Left! Shouldn’t it be left?
He didn’t think he screamed it aloud, but she spoke to him in a quiet voice. “Right here, then another right at the next junction.”
Who could fucking see the junction?
Bile rose again. More sweat popped. He felt it trickling down his face.
He wished he could run the hell out of here, and would have tried, but even in panic he thought she was his only chance at escaping these catacombs of hell. Maybe he tightened his grip on her hand, because she squeaked again.
“I have this friend,” she said, moving steadily - but slowly, oh, so damn slowly! - forward. “Her mom never carries a purse. But she has everything you could ever need regardless.”
He couldn’t acknowledge her talk, afraid if he opened his mouth, it would only issue a primal scream.
“One time we were searching for our car in the north forty of a parking lot and I wished aloud that I had a flashlight. Pat - my mom’s friend - pipes up, ‘Oh, I do,’ and out of her bra she pulls a flashlight.”
She laughed. “No lie.”
As if he’d answered her. As if words could be pushed past his dry throat.
“Not much farther,” she said now, taking another turn.
They’d already baby-stepped a marathon.
Then, in the space of one short breath and the next, Stevie crumpled, yanking free of his hand.
He froze. So this was cardiac arrest, he thought. His chest tightened, his head pounded, he thought he saw the River Styx in the near distance.
But the little whimper at his feet wasn’t from a vicious three-headed dog. “Stevie?” He squatted, his outstretched hands encountering her soft hair, her shoulder. If she felt his trembling, she didn’t mention it.
“Stupid bad-girl boots,” she muttered instead.
He heard himself make a sound - was it a laugh?
“Their oh-so-fashionable needle noses caught on something.” She shifted and he heard a second stifled whimper.
“You’re hurt.”
“I twisted my ankle.” Her voice sounded strained. “I don’t think it’s broken or anything, but - okay, it really hurts.”
He was drowning in physical responses. Sweat, nausea, cold, shortness of breath. But he had to do something. Help Stevie. Get out of the effing damn dark.
Just run, the primitive core of him urged. Find your way out. Find a way to get her later.
He jolted to his feet. Hunkered down to touch her. Jack-in-the-boxed up again.
LaLanne? Stevie had questioned him on New Year’s Eve. 0’Lantern? In the Box?
He remembered how she’d amused him. Intrigued him. Aroused him from his first glimpse of that sweet full mouth.
She was hurt. Stevie was hurt.
He squatted again, battling panic. “Let me pick you up,” he said, his breath soughing out in rough gasps. “We’ll get out together.”
She might have protested, but frankly, he couldn’t hear anything very well, not over the death knell that was his heartbeat. Her weight felt light in his arms. Against his chest, it seemed to slow the organ inside a fraction.
“I’ll put my hand against the wall,” she said in his ear. “Walk slowly and we should be out in a few short minutes.”
A week or two passed. Then his toe bumped one of the wooden doors at the entrance to the caves. Another day went by and then they were outside.
The lights at the entrance were out and the pathway from the winery administrative offices was no longer lit. But compared to the stygian atmosphere of the caves it seemed as bright as dawn. With Stevie still in his arms, he basked in the feeling of freedom.
“Jack.” Her hand trailed down his face and surely she could feel his cold sweat.
“Yeah.” He gulped more breaths of chilly, damp air.
“In there … you … the dark…”
Yeah. Though if he talked about it, she’d know … But shit, normal wasn’t in his sights now, not even temporary normal, he thought, resigned. It had always been an off chance anyhow.
He stared out at the rain. “As I’m sure you’ve guessed, I’m terrified of it,” he admitted, his voice thick. “Prince Jack Parini, terrified of the flicking dark.”
Stevie and Jack arrived at the Baci farmhouse like the victims of a natural disaster. From outside the caves, she’d noticed the light illuminating her old home’s front porch, and they’d agreed to head there.
Jack had sprinted to the parking lot for his car, but there was no human speed fast enough to avoid a thorough soaking in the driving rain. By the time they made it to the front door of the farmhouse, Jack carrying Stevie in his arms, they both looked like half-drowned swamp rats. “Are you sure I shouldn’t be taking you to the emergency room?” he asked.
She shook her head, her own arms linked around his neck. Already her ankle was better. It had been one of those severe - but - short-term wrenches. The only reason she’d allowed him carry her was because that way she could hold him, too.
Once inside, she gave directions. Lights were flipped on, the heater activated, and she was deposited in the bathroom attached to the downstairs guest room. Though she offered him the first shower, he refused.
She didn’t make a protest. A few minutes under the hot spray gave her time to think about her next move. Wrapped in a terry cloth robe, she opened the bathroom door to find him waiting. He had a bag of ice bundled in a dish towel and an elastic bandage he’d scrounged from someplace.
“I hate ice,” she complained as he set her up on the guest bed, first winding the bandage in figure eights around her sore joint and then arranging the bag on top of it.
“Jock like you? Suck it up.” But he pressed his lips to the top of her damp head. “I’d be on my way, mon ange, but I don’t trust you to stay off that leg. Now be a good girl and rest while I get cleaned up.”
He shut the bathroom door and she hurriedly abandoned the ice bag. Her injury was just a minor twinge as she limped about to collect some of her brother-in-law’s clothes from the master bedroom. After leaving them on a chair outside the guest bath, she made her way into the small living area where she managed to put a match to the logs laid in the fireplace.
When Jack arrived on scene - wearing Penn’s battered jeans and a Build MeUp! T-shirt - the room was warming, despite the rain drumming on the roof. Atop the small trunk that served as a coffee table, she’d set a platter of cheese and crackers. A bottle of a neighbor’s cabernet sauvignon was breathing beside two wineglasses.
She busied herself by pouring the liquid into the stemware. “Tell me what you think. Last time I had this, I found it a little too jammy for my taste, but a fruity red sounds perfect for the moment.”
He lingered in the doorway, shaking his head. “Mon chat…”
Cat. I like your, claws, little cat, he’d said. I like the sting.
Underneath the long, thick robe, she was naked, and her skin bloomed with heat, as if she was already imbibing intoxicants. Her hand trembled as she poured the second glass. Good God, the French thing was going to kill her.
“You should have that foot propped up, Stevie.”
“I will, once you sit down,” she bargained and held out one of the wines.
Still, he didn’t move. “You’re probably wondering…”
“Nope,” she said, shaking her head.
He narrowed his eyes at her as he crossed the room to take the glass and sit on the sofa. One considering swallow, then he set the wine aside in order to lift her injured leg and rest her heel on his thigh.
She grasped the edges of the robe together to maintain her modesty as he stuffed a throw pillow beneath her calf. “There,” he said. His hand squeezed her bare toes.
She was insanely glad that Man had recently dragged her in for a pedicure. Her nails were painted a very feminine pink. A tiny red heart adorned her big toe.
His forefinger traced the lines of the elastic bandage at her ankle and goose bumps crawled up her inner thigh. Her leg twitched. It seemed to fa
scinate him as he took another sip from his glass. “About earlier -”
“Forget about earlier.” She leaned over to pick up her own wine. “All I want now is a glass or two of this stuff followed by…” Her nerve petered out.
His eyebrows rose. “Followed by?”
Stephania Baci was the brash sister. The bold one. The bad one.
Keep your voice down, Stevie.
Do you have to clatter, like that up the stairs?
Ladies wait to be asked.
She took another swallow of her wine and gazed at him over the rim of her glass. Brash cat. Bold. “I want to do it.”
His eyebrows shot toward his hairline.
She’d thought it through in the shower and decided that her original intention for the evening was the best course. “I want to have sex like a man.”
“Uh.” He took a hefty swallow of wine. “I think you’re scaring me. What exactly is ‘sex like a man’?”
Her arm gesture rolled a wave across the surface of the liquid in her glass. She pretended she wasn’t flushing again. “You know. We do it. We do it once. And we don’t have to get all touchy-feely about it.”
“Problem.” He rubbed his jaw with his free hand. Slowly. “When I have sex, I find that touchy-feely is of the utmost importance.”
She glared at him, frustrated, until she saw the spark of amusement in his eyes. Settling back on the cushions, she ran her fingertip around the rim of her glass and then set it aside. “You get what I mean, Jack.”
Clearly he was fighting a smile. “Are you sure I do? I may be unfamiliar with your American idioms.”
“Right. This from the guy who not long ago told me he was ready to ‘down a beer’ and ‘grab some grub.’ ”She swung her leg to the floor to scoot closer to him on the sofa. His wineglass went back to its post on the trunk beside hers. “But just in case I haven’t been clear, Jack,” she continued, taking handfuls of his T-shirt to draw him nearer, “I want to fu -”
His mouth slammed against hers. She smiled inside, where she’d been aching since realizing what their adventure in the darkness had done to him. Sex would dissipate the awkwardness that lingered.
She opened her mouth for his tongue. The taste of him - that jammy fruity taste of the cab that was winter-night sweet - rushed to her head. Her fingers tightened on his shirt, and then she raced them to its hem to yank the fabric away from his skin.
He groaned, broke their kiss, threw off the shirt.
Heat poured from his flesh. She closed her eyes and laid her head on his chest, rubbing her cheek against his heartbeat.
“Mon chat,” he whispered and caught her chin to still her for another kiss.
She wanted to purr.
That feline sensation he created inside her curled in her belly and then unfurled throughout her body. It lengthened her muscles, warmed her blood, clamored for her to crawl over him, marking him with her scent and her heat.
Her nails scraped down his torso, his hard ab muscles shuddering at her touch. He ended the kiss to draw in raspy breaths, then he tucked his face against her neck and she trembled herself as his exhalations teased over her skin.
“Stevie.” His mouth moved against her throat. “Listen. I owe you an explanation about … about earlier. Let me tell you…”
She couldn’t hear it. She didn’t want to. Right now the only kind of intimacy she could handle was his touch. His body against hers. Anything more was too dangerous.
Sex like a man.
“Talk later,” she said, shifting back to put room between them. Her hands curled around the lapels of the robe. “This now.”
She jerked the material to her waist.
His cheekbones flushed. His gaze focused on her breasts, and as if he was touching her, her nipples tightened into berries the same shade as that color flagging his face.
She swallowed, then crawled toward him.
He held her off, his hands on her bare shoulders. “More space,” he said. “A bed.”
And for the third time, he swung her up in his arms. The robe was left behind as he found her mouth and strode to the guest room.
The sheets were cool against her heated nakedness. Jack came down on her, his jeans abrading the skin between her legs. His big hands framed her face and he kissed her eyebrows, eyelids, her nose, her chin. Sweet, for-girls-only kisses that made her heart capsize - and made her anxious all over again.
Sex like a man!
“Hurry,” she urged, fingers tugging at the fastenings at his fly. His own big hand took over, even as he still cupped one palm around her cheek and plied her with more of those gentle busses that threatened to drown her single-minded intent.
“Hurry, hurry,” she urged again.
He laughed but didn’t protest as she helped him shove the denim down his hips. Then he was there - there - solid cylindrical heat against her wet soft folds. She wiggled, the emptiness where she needed him aching. Insisting.
“Condom,” he said against her mouth.
Oh, God! She didn’t have one!
But he did, it was in his hand, and he lifted his hips in order to don the protection. Then he was back in place, sliding against that special spot, prodding her, teasing her, acting as if he meant to prolong this when she burned for them to be joined.
She tilted her pelvis, wriggled to get the parts lined up, then pressed down on his hips. Even as wet as she was, as ready and willing, the fit wasn’t easy. Impatient with half measures, she whimpered.
“Sh, sh, sh,” he said against her temple. “Relax, let me work it in. Slow, mon chat. Slower, mon ange.”
But all the French endearments in the world couldn’t douse the need driving her. Whimpering more, she lifted her knees to his flanks, jerked her body high, pushed his hips low. He sank deep.
She reeled at the full, stretched sensation. “Oh, God.”
“Too-eager angel,” he chided, his voice rough. “Now take it eas -”
But she was already moving again, afraid to unhurry the pace, afraid that something, something frightening, would catch up with her if she did. She closed her eyes against the brightness in the room and went into the darkness that so disturbed him.
No, no. Don’t think about that! Feel - no, don’t do that, either!
He surged with each undulation of her body, surrendering to her tempo. She worked herself on him, worked herself against him, as the pressure rose, driving her up, and up, and
It burst.
She cried out as Jack drove into her once more, a second time, and then he spasmed, his mouth latching on to hers.
Moments later, he flopped to the mattress, his head on the other pillow. His chest moved up and down with heavy breaths. “Jesus, Stevie.”
Her palms went to her head, feeling around to make sure it was still on top of her shoulders. Assured, she let her hands drop back to her sides. Wow, she thought, more than a little smug. She’d had sex just like she’d wanted. Wham, barn, thank you, man.
Then Jack moved an arm closer. His pinkie linked with hers.
She froze, no longer satisfied, now almost … scared. No. Surely not. Surely she was fine because she’d just had sex like a man! His littlest finger curled more tightly around hers.
Inside her chest, her heart lurched again, and she knew what had to be done. Immediately. She commanded her own hand, and after a few misfires, it finally slid away from his.
She breathed a little easier with that connection severed. But it worried her still, it did, that with just the slightest touch
Jack could make her feel so much like a woman.
Then He Kissed Me
11
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Jack woke up in a strange bed.
He wasn’t alarmed. In the last decade, he’d changed cities and domiciles often enough that a momentary disorientation upon opening his eyes was a familiar sensation. It was waking up in sheets that smelled like a woman that was
peculiar.
Because in that same last decade, he hadn’t slept, actually slumbered, with a bed partner. His nightly quota of REM was substandard at best, but his SAS snooze after sex - was nil.
Without exception, after the deed was done he always made his excuses and headed back to his own place.
Still fuzzy from an atypically deep sleep, he slowly took in his surroundings. The room’s lights were blazing and the window shades were open. Outside, it was full day. He was alone in the bed. A sheet of notebook paper lay on the adjoining pillow. He reached for it.
Stevie’s handwriting was angled and distinctively un-embellished. No plumpness in the round vowels, no stylized consonants. She hadn’t even signed the note. It read:
Had an airport pickup.
That’s it. No “call me” or “see you soon” or even an “I’ll phone you.” He should feel relieved.
Instead, he felt
Queasy, maybe. Not like last night in the wine caves when panic had scooped out the insides of his belly and heaved them toward his throat. This was more like a mild seasickness, as if the ground beneath him was shaking.
Damn woman unsettled him.
Last night, she’d refused to hear his explanation about what happened to him in the dark. Not that he’d wanted to talk about his experience, but he’d steeled himself to follow through with it. No way had he expected her to derail the discussion.
It had struck him as compassionate.
Kind-hearted.
But now … now he wondered if she’d had her own agenda.
Hmm … He’d started out that evening wanting some hot and sweaty sex and -
Hell. That’s exactly what she’d given him. Crazy woman. Sex like a man!
Frowning, he looked at the damn note again. She’d walked away from him, no strings, no sweet talk, no nothing.
He decided it was annoying not to know how she looked as her eyes first opened. How she’d looked at him. Had her expression softened? And what about her physical self? Was her ankle fully operational now, or had she limped out of bed?
He crumpled the page in his hand. She’d done it on purpose, he thought. It was a diabolical move on her part, but it had worked like a wicked spell.
Then He Kissed Me Page 13