Night Mist

by Helen R. Myers

  “I know,” she whispered.

  His gaze worshipped, apologized and devoured. He tilted his head left, right and left again, as though turning on the axis of her mouth, as though torn between taking and resisting the temptation she represented. And his mouth was close, so close it hurt not to have it touching hers.

  “It’s killing me.”

  “Dangerous,” she managed to get out, to remind him.

  “So’s breathing these days,” he muttered bitterly. Finally, he stroked her lower lip with his thumbs and groaned, “I have to,” before locking his mouth to hers.

  She shivered as his passion poured free; she even answered his kiss, but left her hands limp at her sides. She knew she mustn’t hold him. If she did, when it came time to end the moment, she might not be able to let go. It was enough to feel his gratitude and pleasure.

  Then, clearly wanting more himself, he edged her back against the wall and melded his body completely against hers.

  Someone gasped.

  Someone groaned.

  Behind her closed lids, Rachel’s universe contracted and expanded, colors exploded, all while Joe urged her to give him more, in a kiss that went on and on. She forgot to breathe, but didn’t care. His greater weight threatened to crush her, and she barely noticed. All she wanted was to feel him pressing, rubbing, rocking against her, thrusting inside her, and to give him the oblivion they both direly needed.

  Helpless to resist a moment longer, she wrapped her arms around him. It felt…unbelievable. Incited, his hands coursed a journey of exploration, and she stretched and arched into each blatant, intimate moment of discovery. But it wasn’t enough.

  Blissfully soon he sought more. He slid his hand to her thighs, reached under her nightshirt, and found her…naked.

  “Ah—jeez,” he rasped, palming her bottom. Quickly, desperately, he stooped and, burying his face against the side of her neck, he locked his hips more perfectly against hers.

  He was aroused and she was burning, burning alive. To quench her thirst she sought his mouth again for a deep, plumbing kiss that soon matched the evocative dance he initiated with his hips. A low, yearning murmur rose from her throat; when he inched his un-injured hand around to her front and ventured to where she was alluringly hot and moist, it ended in a whimper.

  Then he found that secret, vulnerable place, and Rachel cried out and instinctively struggled for freedom. It was too much. Too good. She couldn’t possibly survive the sensations racking her body. But Joe wouldn’t let her go.

  “Don’t fight me. Take it,” he rasped, his skillful touch relentless. “Let me feel you wanting me. I need this, Rachel.”

  It came to her that she did, too. No one had ever cared to put her pleasure first. And to know her satisfaction mattered to Joe was as seductive, as erotic, as any of the sensitive things he was doing to her body.

  She became a creature of reflex. Every muscle began to spasm, every nerve threatened to short-circuit in exquisite agony.

  “Come on, Rachel…come on…come on…”

  Suddenly, ecstasy claimed her and she felt ejected from her body, splintering and rocketing into space. Farther and higher she flew, clinging to Joe. Joe. “Joe.”

  “Why?” she whispered against his shoulder when she recovered the use of her voice again. “I wanted it to be with you.”

  “This time it will be,” he replied, his voice thick with emotion. “But, the thing is…I wanted you to make me forget the night and reality. Only I wasn’t about to ask for that without pleasing you first.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead, her cheek, her lips. Then against them he whispered, “Rachel, help me. Help me escape my own mind.”

  From her point of view, it took an incredibly strong, honest man to admit his own needs and expose something as fragile as his vulnerability. When he added, “Help me make it to dawn,” she could no more refuse him than she could have resisted his gifted touch.

  Swallowing the emotions that blocked her throat, Rachel eased her hands between herself and Joe and released a few of the buttons on her shirt. Then she shrugged one shoulder, the other, and let the covering drop to her wrists and waist. Freeing her hands, she pushed the shirt the rest of the way to the floor.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  As he stared at Rachel, Joe discovered there was a certain type of torture he could develop a craving for. She was everything he’d dreamed, everything he wanted, everything, he concluded, as he braille-read her body with his hands. Slim, but with exquisite curves, she looked more feminine this way and ultimately too fragile for a man with his hunger. He was grateful she’d already proved her passion matched his.

  He wanted to start arousing her all over again; then she reached for the zipper on his jeans, leaned close—so close he could feel her breath tease the hair on his chest—and his mind went blank to everything but the need to experience her hands exploring him. “Do it,” he rasped.

  Her lips were like warm silk against his taut, feverish skin. The faintest contact gave him a pleasure he thought he could happily die from—only to be launched onto a different plane of awareness and ecstasy when she spread another, prolonged kiss across his chest. At the same time, her knuckles brushed against his belly, making him suck in a quick breath through clenched teeth and wonder if he had the strength, let alone the patience, to let her set her own pace.

  The moment he’d yielded to the need to check on her in her room, only to discover she was as wide awake as him, he’d known this was inevitable. Having fantasized it again and again, he was already at the end of his endurance, and his body ached as though stretched on some medieval torture rack. Only the fact that he’d been a bastard to Rachel and had wanted to make up for some of that by putting himself second to satisfying her had kept his desire in check. But the problem was, she was so pretty, so sensual, so damned tempting, she made him feel as though this was his first time in every way; the memories of being with other women vanished like ashes in the wind.

  But what undermined him the most was that she was as bold and as honest about her desire for him as he was toward her.

  He closed his eyes, absorbing her touch. Then, unable to deny himself the visual delight of watching her, reopened them. How could she look both wanton and sweet at the same time? It’s what had driven him crazy during the days of his covert surveillance, and the only lingering doubt he suffered now.

  His rational mind told him that she was too good to be true, that she could destroy him. His body told him that if he didn’t have her, and soon, it wouldn’t matter. Don’t be a lie, he prayed, as her touch became magic.

  Slowly, she lowered his zipper and slid deft, sensuous fingers inside to explore him. As pain merged with pleasure, a groan rose in his throat and he scooped her into his arms. He carried her to the bed, and followed after stripping off the rest of his things. He’d endured enough, he told himself, covering her with his body. Lingering doubts, the perplexing mystery of that damned bridge, his jealousy and greed to have all of her for himself…none of it amounted to squat at this point. They would finish this now.

  “Don’t be a lie,” he whispered, his voice so thick with emotion, the words were barely audible.

  But Rachel caught it and her eyes cleared slightly. “What?”

  “Nothing.” He swooped down to lock his mouth to hers. It couldn’t make any difference. No matter what, he thought, this was meant to be.

  He abandoned himself to the dream. Their tongues tangled and tempted, their hands possessed and explored, until Joe raced them both closer to madness by thrusting himself between her thighs to seek the damp heat he’d ignited.

  “Yes,” Rachel breathed, shifting to wrap her legs around him.

  Joe groaned. Unable to resist a moment longer, he slid deep inside her, felt her uncontainable shiver of ecstasy and let his body respond with its own reaction to their joining. She was sleek, hot, and it felt like heaven to be surrounded by her. But, not wanting to break the insulating effect silence offered, he told her by rai
ning kisses over her face instead. And fought the temptation to yield quickly to release.

  Not until they were both convulsing with need, he promised in the pulsating darkness. Not until he’d reached as deep inside her as he could go, he vowed, feeling her breath catch with his first powerful thrust. Not until the restless hands moving over his back and hips bit into him in frenzy, he swore, trailing his kisses to her throat and downward to her right breast.

  And it became all that and more, shattering the silence with shallow breaths and gasps. The heat built, turning the room into a furnace that scorched them. Joe’s head—his entire body—pounded, ready, ready for an end to his waiting, and hers.

  He raised himself on his arms, his muscles straining, droplets of sweat pouring off him and onto Rachel’s exquisite form. Watching, seeing their joined bodies, made it all the more powerful, and at that moment it happened. With a groan of surrender and satisfaction, Joe yielded to Rachel’s demanding pull, slid his hands deep into her hair and crushed his mouth to hers.

  Reality returned despite Rachel wishing she could hold it at bay. She turned her head and looked out the side window, and remembered.

  Now that the ravaging tide of passion was abating, she could think more clearly, and her thoughts were focusing on what Joe had said, but not, she began to comprehend, for her ears.

  Don’t be a lie.

  She’d believed, with obvious foolishness, that they were past those doubts. After what he’d experienced on the bridge, he had to know that what was between them had nothing to do with his problem with Gideon Garth. It just illustrated again how he could be hard, relentless. And once again she had to face the contrasts between him and the Joe out there.

  Yet, while they’d been making love, it had been everything. More than anything she could have dreamed. She sighed, as much as his weight allowed, only belatedly realizing it would attract his attention.

  He raised himself on his elbows and followed her gaze. She could feel his body tense.

  “Something wrong?”

  “No.” Rachel shifted, ready to assure him, but after meeting his unreadable gaze, she found it was easier said than done. “I’m okay,” she murmured, looking outside again.

  She didn’t know what else to say to the man who’d just succeeded in bringing out a side of her she hadn’t known existed, and a side of himself he could soon decide he hadn’t wanted her to see. A man who was still very much alive inside her. Why did all of that make her feel guilty, as though she’d committed an act of betrayal?

  “I must be heavy.”

  As he began to withdraw from her, Rachel was stunned by the power of the sensations he reignited within her. In a heartbeat, she knew that it would take very little to rouse her desire for him again. Sucking in a quick breath, she barely resisted reaching out to keep him close. But her reactions were enough to make him pause…then settle back onto his elbows.

  Cautious, almost clumsy, fingers brushed a strand of hair off her damp forehead. “It may be a mistake to admit this, but it makes me jealous to think about where your thoughts are.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m trying not to do that.”

  Joe nodded, but his expression remained grim. “I know. But it’s still hard. Even after what I experienced out there tonight. It goes against everything I’ve believed in for thirty-five years.”

  “You don’t think I understand that? Do you think it’s easy for me?”

  “I don’t know. You should see your expression when you look at that damned bridge, or now, when you talk about him even evasively. Do you even realize you’re getting hung up on a ghost, Rachel?”

  “His name is Joe Becket,” she whispered entreatingly, as though through will alone she could make him see and accept what she needed to see in him. Believed was in him.

  “He’s not me, damn it!”

  The quiet fury underlying his words, along with the memory of another, equally passionate declaration not long ago, had Rachel closing her eyes, because her instinct was to withdraw and there was nowhere to go. It did, however, seem to make a point with Joe, who sighed and once again stroked her hair.

  “I’m the one who’s sorry. For disappointing you. For having the inborn doubts that don’t necessarily have anything to do with you. For not being able to keep my hands off you,” he concluded, his tone going deep and gruff. “All I want is a few hours away from the insanity and the tension. Look, in the morning I promise to try to deal with whatever you want to talk about, but for the rest of the night…Rachel, there can only be you and me in this bed.”

  His expression was grim, almost as menacing as the first time she’d opened the bathroom door and come face-to-face with him. But there was also a haunting entreaty in his eyes that made her heart ache. It was underscored by the dismal wail of an unidentifiable animal somewhere outside. It so matched the earthy realness of the man towering above her that Rachel found it remarkably easy to reach up and stroke his beard-roughened cheek with the backs of her fingers before slipping her hand behind his head and coaxing him downward, downward to her breast.

  “Then that’s how it will be,” she said as he parted his lips over her left nipple.

  As currents of renewed desire stirred inside her, she let him lift her from the bed and reveled in his touch. He was taking control again, and Rachel buried her fingers in his thick, dark hair and gave herself up to the heat building inside her.

  This big, strong man, who could kill her as easily as make love to her, remained vulnerable at his core. Somehow she had to prove to him that she would never, ever betray that vulnerability.

  Rachel parted her lips in welcome as Joe shifted to claim her mouth with his. She initiated the silent, provocative duel of tongue against tongue until she won a growl of approval and pleasure from him. She duplicated his restless exploration of her body by discovering the hard but responsive parts of his.

  But when he slipped his fingers between them and deep into the dark curls where she burned, she could only hold her breath and hope she had the endurance to resist what he seemed to want to win from her again.

  “That’s not fair,” she gasped, the instant he found the tiny bud of sensitivity.

  “But it’s good…and fascinating to watch. You, Rachel, coming apart for me. No one else but me.”

  So he was still staking a claim and making a point. Even after she’d agreed to share this bed and this moment, with him and him alone, he was making a not-so-subtle accusation and acknowledging his jealousy.

  Rachel knew she shouldn’t let him get away with it, but he chose that moment to roll his hips against her and convulse inside her, and she was lost.

  Rachel reached up over her head, pressed her hands flat against the headboard, and yielded to the demands of both of their bodies.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The red eyes appeared on the horizon of the blissful blue sea of Joe’s tranquil dream. He didn’t want them there; he wanted to continue floating on the raft with Rachel in his arms. But the eyes came closer and closer, growing from pin size to normal size, and larger. The bigger they got, the more hostility he sensed emanating from them, and the more hideous and deformed they looked.

  Then they were directly before—no, over him. He tried to dodge their assault, rear back. It was a mistake.

  Suddenly he was in a freefall. Rachel was ripped from his arms and he was falling…falling…

  With a gasp, he opened his eyes and found Jewel standing over him. Her eyes weren’t the hideous mutations in his dream, but they reflected enough hostility to let him know he never wanted to meet her in any dark alleys.

  Right on the heels of shock came the awareness that it was well into morning, and that the gun he’d moved from under the box spring—once Rachel had gone to sleep—was still out of reach. If the voodoo queen had something deadly on the tray she was carrying, he didn’t have a prayer of getting to it before she got him. And from the expression on her face, he knew she knew that.

  Bad move not to have cl
osed and locked the door, Becket.

  True. But with the stifling heat, it had been slightly more bearable with both his and Rachel’s doors open to create a modicum of a breeze. Had been. At the moment there seemed to be precious little oxygen in the room.

  “Didn’t waste much time taking advantage, did you?” the woman muttered with a scornful look, before shifting her gaze to Rachel, who was rousing in his arms.

  “Jewel,” Rachel murmured, her tone surprised and then wary. “What time is—Oh, Lord.”

  Joe had felt her start only seconds before she spoke. Not wanting to add to the tension and embarrassment he sensed in her body, he released her. She quickly tugged the sheet more securely over her breasts.

  “You shouldn’t be climbing all those stairs for us,” Rachel added, when no one else seemed to be in a hurry to say anything.

  “Did it for you,” the housekeeper told her. “But now I can’t say as I know why.”

  Rachel brushed her hair back from her face and struggled to sit up. “Don’t say that. You don’t understand.”

  Jewel lifted her turbaned head haughtily, the whites of her eyes growing wide as she glared. “Girl, the Widow Jack knows everything. But it’s your funeral.”

  Joe felt Rachel tremble against him. “Don’t say that, either.”

  “Bah!” With a toss of her head, Jewel shoved the tray onto the nightstand and stomped out of the room and down the hall. Her mutterings as she descended the stairs sounded as ominous as they were foreign.

  Joe could sense Rachel’s dismay and watched as she glanced toward the window where it was easy to see the grayness remained unchanged once again. With a sound of despair, she drew up her legs and pressed her forehead against her knees.

  He reached over and gently massaged her shoulder, much as he’d seen her do for herself. “Don’t let her spook you,” he said, fighting the need to drag her back into his arms.