Wait Until Dark, page 19
A hint of pride touched her voice as she said that last. Along music row, a job at the Yellow Rose was considered pretty prestigious. Then she remembered that she might not be around to sing on Saturday at the Yellow Rose, and that effectively distracted her from the sudden attack of the hots she seemed to be experiencing for Jake.
"Maybe I'll come see," he said, turning around. The Bermudas clung to his hips by nothing more than the grace of God and the good offices of his belt and reached well below his knees. He would have looked utterly ridiculous if it had not been for his truly gorgeous physique. Just looking at his chest was enough to infect her with the hots for him all over again, Charlie discovered. Wide and well-muscled, with a thick wedge of black hair, it tapered in a classic vee-shape from his shoulders to his narrow athlete's hips.
She wanted to touch it, to run her hands over the firm muscles, to thread her fingers through the mat of hair so badly that her toes curled.
"Always assuming we'll be alive Saturday." She said it flippantly, partly to remind herself of the direness of their circumstances and partly to remind him. His words, plus the heated glint in his eyes as they moved over her, told her pretty conclusively that she wasn't the only one dealing with a sudden bad case of lust.
Not that good girl Charlie Bates was going to do anything about it, of course. It just wasn't in her to jump a sexy stranger's bones. She hadn't been raised like that.
Why did nothing in her life ever work out the way it was supposed to? This gorgeous guy had practically been handed to her on a plate, and there were half-a-dozen good reasons why she wasn't going to do anything about it.
"You forgot to put your pants on," he said, draping the blanket over his shoulders and picking up the sweatpants. Charlie was horrified to discover that he was right She'd been so involved in salivating over him that she had totally forgotten that she was freezing, exhausted—and only half dressed.
He moved around in front of her and bent, holding the sweatpants open for her as if she'd been a child.
"Put your foot in," he said, with a lurking half smile and that carnal glint in his eyes.
She did, first one, then the other, sliding her long legs into the cavernous depths of the wide-load fleece, conscious of his gaze on the slender curves of her calves and thighs all the while. He swept her with a single hot look as, kept decent by the length of the shirt, she stood to pull the pants up. Then he turned away to scoop the flashlight from the floor.
She watched him, and her heart pounded. Her mouth went dry. She was totally turned on, she realized, and the man hadn't even touched her. Yet.
She'd wished for excitement, hadn't she? Well, tonight she'd gotten excitement in spades.
The terrifying kind of excitement that came with stumbling across murderous drug smugglers she could do without, she thought. But the kind of charged sexual excitement that was sizzling between her and Jake— well, now she knew what had been missing from her life. She had never, ever, even when they had first started dating almost a year ago, felt that kind of excitement with Rick.
This was what she wanted.
"There must be kids in your life," Charlie said, glancing around to find Jake going through drawers behind her and striving to keep the conversation light until she could figure out what to do about him. The question about kids had sprung from the way he had held out the pants for her, as if it was a natural thing for him to do.
Then she realized what she had said. Kids in his life? Oh, God, she thought fervently, don't let him be married.
"Six nephews. I have three brothers, and they have two boys each. Actually, when I'm home I baby-sit a lot."
"Where's home?" Without even thinking about it, she moved a little closer to him, caught herself doing it, stopped, and crossed her arms over her chest.
"Memphis."
"That makes you a local boy." What she was really trying to find out was whether or not he had a wife, but so far she couldn't quite seem to phrase the question subtly.
"Close enough."
"So are you married?" Right, Charlie, just blurt it out.
He glanced around at her, smiling faintly, and again she was aware of the smoldering quality of that look. "Nope. You?"
Thank you, God, she thought, but managed not to say it aloud. "No."
"Good."
Without warning, the flashlight went out. The cabin was plunged into total darkness.
"Shit"
"Jake!" Charlie moved toward him, reaching out for him in sudden alarm. Her fingers encountered the soft hair on his chest, and brushed over the warm hard muscles beneath before being reluctantly withdrawn. The contact produced a tingling electricity that shimmied along every nerve ending she possessed. The strength of her own reaction made her catch her breath.
"It's okay. Nothing to worry about. Damn batteries."
"We don't really need it, do we?" It was an effort to make her voice sound normal. She had to resist the urge to touch him again. It was too soon, she didn't know him, the situation was about as inappropriate as one could get.
She could hear him doing something that involved metal, shaking it until it rattled, screwing and unscrewing a lid.
"If we do, we're out of luck, because it's not coming back on. Here, wrap this around yourself. It's cold out there, and we've got to get moving. I wish to hell we'd managed to hang onto our boots."
"Ostrich leather, black, size seven. If we get out of this, you owe me a pair." Her tone was severe, but Charlie was smiling faintly as she said it.
"Yeah, okay. Fine. Blame me. I don't care." He sounded as if he might be smiling, too. Charlie felt something settle over her shoulders: the blanket. The gift of it touched her. For all his obvious physical toughness, he was as human as she was and he would freeze outside without it. It also settled something: However unexpected her attraction to him might be, it was something that deserved to be explored.
For once in her life, she meant to take a chance. And good girl Charlie be damned.
"Jake." She reached out for him again, and this time touched his arm. Her hand curled around one of the biceps she had so admired. It felt warm and hard beneath her fingers. "You know what? I think you're a pretty great guy."
Heart pounding, she took a step closer, rose up on tiptoe and kissed him. His lips were warm, and firm, and tasted faintly of the river they'd just left behind. For a moment, as she pressed her lips to his, he did nothing, just stood immobile as if he would absorb the touch of her lips.
"God, I've been wanting to do that." He said the words against her lips. Then his arms came around her hard and he pulled her to him and bent her backward over his arm and slanted his mouth over hers with a greedy hunger that made her quake.
By way of a reply, she wrapped her arms around his neck and put her tongue in his mouth and kissed him back for all she was worth. But it was he who controlled the kiss now as his tongue thrust urgently into her mouth and his hand came up to cover her breast. Charlie thought she would die at how good it felt to have his hand there. Her loins clenched and throbbed. Her breasts swelled, and the one fortunate nipple thrust boldly against the palm of his caressing hand. Quivers raced up and down her thighs as he pressed his knee between them. Her knees went weak. The bed was pushing against the back of her calves as he turned her around, and she swayed against it, wanting to be horizontal with him in the worst way.
Whether she pulled him down or he pushed her she didn't know, but suddenly she was on her back on the mattress and he was coming down on top of her, pulling up her flannel shirt, cupping her breasts, running his thumbs lightly over the distended nipples, kissing her ravenously all the while. Charlie moaned into his mouth, sliding her hands over his chest, tugging at his ridiculous shorts, so hot her legs were already wrapping around him and she wasn't even naked yet, hotter than she could ever remember being for a man in her life.
"Let's get your clothes off." His voice was thick as he lifted his head to yank the huge shirt over her head. His mouth returned to claim her breast; he slid his tongue over her nipple, then sucked it. At the same time he reached down between their straining bodies to slide his hand inside her pants and caress the cleft between her legs. His thumb found the place where she most wanted to be touched, and pressed.
"That is so—incredibly—good." She was panting, squirming beneath the ministrations of his mouth and that knowing hand, on fire for him, wanting him inside her so badly that she felt like she'd die if he made her wait.
She couldn't wait. Her hands slid between them to caress him through the soft cotton shorts. He was huge and hard and so hot that she could feel the heat even through the cloth. Her hand closed around him and he groaned.
"Charlie. God, Charlie." He jerked down her pants, baring her to the knees, and she kicked the offending garment the rest of the way off. Her legs parted, eager for him to come inside her, but instead of shedding his own pants he bent his head and pressed his mouth to her. She cried out as his tongue found the very center of her, gasping his name and digging her nails into his shoulders. His mouth was wet and scalding hot and well versed in the ways of women, and Charlie thought that she would die with the sheer pleasure of what he was doing to her.
"Oh, Jake!" It was a shuddering sigh as she let go of the last of her inhibitions and clutched at his hair.
"Gently, baby," he murmured. She was arching herself against his mouth and trembling and begging silently for release.
"Please don't stop," she gasped when his mouth didn't return to finish what it had started. But then, before she could even really begin to miss him, she felt something even better, the thick burning length of him sliding against her, pushing inside her, filling her to bursting, causing her body to pulse with a million fiery tremors as he sought his own pleasure at last. She clung feverishly to him as he took her with hard deep thrusts until she was striving with him, until she came, until her body exploded into a fireball of sensation that rocked her world.
If there was such a thing as sexual nirvana, that was where she landed.
She was just floating back to earth when the cabin door opened and two men carrying flashlights and God knew what else stepped inside.
11
A NUMBER OF THINGS HAPPENED almost simultaneously.
Sadie erupted barking from beneath the bed. The flashlights found them. Jake hissed, "Get under the bed!" and shoved Charlie over the far edge, then launched himself off the mattress toward the newcomers in a low, fast dive. A gun boomed.
Charlie hit the floor hard on her hands and knees, and screamed as a bullet tore through the mattress to lodge with a thud just inches from her fingers.
The men were now engaged in a desperate struggle. They were cursing and grunting and thumping around, and to her horror Charlie recognized the voices of Woz and Denton. Oh, God, if she and Jake had left just a few minutes earlier, they would have escaped.
The most mind-blowing sexual experience she had ever had in her life was going to lead to her death. How ironic was that?
The sickening sound of blows came fast and thick.
Sadie barked frantically. Both flashlights had apparently hit the ground at around the same time Charlie did, dropped in the newcomers' surprise at Jake's assault. One was rolling away across the room, casting weird shadows as it went. The other lay near the men's feet. Its beam pointed toward her, illuminating the floor, the underside of the bed, her and Jake's abandoned clothes—and the screwdriver.
With no very clear idea of what she meant to do but knowing that in a crisis of this nature any weapon was better than none, Charlie snatched up the screwdriver and, crawling on her hands and knees, rounded the foot of the bed. The men were very near. It was easy to tell which one was Jake because he was barefoot and naked. Jake was grappling with Denton, who was taller and thinner than Woz. Jake had a choke hold on Denton's neck and a grip on his gun hand and seemed to be using him as a shield against Woz, who circled the writhing pair, darting this way and that and lashing out with his fists and feet in a kind of deadly dance, looking for an opening. Woz had his pistol ready, but unless he wanted to risk hitting Denton it was obvious that he was going to have to be careful how he used it. It was, however, clear to Charlie that it was just a matter of time before Jake went down. Naked and weaponless, he couldn't best two armed men.
"Get the girl!" Denton grunted. Woz glanced around.
"Damn it, Charlie, run!" Jake roared.
But it was too late. Even as Charlie backpedaled frantically, then tried to roll under the bed, Woz was upon her, knotting a fist in her hair, locking an arm around her neck, hauling her to her feet. Charlie didn't bother to scream, or fight. She hung limply in his hold, letting herself be dragged toward where Jake and Denton still struggled.
"Hey, asshole, I got your girlfriend!" Woz said in a taunting voice. His arm, in a bulky twill coat, was wrapped around her neck. He held her so that there was no possibility of escape, with his pistol pointed at her head.
Charlie clutched the screwdriver and prayed.
Sadie came running up, yapping frantically at this assault on her mistress, and launched herself at Woz's leg.
"Get out of here!" Sadie was too small to do much damage, but Woz glanced down, and angrily shook his leg. The pistol wavered and fell...
Charlie took a deep breath, and drove the screwdriver with all her might into his thigh. It pierced his pants, and sank deep, feeling like a fork going into tender meat.
He screamed, and let her go, and dropped his gun, clapping both hands to his punctured thigh and falling writhing to the ground.
"Bitch! Bitch! Bitch!"
"That was for Laura," she said, and went diving after Woz's dropped gun.
Jake did something violent to Denton, but Charlie didn't know exactly what because she was sliding across the floor just about then. When she came up with the gun, scrambling to her feet and gripping it in both shaking hands, it was to discover that the fight was over.
Denton was on the floor near Woz, and Jake, gun in hand, was taking careful aim...
"Oh my God, don't kill him!" Charlie gasped, knowing that she couldn't be a party to cold-blooded murder even though Woz and Denton deserved it. Jake didn't even look at her before he fired. Denton screamed, clutched his leg, and rolled around on the floor.
"I'm not going to kill them, just make sure they won't be coming after us," Jake said grimly, glancing at her before repeating the exercise with the already shrieking Woz. Then he turned to Charlie, and held out his hand. "Here, give me that gun, and grab us some clothes. Time to get the hell out of here."
It was only then that Charlie realized that she, like Jake, was as naked as the day she was born. Trying not to listen to the cries and curses of the men writhing on the ground, she snatched up what clothes she could find— the flannel shirt and sweatpants, both of which were still on the bed—and pulled the one over her head and tossed the other to Jake. As he juggled the guns in one hand and yanked the pants on, she scooped up Sadie. Then the three of them headed cautiously out the door.
Only to find, parked neatly in the driveway beside the cabin, Critter Ridders' own Jeep, smashed front end and all. Charlie was embarrassed to realize that she and Jake had been so engrossed in what they were doing at the time that they'd never even heard it pull up.
"Yee-haw, I think we're in business," Jake said when he saw it. "Let's go."
The bad news was, the smell of skunk was still so strong that, after stopping to call the state police and Jake's boss from the convenience store, they had to drive all the way to Nashville with the windows rolled down, and it was cold. The good news was, the snake was long gone. But the raccoon and the possums were still in their cages.
"I've got to go," Jake said, after driving her clear back home. An unmarked car was already waiting for him in front of her mother's house, where she had told him to take her after he'd refused to let her drive on from the convenience store alone. Two men in suits got out of the car as they pulled up. Jake, wearing nothing but too-large sweatpants, lifted a hand at the men in greeting and then turned to Charlie.
"Jake." But she couldn't say anything else, because she knew it was good-bye and her throat was suddenly aching. He leaned over and kissed her, quick and hard, on the mouth.
"See ya," he said, and bestowed a quick scratch on Sadie before getting out of the Jeep. Her mother came out of the house just then, standing on the porch and staring, but Charlie stayed where she was, watching as Jake slid into the back of the car, which promptly drove away.
Only then did she climb out, and, carrying Sadie, walk toward her mother, who hurried down the walk to embrace her.
Even as her mother exclaimed over her, and hustled her toward the house, Charlie couldn't rid herself of a terrible sense of loss.
She'd taken a risk, given him all she had to give, and now he was gone. The question now was, would she ever see him again?
12
BY NINE O'CLOCK SATURDAY NIGHT, Marisol was still trying to explain to her insurance company exactly what had happened to her Jeep. Parachuting drug smugglers and undercover DEA agents and ticked-off skunks did not seem to fit into any categories that would ensure a prompt payout. Marisol was growing increasingly exasperated, and, though she knew it was not Charlie's fault, some of that exasperation naturally was vented at her little sister. Especially since Charlie had made the gigantic error (in Marisol's opinion) of quite firmly breaking up with Rick. Charlie had to have dog food for brains, as Marisol told her. The man was good-looking, nice to kids and animals, and had a good job.
What more could Charlie want?
Something a little more exciting, Charlie answered stubbornly. And it was so unlike Charlie to be stubborn that Marisol was truly concerned.
