by Cynthia Eden
Ava wasn’t so sure about that. She could imagine a whole lot.
He moved toward her. The hardwood creaked beneath his feet. She tensed as he approached. It was a helpless, instinctive reaction. His hands came up and flattened behind her, effectively caging her between his body and the door.
“I kiss you,” he told her, voice rough and rumbling—and making her toes curl a bit, “because I love the way you taste. I love it when you moan for me. When your breath goes ragged...”
Her breath was pretty ragged right then.
“I love the feeling of your mouth against mine. I’ve been thinking about that mouth of yours...” And his stare was on her lips. Lips that had parted as if she were waiting for his kiss. “Ever since that night two years ago.”
“Christmas.” Her whisper was husky.
“You were under the mistletoe. You weren’t smiling and laughing like everyone else.” His head lowered, came closer to hers. “You should have been. Beautiful Ava, you should have been the life of the party.”
She hadn’t even wanted to be at that party. She’d gone to the Christmas party at McGuire Securities for her brothers. She’d been wishing she could run away from that crowd. But then...
“I touched your hand. You looked up at me, and you smiled. Your first smile that whole night.”
Had he been watching her that entire time?
“I kissed you. Even as I did it, I knew it was wrong. That you weren’t meant for me.”
She didn’t want anyone else.
“Then I tasted you.” His mouth was so close to hers. She wanted to taste him right then. “And I was lost. I knew I’d never get enough of you.”
Her heart was a mad drumbeat in her chest. “But you...you stayed away.” For so long. He hadn’t tried to touch her again. Hadn’t kissed her—
Until I was back at his ranch. In that bedroom.
“I’m not the man you need.”
So wrong. “You’re the man I want.”
Then she stopped waiting for him to kiss her. Ava wrapped her arms around him and pulled Mark close. She kissed him, pressing her lips to his because she loved his taste, too. She loved the way kissing him made her feel. Already her blood was heating. Arousal deepened within her. She’d been waiting a long time for this man...and she was done waiting.
The wood was hard against her back, and he was so strong before her. In his arms, she wasn’t afraid. She wasn’t thinking about the past. It was just...him. That moment.
“I want to be with you,” she whispered against his lips.
He kissed her harder. Deeper. His tongue slid into her mouth and she moaned. Her breasts were aching. She wanted him—wanted him in her.
This wasn’t some frantic one-night stand. This was Mark. This was...everything.
His hands moved away from the wood. They locked around her hips, then slid down, curving around her and pulling Ava flush against him. There was no missing the force of desire.
He wants me, too.
“I can’t even think clearly when you’re close.” His words were ragged. So deep. “I want you naked. I want to kiss every inch of your body.”
Um, yes, that sounded more than good to her. It was a fabulous, fabulous plan. She’d love to explore his body. Kiss the scars she’d felt on his back. See if she could make him growl with desire. See if she could drive him as wild as he drove her.
“But I want to do things right with you.” He pressed a kiss to her throat. Right there, at the base of her neck. The spot that made her quiver. The spot he’d found. “And I’m not going to rush you.”
He pulled back.
No!
“You’re not rushing me.” How was he missing this? She felt like jumping him!
“Your brothers are watching, waiting for me to leave.” He shook his head. “When I take you, I’m going to want the whole night. Because when I get you in my bed, I’m not planning to let you leave anytime soon.”
She didn’t want him leaving then.
“Mark...”
He kissed her again. “I needed you to know,” he murmured against her lips, “that you can count on me.”
She already had known that.
“My secrets, my past—I won’t let them hurt you.”
Ava shook her head.
“Lock the door behind me,” he said.
He was leaving? “Stay,” she said.
She could see the struggle on his face.
“Mark...”
But he reached for the doorknob. “You need your rest, and you also need to think about what’s going to happen when we cross this line between us.”
The line between friends and lovers. She was ready to race across that line. Full speed ahead!
“There won’t be any going back.” His words were a warning, and his expression had darkened. “I don’t think I can have you once, then watch you walk away.”
She wasn’t going anyplace.
“I’ve seen a man’s obsession for a woman wreck his world.”
He had to be talking about Gregory Montgomery.
“I already think I’m half-obsessed with you. You should...be very careful with me.” He opened the door.
She caught his hand. “You’re nothing like him.”
“I don’t have his blood, but I lived in his house for years. There were things that happened there, things I don’t talk about much.”
“He hurt you.” And that knowledge enraged her.
Mark stared down at her.
“I touched the scars on your back.”
His shoulders lifted in a small shrug. “When he didn’t like the way I worked the ranch, he’d use his belt.”
Ava flinched.
“I was thirteen the first time he came after me. And I didn’t know what I was supposed to be doing at the ranch. I learned, fast, not ever to make the same mistake twice.”
“Mark...” She started to wrap her arms around him, but he stiffened.
“I don’t want your pity, Ava.”
And wasn’t that why she responded so deeply to him? Because he didn’t look at her with pity in his beautiful gaze? “I don’t pity you,” she said clearly. “I just want to hurt Gregory.” In that instance, she figured it was a shame the dead couldn’t be hurt.
“He never touched my mother. Never let the ranch hands see what he did. I was dependent on him. He’d adopted me, taken us both in. I knew that if we left him, my mother and I would have nothing. Everything, everything was his.”
Her hands fisted. “You should have told us. My brothers—”
“Like Davis said, he figured out what was happening. It was right before my mom died. When she passed, I didn’t care anymore. I left. Rode out fast and hot, and I wanted that bastard to die, too.”
But Gregory hadn’t died, not then. He’d lived for years—and then Mark had come home.
And my parents died just a few days later.
“You are not like him,” she said, the words tight. He was a monster. Mark wasn’t. He was good and strong and—
“Everyone has darkness inside. We can all be pushed too far.” His breath heaved out slowly. “Remember that, when you’re making your choice. Because I’ve got more darkness in me than you probably can even guess.”
Davis...he’d said something before about Mark and—
“I want you too much. Maybe you should play it safe and tell me to stay away.”
She shook her head. Why couldn’t he see she wanted him the same way? “I’m not afraid of you.” Not of any part of him. Good, bad, darkness, light—whatever, it didn’t matter.
“Maybe you should be.” He inclined his head. “Lock the door, Ava.”
Then he was striding away and heading back to his SUV.
She
shut the door.
Locked it.
A few moments later, she heard his vehicle crank. Mark drove away.
Maybe you should be.
* * *
THE GATES OF the McGuire ranch shut behind him. Mark paused a moment, his vehicle idling. He was trying to do the right thing with Ava, but every time he got close to her, he just—wanted.
Wanted her naked.
Wanted to see her flush with pleasure.
And—
Her voice, soft and husky, echoed through his mind. My last boyfriend...that was Alan Channing.
And that guy was a serious grade-A jerk.
His fingers tightened around the steering wheel.
Keep moving. Drive away. Now.
He shifted gears and drove down that dark road. He hadn’t been kidding when he’d told Ava that he worried he was already half-obsessed with her. He thought about her too much. Wanted to protect her at all times. Wanted to destroy anyone who threatened her—
I should let her go. She deserves more.
Because he’d lied to Ava before. Lied to the McGuires. Lied to the police. There were things he’d done that would always darken his soul. Things he never wanted Ava to know about.
Some secrets were better left buried with the dead. They couldn’t hurt anyone then. They couldn’t destroy a life.
He headed east, traveling back to his ranch. He thought of Ava as she’d last been, standing there with her eyes so big and deep, with her cheeks lightly flushed and her lips slightly swollen from his kiss.
Walking away from her then had been one of the hardest things he’d ever done. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to pull away from her next time. He’d warned Ava. Now the choice was hers.
There were no other vehicles on the old dark road. His headlights cut through the night as his SUV ate up the distance to his ranch. He paused at his gate, slowing while he waited to head inside and—
The gunshot blasted. It hit his windshield, the boom like that of a firecracker exploding.
Even as Mark slammed down the gas pedal and the SUV shot forward, more shots were firing, striking the windows and the hood of his SUV in fast succession. Glass rained down on him and a bullet blazed right across his arm.
He needed to make it inside his property. He could get help if he could make it inside—
A bullet hit his front tire. One bullet, then another in fast succession. The SUV swerved as he tried to steady the wheel, but it was too late. The SUV broke through the fence, then barreled into a tree.
* * *
AVA PACED AROUND the guest cottage. Tension was knotting her gut. She kept thinking about Mark. About the choices people made in life.
About the choices she’d made.
No more running.
She stared out the window. It was so dark out there. She couldn’t even see the stars right then because storm clouds had rolled in. She’d heard the forecast for that night. She knew a powerful storm was supposed to sweep into the area before dawn.
As she gazed at the dark sky, lightning flashed for a moment, a bright streak that stretched like spindly fingers in the night.
Then she heard the crack of thunder. Only...
Her phone beeped. Ava turned around. She took a few steps and found her phone on the table near the door. When she picked it up, Ava saw that she’d just gotten a text from Mark.
Ava, I need you. Come meet me at my ranch.
Her breath caught and her fingers tightened around the phone. No, there would be no more running away for her. This time, she’d be running to someone.
She’d waited long enough. Time to start living.
She hurried from the guest house. Lightning flashed once more.
* * *
MARK’S EYES CRACKED OPEN. The pain hit him first, exploding in his head and he realized that he’d slammed into the steering wheel. His air bag hadn’t deployed—and the dash was smashed, pretty much caging him in the SUV. Broken glass littered the area around him. He could feel cuts on his arms, and the skin near his right shoulder burned—
Because some SOB took shots at me!
His memory returned in a flash. He’d wrecked and hit his head so hard that he must have lost consciousness for a few moments. He pushed against the mangled steering wheel and dash, trying to twist out, but there was no give there. He was pinned too tightly.
Fumbling, he tried to grab for his phone, but—
It wasn’t there. It should have been in the dock near the radio. Who knew where the thing had flown in the crash? The dock was gone. The driver’s side door was open, swaying drunkenly, freedom so close.
But he couldn’t reach it. He was trapped.
And that psycho with the gun could still be out there.
Fumbling, he tried to reach for the glove compartment. He kept a screw driver in that glove box. Not much of a weapon, but far better than nothing. And maybe he could use the screw driver to help pry himself out of that tangled mess. He stretched and his fingers slid over the edge. Almost...almost...
He couldn’t reach it.
Blood dripped into his eyes and lightning flashed.
He was a sitting duck. The shooter could come in for him at any moment, and Mark wouldn’t even be able to move.
* * *
DROPS OF RAIN pelted down on Ava as she hurried to her car. She glanced up at the ranch house. Lights still glowed up there. If she just vanished in the middle of the night, her brothers would worry.
Her phone chimed again.
Ava, don’t make me wait long.
Her breath rushed out.
Come alone, sweetheart. I want to make love to you again.
Her drumming heartbeat grew even faster right then, because—she and Mark had never made love. And he’d never called her sweetheart.
Baby. He slipped up and called me baby once. But not sweetheart.
She ran toward the ranch house. For an instant, the past and present blurred. It was another night. She’d heard thunder—
I heard thunder a few moments ago.
She was running to the house, looking toward that big picture window...
Ava skidded to a stop. The big picture window was gone. Her brothers had remodeled the ranch house. The window she remembered from her nightmares had been torn down long ago.
The house looked so different now. A new place. There were flowers running around the house, and—
Lightning flashed.
Ava ran toward the door. She pounded her fist against it. Hurry, hurry. They weren’t answering fast enough. She grabbed the doorknob and twisted, but it was locked. So she pounded again and again and—
“Ava?” Davis had yanked open the door. “What’s going on?” He grabbed her wrist and tried to pull her into the house. “Is someone here? Did something happen?”
She jerked away from him. “Mark’s in trouble!” She was certain of it. “We have to go help him, now!”
Chapter Five
Low, rough laughter reached Mark’s ears.
He stopped struggling when he heard that sound.
“She’s coming...” the voice rasped. It came from too close by.
His headlights must have been busted out because they weren’t throwing off any illumination. The interior of the SUV was a dark hole.
“She thinks that she’s coming to you. Ava is racing to see her lover again, but she won’t find you.” The voice was still low. The jerk was trying to disguise himself.
Mark rammed against that steering wheel once more. Had it shifted just a little bit?
“She won’t find you, though. I’ll be waiting for Ava.”
No, no, that couldn’t happen. “You stay away from her!” Mark yelled as he heaved with all of his strength.
Mark surged against that wheel. Yes, yes, it had shifted, just an inch, but an inch was all he needed. He could slide out now. But first he had to get a weapon. He also had to distract the assailant who had Mark locked in his sights.
“Ava isn’t yours. She was never meant for you.”
Mark forced himself to laugh. “Let me guess. You think Ava belongs to you?” His fingers slid over the passenger seat. He found a chunk of glass that had once been part of the passenger-side window. That chunk would have to do. Not a knife, but he could still do some serious injury with that thing.
Another part of my life that Ava doesn’t know about. I learned to kill, maybe too well.
He had more in common with her brothers than Ava realized.
“Ava is mine!” The voice was even lower. Mark had to strain to hear it. His eyes were trying to adjust to the darkness, and he thought the guy was wearing a hood...no, a mask.
Lightning flashed again.
A dark ski mask.
“I’ve had plans for Ava ever since she was sixteen.”
Mark’s blood turned to ice in his veins. “You killed her parents.”
Laughter. Laughter that he hated. “I’ll kill anyone who gets between Ava and me. She came back for me, and now I get to keep her.” He was raising that weapon. Mark saw the guy’s hand lift—
Mark jumped out the driver’s side door. The bullet erupted less than a second later, slamming into the driver’s seat. Mark hit the ground hard, and he rolled, twisting and coming up as fast as he could. There were trees all around there, plenty of space for cover, and he leapt for them, his heart racing fast and his legs pumping furiously.
Another shot sounded, and a chunk of bark flew off the tree near his head. Missed me! Guess you can’t aim so well in the dark.
No wonder it had taken the guy so many hits to crash the SUV.