breath, in and out, in and out. At long last, he felt her fingers tracing the line his collar against his neck down to where it opened against his breastbone.
‘Are you all right?’ he whispered.
She only nodded, but he felt it, felt the reassuring in and out of her breath, felt the softness of muscles relaxed beneath him.
‘Garrett.’ She breathed his name. ‘Garrett, will you make love to me?’
He felt as though his chest would burst with the relief of it, with the knowing that she wanted him still, that she had come back to him, and to no one else. He forced his words around the tight knot of emotion in his throat. ‘There’s nothing I’d rather do right now, Kendra.’
With hands made unsteady by the catharsis he hadn’t expected, he unbuttoned her blouse and pushed it aside to kiss down her collarbone and onto the swell of her breasts rising and falling above the lace cups of her bra. She arched her back to bring herself closer to his lips. She lay beneath him, open, completely yielding as he had never seen her before. He eased the straps of her bra down, and with it the cups, until he could nurse on her nipples, already raised and tight. She sighed and gave a little grunt as he stroked his way down the flat of her belly, tight with her efforts to breathe. He toyed with her waistband only briefly before he opened her jeans and slipped his hand in to caress her soft curls. The shift and grind of her bottom raised her pubic bone into his caresses, and opened a path to her clit, resting heavy and tight at the apex of her. Another shifting of her hips and he could wriggle fingers down between her velvety folds, warm and slippery and opening to him. Her breath hitched, expanding her chest, pressing the rise of her breasts closer to his mouth. She curled her fingers in his hair and held him to her, held him against the place where her heart felt like the wild flutter of wings. And he was sure that if he listened hard, if he concentrated just a little more, he could hear the racing of the blood in her veins.
‘Please, Garrett,’ she whispered. ‘I can’t wait. I need you inside me. Please.’
He eased her jeans down until she could kick one leg free. She was already shoving his jeans and boxers over his hips. He managed a condom from his pocket and worried himself into it, less gracefully than he’d have liked, his efforts made clumsy by so much more than just arousal, so much more than just need. The vulnerability of the woman in his arms, and the gift of that vulnerability, was sobering. There was nothing he wanted more than to give her something in return, to give her the release she needed, to somehow give her more. Though he didn’t really know how, or what that more might be.
But there was not the time, nor the wit left to dwell on it. She lifted her hips, positioning herself for him, opening herself with one hand while the other took hold of him and guided him into her with a catch of her breath and a flutter of her eyelids. And God, it felt like heaven! It felt like he’d come home as she lifted her legs around his waist and locked her ankles behind his back and thrust up to meet him.
She came before he did, sobbing and convulsing, fisting tight fingers into the back of his shirt, gripping him with all her might until he could hold back no longer, until he came too. And it felt
like he would never stop coming, like he wanted to fill her with all he was and make her understand that she wasn’t alone in her dark places.
‘That’s Cygnus, the swan.’ Garrett pointed to the cross of stars above them. ‘The bright star at the head is Deneb. The Big Dipper, you know. And over there, that one that looks like a sideways M, that’s Cassiopeia.’
‘It’s beautiful,’ she whispered. ‘I never knew the stars could be so bright.’
‘Ellis chose this place because there was no light pollution and the view of the night sky is stunning.’ But it wasn’t the night sky he was looking at.
‘Do you think maybe we could just stay here?’ she said. ‘Right here in this spot on the grass, next to the woods, just stay here until the whole thing with Tess and the press blows over?’
‘It’s supposed to rain tomorrow. That might make the spot a little less pleasant,’ he replied, relishing the fact that he could stare at her endlessly in the dark and she wouldn’t squirm, wouldn’t be uncomfortable. Of course he really couldn’t see her, but he felt her. He felt her like she took up all the space in the field, all the space in the night sky, all the space inside him, and he would have gladly stayed there with her, even in the rain.
She sighed and snuggled closer to him. ‘I suppose so. Too bad, really. I like it here.’
Too bad, indeed, he thought. Any place where he had Kendra Davis’s undivided attention in such a delicious way, he was sure he’d gladly be willing to stay for at least ten or 15 years. He stroked her flank, then cupped her bottom. ‘But then again, if we stayed out here in the rain I might finally get that shower you promised me.’
Identity Crisis Page 23