Black Ember Page 10

  “I’m…not afraid,” she mumbled, her brain hopelessly outmatched by her nerve endings. “I’m not.”

  And then, to prove it, she pulled away and threw open the door, and jumped down onto the ground, and raced toward the tower.

  She had one hand on the first rung when Zane practically tackled her from behind. He wrapped his arms around her and dragged her back from the tower, toward the little building that once housed the station’s offices.

  “You really are out of your mind, aren’t you?” he said. “You can’t climb that thing during a lightning storm!”

  “I know that,” Caryn said, irritated, even though she had somehow momentarily lost her senses. Zane had her in such a spin that she had been about to ascend a giant metal lightning rod, ensuring she’d end the evening as black and scary-looking as her eyeliner.

  “That’s not why I brought you here,” he went on, taking her hand and pulling her toward the building. “This is the highest point in the county. Out back here, the land slopes down all the way to the Yellow River Valley, where you can see…”

  They followed a narrow sidewalk around the building. In back, an overhang protected a small patio with a couple of weathered benches. Zane sat, pulling her down next to him.

  “…Everything,” he finished.

  Caryn looked down into the valley, thunder rolling through the sky above them, and leaned into Zane’s body, his arm encircling her comfortingly. And then she saw them: two—no, three—bright orange flares dotting the vast black plain below.

  “Oh, wow! Are those rigs bringing up oil?”

  “Nope, but they will be. Right now they’ve made the first bore and that’s the trapped gas burning off. They have to let it burn until it’s safe to bring in the rest of the equipment. It’s like the world’s biggest bonfire. You can see them from miles away. I gotta say, I never get tired of that view.”

  “It’s beautiful,” Caryn breathed. “And eerie and kind of…lonely looking.”

  There was that word again—an odd theme to thread through this evening, when she hadn’t been alone at all except for the few moments she took to visit the ladies’ room. Together, she and Zane stared at the far-off fires. After a while, when Caryn’s eyes had adjusted to the darkness, she picked out other, smaller lights even farther away.

  Zane pointed out the rigs in various states of the drill cycle, explaining how the equipment was moved to the site, erected, and put into action. He clearly loved what he did, but it was the reassuring cadence of his voice, rather than his words, that captivated Caryn. She let her eyes drift, watching the sparkling lights through half-lowered lashes.

  Then lightning burst out right over them, followed almost immediately by a deafening clap of thunder. Caryn practically leapt off the bench, but Zane pulled her back down, shushing her.

  “That’s the tower doing its job,” he murmured, pulling Caryn back into her arms. “You really are safe here. I wouldn't have brought you if you weren’t.”

  “Just so you know,” Caryn said shakily, “if you end up getting struck by lightning, I haven’t got the faintest idea how to resuscitate you.”

  “I’ll take my chances,” Zane said. “If you leave me for dead and save yourself, I’ll understand.”

  “I’m running for the nearest…um, what exactly am I supposed to run for? Not a tree, right?”

  Zane shook his head. “Where on earth did you grow up? I learned all this in kindergarten, during disaster drills. Wait, I’ve got it—you never went to school, right? Child of the streets? Learned from hard knocks? You probably can’t even do math, which would explain why you suck as a waitress.”

  Caryn laughed, wondering what Zane would think of her summa cum laude degree from Stanford. “Something like that. But I was born in California, if you must know. Good with earthquakes. Not so much with tornadoes, tropical storms, or, as it turns out, lightning.”

  “California, eh?” Zane turned her slightly in his arms so he could study her face. She could feel his breath faintly on her skin, but she couldn’t make out many details in the darkness. “A clue. That must have been before you moved to the projects in Queens, right? Except for some reason, I believe you this time.”

  She hadn’t meant to say even that—hadn’t meant to reveal anything about herself—and now that she had, she felt vulnerable. Like she’d made a misstep, invited disaster, broken the rules she’d set for herself.

  “Well, it was a long time ago,” she amended. “Just when I was a kid. I haven’t lived there in years.”

  “Tell me more.”

  “No, sorry. I can’t.”

  “You mean you won’t.”

  Caryn didn’t answer, figuring that silence was her best bet to prevent incriminating herself.

  “You’re the most interesting woman I’ve met in a long time, Barracuda,” Zane finally said, tracing his finger over the surface of her face, as though trying to learn it in the darkness, as a blind man might.

  “I’m not staying,” she blurted out. Damn. So not what she meant to say. “I mean, this is just a…layover. A few days here and then I’m moving on.”

  “A rolling stone,” Zane said, nodding as though to himself. “Don’t fence you in. That’s what you’re saying, right?”

  “Um, well…”

  “Loud and clear, Carrie. You don’t want to get tied down. Well, I hate to tell you, sweetheart, but that makes you just about perfect for me, because as it happens, we’re two of a kind.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Caryn demanded, her thoughts becoming increasingly muddled by the things he was doing, his fingers on her skin, his other hand in her hair.

  “I only do brief encounters myself,” he growled. “You want to love me and leave me, you’ll get no complaints. I like you—a lot, actually, and maybe that’s enough. Let me enjoy you while you’re here, whether it’s a day or a week, and I guarantee I’ll work hard to be memorable.”

  “You’re offering me a one-night stand?”

  “Why not? You’re the one who kissed me in the parking lot before—seemed like a loud and clear invitation.”

  Why did the idea hurt? Why was she hesitating, now, when she’d given herself permission to be someone different for a few days? Someone who had flings without investing her heart—someone who took what she needed without asking permission and without worrying about everyone else’s feelings.

  With Zane, she could be herself. She could let herself feel and do the things she’d never felt comfortable doing with Nathanial. Oh, Nathanial was a considerate lover, experienced, technically proficient, but Caryn had always felt like she had to be equally perfect to please him. She always worried that she was too loud or too clumsy or that she did the wrong thing at the wrong time. She worried about her hair and whether she’d shaved all the right places; she wondered if she measured up to the other women he’d been with. Sometimes she made excuses rather than subject herself to the exhausting parade of insecurities that had come to be connected with intimacy, and a tiny part of her, when he called off the wedding, had been secretly relieved that she wouldn’t have to worry about having sex with him any more.

  But Zane was different. When he touched her, both her body and brain went crazy, rational thoughts disappeared out the window, and she was concerned only with one thing: more.

  “You haven’t given me an answer yet, Carrie,” Zane muttered, his voice dipping into a low register. “In fact you’re what we might call an uncooperative witness. So here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to kiss you, just like you kissed me. You can stop me at any time. You can say no or push me away, and we’re done, no hard feelings. But if you don’t…”

  He moved closer, until her face was only inches from hers, his fingers wrapped in her hair, tugging her closer. “If you don’t, we’re going to assume that’s tacit approval. And I’m going to keep going. You can tell me what you want, and I’ll do my best to satisfy you…but if you leave it up to me we’re going to do it my way. I’m goin
g to do exactly what I want to you, and get exactly what I want from you. Do you understand, Carrie?”

  Did she? Her body certainly seemed to think so; she felt like she was both melting from the inside out and energized with raging need. Every word he uttered made it more intense, every threat—because that was what he was doing, no matter how many disclaimers and exit plans he couched it in—escalated her hunger.

  “I understand,” she whispered.

  Then he kissed her.

  It wasn’t a practiced, competent kiss like the ones in Nathanial’s repertoire. It was urgent and demanding and every bit as rough as he’d promised. Caryn kissed back, biting him on the lower lip before she even realized what she was doing, eliciting a groan. He pulled her roughly onto his lap, her legs straddling him, her tight skirt pushed up around her hips, her knees on the cold metal of the bench. Behind her, she could hear the thunder rolling far in the distance, and she felt a few drops of rain on her neck and arms.

  “It’s raining,” she mumbled.

  “That’s not ‘no,’” Zane replied, pushing her flimsy top up so his hands were on her body, taking her measure, exploring, learning her.

  He was right: she hadn’t said no. She kept her mouth shut.

  But only for a moment, because he found the front clasp of her cheap pink bra and tore it open without bothering to figure out how to undo the clasp. The little plastic piece went flying, and she didn’t even care, especially when his fingers found her aching, sensitive nipples…and then his mouth.

  The lightning continued to flash. The rain poured down all around them. And on the forgotten bench behind the abandoned radio station, Caryn let her inner Carrie go for a wild ride.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The ride back to the ranch was a silent one. Carrie busied herself with fastening her bra back together with a piece of wire Zane found in the toolbox he kept in the truck bed. He glanced over at her from time to time while he drove, slowly because the rain was still coming down, but for her part she seemed to be trying hard to pretend he didn’t exist.

  She was drenched. They both were. Funny how neither of them cared at the time, when the winds changed direction and the rain slanted directly into their little shelter under the overhang. She’d been on top of him, moving like a wild creature, the wind snatching up her cries and carrying them away. Her nails tore into his back, under the shirt she’d unbuttoned—well, she’d undone the first few buttons, anyway, but then she’d gotten impatient and just ripped the last one off—and when she finally went over the top she’d bitten him above his collarbone, hard.

  And that had just been the first time.

  The dashboard clock showed it was nearly 3:00 in the morning, late enough that the guests should all be gone and, hopefully, the wedding party tucked safely in bed, getting their rest for tomorrow. Zane needed some time to think through what just happened. He wasn’t dumb enough to believe Carrie would want to sleep in his room; he’d made it clear that this was just a recreational romp, and she’d agreed with him practically before he could finish his sentence. Zane had perfected the art of getting women to go home when he was done making love to them—waking up with a woman tended to give them all kinds of wrong ideas—but he was pretty sure that wouldn’t be a problem with Carrie.

  Sure enough, when he pulled up in front of the ranch, she yawned elaborately without looking at him. “Sure is late, I’m going to just turn in,” she said before jumping out of the truck. He watched her make a dash for the front door through the rain, her legs flashing in the porch light. He recognized it again, the wildness inside her that had nothing to do with her ridiculous clothes and makeup that was much too intense to be covered up by a little poor acting.

  It was true, what he’d told her back at the radio station. She truly was the most fascinating woman he’d ever met, a walking, talking contradiction in terms. She wanted the world to think she was tough, brazen, out only for herself. But that all fell away the minute Deneen held up that stupid purple napkin. Not only did Carrie offer to help, she singlehandedly transformed the table into a showpiece. Not something they taught in juvie, Zane was willing to bet. And then, watching Carrie with Turk and Opal—a pair of tough old birds if Zane had ever seen one—she had them eating out of her hand, which told him that she’d worked hard and done her part.

  In fact, the only area in which she’d proved herself to be a pure, ungovernable hellion was when she was in his arms. His body responded, just remembering the last several hours, the things she had done and demanded. How a woman learned to do all those things, he had no idea…and he found that he didn’t really want to know, either.

  Zane, known as Mr. Teflon around the firm among the younger associates who saw the women come and go from his life, was experiencing something he’d never felt before. The burning sensation in his heart, the pressure behind his eyeballs, the urge to clench his fists or maybe even hit something—he was pretty sure it was jealousy. He’d seen the way the men looked at Carrie the last two nights at the bar, and he didn’t like it. Not at all.

  And even worse, he was experiencing none of his usual urge to distance himself, to gently push away the woman he’d just bedded. Instead, he wanted her again. Right now, in fact, which wasn’t going to happen for all kinds of reasons, not the least of which was the fact that his fellow groomsmen were in bed on either side of him, separated only by thin walls—and Carrie wasn’t the kind of woman you could ask to keep it down. But there was also the issue that she didn’t want anything to do with him, and hadn’t since the second time she’d writhed and scratched and moaned her way to satisfaction on the bench.

  Zane sighed. He felt like he was fourteen again, painfully attracted to Miss Atkinson, who taught Health and wore thin little flowered dresses and bewitching high heels. He wanted what he couldn’t have. Well, he couldn’t have it again, anyway, a fact that had him feeling like he often did when he was an attorney and lost a case—beating himself up for what he should have said and done differently. He didn’t think it was a case of gross incompetence this time, as he’d been told on more than one occasion that his skill with women was considerable, but—just as had happened much too often at the firm, he’d found himself with an impossible case, one he couldn’t win.

  Because winning, with Carrie, suddenly seemed to mean getting the girl.

  And Carrie wasn’t a girl he could have. Wasn’t a girl anyone could have, apparently, for more than the time it took for her to drift through town.

  An unfamiliar sensation was taking hold of him. Just as he’d been tossed like a rogue wave into the unpleasant feeling of jealousy, now he was finding himself consumed with an unfamiliar sense of urgency. Balls-to-the-wall, hell-bent, all-consuming determination. Mr. Teflon, the man who walked away every time the going got tough, the guy who could smooth talk his way to the exit like no one else, was digging in his heels and getting ready to fight. He knew, for what felt like the first time in his entire life, exactly what he wanted. And what he wanted was Carrie.

  Which was crazy. Because she wasn’t staying, and she didn’t want him. So this was a doomed mission. But if all Zane could have was a few days with her, then he didn’t plan to miss a minute.

  He got out of the car and stalked toward the house, barely noticing the rain pelting him, ready to fight for what he wanted.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Caryn heard the front door, and footsteps on the hardwood floors, but it was still a shock when Zane stomped into the kitchen and stood inches away from her, glaring and dripping water on the floor.

  “You’re going to be my date to the wedding tomorrow,” he snapped, with about as much warmth as if she’d run over his dog. “Wear something that doesn’t look like you stole it off a hooker.”

  Caryn continued to stir her tea, keeping a neutral expression on her face, though her heart did a backflip. Apparently she found unreasonable, demanding, physically intimidating men attractive—who knew? Or maybe it was even more primitive than that. Now th
at she’d had the best sex of her life with this near-stranger, he’d somehow imprinted her with an irrational but unavoidable sexual response.

  Great: for the rest of her days, was she doomed to be turned on by every dumb oaf in a nasty mood?

  “Wow, nice talk, sailor,” Jayne said, coming into the kitchen with her phone in her hand.

  Zane reddened. He must have thought that Caryn was alone in the kitchen. And she had been, just long enough to find the teabags and microwave some water. She too had assumed everyone else was asleep.

  “I wasn’t talking to you,” Zane snapped.

  “Hey, watch your tone. I’m the bride. You have to be nice to me.”

  “Why aren’t you asleep?”

  “I was. But now I’m awake. I’m having a crisis.”

  “Dress won’t fit over the baby bump?” Zane snarled, though he looked abashed. “Maybe you should have laid off the peanut butter cups.”

  “No, my dress fits just fine,” Jayne sighed, sinking into one of the chairs. Caryn thought she looked wonderful, though she hadn’t really known many pregnant women. The models and designers she worked with rarely had children, and her hectic schedule meant that Caryn had lost touch with her friends from college, so she knew their kids only from Christmas cards and Facebook updates. “And Carrie, if you really would consider being his date, you might just be able to solve my problem.”

  “I wouldn’t feel right intruding on your special day,” Caryn said, though she had certainly attended the weddings of people she liked far less than she did Jayne, despite the fact that they’d just met. “But what can I do to help?”

  “It’s just that one of my bridesmaids had an emergency. I mean, Ashley is fine, but one of her kids fell off a slide today and broke his arm, and they had to take him to the children’s hospital in Minot to put a special plate in. The kid’ll be good as new, but Ashley’s not leaving his side. Which any normal person would totally understand, but my crazy sister is throwing a fit. She says I can’t have four groomsmen and only three bridesmaids in the photos.”