Sidney and Derek wrote to each other sporadically, but lost touch, as teenagers were wont to do. In all this time, she’d never forgotten him, or thrown away his letters.
He hugged her so tight she laughed at his enthusiasm. Then he pulled back to look at her, as if he weren’t quite sure she was real. “My God. You’re beautiful.”
She couldn’t help but flush from pleasure at his words, although he’d always been effusive, and a little nearsighted. “You’re not so bad yourself. What are you doing here?”
“I live here,” he said, jerking his shoulder toward the house. “We moved back.”
“Your mom and dad?”
A shadow darkened his eyes. “No. Just me and Trina.”
The smile fell off her face. It was terrible of her, but she never thought the sick girl would survive this long. “How is she?”
“She has her good days and bad,” he hedged. “Want to see her?”
“Of course,” she said immediately.
“What’s wrong with your truck?”
“I think I ran out of gas.” She toed at the dirt in front of her, trying to look sheepish.
“Come on in. I’ve got a gas can in the garage.”
She glanced at the tree-shrouded hill in the distance, remembering her promise to Marc. Following Derek, she made an okay sign behind her back, hoping he wouldn’t freak out.
Trina DeWinter remembered her, although they hadn’t seen each other in more than ten years, and she was just a little girl when Sidney and Derek had been friends. At twenty-two she should have been a vibrant, full-grown woman. Instead she was painfully thin, the illness keeping her as small and undeveloped as a child.
For one so sick, she was in great spirits. She had a colorful silk scarf over her head, covering her baby-fine hair, and her soft speech was punctuated by light laughter. The conversation invariably turned to the foibles of youth, and some of the scrapes Sidney and Derek had gotten themselves into as wild hooligans.
“Remember the well?” Trina asked suddenly. “Who fell in there?”
“Lisa Pettigrew,” Sidney said with a smile. “Derek had a major crush on her.”
“No, I didn’t,” he protested. “I had a major crush on you.”
“Well, Lisa chased after you, I remember that. And you didn’t run very fast to get away. Neither did Kurtis,” she added wryly, thinking of the boy who’d taunted her throughout grade school.
“Whatever happened to him?”
“He’s still around,” Derek said, his eyes hard. “We’re neighbors, in fact. He bought old man Frasier’s property.
Sidney hugged her arms around herself, feeling a sudden chill. Kurtis Stalb had lured Lisa down into the well and then abandoned her there. Afraid of the repercussions, he didn’t tell anyone where she was. If Sidney hadn’t bumped into him inadvertently and discovered his shocking secret, Lisa might never have been found.
“Hopefully he grew up to be a decent person,” she said. She cut him some slack because twelve-year-old boys couldn’t be held accountable for, or even expected to understand, the consequences of their actions.
“Are you kidding?” Derek snorted. “People like that don’t change. He was born bad.”
Sidney felt a rush of sympathy for Derek, recalling how often he and his sister had been the subjects of Kurtis’s ridicule. With her long, black hair and freaky ways, Sidney had also been one of the bully’s favorite targets.
After a few more minutes, Trina’s eyelids began to droop. Hefting her easily, Derek carried her off to bed, calling her a sleepy-head with warm affection.
“Where are your parents?” Sidney asked when he returned.
“Dead,” he answered shortly. “There was a pile-up on the 15. Mom was killed instantly. Dad hung on just until he heard.”
She placed a hand over her heart. “Oh God, Derek. I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah.”
“You must be…” She was about to say buried in debt then rethought her words. “How are you managing? Trina’s medical care alone-”
“We’re getting by,” he interrupted.
“How?”
“You don’t want to know.”
She bit down on her lower lip, trying not to show her pity. It was the last thing he needed. He found his gas can and dumped it into the tank, smiling with pleasure when her truck started without a hitch. She promised to keep in touch, and he claimed the same, neither of them believing it, or each other.
Whatever they’d had, once upon a time, was a childhood dream, a sweet, purely innocent fantasy, lost in the harsh miasma of reality.
M
arc had been going out of his mind since Sidney disappeared. One moment he was admiring her gorgeous legs as she bent over the engine, the next he was watching some hippie drug dealer put his dirty hands all over her.
He’d been crouched in an orange grove, seething, for almost an hour.
Finally she came out and said goodbye, driving away as the last vestiges of daylight slipped into darkness. Marc could see the younger man’s forlorn, almost hangdog expression in the fading tail-lights.
It was only then that Marc lowered his weapon.
Straightening, he holstered his gun and waited for Sidney to round the corner, every nerve in his body as taut as a wire. She was safe. Why wasn’t he relieved?
She pulled up alongside him, killing the engine and stepping out when he made no move to get in. “I gave you one simple instruction,” he said, enunciating each word carefully.
“He’s harmless. I’ve known him since we were kids.”
A hot, prickly sensation crept up the back of his neck. “I asked you not to go in the house,” he reiterated.
“His sister is extremely sick,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “He invited me in to see her.”
The reasonable excuse did nothing to assuage his anger. It still boiled inside, straining for release. “Did you give him your phone number?”
Her demeanor changed from defensive to coy. “If I did, would you be jealous?”
“No,” he lied, “I’d be furious. He’s a key component in a murder case. Someone he’s connected to is mutilating women. Do you want to become one of them?”
“I didn’t give him my number, he gave me his, and I accepted it for old times’ sake. We were friends once. Nothing more.”
He laughed harshly. “You are so naïve. He hugged you close to feel your tits against his chest, and his eyes were glued to your ass every time you turned around.”
“You’re the one who wanted me to dress sexy,” she pointed out.
“To bend over under the hood. To go without a bra.” Each detail brought a sensual image to mind, and he had to force himself to keep his focus on her face. “If having other men look at me disturbs you, maybe you shouldn’t use me as bait.”
“That’s not it,” he said, shoving his fingers through his hair. “I had no idea what you were doing in there. I was worried about you.”
She examined his face then stroked her eyes down his body. “Careful, Marc,” she said in a low voice, leaning forward and putting her hand in the middle of his chest. “You’re getting dangerously close to revealing your-” she touched her lips to his ear “-feelings.”
He gaped at her in shock. She’d disregarded his only request, put herself in a great amount of danger and now she had the nerve to jerk his chain?
Splaying her fingers over his rib cage, she stepped closer, insinuating every inch of her body along the length of his. He was breathing heavily, instantly aroused, and he knew she could feel it, but she didn’t back away. As her fingertips trailed over his leather shoulder holster, he realized she was toying with him, the same way he’d toyed with her at the mission. The difference was he hadn’t been bluffing. If she thought he wouldn’t give her exactly what she was asking for, right here, right now, she was in for a hell of a surprise.
“Don’t play with that, sweetheart,” he warned, moving her hand away from his gun. “It might go off.”
“I was kind of hoping it would,” she replied breathlessly.
He pushed her back onto the hood of the truck, hooking his hands under her knees and placing himself between them. Wrapping her legs around his waist, she threaded her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck and brought his mouth down to hers.
Groaning, he crushed himself against her, thrusting his tongue into the heat of her mouth and shaping her body with his hands. He was desperate to touch every part of her, taste every inch of her. She kissed him back hungrily, accepting everything he had to offer, letting him know he could have her any way he wished.
Too keyed-up to wait, he wrenched his mouth from hers. “Take off your shorts,” he said hoarsely, stepping back to release the buttons at his fly.
She stood, fumbling with the clasp and zipper, then pushed her shorts down her hips. After a brief hesitation, she hooked her thumbs in the waistband of her panties and stripped them off, as well. Then she boosted herself back on top of the hood of her pickup truck and spread her long, lovely legs for him.
He thought he might go off then and there.
“Lift up your top,” he added, as an afterthought. Her eyes burned into his, smoke-dark, as she raised the hem, exposing her breasts. While he watched her nipples tighten in the cool night air, he felt more blood pulsing to his groin, making him painfully, impossibly hard.
Sinking to his knees before her, he laved each one thoroughly, flicking his tongue over the wet, puckered tips. Gasping, she braced her hands on the hood of the truck and arched her back. With a low groan, he dragged his mouth from her breasts to her belly, sliding his hands along her inner thighs. The scent of her arousal beckoned, and his mouth watered for her taste, but he didn’t go lower until she writhed and whimpered, pushing down on the top of his head.
Her loss of inhibitions was his undoing. Abandoning any attempt at delicacy, he thumbed aside a damp, silky curl and licked at her slick flesh until she stiffened and cried out. Clutching her fingers in his hair and holding him to her, she climaxed against his mouth.
The last of his control shattered with her.
Half carrying, half dragging her inside the truck, he laid her down on the bench seat. The space was tight, barely enough room for him to get on top of her, but it offered a semblance of privacy. If someone drove by, at least they wouldn’t see her spread-eagled on the hood.
Pushing her thighs apart with his hands, he freed his erection and thrust himself inside her, showing even less finesse with intercourse than he had with oral sex.
Her body tensed at the intrusion, and he knew she’d paid the price for his impatience. With a phenomenal effort, he held himself motionless. She was sleek and tight, pulsing around his cock like a silken fist. He was afraid he might come even if he didn’t move.
“Are you all right?” he asked, scarcely able to form coherent words.
“Yes,” she said, raising her knees slightly, as if seeking a more comfortable position.
The subtle movement sent him right over the edge. Gritting his teeth, he pulled back and drove deep, again and again, feeling how wet she was, tasting her on his lips, wishing he could make the incredible sensation last forever.
Instead it lasted about ten more seconds.
He withdrew as far as he dared and buried himself in her snug heat one last time, his entire body quaking with the power of his release.
Afterward, he lay stretched out on top of her, panting, too sated to consider the full ramifications of his actions. It had been the fastest, most ill-planned, and least well-executed sexual experience of his life. But by far the best.
As she shifted beneath him, he became aware of how uncomfortable she must be, pinned to a vinyl seat under about one hundred eighty pounds of dead weight. He was in a damned awkward position himself, his legs sticking out the open passenger door, the gearshift prodding his ribs, the steering wheel pressing into his right shoulder.
He lifted himself up and pulled out of her, a warning bell clanging through his head. “I didn’t use anything.”
“I noticed.”
“You did? When?” Jerking his pants up, he buttoned them haphazardly.
“When you, um, started.”
He found her shorts and panties on the damp grass at his feet and handed them to her. “Why didn’t you stop me?”
“I should have,” she agreed.
Stunned by his lapse in judgment, he slammed the passenger door and went around to the driver’s side. He waited for her to dress, growing more appalled by his own behavior with each passing second. The least he could have done was to pull out before he came. In the heat of the moment, the thought had never even occurred to him.
Beside him, Sidney zipped up her shorts with a slight wince and fastened her seat belt.
He groaned, covering his eyes with his hand and putting his head against the steering wheel. Not only had he failed to protect her, but he hadn’t been any good. He’d fallen on her like an animal, pounded into her like a madman, and gone off quicker than a teenager.
So much for waiting until she was no longer a part of his investigation.
He snuck another glance at her, noting the displeasure on her face. She’d probably felt nothing more than annoyance. Hell, she’d been so tight, and he’d used her so carelessly, he might even have hurt her.
He’d never lost control like that. Ever.
“I’m sorry,” he said. Apologizing for an abysmal sexual performance was another first for him.
She stared out the window, tears filling her eyes.
Muttering a curse, he started the engine and drove home, all of the satisfaction he’d taken from her body dissolving into cold, hard remorse.
Sidney sat beside him in miserable silence, feeling like a total failure. Experiences like this were the reason she’d given up on sex. A flood of past disappointments washed over her, leaving her feeling awkward, empty and bereft.
At twenty, tired of Samantha’s taunts and Greg’s unwanted advances, she’d given her virginity to a sweet but clueless college boy who’d pretended she was his ex-girlfriend the entire time.
Her second attempt at intimacy had been even worse. Samantha had set her up with one of Greg’s law school buddies, and Sidney found that she actually enjoyed his company. Adam was charming, handsome and experienced. She’d been genuinely infatuated with him until, after a dozen chaste dates, they’d finally gone to bed together.
Sidney had tried to relax and go with the moment, but it was difficult not to read a man during prolonged physical contact. Adam had been thinking he might have to embellish upon his performance when he gave Greg a detailed account of their sexual encounter, because it wasn’t going very well.
It was kind of hard to derive any pleasure from his touch after that.
Her last and most recent effort before Marc had been with Bill Vincent. She was reluctant to enter another relationship that would fizzle as soon as it got to the bedroom, but they’d been friends long before they became lovers, so he knew about her psychic abilities. Having been forewarned, Bill was quite skilled at blocking his thoughts from her. He was also warm and generous, but she never lost herself in his embrace like she did with Marc.
After a lackluster courtship, they parted as friends, and Bill told her a secret of his own: he preferred men.
It topped off her trio of shame.
Samantha’s promiscuity had also soured her on sex, and Sidney began to think of most men as cowards, liars and cheats. She was just too tenderhearted to suffer a man’s embraces-reading his dirty mind, knowing he wished she was more experienced, more beautiful, someone better, someone else.
Marc had never given her the impression he’d rather be with another woman, but he was hard to read, like Bill. Younger men wore their hearts, and their fantasies, on their sleeves. If she didn’t know better, she’d believe Marc when he said he didn’t have any softer emotions. Instead she suspected they were buried so deep even he no longer recognized them.
The disappointment, this time, fell on her shoulders. Lost in sensation, she wasn’t sure where she’d gone wrong. Her cheeks burned as images of her wanton behavior assaulted her like hot flashes. She’d practically begged him to make love to her. After he’d succumbed to her advances, she’d been too wrapped up in her own responses to pay any attention to his. One moment she was lying underneath him, drowning in pleasure, the next he was heaving himself off her and saying he was sorry.
It had been the most profound experience of her life, and he was sorry.
She took at least half the responsibility for their unprotected sex, having instigated it. He’d felt so good she hadn’t wanted him to stop. Ever. She’d actually wanted him to come inside her. For a brief, monumentally naïve instant, she’d entertained a foolish dream about them starting a life together.
Judging by the horrified expression on his face as he realized what they’d done, he would rather adopt a family of rabid dogs than tie himself down to her.
When they arrived at his house, she got out of the truck quickly, depressed about having to spend more time in his stilted company. As she stood, gravity worked its magic, and she felt an embarrassing wetness soak through her panties.
“Oh,” she breathed, touching her fingertips to the crotch of her shorts.
He glanced at her sharply, his features taut with tension. “What?”
“Nothing,” she said, taking her hand away. Face flaming, she walked gingerly, hoping the moisture wouldn’t spread until she was safely upstairs.
Alma Cruz would think she was such a slut.
Thankfully his mother had already gone to bed. Planning on doing the same, Sidney trudged up to his room and grabbed her tote bag.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“Downstairs. To the couch.”
“You can sleep here.”
“Marc-”
“Goddamn it, Sidney, you can have the bed. Don’t make me feel more like a bastard than I already do.”
She stared at the ground, wishing he would leave her alone so she could wash and change clothes.
“Do you want to take a bath or something?”
“It’s too late, you know. The damage is done.”
He had the grace to look chagrined. More than that, he seemed stricken. “I just wanted to make sure you were-forget it,” he broke off in frustration. “Do you need anything?”
“Yes. Some privacy.”
“Fine,” he grated, leaving the room without another word.
When she got out of the shower, she found a fluffy white bathrobe on the bed, a cup of chamomile tea on the dresser, a cold pack and some over-the-counter pain relievers. What the hell? Her mother had coddled her less after she’d had her first period.
She put on the robe and drank the tea, ignoring the pills. Placing the cold pack against her hot forehead, she stretched out on top of the comforter, and just like that, she fell asleep.