Long Summer Nights (9 page)

Jeez. Nobody wanted to make this easy, did they?
“That’s it? Man, your marketing people sucked. What’s the truth, then?”

“A lot better. You remember Walter Willoughby?”

“The railroad tycoon?”

“That’s the one. Willoughby kept his mistress upstate, but he didn’t have a reason to keep traveling there without his wife, so he bribed the Harmony Springs town council to create the festival. He laid tracks, built the station and greased a whole crew of palms to insure that the festival was a rip-roaring success. Not only did he get to spend time with his mistress, but after the festival took off, he made a fortune. A man’s got to admire thinking like that.”

“And the wife?”

Stewart grinned, a nice grin, nothing curdled or distracted there. “Actually, she became the wealthy widow. It seems that old Walter had four mistresses in Harmony Springs not just one. And there was hell to pay when they found out about each other. They found Willoughby’s body the next day. Drowned, shot, stabbed and poisoned.”

Jenn began to smile. “Now I see. That’s a good story.”

“Willoughby’s ancestry disagrees.”

“No one likes skeletons. But thank you for telling me.”

“You know, the courthouse is supposed to be haunted with his ghost.”

“Really?”

He laughed. “Nah. That’s just marketing.”

“See, you country folks can learn the big bad ways, too.”

They danced a couple of dances, and she got some more material, but eventually Stewart noticed her lack of
interest and moved on to a twentysomething with a low-cut blouse. At least somebody was getting lucky tonight, she thought, chatting up the bartender, Anisha, who was an Indian girl with some really good jokes, earning extra money on the weekend. Jenn spent some time complaining about men in general, when she sighted the very cause of her complaint.

Aaron. Did wonders never cease? He was sitting at a table in the shadows, alone, no surprise there, drinking a can of what looked to be diet soda. She would have pegged him for a Scotch drinker, not zero calories, no caffeine, but since she would have bet her last dollar he wouldn’t have shown up at a dance, her inductive reasoning wasn’t as sharp as it usually was.

Or maybe he came to see her?

Tonight he was dressed in funeral black, looking very spiffy except for the trademarked scowl on his face. The black shirt looked vaguely European, accentuating his rangy build, and his hair had been combed in an orderly fashion. She had a devious urge to go over and mess it up, just because it seemed out of place.

However, there were many schools of thought in relationship management which instructed the female to stay aloof and not look so needy.

On the other hand, Aaron seemed not to be a believer in those schools—or any schools of relationship management—and Jenn had always sucked at school anyway.

Trying not to look too desperate, she sauntered over, sat down across from him, and wiggled her fingers in a provocative wave.

“Thank you for the towels,” she started off.

“What towels?” he asked, playing innocent, a novel role for Aaron. But—no surprise at all—he didn’t do it well.

“Do not be coy with me. I know you left them. Take credit for something good. You deserve it.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, sounding surly instead of courteous, and then sat silent and even surlier.

It was a good thing that perseverance was Jenn’s middle name. Actually it was Prudence, but Jenn thought Perseverance suited her better, and she tried again. “I didn’t expect to see you here. I wouldn’t think that a quaint town dance is your idea of an exciting Friday night.”

“I live to surprise you,” he answered, sounding more like himself.

“How’s the writing coming along? Killed off any females lately?”

“No. Why do you ask?”

Jenn took a sip from her wine and shrugged. “Making polite conversation. There is no subversive motive.”

“I usually assume the worst in people. I’m usually right.”

“I would’ve assumed you wouldn’t get rid of a snake. I would be wrong. I wouldn’t have assumed you would put two very sumptuous towels on my doorstep. I would be wrong. Assumptions are dangerous things. Facts are what matters. You have to stick with the facts.”

“I would assume you’re here to annoy me. Would I be wrong?”

She sat back in her chair, studied the tension in his face, the caution in his eyes. He wasn’t happy, but he was here. “You’re very tricky.”

“How so?”

“You don’t really assume I’m here to annoy you. Actually, you assume I’m sitting here because I want to sleep with you again, but you don’t want to ask that, because that would imply that you care if I want to sleep with you again, and you don’t want me to know you care.”

His mouth twisted in that oddly charming manner of his. She knew it was supposed to be sarcastic and forbidding, but it didn’t match the warm light in his eyes.

“You’re on your fifth glass of wine, aren’t you? Only alcohol should be responsible for logic that twisted.”

“Insulting me only proves my point further,” she stated confidently.

Whenever he smiled at her with that uncomfortable curve to his mouth, she felt a little tipsy. Sadly, diet soda did not cause tipsy, only punch-drunk lust. “Why are you here? To annoy me?” he asked.

She leaned in, living dangerously, flaunting dangerously, and not really caring, because she desperately wanted to sleep with him again. Properly. With full coital joining and a mutual sharing of orgasms. The way the rest of the world did it. The way that involved personal connections. Those very connections that he shunned.

“I’m here because I’m attracted to you. Your naked body. Your twisted mind. Do you care?” she added in a mocking voice.

But he surprised her once again. “I care. Do you want to dance?”

The shock of it numbed her normally instinctual need to delve further. “Do you dance?” she asked instead, which was much more innocent, and much less dangerous. A woman could live on the edge for only so long.

“You believe I don’t dance? Another assumption?”

Now she had a chance to fully recover and she was ready this time. “Nope. I just said it to annoy you. You are so much fun to annoy. Your mouth sets into this grim reaper smile and your eyes narrow to slits.”

He grabbed her hand and led her out to the floor, and his eyes were not narrowed, and his mouth was set into something that almost resembled a smile.

A
ARON EXCELLED AT
the waltz. Jenn had never waltzed in her life, but he was surprisingly patient, not swearing too loudly when she trounced on his toes, and eventually she got the hang of it.

“Who taught you to dance?”

“A female friend of my father’s. His set was a great believer in the odd and the eccentric.”

“It explains much,” she noted, but she kept her voice nice and gentle and noncombative.

When the crowd started getting too dense, he took her hand and led her outside, wandering down the primrose path, meandering close to the lake. Some people who were not attuned to the intricate workings of his mind might have considered it romantic.

Jenn knew better than to believe that. Although secretly she hoped.

Gas lanterns flickered with light. Possibly environmentally irresponsible, but pretty nonetheless. Aaron walked slowly with all the relaxed temperament of a man grown apart from the city.

“Why did you want to be a writer?” she asked, not that she was surprised at his choice, but it was unconventional,
it was radical, it spoke of a man who listened to no one but himself.

He paused for a moment, and stared out over the quiet waters of the lake. “My father considered himself a great literary genius. An undiscovered talent who was passed over by publishing bean counters because of their vacuous tastes for monetized drivel. He always said he didn’t care, but then he’d go through the bookstores, thumbing through titles and making fun of everything there. It ruined his life. He wanted to be recognized. He hated that he wasn’t. And he hated that he cared.” His voice held the disdain of a man who despised the obsession. Fascinating.

“And you chose writing because?”

Aaron shrugged, his eyes fixed somewhere beyond the present. “I don’t know.”

“Can I ask you a personal question?”

“Now you think about respecting personal boundaries? Go ahead.”

“How can you afford not to work?”

At her question, his shoulders hunched tight and tense, and his eyes grew cool and aloof. “About eight years ago I got lucky and came into some money. It’s enough to keep me in my cabin in the woods.”

“What happens when the money goes? What will you do then?”

“Be poor,” he stated, sounding cavalier about the possibility. It was only rich people who thought like that. Poor people knew that being poor sucked.

“Why not do something else?” she asked, sounding exactly like her mother, but there was a certain wisdom in planning for a rainy day. Since they were talking about someone other than herself, she felt especially curious.

The north shore of the lake was far away from the tiny campground with its rustic amenities. Here where they
walked, a line of stately houses, built in a time long past, watched over the water. It was easy to walk here and dream.

“Would you do something else?” he said, shooting many holes through her shining moment of sounding responsible, and he didn’t even look sad about it.

“I’m not ready to abandon my ship yet. But I have memorized too many of my parents’ lectures not to think about the problems of an unreliable career path.”

“You’ll be fine,” he assured her, which both surprised and pleased her, the best of both worlds, in Jenn’s opinion.

“Why?” she asked, shamelessly fishing for compliments.

“Because being a journalist is who you are. You might end up waiting tables in a restaurant, or you might end up driving a cab, but you’ll be back writing articles and sniffing into other people’s lives and tempting them to tell you all sorts of things that they don’t want to tell you, and shouldn’t tell you if they were smart. But you’ll end up there because it’s you.”

She envied his calm acceptance of the world. No, it wasn’t idealistic or happy, but it didn’t worry him. Jenn felt permanently unsettled, and she’d never really thought of how much she yearned to be calm.

There was a row of dandelions along the dirt path, and she plucked one, puffing away at the tiny fluff, watching how it fell apart and scattered to unchartered lands.

“I do love your cheerful take on life,” she told him, possibly sarcastically, but he seemed to understand that best.

“And thus, my literary success to date.”

There was a certain forbidden magic in the night. A certain weight of anticipation in the air, the coming storm. In the distance, thunder rumbled, low and quiet. The lake
water lapped against the shore, slow and steady, matching the drumming in Jennifer’s blood.

“There’s the house where Willoughby was murdered,” he told her, pointing to a narrow Victorian with the lights on in the upstairs.

“Stewart said it wasn’t haunted.”

“It’s not. I thought you might want to see it.”

“Why are you doing this?” she asked, not so sarcastic this time. “Doing what?”

“Being here. With me.”

“Am I with you?” he asked, more of those diversionary questions designed to give nothing away. Tired of the games, Jenn headed for people of a less difficult persuasion. But before she could move away, he stopped her with a persevering hand to her arm. “Jennifer. Don’t. I’m sorry. You want to know why I like you?”

“Yes.”

“I have a typewriter, a one-eyed cat with a personality disorder and a window that looks out over the dark side of the lake. The rest of my life exists inside my head. For a long time, I was in love with that life, but not so much anymore. I don’t know if I got older, lonelier or wiser, but something is different. Most people I still don’t like. You, I like.”

Such simple words to cause such a nonsimple thrill.

“Why?”

“Are you going to make me spout poetry?”

“Do you spout poetry?”

“Not when sober.”

“Then, no, I’m not going to make you spout poetry. Why do you like me?”

He stopped walking, looked at her sideways.

“Besides your ass?”

“Now you’re teasing me.”

“No. I actually do like your ass. It’s very curvy.”

Mostly due to an unhealthy dependency on sugar, but she chose not to tell him that. “Besides that.”

“Your luscious breasts. Very soft and touchable.”

“Besides that.”

“I like your mouth,” he said, stroking a finger over her lips, which shuddered. She closed her eyes, craving this one gentle touch more than she wanted anything before.

“It’s soft and touchable, too,” he continued. “But not sweet. Sharp. Tangy.”

She felt his mouth on hers, another gentle touch. Seductive.

When he lifted his head, she opened her eyes and saw the pale fires there, carefully banked. He was asking. Unlike other men, Aaron was careful never to take.

“I like your mouth, too,” she whispered.

“I like your eyes,” he told her, as if admitting the world’s greatest sin. “Really? Why?”

His mouth twisted into a reluctant smile. He was getting better at that, she noticed. “You do like your compliments, don’t you?”

“We all like our compliments. Tell me. For a man of words, you don’t use enough.”

“You won’t kiss me again until I do?” he asked, his large palm cupping her cheek, carefully and perfectly controlled.

“I might kiss you again, but I’ll do more if you’ll tell me why you like my eyes.”

“Don’t you think that’s demeaning? Reducing all your positive characteristics to the physical?”

“Can I tell you a secret?”

“I don’t believe you keep a secret if your life depended on it.”

He had no idea of the secrets she was keeping from him. The heavy thump-thump of her heart when he touched her. The sharp thrill she felt when he looked at her. The dreams in her head of him filling her, joining her, being a part of her.

“What secret,” he prodded, apparently more curious than he cared to admit.

“I don’t care much about the compliments. I just like to watch you think, the way you frown, carefully constructing the perfect turn of phrase. You torture yourself.”

He frowned at her, but she suspected it was for the effect. “You have a very twisted mind. And that, my darling distraction, is why I like you.”

“Are you going to kiss me again?”

“If you ask nicely.”

He stood and kissed her slowly. She put a hand over his heart, feeling the racing beat, and she smiled, content to stand there, tasting his mouth. So many times in her life, she wanted to be somewhere else, but not now. Now she wanted to be here. Now she wanted this.

Her hands wound around his waist, binding him to her. His hips pulsed against hers, hard, urgent, and she sighed into his mouth. Carefully, so slight that he shouldn’t notice, she curved into his erection, but he unfused his mouth from hers, and took a step back.

But there was something new in his eyes. Intent. A promise. Feeling remarkably calm, Jennifer smiled.

He sat down in the grass and held out his hand.

“You’re making me nervous here. What sorts of creatures lurk in the woods?” she asked, sitting next to him, leaning back on her hands, an open invitation for whatever
creature was lurking nearby. Or whatever man was lurking, as well.

He didn’t want—he pounced.

This time, his kiss wasn’t easy or soft or simple. This kiss was like the man. Complicated. Confusing. Intoxicating. His tongue stroked back and forth, and in less than a beat, her tongue mingled with his, following his lead.

His hands grasped her face, and she knew there would be marks, but she didn’t care. Finally he was letting go. It was a heady feeling being ferociously explored, being absolutely desired. She was his albatross, his white whale, his magnificent obsession.

Yes, the story was going to end badly. When she left this place, she would delude herself into thinking that he would call, and it would hurt when he didn’t. It should have been enough to keep her away, but after years of mistakes, of choosing unwisely, Jenn wanted to have a heart-pounding affair with someone who didn’t shoplift, who didn’t watch cartoons, who spent his days using his mind. It made her blood heat, her vision hazy and not so sharp, and her thighs shiftless and willing.

She lay back in the grass, winding her arms around his neck, tangling her fingers in his silky hair, pulling him down on top of her because she knew he would do it right. Already her body was curving into his, and her hips were rolling up, mating there. There was no uncertainty, no experimentation. This was animal attraction at its finest. This would be sex at its finest. Hopefully tomorrow there would be no regrets. “Be with me,” she asked.

Sure and sly, his hand slid beneath her shirt, her bra, unerringly finding her breast. He rolled her nipple between his finger and thumb, discovering the perfect amount of pressure that Jenn could endure.
Exactly that,
she thought
with a gasp, nipping at his neck, pleased with the catch of his own breath.

Cleverly his hands moved over her, sliding up her shirt. The night breeze spilled over her skin, and she realized she was developing a grand passion for the great outdoors. It felt warm and wicked, or maybe that was the wicked feel of this man and what she knew was to come.

Definitely the man, she thought, when his mouth closed over her breast. Oh, yes. Above her, the sky was filled with a moon and shooting stars, or maybe that was in her head. And the music, the thundering pulse in her skin, that must be in her head, as well. The deep pulls of his mouth were making her mind fall apart.

Her fingers dug into the hard ridges of his back, the merging of spine and sinew and skin. Nothing he did was easy, his hips grinding into hers, and she could feel the thick bulge of his cock pressing between her thighs. Not happy about the layers between them, her hands moved to his fly, wanting to feel skin, wanting to feel Aaron, wanting to feel cock. She usually didn’t feel so hungry, so impatient, so desperate for sex, but her body was already primed for him, and she couldn’t wait.

At the touch of her hand, he raised his head, his eyes meeting hers, glittering in the dark. “You’re sure about this.”

In answer, she unzipped his fly, pulling him free.

His breath exploded before he yanked down her jeans, her panties, making her smile. Yeah, she wasn’t the only one feeling the heat.

The smile froze when he pushed inside her, and Jenn felt her entire body contract around him. Her thighs, her skin, her blood, her mind. The perfect connection. For a single second he was still, poised over her, his eyes closed
tight as if he was in pain, but then he exhaled and began to move.

Quickly she realized her mistake. This wasn’t sex—this was death by possession. Oh, sweet mother, yes. He was thick and hard and each time he shoved into her, she could feel her body shudder. He took her mouth, his tongue pressing deep. Oh, yes.

There was something so basic and primitive about him, about this. About her back scraping against the hard ground, about her pants twisted around her ankles, about the sharp lines of desire in his face.

Her hands pulled at the grass, wanting to keep still, but unable. His hips drove her forward, pushing her upward, tearing her apart, and she felt like she was flying, being swept up to some distant world of pleasure.

He ripped his mouth from hers, buried his face in her neck. When he spoke, his voice was quaking with pain, with fear, with desire. “I’m…hurting you.”

You will, she thought. But not here. She loved this brutalness to him, this raw honesty. This was what she had known was inside him. She loved the driving force between her thighs, feeling his muscles bunch and pull and feeling his breath come so quick and ragged.

She pressed her lips against his hair, thinking he wouldn’t notice, thinking he wouldn’t care. Immediately he froze, his cock embedded deep inside her. Sex, she reminded herself. Sex. It would be easier if he didn’t look at her like that. Shock, nerves, fear. “Say something,” he muttered. “Say this is okay.”

“It’s more than okay,” she whispered, almost a prayer. “It’s very, very good.”

I
T WAS HELL.
I
T WAS
the worst sort of hell. Aaron didn’t want this.

She was leaving him.

He kept chanting that safe refrain in his mind, but every time he moved inside her, she surrounded him, clung to him, keeping him there in that place he longed to be. He was moored to her, chained to her, locked to her.