Tell Me Lies (13 page)

She rubbed her face in his shirt just to feel it against her skin. It smelled like the sun and soap and underneath, faintly, of his sweat. No ugly cologne, nothing but him and the sun. She tipped her face up to his. “Did your aunt wash this shirt? It smells line-dried. It smells wonderful.”

He laughed at her, and she met his eyes, dark as night and fringed with those impossible lashes, and his lips smiled down at her, ripe enough to bite into, and he was solid and warm and sweet and confident, and she wanted him so much that her breath went. He stopped laughing, watching her, and after a moment, he bent over her and kissed her, his lips brushing over hers, and made her whole body tighten. He stopped and said, “Maddie?” and she put her hand on the back of his head and drew him down to her, running her hand down his shoulder as he bent into her. His mouth tasted like wine and heat and something more, like him. His arm felt solid under his shirt, solid wrapped around her, and she shuddered as he eased his hand up under her breast and made it swell and harden. The heat was sudden and everywhere, and she twisted closer to him, feeling the brush of his sleeves against her skin and the muscles in his arms pulling her in as the ache spread. His lips moved down her throat and she sighed against him in the dark, drawing in deep breaths of him, and every breath made her want him more, and when his hand finally moved hard over her breast, now tender with heat, she moaned and bit him on the shoulder and pulled him as tightly to her as she could.

“If you’re going to say no,” he breathed in her ear a few minutes later, “say it fast.”

She clenched her teeth to keep from screaming for him. “I want you now. Make love to me
now. ”

“Wait,” he whispered into her neck. “Let me unbuckle my belt.”

She arched back on the seat as he fumbled with his belt, so alive and needing him so much that she couldn’t lie still beneath him, shuddering until she could feel his weight against her again. Then he slid his hands under her dress and along her back, and she clenched her teeth when he pulled her up to him, yanking her dress off her shoulders from inside. She fell against him and felt the roughness of his shirt against her breasts. He felt wonderful, but it wasn’t enough, she needed him naked, too, and trying to unbutton his shirt took too long. She banged her head on his collarbone in frustration, and when he jerked her head up and kissed her hard, she ripped his shirt open, flinging buttons everywhere, and pressed against him, the smooth heat of her breasts against the coarse hair of his chest, the tickle and itch that was everywhere now driving any other thought from her mind. She moaned with heat and need, biting his lip until it bled and she tasted the salt of his blood in her mouth.

“Oh, God, Maddie, hold on,” he said, and still holding her to him, he slid his hand between her legs, and his fingers felt so impossibly good against her damp thighs and then sliding inside her that she cried out. He pressed her down on the seat, and she wrapped herself around him as his mouth found her breast, and he sucked hard while he stroked her. Then she did lose her mind, clawing at him while he fumbled in his pocket for the condom. He spread her thighs with his, and she arched up at the shock—the itch and the heat fused—as he went hard into her. She pressed her face to his as his body rocked against hers, barely realizing he was kissing her as she gave herself up to the rhythm and incredible satiating, mesmerizing friction of him in her. His hands and lips were everywhere, and she could feel her blood pound and swell in her temples and her breasts and her fingertips and finally, hotly, deep inside her, deeper inside her, tighter, until she broke and came hard, banging her head against the seat, crying out as she felt the spasms take her, and her climax was almost an anticlimax because the sex before had been so excruciatingly good.

Maddie lay there for a moment, tipping her head back and drawing a deep sobbing breath before she looked up at C.L. The clouds had left the moon, and his eyes were hot in the dim light as he stared down at her. She felt herself glow back up at him, transformed. She’d done something bad, something selfish, something just for her. She’d never be the same again, and it was wonderful.

“Come here,” he said, and pulled her up so that she straddled him, his back to the seat. He slid his hips under her and pressed her down to him, as close as he could, and when she felt him go hard into her, she clutched at his shoulders, digging into the muscle there.

“How?” she breathed as her head dropped to his shoulder in boneless pleasure.

“It wasn’t easy.” His voice was thick and husky. “You did go off damn quick.” He slid one hand up, lacing his fingers in her hair, and pulled her head back so he could see her face. “But this time it’s different.
Look at me.
This time I want you to know who you’re with.”

“I knew.” She traced his lips with her fingers and rocked forward, closing her eyes as she felt him deeper inside her. “I knew all along. I’ve never had it like this.”

“Honey, nobody ever had it like this.” He kissed her, his tongue lightly touching hers, running over her lips, her throat, his hands on her breasts, teasing and tickling in counterpoint to the rocking deep inside her, and she felt the pressure well up again, like something great and lovely coming out of hiding, tearing along her veins. She cried out and he pressed harder. “Look at me,” he said, and twisted his fingers in her hair to bring her head up again, and she saw him in the moonlight, his eyes glittering, his teeth clenched as the spasm shook him, too, and she thought,
I’m the reason he’s feeling this, he wants me, I’m making him lose control, he’s coming in me, because of me, oh, God,
and then she lost it, too, drowning as the climax took her again, flexing her swollen fingers and twisting closer to him, coming in his arms as he came in hers.

And as her mind came back, she collapsed against his broad, damp chest and thought,
This isn‘t anything Maddie Faraday would ever do. This is brand-new, just me, for me.

I want this again.

C.L. eased himself out of her, and they sat slumped together, entwined and shuddering, then quiet, and finally he breathed in her ear, “We must remember how we did this.”

Maddie laughed into his neck.

“I’m serious.” C.L.‘s voice came back as he held her tighter. “I’ve had good sex before, but this was nirvana. Was it the car? I’ll buy one. I swear.”

“No,” she whispered. “It was you.”
It was me.

His arms tightened around her again, and he whispered into her hair, “Are you going to refuse to talk to me tomorrow? If I come to your locker, will you turn away?”

“No.” She breathed against him, inhaling the sunny, tangy scent of him, dizzy because he was there and because she felt so free. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to say no to you again. Not after this.” She kissed him, and he took her mouth with such greed that she felt charged because he wanted her so and because the sex had been so very good.
I can do anything.

She relaxed into him, and he eased her down on the seat to lie beside him, pulling at his clothing while she pulled at hers until they both gave up on modesty and lay locked together in tangled fabric and contentment. Maddie thought she’d never move again. She smelled honeysuckle everywhere, and sweat, and sex, and the sun in his shirt. She licked the salt from him off her lips and savored the tang, and felt him warm and heavy and solid beside her, wrapped around her, and shivered from the bone-deep pleasure of it all. She could see him in the silver light, the gloss of his skin, the dark lace of his eyelashes on his cheeks, the faint smile on his open lips. She traced his mouth‘ again with her fingers, and he kissed them without opening his eyes.

“You have the strangest smile,” she said dreamily. “It’s like a V.”

“Should I change it?” he asked, half asleep.

“No.” She traced her fingers over his lips again. “It’s very sexy.”

He smiled against her fingers, his eyes still closed. “Then it stays.”

“In fact, everything about you is sexy.”

“Thank you.”

She nestled closer. “Do you think I’m sexy?”

He opened one eye. “I think you should be declared a national resource and protected by law. Are you always this chatty after sex?”

“Nope.” Maddie smiled at him with her whole face. “Never before. It’s just because I’m so happy.”

He closed his eyes and snuggled her closer. “Good. Chatter on. I’ll listen, I swear.” He kissed her on the neck and she shivered at the butterfly touch. “You have a great neck.”

She lay next to him and listened to the crickets and his heartbeat, inhaling the honeysuckle and C.L. She ran her fingers down his shoulder and onto his arm, following the contours of his muscles. He had a great body. Everything about him was great.

A sudden cramp in her leg reminded her that he was also heavy. She tried to ease herself into a better position, but there wasn’t one. If she didn’t straighten that leg out, she was going to be lame for life. “C.L.,” she whispered, and he cuddled her closer, sending shooting pains up her thigh. “C.L.,” she said out loud, and his eyes shot open.

He lifted his head up. “What?”

“You’re squashing me. And my leg is kind of twisted—”

“Oh, sorry.” He moved to sit up. “Here—”

“Ouch!”

“Sorry.” He pulled her into a sitting position, but she slid off his lap. The blood rushed into her leg and set it on fire with stabbing pinpricks of pain, and her knee cracked as she straightened it out.

“God, I creak.”

He patted her knee. “Fortunately, I like older women.”

She could hear the exhaustion in his voice. “Take me home. You need sleep.”

He put his arm around her and pulled her back against him. “Can I get it with you?”

Maddie shook her head, but she didn’t move away. She couldn’t; he felt too wonderful against her. “I think Brent would catch on if he caught you actually in the bed.”

“Oh, yeah, old Brent.” C.L. hesitated. “You got any plans there I should know about?”

“Yes,” she said. “I’m getting a divorce. I’m filing Monday. I just haven’t told Brent yet.”

He sighed and pulled her closer to him, his hand sliding down to touch her breast. “Well, that’s one problem off my mind. Tell him tonight so I can sleep over.”

Maddie jerked away. “No.”

“Hey,” he said, “that was a joke.”

“You stay a secret until the divorce is final.”

C.L. frowned at her. “Why?”

Maddie shivered. “I have a daughter. I don’t want him to have custody.”

He shook his head at her. “Maddie, no woman loses custody because of an affair, especially if her husband is making it with another woman.”

“I don’t care. I’m not taking any chances. Not with my kid.”

“Okay. I can understand that, I guess.” He yawned, taken by exhaustion. “God, I’m tired. When can I see you again?”

Maddie thought about Brent and her happiness faded. “Tuesday night. He fools around after bowling on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

C.L. stopped stretching. “That’s four days from now.”

“Think of it as foreplay.”

“Very funny.” He leaned over her and kissed her hard, stroking his hand over her breast, and she felt the heat flare again as she tasted him.

He kept his face close to hers and said, “I’m feeling very possessive of you. That’s bad.”

Maddie brushed his lips with hers and felt his hand tighten on her as he closed his eyes. It was intoxicating being wanted this much. She felt the heat thicken in her. “Why is that bad? I think it’s great.”

C.L. opened his eyes. “You’re married, that’s why. Maybe
I’ll
kill Brent.”

The sudden pounding on the window made them both leap. Maddie pulled her dress shut and sank into the darkness of the far corner, while C.L. blocked her from the window with his body. He rolled the window down, and a voice asked, “Ain’t you folks got beds?”

Maddie shrank away as the light from the flashlight blinded her. Bailey. Of course, Bailey. He’d seen the car and come out to watch and got a real bonus: the boss’s wife and the town’s worst screwup. Maddie closed her eyes and tried not to think about how much trouble she was going to be in. After all, this was what she’d wanted. Revenge. So much for being the Perpetual Virgin of Frog Point.

Her mother was going to kill her.

Meanwhile, C.L. had moved to block the light. “Who the
hell
are you?”

“Well, I’ll be damned, C. L. Sturgis. How you doing, C.L.?”

“What?”

“It’s me. Bailey.” The guard turned the flash so it shone in his own moonlike face, grinning above his security guard’s uniform. “Remember me?”

“Bailey? You’re a cop now?” C.L.‘s voice lost its edge. “Jesus, what’s the world coming to?”

Bailey’s grin got wider. “Same as ever, it looks like from here. Takes me back twenty years, catching you getting laid in the backseat of a car. Evening, ma’am.”

Maddie sank even farther back into the dark.

C.L.‘s voice got grim again. “Bailey, old buddy?”

“Yeah, C.L.?”

“Turn the fucking light off.”

“Oh, right.” The light went out. “You really do got to get out of here, though, C.L. It’s private now.”

“I’m going.” Maddie could hear C.L. fumbling his shirt together as he climbed out of the backseat and slammed the door behind him, still shielding Maddie. “Nice seeing you again, Bailey,” he said, and Maddie watched as he grabbed the guard’s arm and pushed him away from the car. “Go away now.”

“I’ll go down the hill first, old buddy, but I’ll wait for you at the bottom.”

“Good, good, Bailey, you do that. Now get back in your car.” C.L. lifted the little guard onto his toes as he marched him toward his car.

“Aw, c’mon, C.L., are you with who I think you’re with? This town ain’t had any real good gossip for months.” Bailey craned his head back over his shoulder, trying to look back.

“Cops don’t gossip, Bailey, not even rent-a-cops. And I’m alone.” C.L. opened the door to his car and shoved him in. “You will not mention this to anyone, hear me?”

“You’re alone in the back of Brent Faraday’s car on the Point? Now pull the other one. Besides, I seen somebody in there.”

Maddie could see C.L. leaning over the car door. “Bailey,” he said. “Go away and keep your mouth shut or I will beat the crap out of you.”