Read Deadly Little Lies Online
Authors: Jeanne Adams
Deadly Little Lies (11 page)
“Yes, I have heard that. I'm thinking we may be in the mountains too, which would be cooler. Remember when we were driving in the truck? It was always at an upward angle.”
She gave an affirmative grunt. “Unfortunately, I remember.”
They sat in silence, listening to the noises beyond their cage. Night-calling birds, the distant roar of some predator, were the music of the night.
“Carrie, about what I said earlier, and what happenedâ” he began.
“Dav, I think we need toâ” she said at the same time.
“Ladies first,” he offered, wondering what she was going to say, feeling his gut clench. It was annoying that being in this circumstance made him feel young and inadequate again.
She moved, maybe nodded, but he couldn't be sure in the dark. He heard her sigh. “It's easier to talk about it when I can't see you, and you can't see me.”
“Really? So, you don't like seeing me blush?” he said, hoping to lighten her mood. She sounded so serious, so somber.
When she didn't laugh and didn't speak, he reached out, found her hand. “Carrie, there is nothing you could say that would upset me or make me think less of you. Nothing.”
“I didn't cheat on Luke,” she whispered. “But I wanted to. When he cheated on me with what seemed like every intern, every female artist, I really wanted to. He would come home, give me a brotherly peck on the cheek and say good night. I could smell the sex on him, the other woman's perfume. It was like he was coming home to his mother after a long night playing the prince.” Anger rushed out in waves he could almost feel. “I wanted to make him see me, flaunt a lover in his face as he so often did in mine. I kept thinking, what about me? Why not me?”
Dav's anger at Luke was a cold, powerful thing. He wanted to go back in time and kick the man's ass for treating Carrie with so little regard. He was about to speak, but Carrie wasn't done.
Acceptance and a faint note of defeat flavored her tone as she said, “Then I realized he wouldn't care. It wouldn't impact him at all.” She paused for a long moment. “You have to care for someone, for them to hurt you, or hurt
for
you, and he just ... didn't. Not enough, anyway.”
for
you, and he just ... didn't. Not enough, anyway.”
“Ahh, my flame, I am so sorry that he hurt you,” Dav murmured, squeezing her hand, wanting more than anything to snatch her up, make her forget the terrible blows to her self-confidence.
“Thank you,” she whispered. There was a long pause and Dav wondered if he should speak, fill the void with additional reassurance, but when she spoke again, he was glad he'd stayed silent. “I came to realize that he didn't,” she said obliquely, pulling her hand free to gesture. He couldn't see it, but he felt the air stir as she gestured.
“That he didn'tâ?” Dav asked when she was silent. He wasn't following her thought.
Her laugh was strained. “Hurt me,” she explained. “He didn't actually hurt me, emotionally or physically. Not really.”
“What do you mean?” His concern that she still carried a torch for Luke had bothered him. The man was long dead. However, if he was understanding these words, it was a triumph in some ways. He wouldn't have to compete with a ghost.
She sighed, a gusty, defeated sound in the velvet darkness. “I came to realize that it wasn't him I cared about, that his infidelities weren't what bothered me. His ignoring me was painful, but I came to realize, after he was gone, that it wasn't him, personally, that I missed. It was having someone who was supposed to be there. If you have a husband, you're supposed to have love, passion ... someone who asks about your day and cares about the answer.” She paused again. “And I didn't have that. I was hurt and angry and flat-out pissed that he was there. He was my husband, but he wasn't what I wanted or needed as a husband or a lover.” Another sigh, but lighter this time.
“I also came to realize that if everything hadn't happened with the fraud, I would have found my spine eventually. We would have divorced and probably remained business partners.”
He considered that before he spoke, and was surprised to feel a huge surge of relief.
“I remember meeting him for the first time,” Dav said, grudgingly admitting his reaction that day. “I didn't like him. I seldom spoke to him, because I knew I wouldn't be... nice. I wanted what he had,” he growled the last. She was right, the dark did allow you to say things you might not say otherwise.
“In some ways I'm glad I didn't know that,” she laughed softly. “When we met you, you were so self-assured, so confident. I remember thinkingâ” She hesitated, and Dav found her hand again, squeezed it in reassurance. “I thought, âThere's a man with confidence. That's the kind of man who wouldn't cheat,'” she declared. “That was just after I'd talked to a divorce lawyer. I was going to file for separation. My second appointment, had I kept it, was scheduled for two days after the authorities showed up at the gallery door.”
Dav couldn't believe it. His heart leaped up, knowing that she'd found him attractive, that she'd thought of him at all.
What a woman he had found. The determination to get them out, somehow, someway, rose like magma within him.
“Then everything fell apart.” He heard the tears in her voice. She sniffled a bit and he patted his pockets, found his handkerchief, and passed it to her. “Thanks.” She pulled her hand free again, and he heard the hiccup in her breathing. “That's done, though. I'm done with that.”
“You never really got to move on, did you?” Dav questioned, with the deepest sympathy. Now he understood her reluctance, her distance. As Gates had surmised, her sorrow had all been renewed, this last year. The worry, the betrayal had been unearthed, literally, to solve the dangerous attacks on Ana, Gates and his own estate. “It took you years to get out from under the suspicions, yes? You said so yourself, last year when it all came to a head.”
“I can't tell you how much it meant to me that you believed in me.” She found his hand again, squeezed his fingers, then brought them to her cheek. “You never wavered, did you?”
“Never,” he said, because it was true. He couldn't help it, he had to touch her, hold her and ease her sorrow. Using the anchor of the hand she held, he moved closer, found her face with his other hand. “Carrie, you're like a dark flame to me, with your beautiful black hair, your sapphire eyes and your brilliant mind and wit. I carry a picture of you in my head.” He caressed her cheek, felt the dampness of a tear, but didn't let that deter him. “I measure other women against you and they always come up lacking.” He admitted it without thought, without worry about how she could use his admission, or the repercussions if she did.
“Dav,” she breathed his name in surprise. He laughed, a bit ruefully, knowing how much power he willingly put in her hands.
“Yes, my flame? Was there something you wanted?” He found her mouth with his, murmuring the words as he brushed kisses over her lips. He wanted her to respond to him freely, come to him again, so he kept it light, teasing. “There is little enough I have to provide at the moment, but what I have is yours.”
Triumph flooded through him as she rose to meet him, on her knees, bringing them together in a rush of heat. Her mouth was hot on his; her hands raced over the silk of his shirt. As they had before, they came together with the fierceness of a summer storm, all crash and fire.
Within seconds he had her shirt off, and she his. Her hands were like erotic butterflies, flitting over his skin, leaving a raging need for more in their wake. He wanted to devour her, take her in enormous, greedy bites.
Her clothes fell away under his onslaught, as did his. He didn't know how she'd undone his belt, freed him, but when she grasped him as she had earlier, he growled her name and dragged her closer.
“Come here, come closer,” he demanded, his hands lifting her into his body, wanting to meld them together.
“Let meâ” She wriggled free for a moment, and the cool air swept between them. He reached for her just as she moved into him again. She was naked, her slim body open to him in every way. His triumph nearly undid him. Breathing heavily, he reminded himself to slow down, not to frighten her.
“Carrie, I'm rushing you, I'mâ”
“Shut up, Dav, and kiss me again.” It was her turn to demand, to devour. She pushed at him, and he followed her direction, lying back on the coat and letting her pull his trousers free. Then she was back, sliding up his body, her smooth skin a delicious tease, a tantalizing note in the resounding symphony of need.
When she moved up, then down over him, his body quivered, rising, pushing, needing her, needing completion.
“Shhhh,” she soothed, leaning down to kiss him as she rocked over him, sliding the softness of her breasts and hair over him, but not yet taking him inside. Her kisses were hot, the movement of her body, her breasts along his chest, was agonizingly slow, drawing out the pleasure as she arched away, then brought them together in a long, brilliant sweep along the length of him, legs, hips, belly, chest.
Madness hazed his mind. She was torturing him with her glory, she was...
All thought left him, she wiped his brain clean, as she took him in one hand, guided him in, sheathing him fully in her powerful wet heat. He wanted to roar in triumph, to take, to mate with the desperation of the damned. He wanted to make every molecule of her his.
She wasn't having any of it. With the barest sound, the barest movement of her hips and mouth, she checked his blind impulse, without ever saying a word.
The slick, slow movements she began left no room for coherent thought, for any memory of their desperate situation. The feel of her was so exquisite, so all-encompassing, that for several long, delicious moments he lost all sense of time and space and let her have her way.
As her excitement rose and her movements grew faster and less refined, as she began to lose control of her own release, Dav recovered enough to take charge. He let her move, and guided her hips to keep her rhythm as her passion got the better of her. He let her think she was in control until he could no longer breathe for wanting her.
In one swift move, he reversed their positions, easing her to her back as he thrust forward, the motion all one symphony of excitement. Her groan of delight drove him higher, her frantic breathing and the heave of her breasts where they pressed into his chest made him crazier, hotter if it was possible.
“Dav, Dav,” she cried, her body arching and shuddering, twisting into him and around him as she climaxed with a fury. “Dav!”
“Here, my flame,” he growled. She was his fire, his. Now, she was his in body. Finally.
“Dav, I need you, I need you,” she moaned, rising into him, retreating, rising again. He struggled not to move, not to pour himself into her, not to explode. Every movement she made was an exquisite torture, a gratification beyond words. As her reaction eased, he slid out, slowly. “Ahhhh, no, no, don't go,” she protested, gripping his hips and pulling him back in.
“No, darling, I'm not going. Let me please you,” he said, feeling huge, powerful waves of need, desire and triumph pour through him.
Yes!
his soul roared to the heavens.
Mine!
Yes!
his soul roared to the heavens.
Mine!
“Now, Dav, now,” she insisted, tugging at him. He wanted to laugh, to howl, to celebrate his conquest like a wild thing baying at the moon. Instead, he said nothing, just eased out again, carefully, fully, shifting his hips to tantalize her, let her feel all of him, to feel all of her as she clenched in need. “Davâ” His name was a plea.
He gathered himself and powerfully, but gently, stroked in.
“Ahhhhhhh.” Her delight was like intoxicating smoke; he breathed in every sound, every reaction. Each moan was more and more a drug, driving him to focus on her alone as his body, his mind, cried out for release. “Daaaaaav,” she cried.
It took everything he had, every ounce of control, to hold on, to ride the waves of her erotic writhing as she came a second time. When she arched up, crying his name, each movement of her hips harder, faster, to meet his slow, steady thrusts, his control broke.
He surrendered to the driving pulse of her, pulling her hips to him, meeting her as she rose to him, steadying them both as they came together.
“Nownownow!” she demanded, nearly screamed as she came, her words tearing the last shreds of his long-chained need. He roared her name to the tropical night as he buried himself within her and let his release take him, mind, body and spirit.
It was a long time before either of them moved. Even then, they didn't speak. He eased to the side, shifting his weight off so as not to crush her. She murmured in protest, curling into him, her long silky legs sliding along his, making him stir again. He drew her more tightly into his arms, and she purred, rubbing her face gently on his chest, her hands lazily massaging his back.
“That was...” she finally said and her voice rasped. “Magnificent.” The heartfelt praise broke the comfortable, velvet silence, but in the best possible way.
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