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uished, leaving only a pale glow coming from inside the hangar.
Ray got out of his truck and jiggled his legs to restore circulation. He did a few deep knee bends, then some curls with his left arm. He caressed the scabbard attached to his belt and kept his hand there as he headed toward the hangar.
The ground was uneven, rocky, and strewn with patches of wild grass and occasional cacti. Fearing a mishap, he didn’t walk fast, but he moved as quickly and quietly as he could.
When he got to within fifty yards of the hangar, he slowed his pace and bent almost double to decrease the size of the target he made. He didn’t think the old man would detect him, but he wasn’t taking any chances. He’d looked forward to this. He was pumped. He wanted nothing to prevent him from doing what he’d come to do.
After tonight Denton Carter and Bellamy Price would know that Ray Strickland was a fearsome son of a bitch. The attack in the IHOP parking lot had been chicken feed compared to the blow he was about to strike. This would shatter them, rattle them, make plain the threat he posed, and intensify their fear.
Twenty yards from the building, he dropped to the ground and lay there, imagining himself to be as invisible as the special forces guys. He loved watching movies about camouflaged sniper types who could lie in one position for hours, days if necessary, waiting for the perfect shot.
He thought of himself like that now: lethal, invisible, and invincible. His weapon of choice wasn’t a high-powered rifle but a double-edged blade. He’d passed the long hours of the afternoon and evening stropping it to razor sharpness. He now slid it from the scabbard, loving the hiss it made against the leather, which sounded both sexual and sinister.
He gripped the bone handle in one hand as he belly-crawled to the exterior wall of the hangar. Pressing his ear to the corrugated metal, he heard the twang of a guitar picking out the melody of a Hank Williams song.
Ray hated hick music like that, but he was glad the old man liked it. It would screen any sounds he made. Emboldened, he slid up the washboard metal until he was on his feet, then crept along the wall, following it toward the front of the building and the half-moon of concrete onto which the hangar opened.
By the time he reached the corner, his heart was pounding and his breathing was fast and shallow. He took several moments to slow them down, then counted to three and poked his head around the wall and peered into the hangar.
He took in everything at a glance that lasted no more than a second or two. The old man was lying on his back beneath Dent’s airplane, his legs and feet sticking out from under it. An extension cord that snaked across the concrete floor was supplying power to the radio, which was sitting on the wing, as well as to a work light that lay beside the old man beneath the fuselage. In addition to the light were an open toolbox and a greasy rag.
This was going to be easier than he’d thought.
“This is for you, Allen,” he mouthed. Then, exultant, Ray charged into the hangar. Before the old man had time even to realize he was there, he plunged the blade of his knife, hilt-deep, into his belly.
Even as orgasmic aftershocks were causing Bellamy to gasp, Dent levered himself above her and hastily unbuttoned his fly, then sank down into another of those kisses of hers that felt like fucking. As his tongue plundered her mouth, the eroticism of it compounded his urgency.
He positioned himself between her thighs and rubbed the tip of his erection against her dampness, cursing the barrier of clothes that he would have to work around. At some point, they would need to stop and take a breather. That would be when they’d get naked. He really wanted to be skin-to-skin with her, lying lengthwise on the bed, and doing this thing right. But he couldn’t be bothered now. He had to get inside her, where she was silky and hot and wet. Surprisingly so.
She didn’t give off the vibe of a woman who would ignite that quickly and burn that fiercely. Who would have guessed that she, of the reserved manner and solemn eyes, would be so damned sensitive where it counted?
And, man, was she. Barely a glancing touch to that sweet spot, and her body was electrified. Made him feel like all the great lovers in history rolled into one, made him crazy to claim her, made him desperate to feel those contracting responses again. Except around his penis, from inside her. Now.
He reached between them to move aside her panties.
“No!”
At once, her head began thrashing from side to side and all four limbs started flailing. She shoved him away and scrambled off the bed. By the time he realized what had happened, she had her back to him and was hiking up her jeans.
“What the hell?”
“I can’t. I can’t. I told you.”
Disbelief held him back for a few seconds, then he launched himself off the bed and reached for her. At his touch, she jumped like she’d been shot. She whipped around. “Don’t touch me. Don’t say anything. Just…” Frantically, she motioned for him to back up and give her space.
He somehow—miraculously, he thought later—managed to tamp down his surging rage. That had been his first reaction. But he was quick to realize that she wasn’t being coy. Or a tease. Or just plain cruel.
Instead, she was a woman in full freak-out mode, and, unless he wanted her screaming the hotel down and bringing on the house detective, he’d better do as she said.
Clumsily she replaced the cups of her brassiere and buttoned up her blouse. Maybe she remembered what he’d said about where her hair fell and how that drove him nuts, because she pushed it back off her face and hooked it behind her ears. She took deep breaths and shook her hands at her sides like somebody literally trying to get a grip. Finally, a little bit restored, she looked at him.
“I know it’s unfair.” She glanced down at his open fly, blinked rapidly, gulped air. “Terribly unfair. I’m sorry.”
He said the only thing that immediately came to mind. “You buttoned your shirt wrong.”
She stared at him for several seconds as though trying to make sense of that. Then she looked down at her shirt and saw the mess she’d made of aligning the buttons with the right holes. She didn’t fix it, only ran her hand over the placket to smooth out the bunched fabric.
“I never meant to… I shouldn’t have let you…” She glanced past him at the bed, then raised her hands to her cheeks, which were flaming. “You must think I’m awful. I apologize for not stopping sooner. Before… I should have stopped you before… But I didn’t, and I’m sorry. I just… can’t.”
