Janelle Taylor (11 page)

Though Spencer’s slumber on the way home essentially left Jordan and Beau alone together, it had somehow been easy not to fall into a potentially awkward conversation during the long drive. With the radio playing and the air conditioner whooshing, they had traveled in near silence the entire way, aside from occasional comments about the building traffic and which routes promised less congestion.

Now Jordan wished they had taken advantage of the drive to discuss the situation.

Not the kiss, which she was trying her hardest to forget had happened.

But the situation with Spencer. Now that the initial shock of his parents’ murder had worn off, Jordan was no closer to knowing what her next step should be. Logic told her to do nothing—simply to wait for something to happen.

But for what?

For the papers to report that the murder had been solved and the suspect apprehended?

For the police to come knocking at her door?

Or for a cold-blooded killer to trace Spencer somehow through her phone call to Curt and show up at her home instead?

“So you’re leaving town tomorrow?” she asked Beau now, knowing they had to get out of the car and get on with their good-byes. This was her last chance to talk to him before she was left alone to grapple with her burden.

He studied her. “I don’t
have
to.”

“What do you mean? Don’t you have a vacation planned? You probably have a flight, and reservations….”

“There’s no flight,” he said quickly—perhaps too quickly, his eyes shadowed with an expression she didn’t understand. “I’m driving out to the Outer Banks.”

“That’s a long drive.”

He nodded. “I don’t mind it. I’ve rented a beach house there for the week. But I don’t have to—”

“No, you should go,” she forced herself to say. Firmly. As though there weren’t the slightest doubt in her mind.

“Are you sure?”

“What would you do here? Just more of what we did today?”

“I can,” he offered.

She shook her head. “Look, you don’t have to help me baby-sit him, Beau. I’ll take care of him, and I’ll wait and see what happens. I’ll check the papers and see if they get the guy who… who did it,” she said, conscious of Spencer in the backseat behind them. She was fairly sure he was in a deep sleep, but she couldn’t chance his overhearing a reference to his parents’ deaths.

Soon enough, she would bring herself to tell him what had happened. But not until the time was right.

“It could take a long time for an investigation to be carried out and for an arrest to be made,” Beau pointed out. “It might never happen.”

“Well, I’ll figure things out,” she said. “I’ll wait, and when I feel like it’s safe to go to the police, I will.”

“But not right away.”

“No,” she agreed, “not right away.”

“Okay.”

There was a long pause.

“I’ll carry him into the house for you,” Beau said softly at last, opening the car door.

Jordan nodded and climbed out into the still evening air.

The heat was oppressive even now that dark was descending. Cicadas hummed a familiar rhythm, and an occasional car passed along the street behind her as she unlocked the front door and waited for Beau to carry Spencer up the steps.

She looked up and down the street, a quiet tree-and-shrub-lined stretch off a main Georgetown thorough-fare. She realized that anyone could be lurking in a window of one of the town houses that lined the block, or in the foliage-draped shadows.

The very idea that someone sinister might be looking
for Spencer made her blood run cold. She hugged herself as she stood on the stoop in the warm June dusk, stepping aside to let Beau cross the threshold with his precious burden.

Inside, she whispered, “Let’s put him right up in bed.”

“He’s exhausted,” Beau whispered back. “He’ll probably sleep right through till morning.”

Jordan led the way to the second-floor guest room.

She pulled back the covers and Beau deposited the sleeping child gently on his bed. Swiftly and expertly, he undressed the little boy and changed him into pajamas without waking him.

Watching his movements, Jordan was suddenly struck by the notion that Beau must have done this before. Where she was consistently awkward in her attempts to button and unbutton little-boy shirts and figure out which was the back and which was the front of his tiny pajama bottoms, Beau seemed to know instinctively.

It’s because he’s a guy,
she told herself illogically.

But something told her that wasn’t the case. It was because he had done this before. There was something too comfortable about the way he tucked Spencer’s sheets and blankets up to his chin, bending to kiss the boy tenderly on the head before stepping back from the bed.

He turned to see her watching him, and was clearly startled by the expression on her face.

“What?” he asked, his voice hushed as she turned out the bedside lamp.

She shook her head, unwilling to voice her hunch, instead bending to place her own kiss on the little boy. It landed near his brow. The child sleepily swatted at the spot as though a mosquito were buzzing there.

Together, Beau and Jordan tiptoed from the room. In the hall she paused to turn the air conditioner to a lower setting. The house felt warm and close now that she was accustomed to the temperature change from outside.

She descended the stairs behind Beau. At the bottom, they faced each other.

She wanted to say good-bye. But what she heard herself say instead was, “Do you want some coffee?”

“Only if you have iced. It’s too hot for anything steamy.”

Too hot for steamy kisses,
she found herself thinking irrationally, forcing her gaze away from his full lips. Aloud, she said, “I have iced tea.”

“That would be good.”

They walked into the kitchen.

She saw the light blinking on her answering machine. “I’d better check my messages first,” she said. “Maybe…”

She trailed off, remembering.

No longer was she waiting for a call from Phoebe. That call would never come now.

Swallowing over the lump that rose in her throat, she walked to the machine and pressed
the
button. The tape rewound.

She had one message. It was from old Mrs. Villeroy, who lived two doors down.

The requisite pesky neighbor, Mrs. Villeroy often called Jordan to borrow something or to ask for a favor. There was no telling what she wanted this time. She said the same thing she always did, “Hello, Jordan, this is Velma Villeroy. Please call me as soon as you get back.”

Jordan sighed, pressing the erase button.

With all that had happened, she wasn’t in the mood to deal with Mrs. Villeroy tonight. She’d remind herself to call back tomorrow.

“Friend of yours?” Beau asked as the tape rewound. He had come up behind her, standing a few feet away.

“Neighbor.”

The few moments outside in the humid night air had dampened her hair with sweat, sending trickles of it down inside the turtleneck. Jutting her lower lip to send a breath of breeze at her sticky hairline, she bent to untie her white canvas sneakers. She kicked them off, longing to shed also the confinement of the high-necked shirt and rumpled linen shorts.

She could feel Beau’s eyes on her as she turned and padded past him onto the cool tile of the kitchen floor. She didn’t dare look at him. She was afraid of what she might see in his expression, now that they were truly alone together.

She walked to the cupboard and took out two tall cobalt iced-tea glasses, then opened the fridge and reached for the matching pitcher. Beside it on the shelf was a wicker basket of peaches she’d bought yesterday. “Are you hungry?”

“No,” he said simply.

She glanced at him as she poured, and she realized that
she
was hungry. Starved for another one of those soul-searing kisses.

Gradually, her resolve was falling away. She was growing far too weary to battle her attraction for this man. All that she had been through in the past twenty-four hours—the trauma, Spencer’s adversity, the lack of sleep, the kiss—had depleted her conviction. She could no longer stand firm against the magnetic force that drew her to Beau Somerville.

He wasn’t good for her. He wasn’t what she wanted.

Yet right now, he was what she needed. And maybe that was enough.

Right now.

She swallowed hard, finding it hard not to let her knees buckle beneath her as she crossed the room to hand him the glass.

He took it and sipped.

She did the same, letting the cool, lemony liquid slide down her throat, though her thirst had evaporated with the realization that they were alone together again.

Errant thoughts drifted into her mind. Indecent thoughts.

She watched Beau lower
the
glass and lick his lips, and she knew that if she closed her eyes, she could imagine his moist mouth on the tender pulse point behind her ear, his hot tongue trailing lower …

Oh, Lord. How could she be thinking such things at a time like this?

Jordan tried to force her mind back to the more serious matter at hand, but her thoughts refused to budge.

How could she try to convince herself that she didn’t want Beau when she wanted him as she had never wanted a man in her life?

She wanted him to carry her up the stairs as tenderly as he had carried Spencer. She wanted to be secure in his arms, her cheek cradled against his strong chest. She wanted him to lay her gently on her bed and deftly undress her.

And then …

And then she ached for him to make love to her, to let her prove that she was alive, that life would go on. She yearned for sweet release from the constant bonds
of restraint. She couldn’t stand another moment of keeping it all bottled inside—the grief, the loneliness, the pain, the desire.

Beau’s green eyes collided with hers, and in that instant, she saw her own pent-up anguish mirrored there. She knew that he felt it, too. That he needed deliverance as desperately as she did.

Slowly, Beau set his sweat-beaded glass of iced tea on the counter beside them. Even more slowly, he reached out and took hers. She released it into his hand, knowing and yet not knowing what would happen next.

Jordan held her breath as she watched Beau carefully place her glass on the cool granite next to his.

Their eyes were locked once again, and Beau was looking at her in a way that left no ambiguity as to his intentions.

“Jordan, if you don’t tell me to get the hell out of your house right now,” he said raggedly, his face mere inches from hers, “we’re both going to be sorry.”

Sirens blasted in her head. He was right. Of course he was right. All she had to do was say the word, and he would go.

“You’re leaving town tomorrow?” Her voice was lower, huskier than usual.

He nodded. “As long as… as long as you don’t need me here.”

She shook her head.

An unspoken agreement passed between them. They would have this one night together, and then he would go away.

After he was gone, she would be left alone with Spencer, but she could handle that more readily than she could handle having Beau here, facing the aftermath of what they were about to do.

They stared into each other’s eyes for another long moment.

Jordan held her breath.

Then Beau swept her into his arms and kissed her. As his warm, wet mouth glided over hers at last, Jordan spiraled into another realm. Here, there were no conscious thoughts, no worries, no boundaries. Here, there was nothing but sensation.

Beau’s tongue swirled into her mouth, igniting a passionate duel with hers that left her gasping with pleasure when he lifted his head. Then he was kissing the nape of her neck, breathing fire in the tender hollow beneath her ears where she had longed for his touch only moments before.

His arms held her fast along the length of his body. The evidence of his arousal had her squirming against him, and he groaned, lifting her so that her legs were wrapped around his waist, her arms around his neck.

“Where?” he ground out in her ear before devouring her mouth again.

“Upstairs,” she replied breathlessly when they came up for air.

As though he had read her mind before, Beau carried her up the stairs, past the closed guest room door.

Crossing the threshold into her room, he kicked the door closed and deposited her on the rumpled bed. Heedless of the tangled sheets and quilt, he went to work on her clothes, pulling her shirt off and fumbling for a moment with the front clasp on her bra.

She raised herself to accommodate him, propped on her elbows as he lifted the bra away and at last her breasts spilled from the lacy silk confinement. He looked down at her almost reverently before groaning and bending to taunt one taut nipple with his hot tongue.

With a sigh, Jordan sank back against a cloud of down pillows and comforter that were heaped beneath her head and shoulders, allowing sensation to sweep her away once again. She sailed blissfully toward oblivion, borne along by the incredible sensation of Beau’s wet mouth working first one sensitive nub, then the other, then sliding lower, over her stomach.

He lifted his head only briefly, to see what he was doing as he unfastened her shorts and slid them down, taking her panties with them. They were impatiently discarded over the edge of the bed before he put his hands on her thighs, pushing them gently apart. She opened her mouth to protest just as his made slippery contact with her most intimate flesh, and a purr of pure pleasure escaped her instead.

Lost to the promising ripples he sent cascading through her, Jordan wove her fingers into Beau’s thick hair, clutching him to her as if she feared he might pull away. But he made no move to lift his head or cease his tongue’s swirling caresses, and too soon, she felt the unmistakable quivers of impending eruption. She began to writhe in an attempt to lessen the exquisite contact, to prolong the agonizing wait. But his strong hands held her hips fast and his expert suckling went on … and on … until she exploded beneath him and around him, gasping his name.

As if the sound of his name on her lips beckoned him to her, he lifted his head at last, propping himself, fully clothed, above the length of her naked body.