by Rhodan, Rhea
“Play Crossing,” Nevermore squawked harshly.
“Territorial much?” Clint shot back, then shook his head.
“He’s right, though,” she said.
“What?”
She’d done it again, thought out loud. Clint was staring at her, waiting for an answer to a perfectly reasonable question. And he was going to get a perfectly reasonable answer.
“I’ve been spending a lot of time with Gran this week, at the Crossing.” Reasonable and true, if vague and having nothing to do with Nevermore’s comment.
She cast her familiar a sharp look, one she hoped conveyed she knew what she was doing, and would he please go away. Nevermore stared at her, unblinking, deliberately obtuse.
Clint frowned for a second and shook his head again. “How is your grandmother, anyway?”
“Better. It’s sweet of you to ask. She even told me she’d thank me not to come by tomorrow because an old friend would be visiting.” Why hadn’t she hadn’t thought to ask which old friend?
“Does that mean you’re free tomorrow?”
The hand attached to the muscular arm still draped over her shoulder began playing with her hair. Distracting little tingles strolled up and down her spine.
Cayden cleared her throat. “Except for the statement at the police precinct thing, yeah.”
“We could go out after.”
“Did you mean what you said at The Night Crawler, that we could go anywhere I wanted?”
Just enough of a pause preceded his “Anywhere” for Cayden to infer he was nervous about her choice, but he sounded sincere.
“In that case, I’d like a midnight picnic in the grove at Buchanan’s Crossing.”
His hand in her hair paused, then resumed massaging. “Would this picnic involve a blanket or two, a bottle of wine, and maybe a bucket of chicken?” He stroked the nape of her neck.
“Clueless Keeper.” Nevermore’s wings flapped loudly as he flew out the window.
“What did I say wrong now?”
“Well, you have to admit, nothing says romance like a bucket of chicken.”
“Hey, I’m a man. Everyone knows we think with our… Obviously, the chicken’s optional. I may need it to keep up my strength, though.”
She didn’t have to see him to know he was wearing that devilish grin.
He had begun massaging her in earnest. “You can stop that sometime next year,” she whispered into his chest.
“It’ll probably take me that long to get you unwound. I guess all the ass-kicking you did took its toll.” His hand clutched her neck tenderly. “I should have been there.”
“You’re here now.”
Cayden rested her cheek over his heart, breathing his scent deep into her lungs. It was both comforting and arousing, much more potent than the lingering suggestion of it on her sheets. She tilted her chin up to find his lips hovering just above hers.
Her fingers smoothed his shirt before using the collar to pull him closer to her. When their lips touched, the heat of the contact made her gasp.
He drew back slowly, licking his lips. “Mmm. You’re making it hard for me to continue with the unwinding of Cayden Sinclair.”
“Sounds ominous.”
“It should. I’m very thorough.”
“Maybe it would help if I did this.” Cayden stood up, pulled the hooded robe off, and tossed it on the floor.
The way his jaw dropped, combined with the sight of his breath slowly drawing into that magnificent chest, was seriously good for her ego.
She lay belly-down with her head in his lap, facing the fire. When nothing happened, she mumbled, “You mentioned something about unwinding.”
The word “right” sounded as if it’d been forced through a too-narrow passageway. His fingers tentatively resumed their divine attentions.
“Better?” she asked.
“The angle’s—”
Cayden turned her face into his lap and began nibbling and nuzzling him through his jeans. She heard a hard swallow between the crackling of the fire before he finished the sentence.
“—fine. Really, fine.”
As the massage continued, Cayden melted slowly into an aroused haze of relaxation. She scarcely noticed the subtle changes in Clint’s technique and posture, that his fingers spent more and more time south of her waist, farther east and west of her spine as it neared her shoulders, the way his muscles tightened beneath her in rhythmic twitches as she continued to use her breath and mouth on the overstretched denim of his lap.
She was fully aware, however, where this would end. Even though he’d agreed to the picnic tomorrow night, men could be fickle when they were satisfied. They could also be fickle when they weren’t. She could compromise, deny her own spiraling need now for the greater reward tomorrow night. She breathed in his scent, muskier here than above. Her body clenched in desire.
Her fingers fumbled at the top button of his jeans as the tension in her rose. Her teeth slowly pulled his zipper down. It was enough for now to feel the hard length of him with her lips through the thin soft cotton of his briefs.
His hands had been massaging her tight, if well-padded, glutes. They stopped when he groaned.
“Jesus. Cayden. You’re gonna drive me—”
“Shhh. Busy.” She immediately returned to what she’d been doing. “Mmm,”—she hummed around him—“much better.” The trembling of his rock-solid thigh muscles beneath her tendered no small encouragement. She wanted more, could give him more, but getting to that “more” was going to be tricky.
“Lift up a sec’. Let me…” He shoved his jeans and shorts past his knees.
Thank you. Tasty skin over hard heat, a tantalizing treat. She was pleased he hadn’t melted in her mouth. Yet. She was enjoying her experiments and explorations, but Clint’s breath was coming in irregular bursts, each more labored than the last.
She accomplished her transformation from tormenting devil into angel of mercy by sliding to her knees on the floor between his thighs. The fireplace warmed her back. His half-naked body sheltered her front. She found her rhythm. There was a lot of him to manage, considerably more than past experience allowed for. Those fantastic fingers of his glided over her shoulders and wrapped themselves gently in her hair, tugging without pulling, urging without forcing, his murmured praises growing incoherent. When at last she heard his hoarse cry of release, tasted it in her mouth, a singular power washed over and through her, radiating in waves she could see through closed eyes.
The room brightened, as if all of the light that reached the inside of her home—candle, fire, electric—was magnified. The air hummed and shimmered, smelled of ozone and rain. Clint pulled her up onto the daybed and curled her into his arms, her head beneath his chin. Soon, he was snoring lightly.
Cayden smiled as the firelight’s dance slowed. In spite of its nasty edge, her day had ended far better than she could have hoped. Her magic had returned, along with Clint. The Joining would take place tomorrow night.
She refused to spoil her contentment by dwelling on the life-altering ramifications. The legacy must endure.
Chapter Ten
The sun had been below the horizon an hour by the time they’d finished rounding up the picnic supplies and finally pulled onto I-91. Clint hoped Cayden was bouncing in her seat next to him because she was as eager as he for the night to begin. It was hard to tell, since she was also staring out the window while responding with one-word answers to his awkward attempts at conversation. Whatever was on her mind, it wasn’t the episode at the cop shop. That hadn’t fazed her a bit.
He wished he could say the same. He wasn’t freaked out by the way his lawyer had stared in shock at Cayden in her little black jacket with nothing under it, the very little black skirt, and her full goth makeup. The man’s suggestion�
�made while Cayden was in the ladies’ room—to get out more often and hit different bars, hadn’t done it, either. It had only reminded him of that dream about bringing her to a party at Dean Cumberland’s. It certainly wasn’t the way the detective had tried to threaten her with the illegal weapons charge to get her to admit the entire episode was a drug deal gone bad, despite the drug tests coming out negative. It wasn’t even Cayden’s bizarre theory that those scumbags had been hired to kill her.
None of it was good, yet none of it cooled the growing warmth he felt for her. What did give him a chill, in spite of how his lawyer had laughed it off, and no matter how hard he tried to do so, was that each of Cayden’s “victims” had babbled about being attacked by a flock of crows. The photos didn’t offer any evidence as to what had shredded them to pieces, only that something sure as hell had.
And while several black feathers found in the park were hardly irrefutable evidence, Clint couldn’t help recalling the conversation he’d had with Nevermore. Or how that’s exactly what it had felt like. Cayden had alluded to Nevermore’s “friends.” A flock would account for the condition he’d found his truck in last Saturday morning, too. Dillon had yammered about a flock of crows attacking the asshole who’d tried to assault Cayden. The accumulating evidence was stretching the concept of coincidence more thinly than he was comfortable with.
But if the crows had protected Cayden, wasn’t it also possible, if highly unlikely, that Nevermore did understand what he was saying? A chimpanzee had been taught to speak with sign language, hadn’t it? Wasn’t there a dog in Austria who had a vocabulary of a couple hundred words?
Even if that were true, it didn’t mean Cayden was what she said she was. There was against-all-odds, and then there was pure fantasy. Cayden had a great imagination and the skills to implement it. She’d likely developed her mystique to compensate for being different. What kind of tricks might she have up her sleeve tonight?
“We’re getting close, Clint. You might want to pull over before your truck dies again.”
Here we go. What the hell though, it wasn’t like carrying a picnic basket a few extra yards was going to kill him. Only a moron would open his mouth and risk losing precious points this close to another piece of heaven.
He pulled the truck off the road onto a turnaround. The warm night air brushed his bare arms. He’d dumped the dress shirt after leaving the police station. He stretched and inhaled the country air. His muscles were sore from passing out on the cramped daybed. As a matter of pride, not giving as good as he got bothered him more. The week had been a long one, though, short on sleep. And having Cayden in his arms had set his world right.
Before that thought could disturb him, she said, “There it is.” She pointed to a dark hill a half a mile up the road, covered with magnificent old trees. “Buchanan’s Crossing.”
Clint had driven up and down this road the night he’d dropped Cayden off out here. He hadn’t spotted any sign that said Buchanan’s Crossing. He still didn’t. Not so much as a driveway crossed this road as far as he could see in either direction.
“If it’s on a hill with no roads, why’s it called a crossing?”
“It’s not that kind of crossing.”
At the last second, he decided against asking what kind of crossing it was. It shouldn’t have been a dangerous question, though for some reason it reeked of one. He was not going to be a moron tonight.
Cayden held her backpack in her right hand, only because she wouldn’t let him carry it. She had to have emptied it to make room for the large blanket, so it couldn’t be too heavy, anyway. He shifted the picnic basket to his left hand and put his arm around her shoulders.
“Feels nice.” She’d changed into a dark green dress scooped real low in the front. If it wasn’t silk, it was close.
Her hand slid into his back pocket and gave his ass a squeeze. “So does this.”
They walked toward the hill, a slow-burning anticipation building in the silence between them. As they neared it, Cayden stopped in front of a cottage. “This is Gran’s place.”
If he’d been asked to describe the cottage in the moonlight, he would have been forced to use the word “charming.” It held that eccentric appeal that could only be achieved through various additions and countless modifications. The original bones were easily a couple hundred years old.
None of which explained why they were standing in front of it. “Would you like to check on your grandmother?”
“I would, yeah.”
Damn. He reminded himself patience was a virtue.
“Unfortunately, she specifically told me not to visit today because she was having company. Her lights are still on. Whoever it is must not have left yet.”
He worked to keep his expression relief-free when he looked at Cayden. She was frowning.
“That bothers you?”
“Yes. She was acting funny. I can’t imagine who it could be. No one’s car is parked here, either.” Cayden removed her hand from his pocket and wrapped both arms around herself.
“You can ask her about it tomorrow. I’ll drive you out here. I’d love to get a look at the place in the daylight, and uh, meet your grandmother.”
Cayden grinned. “Don’t worry, she’s predisposed to like you. And I know you’ll like her. She’s fascinating.”
He thought it best not to mention the “fascinating” aspect was what concerned him. He was just glad to see Cayden smiling.
“Gran’s been trying to get the house and grove designated an historic site for years. Being a builder and having an appreciation for treasures, you can see for yourself it should be. The crossing is covered by the sole remaining virgin oak grove in the state of Connecticut. But something—or someone,” she added, “always interferes.”
He’d been hung up on the way Cayden had used the word “crossing” again, but her last sentence forced him past it. Getting her off this conspiracy theory was the more immediate problem.
“It’s extremely difficult to obtain historic designation. There are downsides to owning a designated site too, especially a home.”
“I guess you’d know that, working with developers as you do.”
Uh-oh. The exchange had taken a dangerous-smelling turn. His poor nose was working overtime tonight.
“If you didn’t want to visit your grandmother, why are we here?”
Cayden narrowed her eyes at his abrupt change in conversation, but she did answer him. “The only negotiable path into the grove is through the back yard.”
“Then by all means, lead on.”
He put his arm back across her shoulders, relaxing when she leaned into him. Another potential setback avoided. Navigating a relationship with Cayden was different than it had been with the other women he’d dated. The challenges were more intense, more exciting, and much more rewarding.
Among her other skills, Cayden evidently possessed excellent night vision. The moon was dimmed by clouds, and the trees became denser as they climbed. He’d fallen behind her on the narrow path. The going should’ve been tough, considering he couldn’t see diddly. Yet he didn’t stumble once. It was as though he were being guided. He laughed at himself for falling prey to Cayden’s spooky talk. The only thing guiding him was his hand on her luscious ass.
The ground leveled off. After maybe a dozen yards in, the woods became lighter. They’d entered a clearing. She set her backpack against a massive oak.
“This is it.”
“Wow. That tree’s got to be even older than your grandmother’s cottage.”
“It is.”
She hadn’t shown a hint of hesitation. How could she be so certain?
“Do you recognize it?”
“How could I recognize it?”
“From my tat.”
Now that she’d mentioned it, the tree d
id look familiar. He’d been thinking a lot about that tat and the breathtaking regions it bordered. Had tried very hard not to think about the artist putting it there in such vivid detail it seemed to be alive. There was no good reason to tell her any of that. He had a better idea.
“I’m not sure. I think I need to do a side-by-side comparison.”
She must have missed the shit-eating grin he couldn’t keep from his face, because she moved away from him and began rummaging in her backpack. Or maybe she had, because she pulled out the blanket, snapped it, and let it fall on the ground in front of the tree. It landed completely flat, without a single fold or turned corner.
Rather than sitting on it, or better yet, lying on it, she drew out a pouch and surrounded the blanket with an elaborate pattern using its powdery white contents. O-kay.
She saved him from making a moronic point-demolishing comment by asking him to build a fire. He wouldn’t have thought such a ready supply of kindling would be found within easy reach, or that his eyes would have adjusted to the dark so quickly. Or that the fire would burn from the first match he’d had the forethought to pack.
When he turned from his work, Cayden was sitting on the blanket, hugging her knees and watching him as though he might bite her. She’d gone quiet again. Hell, the whole grove was quiet. Beyond fire-making, he wasn’t much of a boy scout, but shouldn’t there be some kind of animal noises in the woods? Rustling, or peeping, or squeaking? Something?
It didn’t feel eerie so much as strangely expectant. Much like the night a few weeks ago—had it only been three?—when he’d been so powerfully tempted to kiss her. Looking at her now, he couldn’t remember how he’d held off, or why. Tonight, she was the one who looked ready to bolt. Having twice experienced how fantastic it was between them, what could possibly make her nervous?
He joined her on the blanket and put his arm cautiously around her. She was wound tighter than a bale of insulated wire. “What’s wrong? Is it because I passed out last night and left you high and dry?”