All Through the Night (45 page)

“Annie?” Jacob’s voice was sharp with impatience.

She jumped, startled out of her reverie. “I’m over here,” she called back, hurrying back to the campsite.

It wasn’t that she was afraid of him, she told herself stoutly, analyzing the jagged burst of adrenaline his voice had triggered. He was a force to be reckoned with, that was all; and after last night, she could hardly be blamed for taking him very seriously. And as shaken apart and fluttery as she felt, she didn’t have the nerve to oppose him.

She found him in front of the tent, buttoning his jeans. His eyes snapped with annoyance. “You took long enough,” he muttered.

“I saw another deer,” she offered.

His eyes slid down, staring at her naked legs. She quiv-ered as if his gaze were a licking tongue of heat against her skin. “That shirt is damp,” he said. “Get into something warm.”

Annie rummaged through the backpack in the cab of the truck and dug out the last of her clean clothes. A wrinkled cotton blouse, the faded jeans she had been reluctant to wear because they fit so tightly, her final pair of clean panties. She had to find a laundromat. Her clothes needed a wash, and so did she, after last night. Her thoughts flashed longingly to the hot mineral pool as she pulled on her clothes.

Jacob was wringing out their sodden clothes, draping them across the picnic table. “I need a bath,” she said. “Want to go up to the pool?”

He looked thoughtful, then nodded.

The pool was crystal clear, ruffled by an occasional breeze and wreathed with tiny wisps of steam. Annie pulled off her clothes and tied her hair into a loose knot atop her head, careful not to look at Jacob as she climbed in and let the water close around her like a hot, tender caress. She watched Jacob as he stripped, wondering if he would be— yes, he was. Of course he was. Armed and ready, as always. The man was a veritable sex machine. It was ridiculous, after all they had been through together, that something so silly could still make her blush.

Jacob settled himself comfortably next to her. Annie leaned her head back against his arm and relaxed; as much as a girl could with a magnificent hard-on right at her elbow. They watched the clouds scudding across the sky, pushed by some high, faraway wind. Three stars still gleamed like solitary jewels against the deep, glowing blue. Over the rim of the canyon the sky was lightening.

Jacob’s arm shifted, and when she looked up, he was staring at her shoulder. He moved to inspect her better, examining the marks of his fingers from when he had pulled her out of the pool the day before. There was a smaller, matching bruise on her other arm, and he made a soft, in-coherent noise in his throat and kissed both of them; hot, tender kisses that made her throat swell and her eyes fill with startled tears.

His inspection continued down her arms, finding every little bruise and mark. The scrapes and scratches she’d gotten camping and gathering firewood, the little burn on her knuckle from her camp stove. Various and sundry mosquito bites. He urged her onto her feet and continued his search. There were little bruises on her hips from when he had held her at the picnic table, and she stroked his dark hair with a sigh of pleasure as he kissed and tongued them in sweet, silent apology. He set her on the edge of the pool, drew her legs out of the water one by one and covered them with kisses, finding every little hurt: the nick where she had cut herself shaving, the faded bruise from a briefcase that had banged her shin on the Staten Island Ferry almost two weeks ago, all the tiny, long-forgotten scars from her haphazard, misspent childhood back in Payton. He missed nothing. She would never have dreamed that the hollows of her ankles were an erogenous zone, or that there was so much exquisite sensation in her toes.

He stood up, his penis jutting out eagerly, and splashed steaming hot water from his cupped hands onto the flat rock at the water’s edge. He gestured to it. “Lie down on the rock, the way you did yesterday.”

Annie watched the water trickle down the lean, muscled contours of his body. “You’re giving lots of orders,” she said, but the words were robbed of their tartness by the way her breath hitched in her lungs.

Jacob grabbed her by the waist and lifted her easily. Her backside made a little slapping noise as he deposited her on the wet stone. “Pretty please,” he said in a steely voice.

He trapped her eyes in his; he trapped the very air in her lungs, and she wondered frantically how he did it. With a touch, a kiss, with the timbre of his voice, he reduced her to quivering mush. He made her want to fling open every door, give him everything she had to give. His power was terrifying, but still she lay back on the tilted rock, breathless with excitement, and spread her legs for him without being asked.

He ran his hands hungrily over her wet, steaming body until they closed over her vulva. She reached down, trapping his hands. “I’m sore from last night,” she murmured, with a flash of uncertainty.

“I’ll be gentle,” he assured her, coaxing her thighs wider.

And he was gentle, exquisitely gentle, but something had changed, and it took many delirious, writhing moments before she could identify it. When he first seduced her, he had coaxed, persuaded, courted her. Now he was claiming her. She felt the arrogant, possessive authority with which he handled her body, but she was in no position to protest as his tongue swirled sensuously, teasing and laving her, flicking tenderly across her clitoris. He held her trembling body still with masterful strength, and she let her head fall back, staring into the sky. The clouds had turned a startling, wild-rose pink, the world was a wild contrast of dark and light, heat and cold, and her body was at the center of it all, moving helplessly against the wild magic of his sensual mouth. She sobbed with the unbearable perfection of it as he pushed her gently over the crest, just as the last, faint burning star in the sky was swallowed up by the pale blue of morning.

He gathered her into his arms and lowered her body gently back down into the water, cradling her in his strong arms until the tremors melted away. She clung to him for a long time, her face hidden against his neck, before venturing to look up.

He shifted her body to face him. “Tell me something, Annie.”

“What?” she asked, wrapping her arms around his neck.

“Your ex. Did he hurt you?”

She stiffened. The tone in his voice put her feminine instincts on full alert. “Why do you want to know?”

“Just answer the question.”

He stared into her eyes, and the truth tumbled right out, as it always did when he demanded it. “Nothing really too awful,” she said, a little too quickly. “Just… ugly. He called me names a lot. And he, um, he got me fired from my job.”

“I see.” He waited patiently for her to continue.

Annie took a deep breath, and pushed on. “Then it started to escalate. Pushing and shoving, wild threats. He slapped me once. That was when I decided not to hang around and see how bad it could get.”

He studied her face, as if trying to read between her words.

“It’s all over now, Jacob,” she insisted in a forceful voice.

Jacob splashed his face and smoothed back his hair. “If he hurt you, I’m ripping him to pieces,” he said with appalling calmness.

“No way,” she gasped. “Let him be. I don’t want anything to do with him. Case closed, page turned, game over. Got it, Jacob?”

He tucked a damp lock of her hair gently behind her ear and smiled mercilessly. “Let’s get going,” he said in a matter-of-fact voice.

She stared at him in blank dismay. “Jacob, please don’t—”

Water sloshed and cascaded down his powerful body as he stood up. “Come on, Annie. Get a move on. I’m hungry.”

Annie scurried down the path, so agitated that her legs trembled and her mind spun in helpless, trapped little circles. She couldn’t wait to get on the road and have some privacy. She needed distance from Jacob’s intense, brooding presence so she could calm down, get the events of the last two days sorted out in her mind.

She packed her stuff at triple speed at the campsite, and regarded the soggy tent with dismay. “If I pack it now, it’ll mildew,” she told him. “It has to dry. Go on ahead if you want breakfast.”

Jacob snorted in disgust and began dismantling her tent himself. He flung pegs and rods into a careless pile and bundled the sodden fabric carelessly into one of the plastic sacks he had brought the night before. “You won’t be using this again,” he informed her.

Her jaw dropped. “What the hell are you doing? That’s my tent!”

“You want a tent, fine,” he said coolly. “We’ll stop at the first mall we see and I’ll buy you a decent one. But for now, we’re staying in motels. I’m sick of the cold and damp.” He stalked toward the pickup.

She scrambled after him, panicked. “Jacob, you can’t just—”

“And the Santa sack has got to go.” He plucked it, one-handed, out of the pickup.

“No way!” she squawked, lunging for it.

He lifted it out of her reach. “Does it have sentimental value?”

“Not particularly, but it’s the only—”

“Then it’s history.” He shoved it into the plastic bag along with her tent, and headed toward the dumpster down the road with long, purposeful strides. He flung the bag inside with a vicious flick of his wrist and gave her a steely, intimidating stare. “And don’t even think about fishing them out.”

He marched back to the campsite. Annie watched, dumbfounded, as he calmly proceeded to unlatch Mildred’s tailgate and tilt the nose of his motorcycle up onto it. He braced himself, lifting the heavy machine into the truck bed without apparent difficulty, and glanced back at her with a “what-are-you-going-to-do-about-it?” look on his face.

She stumbled toward him, her heart fluttering like a trapped bird. “Jacob, I… we’ve had a misunderstanding. I never said that I—”

He slammed the tailgate shut with a resounding clang. “You still don’t get it, do you?”

She shook her head mutely.

“We’re traveling together,” he said curtly.

She stared at him, rooted to the ground. “We are?”

“Like hell am I letting you out of my sight again.”

She stared at him, frozen like a statue with her mouth agape. He grabbed her by the shoulders, all the potent force of his will blazing out of his eyes. “Look, Annie. You want to go to this casino and play your lucky dollars, fine. Well go. But we’ll go
my
way.” He reached down, plucked Mildred’s keys neatly out of her jacket pocket and jerked his head toward the passenger side. “Get in. We need breakfast.”

Annie climbed numbly into the truck. Jacob started up Mildred’s engine, frowning at the rusty cough. “This thing needs help,” he said. “I’ll take a look at it after breakfast.”

His words gave her a flash of wild, irrational panic. If he stuck his hands under Mildred’s hood and won her over too, that would be the final blow. Her last ally, seduced away from her. Jacob had seized the upper hand, and she hadn’t the slightest clue how to wrest it back from him. She felt like one of Bo-Peep’s fluffy little sheep. Baa-a-a. Meek little woman with her big bad Alpha male. Look at her, sitting in the passenger side of her own vehicle, as docile as you please. He had her completely cowed.

It was not to be endured.

Breakfast helped a little, but not as much has he had hoped. Even after a four-egg Western omelet and a double stack of pancakes, Jacob was still in a jagged, dangerous mood. He’d been in its grip for the past twenty-four hours, and it wasn’t getting any better.

Worse yet, sex didn’t dissipate it. On the contrary. He clenched his jaw and watched the service station guy pour in the second quart of oil. They had a full tank of gas and four new tires, and he’d met Annie’s attempts to pay with a glare so menacing she had shrunk back against the door, her eyes huge. Nice going, he told himself. Now she was scared of him, and he didn’t blame her. He was scared of himself.

He yanked the Arkansas and Louisiana maps out of the door pocket and buried his face in them, trying to plot out the quickest route to St. Honore, but he couldn’t concentrate worth a damn. He’d shocked her speechless when he ditched the tent and Santa sack. And maybe hijacking her pickup had been a little over the top, he thought guiltily. But he was sick of playing games. It was time for her to face reality. Besides, it wasn’t like he could choose what he said and did. Jacob the sexually obsessed macho lunatic was acting out, while Jacob the cool, rational choice-maker watched, aghast.

They were grimly silent on the road. He stared at the highway with eyes that burned and stung, examining the strange new shape of the world now that Annie was in it. There were too many doors in his mind flung open all at once, too many crazy, unfamiliar emotions crowding out. For the first time in his life, he didn’t know what strings to pull. The world had never seemed so dangerous and wild.

He pulled off the highway onto a strip mall of fast food restaurants, motels and car dealerships. “Lunch,” he said shortly.

She gave him a cautious little nod.

He parked in front of a Lone Star Steakhouse and killed the engine. He couldn’t stand her guarded silence for another second. He would rather she scream and yell, give him something to grapple with.