Adelaide Upset

by Penny Greenhorn

  Picking my way across the street, I made for the phone. I had no choice but to call Francesca collect. She was not happy.

  “What the hell!” she blasted. Threatening, “This had better be good.”

  “I need you to come get me.”

  “Where are you this time?” she asked, a little put out. “Fort Frederica again?”

  “No, I’m not on St. Simons. I’m not sure where I am,” I admitted, scanning the gas station for a sign. Despite my best effort to be calm, my voice was skittering and high. Francesca, sensing my upset, caved right away. It was just a matter of waiting after that.

  I gave the gas station a wide berth, not wanting to be seen. I was incapable of interaction just then anyway. So I lurked along the tree line, watching for her arrival. I was cold, inexplicably cold, sweating even as I shivered. But the despondency was worse, the feeling that everything was gray and fruitless. Seeing my friend’s headlights flash through the dark didn’t ease my depression either, I wasn’t sure anything could.

  I waved for her to wait and ran back to the phone booth, dialing one last number.

  “911, what is your emergency?” the dispatcher asked.

  “The remains of a body and the two men responsible can be found somewhere on Southeastern Logging and Sawmill property.”

  I hung up, not giving her a chance to ask me more.

  Francesca went ballistic the moment I ducked down into her car, the dome light giving her a glimpse of my injuries. “Are you alright!” she screeched, reaching out to gingerly touch my shoulder.

  “We have to get my car.”

  “We’ll worry about your car tomorrow,” Francesca said. “Let’s just go home for now.”

  She was worried about me, almost to the point of fear. I half expected her to drive to the nearest hospital, but when I insisted about my car, she followed my directions.

  “Whose house is this?” she asked, reaching Bill’s driveway. I was relieved to see my Chevy unmoved, just as I had left it.

  I shook my head to avoid the question, unwilling to draw her in.

  “You could spend the night at my place,” Francesca suggested. “Let me take you back to the island, you shouldn’t be driving.”

  “I can drive,” I insisted, though my voice lacked all animation. “I’ll go straight home,” I said, trying to mollify her apprehension. “But, Francesca, will you do me another favor?”

  She nodded, gladdened by my question. She wanted to help.

  “Call Sterling’s and tell Ben that I’m not well, and that I’m sorry for missing my shift.”

  “Alright,” she agreed. “No problem. But I’m checking on you tomorrow and that’s non-negotiable.”

  I tried to smile, failed, and left, transferring from her car to mine. It was only then, seeing my purse and its contents spilled across the floorboard, that it occurred to me I was without it. I was lucky Bill hadn’t tried to bury us together. But as I searched for my keys I couldn’t help but notice the tape recorder was gone. It was past mattering, bigger things had been set in motion.

  The second I started my car Francesca left, her anxiety dissipating with space. I put my car in reverse and rolled out after her, pleased by the blot of black I left behind. Bill Shrader might never get to see it, and that didn’t bother me one bit.

  I didn’t care if he was dead.

  I followed that thought throughout the car ride back. I wanted to know what had happened to Smith, and now I did. Greed had killed him, and Bill Shrader had been its guiding force. How had he convinced Marks to bury his friend? Had he lied then too? Had Smith been buried alive? I wrenched out a dry sob at the thought, my tears long spent.

  Despite my assurance to Francesca, I didn’t go home. I drove right to Luke’s, seeking more than comfort. Needing... something, some nameless thing I hoped he could provide. I was almost violent in my rush to see him, throwing open the car door, my protesting joints propelling me forward. I slammed through the front door, shutting it roughly behind me as I dropped my purse to the floor.

  Lucas came out from the kitchen in nothing but a pair of shorts, and they were drifting off his well-cut hips. He had a car part in one hand, a grease rag in the other. “Are you hurt?” he asked, eyes roving over every part of me.

  It hit me then, as if I had known it all along, my intentions masked in the back of my brain. I wanted him, needing it to be now more than ever. And just like that, I knew I was ready.

  Chapter 26

  I strode forward and grabbed Lucas, pulling him to me by the shoulders. My lips crashed against his, much like our first kiss, awkward in its intensity, and with very little finesse. My fingers curled into his skin, nails biting as I ran my hands along his back and chest.

  Together we tumbled to the couch, Lucas dropping the mechanical device along the way. I pressed him back into the cushions, straddling his lap without breaking the kiss. His movements were controlled, sophisticated, and every time his tongue slipped into my mouth I felt heat pool between my legs. I was not so experienced, more or less eating his face as I tried to rush things along, tugging at the button of his shorts.

  “Upstairs,” he breathed, rubbing my thighs.

  “Here,” I declared, growing impatient. I gave up on the button and shoved my hand into his pants. He was already hard, and with confidence I gripped him, curling my fingers around the base as I pulled up and down.

  “What are you doing,” he strained to ask, extracting my hand, “trying to break it off?”

  “No!” I said, rearing back. I was too wound up to be embarrassed, but really, had I been that bad?

  Lucas sat forward, lurching up off the couch and carrying me with him. My knees were hugging his hips and I squeezed them tighter, looping an arm around his neck. He hitched me higher, one hand on the small of my back, pressing us chest to chest, the other gripped under my thigh, supporting my weight as he made for the stairs.

  I kissed his neck, more gentle than before. His hand slithered higher up my leg, slipping under my shorts to palm my ass. I moaned into his skin, shifting restlessly in his arms, flexing my fingers into his flesh, wanting to encourage him. He squeezed me in response, his hand diving lower as his fingers curved around, teasing between my legs.

  I cried out, twisting my hips to force him deeper. I wanted the friction, wanted him inside me. His blunt fingertips became slick, skimming and grazing as he carried me across the loft.

  He stopped abruptly, pulling his hand back before tossing me onto the bed. I flopped onto my back, bouncing once before sinking into the mattress. I grew immediately frustrated, lunging for his arm and yanking him down next to me.

  “Don’t stop,” I breathed, frantically pulling open my own shorts. Lucas dipped his hand under the fabric. His knuckles stretching the cloth as his fingers began to glide inside me. Fisting the sheets around me, I rolled my hips as I watched his wrist rub against my waistband. I was so far gone I didn’t care about the racket I made, senseless to anything but the growing heat.

  And then it stopped again. Lucas climbed out of bed, preoccupied with the nightstand.

  “Stop stopping!” I growled at his back, feeling thwarted.

  He returned, but this time he didn’t lay next to me, rather kneeling between my legs as he pulled off the foil wrapper. Later I would be ashamed that I hadn’t even considered protection, but as I was learning, with sex, there was little thinking involved.

  He shoved his shorts down, freeing himself. Like the rest of him, it was perfect. He ripped my shorts down too, leaving them to ring around one ankle. His hands slid up my legs, firm and calloused rough, coasting along my inner thigh until he hooked a finger under my panties and pushed them aside.

  For the first time I was a little uncomfortable, the both of us on display. He rocked forward, pressing into me. I sort of a panicked a little, pulling him down to crush me with my arms wrapped around his waist.

  “Alright?” he asked. The question required a great deal of effort, his body taut and shakin
g from the disruption, as if it took everything he had to hold back.

  “Keep going,” I assured, kissing his shoulder. I opened my legs, wrapping them alongside his hips.

  He pressed into me, the friction nice at first. But soon I began to tense, body cinching tight against the burning pressure. I bit him, jaw crunching shut, muscles cringing as he pushed deeper. He kept it slow, movements smooth and lazy, but I was a bit rigid beneath him.

  “Here,” he said, sensing it. His armed turned at an odd angle, guiding my own hand down between our bodies. I was a little embarrassed, knowing what he wanted me to do. But as I grazed myself the pleasure was instant, and when he let go I continued, falling into distraction.

  The pace picked up, turning frenzied. Lucas pushed up my shirt and jerked down my bra. He pressed his face into my chest, and I arched up when his mouth closed over my sensitive skin. He pulled away too soon, staying fused inside me as he sat back, kneeling upright.

  I didn’t think things could get more intense, but Luke’s face was cut harsh with craving. He seized the back of my knees, spreading them open. His thrusts pushing me across the bed and he had to pin my waist between his hands to hold me still. Every surge compelled a cry, the sounds loud and unabashed. It was all a wave, swelling high, drowning me with urge and impression.

  Our clothes twisted and bunched.

  Luke’s muscles clenching and touched with sweat.

  His eyes fixed to my chest, the flesh jerking in rhythm with him.

  And then the wave folded over, crashing violently, and I enjoyed the drowning. When I opened my eyes, Lucas was slumped beside me, his arm flung over my chest. We heaved together, gasping and tired.

  I was very still and calm afterwards, sort of reflecting on it all. The day’s events played out, but I didn’t feel tied to them anymore. I thought of the word mortality—the state or condition of being subject to death. Someone had tried to kill me, but it wasn’t that, it was Smith’s bones that made me feel the heavy cloak of my demise.

  People had sex after funerals according to Francesca. People did a lot of things to feel alive. They sought danger, enjoying the thrill. I had done that. Not the danger part, the thrill part, using Lucas to bring me back to life. It had worked. I no longer felt dejected or melancholy. I felt... satisfied, pleased, maybe even happy.

  I glanced at Lucas. He was wiped out, eyes closed, body pliant and relaxed. Knowing I wouldn’t get caught, my eyes drifted south, curiously taking in his nether region. Not so big now, and the used condom wasn’t helping. Gross. Wait... was that?

  I looked at my own thighs, finding them streaked in blood. I shifted a hip, seeing smears on the sheets. Lucas peeled open an eye, responding to my subtle movements.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, trying to be nonchalant. “I bled on the bed.”

  “Does it hurt?” he asked, grazing the inside of my thigh with the back of his knuckles.

  “No, I’m just surprised, I guess.” The pain of losing my virginity had long since gone, and now that the sex was over my other hurts were making themselves known, namely my head.

  “You bled in more places than one,” Lucas said, sitting up to examine the pillow. I blushed as he touched my hair, his fingers smoothing through the strands as he searched my scalp for a raw patch.

  I hissed when he found it, drawing back.

  “What happened?” he asked, lightly touching around the cut on my shoulder next.

  “I overestimated my abilities,” I said.

  Lucas lightly cupped my still exposed breast, touching me boldly. I tried to act like a seasoned seductress, all cool and alluring, as if I casually reclined half-naked in bed all the time. I couldn’t do it. Reaching across Lucas, I grabbed the sheet and pulled it over the both of us, feeling like a little prude.

  “What abilities,” Luke said, unperturbed by my newfound modesty.

  Safe under the sheet I cuddled up to him, his body warmer than a furnace. “I have this incredible insight when it comes to people,” I answered, wanting to be as honest as possible. “I always know how they feel, but sometimes it fails me, or I rely on it too much.”

  He was brutally Lucas just then, standing up instead of answering. It felt weird to tell him that, vulnerable almost, and I wanted a response. But I was easily distracted, watching him remove the condom, but more interesting was his body, a presentation of sorts as the shorts slipped off his hips and hit the floor.

  I know this sounds totally weird, but the sex had been a childlike experience. Children are discovering something new all the time, and as adults we forget what that feels like... well, unless you’re an empath. And that was what it was like—the sense of discovery, a brand new experience, learning the mysteries of man. Learning Lucas. Even as he strode down the stairs I watched him with a touch of wonder, enjoying the new sight.

  He returned with a first aid kit and warm washcloth. I protested when he pressed the latter between my thighs, blushing again. But he just shook his head, which from him was very much like being shushed. Then he inspected me all over. My cuts were cleaned with alcohol, my bruises numbered one by one.

  Lucas spent a lot of time staring at the one on my neck. Hidden in the shadow of my jaw, it had been stamped there by Bill’s thumb when he’d tried to strangle the life out of me.

  “Who did this?” he finally asked, pressing the last butterfly bandage over my shoulder.

  “What would you do if I told you?” I asked, honestly curious. He wasn’t acting upset, so I didn’t know how he would respond to the situation, whether he would go on a rampage or whatnot.

  “I would do something,” he admitted succinctly. “I would do anything if you asked. But you don’t ask,” Lucas pointed out.

  “I want to tell you things,” I said slowly, measuring my words. “I want to confide in you, but I just don’t think I’m ready to break open just yet,” I said, knowing it was too soon. The euphoria was wearing off, and even that brief thought in passing dredged up images of Smith, and not my Smith, but the bones of him.

  “Okay,” Lucas nodded, one sharp motion. I couldn’t feel it or anything, but he seemed satisfied, as if pleased by my declaration. “I was afraid it would be easier getting between your legs than in that brain.”

  “You’re one to talk,” I grumbled. “Wait,” I said, staring at him. “Was that a joke?” I could never tell if he was kidding.

  “I was being serious,” Luke answered. “But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t funny.”

  “Then laugh,” I said, daring him. I couldn’t die happy until I heard Lucas Finch laugh. I was beginning to wonder if I ever would. “Here, let me help you,” I said, teasing his side.

  “What are you doing?”

  “What am I doing?” I repeated, utterly flabbergasted. “Can’t you tell? I’m tickling you!”

  Apparently it had been a while, probably years since someone had tickled him, and he was totally immune.

  “Well I’m not giving up,” I said, letting the sheet fall off as I climbed over his body. “I just found all these new places to try out.”

  My smile was cut short by the front door. It slammed shut, heralding the arrival of some unknown person.

  Clomp. Clomp. Clomp.

  Lucas and I went still, staring at each other for a second before my eyes went wide and I scrambled under the blankets.

  A flash of red hair, and it was Elaine stepping off the stairs and into Luke’s bedroom. The gall. My vision went red I tell you, no kidding, I wanted to murder her for putting a damper on what had been the best moment of my life.

  But it wasn’t me that went berserk. Much to my surprise, it was Lucas that lost his shit. And that man, wow, his smiles might be sparse but his temper was not.

  Chapter 27

  Lucas sprung out of bed, naked as the day he was born. “What the hell are you thinking,” he bellowed. “Get out!” She scrambled back just in time, because he slammed the door shut inches from her face. She’d looked so surprised, shocked even. But what did
she expect, us to applaud her intrusion?

  Lucas snagged his shorts off the ground, jerking them on with sharp, angry pulls. I did the same, searching frantically for my shorts which had been lost among the sheets as I righted my crooked clothes. “Where are you going?” I asked as Lucas made for the stairs.

  “She won’t have left,” he answered, pulling the door open.

  I followed after him, only to stop on the top step. I could hear them arguing, and so I sat and listened, the sloped ceiling hiding me from sight.

  “You need my help!” Elaine was saying.

  Just hearing her voice made me bilious, the anger building every second she stayed in the house.

  “I don’t,” Lucas said severely, his deep voice grinding over the words. “It’s all a waste of time and you know it.”

  “How can you say that to me?” Elaine was swimming in confusion, her perplexity reaching me on the second floor. “How can you just give up!” she screeched. “You want to coast along living a half-life?”

  What the hell was she talking about? Her confusion was working me over, and it made me mad. They had some sort of secret together, the thought was sickening.

  “It’s not a half-life,” Lucas said carefully. “I’m happy here.”

  “Impossible,” Elaine challenged. But she wasn’t confident, not really.

  “Get out of my house, Elaine. And don’t come back.”

  “I can fix this, I can fix you. If you’ll only—”

  “Get out!” Lucas roared, the sound so loud I jumped in place.

  I think Elaine might have been crying. Her voice wavered when she said, “You’re angry, Lucas. You’re angry.”

  Duh, I thought. But my own anger had fizzled, the fight winding down.

  “Yes,” Lucas agreed. “I don’t understand it, but things are different here. Maybe the damn thing ran its course. I don’t care. I’m done thinking about it.”

  “It doesn’t work that way,” Elaine said, her bafflement only escalating. But that was the last thing she said. I heard the door open and close, her emotions being carried off with her.