After Darke

by Heather MacAllister

  He froze. “You’ve changed your mind?”

  “No! I mean I can’t unbutton your damn shirt!”

  In a second, he’d pulled the whole thing over his head.

  Sighing, Bonnie ran her fingers over his skin. “I adore your chest. I’ve fantasized about your chest.”

  “I was unaware that you and my chest were acquainted.” As he spoke he was slowly caressing Bonnie out of her blouse.

  “Oh, yes. That first morning—I wasn’t asleep and you were standing by the window....” She trailed off because Jaron was placing tiny nibbling kisses along the side of her neck, and she arched to give him better access. He caught her bra strap in his teeth and pulled it off her shoulder at the same time he unhooked the back.

  She had a brief moment of anxiety as her bra fell away, but stopped herself from clutching it to her.

  “Oh...my... Real breasts.” Jaron filled his hands with them. “I’d forgotten how wonderful they feel.”

  Bonnie was surprised into a laugh. “Well, yes. What have you been dating?”

  “I’ve had a run of fake breasts.” He cleared his throat. “Not a long run. And not really a run at all, maybe a walk. A couple of hops at the most.”

  “Forget it, Jaron, I’m a big girl.”

  “Yes...you are.”

  “Except...”

  His hands fell away.

  “Oh, no.” She picked them up and put them right back where they’d been.

  He gave her—or rather her breasts—a huge, boyish grin. Men.

  “On behalf of the sisterhood, I must point out that a woman shouldn’t be judged on the size of her breasts.”

  “You can afford to be generous.”

  “Jaron!”

  He finally met her eyes, but didn’t stop moving his fingers in featherlight circles. “I know that, and it doesn’t bother me one way or the other because I’m usually interested in the whole package, capisce?”

  She nodded, because she could no longer speak, and as far as she was concerned, the sisterhood could take care of itself. She knew the location of his fingers to the millimeter, and that’s how close he was to making her explode. Her breathing changed; she could hear it, short little gasps that made him smile.

  “Now, having said that, I should also say—” he bent his head “—that I’m very glad your package comes with breasts.”

  He filled his mouth with one, and Bonnie let out a long moan that might have embarrassed her if she hadn’t been feeling incredibly good.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he murmured.

  “Don’t talk.”

  “Bonnie—”

  “Talking makes you stop. I don’t want you to stop!”

  “If I don’t stop now, I’ll have to stop later.”

  She glared at him, then became aware that he’d unfastened her jeans. Oh. Right. Clothes. Clothes had to come off. Now was an excellent time. She reached for his jeans, but his arms were in the way. “This will go faster if we each take care of our own jeans.”

  “I like a slow, lingering—”

  “I am way beyond slow and lingering.” Bonnie shimmied out of her jeans and underwear and was peeling off a sock when she noticed Jaron’s dazed expression. “What?”

  “You.” He looked awed.

  She, simple Bonnie Cooper from Cooper’s Corner, had awed the sophisticated Jaron Darke. Well. Maybe she could do slow for a bit. She tossed her hair over her shoulders and arched her back slightly, watching him watch her. That was awe, all right. Awe and desire.

  And she felt powerful and womanly and daring because of it. Slowly, she tucked the errant lock of hair behind her ear, then ran her fingers down the side of her neck, over her shoulder and slowly over her right breast.

  Jaron swallowed convulsively.

  She gave a little moan.

  “Bonnie.” He looked like he was in pain, or starving, or both.

  She smoothed her hand down her rib cage and over her thigh.

  Jaron clenched and unclenched his hands. Bonnie continued down her calf, then slowly peeled away her remaining sock. Then she leaned back on her elbows and wiggled her toes.

  After that, there was no more of that “slow and lingering” talk.

  Jaron shucked his jeans, giving her momentary pause. Long and lean, he had a runner’s body, with strongly muscled legs to match his arms. Bonnie shivered. If she’d known what she’d been dealing with before, she probably would have taken off her clothes anyway. Maybe even faster.

  As he covered her body with his, she had a brief thought about the wisdom of setting herself up for heartbreak, but as she ran her hands over his back and flanks, she figured the risk would be worth it.

  * * *

  THIS WAS HIS first time. His first time to make love. Nothing else compared. Nothing. Ever. His feelings for this woman threatened to overwhelm him. If he thought about those feelings, they would have scared him, so he didn’t think.

  Once again, Bonnie had surprised him. She’d been reluctant, but when she’d decided to stay, she’d given herself completely. Generously. Holding nothing back. Jaron was humbled and determined to give her all the pleasure he had within him to give.

  She was so responsive. Her moans and soft cries fueled his own passion.

  Bonnie. Jaron wanted to bury himself within her forever. And he wanted to do it now. But he held back, feeling his muscles strain with the effort, using his mouth and hands until he felt her shuddering release. Only after holding her until her breathing slowed did he raise himself on one elbow and kiss her temple.

  She sighed and stretched her incredible body. Lush didn’t come close to describing the curves and hollows he’d explored.

  “It’s been a really long time, but I seem to remember there’s more to this.” She opened her eyes and touched his cheek. “Please?”

  Jaron lost himself in her eyes and then lost himself in her body. She was tight and hot and perfect. And right now, she was his.

  Bonnie wrapped her legs around his waist and Jaron plunged deeper, feeling that he would explode at any moment. She whispered his name and something else he didn’t hear, then tugged his earlobe with her teeth.

  It sent him over the edge, and her name was torn from him in a shattering release.

  She held him as he’d held her, and he discovered that he needed to be held. This need was a new experience for him.

  His muscles quivered when he tried to take the weight of his body off her, but she pulled him close with a whispered, “Don’t leave.”

  “Oh, Bonnie,” he said, hoping she understood that he was trying to tell her that he had just been through the most intense experience of his life. He couldn’t absorb it all, couldn’t express himself, so he settled for another whispered, “Oh, Bonnie,” and hoped she understood.

  When the air chilled his damp skin, he rolled to his side, gathered her to him, covered them both with a quilt and fell asleep.

  * * *

  BONNIE LISTENED TO Jaron’s even breathing and felt the heavy weight of his arm across her waist. She wasn’t sleepy at all. She felt alive in a way she never had before.

  And to think she might have missed this.

  She didn’t have a lot of experience for comparison, but Bonnie was pretty sure it didn’t get any better than this.

  Jaron was not a selfish lover. If it was possible, he was almost too unselfish. She’d expected him to be controlled and demanding, but his only demand was that she enjoy herself. So she did, a couple of times as a matter of fact. The second one had caught her by surprise.

  It had been right after she told him she loved him. She was pretty sure he hadn’t heard her, and she hadn’t really wanted him to. She’d just wanted him to absorb it into his subconscious. And then maybe his subconscious would plant the idea
and he might realize that he loved her, too, at least a little.

  She did know he wasn’t ready to acknowledge his feelings yet, and if she stayed here any longer, she was bound to blabber on about love and scare him. She knew him well enough to know that he had to think of the idea of love all by himself.

  She was going to have to leave, though. Her truck was still out front and Maureen would know she hadn’t gone to visit her folks, unless she thought Bonnie had walked into the village.

  And as romantic as the cot had looked before, it was still only a cot and wasn’t all that comfortable now.

  Bonnie carefully lifted Jaron’s arm off her and sat up. She looked down at him and smiled, then leaned close and mouthed I love you into his ear, in case his subconscious had been concerned with other things and hadn’t heard her earlier.

  She slipped quietly out of the cot and gathered her clothes. There was a small rug by the bed, but the floor was dirt. Bonnie sat at his desk so she could brush off her feet before slipping on her jeans and socks. It was while she was buttoning her shirt that she actually focused on the monitor and read what he’d written before she’d interrupted him.

  And her blood turned cold. She scrolled back to the beginning of the file and read page after page of his observations and comments on her town and the people in it. To be fair, he lambasted the New Yorkers who came to the country, too, but it was his writings about the people of Shekels Square, a thinly disguised Cooper’s Corner, that hit home. Nothing he said was untrue, but it was the truth presented in the worst possible light. A mirror held up to people, he’d called it.

  So all the awful things he’d said to her he’d really meant. They had no future. There wasn’t going to be any love between them, not true love. Bonnie was Cooper’s Corner, and if he didn’t like her home or the people she grew up with, he couldn’t like or love her, not fully.

  Not the way she loved him.

  * * *

  BONNIE DIDN’T GO BACK into the main house right away. Instead, she walked along one of the bike trails to the village until she came to the spot that looked out on the huge sugar bush. It was a great view, one that photographers had turned into postcards. But to Bonnie, it was her home at its most attractive, a place where she could think.

  Unfortunately, there wasn’t a whole lot to think about. She couldn’t force Jaron to like her town, just as he couldn’t force her to like living in the city. She knew this, yet she’d fallen in love with him anyway.

  At least she hadn’t cried for a while. Any pinkness in her nose or cheeks would be from the cooling afternoon air.

  She came back to the house to find Maureen watching anxiously from the front steps. “Bonnie!” She gestured frantically.

  Bonnie took off at a run. Had her pipes sprung another leak? Or... Bonnie didn’t want to contemplate what that or might be.

  She pounded up the steps toward the front door, but Maureen intercepted her. “Come around back. I don’t want to go through the tea crowd. You worried me! When your mother said you hadn’t been to see her—”

  “I was walking.”

  “At least you’re safe.”

  “What’s happened?”

  “I’ll tell you in the office.”

  When they got to the office, Bonnie saw that Jaron—a rumpled Jaron—was already there. He gave her a questioning smile, but she shook her head and stood on the other side of the room.

  Maureen pushed aside some of the papers and sat on the corner of her desk. “Frank Quigg called a little while ago. They found Sonny O’Brien.”

  “Hallelujah,” Jaron said as Bonnie exhaled in relief.

  “He was dead. It was almost certainly a mob hit and this time there weren’t any witnesses.”

  “Even better!” Jaron said. “Not that I haven’t enjoyed your hospitality...” He stopped as Maureen shook her head.

  “You two are still witnesses.”

  “To what?”

  “Quigg is going to try to link this to McDormand,” she said.

  “Great. More power to him. But it doesn’t sound like he’s got much of a case. Bonnie and I can place McDormand at the restaurant, but that’s all.”

  “And if anything, he was trying to calm Sonny down,” Bonnie added, unable to believe she was defending a mobster.

  “Deciding if there is a case is not our job.” Maureen continued talking in a flat voice. “Sonny’s sloppiness provides a motivation for his killing. You two witnessed that sloppiness and that makes you loose ends. McDormand doesn’t leave loose ends. His legendary thoroughness is what has kept him out of jail. So, clearly, you’re in more danger now than you were. Quigg is offering you the witness security program until you can testify before a grand jury.”

  “Offering?” Jaron asked.

  “He can’t force you into it. There are very specific guidelines for the witness security program. It’s written in the U.S. Code. You can read it on the Internet. But I can tell you that it’s offered only when the federal marshals consider you to be in grave danger.”

  “I have to go, too?” Bonnie asked.

  Maureen nodded.

  “But...this is when they give people new identities and they can’t ever contact their families...” The entire time Bonnie spoke, Maureen was nodding her head solemnly.

  “They’re not forcing us,” Jaron said.

  Maureen looked extremely uncomfortable. “No, but...I can’t have you staying here. I’ve got my daughters and Keegan to consider.”

  Bonnie thought she was going to be sick.

  “I understand, of course,” Jaron said. “I’ll go pack.”

  Maureen held up her hand. “I’m not kicking you out tonight, but Quigg wants a decision by tomorrow.”

  What she didn’t say was that she wanted a decision by tomorrow, too.

  “You both can stay here and discuss this.”

  “What’s there to discuss?” Bonnie asked bitterly.

  “Whether you go together or separately.” Maureen slid off her desk and walked to the door. With her hand on the knob, she smiled. “I was in love once myself, you know. I know the signs.”

  Bonnie stared at the wooden floor as Maureen shut the door. She wished Maureen hadn’t said that.

  “I woke up and you were gone,” Jaron said softly.

  Bonnie couldn’t look at him.

  “Or rather, Maureen woke me up, so I suppose it was good that you were gone if you would rather Maureen didn’t... Bonnie, would you help me out here? I’m babbling and I’ve never babbled in my life.”

  Her eyes felt hot and she willed herself not to cry. Apparently she didn’t do a very good job because Jaron was beside her, his arms around her, in an instant. “I know this is awful, but we’ll get through it.”

  “What do we do?”

  “What do you want to do?”

  She looked at him and shook her head sadly, then decided to bring it all out, to squelch the will-we-go-together-or-not discussion before it started. “I’m a little bit country and you’re a little bit rock and roll.”

  He frowned. “You’re quoting Donny and Marie?”

  “Jaron, I read your columns. The ones on your computer.”

  His face blanched. “Bonnie, let me explain. I—”

  “Don’t. We don’t have time and it doesn’t matter. Nothing will change. The point is that you would never be happy here or anyplace like here, and I wouldn’t be happy in your world. So, as it stands now, anything we do we’ll probably do separately.”

  He stared at her, his jaw working. “I don’t know what to say.”

  Bonnie knew what he should say. He should tell her that they could make their own world. She looked at him and waited for him to tell her he loved her. If he did, now was the time. If they loved each other enough, they might find a way out
of this mess. But if he didn’t love her, then there was no point in wasting what time she had left here.

  But he said nothing. That was it, then.

  “I’m going to go spend some time with my parents. I’ll probably stay the night. If you think of anything, give me a call.”

  * * *

  HOW COULD THIS BE the best and worst day of his life? Jaron was still groggy from sleeping most of the afternoon. He wasn’t as sharp as he needed to be, and he was aware that he hadn’t been at his best with Bonnie. In truth, he was still reeling from the news. He needed to clear his head.

  Home. He needed to go home. If he did decide to go into the protection program, he wasn’t doing it without seeing his home one last time.

  He walked slowly out of the office and saw Seth loading equipment into his truck. “Seth, I need a favor.”

  “What’s up?”

  “I need a ride into Pittsfield.”

  “When?” Seth slammed his tailgate shut.

  “Now?”

  Seth shrugged. “Hop in.”

  Relief flooded through Jarod. He was going home. “Let me grab a couple of things and I’ll be right with you.”

  * * *

  JARON GOT OFF THE TRAIN and inhaled deeply. Ah, now there was good solid air. Air the way it should be. When a person took a breath in New York, by gum, he knew he’d breathed.

  He started to hail a cab, then stopped. He wanted to walk the streets of the city. He wasn’t afraid. It was dark, nobody knew where he was, and he looked very different than he had a few weeks ago.

  It was time he faced the fact that he was different.

  He walked for blocks, slipping into clubs both familiar and new, and stood outside restaurants looking at the people, his people. He went to his mother’s apartment building, but couldn’t get past the doorman without giving his name, and then realized it was just as well. He walked on, thinking as he went.

  How could Bonnie not like the city? She liked parts of it; she had entire books with pictures of its buildings. Couldn’t she feel the energy? Jaron fed off it. He felt more alive than he’d felt since...since he’d made love to Bonnie that afternoon.