His lips found and caressed her temple. She thought of the man who had touched her, his tongue wet and repulsive, and then she banished the image. She put her arms around Deke Summers’s midsection, holding on to him. Holding on to him as long as she could. So little time, and all of it infinitely precious.
Chapter Ten
“We have to get out of here,” Deke said finally.
She realized he was leaning most of his weight against her, upright only because she was supporting him.
“They weren’t…” she began and then hesitated over what to call the men who followed him, who wanted him dead. “They weren’t after you. They just wanted—”
“I know,” he interrupted. His arm tightened around her body, reacting to the fear he could hear in her strained voice.
“I couldn’t shoot him. God, Deke, I’m such a coward. I just couldn’t decide to pull the trigger. I knew what would happen if I didn’t, but—”
“Killing someone should always be the hardest thing you ever have to do.”
“But they would have…” She paused, trying to block the remembrance of the crudely phrased promises the drunk had whispered.
“It’s over,” Deke said, his tones soothing, reassuring. “It’s all over.”
“I should have shot the bastards,” she said suddenly, her voice full of hatred, bitterness replacing the fear, more of it directed at her own weakness than at the men who had vanished into the shadowed alley. “They were going to rape me, damn it. And I had a chance to make sure they would never do that to anyone else. That they wouldn’t be capable of it.”
She felt the small movement of his chest against hers. Laughter? Was he amused with her threat? Condescending. Just like Clarence. She ain’t gonna shoot…
“Next time, Annie Oakley,” Deke said softly, his breath stirring her hair. Even with all that had happened, he realized, the fear and the horror, her spirit was intact, her courage undaunted. Admiring Becki Travers’s ability to deal with whatever was thrown at her, as he had from the beginning, he repeated his reassurance, “You can get them next time.”
Suddenly she was furious with Deke, with his mockery of her anger. Furious with her own failure. She pushed away from his body. She doubled up her fists and pounded them as hard as she could against his chest. Unreasonably furious with his soft comment.
“Don’t you laugh at me, you son of a bitch. Don’t you dare laugh at me.”
She hit him again and again, surprised at how good it made her feel, her fists battering his strength, his hard masculinity. “Stop laughing at me, you son of a bitch,” she said again, gasping, out of breath with the force of her rage. With the effort she was making to have some impact on his eternal calmness.
She was shocked, however, when his knees suddenly gave way, buckling so that he fell onto the pavement. Only the automatic drop of his left hand, the one which held the gun, touching against the ground, prevented him going down completely. He swayed drunkenly on his knees, his shadow again mocking.
“Sorry,” he whispered, his voice only a thread, but the night was still and dark around them. A small country-town stillness. He pushed upward a little, his knuckles against the pavement, his right arm held tightly to his body. “Not laughing,” he added.
To stop her from hitting him again? Or the apology he thought she wanted? Watching him, mesmerized by the slow sway of his torso, as fascinated as if she were watching the hypnotic movements of a snake charmer, it took her too long to react. When she did, she went down on her knees beside him, automatically lifting his left arm over her shoulders. She hadn’t even been aware that she was crying, her nose running and the tears still wet on her cheeks. One traced down her throat, and she raised her hand, still clenched into a fist, wiping the moisture away with its heel. And remembered that the drunk had touched her there, had licked her skin.
“We have to get out of here,” she said, shivering, unaware that she was repeating Deke’s warning.
He nodded, his head hanging loosely. He didn’t look at her, but with her help he finally staggered to his feet. They made it to the car before his strength evaporated. He fell into the passenger seat, and again Becki found herself securing the shoulder strap around his unresisting body.
It was only when she was climbing into the other side that she remembered the antibiotics. The dome light had not come on when she’d opened the door, and she realized only now that was because Deke had cut it off. He had been sitting in the dark car, waiting for an opportunity to rescue her, despite his condition. Or waiting for her to succeed once she had the gun in her hands. And instead…
Resolutely she denied the remembrance of her failure. She’d deal with that another time. When she had time for it.
Her fingers were struggling with the childproof cap of the bottle. Struggling because they were still shaking.
“Open, damn you,” she said, feeling the unreasoning fury building again. Suddenly, thankfully, the white top released. She couldn’t read the dosage in the darkness, and she didn’t intend to turn on the light, knowing that would provide a clear target for anyone watching from the surrounding shadows.
She poured two of the capsules into her palm and then had to hold them awkwardly enclosed in her fist while she popped the tab on the soda. The resulting hiss was comforting, offering familiarity in a world where nothing else was familiar. Not even herself. She was no longer the woman she had always been. She banished that thought and the image of her fists driving an injured man to his knees. A man she loved. Cared about. What the hell was the matter with her?
“Deke,” she said.
His head lifted, the darkness so intense she couldn’t see his features. By some trick of the shadows, nothing was visible but the fevered eyes, again palely luminescent in the gloom.
“You have to take these. Open your mouth,” she ordered. When he obeyed, she rolled the two capsules from her palm onto his tongue, and then held the soda up to his lips. His mouth closed over the opening and she tilted the can, following the small backward slant of his head.
“Get them down?” she asked when he straightened his head.
He nodded and put his head against the headrest. His eyes were closed. She watched him a moment, and then shivering once more against the memories, she stuck the key into the ignition and started the car. There were no headlights behind her, no one following as she left the small town behind in the darkness, and obeying the road signs, headed again to the west.
SHE DROVE THROUGH the night, carefully obeying the speed limits, just as Deke had done. When she finally knew she had to stop, that it was dangerous not to, given the level of her exhaustion, it was after three. She had reached the outskirts of Oklahoma City, and she pulled the car off the interstate and into the entrance of a brightly lighted chain motel, one that advertised nationally their clean rooms and reasonable prices. She paid cash for the room and signed the registration form with the name of an elementary-school friend who had moved away in the fourth grade. She made up the tag number the form requested.
She got back in the car and followed the clerk’s directions to the room they’d been given. It was on the ground floor, as she’d requested.
She had a hard time waking Deke up enough to get him out of the car, and their journey to the room was little more than a stagger, her slender frame supporting most of his weight. She eased him down on the bed, on top of the quilted spread, returning to fasten every lock and chain on the door. She coaxed him to take two more of the capsules, washing them down this time with water from the bathroom. She had to hold his head up while he drank it, but he obeyed her instructions and got the medicine down.
She found the extra blanket in the top of the closet and spread it over Deke before she turned out the bedside light. She crawled onto the bed, not even bothering to take off her shoes, and this time she didn’t resist the desire to curl up beside the heat of his body. This was where she wanted to be. The only place she would ever feel safe again.
SHE KN
EW WHAT HAD awakened her this time. Images from the darkness. The touch of the drunk’s breath, hot and fetid, against her throat. The things he had whispered. Both threat and promise. She jerked her eyes open. The room was still dark, protected from the invasion of day by the thick plastic backing of the draperies, but strong sunlight was seeping around the edges of the flowered fabric. She took a shaky breath, pushing the memory of the dream away, back into the night shadows where it belonged.
She turned her head and found Deke watching her. She said nothing, simply meeting his gaze. Gradually she realized what was different. The blue eyes were no longer glassy. No longer unfocused. They were coherent, the mind behind them once more in control.
“I’m so sorry,” she offered softly, wondering how much of the scene in the parking lot he remembered.
“For what?” he asked, a slight negative movement of his head against the pillow they shared.
“For hitting you,” she confessed.
His eyes made no response, holding hers, and then the corners of his lips began to creep upward.
“You don’t remember,” she said.
“No, but I’m sure I deserved it.”
“No,” she admitted, “you didn’t. That’s why I said I was sorry.”
“Okay,” he said, accepting.
For some reason it struck her as funny. Apparently it was his favorite word. At least, his favorite reassurance. She laughed out loud, the sound of it destroying the pain of what had happened between them the night before. And of what had happened in the woods. The memory of his rejection. All of that disappeared while she looked at him, the echo of her laughter the only thing between them now.
She wondered when he’d last shaved. After his shower in the house in Arkansas? Whenever it had been, he needed another. His beard was lighter than his hair, glinting even in the artificial gloom created by the blackout drapes. She was close enough to see the lines around his eyes again. And the darker flecks in the irises. The whites surrounding them were clear once more. There was a tiny scar on the bridge of his nose. Football, maybe, she found herself thinking.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
Her eyes were tracing his features as if she were trying to memorize them. Her face was so near to his, he could see the dark down of hair at her temple. A faint dust of freckles across her nose. The curl of the long lashes shadowing her eyes. Her mouth was too wide, he thought, the small imperfection infinitely appealing.
“Nothing,” she whispered. “Nothing’s wrong.”
She wanted him to make love to her. He knew that suddenly. It was there in her face. That desire somehow revealed as clearly as was the flawless bone structure underlying the smoothness of the olive skin. The laughter had disappeared from her eyes to be replaced by something he could read just as well. Something that his body was responding to. Had always responded to. The filament-thin strand of physical desire that had stretched between them from the first.
“I’m going to take a shower,” he said, denying it again. Rejecting.
She said nothing in response. There was no change in the careful composure of her features. No movement of the generous mouth. Finally she nodded, breaking the spell, releasing him.
Despite the morning stiffness, the now-familiar pain in his shoulder, he sat up, resting a moment on the edge of the bed. He took another of the antibiotic capsules, washing it down with the glass of water she’d left on the bedside table. If she touched him, he found himself thinking. Her hand against the small of his back. Anything. He knew that he’d not be able to leave then. But he waited a long time, and there was nothing.
Pushing upward finally with his left hand on the table, he got to his feet and negotiated his way to the bathroom, closing the door behind him, a small protection against the emotions she’d evoked. He stood a moment in the darkness, feeling the aching aloneness. And the physical ache, hot and tight. He closed his eyes.
No more, he prayed. Dear, sweet God, please, no more.
WHEN SHE OPENED THE door, steam drifted out, curling around her bare feet and legs and then disappearing, feathering away into the artificial gloom of the bedroom. She stood a moment in the doorway, listening to the sound of the shower.
“Deke,” she called softly.
The white plastic curtain was pushed aside, and she watched the water cascading over his dark body. She allowed her eyes to follow the path it took down to the swirling, soap-whitened pool in the bottom of the tub. And then allowed them to move back up. Slowly.
One of the teachers in her school had been criticized for showing her students Michelangelo’s David. Too sexually explicit, the protester had argued. This was explicit, she realized. What was happening now to Deke’s body.
Her eyes found his face. Nothing of what he must be feeling was revealed there. His features were still and set, as if they, too, had been carved from marble. His eyes were hooded, dark and remote. Watching her.
She put her hand flat on the tile of the shower enclosure. Using it for balance, she stepped over the side of the tub, moving between Deke and the spray of water. It was hot against her back, pulsing. Still he had not moved. Waiting. Watching her.
She took the bar of soap from his unresisting fingers. Hesitantly, not having planned her actions this far, she began to move it over the beaded moisture on his chest, almost in slow motion, looking only at the patterns she created in the thick, fair hair, now darkened with the water. The small nubs of his nipples tightened, and she could feel their response under the circling movements of her hand.
Lower. Over his stomach. The same deliberate pattern repeated, her thumb straying once, daringly, into the depression of his navel.
And then lower.
Suddenly Deke’s fingers closed around her wrist. He took the soap out of her hand and placed it carefully on the edge of the tub. She was afraid to look up, braced for his anger, his rejection. He had never indicated that he wanted her. Just because she—
He picked her up, lifting her with both hands, turning her body to hold it against the sweating side of the enclosure. He moved against her, his chest slippery over the water-dewed softness of her breasts. Her legs automatically fastened around his hips as with one strong surge of motion, he entered her.
Her eyes closed and her head fell back against the tile, feeling the invasion in every part of her body. At some level she was still aware of the steam, of the water, pounding now against Deke’s shoulder, its small splash hot on her skin where it was not sheltered by his.
She put her arms around his neck, holding tight, her throat next to his unshaven cheek, its roughness again pleasant. So strange and yet familiar. Achingly familiar. Beloved. She turned her face, feeling under her cheek the wetness of his hair. He lifted into her again, sure and powerful. Demanding response.
For a second she was frightened by the strength of his demand. There was nothing gentle about what he was doing. It was elemental. Whatever she had unleashed would have to be borne. Endured, she thought, gasping a little with the next upward thrust. Driving into her. There had been nothing like this in her marriage. Nothing like the force with which he invaded and possessed.
As she thought that, Deke’s hand found her breast. Cupped under its fullness, hard fingers claiming ownership. His thumb flicked over her nipple, and she heard some sound, deep and wordless, and realized in sudden wonder that it had come from her own throat. In response to the noise she made, his hips pushed upward again.
Somehow his mouth found hers, his tongue echoing his body’s movements. As demanding. But there was no more fear. Whatever was happening within her was not born of fear. Excitement. Satisfaction that he had wanted her this much, that her tentative invitation had elicited this response, the strength of it. His body in gasping bondage to hers. His power constrained by its need, by its desire to be enclosed in her fragility.
She was the one in control, and as she thought that, she used her thighs to raise her hips slightly and then to lower into his motion, meeting it. The
sound of his reaction was harsh, breath caught, gasping, and then released in a groan.
Her lips tilted, delighting in her power. She had known he wanted her. Against his denial. Against the memories that blocked his response, that strangled the emotions he feared.
Fear, she thought again, wondering why she had never realized what lay between them. Only fear. His fear for her safety. His determination to protect her from the darkness of his existence, from the past. Only fear.
“It’s all right,” she comforted. Holding him, her body as involved now in what they were creating as his. As lost in the sensations that were building, pulsing upward from where he possessed her. As hot as the stream of water that flowed over them. As liquid. Seeping upward into every nerve and artery like rising floodwaters. Filling them. Overflowing. Overwhelming whatever control she had foolishly believed was hers. There was no control, and it didn’t matter.
When she realized what was happening, she wanted to protest. Too soon. Too soon. She wasn’t ready. Almost. Almost to the edge, but not yet. She said nothing, of course, realizing even as the thought formed that it was too late. She tightened her legs around his waist, her mouth caressing permission against his temple.
His movements were convulsive. There was no way he could have waited. And no need, she knew. This was enough. What could be more precious than his release into her body? His seed into her emptiness. So empty until Deke had filled her. Lost and alone.
Gradually the eruption quieted. As his breathing began to ease, he held her still against the wall of the shower enclosure, his legs trembling.
“Sorry,” he said finally.
He released the pressure of his body against hers, and she allowed the grip of her legs to loosen from around his waist. He supported her until she was standing beside him. The water around her feet was warm, and she was suddenly so cold. Exposed. Blue-veined skin chill-bumped and shivering. Embarrassed. The aftermath of lovemaking with a stranger. No intimacy of long friendship to soften what had happened between them.
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