Darkling I Listen (31 page)

The figure ahead was nothing but shadow at first, until it was almost too late to stop the momentum of her body at full run. Upon hearing her approach, he swiveled, his rifle set against his shoulder and his eye staring through the crosshairs. She threw her arms up to shield her face—as if they'd stop a bullet from splitting her skull in two—and she dived toward the ground just as Brandon tipped the barrel up at the last minute even as he pulled the trigger, shattering the silence with an ear-splitting crack of gunfire.

Hitting the ground hard, she coughed out a cry of shock, followed by
Brandon
's curse. She had barely hit the ground before he fell over her, throwing the rifle aside as he reached for her, his fingers digging desperately into her arms as he partially lifted her.

"Are you hurt? Aly, damnit, are you hurt?"
Brandon
shook her hard enough to make her whimper. "Say something, for God's sake."

"I'm fine!" she shouted, not certain that she really was. If someone could really die of fright, then she expected to kick off at any second. "I'm okay," she assured him, struggling for a breath.

He sat, his head hanging, his hands drooping over his knees.

She had tumbled into a thatch of prickly weeds. They bit through her blouse and jeans. She sat up, wincing at the scratches she could feel burning her arms and hands and the back of her neck. Finally,
Brandon
raised his head and looked at her through his tumbled hair. Taking a deep, steadying breath, he said, "What the hell did you think you were doing?"

"I heard shots—"

"So you just go barreling into the fray? I nearly killed you, Alyson."

She climbed over his legs and into his lap, took his face between her trembling hands, and began to cry. "I was afraid she'd killed you. I was afraid I'd find you with a bullet hole in your body, bleeding to death."

She pressed her mouth to his,
then
to his unshaven cheek, which felt abrasive to her sore lip. She kissed him repeatedly: his mouth, his cheek, his forehead where his limp hair clung to his sweating brow. Her eyes closed and burning with tears, she said, "Please, please don't do this sort of thing again. You're so damn vulnerable, so sad, and I don't want to think you'd just walk right through hell's door because some part of you has a death wish."

"I'm sorry," he said softly. "If there was someone here, they're gone. I took a couple of shots at a coyote—"

"Promise me, okay? Promise me you'll be more careful."

His mouth curled up on one side. "Careful there, Miz James, I might start to think you really like me for something other than my cute tush."

"Well." She smiled. "Your cute tush isn't so bad either."

"Know where my cute tush wants to be right now?" He slid one hand between her legs, to her crotch that was pressed against the erection in his jeans. The pressure of his fingers and the tight denim of her jeans made the sensitive flesh that he stroked, swell. She felt as if she
were
melting into his palm, and the ache made her groan. It overrode the extreme fear that had earlier swallowed her. She covered his mouth with a fierce kiss, opened her mouth to take in his tongue, the smoky taste of him as intoxicating as the smell of him, the feel of his hard body against hers, his hands hungrily sliding under her blouse to cup her breasts.

"I need you inside me," she gasped, clutching at his shoulders and tilting her crotch more closely against the ridge that was distending and lengthening in his pants. Her hands tore at the button and zipper on his jeans as she pleaded, "Hurry."

*

Mitsy squatted in the bushes, listening to herself breathe,
vaguely aware that an insect was crawling up her bare leg and the thorns on the brush around her ankles were drawing thin, deep lines in her pale skin. He'd almost caught her. Another fifty yards into the darkness and he'd have found her car. And then what?

She bit her lower lip hard to keep from laughing. Imagine Mr. Wonderful's surprise if she'd jumped out of the bushes and pointed her brother's Taurus Bull between his eyes. She could still do it. Wouldn't that be funny—nail him and his slutty girlfriend at the same time. Boom boom. Just like that.

She watched them kiss, their mouths locking, moving and sliding, opening, their tongues dancing together—she sat that close. So close she could almost reach out and touch them. She could hear their ragged breaths, their guttural groans, their sharp inhalations when they touched—nasty boy, making the bitch squirm that way, making her pant.

He laid Alyson back on the carpet of pine needles—so close, so damn close Mitsy could reach out and stroke her face—he fumbled with the front closer of her bra and shoved it aside, made a sound as he laved those naked pink points with his tongue, took them deeply into his mouth and sucked so hard she cried out. Mitsy could remember—oh, yes, she could remember—how his mouth felt on her breasts, hot and wet and hungry. Her eyes drifted closed as she curled her fingers around her own breast and squeezed, her thumb stroking the aroused peak.

When Mitsy looked at them again, he was sitting back on his heels and removing his jacket. He tossed it aside and dragged off his shirt, removed her boots, then peeled Alyson's jeans down her legs, flung them over the bush near Mitsy, then tore at his own jeans, shoving them down his hips and releasing his swollen cock.

Mitsy's mouth fell open and the breath rushed from her. She bit harder on her lip, tasting blood, feeling tears fill her eyes.

Alyson spread her legs, and he stroked her with his fingers until Alyson rocked her pelvis in invitation.

Oh, the pain. The excruciating pain between her legs. Mitsy drew her skirt up and slid her finger under the elastic band of her panties. The flesh there was hot and slick and swollen, and the very touch of her finger sent ripples of fresh agony through her.

She could smell his arousal—like no other man she had ever been with before him or since—it made her dizzy. The scent made her throb as she recalled how he'd stretched her body, burned her body with friction, making her mindless as no one else ever had or ever would. She stroked herself with her fingers, teeth clenched,
the
groan of her own desire swelling in her throat.

With a lithe surge, he moved over Alyson's body, slid into her, slowly, excruciatingly slowly, then withdrew, his fingers curving around her hips and tipping her up so he could drive deeper, harder, until their bodies were locked and grinding, moans shuddering through her mouth, which he kissed with heartbreaking gentleness. He hadn't kissed Mitsy—screwed her, yes, but he wouldn't kiss her, as if the act were too intimate, as if a kiss would magically transform what he'd been doing to her that night in the backseat of her car into something resembling love.

Oh, yes, he'd deserved what he got after that. He deserved what he was going to get very soon now. Because she knew a secret, a very dirty secret. He'd better enjoy the bitch while he could, because it was all
coming
down down down, and he was going to SUFFER!

Alyson cried out, the sound reverberating through the pitch-black forest.

Mitsy sank to the ground, twitching, as she stared with tear-filled eyes at the trees overhead.

*

Calming Henry down had taken a while. Betty finally left a
little after nine—upset at arriving at her Bible study late. Alyson and Brandon sat with Henry and Bernie for the next hour until, as was routine, Henry fell asleep and began to snore.
Brandon
turned off the television and caught Alyson's hand. They climbed the stairs to his bedroom.

They showered together. With hot water raining over their heads, they held one another until the water became cold. Alyson felt too tired to think, too weak to move. The earlier surge of fear and adrenaline left her muscles sore and her heart aching.

She blew her hair dry as
Brandon
fell into bed. He had hung her red thong panties over the medicine cabinet mirror. Smiling, she stepped into them and, with nothing else on, walked into the bedroom, which was lit by several candles on the bedside table.

He
lay
on his back, naked and aroused, a grin curling his mouth and his eyes narrowing in appreciation as he saw her. She moved to the bed; her gaze drifted from his oddly mischievous eyes, down his perfectly honed body to his…

Her mouth dropped open and her eyes widened.

He was wearing the empty double Twinkie wrapper slid over the end of his penis like a cellophane condom.

She began to laugh, not just a little, but from the belly up. The sensation rolled through her in a wave of relief that made her knees weak.

His grin stretching,
Brandon
rolled from the bed. "Plenty of creamy filling in this baby, Cupcake. Help yourself. Don't be shy—not that you are, judging by last night's performance—damn, you're good; blew my mind, among other things." He laughed so lasciviously her face turned red. "By the way, you look damn beautiful in those panties. But then, I knew you would. Ever think about modeling for
Victoria
's Secret?"

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" She smiled into his twinkling eyes.

"Not particularly. I'm a jealous kind of panty pervert, I guess." He picked up a Twinkie from the table, lifted it to her mouth, and touched it lightly to her lips. "Eat it," he ordered her in a soft, deep voice.

Her eyes never leaving his, she nipped off the end of the cake, swallowed, then slid her tongue deep into the heart of the roll and scooped out the white cream with her tongue.

His face turned dark; his eyes, sleepy. Lowering his mouth to hers, he swept her lips with his tongue and licked away the sweet filling, setting her senses on fire. Her hand curling around him, she peeled the wrapper off him as he lowered the Twinkie and slid it between her legs, murmuring, "Dessert time."

What, exactly, made her glance toward the wall at that moment, she didn't know. Her eyes fixed on the framed black-and-white photograph of a high school baseball team as
Brandon
kissed the soft underside of her jaw and breathed warmly against her sensitive flesh. She looked into John Carlyle's smiling face; her gaze dropped to the bold print beneath the photo—names of the players—to Carlyle's name. Only it wasn't
John
that blazed back at her, it was—
"Buddy." She said it aloud. Her universe focused on that one bold word that appeared to pulsate like the heartbeat in her ears. "Buddy."

Brandon
lifted his head, frowning. "What?"

"Buddy. His name—"

"Nickname." He glanced at the photo. "It was Henry's name for him as a kid. It stuck."

Fresh fear surged through Alyson as she sat up, focusing her attention again on
Brandon
. "Buddy said the band was Dessie Anne's."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Nora. She said, 'Buddy says the band is Dessie Anne's.'" Staring into his still face, Alyson asked, "
Who's
Dessie Anne?"

"My grandmother," he replied in a dry voice.

Alyson grabbed
Brandon
's shirt from the back of a chair and pulled it on. She ran to Henry and Bernie's old room, where she, had rested the night before, opened the jewelry box, and grabbed the gold wedding ring. By the time she returned to
Brandon
's room, he'd put on his jeans and was zipping them as he made for the door. She held out the ring on her flat palm as she searched his face. "Whose is it?" she demanded breathlessly.

His blue eyes came back to hers. "My grandmother's."

"Last night …
when I was alone in that room …
I put it on. The ring. I thought it was Bernie's. I put it on,
Brandon
. Nora said, 'Buddy says the band is Dessie Anne's.' The wedding band is Dessie Anne's." Emotion closed her throat as she curled her fingers around the ring. "Now convince me Nora's a fruit head. Tell me it was all a lucky guess. But if you tell me again to forget her and what she said, I'm going to beat you within an inch of your stubborn life."

She walked away, the ring clutched so tightly in her hand she felt it cutting into her palm. "Buddy said to watch out for Billy Boy. Who's Billy Boy?" When he didn't reply, she turned on him. The color had drained from his face. His eyes looked like bruises against the gray of his skin. "Who's Billy?" she demanded frantically.

He shrugged. "I don't know. I don't know a Billy."

"What if
Anticipating
is a man?"

She blurted the words before considering their impact. Suddenly
Brandon
's earlier confessions loomed like a behemoth in the room. His monster was back. She saw it reflected in his eyes—a child's eyes trying desperately to contain their terror.

More gently, she said, "That would explain
Charlotte
. Her attacker was a stocky white male. Bald. Wearing an earring. He called her a naughty, naughty girl—"

"How the hell do you know all this?" he nearly shouted, anger mixed with his mounting tension.

"I saw her today.
Charlotte
. I was desperate for any clue that might help us discover Anticipating's identity."