Thrill Ride Page 7

  He slipped away and her voice broke, but then she heard him murmur in the dark. “Just keep on singin’, chere.”

  Pulling her knees to her chest, squeezing herself into a ball, she kept on singing.

  Just singing and singing and singing. Concentrating on the lyrics. Keeping the beat inside her head. Listening to the rustle of foliage as he worked outside to cover their tracks. And just as the last sweet child o’ mine slipped past her lips, she felt him beside her. Still, she jumped when he wrapped an arm around her shoulders to give her a reassuring squeeze. “Shhh,” he whispered soothingly before quickly moving away again.

  A clacking sound told her he was checking his weapons, probably emptying them and the clips of water. A soft clinking indicated he’d found some sort of rag and was hurriedly wiping the pistols down.

  Which was rule number one for any operator: take care of your weapons first, the hysterical woman about to have a conniption fit second.

  She tried; she really tried to keep it together. But the darkness was still there and it was suffocating her, and just as she was about to lose it, his pack dropped to the tarp with a soft thud. A second later he was coaxing her to lie back and stretch out beside him. Wrapping his arm around her, he pressed her cheek against his chest, and his shirt, even though it was wet, was warm. It smelled comfortingly of healthy man, laundry detergent, and clean jungle water.

  “How did you know to do that?” she whispered, her voice amplified by the close walls of the hollow tree.

  “Do what?”

  “Get me to sing. How did you know that would help me?”

  For a long moment, he said nothing. Then, slowly, “It’s…it’s all part of my education and training. See, I studied psychology in college and after that I was…disciplined, I guess is a good way to say it, to watch people, to look for clues as to what makes them tick. So, I noticed how sound affects you, how you wince when Becky fires up her grinder, or how you jump and beat back a shiver whenever Boss bellows in that deep voice of his. Tone, pitch, resonance…You pick up on all those subtle variations. Of course, even without the training, I’d have known you had quite an ear on you. I mean, how could you be so phenomenal at learnin’ new languages if you didn’t? But it’s more than that. You actually feel sounds. Like other people feel pleasure or pain, you have a visceral, physical reaction to noises.”

  She stilled, her breath hitching, because…that was the first time anyone had ever described it to her that way. And it was so spot-on she wondered how she’d never thought of it before.

  “Which is why music, why harmony soothes you,” he went on. “You probably don’t even realize the way your shoulders relax whenever someone turns on the radio, particularly if it’s a song you like. Your whole demeanor changes, becomes calmer.”

  Amazing. He was absolutely amazing.

  “Who…who taught you to do that?” she asked. “Who taught you how to see those things?”

  “Truth of the matter is, I don’t know.”

  “What?” she pushed up from his chest in order to look at him, which was completely silly since she couldn’t see a damned thing.

  And suddenly the darkness was back, reaching inside her, squeezing her heart and lungs in a black fist.

  Oh, geez. Oh, geez. Please, Lord, not again.

  The fear made her weak and useless, and she absolutely hated that. But, try as she might, there was nothing she could do about it.

  Rock must have sensed the change in her, because he pressed her head back to his chest and whispered, “Shhh. It’s okay. We’re all right.”

  Uh-huh. Sure. He might be all right. But she was definitely not.

  The chattering of her teeth must’ve clued him in to this fact, because the next words out of his mouth were, “You wanna tell me about it?”

  “About what?” She fisted her hands together, trying to keep the memories as bay.

  “About what happened to make you so afraid of the dark,” he murmured, his voice so quiet it was only audible because her ear was a few inches from his mouth. “You want to tell me about that?”

  No. She most certainly did not. She didn’t talk about the accident. Ever. With anyone. Which was why she was so surprised when the words, “I was with my parents when they died in a car wreck five years ago,” tumbled out of her mouth in one long, shaky breath.

  Whoa. Had she really just said that? Out loud?

  She waited for him to respond, to say the words she’d heard so many times, from so many people, especially in the days after the accident…I’m so sorry, Vanessa. How awful for you…Sorry? Awful? That didn’t come close to describing it. And because those words were all so ineffectual, because in the end they were meaningless since nothing could change what had happened, they had become a knife, slicing into her brain and slashing her composure to pieces any time someone offered them up.

  But dreadful seconds ticked by and Rock didn’t say anything, just pulled her closer, anchoring her against his warm, reassuringly solid side as his thumb gently rubbed a circle in the fabric of her sleeve.

  So, okay…

  Maybe she could…maybe she could do this.

  “We were…” she licked her suddenly dry lips, trying and failing to slow the rapid slideshow of images burning through her brain. “We were in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, visiting my aunt for Christmas. On the way back to the hotel, we…we hit a patch of ice on a bridge. My dad was driving.” And she remembered the sound of her mother screaming in the passenger seat as they blasted through the guardrail and catapulted over the edge, remembered the look of horror and soul-tearing regret on her father’s face as it was reflected in the rearview mirror. “We went over the side and into the river. I was in the backseat and that’s—” Her voice hitched and she had to swallow the lump of torment and grief that lodged in her throat. “That’s the only thing that saved me.”

  Again, he said nothing, just held her close, rubbing that circle on her arm. The motion, and the accompanying soft rasp of the fabric of her sleeve, was soothing, almost hypnotic. It gave her the strength to go on despite the fact that the memories were so close to the surface her skin actually crawled, like she was covered with fire ants.

  “The nose of the car buried itself into the riverbed and stuck there. The water was only about six feet deep, slow moving, and with a thick layer of ice covering the top. I slammed into the door and window on impact. It knocked me out.”

  And, oh, the horror of coming to. Of knowing…

  “When I regained consciousness, I was hanging from the seatbelt, my arm broken, the water only a foot from my face.”

  She heard him exhale slowly in the darkness. And, yeah, he could probably guess what came next. “I knew my parents were under that water, but my seatbelt was jammed. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get it undone. And, with my arm so severely broken, I couldn’t slither out of the straps either. I struggled so hard for so l-long—” Her voice broke. The memories of the crushing ache in her arm—that hadn’t come close to the debilitating pain in her heart—washed over her in a tidal wave. Even though her rational mind had told her there was nothing she could do for her parents, some instinct inside her, some animalist drive had spurred her to fight with everything she had. She’d understood in those moments how wild animals chewed through their feet to free themselves from hunters’ traps. The urge to live was as intrinsic as it was intense. And the urge to save those she loved was stronger still. But, in the end, she’d been helpless. Infuriatingly, pathetically helpless…

  “But I couldn’t get free,” she finally finished. “So I just…I just h-hung there, slowly freezing to death.”

  He lowered his chin to place a soft kiss on the crown of her head but didn’t so much as utter a sound. No words of sympathy or condolence. And it was like he somehow knew this was the first time she’d been brave enough to speak of the accident, been brave enough to relive it. As if he understood that any little thing, any word or sudden movement, would make her lose her nerve again.<
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  “I…I stayed that way for an hour, in the pitch black, listening to the water trickling by beneath me, knowing all the time…” She had to stop. Had to take a second to slow the dizzying excess of oxygen entering her lungs with every rapid breath. Because if she didn’t get control right now, the next stop on this crazy train of emotional upheaval was a little place she liked to call Dead Faint. So, she closed her eyes, held her breath, and slowly counted to ten.

  It was a trick she’d learned as a child and, more often than not, it actually worked. This was no exception. By the time she reached nine, her head no longer felt as if it was floating away from her shoulders. “Knowing all the time that my parents were dead only a couple of feet away.”

  And she’d screamed. Screamed until her throat was bloody. Screamed for help. Screamed in horror. Screamed at the gut-wrenching sorrow that’d invaded her soul like a foul, acrid disease. Just…screamed…

  But no one had heard her. And when she couldn’t scream any more, when no more sound could escape her swollen, ravaged throat, she’d silently continued screaming in her head.

  “Finally, a passing car saw the broken guardrail and called it in. The local fire department cut me loose and fished me out of the river but, of course, it was too late for my parents.” She finished the rest in a rush. “And ever since that night, anytime it’s dark like this, I feel like I’m back there. Stuck in that car. Unable to see, but knowing all the same that the two people I love most are dead and gone.”

  And, there. She’d done it. She’d told the story. She couldn’t believe she’d actually had the guts to finally tell the story.

  She was in the middle of congratulating herself, blowing out a relieved breath and patting herself on the back, when Rock finally spoke. But his words were not what she expected. “Go on. There’s more.”

  More? There wasn’t any more. She’d told him—

  “Tell me more about the darkness,” he said, and despite the sultry heat inside the log, a harsh chill slipped up her spine.

  She swallowed, the sound clicking in her dry throat. He grabbed her hand and flattened it over his chest until she could feel the firm beat of his heart against her palm. It steadied her. And when she pressed her ear to his chest, the slow, unwavering drum of his heartbeat grounded her enough to admit, shakily, “I…I feel like it’s…I don’t know, out to get me or something. Like it missed me that night on the river, and it’s just…just waiting to finish the job.”

  And until she said the words, she hadn’t realized that was what she was afraid of.

  Her racing blood slowed to a halt, and she stilled, searching inside herself. And the harder she looked, the more she peeled back the thick layers of her psyche, the more she realized, yes. Yes, that’s exactly what had been haunting her for the last half decade…

  Okay, and seriously? She’d installed nightlights all over her loft-style bedroom back at BKI, broke out in a cold sweat anytime she was inadvertently caught out in the night, and squirreled away flashlights all over the shop because she was afraid the dark was, like, what? Alive? That it was a sentient being purposefully and personally stalking her?

  Jesus Christ! Was she crazy?

  Abruptly the fingers of darkness that’d been squeezing her heart and lungs withdrew. The weight of the blackness pushing in around her suddenly felt less oppressive.

  Holy crap! That’s all it took? Just to put a name to it and, poof, the fear was gone? She looked inward again, seeking that paralyzing terror, the sense of impending doom, but…nothing.

  Oh, the pitch black wasn’t comfortable by any means. It still brought back stark memories of that night. But now she could look at the whole experience without nearly blacking out from fear. Now she could view it rationally and see it simply for the heartbreaking tragedy it was and—

  Holy, holy, holy crap!

  “How do you do that?” she breathed.

  “Like I said, it’s my training.”

  “It’s more than that,” she whispered, awed and grateful at the same time. “It’s a gift.”

  She felt him shrug.

  For long seconds after that mind-blowing revelation, they remained silent. Then, he murmured, “I am sorry about your folks. It’s tough to be an orphan, no matter what your age.”

  Orphan…And, yep, that’s all it took for the dam to break.

  The tears she hadn’t realized she’d been holding back threatened to overflow. Turning her face into his chest, she fisted the fabric of his wet tank top into balls beside her cheeks and tried to steady herself. But she couldn’t. Especially not when Rock whispered softly, “It’s okay to let go, chere. There’s no one here but you and me.”

  Uh-huh. And, just like that, she could no longer pretend she was tougher than she really was. Then Vanessa did something she never, ever allowed herself to do in front of anyone…

  She cried.

  And it wasn’t one of those tragic, lip-quivering, slow-crocodile-tear cries either. The kind most actresses perfected. Oh, no. This was a full-on, ball-your-eyes-out, tears-and-snot-everywhere kind of deal.

  It was humiliating and liberating at the same time.

  Humiliating because, come on, this was Rock. The one man on the entire planet she wanted to impress with her grace and poise and strength. Liberating because finally saying the words out loud, telling the tale and admitting to the root of her fear was freeing in a way she could have never imagined. Letting someone else share in the horror of her experience, having someone hold a mirror up in front of her face so she could address the foolishness of her irrational fear, relieved her of a burden she hadn’t known she’d been carrying around like a two-ton bolder of shame.

  Pushing up from his chest, she wiped a shaky hand across her eyes and beneath her nose. “Thank you,” she breathed.

  “De rien,” he whispered—you’re welcome—and, oh, sweet merciful Lord, his mouth was right there.

  She couldn’t see it in the dark—she couldn’t see anything, which for the first time in years didn’t scare the living crap out of her—but she could feel his lips moving, could feel the heat of his breath.

  And, suddenly, she didn’t care about the impropriety of the situation. She didn’t care that he’d made it quite clear there could never be anything permanent between them. She didn’t even care that there were men skulking through the jungle outside, looking for the first opportunity to blast an extra hole in each of their heads. All she cared about was this moment, when she had him exactly where she’d always wanted him.

  Without a second thought, she reached up to fist her hand in his short hair and pressed her lips against the lush pad of his mouth. His stubble tickled her nose and chin; she could taste hints of the papaya he’d eaten for dinner on his breath, and—

  Okay, so this was obviously a big mistake.

  Because the man did a pretty good impression of a brick wall. He didn’t move. He didn’t even appear to breathe. And his lips were sealed shut like he’d applied the ChapStick version of Krazy Glue.

  Yep, in the Great Handbook of Kisses, this was going to go down under the title Worst One Ever.

  And just as she was about to pull back and apologize for what was obviously a stupendously dumbass move, his mouth softened and the tip of his tongue swept over the seam of her lips. A hot flower of desire bloomed low in her abdomen, and opening her mouth to him was instinctual. Of course, the part where she sucked on his tongue was totally deliberate. And what had started out as tame quickly became tumultuous.

  He growled deep in his chest—the resulting rumble against her breasts was delicious—and slid his hand down her waist in order to pull her on top of him. Her thighs fell to either side of his lean hips, her pelvis cradling the stark evidence of his desire. And, just like that, the traffic light blinked from red to green, and they were a go!

  Teeth and tongues and hands everywhere.

  Sucking, licking, laving…

  He grabbed her ass with both hands and ground her against his erection.
The friction was unbelievable and so delicious it had her toes curling inside her boots.

  Once he realized she was more than happy to oblige him in the bump-and-grind they had going, he released her ass to snake a hand between their bodies so he could undo the buttons on her shirt. She lifted herself slightly, to give him room to work, and then…

  Bliss.

  The rough pad of his thumb found the aroused bead of her nipple even through the ACE bandage she’d wrapped around her chest in order to flatten her breasts. He pinched it gently, coaxing it into an even harder point, and a longing whimper sounded in the back of her throat.

  This was what she’d wanted for months. To push past his barriers. To get him to drop his guard. Because she’d always known it would be like this between them. Explosive and succulent and—

  A rustling outside alerted them to the fact that they were no longer alone in this part of the jungle…

  Chapter Six

  “Shit, Eve,” Bill growled as the lady of the house bent to set a plate full of little sandwiches, all with the crusts cut off—how sweet—on the coffee table. He slammed shut the copy of To Kill a Mockingbird he’d be reading—or, more accurately, trying to read. Usually losing himself in a classic calmed his nerves, but he figured nothing short of a lobotomy was going to come close to mitigating his anxiety when Eve was in the same room. “This isn’t a goddamned cocktail party, so you can stop playing the attentive hostess.”

  “Leave her alone, Billy,” Becky snarled from her position at the other end of the sofa. Her livid expression crowned him King of the Assholes more eloquently than any words could. Still, she felt the need to follow that up with, “And quit being such an asshole.”

  “It’s okay, Becky,” Eve said in that cultured voice of hers that always just…just got to him. And that was the kicker, wasn’t it? That despite everything, despite the fact that she’d booted him to the curb well over a decade ago, he still hadn’t found another woman who could get to him the way Eve Edens could.