Luke (20 page)

Was the lightning coming closer, getting brighter? She monitored its progress, staring wide-eyed into the night. If it was, it would be more dangerous to someone sleeping on an open deck. It was selfish of her to leave Luke alone out there, exposed to the elements. She really should tell him to come inside. But what would he think? No doubt, the obvious. Was that what she wanted?

Make up your mind….

It was so hot, without a hint of breeze. The air felt disturbed with the roiling of the elements. She was so restless. There was no comfortable position to be found on the firm plastic foam mattress of the makeshift bed that was so different from her soft one at Mulberry Point. The warm weight of Midnight lying across the end of it didn't help matters, either. Her short silk gown felt too restricting as well, too tight around the hips and across her breasts. It was as if her skin couldn't breathe. She was half inclined to strip naked so she could feel the little air movement there was available.

It was the weather; that was all. Her feverish chafing had nothing to do with the man outside. Nothing whatever.

To lie to Luke was one thing, a perfectly understandable self-protective gesture. Lying to herself was something else again. She wouldn't be half so disturbed, she knew, if she was alone on the boat. She might as well admit it and be done with it.

Make up your mind…

April kicked the sheet away from her in such violent irritation that Midnight meowed in protest and jumped to the floor. She pushed a hand under her neck, sweeping her hair from beneath her and across the pillow for coolness. With tight-lipped concentration, she closed her eyes. Firmly, she routed from her mind the flickering scenes from the night before: two bodies damply entwined, a symphony of touches and tastes, glorious striving.

Sleep, she had to get to sleep. Seeking the stillness of progressive relaxation, she breathed deep once, twice, three times, then began the mental chant that would encourage her body to release tension beginning from her toes and spreading upward. She got as far as her knees before her mind wandered and she found herself staring at the flickers of light beyond the windows again.

Abruptly, she sat up, swung her feet off the bed and stood. She moved to the door, slid the screen aside.

Luke roused instantly at the noise, pushing himself to one elbow so smoothly that it was obvious he hadn't been asleep. The outline of his body was plain against the white sheet on which he lay, as was the gull's wing shape of his briefs. That last, she thought with sudden conviction, was a conces
sion to her supposed modesty. He was the kind of man who would normally sleep naked.

The boat rocked gently. Its anchor rope squeaked, then stopped. Long moments passed while neither of them spoke. April hadn't planned anything to say, could think of no light comment to suit the occasion, no sophisticated way to introduce what was on her mind. Her brain was empty of everything, in fact, except fretted impulse.

Lightning blinked again. The blue-white glow touched Luke with silver, plated the straight set of his shoulders, the streamlined musculature of his arms and legs. It glinted in his hair, but left the hollows of his eyes in impenetrable shadow.

“What is it?”

His voice, husky, yet resonant, reached out to her, reached into her to add to the aching fullness in the lower part of her body. Boldly, baldly, she answered him. “My mind is made up. Come inside.”

“I
thought you'd never ask,” Luke said, then controlled a grimace at the banal phrase and the truth it both revealed and concealed. He'd been so certain she wouldn't ask that he'd deliberately exhausted himself, swimming until his breath came in labored gasps, his arms were leaden weights, and he could hardly pull himself back onto the boat. It hadn't done a lot to lower his flood-stage testosterone level, but might now benefit his self-control.

Giving April a chance for second thoughts was not in the cards. He slid off the bench and stalked toward her. At the door, he swooped down to put an arm under her knees and one behind her back, then lift her against his chest. Easing through the doorway, he shoved the screen shut with his foot.

He hesitated at the bedside, almost afraid to go farther. In any case, her silky excuse for a nightgown with firm flesh beneath it was such an acute bodily enjoyment that he barely suppressed a groan of pleasure. With legs spread for balance, he swayed in a delirium of doubt and half-crazed longing. Finally, he said, “This
is
what you meant?”

“If it's what you want,” she whispered.

“You know it is, but I have to be sure I'm not going too far.”

She lifted a hand to his lips, brushed their sensitive surfaces with her fingertips as she murmured with a smile in her voice, “You think too much. But if it will help matters, I promise to tell you when to stop.”

It was enough.

He talked too much, too, whispered compliments and bits of stupidity that signified nothing except the boundless nature of his satisfaction. Also requests and questions of location, placement and degree. He was quiet with wonder, however, as he scaled the peaks of her breasts with the awe of a lowland swamp boy investigating his first mountains, delved into warm hollows with the caution of an explorer in dangerous territory. He had all the time in God's creation, and he used it to gather a thousand sensations and impressions, a precious hoarding against the time when there might be no more.

April was silent, this writer who used words as her stock in trade. He thought, from observations going back years, that they sometimes got damned up inside her, unable to emerge, when they mattered most. So he pried gently at the mental barrier holding them, teasing, taunting until she joined him in his paean to anticipation.

She was so sensitive. A brush of breath or lips could make her shiver in overextended pleasure. Too refined, or too empathetic to use her nails in the recklessness of her need, she still held him with desperate hands, showed him unerringly what she
needed. To provide it gave him more joy than anything that he'd ever known.

She was all grace and caring, an exquisitely polite lady of firm grasp, generous inclinations, and reciprocal notions. She was silk and velvet and sweet-scented wonder. She was perfect glory. Burying himself in her tender depths until he could feel her heartbeat mesh with his own was the completion for which he'd been born, the solace he had searched for through eons of useless time. Sending them both spinning into silver-streaked darkness was his only purpose, the reward for every good thing he had ever done, every well-intentioned effort he'd ever made. It was his natural place. The fusing with the other half of himself that made him whole.

Afterward, holding her and staring blindly into the dark, he cursed in silent rage the Fates that had taken years of loving April away from him in a single, careless night. And he was afraid, so afraid that he might have to be satisfied with no more than a taste of her sweet promise when once he might have had it all.

The sun in Luke's face woke him. Turning away from the dazzling brightness, he yawned, and inhaled the soul-pleasing smells of brewing coffee and bacon frying, with a faint undertone of well-crumpled sheets. A slow smile spread over his face and he stretched with his arms above his head until his bones creaked.

His elbow touched something warm and furry. It was not what he might have hoped for, certainly not what he would have preferred, since April was already up.

The damned cat.

Luke opened a jaundiced eye and turned his head. He was practically nose to nose with the critter. It wasn't enough to spoil his mood, however. In an excess of good humor, he slid a hand under the feline and lifted him up to dangle above him. Midnight was so big and so boneless that his back feet rested on Luke's chest. He made a sleepy cat noise of inquiry.

“Good morning to you, too, friend. Where were you when your mistress deserted us, huh? The least you could have done was wake me up before she could get clean away.”

“Meow,” Midnight replied.

“Well, yes, I know you had a disturbed night, and I'm sorry, but you'll have to make allowances for the commotion since I'm sure she does the same for you now and then.”

The cat meowed again right on cue.

“Not lately, huh? Your three-day escapade as somebody's unwilling guest not only cut into your fun time but also got you shut up at night? Too bad, but you know she's only doing the best she can by you. It's not so bad, considering her limited understanding of male—”

“Ego?” April supplied from the doorway.

He turned his head to give her a slow smile. “Needs, I was going to say.”

“My understanding in that area,” she said with an intriguing tilt of her lips, “is improving by leaps and bounds. Breakfast is ready.”

“So am I.” The hunger in his voice had nothing to do with bacon or coffee.

She lifted a brow as she studied his face. “Really?”

“Really.”

“It's your payoff breakfast.”

“My what?”

“For our bet?”

The stupid challenge, she meant, and the suggestion that she must make breakfast for him if she succumbed. He shook his head. “Forget it.”

She unfastened the tie of the short robe she wore as she moved toward him, letting it fall open to reveal her nakedness underneath it. Taking the cat from him, she deposited the beast on the floor. She lifted a knee to straddle Luke's torso, then settled slowly onto the firmness at the apex of his thighs. “Some people,” she complained, “are just impossible to please.”

“Aren't we, though,” he said in husky appreciation as he reached for her.

“Meow,” Midnight said.

 

It was infernally hot as the morning advanced. Luke worked on the outboard motor, restoring the spark plugs he'd removed the day before, cleaning and fine-tuning it, then topping it off with gas. While he was at it, he checked the lines as well. The job helped pass the time and he figured it was best to be prepared in case they had to move fast and on short notice.

Afterward, he did a little cleaning on the front deck, sweeping off trash and leaves, wiping the ever present spider webs from the railings, and straightening around the grill where he'd fried fish the night
before. Feeling hot and grimy when he was done, he went for a swim in the cutoff jeans that was all he had on. When he crawled back onboard, he didn't bother to change, but let his makeshift swimsuit dry on him for the coolness.

April, he was happy to see, had also pared down to essentials in shorts and a tank top without a bra. She let him putter around the boat by himself, however, while she stuck to mental effort by concentrating on her writing. At first, she used her laptop, but seemed to tire of squinting at the screen in the bright outdoor light. She soon switched to a real ink pen and spiral notebook. The only time she moved over the next several hours was to follow the shade from the rear deck to the front with the changing direction of the sun. Luke left her alone as much as possible.

He did search out the sunscreen and take it to her at midmorning. He'd have liked to be invited to put it on for her, but took it like a man when no such request was forthcoming. It didn't seem like a good idea to push his luck too far.

His reward came in the afternoon when a rain shower rumbled through and drove them both into the cabin. He and April made love while the warm rain thrummed overhead and the moisture-laden wind swept through the screens to cool their overheated bodies. Replete, they napped, waking only when the sun came out and raised the inside temperature so high that a swim was blessed relief.

In late evening, Luke cast for bass again, with Midnight watching from nearby in tail-twitching interest. As Luke cleaned the fish, he sneaked the cat
a few more tidbits when he thought April wasn't looking. If she did notice, she didn't comment. He thought that maybe she didn't mind as much as she'd pretended, after all.

The result of the feeding, however, was that the cat became his shadow. Of course, the few quick scratches between the ears and nonsensical conversation he gave the beast off and on all day may have played a part as well. Luke couldn't help it. The poor animal was at loose ends with nothing to do on the boat beyond eat and sleep, and scant attention from his rightful owner in her involvement with her work. He wasn't developing a sneaking liking for him or anything like that, or so Luke told himself. He just knew how Midnight felt.

About dark, when his hunger pangs got too bad to ignore, he asked the cat, “What do you suppose Miss April would like for supper?”

Midnight sat down and considered the problem, finally uttering a tentative meow.

“Fish? An excellent suggestion, Monsieur Chat. We just happen to have a nice bass this evening. Now, with your knowledge of the lady, would you say she'd prefer it fried again or baked?”

Midnight turned his head and yawned.

“True,” Luke agreed, frowning. “It really is too hot to light the oven, not to mention too much trouble. But the same holds true for frying, you know.”

April, looking up from where she sat on the far end of the bench and smiled over at them as she said, “How about grilled?”

“Did you hear that, Midnight, old boy?” Luke exclaimed. “She spoke. She honored us with three
whole words. And a brilliant suggestion, too, I might add. I knew we were keeping her around for some reason.”

“Meow.”

“Well, yes, I see what you mean. And I'll admit her attention is pretty intense at such times. But we spend so little time in bed that…”

“You,” April interrupted, “are asking for it.”

“Better than begging, don't you think?” Luke tried to look pathetic but was afraid he made a poor job of it.

She closed her notebook and put it down, then placed her pen carefully on top. “I'll make the salad,” she said, “so it doesn't take so long to get from the fish course to your…just desserts.”

That day set the pattern for the next two. It was an easy time. Luke was content, for the most part, to live in the moment. At stray moments, he let himself forget that there was a point to this idyll, that someone, somewhere might be trying to find them, might be intent on harming April. Still he was alert to every unusual noise, kept a wary eye out for distant boat traffic that might veer in their direction. He scanned the tree line of the shore around them for movement, however unlikely that was. It was instinct as much as caution. Not many knew of this small cul-de-sac, and fewer still could find it except by accident.

It was while organizing the cabin late in the afternoon of the third day that he came across one of April's novels. Remembering his inclination to check out her stories, he picked it up and stood turning it in his hands. The cover was a brilliant blue-
green metallic embossed with copper lettering that curled around a man and woman clasped in a suggestive but unlikely pose. A shade lurid, maybe, but eye-catching. The back copy sounded interesting, something about an ex-CIA agent and an independent female.

Luke took the book out onto the shady back deck and stretched out on the bench seat, making himself comfortable. He flipped the pages back and forth, reading a bit here, a bit there, and finally whistling in soft comment. Turning to the front, then, he settled into the story.

It was maybe an hour later that April came down from where she'd been working on the roof of the cabin that doubled as a sundeck. She started inside then stopped, staring hard at him where he lay with the book propped on his chest and Midnight stretched out along the wide seat back just above his head.

After a moment, she said, “You must really be bored.”

“Nope,” he answered with the briefest of grins, his attention still on the page.

“I never pictured you as much of a reader.”

That rankled briefly for some reason. “Now you know different.”

“Surely there's something else more your style here somewhere,” she added, her voice taking on a strained note.

“And what would that be, do you think?” he asked with a lifted brow as he gave her his full attention. “A hot rod magazine or just
Playboy
?”

“I didn't mean—”

“Yes, you did.”

She flushed and glanced down at her bare feet. “No, really. What I had in mind was more along the lines of
Louisiana Conservationist
magazine or an action thriller.”

She'd come uncomfortably close to pegging him. She really was a smart lady, something he was growing more and more aware of the deeper he got into her story. Watching her mental processes unfold on the page had made him aware that there was usually a secondary reason behind most of what her characters said and did. He wondered if there was something going on in her mind at the moment other than an interest in his reading habits.

“What's the matter?” he asked. “Everybody else reads your books. Why should it bother you that I'm at it now?”

“I don't know, it just does,” she said, lifting her chin. “Maybe it's because of why you're doing it.”

“And that is?” He kept his gaze steady.

“You tell me,” she returned. “I just doubt it's because you loved fairy tales as a child or happen to think that romance is a great panacea for what ails the human race. I can't imagine you're really involved in a story where the woman always wins, or that affirms love as a life-giving power and the direct antidote to the male urge to kill.”