Read Online Solitude Creek by Jeffery Deaver - Free Book Online Page A

March now lay.
    A mouth beside his ear: ‘Yes, yes!’ A moist whisper.
    On TV, the anchor, blonde as toffee, came back into high-definition view. ‘Brad, a number of victims and relatives of victims are accusing the driver of the truck of negligently blocking the doors, accusing him of parking there to go to the bathroom, or maybe even sneaking in to see the show last night. Do you think that’s a possibility?’
    ‘It’s too early to speculate,’ the firefighter replied.
    It’s
never
wise to speculate, March corrected Brad, early or late. The bodybuilding firefighter, not quite as buff as March, looked smug. Wouldn’t trust him to rescue
me
from a smoke-filled building.
    Much less a stampede in a roadhouse. Brad did, however, go on to offer graphic descriptions of the ‘horror’ last night. They were quite accurate. Helped by Brad and the images he was describing, March turned his attention back to the task at hand, lowered his head back to the pillow and pulsed away.
    Calista gripped his earlobe between two perfectly shaped teeth. March felt the pressure of the incisors. Felt her studded nose against his smooth cheek. Felt himself deep inside her.
    She grunted rhythmically. Maybe he did too.
    Calista whispered, ‘You’re so fucking handsome …’
    He wished she wouldn’t talk. Besides, he didn’t know what to do with that sentence. Maybe she was hoping for this to be more than a couple-days thing. But he also knew that people said all sorts of things for all sorts of reasons at moments like this and he didn’t sweat it.
    Just wished she wouldn’t talk. He wanted to hear. Wanted to see. Wanted to imagine.
    Her heels banged against his tailbone, her bright crimson fingernails – the color of arterial blood – assaulted his back.
    And he replayed what people often replayed at moments like now: earlier times. The Solitude Creek incident. But then, going way back: Serena, of course. He often returned to Serena, the way a top eventually spins to stillness.
    Serena. She helped move him along.
    Jessica he thought of too.
    And, of course, Todd. Never Serena and Jessica without Todd.
    He was moving more quickly now.
    Again she was gasping, ‘Yes, yes, yes …’
    As she lay under him Calista’s hands now eased up his spine and gripped his shoulders hard. Those GMC-finish nails pressed into his skin. He reciprocated, digging into her pale flesh. Her moaning was partly pain; the rest of the damp gusts from her lungs were from his two hundred plus pounds, little fat. Pounding.
    Compressing.
    Sort of like the people last night.
    ‘Oh …’ She stiffened.
    He backed off at that. There was a balance between his pleasure and her pain. Tricky. He didn’t really need her to cry at the moment. He had all he needed.
    ‘Again, if you’re just joining us …’
    ‘Oh, yeah,’ Calista whispered, and it wasn’t an act. She was gone, lost in the moment.
    His left hand slid out from under the bony spine and then was twining the strawberry mane of hair in his blunt fingers, pulling her head back. Her throat – smooth for cutting. Though that wasn’t on the agenda. Still, the image socketed itself into his thoughts. That helped him too.
    March gauged rhythm and sped up slightly. Then a rich inhale and those luminous pearls of teeth went against his neck – many women were into the vampire thing, Calista too, apparently. A shudder and she hissed, ‘Yesssss,’ not as an act or a prod for him to finish: it was involuntary. Genuine. He was moderately pleased.
    Now, his turn. He gripped her more tightly yet. Chest and breasts, thigh and thigh, sliding unsteadily; the room was hot, the sweat abundant.
    ‘I’m speaking to Brad Dannon, Monterey County firefighter and first on the scene at the Solitude Creek tragedy last night. Brad is credited with saving at least two victims, who were bleeding severely. Have you talked to them today, Brad?’
    ‘Yes, ma’am. They’d lost a lot of blood but I was able to keep them going