“I was thinking that my securities company has been hacked from the inside,” he admitted. “With no electricity, no way to send out a signal … I can’t get us out of here.”
“It’s okay,” she assured him. “Right now, in this moment, we’re okay. We’ll just have to take it one day at a time until our captors decide to show their faces.”
She stared at him so calmly, with so much trust, that he couldn’t hold back anymore. He cupped her face and leaned forward, capturing her mouth with his. At first, he didn’t press for more, content to simply have her close, but Mae parted her lips and the kiss deepened.
If anyone would’ve told him his world would be rocked by a dowdily dressed woman he’d never met before, he wouldn’t have believed them. But here he sat, in a bunker bathroom, kissing a woman who ignited a fire in his blood. He couldn’t seem to get enough of Mae Sawyer and he had the urge to bring her body up against his, to continue their kiss in a more horizontal position.
But a small voice in the back of his mind reminded him this wasn’t the right thing to do. That this situation was far from normal and that he needed to maintain logic and a cool head. He knew the feeling of danger could enhance a situation and make emotions run wild. The last thing he wanted was to pressure Mae into anything or do something that compromised her own morals, so reluctantly, he broke the kiss and leaned his forehead against hers.
“We can’t, Mae.”
She reached for his shoulders and tried to pull him back into her arms. “But I want more.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Yes. I do.”
He took a deep breath and pulled back. One look at her swollen lips and passion-filled eyes tested his resolve. “Right now, we’re stuck in an unknown situation that can alter our decision-making process.”
She frowned. “But … but…”
He stood. “We have to keep ourselves grounded. We can’t let emotion rule us in here. Okay?”
She didn’t agree and he didn’t wait, turning and leaving her behind in the bathroom. He had no idea where to go because the bunker was only so big, but he had to get away from her before he yanked her back into his arms and resumed kissing her senseless.
Chapter Four
Dazed and confused, she stared at JD’s back as he retreated. What the hell just happened? One minute, she was being kissed breathlessly by Hunky Harlan, and the next, he ran for the hills. Was she a bad kisser? Did her breath stink?
What’s wrong with me?
The memory of the women he’d been photographed with surfaced and she looked down at herself, suddenly realizing why he’d broken the kiss. Of course, he wouldn’t find her attractive. The man was used to the three Bs … blonde, buxom bombshells.
Her infatuation with JD Harlan might have started with his looks, but the more she’d worked for him, the more she learned what a good man he was. A person couldn’t work for someone and not get a sense of who the person was or what they were about. JD’s company was a securities firm that helped not only big business and VIPs, but also individuals who just needed to feel secure. Her job was invoicing small businesses and writing up contracts for self-defense initiatives. How could she not admire a man driven to help people protect themselves?
Sighing, and more than just a little frustrated, she headed into the kitchen because what else was she going to do? It wasn’t like she could just leave. Or ignore JD. They were stuck in a small bunker together until who knew when.
As she stood staring into the so-called pantry, looking at the neat rows of MREs, it finally hit her that she could be stuck here for a very long time. It might even be her tomb. Being with JD had staved off any fear because she trusted him and knew he could protect her, but now she had to face the facts.
She’d been kidnapped.
And it was quite possible that no one knew where she was. Her mom probably wouldn’t notice she was gone until her birthday came up in January and Mae didn’t do the annual celebratory phone call.
Would she eventually starve to death? Would someone come and kill them?
So far, she and JD had been left alone … did the captors think he would hurt her?
That thought made her pause. It had never occurred to her that her boss might be the bad guy. Could Hunky Harlan hurt her?
She took a deep breath. If there was only one thing she knew about this situation she found herself in, it was that JD would protect her as best as he could. He made her feel safe, not threatened.
Shaking off the morose thoughts, she went about grabbing something to eat. Her stomach rumbled a bit as she sat down at the table and opened the meal’s ready-to-eat package. Chicken pesto pizza, so the description said, with a square slice of pizza in a seal-tight package, canned fruit, and a dessert brownie. None of it looked appealing, but she figured when in Rome… Taking a bite of the pizza, however, left her pleasantly surprised.
After lunch, she threw away the trash in a plastic bag she’d found, half wondering if they were going to have to use one of the rooms for a trash heap. She went searching for JD, only to find him doing push-ups in the empty room. She stood for a moment, staring at the rippling muscles across his back. Even in his forties, the man was still ripped, giving any man half his age a run for the money. Minutes ticked by, and he didn’t tire, methodically doing one after another. Sweat dampened areas of his shirt and dripped off strands of his hair. He never lost speed or form, and gradually, she came to understand that this was his coping mechanism. His way of taking his mind off the situation they found themselves in, kidnapped and potentially forgotten in a bunker. No one knew where they were. No one would know where to look. Completely untraceable.
She backed away and left him to his purge. Mae hugged herself, needing comfort as well. Rubbing her hands up and down her arms, she headed back to the main room and sat on the sofa. The bunker was silent, except for the occasional noise drifting from JD as he exercised. Feeling utterly alone, she squeezed her eyes shut tight as helplessness swamped her. Tears leaked out and ran down her cheeks. Crying might not accomplish anything, but right then, it was the only thing she could do.
****
She must have fallen asleep because the next thing she knew, she was being jolted awake by pounding noises. Sitting up from her slumped-over position on the sofa, she followed the sound and faint glow of a lantern and saw JD up the ladder near the hatch, banging on it with the wood that had punctured his arm.
“What are you doing?” she asked, calling up to him.
“I’m going to keep banging until someone comes and opens this Goddamn hatch,” he replied, anger heavy in his tone. “I refuse to be trapped here like a fucking animal!”
Mae wished she could help him, but her own terror had begun to surface. Without his steady support, her emotions amped up, causing anxiety to burn in her stomach. The last thing she needed was a panic attack, so she left him, heading back to the sofa to grab her lantern. Since there wasn’t any electricity, they had to rely on the lanterns for sight. Her mind wondered what would happen once the batteries died, but facing perpetual darkness wasn’t something she looked forward to experiencing. From the television shows she watched, she knew light deprivation could make someone go crazy, and the question of how long they were going to be stuck there lingered like a bad-tasting pill.
Wanting something to do to keep her mind off their situation, she began her search once more for bugs. Going stir crazy wasn’t an option.
Chapter Five
Time marched at a snail’s pace. The only concept they had of day or night was from JD’s watch. He’d stay up the ladder for hours, banging away, or he’d come down to do pushups. Their conversations were stilted and depression hit her hard, consuming her. There were periods where she didn’t move from her cot, crying as the darkness smothered her. They ate, they showered, and then JD went to his perch, leaving her all alone. At first, she tried to stay upbeat. Optimistic. But every time his watch went off, signaling it was morning, it became harder and h
arder to get up.
Then one day, while she was taking a shower, she heard something different. Not the constant banging on the hatch door, but something that sounded like rage. Awful, soulful anger that couldn’t be contained. Wrapping a towel around her body, she ran from the bathroom and saw JD smashing the coffee table, picking up piece after piece of the broken furniture and pounding it against the cement bunker wall. His howls of frustration brought tears to her eyes, and without thought to her own safety, she ran to him and wrapped her arms around his back. JD stopped instantly and she squeezed tighter, not wanting to let him go in case that god-awful sound came back. But her touch must have deactivated his anger because he dropped the splintered wood and slumped in her embrace. Turning, he wrapped his arms around her, hugging her fiercely.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“It’s all right.”
“No, you don’t understand,” he said. “It’s my fault.”
She didn’t know what he meant. “What’s your fault?”
“All of this. But I didn’t know. How could I have known? I thought I did the right thing.”
His rambling made no sense.
“What do you mean, JD?”
He hugged her harder. “You’ll hate me.”
“I could never hate you.”
“Lee did. He hated me because of my father. God damn it, that fucking man destroyed everything he touched. He’s even doing it beyond the grave.”
“You’re not making any sense.”
“Come,” he said, abruptly stepping away from her. He’d been holding up her towel, so she had to grab it to keep it in place. He took her free hand and led her to their bedroom, where he turned on the lamp before pulling a newspaper from under his pillow. “I found this, after the first night, but I didn’t want to show you it.”
“Why?”
“Because … I’m ashamed.”
Then he sat down, head turned away to stare at the wall. A blank look on his face. Mae sat next to him and studied the paper without really knowing what she was looking for.
“This newspaper is twenty-two years old,” she said. “What does this have to do with us?”
He tapped to the lower right corner. “The article right here.”
A picture of an older, handsome man rested next to a three-paragraph article. Above his name read IRA leader Found Dead.
“IRA,” she said. “Internal Revenue… I don’t know what the A stands for.”
“No, it stands for The Irish Republican Army,” he corrected.
“Irish? I’m afraid you lost me.”
“The IRA is a paramilitary movement whose belief is that all of Ireland should be an independent republic from British rule and free to form their own government. But after decades of war, some members were ready for peace. Their leader, Paddy O’Connor, was ready to turn himself in as a sign of good faith that the conflict and terrorist activities were over. But days before the agreed-upon date, O’Connor was murdered, execution-style, ending all peace talks between him and the British Parliament.”
“I’m sorry. I still don’t understand. What does this have to do with us being in this bunker?”
He took a deep breath. “Because an innocent man by the name of Denton Slidell was charged with his murder. Security footage of him and O’Connor surfaced and … and my father was tasked with eradicating him.”
“What does that mean?”
“My security company used to be a front for a special black ops unit of the US Government.”
Her jaw dropped slightly. “What?”
“I can’t believe I’m telling you this,” he muttered. “This unit was strictly off the books, and if they’d ever been caught, the government would disavow them. None of their jobs were sanctioned, although every one came directly from the Secretary of Defense. The unit consisted of our fathers. Lee Masterson, Mason Lake, and I were eventually brought into the unit, but we weren’t operatives. At least, not at first.”
“ Something bad happened, didn’t it?”
“Lee’s father was tortured because of this,” he said, tapping the newspaper. “He’d left that life behind but someone wanted information, although none of us knew what about. That’s how Lee was brought in to train as an operative. A few years later, Lake found out the truth. That Denton Slidell did not kill Paddy O’Connor. It had been … my father. It was an unsanctioned hit. He’d betrayed us all.”
“Wait,” she said. “I’m trying to wrap my head around this.”
His story had clearly not been what she expected. She read the article again. Just two short paragraphs, hardly worth noting at all.
“So your dad murdered this man, blamed another man, and now we’re being punished because of it? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Only Lake and I knew the truth. Not the government and certainly not Lee. I forced my father out of the company, closed it down as a secret government agency, and turned it into a civilian-based company. It took a lot of negotiation and a lot of wiggling, but I made my father pay his debt to society. Just not behind bars.”
“Why not behind bars?”
“If I would’ve reported him to the Secretary of Defense, it would shed a dark light on every operation the unit conducted. People who were, without a doubt, guilty. I couldn’t take the chance on freeing criminals.”
“Okay. I get that. So what did you do to make your dad retire?”
“I blackmailed him.”
She blinked. “What?”
“I held this revelation over his head. If he didn’t step down, he’d go to federal jail.”
“And he left.”
JD nodded. “I took everything away from him and six months later, he died of a heart attack, blaming and hating me. His traitor son.”
Sympathy filled her. Even though his words were matter-of-fact, she saw the tension bracketing his mouth. Lingering pain ringed his eyes. The decision he faced hadn’t been an easy one. The proverbial rock and a hard place.
“You did what you had to do,” she said softly.
He stared into her eyes, and the torment brewing in their blue depths was tinged with self-hatred. Her heart broke for him. This poor man was being eaten alive with guilt, but he’d had no one to turn to. No one to hold him and absolve him of the pain eating him whole. No wonder he spent so much time alone.
“What would you have done differently?” she asked.
He cocked his head. “What do you mean?”
“Now that you’ve had distance from the situation, what would you have changed about how you handled your dad?”
His brow furrowed, but he didn’t say anything for a long time. Several times, his eyes lost focus, as if thinking hard on something. Finally, he shrugged.
“I wouldn’t have—couldn’t have—changed a thing. It was the only way to protect the cases my father and his partners closed.”
She cupped his face. “Then that’s your answer. You father was the architect of his own fate. Although it’s human nature to blame others for everything, that burden isn’t yours to carry. It never was.”
They stared at one another. A heartbeat stretched between them as the world seemed to stop turning. Mesmerized, she watched as his lips descended toward hers, surrendering to the demanding kiss as he claimed her mouth. This time, there was no hesitation in his possession. She opened for him and he swept his tongue inside to capture hers, bringing her body in as close to his as the uncomfortable cot would allow. Like a light switch being turned on, JD pulled her into his arms with an urgency that left her breathless. His kiss slipped from her mouth to travel across her cheek to her ear, sucking the little lobe into his mouth. She moaned at the pulling sensation that echoed deep in her own need for him. Grabbing his shoulders, she rubbed her breasts against his chest, wishing they didn’t have any barrier between them. Did she have the courage to drop her towel?
As if reading her mind, he pulled back far enough to tug the towel down just a bit. The material dropped, allowing him immediate acc
ess to her sensitive nipples. He latched on to one, and Mae leaned back, arching her back and lifting herself up to whatever magic he wanted to do to her. A man possessed, he sucked and licked her nipples, going from one to the other even as he quickly divested her of her modest covering.
She ran her hands over the muscles of his back, down his arms, kissing every inch of skin she could reach. Her fantasy was finally coming true, but reality was far superior to her wet dreams. Hard muscles pressed against her, causing a wild need to flood her body. Parting her thighs, he kissed his way down to her pussy. The first swipe of his tongue over her slit, she gasped. The second swipe, she moaned for more. By the time he sucked her clit into his mouth, gently teasing it, she panted as arousal and need hit her hard. Relentless, he slid his tongue into her cunt, licking upward until he ended with a kiss on her nexus. Over and over he teased, until her body became a coiled spring wanting desperately to explode. As if sensing she waited on the edge, he lay down on the hard ground and dragged her on top of him. Only then did she realize he was naked.
Gripping her hips tightly, he brought her down upon his cock, impaling her with one thrust up. He filled her, the girth something she wasn’t used to. The few times she’d indulged in an affair, the men had been average. Joseph David Harlan the Second deserved the title of Hunky Harlan, and perhaps a moniker change to Hung Harlan. Her rambling thoughts ceased when he urged her to ride him. She rocked her hips, leaning forward a little so the tip of his dick hit her sweet spot. Over and over, when he thrust not only did he massage that area, but he also caused her clit to grind against his pelvic bone. Buried deep inside her, JD held on to her, driving upward. In and out they hammered each other, and Mae wasn’t sure if it was him out of control or her. All she knew was how incredible it felt to be with him. His balls slapped against her ass as he moved her faster. She gripped her pussy walls around him so tightly there was a sucking sound as they pounded against one another.
Untraceable (World of Danger Book 2) Page 3