Traffic noise. She ran down the steps and around the corner. Maybe she could find a cop. Or anyone. She didn't even care anymore if she got in trouble and they called her mom and her dad and the freaking state police, if she could just get somewhere away from that guy.
It was a busy street, one she recognized. They'd had pizza at that place when Pam had come for orientation. And her mom had bought a purse at that shop on the corner. Which meant that Pam's dorm had to be…
A pickup turned the corner. Cait gasped and ran back toward the building. She found a tall bush and ducked beneath it.
She watched the pickup pass, but couldn't tell if it was Eric’s or not. It could be. Her whole body was shaking and she couldn't move, couldn't get her legs to carry her and she wasn't sure where she would go even if she could.
She felt tears running down her cheeks and all she wanted was to see Pam.
A few minutes after the pickup passed she crouched and ran to the left, toward Pam's dorm. She kept to the shadows and one eye on the street.
She crept along until she came to another lit doorway. She scurried up the steps, but that one was locked, too. This looked like Pam's dorm. She crouched back down and moved to the front of the building, until she saw Dover Hall in big metal letters on the front. Her heart leapt and she wanted to cry.
She would call Pam again. Except…her phone was in her backpack. In that creep's pickup.
Pam's room was on the fourth floor. Not much chance of being able to throw a rock and wake her up. She hugged her arms around herself and fought back the urge to cry. She wanted to see Pam so bad. She wanted to see a familiar face. She wanted to be home in her bed.
Headlights swung into the parking lot beside the dorm, and she leapt back against the building. She didn't think it was Eric, but she couldn't be sure.
Two people got out and they dragged something big and heavy from the back seat. It slid to the ground and she heard laughter. As they got closer she saw it was two guys, dragging an unconscious girl. When they got closer and the light from the porch shone on them, she realized the girl was Pam.
“Pam!” She stepped out of the shadows and the guys stopped.
“We didn't do anything,” one of them said. “She got drunk and passed out.”
“Is she okay?” She threw herself down and tried to open Pam’s eyes. Pam groaned and squeezed them shut.
“She's fine. We've gotta go.”
They dropped her in a heap beside Cait and ran back to their car. One of them started giggling as he got in the car. It sprayed gravel as they drove away.
“Pam.” Cait tapped her sister's cheek, tears streaming down her own. “Wake up. Let's go to your room.”
Pam didn't move. Cait lifted her head. “Pam, wake up!”
Pam groaned but didn't move.
“Pam, please. Please wake up. Please.”
Pam's eyes fluttered open. “Ugh.”
“Get up. Where's your key? Let's go to your room.”
“Purse,” Pam said thickly. She looked around on the ground, her head wobbly.
“Where's your purse?”
Pam blinked and swayed. “Purse,” she said again.
“You don't have your purse. Did you leave it somewhere?”
Pam stared at the ground, bug-eyed.
“Pam, damn it, what is wrong with you? Where is your purse? Can we get in without your key?”
Pam's head wobbled again and Cait thought she was trying to say no.
“We have to get inside,” Cait said, fresh tears welling. “How do we get in, Pam? How do we get inside?”
Pam opened her mouth, grunted, then threw up at Cait's feet.
Karen closed her eyes and let the hot water run over her head, face and shoulders. She was kind of sore from sleeping on the couch, but she didn't really care. The pleasure last night more than made up for every little ache and pain.
She heard the bathroom door and her eyes flew open. “Ummm…hello?”
“Hello.” The shower door opened and Will stood there, completely naked. “Room for me in there?”
She grinned and motioned for him to step inside. “I was hoping that was you,” she said.
He wrapped his arm around her and kissed her on the nose. “And not one of the dozens of other possibilities?”
“I thought for a moment it could have been Cait, if she'd decided to come home this morning instead of going to Michael's. I wasn't sure how I was going to explain the naked man on the couch.”
“I actually considered the same possibility and picked up all my stuff. I'm assuming there's a window I can sneak out of if she comes home unexpectedly.”
“Sure, the same one you came through the other night.”
He leaned back and quirked an eyebrow. “I didn't come through a window. I told you, the back door.”
“Oh yeah.” Then she remembered the flower basket on the floor in the hallway. “Someone went through that window. Ugh. Do you think Cait was sneaking out one night?”
“She wouldn't be the first person to do that.”
“I think I'll install a hidden camera. Or a nice, loud alarm system.”
Will twisted them so he was under the water, too. “Have you seen anything else like that? Anything that would make you think someone had been in your house?”
She shook her head. “No, just that one time when the window in the upstairs hallway had been opened and the flowers knocked off the table. In fact I keep thinking someone is breaking in but they never are.”
“You keep thinking someone is breaking in?”
“I keep thinking I hear someone outside but no one’s there.” At the look on his face she shuddered. “What’s going on?”
“Someone has been in my apartment.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. Michael. Someone Michael sent.”
“What did they do?”
“I didn’t have time to look, but the logical conclusion is that he’s planting something else.”
She groaned. “This sucks! I hate this. What is he doing?”
Will wrapped his arms around her and kissed her. “It’s okay. Remember our meeting with Kitty. Michael has been able to get this far because we had nothing to fight back with. After 3 o’clock today we’ll have ammunition. And we’ll use it.”
“Damn right. I’m not losing my daughter and going to jail just so he can play senator.”
She lifted her head for him to kiss her. “My, but you have minty fresh breath for someone who slept on my couch.”
“I found a box of new toothbrushes in your downstairs bathroom and used one. Mind if I ask why you buy toothbrushes in bulk? Is there some kind of shortage on the horizon that I don't know about?”
Karen laughed and slipped her arms around his waist. “Terri works for a dentist. She gave me a box when they cleaned out their supply room.” She rested her head against his chest.
“Convenient, for unexpected overnight guests.”
“Exactly, I give them to all the men who sleep on my couch.”
He was so beautiful, strong and lean and warm against her. She'd never been so intrigued and so comfortable with Michael's body. But then, Michael wasn't as comfortable with his own body as Will was. Michael had always been cool and reserved.
Will was the opposite of cool. It was almost as if she could feel the blood humming below his skin. She stroked his back over and over, the valley of his spine as it curved down to his butt, back up where the smooth skin spread over broad shoulders.
They stood under the warm spray silently, holding each other, and she tried not to wonder too much about the future. Everything would work itself out, and she didn't need to even think about where things were going between her and Will. It didn't matter. In this day, people had casual sex and didn't even give a thought about whether or not it meant anything serious. It happened all the time.
Not to her, of course. She'd had sex with exactly three people in her life. Bobby Templeton, who was her high school boyfriend,
and Michael, whom she'd married and now Will, who stood holding her and stroking her jaw.
He lifted her chin and kissed her, tenderly, his lips caressing hers slowly, as if savoring every centimeter. His beard and goatee were wet, the hair soft as it brushed against her cheeks, her lips.
She felt him stir against her leg, and her heart quickened. He tightened his grip on her waist and tucked his hand into her hair, fingers massaging the back of her head, thumb stroking her jaw line.
“Karen,” he said, his voice gruff. He stepped closer and she leaned against the shower wall, tugging him to lean against her.
“Hmmm,” she said. “Don't tell me you're ready to go again already?”
“Already? It's been, what…six or eight hours.”
She laughed and nibbled at his lower lip. “I thought you and Michael were the same age.”
“We are. Evidently he just has a slower recovery time.”
Something Will had no problem with, Karen surmised as he pressed against her. Her body responded with a suddenness that stole her breath. She took Will's wrist and slid his hand up to her breast.
“Ever had sex in the shower before?” Will asked against her lips as he stroked his thumb over her hard nipple.
“No. Well…not with anyone else.”
Will laughed and slid his other hand down to cup her buttocks. “You're funny.”
“Just being honest. A girl's got to do what a girl’s got to do, you know.”
“Have I mentioned before that Michael is an idiot?”
“Not lately, but that's okay. It's not news to me.” His hand was doing amazing things to her breast, a world of pleasure all on its own, her blood heating and coursing through her body to make her weak here, tight there. “Let's not talk about Michael anymore, okay?”
“Deal.” He brushed his knee against hers, and she opened her legs so he could step closer, his erection hard and hot against her hip.
“You're so hard,” she said against his lips. Dirty talk. Exciting, thrilling dirty talk.
Well…as dirty as she was likely to get.
“If I wasn't before, I would be after picturing you in here, pleasuring yourself while the warm water runs over you.” His voice was tight, husky, and she felt herself answering in a primal way.
“Is that exciting to you?” she asked against his lips. She loved the idea that she turned him on, that he found her exciting. The few times she'd thought she and Michael should liven things up a little in their bedroom, he'd been completely repulsed. It hadn't taken her long to keep her passion to herself and keep encounters with Michael strictly on an as-needed basis.
But the more she talked, the more turned on Will seemed to become.
“I'm more excited with the idea of making you scream myself, but yeah…the picture of you -- “ he bent to kiss her neck, nibble on her earlobe, then slid his hand down her arm to take her hand in his. “ -- with these hands on your body…yeah, that's exciting.”
He kissed the heel of her hand, biting it softly, then sucked her index finger into his mouth. He shifted and drew her hand to her breast. “Do you touch yourself here, Karen? Do you touch your breast?”
At that point she couldn't recall if she did or not, she was so caught up in the fire in his hooded blue eyes. Since he so clearly wanted her to, though, she did, cupping her breast and squeezing the nipple between her thumb and forefinger.
He moaned and pressed harder against her. She tried to breathe and couldn't, her hips pushing back against him with such a fierce need she was weak with it. Her head lolled back against the wall and she closed her eyes.
“I want your mouth on me,” she managed to say, one hand on her breast and the other around his waist, hanging on for dear life. “I want your mouth on my breast.”
He held her hand there and lowered his mouth to kiss her breast, roaming his tongue between her fingers, over her nipple. She could feel his need in every inch of him, thrumming just under the surface.
She couldn't catch her breath. The hot water poured over her, and desire inside her twisted tighter and tighter.
He moved his mouth to her other breast, his hand still on her wrist, lowering it down, over her stomach, between her legs.
“Do you touch yourself here, Karen?” He raised his head and moved his kisses to her neck, over her face, breathing as hard as she was. “Do you touch yourself here?”
She took his hand and stroked it against her swollen, tender skin. When his knuckle brushed over the tight knot at the top of her thighs she gasped and dropped her head against his shoulder.
“That's it,” he said. He braced one arm against the wall above her head and tangled his fingers in her curls, kissing her lips, her cheeks, her closed eyelids. “That's it, baby.”
She reached for him, fingers closing around him, velvety soft over warm steel. She pulled him to her, slipping the head of his penis inside her folds. She stroked him down, then up, using the sensitive head of his penis to stroke herself.
He groaned and gripped her hip hard, letting her use him to pleasure herself. “Does that feel good?” he asked softly.
“Mmmhhmmm,” was all she could manage. “Does it feel good for you?”
“God yes.” He slid his arm around her waist and pressed his forehead to hers. “Tell me. I want to hear how good it feels.”
She couldn't have kept quiet to save her life, but actual words were beyond her at the moment. She hoped moans of pure ecstasy were what he was looking for, because that was all she was capable of.
She slid her free hand between his legs and cupped him, stroking softly. He groaned and gripped her so hard she thought she'd have bruises and she didn't care in the least.
They stood locked together, with no sound but the shower running over them and their ragged breathing. In the back of her mind she was afraid she might get carried away and become too rough, hurt him. But he seemed to be enjoying it as much as she was, his hips flexing as she stroked him against her.
The sensation built inside her until she knew she was close to the edge, knew she couldn't stop now if her life depended on it. She let out half-desperate, frantic whimpers as she chased the release she needed.
“That's it, baby,” Will said, urging her on. “Do it. Do it. Go after it.”
She held him tightly, rubbing him against her, moaning, hearing from a distance as Will spurred her on, made her feel sexy and alive and safe enough to embrace what she needed.
She cried out as the waves crashed over her, rocked her, had her one moment stiff against Will and falling limp against the shower wall the next moment.
He caught her as her knees went weak, wrapped both arms around her and held her tightly while she whimpered and gasped and fell apart at the seams. She remembered thinking that it was a good thing he was so strong, since he was holding them both up, and after that all she remembered was the feel of his shoulder against her cheek, his neck against her mouth, the sound of his husky whisper in her ear, murmuring things she couldn't even decipher, his arms tight around her waist, and the dawning realization that this was actually how it was supposed to be. This was how it was supposed to be done.
He kissed her over and over, stroking her back, her cheek, and she could see the pulse pound at his throat, and knew he had been moved by her passion, not repulsed by it.
She felt her heart squeeze, and saw in a moment of horribly perfect clarity that she'd been fooling herself. She thought she could have a fling. She thought she could do something wild, have a relationship that was no-strings attached. And now…now she felt every string in her being hammered down in nice neat little knots.
She hadn't really gone and fallen for him, had she?
She did a quick gut-check. All signs indicated that indeed, she had. Hard.
She thought she should probably be terrified. And yet, with Will holding her, whispering in her ear about how incredible she was, how exciting and amazing and beautiful, she found it hard to dredge up any real concern. So she'd fallen for him. T
hey could deal with it somehow.
Right now she was becoming more and more aware that she'd found that just slightly more satisfying than he had, namely because he was still stiff and throbbing against her hip. She ran her hand over his bottom and nibbled on his neck. “Please don't tell me we have to go back downstairs for a condom.”
“I was a boy scout. I always come prepared.” He stepped outside the shower and was back in a second with a foil packet in his teeth. He ripped it open and she took it from him.
With hands still a little shaky she rolled the condom over him and leaned back against the shower wall, propping her foot on the edge of the tub.
Will stepped between her legs and gripped her waist, allowing her to guide him inside. He slid slowly in, his eyes closed, breathing deeply as if savoring the feel. He began to move slowly, tenderly, cupping her face with both hands, making love to her mouth just as he was to the rest of her body.
After the firestorm before, this moment was tender and sweet. Karen felt her heart open in a way she never had, in a wide-eyed acceptance of the risk, of the joy of being free and vulnerable and still completely safe.
Will stroked her cheek and looked at her with wonder. Karen felt her heart catch in her throat and she found herself lost in his blue eyes, in the emotion she saw there, the connection she felt more deeply than any in her life.
Will's eyes moved over her, his body moved within her, and the moment stretched out like a dream, profound and life-altering. When he finally took a deep gasping breath and threw his head back, Karen felt as if she'd turned a corner and would never be able to go back.
They stood silently under the spray and held each other, drawing the moment out, neither one wanting to leave the cocoon they'd made and go back to drug charges and topless dancers.
“Can we stay here forever?” Will asked.
“Fine by me.” Karen rested her ear against Will's chest and listened to the steady thump of his heart. How was it she could have been married half her life and always until this moment felt alone? Her heart had opened and Will had stepped right in as if he belonged there. She stroked his chest and decided that she would be perfectly content standing there till the end of time.
Her Something Impetuous Page 22
