Now You See Him

by Stella Cameron

  Men used their strength to make women obey them.

  “He came on Friday nights. Sometimes I’d forget what day it was and start to fall asleep, but he came and—he—did that to me. He kept on all his clothes and had sex with me. Then he’d make me undress in front of him and walk around like that.” She swallowed a sob. “And when he was finished with me, he gave me money and told me I was wicked for selling myself.”

  “I thought you said—”

  “I did say something different but it wasn’t true. There, now you know my dirty little story.”

  “Why did his mother set you free?”

  “You won’t let me be, will you? You want to watch me, too. You want to watch me empty out to nothing, then you’ll discover you have to turn me in.”

  “No!” He transferred his strong hands from her forearms to her shoulders and pulled her closer. “I will never do anything to hurt you. Somehow I’ll make you believe that.”

  “Not once you know Jason Clark died because I hit him over the head with a wrench. I didn’t mean to kill him but he fell into a bunch of loose wires. He got electrocuted.”

  “Stop it, Ellie. Stop fighting me.”

  “I’m a murderer. Just like Charles Penn.”

  23

  Joe’s eyes opened.

  He brought his watch close to his face and peered at it. Couldn’t read it but he didn’t think he’d been asleep long.

  His feet were asleep and they’d woken him up. Gingerly lifting first one then the other, he put them back where they were supposed to be, crossed at the ankle with his knees slightly jackknifed and bent to one side.

  With his hips flat, he torqued his upper body toward the back of the couch. The pillow squeezed out, leaving his neck bridged between the arm and the seat with no support.

  “Fuck!” A complete revolution and he faced the room, jammed the pillow beneath his neck again and reversed the angle of his knees. Carefully, having felt the hard floor a time too many, Joe wriggled his hips around.

  He had a reason for lying on his right side rather than his left, not that he could remember it.

  Slowly, half inch by half inch, the weight of his legs rotated his body. Much more of that and he’d be on the floor again.

  “Shit!” Joe returned to his back and held absolutely still with his eyes squeezed shut.

  He must not think about Jason Clark, the man who might well have ruined everything for Ellie and stolen Joe’s chances for a great life with her.

  The room felt different, as if shapes shifted in the humid air. Displaced matter.

  A boom and rattle sounded, distant. Thunder. He slitted his eyes. He hadn’t seen any lightning but it could have been what woke him up—together with the tingling in his feet. A thunderstorm would clear the air—if it rained hard enough. He thought about the hurricane warning but was damned if he would get up and check the radar on TV.

  Violent crackling like a zillion firecrackers made sure his eyes were all the way open. Despite the closed blinds he saw the next flash rip across the sky followed by burst after burst of light and rolling, echoing funnels of thunder.

  The night had gone to war.

  Still the sense of displaced shapes assaulted him. Warily, he pushed a few inches up on one elbow. Rain hit the windows as if someone had thrown a giant bucket of water directly at them.

  Joe took a breath through his nose and smiled. Would it be dereliction of duty if he stripped naked and ran outside?

  Lavender. He smelled lavender but only faintly. Ellie had closed her bedroom door but the scent must remain.

  Hair on the back of his neck prickled. A scent didn’t remain that definitely, not when the wearer used it so sparingly. He peered into the shadows, then at the table where she could have sat in a chair, at the armchair, and toward her bedroom.

  The door stood open.

  Once more he revolved, this time onto his stomach. He ached from the effort of minimizing sound until he could push up on his hands and work close enough to see down from the top of the couch arm.

  Hair, and he knew it was Ellie’s, tickled his nose. She sat on the floor with her back to the side of the couch, and either she’d fallen asleep sitting up, or, like him, she’d tried to avoid shifting around.

  The only reason for her to sit there would be because she was scared and needed to feel someone near her. “Ellie,” he whispered. “Don’t jump, it’s only me, Joe.” How dumb did that sound?

  Ellie scrambled to her feet as if she’d been shot.

  “Hush,” he told her, sitting up. “Hey, hey.” He could hear her throat clicking and her breath squeezing in and out through her tight throat.

  “Don’t move.” Joe stood up. “Tell me you won’t attack me if I touch you.”

  “I won’t.” And she landed against him before he had a chance to do a thing. “Sorry, Joe. I’m always saying that but I always need to.”

  “Afraid of the storm?” he asked.

  “Storms are some of my favorite things,” she murmured. “I needed to be close to you.”

  Optimistic thoughts about Ellie Byron were dangerous. “And it had nothing to do with the storm?”

  She placed her hands flat on his chest, rested her cheek on top.

  Joe lifted his arms and left them in the air, inches from her back. “Damn it,” he muttered, and rubbed her shoulders and neck.

  “You’ve been doing a lot of swearing tonight.”

  Women said the darnedest things. “Beg your pardon, ma’am?”

  “Forget it. I expect you were asleep at the time.”

  “Your skin’s hot,” he told her.

  Lightning crackled on and the thunder answered.

  “So is yours. I’d like to go outside in that rain.”

  He laughed. “Just thought the same thing myself. Want to go together?”

  “Maybe,” she said.

  “The way I saw it, I’d be naked. Wouldn’t be so much fun if you weren’t naked, too.”

  “D’you know the word improper? Well, that’s an improper suggestion, Joe Gable.”

  “I feel like I’m walkin’ on pond scum.”

  Ellie snorted. “Oh, very nice.”

  “Meltin’ ice then.”

  “In other words you don’t feel too sure on your feet, is that what you’re telling me?”

  He breathed in. Her hair smelled of lavender, too. Smooth skin, so smooth and soft it reminded him of stroking a warm baby. “Ellie,” he said, close to her ear, “I haven’t felt sure on my feet for a long time, about as long as I’ve known you. The only thing that’s changed is how bad I’m afflicted with this condition.”

  Her fingertips crept up his chest and around his neck. She clung to him, opened her mouth on his bare chest and made small circles with her tongue.

  Whoa. He hoped time would heal her wounds and she would eventually loosen up enough to give them a chance. This had him scared. Not that he didn’t like it, oh no, sir, no, he surely did like it, but hurrying things could mess them up for good.

  He confined himself to her shoulders. Ellie played with his hair. She pressed tightly against him and took one of his nipples between her teeth. Her light sucking about took the top off his head. Points south had their own reaction and she would be feeling how pushy some things could be.

  A man wasn’t anything but a man—thank God. “Ellie,” he said against the crook of her neck. “What d’you think you’re doin, cher?”

  “You know what I’m doing.” She flattened herself against him.

  Ellie wore a long cotton nightie and his penis wasn’t the only thing saluting around here.

  “I know what I want to do about this, but it’s too soon for you.”

  “Pretty soon it’s going to be too late for me, Joe. If I keep on suffering because of the past and being afraid because of the past, I think I’ll just turn to some of that ice you talked about and maybe melt away to nothing.”

  He wasn’t convinced.

  She broke away from him but took
hold of his hands. “Try not to fall over anything in the dark,” she told him. “Shall we find out if we work together?”

  Holy… “I’m not one bit afraid things won’t work. What I’m afraid of is that you’ll forget—”

  Ellie took his hands to her mouth and kissed his knuckles one after the other. “Forget that it’s you making love to me rather than a sick man forcing himself on me? Is that what you were going to say?”

  “You put it right out there, Ellie. You don’t pull punches.” But that was his fear.

  She didn’t pull punches, Ellie thought, because she couldn’t afford to. What she wouldn’t tell him, though, was that after she’d got into bed, after she’d heard him return from his shower and settle into silence on the couch, she’d seen her future too clearly to bear. Alone. Alone with nothing but bad memories and lost chances to keep her company.

  And she wanted him.

  She wanted what she’d never known except in those minutes when he’d driven her wild—before she fought him off—you, Joe, only you. “I can’t read the future,” she told him. “Not one of us can. But I’m not imagining that we’ve got a chance for some…hot nights.” Her voice dropped away and she giggled. “Pretend I didn’t say that. I’m getting carried away.”

  “No, Ellie, not carried away. You’re sayin’ it the way it is.”

  He slipped his arms around her waist and danced with her. Not a jig or a joke of some kind, but a slow waltz, turning and turning, aiming his fingers downward over her bottom. Then she rested, pelvis to pelvis with him, and he sped up the dance, pushed her legs with his. His body was rhythm from top to toe. In the shady, almost dark room she saw his smile and the flash of his eyes—and a glistening over his shoulders and naked chest.

  He looked down at her. He crossed his arms around her back and touched the sides of her breasts fleetingly, repeatedly, and she squirmed but didn’t stop the dance. She never wanted the dance to stop. Once more he slowed down until they hung together and only their hips moved, and their feet—barely.

  Why should he be the one to make all the moves? Loving was instinct and the swell of a heart, two hearts, the raw response of the body just as it had always been, was always meant to be. She could do it. How else would he be convinced she wasn’t pretending?

  Ellie pressed a thigh between his legs and she kept on responding to the beat she felt in her head and in the deepest places of her body. Back and forth she rocked, gently, looking up into his face, at his closed eyes.

  On tiptoe she kissed his neck, then his jaw and finally his mouth. He responded, his breath grating together with hers, his tongue pressing hers. Not a gentle kiss but a demanding kiss. Ellie couldn’t stop, didn’t want to stop.

  He felt the beat of her heart, or was it his own?

  She drove him beyond any point of turning back. Joe would go with her and if she was trying too hard and the whole thing blew up, he’d step back again and wait. He’d keep on stepping back if that’s what it took—and he’d die another death every time.

  He kissed her without finesse and couldn’t do a thing about it. Her breasts rose and fell against him and she’d put her thigh between his again. Civilized behavior was pretty useless in these situations. He was cracking under her touch.

  No, he would not say what he wanted to say to her. When he declared what he really felt for her it would be somewhere calm, in the open air, when he could say what he meant and she would know his words were not driven by his craving for sex.

  Ellie slid down in front of him and pulled his shorts around his ankles. “Your legs turn me on,” she murmured.

  “I think I’m the one who’s supposed to say that.”

  “I’m making new rules. I want to wrap my arms around your legs and hold on. They’re strong and beautiful.”

  He felt embarrassed. Then he didn’t. Instead he felt as if he’d explode if he couldn’t get inside her—right now.

  “Oh, Ellie.” She took him in her mouth and played, ran the tip of her tongue over the tip of his penis. “My beautiful legs are about to—Ellie!—they’re about to collapse. Cher…”

  She held his buttocks and worked over him. He looked down on her head, on her white shoulders. Ellie paused. “Tell me what you want. This time it’s all yours. Next time it’s mine.”

  A sound congealed in his throat.

  “I read, you know. I read how it should be between a man and a woman when it’s right. I’ve never done this before but I do like it, Joe.” She paused and raised her face to look at him. “Do you like it?”

  He gave a mock growl. “I need to read those books. Or maybe I don’t.” He lifted her to her feet and felt her gown between her legs. “You’re wet, sweetheart. You do want this.”

  “How do you want it?”

  “How?”

  “Show me?”

  He turned cold. “Okay, I can do that.” The flimsy gown tore easily. From neck to hem he tore it apart. “Wild. That’s the way I want it. Unforgettable. I want to be bruised when we’re done.”

  “Yes,” she said, but he heard how her voice dropped and shook.

  They’d see what she really liked. He stretched her out on the carpet and lay beside her, rolled toward her. His voice wouldn’t work if he wanted it to. With the tattered remains of her nightgown hanging from her elbows, she lay there, her body pale and voluptuous. The first time he kissed her breasts, she turned frantic, but whatever it cost he’d go slow, give her only a little at a time so the end of it all would just about knock the life from them.

  With random kisses, random licks and nips on her full flesh, he covered every tiny area of skin without doing what he knew she wanted. The corner of his mouth came in contact with a nipple and her body arched from the floor.

  Joe smiled and pressed his lips to her navel.

  Ellie massaged his shoulders and he scooted down, kissing her as he went. A few more inches and his face hovered over the soft hair at the apex of her legs. He kissed just above and she trembled, dug her nails into his skin. With one hand he parted her legs and made way for his tongue to dart back and forth over her very center.

  “Joe!”

  He continued until her hips began bobbing from the floor and then stopped.

  “Joe!” Desperation colored her cry.

  “Soon,” he told her, and he turned her to her stomach. The gown didn’t remain long.

  “Trust me.” He winced. “Just know I won’t hurt you or embarrass you.”

  “Hold my breasts.”

  She lifted her torso a few inches from the floor and he did as she asked. When he covered her with his weight, she went flat on the carpet again, her breasts filling his hands, and he spread her knees with his own. He covered her, rolled with her, rocked her, and put himself just inside the entrance to her body, just past the point that brought her wonderful bottom jerking against him.

  Again he stopped, fell on her, kissed the back of her neck and her spine. He kissed her spine repeatedly all the way down and between her buttocks.

  “Are you all right, Ellie?”

  “I’m wonderful,” she said. “Are you teasing me?”

  “Maybe. Yes, I am. More fun that way.”

  “I want to tease you.”

  “You started it. You gave me the idea.” He got up, lifted her to her feet again. “No more teasing,” he said, whirling her toward him.

  She took hold of him and tried to push him inside her.

  There was a point when ecstasy became agony. This was it. “Some things are physically impossible, cher,” he told her. “You need to grow a foot to do that.”

  “I want to.” Her voice, thin and high, only drove him wilder.

  “Counter or table?”

  “Huh?”

  He lifted her by the waist. “Leverage is the name of the game, my love. Take your pick.”

  “Oh! I don’t care.”

  Joe smiled and walked with her into the kitchen. Her lotion was where he remembered, in a pump bottle beside the sink. He grabb
ed it and went to the table as fast as he could. He stretched her out on the tablecloth.

  A quick flip of the slatted blinds and only thin lines from the streetlight decorated her skin. He pulled her toward him until her bottom rested on the end of the table and her feet and legs dangled.

  Streams of lotion pumped from the bottle and he squiggled them over her in deranged patterns.

  Ellie shrieked. “It’s cold.”

  “Be grateful. That won’t last.”

  With his hands he slathered the lotion all over her and she jumped at each erogenous spot he touched and lingered over.

  “Joe,” she moaned. “Hold me.”

  “I’m going to hold you tighter than you’ve ever been held,” he told her. “I want you to feel me inside you and think I can reach your brains. I want you to taste me in your mouth. I’ll make sure you do.”

  No veil, not even a thin one, covered his aggression and his explosive arousal anymore. She hovered close to something, a sensation, and she wanted it.

  He eased her up and slid their skin together, rubbed back and forth against her, and returned her to her back.

  She reached for him.

  Joe leaned over her, held her hips and pressed inside her.

  She tossed her head from side to side. “Come on, Joe.”

  “I will, cher.”

  But instead of doing what she expected, he brought his thumbs together against his penis and her flesh and massaged that magical spot. He chafed softly, barely touching her skin. Butterfly kisses, she thought, and they drove her mad. Out from her center his thumbs moved, pressing, working in circles, subtle not harsh, and she could not keep her hips still.

  Sounds climbed into her throat, sounds too high to be heard.

  One long sweep and he filled her. He breathed heavier than she did and she felt his muscles constrict when the effort to measure his thrusts cost him almost too much.

  The speed increased. His hips jerked against her, drove him into her, and he never took his thumbs away. A scream broke inside her head. Her breasts must be swollen and hard. Her belly contracted. She grabbed his head and made pathetic attempts to bring him even closer.