"Dillon?" Ashley's voice was gently prodding and as soft as her hand settling over his.
He looked down in the dim light, comparing, contrasting. His skin was dark and brown; hers was painted gold by the fire. His hand was big and strong; hers was deceptively delicate. His palm was callused from years of hard work; hers bore the traces of hard work, too, but was softened by cream that felt like powdered silk and smelled of roses. His hands could cause great pain. Hers could bring great peace.
He needed peace.
"Why are you always touching me?" Immediately she started to draw her hand back, but he surprised both her and himself by turning his hand, catching hold of hers.
"People need to touch and be touched." Her voice was throaty, unintentionally provocative, and her fingers were stroking his palm. "It gives us a connection to each other, makes us feel less alone." She slipped her hand free of his and raised it to his jaw, drawing her fingers along it, then down his throat, making him shiver. "It allows us to get closer, to build intimacy. It can comfort, soothe, reassure and encourage." Her fingers teased and tickled their way across his chest, skirting around the tender place on his ribs, turning away when they reached the covers and returning once more to his hand. "It can heal…"Her voice was softer now. "And hurt…"Breathier, too. "And bring great pleasure…"
And it could arouse.He was aroused, his body throbbing, and if shewasn't, it surely wouldn't take much to remedy.
But she was. If he needed proof, he got it in the next instant, when she lifted his hand to her mouth. Cradling it in both of her hands; she kissed his palm, her tongue moistening his skin, then she pressed his hand to her throat, holding it there, molding it to fit before slowly sliding it down.
He couldn't breathe, couldn't speak,couldn't find the words to stop her or the strength to stop himself. He simply lay there and let her guide his hand across warm, satiny skin, over delicate lace and thin cotton. He let her slide his hand along until it was cupped over her breast, cradling it in his palm, feeling the hard peak of her nipple like a brand.
For a moment he remained still and compliant. Then, no longer needing her guidance, he began stroking her, simple little movements, not much but enough to make her eyes close, enough to make her breath catch and her lips part on a silent sigh. He rubbed her, bringing each stroke slowly, deliberately over her nipple, creating friction with the heat and pressure of his palm and the barely there fabric, and he tried to remember one reason, justone reason, why he shouldn't do this. His mind was thankfully blank.
"Is that pleasurable, Ash?" he whispered.
Eyes still closed, she gave him a smile of such satisfaction and raised her hands, not to push him away but to fumble with the tiny white buttons down the front of the gown. He watched as she unfastened the top one, then the second, the third and the fourth. Holding on to him, she used her free hand to push the fabric aside, then clasped his hand to her breast, naked now, so smooth, so soft and hot. So beautiful.
She was right. He needed this—needed to touch her, needed to be touched by her. He needed her hands on his body, anywhere, everywhere. He needed to be stroked and petted until he died from the pure pleasure of it. He needed to kiss her breasts, to hold her, to explore and taste and savor her, He needed her body against his, her breasts flattened against his chest, her belly rubbing his, her hips sheltering his, her legs twined with his. He needed it all.
And what didshe need?
Anything in the world but him.
She needed Seth, or someone just like him. Someone respectable, someone she could be proud of, someone who wasn't likely to end up dead or in jail before his thirty-fifth birthday. Someone who knew what it meant to love, who knew how to give it and receive it, how to care for it and keep it growing. Someone who would be there for her not just right now but five weeks and five months and five years from now. Someone whom the children she needed to provide the grandchildren and great-grandchildren she wanted wouldn't be embarrassed to claim as their father. Someone who could protect her and keep her safe and never, ever cause her a moment's harm, a moment's pain or a moment's shame.
Someoneelse. Anyone else. Anyone else but Dillon.
Giving up that touch was the hardest thing he'd ever done. His fingers literally ached, curving toward her, reaching in silent plea. His entire body ached, too, with disappointment, with regret and desire.
It took her a moment to realize that he was stopping. Her eyes slowly fluttered open, and she drew a deep, noisy breath. She didn't plead. If she had, he probably would have given in, and she would have made the biggest mistake of her life. But she simply looked at him, her eyes dazed,her expression hazy, her body all soft and invitingly warm.
He copied her earlier act, lifting her hand to his mouth, pressing a kiss to the center of her palm. "I want to make love to you, Ashley," he whispered, his voice not quite steady. "I want to pull you over here and slide inside you and stay there forever. I want to see you naked, to kiss you and touch you. Oh, God, I want to touch you … but it would be wrong, Ash. Can't you understand that?"
She shook her head.
Silently swearing, he squeezed his eyes shut on the tempting picture she presented, sitting there with her hair mussed from the moment she'd spent in her bed and her face flushed from the moments she'd spent inhis bed, with her gown unbuttoned and her breasts uncovered.
When he opened his eyes again, he pulled the top edges of her gown together and, making a concentrated effort not to actually touch her, he buttoned it up. It didn't help, though. He had already seen, and he wasn't likely to ever forget. "You don't even know me."
"Yes, I do."
He wanted to argue, wanted to insist that she was wrong. In spite of the close quarters they had shared these past few days, in spite of the intensity of the relationship—the alliance, the companionship, whatever the hell it was—they had built, they were still strangers. She couldn't possibly have learned enough about him to believe that she wanted to have an affair with him, because knowing him should convince her of exactly the opposite.
But he couldn't argue a lie. These past few days probablywere enough for her to reach that decision, because they had sure been long enough for him to reach it.
"Ican't make love with you."
She treated him to a long, slow, appraising look that didn't stop until it reached evidence—still very strong evidence—to the contrary. Feeling stripped bare and frustrated, he shifted positions and pulled the covers higher.
"Iwon't make love to you," he amended, his voice sharp. "I've got to leave here in a few days, Ash, one way or another. Whether I get away free or go to jail, one fact doesn't change. There's no room in my life for you."
After a long moment she smiled the cool sort of smile she chose when she was hurt. "You have a high opinion of yourself."
He scowled at her. "Why do you say that?"
"You think a few days as your loveris going to be so meaningful that it will change my life, that I won't be able to live without you, that I'll pine away the rest of my life because you aren't here."
She waited, but he couldn't respond. To agree that, yes, that was exactly what he was afraid of was too arrogant, and to admit that, no,he was the one whose life would change,he was the one who would have trouble getting along,he was the one who would die missing her, would be too painful.
With a sigh, she rose from the bed. "We could have been good together, Dillon. You'll never know what you've missed."
Oh, he would know. Every lonely minute of every lonely day would remind him. Every empty night would torment him. Every image of her would haunt him. But instead of admitting that to her, instead of giving her something more to use against him, he echoed her sigh. "And you'll never know what you've escaped."
* * *
Chapter 7
«^»
"Do you have a map?"
At Dillon's question. Ashley looked up from the dining table. He'd been restless all afternoon, pacing the cabin, stopping occasionally to li
ft the corner of a sheet and peer out the window. She'd wanted to tell him a dozen times to calm down, to take it easy, read, relax, try to sleep, but she'd known instinctively that he wouldn't listen. He was fidgety. Nervous. Eager to be on his way.
Eager to leave her behind.
She pushed away from the table. "There's one in the van. I'll get it."
He started to protest,then shrugged. After putting on her loafers, she hurried out to the van. The rain was still coming down, but it was gentler this morning, warmer, a typical spring shower. The sun was trying to break through the clouds, and try as she might, she couldn't make out any more rain clouds to the west. A day or so of dry weather, and Bessie would be ready to go.
Dillon was already ready.
Leaning across the passenger seat, she pulled out the tattered atlas, then returned to the cabin and silently handed it over to him. While he flipped through the pages to theNorth Carolinamap, she reseated herself at the table and went back to work. For small-ticket items, shower gels were among her more profitable enterprises. She bought the clear soapy gel by the gallon, colored it in rich jewel tones or soft pastels and added scents with essential or fragrance oils. She had a large collection of the oils, each in a small vial, but her own personal favorites were tea rose and honeysuckle. She hoped that wherever he went, whatever he did, Dillon never smelled either of those scents again without thinking of her. Without missing her. Without regretting her.
Just as she would never again breathe in the fragrance of vanilla without being reminded of him. When he left, she would send her last two bottles of the ivory-hued, vanilla-scented gel with him … and maybe a bottle or two of the deep red honeysuckle, too.
"This atlas is over ten years old." He tossed it on the table, nearly knocking over the round plastic bottle she was filling with the last of the jasmine-scented gel. Dragging out the chair across from her, he turned it around and straddled it.
"So?"
"So things change. New roads get built. Old ones get closed down."
"Not around here. I doubt thatCatlinCounty's gotten a new road in my lifetime."
"So how do we get out of here?"
"That depends on where you want to go." She used a narrow spatula to scrape the last of the gel into the jar, removed the funnel,then capped it with a small white lid. Later she would label the jars with the pretty gummy labels her sister Deborah had had designed and made up for her last Christmas, but for now she was simply setting them aside. She wouldn't forget what they were and, if she did, she needed only a whiff to remember. "If you want to head intoSouth CarolinaorVirginia, we should probably take this road." Reaching across the table, she tapped one finger on a thin north-south line on the upside-down map. "If you want to go toTennessee,Georgiaor points west, you need to take this road to the interstate."
He studied the map a moment. "Those are the two major roads out of the county."
"Those are the twoonly roads out of the county," she corrected him.
"Surely there are some secondary roads."
"There are lots of secondary roads, but those two are the only ones that leave the county.Catlin's a small county, and a lot of it is too rough for travel. We have plenty of little meandering country roads like the one I live on, but—like the one I live on—they dead-end after a while or they circle around and run into one of those highways. That's how we have to go."
He stared at the map a while longer. Wishing he'd escaped inAsheville, maybe, where he knew his way around and MissPris would have helped him? Or maybe in a city like Raleigh or Charlotte, where the possibilities for getting out of town were endless, where there were so many roads that trying to close off the city with roadblocks would be impossible. Maybe he was wishing he'd never heard ofCatlin , that he'd never leftGeorgia, that he'd never trusted his buddy Russ.
Maybe he was wishing he'd never mether.
Finally he looked up at her. She was measuring drops of oil into a bowl filled with gel in a rich translucent red, and the scent of honeysuckle drifted up between them. Reaching out, he caught the next drop on his fingertip, rubbed it together with his thumb,then sniffed it. "This smells like you."
Her smile was hard to find, but she managed a faint one.
He drew his hand back and rested his arms on the back of the chair. "Once the rain stops, how long will it take Bessie to dry out?"
"A day, maybe two. It depends on how humid it is."
"Why don't you get the thing fixed?"
She gave him a dry look. "That van is nearly thirty years old. You don't just walk into an auto-parts store in a place likeCatlin and pick up a new part off the shelf."
"Why don't you get something safer?"
"Bessie's perfectly safe."
"Something more reliable."
"Who's got the money to spend on a car?"
He scowled and muttered, "This is no way to live."
"This is exactly how Iwant to live," she responded quietly. "If you find it so unappealing, well, in another day or two, you won't have to endure it any longer. Whatever happens, in jail or on the run, you'll be living in a way that's much, much worse." That turned his mood a few degrees darker, prompting her to go on quickly. "Which way do you plan to go?"
"West."
"I have family inCalifornia. If you make it that far, look them up."
He disregarded the flippancy in her voice. "Why did they move there when their roots are here? When their daughter is here?"
"It was Daddy's dream to live someplace else."
"To meet interesting people? Do exciting things?" He almost smiled. "I guess you came by the desire honestly. Do you miss them?"
"More than you can imagine." After all, he'd never been close to his mother, and his father had never acknowledged him. He'd never had the sort of normal upbringing that she'd taken for granted—the typical family, the working father and stay-at-home mother, the annoying siblings, the rivalry, the vacations, the big holiday get-togethers. She would like the chance to include him in a few of her family's affairs.
Fat chance. Slim chance.No chance.
"Where is your father?" she asked, giving the gel one final stir,then setting up the first bottle with the narrow-necked funnel in place.
His scowl returned. "He lives inGeorgia."
"Atlanta?"
"No. A little town called Waterston. He's one of theWaterses for whom the town is named."
"There's nothing quite like small-town aristocracy, is there?" she asked lightly. "InCatlin , the Benedicts are the most aristocratic of them all. Seth's mother was tremendously disappointed by our marriage. I was one of the riffraff, my father worked in the mill that used to operate over on Tompkins Ridge." Waiting for the thick gel to ooze into the bottle, she sobered again. "I take it your parents weren't married."
He shook his head.
"You want to talk about it?"
He stared at the atlas for a moment before finally shrugging. "My mother was eighteen when she began her affair with Alexander. He was twenty-six, married and already had one kid and another on the way. He told Carole—my mother—that he loved her, that as soon as the baby was born, he would divorce his wife and marry her, and she believed him. She honestly believed that the only son of the Waters family, the richest family in town, with the oldest money and the bluest blood, was going to divorce his wife—from the second-richest family with the next-to-the-bluest blood—to marry the high-school-dropout daughter of a poor dirt farmer and take her away to a better life. She was a fool."
"Being in love can make you crazy," Ashley said softly. "It can make you do foolish things."
She felt his glower even though she wisely wasn't looking. "How would you know?"
Becausehe was teaching her. But she didn't say that. "What happened?"
"After four or five years, she got pregnant. By then Alexander had three legitimate heirs to the throne. He wasn't pleased with the prospect of an illegitimate one. As her pregnancy became obvious, there were rumors, of course. There had always b
een speculation about their affair, and people were apparently pretty curious about the new development. Alexander didn't like the gossip, and his mother and his wife especially didn't like it, so he denied being the father. He denied ever having been with Carole, and he cut her off—socially, financially, emotionally. All the years we lived there, he treated her worse than anyone should ever be treated. He despised her and made certain that everyone, especially my mother, knew it. It didn't help any that, to get back at him, she named me after him—Dillon Alexander Waters Boone." He gingerly touched his eye, where little sign of the bruising courtesy of theSylvanCountySheriff's Department remained. "The name alone got me about a dozen bloody noses and twice that many black eyes from Alexander Waters, Jr. Alex didn't like sharing his nameor his father with me."
Survive the Night Page 16