“The police,” Benedict said. “They’ve come to investigate my call.” He turned away from the window and paced toward her across the floor. “And to answer you—yes. I can make you forget.”
Oh. First he made sure they would be uninterrupted. Then he focused on her.
This kiss was no hands-off seduction. This was body to body, hands, lips, tongues, a blast furnace that incinerated her fears and memories, lifted her to her toes in a futile attempt to get closer to him, to his heat.
The darkness in the room was city dark: night dimly illuminated by the neighbors’ porch lights, the sky washed by the distant downtown bars, restaurants and stores. Now red and blue lights flashed through the window and she had the sense that they were hiding, she and Benedict, here in the dining room, reaching for each other in the dark.
He backed her toward the table, lifted her onto the flat surface, onto the ironed linen tablecloth. He stripped off her shoes, her workout pants, her hoodie, T-shirt, bra and panties, and flung them in a wad toward the leather chair. He stepped back and viewed her, perched on the table like a statue of Venus. “My God,” he whispered. “My God.” As if the sight stung him to action, he disposed of his jeans, underwear and shoes in a hurry and without a bit of grace.
She smiled.
How flattering.
He climbed onto the table.
She scooted back to make room.
He caught her ankle, spread her legs, slid her and the tablecloth beneath her toward him. Leaning over her, he put his mouth to her clit … and his heat brought her hips off the table. She writhed, she strained, she came. Violently, explosively … silently.
He was not silent. “That’s it,” he murmured. “That’s what I want for you.”
Abruptly she was back in the past, years ago, learning to make love, discovering what it was like with a man who reveled in a woman’s response, encouraged it, waited for it …
She shook her head. No. Don’t remember.
“Don’t shake your head at me,” Benedict said. “Don’t try to deny me.” He got onto his knees, lifted her bottom and pulled her onto him.
She was wet and ready, in a hurry and desperate, but it had been a long time for her and the process was long, slow, frustrating … for him.
She came so often she could hardly call it frustrating …
When he was finally inside, he began the long, slow strokes that brought them close, broke them apart, brought them close again and earned them intimacy in the most primitive dance of all.
She panted silently, straining toward another climax, a greater climax, one that would sweep her mind free of every terror, every nightmare, every concern.
He moaned, his arms and thighs corded with strain, sweat staining his T-shirt over the breastbone. The wash of red and blue across his face turned him alternately demonic and angelic, and she recognized both in him. He demanded more from her than she could give, and when she gave it, he demanded again. “Come on, darling,” he said over and over. “Come again … for me. Come again … with me.”
Finally she did, losing herself completely as one surge of pleasure followed another, faster and faster until he gave a shout that gave voice to pleasure for them both.
Motion slowed. He lowered her hips to the table, sank down on top of her, silent now, his fingers grasping her waist, his gaze fixed on her face as if being inside her wasn’t enough. As if he wanted to see inside her.
Merida smiled, then closed her eyes, luxuriating in physical satisfaction, in the heat of his skin against hers, the pump of blood in her veins, the brief moment when she was no longer Merida or Helen or Merry, but simply herself, one woman united with one man in the dance of joy.
Slowly Benedict pushed away, left her body, sat up beside her. The blue and red lights flashed across his body, illuminating all the shadows in brief glorious reveals. His voice seemed deeper, grittier as he asked, “Did I make you forget?”
She nodded, then afraid he hadn’t seen, she spelled, “Yes.”
“That’s good.” He lifted one knee, leaned an arm against it. “Because you made me remember.”
There was a warning there, a toughness she hadn’t heard.
She sat up, shedding satiation and gaining wariness.
Deliberately he turned his head, looked right at her. “Merry. Merry Byrd. Where have you been?”
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Merida vaulted off the table, scampered toward her clothes to grab something, anything, put it on, run away.
Because he was going to kill her … again.
As she moved, her mind sorted: no T-shirt, she’d be vulnerable if she pulled it over her head; no pants, she’d be vulnerable when she pulled them on; no shoes … she snatched up her hoodie, turned and held it in front of her.
Benedict sat on the table in the same position, unmoving, watching.
Of course. Why not? He could outrun her. Because of her paranoia, she had three locks on the door and a chain; they kept her safe, but she couldn’t easily get out. And he’d already proven tonight that her puny self-defense moves could not defeat him.
But bless him. He knew exactly what to say to bring years of pent-up fury roaring back. “Merry Byrd, I thought you were dead.”
She threw the hoodie aside and advanced on him. If she was going to die, she wouldn’t do it cowering behind a feeble piece of clothing. She was going to go down fighting. “You ought to know,” she signed. “You killed Merry Byrd.”
“No.”
“You arranged for that airplane to explode.”
“No.”
“When I woke in the hospital, I cried for you. You were nowhere.”
“When I woke in the hospital, they told me you were dead.”
“Who told you I was dead?” Wait. “What were you in the hospital for?”
He paused, studied her. “Do you not remember that explosion?”
“Yes!” Except not really. She couldn’t remember everything, and she didn’t want to. The noise. The fear. The explosion. The heat. Oh God the heat the pain the death now run now not fast enough. “I was to solo at last … I was doing the preflight check…”
He jumped off the table.
She took a compulsive step back.
Now uncaring of the cops, he flipped on a light. He pulled off his T-shirt and turned his back to her.
The skin from his neck to his buttocks was rippled with red scars, testimony to fire and pain.
She shook her head, little disbelieving shakes.
“When you want to talk, you know where to find me.” Pulling on his shirt and his pants, he opened the locks and walked out, slamming the door behind him.
The man knew how to make an exit.
Damn him! The coward, leaving her here alone when she wanted to fight. Picking up one of his shoes, she flung it at the door. She stomped over and fastened the locks. She sure as hell didn’t want to think. She had never wanted to think about that day …
The police lights flashed against the suits of armor like some freakish, silent music video.