Secrets in the Stone (21 page)

Rooke waved a hand. “I don’t care what Ida Hancock thinks about me. It ended up with Bea Meriwether, and now an art dealer wants it. She wants all my sculptures.”

“To do what with them?” Pops asked in surprise.

“Show them. Sell them.” Rooke shrugged. “In New York City.”

“Well, what do you know.” Pops walked to the back door and looked out. He spoke without looking back at Rooke. “Snow is supposed to start up again around midnight.”

“Another foot, they say.”

“What are you going to do about the art dealer?”

“What do you think?”

Pops was quiet a long time before turning back. “I don’t usually tell you what I think you ought to do.” He scratched the back of his head. “In fact, I don’t think I have in the last twenty years.” He blew out a breath. “But I think you should let her do it. You’ve got a talent, Rooke. Anyone can see that. Maybe her coming means it’s time for you to own that.”

“I’m afraid,” Rooke said quietly, “it might change everything.”

“Most everything changes.” Pops opened the refrigerator, pulled out a pound of hamburger, and handed it to Rooke. “Get started making these.” When Rooke reached for the package, he squeezed her shoulder. “Being scared of the next step in life is okay. Just make sure you don’t let fear keep you from taking a step you should take.”

“How will I know what’s right?”

“How is it you know what to do with stone?” Pops asked.

“I feel it. Then I know.”

“Well then. There’s your answer.”

For some reason, Rooke thought of Adrian, but she didn’t know why. She wanted to call her, to ask her what she thought. She wanted to call just to talk to her. To hear her voice. She’d never called anyone just to talk before. She wondered how close Adrian and Melinda were. They both lived in New York City, they were both artists, they probably had a lot in common. A lot more in common than Adrian had with her. Maybe if she let Melinda have her sculptures, that would change.

Melinda was pulled from sated slumber to the pinnacle of orgasm, where she teetered on the edge of a volcanic crater, dangerously close to plummeting into the fiery streams of molten rock below. She gasped, simultaneously registering hot, wet mouths on her breast and between her legs. A rush of pleasure engulfed her as she gripped the dark hair of the woman sucking her. Becky’s friend. Nina. Her tongue was exquisite, teasing ever so lightly over the sweet spot that made Melinda swell and ache.

“Nina,” Melinda whispered, lifting her hips to slide her clitoris deeper between Nina’s lips, “Nina, take Becky while you suck me. Inside her. Hurry, darling, you have me very close.”

Since Becky had arrived just after midnight with an eager playmate in tow, Becky and Nina had climaxed multiple times in multiple ways, leaving them drained and Melinda replete. They’d all drifted into a somnolent haze of sexual satisfaction moments before, but apparently her two resilient young lovers were still hungry.

“Oh God,” Becky moaned, jerking as Nina entered her. She rolled Melinda’s nipple feverishly between her fingers and pumped her sex on Nina’s hand. “Feels so good.”

“You’re going to come soon,” Melinda told Becky. “She’s going to make you come.”

“Oh yes. Oh God, yes. Fuck me, fuck me please. I’m coming.”

Nina set her teeth around Melinda’s clitoris and sucked. The tendrils of Melinda’s orgasm unraveled in a burst of heat and light, sparks igniting behind her nearly closed lids. Becky wailed and Melinda groaned, her control annihilated.

“Becky, kiss me.” Abdomen rigid, Melinda thrust her hips to meet Nina’s eager tongue. “Kiss me. Come with me.”

Writhing in the throes of her climax, Becky sealed her lips to Melinda’s and poured her passion into Melinda’s waiting mouth. Melinda drank, filling herself with Becky’s abandon as she emptied herself over and over into Nina. When Becky fell away, spent, Melinda reached for Nina.

“Satisfy yourself, darling,” Melinda urged. “Let me feel you come.”

Nina crawled up to curl against Melinda’s other side, plunging her hand between her legs. Melinda stroked her face and skimmed the tip of her tongue over Nina’s lips, tasting herself in the shadows of Nina’s pleasure. Beside her, Becky stirred and reached down to languidly fondle Melinda’s clitoris. Melinda’s lids fluttered as her sex tightened beneath Becky’s fingertips.

Nina, her mouth twisted in a grimace, undulated in the tangled sheets, her legs spread wide and her fingers strumming her clitoris. She whimpered. “Hurts.”

“You need to come so very badly, I can tell.” Melinda caressed Nina’s breast, plucking her taut nipple. “You want to come now, don’t you.”

“Yes, oh please, yes,” Nina gasped, open-mouthed against Melinda’s throat. “Want to come…for you.”

“Faster, darling. Let me have you. Come for me.” Melinda drew Nina’s tongue into her mouth and sucked. Nina’s arm blurred. Becky stroked Melinda harder. Nina arched, unleashing a string of broken cries. Melinda closed her eyes and rode the river of molten pleasure.

*

Rooke was cold, so cold her bones were about to shatter. The hands coursing over her were ice, the limbs entwined with hers slick and frigid as the marble that jutted from the snow-covered ground inches from her face. Twisting away from one writhing body, she slipped into another’s fervent embrace. Lips trailed fiery kisses down her throat, burning through the bitter frost to singe her blood. Two hands, four, caressed her breasts, her abdomen, between her legs. A tongue coated her sex with liquid flame and she convulsed under another mouth, biting at her neck. Teeth tugged at her nipple, clamped down on her clitoris. The earth heaved and broken stone rained down on her, bruising her flesh and bone. A terrible madness churned inside, and she fixed on the pale surface of the grave marker.
Help me,
she pleaded, but got no answer. Clawing her way free of the chaos that raged inside her, tearing her apart, she made one last desperate attempt to reach the sanctuary of the stone. Her grasp fell short.

At the moment darkness claimed her, Rooke’s eyes flew open. She was still in darkness, but she was no longer cold, and no stranger’s body hovered over her. Her skin was coated with sweat. Her heart hammered in her ears, in her chest, in her sex. Ignoring the aching throb of blood pulsing in her center, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and turned on the bedside lamp. She padded into the living room in the sleeveless gray T-shirt and loose sweatpants she’d worn to bed. She found a pencil and pulled a pad of paper from a haphazard pile on the low table in front of the couch. Bending forward, she rapidly sketched the gravestone from her dream, including as many of the symbols as she could remember. When she was done, she stared at the name she couldn’t read.

*

The wall phone in Rooke’s shop rang just as she was putting away her tools. She’d been working since four, too disturbed by the distorted dream-collage of figures twisting on a snow-covered grave to sleep again. She’d put the women and their icy touch out of her mind as she drew warmth and strength from the figure emerging from the stone. She could almost see her clearly now—a woman standing with legs spread wide, one arm raised, her head thrown back in victory. A warrior, perhaps, or a savior.

Rooke gave the figure one last look, wishing she could see her face, and answered the phone. “Hello.”

“There’s someone here to see you,” Pops said. “We’re in the kitchen. Come on over.”

Rooke didn’t have time for questions before the call was disconnected. She hurried upstairs to wash her hands and change into clothes that weren’t covered with stone dust. Tucking the tails of a black button-down-collar shirt into her jeans, she hustled downstairs and headed for the house, not even bothering with a sweatshirt. She never had visitors. A familiar ache stirred in her chest, but this time she felt only fire. Maybe Adrian had come.

She didn’t see the Jeep or any other car in the driveway, but she was in too much of a hurry to consider what that meant. She barged into the kitchen and then stopped abruptly. Melinda sat at the table with her grandfather. Unlike Adrian, who had fit as naturally into the comfortable kitchen as Rooke and her grandfather, Melinda looked completely out of place, as if she had taken a wrong turn on her way to a cocktail party. She wore wide-legged, black silk slacks, black heels, and a royal blue sweater that caressed more than covered her full breasts. Her blond hair was loose and artfully mussed, as if she’d just gotten out of bed. When she turned toward Rooke, her eyes slowly traversed every inch of Rooke’s body. Her mouth lifted into a pleased smile.

“Please tell me I didn’t drag you away from your work,” Melinda said, her voice intimately low.

Rooke resisted the urge to push her fists into her pockets, as if hiding her hands could somehow safeguard what she created with them. Instead, she crossed to the counter and poured herself a cup of coffee from the pot her grandfather had already made. The clock over the stove showed it was almost nine. She’d missed breakfast. After taking a sip, she turned back and met Melinda’s mildly amused gaze.

“You aren’t interrupting. I was just finishing up.”

“Good, because I would hate to disturb an artist while in the midst of creative passion.”

Rooke averted her gaze, but she knew it was already too late to hide what Melinda must have seen in her eyes. Her work
was
her passion, the most intense experience of her life, touching her in ways no human being ever had. Liberating the figures from the stone both aroused and satisfied her, physically and emotionally. She’d managed to live without the same kind of intimacy with anyone, without seeking a connection even when her need was so sharp she bled from it, because she was waiting. Waiting for the moment when she would experience with a woman the perfect union, the total harmony, she shared with stone.

“Is it always enough?” Melinda asked softly.

“I don’t know.” Rooke glanced at her grandfather, who was leaning back in his aluminum-legged kitchen chair, observing them with casual curiosity. “I guess Melinda explained about her gallery in New York City.”

“A little.”

“I told Mr. Tyler that you are an exceptional artist, but obviously, he doesn’t need my opinion to know that.” Melinda opened a briefcase and extracted a folder that she laid in the center of the kitchen table. “I brought a contract for you to review. I’ve already purchased the sculpture that was part of the estate auction. Mr. Barnes delivered it last night. It’s even more beautiful than I expected. As it happens, I had a solo showing scheduled later this month and the artist is unfortunately unable to appear due to a sudden illness. I want your work to fill that slot.”

“You haven’t even seen the rest of my sculptures.” Rooke was having trouble grasping Melinda’s offer. She’d never really thought about what she was eventually going to do with her sculptures. It had been enough to create them. While she was absorbed with the work, her mind was clear and her body at peace. When she was finished, she could gaze upon the embodiment of her dreams and desires. That had been enough.

“I was hoping we could rectify that this morning. Why don’t you show me?” Melinda stood, placing her hand on Rooke’s arm. “I’ll leave the paperwork for you to review later. You’ll want your attorney to look at it, of course.”

Rooke shot a glance at her grandfather, who lifted his shoulder, telegraphing that it was her call. She could say no and he would never bring it up again. Melinda regarded her expectantly and when she looked into her eyes, she caught fleeting glimpses of tall buildings, bright lights, and intimate, shadowed recesses with women pressed close around her. For just an instant she saw herself in the center of a crimson-draped bed, naked, a woman beneath her whose face, like the woman in the stone, was hidden from her. Startled, Rooke blinked and then there was only the swirling green-gold of Melinda’s eyes.

“How many?” Rooke’s throat was dry and her voice came out husky. “How many would you want?”

Melinda’s expression became avid, intense. She curled her fingers around Rooke’s arm and leaned into her. “Why, all of them.”

“I can’t.” Rooke braced herself, feeling as if she were suddenly under attack. She had the almost overwhelming urge to lash out, to defend herself against some danger she couldn’t fully perceive. A wave of sorrow and loss threatened to choke her. “I…not all at once.”

“All right,” Melinda said quickly, stroking Rooke’s arm. “Six, then. Take me to them. You can choose.” She glanced over her shoulder at Rooke’s grandfather. “You won’t mind, will you?”

“It’s up to Rooke.” Pops regarded Rooke steadily. “I’ll be happy if you stay right here, the way things are, for as long as you want. But I always thought…” He paused and cleared his throat. “I always thought there was more out there for you.”

“I’m not leaving,” Rooke said to Melinda. “This is where I live. Where I work. I need to be here.”

“Of course. We can talk about all that later.” Melinda slipped into her long leather coat and took Rooke’s hand. “Come on, now. No more teasing.”

Rooke led Melinda along the icy path to the garage, still uncertain as to what she should do. Melinda had a way of making her want things she’d never thought she wanted. The idea of bringing her sculptures out of hiding so that others could see them, own them, was both frightening and exciting. All her life she’d been dismissed. Laughed at. Pitied. What would it be like to be respected, to have what she did, who she was, mean something?