Page 63 of Open Road

My hand closes in her hair.

She makes a sound around me, low, something between surprise and satisfaction, and her hands grip my thighs, taking me deeper. The control I’ve been running on a short leash unspools, not all the way, never all the way, but enough. My fist tightens, my hips move, and I give her what I’ve been holding back with the particular restraint of a man who still knows the difference between what he wants and what she can take.

She takes every inch of me.

The sounds she’s making are not the sounds of a woman managing a situation. They are the sounds of a woman entirely present in one, and the knowledge of it runs through me like a current, the specific voltage of being with someone who is here, chose to be here, and is telling me with everything except words what she wants from me.

The tension builds to a point I can’t hold, so I pull free.

She looks up, breathless, hair disheveled from my fist, her mouth swollen, and there is nothing in her face that looks like anything Craig Dawson ever put there. There’s no management or calculation. Color is high in her cheeks, her chest rises and falls, her eyes are dark and absolutely certain.

I reach down, pull her flush against my chest.

My hand finds the waistband of her panties. One pull, the fabric gives without argument, and she makes a sharp sound, something startled and bright. I turn her, my hand at her hip, my palm flat on her lower back, guiding her down until her hands find the floor and she’s on her knees, her back to me, her hair over one shoulder.

My hand runs up the inside of her thigh.

She’s soaking.

The sound I make is not controlled.

“Christ.” The word comes out rough. I run my fingers through her, slowly and thoroughly, feeling the full measure of what she’s been holding. She drops her head forward, presses back againstmy hand, and makes a sound that reaches every nerve I have. “Janie.”

“Don’t stop,” she says, breathlessly. Not a request but a directive.

I don’t stop.

When she’s shaking, I give her what she’s asking for.

The first stroke pulls the breath from both of us. She’s warm, tight, perfect, and her hands press flat on the floor, bracing, and I stay still for a full second because the alternative is this being over before she gets what she’s owed. Then I move. Slowly at first, measured, one hand at her hip and the other finding her waist, feeling the full curve of her, the softness I have tried not to think about in the specific way I’ve been thinking about it for weeks, then her head drops. The sounds she makes are low, continuous, and building. My hand moves around to where she needs it, and she cries out, sharp, her whole body clenching around me.

I drive deeper, and she takes me completely.

The pace builds into something neither of us is managing anymore. It’s something that has its own momentum, her back arching, my hands gripping, the room reduced to the sound of our breathing, the warm Florida afternoon coming through the blinds, and the particular truth of two people who found each other on the side of a dark highway and have been heading here ever since.

When she comes, it rolls through her in waves, and I feel it from the inside out.

I follow her over.

My forehead drops to the back of her shoulder. Her breathing is ragged, and mine isn’t far behind. The afternoon is warm and still around us, unhurried, the compound doing what it does beyond the window, the ordinary sounds of a place that held and is still standing.

We stay like that for a while.

Longer than a while.

She’s on her back, my arm across her, the dog tags cool between us. Her breathing has leveled. The light through the blinds has shifted, later now, the gold of it longer and lower.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” I say.

Janie doesn’t tense. She’s learned the difference between the tone of my voice and the weight I put on different words. She turns her head toward me and waits.

“I’m going for Craig.”

The room holds it.

“Not to kill him.” I want that to be clear. “Winchester’s cop has the USB drive. The ledger is already in the right hands. The divorce lawyers have been briefed, the accounts are flagged, and the properties are tied up in proceedings that started three days ago. Craig’s world is coming down on schedule, quietly and without a war.” I watch the ceiling. “He doesn’t know it yet.”

Janie listens.