Janelle Taylor

by Night Moves

  Jordan nodded and climbed out into the still evening air.

  The heat was oppressive even now that dark was descending. Cicadas hummed a familiar rhythm, and an occasional car passed along the street behind her as she unlocked the front door and waited for Beau to carry Spencer up the steps.

  She looked up and down the street, a quiet tree-and-shrub-lined stretch off a main Georgetown thorough-fare. She realized that anyone could be lurking in a window of one of the town houses that lined the block, or in the foliage-draped shadows.

  The very idea that someone sinister might be looking for Spencer made her blood run cold. She hugged herself as she stood on the stoop in the warm June dusk, stepping aside to let Beau cross the threshold with his precious burden.

  Inside, she whispered, “Let’s put him right up in bed.”

  “He’s exhausted,” Beau whispered back. “He’ll probably sleep right through till morning.”

  Jordan led the way to the second-floor guest room.

  She pulled back the covers and Beau deposited the sleeping child gently on his bed. Swiftly and expertly, he undressed the little boy and changed him into pajamas without waking him.

  Watching his movements, Jordan was suddenly struck by the notion that Beau must have done this before. Where she was consistently awkward in her attempts to button and unbutton little-boy shirts and figure out which was the back and which was the front of his tiny pajama bottoms, Beau seemed to know instinctively.

  It’s because he’s a guy, she told herself illogically.

  But something told her that wasn’t the case. It was because he had done this before. There was something too comfortable about the way he tucked Spencer’s sheets and blankets up to his chin, bending to kiss the boy tenderly on the head before stepping back from the bed.

  He turned to see her watching him, and was clearly startled by the expression on her face.

  “What?” he asked, his voice hushed as she turned out the bedside lamp.

  She shook her head, unwilling to voice her hunch, instead bending to place her own kiss on the little boy. It landed near his brow. The child sleepily swatted at the spot as though a mosquito were buzzing there.

  Together, Beau and Jordan tiptoed from the room. In the hall she paused to turn the air conditioner to a lower setting. The house felt warm and close now that she was accustomed to the temperature change from outside.

  She descended the stairs behind Beau. At the bottom, they faced each other.

  She wanted to say good-bye. But what she heard herself say instead was, “Do you want some coffee?”

  “Only if you have iced. It’s too hot for anything steamy.”

  Too hot for steamy kisses, she found herself thinking irrationally, forcing her gaze away from his full lips. Aloud, she said, “I have iced tea.”

  “That would be good.”

  They walked into the kitchen.

  She saw the light blinking on her answering machine. “I’d better check my messages first,” she said. “Maybe…”

  She trailed off, remembering.

  No longer was she waiting for a call from Phoebe. That call would never come now.

  Swallowing over the lump that rose in her throat, she walked to the machine and pressed the button. The tape rewound.

  She had one message. It was from old Mrs. Villeroy, who lived two doors down.

  The requisite pesky neighbor, Mrs. Villeroy often called Jordan to borrow something or to ask for a favor. There was no telling what she wanted this time. She said the same thing she always did, “Hello, Jordan, this is Velma Villeroy. Please call me as soon as you get back.”

  Jordan sighed, pressing the erase button.

  With all that had happened, she wasn’t in the mood to deal with Mrs. Villeroy tonight. She’d remind herself to call back tomorrow.

  “Friend of yours?” Beau asked as the tape rewound. He had come up behind her, standing a few feet away.

  “Neighbor.”

  The few moments outside in the humid night air had dampened her hair with sweat, sending trickles of it down inside the turtleneck. Jutting her lower lip to send a breath of breeze at her sticky hairline, she bent to untie her white canvas sneakers. She kicked them off, longing to shed also the confinement of the high-necked shirt and rumpled linen shorts.

  She could feel Beau’s eyes on her as she turned and padded past him onto the cool tile of the kitchen floor. She didn’t dare look at him. She was afraid of what she might see in his expression, now that they were truly alone together.

  She walked to the cupboard and took out two tall cobalt iced-tea glasses, then opened the fridge and reached for the matching pitcher. Beside it on the shelf was a wicker basket of peaches she’d bought yesterday. “Are you hungry?”

  “No,” he said simply.

  She glanced at him as she poured, and she realized that she was hungry. Starved for another one of those soul-searing kisses.

  Gradually, her resolve was falling away. She was growing far too weary to battle her attraction for this man. All that she had been through in the past twenty-four hours—the trauma, Spencer’s adversity, the lack of sleep, the kiss—had depleted her conviction. She could no longer stand firm against the magnetic force that drew her to Beau Somerville.

  He wasn’t good for her. He wasn’t what she wanted.

  Yet right now, he was what she needed. And maybe that was enough.

  Right now.

  She swallowed hard, finding it hard not to let her knees buckle beneath her as she crossed the room to hand him the glass.

  He took it and sipped.

  She did the same, letting the cool, lemony liquid slide down her throat, though her thirst had evaporated with the realization that they were alone together again.

  Errant thoughts drifted into her mind. Indecent thoughts.

  She watched Beau lower the glass and lick his lips, and she knew that if she closed her eyes, she could imagine his moist mouth on the tender pulse point behind her ear, his hot tongue trailing lower …

  Oh, Lord. How could she be thinking such things at a time like this?

  Jordan tried to force her mind back to the more serious matter at hand, but her thoughts refused to budge.

  How could she try to convince herself that she didn’t want Beau when she wanted him as she had never wanted a man in her life?

  She wanted him to carry her up the stairs as tenderly as he had carried Spencer. She wanted to be secure in his arms, her cheek cradled against his strong chest. She wanted him to lay her gently on her bed and deftly undress her.

  And then …

  And then she ached for him to make love to her, to let her prove that she was alive, that life would go on. She yearned for sweet release from the constant bonds of restraint. She couldn’t stand another moment of keeping it all bottled inside—the grief, the loneliness, the pain, the desire.

  Beau’s green eyes collided with hers, and in that instant, she saw her own pent-up anguish mirrored there. She knew that he felt it, too. That he needed deliverance as desperately as she did.

  Slowly, Beau set his sweat-beaded glass of iced tea on the counter beside them. Even more slowly, he reached out and took hers. She released it into his hand, knowing and yet not knowing what would happen next.

  Jordan held her breath as she watched Beau carefully place her glass on the cool granite next to his.

  Their eyes were locked once again, and Beau was looking at her in a way that left no ambiguity as to his intentions.

  “Jordan, if you don’t tell me to get the hell out of your house right now,” he said raggedly, his face mere inches from hers, “we’re both going to be sorry.”

  Sirens blasted in her head. He was right. Of course he was right. All she had to do was say the word, and he would go.

  “You’re leaving town tomorrow?” Her voice was lower, huskier than usual.

  He nodded. “As long as… as long as you don’t need me here.”

  She shook her head.

&nb
sp; An unspoken agreement passed between them. They would have this one night together, and then he would go away.

  After he was gone, she would be left alone with Spencer, but she could handle that more readily than she could handle having Beau here, facing the aftermath of what they were about to do.

  They stared into each other’s eyes for another long moment.

  Jordan held her breath.

  Then Beau swept her into his arms and kissed her. As his warm, wet mouth glided over hers at last, Jordan spiraled into another realm. Here, there were no conscious thoughts, no worries, no boundaries. Here, there was nothing but sensation.

  Beau’s tongue swirled into her mouth, igniting a passionate duel with hers that left her gasping with pleasure when he lifted his head. Then he was kissing the nape of her neck, breathing fire in the tender hollow beneath her ears where she had longed for his touch only moments before.

  His arms held her fast along the length of his body. The evidence of his arousal had her squirming against him, and he groaned, lifting her so that her legs were wrapped around his waist, her arms around his neck.

  “Where?” he ground out in her ear before devouring her mouth again.

  “Upstairs,” she replied breathlessly when they came up for air.

  As though he had read her mind before, Beau carried her up the stairs, past the closed guest room door.

  Crossing the threshold into her room, he kicked the door closed and deposited her on the rumpled bed. Heedless of the tangled sheets and quilt, he went to work on her clothes, pulling her shirt off and fumbling for a moment with the front clasp on her bra.

  She raised herself to accommodate him, propped on her elbows as he lifted the bra away and at last her breasts spilled from the lacy silk confinement. He looked down at her almost reverently before groaning and bending to taunt one taut nipple with his hot tongue.

  With a sigh, Jordan sank back against a cloud of down pillows and comforter that were heaped beneath her head and shoulders, allowing sensation to sweep her away once again. She sailed blissfully toward oblivion, borne along by the incredible sensation of Beau’s wet mouth working first one sensitive nub, then the other, then sliding lower, over her stomach.

  He lifted his head only briefly, to see what he was doing as he unfastened her shorts and slid them down, taking her panties with them. They were impatiently discarded over the edge of the bed before he put his hands on her thighs, pushing them gently apart. She opened her mouth to protest just as his made slippery contact with her most intimate flesh, and a purr of pure pleasure escaped her instead.

  Lost to the promising ripples he sent cascading through her, Jordan wove her fingers into Beau’s thick hair, clutching him to her as if she feared he might pull away. But he made no move to lift his head or cease his tongue’s swirling caresses, and too soon, she felt the unmistakable quivers of impending eruption. She began to writhe in an attempt to lessen the exquisite contact, to prolong the agonizing wait. But his strong hands held her hips fast and his expert suckling went on … and on … until she exploded beneath him and around him, gasping his name.

  As if the sound of his name on her lips beckoned him to her, he lifted his head at last, propping himself, fully clothed, above the length of her naked body.

  “Please,” she whimpered, as the waves of her climax left even greater need in their wake. She tugged at his shirt, then slid her fingertips beneath the sweat-dampened cotton fabric, stroking warm skin and firm muscle, holding his shoulders and lifting her hips to make contact with his arousal.

  He groaned as she rubbed against him, his eyes drifting closed momentarily. Then he opened them and looked at her, as though he had to force himself to stay focused. She began kissing his neck, his skin salty and sweet. Their hips rocked together in an intimate rhythm until she squirmed, needing to be closer than that, needing to remove the barrier of his clothes that lay between them. She tugged at the waistband of his shorts, but he put a hand on hers to stop her.

  Startled, she looked at him.

  “Oh, hell, Jordan … I don’t have … anything,” he said raggedly, his panting breaths stirring her hair.

  Protection. He didn’t have protection. Her heart sank.

  “Do you … ?” He trailed off, seeing the look on her face. “I didn’t think so,” he said flatly.

  He rolled off her and lay, breathing hard, on his back. She lay beside him, staring at the lazily circulating paddle fan above the bed and slowly sinking back down to earth.

  She landed with a thud and the realization that if Beau hadn’t thought about protection, it wouldn’t have occurred to her.

  She had so blindly wanted him that she hadn’t stopped to worry about pregnancy, or STDs. Even now, she was half tempted to throw caution to the wind….

  And she might have, if he hadn’t sat up when he did, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, away from her, effectively shattering what was left of the mood.

  “I should go,” he said, not looking at her.

  She instinctively pulled the sheet up to cover her nudity, suddenly self-conscious. So they were back to this awkward sidestepping around each other, she thought darkly. She had told herself she would just allow this brief interlude, this one night with him….

  But her escape hadn’t even lasted that long.

  “Will you be okay if I go?” he asked, ever the Southern gentleman, bending to put on the shoes he had kicked off at some point.

  “I’ll be fine,” she lied.

  “Not just about this,” he said, straightening and turning to look at her. “I mean, with Spencer.”

  “I’ll be fine,” she said again.

  “What will you do?”

  She noticed his use of the word you. Until now, she had felt almost as though they were a team. He had allowed her to feel that way, she realized. And no matter what she had told herself, or said to him …

  She didn’t want him to leave tomorrow. She didn’t want him to be miles away, leaving her to grapple with her loss, and Spencer’s loss, and the veiled threat Phoebe had seemed to imply.

  He searched her face. “If you need me—”

  “I don’t,” she said, and it came out sharply. “You can go. Really. I’ll figure out what to do.”

  “Are you sure?”

  She nodded.

  He stood. “I’ll call when I get home. I’ll only be gone a week.”

  She nodded again, unable to speak.

  “Okay, then. I’ll talk to you soon.” He was watching her as he headed for the door.

  She made no move to follow him.

  “Aren’t you coming down with me?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  “But you should lock the door after I go, Jordan. Just in case…”

  “I will,” she said, fighting back the bitterness—and fear—that rose in her throat. She was going to be alone again. Alone—and perhaps in danger. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to ask him to stay, and he wasn’t going to offer again.

  He stood by the door, waiting.

  She managed to speak again. “Just go, Beau. I’ll come down and lock up after you leave.”

  “Okay.”

  With a slight wave, he was gone.

  She lay listening to his footsteps retreating down the stairs, then heard him open the door and close it firmly behind him.

  He didn’t slam it, she noted dully, but he might as well have.

  Chapter Seven

  Tuesday morning, Beau woke to the bleat of the alarm he had set the night before.

  Groaning, he came instantly to consciousness, welcoming it as he rolled over to turn off the alarm.

  He saw that it wasn’t quite five o’clock. He’d better get up and take another shower—this time a hot one, unlike the one he’d taken before bed last night.

  Returning home from Jordan’s, his body aching with frustration and unsated need, he had stepped directly into an icy stream of water, hoping to ease the tension enough to sleep.

 
But it was hours before he managed to drift off, and when he did, his dreams carried him back to the place his restless waking thoughts had visited. At first, he saw only Jordan and Spencer, and they were in trouble, and he was leaving them behind.

  Yet as the nightmarish sequence his mind had conjured wore on, it took an unexpected turn. Jordan and Spencer became Jeanette and Tyler. He knew they were in trouble, knew he had to save them, yet he was powerless to get to them.

  It was a familiar dream—one that had haunted him over the years. But the parallel between his lost wife and son, and Jordan and Spencer left Beau feeling uneasy.

  He toweled off after his shower, and put his shaving cream, razor, and deodorant into the small leather bag he used for toiletries when he traveled. It already contained several items he kept in it: spare razor blades, ibuprofin, extra shoelaces … and a small package of condoms.

  Seeing them, he shook his head. If he’d had them with him last night, things would be different right now.

  But he wasn’t the type to carry condoms around in his wallet, just in case. He had really only had two serious relationships in his life: Jeanette and Lisa. In fact, it was because of Lisa that the condoms were here in the first place.

  She had gone off the pill a year ago, saying that it was making her nauseated. But that was right around the time she began talking nonstop of marrying Beau and having a child with him. He suspected that she had stopped her oral contraception in preparation for pregnancy. In reality, that was the beginning of the end for them. He knew that he couldn’t go down that road ever again, and that it was unfair of him to stay with Lisa, who deserved marriage and a family—blessings he’d already had and lost.

  In the kitchen, as Beau went through the motions of preparing a bowl of cereal and a glass of fresh-squeezed juice, he pondered the day ahead.

  Last night, he had convinced himself that after heading over to the office this morning to tie up all the loose ends he had left yesterday, he would make the long drive to the beach house as planned.

  Jordan hadn’t said anything to change his mind.

  If only they hadn’t recklessly tumbled into bed together …