Midsummer Man

by Zelah Roberts

“So?”

  “Mac, he touched me. Sometimes, I still feel his hands on me. I… I’m…unclean.”

  “What? You are not!” The very idea made him furious. “You think I’d think less of you because some bastard touched you? Think again, Holly.”

  He looked from her to stare into the shadows in the corner of the room. “I would give everything to be able to turn back the clock and rescue you from him. I hate that it happened. But you? What do I think of you? I think you’re bloody amazing. You’re the strongest woman I’ve ever met, but I had no idea what kind of fires you’d been through. Does that make me admire you even more? Yes. Does it make me want to shield you from anything that could hurt you ever again? Yes. Does it make me love you even more? Yes.”

  There was a profound silence. In horror, he realised what he’d done. He’d lost it and he’d told her…everything.

  He was screwed.

  Why wouldn’t I declare undying love after frightening someone half to death whilst making love to them, then forcing them to reveal their deepest trauma?

  Way to go, Mac.

  Feeling sick, unable even to meet her eyes, he spun away from her.

  Outside the window, nothing but fog—thick, dark fog, a swirling expanse of nothingness.

  Holly stared at his rigid back in disbelief. What he was saying and doing were so far removed from what she’d expected that she was struggling to reconcile the two.

  He was saying he loved her? Even after she had told him about Anton?

  Warmth washed through her. She had thought that telling him would be the end of everything. But evidently, she had been wrong.

  A sudden, euphoric sense of joy swept through her. He loved her. He knew everything and he still really loved her.

  And she loved him. With sudden certainty, she knew it. All along she had been fighting her attraction, but at every turn she had found herself falling more deeply for him.

  She loved him. And he had proved himself worthy of that love. Even when confronted by the most sordid of pasts, he hadn’t flinched, hadn’t backed off, even for a moment. He’d been there for her. As she knew without a shadow of doubt that he always would be.

  He was hers. And she was his.

  Slowly, she approached him, stopping only when she was in front of him. “You really mean it?” she asked. “Everything you said… That you love me?”

  His face hardened. “Yes, why?”

  She stroked his cheek and jaw. His early morning stubble was rough against her fingers.

  “Show me,” she said quietly.

  His eyes widened. “Show you?”

  She saw it then. Hope where there had been none. She nodded. “Yes. Please. If…you want to.”

  “If I want to!” A gleam in his eye, relief, joy, sudden determination. Without further ado, he swept her up in his arms. “Right,” he said, decisively. “Time for a clean start. I love you, Holly, past and present, body and mind. Every last bit of you. We need to wash off the past and start fresh.”

  She didn’t realise he meant it literally until he had her in the bathroom with her T-shirt and his dressing gown off.

  The next moment, they were naked under the warm shower spray and he was kissing her fiercely. Her senses swam and she was gasping for breath. Every memory of Anton was swept away in an instant. There was just here and now, and the two of them, safe and together, loving each other.

  He drew back and reached for a bottle of scented bodywash. “Yes?”

  “Yes!”

  By the time he had stroked and washed every inch of her, she was burning up. After grabbing the bottle, she returned his caresses, quickly becoming distracted as she explored every curve and contour of his strong, lean body. Droplets of water rolled over the hills and valleys of well-defined muscle and clung lovingly to the dark hair on his chest. He was so, so gorgeous. And so, so aroused.

  He gave a low groan as she soaped him and he throbbed in her hand. In a gravelly voice, he said, “Turn around. Put your hands on the wall.”

  What? Shocked, she looked up at him. His eyes were molten, but beneath the blazing passion she thought she saw a quickly hidden glimpse of something else. Nerves. Vulnerability. Disconcerted, she realised that he was not as confident as he seemed.

  But why not? He had always been confident with her…until now, until she had doubted him. Had she hurt him when she’d questioned whether he would continue to want her after she’d told him about her past?

  With dismay, she realised that she probably had. And now he was testing to see if she did trust him. By asking her to put herself into his hands, in a position where she would be vulnerable…

  A surge of protective love had her drawing his head down for a kiss that was hot enough to ignite water. Then, without further ado, she turned and put her hands against the wall. She did trust him, and by the time they got out of this damn shower, he was bloody well going to know it.

  He gave a low gasp as she faced the wall and arched her back. The soft spray of the shower ran in warm rivulets down her body. Her long chestnut hair tumbled down her back in damp ringlets.

  She glanced over her shoulder and gave him a smile that was pure seduction.

  “Holly.” He breathed her name like a prayer, then he was drawing her hips towards him and nudging her knees apart with his until she was splayed against him. “Stay there. Right there. Just like that.”

  He returned a second later, and she realised he’d gone to get a condom. Just as well. It hadn’t even crossed her mind.

  She maintained the stance as he stepped back under the warm shower spray with a murmur of appreciation.

  “Don’t move,” he said and unexpectedly dropped to her knees behind her. Embarrassed, she tried to straighten, but he grabbed her hips. “Please… Please let me.”

  The yearning in his voice was her undoing. She relaxed, and a second later, his warm tongue lapped against her.

  Sensation swirled. All thoughts of embarrassment fled as her pleasure sparked. She squirmed, moaning, gasping as the soft rain of the shower water and the delicate twirl of his tongue combined to build a deep, rolling wave of pleasure.

  Her breasts felt full and heavy, and somehow, he must have known, because his soap-slicked hands reached up and around her to play lightly with them. She arched frantically, pressing herself against him, as a sparkle of delight shimmered through her body to her core.

  “Mac, please,” she gasped as the tension built. “Please, please, please…”

  He slid his slippery fingers down, touching her until she was close to exploding, but every time she thought he was going to let her finish, he moved away again until she was all but sobbing his name.

  “Mac, please…” she pleaded.

  “Not yet. Who’s touching you?”

  “What?” she gasped. “You are!”

  “Say my name, Holly.”

  “Mac. Mac, Mac—”

  “Do you feel other hands on you?”

  She thought of Anton, his touch, but it was impossible to think of it, to feel it, when Mac’s fingers were driving her out of her mind.

  “No! I feel you. Only ever you!”

  “And are you clean, woman?”

  “I—” His hands were on her. His mouth was on her. Water sluiced over her, running down her face like tears. She felt him, alive and vivid all around her, his love and his touch powerful and determined enough to wash away the old taint, and suddenly, for the first time in years, she did feel clean. “Yes,” she gasped, “I am—”

  Then he circled his long fingers and pressed, and the tension whipped up into a whirling tornado that ripped through her, exploding in a wild, unstoppable, cataclysmic sensation.

  As she came down to earth, she sank bonelessly to her knees. As if from a distance, she sensed movement, heard a foil packet being ripped, and Mac knelt behind her, picked her up and settled her onto his knee.

  “I’m not done with you yet,” he muttered.

  Still facing away from him, her knees spre
ad apart by his, she gasped as he slid her straight onto his waiting hardness. Her body, still sensitive, shimmered into life.

  “Okay?” he whispered.

  “Yes!” Her voice was tight, breathless.

  With a low chuckle, he began to move within her. She gasped and her body tightened around him.

  He groaned and bit the back of her neck, sending another arc of feeling through her. He licked and nibbled at it, even as he slid his strong hands between her legs to play with her there.

  She whimpered. With her legs spread like this, there was no way to control the surges of sensation he was building.

  She squirmed desperately as he stroked her, his feather-light touch sending gossamer sensations fluttering through her. Desperate to find some grounding, she grasped his arm, digging her nails in, feeling the iron muscles of his forearm flex. He didn’t stop.

  She took a sobbing breath, breathing in the mingled scent of soap and aroused man. Mac.

  She didn’t know that she’d cried out his name until he pressed his lips to her shoulder.

  “Who’s got you, Princess?” he whispered.

  Deep inside, he seemed to expand to an impossible hardness.

  “You have,” she groaned.

  “Who’ll always have you?”

  “You! Please—”

  He clamped his other arm around her waist and thrust firmly into her. The heat built, so close…

  “And who loves you?”

  “You do, you do, you do!”

  Her voice rose to a scream as he slammed into her. With equal fire she hammered back. He cried out, then wildness overtook them both and they were hurled into a ferocious vortex of unfathomable pleasure.

  They were still joined and he was sobbing for breath and shaking violently as he ran possessive hands all over her—breasts, arms, hands, torso, flanks, feet.

  “You’re mine, Holly,” he growled, implacably. “You’ve got that? And I’m yours, for as long as you want me. And from now on, that’s it. You and me together against the world. No matter what comes, whatever you need, I’ve got you. You understand?”

  “Yes.”

  * * * *

  At breakfast, Holly sipped her coffee and watched as Mac cooked sausages and scrambled eggs in nothing but a pair of smooth black boxer shorts and an apron. It was a ridiculous outfit, but on him it just looked hot…insanely hot.

  Her insides liquefied as she thought of their time in the shower. He had been so sexy, but at the same time so loving. He had proved to her for once and for all that her past had not repulsed him.

  More strangely, his insistent, loving touch had made her feel clean and had somehow erased the ghostly imprint of Anton’s hands from years before. Now, she felt so different it was almost like being reborn into a new, unsullied body.

  It was wonderful.

  She knew she ought to feel a bit freaked out by the possessiveness Mac had shown in the shower. ‘You’re mine,’ he’d said, and once upon a time that would have terrified her. But he’d countered that with, ‘And I’m yours,’ and she’d understood that Mac’s brand of possessiveness was just protective, not oppressive. It had, in an odd way, made her feel warm and wanted. And she couldn’t deny that she felt like that about him too. He was hers and she’d protect him to her dying breath.

  And that thought pulled her up short. She really would do that. Her love for him was that strong.

  Worried, she thought about it. Did her feelings mean she was becoming like her mother? Was she going to turn into someone soft and sappy, made helpless by love? Was she going to end up dependent on him for her happiness? She knew she was changing. Was she going to lose herself, her independence, her emotional freedom?

  Taking a gulp of coffee, she promised herself that she wouldn’t allow that to happen. She would not allow her identity to be subsumed until she was nothing but a cipher. She would not be a slave to love.

  I will not be like my mother.

  Mac set a plate down before her, then sat opposite with his own breakfast. With a nod of thanks, she began to eat.

  “Mmm. This is good,” she murmured.

  He glanced at her and grinned. “That’s because you asked for scrambled eggs. I’m absolutely terrible at fried eggs.”

  She laughed. “Well, I’m terrible at cooking, full-stop, so I’ll be appreciative, no matter what you make.”

  They tucked in, relaxed in each other’s company. Holly couldn’t help but imagine Drake and Isabella in a similar situation. Would they, too, sit and share a meal in harmony in the end?

  A lot needed to be resolved between them before that could happen. As a victim of kidnapping, Drake might feel like she had after being trapped in the commune—besmirched and doubtful that anyone could really love him. Isabella would have to address those issues. Would she do it head-on, as Mac had done, demanding that Drake acknowledge her love, her touch? Would she fight to make him feel clean, as Mac had done for her? Not just physically but spiritually? Maybe, once Isabella and the slaves had rescued Drake, they should take the traumatised man to a sanctuary—a monastery, an abbey…somewhere where emotional and physical healing could take place. There, Isabella could fight for Drake, heal him with her love.

  “More coffee?” She came back into the present to find Mac watching her wryly.

  “Uh, yes, please.”

  He turned to the percolator. “You looked a long way away just then. Thinking about your book?”

  She flushed. “Sorry, yes. Occupational hazard.”

  He smiled easily. “You want to do some writing today? Or Monopoly, perhaps?”

  “Maybe. What are you going to do?”

  Mac looked at her thoughtfully. “Oh, I’ve got loads to do,” he said. “To tell you the truth, I’ve been making some changes.”

  “Oh, yes?”

  “Mm.” He set the mugs down in front of them. “Yes. I thought a lot about what you said when we had lunch in London that day. You asked me if I was fulfilled by my job. And I told you that, apart from the designing element of my work, I wasn’t.”

  “I remember.”

  “Well, I decided to do something about it. I’ve got a backlog of work from when Leonie was kidnapped, but once that’s done, I’m restructuring the business. I’ve promoted some of my oldest, most loyal employees—some who even worked for my parents before me—to more senior roles. They’re very capable, and it’s a way of rewarding and thanking them. They are going to take over the running of the business, and I’m just going to concentrate on the design side.”

  “Oh! That’s excellent!”

  He grinned. “It feels great. I realised that I’d made enough money to last me and Leonie a lifetime—probably our children’s lifetimes, too. So why was I driving myself so hard and using up my life doing things I didn’t care about? From now on, I’ll be focusing on what I do best—and spending more time with my friends and family. In the future, I want to enjoy my time with the people I love most.”

  He looked at her steadily, and she had an uneasy feeling that he was including her in that statement.

  With a nod, she said, “That sounds good,” and hoped she’d misread the flicker of disappointment she’d seen in his eyes.

  She stood up abruptly. This was too much. She was getting too drawn in. She couldn’t give herself up to love like this. “I… I need to go and write,” she said, abruptly.

  “Okay.” His voice was steady and understanding. “I’ll see you later.”

  * * * *

  Later that afternoon, Mac and Holly were sat in the kitchen having a tea break when Mac received a call.

  “Mac, it’s James.”

  “Oh, hi. How’s London?”

  There was a pause. Then James said fervently, “Absolutely excellent,” before clearing his throat. “That’s not why I’m ringing you, though. We’re just outside of Edinburgh at the moment. There’ve been some developments in Holly’s case. Mac, I’ve found out a bit about Holly’s past—”

  Conscious of
Holly on the stool opposite, Mac said, “Mmm, so have I.”

  “Does she know I’m helping with the case?”

  “Ah…no.”

  “Okay. I need to tell her. You’d better put her on loudspeaker for this.”

  Mac glanced at Holly then said, “It’s James. He wants me to put him on speaker.”

  Looking a little startled, Holly nodded. “Okay.”

  James’ voice came through clearly. “Hi, Holly,” he said.

  “Hi, James. What’s up?”

  There was a pause, then James said, “Holly, I’ve got a confession to make.”

  “Oh, yes?”

  “Yes. When I heard you had a stalker, I offered Liberty’s services to the police. I wanted to do it to thank you for helping Leonie—and because we’re friends, of course—but I thought I’d only tell you if we had any success. Not much use otherwise.”

  “Oh! Well, thank you. But…you are telling me. You’ve had a breakthrough?”

  “Yes. I don’t think you’re going to like it, though. Holly, I’m sorry, but I we’ve traced the stalker… It’s Anton Devereaux.”

  “What?”

  Holly was off her stool and backing away from the phone as if it were a poisonous snake before he’d finished speaking.

  After dropping the phone on the counter, Mac caught her up in his arms, holding her shivering body tight. “I’ve got you, Holly,” he whispered.

  “The police also think he’s been running drugs and guns. They’ve surrounded the compound but… Wait! Shots have been fired. Hold on…” There was a pause. Mac heard Leonie’s staccato voice in the background. “Leonie says to put the news on. It’s on now…”

  Grabbing the remote control, Mac switched on the kitchen TV. Immediately, footage could be seen from helicopters circling the compound. Armed police surrounded the place. Random shots were being fired. A newsreader was reporting that an anonymous woman had tipped off the police about the activities of the cult and its leader.

  Holly bit her knuckles. “My mother’s in there,” she breathed.

  “James…you and Leonie are there?” asked Mac.

  “Yes. We’ve just arrived. The stalker investigation only intersected with the gun and drug case at the last minute. If I’d been here sooner, I might have been able to prevent this mess.”