by Nora Roberts
It kept going, little things, bigger things, for over three months. I was on edge all the time, and my work was suffering. He started to show up at restaurants where I’d be having lunch or dinner. Or I’d look out my apartment window and see his car drive by, or think I did. We ran in similar circles, lived and worked in the same general area, so because he never approached me the police couldn’t do anything about it.
“I snapped one day when he strolled into the place where I was having lunch with a coworker. I marched over, told him to leave me the hell alone, called him names, created a terrible scene until the woman I worked with got me out.”
“He broke you down,” Eli stated.
“Completely. He stayed absolutely calm through it, or I thought he did. And that night he broke into my apartment. He was waiting for me when I came home. He was out of control, completely out of control. I fought back, but he was stronger. He had a knife—one of mine from my kitchen—and I thought he’d kill me. I tried to get out, but he caught me, and we struggled. He cut me.”
Eli stopped walking, turned to take both of her hands.
“Along my ribs. I still don’t know if it was an accident or he meant to, but I thought I’d be dead, any second, and started screaming. Instead of the knife, he used his fists. He beat me, he choked me, and he was raping me when my neighbors broke in. They’d heard me screaming and called the police, but thank God they didn’t wait for the cops. I think he might’ve killed me, with his bare hands, if they hadn’t stopped him when they did.”
His arms came around her, and she leaned into him. She thought a lot of men backed off when they heard the word “rape.” But not Eli.
She turned to walk again, comforted by his arm around her waist. “I had more than a black eye this time. My mother had been in Africa and came straight back. You’d know all about the process—the tests, the interviews with the police, the counselors, the lawyers. It’s horrible, that reliving of it, and I was angry to be viewed as a victim. Until I learned to accept I was a victim, but I didn’t have to stay one. In the end I was grateful they worked out a plea so I didn’t have to go through it all again in a trial. He went to prison, and my mother took me to this place in the country—a friend’s summer house in the Laurel Highlands. She gave me space, but not too much. She gave me time—long quiet walks, long crying jags, midnight baking sessions with tequila shots. God, oh God, she’s the most wonderful woman.”
“I’d like to meet her.”
“Maybe you will. She gave me a month, and then she asked me what I wanted to do with my life. The stars are coming out. We should walk back.”
They turned, walking now with the evening breeze at their backs. “What did you tell her?”
“I told her I wanted to live at the beach. I wanted to see the ocean every day. I told her I wanted to help people, but I couldn’t face going back to an office, going back to appointments and meetings and strategy sessions. I blubbered because I was sure she’d be disappointed in me. I had the education, the skills, the experience to make a difference. I had been making a difference, and now I just wanted to see the ocean every day.”
“You were wrong. About her being disappointed.”
“I was wrong. She said I should find my place, and I should live my life in a way that satisfied me, that made me happy. So I came here, and I found ways to make myself happy and satisfied. I might not be here, doing what I really love, if Derrick hadn’t broken me.”
“He didn’t break you. I don’t believe in fate, in destiny, in absolutes, but sometimes it smacks you in the face. You’re where you’re meant to be because you’re meant to be here. I think you’d have found your way.”
“That’s a nice thought.” She stood on the bottom beach step, turned to him, laid her hands on his shoulders. “I have been happy here, and more open here than I ever was before. I made a very deliberate decision a year or so ago to go on my sexual fast because, though I’d met some very nice men, none of them fulfilled that part of me that may have been damaged more than I admitted. It’s a lot to lay on you, Eli, but I’d really appreciate it if you’d help me break my fast.”
“Now?”
“I was thinking now would be good.” She leaned in to kiss him. “If you wouldn’t mind.”
“Well, you did make soup.”
“And bread,” she reminded him.
“It seems like the least I can do. We ought to go in the house first.”
He cleared his throat as they started up the steps. “Ah, I’m going to have to make a quick trip to the village. I didn’t bring any protection. I haven’t been thinking much about sex until recently.”
“No problem, and no need for the trip. I put a box of condoms in your bedroom the other day. I’ve been thinking about sex recently.”
He let out a breath. “You’re the best housekeeper I’ve ever had.”
“Oh, Eli, you haven’t seen anything yet.”
Thirteen
OUT OF PRACTICE, HE THOUGHT WITH SOME NERVES AS they climbed the beach steps, and he wasn’t entirely convinced sex was like riding a damn bike.
Sure, the basics remained the basics, but the process required moves, technique, timing, finesse, tone. He liked to think he’d been pretty good at it once. Nobody’d complained, including Lindsay.
Still.
“We’re going to stop thinking about it,” Abra announced when they reached the door. “I’m messing up my head, and I’ll lay odds you’re messing up yours.”
“Maybe.”
“So let’s stop thinking.”
She peeled off her hoodie, hung it on a peg, then grabbed his jacket, yanked it off his shoulders as she pulled herself in, as she fixed her mouth on his.
His brain didn’t explode out of the top of his head, but it sure as hell banged around in there.
“That’s how it works,” she said as she tugged his jacket off, hung it up.
“Yeah, it’s coming back to me.” He grabbed her hand, pulled her along with him. “I don’t want to do this in the laundry room, or on the kitchen floor. And they’re both looking pretty good to me right now.”
With a laugh, she spun into him, took his mouth again as she flipped open buttons on his shirt. “No reason not to get started on the way.”
“That’s a point.” She wore a soft blue pullover, or did until he yanked it up and off, tossed it behind them as they arrowed toward the stairs.
She pulled at his belt; he dragged at the skinny white tank she wore under the pullover. And both of them tripped on the base of the stairs.
They teetered, groped.
“Maybe we’d better get up there,” she managed.
“Good idea.” He grabbed her hand again.
They raced up—like a couple of kids, he’d think later, running toward the big, shiny gift under the Christmas tree. Except most kids didn’t try to rip each other’s clothes off while they ran.
Out of breath, he finally stripped off her white tank as they hurtled into the bedroom.
“Oh God, look at you.”
“Look later.” She slid his belt free, let it fall to the floor with a clunk.
He knew they couldn’t dive into the bed, not literally, but he figured they came pretty damn close. He forgot about moves, timing, technique. He sure as hell forgot finesse. But she didn’t seem to mind.
He wanted those soft, pretty breasts in his hands—the femininity of the shape, the smoothness of skin. He wanted his mouth on them—the leap of her heart against his lips and tongue, the grip of her hand in his hair as she pressed him against her.
As her body bowed up to his like an offering.
He gorged himself on the scent of her, that goddess-of-the-sea scent that brought mermaids and sirens to his mind. That sleek, sculpted body vibrated with energy, infused his own.
As they rolled over the bed, grasping, groaning, he felt he could do anything, be anything, have anything.
She yearned. She ached. Everything felt frantic, fast, fabulous. His hands o
n her body, hers on his. She knew the lines of him, the shape, but now she could take, now she could feel—not to soothe or comfort, but to ignite.
She wanted to fire him, and have the blaze consume them both.
All the needs, good, strong, healthy needs, she’d locked away broke free in a crazed stampede that trampled any thought of restraint or caution.
She couldn’t get enough, ravaged his mouth in her quest to feed and fill. But the hunger only grew keener, like a blade whetted on a speeding wheel. She all but clawed her way on top of him to sink her teeth into his shoulder, lost her breath as he flipped her back again and found her white-hot center with his fingers.
The orgasm ripped through her, a glorious shock. Dazzled and drugged with it, she groped for him.
“God. God. Please. Now.”
Thank you, Jesus, he thought, because it had to be now. When he drove himself into her, the earth didn’t simply move. It quaked.
The world shook; the air thundered. And his body lit up, then erupted with triumph and pleasure, with a desperate, dizzying demand for more.
She clung to him, arms and legs locked in the wild ride full of sound and speed. Fast, rhythmic slaps of flesh to heat-slicked flesh, the crazed creak of the bed, the pants of labored breath overrode the lazy beat of the sea to shore whispering at the windows.
He felt himself fall away, just fall away into that whirl of sound, into the rush, into the stupefying pleasure.
Into her.
He’d have sworn he flew, too far, too high, into a moment of exquisite pain, before he just emptied.
They didn’t move. It had gone dark sometime during the race to the bedroom and the sprint to the finish line, but he wasn’t entirely sure he hadn’t been struck blind.
Better to stay just as he was for the time being. Besides, the sensation of her body beneath his, sleek and toned and absolutely still, felt so damn good. Though she’d gone lax, her heart continued to rage against his. The rapid beat made him feel like a god.
“And I wasn’t sure I’d pull it off.”
“Oh, you pulled it way off. I may never get it on again.”
He blinked. “Did I say that out loud?”
The laugh rumbled in her throat. “I won’t hold it against you. I wasn’t sure either of us would pull it off. I feel like I must be glowing. I can’t understand why I’m not illuminating the whole room like a torch.”
“I think we went blind.”
When she felt him shift, Abra opened her eyes, looked into the glint of his. “No, I can see you. It’s just dark. There’s only a quarter moon tonight.”
“I feel like I landed on it.”
“A trip to the moon.” It made her smile as she brushed at his hair. “I like it. All I need now is some water, before I die of thirst, and maybe some food before we try for the return trip.”
“I can supply the water. I keep some in the . . .” He rolled over, reached out for the nightstand, and ended up on the floor. “What the hell!”
“Are you okay?” She scrambled to the edge of the bed to stare down at him. “Why are you on the floor?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where’s the lamp? Where’s the nightstand?”
“I don’t know. Did we end up in an alternate universe?” He rubbed his hip as he got to his feet, and stood straining to see while his eyes adjusted to the dark. “Something’s not right. The terrace doors are supposed to be over there, but they’re over there. And the . . . Wait a minute.”
Cautious, he moved in the darkened room, cursed when his toe stubbed against a chair, skirted it, then groped for the bedside lamp.
The light flashed on.
“Why am I over here?” she asked him.
“Because the bed’s over there. It was over here. Now it’s over there and turned sideways.”
“We moved the bed?”
“It was over here,” he repeated, then walked back to her. “Now it’s over here.” He got back in as she sat up beside him. Both of them sat, studying the empty space between the two nightstands.
“That’s a lot of pent-up sexual energy,” she decided.
“I’d say massive amounts. Has this ever happened to you before?”
“It’s a first.”
“Me, too.” He turned, grinned at her. “I’m going to mark it down on the calendar.”
Laughing, she twined her arms around his neck. “Let’s leave it here for now, see if we can move it back again later.”
“There are a lot of other beds in this house. We could experiment. I think . . . Shit. Shit. Pent-up sexual energy. Abra, the bed’s here, the nightstands, and the condoms are over there. I didn’t think. I couldn’t think.”
“We’re okay. I’m on birth control. How long have you been storing up your sexual energy?”
“Some over a year.”
“Same here. I think that area of safety’s covered, so to speak. Why don’t we hydrate, eat, then see what else we can move?”
“I really like the way your mind works.”
She was right about the soup. It was exceptional. He’d begun to think she was very rarely wrong about anything.
They sat at the kitchen island, he in flannel pants and a sweatshirt, Abra in one of his grandmother’s robes. Eating soup, hunks of bread, drinking wine, talking about movies she claimed he had to see or books they’d both read.
He told her about his find in the house’s library. “It’s interesting, definitely written by a woman with a male pseudonym.”
“That sounds biased and a little snarky.”
“Not meant that way,” he claimed. “Writer’s a word without gender. But this struck me as female, especially given the era it was written in. It’s a little flowery, definitely romantic. I liked it, even if it should’ve been labeled fiction.”
“I’d like to be the judge of that. Can I borrow it?”
“Sure. I thought, given the trench, I’d take a pass through the library here, read what we’ve got on the legend, the Calypso, on Nathanial Broome and my ancestor Violeta.”
“Now that’s a project I can get behind. I always meant to ask Hester if I could borrow some of the books, but never did. I tend toward fiction or self-help.”
Since he considered her one of the most self-aware and contented women he’d ever met, he had to ask, “What help does your self need?”
“Depends on the day. But when I first moved here I still felt a little unsteady. I read a lot of books on finding balance, dealing with trauma.”
He laid a hand over hers. “I don’t want to bring back bad memories, but I want to ask how long he got.”
“Twenty years. The prosecutor was pushing for rape, battery, attempted murder, and he would’ve faced life. So they pleaded it down to aggravated sexual assault, adding in the knife, and held to the maximum. I didn’t think he’d take it, but—”
“Factor in the stalking, the premeditation in breaking into your place, eyewitnesses in your neighbors. He was smart to take it. How are you about the twenty?”
“I’m good with it. Satisfied with it. When he comes up for parole, I intend to go in, speak to the board. I intend to take the photos of me after the assault. I like to think it’s not vindictive, but—”
“It’s not.”
“I don’t really care if it is, and I’ve made peace with my own needs on it. I do know I feel lighter with him in prison, and I’ll do what I can to keep him there. Away from me, away from someone else he might focus on. So I found my balance, and every now and then I like a little boost, or something that opens me up to a different way of thinking.”
With a smile, she spooned up more soup. “How’s your balance, Eli?”