Four Weddings and a Fireman (20 page)

She squirmed under him. “Can you . . . ?”

“What?”

“Can you . . . um . . . keep doing that thing with your hand?”

“I'm pretty sure that qualifies as begging, so sure.” He resumed the steady, circling pressure of his palm against her sex. Pleasure flooded her senses. Maybe it was begging, maybe it wasn't. Maybe he'd kept his distance for a week so that as soon as he touched her, she'd ignite. She didn't care. Right now, she wanted him.

She held on to his shoulders with a kind of death grip. With anyone else, she would have worried about hurting him, but Vader was so built, his muscles so rugged. He was like a Mack truck of male flesh.

“Oh, sweetheart,” she murmured. “You have no idea what you do to me.”

“I just hope it's enough.”

“Enough for what?” She felt drugged by the sensations flickering from her sex.

“Enough to make you do what I want.”

“I'll do anything you want.” She sighed, because in that moment it was completely true. She couldn't deny him anything. “What do you want?”

“First I want to lick you until you scream. Quietly, of course. Then I'll tell you. Deal?”

The word “deal” rang a distant alarm, but she didn't listen. She was too riveted by the way he was shifting his body toward the foot of the bed, his hair brushing against her stomach as he settled between her legs. With strong hands that heated her inner thighs, he pressed her legs apart.

“Oh mercy me,” she muttered, and dug her fingers into his hair.

“Oh no, you don't. We're doing this my way.” With a sudden surge of movement, he rose to his knees, swept her hands over her head, and pinned them together.

“Don't you dare use your socks again, Vader.”

“Hey, I learned my lesson. I'll use this.” With his other hand, he dragged her nightgown all the way over her head and maneuvered it up to her wrists. Somehow, in that ingenious Vader way of his, he snagged her hands in it, completely immobilizing them. She responded with a soul-­deep sigh of relaxation, every muscle giving up a bit of its tension, every bone luxuriating. He traveled back down her body, swirling a path of flame with his tongue. By the time he reached the apex of her thighs, her body was jumping with eager pulses of anticipation.

“You know, I love seeing you like this,” he murmured, the stubble on his chin brushing her sensitized sex. “My own personal juicy little shish kebab. You're my Cherie kebab. Tastiest thing I ever nibbled.”

With exquisite stabs of his tongue, he parted the folds of her sex. How could such a muscle-­bound man be so very sensitive with his tongue? It made no sense, and yet when she looked down her body and saw his large frame bent over her, his dark head between her legs, her eyes wanted to roll back in her head. The way he licked and soothed, tormented and tantalized, made her lose all pretense of control. As the sharp pleasure built, she twisted against the bedcovers, urging him on with thrusts of her hips and incoherent babbling.

He doubled her legs back against her body, bending her knees, manipulating her as if she were a rag doll. In his hands, she was. He gripped her hips in those huge, powerful hands, thumbs digging into the quivering flesh of her inner thighs. And all the time he kept his mouth latched to her sex, lapping and suckling, the maddening friction driving her up and up until her head wanted to explode.

She needed to scream, to shout out the extremity of her pleasure, but some part of her was still tethered to reality. She pressed her lips closed, so nothing more than frantic whimpers came out. Until he put two fingers inside her, sandwiching her clit between his hot tongue and the teasing pressure from inside. Then, helpless as a kitten in a tsunami, she let out a cry, her body arching in utterly abandoned bliss.

“Next to you,” growled Vader against her sex. “Pillow.” She buried her face in her pillow and let the long, racking convulsions lift her up, spin her around, and cast her down in a roller coaster of release.

“Oh my heavenly angels,” she murmured as she came down from the intoxicating rush. “Mercy on me,” she managed when she recovered her breath. “That was incredible. Lord, I missed you, Vader.” He rested his chin on her knee, which was splayed open, and grinned. Lazily, she rubbed her other calf along his strong, brown back. “Your turn now.”

He sat up on his knees. He was fully aroused, his erection nearly vertical between his thighs. “That's right. My turn. We made a deal. Luckily, my needs are simple.”

Whatever he wanted, she'd give him. “Untie me and I'll fulfill your every need.”

“Sure. But you don't need your hands for what I want.”

She tried to frown, but was too high on post-­orgasmic bliss to manage it. “What, then?”

“All I want is one answer. I ask one question, you give me one answer.”

 

Chapter Nineteen

C
herie narrowed her eyes at him. She should have seen this coming. Vader was persistent, and at the moment he had her utterly sated, her defenses down. In the intimate darkness, the soft, cocooning privacy, it would be so easy to let go of her resistance.

He reached up and untwined her nightgown from her wrists. “One question, that's all.”

“What kind of question?” Her Arkansas accent thickened, the way it always did when she was relaxed.

“Something that tells me a little more about Ms. Cherie Harper. I am living in her house, after all. Trusting my mother with her. Seems like I ought to be able to ask a few questions.”

“You said one question.”

He smiled, clearly sensing victory. “We'll start with one. But I'm off shift tomorrow, so I got all night. You never know, you might get inspired.”

She hauled herself into a sitting position and wrapped her arms around her bent knees. The moonlight filtering from the window kissed his muscular torso with silver. He was rock-­solid, this man. She could trust him. “Fine. What's the question that's so important it beats an orgasm?”

“Who's the man with a grudge against you? And why does he have a grudge?”

“A two-­part question? That's a cheat.”

“The firefighter promotion exam is full of them. If I can handle them, you can.”

She buried her face in her knees. Jacob had sworn her to secrecy—­in blood, no less—­but she was so tired of it. Everything in her longed to share the story with Vader. Maybe then he'd understand. Maybe then she'd stop hurting him.

It'll be okay, Jacob. It's time.

“His name is Frank Mackintosh. He's a friend of my father. And I struck him on the head and nearly killed him.”

Speaking it out loud felt so strange, like stepping onto a new planet. One with lighter gravity, where you might take big, goofy missteps before you got the hang of it.

“Did he hurt you?” The icy rage in Vader's voice made her shiver.

“No.” She shook her head quickly. “Not like that. He tried, but he didn't get that far. Jacob and I had it all plotted out. He wanted to run away too, because he'd figured out he was gay and our father would have killed him for that.”

Vader growled low in his chest. Cherie could have kissed him for that. Protecting Jacob was such second nature to her. She loved that Vader felt that way too.

“Not deliberately killed him,” Cherie said quickly. “Prophesize would have performed an exorcism on him. Really gruesome. If Jacob had survived, he would have had to get married and try to be fruitful, like the rest of us. From the age of thirteen he knew he'd be leaving. But we were always close, being fourteen months apart, and he wanted to stay and look out for me.”

“Were things that bad in your family?”

“My father lives in his own crazy world. He's not a bad man, he's just kind of a natural-­born cult leader. Some of his beliefs make sense. He believed in growing our own food, being as self-­sufficient as possible. All us kids know how to do stuff like pickle collard greens and slaughter pigs. If I had to, I could rig up a pee bucket that would knock your socks off.”

“Pee bucket?”

“We lived out in the woods. With fourteen kids, we were digging new outhouse holes every other year.”

She glanced at Vader, suddenly aware of how strange it must sound. “You want to take your question back now?”

“Hell no,” he answered quickly. “It's just getting good. So your dad was some kind of survivalist?”

“Sort of. Mostly he wanted to raise his kids away from TV and school and other bad influences. He called it brainwashing. Only one person could brainwash us, and that was him.”

“But it didn't work out so well.”

She shrugged, amazed by how much she was telling him. It didn't feel wrong either. The opposite; it felt right. “It did for some. Most of us are still there. It wasn't a terrible life. Lots of fresh air and healthy food. We had fun, us kids. I learned some interesting skills. I can shoot the tail off a squirrel from two hundred feet.”

“And here I thought you were the ultimate girlie girl.”

“Oh, I am at heart. I'd choose brunch at the Lazy Daisy over a squirrel any day.”

Vader reached for her, found her calf, and began massaging the muscle there. Maybe he was trying to keep her relaxed and talking. If so, it was working. She let out a sigh of pleasure.

“I have to say, I'm impressed, Cherie. I mean, you were already supremely hot in my eyes. Throw in the sharpshooting, and damn.”

“Don't forget the pee bucket.”

“I'm trying to, but you keep bringing it up.”

She giggled, feeling giddy. “Maybe it's not so bad, telling you this stuff.”

“Like I said, the truth will set us free. But I'm still not connecting all the pieces here. Your father was a wacko who set up camp in the middle of the woods and started spitting out children.”

“Well, he had some of us already. Seven. My mother died having Humility. Then my dad married Lily, my stepmother, and she started multiplying like a bunny in heat. She was always either pregnant or recovering from being pregnant. I grew up watching the little ones from the age of about eight.”

“Okay, so far so good. How did the man come into it? Mackintosh. What happened with him?”

Darn it all, she'd been hoping he'd get distracted by her oddball family history. She nervously twisted the sheet between her fingers. “Well, see, my father wanted his little kingdom to expand as much as possible. He wanted us girls to get married right away and add our children to the cause. So he struck up some friendships with a few other ­people who thought like he did. He wanted to find us the right kind of husband, one who would stay close by and live the same sort of lifestyle. My older sister got married the day she turned eighteen. Her husband had done some work for Prophesize. We all knew him and liked him okay. Grace seemed happy enough. She got pregnant right away. Trixie told me she has three kids now. I'm surprised it's not more.”

Realizing she was babbling, she took a deep breath, flicking one more cautious glance toward him. “Then it was my turn. The man he picked out for me, Mr. Frank Mackintosh, was completely different. He was older, and his wife had run off. He owned the adjoining land to ours. He had a bunch of kids, and they were terrors, let me tell you. The oldest one, Robbie, was only a little younger than me. My father decided I should marry Mr. Mackintosh. But that man scared me. There was something off about him. I heard rumors he'd been part of some sort of standoff with the FBI. I overheard him talking about do-­it-­yourself bombs once. He . . . well, I didn't want anything to do with him.”

She swallowed hard. Here's where things got difficult.

“I told Prophesize I didn't want to marry that man, but he had his mind fixed on it. I think he worked out some kind of deal with Mackintosh. Me for Lord knows what. More land or something. Maybe a few milk cows.”

Vader shifted forward and cupped her elbows. “He couldn't make you marry someone you didn't want. This is the twenty-­first century.”

“Not in Prophesize's world. To his mind, we were his kids and he could do what he wanted with us. He said I was marrying Mackintosh and that was that. He went ahead with all the planning, and I made my own plans.”

He ran his thumbs along the insides of her forearms. “Your plans to run away.”

She nodded, then lowered her head to her knees. Her hair fell across her shoulders. He scooped it out of the way, so her face was exposed. She couldn't hide anything from him.

“Are you sad because you had to leave home?” he asked gently. “Do you miss it?”

What a strange question. She'd left in such a state of terror, and that fear had tainted all her thoughts about her family. But now that he mentioned it . . . “Sometimes.” She lifted her head. “But I had Jacob. I never could have managed without him. Being on our own was kind of exciting. We came to California because it was such a big state with lots of farms. We knew farm work. We camped out in a tent and got jobs nearly right away picking oranges and strawberries.”

“How'd you end up in San Gabriel?”

“We wanted to try something different. I had all these other things I wanted to do. Dancing and getting educated. Someday I want to work with kids, like I told you.”

He snapped his fingers, as if something had just clicked. “All your jobs pay cash. I can't believe I didn't see it earlier. Is that why you can't work with kids?”

“Yes. I don't want anyone checking into my background. We didn't want to leave a trail. We saved up some money for rent. We looked at a map. As soon as I saw San Gabriel I had a good feeling. I liked the name. I grew up with all those crazy Old Testament names, but Gabriel felt more like an angel who'd look out for us. I was always fascinated by angels. They can be pretty powerful.”

“So you came to San Gabriel.”

“And that's pretty much the end of the story.”

From his bullheaded expression, he wasn't buying it. “Except Mackintosh holds a grudge.”

She gave a microscopic little nod. “I don't think my father knew what he was dealing with. Mackintosh is scary. He acted like he owned me as soon as my father and him started working out their deal. I had to watch his horrible kids. He wanted me to do his laundry. All sorts of little chores like that. He'd come over to our place with presents like dish towels and yarn from his brother's sheep. That was bad enough, but he also brought me a new dress, new underwear. It was so disgusting. He expected me to put them on right then and there. He didn't bother waiting for the wedding.”

“He didn't bother waiting,” Vader repeated. She turned her head away. “You mean he  . . .” He started to say the word “rape,” then seemed to gag on it. “Violated you?”

“No! No. I already told you he didn't get that far. I hit him on the head. I gave him brain damage and now he hates me.” She scrambled backward until her spine touched the headboard. She'd said too much. But she couldn't help it. Once she'd started talking, it had been so hard to stop. “That's enough answers. You said one question, one answer.”

“What am I missing here?” He dragged his hand through his hair. “Why is this such a big secret? Why didn't you tell me before?”

Oh, what a mistake this was. Jacob was right, she should never have said one word. Because once she told him a little bit, he'd keep asking questions. More and more questions. “I never said I'd tell you
everything
. You said one question, and I answered it.”

“You're dreaming if you think I'm going to just leave it at that, Cherie. I'll be back here tomorrow night, and the night after, and maybe some of the hours in between too. Something's not right here.” He pressed his hands into his thighs, which made her think he was going to come closer.

If he did, she'd lose it. She felt too raw, too exposed. The thought of how she'd broken her promise to Jacob made her want to throw up. She flung up a hand. “Don't touch me.”

His head snapped up. He fixed her with a look of outrage
.
“Are you nuts, Cherie? I haven't moved one finger. I'm not forcing you to do anything.” His voice shook with passion. “I've never hurt you. Never done anything but love you from the moment I saw you.”

“I didn't ask you to!”

“No, you didn't ask me to. I did it, all on my own, because that's just the way it is. I can't help it. I love you, Cherie, and it's not going anywhere. I'll love you tomorrow, and the next day, whether or not you ever decide to let me in on all your secrets. Or even one secret.”

“Vader.” Her voice trembled. “I've just told you more than I've ever told anyone. More than Soren, more than Nick, the Hendersons, my friends, anyone.”

“I'm supposed to be satisfied with that? I beat out the emo boys and the babysitting family. Now I get to sit in a corner until you call on me again.”

“That's not fair!” Furious, she scrabbled for a pillow and hurled it at him. He caught it in one hand and tossed it to the side.

“Fair?” He scrambled off the bed and surged to his feet. “
Fair?
How does ‘fair' come into any of this? Was it fair for your father to try to make you marry someone you didn't want? Was it fair for my mother to get hit by a car? Was it fair for my dad to run off because he couldn't handle it?”

She gaped at him in shock. Where had that come from?

“Yeah. He came into my bedroom and explained that he hadn't signed up to take care of a cripple for the rest of his life.” He struggled for a ragged breath. “It's not about ‘fair.' It's about taking what life dishes out and doing the best you can, giving it everything you've got.” He pointed at her. “You're hiding, Cherie.”

She wanted to defend herself, tell him how wrong he was. But was he? She hugged her knees close to her chest, needing her own body heat.