MORE THAN A HUNCH Page 3

  I saw promise in his. "For luck," he whispered. Suddenly he stepped around me and ducked beneath the stairs. He disappeared entirely into the shadows. Seconds later he whistled, a sharp hiss meant for my ears alone.

  Still trembling from his sensual assault, I scooted nervously into the darkness, close beside him, inhaling the scent of his after-shave along with the more pungent odor of nervous sweat and healthy male.

  The sweat could have been mine...I was terrified, hunched there in the dark beneath the rusted stairs, frightened as much by my sense of danger as the actual circumstances.

  Martin tapped my shoulder and pointed to a small door tucked up against the building. I'm convinced the Fates smile on fools...by all rights the door should have been locked, but when Martin tugged at the handle a ragged whisper of metal on concrete echoed eerily in the still evening. We both froze.

  When nothing jumped out of the dark and attacked, I pulled my little penlight out of my pocket. Martin looked at it and frowned.

  "Is that all the light you have?"

  Granted, it wasn’t much, but it was better than what he’d brought.

  Nothing.

  I said as much.

  Suddenly, he looked bereft, as if his inattention to that one detail might cost Melinda her life.

  Wordlessly, I handed the flashlight over to him.

  He clicked it on. The pale glow barely reached the ground.

  We inched along the wall, running our fingertips across the damp concrete surface to keep our bearings.

  My hunch that Melinda was nearby grew stronger, but so did another feeling, a disturbing sense we weren’t alone. I dared not make a sound to warn Martin, unwilling to announce our presence any further. Martin moved soundlessly about five paces ahead of me, a dark silhouette of leashed power barely visible in the feeble glow from the penlight.

  Suddenly a huge shadow blocked even that pale glimmer.

  Martin grunted and disappeared in darkness. I dropped to the floor and rolled in the opposite direction, banging my head on something hard and metallic before coming to rest in what felt like a jumble of wires and baled paper.

  The overhead lights flashed on, momentarily blinding me, but I was partially concealed by the untidy stacks of bales and boxes. I took advantage of the sudden noise and confusion to inch my way deeper into the pile. An excited mixture of English and Spanish echoed off the walls, but none of the voices belonged to Martin.

  Then I heard Delgado. No mistaking that voice, the one that reminded me of Peter Lorre with a head cold. "Hawley, you fool," he sneered. I heard a thump and a groan. "You just signed two death warrants...yours and your daughter’s."

  Another dull thud, a cry of pain. "Eddie, turn off the bitch’s air and throw this jerk into the storeroom. We’ll do him later. I want him alive at least ten more minutes, long enough to know his kid’s dead."

  Melinda! She was here. But where? I heard a door slam at the far end of the building, then silence. I had no idea where they’d taken Martin or hidden his daughter.

  I had to believe Martin would be okay. Right now, I was Melinda’s only chance.

  Working my way around the bales as quickly and silently as possible, I reached a row of doors evenly spaced along one wall. I tried the handle on the first one. Locked! I tried the second, my hands slipping on the cold steel handle. Two more to go and Melinda was running out of time!

  I reached for the third, felt the handle give just as blunt fingers grabbed me by the throat. Grabbed me and tightened with almost inhuman strength.

  I’ve tried to be logical about what happened next—my journalistic mind works best with logic—but it’s not easy to explain in a logical manner.

  I remember trying to scream, but I made no sound. I scratched and clawed at my attacker’s hands with all my strength. I can still feel the pain of my fingernails tearing, the growing pressure on my throat. The room dimming, then utter darkness.

  Suddenly I was floating outside my body. There was no pain, no sense of fear as I watched myself hanging limply in the strangling grasp of a muscular, dark haired man.

  Then I was racing through a dark tunnel while some odd little part of my mind recalled the article I'd been writing, the research I'd done. I remember mentally patting myself on the back, knowing I'd been right on target in my descriptions of near death experiences.

  But was this near death or that final journey? I felt no fear, only regret and curiosity—regret I'd not have the chance to know Martin better, not ever experience those long legs tangled in mine, those beautiful hands touching, exploring...as for the questions? They faded in a heartbeat.

  Heartbeat. Heart beat. Heart. Beat.

  Pounding rhythm of my heart.

  Beat of my heart, beat of my heart, rush of my blood, beating, beating with the speed of the wind, the sound of the rushing wind and rushing blood until I was speed and wind, accelerating faster, ever faster, rushing headlong toward a brilliant shimmer of light. The velocity—exhilarating, the goal—seductive.

  I could not deny the call of the light.

  Figures appeared, familiar faces out of my past.

  Family, friends long gone...there was the Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia, guitar in hand and I swear the guy he was talking to looked just like Elvis.

  I'd been wrong about the King. He hadn't faked his death after all.

  I wanted to stop, say hello, apologize to Elvis for my woefully inaccurate story. But the seductive lure of the light increased, coupled with a sense of undefined urgency. Undefined until a slender figure stepped into my path and halted my headlong rush.

  Melinda Hawley grabbed my arm. I felt her life force, strong and pulsing in her grasp. Her dark eyes pleaded with me. "Go back," she said. "Please. For me. For my father. For yourself. It’s not our time. You're the only one who can save us. Open the fourth door. There’s a panel hidden behind the filing cabinet. Move the cabinet and press the upper right corner of the panel. Hurry, please!"

  I looked into her eyes—looked into them and saw her soul and the soul of her father. Saw my own reflection staring back at me; saw the loneliness that was my life.

  Saw my future in the choices before me. Follow the light, give way to the beguiling lure of oblivion, or return to the torment of Delgado's henchman, to pain, to destiny unknown.

  Return to a chance with Martin Hawley.

  Hell, what kind of a choice was that?

  Suddenly I was back in my body, my throat hurt like hell and little Billy Whitaker, the pudgy DA, was leaning over me, blowing air into my lungs. He certainly wasn't the prince I'd choose to kiss me back to life, but at least he got the job done.

  Gasping, wrenching my face away from his, I grabbed his arm, ordered him to help me up. Damn it hurt to talk! "Quick, the fourth door. Melinda’s behind the fourth door!" The harsh whisper I managed to croak out must have made some kind of sense. He didn’t hesitate even though I doubt he understood a word I said.

  Whitaker didn't waste time on the locked handle. He slammed against the door, splintering the frame and exposing a beautiful, expensively furnished office, completely out of place within the boundaries of the dingy warehouse.

  Still reeling from lack of oxygen, I stumbled through the door after him. Together we shoved the cabinet aside. The panel was right where it should be. When I pressed the upper right corner, a seam opened in the perfect hardwood floor, exposing a doorway into a hidden, coffin-like room.

  Melinda was there, curled up in the fetal position. Bill jumped down into the box and shook her. She didn’t respond. He leaned over and, just as he had done for me, blew into her mouth, filling her lungs with life-giving air. Thank God the little guy knew his First Aid. I held my breath, knowing she had to live, knowing it wasn’t her time to die.

  Her slender body shuddered and her dark eyes opened. "Nita, you made it," was all she said before her eyes closed again. But she was breathing on her own and I gave myself permission to crumple in a heap on the floor.

  Martin ca
ught me before my head hit the hardwood, then spotted Melinda and dropped to his knees, still holding me tightly against his chest. "We’re too late," he whispered. His voice cracked as he rocked me. I wrapped my arms around him and told him everything was gonna be fine.

  About then Bill looked up at me, his face a mask of curiosity, and said, "Nita, I didn’t know you and Melinda knew each other."

  * * * * *

  Somehow, once the emergency technicians decided Melinda belonged in the hospital for observation but I didn't, Martin and I ended up at his ritzy little bachelor pad in the Marina District. He kept the place for those nights when he didn't want to cross the bridge to his palatial home on the far side of the bay.

  I stood in the darkness before a huge double-paned window and watched the lights from the cars streaming across the Golden Gate. I wondered if Martin kept this elegant row house for the nights he wanted to be alone with a woman, since Melinda still lived at home.

  "No," he said.

  I turned and took the glass of brandy he handed to me. "I didn't say anything." I frowned, too tired to argue. Light from the street lamp below glinted off his high cheekbones, outlined the sensual curve of his lips "No, what?"

  "No. There's no other woman."

  "How did you even know I wondered?" I sipped the brandy, remembered my first impression of Martin's voice. Bittersweet chocolate and fine brandy. Was it only this afternoon?

  "I know much about you, Nita Franklin." He cupped my face in those long fingers. His palms were firm and warm. His fingertips lightly massaged my temples. "I know you've come to me in my dreams, a succubus there to steal my soul. But you didn't steal it, did you? No. You've saved it."

  He leaned forward and kissed me. The kiss he'd begun earlier at the warehouse. The kiss he'd almost taken in my dreams.

  Imposing even in passion, he drew the air from my lungs and all conscious thought from my mind. The glass of brandy tipped from my lifeless fingers and shattered on the elegant Italian marble floor.

  I heard the sound as if from a great distance, muffled beneath the pounding of my heart, the steady beat of his.

  He lifted me, his strong arms beneath my back and knees, our lips still connected in a sensual exploration that sent my senses flying. He carried me to the white leather couch and sat with me across his lap.

  His hand traced the curve of my calf and I was inordinately thankful I'd worn the silk and linen slacks instead of sweatpants. The fabric slipped beneath his fingers, the slick rustling shimmer a counterpoint to the soft, breathy moans escaping my lips.

  He reached the zipper at the side of my slacks, lowered it and slipped his hand inside. His fingers deftly traced my belly, found my navel then trailed lower, slipping beneath the elastic of my bikini cut briefs until they tangled in the soft brush of hair at my mound.

  His arm supported my back as I arched my hips, inviting him closer. One finger trailed sweetly over my greedy clitoris, circled it a couple of times then slipped deeper, into the moisture gathering there at his command. He moved much too slowly, mere fractions of a millimeter, until I groaned in frustration.

  He swallowed the sound and appeased me with the slightest advance, dipping another finger between my labia. I felt the tissues swelling, softening for him.

  He found a rhythm, then, a sweet tempo that had me bucking my hips in counterpoint as he played me.

  It was one damned, short song. My climax slammed into me before I even had a chance to wallow in the foreplay. I cried out and buried my head against his shoulder. He thrust his fingers deep inside, my muscles clenched around his hand as if trying their damnedest to hold on to him.

  He chuckled, nudged my head back with his forehead and kissed my chin. His fingers were still deep inside, my vagina still clenching, releasing, clenching. My mouth was wide open, sucking in as much air as I could get. I should have felt like a beached salmon, but the look in his eyes made me beautiful.

  He held me a moment longer, then slipped his fingers from me, sliding over my clit on the way out. I jumped at the contact and he had the nerve to tickle that blasted pack of nerve endings one more time.

  "For good measure," he whispered. Then he took his fingers, the ones he'd just fucked me with, still glistening with my juices, and slipped them between his lips.

  I almost came again, watching him lick my essence off those long, slim fingers. He'd done the same in my dream this afternoon, suckling my fingers after I'd touched myself.

  I'd never known a man who found my taste desirable, never appreciated the complete eroticism of the act.

  He lifted me as if I weighed nothing, helped me turn so that I straddled his waist. Then he undressed me. I tried to help him with his shirt, but my hands trembled with unspent passion. I wanted him.

  He unbuttoned my blouse and slipped it over my shoulders, carefully undid my bra. The clasp in the front parted easily and the soft cups fell away, but he caught both breasts in his hands and supported them, staring.

  The power of his eyes pulled my darkened nipples into tight, aching kernels of pure desire. He rubbed his thumbs lightly across the tips and I felt a spiral of heat course from breasts to groin.

  His hands slipped over my ribcage, leaving my breasts alone and bereft until he hooked his fingers in the loosened waistband of my slacks. I stretched up on my knees as Martin shoved the slacks over my hips.

  With a quick twist and a squirm, I raised up enough that he managed to get the slacks and my briefs off my legs with a minimum of fuss. The minute the fabric shimmered to the ground, he took the advantage, grasping my rear in both his hands and lifting me closer to his mouth.

  I wanted to watch, wanted to study the intense gleam in his eyes, the slight fluttering at the side of his nostrils, the clenched jaw as he fought his own need.

  I was doing this to him. Me, forty-eight year old Nita Franklin, the menopausal broad who hadn't been laid in over a year. Merely by being here, being female, being the woman Martin Hawley had chosen, I was the one responsible for the catch in his breath, the obvious tenting at the front of his loose slacks.

  I closed my eyes. Closed them against the need I saw on his face, the desire so intense it was too personal to observe. Closed them just as his lips found my breast, as his tongue encircled my engorged nipple and drew it into his mouth.

  I moaned. It had to be me. Martin had too much class to moan with need and demand. Then my eyes fluttered open and I saw the stark desire on his face, his high cheekbones and sharp jaw line all shadows and angles in the darkened room.

  He lifted me off his lap and slowly stretched me out along the couch. The muscles in his arms trembled as if he fought himself for control.

  He brushed the hair back from my forehead and I saw my own naked hunger in his eyes. I grabbed his hand and kissed the palm, running my tongue along the thick pad at the base of his thumb then drawing his middle finger between my lips, suckling it.

  Martin grasped my chin with his fingers and moaned. There was no doubt in my mind this time. The sound was his. I slipped his finger from my mouth and licked his palm once more, turning him free.

  He slipped lower, kissing his way down my belly, across my naked thighs, his tongue leaving a damp trail leading to the crease where groin met thigh.

  He kneaded my buttocks with his strong hands, lifting me ever closer to his mouth. There was no subtlety in his approach. He lightly kissed my mons, then wrapped his lips around my clitoris as if it were a nipple made for suckling.

  Gently, so gently I wanted to cry, he suckled that tiny nubbin, soothing it with his tongue, his warm lips an exquisite caress more intimate than anything I'd ever experienced. My entire being centered in that one spot so that I was only peripherally aware of his fingers.

  Kneading, massaging, rubbing, his fingers growing ever closer to that other nerve center, his touch so stealthy I was barely aware when he dipped into my vagina, covering his fingers with moisture, using that slick lubricant I knew he favored to rub silky rings around my a
nus.

  He suckled my clit, once more finding a rhythm between lips and fingers. My legs, drawn up, knees bent to allow him full access, fell open even further. My fingers somehow found themselves entangled in the thick hair tumbling over his forehead.

  Once more I felt myself peaking, the coil of need tightening my muscles, pulling a low wail from somewhere deep in my chest. Suddenly, his tongue speared me, as did one of his slim fingers, the duel penetration rocketing me over the edge.

  Gasping, muscles front and rear caught in the spasm of climax, I still thought of the cliff, thought of the lonely tumble I'd taken in my dreams.

  Twice more I'd taken the fall alone.

  Next time, Martin was going with me.

  He grinned at me, the powerful, lazy, sexy grin of a man in absolute control.

  For now.

  I didn't give him a chance to protest. Even though my arms and legs felt like lead, I managed to sit up and tug his shirt off his shoulders. My next move was to slip his pants down his slim hips.

  He was older than me by two years. I'd read the bio, knew all the stats, but they didn't do justice to the lean, muscular body I found buried beneath that fine fabric. The mat of hair covering his chest was iron gray but the happy trail running from his navel to his groin was still black as night.

  Even in the semi-darkness of the room, I recognized his impossibly long cock. I'd seen Martin's face in photos before, had admired his well-dressed body on the evening news and at the occasional event where I'd attended as a reporter, but I'd never seen his cock, other than in my dreams.

  Just as he'd never seen me naked...other than his dreams. My hunch, earlier today in the restaurant, had been right on the mark.

  Was it only today?

  I knew this man, more intimately than I should.

  Knew him with a sense of the inevitable.

  How? I'll never understand, but it was truly Martin who had visited me all those nights, Martin who had mesmerized me then as he did now.

  I leaned over and drew the soft tip of his penis between my lips. I recalled doing this earlier today, when I'd been more concerned with fit than flavor. He tasted...wonderful. How do you describe the flavors of passion? Of desire? Of dreams fulfilled? I wrapped my fingers around the base of his cock, steadying this elegant beast, and took him into my mouth.