“You better answer it,” she said. “In case it’s Gus.”
Fucking hell. They couldn’t have ten minutes alone without cancer barging in?
“I’m not finished with you,” he vowed as he reached back and took the phone out.
“Who is it?”
Daniel frowned at the number. “It’s not Gus. I’ll tell you that much.”
FIFTEEN
AS DANIEL ANSWERED the call, he watched Lydia ease back onto the Harley’s gas tank and handlebars. He had to imagine that the contours were at odds with her spine, and it was clear the gauges prevented her from having a head rest, but she didn’t seem to care. Not with the way she was looking up at him from behind hooded lids—and man, that stare was the medicine he needed. In this moment, right here, right now, she didn’t appear to see the knit cap on his head, or his sunken eyes and cheeks, or his narrow shoulders—
“Hello?” came the female voice over the connection. “You there?”
“Yeah,” he murmured. “I’m here.”
Lydia reached up and ran a hand down the side of her throat… and over her breast. As his brain scrambled, he tried to concentrate on the voice in his ear, but it was hard as she toyed with her taut nipple.
“I’m sorry if I was a bitch earlier,” Alex Hess announced.
“You’re welcome—” He cursed. How the fuck did people talk to each other? “I mean, no problem.”
Lydia brought her free hand up to her mouth, and caressed her lower lip, as on her breast, she circled, circled… circled what he desperately needed to suck on.
“Listen… I’ll meet you tonight, if you still want,” the woman who called said.
Daniel swallowed. Licked his lips. Tried to remember how his woman tasted.
Decided to find out.
Except then the phone call sank in. “Yes, we’d like that.”
Lydia’s hand stilled and then dropped down to her waist. As she cocked an eyebrow, he held up a finger for her to hang on a sec.
“What changed your mind?” he asked.
Alex Hess? Lydia mouthed.
When he nodded, she sat up and shuffled back a little. Then she lifted her palms, as if to say, Now, what?
“Hello?” he repeated.
That deep, intense voice on the other side dropped even lower. “I’ll explain when I see you.”
This is for Lydia, he reminded himself, as the hassle suddenly seemed like a waste of time.
“Fine. Where?”
“Deer Mountain. Up on the summit. That’s where we need to go.”
“What time?”
“I’m off work. So midnight.”
“Okay. We’ll see you then.”
As the call was cut, Daniel tried to put his phone back where it’d been, but between the shaking in his hand and the thin slot of the pocket, repeated attempts failed and he didn’t want to drop the thing.
“So is that cool?” he asked. “We go meet her at twelve tonight?”
Lydia sat up. Backed up farther. Put her hands on his legs. As she rubbed up and down his thighs, he could tell that she was keeping her touch light, and he wished he didn’t appreciate the awareness. He wished he didn’t need it.
“What,” he said as she didn’t reply.
“I’ll absolutely meet her. I know it’s important to you. But why the mountain?”
Daniel swallowed a curse, though he wasn’t frustrated with her. He just knew what she was thinking. “I can make it up there. The Wolf Study Project has an ATV, right—and I know the gas pan was fixed because I was the one who repaired it. We’ll just park at your work and take it up the trail.”
“Did she say where on the summit?”
“Where the overlook is, I’m assuming.” He shook his head. “I know you hate that hotel across the valley. I do, too, but we can suck it up for an hour.”
He was pretending that the sight of that enormous monstrosity of a resort was the problem. And the fact that he didn’t have the energy to argue about whether he had enough energy to make it up the elevation on a four-wheeler, much less meet with some stranger over something as stressful as Lydia being left alone in the world, was probably the best commentary on his fitness for the plan there was.
But it was amazing what you could do when you had to.
“I’ll be fine,” he said. “Honest. We’ll just get the ATV and—”
“That fuel pan didn’t stay fixed, but you know what we can do? Take one of C.P.’s SUVs up the back side. I’ll just run over to the lookout and bring her to you and the car. The view is not the point.”
“No, it’s not. But…”
The urge to argue was so strong, he opened his mouth, except then he realized something. How often had he fought against her just because he hated his own limitations? A lot. And she, just like everyone, gave him leeway because he was sick and he was a for-now-still-living tragedy. How many lines had he pushed through simply because he was frustrated… and what had it cost Lydia on the other side?
His illness made him a suffering saint of sorts, giving him a Teflon coating when it came to being reasonable.
“You know what,” he said softly. “I think that’s a really good plan.”
The easing in Lydia’s body was immediate, the tension flowing out of her shoulders, her breasts rising and falling as she exhaled.
“It’ll be great,” she said. “I promise—”
Crack!
The sharp impact shocked him out of his thoughts.
“Oh, no! Your phone.”
With a lurch, Lydia leaned to the side—and then she slipped off the bike, her synthetic hiking pants offering no resistance to the black paint job on the tank. He tried to catch her, but with his useless hands, she slipped right through his grasp—
The lithe way she threw out her palm and stopped a face-first crash was something he envied. But it was too late for his phone. The screen was splintered in the corner that had taken the brunt of the hit.
“I think it still works.” She curled over on her side and tilted the unit up. “Oh, it lights up. Good.”
Extending her arm, she held the iPhone out to him.
That was when they heard the helicopter.
As he took the cell back, they both looked in the direction of the thumping noise even though they couldn’t see anything as there were no windows around. The sound was unmistakable, however.
“Guess the boss is back,” he said.
“Guess so.”
He looked back down at his woman. “Can I be honest, too?”
Lydia nodded, even though fear crossed her face. “Yes. Of course.”
“I want to keep kissing you. I want to lift up that shirt of yours… and I want to suck on you while I strip those fucking pants off you and rip your panties off. I want… to trade places with you, and have you sit on my bike with one foot on the muffler and the other on the turned tire… and I want to eat you out until you come against my face.”
Her expression shifted as he talked, her mouth parting once again, her lids lowering, her head falling back as if she were already up there, already on the bike with her thighs spread for him, already holding him in place.