Nine-tenths of the Law

Chapter Twenty-seven

The following night, we left our cars at Nathan’s house and walked to a restaurant a mile or so away. Though the weather was iffy when we left-grey clouds gathering above the city, the telltale smell of rain-we didn’t bother with jackets or umbrellas. This was, after all, Seattle, and a little rain never killed anyone.

When we came out of the restaurant, the pavement was wet, but the rain wasn’t coming down anymore. Still, we were in no hurry. Our fingers loosely intertwined and we talked about whatever came to mind, strolling down the mostly empty street.

About half a mile from his house, he’d asked me about the problems I’d had recently with some employees. I opened my mouth to answer, but a distant rumble cut me off. It was faint, so faint I couldn’t be sure I’d heard it.

I craned my neck in its general direction, then looked at Nathan. “Did you hear that?”

“Yep. Thunder.” He glanced up. “Looks like we might want to head back in.”

Though I nodded in agreement and walked quickly beside him, I secretly wanted to stay out in this as long as possible. I’d never admitted it to a soul, but I found something deeply erotic about thunderstorms. I’d never told anyone because I couldn’t quite explain it. Storms were powerful, primal, and it had long been a fantasy of mine to get caught out in one with someone.

And if the weather cooperated, there was a good chance that just might happen now.

We continued down the sidewalk toward Nathan’s house, but the storm was closing fast. Each time the thunder rolled, it was closer. Louder. Occasionally, I caught a flicker of lightning out of the corner of my eye. As the thunder intensified, the lightning also became harder to ignore, especially as the ozone in the air grew stronger, mixing with the smell of rain, drowning out the usual odors of car exhaust and civilization, giving the city a deserted, otherworldly atmosphere.

Before long, the rain came. First a few drops, just enough to sneak down the back of my neck like cold sweat. Then more, crashing onto the pavement with enough of a roar to nearly drown out the thunder.

Clasping my hand, Nathan quickened his pace, but I pulled him back. I’d waited a long, long time for this opportunity.

He looked at me, puzzled. Water ran from his hair down the sides of his face, and he squinted a little to keep it out of his eyes. A drop disappeared beneath his collar, making both of us shiver. The only thing that could have possibly turned me on any more was to find out if the rain tasted the same on his lips as it did on my own.

He tugged gently on my hand and shouted over the thunder and rain. “We’re only a couple blocks away. We should hurry back.”

“Why rush?” I asked. Before he could respond, I put my free hand on the side of his neck and pulled him into a kiss. His body tensed at first, as if the rain made the kiss impossible to comprehend, but seconds later, the warmth of his hand interrupted the stream of cold water rushing through my hair and down my neck.

The wind picked up a little, snapping against our wet clothes and skin, but my shivers came from somewhere else and had nothing to do with the cold weather. His cologne mingled with ozone and rain and the faint hint of smoke. I pulled him closer, grasping whatever clothes my numb, shaking hands could get hold of.

He broke the kiss and looked at me, but the earlier confusion in his expression was long gone. Streetlights and the occasional flicker of lightning illuminated his eyes. There was still disbelief in his face, but it wasn’t the kind of disbelief that asked, “Why the hell are we doing this?” Without uttering a word, he said, loud and clear, “What the hell was that?”

His lips moved, but his voice was lost in another roll of thunder. Before I could ask him to repeat it, he kissed me again, rain-cooled fingers tangling in my hair and sharp huffs of breath warming my face as we pulled each other closer.

When he broke the kiss this time, his forehead rested against mine, one hand cupping the side of my face, our mouths so close that, with a deep enough breath, I could have drawn him right back to me. His chin came forward, his lips brushing mine once, backing away, then barely touching mine again.

Finally he managed to stay back long enough to speak. “We should get back to the house.” His voice barely rose above the cacophony of rain and the blood pounding in my ears.

Brushing my thumb across his cheekbone, shivering at the cool water running down the back of my arm, I kissed him lightly. With a playful grin, I said, “I don’t know, we could just-” I cut myself off with another kiss, longer this time. “We could-” Yet another kiss. Forget being witty or trying to tease him. We both knew what we both wanted, and we sure as hell couldn’t do it here. The longer we stood here, the longer he kissed me like that, the less likely we were to make it back to his place before one of us dragged the other into an alley again. That had worked that night because all we’d needed was a quickie.

Tonight, a quickie wasn’t even close to what I needed.

We separated again, but I couldn’t speak, especially not with his lips still so close to mine. A single raindrop slid down his face and stopped for a second, suspended in the tiny space between his upper lip and mine, before falling onto the tip of my tongue just before I kissed him again.

“Let’s go,” he murmured against my lips. “Now.”

I nodded and we separated. It was tempting to let just one more kiss linger for just one more minute, but we were too wound up to stop if we started again. We’d already pushed the very limits of my restraint, and God only knew how much control he had left. Judging by the way he closed his eyes and shuddered as his body broke contact with mine, not much.

We exchanged one last look, then continued up the sidewalk with the sky coming down all around us, and I sent up a silent prayer that this storm didn’t let up anytime soon.