Читать книгу Return To Me - Shannon McKenna - Страница 9

He was so high. His blood raced with wild euphoria. It pulsed through his body, fizzed in his brain. El clung to him, her fingers tightening on him every time they swooped around a curve. He wondered if she were torturing him on purpose by leaving off the bra. It didn’t seem her style, but after all this time, it was unlikely that she could still be that naive about her effect on men.

But then again, El had always been a case apart.

The other question in his mind burned even hotter. When she threw on her T-shirt and cut-offs, did she leave her panties off too? Was her ass completely bare in those low-slung shorts? He wanted to wrap those cool, trembling fingers of hers around his dumb handle. He guaranteed it would hold firm. Solid as a goddamn rock.

Yeah, it was sleazy, but he had his limits, and he’d zoomed right past them a long while back. She was so beautiful, and the moon was full, and he felt raw and naked after showing her the e-mail, spilling his guts about Gus. El saw right through his bravado. Always had.

She was wasted on Brad. The arrogant prick would flaunt her beauty like a trophy and never even know the real treasure that he had in his grasp. He wondered what their sex was like, and shoved the thought away too late. Red rage coiled inside him, ready to strike.

Let it go. Don’t think of it. He had a part of El that Brad would never know. He had their childhood bond. He had her virginity, and she had his. Their night in the flowers. A secret treasure. This ride in the moonlight was his, too. Life was short, and pain was long, and to hell with the future. If she took him to her bed tonight, he was going for it.

The motorcycle climbed steadily up the Horsehead Bluff mountain service road, switching back in long, lazy zigzags. The landscape widened below them as they climbed. He topped the rise and they bumped along the gravel road that followed the crest of the ridge.

A moonlit panorama fell away on either side of them. Hills segued into jagged mountains on one side of them, and the broad sweep of the river valley spread out on the other. LaRue was a glittering triangle below them. The moon blazed over them in an immense expanse of sky.

Wind lifted their hair. He killed the motor at the highest point and coasted to a stop. “This is my favorite spot,” he told her. “You can see everything. All the big volcanoes, every town for forty miles.”

“Even the moon looks different, with so much sky around it,” she said. “I’ve never been up here at night. It’s another world.”

He turned to look at her. “There’s a lot of things you’ve never done, aren’t there?”

She stiffened, and pulled her soft warmth away from his back. “Just what is that supposed to mean?” she snapped.

He held her gaze and let his silence answer her.

She scrambled off the bike and pulled off the helmet as she backed away. “Maybe I haven’t traveled the world, and dodged bullets and laughed in the face of death, but that doesn’t mean I’m a coward!”

“I never said you were a coward,” he said. “You’re brave and honorable and kind. You defended me even when I didn’t deserve it.”

“Of course you deserved it! Don’t be silly.” She backed into the middle of the road and spun around, arms wide, helmet dangling from one hand. Drunk on the moonlight, just like him. “This is the first time in so long that I’ve looked up into the sky and seen infinity,” she said. “Usually I’m looking at the inside of a blue glass bowl.”

Inexplicable tension gripped him. “It’s dangerous outside that glass bowl.”

She laughed at him. “Are you trying to scare me? Weren’t you the one who just implied that there are too many things that I’ve never done? Make up your mind, Simon. You can’t have it both ways.”

He shook his head. “I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

“Oh, come on. Who wants to hurt me?” She lifted her arms to the sky, supplicating the moon. “How could I get hurt?”

He himself was the obvious answer that leaped to mind. Brad was a close second. The list stretched out from there, endless and ugly. He’d seen so many ways that people could get hurt. It was his trade.

“I hope you never know,” he said.

She made a disgusted sound. “Oh, don’t even!”

“Don’t what?”

“Get all remote and mysterious on me. That tone in your voice says, oh, wise Simon with his vast experience of the world must protect poor clueless Ellen who doesn’t know her ass from her elbow. Spare me, please. I hate being condescended to. Hate it, hate it, hate it.”

He laughed. Her words freed him, and his mood floated up. “You’re finally loosening up, thank God. Now you sound like the El I used to know. Always scolding me. Bursting my bubbles.”

“Was I such a snot?” Her voice was uncertain.

“I loved it,” he told her. “That was how I knew you cared.”

The silence grew thick again.

El turned away, and gazed out at the mountains. “So, ah…where did you go when you left LaRue?”

Simon sighed inwardly. She’d panicked again. There was the tense, chatty, hostess-with-the-mostess voice. Back to square one.

“I hitchhiked south as the weather got too cold for my clothes,” he told her. “I finally ended up in San Diego.”

“How did you live?”

“Odd jobs. I painted houses, worked road crews, picked oranges. Anything I could find. I got a job in a photo lab once. That was a break. The owner was so happy when he found out I knew what I was doing.”

“And the Marines?”

He shrugged. “Got an itch to travel. I was in the first Gulf War as a soldier. The second as a journalist.”

She wandered to the side of the road and brushed her hand over the waist-high mountain grass that rippled in the wind. “I had a dream once, that you were there, during that war. I saw you in a dusty desert place with a gun in your hands.”

“Don’t step off the road, El,” he warned. “It’s rattlesnake season.”

“I don’t worry about rattlers when I’m with you. Remember that time I stepped too close to a snake, and whoosh, you threw your knife and cut it in half before it could strike? Just like that.”

He laughed. “You bet I remember that.”

“Why are you laughing?” she asked. “I was so impressed.”

“I’ll tell you a secret. That was sheer, blind beginner’s luck. I made out like it was no big deal just to impress you.”

She started to giggle. “No way! You big liar!”

“Sorry to ruin the myth. All I can say is that I got right to work and learned to throw that knife for real, just in case I ever had to save you from another snake. I had to live up to my new macho image.”

“So, could you—”

“Yeah,” he said. “I could. I’m very good with a knife, and I’ve got you and that snake to thank for it. I’ll show you sometime.”

“Well,” she said. “That’s good. Reality is better than fantasy.”

“Reality usually hurts like hell,” he said.

She stopped laughing, and looked away. “True.” Her voice was subdued. “It usually does. I have to get up at the crack of dawn to make coffee and get breakfast together, so I should probably, um…”

“I’ll take you back,” he muttered.

He kicked himself. He should’ve said something slick about fulfilling fantasies, but no. He had to bring up painful reality.

She put the helmet on and climbed behind him. He could hardly believe how innocent and trusting she was. She’d grown up, but the essence of her was the same; that bright core of ineffable El, sharp wits and laughter and sweet, tender warmth. She seemed to have no clue of the danger she was in, alone in the moonlight with him and his hard-on. He could stop this bike anytime, turn around and…whoa.

But he didn’t. He savored her soft warmth against his back, her small hands clutching him. Her trust was the sweetest thing of all.

At the top of the driveway, she patted his shoulder. He braked.

“Let me grab my mail,” she said. “I was so rattled today after my errands, I forgot.” She collected envelopes from her mailbox.

He scooted back as she made to climb on behind. “Get on in front,” he directed.

She hesitated. “But I don’t know how to—”

“You won’t. We’ll just coast down the driveway,” he coaxed.

She clambered on in front of him. Her rib cage jerked in a soundless gasp as he pulled her back against his chest. They rolled the bike silently down the driveway and into the shadow of the maples.

The big house was dark and silent. The rustling leaves made a shifting, fluttering dance of moonlight and shadow. She tried to slip off the bike, but he wrapped his arm around her slim waist and held her against him. “Just a second, El.”

Her body stiffened. “What?” Her voice was a nervous wisp.

He lifted the helmet off her head and hung it on the handlebars. He brushed her hair gently back off her face. “I want something in return for showing you the ridge in the moonlight.”

He actually heard her gulp. “Um, Simon. I can’t—”

“Please.” He scooped her hair away from her cheek on one side and leaned closer. “I ask so little. Just tell me one thing.”

“What thing?” she demanded.

“Remember the night I left? When I came to say goodbye?”

“Of course. How could I forget that?”

“You were stark naked underneath that nightgown when I stripped that thing off and laid you down in the flowers. Remember?”

The mail slid and tumbled from her hands, falling to the ground on either side of the motorcycle. “Petunias,” she whispered.

“What’s that, sweetheart?” He was so close, his lips almost touched the fragrant hollow beneath her jaw.

“They were petunias,” she clarified. “The flowers.”

“Petunias. So that’s what they’re called. Just the sight of them makes me hard,” he said. “When you threw your clothes on tonight, you left off your bra.” He stroked her shoulders, the soft contours of her back, the whole graceful, sweeping curve of her spine, right down to the loose cut-offs. His finger slid under the denim waistband. “Did you leave your panties off tonight, too? Like you did that night I left?”

She hesitated an instant too long. “Certainly not.”

“Liar.” He let his breath caress her throat. “I’ve always been able to tell when you’re lying.”

“Think what you like,” she said. “But you should keep your thoughts on other things.”

“I tried,” he said.

She sagged against him. “Me, too,” she whispered.

He put his hand against the outrageous softness of her cheek. She vibrated against him, a fine, rapid tremor. He touched the lustrous warmth of her hair, the delicate bones of her shoulders, the curve of her waist. He let his hand slide beneath the fabric of her T-shirt and splayed it against the warmth of her soft belly.

The top button of her cut-offs popped open without a struggle. Her only protest was a shuddering exhalation as his hand slid beneath the heavy cloth. Lower and lower, by degrees measurable only in soft caresses, in sighing gasps. His fingertips reached her curly tangle of pubic hair. “Nope. No panties,” he murmured. “Just like I thought.”

She squirmed against him, and whimpered as his fingertips teased over the silky whorl of hair. Her legs already straddled the bike’s seat, so he just pulled her back against him to give his hand the space to slide down…and his fingertips found a hot, slick paradise. She was so wet and ready. She shook at the light, glancing touch, and arched back into a bow of shuddering tension.

“I want to touch you, El,” he murmured against her ear. “I want to make you feel good. You’re so beautiful.” He waited, nuzzling her.

She moved against his caressing fingers and made a mewling sound. He’d give her every opportunity to wrench his hand away and tell him to stop. She hadn’t done it, hadn’t said it. She was all his.

Her head fell back against his shoulder, her face turned to his. He finally did what he’d been dying to do since the moment he saw her in the kitchen. His lips brushed over the trembling softness of her mouth, savoring the full, sensual shape, the silky texture, the sweet flavor. He drank her in, caressed her mouth with his lips and tongue while his fingers slid lower, teasing their way inside the moist, hot recesses of her body. Petting and caressing the moist folds.

He thrust his tongue into her mouth at the same moment that he slid one long finger deep inside her. The invasion made her cry out, the small muscles inside her clenching around him. He made coaxing sounds, soothing her with kisses, and caressed the quivering bud of her clit with his thumb. She was so responsive, so open to him. He let his senses widen into a deep, intangible awareness of her pleasure, made up of fierce attention and empathy and passion.

He massaged her tight, moist sheath while his thumb tenderly circled her clit. So delicate and small. Hugging his finger with every tiny muscle inside herself. Being inside her was going to feel amazing.

He set up a gentle rhythm, careful not to scare her, and gave her just enough space to move with him; a slow, intuitive dance between his delving hand and the hidden secrets of her body. He let his other hand creep up the way the first had crept down, brushing over the dip of her navel, exploring the shelf of her rib cage and the swell of those breasts. She’d still been budding when she was sixteen, and now she’d bloomed into lush perfection. His fingertips brushed over her soft skin, her warm curves, her small, taut nipples with awe. He held her tight as she squirmed against his hand, and muffled the sobbing sounds she made against his mouth, deepening the kiss for the sake of her modesty.

He would make her come right here, and then carry her upstairs and lay her out on whatever bed was closest. Peel off her clothes and show her how much he’d learned about giving pleasure since that crazy night seventeen years ago. He pressed his erection against her bottom as his fingers wrought pleasure on her writhing body.

She panicked and fought it, but it was too late to retreat. He needed it now as much as she did. He insisted, pushed her straight into it and held on tight as the spasms of her pleasure tore through her. He thrust his finger deep inside her so that he could feel the rhythmic pulses gripping him. He rocked her in his arms until the ripples subsided, kissing her throat, her cheek and murmuring approving words; how beautiful she was, how sweet, how hot.

He slowly withdrew his slick fingers, and shoved her cut-offs down so that her bottom was half bare. He caressed her perfect ass cheeks and traced the shadowy cleft, seeking the same well of heat from behind that he had just caressed from the front. If it weren’t for those shorts, he could bend her over right now. Just open up his jeans and ease his cock into that tight, supple pussy. Work himself in and out with slow, lazy thrusts while he reached around and caressed her clit.

He licked the slick fluid off his fingers. Her lube was so warm, so sweet tasting. “I want to devour you, El,” he said. “Lick you up like melting ice cream. All night long. Let’s go upstairs.”

A shiver racked her body. Her slim shoulders shook, as if she were laughing, or…oh, Christ, no. He pushed her hair aside. “El? Jesus, what is it? Did I hurt you? What did I do?”

She shook her head and turned her crumpled face away from him. She pried his hand off her hip and then held it tightly in both of hers for a moment, as if she didn’t know what to do with it. She brought it to her lips and kissed his knuckle. “Let me go, please.”

His exultant triumph deflated. He had always hated to see El cry.

He moved back and gave her space. She clambered off the bike and buttoned up her cut-offs. She knelt and gathered up the envelopes scattered on the ground. She kept wiping her face and sniffling.

“I didn’t mean to make you cry,” he said helplessly. “I just wanted to make you feel good. I’m sorry.”

“I’m the one that’s sorry. I can’t do this. I made a promise, and I can’t blow it off for…for a quick roll in the hay with an old flame.” Her voice was a shaking rush. “I can’t believe I let it go so far.”

Her words infuriated him. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her back. “A roll in the hay with me wouldn’t be quick,” he said. “It would be the longest, hardest roll in the hay you ever had.”

“Don’t. This is not the kind of person I am. I’m sorry. I…I led you on. I shouldn’t have come downstairs, I shouldn’t have gone out onto the porch. I shouldn’t have gone for that motorcycle ride—”

“You shouldn’t have checked me into your hotel.”

Her silence was assent. “I’m sorry,” she whispered again.

He let go of her arm. “Don’t be. I was a dickhead to push you.” He yanked the helmet off the handlebars, put it on, and revved the engine.

“Where are you going?”

“What do you care? Your bed’s full, babe.”

She flinched at his knife-sharp tone. “Simon—”

“You’ve moved on,” he said. “I get the message. I don’t blame you. Don’t sweat it, El. Chalk it up to the full moon.”

He turned the bike, accelerated up the driveway and hit the highway. He felt like shit for jerking El around like that. Making her miserable and confused. Making her cry. What a self-serving asshole.

He hadn’t even had “the talk,” the one he gave to all the women he wanted to have sex with. He knew how she would react. She would tell him to take his no-commitment rule and shove it right up his ass. She would phrase it in a classier way, but that would be the gist of it.

It’s starting already, an unsurprised voice in the back of his head commented. He’d gotten into a fight and made El cry, and he’d only been here for six hours. Trouble had dogged him all his life. His mother had always jokingly said that he was a bad penny, before her house burned to the ground with her in it. That had been his first clue.

Gus had never let him forget it, either. Put him in a room with something breakable, it would break whether or not he came near it. Put him near a clock, it would inexplicably stop. Things exploded, cars crashed, fires started when he was around, even when he kept his head down. When a nearby volcano had blown up and covered three states with a choking cloud of ash, he’d been convinced it was his fault.

And when Gus’s drunken rages had intensified, he hadn’t been surprised. Desperate and miserable yes, but not surprised.

After he left LaRue, he’d figured that the more chaotic and anonymous the place, the less likely people would notice the shadow that followed him. So he gravitated towards cities. Then he joined the Marines, and that was even better. They sent him to places that were in such bad trouble, his own shadow was barely noticeable. He landed in the perfect profession, pursuing wars, coups and natural disasters so aggressively, they never had a chance to pursue him back. Disaster was a crop that never failed, if you had the stomach to harvest it.

He’d never stuck around any place long enough to catch the blame for ruining someone’s property, or heart, or life. As long as he chased danger and disaster, danger and disaster never caught up with him.

He’d found his own weird equilibrium. He had the tiger by the tail, but if he let go, the tiger would turn on him and rip him to pieces. And the second he’d seen El in the kitchen, his blood had rushed from his brain into his lower body, and that tiger’s tail slipped out of his grasp.

Now it was only a matter of time.

Ray’s heart thundered with hot anticipation. Everyone was dead except for him and the two wounded Vietcong sprawled at his feet; an old man and a young girl. Everything was burning. Flames, smoke, stink.

The asshole helo pilot had run his rotor right into a coconut tree, disintegrating the sucker. It had landed on the hooch and exploded, killing Ray’s men and roasting the VC inside. All except for these two.

The door gunner had taken a bullet to the throat. The radioman was buried in the rubble, just his broken, splintered hand sticking out. When the time came he would be all broken up about his men. He had the routine down cold. He could even sob on command.

But nobody was looking today. No need to pretend.

He took the gas he’d siphoned out of the fifty-gallon drum that had been meant to refuel the burning helo. He poured it over his prisoners. They struggled and screamed. He’d killed more than he could count since he’d arrived at this jungle slaughterhouse, but fire was special. The lizards and cats he’d burned when he was little had taught him that. No one had ever known. He’d been so careful, so patient, waiting for his chance. He smiled at them, waved his hand bye-bye. He lit the match—

The vibration of his cell phone from the pocket inside his pajamas dragged Ray out of his dream, if one could call it a dream. It was more like a vision. He’d done some reading on post-traumatic stress syndrome. Flashbacks were common, particularly in times of stress. And enjoyable as it had been, blowing a hole in Gus Riley’s head had definitely qualified as stressful.

He checked the display. It indicated that he had to drag himself out of his bed to rendezvous with one of his employees. Scotty and Bebop couldn’t wipe their own asses without detailed instructions.

He leaned back and idly stroked his lingering erection. The dream was coming too often, affecting his sleep. Both sleeplessness and sleeping aids diminished his ability to keep his mask well fortified.

And each carefully planned time that he indulged in his secret hobby, it was harder to reestablish his mask. Sometimes he felt it buckling under the internal pressure. Hairline cracks, dust falling, a rumbling sound. The power was overwhelming now. It had forced him to retire from his position as district attorney, which he regretted bitterly, but just too many people were asking him if he was OK. Too many times he’d found himself blank and confused. No idea what look had been on his face, what words had just come from his mouth.

Killing Gus had eroded his mask. He wondered if finding the proof Gus had dared to taunt him with would give him “closure,” as Diana put it when she was talking about emotions. Usually her own. He looked at Diana’s sleeping form on the bed next to him. She was the most self-absorbed woman he’d ever known, and he was glad of it. That quality gave him privacy. Controlling Diana was easy; a thoughtless mix of coaxing, cajoling and flattery. He was widely known to be a saint of a husband, deeply in thrall to his domineering wife.

His reputation privately amused him.

Brad had been the dangerous one, back when he’d been a curious, persistent child. But Ray had taught his young son not to intrude upon his privacy. Brad kept a wary distance from his father, and had for many years. Brad was a smart boy. Ray was proud of him.

Ray pulled on his bathrobe and slipped on his loafers. He paused to look up at the full moon, and strolled across the grass.

A hoarse whisper issued from the shadows of the gazebo. “Boss?”

“Good evening, Bebop,” Ray said. “Anything to report?”

“Yeah. And how. Looks like your future daughter-in-law is screwing Riley. Ellen the Angel ain’t quite so angelic after all. No surprise to me. Women are all the same. Dirty sluts.”

The shock of that unpleasant news reverberated through him. Ellen Kent had been the exquisite crowning touch to his perfect family, and Riley had soiled her on his first day home. Stressing his mask. Hairline cracks, expanding into a webwork. Rumbling. Falling dust.

“…going on? You OK, Boss?” Bebop’s voice sounded frightened.

Ray bent over for a moment to let blood run back to his head. “I’m fine.” He forced his voice to stay even. “No problem. Thank you.”

“You was making weird sounds, like you was hyperventilating—”

“I’m fine,” Ray bit out. “What exactly did you see?”

“Well, she comes out onto the porch with him, and they talk. Then she gets on his bike with him, and they take off. Then they come back and stop under the trees. Couldn’t see ’em in the dark, but I didn’t have to, if you know what I mean. Man, was she ever lovin’ it—”

“That’ll do,” Ray said sharply. “The details don’t interest me.”

“Want us to keep watching?” Bebop’s voice was eager.

“Yes,” he said. “But I would like for you to do more than watch. I want you to arrange for an unpleasant incident. I want Riley to feel very unwelcome here. I do not want Ellen injured, but I do want her to think very hard about spending time with him. Are you and Scotty up for it?”

Bebop thought about it. “Can I call a couple of extra guys?”

“If you can do so without telling them anything they don’t need to know,” Ray said. “An envelope with the extra money will be in the usual place tomorrow. It is important that you be anonymous. Understand? Riley must not find out who you are.”

“How soon you want us to do it?”

“As soon as the perfect occasion presents itself,” Ray said. “I trust you to handle the details.”

“No problem,” Bebop said. “We’ll mop the floor with the bastard.”

“Then I leave it in your capable hands. Good night, Bebop.”

It took Bebop a moment to figure out that he’d been dismissed. He finally took himself off and swaggered away into the dark.