He dropped his hand. “All right.” I opened my eyes and watched as the cases of beer sailed off the ground and over the fence. Shane flew over like a pole-vaulter and looked at me from the other side.
“See you there,” he said through the gaps, and turned away from me.
Chapter Seven
When I got back to the party, Shane was drinking a beer in the kitchen and talking to Mary Ellen Hebert. I hadn’t seen her since high school, and she’d changed. Got contacts, got curvier. She had the same green eyes and dark red hair, but she’d grown it out and arranged it in a complicated braid. She looked beautiful. I hated her.
“Cass. Hey, Cass!” Someone’s hand on my shoulder brought me out of my daze. It was Ryan Tooley.
“Hey, Ryan.” I flicked my eyes toward Shane. He wasn’t watching, but I knew he was listening. “When did you get here?” I leaned back against the wall, and Ryan rested his forearm against the doorway above my head.
“‘Bout an hour ago. Just coming off a shift.”
“Did you get a chance to see Mina?”
He nodded, serious for a moment. “I didn’t recognize the guy, though. I’m glad she’s all right.”
“Yeah. We’re hoping with enough people looking, we’ll be able to track him down.”
“It’s a big city.” He was quiet for a moment, then said, “So, you staying long?” I was saved from coming up with an answer by the arrival of Shane and Mary Ellen. The two men clasped hands briefly, and Mary Ellen pulled me into a hug.
“It’s been so long!” She squeezed and let go. “How have you been?”
It was too complicated. “Fine.”
“You have to tell me all about California. I’ve always wanted to go. My mom told me you’d moved out there, and I knew I had to talk to you. Shane said you’ve been there five years.”
I glanced over at him. He was sipping his beer. “Uh, yeah.”
She leaned in and lowered her voice. “What’s the job market like? I’m a CPA now—did you know? But nobody’s hiring down here. You think I’d have a chance out there?” She chewed on her bottom lip. “Sometimes I just want to get out of here. You know?”
This I could answer. “I know exactly what you mean.”
She smiled. “What’s your cell? Let’s get together while you’re in town. You and me and Mina.” She whipped out a smart phone and entered the number I gave her, then laughed and snapped a picture of my startled face. “There. Call you later, okay?”
“Yeah, okay. That’d be good.” I was surprised to find I meant it. Dangerous. I was sliding and I couldn’t stop it. I turned back to the guys. They were talking about work, and Ryan was in the middle of a story about his late-night poker games with the guys on the rig.
“Nobody’ll play with me anymore. They think I’m the luckiest man alive.”
“Maybe you are,” Shane said.
“Naw, man, that’s you—running around with this one.” He cocked his head toward me, and I blushed and stiffened. I didn’t have the guts to look at Shane. “Well,” Ryan said, downing the rest of his beer, “I’m supposed to meet some guys over at Angelina’s. Y’all wanna come?”
“Sure,” Mary Ellen said. “I’ve got the late shift tomorrow.”
“Thanks, but I think we’re heading home soon,” I said.
Shane nodded. “Mina’s tired.”
“Maybe next time. Cass, I’m glad I got to see you again.” Ryan set his empty bottle down and kissed me on the cheek, shook hands with Shane. Mary Ellen followed him out.
The party died down after that. We tried to help Mac and Janine with the dishes, but they waved us off insistently, so we packed into Shane’s Camaro and headed home. Once we were clear of the Tooleys’, Shane surprised everyone by saying, “Ryan’s hiding something.”
Mina gave him a critical look, head cocked sideways. “I didn’t notice anything. Maybe he’s just hiding something when he’s around Cass.” She grinned at him.
Shane didn’t smile back, and he spent the rest of the ride in silence. I decided it was best if I kept quiet too.
Back at the B&B, Mina went straight up to bed. Lionel disappeared into his makeshift office to go over the next week’s arrivals, and I stood in the center of the kitchen, wavering on my feet while Shane rooted around in the refrigerator. I had to get a plane ticket soon. I had to tell him. He looked perfectly oblivious, and I watched him, feeling light-headed.
I couldn’t do it. I went out the back door and crossed the small patio to the abandoned exterior kitchen. It was leftover from the 1840s, and Lionel was using it as a storage shed. I leaned against its small chimney and watched as all the lights in the house went off. The building next door was dark, too. A cool front was moving in, and I wrapped my arms around myself against the first bite of fall as I walked to the fence, looking over it into the neighbors’ backyard. The grass there hadn’t been cut in a while.
“Aren’t you cold?”
I whipped my head around, but I already knew it was Shane. He was standing on the back porch. He’d changed into track pants and a dark T-shirt, and I noticed, not for the first time, that he’d bulked up in the years I’d been away. His feet were bare.
“It’s not so bad,” I said.
“Why’re you standing out here in the dark?”
“I’m not tired. Still wound up after the party, I guess.”
“Yeah, I figured.” He stepped off the porch and crossed the patio to stand next to me. The dim light cast shadows under his cheekbones, and I tried to force my attention to the brick wall, the patio table, anything but him.
“What do you mean by that?” I’d meant to sound casual, teasing, but the words came off defensive.
“Just that I know you don’t like being reminded of what you left behind.” He moved to face me, and I took a step back, rubbing my hands together in the chilly air.
“Here,” he said, taking my hands in his and drawing them forward. Soft warmth radiated from his palms, and my fingers tingled from the sudden heat.
“I can do that myself.”
“Then why don’t you?” His deep voice echoed in my head as if it were the only sound in the universe. Fear and desire built in my chest, making me tremble.
“Get out of my head.” I tried to pull away, but he held on.
“Why? What are you afraid of?”
The question brought up a barrage of memories—his lips against my shoulder, how I’d felt snapping the rope when we’d stolen the boat, the touch of his mind when we’d held hands out on the water. I shook my head as if I were chasing off flies.
Shane stepped closer, but I didn’t move away. “You can’t keep ignoring what you are.” The image of my trashed bedroom in San Francisco flashed through his mind. “Stay,” he said, but I wasn’t sure if he’d meant me to hear.
“Get out,” I said again, this time mindspeaking, not able to fight the connection anymore. But I didn’t mean it, and when he turned my chin and put his mouth on mine, I let him.
Everything else slipped away—the creaks of the house settling, the yells from the nightclub a block down the street, the wet, cold air. All I felt was his mouth taking over mine, his lips opening. All my complicated emotions receded, and I sighed into him, returning the kiss with my lips, my tongue. My body remembered what it was like to be with him, and there was nothing complicated about it. He moved his mouth to my jawline, his tongue flicking out teasingly. I knew where this was going, where I wanted it to go in spite of everything, and I felt Shane’s anticipation rising along with mine. He pulled me toward the back door, and his thoughts raced ahead to his room, his bed.
“Not there,” I said, thinking of Lionel and Mina.
“Where?” His breathing was quick, his lips hot against my throat, his hand in my hair. I pressed my body against his, running my nails up his back, under his shirt. “Keep it up and it’ll be right here.” His voice was a low murmur in my head, but I could hear the tension; I could feel him fighting for control.
I
stepped back, drawing him with me into the darkness behind the old kitchen, stumbling over tools left out from the day. I backed into a stack of wooden crates leaning against the wall. The slats bit into my skin as Shane pressed against me and we struggled out of our shirts, hands running fast over warm skin. He rubbed the bridge of his nose along the swell of my breasts, and I took in a sharp breath.
“God, I’ve missed you,” he whispered into my collarbone, gripping my waist and locking his hips against mine. I could feel his erection through the thin fabric of his pants, and I was overcome with breathless desire to have him inside me. Impatient, fumbling, I slid my hand under his elastic waistband and found him hard and ready. I ran my palm along his length, and he made a low sound in his throat and grazed my nipple with his teeth, leaving a damp circle on the thin black lace of my bra.
I wasn’t prepared for how it would feel to be this close to him again—it had been so long since I’d been with him, so long since I’d felt wanted like this. As he laid hungry kisses on my neck, my jaw, I undid the drawstring at his waist and pulled his boxers off along with his pants. He tensed and then grabbed for my jeans, undoing the fly and peeling them off of me along with my underwear in seconds. Standing, he pressed the long line of his erection against the soft skin of my belly. His cheek was warm next to mine; his mind was touching the edges of my thoughts, questioning.
“Yes,” I said, and he kissed me long and slow. “Yes,” I said again.
Shane broke the kiss and leaned back, and I heard the crack of a window opening yards away in the house. A moment later, a condom came floating around the side of the shed and into his hand. He tore it open quickly, putting it on while he angled toward me and ran his tongue along my collarbone. I was wet with anticipation, and he gave a hungry moan, rubbing my clit with slick fingers and spreading me open.
“Cassie,” he said, his mental voice thick with longing.
“Please.” I reached for him, and he gently bit my earlobe, drawing a breath through his teeth as I guided him to my center.
He slid inside me, slow and easy. I tried to fight back tears but the intensity of it was too much, and I sobbed as he moved against me. Shane tasted the tears from my cheeks, understanding where they came from. Then he slanted his mouth over mine and drew in my tongue, sucking and pressing himself deeper. My gasp was lost in his mouth, and he slid his arm around my shoulders, holding me hard against him. He felt so familiar—the taste of him, the smell of his skin. Memories of the last time I’d been with him crowded into my head, flashes of Shane moving over me in my narrow dorm room bed two weeks before I’d left for good.
“Harder,” I said, and he increased the rhythm, faster, deeper. Each thrust was almost painful, but I welcomed the mind-blanking joy of it, hooking a leg over his back and feeling him fill me completely. There was an airless, aching feeling in my chest, as though I’d never get enough oxygen again. I pressed my face into the curve of his neck and moaned, desperate, wanting more. Reaching down, I touched the place where our bodies met, and the twin pressures brought me to the edge of climax. My body felt like it was stretched thin, pulled taut and waiting for something to snap. God it had been so long...
All at once our first time together came tumbling into my head, a nervous, fumbling tryst in Shane’s bedroom the summer before I started college. It had been the first time for both of us. We’d been so young, so unsure of everything except the fact that we’d wanted each other. I could see his smooth chest rising and falling as he knelt next to me on the bed, his hand trembling as he touched my breast. I remembered how I’d been the one to guide him inside me, how he’d looked at me in that final moment and gasped as I’d taken him in, shaking, feeling the hard warmth of him for the first time. And here I was again, shuddering like that inexperienced teenager. But things were so different—I’d left him, left this whole world.
My climax slipped away in a sea of complicated longings. I rubbed harder, and Shane gave a low, animal sound.
“Oh, God, I can’t wait.” He gripped my hips with hard hands and drove into me with fast, demanding strokes. He cried out, and then tensed and collapsed as he came. He leaned his forehead against my shoulder, breathing hard, and disengaged his body from mine.
“Cassie,” he said, his voice muffled against my skin. “Tell me what you need.”
“I’m okay. It’s been too long for me.” My chest constricted as the anxieties I’d pushed out crowded their way back in.
“No.” He shifted to look at me, cupping my face with both hands. “Let me...” He held my gaze as his mental touch slid down to brush the curls between my legs, barely grazing the soft folds.
I tensed. I didn’t think an orgasm was in my immediate future. Too many emotions were competing for my attention—longing for him, wanting to stay and knowing I had to leave, the fear that he was right, that I couldn’t ignore what I was. I squeezed my eyes shut, real tears threatening. I didn’t want to spend the next half hour hovering on the edge of a climax against a brick wall while all kinds of unwanted thoughts swam though my head.
“Come on, Cass. Let me in.” He parted me, teasing me open with a hundred tiny mental brushstrokes, softer and more tender than a physical touch could ever be. I spread my legs wider without thinking and gave a small moan, my body responding despite the confused snarl of feelings in my mind.
“That’s it,” he said, and he stroked my neck and ran his fingers through my hair. He kissed my jaw just below my ear as he slid his other hand between my legs, slipping two fingers inside me as he worked my clit with his mind. My back arched and he pulled me closer and kissed me, his tongue gently probing my mouth. “Let me feel what you need.” His mind pressed a little deeper into mine.
For a moment I resisted, my shields going up instinctively, but Shane didn’t try to bring them down. He focused instead on the jolts of pleasure his touch sent skittering from my center, testing me, teasing me. I spread my arms out against the rough wood of the crates, holding on to the slats above my head. Shane rubbed his nose along the column of my neck, and a shudder ran through me as he increased the rhythm of his touch, knowing how it made me tremble.
My breath started coming in gasps, each stroke from Shane’s mind bringing another cry from deep in my throat. Even though I felt the orgasm building, when it came, it took me by surprise, rushing through me in a wave of intensity and then lingering, silky and warm. At the height of it I cried out, too loud, and felt Shane’s smile curving as his lips found mine again in a soft, openmouthed kiss.
“Don’t wake the house, now,” he said, sounding satisfied.
I leaned against him, sweat beading on my body despite the cold. “You’re one to talk.”
We were both breathing hard, coming down off the high, and I stayed there with my head against his chest, not wanting to let go of the moment. A lingering mental connection still vibrated between us, and when he spoke, I could feel the emotions behind his words.
“We don’t have to sneak around like this,” he murmured, stroking my back with the tips of his fingers. “It’s not like we’re fooling anybody.”
I broke away from him and pulled my shirt on. “Call me old-fashioned.”
He laughed as I tugged on my jeans. “Next time, how about a bed?”
I stopped. Next time? I hadn’t planned on there being a next time. Or a this time. I hadn’t planned on being here another night. Too late, I remembered he could hear what I was thinking.
“I see,” he said, dangerously quiet. “So this was just a one-night stand? We’re not even gonna talk about it?” He still hadn’t put on clothes, and it was distracting the hell out of me. I looked away.
“It’s not like that.” But I didn’t know what it was like. I struggled for something to say, but he was hurt, and I couldn’t block it out.
“What do you think this is to me, Cass? Just sex? Just a quick fuck against the wall and that’s it, have a nice life?” He pulled on his pants and yanked his shirt over his head, but I still couldn�
��t look at him.
“I was going to tell you. I was just waiting for the right time.”
“The right time? How is this the right time?”
“It’s not, okay? I screwed up. Again! Is that what you want me to say? Jesus, Shane, I can’t just—”
I’d been about to tell him I couldn’t just leave my whole life in California, that he was being selfish, that he must have known I wasn’t staying. But I didn’t get to say any of it, because a surge of telekinetic power came whipping through my head, and I threw up all over Lionel’s pruning shears.
Chapter Eight
We ran for the house, frantic and stumbling, and I headed straight for Mina’s room. Whatever had just happened, I could tell she was in trouble, and Shane picked up my concern. From the corner of my eye I saw him head to the kitchen and the locked cabinet above the pantry, where Lionel kept a shotgun. As I ran up the stairs, he chambered a round and strode out the back door.
I didn’t bother knocking on Mina’s door; I just burst through. She was struggling to get up from the floor. I knelt in front of her, trying to give off calm instead of the terror I was feeling.
“It happened again?” Her voice was weak.
I tried to slip into her head, but I was too upset to manage it. The sound of a shot going off outside made both of us jump.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Everything’s okay.” She was shaking. “Can you hear me?” She didn’t respond. I pressed my lips together and tried not to give anything away. “Can you stand?”
She nodded, and I helped her to sit on the edge of her bed. A moment later, Lionel came running into the room, following the mental signal of Mina’s fear. Bruce was right behind him.
“She’s okay,” I said, but I wasn’t sure if she was. Downstairs, the screen door banged. Shane. Lionel and I exchanged a glance, and I got up without speaking and went down. In the kitchen, Shane was settling the gun back in its rack.
“Did you find him?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I fired into the ground. Just trying to flush him out.” He closed the cabinet door and turned the lock with his mind. “Nothing,” he said, still facing away from me. He leaned his forehead against the pantry door, his palms pressed to the wood. I wanted to go to him, but I stayed back, rubbing my hands over my arms to keep them busy. “How can we protect her if we don’t know what we’re protecting her from?” he said, his voice muffled and low.
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