96 Hours (19 page)

Now that she’d taken stock of her own body, she concentrated on the one beneath her. Abby’s.

She was on her back, cradling Erica against her side, her breathing the deep, even rhythm of somebody fully asleep. One arm was wrapped around Erica’s body, holding her close. The other was flung to the side, Abby’s hand relaxed. Erica studied it. Abby had beautiful hands, with long, deceptively delicate fingers. A flash of those hands on her body hit Erica so hard, a small gasp pushed from her lips. She closed her eyes again.

Those hands were much stronger than they looked and those hands had had their way with Erica in more ways than one. Shoving her to the bed, ripping her clothes from her body, pinning her down, pushing into her. Erica swallowed hard as sense memory increased her heart rate, just the simple recollection triggering her arousal all over again, leaving her uncomfortably wanting.

She had no choice. That’s what she told herself and she slowly and softly trailed her fingers down Abby’s torso, over her tummy, and stopped at the very edge of the coarse dark hair. It wasn’t her fault. She had completely lost control of her faculties; she wasn’t thinking clearly. Abby had done something to her. The past few days had done something to her. Hell, this place had done something to her. This was not her. This was not the Erica Ryan she was used to, that her family and colleagues were used to. She didn’t do this type of thing. Jump into bed with an utter stranger? Have incredibly hot, no-holds-barred, uninhibited sex in the bedroom of somebody she’d never met? And then lie awake thinking about when she could have more? No, that was not her. She had no idea who that was, but it was most definitely not her.

The heat from Abby’s center still radiated and Erica could feel it against her skin. As she mentally counted all the ways she’d shocked herself over the past six or eight hours, her fingers seemed to act all on their own, traveling gently lower, to find Abby still wet and swollen. Exploration occurred all on its own, Erica alerted only when Abby’s breathing changed. As if shocked, Erica’s gaze jerked down to her hand, then up to Abby’s face.

Blue eyes captured hers.

“I, I’m sorry,” Erica stuttered, pulling her hand away. But Abby caught her by the wrist and held her hand in place.

“Don’t be,” Abby whispered. “And don’t stop.”

Something about the hoarseness of Abby’s whisper and the solid grip she had on Erica’s wrist made something inside Erica shift. The trepidation of three seconds before suddenly vanished and all at once she felt powerful. Dominant.

Alive.

She lifted her body slightly so she was positioned more above Abby, hovering, looking down at her. With one leg, she pulled Abby’s to the side to give herself better access. Her touch no longer tentative, she rubbed her fingers through Abby’s wetness, eliciting a gasp as she set up a rhythm. Abby’s eyes drifted shut.

Erica stopped all movement until they opened again.

“Keep your eyes open,” Erica commanded. “Look at me.” She didn’t stop to wonder at her own bossiness, at how unlike her it was to tell her partner how to respond to her. All she knew was that for the first time in her life, the only thing she wanted to do was what felt right at that moment. And nothing in months had felt as incredibly, undeniably right as making love to Abby. Years, maybe. Right now, she didn’t want Abby thinking about anything but her touch. No airplanes. No terrorists. No crumbling skyscrapers. No sorrow or anguish or death. Nothing but the two of them and the energy that swirled between them and the strange, wonderful connection they’d discovered.

“Erica?” Abby’s voice was uncertain, her eyes questioning as they moved together.

“It’s okay,” Erica whispered, her eyes never leaving Abby’s. “I’ve got you and it’s okay. I promise. Do you trust me?”

Abby nodded, her breath becoming more ragged as their bodies began to rock as one.

“Good.” The word was a feather-light breath against Abby’s lips before Erica’s mouth took them in a bruising, passionate kiss that ratcheted up the heat in the bed by several degrees. Erica picked up the pace, pushing inside Abby’s body and nearly crying out at the hot flesh that surrounded her fingers. A few short moments after that, Abby wrenched their mouths apart and crushed the pillow over her face as the orgasm ripped through her, tearing a sound from her throat that began as a cry of ecstasy and turned into a wrenching sob of grief.

Erica was unsurprised, and she wrapped Abby up in her arms, murmuring to her, pressing tender kisses to her temple, her forehead, Erica’s own eyes welling. “Shh. It’s okay, Abby. I’ve got you. I’m right here.”

Abby burrowed her face into the crook of Erica’s neck and let it all out. All the sorrow and pain she’d felt over what she’d seen. All the agony and the torment. All the distress. All the suffering. She cried it all out against Erica’s skin and Erica did exactly what was needed: she held her, she stroked her hair, she whispered words of gentleness and love. And after long moments, Abby’s sobs receded and then finally tapered off until they were nothing but quiet hiccups.

Erica never let go, kept Abby wrapped up tightly in her arms, wanting her to feel protected from the world. People like Abby deserved to be protected from the world.

Eventually, sleep claimed them.

“Hey, you guys!”

Brian’s voice boomed down the steps mere nanoseconds before he followed it, bounding like a ten-year-old, louder and more obnoxiously than necessary.

Abby jerked awake, blinking and confused, but immediately glad the sheet was covering anything important with regard to her very naked body. Next to her, however, Erica lay on her stomach, one arm thrown over Abby’s torso and her entire back exposed, the sheet just barely covering her ass.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” she muttered, pulling the pillow over her head and grappling for the sheet. “Please tell me this is not happening.”

Brian stopped at the bottom of the stairs and took in the picture before him, a devilish grin on his face. Abby couldn’t help but smile, thinking he’d make the perfect big brother she’d always wanted.

“Much as I’d like to stand here for a minute—or an hour—and feast my eyes, and don’t think I’m not filing this amazingly sexy picture away for future use, but I have more important news than the two of you knocking boots. Which I totally predicted, by the way, and Michael owes me ten bucks.”

Abby made a rolling, hurry-up gesture with her hand. “What’s the news?”

“We’re going home!”

“What?” Erica pulled her head from beneath the pillow to make sure she’d heard correctly.

“We’ve been cleared, baby. We’re supposed to get our things together and report to the Lions Club ASAP so we can be shuttled to the airport. We’re going home!” He turned and took two steps at a time. At the landing, he looked over his shoulder and ducked so he could see the bed. He waved a finger in a circle to include both of them. “Incidentally, this? Fantasy material for years.
Years!”
He laughed evilly and went on his way.

Abby shook her head with a chuckle. When she turned, Erica was looking at her, a tentative smile on her face.

“Ready to go home?” Abby asked quietly.

Erica nodded. Inside, though, she wondered. Was she?

It was hard to do something ASAP when really you wanted to do it as slowly as possible and make time come to a grinding halt. Erica had no idea why she was dragging her feet, but that’s exactly what she was doing as she and Abby took turns in the bathroom and then packed what little they had with them. Erica touched Abby any chance she got, just simple strokes as they passed each other or tried to scoot around each other in the bathroom, trying hard to maintain the connection, but the closeness they’d shared not two hours earlier seemed to have vanished from Abby’s memory. She whistled an off-key little tune as she gathered her things, smiling and happy and looking, in Erica’s opinion, no different than she’d been the previous morning.

Erica felt like Abby hadn’t been at all affected by their night together and she had a hard time swallowing that. Mostly because she had been very affected.

She wanted to broach the subject, wanted to talk about it, about all of it, but the words stuck in her throat and all she could manage was a weird grimace. She tried to focus on her bags, tried to concentrate on the fact that she was going to be going home, tried to think about the impending plane ride and what she should be wearing, and what the hell she was going to do once she got back to her condo in Raleigh. How could she possibly go back to her old life when she no longer felt like her old self? Was it even possible?

Abby continued to whistle and when she was finished with that, she hummed.

“Not a whole lot of packing to do, huh?” she said with a half-grin.

Erica simply blinked at her while Abby went back to what she was doing.

“I’m going to group all the stuff we brought here from the Lions Club—the shampoo and soap and stuff—and leave it for Corinne. Okay? I can’t fit any of it in my backpack and you sure as hell don’t have room in your laptop bag.”

“Fine.” It was the only word Erica could manage and it came out a bit more snappish than she’d intended.

“You okay?” Abby asked, her brow furrowed.

“I’m fine,” she said again.
Stunning use of the English language, Ryan,
Erica thought.
Way to mix it up.

Abby rolled her lips in and bit down, obviously wondering if she should inquire further. She didn’t have to make that decision, though, because Erica couldn’t hold it in any longer.

“Was I the only one here last night? This morning?” she asked, holding her arms out to her sides.

Abby’s eyebrows met above her nose. “What?”

“I’m just wondering because right now, it feels like I was.”

Abby took two steps toward her, reached out and rubbed her upper arm. “I was here,” she said softly.

“I thought,” Erica stumbled, fumbling for the right words. “I had—”

“Shhh.” Abby tucked Erica’s hair behind her ear, stroked a thumb over her cheek. “It was incredible. It really was.”

Erica waited for more, searched Abby’s blue eyes in anticipation, but nothing else came. Abby offered no more than a gentle smile. “That’s it? ‘It was incredible?’ That’s all you’ve got?”

Eyes widening, Abby asked, “What do you mean?”

Erica brushed Abby’s hand away with a sarcastic bark of a laugh. “I should have known. Jesus, I’m an idiot.”

“What are you talking about?” Abby asked and she sounded honestly flummoxed. Realization hit not long after that. “Wait, did you think? Oh.”

Erica scoffed and shook her head slowly back and forth. “I’m not that naïve, Abby. I’m a big girl. I didn’t think we’d get married. But I thought, I thought what happened last night—and this morning—was kind of special and that it might have meant more to you than your average one-night stand.”

Abby chose her words carefully, Erica could see it on her face. “Last night was—” She shook her head, a wistful smile playing along her lips. “It was amazing. It was wonderful. I think it was just what we needed.”

Erica flinched and then blinked rapidly. “Just what we needed?” Her voice was barely above a whisper.

“Yeah. Don’t you think it was good for us? I do. I think it was good for you, especially.” Abby’s face held no malice, she was giving her own very general explanation of things and it drove Erica a little nuts.

“It was good for me especially.” She stated it flatly, having no idea what to do with the sentence.

“You just, you cut loose.” Abby used her hands for emphasis as her excitement seemed to increase. “You’re so—forgive the word, but—you can be a little uptight. A little rigid. Everything in its place and all that. But last night, you went for it. You lived in the moment and experienced life. You were carefree. I bet it felt good.”

Erica wanted to scream. And then she wanted to cry. How could she be so stupid? She hadn’t expected some kind of declaration of love; she wasn’t that childlike and ridiculous. But at the very least, she’d expected—what? She fumbled around in her brain for the right word, but got nowhere, which pissed her off further. The morning had started off so promising and now it was just a disaster. She did the only thing she knew how to do in this type of situation: she lashed out.