Read Online Praying for Sleep by Jeffery Deaver - Free Book Online Page B

self-restraint remained. He slammed against her. His hands clutched her breasts and he pulled her into him, her breath popping from her mouth in small bursts. He lowered his teeth to the back of her neck and closed them on the nape, biting hard, tasting sweat and perfume. She squirmed and pressed back against him, whimpering.
    The sound triggered him. He slipped out and amid fierce spasms left a glistening stream down the inside of her thigh. He let his weight sag onto her back, gasping.
    Then he was aware of motion and he realized that she’d been stroking herself all along. His hands slid around to her breasts once more and he pulled on her nipples. A few moments later he could feel her legs tense and, as she called his name in a high-pitched moan, once then again, her body shivered hard. She remained still for a moment then eased forward and rolled onto her back. He rested beside her, on his knees.
    Inches apart, not touching.
    As if words were wrong, as if words would give away this secret, he said nothing but leaned over and kissed her cheek in a formal, brotherly gesture. She squeezed his hand once.
    Then Owen hefted his shovel and disappeared down the culvert, leaving his wife to lie like a trysting college girl beside the dark lake, on a neatly stacked row of sandbags.
     
    Lis Atcheson watched the dull clouds overhead, and glanced uneasily at the house to see if Portia might have witnessed their exhibition.
    The water lapped on rocks only feet from her head but seemed, despite the rising level, quite peaceful.
    She breathed deeply a number of times and closed her eyes momentarily. What on earth had brought that on? she wondered. Owen was a man with an appetite stronger than hers, that was true, but he had a moodiness too; sex was the first thing to die when he turned sultry or preoccupied. It had been three or four weeks since he’d eased over to her side of the bed.
    And the last time they’d found a more adventurous venue? The kitchen, the Cherokee, outdoors? Well, she couldn’t remember. Months. Many months.
    He’d come up to her ten minutes before, carrying a load of burlap bags from the greenhouse. Her back had been to him and she’d been bending down to muscle a sandbag into place on the levee when she heard the stack of empty bags fall nearby and felt his hands on her hips.
    “Owen, what are you doing?” She laughed, and felt herself being pulled against him. He was already erect.
    “No, we don’t have time for this. My God, Portia’s doing the upstairs windows! She can look right out!”
    Silently he closed his hands over her breasts and kissed her hotly on the back of the neck.
    “Owen, no!” She turned around.
    “Shhh,” was all he said, and his unyielding hands moved up under her skirt.
    “Owen, are you nuts? Not now.”
    “Yes,” he said. “Now.”
    And from behind, too. A position he generally didn’t like; he preferred to pin her on her back, helpless, and watch her face as he pulsed on top of her.
    What had gotten into him?
    Maybe, above the clouds, there’s a full moon.
    Maybe it’s . . .
    The water lapped with the rhythm of the blues.
    . . . the cowboy boots.
    She glanced at the yellow windows of the house—windows from which she was now fully, if dimly, visible. Had Portia seen?
    And if she had? Lis wondered. Well, so be it. He’s my husband, after all.
    She closed her eyes and was astonished to find herself drowsy—despite the adrenaline that still coursed in her bloodstream, despite the urgency to finish the sandbagging. Well, here’s the miracle of the evening. Oh, my God, forget about floods, forget about orgasms out of doors. . . . I think I’m falling asleep.
    Lis Atcheson suffered from insomnia. She might go twenty-four hours without sleep. Sometimes thirty, thirty-six hours, spent wholly alert, completely awake. The malady had been with her for years but had grown severe not long after the Indian Leap incident last May. The nightmares would start fifteen or twenty