by Jianne Carlo
“You're gonna kill me, woman.” Condom. He grabbed his pants from its wacky position half-on the side table and extracted the foil packet.
Before he could turn back to her, Destiny slipped her arms around his chest, pressed hot, wet kisses on his spine, and soft fingers caught his dick in a maddening, barely there hold. “I'm on birth control, remember? You don't need that.”
“I am so fucked. I forgot.” He captured her hands with his and stilled the slight trailing of her nails. Linc glanced over his shoulder and found her sweet face right there, her nose grazing his. “I’m riding the edge, and I fucking came like a humping camel not minutes ago. I haven't gone bareback in decades. It will be sheer heaven feeling your pussy walls clamping my dick.”
She bit his shoulder, those black eyes never leaving his.
“Don’t want to hurt you., but I’m about to lose it.”
She locked her hands around his dick.
He lost it.
Lust dazed, he flipped them so she lay on top. He set her in place, one leg on either side of his hips. Not trusting his control, he demanded through gritted teeth, “Mount me. You do it.”
She licked her lips.
May as well have knotted a rubber band around his balls.
She leaned closer, palms splayed over his nipples. Her little pants trailed embers across his pecs, his breastbone. One tooth snagged her bottom lip when her gaze fixed on his dick.
She lifted one leg, put all her weight on one arm, and circled the head of his dick with her free hand.
Linc moaned, clenching the soft cotton sheets, mesmerized by her rapt concentration.
Precum leaked, and his testicles drew tighter.
She positioned his dick at her folds.
At the whisper of friction, heat swarmed and buzzed his entire groin. The visual as she sank in agonizing slowness down his cock made his eyes cross.
Her sweet pussy fanned his burning balls, leaving slick wetness behind. Every pubic hair pulled and prickled when she tried different movements, a tiny circle, a side-to-side rock, straight up and down.
“Fuck.” Linc groaned. He balled his hands. He raked her face, entranced by her sooty lashes, half concealing the momentary glazing of her eyes, the slight rise in her brows, the gasp when she hit a sweet spot.
“Hmm.” She bent closer.
“Oh”—closer yet—“oh, oh, oh.”
With each “oh,” she contracted and convulsed, her walls a blazing vise clamping his dick. He gripped her hips, held her down and thrust once, twice. She exploded around him, her eyes rolled back, and her nails scraped his damp chest and forged through the fine hairs.
“One more,” he commanded, not knowing if his willpower would hold. He drove into a paradise of heat and slickness and sensation as her pussy claimed him.
His stones contracted.
Linc clenched his teeth, splayed his hand low on her wet pussy curls, and fingered her clit.
“Linc, Linc,” she screamed.
Her pussy fisted his dick.
The sharp spasms of her pussy were too potent to fight. He cupped her bottom cheeks and angled her higher. Hammered faster and deeper, arching off the mattress and plunging into a vertical free fall.
“Oh God, oh God, oh God.” She collapsed on his chest, her breath cooling his damp skin.
Too sated to think, Linc settled a hand on the curve of her ass and another mid-back, closed his eyes, turned to drop a kiss on her forehead, and sighed.
“Mmm.” She brushed her lips on his chest and rested her cheek on his pecs.
They lay there joined and entwined, drowsy and content.
“Dear? Destiny, dear?”
Destiny scrambled onto her palms, her eyes wide, shocked and filled with horror. “Mrs. C—it's Mrs. C.”
“Who's Mrs. C?”
“You don't know Mrs. Charles? Cripes.” Hand cupping her mouth, she groaned, “Oh no. It might have been a serial killer, then.”
A serial killer? Mrs. Charles? Whaaat?
Linc heard the clicking of shoes and cursed his carelessness. “Shit. I didn't lock the fucking door. What an asinine thing to do. Destiny, I believe your Mrs. Charles is in the kitchen.”
“Oh. My. God.”
Reluctantly, he lifted her off him and set her on the other side of the bed. He lurched off the mattress and found his slacks. “I'll put on pants and keep her in the kitchen. Take your time and dress, okay? Don't worry. I've got everything under control.”
Eyes narrowing, she threw him a fierce scowl, and he knew fireworks would come later. Destiny's nostrils always did that one, one-two flare prior to an explosion. He'd win this battle; she could claim victory the next skirmish. He had no intention of leaving her place until she was Mrs. Destiny Chapman.
What the hell was she mad about anyway?
Linc made his way into the kitchen and discovered the most startling, diminutive Betty White look-alike humming and using a dustpan and brush to scoop popcorn stuffing into the empty boxes on the table. She wore a flowered dress with a white frill around the hem and faced the open door to the apartment, so she didn't see him enter.
He cleared his throat and took a step forward.
In blithe ignorance of his presence, she continued humming and scooping.
“Mrs. Charles.” He spoke quietly.
“She probably doesn't have her hearing aid in,” Destiny murmured as she walked to his side. “I'll handle this.”
Destiny scooted around until she was diagonal to the elderly woman and tapped her shoulder twice.
Mrs. Charles rose vertically, moving slowly, as if her joints ached. “There you are, dear. I forgot to give you this.” She plucked a legal-size brown envelope from the table and offered it to Destiny. “Your young man asked me to give it to you.”
Destiny frowned but accepted the proffered packet. “Mrs. C, is this the young man who took you to brunch?”
Come here, she motioned with her hand, and her squinting conveyed a sense of urgency and importance.
He complied with her silent order and draped an arm over her shoulder.
A pair of glasses hung on a string of ornate beads and pearls from the woman's neck. She perched the bifocals on the edge of a powdered nose and craned her neck.
“Mrs. Edna Charles, this is my—”
“I'm Destiny's boyfriend,” Linc declared, hating that he couldn't say “fiancé.” “I'm happy to meet you, Mrs. Charles. I'm Linc Chapman.”
“Oh my.” Mrs. C, as Destiny’d called her, hand clasped to her breast, ring-encrusted fingers twinkling under the ceiling light, peered up at him. “What a deep voice you have, young man. I don't believe we have met before. My, my, this is a puzzle.”
The wrinkled skin of her cheeks pinkened. Gnarled fingers curled Destiny's forearm, and Mrs. Charles tugged. “Come away, dear.”
The two women retreated to the hallway, out of Linc's sight, not that it mattered. Mrs. Charles’ murmur reverberated like a stage whisper meant for an audience of five hundred. “I didn't realize you had two young men, dear. I hope I didn't get you into trouble.”
“No, you didn't get me into trouble, Mrs. C.” Destiny spoke slowly and loudly. “And no, I don't have two young men. Linc's the only one.”
“But who was the other, dear?”
“I don't know, but I'm going to find out. Thanks for bringing this over, Mrs. C. I'll walk you back to your apartment.”
“Thank you, dear. I've asked Mr. Ronson to replace those lights in the corridor, but he hasn't gotten around to it.”
Linc hurried into the hallway. “Mind if I come along for the ride, ladies?”
Mrs. Charles tittered and batted lashes coated in layers of mascara. “Of course not, Mr. Chapman.”
“Linc, please, ma'am.” Taking his cue from Destiny, he spoke three tones louder, while curling Mrs. Charles’ hand into the crook of his arm.
“Why, Linc is such an unusual name.” Mrs. Charles tucked a wisp of gray hair into her bun.
“Short for Lincoln, ma'am. My mother named me after our sixteenth president.”
“Here we are, Mrs. C.” Destiny opened an apartment door two down from hers, but on the same side. “We'll wait to hear you turn both locks. Good night.”
“Good night, dear. You too, Linc.” Mrs. C minced her way into her apartment and then gave them a perfect Queen Elizabeth wave before she closed the door.
Thirty seconds later Mrs. Charles’ last bolt clicked into place.
Linc laid his hand on Destiny’s shoulder, and when she glanced back, he put a finger to his lips. Waiting until the sound of shuffling footsteps faded, he tested both locks.
“Is her eyesight as bad as her hearing?”
“Not when she wears her glasses.” Destiny rolled her eyes.
“How old is she?” He placed his hand in the small of Destiny's back and nudged her into motion.
“As if she'd give that away. Mrs. C pretends to be as intelligent as a powder puff, but underneath that blank expression is one smart cookie.”
“She looks like a miniature Betty White.”
She shot him a glance out of the corner of her eyes and grinned. “And she's so much like that ditzy character Betty White played on The Golden Girls. And she's vain. Won't wear her glasses because they age her ten years. Won't put in her hearing aid half the time.”
Destiny preceded him into the apartment.
Linc shut the door and turned both locks, then slipped in the dead bolt.
“Are you hungry? I slept right through the meal on the plane. I haven't eaten anything in thirteen hours.”
“Plane? You really did go to Greece?”
“Why don't we order in something, and I'll bring you up to date. Then you can catch me up on the last three weeks.”
She studied him, eyes narrowed, lips pursed. “I'm not feeling very kindly about you at the moment, Lincoln Abraham Chapman. I haven't heard a peep from you in three weeks—not an email, not a voice mail, nothing.”
“That why you gave me that dirty look when Mrs. C showed up?”
“No, it's because I'm mad at myself for not being more mad with you.” She tugged a hand through a raven lock that had tangled at the end. “You show up three weeks after, well, after.”
“After you told me you never wanted to see me again,” he reminded her, guessing Nadine's last words were engraved on her brain. “All I ask is that you hear me out. And keep in mind that my feelings for you haven’t changed. I want a ring on your finger and the words ’I do,' tomorrow if possible.”
Shades of crimson flashed from throat to forehead; she puffed out a long breath. “You sure can bust a temper balloon.”
Grinning, he started in her direction.
She put up a hand.
“You sit and bring me up to date while I cook.”
“Got any beer?”
“No, sorry. I have wine, though.” She dropped the brown envelope Mrs. Charles had given her onto a pile of mail.
“That the wine you're talking about?” He pointed at a floor rack against the wall opposite the table. “By the way, I like the art deco look. Reminds me of my grandmother's kitchen. Where'd you find it?”
“Yes, that's the wine. I have mostly red, but there are a couple of pinot grigios.” She had her head in the fridge, and he admired the way the worn denim hugged her ass. “I got the table at a garage sale. And funny you should say that. The guy I bought the table from told me that his grandmother had died and none of the grandkids wanted her old stuff. Can you imagine? It cost me more to get it here than I actually paid for it.”
Linc selected a merlot, remembering her choice in Alaska. He rummaged through the drawer under the microwave and found a slender wine opener with an old-fashioned metal corkscrew.
When he looked up, wine in one hand, screw in the other, she placed a deep, square bowl on the table and sat with one leg curled under the other. She plucked a giant hair clip from a lazy Susan in the middle of the glass-topped surface and set it between her teeth.
“I don't suppose you'd feel comfortable doing that naked.” His foolish blood chased a maze around the veins in his groin.
She grappled the clip into her hair and ordered, voice terse, “Start talking.”
“Are you having any?” He dipped his chin at the bottle.
“Sure. Glasses are in the cabinet above the rack.”
“The fire flared up again after I last saw you in Healy.” He'd decided to avoid the details of their last encounter. “It took three days to finally put the damned thing out.”
He sat opposite her after setting two wineglasses on the table, wedged the bottle between his spread thighs, and cut the metal encasing the cork. “We managed to save Keechum—the cabin Demon loaned you—but there was a lot of smoke and water damage. The squad and I stayed on a couple of days to help restore the damaged houses and the one school in the area. A cold front blew in and dumped six inches of snow the day before we were supposed to fly out.”
In the middle of slicing an onion, she muttered without looking at him, “Six days with a working cell phone.”
“You're right. I could have called you during a break anytime during those six days.” He worked the corkscrew into the spongy cork. “I didn't think a phone call from me would be welcome. Your last words to me—”
“I know what they were,” she snapped. “And you deserved everything I said.”
Pop!
The sound echoed in the momentary silence.
She hacked the end of a mushroom stem with a viciousness that had him stifling a wince. “Continue.”
He touched the bottle lip to one of the crystal goblets and poured a tasting two-fingers. Linc swirled the wine in the goblet, checking color and clarity. He inhaled and then took a small taste. “I don't know if you remember me telling you about the new business—”
“I remember.” She executed a mushroom head with an oriental chopping knife.
Linc almost choked on the wine. “I had to fly back to Ft. Bragg to go through the formal paperwork to make my retirement complete. By the time I wrapped things up, I had to fly to Athens for the meeting Satan had arranged. We were supposed to be there for a week, but the owner of the three shipping lines we're now handling security for wanted to introduce us to an Italian buddy who was also looking for a security firm.”
He finished pouring them wine, stood, carried a glass to her, and set it down to the left of her right hand. Before he straightened, he sucked her plump earlobe.
She shivered. A few flakes of herbs from the bottle she held drifted off target and landed on the table.
Jesus, she smelled good with the hint of sex still on her skin. He tasted the salt from their earlier tussle and couldn't resist another suck. “Hmm. You’re delicious all over.”
“Stop that.” She squeezed shoulder to ear, dislodging his mouth.
“Here, taste.” He brought the goblet to her lips and angled the crystal so she could take a sip.
She swirled the liquid in her mouth and swallowed. “That's the Fry merlot, isn't it? It'll go well with the Boeuf Bourguignon.”
“Destiny.” He nuzzled her neck. “Ever since you made that dish in Alaska, I've been dying to have it again.”
“Go sit down.” Out of the corner of one eye, he caught her lips going crooked as she tried not to smile.
So far, so good.
“Did you land the Greece deal?” She peeled a garlic clove.
“Yeah, we did.” Linc straddled a chair and swilled wine. “Your turn. Why the Adirondacks? Why the seclusion?”
“How'd you know I was in the Adirondacks?”
“I have my sources. So, why there?”
She canted her chin. “I haven't taken a vacation this year. I was burned out. It’s a scenic area with charming villages. And the last thing I needed was having to be polite to strangers. I don't know anyone there.”
Why are you lying? I know you never even went into any village for supplies. So what were you doing?
�
�You picked a great spot. That's always been one of my favorite retreats.” Lincoln studied her bent head, the wayward curls teasing her nape.
“It is beautiful and very peaceful.” She kept her eyes on the chopping board and the garlic, her deft fingers working the papery skin. “I didn't turn on the TV and left my cell in the rental car. I read and cooked and went for long walks.”
“I wish I'd been there with you.” Linc waited for the penny to drop.
“And there was no Nadine to deal with.” She met his gaze directly.
Aha, the crux of the matter. Nadine. That ass and pussy comment. He downed the rest of his wine and poured more into the glass.
“Did you and Satan”—Destiny spat Lorcan's nickname, her nostrils flaring one, one-two—“fuck Nadine at the same time?”
Chapter Eleven
Destiny hadn't wanted to ask the question, didn't know if she could live with his answer, and hadn't meant to be so crude. But she felt crude, felt like she'd skidded on gravel at full speed and her skin had been scraped raw and blood oozed from each broken capillary.
“When Satan retired, his head was in a really bad place. He took a position as a park ranger for Denali National Park.” Linc sipped his wine.
She concentrated on slipping the parboiled pearl onions out of their thin covering, her fingers suddenly too clumsy for such a delicate operation, Destiny ground her teeth so hard, she figured he must have heard her ivories squeak.
Why didn't he just say yes or no?
She waited for him to continue and peeked at him when he moved and shifted in his seat, his thumbs twiddling fast, tight circles.
“We were all worried about him and took turns visiting him. We especially didn't want him on his own during the dead of winter.”
Had they feared he'd commit suicide?
Destiny tried to picture the laughing, always irreverent Satan as depressed and suicidal. She shook her head. Satan and suicide didn't jive; she'd never met anyone so full of joie de vivre.
“Satan picked me up at the airport. Nadine happened to be on the same flight.”
Two years ago. In the past. Stop picturing them naked. Together. Stop.
“Destiny, are you with me?”