Cover Of Night

Teague hoped she’d hold out for a while, though – just long enough for him to get to feeling better and get that bastard Creed taken care of.

Creed was going to regret pulling that trigger tonight. Payback was a bitch.

Chapter 22

Cate sleepily opened her eyes and found herself staring at the back of Cal’s head. There was no moment of incomprehension; she knew immediately where she was and who was lying beside her. A confusing rush of emotions swamped her, impressions and feelings and thoughts, all coming so fast she couldn’t sort them out. Events were sweeping her along, not giving her time to analyze or think about her decisions; the resulting sense of losing control was both terrifying and exciting. Something was happening between her and Cal when she wasn’t ready for anything to happen, with anyone, but now that the change had started, it was like a snowball gaining momentum as it plunged down a mountain.

She didn’t think he’d moved at all since going to sleep, and this evidence of his exhaustion filled her with both tenderness and a fierce sense of protectiveness. She wanted to lay her head against his back, but she remembered the cuts he’d suffered and didn’t want to hurt his wounds. She stared at his shaggy hair and wanted to run her fingers through it, but he needed all the sleep he could get and she didn’t want to wake him. She wanted to slide her hand inside the too-big waistband of his borrowed jeans and explore the bulge she’d seen in his underwear when he changed clothes, and the abrupt sharpness of her own sexual need was devastating.

She hadn’t wanted to have sex with anyone since Derek’s death. She had wanted sexual release, yes, but not with anyone – and for a long time she hadn’t even wanted that. Shock and grief had killed her sexuality, and she’d been so numb, so focused on the herculean task of getting through each daw that she hadn’t even mourned the loss of that part of herself. After a year or so, though. her physical needs had slowly resurfaced – muted, disconnected, but at least they existed. As far as having sex went, though, she hadn’t wanted that, hadn’t wanted the physical reality of touching and being touched. To so suddenly want – need-the rawness of penetration made her feel as if she were being unfaithful to Derek, as if she had completely let him go.

Perhaps she had. Perhaps time had so gradually moved her beyond him that she hadn’t noticed the moment when he faded from view. Not from her heart – she would always love him, but that love was static now, the details forever frozen and unchanging. Life wasn’t static; it moved on, it changed, and what had once been so immediate instead became a dearly beloved memory that was part of the fabric of her being. Because she had loved Derek, she had become the person she was now. And that new woman was poised on the edge of something frightening and exciting and possibly life-changing. She didn’t know what would happen, but at least she was willing to find out.

Assuming she and Cal both lived, that is. For a few sleepy moments, pondering the resurrection of emotion and need, and the delicious unknown of a possible new relationship, she had forgotten their bizarre, frightening situation. Reality came crashing back; yet at the same time, the whole night seemed surreal. Things like this just didn’t happen. This was so far outside her experience that she had no reference point, no clue as to what she should be doing or what would happen next.

She listened intently: if dawn had arrived vet, she couldn’t tell. Everyone around them was asleep, or at least trying to be. Several different snores punctuated the silence, and every so often she would hear someone shifting position. Once there was a quiet murmur that she thought might belong to Neenah, who was taking care of Joshua Creed.

Cal reached back under the blanket and put his hand on her hip, silently pulling her even closer to him.

Tears stung her eyes as she nestled close, as close as she could get. This-this was what she’d missed most, the quiet companionship in the night, the knowledge that she wasn’t alone. They hadn’t so much as kissed, yet somehow, on some level, they were already linked. She felt it as surely as she knew when the twins were all right, or when they were getting into trouble. She didn’t have to see them; she didn’t have to hear them; she just knew.

"Go back to sleep," he whispered softly. "You’ll need all the rest you can get."

She wanted him to hold her, wanted to feel his arms around her. When he’d held her and Neenah after the frightening episode with Mellor, for the first time in a long while Cate had felt… sate. Not just because Cal had protected them, though she w?as bemused to realize that was indeed part of her response; some primitive reactions evidently didn’t go away. The biggest part of it, though, was that suddenly she hadn’t felt so alone.

The words asking him to hold her trembled on the verge of being spoken, but she held them back. If he held her, if he put his hands on her body, she suspected more than just holding would occur. He was a man, and he wanted her. A thrill of delight went through her as she fully acknowledged that startling fact. He might be shy – no, she wasn’t even certain of that anymore, because a shy man wouldn’t have dressed in front of everyone the way he’d done. He was definitely considerate, in the way he was keeping his back to her. They were surrounded by people, and while the arrangement of boxes and the curtain might give them a little privacy, it certainly wasn’t enough to have any sexual intimacy. Their feet protruded beyond the boxes, and if Cal suddenly moved behind her, she knew the speculation that would go on. Others in this basement were awake, too, listening to rustlings and murmurs.

Public sex – or even semipublic sex – wasn’t her thing, so she was grateful for his circumspection. She wanted to feel him behind her, to feel his arms around her. but she knew that if he held her, his hand would soon be sliding down the front of her pajama bottoms.