Between Darkness and Daylight (9 page)

She wasn't shy. He liked that. He liked her and was frightened by how much.

Nova groaned against his mouth, squeezed one hand between their bodies to firmly rub his rock-hard cock and buried her other in his hair.

She wrapped one long leg around his hip, drew him flush against her and moaned.

Zane opened his eyes and eased away, wondering what he had started.

That her desire easily matched his encouraged and unnerved him, her passion both intimidating and intoxicating. Intimidation finally won, dragging him back to reality when he wanted intoxication to sweep him
Between Darkness and Daylight

59

away. He felt a firm nipple between his thumb and forefinger and realized he'd been on automatic pilot. He slid his hand from inside her top, wondering when he'd slipped it in there.

Damn, the clichés were all true; it was like riding a bike. He hadn't been on one in a while, but he'd hopped into gear like he hadn't been away from riding more than a day.

"Do you need to wet your whistle too?" She put a palm against his cheek, slid it down to his chest where his heart throbbed out of control.

Oh yeah, he needed to wet his whistle all right, but a splash from a cold tap wouldn’t do. He needed a taste of the juices he knew were waiting for him in her hot folds. He craved a taste of her sweet-tangy flavor; his mouth watered with nostalgia, as if for a delicacy he’d sampled in the past and appreciated.

In a dream.

Where was this coming from?

Nova eased away and straightened her paint-splattered clothes. "I guess we should get busy cleaning this place up then, Zany Zane."

He paused, his fingers around her biceps, surprised at the memories her teasing evoked, surprised how right the sobriquet sounded coming from her mouth. He hadn't heard the nickname in a long while, the first time when he was thirteen and his then-girlfriend dubbed him so after witnessing one of his wild stunts on a playground swing. From then on the name had stuck, following him from middle school to college. "Zany Zane, huh?"

"It suits you."

She suited him and he wanted to tell her how much, give in to the heat and lust surging through his body and forget about logic, propriety, and repercussions. Forget about his nephew in the bathroom, suffering the same way he was and no doubt trying to sufficiently recover before he returned.

Maybe they had a little time…

Nova moved to stand and Zane suddenly pulled her close when she got to her knees. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, took a deep breath and inhaled her scent as if to fortify himself enough to leave…or to stay. He wasn't sure, wasn't sure of anything anymore except that he 60

Gracie C. McKeever

seemed to be in a perpetual state of arousal since he'd met the woman, a constant painful state of hardness that needed relief.

"Zane?"

He slid his arms around her back and pressed her against him. The art of the quickie came to the fore of his brain. He and Sinny had mastered it when they babysat Ransom for Sage, the risk of being caught in the act by an eight-year-old adding to their excitement.

The risk added to his excitement now.

"Zane?"

"Shhh…" He listened to the water running in the bathroom, determined to time this just right—Hell, he was out of his mind! He unbuttoned Nova’s jeans and slid a hand inside.

She gasped right before he buried her mouth beneath his, thrusting his tongue as he drove two fingers deep inside her cunt. She was wet, so wet and hot and tight, Zane groaned against her mouth and frantically pumped his fingers inside, imagining what it would be like to feel her pussy milking him dry.

Nova wrapped her arms around him tight and gently bit into his bottom lip as if to keep from screaming, but still released a low keen that Zane swallowed down when he firmly pressed his mouth and tongue to hers again.

She shuddered and he held her tight against him with one arm, absorbing her tremors, the force of her climax, as if it were his own.

"Wow," she sighed after a long silent moment.

"How much do I owe you now?"

"What!"

He chuckled, realizing how his question sounded. Pulling his hand out of her panties, he brought it to his nose. He couldn't help himself; he drew in a deep breath, taking in her woman's musk, then put the two fingers in his mouth and sucked with relish.

"Uh…um—"

"I meant for all the wasted paint, Nova."

"Oh." She shrugged. "Worth it." She reached down a hand as she stood, wiggled her eyebrows at him Groucho Marx style, seeming almost totally recovered. "Don't even think about it," she murmured.

Between Darkness and Daylight

61

He liked her rebound ability, wanted another occasion to test just how extensive it was.

"I wouldn't dare." He clasped her hand firmly and let her help him up.

They stood there in the middle of the room, facing each other, when Ransom and Yo-Yo burst back in a second later.

"Did we miss anything?" Ransom asked.

62

Gracie C. McKeever

Chapter 6

Days later, Nova was still shaken from her encounter with Zane. She hadn't known such heat existed beneath the cool, somber exterior, hadn't expected his passion to so easily match and meld with hers, especially after his cool treatment at the precinct.

She would not apologize, refused to ask for forgiveness for something that had always been as natural to her as breathing: her sexuality.

If Zane had a problem with that, saw her as a scarlet and fast woman because she'd enjoyed what he'd done to her — hell, had invited and welcomed it — well then, that was
his
problem, and maybe she didn't need someone so judgmental in her life anyway.

Bull, bull, bull. You'd call him now if your pride weren't so raw and
wounded.

She'd never been so self-conscious about her actions. She wasn't one to dwell on things or self-blame. "Don't sweat the small stuff" was the personal mantra by which she lived and breathed.

Nova stared at her phone, willing it to ring.

Hmm, nothing. So much for manifesting her destiny.

She tapped her pen against her desktop. What excuse could she use?

Did she really need one when they were coming over this weekend to do more work?

The computer room was completed. Miraculously, after the free-for-all, they'd had enough paint leftover to put on the walls and get some serious work done. Zane and Ransom had even stayed long enough to move the furniture back into the room and hook up her PC once the paint was dry.

Nova could easily have set up her own system. It would have been a chore, but she'd done worse and more. She didn't back down from physical labor or technical tasks.

Between Darkness and Daylight

63

Another character trait she didn't own: the helpless female.

But she would have used any excuse to get them to stay. Even playing the powerless woman tied to the railroad tracks.

After the labor had come a nice, hearty meal she'd ordered from the local pizza joint. She could have cooked, though it wasn't her favorite task, could have thrown together a decent meal and had promised she'd do just that. She owed them a dinner after all the hard work.

Zane had declined. "Remember,
we're
working off the debt, not you,"

he'd reminded her.

"Dude, free food. Are you nuts?"

Nova laughed at the memory of Ransom, stage-whispering out the side of his mouth, elbowing his uncle in the ribcage. She'd spent only one full day with them and already she was used to having them around, unduly fond of both boy and man. Despite their rocky start, she suspected she was half in love with Ransom and feared her feelings for his uncle ran dangerously close to that emotion.

This was happening too fast. She wasn't supposed to let her emotions get involved. She'd come here to solve her problems, end the visions, not complicate matters by falling in love with someone she was supposed to be protecting.

Sometimes Nova rued the day she'd ever "met" Sinnead Youngblood.

She also resented the blood that ran through her veins, the heredity that made it necessary for her to abandon everything she knew—leave behind the man she loved—and enabled her gifts to blossom against her will.

Her life wasn't her own anymore, she realized. Despite all her arguments to Matt to the contrary, she had forfeited free will. Her destiny had slipped from her grasp the moment she'd slipped from that overhang.

Why else did she have this overwhelming need to call Zane if she weren’t be pressured by circumstances beyond her control? Why else could she barely wait for the weekend to arrive so that she could see them again?

Could she hold off that long without hearing his deep masculine voice? Just a taste was all she wanted, all she needed to get her over the hump.

Josh popped in, momentarily halting her libidinous thoughts.

64

Gracie C. McKeever

There was assurance in his movements as he made his way across the floor with her coffee in hand rather than rolling in the entire cart. The system had been working well for the last few days, but Nova kept waiting for him to do a Dick Van Dyke tumble over the cart when he backed out of her office.

"You're looking mighty fine these days, Ms. Foxx. Not that you don't always."

She grinned, wondering if Zane's effect on her was that obvious. That that was the most Josh had said at one time since she'd known him. She peered at him, noticed the glow to his face, the sparkle in his blue eyes.

"You're looking mighty spiffy yourself, Josh."

His blush enhanced the healthy smoothness of his cheeks. She wondered if he had a girlfriend—all the signs were there—and was tempted to brush a hand against his or touch him in some other way and try out her abilities, see if she could sense anything or anyone in his life.

Nova almost gasped, horrified by her own thoughts, that she would even consider invading someone else's privacy to that point. She didn't know for whom it would prove more dangerous: Josh or herself.

She could see how megalomaniacs came to be. The power trip was an insidious animal.

"Well, I'll be shoving off." Josh backed towards the door. "Be seeing you, Ms. Foxx." He saluted as he left her office without incident.

Nova got up behind him to close her door.

She could call and invite Ransom rock climbing this weekend, instead of the drudgery Zane said he was at her disposal for. Nova had to talk to him whether he accepted her invitation or not. She felt something about his afternoon, a shiver running down her spine that told her she needed to get him out and away from his building for lunch.

He was probably a workaholic—
look who's talking—
more worried about helping everyone else than himself, ready to repair a stranger's familial connections before focusing on his own with Ransom. She'd felt the generation gap, a yawning chasm between uncle and nephew that would never be bridged as long as each party was so far apart emotionally—Ransom retreating behind a wall of false bravado and egotistical youth, and Zane retreating behind a wall of self-blame and denial.

Between Darkness and Daylight

65

Nova could see how much they needed each other, that Ransom’s attempted mugging was a cry for help, a cry she, as an outsider could hear so much better than Zane, who was too close to the situation to understand his nephew’s motives for what they were.

Well, hadn't she just gotten philosophical? Must come from all that spiritual, getting-in-touch-with-yourself living by which her mother swore.

"Zane Youngblood."

She didn't even realize she had picked up the phone and dialed his number, her mind's eye concentrating on the vision of Zane walking through the empty halls of his school, footsteps echoing through the tile corridors, and someone behind him with a knife, stalking his steps. Was it the same silhouette that had dogged Sinny's steps in the parking lot?

Would he or she be so bold as to try something in broad daylight, and despite the empty halls, in a school full of teachers and kids?

Nova thought about her almost–mugging and heart drummed in her chest. She wished she could see this person more clearly.

"Hello?"

"Zane, hi. It's Nova."

"Oh, good. I was beginning to think I had gotten an obscene phone call."

Nova lowered her voice to its most seductive drawl. "What makes you think you haven't?" She grinned. Then her good humor slowly faded in the long pause. When he chuckled on the other end, she released the breath she hadn't known she'd been holding.

"You are a naughty young woman."

"How young do you think I am?" she blurted.

"Younger than me."

"Not that much. I'm thirty-three."

"Well, all right then, you're legal."

She liked his sense of humor. It was as sharp as hers was, sometimes sharper. "Is that something that happens to you often?" she asked. She could almost see his lush eyebrows knitting on his forehead as he shrugged. Her nipples tightened against her blouse as she imagined his piercing tea-colored eyes when he'd brought her to orgasm.

"Obscene phone calls?"

"Yes."

66

Gracie C. McKeever

"I've had my share. As a matter of fact, more in the last several months than ever before."

"Really? Why's that?"

"Happens. Get a lot of dissatisfied customers in my line of work.

Vandalism's a lot tamer than death threats. I've had my share of those too."

Nova couldn't believe he was so nonchalant about it, especially after what had happened to his wife. She almost asked him, but realized she wasn't supposed to know about Sinny, since he hadn't yet mentioned what had happened to her. He'd really mistrust her then, might suspect her of the death threats and vandalism; though she had no motive to commit either, she was sure this wouldn't matter to Zane.

And why should it? Why should he trust her, a perfect stranger?

"Have you reported the incidents to the police?"

"I most certainly have, Inspector McGruff. And did you have a reason for calling other than my personal security issues?"