The Kindness of Strangers (Skip Langdon Mystery #6) (The Skip Langdon Series) Read Online Free PDF Page A

and wanted.
    “It’s going to rain.”
    “It’s going to storm.”
    “The storm is here, Torian. Inside.” He touched his heart.
    She understood so completely it embarrassed her, made her feel naked in public. She said, “Sometimes you don’t talk like an American.”
    “Don’t I?” He looked surprised. “Only with you. I don’t know why.”
    “Don’t you?”
    “Yes. I do.” He said no more and, knowing, she didn’t ask. She liked the rhythm of the exchange. With him, every word was a poem, every moment a haiku, a minute a sonnet, an hour an epic.
    They walked until they came to a place where there was no one close, and he pulled her down to the grass. She slid under him, holding him tight, feeling the hard muscles of his legs, the rock of his chest harsh on hers, like the Earth itself, above her and below her, enfolding her.
    He had rolled onto her reluctantly, she had had to pull him, but now he plowed his fingers once again into the silk of her hair, and raised himself on his elbows, his breath hot in her face.
    “I love you. Oh, God, I love you so much.”
    She closed her eyes, taking it in, knowing it was true and yet not believing it.
    He pinned her wrists, but gently, so that she would not be frightened, yet in such a way that she could not mistake his mastery, and she thought that if she died in that second she had lived fully.
    “Make love to me,” she said, and he rolled off her, staring up at the sky, hands on his chest.
    For a moment, she stared at the sky herself, and saw that it was darkening. Lightning flashed, so perfectly matching her mood, and disappeared. She waited till the thunder before she touched the gold hairs on his arm.
    He didn’t respond.
    “What is it?”
    He seemed to go deeper inside himself, and she could have kicked herself for causing it.
    He’s afraid he’ll hurt me , she thought, and whispered to him. “I want you, Noel, I want you; don’t treat me like a child. I know what I’m doing.”
    Her breath was ragged, her throat raw; she was dizzy from the effort of it. She felt soft, open, like a white petal, yet somehow there was power in this. It was deeply confusing, but heady, and she could not stop.
    She threw an arm over his chest and buried her lips in his neck. “Noel. Don’t turn away from me.”
    He threw back the arm and pinned her again, this time not gentle at all, angry. “Stop!”
    Tears came again. She couldn’t follow her emotions, or his, could understand nothing at this point.
    The rain started then, a few soft, fat drops at first, then a stinging flood.
    He jerked her to her feet and pulled her to him, jeans against jeans, her soggy hair straggling. His face, slick with rain, tense with the pain of his struggle, was unearthly beautiful, yet oddly familiar. She realized, finally, where she had seen it. In final acts: onstage, in movies, even on television.
    He’s a Montague, she thought, and her head whirled with the import of it. Her age was even right.
    Yet she knew, deep down, that there was something skewed about the analogy. She just didn’t want to think about it.
    * * *
    Once more, lightning split the sky, and Noel thought what a strange, pathetic sight they must be, clutching each other like runaways, too dumb to get out of the rain. But here on the levee, both soaked, no one would see them or recognize them. They could clutch and cling as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
    And maybe it was. All kinds of people fell in love with each other. Mobile people and paraplegics. Retarded people and those of normal intelligence. People who spoke different languages. Dolphins, even, fell in love with human beings.
    ] Why not Torian and me? Why not? Why not?
    He could think of no good reason except the conventional: only pedophiles fall in love with children.
    But he wasn’t a pedophile and hadn’t the least interest in children—only in Torian, who happened to be fifteen, but who looked like an adult and had the serene wisdom