Wade (18 page)

At the door, Wade used his key, then flipped on the light and stepped inside for a quick reconnaissance. As he gave the all clear, she crossed the threshold and closed the door firmly behind her. Her hand was still on the knob as she turned to face him.

“Now then,” he said as he tossed the key ring on the table and sauntered toward her, reaching to pull her into his arms. “Where were we when class was interrupted?”

The low timbre of his voice seemed to vibrate through her. His grasp was sure, his body inviting in its heat. She moved closer with an inarticulate murmur. The feel of his arms closing around her, drawing
her against him, set off a flare of need inside her that was almost frightening in its intensity. It flowed through her like a drug, altering her senses so she moved in a dreamlike languor, molding her body to his body, her mouth to his mouth, as he kissed her.

He was just a man, yet seemed more. His strength surrounded her; his internal power attracted her with magnetic force. A part of her deplored such a primitive reaction, though a more basic portion reveled in it.

He tasted of magic, a combination of sweetness and passion so potent that she slid her hands over his upper chest and shoulders and around to clasp the back of his neck. Drawing his head down, she increased the pressure of his lips.

He resisted, trailing a line of kisses from the corner of her mouth and over the curve of her cheek to her jawline. “I don't want to rush you or to hurt you,” he said against her hair. “There's a time for wild, passionate sex, but also a time for something more tame.”

“I don't feel tame,” she whispered.

His breath fanned her ear as it left him in a quiet rush. “If we get wild right now, I promise it won't last long, and I'll get a lot more out of it than you will. The idea isn't to end this awesome torture but for both of us to enjoy it.”

“You mean for both of us to come?”

“Now where did you hear that?”

“Teenagers talk, not to mention women, with or without a veil. So is this lesson number four?”

“I don't know. I've lost count.”

“I haven't.”

He loosened his hold enough to turn his neck and rest his forehead against hers. “Chloe, Chloe,” he said, a sound near a groan in his voice. “You're going to be the death of me.”

“But not yet,” she said with a private smile. “At least I hope not.”

An answering grin tilted his mouth. She watched it form even as she moved closer to stop it with her lips. His chest lifted with his quick-drawn breath, then his arms closed more tightly around her.

Sensations crowded in on her like small blows, the scents of warm cotton, lingering bath soap and virile male, the faint prickliness of his shaved skin, the abrasion of the minutely beaded surface of his tongue. Her eyelids drifted shut as she savored the impressions, taking them inside her and allowing them to merge with the warm current of desire that ran in her veins.

Was how she felt the sum of what he was doing and what he was, or was it produced by her own mind? She wasn't sure, nor could she think it mattered. They were here together, the two of them. The time was right.

He slid his hand from her waist, upward over her rib cage to a spot just under her breast. Pausing there, he pressed his palm flat, as if feeling the rapid beat of her heart. The warmth of his touch penetrated her
blouse, increased the heat of her skin. An odd, waiting suspense gripped her so she caught her breath. Then gently, carefully he cupped her breast.

It felt inevitable. The stroke of his thumb across her nipple sent a slow, sweet thrill dancing along her nerve endings and whirling into the lower part of her body. So exquisite was it that she relaxed against him with an almost primitive need to seek his support, to give in to the delicious malaise that flowed through her.

Glancing behind him to locate the armchair at the desk, Wade stepped back, drawing her down onto his lap as he seated himself. The muscled firmness of his thighs under her, the enclosing power of his arms around her, were so perfect that she clung to him, wanting, needing more. She touched his face, tracing the hollow of his cheek, the square line of his jaw, the indentation in his chin. As he claimed her breast once more, she gave a soft gasp. “Would…would this be foreplay?” she asked as a distraction from her small, involuntary sound of pleasure.

“It would, or at least a small part of it. Do you want me to stop?”

“No.” The word was a single breath of sound.

“Did you know that you have approximately four times as many nerve endings in your nipples as I do, or any man does?”

She shook her head, a jerky motion.

He brushed gently back and forth with his thumb.
“Of course you'd feel this even more without all the cloth in the way.”

Abruptly there was nothing she wanted so much as to have his touch on her bare skin. Lifting her hands to the buttons of her blouse, she began to slip them from their holes. Her movements were not exactly nimble. He seemed not to mind, but followed them with close attention, leaning to press his lips to the soft, blue-veined curves as they were exposed. Then the last button was undone and her blouse fell open.

She'd bought underwear, but decided against wearing it because it felt too confining after years of going without. She didn't need it in any case. Her breasts were high and firm from years of manual labor in house and garden. That Wade suspected the lack of panties along with no bra was almost certain from the way his movements stilled, becoming rigid.

“Is something wrong?” she asked, even as she shrugged from her blouse and dropped it to the floor.

“No way,” he answered hoarsely. “It's right, almost too right for comfort—or maybe for sanity.”

That he seemed to be as affected by her as she was by him was good to know, since it made her feel less at the mercy of his whims. It gave her the courage to go on. “Now what?”

The only answer was a distracted sound as he bent his head and traced the tip of his tongue around one gentle peak before delving into the valley between it and the other. Scaling the second mound with slow
concentration, he captured the nipple with delicate suction.

She was melting, flowing against him in boneless accommodation, pliant under his hands. Her will seemed to have vanished. She had no purpose except this. To consider that she might have lived without being held like this, by this man, was insupportable. That Ahmad or some other might have kissed her, touched and caressed her, was such a horror in her mind that she shivered. Pressing closer still, she threaded her fingers through Wade's hair then held him to her, rocking a little in the disturbance of her mind.

His grasp tightened, then he swept his hand along her thigh and hip, testing, kneading the resilient flesh. As his questing palm brushed the hem of her skirt, he slipped his fingers beneath it to follow the smooth curve of her leg to her knee. He made small circles along her outer thigh in sensuous exploration, the movements spreading ever wider until he reached the silken inner surface.

A muscle in her leg jerked as he trailed his fingertips over that sensitive area, nearing the apex of her thighs then retreating over and over in a slow sequence that reached ever higher. She drew breath then forgot to let it out. She wanted to close her legs, yet at the same time to open them wider. Suspended between warring impulses, she was perfectly still.

“Did you learn in school that skin is an organ of the body?” he asked in distracted softness. “It re
sponds to any touch, which is one reason a massage feels so good. But extra nerve endings surround every opening, the mouth, of course, ears, everything, though none are quite as sensitive as…this one.”

She shivered as if with fever as he barely touched the small mound above that opening. “I…know.”

He lifted his hand, began to move it away. With an inarticulate murmur, she closed her fingers on his wrist to hold him in place.

“You're sure?”

“I'm sure.”

For long seconds, neither of them moved. Then she released him and reached to tug his T-shirt from the waistband of his jeans. She skimmed her hand underneath, avoiding his bandage, and spread her fingers over his chest.

He was so hot, also amazingly firm where she was soft, with ridges of muscle where she had next to none. At the flat plane of his waist was a line of softly curling hair that she followed upward to where it widened into a diamond shape at the hollow of his throat. His nipples were half buried in the soft thatch. They seemed almost as sensitive as hers were, though smaller and flatter. To tease them into tight nubs was fascinating. In that pursuit she was able to pretend, at least, that she didn't notice as he returned to his exacting exploration, questing ever higher and deeper.

But Chloe did notice, could not ignore that more intimate caress. Her cheeks felt on fire, her pulse throbbed with the tumbling race of the blood in her
veins. Her senses expanded until she was exquisitely aware of the man who held her, the firmness and strength of his long form, the thick crispness of the hair that feathered back from his temples, the hard thudding of his heart against her.

That he was so affected brought the rise of an odd tenderness inside her. She had thought him armored by his competence and bound word, his military training and family ties, so that he needed no one, had no weakness of the flesh or otherwise. She'd been wrong. There was perilous affinity in the notion that here in this secluded room they were each at the mercy of their doubts, needs and fears.

Lifting her mouth for his kiss once more, she probed the smooth lining of his mouth with delicate curiosity, tasting it, running her tongue over the glassy edges of his teeth. Venturing deeper, she touched his tongue, retreated, advanced again until he joined her in sinuous play and then set a rhythm that tantalized with promises of something more. Enthralled by the incredible intimacy, she reveled in it, accepting yet barely registering his gentle, probing encroachment.

The sensory pleasure of it spiraled suddenly to a peak, rippling through her in a shock wave. In its wake, she was adrift in wanton desire, accepting, unable to think or do anything other than allow whatever he might choose to try next.

He didn't stop there, didn't stop at all, but fed the ardor growing between them with patience and con
summate refinement. Chloe abandoned pretense of any kind, allowing him unimpeded access to her body, helping him as he pushed the sandals from her feet, skimmed her skirt down over her hips. She flattened her hand against the board hardness of his belly as he kicked out of his boots, rid himself of jeans and shirt. Rising then, she let him lift her to the soft contours of the mattress that topped the antique bed.

The night was warm and dark around them, and they had no reason to hurry. With warm lips, careful hands and fierce restraint, they sought the curves, hollows, springing hardness and liquid softness of their male and female bodies. They spoke in whispers, with sighs and half-moaned pleas as they learned the shaping under the bones, the texture of hair and skin, the hidden sites of most vivid response, and the outermost limits of endurance. Instinct moved them, and also watchful attention to signals, generosity of spirit and the ultimate grace of caring. With these responses, they refined the moment until it shimmered with unbearable tension, allowing the rise of something so near to devotion that it seemed an acceptable counterfeit.

Shivering and desperate, then, they moved together as one accord. He hovered above her with iron-hard muscles, silently asking entry. She guided him, fitted his strutted heat to her softness, and was still in careful accommodation as he pressed inside. She felt a single burning sting, but the way had been well prepared and the momentary pang was banished by full
ness, pressure, and such beatific completion that she felt intoxicated with it.

Still, it seemed there should be something more. She stirred, rising a little to encompass more of him, press more against him. He answered that movement, easing into a slow, pulsating tempo that ebbed and flowed, steadily increasing. She met it, matched it, felt in its cadence the joyous music that animated the dance of life.

It took them, transfigured them. She accepted his strong surges against her, felt them dissolving the anxiety inside her, used them to remold some essential part of her being into a woman with the courage to accept her own needs and impulses. She wanted him deeper, could not bear to be denied.

As she opened herself wider in heated demand, he met it in unstinting effort and endless power, taking her higher, further still from the person she had once been, nearer to something that might well be divine. And in the quiet night, despite the threat of death that waited, they found the way to true paradise, or to the only one that this mad and puny earth allows.

T
he glow of daylight behind the drapes woke Chloe. Though she opened her eyes, she lay without moving while she examined the sense of well-being that hovered inside her. A part of it was the soft mattress on which she lay, the fresh sheets and the coolness that circulated in the room. The main thing, however, was the man who lay close against her.

She should be used to waking beside Wade, one way or another, after several days of it. This was definitely different. His long body was nestled against hers from waist to ankles, and his arm rested across the curve of her hip in a near possessive embrace. It felt natural and comfortable, as if they'd slept that way for years, even decades.

Impressions from the night before flickered through her mind. Heat moved over her, even as a small smile curved her mouth. It had been quite an initiation. Though she was aware of a little soreness here and there, she felt free and whole in a way she hadn't been in a long time. Whatever inhibitions she'd had were gone.

Wade seemed to be asleep still. That was hardly a surprise. He deserved all the rest he could get.

She eased from the bed and stumbled, yawning hugely, into the bathroom. It was odd to see herself in such a large mirror, at almost full figure. The woman who stared back at her seemed like a stranger. Her hair was tousled, her lips swollen, her cheeks pink from beard chafing, and her eyes marked by dark shadows. Though her gaze was bright, a species of apprehension lingered in its depths. She looked replete, well loved, but not really content.

It was a trick of the lighting, nothing more. Or else the grief and worry of the past few days. She'd cried in her sleep during the night before, while dreaming of Treena. It wasn't the first occasion, though she'd had little time to come to grips with that painful loss. Wade had held her, offering consolation, expecting nothing in return. Then there was the uncertain future. She hated the idea that others were in danger because of her. Someone, possibly some of the Benedicts, might die before this thing was done. Certainly, any misgivings she felt had nothing to do with a future to be lived without Wade Benedict.

Frowning a little, Chloe rinsed her face, then picked up a hairbrush and dragged it through the unruly mass of her hair that seemed, unexpectedly, to be trying to curl into ringlets in the Louisiana humidity. Feeling unsettled, and confined by events and personalities as well as the walls around her, she dragged on the caftan that Wade's mother had left her as a
robe and crossed back through the front room where Wade lay sprawled in sleep. Easing open the door, she went through and pulled it closed behind her.

Sunlight lay in a golden dazzle beyond the front parlor windows. She turned in the opposite direction, emerging onto the back veranda. It was protected from the morning sun by the bulk of the house, so reasonably cool once her body adjusted to the change from the frigid air-conditioning of the bedroom.

The long, railed space of the veranda was set with white rocking chairs that were flanked by small tables. It was empty of other guests at this hour. Settling into one of the rockers, she set it in motion while gazing out over the expanse of lawn and the small lagoon that lay beyond. Birds called, and a squirrel scampered from branch to branch in the great live oak that stood near the lattice fence. From somewhere in one of the other buildings, she could hear the whine of a vacuum cleaner. It was comforting to know that other people were up and stirring somewhere, even if she did seem to be alone for the moment.

It was then that she heard the whistling. She thought it came from the front of the cottage, made perhaps by another guest or custodian. Still, the melody was disturbing since it was in a minor key with an odd, foreboding flavor.

Chloe got to her feet and walked to the end of the porch. Bracing her hands on the railing, she leaned over to look around the end of the building. A man was approaching along the sidewalk. In his hands was
a tray that he balanced carefully as he walked. He didn't look up until he'd rounded the two-story building and paused at the foot of the stairs.

“Good morning, Nat,” she said, her voice dry.

“Morning, ma'am,” he said with a smile. “Could I interest you in coffee and sweet potato biscuits?”

The coffee smelled heavenly, but she shook her head. “I wouldn't want to deprive you of your breakfast.”

“I've had mine with the manager. Since I was heading this way anyhow, I brought the wake-up tray that comes with the room, a fine old Southern tradition.”

“Wade is still asleep, I'm afraid.”

“But you're not,” he returned as he mounted toward her. “Have a seat, will you, so I can tell where to put this thing down?”

Chloe moved back to the rocker where she'd been sitting earlier. Nat put the tray on the table next to it then took the chair on the other side. Chloe lifted a corner of the rose-colored napkin that covered the silver tray. Beneath it was a plate of golden orange biscuits along with butter and jam, also a carafe of coffee with three cups.

She set a cup on the table at Nat's elbow, then lifted the carafe. Since he didn't object, she poured the coffee for him. “What was that you were whistling just now?”

“Little ditty called ‘House of the Rising Sun.' Guess being this close to the Big Easy brought it to
mind.” He paused, then added as she only stared at him. “New Orleans, home of jazz and all that?”

“Oh, yes.” Jazz hadn't been high on her list of favorite music as a teen, though she might have to look into it now. “You're not from this area then?”

“Born in North Carolina but from everywhere, you might say, since my daddy was military. Virginia is my home base these days.”

It was a reminder of how far from home she was, and why. “No trouble during the night?”

“Not a peep.”

“I know Wade slept easier for knowing you were out there.”

A flush darkened the face of the man across from her to the color of espresso. “Wade would do the same for me. Besides, he saved my bacon one night, snatched me out of a truck about two seconds before a shell hit it. I owe him.”

“He called in a favor.”

“Doesn't work that way. Guy like him doesn't ask for help, it just goes against the grain. He said he had a little problem, so here I am. That easy.”

“You must have worked together a long time.” She reached to take a biscuit almost without thinking, breaking off a corner and nibbling on it. It was delicious, an odd mixture of cake and bread that was better than either.

“We were together in the DSS for a while. Best damn agent I ever saw, had what you might call a sixth sense about trouble. I tried to get him to come
to work for me after I set up my operation, but it wasn't really for him. Never did care for the undercover stuff, you know, likes things clear and out in the open. And he'd just as soon not be responsible for other people's lives.”

She frowned. “Yet he came for me. Why would he do that if it goes so against the grain?”

“The Benedicts stand by their friends, and your dad was a good one. More than that, Wade's an idealist. Good is good and bad is bad, as far as he's concerned. He's for one and purely against the other.”

“No shades of gray?”

“Don't know that I'd put it that way. He's more than capable of looking at all sides of a situation. It's just that he has no use for the kind of sophistry that says it's okay to bend laws in the name of the greater good, or write off human beings, human pain for the sake of an idea. Way I understand it, the Benedicts have this code. They do what's right to the best of their ability, no exceptions and no excuses, and expect everyone else to do likewise. That's all there is to it.”

She reached for cream and poured it into her coffee, then took a sip. “Seems like a good way to live.”

“It is, if you've got the guts for it. Of course it means giving up what you might want a lot of the time for the sake of what somebody else needs.”

“Or putting what you value in danger?” The coffee, so ambrosial just seconds before, tasted suddenly bitter. She set it back on the tray.

“You mean Wade's family, I guess.”

“He wouldn't have to worry about them if it weren't for me.”

“That doesn't make it your fault. Some things just can't be helped.”

Her smile was wan. “Thanks for the thought, but it doesn't do a lot to make me feel better.”

Nat returned her smile. “I do have to say that I'm surprised Wade is still here. I figured he'd head for Turn-Coupe and that old home place of his by daybreak at the latest.”

“He's been through a lot these past few days,” she said, and was disturbed by that instant impulse to defend him.

“Been through a lot, period.” Nat studied the liquid in his cup for a second. “Don't suppose he could have mentioned that business in Saudi?”

“The oilman's wife?”

He nodded. “She did a number on him, not that she meant to, I guess. It's that damn code I was telling you about, makes a man responsible for just about anything that goes wrong. Doesn't allow a lot of room for failure, you know?”

“Or forgiveness?”

“You got it, if you mean he can't forgive himself.”

He watched her with steady intent, though Chloe couldn't decide exactly what might be in his mind. It could have been anything, from uncertainty over how much she really understood on such short acquaintance with Wade, to doubt about the wisdom of dis
cussing him with her at all. “He can hardly be blamed for not realizing the man intended to kill his wife.”

“That's just it. Wade thinks he should have seen it, that the signs were there if he'd just read them. Problem was, he was brought up in a family where hurting people you were supposed to love was unthinkable, much less killing them. Hell, lying was a crime in their code. It never occurred to him that a guy with all the money and lawyers in the world would rather whack an unfaithful wife than divorce her.”

“You're suggesting he was naive?”

“
Was
is the operative word. He grew up fast. But the standards are still there and still apply, especially when it comes to women.”

“I could be wrong, but from things Wade said while in a high fever, this business seems mixed up somehow with what happened between his father and mother.”

“Well, now, yes and no. Divorce doesn't happen that often among the Benedicts, apparently. When it does, it's a big deal. Wade's old man was pretty broken up when his wife left—so were Wade and his brothers, come to that. Best I can tell, Wade sided with his mother and hard words passed between him and the old man about why she'd left. Family like that where few words are spoken in anger, such things aren't forgotten or forgiven.”

“By his father, you mean?”

“Either one of them. Stubborn as they come, that whole clan, when they think they're right.”

“I can see that,” she said, her voice dry. It didn't take a lot to extrapolate Wade's attitudes about what she should and shouldn't do in small matters into something more serious over large ones.

“Of course, his old man seems to have had all the worst traits of your everyday redneck, pigheaded, arrogant, strong ideas on work and women, positive that God put him on this green earth to tell other folks what to do. Wonder is more of that didn't rub off on Wade and his brothers. His mom deserves the credit there, I think. She seems to have gone overboard with the tolerance bit, so things more or less balanced out.”

“Yet Wade loved his father, or I suppose he must have since he regrets so much that he wasn't there when he died.”

Nat's gaze was keen. “He told you that?”

“Not really. I just assumed it from a few things he said.”

“Yeah. I think guilt's the problem. Seems they had words over a lot of things, including whether Wade should stay in Louisiana like most of the clan, or see something of the world. There was a long spell in there when Wade didn't speak to his dad, didn't see his brothers for years. Wade didn't go home right off when he heard his dad had cancer. Then he got shot up in the deal with the oilman's wife and couldn't go. His dad died without them ever having a chance to
talk, straighten things out. Could be that's the tie. Wade thinks, somewhere in that hard head of his, that he could, and should, have been able to save them both.”

It made sense in an odd sort of way. It also fed into Wade's determination to get her away from Ahmad and out of Hazaristan. He needed to rescue her to live up to his expectations for himself and remedy past failures. What did that say about his feelings for her? Was watching over her, and even his half-reluctant agreement to make love to her, something he accepted in order to meet his own standard?

“Of course, if Wade ever mentions the subject, I never said a word. Fact is, I've probably talked too much as it is.”

“You got at least one thing right, old friend.” That comment, deep-voiced and edged with anger, came from behind them.

Nat shot out of his rocker as if it had caught fire.

“Jesus H., man, don't do that! You nearly made me dump my cup in my lap.”

“Watch your back as well as what you're saying next time,” Wade said without noticeable remorse. He glanced at Chloe. “Any coffee left?”

She filled the third cup and passed it to him with only the briefest of glances. His gaze was cool, giving nothing away. Taking it by the rim, he moved to stand with his back to the railing, half sitting, half leaning against it. He crossed one arm over his chest before he sipped the strong brew.

Nat sent Chloe a quick, almost helpless look, though he spoke to Wade. “Didn't mean to get into your business. We were just talking.”

“Pick another subject next time.”

“May not be a next time. Unless I tag along when you two set out for Grand Point?”

“Suit yourself.”