Shameless (The Contemporary Collection) (26 page)

She was captivated by his pleasure. It set free her own rich savoring, causing it to burgeon with swift, incredible fervor. She lifted her free hand to lay her finger along his lean cheek, enjoying its heat and the faint scrape of bristles against her palm. Trailing across his ear, she slid her nails through the thick hair at the nape of his neck before clasping the back of his head to draw him closer.

He drew a quick breath, then smoothed his hand from her waist to the neckline of her shirt. His fingers not quite steady, but without hesitation, he unfastened the buttons and spread the edges wide. He dipped his head toward the uncovered curves above her bra, heating the nipples under the satin with his breath so they contracted into tiny knots, feathering the lace edges that plunged to the center closure with the moist heat of his tongue. She arched her back to give him greater access, and felt the sun's dazzle on her eyelids and its molten warmth in the center of her being.

There came a distant crackling, like the scatter of dried leaves. Reid's grasp tightened with abrupt, bruising force.

Suddenly, Cammie was freed. Her shirt was whipped into place to cover her. Before she could do more than gasp in surprise, he shifted with lithe strength to place her behind him, then surged to a defensive crouch before her.

Cammie gathered herself, rising to one elbow. She shook back the thick swath of her hair so she could see.

There was a boy of perhaps seventeen or eighteen standing less than fifty feet away. He carried a .22 rifle in his right hand and had a pair of binoculars swinging around his neck. There was surprise and self-consciousness, and all too ready understanding on his face.

“Where in hell do you think you're going?” Reid said in grating tones edged with distinct menace. “This is private property. Get off it.”

A flush burned its way into the boy's face. He stumbled back a step, then turned and moved off at a fast stride that changed quickly into a trot. His crashing progress through the woods could be heard for long minutes before it died away again into softly rustling stillness.

Reid sighed and relaxed his guard. Lifting a hand, he ran his fingers through his hair in a harassed gesture. His voice flat, he said, “That was a mistake.”

“Yes.”

Cammie was forced to acknowledge that it could have been handled better. A smile and casual greeting might have glossed over the incident. Ordering the boy away could only cause resentment and make the whole thing seem more clandestine than it was. If the tale wasn't all over town by dark, it would be a miracle. She didn't think she could stand it, not on top of everything else.

“I lost it, and there's no excuse.” He glanced away from her through the trees. “I just — hated knowing I put you in a position where it could happen.”

“You didn't do it by yourself,” she said in compressed tones. She closed her eyes, then opened them wide again. As he turned toward her, she met his gaze with sudden decision in her face.

“About New York? When can we leave?”

CAMMIE ALWAYS ENJOYED NEW YORK
against
her will. She would have liked to be indifferent to it, from regional tradition if nothing else. There was actually much about it she disliked: the viscous air that felt as if it had been breathed a million times before; the grimy, soot-laden surfaces that made wearing any color other than black or gray an exercise in optimism; the stone and glass monstrosities that blotted out the sky. But she delighted in the seething immensity of it, and the promise. The wit and humor and impolite drive of people who were wholly themselves without apologies appealed to something basic in her makeup. Le Corbusier, she thought, came closest to catching what she felt when he described it as “a catastrophe which an unkind fate has brought down on a courageous and confident people, but a grandiose and magnificent catastrophe.”

She and Reid gave themselves a free day. After taxiing in from LaGuardia, they checked into the Roosevelt, a hotel Cammie liked for its central location and because it had something of the same layout and faded grandeur as the Fairmont in New Orleans. They made reservations for a show, and for dinner afterward at Le Perigord. Then they simply walked, in part to stretch their muscles after the long flight, but also for the pleasure of joining the sidewalk hustle.

They window-shopped on Fifth Avenue and watched a bag lady feed pigeons on the steps of St. Patrick's. They bought a giant pretzel with mustard from a street vendor while rubbing shoulders with a would-be model, an Arab potentate and his bodyguard, and a Rastafarian. They stepped around a pride of toy lions stalking and growling all over the sidewalk in front of an enterprising teenage salesman, ducked through a construction site, and had coffee at Rockefeller Plaza while arguing over whether the shining bronze overlooking the Center was really Prometheus or bore more resemblance to Apollo.

The show was not as good as they expected, the dinner was better. Afterward they went back to the hotel, where they took a bath, then lay in bed making up outrageous stories about the wedding nights, afternoon affairs, and paid sexual transactions that had taken place over the years in their room.

Reid's were so inventive and so outrageous that Cammie sat up in bed and rounded on him. “I do believe,” she said with a trace of disappointment beneath the humor in her voice, “that hotel rooms turn you on!”

“Wrong.” The answer was unequivocal, his smile sensual.

“I don't think so.”

His expression grew serious as he saw the challenge in her eyes. He gathered himself, sitting up with his back against the headboard. In an expansive gesture, he raised his arms and locked his fingers behind his head. The words low and deliberate, he said, “Let me tell you what turns me on.”

“Besides hotel rooms?” she countered. There was an odd tightness in the lower part of her body.

He shook his head. His eyes grew slumberous, yet intent. “Rainy nights turn me on. And red sunsets. Deep woods turn me on, as you ought to know. So does some music, some poetry. I can be turned on by a woman's long, fine hair, especially the sight of it lifting, blowing in the wind.”

“Typical,” she snorted.

He paused, then reached out with casual strength to catch her arms, pulling her toward him. Dragging her across his body, he turned her to her back and shifted to hover above her. His voice dropping lower, he continued, “I am turned on, more than I can say, by the way your hair touches the middle of your back. The soft look on your face just before I kiss you gets me going. The shape of your breasts can do it, and the way your shirt drapes over them — not to mention that vee-shaped shadow hidden between them. I am turned on by the habit you have of leaving your panties until last when you undress. Also, the totally efficient way you slide them off over your hips; no coy glances, without caring — or maybe knowing — that I'm paying attention.”

“That isn't fair,” she protested, her eyes wide and her voice not quite even.

He might not have heard. Releasing his hold, he moistened the tip of his finger with his tongue, then slid it over and around the nipple of her breast, which peeped through the long tresses lying over her shoulder. “I'm turned on by the little sound you make as you catch your breath when I touch you — like this. The feel of your skin against mine turns me on. The thought of you under me, and me inside you, turns me on.” He stopped, said finally in ragged tones, “You turn me on. Mostly you.”

The light in his eyes was steady as they met hers without evasion. She sustained it while rich satisfaction spread through her. She had gotten more than she bargained for, but not more than she needed.

Her soft sigh feathered over his shoulder, making gooseflesh bead in its wake. She lowered her lashes and lifted a hand to smooth that momentary roughness. “Me, too,” she said. “Or rather, I mean that you—”

“I know what you mean,” he said, only the slightest trace of complacency threading the gratification in his tone.

She slid her arm around his neck, drawing his head down until her lips were almost touching his. Against his mouth she murmured, “Are you through?”

“Just beginning,” he answered, and proceeded to show her.

Afterward Cammie thought Reid drifted off to sleep while she lay with her head pillowed on his chest and the moisture cooling on her skin. She was still, staring at nothing in the room that was too bright from the light coming around the window draperies and the hall door. The problems she had managed to keep at bay rose slowly in her mind. Her fingers, spread over Reid's chest, tightened involuntarily.

“Don't think,” he said in quiet reprimand as he reached to catch her hand, pressing it against him.

“How can I help it?” she answered.

“Let me distract you,” he said.

It was, almost, enough.

Charles Meyer lived in Queens, in one of a long stretch of red brick row houses with identical entrance steps and railings. The front door was painted a forest-green so dark it was almost black, and centered by an antique Victorian brass knocker. A black marble urn filled with brilliant red tulips and white alyssum sat beside it.

Reid's friend was like his house, neat, pleasant, yet with an elegance that set him apart. With his long, narrow face filled in by a beard sparked with white, his spare form and competent hands, he looked as if he belonged on some Left Bank side street in Paris, rubbing shoulders with fellow artists in shirtsleeves and berets. He also sounded like it, given his accent, though his wife Michelle did not.

His four-year old son, Andre, was very like Charles, except that he had the enormous, liquid-brown eyes of a fifteenth century painting and the hands of a violinist. He was a walking example of the workings of genetics, since his mother was dark-eyed, graceful, and elegant in a practical New York fashion. Their baby girl, Reina, seven months old, seemed cast in the same mold as her brother, though at present with angelic overtones.

Cammie felt a little awkward in the Meyer house at first, afraid she would say or do something wrong. Religion was not a high priority for her. She had been reared a Methodist, but in her family, worship and belief were casual and rather private matters, nothing to stir public passion. There were one or two Jewish families in Greenley, but they were not exactly Orthodox; Cammie had been well into her twenties before she had realized they were different in any way. She'd looked into the difference then, from curiosity, but her knowledge of Jewish observances and protocol was distressingly vague.

She needn't have worried. Charles and Michelle Meyer took her into their house and their confidence with obvious goodwill. They laughed and teased; their lively conversation, with its rapid-fire questions and quick, witty comments, was a joy to hear and a challenge to join, and left no room for uneasiness.

Michelle Meyer, it appeared, worked on Wall Street, something to do with the management of a mutual fund. Her investment savvy supplied the financial cushion that allowed Charles to work out of the house. On the surface, his job appeared to be the creation of computer software, and he had developed and marketed a number of innovative business applications. However, his main occupation, as Reid had indicated, was with government agencies.

Infiltrating worldwide computer networks was a game for him, one whose appeal was the challenge. His greatest interest, however, was in testing government computer security. Staying one step ahead of all the hackers and other interested parties who might try to tap into the vast data files, confidential and otherwise, that were maintained by the various federal agencies was his joy, amounting almost to obsession.

As a result, there wasn't much Charles didn't know about computer security; there were few systems that he himself couldn't tap, if he put his mind to it. He was perfectly willing to lend his expertise on Cammie's behalf, since it was Reid who asked.

Dinner was a great meal, with a runaway pace to the banter, and the warmth as free-flowing as the wine. Afterward, Reid and Charles helped clear the kitchen, then huddled together before the computer in the tiny study located through an archway from the living room. They seemed to be testing some sort of warning system, double-checking times and conditions. It sounded like something personal.

Cammie and Michelle sat talking. Cammie found her attention wandering from what the other woman was saying, however, to the low-voiced comments between the two men.

Michelle Meyer broke off what she was saying about the problems of commuting into lower Manhattan to follow Cammie's gaze. A smile curved her wide, mobile mouth. “You're right, they're both a little paranoid — being in covert operations seems to bring it on. That's their fail-safe system they're checking out. Reid told you about it?”

Cammie lifted a brow in inquiry even as she shook her head.

“It's simple, really. Both keep their computers going around the clock, both have access to them in their room of last resort, the place they expect to hole up in if attacked. There's a two-word code. If it ever comes up, the other instantly sends in the Marines — or the police at the very least.”

“Long distance?”

“There's no such thing as distance when you're working with computer signals.”

“You are joking — aren't you?”

Michelle gave a brief shake of her head. “Deadly serious. It seems to pay these days, with all the burglaries and drug-related crimes, not to mention the people who might like to pick Charles's brain for his specialized knowledge — or Reid's, for that matter. It's just another alarm system, really, one a little more innovative than most.”

Cammie had to admit it made sense. She said, “I hope Charles won't get into trouble over this computer search. I'd feel terrible.”

“There's no special risk, though Charles wouldn't do it for just anybody. On the other hand, he and Reid are far too used to covert operations, acting just that tiny bit above and beyond the law, to let it worry them too much.”

“They seem to be enjoying the whole thing,” Cammie commented.

“No doubt they are. They have the same kind of minds — meticulous, but free-ranging. It's a shame Louisiana is so far away,” Michelle went on as she leaned back in the overstuffed couch, tucking her feet under her. “Charles has missed Reid; there aren't many people he can talk to about what he does, even fewer who would understand it.”

It was unsettling, to catch this glimpse of the life Reid had been living while away from Greenley. She said in tentative tones, “Perhaps he'll move closer, if the sale of the mill goes through.”

Michelle gave a quick shake of her head. “I doubt that; he seems content where he is. Charles would be ecstatic, of course. They go back a long way together. Reid saved Charles's life once, you know.”

“He didn't mention it.”

“I'm not surprised; he claims it was just one of those things men do in a fight. It was during a border clash, one of the daily PLO skirmishes that took place in Israel in the months before the Gulf War. Charles and Reid were working in a makeshift communications headquarters. The place was blown up by a bomb preset in a car parked outside. Four of the Israelis were killed outright, another had a concussion. Charles was trapped with a roof beam across his back and a bone smashed in his leg. Reid was bleeding from a half-dozen places, some of them inside. Then the place was attacked. Charles and Reid and the other man were surrounded for hours by the Palestinian infiltrators. Reid was the only one able to put up much of a defense, yet the Palestinians were down to four men from a total of sixteen by the time help arrived, or so I gather. I've never heard the full tale — deliberately, I think.”

Her voice stifled, Cammie said, “Reid can, apparently, be very — lethal.”

A quizzical expression touched the other woman's face. “He's also the most gentle man I've ever seen. It's a puzzle. I've often wondered if it has something to do with being from the South.”

“The legendary southern gentleman?” Cammie said wryly. “I don't think so.”

“It's personal to him, then; I might have known. He is more totally himself, more secure inside himself, than anyone I've ever met. He's so strong that he has apparently never wanted or required much in the way of emotional defenses. That makes what happened in Israel just before he left the Company so much more terrible for him than—”

The other woman broke off as the sound of a crying baby came from the room where little Reina had been put to bed. “Be back in a second,” she said, and uncoiled from the couch to vanish into the nursery room.