Heather Graham (20 page)

She was made erotically aware of his tongue again, tasting her lips, ravaging deep in her mouth, entering, withdrawing, stroking...

Then suddenly he was over her, balanced upon his palms as he stared down at her.

“Any protests?” he demanded huskily. He was breathing heavily; the pulse at his throat pounded. His eyes were silver against the taut constriction of his handsome face, made golden in the lamp glow. “Sweet Jesus, Ann, if you’ve got any, send me back out to the rain now.”

A slight smile curved her lips. She should have had a half dozen protests.

She couldn’t think of a single one of them.

She simply couldn’t think of anything to say. Nothing at all. She shook her head.

“Sure?”

She nodded.

He groaned softly.

His mouth lowered to hers once more; then he was straddled atop her, quickly shedding his robe, and his flesh was all bare, touching her nakedness everywhere with that burning...

He shifted, coming lengthwise against her again, pulling her into his embrace. The stroke of his fingers moved down her back, over her buttocks. He was kissing her again. Touching her lips, moving on. His mouth covered her breast, laved it, his tongue rubbing her nipple as his fingers stroked her spine. She arched against him, gasping, fingers splaying into his hair. His touch moved over her with rapid-fire awakening, the texture of his fingertips rough, the brush of them mercurial, stroking her limbs, sliding to create a part between them, dusting, stroking, probing again...

Inside her. Creating a rhythm.

She cried out, fingers digging into his shoulders now, nails raking lightly over the bronzed flesh there. God, oh, God, she hadn’t known what a lifetime it had been since she had felt this way, so desperate...so good, so damned desperate again, wanting, feeling...

His mouth fastened over her breast once more, tongue encircling, lathing, while the stroke of his thumb rubbed at an exquisitely unbearable, intimate spot deep within the dampness of her sex. Then suddenly, so suddenly, he kneeled before her, catching her knees, lifting them, parting them. And she was staring again at him, flushed with the fever of seeing, of wanting, of feeling...

Newness. God, he was new to her; he aroused her to the depths of her passion, his eyes on her then as he demanded every intimacy. She thought that he meant to rise, to thrust into her. He was so aroused himself, tensed, wire-taut; so urgent, so demanding. But he didn’t thrust into her, not with his sex. He leaned forward. The roughness of his cheeks rasped against the soft flesh of her abdomen as his lips left soft kisses there.

Then...

Oh, God, then...

He ravished her. More intimately than she had ever been seduced in all her life, more passionately. The rain plummeted outside, mercifully muffling the shrieks that ripped from her throat as wave after wave of sensation filled and burst within her. She protested; she begged. She demanded he leave off...she forgot the words she said as sweet satiation soaked her once again. She thought she had died; then she thought that she had never so lived. The world blackened, and burst again into pale gold light. Then...

Then he suddenly rose over her. And he was in her at last. And it was beginning again. Oh, Lord, she couldn’t bear anymore...

She couldn’t bear not to feel him. Her eyes were so tightly clenched. Then opened. And his were on hers. Silver. Watching her still with a sweet, hungry passion that made everything within her soar as she felt the hotness of his body thrusting and stroking with her own.

It would never end, this agony, ecstasy. Yet it would never be enough. The rain pounded the wooden walls, the wind began to rip at the cabin, lightning tore at the swamp...it all seemed to happen right within her. Yet when at last his body contorted over hers in a massive knot of trembling tension and his climax erupted, the new wave of searing heat that swept into her brought her to a last violent climax herself. She drifted down from it in a cocoon of comfort and bewilderment. Oh, she just hadn’t remembered, no, she had never known anything quite like this. Jon had been a good lover, but never, never, quite like this...

The rain had stopped at last, she realized, sucking in breath as she lay beside him on her back, her heart still hammering a wild beat within her chest. He, too, had fallen to his back. His elbow shielded his eyes. She found herself turning to watch him, staring once again.

His body was...

Beautiful. And, oh, God, what he could do with it...

He turned to look at her. A deep smile creased his features. He pulled her warmly into his embrace. “Wow,” he said simply, his lips then nuzzling her forehead.

There was something about the way he said it that made it...

One of the nicest things she had ever heard.

He lay in a very dark world, a world of emptiness; living in a void.

Yet there were strange moments...

Nightmares sizzled through his sleep in this void. He walked contorted streets in which the blackness was occasionally lifted. He could hear her calling his name. Again and again. He knew where she was; he saw her face. Saw the pain, saw the terror. She tried to warn him. Because she was in the shadows.

And she was not alone there.

He cried out her name, trying to reach her. The faster he ran, the slower it became. His voice was distorted as if he spoke through an audio tape that had stretched and failed. His limbs failed him, as if he were under the whim of a cruel motion picture director, demanding that they go to slow motion. He heard music; the beloved music of his beloved city that now drowned out her desperate cries for help.

“Gina!”

He was running and running...

He reached her. Oh, God, there was the sudden pain.

And the blood, oh, God, the blood...

And the face. The face in the shadows. For one split second he saw that face. But then it was gone. And even in his dreams...

He wasn’t sure if he would ever be able to draw it from the shadows again.

Compact. He’d called her compact.

What a totally inadequate term in every way, shape and form.

She was magnificent. Her legs were beautifully shaped. Her breasts were exquisite, just the right size; her waist was slim, her length supple—her damned elbows were perfect, he told himself. Her eyes were like clouded gems when she stared at him. Her smile made his heart catapult; her passion made him feel more alive than he had ever imagined he could be again.

He shouldn’t have done it. Too bad. This was a hell of lot better than walking away.

His chin now rested on her head as he held her close. Not even including the fact that he’d just climaxed like a bulldozer, she was remarkable. Her loyalty to Jon Marcel was a rare quality, down to her own determination to risk everything to prove a man innocent. On blind faith. He’d come to have contempt himself for blind faith—job hazard. But she had the ability to make him believe.

“Hungry?” he asked her.

“Meaning?” she asked suspiciously.

“Meaning, would you like some food?”

“You have food?”

He laughed, rising, padding lightly across the wooden floor to the kitchen area. “The menu isn’t extensive, but I’ve usually got a couple of bottles of decent wine...and I try to keep some sealed tins of crackers, soup and the like. And then there’s always...hmm. Wrap up. We’re going outside.”

“Outside?”

“Come on.”

She didn’t respond instantly; she just stared at him as if he’d lost his mind, green eyes very wide, blond hair a tangle about her face. He tossed her the robe, slipped into a long shirt himself, caught her hand, and tugged her from the bed. “We’ll raid nets,” he said.

“We’re going to raid nets?”

“Yep.”

He drew her outside on the porch, then around to the back of the cabin where it actually sat over the water.

The cabin was his. The land it sat on was his—for what that piece of bayou was worth! The nets belonged to cousins, who also made use of the cabin if they needed to, and everyone silently kept it all up.

“Give me a hand here,” he told Ann. She was still staring at him in bewilderment, having no idea of what he was doing, but she was going to help him.

Blind faith.

She was going to offer it to him, too.

Shit. He was falling in love.

“Right there, grab that length of rope.”

Between them, they dragged up the net that had stretched from one post to another of the dock that composed the back part of the porch. It came up filled with crawfish, bringing a gasp from her.

“They’re really good.” He pulled one out, caught it firmly by the head and sucked out the meat of the tail. She stared at him, her face a shade pale. “Don’t worry,” he assured her. “The oven is gas—I can cook them. I mean, if you want.”

“I’ve had crawfish,” she said indignantly. “After all, I’ve lived here awhile now.” She hesitated. “I’ve just never had them raw.”

“They’re not so awful. Especially when you’re starving.”

“Are you starving.”

“Sex builds an appetite.”

She flushed suddenly.

He found himself reaching out to touch her cheek and jaw. “I—I make wonderful Crawfish Diablo a la Mark LaCrosse.”

“I make a wonderful kitchen slave. Let’s go for it.”

They did. His cabinets were filled with hot sauces and spices. The crawfish were quickly simmering away in a frying pan, wine was uncorked, and crackers were unsealed to accompany the crawfish. They soon had something of a meal set before them at the table, and they sat down to it. For several seconds, they ate exchanging few words.

“Very good,” she assured him.

“Thanks. It’s better with fresh ingredients, of course.”

“The crawfish couldn’t be any fresher.”

“The assistant chef was a wonder,” he applauded.

“Of course, we’re both starving.”

“That’s true. Maybe most famous chefs get their reputations by feeding starving people.”

“Hmm, could be.” She wiped her fingers, looking at him. “I’m eating stolen crawfish with a cop.”

He grinned. “It’s unlikely I’ll arrest myself. Besides, they’re not exactly stolen.”

“We can hardly return them.”

He lifted his wineglass, swallowed, grinned. “I’m from these parts. I have family here. I told you, I’m a coon hound.”

“What a term!”

“It’s all right—only if we’re using it on ourselves.”

“I like Cajun.”

He smiled, reaching out, drawing his fingers idly over her hand. “You would.”

“What does that mean?”

“Only the best. You don’t harbor a single prejudism in your soul.” He swallowed more wine, then sighed. “New Orleans is a great place; we’re a great mix of everything, a tolerant city. But historically, the Creole aristocrats looked down their noses at the Cajuns who descended from the Acadians who had to flee Nova Scotia. When I was a child, I lived out here full time. My father harvested crawfish. He had clients who called us Cajun children ‘swamp nits.’ So there you have it.”

“Well, you’ve had your revenge,” she said.

“Really?”

She nodded. “Cajun cooking, I mean. Surely, Cajun food is the most popular food in the country today.”

He grinned.

“You can’t really have a chip on your shoulder, can you?” she asked him.

“Not really. I like what I am.”

“I like it, too,” she said. Then she blushed, bit into another crawfish, and waved a hand in front of her mouth. “Good, really, good. Just hot.”

He lifted her wineglass to her. She swallowed down a sip, then studied her glass.

“Good Cajun food is supposed to be hot,” he told her.

She glanced up at him with a wry smile. She was breathtaking, hair still tousled, eyes so green against the fragile sculpture of her face. She wasn’t a kid; he still hadn’t determined her age. But she was everything beautiful about the natural maturity and sophistication that came with living life at peace with one’s self. Her smile was mellow, almost wistful. She captured his heart, and his loins. He might be falling in love, but he had yet to fall out of lust. The situation was damned good. How often was a guy going to have the object of his lust imprisoned with him in a remote cabin where they couldn’t possibly be reached for hours to come?

“Good Cajun cooking is supposed to be hot,” she repeated. “And good Cajun men?” she queried.

He took a long swallow of his own wine. Actually, this was almost as good as a rag-mag fantasy. She was still in his robe; he was in nothing but a shirt.

“Is that...an invitation?” he asked huskily. “I mean, are you inviting me...?”

“I guess so.”

He stood so abruptly, his chair fell backward. He reached a hand to her; she hesitated just briefly. “I mean, unless you’d like some more crawfish?”

“No, I’m, er, fine...”

She took his hand.

They made love.

Slept.

Made love. That third time, she didn’t just invite; she became the aggressor. Oh, Lord.

The things she did.

Her hair, sweeping down the bare flesh of his chest. Her kisses, the tip of her tongue, snaking down the length of him, over his chest, belly, teasing, taking...until it was all unbearable, until something of the male beast roared within him and he had to seize her, hold her, sink into her,
thirst
into her. He was on fire, taking her, all of her, rhythm like a rabbit until they exploded, falling together, slaked and sated again for the time being.

He stroked her hair, exhausted, yet awake, keyed. He wanted to sleep with her, but didn’t actually want to spend his time sleeping with her—sleeping.

“You’re amazing,” he told her quietly.

She rolled over to prop herself on his chest and look down at him.

“Am I really...okay?”

He grinned, startled by the question. “Okay?” He cradled her face with his hand. “You’re beautiful. Perfect lines. I’m no artist, but even I can see that.”

She accepted the compliment, commenting, “But things...well, they change, you know.”

“Meaning?”

“Well the skin isn’t precisely on the bones where it was twenty years ago.”

He laughed, angling his head to study her. “Change is good, too; it’s something that seeps into the soul, you know.”