Love Slave (Outlaws and Heroes, Book 1)

by Mallory Rush

  But without Rachel, the joining of the three couldn't come together. Without Rachel even his own missing link, Joshua, would forever be missing. The thought alone was unthinkable. He gathered her close as he could, nuzzling his cheek to her neck, his hands cinching her waist.

  "I'm scared, Rachel. I'd never admit it to another soul, but my skin's crawling just thinking about you walking into that bath house without me."

  "Don't borrow worry when chances are it won't even come. We've got our back-up protection, a plane on ready, and maybe even an ally in Jayna if push comes to shove. A week from now we could even be back home... Joshua."

  He felt her slight stiffening and knew it came from her reference to home and promises he hadn't made. Promises of marriage. The word was an ominous one, but he'd begun repeating it to himself in silence as if by doing so he could make himself immune to the punch it packed. It held a strong and heady lure for him, being one of the few things he'd never compromised his standards on.

  In his mind marriage was a sacred union, binding, without recourse for divorce. Divorce, as far as he was concerned, was the same as breaking promises—just on a belated scale.

  He asked himself how he could be so irrevocably in love and even think about divorce. Maybe because most everyone he knew had at least one or a few and had never expected to split the sheets. Rachel saw only what they had now. It was naive, seductive, part of the nature she had that he did love.

  Marriage. What a concept. Rachel needed time more than he did, though she'd yet to realized it. Marriage to him would not be easy. Marriage to him would be for life.

  She was so everything he could ever want that it made him go gentle on her hair and absorb the utter delight it gave him to hear her sigh again, "Joshua."

  "You've taken to calling me Joshua. Why?"

  "Because it makes me feel good. Joshua Smith. A boy that ran away, shined shoes, and became Rand Slick."

  "Rand Slick," he repeated with a laugh. "Right out of a comic book or a gangster movie."

  "I wonder if that's where the real Rand Slick's parents came up with his name."

  "The hell if I know. Dumb luck finding the same name on a local gravestone with a close enough date of birth."

  "You never told me how you got his birth certificate."

  Rand continued his braiding and shook his head at the memory. "Amazing what kids can learn from watching the tube. I wrote to the county department of records and asked for a copy since the original had been lost. Five bucks for the fee and Rand Slick I officially was. Wish I'd chosen better but after I got it on a social security card, it was good as engraved in granite. The government doesn't seem to know I've been officially dead for twenty years. Selective memory, I suppose, considering what I've paid in since."

  He could have finished the French braid twice by now but still he took his time. Rand absorbed the domesticity of their easy companionship; it reminded him of the days he'd braided Sarah's hair. He was getting much better at peering into the lock-box. Lifting the braid, he kissed Rachel's nape and thanked her in silence for giving him such freedom.

  "Had you paid your first visit to Sarah by the time you managed to change your name?"

  "No. That was two years later." Memories. This was one he didn't like and promptly told Rachel outright.

  "Remember it anyway. Tell me why you didn't approach her then, or the second time either."

  Rand hesitated. He hadn't slipped recently. Maybe it was a good time to test how far his progress extended.

  "It's simple, Rachel. I was ashamed. I can still see her when she was ten, coming out of the grade school, laughing, talking to some other wholesome looking kids. And what was I? Just this vagabond who survived on the streets. I wanted her to remember me the way we parted. Her big brother who hung the moon, not the hard ass I'd become."

  "But what about your second visit?"

  "I was twenty-one and didn't even have a high-school diploma, much less the home I'd promised to give her. I was working odd jobs, making ends meet and putting aside a dollar here and there. She looked happy and I had nothing that could compete. So, I decided leaving her was the most loving thing I could do. As it turned out, turning my back when I didn't want to was the incentive I needed to get where I'm at now."

  "But how did you get there? That's a mystery you still haven't spilled."

  "You'll be disappointed. And I hate to destroy the last of my mystique." He tied a ribbon at her mid-back then swished the tail of scarlet over his lips.

  Rachel turned and they interlocked in an embrace that was almost too good to be true in its encompassment. So good, he was afraid it was too good to last.

  "Indulge me," she said. "I won't be disappointed. Everything else you've told me's been better than a Saturday matinee. But it has more daring and courage, more twists and turns than a movie could ever pull off. It's human. It's you. I'll love it. Guaranteed."

  If she loved him, really loved him, it had to be warts and all. Rand took a deep breath and braced himself to expose a few he'd tried to self-cauterize but were there to stay.

  "Okay, it's like this. I got mad. At life and myself. I'd worked hard, been honest. It got me minimum wage and little else. The only thing I could do better than a Wall Street executive was play pool. I had two hundred dollars saved and took it to a pool hall to hustle nickels and dimes."

  "You must have racked up quite a bundle."

  "Enough to take to the race track while I devoured every finance book, money magazine, and Wall Street Journal the public library had to offer. I got lucky and knew when to cut my losses before my wins took a dip. In six months I had twenty-thousand smackers. I was ready for higher stakes."

  "The stock market?"

  "Commodities. They paid off bigger and faster than stocks. Twenty grand turned to a hundred. A hundred to a million. In three years I had my nest egg. By then I'd hooked up with some professionals who didn't play by the rules and found out I had a knack for arbitrage. I had what it took."

  "You mean a self-taught profession and lady luck."

  "They got me started but that's about it. I had the instincts of a shark, the ethics of a snake, and the hunger of an Ethiopian. I'd been so poor that I couldn't get enough. A million, ten million in the bank, and every morning I expected to wake up in a roach infested shack and find out it was all a dream. For years I've put in sixteen hour days and slept more nights in my office than at home in bed. That's been my life since I last saw Sarah." His smile was no smile. A grimace.

  "Everything you heard about me from my competition is true. I played dirty pool, bet on fixed races, and came out on top at the price of my morals. It was so addictive that I kept feeding my greed when I should have been looking for Sarah. And here I am. With so much money it's indecent, tracking down a sister who has every reason to hate me, and holding a woman in my arms who's crazy if she gambles on the likes of me."

  "The likes of you?" Rachel kissed him softly. "The likes of you are very special, Rand. You shouldn't beat up on yourself for doing what you were driven to do."

  He stared at her hard. "Were?" he repeated. "You used the past tense. But we're in the present and wondering about our future. You've asked me what happens to us once we get out of here. That depends a great deal on what you can accept and what you can't. I've cleaned up my act some, but..." He gritted his teeth and took the dive. "Rachel, I still play dirty pool. Barring a miracle, chances are that I always will."

  He waited for her to recoil or at the very least judge and hold him in contempt. They both knew a better man wouldn't have traded his soul and still be straddling a fine line.

  "C'mon, angel," he bit out, unable to endure her silence. "Aren't you impressed with the secret of my success?"

  "Are you?"

  "Impressed? Hardly. Sorry for it? Absolutely not."

  "Then I suppose we see eye to eye, to a point. I don't like how you've gotten where you are. But I understand your motives. Maybe that's why even knowing what I do, I can respe
ct what you've accomplished. You did it the only way you knew how. Life dealt you a dirty hand and you just learned a little too well how to deal it back."

  Considering the entrenched ethics she still had and he wished he'd never traded, her reaction was a lot to swallow, despite his need to drink it up. He had to test her. Besides, he might learn something new if he watched her real close.

  "You could make a load of money yourself if you wanted to give an expose. I'm sure the money magazines, and maybe even the reigning rags of trash, would love to get the scoop."

  "Shut up, Rand." She shoved him down on the mattress, her braid whipping against his chest. "I've always known you played dirty. But you've changed even more than me and I imagine that's something you're going to take with you when we get back. Whether you stick around for me or not."

  He felt a little mean and a whole lot threatened. Joshua tempered his words even as Rand slipped and struck back.

  "And you're just chomping at the bit to find out which direction I head for once we escape, aren't you?"

  "You bet I am, Mr. Master. But for the time being you're not going anywhere except to bed with me."

  "You still want to sleep with me after this? Lord, Rachel, either you've got a worse case of lust than I gave you credit for, or you give new meaning to love being blind."

  He waited on edge, her reaction so important it seemed to him a catalyst in the extreme, a pivot into the future.

  "You idiot," she said softly. "How dare you even suggest such a thing? I resent the hell out of your ugly implications and I've never had blinders on when it comes to you." She kissed him full on the mouth. "You've sold yourself short, Rand, but don't try sharing the wealth. I could never love you less for showing your life to me."

  She proceeded to chastise him with velvet lashes, strokes of acceptance that touched him down to his roots more surely than a train's mean wheels sliced over steel.

  Deep into the night, Rand stared at the overhead canopy while Rachel's even breathing soothed his savage breast. Gekko in the movie WALL STREET could have taken lessons from him—especially when it came to covering tracks—while here he laid, mulling lessons from Rachel. She was young but wise. Strong and sharp, cutting into him as cleanly as a surgeon's blade with her uncompromising acceptance and uncanny insight.

  He wondered what she would think of the insider trading information that had arrived earlier that day. He hadn't stooped to that lately, but this one had been too sweet to pass up. She'd hate it if she knew. But he didn't think she'd leave him for it. Unbelievable. That a man like him could marry a woman of her substance...

  It made him want to deserve what she offered. It made him think of who he'd been and who he wanted to be while the words marriage and divorce jousted in his head.

  The night wore on and eventually he got up. Rand went into his office and hit a button on his phone, immediately connecting him with the other side of the globe.

  "The deal's off," he said flatly. "From now on, I don't know you and you don't know me. Keep any future information to yourself unless you want a visit from the SEC."

  With that he hung up and fed a pile of papers that spelled pay dirt into a shredder. A smile of supreme satisfaction curved his lips as he watched the equivalent of multi-millions swirl into the trash can, like confetti raining down on a hero returning from war.

  * * *

  Rand jerked to a sitting position. Sweat drenched sheets clung to his skin. For heart palpitating seconds the stubs of flickering candlelight gutted into the dregs of his nightmare.

  Only the rerun had dished out a new twist. Or was it prophecy?

  Rachel. His disoriented gaze locked on the form huddling by his side. Peaceful, sweet. She reached for him.

  "Rand?" she murmured groggily.

  He was breathing fast. Was she really here, or was this the dream and she was skirting a flight of stairs while he fell straight to hell?

  His hands were shaking as he cupped her face. Her skin was smooth and warm and reassuringly there.

  "Rachel," he groaned. "Rachel."

  "Is something wrong?"

  "Bad dream."

  "Tell me...?"

  He didn't want to relive it, not now, when he needed more than anything to assure himself she wasn't an apparition, but was truly real. He was so afraid of losing her, just as he'd lost Sarah.

  Her gentle strokes down his chest were comforting. In his naked need her touch was fire to barren, dry grass.

  "Rachel," he said, his voice ragged against her mouth. "Hold me. Hold me tight."

  His kiss was desperate. She draped an arm about his neck, her free hand clasped his. Their fingers interlocked.

  "I need you, Rachel. Tell me you need me too."

  "I do need you. Both of you. And all of both."

  "Then take me. Help me to forget."

  She sheathed him with an intimate assurance and followed his entreaty, mounting him with feline grace.

  "Tell me about your bad dream," she urged.

  "It's a nightmare I've had forever and you're a dream chasing it away. Get rid of it, angel. Ride me."

  "Is it about Sarah?" She followed the direction of his grip, rising and descending in time to their words.

  He didn't want to relive the awful thing, but just maybe he could kill the old monster if he shared it with Rachel. At the least it was sure to lose some power with her by his side.

  "It was always Sarah. Until tonight. You took her place behind a glass wall. I saw you but I couldn't get to you."

  His upthrust was urgent; her downward reply met it, stripping away at the scene replaying in his head. He felt her cloaking him in the darkness, her empathy so strong it was palpable, giving him the strength to go on.

  "I tried to break the glass until my fists were bleeding with the pounding but it was no good. The black fog came and when it lifted you were gone. Harder. Harder."

  "Where did I go?" She gave him the rapidity of wipe away strokes, her breasts rising then crushing against his chest.

  "Up the stairs. Out of sight. I ran through the endless tunnel while a train chased me down." His breathing accelerated as though he were the marathon man sprinting for his life. "Elevator," he gritted between his teeth, then gnashed out, "I make it to the elevator just before the train eats up my feet. No way but down with—with..."

  "With what? Who? Oh God—"

  "No God. A demon. He's winking. Taking me... my feet leave the floor. My—my head's striking the ceiling." His movements echoed the sensation. "I've lost you."

  "No," she whispered sharply. Her nails bit into his tensed shoulders, and oh, how he loved the sharp bite of it. So real. So good. "No," she assured him. "I'm here."

  "Make it true. End the nightmare." His plea was desperate, his hips were locked, up, up, and fixed. "Drive it away. That's it, angel. Love your beast. Ride him to dust, break his dream like glass."

  She obliterated the horrid vision in front of his wide open eyes. Her own were pinched shut, neck strained back, and mouth stretched in an oval cry of...

  "Joshua," she shrieked.

  Her convulsions gripped him and took the hated dream into herself. He ejaculated and knew not only the sweetness of soulful release but the regret that it was a condom and not her that he had spilled into.

  Nightmares. Marriage. Children...

  In that telling moment he knew he could want them with her. So much he wanted, so little time before this woman he loved too much would put her life on the line for the grave mistake he had made. The promise he would finally keep.

  She collapsed on top of him, using what little strength he sensed she had left to stroke his face.

  "I hate your nightmare," she whispered. "I hate it for hurting you."

  He pressed his lips into her palm then studied her left hand's ring finger in the muted light.

  "I hate it for making me feel what it would be like to lose you."

  "But I'm here. Feel for yourself that I am here." She rocked slowly forward.
>
  "I feel it all right." He felt a lifting of his heart with no more than her pleased smile. She rubbed her cheek against his chest, a soothing back and forth rub that reminded him of a kitten brushing figure eights about his legs. Such a contrast to the woman that had practically ridden him into his grave. "You ride me well, angel. You love me even better."

  Her chuckle was soft, a welcome sound that challenged the mean, dark demon. Rand joined her, chuckling until it gained momentum and he laughed aloud at the nightmare. Just the same as spitting in its face. It felt good. No, it felt damn good.

  He kissed her soft. He kissed her hard.

  "This time, ride me," she demanded. "Ride me until we're both too tired to move or even dream..."

  Chapter 21

  "Ready, angel?" Rand tucked a stray curl beneath Rachel's headdress. She caught his hand and kissed it. He realized they were both shaking.

  "Ready as I'll ever be, Master."

  He tried to chuckle at their standing joke but the sound caught in the strain of his throat and he groaned in distress.

  "My guts are water." Pulling her close, he felt the pooling of their strength.

  "You'll be okay, Rand."

  "It's not me I'm worried about."

  "I know." She patted his back. "I know."

  "I don't want to let you go into that bath house alone. It's hell already and we haven't even left yet."

  "Jayna will be with me. Just remember that, while you stay posted in the car. With luck I'll be hustling Sarah out with me and we'll all be on the plane before her guard can find her owner and sound the alarm."

  "With luck. Back-up. And no delays on the runway. I just hope if we pull this off Jayna doesn't get punished for our success."

  He caught a spark of determination in Rachel's eyes. He knew that look and guessed what it meant.

  "You want to take Jayna with us, don't you? Rachel, she doesn't have a passport and we're going to be running for our lives as it is. She's old. She could slow us down."

  "Screw the passport. We're bypassing check-in and customs anyway and our own government won't have the heart to send her back."