His palms enclosed the outside of her breasts, pressing them inward toward the seductive pleasure of his mouth. His tongue circled her nipple, which tautened under its touch.
Jace then switched his attention to the other breast. The sensation of cool air against the moisture-rimmed areola he’d deserted added one more torment to those his teeth had begun to inflict on his new target.
Passion ran hot and thick through her veins. Her fingers tightened over his shoulder, nails digging into the fabric of his shirt. In the maelstrom of need he’d awakened, she realized Jace was still dressed and that she didn’t want him to be.
She wanted the hair-roughened skin of his chest against her breasts. They ached for more than the caress of his mouth, as enticing as that was. She wanted contact with every inch of him. Mouth to mouth. Skin to skin. Her body enclosing the driving power of his need.
She leaned back, putting space between them. He raised his head in response. In the dimness of the room, his eyes seemed distant, a little remote, as if he were already lost in that inevitable post-coital aloneness.
“What’s wrong?”
“This,” she whispered, her fingers working to loosen the buttons of his fly, to tug the tail of his shirt from his jeans.
His hands covered hers, stopping their movement. Surprised, she looked up, eyes questioning. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” he said finally, freeing her hands. Without another word, he jerked his shirt out and pulled it off over his head. He tossed the garment onto the floor, and, in almost the same motion, drew her once more against the heat of his body.
The sensation was everything she’d imagined and more. Her breasts, already sensitized by his lips and teeth and tongue, were sweetly, delicately, abraded by the hair on his chest.
Before she’d had time to fully process that feeling, his mouth found hers. This time he didn’t seek permission. His tongue pillaged, demanding a response. And receiving it.
Skin to skin. Mouth to mouth. The only thing remaining…
As if to match action to her thought, Jace stood. If he hadn’t held her so tightly, she might have fallen as her feet dropped down to touch the floor.
Before she had time to find her balance, he was stripping off her panties, his mouth still ravaging hers. As soon as he’d taken them down below her knees, he released the bit of silk and lace, letting it fall to her feet. Then his fingers pushed between her legs, probing the wetness he’d created.
She gasped, bringing his mouth back to hers. He covered it with his lips, as if to taste the sensations his hand elicited.
She gave herself up to the building ecstasy, willing its culmination. Instead, he stepped back, looking down into her face as he touched her.
Despite her initial embarrassment, there was something so provocative, so tantalizing, about what he was doing, she never thought to protest. Her mouth opened instead, her eyelids falling as she drew closer and closer to fulfillment. As if he sensed the nearness of her climax, he lifted her, laying her on his bed.
Hungry for what he’d promised, she propped on one elbow, watching as he stripped off his jeans with the same efficiency he’d used to undress her. Then he reached into the bedside table drawer to retrieve a condom. He opened the package with his teeth, holding her eyes.
“Convenient.” She smiled at him as he put it on, trying to ease the awkwardness of the moment.
“Hopeful,” he corrected softly before he eased down onto the bed and moved over her.
There was no more foreplay. Nor was there any need. She was more than ready for him as he positioned her knees and then pushed into her waiting body.
She felt a momentary anxiety as she adjusted to his entrance, before he filled her, driving downward until she thought she could accept no more. She must have made some sound. The pressure eased as he withdrew, raising his hips and then lowering them again, taking her to the edge of pain and then beyond. To something very different.
Another release of the pressure was followed by another stroke until the rhythm, older than time, began to build to its inevitable conclusion. The tremor started deep within her arching body. The spark for the conflagration that would consume them both.
It strengthened, fueled by the increasing frenzy of Jace’s movements, as his body strained above hers. Then, as rational thought spiraled into the void of pure sensation, his release joined hers. Together they climbed and then slowly fell, exquisitely, into consummation. And when it was over, they lay a long time, their exhausted stillness disturbed only by the occasional shiver of aftershock.
Eventually Jace pushed onto his elbows, his shadowed eyes looking into hers. “Whatever you think, I didn’t plan this.”
“I’ll believe you. As long as you believe I didn’t come here expecting it.”
“It might make it easier if I did.”
“Easier?”
“You came to be protected. This doesn’t qualify.”
“It qualifies as forgetfulness. That’s almost as good.”
His lips tilted before he bent, brushing a kiss against her mouth. When he raised his head, she returned the smile.
“Regrets?” he asked.
“No. But that isn’t to say that my upbringing won’t provide some by tomorrow.”
“Sometimes it’s better to live in the moment.”
“Then I vote we do that.”
For a few heartbeats they were again silent. With one finger she reached out to touch the higher of the two puckered scars on his chest. His face hardened, causing her to curl that finger back into her palm.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I just…”
She couldn’t think of an excuse. She’d been curious before and was even more so because of what had happened between them.
Jace shook his head, as if it didn’t matter, but his withdrawal was obvious. Their bodies were joined, in the most intimate way possible for a man and a woman to be connected, yet they were suddenly miles, and perhaps years, apart.
“You don’t talk about it?”
“A reminder of my own stupidity. Would you?”
“Sometimes talking helps.”
“So they say.”
“Look, I’m sorry. Just forget that I—”
“It’s not something I’m proud of. I screwed up and other people paid the price.”
“It looks as if you paid a price, too.”
“In my case, it was deserved.”
“Is that why you’re here?”
“In bed with you?”
“In Randolph.”
“As good a reason as any.”
“Then…Since I don’t know what happened, forgive me if I say that I can’t be too sorry for it.”
She knew that for someone like Jace to end up in a place like this would take some life-altering event. As meeting him had been for her. He had thrown her world out of the sameness in which she’d lived for the last ten years. Despite the pain and fear and disruption that had accompanied his arrival, she couldn’t imagine going back to how things had been before. And unless he went back to wherever he’d come from…
Unable to bear the thought, she lifted her head, touching her tongue to the fullness of his bottom lip. As if grateful for the distraction, Jace opened his mouth, inviting her kiss.
And after a while, neither of them thought to worry about what had happened in the past. Or even about what might happen in the future.
“
I
tried to call you last night after I got home.”
“Really?” As she pretended surprise at Shannon’s inability to reach her, Lindsey wondered why she was keeping the change in her relationship with Jace from her friend.
“Sunday night, too. You sleeping at your folks, Linds?” Shannon asked, pushing her hair away from her face. “Not that I’d blame you if you are.”
“I’ve tried to downplay with them what’s been going on. If I went home, they’d know something was wrong.”
“Guess we just missed connections.”
“Anything important?”
“I wanted to whine about how much I don’t want to be here.”
With the county’s permission, Dave had dismissed school at 1:00 p.m. on the day of Andrea’s funeral. The thinking had been that Randolph-Lowen would have so many students checking out for the funeral there would be little point in trying to hold classes.
Since she and Shannon had gone to the visitation last night, they hadn’t intended to come today. Not until Dave had made a point of asking the faculty to attend as a show of solidarity with the students and Andrea’s mother.
The dismissal had obviously swelled the crowd making its way inside the sanctuary of the church. If the people milling around outside and lined up on the front steps were any measure of those inside, the building might not hold them all.
“Looks as if most of the kids are here,” Shannon said.
“Didn’t you expect them to be?”
“I just hope this doesn’t turn into a circus.”
Lindsey echoed the sentiment. Her gaze scanned those waiting to enter, looking for Jace. She knew he’d be here. He would consider this, too, a part of his job.
He would position himself so he’d be able to watch everyone in attendance. Looking for something—anything—that might give him the thread he sought to tie together Andrea’s death, the fires and the attacks on her.
“It’s already got the makings of one.” Lindsey tilted her head in the direction of the cameras one of the Montgomery stations had set up on the lawn.
“Damn ghouls,” Shannon said under her breath.
“Hey, Ms. Sloan. Y’all want to sit with us?” Renee was flanked by four other senior cheerleaders, their faces somber. One, Beverly Arnold, was already in tears.
“We’ll probably find Mr. Campbell.” Shannon took Lindsey’s elbow to pull her up the steps and past the students dutifully lined up waiting to enter. “Excuse us,” she said several times as she bulldozed her way toward the sanctuary doors.
“Shannon,” Lindsey hissed.
“I’m not standing outside in this damn heat. You’re not, either. Occasionally rank
should
have its privileges.”
No one protested their progress and before Lindsey could object again, they were inside the cool, dark interior of the church. The scent of flowers was so heavy, it was sickening.
“Come on,” Shannon ordered, leading the way down the center aisle, which was also lined with people.
Although Lindsey hadn’t been able to see empty seats near the front, apparently Shannon’s quick survey had revealed room on one of the pews about three rows back from the casket. She stopped at its end, waiting while other faculty and staff seated there made room. Then she motioned Lindsey in ahead of her.
As she sank down on the coolness of the uncushioned pew, Lindsey glanced to her right to smile her thanks to those who’d moved over. Walt Harrison met her eyes, his cold and hard.
Because she’d told Jace about his conversation with Dave on Friday night? Had Jace already questioned him about those rumors he’d mentioned and forgotten to tell her?
Not that they’d done much talking the last two nights…
Destroying that memory as inappropriate for the occasion, she quickly turned her gaze to the front of the sanctuary, still wondering about Walt’s expression.
Before she had time to figure that out, Shannon leaned toward her to whisper. “Open casket.”
She was right, Lindsey realized with a sinking feeling. Although that ritual was often dispensed with because of the funeral home visitation and viewing, apparently Andrea’s mother or this congregation was of the old school.
As Lindsey considered the implications, one of the girls who’d reached the front of the church began to sob. The sound, and the sentiment it expressed, was contagious. Even the kids who had, up to this point, been standing stoically in the line began to cry. Both males and females.
“I was wrong,” Shannon said under her breath. “This isn’t going to be a circus. It’s a freaking zoo.”
“Shh…” Lindsey glanced to her right. If Walt had heard, he was pretending he hadn’t.
“Standing room only. They’re lined up in the back.” Although Shannon had lowered her voice, she seemed determined not to be shushed. “Your friend’s in the balcony, by the way.”
Your friend.
Lindsey had known Jace would be here. She tried to put that out of her head, concentrating not on the growing volume of the sobs, but on the blanket of pink sweetheart roses that lay over the bottom half of the casket. When the lid was closed, those would be pulled up to completely cover the top.
When the lid was closed…
She denied the sudden burn behind her eyes, resolutely keeping them focused on the front of the church. She could hear the crowd behind her, shuffling into every empty space, despite the line that still stretched to the front and the casket.
“How long is this going to go on?”
She had no answer for Shannon’s question, but she understood the fear that prompted it. This was what the professionals always warned about with teenage suicides. This public outpouring of grief and regret. The near-deification of the dead, which too often led other troubled kids to think that they, too, could have this kind of attention.
One of the girls at the front fell to her knees, her forehead resting against the bronze coffin. Sobs racked her body, drowning out what had, up to now, been the relatively quiet crying of the rest of the mourners.
“God, I can’t take this. You can get a ride home, can’t you?” Shannon glanced at Walt as she began to rise, apparently expecting him to offer.
Lindsey caught her arm, looking up at her imploringly. “Don’t. Just wait until after the service—”
Before she could finish, Shannon turned her wrist, wrenching her arm away. “I’ll call you later.”
Without making more of a scene, there was nothing Lindsey could do but let her go. As Shannon slipped out of the pew, Lindsey crossed her arms over her chest, while the disturbance at the front of the sanctuary grew louder and louder.
“Get in.”
Lost in thought, Lindsey hadn’t been aware a car had pulled up beside her. She turned in response to that command to find Jace looking at her out the window of his county car.
She didn’t argue. The funeral had been an ordeal, and with Shannon bailing on her, she’d had no one to talk to about the churning emotions it had evoked. Jace was the one other person with whom she could be completely honest.
She slipped into the passenger seat, relishing the blast of cold from the air conditioner. She was grateful he didn’t ask her any questions as he put the car into gear, seeming to take her silence as appropriate.
It was not until he stopped at the next intersection that he glanced over at her. “You okay?”
The concern in his voice re-created the burn she’d fought at the church. “No, but given a little more time, I will be.”
“Was that…normal?”
“The service?”
Based on her experience, it wasn’t all that abnormal. Open-casket funerals were always difficult. People usually cried. Some “carried on” as her grandmother would put it. What had made this one so difficult, at least for her, was the age of the mourners. And the dangerous volatility of their emotions.
“It was…old South,” she said. “Fundamentalist.”
“Fundamentalist?”
“In a mainstream church, even here, things wouldn’t have gotten so out of hand. The minister would have stepped in to stop it.” She shook her head. “That…That was exactly what we were afraid would happen.”
“The emotionalism?”
“Shannon called it a circus. And most of the kids seemed caught up in it.”
“How about yours?”
She looked at him, feeling the same surge of resentment his constant questions about her students had brought from the beginning. “I thought I answered that a long time ago. They’re not any different from the rest.”
“You see a lot of them there?”
She nodded.
“Could you give me a list?”
She turned to look out the windshield. “So you can focus in on the ones who came? That won’t tell you anything.”
“Why not? You don’t think the kids involved with Andrea’s ‘My Place’ profile were there today?”
“I think the kids that were there were the ones who were able to convince their parents coming to that funeral was a good idea. Some of them wouldn’t have been able to do that. Are you going to eliminate them based on the fact they were no-shows?”
He took his eyes off the street long enough to glance over at her. “I’d still like to know who you saw.”
“I’d need my grade book. It’s at the house.”
She’d gone home to change for the funeral. No matter that she’d slept at Jace’s the last four nights, she hadn’t been comfortable bringing a suitcase over. Instead, every morning she’d gotten up early to go home and dress for school.
Not early enough, she was sure, to avoid neighborhood gossip. And it was only a matter of time before her mother would hear it and call.
Jace turned right at the next intersection, heading in the direction of her bungalow. They rode in silence a few minutes, until Lindsey remembered Walt’s reaction at the funeral.
“Did you talk to Walt?”
“Harrison? I told you I was going to.”
“What did he say?”
“That you misunderstood what you heard. He said they were talking about some members of the booster club who’d taken it upon themselves to charge to the school the paint they used to spruce up the stadium.”
She laughed, the sound bitter. “I didn’t misunderstand, Jace. Not to
that
extent. Whatever they were talking about didn’t involve boosters or paint.”
“I figured as much.”
“So why would he lie?”
“To protect Campbell. Or himself. Or because he thought that whatever they were talking about was none of my business.”
“If it related to Andrea, it’s your business.”
“She wasn’t pregnant, by the way.” This time Jace kept his eyes on the road, perhaps to give her a chance to assimilate that information before he looked at her.
And she needed it. “Then why in the world…?”
“I don’t know. But according to the coroner, the wounds on her wrists were all self-inflicted.”
“Who else—” She stopped because she’d just figured out why he’d told her that. “You thought someone
killed
her?”
Despite the attacks on her, Lindsey had never questioned that Andrea’s death was anything other than a suicide. Now Jace seemed to be suggesting that he had at least considered that it might be murder.
“That was always a possibility.”
“And so we don’t know any more than we did when this started.” A girl was dead. Lindsey was afraid to sleep in her own home. Almost afraid to be alone. And it seemed the police were no closer to having answers to anything that had happened.
“The Web site wasn’t put up from Andrea’s computer,” he went on. “Nor did any of the postings to it originate there.”
Despite the overwhelming emotions of the day, she felt a sense of vindication. Andrea hadn’t put up that profile.
“But even if they can give you information about the computer from which they
did
originate, you don’t have the authority to search for it?” Jace had already told her no judge would issue a warrant based on guesswork.
“If I knew
why
they did it, I might be able to figure out the who.”
“You said it before. A form of bullying. Harassment.”
“But why Andrea?”
“Because…” She hesitated, unwilling to put what she was thinking into words. Not about the girl they’d just buried this afternoon. “Because they believed they could. They thought she wouldn’t go to the authorities. And she didn’t. Maybe that’s why she came to my room that afternoon, but in the end—” In the end, she’d chosen to go home and permanently escape the persecution rather than tell anyone what was going on. “The bottom line is she was vulnerable,” she added softly. “And whoever did this understood that.”
“Are you surprised at the level of sophistication involved in that decision?”
“To target Andrea? To teens the kind of vulnerability the Andreas of this world display is like blood in the water. The sharks sense it long before anyone else.”
“Not the analogy I would use,” Jace said, “but for what it’s worth, I think you’re probably right. She was picked because she made the perfect victim. And I think she reacted just the way they expected. Just the way they wanted her to.”