“Yes, ma’am.” He shifted her head so that he could kiss her, long hard kisses that showed her just how he was about to work her lower down. He moved then, setting the pace in an easy muscular easing in and out of her body. Sensations quivered through her, setting off fireworks behind her closed lids as she held onto him for dear life.
Suddenly the pace changed. He came into her with hard quick urgency that would not allow her to catch her breath. She curled fingers on his rigid biceps and responded with her own body to the demand of his. When she came she arched against him, holding him inside as the waves of pleasure rippled along his shaft. His harsh breath was in her ear and then she could feel his body convulse as he climaxed deep within her.
Carly smiled at the sky and let a feeling of complete peace overtake her. A sliver of silver-white moon hung above his left shoulder. Over his right, she watched lightning run in rivulets of pink-white light through the shoulders of clouds boiling up on the horizon. A spring night in Texas. And it contained everything she’d remembered. The reasons she’d come home. Beauty. Suspense. Vast openness where dreams could run wild. And at the center, the held breath of anticipation for the storm ahead.
After a while Noah leaned in again, this time forehead to forehead and just held her as he whispered so softly Carly wondered if he meant only for himself to hear the words.
“I wish I’d met you first.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The storm rolled into Fort Worth just after nine p.m. Like a battalion breaking through enemy defenses, straight-line winds battered the city with fifty-to sixty-mile-per-hour gusts. Lightning ran horizontal zigzags through cloud canyons, silvering the underbellies of the deep purple sky monsters. Thunder rolled continuously, punctuated now and then by a sudden crack and boom that shook the walls of homes and businesses when a flash grounded nearby.
He almost missed the taxi pulling up before the apartment building. The first rain splattered against windows and windshield like miniature water balloons. Thick drops that fell individually quickly came faster and faster until they merged into a pounding waterfall, deluging streets and the parking lot in which he sat.
But there was no mistaking the shock of blonde curls emerging from the backseat. Long legs, pert ass—this he recognized. She ran quickly for the shelter of her apartment building, a large purse held over her head as she disappeared into the stairwell.
“Fuckin’ bitch.”
She’d gotten out somehow, away from his surveillance. All that while he’d sat in his vehicle drinking a Big Gulp and eating Hostess Ho Hos, waiting for Glover to show up, he was certain Carly Reese had been inside. Every reason to think so. Her car was in the parking lot when he arrived. So he’d assumed she was home, waiting for lover boy. Now he knew she hadn’t been home to lure Glover here. Perhaps had met him somewhere else.
Anger whip-snaked through him, searing him from the inside. Was Glover on to him?
He’d tailed Glover from the Speedway, certain he hadn’t been detected. Not even sure when he’d lost him on I-35W, he thought he’d simply missed seeing Glover exit. So he’d rounded back, weaving in and out of neighborhoods for an hour until finally he thought it was safe to roll past Glover’s house.
Sure enough, the prick arrived with that flea-bit hound he called an explosives K9. So he’d hung back, waiting half an hour until Glover reentered his truck and drove two blocks away before gunning his own vehicle and headed out. No need to follow the bastard. He knew he was headed for Carly’s place. How did he know? Glover had changed clothes.
“Damn straight, I’d make a great detective.”
Once he made the FWFD, he planned to work his way up to arson investigator in no time. He still had time. By then Glover would be an embarrassing footnote with the FWFD.
But the prick never showed.
The rain suddenly stopped, as if shut off at the tap. Thunder rumbled louder, guttural and predatory. And then hail began to fall. Tiny pellets of ice at first, tap-dancing their way down the street, the sound ominous for those with experience of Texas spring storms. And then the pattern changed. Stones the size of marbles began to hammer down, bouncing like popping corn off every surface.
“Fuck it.”
He turned on his engine, swearing up a blue steak. Darlene would clobber him if her car turned up pitted by hail when he was supposed to be in Austin on business. Of course, Austin had hailstorms too. But it would be just his luck they weren’t having one tonight.
In the distance sirens sluggishly came to life, sounding like disturbed sleepers prodded to crank up to full volume. He knew what that meant. Tornados.
He rolled down a window, uncaring that he was instantly drenched, and swung his head in one direction and then the other, trying to spot the telltale swirl of a twister in the darkness. But a low wall of cloud had swooped in, obscuring the brilliant lightning and the tops of nearby downtown buildings just as residents would be desperate to spot disaster spinning down from overhead.