Passage of the Night

by Amanda Carpenter

  Disturbed, she looked at her own battered car. 'What did you have in mind?' she asked, when he seemed content just to stare at her, immersed in his private thoughts. 'I—I'm afraid I can't invite you back to my place, since Louise lives with me, and I don't know whether she's going out tonight or not. Shall I meet you some place? I'll go home and change into something more presentable.'

  'Don't bother. You look fine.' Then, as she emitted an incredulous laugh, he swept his leisurely glance down her as if assessing her anew. He reached out and ran a light finger down the neckline of the collar, straightening it so delicately that she could not feel his touch, yet she shivered as if a strong wind had blown through her. 'No, I mean it. You look comfortable. I like it. In fact, if I could use the Gents here I'll do the changing, into a pair of jeans I keep in my boot. Do you mind waiting?'

  'Of course not,' she said, still staring at him.

  'Be right back.' He sprinted to his car and retrieved the jeans and a pair of tennis shoes every bit as battered as her own. He waved them to her and disappeared into the building, while she was left flooded with the images of his apartment and alien wealth, yet with the memory of their companionability.

  And the memory of their too brief spontaneous combustion. They had both moved as one towards the drinking from each other's lips. She remembered, remembered everything. Her fingers rose to press against her lips, dragging hard against the sensitive swell of flesh. She must be quite mad. Was she here to help him get Louise back? Why did he need to speak to her alone? What was there to say that hadn't been said already?

  Another indelible image burnt like a brand. Francis, cupping her cold, clenched hand and stroking it with warm tenderness. So much hadn't been said.

  'Are you all right?'

  She whirled, fully caught in the intimacy of her musing, her head rearing back with as much shock as if he had caught her naked. Francis's eyes were too knowing, too sympathetic, as if he read her thoughts and shared them, but that was she being fanciful. Tm fine,' she replied, the sound harsh from frozen throat muscles. 'Where are we going?'

  'Get in my car, I'll drive.'

  But she shook her head, and the attention he gave even that slight movement of hers made her wonder if she did so with undue violence. 'I can't leave mine, it'll be locked in for the weekend.'

  'Then I'll follow you home,' he replied, and his eyes lit with inexplicable amusement. 'You can park in your street without getting caught, can't you?'

  She tilted her head shortly, an unwilling acknowledgement at how reasonable that sounded. 'All right, why not?'

  'Fine, lead the way.'

  They were heading towards New York and Friday evening traffic was travelling against them, so they made good time. Kirstie tried not to think of how incongruous her humble little Datsun seemed with the gleaming, immaculate BMW purring close behind.

  As with the airstrip, she saw the town where she lived through the eyes of a stranger as they drove through. Upper Montclair, New Jersey, was rolling with gentle hills and wide, paved avenues. It was a lovely shady place in the daytime. Now, the darkened treetops rustled as the wind swooshed through them, seeking open spaces. The large colonial-style houses they passed as she slowed preparatory to turning into her street were set well back, with long driveways ribboning through spacious front gardens.

  With the property boom in recent years, the prices of houses now were such that Kirstie couldn't afford to move here, but her parents' house had been paid for on their deaths by their insurance policy.

  She could imagine how Francis would find the interior, long since redecorated with a feminine touch. She slowed her car to a crawl, wound down her window and motioned for Francis to pull to one side. After waiting to see that he did, she speeded up until, about a hundred yards down the street and with a keen sense of the ridiculous, she switched off her engine and let her car coast silently into her driveway.

  When it had rolled to a stop, she moved fast, locking her doors and grabbing her bag as she eased the door on to its latch, with a quick glance towards the lit front window. Since they always left that light on, she couldn't tell if Louise was home or not, but she wasn't taking any chances and raced swiftly back to the street, her blonde head thrown back to watch for Francis.

  Car headlights came on from fifty yards away, the twin beams blinding her. She raised a hand to her face, and the ghostly BMW purred to an elegant stop in front of her. The passenger door was pushed open from within.

  Francis said smoothly, 'Climb in, and the world's our oyster.'

  Kirstie tumbled in, laughing, and as she slammed her door shut the car shot away. Francis rolled the sunroof back and the windows down, letting in the wild evening wind. The BMW ate up the neighbourhood streets until they reached the interstate highway and accumulated speed with an effortlessness that made their earlier pace seem as though they'd been sitting still.

  Francis threw her a sidelong glance. It was as though he was a totally different person from the precise businessman at the airstrip, with his wind-ruffled hair and faded jeans, and his white shirt open at the neck to leave his strong throat free of restriction. She sensed the latent maleness in the length and breadth of his thighs, sewn into the larger, stronger bone and sinew, a psychic sniff that was like an exotic perfume. It was heady and perturbing, a dangerously addictive drug that wrapped itself around her jangling nerves.

  'What were you laughing at when you climbed in?' he asked.

  Kirstie shrugged, looking out of her own window to give herself the illusion of space away from this disturbing man. 'At how silly the whole charade was, I guess. It reminded me of when I was a teenager. My bedroom window on the second floor overlooks the garage roof and I used to sneak out of it, across the roof, and down the large oak tree on the opposite side. It seemed a clever thing to do—until I got caught.'

  She heard the silent exhalation of his laugh and slanted a look back at him in time to see him sober. He said, 'Louise told me how your parents died in a car accident. I was sorry to hear it; I'd never met them, but I liked what I knew about them.'

  She lifted a shoulder in helpless reaction against an old ache. 'They were pretty neat people. They had a good deal of common sense and a whole lot of love. It was a combination that managed to keep them pretty sane through the raising of four kids.' Then, almost in the same breath, 'Francis, where are we going?'

  'Does it matter?' he countered. The smile had crept back around the edges of his mobile, fascinating mouth.

  The dull ache, a baffling grief, still hurt her chest. She ignored it and replied, wryly, 'We don't have to go this far out to talk about Louise.'

  'But there's no reason why we can't enjoy ourselves while we do it, is there?' He lifted one hand from the wheel and spread it out fingers up, a graceful offering made with a turn of his wrist. 'The night is made for magic. The Manhattan skyline, Greenwich Village jazz, Little Italy and Chinatown restaurants, Harlem funk. It's all ahead. It can be ours for the experience.'

  He made a whole night of possibilities appear in what he said, in that little gesture. He brought to her a cruel fantasy of simple pleasure, and she wanted it.

  Kirstie didn't mind confusion. Not really, not as long as it was confined to items, events and other people. She became distressed, however, when the confusion was inside her, and Francis prompted a screaming riot of conflicting emotions and desires. It had taken several weeks, but she had just got her life back to some semblance of normality, haunted only by memory and self-denial, when he had to reappear and sent her back on to that rollercoaster ride.

  Of course the best way to alleviate the confusion was to avoid him. After tonight that was exactly what she intended to do, and she would stop thinking about him as well. He wanted to talk to her about Louise, so she would listen and sympathise as best she could with whatever it was that troubled him. And, when the evening was over, so too would her phantom guilt be eradicated. They could go their inevitable separate ways.

  Having thus mappe
d out the immediate future to her complete satisfaction, Kirstie slid down in her seat, swamped in misery at what she felt sure would bring her peace of mind.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Francis asked Kirstie what kind of evening she preferred and, thinking it would be better than the intimacy of more quiet settings, she opted for a nightclub. Once she was in the packed Soho club, however, Kirstie began to have second thoughts.

  Francis went ahead to forge a path through the crowd, the fingers of one hand locked firmly around hers. Kirstie scuttled along with her nose buried in Francis's shirt-sheathed back.

  Someone jostled her, and she fell into him with a bump. Francis twisted around and put a protective arm around her shoulders, drawing her against his side. The slightly raised calluses on his palm rasped against the tiny sensitive hairs on her upper arms, and her resulting shiver was violent.

  His voice rumbled in her ear and vibrated through her ribcage. 'What do you want to drink?'

  'Scotch,' said Kirstie, her heart knocking like a faulty engine. She looked away, unable to meet that lazy, jewel-like gleam bending down towards her. 'Make it a double, please.'

  For some reason that made him laugh. 'There never are any half-measures with you, are there?' She turned back to stare at him, but he was already walking to the bar.

  Francis leaned against the bar-top and ordered Kirstie's Scotch, along with a tonic and lemon for him, as he was driving. Kirstie looked around at the nightclub with interest, for it had been Francis's choice. The place had more character than elegance, and the crowd was rowdy and expansive. Most of the men wore jeans, though several women were attired in clinging dresses and high heels. Nevertheless, Kirstie did not feel out of place in her casual clothes.

  It was not exactly the sort of place that she would have thought Francis even knew about, let alone where he would go out of choice. If she had thought about it at all, she would have imagined him surrounded by civilised expense, where all the waiters and waitresses talked in hushed whispers and champagne was priced at hundreds of dollars per bottle.

  With a pang she finished painting the picture in her mind. Louise's voluptuous beauty, clothed in designer fashion, Cartier jewellery and handmade Italian shoes would fit in perfectly.

  'Penny for them,' murmured a voice in her ear. She jumped as Francis pressed a glass full of amber liquid into her hands. He was too close, the music too loud; she would have to put her mouth right up to the lean line of his jaw in order to make herself heard at all. Instead she just smiled and shook her head.

  He smiled back. 'Come on, I've found a space at the bar.' So, feeling like an obedient dummy, she followed him to the empty bar stool where they placed their drinks. Francis turned back to her, sliding his hands down her arms to her elbows to make the small jump to her waist as he helped her hop on to the high perch.

  She swivelled to the bar counter and nursed her drink, huddling over it while Francis lounged by her side. He did not seem in any hurry to delve into conversation, though, and watched the people around him with alert interest. Her eyes followed the curve of black hair at the nape of his strong neck and met the avid, hungry gaze of a woman from the opposite side of the bar, who had been appreciating the same view. Instant antagonism flared with a growl inside Kirstie. She glanced away abruptly, shocked.

  'What do you think, do you like the place?' asked Francis beside her.

  She kept her face averted. 'It's got character.'

  'Kirstie,' he said. She turned her head. Their gazes, mere inches apart, connected with a shock. His patient emerald eyes sparkled with the reflections of the brightly coloured directed lights. 'I thought we might be able to enjoy ourselves a little, but you haven't relaxed since we walked through the door.'

  'I'm sorry,' she muttered, shivering inside as his gaze shifted down to her lips. 'I've got a lot on my mind.'

  He accepted that without prying and told her, 'If you want to go, we can go.'

  He sounded indifferent, as if it didn't matter, and it woke the perverse side of Kirstie's normally easygoing nature. She had acted the fool, sneaked her car into her own driveway, travelled for more than an hour to get here, only to turn right around and leave? 'No,' she said, taking a swallow of her drink. It burned in her stomach, spreading a reckless warmth. 'That's all right, we can stay.'

  'Well, for a moment I was worried, but judging by your enthusiasm you must be having the time of your life,' he said, and the sarcasm was so accurately thrust that it surprised her into staring at him.

  Heavens, what was wrong with her? She hadn't said or done anything right since he'd appeared at the airstrip. Kirstie stuttered with contrition, 'I am sorry— I didn't mean—what I meant to say was '

  Then Francis surprised her even more as he burst out laughing. Amusement lit his whole face, and she had just enough time to realise that he had been teasing her when he set down his own drink and took hold of her arm. 'Come on, you ridiculous creature,' said Francis, dragging her off the stool 'There's no talking reason with you at the moment, so we may as well dance.'

  He led her on to the packed dance-floor and pulled her against his chest. There, indeed, all reason deserted her as he wrapped both arms firmly around her and held her tight, despite all her attempts to put some distance between them.

  Frantic heat coursed through her body. Kirstie turned her head away, wild to look anywhere but at where his shirt-buttons parted to reveal hair-sprinkled skin. He bent his head and put his lips to the shell of her ear, murmuring wickedly, 'What's the matter, Kirstie? You're as stiff as a board.'

  'This isn't the right music for slow dancing,' she hissed.

  'Ah, but there's no room for anything else. Be a sport. Put your arms around my neck and pretend you like this.'

  Like this? Like this? Her composure was in smoking ruins, her thinking a debacle. This was a disaster; this was madness. This was unbearable pleasure, with his thighs rubbing gracefully against hers, his torso a perfect haven. All her senses were vibrantly aware of the length and breadth of his body, his scent and warmth. Her fingers slid up to his shoulders and tightened. She meant to push him away, to set herself free, but, when he buried his face into her hypersensitive neck and inhaled slow and deep, all the strength trickled out of her arms.

  His hands moved down the curve of her spine, moulding her body against the taut, muscle-ridged length of his. She could feel every hollow and bulge through her thin flying suit, even the rough, sturdy barrier of jeans at his hips. Her breasts were pressed hard against his chest, the double barriers of their clothing no protection from the sensation of the soft twin mounds of flesh thudding with her heartbeat, thudding into him. With a slow, deep sigh he brought his head down and laid it gently against hers.

  She caught her breath in a trembling moan that cut through the chest-thudding beat of the music, and, as always, lost her battle to react against Francis.

  His armament was fantastic. He had the thrust of the intellect, the ability to manoeuvre conversations, a sense of humour, and, most importantly of all, he laid all those weapons down and succumbed to this simplistic, silent quest for animal comfort. It made him vulnerable, and that was his most secret weapon of all, for his vulnerability crumbled her common sense and veiled her mind from the thought of future consequence.

  She was shaking like a leaf and flailed mentally for some kind of secure point to hold on to. 'Stop it,' she groaned.

  He lifted his head and his arms tightened, gathering her even closer. She looked up and his eyes, green and narrowed, were quizzically puzzled. 'Why?' he asked quietly. 'Am I hurting you? Are you hurting me?'

  Her head was too heavy and fell on to his waiting shoulder. 'No—yes. Because—because '

  'Because you're afraid you might want it?' he asked gently.

  She had no reason to give him the answer; self-protection alone should have stopped her. She held very still and after long seconds whispered, 'Yes.'

  Was that a tremble in his limbs. Did she imagine his low groan? Blocking
the flashing lights, he bent his cheek to her head. When she might have lifted her face, he cupped the back of her neck with both heavy hands. His heart was racing out of control, thudding through his whole body like a midnight train, and she was the one who pressed hard against him, felt the butterfly flutter of his ridged stomach muscles, the damp heat making his shirt cling to him, the stunning, mind-destroying evidence of the hardened pressure pounding low between his hips that thrust its aggressive male urgency into the soft pit of her abdomen. Her answering rhythmic ache was an emptiness that was a physical pain.

  This had never happened to her before, not even with that first, distant love-affair. This elemental compulsion was totally outside her experience; she had no controls, no barriers to erect and pull her back, for she had never needed them. Her breath came fast as inside she careened towards a breaking-point. So very close; she was almost there; they could both sense it. Her eyes closed, her head turned, her mouth seeking the erratic pulse-point at his open neck, and his hands guided her.

  Then a rambunctious laughing couple bumped into them and the moment splintered. Both Kirstie and Francis staggered. The other woman struggled to get her balance but couldn't avoid falling into Kirstie, who was knocked out of Francis's arms.

  "Scuse me!' burbled the tipsy blonde as she hung on to Kirstie. For a moment it was impossible to tell who supported whom, then, with a strained smile, she straightened away from the other woman, who lurched back to her companion.

  A brief interruption, but more than enough. She had time for realisation, for a brief sense of furious regret, and finally a return to sanity. She had time for a desperate clutch at her composure until Francis laid his hands on her shoulders and turned her around to face him. Then, as his gaze rested on her face for a long moment and his expression changed, she had time to ask the first thing that popped into her head.

  'When did Louise get in touch with you?'

  He went still and hesitated, a direct contrast to the dancing people and loud music. A succession of thoughts ran at the back of his gaze, too fast to interpret. 'A couple of weeks ago,' he said. 'The first time. Then on Tuesday this week.'