Heat Wave (19 page)

The last time they’d made love, he’d been so
eager to strip her naked, he hadn’t paid much attention to her
clothing. What she wore today was nothing special—not just her
skirt and blouse but her underthings. Pretty enough, some shiny
cream-colored fabric trimmed in lace, but not overly suggestive.
Her bra and panties covered everything Caleb wanted uncovered, and
he wasted no time in removing them.

They made fast work of his own clothing,
too. She unfastened the buttons of his shirt while he tugged his
already loose tie free of the collar. She worked the buckle of his
belt; he skimmed the zipper down. He was already hard, and the
nearness of her hands, separated from his skin only by the thin
ribbed cotton of his boxer briefs, made him harder.

“We should slow down,” he murmured, even as
he scrambled out of the briefs and yanked off his socks.

“We should,” she agreed, then hooked her
hands together at the nape of his neck and pulled his face down to
hers.

Kissing her turned him on as much as letting
her fuss with his belt buckle did. Her mouth was sweet and tart,
warm and soft, her tongue sliding and tangling and luring him in.
Her skin was warm and soft, too, like the petals of a lush flower.
Georgia peach blossoms? he wondered. He’d never seen a peach tree
in bloom, but he imagined that as pretty as it might be, it would
not come close to matching Meredith’s beauty.

He slid his hands up and down her back,
tracing the jutting angles of her shoulder blades, the concave
curve of her waist, the round cheeks of her gorgeous little ass.
Down along the outer surface of her thighs, then up again to her
narrow waist, then forward to her belly. She was as slim as a
greyhound—not skinny, but utterly lacking in fat or flab. Just a
lean, sleek torso, long, strong limbs, firm round breasts—peach
imagery returned to him, and he imagined licking those breasts and
tasting fruity sweetness—and a damp cleft between her legs, which
buckled when he slid his fingers over that trembling dark
place.

Why were they still standing, with a plush
bed just inches away? He sat, the comforter cool and crisp against
his legs, and drew her to stand between his thighs, his mouth level
with her midriff. He kissed it, then dipped his face to the narrow
indentation of her navel, then drew her onto the bed so she was
kneeling, her legs flanking his hips, her crotch pressed snugly
against his.

How could she have walked away from this
last Friday? How could she have denied them this lush, steamy
pleasure? What a waste of three long days, he thought, three days
when they could have been like this every night, naked, aching,
bringing each other to ecstasy. His bed or hers, or in neutral
territory like this room, which at the moment was his favorite
place on earth. They could have been kissing every night, touching,
stroking. Screwing. Coming. Loving each other.

He lay back, shimmying up the mattress until
his head rested on the pile of pillows and bringing her with him.
She straddled him and he gazed up at her, thinking that right now
he was the luckiest man in the world. If it had taken an old rock
tune blasting from an old jukebox to lead him to this moment, then
he loved that tune. He loved that jukebox.

He grabbed a condom, rolled it on, and
guided her down onto him, filling her with a deep thrust. She
moaned. That soft, kitteny sound nearly undid him, and he sucked in
his breath and fought for control. But she began to rock, taking
him again and again, and control went out the window. Hers as well
as his. So much for slowing down.

He tangled one hand into her hair and used
the other to caress her breasts, the slope of her side, her clit.
She gasped and shuddered, and he felt her muscles pulsing around
him, squeezing, milking him until he was gone.

Damn, but it felt good. She felt good. He
felt good. Burning in his heart, torn apart—indescribably good.

She settled onto him, limp and warm, her
head half on the pillow and half on his shoulder, her uneven breath
whispering across the underside of his jaw. He felt the taut points
of her nipples against his chest, the pressure of one of her knees
against his thigh. He closed his arms tightly around her and held
her where she was. He wasn’t going to give her the opportunity to
run away, not this time.

“Stay,” he said, although the word came out
half a question, half a plea.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Okay.” He refused to relax his grip on her,
though. Just in case.

She didn’t seem to mind. “We have to wake up
really early tomorrow, Caleb. I simply can’t show up at the high
school wearing the same clothes I wore today.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll wake up early.”

“Really
early,” she emphasized.

“As early as you want.” He relaxed his
embrace enough to let one hand drift up the delicate ridge of her
spine and into her hair. It was so silky, so pale, the color of the
sun above the beach on a hot afternoon. “You’re not taking a leave
of absence from work, then, are you.”

 “
No.” Her head shifted
against his shoulder as she shook it. “If Stuart wants to get rid
of me, he’ll have to have me escorted out of the
building.”

“If he does,” Caleb suggested, “call your
lawyer. I hear he’s outstanding.”

She propped herself up on her arms and
peered down at him. “Are you still my lawyer?”

“As long as you want me to be.”

“You’re not dumping me on your colleagues?”
she asked.

He contemplated the ethics of the situation.
Could he represent a woman he was crazy about?

Why not?

“It’s up to you, Meredith. But if you’re
going to wage this war, I want to be by your side, blasting away at
the enemy.” He raised his head to kiss her. “Do you know how much
your fighting spirit turns me on?”

She wiggled her hips slightly, and his dick
twitched with renewed energy, ready to go at it all over again. “I
have some idea,” she teased, then settled back into his arms, her
mouth finding his, taking it, making it hers.

***

A faint chirping sound awakened him.

For a moment, he didn’t know where he was.
The only light in the room was the faint glow of a nightlight
through a partially opened door. The bathroom. He was at the Ocean
Bluff Inn.

Meredith lay asleep beside him, warm and
soft. He smiled.

He heard the chirp again. His phone? At
Meredith’s insistence, he’d set its alarm to wake them at five a.m.
But the bedside clock read ten minutes to twelve.

The sound was his phone, but not its alarm.
It was ringing. Someone was calling him at this late hour. That
couldn’t possibly be good.

He groped on the night table, lifted the
phone, cleared his throat and swiped the screen. “Hello?” he
croaked, swinging his legs over the side of the bed as he sat.

“Caleb? It’s Jerry Felton.”

Caleb shook his head, wishing he could clear
it. It was filled with warm, soft, sleepy thoughts of Meredith.
Sipping wine with her, donning the his-and-hers robes hanging in
the closet and summoning room service to bring up their dinners.
Eating some of her bouillabaisse when she insisted she couldn’t
finish it. Listening to her tell him about her childhood in
Savannah, telling her about his childhood in the suburbs of New
York. Arguing over whether Nirvana was a better band than Foo
Fighters. Arguing over the Yankees were a better baseball team than
the Atlanta Braves, and whether they ought to abandon their
childhood fandom and shift their loyalties to the Red Sox.

Making love again. And again.

Jerry Felton had vanished from his
mind—until now.

“It’s midnight,” Caleb said, rising and
tiptoeing to the bathroom.

“I know. I’m sorry.” Jerry’s voice wobbled
precariously. “I have to tell you something.”

“Can it wait until tomorrow?”

“No. I have to tell you now.” The words were
certain, but his voice continued to waver.

Shit. “Are you drunk?” Caleb asked, lowering
the toilet seat and sitting on it. He winced as the cold, hard
surface came in contact with his bare butt.

“I’ve had a few drinks.”

He’d had a few drinks when they’d met at the
Faulk Street Tavern that afternoon. He sounded as if he’d had a few
more drinks since then.

“I did it,” he said.

“Did what?”

“I stole the money.” His voice cracked
completely, rolling into a sob.

Caleb wasn’t exactly shocked. Blanche Larson
was a superior forensic accountant, and if she’d found a blip in
Felton’s finances, Caleb trusted her instincts as well as his own.
A blip could be explained away, but Felton had offered no
explanation when he and Caleb had met that afternoon. He’d
vehemently insisted on his innocence. His defensiveness had been
enough to spike Caleb’s suspicions.

But Caleb didn’t need to hear Jerry’s
drunken confession now, in the middle of the night, with Meredith
lying naked in a bed just a few steps away.

“That money the accountant found? It was a
mistake. I had a secret account for the money I took, but I
accidentally deposited some money in my regular account by mistake.
I was rushing. It was a stupid mistake—”

Felton had used the
word
mistake
three
times without naming his biggest mistake: robbing the town he’d
been hired to run. “Listen, Jerry—”

“I have this girlfriend,” Felton babbled,
spasms of sobs wrenching the words. “She had my baby. That was a
mistake. She wasn’t supposed to get pregnant, but she did, and it’s
mine. I have to support them, don’t I? They live in Somerville.
That’s an expensive city, you know? I told her to move to Revere,
the rents are so much cheaper there, but no, she wants to live in
Somerville. And my baby. My little girl. How can I not support
them?”

Honestly. Midnight? Couldn’t this wait until
tomorrow? “Jerry—”

“You’re going to tell me I should have
supported them without touching the pension money. But honest to
Christ, Caleb—do you know what Brogan’s Point pays me? I’m the
fucking town manager, and they pay me shit. How can I support two
households on what they pay me?”

Caleb preferred drunk-and-mawkish Felton to
angry-and-cursing Felton. “We can meet tomorrow,” he said as calmly
as possible. “We can work this all out then.”

“We’ve got to discuss this now. Tomorrow
I’ll sober.”

Hung over, more
likely.
Caleb suppressed a
snort.

“So I took the money. If that bitch, Sheila
Valenti, hadn’t gone nosing around, nobody would have known.”

“How could she not go nosing around?” Caleb
asked, reluctantly drawn into the conversation. “You accused her of
theft.”

“You’ve got to get me off,” Felton plowed
ahead. “You’ve got to prove me innocent.”

“I will defend you to the best of my
ability,” Caleb vowed.

“Because if my wife finds out, she’ll kill
me.”

Caleb conceded that a conviction for
embezzlement didn’t merit capital punishment, whether administered
by the government or by one’s spouse. Still, he could appreciate
the notion of killing Felton. The man had interrupted one of the
best nights of Caleb’s life. At midnight, no less.

“We’ll talk tomorrow.”

“Promise me you’ll get me off.” Felton’s
voice had reverted to trembling. If he started blubbering, Caleb
would hang up on him.

“We may want to look into a plea bargain,”
he said.

“No! I need you to clear my name! You’re
supposed to be a hot-shot attorney. I’m paying you big bucks.
You’ve got to get me exonerated.” That last word was a bit too
massive for Felton in his inebriated state. He stumbled over the
syllables, and it came out sounding like “eclonipated.”

If Felton wanted promises,
Caleb supposed he could promise to get the son of a bitch
eclonipated
. Exonerated,
probably not. “I will defend you to the best of my ability,” he
repeated. “I’ll fight for you. I’ll figure out a way to make this
all right. That’s what you’re paying me to do, and I’ll do it. Call
my office in the morning. I’m going back to bed now.” He pressed
the disconnect button and let out a long breath. His vision had
grown accustomed to the dim bluish light from the nightlight
plugged into the socket near the pedestal sink. Caleb eyed the two
baskets on the shelf above it. The condoms were all gone. But there
were plenty of ways for a man and a woman to have fun that didn’t
require contraception.

Not that he and Meredith would explore any
of those ways now. It was late. She was asleep. She needed to be
well rested for her potential confrontation with her school’s
principal tomorrow. Caleb needed to be well rested, too, for his
confrontation with Felton. The ass.

Sighing, he hauled himself off the commode
and crept back to bed. Meredith had rolled onto her side. Her
breath was slow and even. Thank goodness Felton’s call hadn’t
disturbed her.

Caleb crawled beneath blanket on his side
and looped one arm around her slender waist. She didn’t nestle
against him, but she didn’t pull away, either.

He buried his face in her hair, inhaled the
faint, spicy scent of her shampoo, and let the peace of lying next
to her settle over him. Tomorrow would take care of itself, he
knew. All that mattered right now was…right now. Being here with
Meredith. Letting her nearness warm him.

Caleb quickly fell back to sleep. Meredith
wished she could fall back to sleep as easily.

Tomorrow she planned to stride into the high
school building and teach her classes, Stuart Kezerian be damned.
She suspected Stuart would not accept her defiance meekly. And she
might have to face down not only him but snide, smirking students
like Tommy Lynch. Students who’d viewed the video.