Unspeakable (44 page)

Her underpants were silky. Inside them the hair was soft. Her center was very wet.

***

She lay still beneath him for what seemed like a long time, yet it wasn't long enough. It could never be long enough. She wouldn't have minded if he'd fallen asleep and not moved until morning. She liked the feel of his weight on her, the pressure of him inside her. But he wasn't asleep. Occasionally she felt his fingers moving in her hair, gently caressing her scalp. His rough cheek rubbed against her earlobe. His teeth nipped her neck. She hoped he was doing what she was—basking in the intimacy.

But eventually he disengaged himself and eased onto his side. She rolled to her side to face him. They nuzzled. She felt his lips moving against her cheek and pulled back to see what he was saying. "Did I hurt you?"

She shook her head.

"I thought you... you know, sort of tensed up when..."

She smiled and laid her fingertips against his lips. His penetration had hurt a little. It had been a long time since she'd been with a man, and she had had a baby since then. How like Jack to notice her subtle reflex.

The mild discomfort had lasted only an instant, however. Then she had hugged his hips with her legs and immodestly urged him to penetrate deeper. She blushed now thinking about how lusty her participation had been. She had made it practically impossible for him not to make love to her. So afraid that he would stop after that first kiss, she had seized the initiative. She had wanted him. If tonight hadn't ended with them like this, she would have regretted it forever. Whatever happened tomorrow would happen. But she was with him now, and he was gazing at her in the same dreamy fashion with which she knew she was gazing back. He stroked her cheek with his index finger. "You're so beautiful, Anna." She spelled out the words " So are you."

He guffawed. "Me? Beautiful? That's funny."

" You are." Her fingers formed the letters insistently.

"I thought my face just said a lot."

She could tell he was teasing her. " That, too."

His smile gradually relaxed as his eyes searched hers. "What's it saying to you right now?" Painstakingly her fingers spelled out the words. " That you are very happy to be here, like this." He said, "Well, it ain't lying."

" What did you say? "

"I said it ain't—"

She waved that off. " I got that. What did you say when... "

"When...?" He left the question dangling and raised his eyebrows quizzically. She gave him a long, puissant look.

"Oh, you mean when I, when you, when we... came?"

She nodded.

"Hell. Anna, I don't know. Does it matter?"

" Only if you called another woman's name."

"I promise it wasn't that."

" Good."

He placed his thumb against her lips and stroked it across them. His smile was sweet and a little sad. "I honestly don't remember what I said, Anna, but whatever it was, it couldn't come close to describing what I was feeling."

She buried her face in his chest hair, but she held her hand up so he could easily read the words she spelled out. " I wish I could have heard it."

He tilted her head back. "I wish you could have, too."

She was tempted to tell him that she had started practicing speech again, but she hesitated. What if she couldn't relearn what she had forgotten? The skills she had painstakingly developed might be hopelessly lost from disuse. She might build up his hopes and later disappoint him. Disappointing herself would be bad enough. Disappointing him would break her heart. So better not to tell him yet. When she spoke his name for the first time, she wanted to do it well. Until she was certain she could, she would remain silent and practice in secret. Instead, she told him, " I know what your voice sounds like."

"Oh, yeah?"

She nodded and placed her hands on his cheeks, then rubbed them up and down over the stubble.

"Whiskers?" He thought about it for a moment, then said, "That's not a bad description. My voice isn't very refined. It's sort of scratchy."

His sappy grin made her laugh because she knew her grin was just as sappy. They kissed, briefly and lightly. Then deeply and intimately. And they couldn't stop touching each other. Her fingers combed through his chest hair, which was a novelty for her because Dean's chest had been smooth; From there she explored the ridge of his collarbone and his shoulder, before her hand covered his biceps. Curiously she squeezed it, and he flexed the muscle. She spelled out, " I have two questions."

"Yes, I know I'm a hunk. And, no, I don't let it go to my head." She slapped his arm.

"Sorry, I couldn't resist." He kissed her quickly and readjusted his head on the pillow. "Shoot." She held up one finger, indicating the first question, " What happened this morning? "

"At the sheriff's office? They let me go. Lack of evidence. I didn't do it, Anna."

" I know. I didn't believe you could have poisoned our herd, but—" He took her hands. "You had every right to be suspicious. Just for the record, it was Emory Lomax."

She wasn't surprised but she asked him how he knew.

He told her about a fix-it man named Jesse Garcia and about his confrontation with Lomax in the bank. By the time he finished, she was laughing at the word picture he had painted.

''You threatened his manhood with your knife? "

"I don't think anything short of that would have got his attention." Holding his face between her hands, she kissed it randomly before her mouth settled on his. She tried to deepen the kiss, but he angled his head back and looked at her seriously.

"Anna. I don't want you getting hurt by me being here."

The statement puzzled her, but the seriousness of his expression alarmed her. She shook her head.

"Yeah, you could," he argued. "When it comes right down to it. you don't know anything about me. Did Defray happen to tell you what I told him? That I move from job to job? That I'm a—"

" Drifter," she spelled out.

"Right. Well..." His eyes probed hers. "You haven't asked why I live the way I do." No, she hadn't. Furthermore, she realized that it wasn't important to her. She knew what she needed to know about him—that he was kindhearted and gentle, proud, protective, strong, smart. Important to her was the man he was now, not his past, which obviously troubled him. Whatever the circumstances that had brought him into her life, she was glad for them, not regretful. But that was too much to say by spelling out each word, so she told him simply, " I know what isimportant to know, Jack."

"I could argue that," he said, frowning as though debating it. Then he said, "There's something else you should think about. People are nasty. It's human nature to be spiteful. You're a prime target for gossip of the worst kind. It's nobody's goddamn business who you sleep with, but somehow, because you're a widow, and you're deaf, the gossip is juicier." She hated what he was saying, but she knew it to be the truth. " Did you hear any gossip aboutDelray and me? "

"Yes." He must have read her distress because he rushed to say, "I never believed it. I knew it was a lie. But when they talk about you sleeping with your hired hand it's going to be the truth."

" Yes, and I'm glad."

"Me, too." He laid his palm against her cheek. The intensity of his facial expression said more than the words she read on his lips. "God damn me for a selfish bastard if you get hurt because of me, but I wanted to be with you, Anna. I've wanted this since the first timed saw you." She remembered him as she had first seen him in his battered straw hat, scuffed boots, and sunglasses, offering to help her with her car. That memory would be with her the day she died. Maybe she had started loving him right then.

She knew she loved him now.

Snuggling her body closer to his, she kissed him without restraint, hoping that her kiss conveyed a small measure of the emotion he had awakened in her. She placed her hand low and started to caress him, loving the musky smell, the heat and firmness of his sex. He indulged her. More than that, he seemed to revel in her curiosity.

But curiosity gave way to carnality and her touch became more erotic. His eyes turned dark with heightened arousal. His face grew tense with pleasure. When she took him into her mouth, she felt the vibration of his moan. Again and again she read her name on his lips, knowing when he whispered it softly with intense feeling, knowing when he mindlessly cried it out in passion. They loved completely.

She thrilled to feeling him gloved snugly inside her, to watching his eyes move over her, appreciating the curves and contours of her body. She watched his lips fasten to her breast, but her eyes closed while experiencing the sweet tugging of his mouth. His tongue traced the grooves at the tops of her thighs. He pressed his face into the softness of her belly and kissed her navel. Turning her over onto her stomach, he kissed his way down her spine, then catnapped with his cheek resting in the small of her back.

Her own level of sensuality surprised her. She and Dean had enjoyed a healthy sex life, but she had never felt this free and uninhibited. Maybe because Delray was always sleeping in the room down the hall. Maybe because Dean hadn't been as imaginative a lover. For whatever reason, with Jack she was shameless.

Never more so than when he parted her thighs and applied his mouth and tongue to her until she experienced a melting orgasm. Just when she would think it over, another sensation would ripple through her and she would ride it like a wave until it crested. Finally, she reopened her eyes to see Jack bending over her, smoothing the damp hair off her forehead and smiling tenderly.

"You've never been loved like that before?"

She could tell it pleased him when she tiredly shook her head no.

"Ah, well, that's good. I mean I'm glad I could do that for you." Angling her head up, she kissed him, tasting both of them on his lips, then smiled as she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.

After another brief nap, they made love again, this time face-to-face, more slowly and with less passion, but with heightened emotion and meaning. Then Jack wrapped them both in the sheet and carried her to the rocking chair, where he held her on his lap. They communed through their skin, with each breath, every heartbeat. Dialogue was unnecessary. They needed no conversation. They had their silence.

As dawn was breaking, without even raising her head from his chest, Anna told him what was in her heart. Although she signed, Jack understood. Because he lifted her hand to his lips and, after kissing her palm, spoke against it. She felt the words.

"I love you, too."

CHAPTER FORTY–THREE

C
arl had laughed himself sick. When he realized that he'd mistaken a crack of thunder for a gunshot, he'd rolled over onto his side on the grimy floor of the cabin and laughed until he cried.

"Shit, Myron, I thought we were goners for sure," he said, wiping tears from his eyes. "Thought some backwoods peace officer had got lucky and stumbled across our hideout." The joke had been lost on Myron, but he laughed anyway.

However, the thunder was a forerunner to a storm that was no laughing matter. There were times during the turbulent night when Carl had cursed fate for playing this last rotten trick on him. He had escaped prison without getting a scratch on him. He had executed a brilliant bank robbery and getaway. He was well on his way to a life of leisure.

A man with all that going for him was not supposed to die at the whim of a tornado. Throughout the evening, he and Myron had stood at the windows and watched the dark, glowering clouds. The hushed, green atmosphere gave Carl the heebie-jeebies. With darkness came an even greater foreboding, punctuated by ferocious lightning the likes of which Carl had never seen in his life. Rain, hail, and high winds hammered the cabin for hours'. The roof leaked like a sieve. It was a challenge to find a dry spot in which to try to sleep. Carl harbored a secret fear that God was sorely pissed at him and that the storm was punishment for all his misdeeds. Between that worry, the spine-chilling sounds that accompanied the storm, the rain pouring in through the roof, and the stiffening corpses in the corner, he'd passed a miserable night.

This morning was a different story.

He had awakened to the happy chirping of birds, cooler temperatures, and sunny skies. After relieving himself against the exterior wall of the cabin, he got into the car and started the motor.

"Come on, come on," he said impatiently as he turned the dial on the radio, trying to find a local station.

Myron appeared in the open doorway of the cabin, his pink eyes even pinker from sleep, his white hair forming a frizzy halo around his head. "Wha'cha doin', Carl?" He idly scratched his balls as he peed into a rain puddle.

"Bring me a Coke, will ya?"

He'd give one of the hundred-dollar bills out of the bank bag for a cup of strong, black coffee, but the tepid soft drink was the only source of caffeine available. For almost half an hour he remained in the car, sipping the drink and listening to the radio. When he went back inside, he felt refreshed and energized, and it wasn't just a caffeine rush.

He tossed aside the empty cola can and rubbed his hands together vigorously, "Myron?"

"Huh?" He was stuffing packaged doughnuts into his mouth. His lips were dusted with powdered sugar, making him appear even more ghostly pale than usual.