“I closed up early. The quilting circle was canceled and there didn’t seem to be any reason to hang around. I might not even have one customer at this time of day.”
He nodded.
“But it wasn’t just that. I wanted to get back to you. I’ve been thinking about you all day.”
“Same here,” he said.
Her heart skipped, then began a rapid tattoo. She liked that he was thinking about her, but that didn’t necessarily mean a thing. He could have been having thoughts very far from hers.
“Anyway, it suddenly struck me that I’d spent all day thinking about you and not about the murderer.”
“That should be a good thing, right?”
“Maybe. But that’s when I started to feel messed up. Austin, if there’s any example on this planet of the tricks and games the mind can play, I’m it. So I started to wonder if I was feeling all those things because I was turning you into a security blanket.”
“Ah.”
Much to her dismay, he rose and turned away. He checked the pot again, then shook his head. “It’s never going to simmer if I don’t leave it alone.”
At last he pulled a chair around so that he could sit catty-corner from her. “Okay. I have to admit I’ve wondered about the same thing. You’ve got a lot of stuff to sort out, and I know you will. I don’t want to hinder that in any way. Not even a little bit. But it’s important to me that you know your own mind and heart.”
“You’re leaving,” she pointed out.
“I do have to go back to Washington. For how long is a decision I don’t need to make right now. And you know what?”
“What?”
“You don’t have to make a decision right now, either. In fact, there’s no real decision to make yet. So stop worrying about it and let’s just enjoy what we have, why ever we have it. Plenty of time later to get smart. Right now we have something big on our plates.”
It wasn’t exactly what she wanted to hear, but it didn’t crush her, either. He was acknowledging her right to be confused about them and reminding her they had a killer to deal with first.
Gazing at him, an ache of longing blossomed in her so intense that it hurt. “I want you,” she said bluntly.
“I want you, too. I’m on fire for you.”
“Can the cabbage rolls wait an hour or so?”
The smile returned to his eyes. “I’m betting they’ll cook a whole lot better if I don’t hover.”
* * *
Between them, there was no more uncertainty. After the past two nights, they came together with confidence and the comfort of familiarity. But sureness didn’t dim the flare of passion in the least. If anything, from Corey’s perspective, it heightened it. She didn’t have to wonder, to become anxious, to question her own skills. No, Austin made it perfectly clear how much he enjoyed her explorations.
Emboldened, she became a tigress, wanting to give him everything she could, seeking new ways to make him captive to desire. It absolutely delighted her to make him writhe and groan. It made her feel powerful for the first time in her life. Holding him totally in thrall was matched by absolutely no other experience she had known.
But just as she thought he was about to climax, he reared up and rolled her onto her back. “Your turn,” he whispered.
If she had any modesty left, she lost it as he dragged his mouth and tongue over her body, even urging her onto her stomach to teach her about places she never would have imagined being part of lovemaking. But there was no mistaking the thrill she felt as he spread her cheeks and touched her gently.
Passion caused her to quiver, as if she was shivering violently, and made her call his name, pleading with him not to wait.
But he made her wait a while longer, driving her ever higher up the mountain until she thought she couldn’t take any more. Only then did he pull her toward him and plunge into her warm, moist depths. It was as if that part of her had been aching forever to be stretched and filled.
With her back to him, he held her hips as he pumped into her womanly center. Then, just as she was peaking, he leaned forward on her and clasped her breasts, pinching her nipples.
She shot over the top as if fired from a gun, so fast and so hard it approached pain and left her dizzy with satisfaction. Dimly she felt him shudder and follow her to completion.
It was a long time before she returned to the moment. He lay on her, both of them breathing like runners, damp from the exertion.
And it felt so damn good.
* * *
“You’re amazing,” he murmured later as they lay in a limp tangle face-to-face. He sprinkled kisses on her forehead as she nuzzled his shoulder.
“Bet you say that to all the girls,” she tried to joke.
“I’m not joking, and I’ve never said that before.”
She tilted her head up, trying to see him in the dimly lit room. His expression had grown stern.
“Don’t say things like that,” he said quietly. “Don’t put yourself down. I won’t have it. You’re an amazing lover. Period. Now say thank-you.”
“Thank you.” She had a crazy urge to giggle but swallowed it.
“Now, believe it,” he continued. “Because it’s true.”
“But—”
He stirred and laid a finger over her lips. “You give yourself totally to the experience. Every bit of you is involved. You try to find every way possible to please me, and you accept everything I offer you. So not only are you gorgeous, but you’re amazing.”
Warmth settled into her heart and she smiled. Something in her life that she hadn’t messed up. That felt pretty darn good.
Suddenly he lifted his head and sniffed. “Um...I hope I’m not burning that galopki or whatever it is. Does the air smell scorched?”
“I can’t smell it. All I can smell is us.”
“Keep saying things like that and dinner
will
burn.” Grinning now, he pushed her back. “I better check it. I hope you’re getting hungry.”
She watched him climb from the bed and pull on his jeans. The house felt a little chilly, but he didn’t bother with shoes or a shirt.
He was magnificent. She could get used to this, she thought. All too easily.
She pulled back from that precipice, reminding herself that he’d be leaving soon, and hit the bathroom for a quick shower. Well, he might go, but he’d leave a whole lot of good memories behind him.
When she emerged from the bathroom, toweling her hair, he was sitting on the edge of the bed, pulling his boots on.
“Something wrong?” she asked. She didn’t even notice anymore that she was standing there naked in front of him. It seemed natural and right.
He smiled, running his eyes over her, drinking her in. “Only that we’d better eat soon or dinner will be ruined. And if you stand there like Temptation personified, that’s a distinct possibility.”
Then he rose, grabbed her for a swift kiss and headed for the kitchen. The silly grin remained on her face while she dressed and was still there when she reached the kitchen.
He’d set the table, and steaming cabbage rolls filled a bowl in the middle. He held her chair out for her, then sat as close as he could while he served them.
“After this mess is over,” he said, “I’d like to take you somewhere. Assuming you can get away.”
Startled, she stopped slicing the cabbage roll with her fork and looked at him. “Where?”
“Anywhere you want to go. Mexican pyramids. You said you wanted to see them. We could go to my family’s
finca
and use it as a base of operations. Or we could go to San Antonio. I love that town.”
“That would be great. What brought this on?”
“Your comment about how we can’t even take an ordinary walk. You’re right. We spend all our time together doing this. I’d like to broaden the view a bit. Could you find a way to get away?”
“I’m sure. I was thinking today about hiring Maureen. I have no doubt she could manage for a while.”
“Good. We’ll discuss where you want to go later.”
Amazement filled her once again. He was talking as if they might have a future. Although, honesty compelled her to admit he was talking about taking a trip, not about years down the road. She liked the proposal, anyway. At least he wasn’t in a hurry to get away from her. “I’m surprised you’d want to go back to Mexico this soon.”
He shrugged. “We wouldn’t be going anywhere near the border towns. The
finca
is south of Mexico City, almost in the Yucatán. Right in the heart of Mayan country.”
“I’ve always wondered what happened to the Maya.”
“They’re still there. Lots of them. They abandoned their cities, but they didn’t vanish. Millions still speak the language and they’re quite proud of their heritage.”
After dinner and cleanup, they took coffee into the living room. Austin opened his arm, inviting Corey to sit beside him on the couch, and she snuggled in happily.
If only this could last. Deep inside, though, she knew she was enjoying an idyll out of time. The stalker was still out there. Austin would be leaving. Talk of taking her on a trip was nice, but she doubted it would come to pass.
She didn’t want the shadows to creep in, but they crept in, anyway. Little by little, they stole her contentment and began to replace it with dread.
She was scared. All that brave talk about dealing with this guy was exactly that, brave talk. The reality of it would be very different, and while she didn’t want to think that way, she knew perfectly well that she might not survive a confrontation with her stalker. And much as that frightened her, she was equally frightened by the possibility that the creep might stop, might go completely silent, might withdraw into the shadows and leave her wondering if she’d ever be safe.
Life had been full of enough fear. She really
was
getting tired of it. She wanted a normal life, one where she wasn’t hiding from memories, from the past, from any of it. She wanted to be able to take that trip with Austin, and if not with him, then with someone else someday.
On the surface, her life looked normal enough, but working twelve-hour days, and working seven days a week, wasn’t a full life. She came home to an empty house, worn-out because she needed to be worn-out. Because she had never shed the terror of a long-ago night she couldn’t even fully remember.
Even Maude, who never seemed to leave her diner, had managed to marry and have two daughters. Corey couldn’t manage even that because of an overpowering fear of men. A fear that honestly didn’t make sense to her, but one she had never been able to overcome.
Not until Austin. She wondered if he had broken that wall down for good, or if he’d leave and she’d be afraid of men again.
The only way to get past that was to deal with this guy, no matter how scary it was. For the sake of her future, if nothing else, she had to defang him, demystify him, turn him into the ugly but mortal being he was.
A ghost killed her mother? No wonder she had problems. The murder was bad enough, but the childish interpretation of the killer made it worse. How could you catch a ghost? How could you stop one?
“Penny for your thoughts,” Austin said.
“I was just thinking about that memory I had last night. That a ghost killed my mother. I can understand why it seemed that way to me when I was seven, but maybe it was the worst-possible interpretation.”
“I think that whole event had to classify as the worst-possible thing for you to witness. But what do you mean?”
“I made him supernatural. How do you defend against that?”
“Good question,” he agreed. A minute or so passed before he spoke again. “Are you feeling differently about him now?”
“Not really. Somewhere deep inside I’m still endowing him with crazy power. I need to stop that. Obviously he’s just a man.”
“Obviously. But something being obvious doesn’t always help. So let’s talk about how we’re going to get this guy.”
“How can we do that when I don’t even know how or when he’ll come.”
“We agreed earlier on your most vulnerable times. Gage and I talked more after you left. On the off chance that he might be concerned about me, I’m going to go to Mahoney’s in the evening and buy a beer. Then I’ll slip out the back and get to your place before you close. You won’t see me, okay? I don’t intend to be seen by anyone.”
“Okay.”
“But I’ll be there. And if you want the truth, I think you can probably handle him yourself.”
“Me?” Her eyes widened and her stomach flipped nervously.
“I saw you in the gym on Sunday. But it’s more than that. You’re not a child anymore. You won’t be taken by surprise. And he’s eighteen years older now.”
She turned to look at him. “I hadn’t thought about that.”
“Well, think about it now. You’re in your prime physically. He’s past his, even if he’s keeping in shape. You’re going to have speed and reflexes on your side, and you’re pretty good at using them. I saw it. You don’t really need me. I’m just backup.”
She almost gaped at him, but then it was as if some kind of earthquake took place in her, shaking out dust and some of her fear, to replace it with confidence. “You believe in me that much?”
“Yes. I do.”
“Wow.” The warmth that flooded her, then turned her insides into something approximating melted chocolate. “No one ever believed in me that much.”
“Not even your grandmother?”
“She tried, but I know she always saw me as a bird with a broken wing. She tried to protect me from nearly everything.”
“I understand the impulse. I’d do the same if I could. But that isn’t very good for you, is it?”
“Maybe it wasn’t. I was always made to feel fragile in some way. Broken. And I was broken.”
“In some ways. Given what you went through, it’s not surprising. But you’re grown up now, and you’re a very capable woman.” He paused. “I’m sorry if I gave you a different feeling when I pressed you about hiding. Damn, I just wanted to get past your walls. But you know something?”
“What?”
“I never saw you as weak in any way. You did what you had to do in order to survive a terrible trauma. That’s not weakness, Corey. That’s strength. Hell, you even had the strength to protect yourself from the dangers you perceived in therapy. The strength to put on a facade to ease the worries of your family.”
“Pretense isn’t strength.”