Late nights at the station were cold coffee and stale doughnuts. This was a definite upgrade.
He hit the swinging door to the dark dining room, his mind on grabbing a beer from the fridge at the bar. He didn’t get two steps before he stopped.
She was here.
It was him.
The dark shadow in the kitchen doorway was Max. Her whole body knew it.
He kissed me. That man, right there. He touched me like I was gold and he kissed my skin and he wanted me.
Delia held her breath, waiting in the shadows to see whether he’d notice her. Her better sense knew he needed to walk past her on his way to his cabin or out to his clearing or wherever he spent his nights.
It’s what she knew. It wasn’t what she wanted.
And when he walked right up to her in the dark, like a magnet, like the moon rising in the twilight sky—inevitable and solid and compelling—her foolish heart skipped a beat.
“Delia.”
His low voice washed over her like warm water. He set a plate on the bar beside her and his scent curled around her—smoke and chocolate. A dangerous combination.
“Max.”
“You make a habit of sitting in the dark?”
She smiled, glad the dark was so complete, the cloud cover over the moon impenetrable. She didn’t want him to see her, to see what was too close to the surface, what she couldn’t keep submerged after this day. “So it would seem.”
“Everything okay?”
“Sure.”
He paused and she could feel him in the darkness. She wondered what he was doing.
“Do you ever tell the truth?” he asked.
“Do you?”
His laugh was a low rumble that faded to a deep and thick silence. But not uncomfortable. On the contrary, it was nearly too comfortable. She should be worried. Instead, she gloried in the fact she wasn’t. It was a relief.
After her phone call to J.D., she was still trying to get her head around the idea of surveillance and cell-phone records and paper trails.
“If Josie saw those two together, lots of people did. Your husband was cocky and cocky criminals make stupid mistakes. And just because your friend, Chris, betrayed you doesn’t mean there aren’t good men in that office. We’ll work this out,” J.D. had said and relief had poured through her body like champagne.
Maybe she was drunk on all that relief, on the satisfaction of finally gathering her courage and doing what she should have done days ago. Regardless, she was going to let herself enjoy the way Max made her feel.
Secure.
And, she thought, remembering his lips on the flesh of her neck, his breath in her ear, the terrible need she sensed in his touch and voice, he made her feel desired beyond all reason. Deliciously so.
On the edge of what might be the end of her life, she wanted that feeling back. In spades.
Tomorrow would have to take care of itself.
She was wired with giddy nerves, unsure if what she’d set in motion would ultimately free her or kill her.
Laughter, nervous and inappropriate, gushed from her throat, uncontrollable. Her ex-husband, the man she had slept beside for ten years, the man she had made coffee for and bought fancy underwear for, the man who used to wrap his arms around her waist at concerts and laugh at her bad jokes, might try to kill her. Again.
“Delia?”
The scrape of the stool, the movement of air, indicated Max was sitting down next to her. “What happened?” he asked. “What’s going on?”
“Oh Lord, Max.” She laughed again. “We don’t have that much time.”
“I got all night.”
She knew she should leave, tell him thanks but Josie was waiting for her. Which was true. But loneliness was also in that bed and she wasn’t yet ready to crawl between the covers with that.
“I told Josie,” she said. Staring at where she thought her hands were in the dark, spread palm down on the bar. “I showed her the bruises.”
“And?”
“And…” she took a deep breath. “I just ruined my daughter’s life, Max. I—” She rubbed her forehead. “I’ve fed her to the wolves and now she’s scared and freaked-out.”
“You didn’t do that,” he said. “Your husband did when he put his hands on you in violence.”
She knew he was right, but it didn’t make anything easier.
“My parents got divorced when I was a kid,” she said. “My mom left, went back to France and I used to go back and forth. School years with my dad and summers in France.”
“That’s not so bad,” he said. The smell of chocolate was intense and the sound of his teeth against his fork sent long shivers down her spine.
“It was hell,” she told him. “I was like a battleground, and they continued to fight out their differences on me. I would go to France and hear how my father was a domineering ape and I would live with my dad and hear about my mother the faithless drunk whore.”
“That’s awful, Delia,” he said, his voice deep and low and filled with sympathy. “No kid should have to go through that. But that’s not what you’ve done to your daughter.”
“It isn’t?” she asked. “Because it sure feels that way. I spent my whole life never feeling secure, never knowing what terrible thing my parents would say or do next in order to prove to me how bad the other one was. I didn’t know what was true or what was false. And tonight the last thing my daughter said was she was scared. And I did that. I ripped away her security.” She felt the bite of tears and couldn’t breathe.
“Here,” he said, and something gooey and wet hit the side of her mouth. She licked her lips and tasted chocolate. “Eat this,” he ordered. “Don’t cry.”
She laughed and he stuck the fork and brownie right in her mouth. She had no choice but to chew and swallow. Chew and swallow one of the most delicious things she’d ever eaten.
“Wow,” she muttered around the mouthful of decadence. “That’s really something.”
“That’ll take your mind off your worries.”
She chewed and considered the dark shape of the man next to her. “What is it about you, Max?” she asked. “You come around and I blab all my problems to you.”
“It’s the stranger-on-the-bus syndrome—you want to tell someone and I’m here.”
“You’re selling yourself short, Max. I think you’re one of the good guys. My daughter certainly thinks so.”
He was silent. The silence grew denser and deeper and she almost felt dizzy from it and the dark that wrapped around the tugging of her attraction to him. “Maybe I should be asking you why you’re sitting in the dark,” she said, to break the terrible quiet.
Another bite of brownie hit the side of her face and she laughed. “Distraction won’t work, Max. I’m very single-minded.”
“I noticed.” He bumped her again with the brownie and she reached out to grab his hand and direct it toward her lips.
She felt every callus, every rough hair on his fingers. She felt the heat of him, the size. It was the most powerfully intimate thing she’d ever experienced.
The taste of chocolate burst across her lips and she licked the fork as he slowly pulled it out of her mouth.
“My mom left us when I was a kid,” Max said. “Up and left in the middle of the night. Three days later Dad told us she was gone for good and that was the last time we talked about her.”
“What?” She gaped at him. “You never talked about her?”
“Not until a few months ago.” She heard the click and slide of the fork on the plate. “And I don’t think I felt any safer than you did as a kid. I kept waiting for my dad to disappear or my brother.”
“But they didn’t,” she whispered.
“Nope,” he said. “But I was still scared, so I grew up and tried to make them leave just so I could get over the anticipation.” He chuckled. “I fought and fought with them. I made it real hard for them to love me, but they never left. Even after I was—” He stopped suddenly, the heated intimacy of the room c
hanging slightly. “What do they put in these things?” he joked, and she heard him take another bite of the brownie, forestalling what he’d been about to tell her.
She didn’t push him.
She understood him so well. The night. The shared brownie. It was trouble, but she didn’t want to walk away. She wanted more of it. She wanted the dark to soak her up, make her disappear for a while. Long enough to forget. Long enough to make going to bed and waking up another day doable.
“Have you ever wanted to walk away from your life? Just forget—for a little while—who you are and what you’ve done?”
“Sure.”
She heard the click of the fork against his teeth and her stomach whirled in sudden painful desire.
“You want a drink?” he asked.
“That’s not a good idea.” She shook her head. The oblivion of getting blind drunk was too much work.
“More chocolate?”
“Always a good choice.”
The smell of chocolate and caramel was a delicious tease and the moist cake brushed her lips, but now nothing was funny.
“Open your mouth,” he murmured.
The memory of his mouth on her throat ran on a constant loop and she couldn’t chase away the desire—stupid as it might be—that his lips and his touch created in her. And so she stopped trying to chase it away.
The desire fizzed through her, dilating her whole body.
She opened her mouth and he slid in a bite of brownie. She shut her eyes and sighed with pleasure, licking every-thing off the fork.
Sitting on the edge of her seat, she leaned toward him and his heat and the chocolate, and when she felt him move toward her again she held out her hand and caught his.
“Why did you kiss me today?” she asked.
He put down the fork and twisted his palm so it cupped hers. The contact made her breathless. She felt him shrug.
“Let’s be honest,” she said, forestalling whatever excuse he was going to give her. “Tonight. Please. Let’s just tell the truth. Why did you kiss me?”
“Because I wanted to. I’ve wanted to kiss you since I saw you.”
“The first time I saw you I yelled at you.”
“I know, I like that in a woman. And—” He paused as if judging how much to say. “You seemed like maybe you needed that kiss. Like it had been a while since someone had tried to make you feel better.”
“It has. It’s been—” She shook her head “—years.”
“Why’d you let me kiss you?”
“Because I’m stupidly and wildly attracted to you.”
His laugh made her smile. “That’s honest,” he said.
“What about you?” she asked. “Has it been a while since someone tried to make you feel better?”
He pulled slightly on his hand, but she didn’t let go. She slid off her stool and stood in the V of his open legs. “Has it?”
“I can’t even remember the last time,” he said. “But that’s—”
She pressed her lips to the back of his hand and his fingers crushed hers for a split second.
“Delia.” He sighed. Her name and nothing more. No recriminations. No we better stop. Nothing. Her name and a longing so powerful she knew he felt it, too.
“I just want—” She felt unsure now of the wisdom of this idea. Freedom. Forgiveness. Absolution. Forgetfulness. Mindlessness. She wanted all of that and his body against hers.
Words failed her and so she took his hand and pressed it to her face, tilted her head so her lips tasted the salt of his flesh.
“I know what you want,” he muttered, and slid his hands under her arms, lifting her onto the bar. He pushed the cake out of the way, the fork falling to the floor.
His breath teased her lips and his hands stroked her sides and her whole body lit up like a Christmas tree.
“Max—”
He kissed her instead of answering her. He kissed her like she was water, cold and crisp, and he was dying of thirst. He touched her like he couldn’t pull her close enough. His tongue licked hers and she gasped with the pleasure and pain of wanting someone so badly, so quickly. Blood charged through her body to parts forgotten and neglected.
His fingers stroked the skin above the waistband of her jeans and she could feel the calluses on his thumb. Nothing had ever been so erotic.
She opened her mouth. Her body. Her entire being. Her arms held him tight, her hands made fists in the long hair at the back of his collar. She pushed the jacket off his shoulders so she could get that much closer to his skin. Even that wasn’t enough. Nothing was enough.
She pulled at his shirt, starved and angry that anything was in her way. Buttons flew off, pinged and rolled to stop in the darkness.
He groaned and laughed against her mouth and then nipped her lips, sucked on her tongue. He palmed her breasts—not at all gentle and she loved it. Reveled in it, returned the touch with the rake of her short fingernails across his back. She dipped her hands into the waistband of his pants, felt the muscles of his butt under her fingertips and suddenly couldn’t wait to get this man naked.
Madness.
He pulled her right to the edge of the bar until she had to cling to him for balance. His palms rode the muscles of her legs until his thumbs met at her hips.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I’m dying, Max,” she nearly cried, hungering for those thumbs to meet at the center of her body where it seemed all of her blood and all of her being waited for him.
“Can’t have that,” he murmured, and slid his hands to the fly of her old blue jeans. He pulled free the button and touched the skin of her stomach, which jumped and quivered under his fingers. The rasp of the zipper made her bite her lip against a moan.
It was so sexy. So dirty and wrong and she loved it. Felt safe and wanted and desired. She was bold, a sex goddess. Her back arched when his fingers slid into the waistband of her cotton underwear. She threw her hair over her shoulders and braced herself against the bar.
“You’re so damn beautiful and brave,” he murmured against her neck and his fingers slid deep into her body.
She cried out and he put his fingers over her lips. “Shh.”
Her body screamed with the shock of it. Her toes curled in her ratty shoes. Her fingers gripped the brass rail of the bar and she wrapped her legs around his hips, pressing his fingers further into her.
“More,” she sighed. “I need more.”
His forehead, pressed against hers, was wet with sweat—or maybe it was hers, she couldn’t tell. Didn’t care. She just needed more.
She needed everything.
He swore and stepped away, pulling her jeans and underwear down and she lifted her hips so he could push them to her knees.
It was cold momentarily then he was back bringing the heat of the entire world with him. He kissed her belly, her thighs where they splayed over the edge of the bar. Then he bent and gave her the more she craved.
His mouth and fingers gave her all the more she could take. She arched and silent screams slid from her open lips as the universe broke apart into glittering glorious fragments, like stars. Like fairy dust. Like a million miracles.
“There you go,” he whispered against her belly.
She looked down and saw the liquid flash of his eyes, the curve of his lips then he was gone.
The surprise of his absence was cold—shocking.
“What?” she breathed, sitting upright. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” His voice was brittle. Hard. He grabbed his coat from the floor, the plate with the half-eaten brownie.
“Max.” She reached out in the dark, missed his arm but grazed his chest and felt the sweat that had seeped through his shirt. He was on fire. “Please. Let me—”
“I can’t forget my life and what I’ve done, Delia. Not even for a minute.”
Max threw the doors open and stalked outside, the cold air like a punch to the gut. It still wasn’t enough. He considered shoving snow down his pants but co
uldn’t slow down for that. The wind chilled his sweat but his body stayed hot. Tortured.
What am I? he wondered, kicking through a snowbank. Some kind of idiot. Of course I want to forget. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. All I’ve been doing for two years is trying to forget.
And, oh Lord, if he’d just opened his pants and finished what she’d started, he’d be past forgetting right now. He knew it. He wouldn’t even be sure of his name.
So, why not?
He broke into the clearing and dropped his coat, the plate and the brownie in the snow. He looked up at the dark sky. Not a star. Barely any moonlight. Nothing but black.
Why not have sex with her? She wanted it. He wanted it. And it wasn’t that he was out of practice with taking what he wanted.
He closed his eyes and smiled grimly. The answer was right there under the lust and raging heat of his hard-on.
He was afraid, in the end, that he would want more.
More than sex. More than a night on a bar making each other forget their woes.
He’d want everything with Delia.
10
Delia checked her watch and glanced back at her daughter’s sleeping—or supposedly sleeping—body. If she didn’t stir soon Delia would have to wake her or head down for JoBeth’s scheduled massage before she woke.
And Delia wanted to talk to Josie before the day started. She wanted to see what last night had wrought in her little girl. If the hostility was still there, the anger and sadness or worse, the hero worship of her father.
Something in the way Josie was posed, her absolute stillness, seemed just a bit tense and not at all like a sleeping girl.
She’d bet money Josie was faking it and that didn’t bode well.
“Jos?”
Josie sighed dramatically and Delia smiled. Her execution was pretty awful, but she deserved points for trying. “Josie, I know you’re awake.”
There was a hitch in Josie’s breathing then she slowly rolled over onto her back. Her eyes were open and blinking at the ceiling.
“Sweetheart,” Delia said, sitting on the edge of her daughter’s bed. She didn’t touch her and made sure not to sit too close, but she wished she could. “How’d you sleep?”
Secrets of the Riverview Inn Page 12
