by Rhodan, Rhea
Cayden couldn’t believe it. “Did I hear you correctly? You want to take me to a sports bar? Where your friends will be?”
“Too lame?”
She shook her head and laughed. “I was thinking more along the lines of brave, on your part. On account of me being—”
“On account of you being so goddamn smoking hot, some dumb jock might get himself hurt trying to grab you.”
Clint certainly was becoming good at peace offerings.
Chapter Fourteen
The drive out to East Granby was taking forever. He’d kept himself to a beer an hour at the celebration with his crew. Still, Clint wasn’t going to risk speeding in the rain, no matter how much of a hurry he was in to pick Cayden up and get her back to the apartment.
It was hard to believe a month had passed since he’d met Cayden’s parents and taken her to O’Malley’s. The second part of that day had gone a lot better than the first. Bill’s being there had helped. Everybody liked and trusted his second-in-command. When Bill had greeted Cayden with shy friendliness, eagerly pulling out a chair for her, the rest had followed his lead.
Cayden had been warm and funny once she got over her nervousness, had charmed the hell out of them. There’d been plenty of appreciative glances, more than a few stunned ones, yet no one had treated her with anything less than respect. He didn’t think it was all due to the fact she was the boss’s girlfriend, but he was still taken off guard when they’d asked about her tonight.
It had been quite a party. They’d have finished ahead of schedule if a month of near-constant rain hadn’t slowed construction considerably. As it was, meeting Dean’s deadline had required OT and prayers, and a worthy bash.
The long hours and non-existent weekends had taken their toll on his relationship. With her grandmother still in the coma, Cayden had ignored his protests and gone back to the graveyard shift at HandiMart, taking the train out to East Granby to look after Dr. Buchanan’s mean old tom cat every morning. She came home and slept until he got back from work. Damn, but climbing those stairs to find a lush, naked, sexy-drowsy Cayden was the highlight of his day. He’d taken to making a sandwich prior to waking her so he wouldn’t need supper until much later.
They only had a few hours together each day before he drove her to work, then went to bed at his place, alone—the low point of each day. Without Cayden in his arms, the insomnia and uneasy feeling of something being off had returned. In addition, he had her possible pregnancy to worry over. Not that they’d talked about it. They didn’t talk about a whole lot these days. Too much was left unsaid; too much went unresolved.
He shook his head and exited I-91. Most men would be thrilled to have a relationship consisting of outrageously fantastic daily sex, home-cooked dinners, and no meaningful conversation. Hell, he should be.
In less than five minutes, he’d see her for the first time in over twenty-four hours. No matter how much it freaked him out to admit it, he wanted more than just a hot night in bed with her, and he wanted that pretty damn badly. But he also wanted to talk, really talk.
Cayden was pleasantly surprised by the enthusiasm of Clint’s embrace as he lifted her into the truck, a habit she couldn’t bring herself to break him of. His kiss was deep enough to melt her bones. She was tempted to drag him up to the grove for a repeat of the Joining. It wouldn’t be necessary, she knew that now, but oh, it would be good.
He surprised her again by pulling back. The moon bathed his handsome face, revealing his unusually intense expression.
“Cayden, we need—” He broke off. “God, you’re beautiful. The way the light plays—” He interrupted himself again and frowned. “Wait, when did the moon come out? It was raining a few minutes ago.”
She was sure he’d been going to say they needed to talk. The sudden switch from that to a compliment to the weather made her suspect he was trying to break up with her, but didn’t know how. The last couple of weeks had been strained, except for their wildly unrestrained lovemaking. Wonderful as it was, it wasn’t enough. Tensions had been rising due to the nature of the topics they avoided.
“It cleared up when I began preparations for the ritual.” After she’d emphatically wished it would. Another addition to the better-left-unsaid list. “This isn’t about Nevermore, is it? Has he been harassing you while I’m at work?”
“Nah. Other than a single daily deposit on the driver’s side of the windshield here.” Clint tapped the glass in front of him. “I wouldn’t even know he’s around.”
He didn’t sound too annoyed, so that wasn’t it. She decided she wasn’t up for a heavier confrontation and waded back to safer ground. “Did you have fun at O’Malley’s with your crew?”
“Yeah. Missed you, though. Some of the guys asked why you weren’t there. I wasn’t sure what to say you were busy doing.”
“Of course you weren’t.” Evidently no subject was safe.
He must have picked up on her tone. “You’re not mad I had to celebrate with the crew tonight, are you? I thought you understood.”
“I’m not mad, just tired.” Especially of this side-stepping dance.
“Say, my offer to drive you to the hospital whenever you want stands. We could visit your grandmother after I show you the mall tomorrow.”
The offer implied he didn’t intend to dump her, at least not tonight. He was trying to be nice. Still, she was unable to stop herself from saying, “As I keep telling you, there’s no point; she’s not there. She was with me tonight in the grove.”
The statement had been a small risk, nothing outrageous. Yet the silence grew and twisted, unrelieved by the swishing of the windshield wipers as they pulled onto the freeway and the rain resumed.
She was idly wondering whether it was raining at the Crossing now too when Clint cleared his throat and said, “That reminds me. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something.”
The tone of his voice, the way he was staring straight ahead, gripping the steering wheel, were all far from reassuring. A big ugly shoe was poised to drop.
“About what?”
“The developer’s offer for your grandmother’s place expires next week. I’ve been kind of afraid to bring it up. When it comes down to it, though, I can’t stand by and let you make a big mistake.”
A mixture of relief and sadness, seasoned with a pinch of anger, washed over her. There were so many things she wanted to tell him, needed to tell him, couldn’t tell him, because…
“You’re no different than Muriel. There’s no use in talking to you about anything because if it doesn’t fit your little world view, you won’t listen.” Which is why she’d not-quite-accidentally burned another of Muriel’s notes without even bothering to show it to him.
“Hey! I am nothing like either of your parents. This is exactly what I was afraid of. You’re a grown, intelligent woman. Why is it so impossible to reason with you? I can’t spend my life tiptoeing around every damn subject that might have you hissing like that ugly old tom and making just as much sense.” His voice wasn’t raised, but his tone was sharp.
She teetered on the edge of outrage before sliding back down into gloom. Her throat felt like she’d swallowed the silence and it was twisting inside her now.
It took a few miles for the words to push their way past the lump stuck in her throat. “Nobody’s asking you to.”
“Well, look what happens when I don’t. There are situations we need to discuss, Cayden, like adults. You don’t want to sell your grandmother’s house, I get that. But things don’t always work out the way we want them to.”
Clint, busy parking and being the pragmatist he was, had missed her meaning.
She whispered hoarsely, “No, they don’t.”
He went very still. Some of the twisting silence must have spilled out, because she heard him swallow.
“Yo
u’d better not be talking about us. Christ, Cayden, I—”
And then his lips were on hers, all hot and hard. She hadn’t heard him unbuckle his seat belt, hadn’t had time to unbuckle hers. His hands on her were rough and demanding as they shoved beneath her cape and grasped her bare shoulders.
She craved them on her breasts, but his strong fingers remained where they were, pinning her in place as he relentlessly plundered her mouth.
By the time he drew back, they were both panting heavily and Cayden was dazed. She was still dazed when he came to the other side of the truck and lifted her out.
She wasn’t at all certain her knees would hold when he set her down. She needn’t have worried. He didn’t. His effortless juggling of her and the keys at first the building door, then the apartment door, dispelled the notion he might be drunk.
Instead, she was the one who laughed uncontrollably. Clint tensed around her.
“What’s so funny?”
“I was thinking the last five minutes would make a good sobriety test.”
His body relaxed. He smiled against her cheek. “That giggle of yours drives me crazy. I’ve missed it.”
“Clint, I—”
“Shh, not tonight. Tomorrow will be a holiday for us. I can’t wait to show you the mall. We’ll have all day to talk. Just promise me you’ll be reasonable.”
He preempted her protest with a kiss that could melt platinum. She promptly forgot how interesting it would be if that kind of heat were readily available outside of a kiss by Clint, because he did it again, while he was stripping her out of her cape and unzipping her long dress.
The faint tang of beer was overwhelmed by the raw taste of his hunger, as her mind was overwhelmed by her body’s instant liquid response to it. She had no defense against the onslaught of his need, or her own.
The thick calluses of his hands rasped her sensitized skin in a frenzy, his mouth burning, bruising, wherever it touched. Half-carried, half-dragged, Cayden found herself spread out on her empty work table at the back of the apartment.
Just enough light came through the window behind her to see his fingers reach for his zipper and fumble with the condom in his haste. Gripping her thighs, he pulled her toward him. His thumb circled the silk panel of her panties, tapping maddeningly until she bucked. His white devil’s smile gleamed as he yanked it aside and plunged inside her.
Rather than savaging her as she’d expected, he held her there, suspended between pleasure and near-violence-inducing anticipation. When he did move, it was with bone-jarring, powerful, yet agonizingly slow, strokes. Cayden tightened her thighs around him, attempting to encourage a quicker, more satisfying rhythm. Clint was having none of it. He halted again.
She would have said something if their silence hadn’t become sensual, an intensifying extension of the other sensations. She unhooked the front clasp on her bra purchased specifically for his benefit. He immediately released his death grip on her hips to descend on her breasts, allowing her to ratchet up the momentum.
Not much later, she’d wonder if it had been a mistake. It was as if a critical underlying line of restraint had snapped, for both of them. The savage took over, forcing her incrementally across the thankfully smooth table, only to be tugged back for the next devastating series of thrusts, each one stringing her tighter, higher.
Clint’s desperation pierced more than her body. The velocity of their reckless headlong rush into the climax of both their lives stripped Cayden of her last vestiges of self-preservation. The explosion echoed in the trembling of her entire body in its aftermath.
There were, however, no apparent electrical repercussions.
Clint collapsed on top of her. The salty masculine scent and taste of a hard day’s work on his skin should have simply reminded her that he’d not had a chance to shower. Instead, it filled her with a deep longing to keep him inside her forever.
“That’s what makes it possible for the lights, along with most of the heating and cooling, to run completely off the solar panels.” Clint pulled into the empty parking lot and turned off the ignition. He glanced at Cayden. She’d been listening to him attentively, with a sort of hopeful fragility in her eyes that tugged at a new rawness in his chest.
“Wow. It’s beautiful. And I never thought I’d be saying that about a shopping mall. It’s so…green.” She laughed and he felt the warmth down to his toes. Her giggle might drive him crazy, but her laugh was pure magic. “So the majority of the spaces are already rented? C’mon, show me how…”
He couldn’t hear the rest since she’d hopped out and slammed the truck door. She didn’t seem to mind the fine drizzle making the snug little black dress she was wearing cling even more tightly to her swaying hips. It wasn’t long enough to impede her progress. Shit, it was barely long enough to cover her mesmerizing ass.
He’d known she’d like the mall, what with her bed in the middle of that greenhouse up in her loft and her aptitude for engineering. He’d wanted that unbridled enthusiasm of hers, needed it, for his own satisfaction. Especially after Dean had appeared so unimpressed and ready to move on to the next project: the big secret he was finally going to reveal at the meeting tomorrow.
Clint caught up with her three quarters of the way to the main entrance, because she’d stopped walking. Sick to death of being wet, he kept going until he was under the large overhang, then turned to see what was holding her up. She stood rigidly, not breathing. The slightest movement in her tight, now soaked, little dress would have been detectable. What was she looking at? Why had her face become an even whiter shade of pale than normal?
He looked back at the window, following her line of vision. She was staring at the J. Milton Developments sign hanging in it.
“Cayden?”
“How long—” Her voice sounded strangled.
“How long, what?”
“—have you been working for the Cumberlands?”
“You know Dean and Milton?”
“You’re on a first name basis with them?” She actually staggered. Her voice lowered with every word. She was backing away, her delicate hands covering her face. “You…I… Of course. How could I have been such a fool? A man like you wanting me? Utterly ridiculous. This explains everything.”
“What does it explain?” He walked toward her. “Cayden, what’s wrong?”
She turned away from him, took a couple of steps, and stumbled. He tried to catch her, but a sudden squall of wind drove him back. The sky went black. The heavens opened in a deluge. A loud clap of thunder followed a bit too closely on the heels of a flash of lightning, which almost seemed to have come from her eyes. She was on her ass now, staring at him. No, through him.
He tried to take another step toward her, but the terrible scream of living wood ripping free of the earth stopped him dead. The big oak on the side of the walkway between him and Cayden, the one they’d worked so hard to save during construction, came crashing down.
By the time he’d made it around the torn roots and broken branches, she’d disappeared. The only reason he could be sure was because it was suddenly lighter again and eerily quiet, as though a great damper had descended.
Empty darkness, its gaping hole filled with numbing cold, edges burning hot. The inside-out opposite of the passion she’d shared with Clint last night, laying her heart open to this crushing void.
In her struggle to breathe, Cayden drew in damp chilled air and the scent of wet pavement. What kind of awful nightmare was this?
She opened her eyes and blinked, then blinked again. At a bus stop sign. A car drove by, spraying her with dirty water.
Not a dream.
The last thing she remembered closed her throat and filled her eyes with tears.
Focus. Standing on the street, crying in the rain wasn’t an extravagance she would allow herself to indulge. Indu
lging is what had got her here. Here being…
Focus. She’d seen the sign in the window, then red, then black. Heard lightning, then thunder, then a terrible scream. Now she was standing on a corner she and Clint had passed on the way to the mall. She’d noticed it because she approved of it being built on a bus line, making it accessible to her and other non-drivers.
The mall, whose outline she could make out in the drizzle, was at least six blocks away. She looked down at her feet. No matter how much of a daze she was in, or how much time may have passed, she hadn’t walked all the way here, not in these shoes. So, she must have…what, unintentionally teleported?
The possibility disturbed her. Semi-intentionally frying a few notes from Muriel and upending a wine glass—abilities she’d manifested since the Joining, if only when Clint was nearby—were one thing. But manipulating the weather, as she had last night, was quite another. Clint may not have been there, but she’d been standing over the Crossing’s core. Add teleporting to the mix, and…
Shocked out of any shred of control, what else might she have done? She’d heard a scream. What if she’d hurt Clint? She took a step toward the mall, stopped. She was hardly in control of herself; she’d proven that. Whatever had happened, going back could only make it worse. Why should she care about him anyway, after how he’d used her?
The worst of it was, even now, she did care. She’d intended to tell him “the all of it” today, that she was pregnant with their daughter and how it was with Buchanan’s Crossing—whether he was ready to hear it or not. After what they’d shared last night, what she thought they’d shared, she hadn’t wanted any more barriers between them.
