“But I knew that wasn’t true, because I knew who they were—Ted Warinke, Mark Truesdale and Eric Stenner. I realized that’s why he didn’t report them—not because they needed the money, but because their families had money. Because they were important—the school’s two senior jocks and the budding jock.
“And that’s when I knew what Drago was really like. That’s when I knew that being that good and kind and generous man you keep talking about my father being wasn’t enough in a place like this.”
“Zeke, the actions that day of three drunk high school boys doesn’t define a town, not any more than your actions that day define you. You have to forget that. And you have to forgive yourself.”
His silence was as deep and unreadable as the shadows around them.
He’d closed off, shut down. Shut her out.
“I’m going, Zeke,” she said quietly, pulling her stretched out legs under her and rising.
“Darcie.”
She stood, waiting. Twice over, she decided he would say nothing more and she should leave him to his brooding alone, when he spoke.
“I thought about you, Darcie.”
“What?”
“I thought you should know that. I didn’t want you to think…I thought about you a lot. And it meant a lot to me…making love. Our first time.”
Darcie’s muscles jumped. Her right heel skidded on the worn flooring, and she sat down again, hard.
“I used to wake up,” he said, “and know I’d dreamt about you again. I could still smell you. It was like the scent and taste of you were inside a box, and I could keep it locked when I was awake, but when I slept it came free.”
He faced her in the gloom and she could see his desire so clearly. “I still dream of you.”
Now she knew. Why she’d pushed him away with that ultimatum. Why she hadn’t listened to Jennifer’s certainty that Zeke had fallen for her. Why she’d been afraid.
Because this was real. Because this was not fantasy or safe or temporary. She wasn’t a dreamy-eyed girl and Zeke wasn’t leaving first thing in the morning.
That long ago night, she had made love with Zeke for their past together, and to have that one moment between them forever. She’d known there had been no chance for a future for them, and that’s why it had been a chance she could take.
Making love with him now would be different. It would be about the present and, even more, about the future, that shining place Zeke was always speeding toward. Except the future for her could include a splintered heart that might never recover. Because, really, what were the chances things would work out between them?
She was a realist, she saw the problems. Not one of them had gone away since he’d arrived nearly three weeks ago.
But then—and even with that splintered heart—for the rest of her future, she would have this.
She would have loved Zeke, really loved him. And been loved by him.
She couldn’t pass up the opportunity to fulfill that dream.
She kissed him.
Kiss. Such a simple, short word for something that encompassed past, present and future. That brought a man and a women together in one sensation. That expressed sweet tenderness and knife-edged need.
He tugged at her bottom lip, sucking it slowly.
Melting. She was melting. From the inside out. Until she had nothing holding her together except Zeke’s touch.
He pulled back, enough to part their lips, then returned with a swift pressing of his lips against hers, his tongue touching her teeth.
She moaned, and with a deep-throated rumble, he followed the sound deeper inside her. The sensations of that touch and the sensations of the sounds he made and she made bolted through her.
Her hands found a sliver of space between them, barely enough to begin working on the buttons that kept his skin from hers.
“Darcie, wait.”
Instead of being wrapped around her, drawing her closer, his arms held her away from him. His large hands cupped her shoulders, his elbows locked.
As if he had to fight her off. Holding her at bay.
She tried to scrabble back, but his grip didn’t loosen.
“Darcie.”
“I know, Zeke. I know. It’s not… It’s okay. Really. I won’t… It’s okay.”
She brought her arms up sharp under his, breaking his hold.
“What are you doing? This isn’t—”
“I know it isn’t. You don’t have to worry. I know. I really do.” She was on her feet. “I have to go. Lots to do. The parade this afternoon and everything. All this—we’ll forget about all this.”
Zeke came half up to his knees, his eyes intent on her face.
Then he collapsed back against the counter wall with what almost sounded like a groan.
She said, “Goodbye, Zeke.” But he might not have heard. She was moving pretty fast by then.
Zeke knocked on Darcie’s door for a third time, loud enough to rouse a dog two yards over, who joined the extended hammering with a chorus of barks.
“Darcie, I’m not going away.”
She was in there. Not only was her car in the driveway, but there were lights on in the apartment.
The door swung open. “Zeke?” she asked, as if she didn’t know. “What are you doing here? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong, except you wouldn’t answer the door.”
He walked past her, brushing against her hip in the narrow passageway. He caught a flash of vulnerability in her face before she resumed an expression of confused puzzlement.
“I was in the bathroom. Washing my face. I must not have heard you over the water.”
Her face was damp, so maybe she had been washing her face. Her eyes were also red. Darcie crying. He hadn’t known that just the thought of it could twist his gut like this.
“What’s wrong?” she demanded again.
He came back to her, taking her face in his hands. “I won’t have you crying over me, Darcie.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You think I don’t want you? That was it, wasn’t it? That’s why you took off like a scalded rabbit from my father’s shop.”
“A scalded rabbit? I did not.”
“Dammit, Darcie, shut up.”
She gawked at him.
“I’m not the best with words and I’ll never get it out right with you taking things the wrong way and rushing in trying to make it so I won’t say what you don’t want to hear.”
Her eyes got big, but her chin went rock hard. “Fine. I won’t stop you from saying whatever it is you want to say.”
Even if it killed her. That was the subtext of that little speech.
“Do you know where I’ve been since you—” he wasn’t going to refer to a scalded rabbit again, he was not self-destructive “—left?”
Her lips parted then she clamped them shut. She shook her head.
“I closed up the shop and I drove to Ma’s. From the minute you walked out the door, I was coming after you, but I needed to tell Ma. To apologize for worrying her. And to let her know I wouldn’t be back until later. Because this time we’re going to be in a bed, Darcie. I was not going to make love to you on a deserted, dusty shop floor. A bed, Darcie. A bed and room and time and patience.”
She swallowed, but said nothing.
“But not too much patience,” he added, closing the space between them.
Her head tilted back to keep their gazes locked.
“Zeke.”
That was it. Just his name. And patience was gone.
His hand cupped the back of her head as he kissed her hard, his other arm behind her waist providing support, enclosure. She wrapped her arms around him, holding on, too.
He was moving them as if he knew exactly where he was headed. Her bed, she realized, her slight surprise that he had known the direction swamped by her satisfaction at arriving at that destination.
He caught the hem of her sweater, pulling it up. Arms over her hea
d, she watched him watching her, absorbing the intensity of his focus so deeply into her bones that she felt she would never be completely cold again.
She renewed her earlier assault on his shirt’s buttons. She opened it, stroking her hands down his chest. He flung the shirt up and away. She had already started on the closure of his jeans. He yanked something from his pocket, reaching around her toward the nightstand, then his arms crossed hers as he unhooked and unzipped her jeans while she worked on his.
Faster. She wanted this faster. Taking off her own clothes and letting him strip his would certainly be more efficient. But the sacrifice of her hands on him, his hands on her, was far too much to ask. Then jeans and underwear were gone, leaving him naked and her covered only by the length of her T-shirt.
He caught her to him tight, drawing her up on her toes to press more fully against him, the slide of cotton between his body and hers, transferring heat and glide.
He dropped back to the bed, carrying her, surprising a gust of laughter from her that turned to a moan as he aligned their bodies so she straddled him just above where she most wanted to be.
“This has to go.” He pulled her T-shirt up.
His mouth narrowed in concentration as he watched her hair release from the enclosure of the T-shirt’s neckline. He discarded the shirt, his concentration becoming a smile that heated with even more desire as he smoothed her hair back, then continued the motion to cup her head once more and draw her to him for a kiss that both promised and fulfilled.
He released her only to reach to the nightstand for one of the condom packets he’d dropped there.
As much as she regretted the tiny separation that maneuver required, she enjoyed this moment as well. It gave her a chance to see him. See what she hadn’t seen that first night—had been too inexperienced to know, to look for, to understand. She stroked her hands across his pecs, down the valley at the center of his muscled rib cage and lower.
Sitting back, she slid down first one strap of her bra—not teasing, but not fast—then the other.
He sat up, his gaze on her mouth, his hands behind her, unhooking with deft, talented fingers.
He drew that last scrap of material off her, skimming his fingertips over her flesh. Then he bent his head and kissed the underside of first one breast then the other. Soft, warm kisses as he drew in slow, full breaths. She shuddered with the sensation, deep and shattering.
“Zeke. Please.”
He looked into her eyes as his hands guided her, and brought her down on him. She felt the push, hot and hard and slow. But his hands on her hips only steadied, leaving the pace to her.
And then he was inside her.
He went still.
“Zeke, if you don’t move, now, I’ll…I’ll do something.”
One side of his mouth twitched, his eyes glinted. “Something with handcuffs?”
“Ahh!” Cry, laugh, groan—all together, it twisted her as she reached for him.
Laughing and moaning with her, he flipped them, holding his weight off her, yet thrusting deep and fast. She met that stroke. And the next. Matched him.
She pushed at his locked elbow, the one holding him safely off her.
“Darcie—”
She knocked it again, and all of him came against her, the friction and weight so exquisite she felt tears burn the corners of her eyes even as she smiled.
“No more patience, Zeke. No more.”
Together they raced, pushing each other.
She cried out his name, quaking and shuddering as he went taut, then convulsed and collapsed, shifting his torso at the last moment to one side, but wrapping his arms around her, taking her with him.
Zeke strode into her kitchen stark naked and aroused. Darcie swallowed so hard she almost choked on the mouthful of water she’d just taken in.
“Where’d you go?” he growled.
She’d left her bed minutes ago, pulling on her running shorts and top.
“You were sleeping, and I didn’t want to wake you. I left a note.” Along with a mug of coffee, which he now put on the counter beside her. Something was different about it, but her peripheral vision hadn’t pinned down what before it was out of sight. “I’m going to take a run, then I need to get to work. I’m on duty during the parade.”
He growled again, then stunned her by grabbing her hips and lifting her to sit on the counter. She dropped the running shoes she’d planned to put on outside so she wouldn’t wake him. He was definitely awake.
By instinct she grabbed his shoulders for balance. He took that opening to move in closer, nudging her knees apart and stepped between them.
“Zeke, what are you doing?”
He stroked his tongue into her mouth, deep and hot, an answer both eloquent and blatant. Then he skimmed his mouth over her jaw and down her throat.
He drew the scoop neck of her running tank lower, lower, stretching it down until her breasts held it in place, revealing the utilitarian fabric of her running bra. Then he started sliding that down.
“Zeke!”
She had no breath for more. Because with the tank and bra now bunched to the sides and beneath her breasts, acting like the best push-up bra ever, he had his mouth on one nipple and his thumb tormenting the other. She dug her fingers into his shoulders. Closer to climax faster than she had ever been before. With no way to stop it, or control it. All she had to do was let go, just let go.
He lifted his head, just an inch, only for a moment as he switched to stroke his tongue over the other nipple. But it gave her a breath, a chance to try to hold onto some shred in the midst of this man tornado.
“Okay, Zeke. I know what you’re doing—you’re melting my self-control. I’ll rephrase—”
He looked up. “Really? Melting your self-control?”
How could he look like that—boy-genius-on-the-verge-of-discovery delight mixed with an entirely male satisfaction that had nothing to do with boys or genius?
Oh. Yes.
“Darcie, I want you to listen to something.”
“Yes.” Yes, to anything.
“It’s important you know that your father was a complete idiot. Nobody could represent Drago better. Every resident of this town should be grateful to have you. And you are beautiful. A beauty so deep—”
“I can’t believe this. You’re saying this now? While I’m sitting half-naked on my kitchen counter?”
“You’re right. I can’t believe you’re half-naked, either.”
Zeke slid his big hands down her back, under the elastic of her loose running shorts and her briefs, then over the rounds of her buttocks. The fabric followed. He lifted her up, pulled at the clothes, tipped her back, and before she could suck in a breath, he’d stepped back to strip shorts and briefs off her legs, then came back between them, sliding her toward him at the same time, so they met, the tip of his penis probing at her.
“Zeke. Oh— Wait.”
“I know. I know. Hold this.” She heard the clank of the coffee cup on the counter, then felt a damp foil packet in her hand. He’d ripped it open and was putting on the condom before she connected the dots of her senses to realize he must have used the nearly drained coffee cup to hold the condom packets. “No pockets,” he mumbled, confirming her supposition.
Then he wrapped one arm around her back, while his other hand guided himself into her. She slid off the edge of the counter and over the edge of reason, with only Zeke to hold on to.
When Zeke got home after lunch, Ma greeted him with a big smile and the news that “the boys” were in his bedroom, as if he were nine and some playmates had come over to see him.
Larry sat at Zeke’s desk, working on the laptop, with Warren looking over his shoulder and practically drooling.
The third “boy” was on the bed, his back against the head-board and his legs stretched out, with no shoes. So either Peter Quincy, who was as good at reading people as Darcie, had taken Ma’s measure or she’d already scolded him.
“When did you get in,
Quince?”
“An hour ago or so.”
“Would it be rude to ask what you’re doing here?”
“Sure, but that’s never stopped you before. Brenda sent me to check things out after that attempt on the laptop and with you issuing peculiar orders right and left.” His bemused gaze went to Larry and Warren, then returned to Zeke. There was concern in his eyes. “So I’m delivering some news in person and checking how things are going here.”
“You’ve got news for me?”
“Yeah, but first, how’re you doing, Zeke?”
“Fine. Just fine.” He touched the side of his neck, where Darcie had nipped at his skin. “Never better.”
Quince’s gaze had followed the gesture, and his eyes crinkled in a grin. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
“Probably,” Zeke mumbled. “Now, what’s the news?”
“The news is what you wanted.” He leaned over the narrow space between the bed and the closet door and pulled an envelope out of his suit coat hanging on the knob. “There’s a cover letter to you, then the one you asked for.”
Zeke looked at the official seal on the envelope and grinned. “Thanks, Quince.”
“You’re welcome. Now, about this project you’ve got Larry on…”
“Yeah,” Zeke said, turning to the man at the desk, “what’d Everett say about the projections we worked up, Larry?”
“He says no.”
“No? Did you variable in the previous four years’ weather?”
“Yeah. But he said beets still weren’t the right choice for that field this year.”
“I don’t get it. I was sure we had it.”
“Well, duh,” Warren said. When Zeke and Larry turned to him he added in a world-weary tone, “You have to variable in the human factor for the software interface.”
“Out of the mouths of babes,” murmured Quince.
Zeke had learned enough about the human factor these past weeks to know Warren was aching to show off. “Right. Like you’ve figured out a way to do that?”
“Yeah. I have.”
“How?” He might as well have said prove it.
“My mom griped about women at her salon not liking the color their hair turned out—they’d say it wasn’t what they expected when she showed them the sample. So I set up a program to fill in variables like any dye or perm they’d had, how long ago and junk like that. Then I scanned in color samples and wrote a program. Mom snips a sample of their hair, fills in variables, picks a couple of dye colors, runs the program and it prints out what color their hair will be. As long as she doesn’t mess up the calibration.”
What Are Friends For? Page 19
