Dust Devil (41 page)

Because
even as he spilled himself inside her, Renzo wanted to go on making
love to her—to fuck her until they were both utterly drained
and spent and had nothing left to give.

Afterward,
he swept her up in his strong, corded arms and carried her up the
steep, narrow staircase in the foyer, pausing when he reached the
shadowy landing at the top.

“
Which
way?” he asked, uncertain for a moment from which direction the
wind chimes that would have guided him sounded.

“
Left,”
Sarah whispered tremulously, her face buried against his shoulder.
“Through the door at the end of the hall.”

Renzo
bore her into her room, laid her down upon the bed, his mouth and
hands already moving possessively on her again, wakening her
still-throbbing body afresh, such was his desire for her. But now he
took his time, kissing and caressing her endlessly, and Sarah learned
that this, too, brought its own brand of desperation and devastation.
She quivered uncontrollably in his embrace, still shaken and
overwhelmed by his earlier taking of her, by the unexpected ferocity
and completeness of her response. It was as though when he had
touched her, she had lost all control of herself, eagerly
surrendering to him so he might do with her whatever he had wanted,
however it had pleased him to do it. That thought terrified her. Over
the years, she had worked hard to overcome her innate shyness, to
cultivate a cool, distant composure and competence with which she had
mastered her job and held the world at bay. Yet tonight Renzo had
stripped all that from her as easily as he had divested her of her
clothes.

Now,
as he bent over her, she could feel the flood tide of emotions and
sensations once more rising within her. And because she didn’t
know where this night would lead, what tomorrow morning would bring,
she wanted to halt the fearsome, exhilarating swell. But it was so
powerful, so relentless that she might as well have stood on a beach
somewhere and tried to turn back the inrushing sea. She had loved
Renzo Cassavettes since she was seven years old. With all her heart.
Come what may, she belonged to him utterly—body, mind and soul.

His
mouth was on hers, drinking long and deep, tongue tracing the outline
of her lips before insinuating itself inside, searching, savoring.
Outdoors, the rain still came hard, and the wind chimes suspended
from the overhanging roof of the deck pealed dissonantly in the
storm. From the stereo downstairs, music continued to waft. Dimly,
Sarah realized it wasn’t the radio running at all, as she had
thought earlier, but a cassette Alex had assembled of songs in which
the saxophone predominated, and that he must have the tape deck set
on its continuous-loop mode. Now she recognized the strains of James
Last’s “The Seduction” and didn’t know
whether to laugh or weep at the irony. Because this time, Renzo was
definitely seducing her—and with a superior skill and
surpassing sensuality that left her as breathless and burning as had
his rough rapacity before. His warm breath fanned her skin erotically
as his lips found her ear, her throat, her breasts. He laved and
sucked her nipples, sending thrilling tingles coursing through her,
eliciting soft mewls and moans of pleasure from her compliant mouth.
Helpless to stop his onslaught upon her senses, the churning tide
within her
growing
ever stronger, she tried to draw him to her. But he resisted, his
eyes dark and blazing beneath lazy lids as he appraised her.

“
No...
not yet....” he murmured huskily, deliberately trailing his
long, elegant fingers down her taut, quivering belly as he bent his
head once more to kiss her. “Be patient...wait....”

His
teeth nibbled at her lower lip. His tongue plunged deep as his hand
found her downy softness, brushed against her, fingers sliding
tauntingly along the delicate, wet seam of her, coming to rest at the
tiny nub that was the key to her delight. For a moment, they stilled
there, and a low, pleading cry of torment issued from her throat.
Then they began to move, circling and stroking languidly. The
tempestuous tide surged and ebbed within her as he brought her to the
brink of orgasm again and again—only to leave her unsated,
unfulfilled, longing wildly for release. And then, just when Sarah
was certain she couldn’t take any more, he used his mouth,
spreading her thighs wide and taking her with his tongue.

In
its wake, dark, tumultuous emotions she had not known she possessed
rushed to engulf her—along with fright, anger that Renzo should
have such power over her, that he should be so skilled. How many beds
had he lain in since leaving hers? She didn’t know—knew
only the fierce hurt and desire for revenge that welled inside her
even as the flood tide did, so she longed to shake his certainty that
she had been faithful to his memory. But the Pyrrhic, bittersweet
taste of that triumph eluded her, for he was far stronger than she
and in far better control, she thought dizzily, even though his
breath came in harsh pants.

He
held her down, ignoring her cries of protest, goading her on until
her hands clenched spasmodically in his hair and she clutched him to
her, gasping and whimpering, arching against him frantically. She was
mindless, knew nothing but him, claiming her, taking her to a place
that was wild and misted, and the wind was a breath primeval, howling
down the corridors of time. Her blood roared in her ears, roiled
through her body. She felt as though the storm outside had torn open
the French doors of her room and come inside to grab her in its
fearsome, feral grip, so she was aware of nothing but the maelstrom
that swirled around her, its convulsive center the very heart of her.
And she was powerless against it, against Renzo, shamelessly begging
him for release as his lips and teeth and tongue had their terrible,
glorious will of her.

“
Yes,
my love... now... now, I’ll give you what you want,” he
rasped against her. “Because you
do
want
this, don’t you, Sarah.. .my sweet, sweet Sarah?”

“
Yes...yes!
Oh, please, Renzo!” she cried helplessly, imploring, sobbing.

His
hot breath scorched the wet, opened petals of her. It was all the
warning she had before, finding the pulsing, aching bud of her again,
his tongue stabbed her with its heat, over and over. And while it
lapped her, spurred her on toward the dark and madding abyss that
frothed and yawned before her, his fingers drove deep inside her,
pushing her over the edge.

She
fell and fell, the climax that seized her blinding, bursting,
seemingly boundless as it tumbled her into the void. She could do
nothing but let it take her, sweep through her, claiming every part
of her while she cried out her surrender to it, body and soul. Then,
just when she thought she had struck bottom and could fall no
farther, Renzo caught her, wrapping her hand around his hard, potent
sex, so she knew in some giddy corner of her mind that she was only
fleetingly suspended in midair. Kneeling over her, his voice low,
serrated with desire, he demanded thickly, “Put me inside you,
Sarah,” wanting everything from her, even that.

And
when she had done it, his hands gripped her hips tightly and he began
to rock her against him. Their eyes locked in the darkness
illuminated only by the lightning that scintillated jaggedly and
erratically beyond the French doors. Sarah was the first to look
away, fingers clenching the headboard convulsively, as though she
would otherwise be swept away by the powerful waves that surged and
broke again inside her. And even as the orgasm engulfed her, Renzo
felt the sweet, wild force of his own jetting into her and thought
dimly that in the end, in conquering her, he had defeated himself, as
well, that he belonged as wholly and irrevocably to her as she ever
had and still did to him.

Afterward,
sensing her devastation, he was gentle with her. Cradling her against
him, he crooned to her comfortingly and stroked her soothingly, until
she ceased to tremble and weep in his arms, and sleep at last
overtook her. Only then, when he knew she slumbered deeply and would
not soon awaken, did he slip from the bed they shared and leave her.

*
* *

Lamar
was so afraid of being double-crossed that he arrived nearly an hour
early at the rendezvous he had arranged. Pulling his clunker
gradually to a halt at the railroad tracks on the old town road, he
killed his headlights. Then he just sat there for a moment, glancing
around warily. The swift summer storm that had raged earlier had died
away, and now the moon was visible and nearly full, encircled by
misty rings, so its silvery light illuminated the damp road hazily
and eerily, making it shimmer. Even so, he didn’t see anything
to alarm him, so at last, he got out of the vehicle and closed the
door, leaning against it. In his hand, he held a pair of night-vision
binoculars he had heisted from Drucker’s Sporting Goods. Tucked
into his belt at his back and concealed beneath his T-shirt was the
Saturday-night special—a cheap Llama .380 pistol—he had
bought some time ago for fifty bucks from “Pork-chop”
Isley. Porkchop ran a pawn shop in the black part of town and turned
a tidy profit on the side, selling various and usually stolen items
out his back door.

The
night was quiet, the silence broken only by the chirring of locusts
and crickets, the croaking of frogs, the dripping of raindrops from
the leaves into the grass. Lifting the binoculars to his eyes, Lamar
scanned the surrounding area. He never spotted the figure hiding in
the shadows of the woods some distance away, rifle in hand. So the
only warning he had that his life was in danger was the loud reports
of the shots. By then, however, it was too late. The bullets had
already struck him, slamming him violently against his car, so he
looked like a puppet gone haywire, arms flailing, legs shaking. Blood
spurted from the wounds in his chest as he fought for breath,
struggled futilely to remain upright. Dropping the binoculars on the
wet road, he slid slowly to the ground, slumping forward and then
toppling to one side, his face pressed in a mud puddle.

He
lay still, no longer moving or breathing when his killer reached him
and kicked him twice—hard—to be certain he was really
dead. A rapid but thorough search of Lamar’s vehicle revealed a
manilla envelope tucked into the glove compartment. The envelope
itself contained the damaging diskettes, which the killer carried
away, smiling superciliously with satisfaction at Lamar’s
stupidity.

The
time was surely well after midnight, Sarah mused dazedly as she
slowly swirled up from her state of deep somnolence to one that was
half awake and groggy. Something had roused her, teased even now at
the edges of her mind, dragging her toward consciousness. What was it
she had heard? The sound of a car door slamming? Abruptly, the
night’s events came rushing back to her.
Renzo!
She
reached out for him, but he wasn’t beside her. He had gone,
left her, she thought, sitting bolt upright in bed, clutching the
sheet to her naked body as she glanced around wildly in confusion,
wondering if she had, in fact, dreamed the entire dark, stormy
sequence of him making love to her so savagely and erotically.

No,
it had been real. It had happened, she realized as she observed that
the French doors that led to the deck beyond her bedroom were
wide-open, their lacy sheers billowing inward. Renzo stood outside,
smoking a cigarette beneath the wind chimes that now tinkled softly,
melodically, in the breeze, which had been cooled by the storm.

“
Renzo?”
she called quietly.

At
the sound of her voice, he half turned, glancing over his shoulder at
her. After taking a last, long drag from his cigarette, he flicked it
down onto the lawn, knowing the grass was wet enough to extinguish
it. Then, silently, he strode inside, slowly unbuttoning his jeans as
he came toward her, his eyes so dark that they seemed almost black in
the moonlight that streamed inside to dance diffusely on the hardwood
floor. She shivered as his gaze swept over her, his desire for her
plain as he shucked off his jeans.

“
I—I
thought I heard a car door slam,” she said, still holding the
sheet to her trembling body, as though it would offer some protection
against him, against the dark, spellbinding sorcery with which he had
bedeviled her this night.

“
You
did. I went downstairs to get a pack of cigarettes out of the
roadster,” Renzo explained as he slipped into bed beside her,
the mattress settling with his weight.