Hurts So Good (12 page)

Their sweat mingled as he rolled his chest over hers, over the sweet mounds he craved to touch, to suck. This he told her outright. And then she did that thing that made him crazy. She turned a shade of red and gave him a shy look of pleasure.

That look caused him to bring her wrists to his lips and kiss the imprint of his fingers. And that kiss bound her to him more surely than force ever could.

As she stroked his clean-shaven jaw, and then his windblown hair, Andrea's heart turned over. Somewhere between the removal of her halter and his aggressive pounce, she'd realized that loving Neil wasn't a possibility, it was a certainty. So why had she stalled the inevitable?

They were playing a whole new ball game, that's why. This wasn't a hot encounter in a roach-infested kitchen. This wasn't about needing to be wanted and wanting a dangerously tender part of Neil so desperately that she'd been ready to drag him into her bed.

No, this was something else entirely. This was love, the kind that came maybe once in a lifetime to the lucky. Something rare. Too rare to disregard the invisible roadblocks that wouldn't go away with the shedding of their clothes. She had to topple at least a few to get them to the final hurdle.

"I've got a blanket in the trunk," he said. "What-say I drag it out, and we lay it on the grass? And while you put aside any misgivings I don't understand, I'll give you plenty of reason to forget them for good."

"But, Neil, it's not that easy. There
are
things between us that might go away in a moment of passion, but they'll still be there when we forget to forget."

"Say again?"

"Well... for example, you didn't have to shave or cut your hair for me."

"Wish you'd said so sooner."

"That's what I mean. I don't want you to change, unless it's something you decide for yourself. Otherwise it's a quick fix, and those usually don't stick, because the reasons are all wrong. You've changed in a very short time, and so have I. Are we really falling in love? Or are we just falling for distorted versions of each other instead of the real person inside?"

"I don't know what's real no more. But I can tell you this—for the first time in my life I've met a woman I can trust, can talk to and feel like she hears what I don't know how to say. You're tearin' me up while you make me feel the closest to whole I've ever been. It's damn scary, and there's a good chance I won't be able to make it for the goal I've set my sights on. That's as honest as I can get. Now you be honest with me. Where does this leave us besides half-naked on the hood of a car, with my own gears just about stripped from needing to peel off your shorts?"

Despite the heat, Andrea shivered. It was more than his graphic sensuality. More than the way he slowly rolled her nipple between finger and thumb until her hips rose to meet his.

It was about
honesty.
Being worthy of the trust he gave her when she knew his trust was given only to a few. If she were as honest as Neil, she'd tell him about the pile of pages hidden in her lingerie drawer. And if she told him, where would that leave them? He'd never trust her again. He'd turn his back and leave.

And he would leave. She was certain if he discovered she'd come to him under false pretenses, he'd accuse her of deceit, call her a cheat and a liar. He hated cheats and liars. They were on a par with journalists. He despised them, and that's what she was, what she'd always be—it was what she did best, and she loved her profession.

Loved it so much she was compelled to write the story she'd come for. No one would see it, no one but her. It wasn't in her to betray him, and hell would freeze over before she'd publish the pages of insights that helped her to better understand him. "Neil Grey, Man or Myth" she'd titled the work that grew by the day. It was her tribute to Neil. If only his distrust of people in general and women in particular didn't run so long and deep, if only they had a history together that could compete...

Then she could tell him the truth, and he would believe her. Then he might even read her article, see himself through her eyes, and open his own to what he shut out.

Maybe when their new love was no longer new, they'd be able to make it over that final hurdle. If they had the real thing—and she believed they did—he would understand the reason for her deceit, get over his personal prejudices and respect her choice of careers.

But that was later, and this was now. And for now there was an immediate obstacle they had to overcome. One that had to do with hard thighs straddled over hers, large palms that caressed her breasts, and eyes that burned hotter than the high-noon sun. It beat through the trees and heated her hands as they clutched his broad, slick back.

"Andrea," he demanded, "answer me. Where does this leave us? Either tell me quick or tell me later. A
lot
later." At the feel of him hard and pulsing, the urgency of his frenzied movements, she frantically shook her head.

"No.
No, Neil," she panted. "Not here. It can't be here."

"Give me a reason. A damn good reason. 'Cause as it is, I'm half out of my mind to get inside you so deep, you'll feel me where no man's ever been. You want it. You know you do. You want
me.
All of me. Say it."

"I—yes. Yes! I do want all of you. But I need you to want me.
All of me.
And that means not here. My place, where you didn't want me before. It
has
to be there, because if you really love me, it won't matter where we sleep as long as it's together. Love me, Neil. Love me enough to share my bedbug bed."

He stared at her hard while his ragged breaths fanned her face. His head fell forward, and a bead of sweat dripped from his brow onto her cheek. A crude profanity exploded from his lips, and she flinched, then cringed at the force of his fist smacking the hood.

"Can't do it." Neil pushed away and picked up her halter. He flung it in her direction and snapped, "Put that on. Put it on now.
Now!
You don't know what you're asking me. If you did, you couldn't love me and still ask it."

"I do love you, Neil." The halter shook in her hands as she put it on. He didn't watch the way he had when she'd taken it off. No, he turned his back to her, and she saw the nail marks across his skin.

She went to him, softly touching the traces of passion he'd called from her. He stiffened, and she pressed a kiss between his shoulder blades.

"I do love you, Neil. But I'm still asking. I need this from you."

"Get in the car," he said abruptly, and jerked away.

Andrea waited until her vision ceased to blur before she turned around. The passenger door was open, and she saw Neil slouched in the driver's seat, puffing on a cigarette. As soon as she got in, he gunned the engine.

She gripped the leather seat to keep from sliding into his lap as the tires hugged sharp curves. Neil stared stonily ahead. She didn't touch him. She didn't speak.

The weighty silence, the hostile energy that emanated from Neil, told her she'd done the right thing.

They needed time, and plenty of it, before he'd be ready to hear her past sins and to share whatever dark secrets drove him.

She also knew, with a sinking heart, that she might grow old before Neil could give her what she needed.

Chapter 9

"What's eatin' at you, Slick? You been here two hours and you ain't sucked a crawdad head yet. Jest pulling off beer tops with them gnashin' teeth and hurting Liza's feelins by turning up yo' nose at her gumbo. This here's a sociable occasion, and you ain't had two words for nobody."

"Not hungry. There's yo' two words." Neil took a swig of the Dixie beer Liza always bought just for him. Cheap stuff he preferred over that fancy brew everyone else was drinking. Including his "date," who was busy talking to another man on the wharf. Neil was close to stomping on out there and turning this sociable affair into a two-fisted brawl.

"How about two other words? Woman trouble." Lou slapped his back, then hooted. "Laaawdy! You got yo'self a bad case of heartthrob blues. I
knew
it. You been acting real strange here lately, son, and all I can say is more power to her. 'Bout time some woman made yo' head spin and turned you around in the right direction."

"Shove it, Lou. Between you and Liza, I got enough of that talk years ago. Feeding me more of that junk about God-given gifts and living by the Golden Rule than all the red beans and rice in N'awlins."

When Lou's big grin thinned into a tight line, Neil wished he hadn't mouthed off. Here it came. Again.

"We took you in, boy. Picked you up off the streets, put you in clean clothes that fit and got you back in school. For all the good it did. You even worse now than you was at thirteen. Mean and mad at the world, not to mention God for taking yo' mama and leaving you with that sorry excuse for a daddy. Seems you inherited some of his ugliness, tho' me and Liza done our best to wash it out. Not that you got a stitch of gratitude for our efforts."

"That's not true, and you know it, Lou. I am grateful. For everything."

"Oh yeah? Well, words is cheap. Actions speak the loudest. And yours leave a lot to be desired. I took you to my gigs, made sure you met the right people who could get you somewhere, and taught you everything I knew till you was teachin' me. And what did you do? Hooked up with a gold digger who screwed you up so bad, all you think women be good for is to screw. The least you could've done was dump her without dumping the kind of career most folks, including me, would give their eyeteeth for. Good as throwing God's generosity back in His face and—"

"And it's a wonder He don't take my gift away to teach me a lesson." Neil finished Lou's speech verbatim. "How many times do I gotta explain that it's not fun and games at the top? They's a bunch of cutthroat, money-grubbing assholes. You think they care about the music? No sir. It's the bottom line of a ledger. That's the language they speak."

"You learned to speak that language jest fine, or so you said between dry heaves and diarrhea of the mouth when I drug you out of a fleabag motel and ditched yo' gun 'fore you could sober up. Finding you like that damn near broke my heart. Didn't you learn nothing from me and Liza? The world and them that be in it ain't never gonna be perfect, Slick. Grow up and accept that. And while you're at it, do what you can to make it a better place instead of making it worse the way you've made it yo' personal mission in life to see to,"

"And just how do you suggest I do that?"

Lou got that crafty look on his face, the one Neil realized meant he'd played right into Lou's hands.

"Since you be askin' my advice for a change, I'll give it, no charge. Seems to me you got a chance to rewrite history. I see a good woman over there, looking like she's wishing you'd get your butt closer to hers. Judging from the way her butt's built, I cain't understand why you'd rather sit here and get yours gnawed on by me."

"What's the big idea talking about the way her butt's built? Liza wouldn't appreciate it, and I don't neither."

The flash of pearly white teeth between generous lips let him know he'd been suckered in.

"That a fact? Like I said, you been actin' real strange here lately. Never heard you talk like you got owner's rights to a woman some other man, with more smarts that you've shown since you got here, might take up in yo' absence. Why not make Liza feel better by asking her for two bowls of gumbo? And once you're done, get that old sax out from the room you ain't slept in for way too long. Liza washed the sheets this mawnin' in case you and your lady decided to stay the night."

"Forget that, Lou. She's got some fool idea that if I really love her, I'll sleep over at her place."

"Only a fool'd have to think twice about that."

"I ain't nobody's fool, and I got a set of rules to prove it. Where she lives, Lou, it's nasty, and I hate it. Just like going back over twenty years and living in the squalor I saw Mama die in. Cain't do it, even with the smell of Lysol and fresh paint instead of Daddy's vomit, Mama's dyin' breath, and a troupe of whores and cheap perfume taking her place."

"Sho' you can, if you love Andrea more than you do your pride and hate for what cain't be changed. And I do suspect that you do, or soon will. It'd be good for you, Slick. Finding out for yo'self that it don't matter where your head rests, so long as it's next to the right person."