Nine

Parker’s Ridge

Midnight, November 20

“More?” Nick whispered into Charity’s ear Sunday night. From behind her, he shifted a damp lock of her hair to one side and licked the skin just behind her ear. She shivered.

More? Good God, he was buried so deeply inside her it almost—but not quite—hurt. How on earth could she want more? More of anything he could give her?

She was already completely his, completely in his grip. He was arched around her back, one muscled thigh between hers, opening her up. One hand held her breast, the other was holding her labia open around his penis.

“This feels so good, I don’t even want to move,” he murmured, his lips so close to her ear she could both hear his voice and feel the vibrations in his chest against her back. “But maybe—” the hand at her groin moved, opened her even farther, “maybe you want more.”

His hips tightened against hers and, impossibly, he slid in a little farther, to a place deep inside herself she had no idea existed.

Heat blazed from her groin and she could feel herself getting wetter by the second, just from having him there, inside her, hot and heavy and unmoving. So still she could have sworn he wasn’t even breathing.

Everything about this was a delight. His big, strong hands, powerful yet delicate. Capable of touching her just so. His chest hairs tickling her back, the rough hairs at his groin scratchy against her bottom. The strong, hair-roughened legs against hers. And of course, the biggie. Literally. His penis buried in her to the hilt.

She closed her eyes as her body spasmed helplessly around him. He reacted instantly, growing even longer and thicker inside her in the space of a heartbeat.

More. He’d asked her if she wanted more and was giving it to her. She hadn’t answered him, but her body had. And his had responded.

He withdrew, just a little, the friction against the walls of her sheath like painless fire, then moved back in. Oh God, she was starting that delicious slide into orgasm already. How did he do it?

She’d always been so slow to climax. A lover or two had even complained about it. She wasn’t slow now. All Nick had to do was touch her, enter her, and she was primed to go off.

Nick started slow, languid pulls and thrusts, lazy and leisurely, his chin nestling against her shoulder. Breathing relaxed and deep. Heart thumping hard and slow against her back. Muscles hard but not tense.

Experience told her that he was settling in for the long haul and could keep this up for hours. Recent experience. A lot of it.

She couldn’t keep it up for hours, though. No, in an instant her heart started racing, heat prickled in her veins, everywhere he touched her, inside her vagina, against her back. The musky smell of sex clouded the air. She was starting the slide…

The phone rang.

Nick stopped for a moment on the outstroke and Charity wanted to scream. So close, she was so close! She needed him back inside her, now. A whimper escaped her. Her thighs shook. She tightened around him and felt an answering surge.

The phone rang again. Nick was still, unmoving. What was he waiting for? His penis was barely in her, at her entrance and her sheath contracted sharply, anxious for him to fill her again.

The phone rang again.

It was just far enough away so that she couldn’t stretch out and turn the handset off. If she reached for it, she would pull away from Nick’s penis. Unthinkable.

The phone rang again.

Her heart pounded, her lungs felt tight. She was shaking all over now. So close. She was so damned close—

Her eye happened to fall on the big clock on her dresser drawer. Twelve fifteen. Past midnight. Who on earth—

Suddenly, reality crashed in on Charity, chilling her.

The only person who would call her at that hour was Uncle Franklin. And there could only be one reason to call. He needed her.

Charity moved, pulling away entirely from Nick’s penis, worry rising in her like a dark tide, so overwhelming she didn’t even have time to mourn leaving his embrace.

“Sorry,” she gasped and lunged for the cordless handset. “I have to get this.” How long had it been ringing? Was she too late?

“Hello?” Her voice sounded breathless to her own ears.

“Charity?” Uncle Franklin’s soft, quavering voice sounded dim, as if he were speaking from the bottom of a well. Her anxiety ratcheted up a notch.

“Uncle Franklin? What’s wrong?”

Holding the handset between her ear and her shoulder, Charity scrambled to get dressed. Whatever had happened was bad. She needed her clothes for this. Panties—where Nick had thrown them in a corner. Pants—over a chair. Sweater—at the foot of the bed.

“Your aunt, honey. She’s gone. I don’t…” Uncle Franklin’s shaking voice drifted off, the last word said away from the phone.

“Uncle Franklin!” Charity’s voice was sharp with worry. “Where? Where has Aunt Vera gone?”

Silence.

Desperately hopping on one leg to pull on her pants, Charity spared a second to look out the bedroom window at the heavy sheets of snow falling from the sky. A delight while in bed with your secret lover. A nightmare for an elderly and confused woman.

Uncle Franklin’s voice came back, a little stronger. “I’m sorry, honey. I thought I saw her out the window, but I was mistaken.”

“How long has she been gone?” Boots. Charity looked around frantically for boots. She dived for the closet and pulled out a pair of waterproof boots, shaking with urgency.

“I–I d-don’t know.” Uncle Franklin’s voice shook so badly she could barely understand him. “I woke up and wanted a drink of water. But I’d forgotten to put my usual water bottle on my bedside table because we had a leak in the downstairs bathroom and I had to call in a plumber, and by the time he left, it was time for dinner and I just completely forgot.”

He could keep this up forever. For an instant, Charity mourned the Uncle Franklin she’d known all her life. Judge Franklin Prewitt, sharp-minded, sharp-tongued. Steely intelligence wrapped up in a take-no-nonsense demeanor; a rapier wit, which he often flashed in court. Woe betide the defense attorney who hadn’t done his homework. He’d leave the courtroom with his hide in strips.

She saw that man less and less.

And Aunt Vera—elegant, ironic, well-read. Devotee of chamber music and the theater. Who read Rimbaud in French and Isabel Allende in Spanish. That Aunt Vera was gone forever.

“I’ll g-go outside and l-look for her—”

“No!” Charity said sharply. God, the last thing she needed was for Uncle Franklin to get lost in the snow, too. “You stay put, now. I’m coming right over.”

She clicked off so he wouldn’t have time to protest. It was entirely possible that Aunt Vera was in the basement or had wandered into the cellar. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Charity yanked out her down parka from the closet, rattling the hanger, and turned around with a heavy heart.

Through the haze of anxiety, she could still feel Nick inside her, that warm column of hard flesh making her glow with heat, his large hands gripping her, the feel of him hard against her back. The signs of sex were still in her body—her panties were damp, her supersensitized nipples grazed the sweater she’d pulled on—yet her body already felt bereft, lost and cold without him.

This might actually be the breaking point. When Nick decided she was more trouble than she was worth. There was no time to explain that she had to rush off, that it was her duty. He’d have every right to be annoyed. Bed partners aren’t supposed to disappear in the middle of the night. Certainly not in the middle of making love.

He was too good to be true, anyway. Maybe the sooner he left, the better, before she started hoping—

Zipping up the parka, she turned her head toward him as she rushed to the door. “Nick, I’m sorry, I really am, but I have to—”