Harlequin Superromance August 2013 - Bundle 1 of 2: What Happens Between FriendsStaying at Joe'sHer Road Home

by Beth Andrews

  Coming.

  The walls of her protective inner dam burst. The trickle grew to a flood of dread, rising, rising. Her fingers clutched the wall. The damp earth crumbled away beneath her fingers.

  Her eyes strained to open wider. To see through the black-on-black shadows of the cavelike opening in the dirt wall opposite her.

  A clod of dirt hit and spattered, four feet away, in the tunnel. There! Forget hearing—she could smell its breath. The overripe scent of decomposing bodies. The smell of old grave dirt.

  She strained to hear past her own labored breathing. Fear scrabbled like a mad rat in her brain, clawing to get out.

  Get out! Get out! Get out!

  She pushed down on the fear. Compacting made it more potent, but it took up less space in her chest. It made room for her heart to beat.

  I’m not living like this anymore. She took a step. Better hell than purgatory. She took another. And another.

  “I’m right here.” She took the last step into the tunnel. “Come and get me, you son of a bitch.”

  Cold, damp cellar-smelling air brushed her face.

  There was nothing there.

  * * *

  SAM WOKE SLOWLY on Saturday morning and lay staring up at her gorgeous wooden ceiling, running the dream over in her mind. Waiting to see how the conclusion affected her. A sweet rush of relief swept over her, banishing shivers like the warm sun breaking through on a cloudy day.

  Was it over? Would that be the last time she had The Dream? She listened inside for the answer. Yes. She didn’t know how she knew it, but it was as real as the peace that stilled her limbs and calmed her thrumming nerves.

  Thank you, Bina Rani. And Nick Pinelli. Not only had he introduced them, she had to admit he was the catalyst of change. After all, if he wasn’t waiting at the end of all this, she might not have had the guts to see this thr —

  Nick, waiting at the end? That sounded like he was the goal. Emboldened by her newfound peace, she let herself imagine. Sitting on the porch of this house, their house, waiting to him to come home from work.

  There’s more kinds of freedom than riding a motorcycle.

  For a little while, she lay in her big bed allowing herself to want.

  Home.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  SUNDAY AFTERNOON, NICK walked behind the shop and lifted the heavy garage door of the old shed. Sun shone through the cracks in the walls and onto the Love Machine, giving it stripes like those safari vehicles at the Wild Animal Park.

  He smiled, glad Sam’s needing a ride back in April prompted him to drag it out of storage. After years of burying memories of his childhood to avoid the pain, the car reminded him of the good times—and letting Sam drive it, then driving it around town himself, in a weird way had given him his mother back.

  And now the state was releasing the bastard that had taken her away. As vividly as if it was in front of him now, he recalled the official letter he’d received a few days ago, word for word.

  Dear Crime Victim/Witness:

  As per Victim/Witness notification procedures, we hereby inform you of the upcoming release of Donatello Pinelli, on January thirtieth.

  Mr. Pinelli has been a model prisoner, and as such, is eligible for early release for good behavior. Since his crime was one “of passion,” the Board finds he poses little threat to society at large.

  He will, of course, be subject to rules of parole. Under separate cover, you will receive the contact information of Mr. Pinelli’s parole officer.

  Thank you for your input in this matter. The Board of Parole appreciates the views of the victims and their families.

  A lancet of pain sliced into Nick’s stomach. He grunted, breathing shallow until it quit. Old pain dug deepest.

  He stepped between the car and the wall, opened the door a crack and squeezed through, settling in. He leaned back on the headrest, listening to the birds chirping in the crab apple tree. It didn’t help. Even the smell of old leather and good memories didn’t help. He wanted to kill the man. He wanted it with a need so strong his guts trembled with it.

  He envied Sam, throwing a long leg over the Vulcan and hitting the road. He understood the call to take the future head-on, running to meet it. Leaving the old, screwed-up, ugly stuff behind.

  But he also knew the world didn’t work that way. Sam was learning that now, since the past had caught up with her in Widow’s Grove.

  When he turned the key, the old engine chugged to life.

  He pictured Sam, head up, chin out, facing down the nightmares and the squirming worm-ball of her past. If she could do that, maybe there was hope that he could get through seeing his father again. Without drinking. Without committing patricide.

  But first, he had to tell her about the letter. If he wanted to hold Sam’s secrets, he couldn’t keep any of his from her.

  He took a deep breath. It would work out okay. They’d face this together. With her standing beside him, offering him quiet strength, there was nothing he couldn’t face.

  Even his father. Straightening, he shoved the car into gear.

  * * *

  A HALF HOUR LATER, he paused in the doorway of Sam’s empty front parlor. “Let’s see this wonderful furniture you’ve been telling me about.”

  Smiling, she closed the door. “Come tell me what you think.” She led the way up the stairs. “I realized that I’m past the milk-crate-and-bedsheet décor, so I splurged.”

  He watched her slim hips roll as she took the stairs in her usual, no-nonsense stride. She looked good. More than good. Legendary. And the fact that she hated her own beauty hurt him in some inexplicable way—like seeing a cheetah, pacing the bars of a cage. It was unnatural.

  They reached the top landing. The honey-toned wood floor of the loft stretched down the right half of the house. A huge brass bed sunbathed in the rays from the tall windows. It extended an invitation, one that pulsed heat to his crotch.

  To distract himself, he stepped to the railing and looked down into the great room. The burnished floor shone, the inlaid mariner’s compass in front of the hearth drew his eye.

  “Hard to believe this is the wreck I toured seven months ago.” He walked to the bathroom at the far end and stuck his head in. The claw-foot tub and black-and-white tile remained, but everything else had been replaced. A fixture with fluted glass shades overhung an ornately framed mirror. “This is amazing. Victorians are pretty, but I always feel like I’m going to break something. You kept the flavor, but it’s still warm and homey. It doesn’t seem like it should work, but it does.” He turned to study the afternoon light playing over the planes of her perfect face.

  Samantha Crozier was a study in opposites: artistic, pragmatic and, once you survived her punji-staked battlements, a tender, caring woman. He took a step closer. “You have a lot of talent, lady.”

  She looked down at her tennis shoes. “Thanks.”

  He lifted her chin and lightly brushed her lips with his, breathing in the smell of Sam: sunshine, sawdust and woman.

  * * *

  HMM. SHE’D MISSED HIM this week. When his lips withdrew, she opened her eyes to a desperate look of longing in his. “What is it?”

  “Is it possible you’ll ever want me as much as I want you?” Emotion made his voice husky.

  Scattered pleasure gathered—on the skin of her face, where his hand touched, fingers trailing down her neck. From his thighs, where they brushed against hers, sparking heat. From her nipples, hardening in an attempt to span the gap to rub against his chest. The stream of pleasure gathered, and then shot a bolt of desire deep between her legs.

  This strong man knew all of her, and still wanted her.

  And she wanted him.

  But she hesitated. She didn’t want to say it. But there would be no secrets between them.
“I’m afraid,” she whispered.

  He smiled a soft-as-cotton smile. “Don’t be, babe.”

  “I’m just so tired of failing at this.” She worried her lip between her teeth.

  His gaze warmed the skin of her face. Or maybe that was a blush.

  “Sexuality’s so much a part of you, Sam. All you need do is stop thinking. You know that I’m all-in—for as long as it takes.”

  His focused intensity made her nerves jump, but she forced herself to meet his gaze.

  “Let me show you, Sam. Allow me the honor of being your first.”

  She frowned. “But you know you wouldn’t—”

  “Your entire experience consists of surviving abuse, then sex with men who thought only of themselves. That’s not making love.” He cupped her face in his hands. “In the only way that really matters, you’re still a virgin. So I’m asking. Will you let me love you?”

  Alarm bells clanged in her head. Let another in? All the way? She looked at his hand on hers.

  That was then. The bells fell silent. This is Nick. A heavy wall inside her crashed down. But for the first time, it didn’t come down between her and the world. It shifted, coming down between her and the past. At the solid thunk within her, muscles loosened between her shoulders, down her spine.

  She felt disoriented, as if a huge magnetic shift had caused the earth’s poles to swap. Would the result be the apocalypse or nirvana? It didn’t matter, because she was all-in, too. For as long as it took. A delicate calm settled on her, with the fragile brush of silk.

  She saw Nick for the first time, with nothing dark between them. His kind, dear face. His soft, patient eyes.

  “I know what I’m asking.” He wrapped his warm fingers around her cold ones. “But I’m asking.”

  Her chest expanded in a churning cloud of emotions. The past was there, gray and black. But so were the flashes of color: the cherry-red of the Vulcan’s tank, the canary-yellow of the Love Machine. The gold sparks that were Nick. She hadn’t known what cherished felt like, before. The emotions rose, filling her to overflowing.

  Nick wouldn’t hurt her. She trusted him; now it was time to trust herself. She leaned in and put her answer into her kiss. She opened her mouth to him, opened everything—her mind, her trust, her heart.

  Nick heard. Pulling her close, he moaned into her mouth. Sensation swirled. His tongue, foreign, yet known. His arms, strong, yet yielding. He lifted her, carried her to the bed and set her on the quilt as if she were spun glass.

  She lifted a hand to undo the first button of her cardigan.

  “I’ve waited a long time to completely unwrap this package.” He put his hand over hers, lowering it to the bed. “Let me, Sam.”

  He unbuttoned her sweater and slipped it over her shoulders, then unclasped the plain cotton bra beneath. He tugged it free, and it joined her sweater on the floor. His eyes roamed her breasts, his expression neither disguising nor apologizing for the wanting that burned in them.

  He lowered her against the pillows and kissed her dizzy. “You are so beautiful.” Cupping her breast, he leaned in, so close, they shared breath. “You might as well get used to my saying it. It’s the truth.” He lowered his head to taste her nipple.

  The sight, as much as the sensation, made her moan. She ran her hands over his hair, needing the connection—needing to feel Nick. When he sucked hard, passion flashed and then receded, only to spike again when he nipped softly. She squirmed. His hand slipped between her legs and settled over her, solid, stationary, an invitation to move as she would. His lips released her, and she felt the shock of cool air on her nipple, even as the heat of his mouth closed over the other.

  Nick was everywhere, his touch, outside, his essence, in her head. Some small part of her waited for the closing, for the fear. But it didn’t come. She felt insulated from the outside, from the past. She was drunk with him.

  His hair, thick and wavy, slid through her clenched fingers. He tasted the hollow between her breasts, then, as if knowing what she needed, he brought his mouth to hers in a deep kiss that held nothing back. His passion mingled with the foreign taste of her own skin on his tongue. It sparked the current between them that matched the vibration deep in her womb.

  Then his mouth was gone, and her lips felt the abandonment her breast had, moments before. He peeled her jeans down her legs, revealing the new shell-pink, low-rise lace beneath. When his tongue danced at the edge of lace, the muscles in her belly quivered.

  She realized that what she had felt in the past was only a pale shadow of this...thing that grew in her. I want him.

  When his callused fingers traced the sensitive skin at the inside of her thigh, she filled her hands with cotton, clenching the quilt at her side to keep her from floating away.

  She felt her own throbbing heartbeat at the junction of her thighs, then his mouth was there, hovering over the damp material, breathing a long exhalation over her. She jumped, both from the heat and the stark intimacy. She hadn’t known it could be like this.

  He made a sound like a growl in the back of his throat, then pulled the inconsequential scrap of material down, and away. Parting her legs, he stretched out between them. She looked down the length of her body to see him looking back at her.

  Waiting.

  She looked into his eyes. This was Nick—the only man who had looked past her beautiful mask, to the terrifying flaws beneath, without flinching. He didn’t flinch now. He waited.

  She heard no voices. Felt no fear. No hesitation. Only Nick—and the desire that coiled between them like a humming power line.

  She smiled.

  The heat in his eyes could have melted plastic. He held her gaze, even as he lowered his head. His fingers brushed her moist heat, coiling her insides tight as a watch spring.

  When his lips delivered an intimate kiss, she caught fire. Raw need roared through her body and mind, burning away any thought beyond him. The watch spring tightened again, and her head thrashed on the pillow. Her legs quivered on the edge of...something.

  His fingers plunged into her as his mouth closed over her mound. The earth fell away beneath her, as something rose in her. Something like anticipation, and fireworks, and clean, shameless freedom. It broke over her in a cascade of light and elation. Then she was falling.

  Out of control.

  She panicked, afraid she had shattered to pieces that could never be gathered. She screamed his name, and he was there. He held her close, rocking her, murmuring soft words that made no sense. She burrowed her head into the valley where his collarbone met his throat, and tried to breathe. Wishing she could climb into his skin, she clung, aftershocks rocking her.

  His scent and hers mingled in the space between their heated bodies, pungent and musky. She lifted her mouth and kissed him, deeply, trying to convey what he’d made her feel.

  Some of it must have gotten through, because he devoured her mouth, his breath quickened to match hers. She ended the kiss, pulling his shirt out of the back of his jeans. “One of us is way overdressed.”

  He chuckled. “I can fix that.” He didn’t bother with his buttons, just pulled his shirt over his head. He shucked out of his jeans, pulled a condom from his pocket and slid it on. Then he was back, arms around her, the skin of his chest sliding over hers.

  She breathed against his lips. “No stopping this time, Nick.”

  * * *

  HE WASN’T GOING TO give her time to think. Sam had finally taken that leap of faith, and he was going to do his damnedest to show her how amazing real loving could be. But it had been a long time for him, even before he met Sam, and this could be over way too soon if his body had its way. Sam deserved better, her first time. Her real first time.

  Well, second. The smile on his face felt smug. Hell, he felt smug.

  But he wasn’t nearly done yet. He
planned to love her into a puddle of satisfaction. But she’d have to be almost there when he entered her—the way his body burned, he wouldn’t last long.

  He nuzzled her ear, and she rubbed against him like a cat, making a purring noise in her chest. When he nipped the delicate lobe, she moaned.

  He’d known she’d be hot in bed, once she let herself go. The arch of her foot slid up his calf. He reached between her legs and found the hard bud he sought, and her hips bucked against his hand.

  Raising on one elbow, he watched her. Eyes closed, with her mussed blond hair spread on the pillow, high color in her cheeks and swollen lips, she looked like a Playboy centerfold. His cock jumped, bumping her thigh. He allowed himself one long lunge of his hips.

  Damn, keep your focus, man.

  He kissed her deeply, miming with his tongue what he soon would be doing with something else. Delving into her with his fingers was almost both their undoing, and she thrashed beneath him.

  She broke the kiss and pushed him back against the pillows and slid her leg over until she was on top, her hair falling to curtain her face.

  “We’ve waited long enough, Nick,” she panted.

  He only had time to grasp her hips before she slid onto him.

  She was hot. And oh, so tight. Sweet. Jesus.

  Then she started moving, gyrating against him. Eyes closed, the focused intensity on her face telegraphed something close to ecstasy. He slid his hand up her thigh, across the defined planes of her stomach until he was cupping the soft weight of her breasts. Sam tossed her head back and moved faster. He took her nipples between his thumb and index finger and pinched. She gasped and tensed, closing even tighter around him.

  Her, not you. Focus, Pinelli. Her, not you.

  He ran his thumb and forefinger lightly up her clit, then down, and felt the twitchy start of her coming.

  Then he was gone, over the top. He grabbed her hips as he plunged into her, over and over. She screamed and collapsed on him, her nails biting into his shoulder as they bucked, together.