Part 25 (2/2)

It was another few seconds before he could even think. He cleared his throat to say something, changed his mind, simply leaned forward. She turned to meet him halfway. Their lips touched, hovering exquisitely before parting to reveal softly darting tongues. His eyes fluttered closed. Her lips were feather-soft, wonderfully smooth. His hands slipped beneath her hair, cupping her head. She let out a little groan of pleasure and hunger, and her mouth opened wider, drawing him in . . .

. . . and it was as if the entire universe whirled and spun and stopped altogether, obliterated by the ecstatic rush that rose up to envelop them. Syd felt the walls melt between them, the line disappearing completely . . .

. . . and then she was pulling away, grudgingly breaking the contact as Syd opened his eyes, felt the room rematerialize around them. Reeling, Syd looked across the room to the booths, then back to Jane.

Jane met his gaze, her dark eyes smoldering. ”Let's get out of here,” she said.

29.

The night was alive as they drove, the big k.n.o.bby tires of Jane's Jeep Renegade humming down the road. It was a battered, weather-beaten little vehicle, with a combination tow winch/snowplow attachment mounted on the front b.u.mper. The wind whipped through the open top and windows. Syd looked up and saw stars twinkling through the budding foliage, looked over and watched her long hair flying back, wild and alive as well.

The whole way there they didn't speak, or at least no words were exchanged. But the heat of her hand spoke volumes: the way it drifted from his grasp to the gears.h.i.+ft and back again, continually maintaining the contact. Keeping the excitement level high.

And Syd was excited; of this there was no doubt. There was promise in her touch, in the way she glanced at him as they rolled down the winding mountain road. A steadily mounting buzz had taken hold of his senses, heightening everything, rendering it crystal clear. It was the sweet taste of antic.i.p.ation, the knowledge that something very, very good was happening. It was a feeling he hadn't had in a long, long time.

And it was getting better by the second.

They rounded a curve and Jane's hand slipped from his, grabbed the gears.h.i.+ft. ”Hang on,” she said, downs.h.i.+fting into the turn and cutting across the road into a black hole in the trees.

”Whoa,” Syd cried, reaching up to grab the pa.s.senger side panic bar. The Jeep rumbled and thumped as it left the road, and the next thing he knew they were climbing a rutted, pitch-black private drive. The woods closed in on all sides; Syd glanced back, saw the main road disappear behind them.

A shudder of irrational fear came over him; it had been a long time since he had been in the woods with a woman at night-been in the woods at all, for that matter. The Jeep jerked and b.u.mped, as the drive hooked sharply to the right, angled even more steeply. It was clear that nothing short of four-wheel drive would stand a chance of making this jaunt; even in good weather, his Cougar would have bottomed out a long time ago.

But Jane took it all in stride, tearing up the path at speeds he found genuinely disturbing, rocks and dust billowing up behind them as she navigated the rugged terrain.

They pa.s.sed a rough-hewn sign reading PRIVATE PROPERTY: NO HUNTING! NO TRESPa.s.sING! The path widened, leveled into a clearing. Jane slowed to a more leisurely and altogether quieter speed.

Up ahead, a light appeared through the trees. As they drew closer Syd saw that it was a porch light, softly illuminating the rambling structure that nestled in the clearing.

To call it a log cabin was like calling the America Cup winner a sailboat: it was split-level, rustic and sprawling, all stone and thick-beamed wood, with a gabled roof, a big wraparound porch and lots of windows. There was a neat little gravel parking ap.r.o.n just off to one side. Jane pulled up, crunched to a halt, shut off the engine. Then she turned to him and smiled.

”Well, here we are,” she said.

”Wow,” Syd murmured, looking around. ”This is incredible.”

”Yeah,” she said. ”You should see it in the daytime.”

There was a pause, in which the stillness of the night enfolded them. No sounds of civilization intruded up here, not even the hum of a distant highway. It was strangely unnerving, like seeing the last glimpse of land slip over the horizon as you set out to sea. Syd found that his excitement had changed to nervousness; as he looked at her he realized that he hadn't the slightest idea of what to do or say next.

Jane, too, seemed to hesitate, like there was something important she wanted to tell him and she didn't know quite how to put it. ”I'm not very good at this,” she offered at last.

”Me, either,” Syd replied. There was another pause. She took a deep breath, then leaned over and kissed him.

Her mouth was hot, incredibly sweet. Her lips moved from his mouth to the hollow of his neck, nuzzling him, and it was as if his head disconnected, became a balloon hovering somewhere above his body, held in place only by a single strand of desire. She leaned up, whispering into his ear.

”Let's go to bed,” she said.

If anyone had suggested that Syd would ever find a lover to compare with Nora, he would have laughed out loud. It was a little like losing your life's fortune, only to discover that you'd been using the Hope diamond as a paperweight. Jane was that good.

And not just physically, although Syd was certainly as pleased as he was surprised. Jane unclothed and unbound was a creature roughly a million times more provocative than her work persona ever let on. Her body was wonderfully full and feminine; her skin soft and very pale, almost translucent. It offset her dark hair and even darker pubic thatch, gave her a striking, almost ethereal quality.

And once revealed, Jane's s.e.xuality was stronger than he'd ever imagined. The word grounded came to mind; as she kissed him Syd felt like he had been plugged into a pipeline to the center of the earth. His nagging anxieties melted under her touch; she thoughtfully provided him with a condom and then made him forget he was even wearing one.

And where Nora was a midnight joyride that continually threatened to skid out of control, Jane's lovemaking was marked by an intense serenity, an air of caring that calmed him even as it brought him to the brink, made him feel like he could go on forever.

And indeed, they went round and round for hours; Jane's climax building and peaking repeatedly as they moved into and out of each other, becoming intimate with each other's mechanisms of ecstasy.

And when Syd could go no longer, as he finally shuddered and exploded inside her, Jane took him in her arms and kissed him: accepting his release as she welcomed him home.

And as Syd collapsed in her arms a wave of anguish billowed up in its wake, venting raw emotion like a hurricane slamming a placid sh.o.r.e . . .

. . . and it felt as if everything he had ever done, or tried to do, or would ever try to do was ruined from the start; that no matter how hard he tried or how long he struggled, the end result would always be the same. That Jane was there with him only served to underscore his terror. She didn't know his secret. He didn't know how to tell her. He was putting her at risk by even being here, by letting her get close.

And he feared more than anything that he would lose this, too: that one way or another she would be taken from him. That he would destroy her. That she would desert him.

That he would come to need her, only to lose her in the end.

That it would always be this way . . .

. . . and suddenly she was there, she was there, her hands reaching out to hold him, pull him into her warm embrace. He heard a distant keening noise, realized the sound was coming from him, a wordless lament.

He heard words, too, softly repeating over and over. It was Jane, talking to him; and her voice moved in concert with her hands, her hands that kept moving over his back and shoulders and neck and head.

It's okay, she was saying. Let it out. Let it all out. It's okay. . . .

And the words were an invitation, as Jane held and rocked him. Let it go, she said. Syd curled naked between her legs, fetal and defenseless.

And he began to cry: a heartfelt human sobbing that had nothing whatsoever to do with self-pity and absolutely everything to do with the simple honest expression of sadness. It was the first time in years he had been able to let himself cry without embarra.s.sment or reservation, untainted by bitterness or anger. He cried to say good-bye to Karen, and Nora, and the lives that might have been; he cried to say he was sorry for all the pain with his name on it.

Ultimately he cried simply because it hurt, and tears were the only honest reaction.

And that was the most amazing thing. The pain felt good; not because he enjoyed it, but because it was real, and to not acknowledge it was to cut himself off from a vital side of himself. Syd hugged Jane fiercely, gratefully. It was as though she had taken all of his anguish and transformed it, by nothing more than the force of her caring. Syd buried his face between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s; Jane stroked his hair and kissed the crown of his head, told him to sleep. They stayed like that until the first light of dawn crawled across the sky, until they finally fell asleep, enmeshed in a tired and gentle tangle of limbs.

It was an altogether wonderful feeling, one that he would carry with him always.

Until the day he died.

30.

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