Her eyes closed and her lips parted as she sighed. She released a whispered plea as he stroked his hands across her shoulders, lowered them to smooth her chest, grazing the rounded tops of her breasts with his knuckles. He slid his fingers between her breasts and into the thin hollow between her bra and her satin skin.
Impatient suddenly, resentful of this barrier separating her from his gaze and touch, he jerked the restraint downward, causing her to gasp and her breasts to spill free. Holding her all but draped across his arm, he gazed down at her bared torso, so hungry, so wanting her that he shook with the need.
She moaned a little, inflaming him anew, and as if the sound released him from a spell, he swiftly cupped one breast, massaging it deeply while lowering his mouth to the other and capturing her turgid nipple between his already suckling lips.
Close to fainting, Taylor felt inchoate phrases slipping from her lips, begging him to continue, perhaps just begging him, arching still further back as he laved her sensitive skin with his wickedly knowledgeable tongue. At her plea, he recaptured her lips, and she tasted a hint of her own perfume before she felt the heat of his mouth searing away all tastes but their own commingled desire.
Steve’s skilled hands roamed the curves and valleys of her body, releasing a raging torrent of want and need. If she had any doubts about the rightness of what they were doing, about tomorrow and next year, this would be her last moment to voice them. Questions flitted across her dazzled mind and were driven away unanswered by his sure touch.
Her every nerve ending quivered for him, her body singing as pulse after throbbing pulse of pure adrenaline coursed through her veins.
Years before, after a school dance, she’d fallen in love with a headstrong, impulsive boy with laughing eyes and a good heart. But she wasn’t a girl anymore, and this was no boy kissing her now. Nor did she want him to be.
He swore suddenly and propelled her across the porch until her back met the smooth, recently painted clapboards. And he growled a low imprecation as she buried her hands in his silky hair, gripping it as surely as his hands molded her form to his.
His hands strafed her body, brushing her blouse from her arms, abandoning it to the porch floor, letting her bra fall to her waist, ignored by both of them. He lowered his head to the chasm between her breasts, cupping her fullness to his cheeks, then pressing her breasts together to kiss their hardened tips, suckling her, nipping at her, nuzzling until her knees buckled and he ground his body to hers, catching her, pinning her to the wall.
He swore again and dragged the screen door open, half carrying her, half falling over her as he push-pulled her inside. She knew she’d never felt quite as dazed before, drugged with his scent, with want of him. This wasn’t a product of her loneliness, this was a tornadolike, violent storm raging through her body and mind. She yanked his shirt from his waistband and swiftly unfastened the last of his buttons, moaning at the feel of his broad, muscled chest beneath her fingers, his flesh as hot as flames. She both heard and felt his swift intake of air as her arms encircled his waist and she drew herself sharply against him, straining to meet him, arching back to allow him full access to her naked upper body.
“Taylor...” he murmured, sweeping one hand over her breasts, dipping lower and gripping the button securing her jeans. “I want...”
“Yes,” she whispered, raising a leg to hook him still more tightly against her.
“Oh, God,” he muttered, seemingly abandoning whatever restraint he had left to begin pulling at her jeans, unzipping them and plunging his hand behind her, into her waistband and lower, beneath her panties to grab her bottom in a swift, almost angry need. He arched his own back, his hips thrusting against her, letting her know the full extent of his desire for her. “You’re driving me insane, Taylor.”
“Yes,” she whispered again, agreeing with him as she would have agreed to anything on earth at that moment. He lifted her leg higher, hitching her up, running his hands down the back of her thighs, then back to her waistband to tug at her jeans.
She slid from him and he swiftly stripped her remaining clothing from her, shoving it to the floor in a ruthless, utterly determined sweep of his hands and feet. Instead of grabbing her to him, as she’d expected, he ceased all motion and simply stared at her.
Totally nude now, bathed in the light of the overhead lamp, she was suddenly shocked into awareness of how far they’d traveled in such a very short time.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said, making her somehow more naked beneath his raw gaze. Hunger, want, even supplication were evident in his eyes. And a huge question.
And the question freed her from her momentary panic, her brief return to a glimmer of sanity. She stepped forward and pushed his shirt from his shoulders, letting it fall to join her own clothes on her kitchen floor. Somehow it seemed fitting that their clothes tangled together before their bodies met.
She suspected he had no idea how terribly vulnerable he was, how precarious his hold on his self-enforced solitude. But his doubts, his fears and his desire for her were etched clearly on his face.
“Steve...” she murmured, giving him the gift of his name. “Oh, Steve.”
He did sweep her to him then, kissing her hungrily, with a passion that verged on desperation. And when her knees buckled this time, he lifted her from the ground completely, wrapping her legs around his waist, kneading her bare bottom, drawing every nuance of desire from her lips.
Never breaking his kiss, he strode from the kitchen, pushing her against the swinging door and through to the other side, down the brightly lit hallway to her opened bedroom door.
“Taylor?” he rasped, pausing for a second at the threshold.
She didn’t know what he was asking her exactly but dimly understood that some further acceptance or affirmation was needed before he would carry her into her cool, dark bedroom.
She was half-aware that he might be thinking of Doug, perhaps of the nights she’d cried alone in this room. And maybe he was remembering his divorces, his losses. She pressed a kiss to his lips, breathing heavily against him, straining to meet him, aching to feel his naked flesh against hers.
It seemed all the answer he needed, for he swept through the doorway and into her bedroom. He lowered them both to the bed, leading her, following her, dancing with her in the most ancient of dances, crushing her against the cold quilt covering her sheets.
Her turn now, she grappled with the button at his waistband, released it finally, then slowly eased the zipper open. He muttered something between a plea and a curse when she slipped her hands beneath his shorts and slid both shorts and pants down his long, muscular legs.
Before she could kick the pants free from the bed, he snatched them up and plunged his hand into a pocket, withdrawing his wallet. He flipped it open. His Texas Ranger star gleamed briefly in the dim light from the hallway, freezing her, reminding her. He reached in a flap behind it and withdrew a plastic packet and tossed the wallet aside.
She felt a rush of embarrassment sweep across her cheeks, inflaming them. She had never thought of protection. Not once. And here she was with a man whose entire profession spelled protection...who was protecting her.
She followed his hand as he slid the thin sheath over his length, and he groaned as she enfolded him completely, murmuring his name against his ear, whispering his name, pleading for him to come to her.
Steve could no more have resisted that plea than to jump into an icy lake at that moment. Some dim thought of prolonging things crossed his mind, of needing to imprint himself on her or perhaps the reverse, so that in the future, they would each have this one perfect memory. But when she fell back upon the bed, all rational thought fled.
In the dim light from the hallway he could see her body dewy with a sheen of desire, her eyes lidded with languor.
“Please, Steve...” she murmured, restlessly moving her head, stretching a hand up to him.
He’d never wanted any woman as much as Taylor. Never had, never wo
uld.
Her hands found him and guided him to her, and he lost hold of thought totally and plunged into her, burying himself in her hot core, rasping her name as her molten body encased him.
Theirs was no easy, gentle meeting of bodies and souls. It was like a fiery conflagration, consuming the both of them. She matched him thrust for parry, lunge for withdrawal. He could feel her hands digging into his back, his buttocks, and felt her satiny long legs wrap around his, fiercely holding him deep inside her.
The passion that flared between them burst into full flame, searing his mind, his soul, burning its way through his body and into hers. This was where he’d wanted to be since that first time he’d seen her, where he’d wanted to be two years ago when he saw her standing alone and in black, and where he’d dreamed of being the night before. And where he’d wanted to be all that time ago back in college. He could now admit he’d spent his entire adult life wanting her.
God only knew what would happen on the morrow, when sanity returned and bridges were thoroughly burned. But now, right now, he was in the one place on earth he wanted to be. The only place. And she was with him. Totally, completely with him. He covered her mouth with his, catching her ragged breathing with his own, his tongue thrusting against hers in exactly the same rhythm as his body met hers.
Faster and faster they rocked together. Swiftly and surely they locked into a rhythm as endless as the sands that blanketed the West Texas plains. And when her breathing deepened and hitched and she arched back, he held her tightly as she cried out, clinging to him in utter abandon.
He savored the expressions flying across her face, the joy, the pain, the ecstasy, the fierce exultation, and then he couldn’t think at all as her body claimed his. He couldn’t do anything but give in to the need she’d roused in him, the throbbing, desperate release that shook him to his very soul and seemed to shatter the universe with the intensity of its explosion.
Gasping, then stilling abruptly, shuddering as spasm after spasm drew him ever deeper into Taylor, he cried her name aloud as she had called his. He was dimly aware that she held him, drawing every last bit of strength from him, then gently restored it to him with long, stroking fingers and soothing kisses.
Shuddering, he slumped against her, trying not to crush her, chuckling as she shoved at his elbows so that his full weight pressed her against her bed. And still she held him tight. So tight and warm. And so lovingly.
Her body still quivered with the force of her release and his shook in response to her diminishing spasms. She chuckled and he smiled and pressed a kiss to her temple, only to feel tears.
“Are you crying?” he asked, freezing.
“Mmm. Because it—you—were so wonderful.”
He kissed away the remnants of her tears, not entirely sure he understood them, only half believing her words. Afraid of believing them. Afraid because he could too easily buy them, too readily accept a fantasy in lieu of reality.
Her hands on his back tightened then dropped to her sides as if she had no strength left. She sighed heavily and he felt her breasts press against his chest. He started to withdraw from her, but she swiftly raised her hands again to stop him.
“Don’t leave,” she said.
“I’m not leaving,” he answered, and his words seemed to echo in her cold bedroom, in the warm bed, like a vow. Like a promise.
She sighed and he felt her smile. “I’m glad,” she said.
He felt like every kind of proverbial fool when he smiled in response.
Drowsily she kissed him.
Dazedly, he kissed her back.
Nearly asleep, she murmured, “I think I love you.”
Shocked awake, he held her without speaking while she slipped into sleep.
Chapter 12
Taylor tried not to stare at Steve as he listened to someone on the telephone. Though he’d risen early and showered and dressed before she ever came into the kitchen, he looked more haggard than he should have. Dark circles rimmed his lower lids and his mouth was tight and hard.
Not at all the way it had felt the night before. Then, his lips had been warm, as soft as heated velvet, and they’d pressed tenderly against her throat, her mouth, her breasts.
She’d expected not to sleep, to wake at his every movement, but she hadn’t; she’d slept deeper and more soundly than she could remember having done in months and months. Maybe years.
When she’d glanced in the mirror to brush her teeth and hair, she couldn’t help but see the change in her. Everything about her seemed different. Her eyes glowed a brighter blue, her cheeks appeared rosier. She somehow felt a whole woman again. Together inside and out. Steve had wrought this change; he had done this for her.
And Steve hadn’t once looked at her since she’d walked into the kitchen.
He muttered a quick thanks and hung up the phone. And still he didn’t turn in her direction.
“The police in Lubbock found a car fitting the description I called in yesterday,” he said, gazing at her open-faced cabinets, his eyes resting on a collection of the boys’ action figures.
“What car was that?”
“One of the men at the party here yesterday said he’d seen a strange car in town the other day. He was vague about when, but specific on what...a white four-door Chevrolet, a ninety or ninety-one. And then, Delbert Franklin described having seen what sounded like the same car. Not much to go on, but the Lubbock force found one at the airport this morning. Red dust on the tires...blood on the left side of the back seat.”
Taylor wanted to ask him to look at her, to just turn and meet her eyes, affirm what had passed so beautifully between them the night before. She started forward, her hand outstretched, but as if he had radar where she was concerned, he shifted slightly to the left, checking her touch.
“They’re going to check with the morgue in Levelland, see if an autopsy’s already been done. If it has, they might be able to work up a match on the blood work.”
She shoved her hand into a pocket and curled her fingers into a fist.
He shrugged as if he could feel the tension in her and was shaking it off his broad back. “The front fender has several scratches on it, scratches that could have been made running through a barrow ditch, into a fence post and on through a maize field. But the real kicker is that it was rented by one of the names we found on the guy yesterday. Richard DuFraunt. The police have already run a fingerprint check. The car was wiped clean. Except for the blood.”
“Steve...?”
He stiffened, as if anticipating a blow. Or hoping she wouldn’t talk? He spoke quickly, ducking emotion. “Which leads us back to exactly where we were...one dead guy in Armani, the same man who helped work Pete Jackson over last spring, apparently heavily connected with the drug cartel working through Almost, and not a single clue as to who shot him and threw him in Delbert’s field.”
Taylor felt as if she were standing in quicksand. One wrong word, one wrong gesture and she would slip deeper into a quagmire of uncertainty. Watching him, silently begging him to just look her way, she felt afraid that everything magical that had blossomed between them might evaporate into the bright morning light.
Surely that couldn’t happen. Steve wouldn’t do that to her. Couldn’t.
She hadn’t been alone in that darkened bedroom. He’d been right there with her, in every way, physically, emotionally. Lovingly.
“Steve, I—”
The front door banged open and her troupe of wild elephants thundered down the hallway and burst into the kitchen.
“We already ate breakfast at Aunt Carolyn’s. We had pancakes!”
“What did you guys have? Is there any left?”
“You should see everybody in town, Steve. I swear every field around Almost has somebody out in it looking for dead guys. Honest.”
“We looked all in Jenny and Shawna’s barn, but we didn’t find nothing.”
“Anything,” Taylor corrected automatically, wishing her boys anywhere on earth but i
n her kitchen at that moment.
“Mom, a guy can’t think about grammar when there’s dead guys around!”
“A guy had better,” she suggested with a look.
The boys, as they had the day before, seemed to sense the tension between the two adults. Taylor would have granted them full reprieve from community service if they had followed their instincts of the day before and disappeared. But this time, they apparently psychically and collectively decided that direct action was needed.
“What’s going on?”
“Something wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” Taylor lied, finally looking away from Steve’s brick wall of a back to move to the sink. “Nothing at all.”
She tried not to turn around, tried not to look. But she couldn’t help herself. She felt as if a part of her died a little when she found he hadn’t moved.
“Are we going to go out for more investigating to-day?”
“You know what I think, Steve? We should check out Mr. Hampton’s loft. I’ll bet the killer hid the murder weapon up there.”
“Hey, yeah, that’s a good idea!”
“Or we could see what we find in Delbert Franklin’s field. You know, past where he found the dead guy and all. Like Kurt Thompson found that fancy gun in Charlie Hampton’s sorghum.”
“What do you think, Steve?”
He turned then, not looking at her but at her sons’ bright, eager faces. His own was somber, shadowed by far more than mere sleeplessness. A humorless smile quirked his lips into a grimace. “I’m afraid the FBI is taking over this case,” he said.
If he’d dropped a strange bomb that robbed preteen triplets of speech, Taylor thought he couldn’t have hoped for greater silence than his words produced.
It was Jonah who finally broke the spell. “You’re leaving,” he said, his rigid stance an accusation.
Steve flicked a glance in Taylor’s general direction, though it fell far short of meeting her eyes. As he looked back down at her sons, she had to close her own eyes. To hide the pain his words caused. He was leaving.
Almost A Family Page 16
