Nighthawk & The Return of Luke McGuire (41 page)

From there they went to the park that had been vandalized, where kids were known to hang out behind the handball courts. They found four kids sneaking cigarettes and a couple farther up in the trees smoking something more potent, but no David. And finally they went down to the state park south of town, where there were isolated coves and places to stay out of sight along the beach. They hiked for what seemed like miles but found no sign of one particular angry teenager amid the summer throng.

“Now what?” Luke asked wearily as they sat in her car and watched the sun begin to set.

“I’m really out of ideas,” she said, sounding as tired as he felt.

“So am I.”

Out of ideas about David, anyway, he added with silent ruefulness. He was still full of ideas about Amelia. And before he did something stupid like voice some of them, when he had no idea if she was in the same frame of mind she’d been in at her office, he suggested they get something to eat instead.

“Good idea,” she agreed. “Maybe we can think of something once we have some food.” She hesitated, then said rather shyly, “I have some spaghetti sauce and fixings for a salad, if you’d like to come back to the house.”

He considered that for a moment, fighting down the tide of possibilities that engendered. “That depends on why your place,” he said.

She looked puzzled. “I just thought it might be…quieter.”

“Not because you don’t want to be seen with me anymore?”

Her eyes widened. “Of course not!”

It was swift enough, and just affronted enough, to reassure him. “Just checking,” he said mildly.

“I didn’t care what anyone thought before, so I certainly wouldn’t now that I know the truth!”

He wanted to hug her. But he knew if he did, they would end up doing things there in her car that you usually left behind with your teenage years. At least, he had; he doubted if Amelia had
ever
done such things in a car.

“I’d like that,” he said simply.

It was still light enough for him to really see her home this time, and all the profuse, bright colors of her garden. He suddenly thought that the wild palette was a sign of the fire she kept hidden, and that perhaps he should have realized that.

The bright colors continued in the interior, blues, greens and bright yellow, with a touch of unexpected red that added punch. It was vivid and cheerful against the clean white of the walls, and showed the hand of someone who loved making a house a home. The furniture was comfortable and practical, very Amelia.

She seemed determine to avoid talking about David, and they said little as she fixed the meal. She put him to work shredding lettuce and slicing tomatoes, while she tossed mushrooms in the simmering sauce she’d taken from the freezer—she made huge batches at once, she told him, so she could have it whenever she wanted—gave it a stir and went back to preparing garlic bread.

When he asked, as they sat down to plates giving off an aroma that made his stomach growl, she told him about the work her parents had done on the house and the rather grim, dark little place it had been before they’d started. Between bites, it took most of the meal.

“They loved this place,” she said when they were down to crumbs.

“What about you?”

She shrugged. “I like it, too. And since I was renting an apartment when my father passed, it seemed only logical to move back in. But in my mind, it’s still their home.”

“You must miss them.”

“I do. A lot. But you go on, or you become a neurotic basket case. My parents wouldn’t have liked that.”

She apparently decided that was enough talk about her. After they had cleared the table, and as they moved to sit on the bright blue sofa in the living room, she asked a question guaranteed to get him talking.

“Tell me about your river.”

“The Tuolumne? It’s the most amazing place,” he said with an enthusiasm he didn’t even try to hide. “There are places where you can’t see a trace of civilization from the river. It’s exactly like it must have looked to the first people who saw it. Only two departures a day are allowed, which keeps it that way. On a two-or three-day trip you can camp on a white sand beach under an oak tree, hike up to a water slide or a natural swimming pool. In high summer, it’s like the water’s heated.”

She smiled. “I expected to hear about rapids and waterfalls.”

He lifted one foot and rested it on his knee. “Oh, they’re there. It’s one of the best all-around whitewater runs in the state, probably the country. Nemesis, Hells Kitchen, or the big one, Clavey Falls, and when you make it through, it’s like no other feeling on earth.”

“I can’t even imagine,” Amelia breathed. “I mean, I’ve seen it on television, and it always looks so…crazy.”

“It can be. There’s a place called Cherry Creek, on the upper Tuolumne, just outside Yosemite. It’s the toughest stretch of class-five rapids that’s run commercially. Drops an average of a hundred and ten feet per mile, two hundred feet in what they call the ‘Miracle Mile.’ A rafter died there, back in 1992. Took the center chute at the end by mistake and ended up overturned against Coffin Rock.”

Amelia grimaced. “Coffin Rock? How…picturesque.”

He grinned at her. “Oh, we’ve got better names than that. Like Gray’s Grindstone. And Vortex, and Chaos, which leads into Confusion on the Kern. Insanity Falls and Rotator Cuff—because so many kayakers dislocate shoulders there—the Bad Seed and Where’s Barry? on Fordyce Creek.”

She was laughing by then, and barely managed to get out, “’Where’s Barry’?”

“It makes sense once you’ve seen somebody disappear in it, then pop out the bottom. It’s a drop over a six-foot ledge that’s at a forty-five degree angle from the current. It’s always a class-five, sometimes a six, depending on the water flow.”

“Six?”

“Unrunnable. And there’s a hole and a big cavern undercut in the rock, and you can get sucked in.”

Amelia set down her fork. “Let me get this straight. People do this for
fun?
”

“Well, they don’t start out there. We start them on something easy, until they get hooked. Then we work them up, if they want. But some folks keep coming back for the same runs, which is fine. They’re our bread and butter, and we make sure they have a good time. Not everybody has the need to—or should—go out and tackle fives and five pluses.”

“But you do? You’ve run that…Cherry Creek, was it?”

He shrugged. “I’ve done it. I prefer the middle fork of the Feather, and Garlic Falls on the Kings, which are as tough as Cherry Creek but not run commercially. More remote, less crowded. And there are still a few places I haven’t been that I want to. There’s an inlet up in British Columbia that has the most incredible standing wave that—”

“Standing wave?”

He nodded. “A standing wave is produced when two waves traveling in opposite directions become superimposed on one another. Like along the coast, where the tide hits a shelf. You can ride it—surf it, almost—but never move. This one in B.C. is a solid class-five for what seems like forever.”

“May I say,” Amelia announced firmly, “that this sounds utterly insane?”

“Wait until you try it,” he said. “The exhilaration is beyond description.”

She hesitated a moment, and he wondered what she was thinking. Then, tentatively, she said, “I can’t see myself ever having the nerve to even try.”

“That reminds me,” he said, suddenly intent. “We need to talk about this idea you seem to have about your lack of nerve.”

She blushed. “I know what you said, but…it’s so hard for me to believe. I’ve always been…timid.”

“Timid?” he exclaimed. “Timid doesn’t face down a kid waving a knife at her when she’s alone in a store with him. Timid doesn’t take out two guys in a street fight. Besides, you’ve got something more important than nerve, you’ve got brains. That’ll outdo brawn and nerve most times.”

“But I could never do the things on those posters in my office. Or your rafting. I’ve always been afraid of…the wilder things.”

A sudden flash of insight struck Luke—hard. She’d once thought of him as one of the wilder things; it had been written all over her expressive face.

“Like me?” he asked, before he could stop himself.

The pink in her cheeks turned to red, and he knew he’d struck home. But she held his gaze and nodded.

It explained a lot, he thought. The way she’d seemed so jumpy at first when he was around, the tension he’d sensed in her, just beneath the surface.

“You’re not afraid of me now, are you?” he asked softly.

“No,” she said, her color still high. “I’m a little afraid of how you make me feel.”

He smiled, letting the need he’d kept at bay all day loosen a notch. “Well, that’s easy,” he said, reaching out to cup her face. “That just takes practice.”

She bit her lip, then traced the spot with her tongue. Luke’s pulse leapt immediately into overdrive. “Like…running your rapids?”

“Exactly. The more you practice, the better you get at it. But if you do it right, the thrill never goes away.”

Her blush didn’t fade, but now it was matched by the heat in her eyes. Luke’s body surged with a response that almost weakened his knees.

“Then…maybe we should practice,” she said, her voice so husky that it was like a physical caress to his aroused senses.

“Definitely,” he said, his own voice a little thick now. “Practice. Lots of practice.”

He pulled her into his arms then, and she went willingly, eagerly. Within moments he was nearly as hot as he’d been in her office, and he knew that the battle he’d fought to keep this under wraps all day was nothing compared to the battle it was going to be to take this slow.

But he would. Very slow. Not just so he could savor every sweet, hot minute, but so he could see her fall apart in his arms.

And if anyone or anything tried to interrupt them this time, he swore he would do violence.

A
melia shivered, half in nervousness, half in anticipation. She had shyly led Luke to her bedroom, wondering what he would say when he saw it. For it was here that she had secretly indulged, and while her elaborate framed bed swathed in yards of mock mosquito netting in a lush green and piled high with many-patterned pillows was her favorite place, it hardly fit with the rest of the house’s decor.

She saw him look around, saw the surprise spreading across his face.

He laughed.

She cringed, but he grabbed her and pulled her close. “I love it. I love it, Amelia. This is the woman you keep hiding, the one you need to let out. This is the woman who stood up to Snake and takes kickboxing lessons and uses them.”

She realized then that his laugh hadn’t been one of ridicule but of delighted discovery, and she let out a sigh of relief. A sigh that was cut off abruptly when Luke suddenly swept her off her feet and into his arms. She stared up at him, startled.

“It seems to fit,” he said, and carried her easily across the room. There was something to be said, she thought, as her heart began to thud in her chest, for arms made powerful by fighting wild rivers.

Yet all that power was leashed when he touched her, controlled when he lowered her carefully to the bed, gentled when he began to unbutton her blouse. He stroked his fingers across the swell of her breasts above her bra, and she felt her body tighten. She wanted to tell him not to go so slowly, wanted to tell him to hurry, that she was desperate for his hands, his mouth, on her again.

He unfastened the bra, and her breasts slipped free. He cupped them in his strong hands. She wasn’t accustomed enough not to be self-conscious, but the thought of what he might do next, that he might actually do what she wished she had the words to beg him for, overpowered the feeling.

For a long moment he simply looked at her. And then, with an urgency that was somehow flattering, he released her, tore off his own shirt and came down on the bed beside her. If there was something to be said for arms made strong from running rivers, there was even more to be said for what it did for a chest and belly, she thought a little dazedly. He was beautiful.

That was all she had time to register before he pulled her against him. She sucked in a breath at the delicious shock of his hot, sleek skin against her bare breasts, and knew from the low, rumbling groan that escaped him that this had been what he’d wanted, the feel of her breasts against his chest.

Instinctively she twisted, rubbing herself against him. He groaned again, and rolled over until she was half under him. And then it was all she could do to remember to breathe; his hands were everywhere, stroking, caressing, and his mouth soon followed the same path. He cupped her breasts again and lifted them to his lips, drawing the nipples one at a time into his mouth where he sucked and flicked them with his tongue at the same time. Amelia cried out, was gasping under the onslaught of sensations.

He unfastened her slacks and tugged at them; without hesitation she lifted herself to help him. In moments she was naked beside him, and he began all over again, searching out every sensitive place on her body and driving her mad with the intimate attention he gave each one, first with his hands, then his mouth.

She didn’t think she could bear much more. She slid her hands over his back, savoring the feel of him even as she concentrated on her goal. She found the waistband of his jeans, then slipped her fingers beneath. Her fingertips reached the high, taut curve of his buttocks and ached to go farther.

Luke moved up and tickled her ear with his tongue. “You want some more room in those jeans?” he whispered.

It took her a moment, through the shivers his nibbling on her lobe was causing, to focus on his words.

“I want them,” she said frankly, “off.”

She froze, not quite sure she’d really said it so baldly. She risked a glance at Luke; he was grinning, and it had the same delighted quality as his laugh when he’d seen her bed.

“I aim to please,” he said. He gave her ear a final flick of his tongue, then rolled away and shucked his jeans and shorts. He fumbled with them for a moment, then dropped them on the floor. Amelia barely noticed; she was, for once unabashedly, staring at him.

Beautiful,
she thought,
isn’t even the word for it.

He turned back to her, dressed in only that gold earring, and suddenly it was the sexiest thing she’d ever seen. She watched him move, fascinated by the play of muscle under that sleek skin, captivated by the way one strong line of his body flowed into the next, and more than a little awed by the blunt, rigid male flesh she was about to encounter on a very intimate basis. Her lower body clenched, as if already wishing he was there to clasp, to hold.

A shudder rippled through her, and she lifted her gaze to his face. “All right?” he asked.

She didn’t know if he meant did she feel all right, or if what she’d seen was all right. It didn’t matter. Either way, the answer was the same.

“Yes. Oh, yes. Very.”

Instinctively her hand moved, her fingers curling, almost aching to touch him. But she pulled back, uncertain.

Luke took her hand and guided it to him, gently shaping her fingers around his own hardened flesh. “Anything you want,” he said harshly.

She heard him suck in a breath as she tested the length and breadth of him, marveling at the feel, at the satin weight of him against her palm and the size of him beneath the curve of her fingers. Once she heard him make a sharp sound and stopped, fearing she’d hurt him. But he lifted himself, nudging her hand until she knew it hadn’t been a sound of pain. She resumed the caress, pressed the same way, rubbed the same place, until he gasped out her name on a choking breath.

Only then did the glint of foil in his hand draw her eyes. When she saw what it was, her gaze shot back to his face.

“Funny,” she said, her voice suddenly a little wobbly, “I never thought of you as the cautious type.”

He went very still. “You mean this?” He indicated the condom with a nod. “If you mean am I always prepared, then yes. Not because I expect anything. Although I gotta say, girl, if I hadn’t had them, I would have bought them a week ago, you wind me up so tight.”

He leaned over and kissed her softly.

“I’m always prepared, Amelia, because I swore from the time I realized babies came from sex that I would never,
ever
bring an unwanted child into the world.”

Amelia’s breath caught, and she was furious with herself for even thinking about having hurt feelings about his advance preparation. She should have realized that he, of all people, would never take the chance of causing an accidental pregnancy. Nobody knew better than he the difficulties that could cause.

She lifted her head, slipped her arms around his neck and kissed him soundly, thoroughly. She tried to put everything she couldn’t find words to say in that kiss. And when she let her head fall back to the pillow at last, she could see in his face that her message had been received.

“Are you going to use that,” she asked, “or just wave it around?”

He laughed, and this time she could feel it with her whole body as he lay over her. He sat up, tore open the wrapper and sheathed himself. He did it fairly easily, but with just enough awkwardness to tell her he didn’t do it every day. He turned back to her, swallowed, started to speak, stopped, then tried again.

“If you want to stop, now’s the time.”

She stared at him; the thought of stopping at this point had never entered her mind. He seemed to misinterpret her reaction, because he said quickly, “I don’t mean I won’t stop if you tell me.” He made a wry face at her. “I just mean if we go any further, it’ll probably kill me.”

“If you stop,” she said, reaching out to trail a finger down his naked chest with as much nonchalance as she could muster, “I may kill you myself.”

With a sound that was half groan, half chuckle, he lowered himself to her, bracing himself with those powerful arms. She welcomed him eagerly, her hands moving as swiftly as his had, tracing the powerful lines of his body, savoring every angle, every plane, every fit, potent inch of him.

When he nudged at her thighs, she opened for him quickly, shivering in anticipation, aching in some empty place deep inside that she’d never known was there.

And then Luke was sliding into her, slowly, with exquisite care, stretching her, and the emptiness began to recede.

She felt him shudder, saw the muscles in his arms tremble. Muscles that handled raging water, that powered through impossible rapids, were trembling.

She suddenly realized why.

“Don’t,” she said. “Don’t hold back. Not now.”

“Amelia,” he breathed, as if she’d released him from a penance.

He drove into her, high and hard and deep. She cried out in shock at the fierceness of it, at the marvelous fullness of it, at the sheer pleasure of his sweet invasion. Her cry melded with his throttled oath as he rocked against her, grinding his hipbones against hers, pushing harder, then harder, as if he felt the same urgent need she was feeling.

She fairly writhed beneath him, wanting more, yet certain she could take no more, that she was stretched beyond bearing. The only thing she could think of that would ease this clenching, grabbing need was for him to do what he’d just done. Again. And again. And again.

“Again?” he growled against her ear as he eased his body back, and she realized she had voiced the longing.

“And again,” she whispered, voicing the rest of the wish, pushed beyond shyness by raging need.

He pulled back, nearly left her, and she whimpered at the loss. He slid his hands under her, curled his fingers back over her shoulders, and when she realized he was bracing her, holding her in place so he could thrust harder, the anticipation nearly made her cry out before he even moved.

And then he drove forward, hard and fast again, burying himself to the hilt in her with one long, swift, powerful stroke. Again and again, just as she’d begged, he hammered her body with his own, driving her up and up with each plunge, until her only grip on the world was the feel of his body beneath her hands.

She clutched at him, her fingers slipping over skin now damp with sweat. She shifted her legs, opening for him even more, as her hands cupped his buttocks and she added her own urgency to his barely restrained power.

He muttered her name, once, twice, and then again, in a low, guttural voice that only added to the thrilling pounding of his body. However wild, however ferocious, this was, there was nothing mindless about it; it was very, very specific, and it was for her. Her, and her alone. Given by a man who at this moment seemed to know her better than anyone else ever had.

She no longer knew herself at all, no longer had any connection to shy, reserved Amelia Blair. She was some wild, desperate thing, propelled higher and higher by the man in her arms, flying, spinning, rising, until she thought she would break free completely and go soaring off into some other world it had taken a fallen angel to show her existed.

With a feral-sounding groan, Luke’s grip on her shoulders tightened. She felt one of his hands leave her shoulder, felt it slide between their bodies. With him above her, she was wide open to his touch, and he quickly found the tiny knot of nerve endings.

He stroked her once, then again a little harder.

“Luke!” she gasped, certain she was going to lose her tenuous grip on him, and thus the world.

He made a circular motion then, and Amelia felt an unbearable pressure. She moaned, unable to stop the sound. He caressed her again, this time slowing withdrawing. She felt her body clench, trying to keep him, trying to hold him.

He swirled his finger over that bundle of nerves one more time, and before the incredible sensation could fade, he buried himself in her once more.

She didn’t lose her hold on the world, it exploded around her. Her body convulsed. It wanted to curl in on itself, so violent were the waves of pleasure. But Luke was there, buried inside her, so all she could do was curl around him, holding, grasping, calling his name as the sheer force of it—and the sound of Luke crying out her name in turn, as he poured himself into her—drove tears from her eyes.

And when she came back to earth, it didn’t matter that it was shattered, forever changed. Luke was there, and he caught her, held her, cradled her against him. Nothing could be too wrong with her world if he was with her.

Hours later Amelia stirred sleepily. She’d never felt quite this way before, never known such a delicious exhaustion.

She wasn’t sure how many times they’d actually made love, was almost sure she must have dreamed some of them. Maybe the time when she’d roused to his hands on her and he’d slid into her the moment he knew she was awake. Or maybe the time she’d awakened him with unstudied but eager caresses, when he’d encouraged her to explore every inch of him with the same thoroughness he’d used on her, when she’d taken the offer of his body with an eagerness that had ended with them both crying out fiercely. Yes, that was likely a dream; she couldn’t really have done that, could she?

But then again, she thought as she shifted lazily and felt the tenderness of her body in unaccustomed places, maybe she had. If this was the wrong kind of paradise, she wanted to stay here forever.

She wondered what would happen if she reached for him again; would he be as ready, come to life as wildly under her hands and mouth?

Worth finding out,
she thought with a new confidence gained from knowing that this man, this wild, gorgeous creature, found her so desirable he shook with it.

She rolled over.

She reached for him.

He was gone.

He should be, Luke thought, drained. Dry. Spent. Amelia had driven him to the point of madness and then beyond. He’d never had such a wild night in his life, and that it was Amelia who had done it only made it more incredible. He shouldn’t even be able to move.