With the M.D....at the Altar?

by Jessica Andersen

  Luke said, “I take it he got away?”

  “Yeah, damn it all. Bastard was in the tree line, just waiting for someone to come through the door. He got off a couple of shots, hit a window upstairs, I think, and took off. Between the dark and the fog, I couldn’t stay on him.”

  Rox stepped around Luke. “Do you want help searching?”

  Before Luke could say something to the effect of “no way in hell are you wandering around in those woods with someone out to kill you,” Swanson said, “With all due respect, Doc, that’s probably not a good idea. I’ll put a couple more officers on duty here for the overnight, and we’ll have a look around in the morning.”

  Luke was forced to acknowledge—inwardly, at least—that the police chief got the point across with far more tact than he would’ve used.

  “Come on.” Luke took Rox’s arm and tugged her away from the main door. “Let’s not be targets. Besides, we’ve got work to do.”

  But it turned out over the next few hours that preparing the antidote took very little work and a great deal of waiting around for chemical reactions to occur.

  “Can’t we speed this up?” Rox asked. “What if we increase the incubation temperature a little?”

  But Bug shook his head. “Sorry. You know what Luke always says.”

  She grimaced. “Yeah. Science takes the time it takes, blah, blah.”

  “Right. You want a guesstimate? The first few doses of the antidote won’t be ready until morning.”

  “If that’s the case—” she stretched, yawning pointedly “—I’m going to catch a few hours. Wake me if you need me for anything.”

  Luke tried not to read too much into her words—they hadn’t made any promises to each other down by the lighthouse, and a great deal had happened in the interim to totally kill the mood and bring them back to the reality of the deadly outbreak.

  Then she paused at the doorway, angled her body so the others couldn’t see, and sent him a look that was about as come-hither as a look could get.

  His body went on high alert in an instant.

  Play it cool, he told himself. Don’t be too obvious. He didn’t want her to feel like anything between them was right out in the open, didn’t want her awkward around Bug and Thom if there was even a prayer that she’d consider rejoining his team.

  He’d made the offer on the spur of the moment, but the more he’d kicked it around in the back of his brain, the more perfect it seemed. It was the compromise she’d wanted before—she’d have a home base in D.C. that she could nest however she wanted, while he could keep doing his work as a field responder.

  And they’d have their nights together.

  Body humming at the thought, at her blatant invitation, he shifted and very carefully didn’t look toward the door.

  “Would you just go already?” Bug said from his computer station, and Thom snorted agreement without looking away from his chemical preparation.

  Luke thought about playing it innocent, but didn’t figure that’d get him far. So instead he chucked all thought of subtlety. “Holler if anything happens.”

  And headed for the room he’d shared the night before with Roxie, this time hoping to share a bed.

  ROX TOLD HERSELF there was no reason to be nervous. He’d either come or he wouldn’t, they’d make love or they wouldn’t, and none of it would matter in the long run. This was a moment out of time, an aberration, a stolen flashback.

  They knew they were good together, and after their frank talk at the lighthouse, they knew where they stood with each other. This was just two people who’d missed each other’s bodies, nothing more.

  And if her heart ached a little at the thought, and her stomach fisted on a moment of grief when the doorknob turned and the panel swung inward, she was the only one who needed to know it.

  Then he was standing there, letting the door swing shut at his back, and his eyes were on her, dark and hazel and intent, and there wasn’t any room for sadness inside her.

  There was simply desire.

  “Roxie,” he said, only her name, but the single word was rough with desire, with a timbre that caressed her nerve endings and set her aflame.

  She crossed to him, skirting the piles of her things jammed into the narrow space between the cots, her eyes locked on his. She didn’t say a word. There had already been plenty of talking between them—more, perhaps than there should have been.

  Instead, she placed her palms flat on the hard planes of his chest, feeling the warmth and muscle beneath the tough material of his shirt, feeling his sharp inhalation and the steady drum of his heart. Curling her fingers into his shirt, using the grip as leverage, she stretched up high on her toes, and touched her lips to his.

  As earlier, the kiss started soft, only this time there was no hesitation, no question…and his response left no doubt that they were on the same page.

  He groaned at the back of his throat, the sound harsh with longing, and his arms came up to band around her, holding her close with more fervor than grace, as though he was afraid she might change her mind.

  But she loved the feel of his rough, possessive grip, and the taste of him, hard and masculine and edged with need. There was no thought of candlelight or soft words, no promises needed between them, there was only the heat that slapped at her, speared through her and spiraled high, urging her on.

  Yes, her body said. Yes, him. Luke.

  It had always been Luke for her, still was. She refused to think about a future without him because them being together wasn’t about the future, it was about right now, about taking what they both wanted in the moment because, as she’d learned all too well over the past week, the future wasn’t certain.

  Terrible things could happen to good people with no rhyme or reason, life could change in an instant. She’d known that before, of course—she’d seen people die, seen families torn apart—but this was personal. It was her town, her people. And in struggling to care for the people she’d claimed as her responsibility, she’d learned something about herself, too.

  She needed to take what she wanted, because nobody was going to walk up and hand it to her.

  So she took, pouring herself into the kiss, rising up on her toes to press her breasts against his chest, wedging herself more and more surely against him, into him.

  His hands shaped her body, kneaded her flesh, sending up starburst sensations everywhere they touched. She moaned, arching against him, asking without words for more. Demanding more.

  He swept her up in his arms and carried her the few paces to one of the cots—his, hers, it didn’t matter. It was a flat, yielding surface for him to lay her on, then follow her down.

  With so little room on the narrow bed there wasn’t much space for them to draw apart, but they didn’t need it. They twined together, kissing and touching, and fitting together perfectly, one to the other.

  She unbuttoned his shirt and ran her hands beneath, finding the same ticklish spots, the same faint scars across his shoulders and back, along with a newer, ridged scar just below his hairline. She hesitated at it, but didn’t ask. Tonight wasn’t about knowing each other, it was about having each other.

  He kissed her avidly, hungrily, as he drew her shirt up and off, and dispatched her bra with a practiced flick he’d once claimed to have learned in high school.

  That remembered detail sent a sharp slice through her, the information made more poignant by what she now knew about that time in his life, when he’d watched his mother fading from her disease and vowed to do what he could to prevent other families from being ripped apart.

  She thought of the young man he’d been as she kissed his throat, and the hollow beneath his ear, thought of the man she’d known as she ran her hands along his taut chest and the lean lines of his abdominal muscles. But as he turned his head once again and their lips met in a kiss, it wasn’t the young man he’d been or the one she’d known before that she was kissing. It was the man she’d relearned over the past days under the worst
of circumstances.

  A man she liked and respected. A man she could’ve loved had the situation been different. Had they been different.

  She murmured her pleasure as he cupped her breasts in his hands and worked her, stroked her, bringing her close to the peak with the clever flick of his thumbs, though she was still wearing her jeans.

  Heat suffused her, overwhelmed her, and the jeans were suddenly too much, the barriers between them too much. She eased aside and worked herself free, then waited while he shed the rest of his clothes and quickly located a condom in the suitcase she vowed to never again call too organized.

  Then he was back with her, stretching atop her, twining around her, his grip strong and demanding in passion.

  There would be time later—perhaps—for more subtlety, for more creativity, but for this time, this first and maybe only time, she wanted to touch him from nose to toes, wanted the good, solid weight of him atop her, within her.

  She spread her legs at his urging, wrapped her thighs around him and skimmed her feet along his calves. He slid his long, hard shaft against her, teasing her, making sure she was ready when she was well beyond it.

  Then, finally, too soon and yet too long in coming, he slid inside her on a long, strong thrust that stretched her, filled her, made her remember the sense of being complete.

  Tears touched the corners of her eyes and she dashed them away because this was no time for tears. It was time to slide her arms around his neck and hold on for the ride, for the pleasure.

  “Roxie,” he said again, and this time she said his name in response, whispering it into his ear.

  They moved together, barely moving at all, riding the long, slow wave of pleasure that came at the feel of him flexing within her, delving ever deeper until he was seated to the hilt, his body pressed up against her sensitized flesh, rubbing ever so slightly.

  He framed her face in his hands and kissed her as they looked into each other’s eyes and she saw herself reflected in the hazel depths, and felt the warmth they made together.

  Pleasure coiled on a long, slow throb that pulled at her core, as her inner muscles caressed the hard flesh within her. He groaned long and low and quickened the tempo just right, and they moved together, longtime lovers who knew how to touch each other, how to complete each other, in the bedroom at least.

  The heat gathered and spread, prickling small fires everywhere her skin touched his, and Rox moved beneath him, urging him onward, driving him higher and harder.

  His breath rasped in her ear, sending shivers down the back of her neck, and she scraped her fingernails lightly across the ticklish spots, making him shudder and buck against her.

  They hung on to each other, clung to each other as their bodies gained in rhythm. Blood sang hard and hot in her veins and the fiery pleasure of him, the surge of him inside her, against her, tightened her to a greedy throb of muscle and sensation. Beyond himself now, he drove into her again and again, his head thrown back, his control lost, given to her as a gift of trust.

  And it was that trust that sent her over the edge, the knowledge that they were both bare to each other, holding nothing back as he thrust into her and cut loose with a roar.

  They came together, clung together, cried out together, and then held each other as the pleasure crested and ebbed. Even after it was done and their bodies cooled and their breathing leveled out, they held each other, unspeaking.

  When they finally broke apart, when Luke eased off of her and stood, it was only to kill the light and drag the other cot closer so they could fall asleep, intertwined.

  Complete.

  ACROSS TOWN, the mayor and his wife were also in bed, but there was no twining going on. Beatrice snored softly in tranquilized bliss while Wells sat on the edge of the bed, anticipating the call, yet fearing it at the same time.

  “I helped him out,” he told himself. “Swanson was going to call on the licenses. I diverted him, distracted him.”

  Still, when the phone rang, he jumped and his pulse skyrocketed as he grabbed for the receiver. “I can explain. It was all part of a plan to—”

  “Stop talking,” the mechanized voice interrupted. “I need you to do something for me.”

  “What?”

  “Sell the lighthouse.”

  “Excuse me?” For a second he thought it was a joke, something those crackpot townies had cooked up, the ones who thought their troubles were all because the lighthouse wasn’t working and the dreaded sea captain was exacting his revenge.

  As far as they were concerned, he should sell Beacon Manor and the lighthouse—two of the biggest historical landmarks in town—to Teddy Fisher, the eccentric businessman who’d promised to restore the lighthouse to its former glory.

  “Right,” he said, seriously annoyed. “Like I don’t have more important things to worry about right now. Tell me why I should care about the damn lighthouse.”

  “Because I have your daughter.”

  The five simple words went through Wells like lightning. He was pretty sure he actually felt his heart stop, then start up again, banging in his chest as though it was going to explode. “You—you found her body?”

  “Not her body. Her. She’s alive.”

  “Oh, dear God.” Wells sank into himself, sagging to the bed and sliding off the edge until he was sitting on the floor with his knees to his chest and the phone clutched to his ear.

  Logic said there was no way this guy—whoever he was—had Camille. But logic could take a flying leap as far as he was concerned. If there was even the slimmest possibility of seeing his little girl again…

  “Do you want her back?” the robot voice asked.

  “Yes!” he practically shouted, and then when Beatrice stirred above him on the bed he dropped his voice to a whisper. “Yes, of course. Tell me what to do.”

  “I already did. Sell the lighthouse or she dies.”

  THE THICK FOG had gone nearly to a drizzle by the time the Seaside Strangler was ready with his preparations. The sacrifice needed to be done quickly and his Sea Bride was already unconscious, so he had decided to dispense with his usual ritual of drugs and indoctrination.

  Instead, he brought with him the gown she would need, along with the seashell necklace he would use to perform the sacrifice.

  Her boat waited in a secure location, not yet prepared. Once the sacrifice was complete, he would bring her to the skiff and secure her with seaweed before setting her adrift, straight into the riptide. Holes in the bottom of the craft would send her to the sea gods, and the town would be saved.

  Bolstered on wings of religious fervor, he barely felt his feet on the stones of the narrow pathway along the cliff side, leading to the secret cave where he’d put her after the sea gods had led him to their chosen. He was whistling softly when he stepped inside the long, narrow entryway. Pausing to light the oil lantern in honor of Captain Raven, he moved along the narrow passage leading to his bride.

  But she wasn’t there.

  The ropes he’d used to bind her lay coiled on the cave floor, neatly untied, indicating that this was the right cave, but his bride had fled.

  Rage suffused him. He flung back his head and roared his denial and disdain for the bitch who hadn’t appreciated what he was trying to do for her, for all of them.

  “Get back here!” he cried, his words echoing in the interconnected cave system. But there was no answer, no sign that there was anyone else in the caves besides him.

  She’d escaped, the bitch.

  The wind must’ve picked up outside, because there was suddenly a hollow keening sound in the tunnels, the whip of air moving through crevices in the rock above.

  “The gods,” he murmured, remembering what had happened the last time the sea gods became angry, when they had wrecked half the fishing fleet in a single night. “The gods must be appeased.”

  He turned and retraced his steps, back up the cliff face and toward the ruined lighthouse. The wind tugged at his hair and clothes, the sea gods remindi
ng him that they would not be denied.

  Just when he thought the gods were going to punish him for losing their chosen one, he heard voices.

  Girls’ voices.

  Snuffing out the lantern with a quick, practiced puff, he stashed his supplies in a crevice between two rocks and eased toward the sound, which was coming from the lighthouse.

  “Shh,” one girl said. “The chief extended the curfew for the prom, but we’re still way past it. Keep it quiet, will you?”

  “Who’s going to hear us?” a second girl said. “The captain’s ghost?” She laughed as she said it, and a tendril of wind howled through as the gods screamed their dislike of her mockery.

  “Thank you, sea gods,” he whispered, knowing they had let the other woman go so he would be drawn to these girls instead. Taken together, at their entry to adulthood, they would be strong enough to avert the plague, strong enough to save the town.

  Bowing his head in prayer, he kissed the seashell necklace he would use to cut the breath away from them.

  Then he stepped out from concealment and claimed his brides as the wind howled its approval and the sea crashed on the rocks below.

  MILES AWAY, in the mansion he’d purchased upon his return to town, the recluse felt a cold, oily shiver crawl down his spine. He imagined a choked-off scream and saw a flash of white, then nothing.

  He didn’t know why or how he knew, but he was quite positive that in that moment, something truly terrible had happened out by the lighthouse.

  Chapter Eleven

  Rox awoke just before dawn, feeling warm, sated and well-loved, and when she opened her eyes, she found Luke propped up on an elbow, watching her.

  She almost pulled the sheet up to cover her breasts, but didn’t because there was something so achingly tender in his expression that she felt cherished instead of embarrassed. So she blinked at him, and smiled. “Good morning.”

  “Yeah.” He leaned in and touched his lips to hers. “It is.”

  Seeing that he was fully dressed, she said, “Status check?”