“Are we over the Raritan River?” he asked.
Mallory looked down, then out at the mountains. She nodded.
“I have a cabin down there. It’s…” Brad stopped and appeared to be checking directions. “There it is,” he shouted, as if he’d discovered the cure for cancer.
Mallory saw the small building he pointed to. It was on a bend of the river near the mountains in the distance. She fixed it in her mind as a landmark to look for when she flew again.
“I didn’t know you had a cabin.”
He smiled. “So there are some secrets that are not known by everyone in the hospital.”
“Only those you tell to people who can keep a secret.”
Both of them understood her meaning.
By the time they set down, Keith and the folding crew were waiting. Five men joined Brad and Mallory to gather and store the balloon and basket. They worked well together and made the work look easy, with no groaning from any of them. Mallory knew her arms and shoulders would be sore in the morning from all the work, but it was worth it. She wished she could fly more often. This unplanned vacation had given her the opportunity, but time off came infrequently.
As the crew started the deflating process, the odor of sauerkraut filled her nostrils. She looked at Brad, then around at the crew. They’d stopped and were all staring at Brad. She knew they’d been waiting for him to say it, to gag on the overwhelming odor that surprised every newcomer after his first flight. It was part of the test, part of the initiation for a new balloonist. But Brad surprised them. He did nothing, said nothing. He didn’t even let on that the odor existed.
“What?” he asked, looking much like the greenhorn he was. One by one the guys slapped him on the back and returned to their tasks. It was a gesture of comraderie. He’d joined their ranks by being here and working through the day. None of them, however, answered his question.
Mallory pushed air out of the balloon, flattening the giant strips of nylon fabric into manageable yards of cloth. “That was the final first-timer’s test,” she told him. “Now you’re a veteran.”
Brad smiled at her. “You mean it doesn’t get any scarier than this?”
“It can get downright horrific, but if you keep your head…” She trailed off. “Anyway, they accept you.” She glanced toward the guys.
“I didn’t know I was being tested.”
“There’s always a test when you do something you’ve never done before.” Mallory remembered her first day at Philadelphia General—a test to see if the nurses would accept her. Would the doctors treat her as one of them or one of the nurses? Would she be criticized for her diagnoses, for everything she said or ordered? She’d run through a gauntlet that day.
Brad had taken the learning process very well. The men had ribbed him from the beginning over his lack of knowledge. Most guys would have clammed up or gotten angry. Brad had taken it in stride, not at all like the doctor she saw in the hospital—the one who had an attitude and rarely smiled. Brad was extremely good-looking, especially when his face wasn’t wearing a perpetual frown.
They worked quickly. He didn’t make any more comments. Mallory watched him from across the wide balloon. She liked the way he moved. He pulled the fabric up and folded it as competently as the others. Mallory remembered him arms around her and how he’d folded her body into his.
Keith drove them back to the parking area where Mallory had left the pickup. She sat next to Brad, wedged close to his body in the crowded front seat. Mallory tried to keep her eyes straight ahead, but the furnace going off in her body made her want to turn toward him and melt into his flesh. Brad’s arm lay across the back of the seat, causing the hairs on her neck to rise as if in anticipation of his fingers caressing them. The drive was short, but it felt like it took forever.
Finally Keith pulled into the parking area. With practiced ease, the crew unloaded and reloaded the balloon and equipment from one truck to the other. When everything was stored and ready, Mallory and Brad joined the others for lunch and champagne. The meal was ready and waiting for them.
Brad stopped and viewed the spread of food and drink that sat on tables with white linen tablecloths.
“Tradition,” Mallory stated. She picked up two champagne glasses. “After every trip there’s a champagne toast. If there is time we have a meal, too. Today we’ll have lunch.”
“Is one of those for me?” Brad indicated the glasses in her hand.
“Are you going into the hospital?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I’m covered for the day.”
Satisfied, she handed him the glass. Their fingers touched for a moment and Mallory felt the smoothness of his skin. He had a doctor’s hands, soft and strong, yet incredibly sexy. She wanted to hold on to them, feel them massaging her neck and back. She wanted to stare into the depths of his dark eyes and know what he was thinking.
Mallory took his arm and led him toward the crowd of other pilots. Several parties were arriving and they waited for them before the toast. Mallory looked at the ground to keep Brad from seeing the flush on her face.
Brad’s thoughts had been occupied during the ride in the balloon, but now that he and Mallory were on the ground again and headed back toward their everyday lives, his mother returned to mind. She was in Texas, only a few hours away by plane. She’d been there for years. What could he make of that? Why had she left them and never returned? Why had she stayed close to where they lived and never tried to find them? For twenty years he’d wandered around, wondering where she was and if she was looking for them. And all the time she’d been only a few hundred miles from where they lived.
He’d been back to Texas often. While he’d still lived in Texas he would sometimes visit the old neighborhood, staring up at that apartment in the run-down section. He would scan the faces of every woman walking by. He would walk the aisles of the grocery and convenience stores, knowing at the next turn he might come face-to-face with her and she would open her arms to him, glad to be together again. Whenever Brad ran away from foster homes he would go there. It was where they’d found him the last time he was in trouble, and where his adoptive dad took him when Brad had finally opened up and cried his story out to the Claytons.
He didn’t know if Owen ever returned to the apartment. It was something they didn’t talk about. But now Brad no longer had to wonder where his mother was. He had an address. He knew where she was. What he didn’t know was what to do about it.
To figure that out, he was going to need more therapy.
Mallory pulled the truck into the driveway of a garage Brad didn’t recognize. They weren’t at her home. The garage door went up at the push of a button, and she pulled the truck inside.
“We’re here,” she announced in a cheerful voice, opening her door. Brad got out on his side and came around to where she stood. Next to the truck was her car.
Brad was beginning to respect Mallory more and more. Intuitively she seemed to know what he needed. At the moment what he needed was to take his mind off his problems and she gave him something else to think about. He needed solitude to ponder his options, and she drove without speaking and without interrupting his thoughts.
Silently Mallory stepped around to the driver’s side and got into the car. The convertible top was up and he couldn’t see her.
Brad opened the door and bent down to look at her. “Don’t you want me to help you get the basket down?”
“I have someone who does that.”
Brad got in. He should have known she was resourceful. The basket and gas weighed over six hundred pounds and it had already been on the truck when he got to her house at four this morning. She was average height for a woman, not as tall as his model sister, Rosa, but taller than most of the nurses and female doctors. Still, she couldn’t lift six hundred pounds herself.
Brad’s mind drifted back to Texas. He thought of the things he’d done to survive after his mother left. He’d been on his own, he and Owen. Most of the time the
y stayed together, but when the cops got after them they’d split up and meet back at the apartment later. Brad wondered what Mallory had done to survive and get as far as she had.
Glancing sideways, he took in her classic profile. Her skin was a smooth, even brown, kissed by the sun. Her eyes had smiled brightly when they were in the balloon. He liked seeing her smile at him.
She drove through the streets without speaking. While the air had been sunny and clear in the balloon-filled sky, a slight rain had begun to fall over Philadelphia. By the time they reached her house, rain was coming down in buckets.
Water coursed down in sheets. “There’s no way we can get to the door without being drenched,” he said, peering out the side window.
“I have an umbrella,” she answered.
He turned back to her, hearing the humor in her voice. “But it’s in the house?”
She laughed. He did, too, and it felt good. Brad got out and stripped off his jacket. The water splattered cold on his back. He rushed to Mallory’s side, and as she emerged from the car, he covered them both with the jacket.
Though the car couldn’t be more than ten feet away from the door, they were soaked to the skin by the time they reached the porch. Mallory pushed the door open and they both fell into the foyer as a gust of wind splattered more rain in their faces. Brad pulled his jacket free. It dripped water all over the foyer.
“I’m afraid I’m messing up your floor,” he said. Mallory was shaking water from her hands and pulling her wet shirt away from her skin.
“Hang it up there.” She pointed to a hook on an old mahogany coat rack. Brad looked at it. He was sure it was an antique, but it had been meticulously cared for.
“I’ll get a towel.” Mallory disappeared into the back of the house. She returned almost immediately carrying a wad of paper towels. Handing several to him, she smoothed one over her hair and neck.
Brad could only watch as her movements stirred something inside him. He couldn’t budge. Since seeing Mallory early this morning, when the sun hadn’t yet tinged the sky, he’d wanted to kiss her, and now seeing her so deliciously drenched in water gave her the look of a summer flower waking up after a refreshing rain.
They stood in her foyer, in the soft, intimate light from the over-the-door window. Brad was losing touch with reality and he knew it. He should be saying goodbye. He should be running in any direction except the one in front of him. Yet he couldn’t make his feet move. His eyes bored into her, seeing her body outlined by her rain-soaked clothes. She’d pushed her hair back from her face.
She grew more beautiful to him by the minute. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking, but he read her body language, which spoke the same message his was giving. She wanted him, as much as he wanted her.
Brad crossed the space in two steps and stood in front of her, still not touching her. She didn’t move, either, but looked up at him. He could feel the warmth of her, smell the rain and that indefinable perfume that was Mallory. He breathed in, filling his nostrils with her scent.
“Every time I get near you I want to take you in my arms,” he whispered.
Her eyes opened wider. She looked at him as if she were unsure she’d heard him correctly.
“I don’t understand why you drive me crazy, but you do.”
Brad touched her then. He took her in his arms and pulled her close. His eyes shut as he hugged her to him, buried his face in her hair. For a long while he just held her, he didn’t know why. And he discovered he didn’t need a reason. It felt good holding her, but it was more than that. He couldn’t explain; he just needed her.
“Is this about your mother?” Mallory asked.
He pulled back and stared for a long time into her eyes. He didn’t really know how to answer that question, and hesitated, trying to determine the truth. He had no intention of telling her anything except the absolute truth. Mallory was the only person he’d ever told about his mother. She was the one who came to his side when he called. She was the one keeping his secrets. And she was the one he needed.
“It might be,” he finally said. “But only indirectly.” Then he lowered his mouth and kissed her.
His mouth was soft on hers, though he only touched her lips briefly before lifting his mouth. Then he tasted her again, tentatively nibbling at her mouth in a manner that shouldn’t have caused ripples of sensations radiating inside her to work their way to her toes. A growing weakness made her body slack. She grasped his biceps with her hand so Brad’s arms went around her waist and he pulled her into full contact with him. He deepened the kiss. Mallory bent her head back and opened her mouth to the welcome invasion of his tongue.
“We work well together,” he whispered into her mouth.
“Is this work?” She could barely manage to get the words out.
“Call it therapy then.”
“This isn’t part of your therapy.” His mouth was on her neck. She squeezed her eyes shut as powerful waves of pleasure rolled through her.
“It’s part of yours,” he said, and slipped his arms up her back. Brad dipped his head and touched his mouth to hers.
Mallory had never felt like this. It was as if he’d lifted her off the ground and together they floated on a plane of sensation—a place where feeling and emotion were supreme.
Something inside her snapped. Her arms went around his neck as she rose up on tiptoe, pulling his mouth to hers and allowing the waterfall of emotions to pound through her system. She’d never known these kinds of feelings. She could sense her entire body changing. His hands massaged the contours of her back as his mouth worked magic on hers.
He had a power, something dark and delicious that spanned time from the days of dungeons and dragons, magic potions and superstitions. Mallory was caught in it.
Need pumped through her bloodstream like a drug. Rapture so strong it was almost visible took hold of her. She spread her legs slightly, feeling Brad’s growing hardness pressed against the juncture of her legs. Her body arched forward, a groan escaping her lips. He was strong, his body hard, muscular, yet he held her as if he’d discovered in her a priceless object.
Brad’s hand moved up, his thumbs gently tracing circles on the sides of her breasts. Mallory felt her nipples stand at attention, craving his hands.
“Brad, I’m burning,” she moaned in between the hot, wet kisses he traded with her.
“So am I,” he told her. “Where’s the bedroom?”
“Upstairs.” Mallory didn’t have the breath available to form complete sentences. “Top…left.”
Brad’s hands went to her hips and grasped her firmly. Without removing his mouth or breaking contact with her body, he walked her backward to the base of the steps. Mallory didn’t realize they were climbing them, only that she and Brad were like hormonal teenagers, unable to keep from touching each other.
By the time they reached the bedroom door Brad had worked his hands under her shirt. He raised it up and she lifted her arms as he pulled it over her head. Her hair tumbled from its knot and fell around her shoulders. Brad pushed his fingers through it and on down her neck, to her shoulders and waist. Mallory shuddered at his touch. Reaching her hips, he tugged her pants down over them, until Mallory stood exposed, her brand-name underwear bright and colorful in the blurred light. She wore red, never imagining anyone other than herself would see the skimpy pieces of lace, but glad she had them on.
Brad’s eyes took her in like a chocolate sundae with a red cherry. “You’re beautiful,” he said. He pulled her back into his arms. This time his kiss was passionate, steeped in hunger, raw with desire. His mouth devoured hers, his tongue sweeping inside her mouth and tasting her. Mallory felt his touch all the way to her core.
And she wanted him there.
Pulling the snap on Brad’s jeans, Mallory unzipped them and pushed them over his hips, just as he had done with hers. She loved the feel of his skin, so smooth and hot against her hands. She could detect tremors going through him wherever she touched, and reveled
in the knowledge that she stirred him, not only with her hands stroking his muscled legs, but inside him, where it counted. She knew she’d done so as surely as if Brad had said the words out loud. Some connection had been made between them. She could tell what he wanted and he knew exactly what she wanted, too.
Brad lowered her to the bed. Mallory had lain in this bed hundreds of nights, yet lying there tonight she seemed to feel the sheets for the first time. Her sensitized body was aware of everything—the height from the floor, the depth of the mattress, every fiber that caressed her skin as she lay on it. Brad’s hair-roughened skin covered her, his mouth heating her part by part as if his tongue was laced with fire. Mallory expected to combust in seconds, but he wasn’t ready to give her the relief she sought.
He began his seduction, kissing her all over, giving her body his undivided attention. Inch by inch he touched her, kissed her, placed his open mouth on parts of her that hadn’t ever been touched by a man. Mallory moaned, writhed, dug her hands through his hair. She stretched, arching with the pleasure-pain sensations that Brad, the master of the universe, was evoking.
Mallory’s breath was coming in short gasps when he finally worked his way back up her body and entered her. She jerked as a sonic pulse of pleasure shot through her, engulfing her in something so erotic a strangled cry broke from her throat. Throwing off every inhibition, she hugged him close and pulled him farther inside of her, as close as two people could get. Brad set the rhythm hard and fast, and Mallory followed him, then took the lead as her body tasted the pleasure he gave her. She strained against him, fitting herself to Brad as if they had been created for each other.
She relished the closeness, the intimacy, the new world that Brad and she forged out of the fire the two of them kindled. It surged around them, brilliant and colorful, taking on its own life.
Love on Call Page 8