"You saved my life, Vince."
"You saved both our lives. If you hadn't been so stubborn about the life jackets, I doubt either one of us would have made it to shore."
The wind picked up force, raking her wet clothes like a blast of ice. A shiver jostled her body, and his arms tightened around her. "Damn. If we don't get dry soon ..."
"Let me walk for a ways," she said. "Maybe the exertion will help."
Nodding, he set her on her feet, but held her close to his side. They kept walking, and the activity should have warmed her, but it didn't. She shivered harder with every minute that ticked by, and he did, too, though his worried expression was always on her. They walked for an hour, she figured, though it seemed much longer, before he stopped and turned to face her, shaking his head as he watched her shivering violently.
"This is no good. We're barely covering any ground at all. We keep on like this we'll be frozen. And once the damn storm hits, we'll really be in trouble." He released her from his side, and shrugged out of his jacket, then his shirt. His fingers were shaking so hard he could barely maneuver the wet cloth over his hands and arms, but somehow he managed.
"What are you d-d-doing, Vince?"
"We need to dig in, Red. Just for a little while. An hour, tops. Let the wind dry our clothes at least partially. You're never going to make it back to town like this. Come on, over here." He led her deeper into the trees, until he came to a fallen trunk, surrounded by dead leaves. Then he told her to sit, and hung his shirt from a nearby limb. A moment later, he peeled off his T-shirt and did the same with it, stretching it over limbs. The stiff wind filled it like a balloon and she saw what he was going for. The wind would dry it, to some extent. Vince turned to her, held out a hand. "Strip them off and hand them over, Red. This is no time for shyness."
Nodding, too cold to refuse any suggestion that might make her warm again, she gripped her shirt with the frozen stumps that used to be fingers and peeled it off over her head. She held it out to him. The icy wind blasted her and she wrapped her arms around her upper body. "We'll f-freeze to death before they ever get dry," she stammered.
"Jeans, too. They're holding more water than anything else."
She wriggled the jeans off with difficulty—the wet denim clung to her legs. But she finally got them off, and by the time she did he'd already peeled out of his own, wrung them out, and hung them from another limb. He put hers up beside them, then came toward her in nothing but a pair of wet boxers. Kneeling beside her, he burrowed into the mountain of leaves that had drifted up against the fallen tree, digging a shelter. "There," he said. "Now lie down, right there. It's dry, and there are enough leaves to cover us."
She stared at him, and she knew her eyes widened but she couldn't help it.
"It's okay," he said. "You can trust me. I'm a cop." He smiled as he said it, making the words teasing and sweet, somehow. She lay down as he told her, and he curled up beside her, turning her so her back was pressed to his chest. He pulled mounds of leaves and debris around them and over them, and then put his arms around her.
Miraculously, she began to feel warmth seeping into her, chasing away the chill. Within ten minutes she'd stopped shivering. "Where did you learn this kind of stuff?" she asked.
"I was a Boy Scout," he said. And she couldn't tell if he was kidding or not.
He wasn't trembling as much as before, either, though she had a feeling she was getting the lion's share of the body heat. His back couldn't be very well covered. She sighed in contentment and snuggled closer.
"Hey, Red?"
"Mmm?"
"Might not be a good idea to, uh ... push back against me quite so ... much."
She froze, and knew she'd been wriggling her backside against his groin…and he was responding the way most men would. She could feel him. The blood rushed to her face, but she only pulled away slightly. "Sorry."
"Me, too."
"Not your fault."
His whiskered chin moved against her bare shoulder, and she shivered anew, but not from the cold this time. "Take it as a compliment and forget about it," he suggested.
"Compliment? I'm not that innocent. You're male. You'd react that way to anyone in this ... situation."
"No, actually, I wouldn't."
She lay there, blinking and wondering just what the hell that meant. She said, "Oh." He didn't say anything. She waited, but he didn't elaborate. Finally, she had to break the silence, because just lying there against him, in his arms, feeling his breath on the back of her neck, was too much to bear in the silence. "Do you think our clothes are dry yet?"
"It's only been twenty minutes."
"Yes, but with the way the wind's blowing ... ?" She rolled onto her back as she said it, which made her hip rub against his groin. When she looked up at him, he was biting his lip.
"Will you lie still?"
She did lie still. For what must have been a half hour, she remained perfectly still, lying there against him. He was lying on his side, his face close enough for her to feel his breath on her skin. She wanted to kiss him. He must want the same thing, she reasoned. He'd been about to kiss her in the boat, before they capsized. She lay there thinking about it for about as long as she could stand to before she turned her face to the side, toward his.
"Don't, Holly," he said very softly.
"Don't what?"
"I can feel what you're thinking. I told you already, it's not a good idea."
"Why not?"
He didn't answer her, so she rolled again, onto her side, facing him this time, and she pressed her mouth to his mouth. His lips were stiff and unresponsive. She slid her arms around his waist and pulled her body closer to his. Then she nipped his bottom lip with her teeth, suckled it just a little, and slid her tongue along the inner edge of his lips.
He shook a little, and his arms closed around her hard and fast. Finally he kissed her back. He kissed her like she'd never dreamed of being kissed. He pinned her down with his weight and drove his tongue deep into her mouth. He wedged his knee between her legs and urged them apart, so his hips could lower to her pelvis, and he could press his erection hard against her. And just when she started to feel the stirrings of panic joining the arousal in her belly, he rolled away and sat up, his back to her. The leaves fell away from him, and she shivered in the gust of cold.
"Don't play with me, Red."
Breathless, she said, "What makes you think I was playing?"
She couldn't see his face, and she thought he wanted it that way. She couldn't read what was in his eyes, but she thought she knew. He was trying to overwhelm her. To scare her off.
"What is it you want from me, Holly? Hmm? A meaningless fuck in the woods? Cause I can give you that. Hell. I'd be more than happy to give you that." He glanced over his shoulder at her. "I'd be goddamned more than happy to give you that. But that's all it would be. Is that what you want from me? Is it?" His eyes were blazing.
She bit her lip. "I... I don't know."
"You don't know? Well if you don't know what you want, I'd suggest you not tease me again until you do. All right?"
"Tease? Tease, is that what you think—?"
"Your shirt's dry." He surged to his feet, grabbed her white button-down off the tree and, turning, held it out to her.
She rose to her feet, and his eyes devoured every inch of her. She didn't flinch or try to hide herself. She just reached out and took the shirt from him, then pulled it on. His shorts bulged. While she buttoned up, he turned away, snagged his own shirt off the tree, and put it on. Their jeans were still damp.
"I do know what I want," she said. "I want to make love to you."
He swore and tried not to look at her.
"I want to spend the night in your arms, and I want... to see inside you. The way you've seen inside me."
He shook his head.
"I want to know why you're so afraid of me."
He turned to face her. "You're flattering yourself, Holly." Then he pulled his damp jeans
on. "Why are you so damned determined to dig into my psyche, woman? What the hell is it with you, anyway? You can't accept that I simply do not want this?"
She shrugged, pulling on her own jeans and wincing at the cold touch of the wet denim on her skin. "You're determined to dig into mine. It only seems fair. And as for what you want, well, your body is more honest about that than you are."
He stared at her for a long moment, then he shook his head, grabbed hold of her hand, and started off through the woods again.
***
HE KEPT UP a brisk pace as they walked through the skeletal forest. Their jackets hadn't dried much at all, and they'd decided to leave them behind. Wearing them, as wet as they were, would only make them colder. Vince wasn't walking with his arm around Holly anymore. She kept a distance of at least two feet between them at all times, and he was angry at himself for his behavior. His reaction to her had taken him by surprise. He hadn't expected passion to swell up—red hot and urgent—so suddenly. And even then, he should have been able to handle it. Would have. But other feelings came with it. Protective feelings. That urge to cuddle and coddle and care for another human being. The one he'd made up his mind was bad for him.
To feel it for a woman he also wanted sexually was another shock. He'd been so disconnected from that part of himself for so long that the overwhelming heat of it left him bewildered.
Oh, sure, he had sex. When he felt the urge, he'd go out and find someone willing. But he was always completely in control. The act was always cold, calculated, thought out, and planned for. He never lost himself the way he had with Holly. And he never had sex with a woman who could need him the way she could.
Which was why it had been perfectly rational for him to think he could curl up with her in the leaves, mostly naked, and do nothing but keep her warm. And which was why he'd blown up at her when his body had almost overwhelmed his mind. He wasn't furious with her, but with himself. And if he thought to scare her off by coming on like a caveman back there, he supposed he'd been wrong yet again. She'd seen right through it.
Damn, where had so much longing come from?
Now she was offended. No wonder. She'd been assaulted, insulted, and rejected all in one brief interlude. Not to mention bashed on the head, nearly drowned, and half frozen. He was a real asshole, and he knew it.
They'd been hiking again for almost an hour, without exchanging a word. She wouldn't even look at him. She stomped through the decaying leaves on the ground with her arms folded across her chest, and her shoulders hunched.
"I'm sorry," he said. He had to force the words out. Apologizing was not something he enjoyed doing, nor was it something he did often. Almost never, in fact. Of course, she had no way of knowing that.
"You're right, you are. But I suspect you're only saying that so I won't call your department and turn your ass in out of vengeance."
"No. I'm saying it because I acted like a jerk back there."
She slid her eyes toward him but the minute her gaze touched his, she jerked it back again. "Whatever."
He drew an impatient breath, blew it out again.
"I'm not a tease," she said.
"I know you're not."
"No you don't. You don't know me at all. But for the record, I meant it when I said I wanted you. And I'm not ashamed to admit that. And if anyone was acting like a tease back there, you really ought to know that it was you."
That brought him up short. He stopped walking, and stared at her. "Me?"
She stared right back. "Yes, you. For crying out loud, O'Mally, you strip us both down, make a bed in the leaves, and then you hold me so close I can't breathe without tasting you—what was I supposed to think?"
He couldn't even hold her gaze. "I was just trying to keep you warm."
"Right. And that was a nightstick prodding my backside?'
He gaped.
“I’m not a tease, O'Mally, but I am human. I'm a woman, and, for the record, I think there's something here. Something that might be something, you know? But you're so damned stubborn I'm not sure how we'll ever find out"
"I... sorry."
"I thought you wanted me, too," she said. I mean, you gave every indication."
The words I did—or more accurately, I do—would have tumbled from his lips if he hadn't pressed them together hard. "Look, I told you, I don't do relationships, okay? I don't have that kind of staying power."
"Don't worry. I got the message."
Hell. He did not need complications like this, like her, not now. He wasn't sure if it would be better to seduce her or ignore her. Either way, things were getting muddied up and it wasn't going to do his investigation one damned bit of good.
A twig snapped off to the left, and his thoughts ground to a halt. He jerked his head around, scanning the trees in vain. He didn't have a gun, dammit. It was at the bottom of the lake somewhere.
"What the hell was that?" Holly whispered. She, too, had gone still and was searching the darkness, wide-eyed.
He examined the trees, seeing nothing. Shades of gray and brown and rust. "Deer?” he asked.
"Not unless it was wearing army boots."
He kept looking, narrowing his eyes. “I don't see anything." Then he focused on her again, saw her anger gone now, replaced by fear. Of the two he liked the anger better. He took her arm. "Let's get out of here." Then he looked up at the sky, completely obliterated now by thick clouds. The thunder was still rumbling, but it was no longer distant. It was loud, and intense. "I think the storm's held off about as long as it's going to."
"I think you're right."
They picked up the pace, and he held on to her. Kept her close to his side, tried to keep her warm. She didn't pull away, but he wasn't sure if that was because she'd forgiven him or because she needed his body heat. Every now and then he drew her to a stop, and listened for a moment. There was something—some sound—every time, but damned if he could distinguish the creak of a limb in the wind from the hurried footsteps of a squirrel. It all sounded alike to him. Rustling leaves and snapping twigs.
They walked on. They were both getting colder with every yard they trekked. If they didn't find shelter soon, he wasn't sure they'd make it.
"I felt a r-r-raindrop," Holly said unnecessarily.
He glanced down at her. Her lips were pale and she was shivering again. He didn't have a clue where the hell they were. They'd topped a small hill, and he looked around, then looked harder at what seemed to be lights coming from the top of a bigger hill just ahead. And then he realized he was seeing that crazy old actor's house, its windows alight.
"There," he said, pointing. "Come on, we'll go there."
She glanced up, following his gaze to the hulking mansion, which seemed to list slightly to one side. "Reggie's place," she said. "F-f-finally. God, I hope he d-doesn't mind. N-n-no one goes to his p-place uninvited."
"Tough."
"B-but—" She turned toward him as she spoke, and then she just flew backward. The wet ground beneath her feet crumbled, and she fell, hit the sloping hillside, and tumbled all the way to the bottom.
"Jesus! Red!" Vince ran, stumbling, after her. She lay still at the bottom, and he dropped to his knees and pulled her into his arms. "Holly? C'mon, talk to me." The rain was falling harder now. As if they needed more problems.
Lightning crashed and the wind blew even harder.
She opened her eyes slowly. They were unfocused. Her lips barely moving, her voice barely audible, she whispered, “I’m... ok-k-kay."
"No, you're not." Dammit, she'd hit her head again. It was bleeding. And her voice was slurred. He should have been holding on to her more tightly when they stopped at the hilltop. With a surge of guilt, he scooped her up, and carried her up the steep incline toward the isolated house of the eccentric hermit, which was farther away now than it had been before. And the storm cut loose with all its fury.
TWELVE
THE STORM WAS brutal, and there wasn't a damn thing he could do to protect Holly from i
ts fury. Pounding rain soaked the carpet of fallen leaves, making them slick. He carried her as fast as he could manage without falling and dumping them both. She was no longer conscious. But he was pretty sure she was alive. Bending over her as well as he could, he trudged toward the house. Yellow light spilled from its myopic windows, and the house seemed to hunch against the rain like an old man, dressed in fading goth. It tried to be imposing, like something out of one of its owner's old films, but instead it was just sad. The wind sucked up piles of leaves, then coughed them out again in great gusts. And he bowed into it and walked onward, uphill, to the pinnacle, the crown.
He'd heard sounds again and again in the dark woods, before the storm had cut loose. Footsteps, maybe. Maybe just deer and rabbits having a laugh at his expense. Who the hell knew? There could be an army trailing his ass now and he wouldn't know it.
Finally, he was at the top of the large, wet hill. Face-to-face, in fact, with the wrought-iron fence that surrounded the place. Every four feet, like clockwork, a rabid-looking iron bat perched atop a fence pole, snarling down at would-be intruders. Christ. It was supposed to be intimidating, but the effect was ruined by sections that no longer stood perfectly upright. They tilted inward here, outward there. He grabbed hold of a bar, gave it a shake, but, despite its lopsidedness, the fence was solid. Thirty yards of weed-choked lawn stood between it and the back door. He looked at the length of the damn fence he was going to have to walk to get to the front. Holly slid lower and he hiked her up, kept on walking.
Rain beaded on her face, and dripped steadily from her hair. It was pelting her cheeks, her eyes, while the wind whipped her hair, and it didn't even faze her. She didn't even flinch. Vince was cold right to his bones. His feet had morphed into frozen concrete blocks. He couldn't feel anything from them except their weight. His knuckles— those he felt. They throbbed and howled. His face burned and he thought maybe the wind had razed all the skin from his nose and cheeks and had gone to work now on the bones.
The fence turned to the right. The wind sliced him from the side now, and it had teeth. Even the leeward side of his face burned with cold. Anyone seeing him from a distance, he thought, slogging along on leaden stumps, carrying a lifeless-looking virgin toward the sagging Gothic mansion, would probably think Reginald D'Voe was filming his great comeback piece. He half expected to hear a wolf howling backup vocals to the storm.
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