She squeaked that, as if he’d pinched her, when he was doing his damnedest not to close his fingers around her flesh the way they wanted to, in a squeeze that—

  “Oh,” she said again. In an entirely different tone that was like a jolt of electricity to the nerves in his fingers. Judging from her voice she had looked over her shoulder. For some reason that sent another zing to his nerves, and in places a good distance from his fingers.

  He felt the rise and drop of his chest, was aware of the sound that made, aware of her breathing hard, too. Once, twice, three times.

  “If you’ll, uh, just steady me here for a second…” She faced forward again, proving her recovery time was faster than his. Damn it. “Then I can get my feet back under me and…”

  But her feet slid again and he found himself with his arms stretched up, now each hand cupping a butt cheek and his head tipped back to observe the operation, but also taking in the sweet roundedness of her posterior above him.

  He muttered curses. It worked when a horse stepped on his foot. A good long string of curses, the regular ones and some creative ones put together on the spot, would distract his mind from what his body was experiencing.

  Only he was only able to think of a few curses now, so he had to keep repeating them, muttered or in his head, and it wasn’t working. Wasn’t distracting his mind. Or his body.

  “Good,” she said.

  “Good?” Good? Was she crazy?

  “Yeah,” she said, though he didn’t think it was in response to his mental question. “With that support I can…”

  He felt more than saw the shift as she extended her leg, reaching, searching for the next rung down.

  As first one foot then the other found a perch on that lower rung, he transferred the corresponding hand to her waist.

  That had to better. Right?

  No.

  Now she was low enough that he could smell her hair.

  How bad would it be to bury his face in that scent? He’d have to climb up one rung. He could do that, and his body would trap her, keep her safe, so—.

  Bad. It would be bad.

  As bad as squeezing her butt? Close call. Maybe—

  “Okay, I’m hopping down now.”

  Hopping?

  The sound of the syllables conveyed no meaning at all to brain circuitry occupied with something else entirely.

  Then she was turning toward him at the same time she jumped.

  God, she was jumping. He’d had to release one side of her waist. But his other arm encircled her, scooping her toward him, while his newly freed arm went around her back.

  She brushed against him as she descended. The contact of her breasts down his chest like a butterfly of flame. Her hands touched lightly on his shoulders, then followed that trail of fire blazed by her breasts.

  He forced his arms to loosen as he pounded logic into his brain. She’d brushed against him. So what. Barely touched him … Oh, hell. Barely.

  Barely.

  Bare.

  Her. Him. Bare.

  “Thanks, Jack.” She smiled up at him.

  “What in damnation were you doing?”

  She blinked, but her smile didn’t disappear. “I told you. Getting books on cowboys. Maybe I’ll find out the whole story behind what you said about cowboys leaving. Selling their saddle.”

  He rubbed his face. “Okay. So you’ve got your books. You can leave now.”

  “Leave? No, I’m sleeping here. I thought I’d read some before going to sleep.”

  “What?”

  She tipped her head toward the couch in the alcove. His sluggish brain took in that the back cushions were stacked on a chair and the seat cushions had been partially covered in bedding. “Sleeping. Here. Me.” She tapped her chest to emphasize the final word.

  Damn, he wished she hadn’t done that. The motion made the neckline of that dress dip for an instant. That was enough. No bra.

  “I knew you got ready here. I didn’t think…”

  No. he didn’t think. Couldn’t think.

  “Where do you think I’ve slept the past two nights? With you making such a big deal of me not being alone in the foreman’s house, the Curricks have insisted Addie and I stay here. Addie’s in with all the other kids in the old office in the main house. It looks like camp or something with kids tucked in practically every nook and cranny. I guess some folks will scoop up their kids and take them home tonight, but I understand others leave them to sleep peacefully and many won’t be leaving until dawn anyway, so…”

  His arms were around her again. She was here. Right here. Looking at him. Her mouth … that mouth he’d tasted two nights ago. He had to … He had to…

  He kissed her, pressing her back against the ladder. But only for a moment, then her arms were around his neck, opening her mouth to him.

  They were moving. He pushed something aside with his leg. They were turning, her feet off the ground, the sway of that rubbing her against him while their mouths never parted.

  He’d had no consciousness of it, but he must have been aiming for the couch, because there it was. Perfect. Perfect.

  He sat, taking her with him, the two of them cooperating to drape her over him, straddling.

  “Oh,” she breathed into his mouth, as their bodies aligned and she must have felt the change in his.

  He released her mouth.

  “It’s okay. We won’t…” One strap of her dress had slid of her shoulder, he drew down the material in the middle to kiss the top curves of her breasts. Lick it, kiss again. “We’ll … But we’re not going to…”

  “No, no. Absolutely not. Ah.”

  He’d pushed the other strap down, the top dropping. He stroked across her breasts, absorbing the peaked softness. Her breath came short, sharp.

  She shifted an arm, he drew that strap down, freeing her on one side, the other.

  “Just…”

  “Yeah. But not…

  “No. None of that.”

  He put his mouth over her nipple and drew on her. His arms supported her as she arched into him with a cry.

  “If you…” His hands on her waist drew her down tight against the bulge of his groin. They rocked against each other. The rhythm … “There … Oh, God.”

  “Jack,” she whispered. “Jack.”

  He raised his head to kiss up her throat, one hand spread at the base of her skull as her head fell back.

  “I could…” His other hand, under her skirt, brushed at the junction of her legs.

  “But you.…” She straightened, her hands on his zipper. His hands over hers meant to still her, but somehow they were helping. And he was free.

  “Condom,” he said. “We won’t, but in case, maybe…”

  “We won’t.” Was she repeating? Asking? Disputing?

  “No. We won’t.”

  Both hands under her skirt, down her back, under her panties, cupping her, holding her to him as he sucked again on her nipple. She rocked against him with the rhythm.

  Their rhythm now.

  Their rhythm.

  She felt the end of his penis against the fabric separating them. Then at the edge of the fabric—.

  “Condom,” she said on a gasp. “In case.”

  His movements extracting it from his jeans pocket nearly pushed her over the edge. She kissed him with some vague thought of slowing … It didn’t slow anything. Especially not when he paused while putting on the condom to kiss her back. She was shaking as he finished.

  Her dress had risen back over a breast. He drew it down with a deliberate, slow motion that drew a long breath from her even before he touched her. He put his mouth on her and sucked.

  Sucked harder, until she was rocking with the pleasure and the need. His hands at her waist kept her steady. Her hands in his hair held him to her.

  If he touched her now … Oh, please, please touch me now.

  But if she felt this way, he must, too. Her fingers stroked down his chest … Huh, when had his shirt been opened. … lower, lower, to touch him, to cup him.

  His hips came off the couch with his groan.

  With one hand he grabbed both of hers and pulled them up, away.

  “Not unless you want to—”

  “No, no,” she assured him. Then the tip of his covered penis found an opening between flesh and fabric created by all the shifting and moving, and touched her. She felt herself opening, yearning to draw him inside her, wanting … “Yes,” she whimpered.

  His strong hands came to her waist, holding her tight. He would lift her up, away from her own temptation. He would end this. He would—

  He brought her down as his hips thrust up.

  “Ah!”

  Their rhythm was there. In them, between them. She felt it rising in her, tipping, quick and bright, in a release of long abstinence. Without ever faltering, it built again, more, more. Fast and hard and complete. His arching strength beneath her, inside her. The shuddering collapse…

  His forearms crossed at her back, her face buried into the top of his shoulder. His face turned, into her hair.

  Her muscles were gone, useless, but every nerve thrummed.

  And celebrated.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  They’d settled into boneless comfort without changing position.

  Eventually, he raised one hand and stroked her hair. It made her eyes sting.

  He was so gentle. So … loving. To her, to Addie. When he’d let himself be. When one of them got under his guard. When his guard was lowered … as it was now.

  “That must have been a doozy,” she said against the side of his neck.

  “What?”

  “The end-of-relationship that’s soured you on humanity. Because all your instincts are to, ah, enjoy the benefits of being connected to people, so something—”

  “I’m not soured on humanity.”

  She raised her head and gave him a level look.

  He twitched an eyebrow in barely-there-concession. “Just don’t spend a whole lot of time with them.”

  “Especially online.”

  “That’s hardly humanity.”

  “Sure it is. It’s people online. And you want nothing to do with them. Why?”

  “Experience.”

  Experience … The way he felt about the Internet… “So it was an online relationship?”

  “No.”

  “Then why—”

  “Was all this working up to getting me to a state where I’d spill my guts?”

  She jolted upright, whacking the top of her head into his chin. He groaned, but no way was she going to be distracted now.

  “You think this was all a big plan to seduce you in order to get you to talk, Jack Ralston?”

  “I didn’t—”

  “Of course — it’s so obvious. I came up with the plan to celebrate my child’s unusual birth, set up everything ahead of time, traveled three-quarters of the way across the country, all so I could get you in the sack as a prelude to asking you questions. And I suppose I planned that you’d act like a jackass when I showed up, too? I’ll tell you, I should be in the Pentagon with planning skills like that. They sure could use me looking that far ahead and—. Oh, wait, no. It wasn’t only this summer.”

  She pushed at his chest to get herself more upright.

  He hmm’ed in apparent pleasure. She raised herself more, severing the contact.

  “Of course,” she said with unsubtle sarcasm. “I planned the whole thing from the start. I got my car to break down at precisely the right spot at precisely the right moment, scoped out that no one else would be close enough to help, then went into labor on cue. All so you’d have to stay to deliver my baby, which was the secret weapon of my deep, dark plot to get you into bed — three-and-a-half years later — because you would be so enchanted with my gorgeous bod in labor and then the oh-so-glamorous act of giving birth, not to mention my calling you every name in the book while—”

  “Not any book I’ve ever read.” His tone and expression were relaxed.

  Not hers. She still had a head of steam.

  “—I did the bowling ball through a needle trick. That’s such an old way to lure a guy to bed — three-and-a-half years later, mind you — that it’s become a downright cliché. In fact, with a seducer like me you can’t be sure I didn’t get pregnant in the first place just so—”

  “All right, all right. I give.”

  She heaved a couple more breaths, then pivoted away and flopped back against the seat beside him, but with a good foot between them.

  “Jerk,” she said.

  He upped her with a self-aimed, “Jackass.”

  She huffed acceptance of that description.

  They sat there for maybe a minute before he said, “Really should put some of the things you called me that day into a book. Very inventive.”

  “That’s me. Inventive when terrified.”

  “You didn’t act terrified. You had every right to be hysterical. You never lost your calm.” He made a considering noise, then added, “Smart-ass, but calm. Impressive.”

  She gave another huff, “Thanks.”

  “It’s the best thing I’ve done in my life.”

  She turned her head, still resting against the back of the couch, to look at him. Her eyes stung. “Me, too.”

  He mirrored her motion, meeting her look.

  “Thank you, Jack.” She had to clear her throat around the tears in it. “That’s what I wanted to say to you at that party. Thank you for being there that day. Thank you for what you did. Thank you for my Addison Rose.”

  He brought his hand to her cheek, caught a tear she hadn’t realized had slipped free. Then he leaned closer and kissed her.

  Light and pure. Healing, she thought. Though she wasn’t much of an expert on that. Better at bombardment than peace.

  She drew in a deep breath and released it. Yeah, healing.

  He lifted his head, looking in her eyes.

  Then his look changed.

  She gasped, even before his mouth met hers.

  *

  Through the darkest of the night there was little talking and less sleep.

  She was on her side, his arm around her. She could see him staring straight up at the ceiling. The fact that it was visible was proof that the night was starting to lift.

  “My girl friend disappeared.”

  Her breathing hitched. He had to have felt it, yet she fought to make her voice steady. “Disappeared?”

  “I’m not telling you details. Not who or where or when. That clear?”

  Very clear. He didn’t trust her enough for that. But he trusted her enough for this. She’d take that for now. She nodded her understanding and acceptance of his terms.

  “Went missing, they called it. The police, college officials, search groups. Like she had a choice in the matter.”

  Thoughts clicked through her brain too fast for her to grab onto them individually. “She’s … she’s never been found?”

  “No.”

  The black hole was there. Right there. She felt it pulling at him.

  “You were in college, and she was your girlfriend — how long had you been dating?”

  “Almost three years.”

  “Three years. So you were serious.”

  He paused, then, “Yeah.”

  “Was she kidnapped?”

  “That was one theory.”

  She sensed that answer edged them closer to the power of the black hole. “What were the other theories?”

  “I’m not going to—”

  He started to rise, she stretched her arm out across his chest, as if that could hold him.

  “Okay. Tell me more about her.” I’m not telling you the details. Not who or where or when. What did that leave? What could she ask him that would keep him talking, that would maintain this shadowy view into him? “How did you meet?”

  His body remained tense, but he eased back. And some muscles around his mouth almost seemed to want to grin.

  “She threw a football at my head.”

  “I’ve had the same temptation,” she said before she could stop herself.

  But his mouth did that same not-quite-a-twitch.

  “Co-ed flag football. Dorm against dorm. Her side had a trick play going, handing it off to her, then she was throwing back to the quarterback. Instead, she reared back and hit me square in the side of the head as I played defense. Knocked me flat. Hayley kept saying she hadn’t seen me.”

  Valerie remained absolutely still. Watching him, seeing flickers of a younger man. A man without so many defenses, without so much pain.

  “She probably never would have seen me if it hadn’t been for her throwing the ball at my head,” he said at last.

  He turned away, cleared his throat.

  “So, you swept her off her feet by falling at her feet?” The feeble attempt at humor was mostly to give him time.

  “Guess you could say that.” He hitched one shoulder. “Had coffee after the game. Talked a while. That’s how it started.”

  And nearly three years later it ended with her disappearance.

  “It must have been good.”

  “It was. But…”

  “But what, Jack?”

  He shook his head.

  She reached toward him.

  He jackknifed up and stood. “This was a mistake.” She tried to reach for him, but his movements as he dragged on his jeans, bundled up his other clothes, warded her off.

  “Jack—”

  “No. This was a mistake.”

  The door closed behind him.

  *

  Tears slid down her cheeks as she rooted in her tote for a t-shirt. Such pain. Such horrible pain.

  He wanted her to leave his past alone. To leave him alone. But she couldn’t. Not with that past shadowing his every moment. She couldn’t.

  She went to the bathroom, dashed cold water on her face, then roughly toweled it dry.

  Then she turned on her laptop and began searching.

  She pieced things together from a number of articles, spending the most time on one that provided a good recap.

  The missing girl and her longtime boyfriend were both attending summer school at their Pennsylvania university. The boyfriend’s account was that he’d last seen the missing girl the previous evening at the surprise birthday party she’d thrown for him in his apartment. He said she left shortly after the last of the partygoers for her own apartment, then he stayed up studying for a test.

 

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