In the Midnight Rain (31 page)

With a smooth gesture, she crossed her arms, grabbed the tails of the shirt, and skimmed it off over her head. Then, with a wanton gesture that nearly took off the top of his head, she dropped it over the railing and leaned back. "Better?"

He didn't move, letting the prickles of desire, the budding thud of heat fill him entirely. Moonlight made sharp shadows of her body, a deep smoky half circle beneath the plumpness of each breast, a small pool of dark over her belly button, an inviting geometric in the shadow of her thighs. "Is this a plot to distract me?" he asked and his voice rasped.

Her lids fell, languidly, and her nostrils flared, and he knew she was dying for his hands on her. But her voice was arch and cool and she let her arms fall sideways, like a woman in a Maxfield Parrish painting. "I don't know. Is it working?"

A swath of light made her throat creamy. Her nipples, aroused and exaggerated by the angle of shadow, captured his gaze, and he touched his lips with his tongue, knowing she was watching. A faint shudder moved under her skin, rippling against his leg where it touched hers. "Yeah," he said. "It's working."

Blue moved, pushing her legs apart to kneel between them, thrusting his sex, tight below denim, against the nakedness of hers before settling his mouth on her throat. With a wicked depth, she laughed and wrapped him close, putting her hands in his hair to pull him up to kiss her. "You are so easy, Blue Reynard."

"Just me, huh?" He grasped her buttocks in his hands and pulled her tighter against him, resisting her kiss, holding his mouth so close his lips tingled with anticipation, so close their breath hurried from one to the other. Against his bare chest her breasts were a hint and a swell, an agonizingly pleasurable jolt, and even through his jeans, he felt the eager pulse of her against him.

Their gazes tangled, and it seemed they were poised, right there, for a long, long time, breathing together in anticipation of a kiss, her hands tight in his hair, his tight on her rear. And the roar of need was so good, he let it dangle, slipped his tongue out and flickered it over her plump lower lip. Then again, on the top. She arched a little, pressing her breasts into him, wiggling, and he groaned, feeling a bolt of heat up his spine.

He kissed her, all at once, opening his mouth to meet hers, open and starving, and pulled her into his lap so he could put his hands on her breasts, loving the cry she made when he pressed up into her. She made a helpless sobbing noise and bit his lip, power suddenly in her arms. Taking her weight on her knees, she broke the kiss and fumbled with his zipper—then halted. "Condom?"

"In my pocket." His voice was husky. "Right. . . front."

"Oh, I do like a man who is ready." She stuck her hand in his pocket, and somehow those fingers were wandering, all over. "Funny, I can't seem to find it."

"Well, I'll just have to be patient, then."

"Ah, here we go." She tucked the packet between her lips, and started what she'd begun, which was peeling off his jeans. He helped her with the jeans, kicking the fabric away so that they were both naked under the starry sky. "Allow me." Ellie tore the package with her teeth and put the condom in her mouth.

He did. But when she raised her head, eyes heavy lidded with both amusement and desire, he took her arms. "Not yet, sugar. I'm so easy and all." Sitting up, he pulled her arms behind her back and settled her in his lap, lightly, and put his head down, suckling her nipples hard, wondering if she could come with just this.

She made a muffled, laughing sound and spit out the condom. "Trying to choke me to death?"

He chuckled and touched her with the slow, long strokes she liked, and lifted his mouth to her lips, bracing her in the crook of his elbow as he kissed her and stroked her and as she began to come, he plunged. Deep. Hard. And held her there.

Dizzy now, but loathe to end the time, he kissed her and kissed her and kissed her, breathing her breath, touching her hair, her back, her breasts, until his strength to resist was gone, and she moved against him and kissed him, holding him deep, and he was lost, lost in a reeling wholeness.

When it was over, he fell backward, gasping and weak, and Ellie fell over him, her body limp against his, her head in his shoulder. "A person could die, having an orgasm like that," she said.

He brushed his hand through her hair. "You're so easy, Ellie Connor."

She laughed.

* * *

Ellie slept later than she intended, waking up in a pool of sunshine that made her conscious of the sticky sweat collecting on her neck and arms. The old house was poorly air-conditioned, and heat gathered on the upper stories, never entirely dispelled. She took a cool shower and washed her hair, tying it into a tight knot on top of her head—not the most flattering style, but by far the most practical in the heat.

When she got to the top of the stairs, she heard Lanie down in the kitchen, singing "The Old Rugged Cross" along with the radio. Ellie halted, embarrassed. She usually left before Lanie came upstairs, and now she didn't quite know how to manage the situation. She was glad she'd opted to shower here rather than at the cottage, as if the water would somehow wash away the scarlet bravado of her seduction last night. Still, it was very weird to have to face the old woman when she had very obviously spent the night.

No way around it.

Taking a breath, she started down the stairs, with Piwacket, April, and Sasha trailing behind her. Ellie let a blue-edged memory creep back into her mind, and a ripple moved down her spine. Whew. What a night!

At the foot of the stairs, she realized she'd left her watch on the nightstand. Patting her bare wrist, she whirled to go back up. All three animals froze in place, waiting to see what she would do. "Excuse me," she said to April, pushing by. Sasha, panting, didn't move, and Ellie shoved by her as well. Piwacket tripped along ahead, tall high, glancing over her shoulder to make sure she had the location right. They all went into the bedroom, followed her to the bed, then obligingly followed her out, down the hall, down the stairs. Flanked by the faithful, she said, "Honest, guys, I could have done it by myself."

"Land, child," Lanie said as Ellie and her entourage came into the kitchen. "Don't they half drive you insane?"

Relieved at the ordinary greeting, Ellie just shook her head, smiling ruefully. Piwacket trotted into the kitchen and meowed urgently at Lanie. It was the yelp of a cat that knew and expected something, and Ellie opened her mouth to protest as the thin frail white woman bent to put a dish of all-white tuna down on the floor for the tiny, frail white cat.

Lanie straightened and caught Ellie's glance. She lifted her chin. "Soon as he'll let her go, she's ready. In the meantime, I'll be dadblamed if I'll let her starve to death." She narrowed her eyes. "Don't you go tattling on me."

The cat wolfed the food, making a low noise that was somewhere between a purr and a meow. Ellie made a motion of zipping her lips and throwing away a key.

"You hungry, girl?"

"Oh, no. I'll just grab some cereal at the cottage."

"Don't be silly. Skinny thing like you? Besides, I've seen you eat, child. Sit down and keep me company while I fry us some eggs." She glanced at Pi. "In
bacon
grease. Doctors want to ruin every tiny little thing."

Chuckling, Ellie moved to a cupboard and took out a mug—her favorite, made of blue ceramic with stars painted over the outside. She was in the middle of pouring her coffee before she realized how proprietarily she had moved in this kitchen, like it was hers. And as if to underscore the realization, Lanie said, "Hand me a spatula, child."

Ellie reached in the drawer and pulled it out, feeling a faint sense of hollowness in her chest. She stood over the sink and sipped some coffee, trying to warm the cold spot, but through the windows she could see the rain-forest greenhouse with hints of bougainvillea pushing pink against the roof She thought of Blue, coming up the path later, humid skin smelling of earth, and his hair carrying hints of exotic flowers.

She closed her eyes.

"Pretty isn't it?" Lanie said. The sizzle of eggs hitting hot grease punctuated the room, as homey a sound as.. . home.

"It really is," Ellie said quietly. "I didn't know I missed being in the country so much. It makes me feel peaceful to be here." Or maybe it wasn't the country so much as Blue, making her feel so good.

"So marry him."

"What?"

"You heard me. Marry him. This old house fits you like a glove. And I think the ghosts must like you, too. Ain't heard a restless one since you been here."

"There are ghosts?"

"Land, yes." She flipped the eggs. "Over easy good for you?"

Ellie nodded.

"Family ghosts, mostly, I reckon. Always are in a place like this. I don't know how Blue stands to have his computer in the very room where his daddy shot himself." She slid eggs on a plate and gave it to Ellie. "Sit."

Taking the heavy china plate edged with silver, Ellie obeyed. She put a napkin down for both of them, and swung backward to reach in the drawer for silverware. And paused. She'd done it again.

Lanie plopped her own plate on the table and sat down. "You one of those women who don't want to tie herself down?"

Ellie picked up her fork, wondering just exactly how to navigate this minefield. "No," she said carefully. "I always figured I'd find someone eventually. It just hasn't happened."

"Well, why not Blue?"

She pursed her lips, wondering how to answer. "You know I'm crazy about him. Everybody knows." She poked her egg yolks and watched them spill over the whites. She shook her head, raised her eyes, and said as honestly as she could, "I can't save him, Lanie."

"A good woman can do a lot in that direction, though."

"No. A man saves himself. And if Blue can't, if he doesn't find his way through all that despair that still haunts him, he'd shatter me. Not just my heart. My life. The lives of any children we'd have. All of us would go down with him—and the horrible part of it would be him seeing that, and being unable to stop it."

Lanie said nothing. Very precisely, she cut a triangle of egg, set her knife aside, and lifted the egg to her mouth. Like a cat, her mouth motions seemed out of proportion to how much food she had taken.

Worried she'd offended the woman who was, for all practical purposes, his mother, Ellie added, "Have I made an enemy of you, Lanie? I'd hate that."

"No, child." She put her fork down. "I reckon you're right. I wish you weren't."

"Me, too, Lanie. More than I can say."

"Too bad," she said. "It was worth a try." She glanced at Piwacket, her nose and ears bright pink as she cleaned her paws. "Fact is, we're both hanging on till he's got somebody else to hang on to."

"You're not ill?"

Lanie waved her hand. "Oh, I've been sick for years. Like that cat—I have the sugar, and heart pills and blood pressure pills and lately, some other things I don't even want to know what they're for." She waved the subject away. "Neither of us is in imminent danger of keeling over, though. We'll hang on."

Ellie chuckled, relieved when the old woman took up her fork again. "So how you doing on that biography?"

Relieved to change the subject, Ellie said. "Making progress. I'm just about finished with the research, except for a few interviews. Do you remember anything about her?"

"Well, sure I remember her. Our times weren't like y'all's, but it's a small town, and we all knew each other, colored and white." She swept a pile of crumbs from the oilcloth. "She was about twenty years younger than me, so I was old enough to pay attention to all the little things they printed in the paper. I always have wondered where she got off to."

"You ever hear any gossip about what happened?"

"Oh, sure. Everybody talked about it. Some said it was murder. Some said she had a broken heart or she had a baby or that she killed her lover and couldn't bear what happened, so she just lit off into the world."

"Killed her lover?" Ellie narrowed her eyes. "Had a baby? Do you think it was true?"

"I don't know. Any of it could be, or none of it." She blotted her lips. "You oughta go talk to Doc, over to Hopkins'. He was always crazy in love with the woman."

"I have." She sighed and put the plates on the rack. "He's willing to talk about her, but not anything bad." She smiled. "And I assume having a child out of wedlock would have been considered quite scandalous."

"Oh, yes."

A blast of inspiration struck her, and goosebumps rose all over her skin. "Oh!" she cried. "Of course!"

Lanie chuckled. "What is it?"

"There's this six-week gap in her life that has been driving me crazy." Lost in thought, a sense of excitement rising in her, Ellie sightlessly picked up her plate and carried it to the sink. "It never occurred to me how different things were on this level. If she'd been pregnant out of wedlock, it might have hurt her career if people knew she'd had a baby." She stopped, staring into space, where all the pieces fell, like the cards in a computer game, into their places. "If she was pregnant, she would have had to hide it, and she would have had to go somewhere to have the baby."

"No doubt about it."

She dashed over, dropped an impulsive kiss on Lanie's head. "I have to go." She squeezed her shoulders. "Thanks so much!"

The Lovers

She liked to watch him in sleep, when all the masks and danger fell away, revealing the true man. And it was rare that she had the chance, the chance to look at him so freely while he was unguarded. He was careful that way.

But just now, he was fast asleep, stretched out like a cat in a puddle of sunlight. A black cat, he'd say if he were awake. A jaguar. And he'd pose and pounce and make growling cat noises in her ears and gnawing cat bites at her neck.

But black wasn't the word. Not even his hair was really black. Very dark brown most of the time, but at moments like this, each infinitesimally small curl captured a beam of gold light and cast it back to the world, making his head seem as if it were haloed. Or shaped with an aura of gold, like one of those old medieval paintings.