Uncovered (18 page)

Following Troy Lee, they vaulted onto the low platform. Ash picked up a guitar, fiddling with the tuning, and they talked to the other band members in what looked like a small football huddle. Madeline grinned. Next thing you knew, they’d be slapping each other’s butts.

“You are really having a good time tonight, aren’t you?” Caitlin’s soft question jerked her head around.

“Yeah.” She considered the oddity of that for a moment. Hell, she didn’t remember the last time she’d had this much fun and laughter in her life, and she sure hadn’t expected it tonight. Her gaze strayed back to Ash. “I am.”

“Good.” Caitlin twisted sideways in the booth for a better vantage point. “You realize our responsibility here is to hoot, holler and thoroughly embarrass them.”

A surge of warmth flowed through Madeline and bubbled out in a laugh. “Of course.”

Lights flashed around the dance floor, highlighting for one second a head with shiny blonde hair. The laughter and everything good froze in Madeline’s throat. Allison Barnett.

And not too far behind, Stacy and Donna.

Madeline squinted, focusing in on Allison’s face in the shifting crowd. Troy Lee was talking into a handheld mike, making introductions, and his words washed over Madeline in a dull rush. Tick laughed, adjusting the height on a microphone stand. Allison hung on every move he made, an old hunger in her face that turned Madeline’s stomach.

“Madeline.” Caitlin touched her hand, and Madeline swung her gaze away from Allison, meeting Caitlin’s concern dead on. “What’s wrong?”

Below them, Ash strummed an opening riff. A cheer went up at what must be a favored song. Above it, Tick’s voice joined in, with lyrics about lost love and rain and yearning, his raw tone suited to the song’s pained angst.

Madeline tilted her chin toward the crowd. “The blonde, next to the redhead?”

“Yes?” Eyes narrowed, Caitlin scanned the heads. “Her? The one in the turquoise tube top?”

“Yeah. Her.” Madeline swallowed. “That’s Allison Barnett.”

“What? Her?” Lips parted, Caitlin regarded Allison, obvious surprise on her face. “Oh my God, he lost his virginity with
her
?”

Madeline laughed before she could stop it. Caitlin slanted a rueful look at her. “That came out really bitchy and snobbish, didn’t it?”

“No. Well, kind of, but it’s okay.” Madeline’s attention tracked back to Allison, who’d edged closer to the stage. “He was probably thinking the same thing earlier today.”

The band had segued into a new tune, a thumping rhythm with lyrics describing a gorgeous woman taking a man’s life apart. Caitlin, eyes narrowed to glittering slits, watched Allison, who gradually eased her way toward the stage and the steps leading to it.

“Oh, I don’t think so.” Tossing her hair back, Caitlin slid from the bench. “There’s no way in hell that’s happening, honey. He’s mine.”

Madeline scrambled to follow. “What are you going to do?”

“Something I didn’t learn in Swiss finishing school.” Caitlin’s boots thumped on the carpeted floor, soon lost in the pounding bass. Madeline caught a glimpse of the rhapsodic concentration on Ash’s face as he played. He was good. Damn Allison for keeping her from enjoying this.

Traveling in Caitlin’s wake, Madeline wound around a handful of customers. Close to the speakers, the beat thudded in her chest at a painful level. Caitlin paused on the steps and reached backward to tap Madeline’s shoulder. She glanced up. “Hey, Madeline.”

“Yeah?” At this point, she was screaming over the music.

Easing up a step, Caitlin cupped her hands to Madeline’s ear. “Look at that.”

Onstage, Tick and Ash shared a mike, belting out the chorus while Ash pounded through the chords. She couldn’t see Ash’s expression, but fun and passion and sheer joy lit Tick’s face. She felt rather than heard Caitlin’s soft laugh. “That’s why I married him.”

Caitlin continued down the steps. Madeline stayed where she was, her gaze trained on the two singing. Yeah, she could see wanting that emotion in your life every day. Ash swung away, fingers strumming softer as the song faded, the same elements reflected in his expression, and a realization she didn’t want to look at too hard slammed into her chest.

Whistles and clapping blended with hollers and protests as the pair prepared to leave the stage.

“One more.” Troy Lee held up a finger, grinning over the mike. “Come on, boys. Just one.”

Laughing, Ash waved him off, and Troy Lee shrugged, soon charming the audience with his easy smile and good-natured prattle. A few patrons leaving the dance floor brushed by Madeline as they climbed the stairs. She ignored them, wanting to watch Ash, compelled instead to keep her gaze on Allison.

Ash made it off the stage first, and Caitlin smiled, patting his chest as they passed. His mouth moved in a laughing comment, and he jerked his head behind him in Tick’s direction.

Caitlin met her husband as he descended. Madeline caught the flash of Tick’s grin before Caitlin pulled him into a bedroom-only kiss that was the sheer staking of a claim, carnal and possessing. He faltered one step under the onslaught but recovered rapidly, lifting her against him and kissing her back. Caitlin tangled her hands in his hair. Wolf whistles and whoops of approval rose, the two of them oblivious to all but one another.

Madeline caught a glimpse of Allison’s face—narrowed eyes, pursed lips, absolute fury and disgust twisting her features into something ugly and frightening. Her chin lifted, and she backed up, her gaze tracking the club to land on Madeline. Hatred flared in those blue eyes, strong and malicious enough that Madeline fought down the urge to retreat, turn away.

“I think his Aunt Maureen would be scandalized.” Ash’s laughing voice pulled her from the nonverbal exchange. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Hell, I’m scandalized.”

Madeline smiled, the expression feeling forced. When she looked beyond him to the dance floor, Allison was gone.

“So do I rate one of those?”

He came up another tread, putting them at eye level. A teasing light gleamed in his eyes, clear and pure enough to dive into, and a thin sheen of sweat filmed his skin, a holdover from the hot stage lights. A wide grin creased his tanned face.

She stared into the sea-colored depths, that terrifying realization squeezing her chest again, stealing her ability to breathe.

The teasing glimmer faded, shifting into something deeper, a simmering burn that pulled all the oxygen from her lungs. He snaked an arm around her waist, and she grasped his shoulders, meeting his mouth in a kiss that was a raw tangle of teeth and lips and tongues, less finesse and more pure, unrefined need.

“Hey, you two, get a room if you’re gonna act like that.” Tick’s ribbing broke through the isolated haze of desire surrounding them.

Ash lifted his mouth from hers, still looking at her like she was the only person in the world. One corner of his mouth hitched in a lazy smile, and he blew out a breath, thumb rubbing the silk at her waist. Heat spread through her system from that small, steady contact. “Look who’s talking.”

“Hey, I didn’t do anything.” Tick urged Caitlin up the steps before him. “She grabbed me. I just went with the moment.”

“And enjoyed every second of it.” Keeping their linked hands at the small of her back, Caitlin pulled him along, every inch a woman secure in the fact the man with her was hers and hers alone.

“Well, hell yeah. Ten months is a long dry spell, precious.”

Precious? What the fuck kind of endearment was that? Madeline lifted her eyebrows and caught Ash’s eye. “Don’t even consider it, Hardison.”

“Never even crossed my mind.” He spun her and swatted her ass to get her moving toward the table. “Hey, Tick, that shade of lipstick you’re wearing does nothing for your coloring, man.”

Eyes sliding closed, Madeline let the noise and heat and Tick’s smartass rejoinder swirl around her, let Ash guide her with warm hands on her waist, let herself wish she could have this moment, all the moments with him, forever.

“Well, I haven’t.” Caitlin smiled over the rim of her cup.

“I’d have figured…” Astonishment coloring her voice, Madeline pointed between Tick and Caitlin. “I’m stunned. You’re from Texas. Trucks everywhere.”

With a quiet laugh, Caitlin set her steaming tea aside. “You’ve never met my brother. I went to an all-girls boarding school, and when I was home, he made sure I wasn’t alone with any boys with trucks. I had to leave the country to lose my virginity.”

“Switzerland?” Ash trailed his fingers over Madeline’s arm, drinking in the warm, smooth skin. Damn, she fit good against him. This genuine woman was the one he’d suspected lurked beneath the ballsy bravado, and he loved the way she softened as the night went on, unwinding further with each beautiful laugh and smile, with each easy caress between them. As much as he wanted to take her home and back to bed, he remained perfectly content to sit with her like this, hanging out in the nearly deserted diner at two in the morning after they’d already shut the club down.

“Greece. European tour with Grandmother when I was eighteen.” She shuddered. “His name was Sandor, and it was the absolute worst sexual experience of my life. It hurt and I was so disappointed I cried, and then I didn’t do it again for three years.”

“Amazing you ever acquired enough experience to corrupt choir boy the way you have.”

Caitlin stuck out her tongue at him, much as he’d witnessed her doing with her brother back when Ash had gone to military school with him. “Would you stop?”

“Why should I when giving you a hard time is so much fun?”

“I don’t know.” She tilted her head to one side with a distinctly fake winsome expression. “Maybe because I might suddenly recall a story involving you and the words ‘colonel’s office’?”

He stilled, frozen by the mischief in that look. “Caitlin. No.”

“Sounds interesting.” Madeline slanted a glance at him from beneath her lashes. “I think I want to hear this.”

“No, you don’t.” He patted her arm, inevitability staring him in the face. “Trust me.”

Her gaze swiveled between him and Caitlin, a slow smile spreading over very kissable lips. “Oh, I think I really do.”

“It’s nothing.” Resigned, he wrapped his hands around his cider.

“Nothing?” The naughty mockery in Caitlin’s tone almost made him smile. “A threesome with the colonel’s daughter is nothing?”

Madeline clapped a hand over her squeal of surprised laughter. Tick’s coffee mug hit the table with a thump. “Holy hell, you had a threesome? And you didn’t tell me? That’s wrong. You share crap like that with your best friend, believe me.”

Gorgeous hazel eyes sparkled at him. “Did you really?” she asked, still muffled by her palm.

“She’s exaggerating. There was no threesome.” He sighed and held his thumb and forefinger a millimeter apart. “Well, there might have been a slight threesome involved.”

He glanced from those laughing eyes to dark brown ones filled with a modicum of shock and a hefty dose of male curiosity. “Hey, I was eighteen. It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“I’m sure.” Madeline giggled and wrapped her hand around his upper thigh. Heat shot out from the contact. He shifted and pulled his cell free. Flipping it open, he scrolled through the contacts list.

“It’s after two in the morning,” Tick said. “Who are you calling?”

“Vince. To bitch him out for opening his big mouth.”

Tick’s guffaw drew the waitress’s frowning attention away from the Soap Network. “You had a threesome with
Vince
?”

The skin on Ash’s spine literally crawled; there was no other description for the shuddering, creepy feeling. “You don’t have to put it like that. You make it sound like he and I…ah, man.” Tick would never let him live this one down. He slanted a half-amused glare at Caitlin. “See what you did?”

“You started it, outing me on the damn lap dance. Payback’s a bitch, Ashleigh.”

“I think we’re going to have to tone it down before they throw us out,” Madeline said, leaning into Ash. “The waitress is giving us the evil eye again.”

Tick brushed his tousled hair off his forehead. “We need to head home anyway, get a few hours sleep before we pick up the baby from Mama in the morning.”

After a flurry of goodbyes, Madeline spread her palm over his knee, rubbing in a soft circle. “They are not going home to sleep.”

“Hell, no.” Ash laughed and hugged her to him. “You about ready to get out of here? You don’t have to work tomorrow, but my day still starts early.”

On the quiet ride home, she cuddled into his side, tracing random designs on his leg, the soft meandering caresses burning into him. He wanted to hold on to this night, to the feelings wrapping around them. He wanted to hold on to her, so bad it scared him.

The Ford shuddered to a halt in the driveway, stars peeking down from a clear, cold sky. He climbed from the truck and held out a hand, helping her as she slid out the driver’s side door also. Keeping his hold on her hand, he drew her close and slammed the door, the hinges creaking. “Did you have a good time?”

“I had a wonderful time.” Her shoulder fit perfectly into his underarm as they headed up the walk.

“Tick and all?”

A little whispery laugh between them. “Tick and all.”

On the porch, she rubbed her thumb over the strings of his guitar leaning against the wall by the door. The notes drifted into the quiet. “Play for me.”

He’d give her anything, even if that meant playing a little at two thirty in the morning when he had to get up at four thirty. Lifting the instrument, he nudged the door open. “Let’s go inside where it’s warm.”

“No.” She picked up the quilt folded over the back of the porch swing. “Out here, where it’s quiet and dark.”

He settled next to her, guitar balanced on his knee, and she wrapped the faded quilt about her shoulders. “What do you want to hear?”

“Whatever you want to play.”

With her knee against his thigh, aware of her gaze on his face, he picked out an old love ballad he’d picked up while bumming around Mexico. He crooned the Spanish lyrics in a near-whisper, using the ball of his foot to set the swing on a soft arc.

Tentative fingers sifted through his hair, stroked over his nape, drifted across his shoulder and down his arm, leaving a fiery sizzle behind. He allowed his lids to slide down, drowning in music and caresses and Madeline. Going under and not worrying if he ever came up.

He played through the song twice, soaking in the soft feel of her touching him.

When the last notes faded into the silence, the strings stilling beneath his fingertips, she moved, taking the instrument from him with careful hands and laying it aside, climbing over him to straddle his thighs. She framed his face with her hands and stared at him a long moment before dipping her mouth to take his in a kiss both sweet and fierce.

He splayed his hands on her spine, allowing the exchange to go on and on, building a flame inside him, between them, until he couldn’t breathe, until he was drowning in her all over again.

Finally, he lifted her and carried her through to the bed, laying her down and stripping away clothes and barriers in a long, silent loving that left him shaking in her arms. He drew her close and brushed the tousled hair from her face. His fingertips came away damp and he kissed her cheek, smoothing the tears from her skin with his lips. After, he left her only long enough to discard the condom, and then, with her cradled in his arms, he settled them both against the pillows and pulled up the duvet to cover their naked bodies.

Without releasing her, he let sleep claim him, surrendering to the knowledge of how much he already needed her.

Tick killed the engine and rolled his stiff shoulders. It had been a long day and he was tired, but he felt good, relaxed in a way he hadn’t been in months. Damn, he’d laughed so much tonight the muscles in his stomach protested. He rested a wrist on the wheel and gazed at the house, bright light spilling from the keeping room windows onto the back porch in golden pools.

“What are you thinking about over there?” Caitlin brushed the back of her hand down his neck, indulgent affection in her voice.

“How good things are.” He caught her hand and hauled her toward him. “How absolutely blessed I am.”

She hooked her fingers around his nape and drew his mouth down to hers. Arms around him, she pressed nearer and the absolute rightness of this engulfed him all over again. Like it had done all day, his mind kept winding around Madeline’s revelations, how different his life would have been if Allison’s machinations had succeeded so long ago.

If she’d gotten pregnant, he’d have married her.

And because he was his father’s son, raised with old-fashioned values about marriage and commitment, about better or worse, until death-do-you-part, he’d probably still be married to her.

If he’d married her at nineteen, most likely there’d have been no Quantico, no FBI.

No Caitlin. No Lee.

The picture of what his life would have been, based on what he’d gleaned from Madeline’s comments, wasn’t a pretty one. It was enough to scare the devil out of a guy, like that James Joyce piece he’d read in freshman English at UGA, the one with the gleeful description of the horrors of hell.

“Tick.” Caitlin shifted against him, palms pressed to his chest, over his thundering heart. “Too tight.”

“Sorry.” He grimaced and loosened his hold.

“Don’t be.” She murmured the words against his jaw and shifted to straddle his lap, her sexy laugh burbling between them as the steering column got in the way. “I love the way you want me.”

“You mean relentlessly? All the time?” He reached for the tilt control and moved the wheel up, allowing her to settle firmly over his groin. He swallowed a groan at the tight fit, blood rushing south of his belt, stirring, filling. “So bad my teeth hurt?”

“All of the above.” She rocked into him, her voice going soft and breathless. She yanked his shirt free of his waistband, worked at buttons until she parted the fabric and ran hot palms over his chest. “Because I want you the same way.”

He gripped her hips, slid his hands down to cup her ass, slipped his fingers between her thighs. Even through denim, he could feel heat and excitement pulsing. “Let’s take this inside, precious.”

“Oh, come on, Lamar Eugene.” On a breathy exhale, she pressed her legs together, trapping his hands. She nipped his earlobe, ran the tip of her tongue around the swirl of his ear, and he bucked under her at the harsh thrust of pleasure. Holy hell, she knew every button he had and tonight desperation tinged the wanting, lent it an edge of urgency. “Supposedly my sexual education has been severely limited since I’ve never done it in a truck. Don’t you want to be my first?”

“The first?” He eased his hands to her hips, ground her down onto him. “I better be the only.”

“No one else.” She stopped teasing his ear long enough to slide out of her halter-top and toss it aside. The filmy bra she’d worn underneath followed. “Only you. Always you.”

He cradled a breast in each hand, the flesh full and hot, warmer against his palms, and he feathered his fingers over her, aware that with Lee at his mother’s, she’d be sensitive, almost sore, until she had a chance to express. He pressed open-mouthed kisses to the upper slope of one breast, smiling at her moan of aroused approval before licking the edge of her aureole, avoiding what would be a too-vulnerable nipple.

Knees digging into his thighs, she arched on another moan and dug her fingers into his hair, pulling. He repeated the caress again and again, on each breast, her responsiveness sending another rush of heat to his groin, until he was so hard it hurt.

“If I’d been your first, you wouldn’t have cried,” he muttered against her ribcage. “I’d have made it so good for you, Cait.”

“You make everything good.” She lowered on him, belly sliding on his, her intimate heat resting tight against him. She kissed him, whispering into his mouth. “Everything, every day. I love you, so much I can’t stand it sometimes.”

He took her mouth, desperate need and emotion making him rough, and she wriggled against him, reaching behind her, until he released her lips, his chest heaving. “What are you doing?”

“Getting rid of my boots.” A thud on the floorboard, followed by another seconds later. Her fingers moved to her belt and he watched, sprawled in the seat, while she shimmied out of faded denim and a wisp of satin and lace. A wave of desire took his breath.

“You are the most beautiful thing.” He ran his hands up bare thighs and over the indention of her waist to caress her breasts once more. She bowed into him, settling knees on his thighs, hitting the horn as she did so, and he laughed, sprinkling more kisses over her sternum. “Sexy as hell. And mine.”

“So take me then,” she breathed into his hair. Her hands went for his belt. “Prove it again.”

He let one hand flow down her body, dipping between her legs, sliding across damp folds and plunging a pair of fingers inside her while he swept his thumb over her clit, abrading the little bundle of nerves. She cried out, and he grinned against skin dewed with a light sweat. They were fogging the freakin’ windows, generating enough heat to keep them warm despite the chill beyond the cab.