by Nancy Warren
She felt his tension like a reflection of her own, saw the sweat break out on his brow and knew she could no longer hold back. Tipping her face to the heavens, eyes open to the sky, she increased the tempo, hearing the wet slap of her flesh against his, the pressure building in their bodies until explosion was inevitable.
He grabbed her hips and bucked up into her even as her body clenched around him. “Oh, yes!” she shouted out across the whispering cornfields. As the spasms of pleasure took her, she kept her eyes open, feeling as much a part of the universe as the red ball of sun dissolving in a crimson sunset that suffused the sky.
Beneath her, she felt the final twitch as he emptied himself into her.
“Mmm,” she sighed, collapsing against his chest. “It was like the three of us came together. You, me, and the sunset.”
He kissed her, then swatted a mosquito that had found them. “We’ll be covered in bites tomorrow.”
“Do you mind?”
He smiled at her, snugging her tight against his chest. “Nope.”
Reluctantly, they donned their clothes to protect them from the bugs that had arrived in force, drawn rather than repelled, it seemed, by the citronella candles she’d lit. They sat there, anyway, hands linked, and watched the night sky while they sipped beer.
“Are there a lot of derelict barns around here?” he asked after a while.
“We have our share, I guess. Why?”
He shrugged. “I was thinking about tomorrow night.”
She chuckled. “I like the way you think. I don’t know this area as well as Gertie. I’ll ask her.” She tweaked his arm. “Is a hayloft a requirement?”
He gazed over and her face appeared indistinct in the twilight, her eyes dark and mysterious. “You are the only requirement,” he said, and was surprised at how much he meant that.
He saw her quick grin acknowledging the compliment, her teeth white in the dim light, her eyes glowing like the early stars.
Why didn’t she tell him they hadn’t known each other before? They were sleeping together. She was taking him into her body, why wouldn’t she take him into her confidence?
Did she have somebody else? Was he a diversion? A summer fling?
He sighed up into the dark sky. He didn’t know squat about himself or his past but he knew there was something more than just sex going on between him and this woman. “Not only is my own life a blank, but everyone else’s is, too. Tell me about you.”
“Tell you about myself?” Nell repeated. What could she possibly tell him? About her breakup? About the way she was searching for herself, for a career that meant something? For a life that made sense to her?
She settled with her back against his chest and his arms came round her, warm and secure. “I was a publicist in LA, which sounds glamorous but basically means I was a combination secretary, servant, and therapist for a bunch of spoiled entertainment types.”
“Overworked?”
She chuckled softly. “Yes. And mauled, cried on, puked on, OD’d on until I couldn’t stand it anymore.”
Wes dropped a kiss on her hair and his hands tightened. So she found herself telling him the rest.
“I was seeing a director. Peter. Very glamorous life, successful, handsome, rich—”
“Sounds too good to be true.” The trace of jealousy in Wes’s tone made her tip her head back and smile up at him.
“You didn’t let me finish. Also cold, calculating, and utterly self-absorbed. By the time I figured out I’d become his unpaid publicist, shrink, and call girl all in one…” She stopped as anger punched her in the chest. “I—I realized he was not the man I wanted, my job was not the career I wanted and I guess I just wanted some time off to try a simple life for a while. Gertie’s not getting any younger and I decided to come for a visit.”
He dropped a kiss on her hair. “Then you met me. Going out with a gang member isn’t exactly simple and serene.”
She sighed. “You ever think about going straight?”
“I don’t remember going crooked.”
Chapter Seven
She chuckled. “You seem like too nice a man to be in a gang.”
“We were talking about you. You came here for a simple life. Have you found it?”
She let out a quiet sigh. “Okay, I ran. Back to Gertie, back here where there’s a connection between planting seeds and growing crops, where life makes sense.”
“Are you planning to go back?”
His words were so simple, but she heard the edge to them. “I—I don’t know.”
“Is Gertie just a place to run to? Somewhere to hide out?”
“No. I love her.”
“And what about me?” His hands tightened on her arms. “Am I a handy roll in the hayloft? A quick stress release until you get back to your regular life?”
“No. I…” But what had she been about to say? She loved him too? She must be more seriously deranged than she’d realized. Bad enough to fall in love with an amnesiac, but an amnesiac criminal? No wonder he seemed so innocent, he couldn’t remember all the vile crimes he’d committed, didn’t even know how briefly they’d known each other, and yet she found she trusted him more than any other man she’d ever been with.
Which only showed what bad shape she was in.
“It’s getting late,” she said. “We should get back.”
He helped her pack everything away, then got to his feet and helped her to hers. They were quiet as they scrambled out of the back of the truck, quiet as they drove back to Gertie’s.
She turned off the ignition and the old truck rattled itself to sleep. The silence was thick, full of unspoken words, mistaken impressions, and longings.
“Well, I guess—” She never finished the sentence. His mouth captured hers in a kiss full of frustration, passion, and driving lust.
“I can’t get enough of you,” he whispered. “Can I come to you tonight?”
She licked her lips, tasting him, tasting her own deceit. She should tell him no, but she had no willpower. They had such a short time together, she didn’t want to waste a minute. Sometime he’d retrieve his memory and when that happened, this wonderful, magical affair would end. She was realistic enough to know the chances were good he wouldn’t be thrilled that she’d pretended to be his lover. If she was going to lose him, she should at least build some memories.
“Yes,” she whispered back. “Oh, yes.”
* * *
He snuck in like the moonlight slipping between the gap in the curtains and found her waiting for him, already naked, already wet.
He wanted to take it slowly, but it was tough when need and desire snapped at him with sharp teeth driving him forward.
It had only been a matter of hours since they’d gone at it in the truck, and already their lovemaking was taking on the quality of myth. Had her breasts really been as soft to the touch? He had to find out, first rubbing his hands over them, then his cheek, making her gasp as stubble grazed the sensitive flesh, then finally his tongue, lapping, soothing, tasting.
Yes, he discovered, she was every bit as smooth there as imagination and memory had suggested.
But surely her belly hadn’t quivered when he’d trailed his fingertips down its length. Yes. He discovered, it had and did.
Could she possibly be as open and giving?
He stroked his fingers down her thighs. “I want you to open yourself for me,” he said quietly, keeping his gaze on hers.
Her entire body seemed to quiver, her eyes grew dark and exotic, her lips slipped apart in a quiet moan and then her thighs parted beneath his gaze as she opened herself to him.
It was his turn to moan as he contemplated her mysteries. The dewy femininity, petals opening at dawn inviting him toward the dark, hot heart of her hidden beneath.
He touched her, with just one fingertip and was amazed to find himself trembling. Just as she trembled everywhere he touched. He traced each glistening petal, deep with color, opening to his touch as a flower opens to t
he sun, exposing the stiff nub at its center. He took a quick trip around it, making her gasp and quake, but he refused to rush. He wanted to keep her gasping and quaking all night. He had precious few memories. He wanted to build a few that were spectacular.
Her hips arched off the bed, thighs straining open in urgent invitation and he held back his roaring libido, letting the tip of his finger trace the opening to her body, so slick and hot it beckoned him forward the way a fire draws a cold traveler on a winter night.
He couldn’t resist the lure, but hunkered down and replaced his finger with his tongue. Mmm. She tasted juicy and all woman. Only a taste wasn’t enough. He pushed his tongue all the way inside her.
Even from down here he could hear her gasping cries and from the wild tossing of her hips, he didn’t think she was far from climax. He withdrew his tongue slowly, loving the way her internal muscles clutched and tried to draw him back, then licked his way up to the tightly furled bud that was about to burst into bloom. Ruby red and pulsing, he had only to give it a slow, lazy lick to have her tossing her head and crying out.
Another hit-and-run tongue stroke and she was sobbing with frustrated need.
Did he want to punish her for not telling him the truth? he wondered idly as he barely touched with the tip of his tongue, hearing desperation in her tone. Or did he simply love having her completely, mindlessly in his control?
“Please,” she gasped. She was so close he felt the muscles in her thighs tighten, her clit shudder as it prepared to explode. As though not noticing her state, he moved to plant kisses on the soft white skin of her upper thigh.
“Please!” She grabbed his hair in both hands and hauled him back to where she wanted him.
He couldn’t keep the smile off his lips as he placed them where she was hottest and neediest and sucked her clit until it burst on his tongue like the ripest berry.
He sucked her sweetness, enjoying the cries of fulfillment she tried to muffle, until she was limp with release, and then, kissing his way slowly up her body, entered her.
He bent his head to kiss her lips and noticed tears on the end of her lashes. He would have asked if he’d hurt her in some way, but then he saw her smile. It was the kind of smile that sniffling women share at weddings or christenings, a teary smile of female happiness and love. For just a second he paused, staring down into her dewy eyes; then he felt his lips curve, returning her smile, before he kissed her deeply, his tongue mimicking the movements of his cock as he drove her up again to bliss.
* * *
“Get me a list of derelict barns in the area,” he said to Harvey as they met in their usual spot at the back fence.
“Who’s going to list crap like that?”
“A map then. Aerial photographs. Find me something. Time’s running out.”
His partner shook his head. “It’s no use. You’ve been here a week and your memory’s still MIA. You’ve got a brain injury; we’ll have to bail.”
Frustration, mixed with fury, swept through Wes. “I can’t bail. You think they’ll let me go so long as a shipment of their coke is missing along with me?”
“I realize your brain is not functioning real well right now, but we are getting you out. They won’t be able to track you.”
Wes grabbed Harvey by his collar and dragged him forward. “Use your own brain. Who will they go after if they can’t find me?”
Harvey’s eyes shifted. “She’s using you. For all we know she’s helping them.”
He pulled his hands off the other man’s lapels as though they’d been soiled and stepped back wondering how he’d ever managed to work with such a weasel. “Not Nell. You already checked her out. Right?”
“You don’t know—”
“I know Nell. And I’m not putting her safety at risk. I have to see this through with you or without you.”
“Stop thinking with your dick. You—”
“I can see the barn in my dreams. I’m sure the drugs are there. I just have to find it. Look, we’re partners. You must trust me.”
Harvey lit a cigarette and dragged hard on it. “Every time I get shot at it’s because of you.”
Somehow, Wes believed him. “Come on. I need your help. I made up a bogus story for Louie, wrangled another week out of him, but that’s all we have. Get me anything you can on barns in the area.” He pulled out the rough drawing he’d made based on his dream.
“This is insane. We’re putting government resources into finding an old barn in the middle of Kansas because you, a man who can’t remember his own name, dreamt about it.”
“My memory’s coming back,” Wes said.
“How do you know?”
“I know that every time we get together we argue but we get the job done.” In fact, he knew no such thing but it was a safe bet that he and Harvey tweed-jacket didn’t have the same MO.
A reluctant grin dawned on his partner’s face. “Yeah. And I always end up shot at.”
“Well, I haven’t gotten you killed yet, have I?”
Harvey pocketed the drawing and turned, already giving in. “Sometime I’ll tell you about Mexico.”
* * *
Wes chopped wood with a vengeance, venting his frustration on Gertie’s woodpile. Since Doc had pronounced him physically healthy, and remained placidly convinced that his memory would return in its own good time, life continued day by day while Wes earned his bed and board by doing manual labor for Gertie, and tried to solve two puzzles.
Where was that rickety old farmhouse?
And why was Nell pretending to be his girlfriend?
Wes loved women. Of that he was certain. But he didn’t think he could ever have experienced anything quite like what he discovered every night in Nell’s arms.
They shared the kind of intimacy that made him want to reveal all his deepest secrets—if he could only remember what those were.
She, on the other hand, seemed not at all interested in sharing the fact that they’d never known each other before he so spectacularly face-planted into the vegetable garden. And, although he’d bet one or two favorite body parts that she wasn’t promiscuous, she had slept with him the day after she met him. If you could even call it meeting, when she’d been the one to introduce him to himself.
Puzzles. Did he like puzzles? he wondered. This one merely frustrated him.
What he hadn’t bothered telling Nell or even old Doc Greenfield, however, was that his memory was returning. He was having, not visions exactly, more like daydreams where people and things appeared in his mind. He had a feeling it was memory surfacing in snatches. As hard as he tried, he couldn’t ever drag the whole works up. He had that frustrating feeling of a forgotten word at the tip of his tongue. Except in his case, it was his whole life, hovering there, teasing him, but so far eluding his grasp.
Truth to tell, he wouldn’t much care and would be only too happy to follow the Doc’s prescription of rest, healthy food, fresh air and his own prescription: sex with Nell in large doses, taken several times daily, and allow his memory to return when it was ready.
Except he had an urgent deadline. If he couldn’t find the drugs by next week, the gang would kill him.
As deadlines went, this wasn’t one he wanted to screw around with. If it got close to the day he’d promised to deliver the goods and he hadn’t yet found the cache or recovered his memory, he’d bail, taking Nell and Gertie with him. But he wanted those drug-dealing assholes busted and jailed. That was his job and he intended to do it.
“Are you planning to keep Gertie in kindling all winter?” Nell’s amused voice broke into his thoughts.
Puzzled, he stared at the wood he’d just chopped and saw what she meant. He was turning a healthy wood pile into toothpicks. “Sorry, I guess I got carried away.” He stopped to stretch out his back, then propped a foot on the stump he’d used as a chopping block and wiped the sweat off his forehead.
“What’s up?”
She ran her gaze down his sweaty body and her expression made
the question redundant. In spite of the frequency and intensity of their lovemaking, she only had to look at him and he was rock hard and ready to go.
He’d taken off his shirt a while back, so he wore only shorts, socks, boots and an elastic band holding his ridiculous hair off his face.
“I’ve got something special in mind for tonight,” she said.
“So have I.”
Her eyes twinkled as they stared into his. “Another abandoned barn?” Since Harvey had produced a rough map based on some aerial reconnaissance, they’d visited barns night after night. He told her he’d gotten it from a neighbor who’d stopped to chat while he was mending the fence. She hadn’t even raised her brows at the notion. Harleyville was that sort of town.
In spite of her groan at his mention of yet another barn, he could see her nipples pebbling beneath her shirt.
He understood the feeling. He didn’t think he’d ever be able to look at a barn again without getting a hard-on.
“I can’t help it,” he said to her, putting down his ax and stepping closer until their bodies almost touched. “There’s something about you, naked on a hay bale that does it for me every time.”
“This barn better not have bats,” she said primly, but she moved in closer as she said it. With a saucy grin, she leaned into his chest and surprised the hell out of him when she took his nipple between her teeth and bit down gently, but firmly.
“Ow,” he complained, but it was just for show. He wanted her teeth, her tongue, her whole mouth all over him. “I can’t wait until after dinner. Can’t we go now?”
“That’s my surprise. I packed us a picnic. You remember when you asked me if there were any lakes or a place to swim nearby?”
He nodded. One of the old barns on Harvey’s list was near a small body of water, so he’d casually asked Nell about swimming, telling her he hated swimming pools.
“Gertie reminded me of a water hole I’d forgotten all about. I thought we might take a swim first.”
“Nell, you are my kind of woman,” he said, grabbing her hand and dragging her toward the pickup. If swimming was first, he had a very good idea what was second.
