Bound to You (8 page)

“Couldn’t we just eat the protein bars?” she called across the expanse.

“We should save them. Who knows how long we’ll be down here? Enzo might not be so lucky hunting tomorrow. The meat won’t keep forever.”

Jennifer frowned as she stared at the flickering little fire, realizing he was right. After several moments of silence, she couldn’t refrain from asking, “Is there really such a thing as
Porn for the Blind
?”

“Yeah,” he said, grunting slightly as though he’d answered in the midst of doing something effortful. She heard water splashing from the darkness. “Does that surprise you?”

“No,” she admitted slowly. “I was just trying to picture it.” She looked up at the sound of his low laughter emanating from the shadows. He had a nice laugh. She understood his amusement.
Picturing
porn for the blind?

“I just meant I was trying to understand what it would be like,” she said.

“It’s all audial.”

“You mean you listen to people having sex?”

“No . . . well, not primarily. You listen to someone
describing
people having sex. The voice is like a camera.”

“Oh . . .” she mumbled, thinking. “Do you like it?”

He didn’t answer immediately. She heard more vigorous splashing. A moment later he emerged from the shadows. She was relieved to see that his hands and clothes were completely free of blood. In fact, she saw no signs of the rabbit at all until she looked inside the plastic box he carried. There was the rabbit meat, cleaned and cut into chunks.

“I was born blind,” he said as he crouched across from the fire from her. He picked up a twig and skewered it with two cubes of meat. He held the stick over the fire. “When I was thirteen, I used to masturbate repeatedly over the memory of my seventh grade English teacher saying, ‘It’s so hot my clothes are getting wet. My skirt is sticking to my legs.’ She had a fantastic voice—deep and throaty. Just that brief, off-the-cuff comment that had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with a scalding-hot September day and no air-conditioning was prime fuel for my adolescent fantasies for I don’t know how long.” He seemed to consider and then gave a little shrug. “It still sounds pretty hot in my memory, to be honest. So, yeah, to answer your question.
Porn for the Blind
is bookmarked on my computer.”

She broke out in laughter. She loved his frankness. “I
get
that. It’s no different than a thirteen-year-old sighted kid getting all hot and bothered catching a glimpse of his cute teacher’s little panties when the sunlight strikes her skirt and makes the fabric see-through.”

He smiled. “You really are a natural,” he murmured.

She smiled back at him, feeling no break in their strong connection because he couldn’t see her. A drop of fat from the meat fell into the flames, making them hiss. He turned the stick. The delicious aroma of the cooking meat entered her nose, making her stomach rumble in hunger.

“So what kinds of illicit things get an adolescent girl all hot and bothered?”

“We’re not as . . . prolific in our adolescent sexual fantasies as males.”

“Strike what I asked. I don’t give a crap about what
Psychology Today
says typical female adolescent fantasies are. I want to know
yours
.”

She gave a disbelieving sound. “When I was thirteen years old? Are you kidding? You want to hear about my Leonardo DiCaprio obsession? Or maybe you’d find my Backstreet Boys fantasies a little more entertaining?”

He quirked an eyebrow. “Definitely, if the fantasies included all of them.”

She snorted and they shared a laugh.

“I’ve never entirely bought the common logic that girls aren’t avid sexual fantasizers,” he murmured after a bit. “You never were titillated by anything remotely dirty back when you were in school? Nothing still lingers in the adult Jennifer?”

She brushed her fingers across her neck and felt the throb of her own pulse. “Well . . .”

“Yes?” he prompted.

She swallowed thickly. “I lived in sort of a backward area. They still gave corporal punishments back then. I might have been a little . . . overly focused on the idea of paddlings,” she said breathlessly.

He went still.

“And did you ever get one?”

“No,” she said quietly. She smiled. “I was a good girl.”

“A good girl wishing she could be bad once in a while.”

She laughed. “Trust me, I would have been terrified if I’d ever been called down to the principal’s office when I was a girl.”

“And now?”

She hesitated. Why was she so inclined to behave so raunchily with John? Even with Everett Hughes, who she considered to be one of her most serious boyfriends, she’d never felt so uninhibited as she did with John.

“Well, I’ve grown up, haven’t I?” she replied.

She couldn’t read his expression as he removed the stick from the fire. “Come here,” he said, holding out his arm. The aroma from the cooked rabbit now permeated the air. She walked next to him and came down on her knees.

“Maybe we can use a couple of the tissues you mentioned having. I’ll put the meat on them and you can start eating while I cook the rest.”

“I’ll wait for you,” she assured him, removing a plastic package of tissues from her pocket. She also took out her hand sanitizer. After she’d spread some on her hands, she lined one with several tissues. “I’m ready.”

She helped him remove the steaming rabbit from the stick. He immediately skewered more chunks and started to cook them. The odor wafting up to her nose made her mouth water.

“Go ahead. Eat,” he prompted. “I know you want to.”

She laughed softly. He must have heard her stomach growl. She picked up one of the steaming pieces and took a delicate bite. The outside was crispy, the juices surprisingly flavorful, tasting gamey and rich. She made an appreciative sound as she chewed.

“What do you think? Would it go over in a Hollywood restaurant?”

“It would. It’s delicious,” she said sincerely. “Here. Try it,” she coaxed, holding the remaining portion of meat to his mouth. She didn’t touch him, but he must have sensed the heat from the meat. He opened his lips and caught the rabbit with straight, white teeth, the image striking her as singularly erotic.

She blinked and went back to her kneeling position. “You’re really amazing,” she murmured, picking up the other piece of meat.

“How’s that?” he wondered as he chewed.

“This is nice—actually
nice
. We’re down here trapped in a hole and we don’t know when, or if, we’re going to be saved, and yet . . . I’m having a nice time.” Her cheeks heated when she recalled the way he’d made love to her earlier. “
Better
than nice.”

They sat in silence for a few seconds as she stared at his small smile.

“I’ve never told anyone that before,” she said quietly.

He paused in the action of turning the meat and glanced in her direction.

“What? That you were having a nice time?”

“No. That thing about the paddlings. Even in my most serious former relationships. I had a very special former lover who would have wanted me to be more . . . free with my admissions, my sexuality in general, but I just couldn’t.” He turned toward her. She again had the impression he could see her with those startlingly blue eyes.
More
than see her. She bit her lip anxiously.

“There must have been some reason why you confessed it to me,” he said. Her heart hitched in her breast. “If I can help you forget in any way, I will. I know why the dark makes you so afraid, honey.”

She just stared at him, her pulse throbbing harder at her throat.

He resumed cooking, and she eating, but it was like something had changed . . . altered. A message had been exchanged between them. She felt stronger, her senses more acute. Jennifer couldn’t figure out why that was, until she realized how connected she felt to a stranger in that moment. Her world had just grown sharper because John had given her some of his strength . . . some of himself.

And when it came to John Corcoran, she realized, that was no small thing.

Chapter Five

Their dinner finished, John and Jennifer cleaned up using the spring water and the hand sanitizer. She checked her cell phone for coverage while John filled her thermos and then spread his coat by the fire.

“Oh,” Jennifer called out in excitement, but then immediately moaned in disappointment.

“What?” John asked.

“I thought I had a bit of a signal on my cell phone for a moment, but now . . . nothing.” She turned off the phone and put it away. So much for the advances of modern technology. She glanced at the tiny flames.

“Maybe we better put out the fire,” she said in a threadbare voice.

John straightened from his task of arranging their meager belongings in a small pile—the cleaned plastic first aid box, the hand sanitizer, her folded scarf, panties, shirt and bra, the thermos of water, his cane and the cooking stick. She understood that he was so orderly and neat because of his blindness, but she found his methodical manner reassuring, solid . . . secure.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

She hesitated. “No. But I know we should. There isn’t much wood to burn. We shouldn’t waste it.”

He looked sober as he gathered some soil. She watched him smother the flames, preserving whatever burnable wood was left. Slowly, the smoking fire dimmed. John began to recede into the shadows and, finally, the pitch blackness.

She listened hungrily to his every move in the darkness.

“Come here,” he said after several seconds.

Jennifer sprung up from her kneeling position and went toward him, her hands outstretched. Her fingertips encountered his waist. He covered her hand with his own, guiding her down to the ground with him. They sat on his coat, Jennifer in front of him between his sprawled legs and encircling arms, his hands on her hips.

“Close your eyes,” he murmured near her ear.

She complied, leaning back and sighing at the feeling of his solid warmth. He moved his right hand along her hip. Her heart leapt in excitement until she realized his movements weren’t really caresses.

“What are you doing?” she asked, laughing.

“I’m looking for those Certs you mentioned.”

“Are you trying to tell me something?” she wondered wryly as she reached in her left jacket pocket and found the half-used roll of mints. She placed them in his hand.

“No. You smell great,” he said. “I was just going to give you dessert.”

“After cooking me that gourmet meal, I get dessert as well?”

“This is a classy joint.” She heard him rustling in the darkness and the sound of tearing paper.

“Lean back,” he coaxed a moment later, his left hand opening along her jaw and urging her against his shoulder. He smoothed back her hair, taking time with his task. “Now open your mouth.”

She parted her lips. Anticipation swelled in her for some reason. He placed one of the mints on her tongue. “Close,” he said, his hoarse voice near her ear making her shiver. She pressed the hard mint between her tongue and the roof of her mouth, agitating it slightly back and forth. The sharp flavor of peppermint and the sweet taste of sugar filled her mouth.

“Hmmm,” she murmured. She’d consumed two or three of the mints almost every day for the past decade, but she’d never really
tasted
one until now.

“Good?” he asked, his mouth not far from her right cheek. She caught the scent of peppermint on his breath and knew he was sucking on one of the mints too.

“Yeah, really good,” she said, a trace of surprise in her voice.

“Some things are better in the dark. The darkness doesn’t have to hide nightmares.”

She paused in her sucking, hearing something in his tone.

“Do you want to tell me about it?” he asked quietly.

Her heart seized and resumed beating. He was referring to
it.
The reason for her irrational fear of the dark. She clicked the candy against her teeth in a nervous, rhythmic gesture, then stopped.

“It happened on the set of the first movie I ever had a significant part in. It was called
Duplicity
. It was a spy espionage film. Completely forgettable.”

She paused when she realized how stupid she’d sounded. Filming
Duplicity
had become the single most unforgettable experience of her life. John said nothing, but she sensed his focused attention.

“There was an elevator action scene that I was in with another actor—Jessie Aims,” she began, the volume of her voice just above the sound of the trickling water that filled the cave. “The scene took place in a Los Angeles high-rise and the special effects department had rigged up an elevator. We’d already done six shoots of it, but Charlie Jawankowski, the director, wanted one more.”

She swallowed thickly, resisting a wild urge to open her eyes and scatter the toxic memory. There would only be darkness there, as well. John touched her neck and stroked her, reassuring her.

“There was a cameraman who was in the elevator with us for all the close-ups,” she continued quietly, calmed somewhat by John’s touch. “His name was Dustin Shremer, but everyone called him Dust. He was young. In fact, we both turned twenty-four while we were shooting
Duplicity
. Our birthdays were two days apart. The crew gave us a mutual little cake and champagne party. Dust was like the resident kid on the crew. Everyone rode him, but they were proud of him too. It’s not easy to get a cameraman position on a major motion picture, let alone for someone so young. I wasn’t great friends with Dust or anything, but I liked him. Everyone liked him.”

She held her eyelids clenched tight, but the images were unavoidable.

“It all happened really fast. Jessie and I were in our places on the elevator, and Dust was the last to come on.” She paused and bit at the mint, causing it to splinter in her mouth. “I’m sure you’ve heard the story about what happened then.”

“Just the bare essentials I recall from the news story. It happened five or six years ago, didn’t it?”

“Seven years ago this summer,” she rasped.