She felt his shoulders rise and fall. “I’ve been pissed as all get-out ever since. Mostly for Andy’s sake. Haven’t known how to get past it. Yet you don’t sound bitter at all about what you’ve been through. How do you do that?”
“I was angry at first. I felt betrayed by Arnaud. Then felt inadequate. Sometimes I berated myself for leaving him, knowing he was weak. Then I wondered if he’d encouraged me to leave. If I’d been his jailor, even if I didn’t realize it. I’d become restless, too.”
She listened for a few beats to Noah’s heart, pumping a slow even rhythm. He had the powerful gift of silence. It encouraged her to share her own long-withheld secret. “We were playing house. Pretending that we were okay. But it wasn’t real. Arnaud wanted that high more than he wanted me, and it killed him.”
Noah brushed his lips against her neck. “It wasn’t your call. Addiction is a nasty relentless disease. He and Jillian were casualties.”
Carly nestled back again him, noticing for the first time that night had fallen, the world around them grown dark and silent, but for the distant sounds of traffic on the highway behind them. Above them the sky was deep purple and salted with stars. Thankfully, it was too early for mosquitoes. Little flashes of lightning, too faint to be seen earlier, flickered on the northwestern horizon. The earlier winds had calmed, as if the air was holding its breath. Storm coming in? Seems like she’d heard something about the possibility.
She sat forward, feeling the cool rush as their bodies separated. “We should probably go back to town.”
“No.” His fingers closed over her shoulders. “We can’t leave like this.”
“No.” Carly agreed. “We shouldn’t.”
She was turning in his arms, sure at last of what she wanted.
This kiss was different. It was long and leisurely, thorough and arousing, soothing and flavored with the promise of even more pleasure to come. Shivers of anticipation shimmied through her as his hands moved leisurely over and then under her hoodie. He caressed her thoroughly, as if there was nothing waiting for them on the other side of these moments. No need to impatiently drag clothing aside. For eager fingers to hurriedly explore. They had … now.
When they pulled a little apart, she could see his face was flushed with desire and both their breaths came a little fast.
“Have you ever made love under the stars? In the back of a pickup?”
Carly laughed. “Here? Now?”
“Somewhere nearby. As soon as I can find a safe quiet place.”
“You’re serious?”
“You’ve never done it in a pickup truck.” He sounded surprised.
“With my parents having careers in foreign service, we moved a lot. Not many opportunities for moonlit trysts with cowboys.”
He gave her a look that singed her eyebrows. “You’re in for a treat, darlin’.”
He drove several miles down the road, then crossed railroad tracks into an open field. He parked and cut the lights. “Wait here.”
He jumped out and opened the door for Harley. “Go. Do your business,” she heard him say. Harley scrambled out into the tall grass and took off, quickly becoming a shadow that was swallowed up in the dark.
Noah jumped up in the back of the truck and unlocked his father’s toolbox. “Aha!” He pulled out a bedroll and knocked on the back window to get Carly’s attention. “Come on back. We’ve got everything we need.”
By the time Carly climbed out of the cab and walked back to the back, he had let the tailgate down and spread the unzipped bedroll on the truck bed. He hunkered down and offered her a hand. “I got a nice cozy place for us.”
Carly allowed herself to be pulled up beside him. He was grinning like a kid as he knelt beside her on the bedroll. “You okay with this?”
She smiled back, infected by his joy. “All that’s missing are a couple of longnecks.”
“We don’t need beer to kick off this party.” He touched her face, his fingers alighting along the crests of her cheekbones as his thumbs framed the corners of her mouth. She could barely see him in the dark, but it didn’t stop her knowing exactly what was on his mind. She could feel it in the tension of his fingertips.
“Do you know how beautiful you are? Really, just so damn pretty.”
She smiled and felt his thumbs slide over her lips. Instead of answering, she parted her lips and licked the tip of one thumb.
He hissed a breath that sent a sizzling heat surging through her body. God, he was in trouble. Deep trouble. And he was going deeper.
“Do that again.” His voice had gone all husky and dark.
She darted her tongue against first one and then the other of his thumbs and then she caught one in her teeth, tonguing the tip until she heard him murmur, “Damn, Carly. You got me sprung.”
Laughing lightly, she reached down. Sure enough, the bulge in his jeans was hard enough to drive nails. “I suppose we’re going to have to do something about that.”