“Ignore it,” he ordered as he swept her panties below her bottom to her thighs, but the pounding on the door continued even more loudly after a pause. He saw Niall’s throat convulse as she swallowed.
“Vic, maybe you should . . .” Her voice faded uncertainly.
He closed his eyes briefly in a fairly useless attempt to get hold of himself.
“Fuck,” he muttered forcefully between clenched teeth. He panted like he’d just run a sprint. He almost cursed again, this time at Niall, when he backed away from her and she immediately hopped off the counter. She fumbled with her panties at the same time that her eyes skittered warily to his front door. Vic turned away abruptly when he caught the sight of pale blue panties and dark golden pubic hair before her dress fell into place.
He launched himself at the door.
“What do you want?” he asked Meg after he’d jerked open the front door several inches and saw who dared to get in his way when he’d just caught a glimpse of heaven.
“Did you pass Niall on the road? She said she wanted to walk home, so we dropped her off at the side of the road, but she should’ve been home by—oh, there you are! Is everything okay?” Meg asked when she glimpsed Niall behind Vic.
Vic was about to tell his sister that of course Niall was okay. Being horny as hell wasn’t a reason for concern, was it? He frowned when he glanced quickly back at Niall, however. True, her cheeks were flushed a rosy pink, a telltale sign of her arousal that Vic recalled all too well. But those glowing cheeks shone with tears and her eyelids were puffy from prolonged crying. Despite his burning body and turbulent emotions, Vic was forced to acknowledge that Niall didn’t really look all that okay.
“I’m all right,” Niall said hoarsely through a tremulous smile.
Meg glanced pointedly at Vic and Niall. “Well, I just wanted to check on you. I’ll go on up to the—”
“I’ll come up to the house with you,” Niall said swiftly. Her glance at Vic was far more uncertain. “Maybe . . . maybe we can finish talking tomorrow, Vic?”
It took him a few seconds to realize that Niall was trying to get past him and that he was blocking the way as if determined to keep her a prisoner.
Which he might have been considering on some caveman level. Vic couldn’t say for sure.
“Vic?” Niall prodded softly after she’d followed Meg out onto the front stoop and turned back, holding the screen door open with one hand. Meg had retreated to wait for her, standing next to the truck.
“Don’t go,” he said simply. Sweat slicked his body and his cock still felt like it would burst like a grape out of its own skin, it was so tight. If he couldn’t have her, Vic had concerns for his own sanity.
Pain flickered across her features. “I have to. I want to be able to explain things, Vic. You’re angry at me. It’s not right for us to . . . I’m sorry,” she fumbled in a whisper. “Maybe tomorrow?” she asked hopefully.
Vic examined her tear-stained face as she looked up at him. The sight pulled at him so hard it felt like something dislodged and fell with crushing impact deep inside of him. The suspicion that that nameless something was his brittle defense against Niall kicked up his tumult once again. He was just frustrated, horny, and confused enough to make her want to suffer as much as he was at that moment. He leaned forward and spoke in a low, cutting tone.
“The time for explanations and confessions has passed, Niall. But if you want to finish what we started here, you know where to find me.”
He shut the door with a brisk click, wishing like hell he hadn’t looked directly in her wide eyes as he’d done it.
That night Niall awoke from a restless sleep to hear thunder and rain lashing at the windowpane. She listened for several minutes, the sound of the thunderstorm unleashing its torrent upon the earth somehow soothing her hurt and confusion over what had happened with Vic.
An ear-piercing crack of thunder rattled the room, but Niall remained completely motionless, drowning in the deep wells of memory
Michael used to be so afraid of thunderstorms. After his fourth birthday Stephen had become impatient at the little boy’s crying in the middle of the night and his requests to get into bed with his parents.
“He’s too old to be sleeping with us! He’s too old to be behaving this way at all,” Stephen had once hissed at Niall, irritated at being awakened when he had such a full schedule at work the following day.
“He’s four years old,” Niall had responded incredulously. “I can’t imagine a more likely age or time for him to be afraid than when he’s alone during a frightening thunderstorm.”
She had gone and cuddled up with Michael on his little bed on several occasions while the storm raged outside. She had taught him the game of counting one-one-hundred, two-one-hundred, three-one-hundred after the flash of lightning to the onset of thunder in order to determine whether or not the storm was receding. She’d even told him that silly story about thunder being God bowling in heaven in order to get him to back away from his terror a little. It had worked and Michael had begun to laugh during the especially loud cracks of thunder, because it meant that God had bowled a strike.
Before he’d fallen asleep one night after she’d stayed with him during a storm—Niall thought it might have been the July before his death—he’d murmured groggily, “It’s only fun listenin’ to God bowling when you’re here, Mommy.”
Niall’s eyes clamped shut tightly at the poignant memory. An empty feeling welled up in her. Niall thought the origin of that familiar ache originated in her womb.