Beachcomber (22 page)

“It’s going to storm,” he said.

As if to confirm his words, a flicker of lightning far out to sea revealed a flash of angry purple clouds. A distant rumble of thunder followed. An earthy scent on the wind warned of approaching rain.

Christy shivered. With her arm pressed right up against his, he could feel the faint quiver that racked her body. The path was narrow, little more than a track through the dunes worn bare of sea oats by generations of tramping feet. If she was going to walk beside rather
than in front of or behind him, she had to stay close. But not quite that close.

“I hate storms. There’s been a storm every night.”

“It’s the rainy season.”

“I hate the rainy season.” There was a barely discernible quaver in her voice. “Beaches should be full of sun and sand and happy people, not rain and … and—”

She broke off, but it didn’t matter. He knew what she couldn’t quite say: fear and violence and murder.

Another flash of lightning, only closer at hand. A clap of thunder. Beside him, Christy jumped, and crowded closer yet. Her hand slid into his. Luke felt the quick entwining of her fingers with his, the warm press of her palm against his, with an acuteness sharp enough to worry him.

“It’s coming in fast,” she said, and shivered.

“The good news is, it never lasts long.”

He made no move to free his hand. In fact, he tightened his grip, wrapping her smaller hand securely in his larger one. Because after all, he told himself, she was probably only reaching out to him as an instinctive means of keeping the dark at bay, and if holding his hand made her feel safer, what was the harm in offering her what little comfort he could?

Which was bullshit, and he knew it, and knew too that he wasn’t about to let go of her hand anyway. They were almost to her cottage now. He could see the dense outline of it squatting against the pale sand. He would be walking away from her soon enough. He might as well hold her hand while he had the chance.

“You know, I didn’t really walk over to your cottage tonight to bring Marvin back.” Christy’s voice was so soft now that it was barely audible over the sighing wind and the dull roar of the breaking waves.

Marvin, he registered, glad to be temporarily distracted from his troublesome reaction to her.
That
was the damned cat’s supposed name.

“You didn’t?”

“I came because I was scared.”

The confession refocused his complete attention on her in a hurry. He knew her well enough now to know that admitting to fear or any kind of weakness or vulnerability was not something she normally did. She was turning to him at last, confiding in him as he had wanted, but it wasn’t the kind of information he’d been hoping to get from her. What he’d been angling for was some kind of revelation that would lead him to Donnie Jr. Instead, this was an opening up of her emotions to him.

He didn’t want that. He really did not want that.

“After what you’ve been through, anybody would be scared.” His voice was rough around the edges, because they’d reached her patio now and he knew that in just a moment or two he was going to have to walk away and leave her inside, alone and afraid.

His gut twisted at the thought.

“I’m not scared when I’m with you.”

Her voice was now the merest breath, but he heard it, felt the clutch of her fingers, felt her eyes looking up at him through the dark. She trusted him, and that knowledge hit him like a blow to the solar plexus. Glad
that in the darkness she could not see the expression on his face, he stopped walking and stood stock-still, his hand tightening on hers as he sought for some response he could make that was still within the parameters of his duty, his job, his real reason for being in her life.

He came up empty.

“Luke.” She let go of his hand, but only to slide around in front of him and flatten her hands on his chest. He could feel their gentle pressure on his rib cage as if they were burning through his T-shirt to his skin. He couldn’t see her but he could sense her, feel the tickle of her hair as the wind blew it against his jaw, smell the elusive fragrance of her shampoo, hear the gentle rhythm of her breathing. “I don’t want to be alone tonight.”

Shit.

“Christy.”

“Hmm?”

He was breathing hard, too hard, like he’d just tried for a four-minute mile. Way too hard for a guy who was getting ready to turn a woman down flat, he realized. Searching for the right words, the best thing to say, he gripped her waist, meaning to put her away from him, to put some space between them, to get some perspective on this while he still could. But it was too late. She was already leaning into him, her hands sliding up over his shoulders, her breasts round and soft as they pushed against his chest, her whole body flattening against his as she went up on tiptoe to press her lips to his mouth.

For a second or two, maybe more, he endured the torture meted out by those moist hot lips, endured the gentle pressure, the movements, the flick of her tongue against his mouth, while his breathing went haywire and his heart slammed against his chest and pure heat shot through his veins, through his muscles, making him instantly erect, setting him on fire.

Then he broke. Just like that he crumbled, caved, surrendered to a force far stronger than his own self-control.

“Christy.”

It was a guttural growl, an admission of defeat. Wrapping his arms around her, he did what he’d been dying to do since he’d watched her eating ice cream in the park. He slid a hand beneath her hair to cradle the back of her head and slanted his mouth over hers and kissed her deeply. Licking into her mouth, tasting her sweet muskiness and feeling her shuddering response, he lost all sense of time, place, and circumstance. He wanted her. And she wanted him, too. And that was all he cared, or needed, to know.

Pulling her mouth from his, keeping her body close, she pressed sweet hot kisses along the line of his jaw. Gritting his teeth against the tantalizing onslaught, he held her tight and burned and wanted and all the while told himself to knock it off, let her go, step back and get the hell out of Dodge.

“Spend the night with me,” she whispered against his skin.

Oh God, he wanted to. More than he could ever remember wanting anything in his life. He went a little
crazy, groaning with need, reclaiming her mouth and kissing her with a slow hunger that gradually built to a burning crescendo. She kissed him back just as hotly, digging her nails into the back of his neck, snuggling her breasts against his chest. Turning with her so that her back was pressed up against the fence, aching with desire, he slid his thigh between her legs and covered her breast with his hand.

It felt so good, so warm and round, the world’s oldest Viagra right there in his palm, and as he rubbed it her nipple jutted out.

No way was he going to be able to just walk away from this.

“God, I want you,” he muttered, lifting his head on a mission to take that tantalizing piece of candy into his mouth, knowing that he was going down in flames here and no longer caring a bit. But before he could do anything she pulled his head back down to hers and stuck her tongue into his mouth instead.

“Jesus God.”

She kissed like she meant it, like she wanted it, like a woman who had getting horizontal on her mind, and he kissed her back so thoroughly that the flames they generated basically incinerated his brain. His heart pounded like it was going to beat right through his chest. Another part of his anatomy threatened to burst out of his zipper. He rocked his thigh up higher between her legs, and the tiny sound of pleasure she made had him reaching for the hem of her dress.

He wanted her naked, like now.

Then lightning flashed, thunder boomed, and just
like that it started to rain. And not a gentle rain, either. A torrent of lukewarm water spilled down on them, as if God had just popped a giant water balloon directly over their heads.

He was so far gone that it didn’t bother him. After a single surprised glance up he was ready to continue on without missing a beat, and to hell with the storm. But she dragged her mouth from his and pushed at his shoulders.

“Let’s go inside,” she said. When he didn’t immediately respond, she squirmed out of his arms and caught his hand to pull him after her toward the door.

The rain sluicing over him was at least some help in clearing his head.

Right. Good plan. Inside. A bed.

By the time she had the door unlocked and he followed her over the threshold, they were both as soaked as if they had taken a shower fully clothed. Wet as he was, the shock of the air-conditioning was severe. Severe enough to shock him back to semilucidity.

Not that he liked what his recovering intelligence said: Sleeping with Christy, his
bait,
was a really, really bad idea. The worst, for all kinds of reasons.

In short, he could not do this. Even if it killed him, and the way he was feeling right now it just might, he had to turn off his libido, turn her down, and walk away.

The light was on in the bathroom down the hall, providing plenty of illumination for him to see her by as she closed the patio door. Like himself, she was dripping wet. Her hair was plastered to her skull and her
dress clung to her skin. Her eyes were wide and dark, her skin pale and shiny-wet, her lips slightly parted. She was still breathing too fast, and her nipples were hard round nubs that thrust prominently against her dress. As soaked as she was, she might as well have been naked. He could see everything: the exact size and shape of her breasts, the slender curve of her waist and hips, the indentation of her navel, the outline of her bra and panties, the slight protuberance that was the
yin
to his rock-hard
yang.

She shivered and ran both hands over her wet hair to push the soggy strands off her face, then smiled a little nervously at him.

What he wanted to do was pull her back into his arms and kiss her senseless and strip off her clothes and his own and make love to her until they were both so hot that the rain evaporated from their bodies in a huge cloud of steam.

He might have done it, too, despite his slowly returning intelligence, had it not been for two things: one, the knowledge that Gary was on the job, watching their every move, listening to their every word, or sound, which was more relevant in this case as the action at least could be moved out of camera range; and, two, the uncomfortable suspicion that was growing by leaps and bounds now that he was getting enough brain wattage back to think it through that she was
using
him.

Or trying to.

Much as he hated to face the ego-deflating truth, it just didn’t seem very likely that she’d come on to him
like that because she’d suddenly developed an uncontrollable craving for his body. No, the more rational explanation was that she was after a little insurance that she would make it safely through the night.

In other words, she was ready, willing, and able to make a trade-off: protection for sex.

He was eyeing her a little grimly when she moved, walking toward him with a seductive sway, pressing up against him, sliding her arms around his waist.

Jesus Christ, that crash he was imagining was probably Gary falling out of his chair.

“I’ve got to go,” he said, detaching her arms from around his waist and stepping deftly out of range.

“What?” She looked surprised, as well she might. He doubted that she’d ever had a guy turn her down before—not this hot little chickie.

“Yeah, I gotta get up early in the morning. Me and Gary, we’re going fishing.” His gaze lit on the pistol still lying on the coffee table, reminding him that she was, after all, truly afraid. He might be a little ticked at her; all right, he
was
a little ticked at her, but he could appreciate where she was coming from. Sort of. “If you want, I’ll check the place out for you before I go.”

“But …”

They were both dripping and freezing and too intent on their own separate agendas to do anything about it as she trailed after him while he walked quickly from room to room, turning on lights and conducting what was probably the quickest, least thorough search in history. No bogeyman, no surprise, he had this place rigged now so that a cockroach couldn’t get into it
without him knowing about it. The little witch was safer here than she would be locked inside a bank vault.

Of course, she didn’t know that.

“Luke,
wait,
” she said urgently when they reached the living room again and he headed straight for the patio door. He turned to look at her, and she walked right up to him and wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed herself against him. She was looking a little bewildered, but she was game, snuggling her tits against him, looking up at him with those big brown eyes. “Don’t you want to—to stay?”

Circe had nothing on this girl.

“Some other time, honey,” he said, detaching himself. Then, with a terse “Lock it after me,” he let himself out the patio door.

As Luke had expected, Gary was agog. “You want to tell me what that was all about?” He emerged from Command Central as Luke stepped back inside their cottage and kicked off his soaked and sandy shoes. The supper dishes had been cleared and a vacuum cleaner, still plugged in, stood in the middle of the living room floor. Obviously, Gary had made good use of the available down time while Luke had walked Christy home. A look at Gary’s smirk confirmed that Gary thought he had made even better use of his since he’d entered Christy’s cottage.

“No.” Luke was brutally direct as he headed for his bedroom, pulling his saturated shirt over his head and tossing it in the direction of the washing machine as he went. He could, of course, lie, or even spin a half-truth
about her being scared into some kind of explanation, but he wasn’t in the mood.

“Okay,” Gary said, following him. “You know, she seems like a really nice girl. Maybe we ought to think about bringing her in, telling her we’re here, offering her protection and some kind of deal if she cooperates with us.”

“Yeah, and then if she runs to DePalma or Amori or one of her other mob connections with what she knows, what do we do? Nothing, that’s what. We’re screwed.” Luke paused, his hand on the knob of his closed bedroom door, to shoot a frowning glance at Gary. “Anyway, aren’t you supposed to be watching the monitor?”