Red Light (12 page)

It was cold and the wind whipped about, kicking the sand up, and we hadn’t even gotten onto the beach proper.

We walked together under the boardwalk instead of over it, to the water, the water I could barely see as a black gleam on the horizon, but I could hear it, a steady thud that grew as we waded through the sand.

As we neared the hard-packed shoreline I let her take my hand, and the slip of her fingers against my palm stopped me from walking, brought me back from some edge I hadn’t even known I was approaching.

I closed my eyes and just took it all in—the sound of the waves as they pounded, the smell of salt in the air, the harsh whip of the wind as it lashed my hair against my skin. I could feel the heat of Trace’s body as she closed the distance between us to stand next to me, her shoulder nearly level with mine.

The warmth appealed to me, called me, and I put my arm around her to give some of that back, to get more of it. She let go of my hand to ease her arm around my waist.

“I really appreciate this,” I said into her ear so she could hear me over the wind and the waves.

Trace shifted in response, her lips brushing against the sensitive skin behind my jaw. “These things…they’re never easy,” she said. Her mouth pressed into that spot, a blossom of heat in the cold that surrounded us. “Not the how, not the why, they’re just not easy.”

I understood what she said in the same place that told my hands what to do, in the same way I understood my ABCs, but the part that told me how to breathe put my other arm around her, found her eyes and traded the salty scratch of the wind for the surprising baby softness of her lips.

Trace leaned into me and I was so raw, I was aching, I was starving; and when her tongue slid along the roof of my mouth, I reached for her hips and pulled her to me urgently.

Her hands molded under my jacket and up my ribs, massaging along the muscles with a need that fired my blood. The heat that rose from my cunt threatened to take my head with it. Her leg slipped between my thighs and I needed more, more of everything.

“We can’t do this here,” I gasped, breaking away from that kiss that had returned me to sanity.

Trace’s fingertips dug into my arms as she scraped her teeth along the exposed column of my neck. “I’m less than four blocks away,” she murmured into my jaw.

Although her place was less than a minute away, it took longer than that to get there because we tripped along the sand—kissing, biting, allowing the hard rake of fingers to slip from cloth to skin and back again—and when we were actually in the car I drove with her hand held tightly in mine.

I’m not sure how Trace managed to open the door, reaching behind her that way, but once we were inside and the door slammed shut, Trace slammed me against it with a kiss that rolled in my mouth like the ocean as the nerves tingled along the skin of my back where it had hit the hard surface.

My clit strained against my clothes when the hard tips of her nipples pushed against my chest and my tongue met hers to explore the cuntlike softness of her mouth. My fingers methodically undid the knot that held her scrub pants up so I could slip my hands beneath the thin cotton and cup the bony prominence of her hips. When her thigh slipped between mine, my hands drifted from her hips directly to her ass, and I gripped her firmly so I could ease her along the flexed muscle of my leg. Hers snugged up against me perfectly.

“Oh…” I groaned softly, grateful for the pressure on my clit, equally grateful for the jolt of Trace’s body against mine, for the slight, steady shudder that ran through her frame as her hips rode my thigh.

“Want more,” she breathed into my neck. I didn’t know if it was a question or a request as her teeth again worried the muscle.

She straightened against me, grabbed my shirt, and led me to the couch, her scrubs falling along the way as I kicked off my boots and her hands relieved me of my holster. The clang of it as it struck the ground seemed to hang in the air, a thin metallic whine that rang into the dark. I ignored it as my pants followed and we fell onto her sofa, a tangle of legs and shirts and skin.

Trace sighed, a sound that wavered as my fingers quested along her stomach to find the prize I wanted, and my lips marked her neck.

“Take what you want, baby,” she urged when I finally held the slight rise of her breast bathed between my lips and the hardened peak between my teeth, “take what you need.”

I stretched along her, above her, suspended. Watching the dark gleam of her eyes, I burned, burned with a need, a hunger that threatened to turn my bones to ash.

I took her mouth as I took her body: a sharp sudden thrust into slick, wet heat, a heat that seemed to meld with the burning of my bones when she tossed her head back.

“Yes…please,” she moaned, and pushed frantically against me, on me, pushed so hard it had to hurt as she dug lines into my back, marking my spine as surely as I’d marked her neck. I could feel the skin split, the fluid rise and bubble behind her touch, and still I burned, we burned as her hands finished their trailblazing to grab my ass and she shoved her leg between mine, spreading me, anchoring me to her.

Burning. I was burning as my fingers filled her over and over, burning as my clit rode hard, even harder on the tendon of her thigh. Burning. There’s the floor. Burning. Tiny limp hands. Burning. Little lips open and close, open and close until they stop, and then—

Trace grabbed my head and pulled me to her for a kiss that filled my mouth with blood and my blood with fire. She gave me no warning but the quickest glide of her fingers as they trailed down my ass to my thigh. She showed me the same mercy I showed her—none.

She filled my cunt completely.

I was the fire bleeding down the mountain, the liquid slip between her legs, the flame that took us both as she buried herself in me.

“Harder…” I urged, a harsh breath that scorched my throat as it flew out. And the burning…stopped.

*

The night of the written half of the state exam started sanely enough—I picked up Bennie from the train station and drove to Mike’s Place to meet Roy about two hours ahead of the exam. We figured we’d eat a little, chat a little, and review a lot before we took out our #2 pencils and answered the questions that would earn us entry into the practical exam.

We pulled out our Brady books and piled them on the side of the table, along with our notebooks.

“Hey, you guys hear about the dealer?” Roy asked conversationally as he poured sugar into his coffee.

“What, another dead or something?” I quipped as I picked at my cheese fries and waited for my cup to be filled.

“You mean…the one with the kid?” Bennie asked as she salted her eggs.

“Yeah, that one. What was his name?” Roy snapped his fingers to jog his memory, and the muscles clenched in my stomach.

“Wasn’t it Dennis or something?” Bennie asked. “The one on…” She named the street I’d gone to with Tigger and Trevor.

“Danny—it was Danny!” Roy exclaimed. “Yeah, I was riding with Ray-Ray and Jack. Heard it on the radio.”

I played with my coffee, fingers stuttering over the creamer tabs.

“Yeah,” Bennie’s voice sounded next to me, so suddenly I jumped. “I went in for the overnight ER rotation—heard they had a trainee with them. Hey!” She looked at me directly. “Didn’t you ride that night?”

The fucking creamer burst in my hands, splashing everywhere but my cup. “Yeah,” I said shortly as I tried to figure out what to do next, “I rode.”

Roy threw me a sharp glance. “You?” he asked simply, his eyes warm and steady on mine.

I nodded.

“Hmph.” He handed me a few napkins from the dispenser and pushed another creamer at me. “Heard you did good.”

I wiped my hands with the offered paper, then shrugged. “They sent me home, so I’m not sure about that.”

Bennie touched my shoulder. “That’s part of their protocol,” she said, her voice low and quiet. “Everyone who was on that was sent home as soon as they could be spared—and given two days off.”

“Really?” I was surprised. I had just assumed that…well, that explained a lot, and the knot in my stomach started to loosen.

“Really,” Roy affirmed, nodding across from me. “Oh, hey,” he tossed a couple of sugar packets at me, “your coffee’s gonna get cold.”

I caught the sugar. “So long as it doesn’t taste like that stuff they had…” and I launched into a recap of the first night. We also discussed where we were going to work once we got our licenses: private company, hospital, who was going to apply to the city. That? That was the real deal, as far as we were concerned, though a voluntary hospital was close enough if you could get it.

By the time we were done trading stories, laughing, and just generally being silly, we had forty-five minutes left to review, and we warned each other to be careful as we drove to the campus—Roy in his car, Bennie in mine. We’d already agreed that we’d meet the next night to review for the practical, which would be the following day: we were set up in groups, and Roy, Bennie, and I were scheduled to go first.

Once in the auditorium, I was literally the first one done with my exam. Three hundred of us, every other seat, and I surreptitiously peered about, trying to see if anyone else showed signs of completion. I reviewed my exam. I reviewed it again, then double-checked that I’d penciled my name in correctly and that my social security number was in the right place.

Finally, no more stalling—I couldn’t take it anymore. Bob grinned at me as I tried to quietly scuff down the ramp to the front where he and the other instructors waited for us to hand in our paperwork.

I’m not sure if it was my hands or my chest that shook as I handed him first the exam book, then the test itself.

“See you at oh eight hundred, Saturday morning,” he reminded me sotto voce as I gathered my books where we’d all been asked to leave them—in front of the podium.

“I’ll be there,” I stage-whispered in return.

My brain was blank as I walked to my car. Tomorrow. One last chance to review the practical aspects, and then the next day? The most important part of the exam.

I was so far gone in my thoughts that when I saw Kerry on the hood of my ’79 Grand Prix, I smiled, because I’d forgotten, just for that moment, we didn’t live together anymore.

“Hey, Tori,” she said, her words low and measured as she slid to the ground to stand before me, still and proud under the light.

Her light blond hair drifted over her face, and as I stretched unstoppable fingertips to brush the strands back, I felt my breath hitch. There were at least a dozen things I could have said, and probably another dozen I could have done, but only one I could do. “Hi.”

Her eyes once again winked at me—that mysterious green, light as new grass—except this time, I saw tears too.

“Miss you, tough guy,” Kerry said, her words a half whisper as they tripped out.

Her skin was smooth under my fingertips, her hair as smooth and fine as I remembered it, and as that hitch in my throat turned to stone, I realized exactly how much I cared for her. “Me too,” I said. I wiped away the tear that escaped from her lashes with my thumb.

She turned her face into my palm, then threw her arms around me, and I reacted without thought or hesitation.

“Shh…” I soothed her as I held her against me. My heart pounded as my body remembered her, how she felt and fitted to me, on me, every way I had loved her and her me.

And…she cried, her shoulders shaking until all I could do was ease my palm along her back, murmur nonsense words, and kiss the top of her head until finally, finally, she stopped.

“Oh, I miss that sound,” she said, her words still half broken by tears.

“What sound?” I asked gently and kissed her crown again.

Kerry sighed, a sad and wistful note in the crisp fall air. “Your heart, Tori,” she told me, “that strong, steady beat…” She hugged me tighter and I closed my eyes and rocked her to me, against me, still rubbing soothing circles along her spine, her head against my chest. We stood like that for a long time.

“I got you something,” Kerry said finally into our quiet, and shifted in my arms to dash at her eyes.

“You didn’t have to do that.” I loosened my hold.

Kerry dug into the bag that hung from her shoulder until she found what she wanted—a box about eight inches long, three inches wide, and wrapped in hunter green paper.

“For the ring around your eyes,” she said as she pressed it into my palm.

“What…?” I asked as my fingers began to worry a neatly angled corner, and Kerry put her hand over mine to stop me while the fingers of her other hand stroked gently over my sternum.

“Promise you won’t open it until after your practical exam on Saturday?” she asked, a slight, sad smile playing against the corners of her lips.

“Sure.” I was touched that she’d come down, shocked that she’d remembered my exams and that she’d brought me a gift. It was an easy promise to make.

“Good.” She kissed my cheek and I stared at her, bemused, as she walked to her car and opened the door. I simply didn’t know what to say.

“See you ’round, stud.” She waved with some of her usual grin and pulled out.

“Who was that?” Bennie asked from right behind me, and I fumbled the package I held as I whirled to face her.