The Gunny & The Jazz Singer (Birchwood Falls #1) (13 page)

She could die right now even
without the fucking. His lips brushing and teasing, his tongue making love to her
mouth, the hot press of his cock against her belly, all felt so delicious, so
sensual.

All caution went by the wayside
when he brought her down to the bed and laid her on her back. He spread her
legs, kissing her, and lavishing sensations on her, his mouth at her nipples,
fingers opening her, toying with her. Her clit and passage were claimed by his
exploring fingers.

It was impossible to catalogue his
actions. She just lay there whimpering and enjoying. His mouth brushed her
navel and over her belly while his fingers tormented her throbbing bud. She
couldn't keep her hips still. They jerked and thrust. Her fingers dug into his
shoulders.

His
mouth.
He'd brought her to the most wonderful screaming orgasm before, and
she wanted it again.
Now!
Pushing at
him, she whimpered his name.

His voice was muffled against her
skin. "What do you want, baby? Tell me."

"Unh—you know." She
thrust her hips at him. "You know!"

"Tell me. I want to hear you
say every naughty, hot little word. I want to hear them come out of your sweet
mouth. Please, baby."

He slid two fingers inside her.

"Yes!" she groaned.

Sliding them out, he nudged them in
again and brushed over the spot that women prayed their men would find. He
seemed to know exactly where it was.

"Fuck me! Suck my clit! Just
do it, damn you! I can't take much more."

"Oh I think you can, and you
will." Nuzzling her curls, he finally clamped his talented lips over her
clit, suckling it, and fucking her with his fingers.

She lost her breath and control of
her hips. He held on through her spirals of pleasure and heated sensation
through two shrieking orgasms.

He chuckled, rising up over her.

My
God, she's sweet and luscious!
He grabbed a condom and slid it on in record
time. He needed to feel her convulsions on his dick while her orgasm was still
going on.

"Phoebe, you're perfect."
He lifted her hips and thrust into her sheath as far as possible then stilled. "Holy
Mother of God!" He could only hold for a second more before he had to
thrust. Her tight body massaged him and drove him insane.

He plunged into her, withdrew even
faster, rotating his hips until he groaned at the sensation of his searing
release. God, he wished he didn't need a condom.
Damn no, I didn't just think that.

Chapter Twelve

Alone.
He woke and he was alone. How the hell had she left his bed and his house
without his notice? Sex with Phoebe had been so good that it knocked him out so
completely? Apparently so. Standing on his front porch, he surveyed the street.
No Butch lurking. He stared at her house for a long time, before he headed back
to his kitchen to make coffee.

She was very sweet and wanted
success so badly. How could such a beautiful woman need so much validation from
strangers? She had good friends and parents who apparently loved her. He could
easily love her.

Whoa.
Let's not go there.
He had something to do in B Falls that was more
important to him than anything or anyone. The truth. He needed to prove the
truth, and Butch Wilcox was right in the middle of things. Phoebe didn't like
Butch, but he hadn't told her his suspicions about the guy. Right now, the only
person he really trusted was Mike Banning.

***

"Jesus buddy, you look like
shit," Mike greeted when Marc plopped himself down at the bar.

Marc rubbed his cleanly shaven chin
and barked, "Shut up, Banning."

"Coffee?"

"Yeah, that's good."

Mike poured two mugs full. "Sugar?
Cream?"

"Nope." Marc closed his
eyes and took a sip.

"My mom's brew," offered
Mike.

"She's the best."

Mike came around from behind the
bar and perched on the next stool. "So how's it going? Are you finding out
what you came home to find out?"

"Not really, but it's a
mystery. Files are missing, parts of files are missing. I even went to Moira
Logan's office."

"What in hell do you suspect?
It must be something if you went to the prosecutor's office."

"Can you keep this between the
two of us?" He fiddled with a short stack of bar napkins.

"Sure. You know you can trust
me."

"Wilcox."

"Huh? Butch Wilcox?"

"Maybe, but more than that,
his father. I didn't know it at the time but the old man was buying up
storefronts along Hickory and the river to build his resort. I talked to Frank
Jacquetta, the guy who owned the video and electronics store. He was bought out
shortly before my parents died and always suspected Wilcox of something."

"Son of a bitch."

"But what is there to prove? I
even went to Wilcox's office to get the sale papers. His secretary is looking
for that file." Marc scowled. "What do you want to guess that file is
missing too?"

"When my mom comes down, let's
ask what she remembers from back then. I know she and Dad hated Wilcox. Do you
think Butch knows anything about this?"

"I don't know. I don't trust
him. Never really did. And he's out of control when it comes to Phoebe."

"Phoebe? What's she got to do
with this? She wasn't even raised here."

Marc shook his head. "He told
her she was going to marry him and she should forget about a singing career. He
was brutal about it last night at the club. She held her own against him…"

"Wait a minute! Did he hit her
or threaten her?"

"He had his hands on her but
didn't hit her. She almost had him taken care of by the time I got backstage."

"Marc, are you interested in
her?" Mike's eyebrows lifted.

Marc gazed into the darkness of his
coffee as if a simple answer could be found there.
Yes, very interested but…

Instead he avoided the question. "I
have to go back in a few weeks."

"And she's made it clear she
doesn't intend to hang here for much longer," Mike added.

"Yeah, she wants bigger and
better, and I can't blame her. She's really good." He had no intention of
hiding his admiration. He knew Phoebe had an excellent chance of becoming
famous. How could he compete with that?

"Do you plan to make the
Marines a career?" asked Mike.

Marc pressed his lips and shook his
head. "I have six months left in Afghanistan, then I'm out."

"Are you coming back home
then?"

Marc shrugged. "I haven't
really decided. Maybe I'll come back and join the city or county police force."
He grinned at that. "Give Butch some competition."

"I wish you would," Mike
replied. "I don't trust him. Most people don't. I wish you'd seriously
think about it."

"I've got to find out about my
folks first, and I'd better get on with it right now." Marc pushed off the
barstool.

"What do you plan to do today?"

Marc knew what he wanted to do but
even telling his best friend was hard. "I've got some errands to get done.
You working here tonight?"

"Yeah. Come on back, pal."
Mike stuck out his hand.

They shook then Marc pulled his
friend in for a quick hug. "Thanks, Mike. Say hi to your mom. I'll see you
later."

***

Phoebe had left Marc's house,
sneaked out like a thief. Before she'd stepped off his porch she checked the
street. No Butch lurking, thank God.

Last night had been awful and
weird. God she hated Butch. He was really crazy. It was time for her to make
her own move to a larger entertainment venue.

Chicago was a big market. Instead
of waiting for an agent to discover her, she should be proactive and contact
clubs directly. She had enough demo CDs to send out. Okay, decision made. She'd
start looking on the internet for Chicago clubs.
Yes, that's where I need to be. Coffee first, though.

Five minutes later, she carried her
cup of coffee out to her front porch—just to relax a minute, certainly not to
see if Marc was up to anything. He was just getting out of his car. Oh Lordy,
he looked good in those snug jeans and black t-shirt.

He glanced over at her, lifting a
hand in greeting. A slow, appreciative smile crept over his face.

Transfixed, warmth stealing over
her skin and into her heart, she attempted to hide her smile behind her coffee
mug.

He loped across the street and up
her front walk. "Mornin'."

"Hi."
Damn. Why do I have to sound so breathless?

"You doin' anything this
morning?"

"What do you have in mind?"
Crap, isn't that a bit too open-ended?

"I'm going out to my family's
house."

"And you'd like some company?"

He parked a foot up on the porch
and rested an arm across his thigh. "Yeah," he said simply.

If he had a family home, why was he
renting a house across the street from her? She shook her head reluctantly. "I
don't want to intrude."

His expression went serious. "You
wouldn't be. I'd like your company."

Maybe he
needed
someone to go with him. It was probably painful to go back
to the house under the circumstances. She knew nothing more about his past
other than his parents had died in a car accident. "Sure, thanks."
She lifted her cup. "Let me get rid of this, and I'll be right out."

It was always a pleasure to climb
into his low-slung car. Actually the term "car" didn't apply.
Glorious automobile. Cloud to heaven.
She'd pulled her hair back into a ponytail and put a baseball cap on with the
tail through the hole in the back. There. That ought to keep her hair somewhat
in order.

They both spoke at once.

"About this—"

"Why'd you leave this morning?"

He glanced at her, lifting a brow
to tell her she should go first.

Damn.
Why did I leave?
Deciding to make a joke of it, she said, "I'm not usually
a love 'em and leave 'em kind of girl. Well I mean—" She quickly turned
her gaze to the courthouse as they drove by.

"But you kind of did love and
leave."

She glanced back at him. "I'm
sorry. I woke up and just didn't know what to do. I wasn't sure you'd even want
me there."

His mouth thinned. He shook his
head.

She had no idea what that meant. "So
where's the house?"

"Not too far. At the end of
town where Hickory Street curves and heads out of town."

"I've wondered about it. It
looks gorgeous and mysterious."

"Mysterious?"

"Well it's kind of derelict."
She realized she might have insulted him. It was his home after all. "I'm
sorry. It just looks like it hasn't been kept up."

"That's okay. It really hasn't
been tended to. I guess I should have made some arrangements, but that would
mean truly accepting they're gone."

"I'm sorry, Marc."

"Some brave Marine I am,"
he murmured as they pulled up to an unattractive chain-link gate and fence
surrounding the property. He turned off the car, climbed out, and used a key on
the padlock. Getting back in, he nodded toward the gate as they drove through. "I
had someone checking to make sure it was locked all these years and to walk
around the house to look for break-ins."

"Chain-link doesn't seem like
much of a deterrent," she offered.

"It's not but at least it's
something." He shrugged, then went silent.

"When were you here last?"
Her skin prickled when he didn't respond. She felt his distance now, as if he
were prepping himself. But she was glad she'd come with him.

The flirtatious, seductive Marc
Rahn seemed to be gone, replaced with a detached version. The car stopped in
the driveway, where the right Y led to a barnlike garage, the left to the steps
of a broad veranda running the length of the front and one side of the house.

Waiting until he levered himself
out first, she gazed at the Gothic Revival while she got out. Up close, it didn't
look as dark and imposing as it did from the road. She imagined it as a lovely
old-fashioned home. Sitting out on the porch on summer days and nights—she
caught her breath at the beauty of it.

What
would it have been like to grow up here?
Her parents' house was nice, a
modern bungalow, but nothing as romantic and awe-inspiring as this. A little
ache in the pit of her stomach told her how attracted she was to this house,
and she didn't really know why.

Glancing over at Marc, she watched
him examine the house. His expression was stern, eyes wide. She could see a tic
at the side of his jaw. He seemed to be holding his breath. Glad she was here, she
hoped she could make this easier for him.

Finally, he let out a huff of
breath as if making a big decision and headed for the porch steps. He climbed
five wide wood steps up and stopped again. It was as if he'd forgotten she was
there, even though she stood right behind him. Fiddling with the keys, he slid
his feet toward the front door, unlocked it, and pushed it open. It creaked, no
surprise after all these years. She wondered if there was still furniture
inside.

Barely noticing anything about the
house as they entered the front hall, she concentrated on watching him. He
obviously was becoming more and more emotional. Then, her mouth agape, her gaze
lifted in the narrow central hall. A vaulted ceiling rose two stories above
them, its wooden ribs connected by intricately carved, raised ornaments.

A thought hit her.
What an amazing house this would be to
restore.
The artist in her, the visually creative part of her, saw the
gorgeous woodwork sanded and re-stained. She imagined washing all the little
diamond-pane casement windows to bring the sunshine inside. She'd lay beautiful
thick carpets over the cold stone floors to make a comfortable family home for
him again.