Nothing.
And then she began to squirm against him, and he felt his hard flesh jump and jab into her belly. Though he did feel languid and loved, he apparently had other desires neither of them could ignore.
“What do you want, Ruby?” Her hands now traveled down his sides and under her body to the flat of his stomach. “Do you want me?”
“More than anything in the world.”
His hands cupped her bottom and made lazy circles along her moving muscles. He had never been with a woman this rock-solid, this capable of physical exploit, and though her softness – her femaleness – sent his heart spinning, he couldn’t help but wonder if there wasn’t something else. Were there fringe benefits to so many years of rigorous dance training?
“Do you want me, Janey?”
She stopped moving over him and propped herself upon one arm. She shot him a wicked grin.
She sat up straight upon his thighs. “Here. This is how much I want you.”
She pressed his palm against the outer rim of her sex. With the slightest movement, the tips of his fingers were engulfed in her slick heat.
“Oh, God.” Ruben’s hand trembled against her. The air was suddenly ripe with the rich scent of her.
“See?” She smiled down at him, her hair falling in a shining sheet across one side of her face. She let her eyes travel along the length of his torso, and she sighed in appreciation.
He stared at her, summoning his courage. “I’m curious about something, Janey. Can I ask you something?” He adjusted his fingers and thumb, and felt the pulse beat of her desire.
She gasped and threw her head back in pleasure.
“Anything,” she breathed.
Ruben propped himself upon one elbow so that he could watch closely, as her breath grew rapid and shallow and the dew collected upon his hand. He was overcome with the honesty of her response, the beauty of it, and how her pleasure was his own. And yet...
“Janey? What can you do that… well, only a ballerina can do? In bed, I mean?”
Her eyes flew open and she laughed, grabbing his hand until he stopped moving.
“What?”
“I’m just curious, that’s all.”
She shook her head, grinning. “I’m not enough for you just the way I am, Ruben? I have to perform tricks?”
“Oh, no! That’s not what I…” He saw her smirk and realized she was teasing him. Of course she knew she was enough for him – more than he deserved, in fact. He smiled at her sheepishly. “I was just curious.”
She suddenly hopped off of his body and stood by the bed, slicing her finger through the air and pointing. “Turn around.”
“Huh?” Ruben raised up and stared at her.
“Turn this way, so your feet are over here.” She grabbed his ankles and pulled him counter-clockwise across the bed. “There.”
“What are we doing?”
He watched, spellbound, as she began to stretch in front of him, the firelight behind her willowy body. He saw again that she was a miracle. He saw again how every part of her moved as a single sweep of motion, connected, fluid.
She spread her knees in a deep and graceful bend then swept her arms above her as she stood tall to reach toward the ceiling. He stared at the peek of firelight at the soft vortex between her thighs.
She smiled at him. “Are you ready?”
Ruben laughed a little, clearly a bit unnerved. “Wait. I really … I didn’t…”
She suddenly climbed up on the bed and stood over him, legs apart, hands on hips. “Lie back,” she ordered.
“Zia… Janey…”
She laughed loudly. “I’m not going to hurt you, Ruby. I left my whip in Philadelphia.” She giggled when his eyes few open. “I’m joking.”
He nodded.
“You’re still up for this, right?”
His head fell back. “Oh God, yes.”
She allowed her feet to slowly slide apart along the length of the bed. With the utmost control, she lowered her body closer to him, closer still, her hands on her hips.
Ruben looked up. “Oh God.” He felt her hands on him for just an instant, positioning him, and then he impaled her, and there was nothing but the precise point of contact between them, as she expertly raised and lowered her body using only the muscles of her impossibly spread inner thighs.
“Oh God,” he moaned.
“Look, ma! No hands!” She raised them over her head and brought them down in to her hair, laughing, and then the laugh extended into a long groan of joy.
He was astounded. How could she do this? He didn’t care. It was the most mind-blowing, purely sexual sensation he’d ever had in his life. Her grip was tight, and her movements were exact and sure.
Ruben watched, while the sparks flew in his brain and the lightening crackled through his bloodstream, and she breathed his name over and over in time with her movements.
“Janey, this is amazing.”
“Touch me, Ruben. Please touch me.”
Immediately, his fingertips reached for her. The instant he made contact with the bursting hot flesh, she exploded.
“I have to hold on now!” She fell forward on his chest, laughing, gasping, shuddering, even as the tears began to trickle down her cheeks and she cried out to him.
She was in control – in a way Ruben had never allowed a woman to control him before. It was terror. It was bliss. It was love.
She leaned close to his ear and continued to slide along the length of his flesh. “How am I doing?”
He grabbed her face and looked into her eyes. “I love you, Janey.” He wiped the tears from her cheeks. “I’m sorry for asking you to do something like that.”
She tilted her head, surprised. “Why are you sorry?”
“I… that stuff isn’t important. I was just curious, and I…”
“I thought it was fun.” She kissed him soundly. “Maybe next time you can show me something only a crime reporter can do, in bed I mean.”
Without a word, he reached for her and pulled her tight, rolling with her until she was beneath him. He held himself over her and took her with slow and even stokes, his eyes never leaving hers, a smile of wonder overtaking his face.
“I do know you, don’t I?”
She reached for his cheek. The pleasure pulsed through her in waves, and the tears continued to flow. She raised up and nipped at Ruben’s lips and tongue, and then lay beneath him, arching against the heat, the tingle, the devastation that was coming once again.
“You’re the only one who ever has,” she whispered.
“Oh for God’s sake, would somebody just do something? Anything?” The young man in the suit looked over at his partner and smacked his arm. “Wake up!”
“Whaaa? What happened?”
“Nothing.” He returned his eyes to the binoculars. “And if something doesn’t happen soon, I think I’m going to lose my… shit! He’s going to the house!”
Up the road a bit, Sheridan jolted in his seat. “Gentlemen. He’s on the move.”
How long had Bradley Rowe sat on the cold dirt behind the utility shed thinking this through? Long enough. He moved in the darkness.
It was time for them to die.
Ruben left the warm bed only once in the last hour, to stoke the fire and add wood. The rest of the time he’d remained still, listening, holding Janey close, encouraging her when she needed it, assuring her he could be trusted.
But the more she talked, the more afraid Ruben became for her, for their future together, and for the lives of innocent people.
With each word, the buzzing in Ruben’s brain grew louder. His guts bunched and twisted. The blood hammered in his head.
He started to sweat.
Janey O’Connor was sitting on the mother of all news stories – and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.
“He made me do it, Ruby. If Agent Sheridan hadn’t lied to me—blackmailed me like that—I could have turned away from Brad and started over somewhere. I co
uld have had my life!” The tears started again. “I didn’t want to know all this! I didn’t want to know any of it! But once I realized what it was all about, what kind of person my fiancée was, I couldn’t turn away. I knew it was my duty to learn everything I could. Can you understand that?”
Ruben blew out a long breath. “Yeah, I understand.”
“I just kept digging and digging and now… my God, Ruby, I can’t unlearn it. And in that closet is everything, all the proof.”
Ruben’s eyes darted from Janey to the closet door and back. His fingers twitched.
“The FBI is clueless! They know Brad is somehow linked to Liberty Path, in some roundabout way, but they have no fucking idea what he’s doing, or how big it is or how many people they plan to kill! They assigned just one agent to watch Brad – just one! Oh my God! What am I going to do?”
“Janey, you’ve got to tell them. Now. You have no choice.”
“Maybe I don’t. But listen, Ruby. Even if I gave the FBI everything anonymously, Liberty Path would figure out it came from me. That’s why Sheridan forced me to poke around in the first place. Who else would have access to Bradley Rowe the way his fiancée’ did? Who else could slip into his computer and his files so easily?
“But if the FBI arrests Brad with this information, Liberty Path would come after me. I can’t tell you how frightening this group is. They think they’re on some kind of holy mission for freedom, that they’re martyrs, and they don’t care if they have to die and how many people they take with them.”
“Maybe the FBI could protect you.”
“Have you been listening to me?” Janey shouted. “This group has smuggled biological and nuclear weapon components into the country. I think they’d manage to find little ole me.”
“But—”
“These people are racists and survivalists with an amazing stockpile of weapons. They’re psycho, Ruby. I’m scared enough as it is, and I’ve hardly done anything! What if I blow the whistle on them? There’s no way out for me! I expose them and open myself up to a life of fear. Or I don’t say a word and put God knows how many innocent lives at risk!” She laughed, but it was sharp and bitter.
He pulled her closer.
“I’m probably already dead. None of this even matters.”
Ruben’s head felt as if it would explode. “I need a second.” He rolled to the edge of the bed and stepped into his jeans.
Janey watched him pace in front of the fire. She watched him run his hands through his hair and rub his cheeks and sigh and groan. She had no choice but to trust him. She needed him. She loved him.
“Agent Sheridan knows how much of this?” Ruben’s eyes were blazing down at her.
“Just what I gave him at the beginning, the first few things I found: the names, the stuff about the meetings and by-laws and training programs, their theories on the New World Order and government oppression – stuff he probably already had.
“Once I realized how Sheridan had lied to me, I stopped giving him anything. Every time he’d come up to me after rehearsal, I told him I was working on it.”
“How did you find out he lied to you?”
“Oh, God, I knew in my heart that what he said about my dad couldn’t be true, but I was so scared. He said if I helped him with Brad he’d make sure my father’s name never came up during trial. But I found Daddy’s service records from Vietnam, and realized he couldn’t have been involved because he was already back in the United States by then! In 1971, my dad had his union card and was working at the plant, not in some Cambodian village massacring civilians! He couldn’t possibly have done it!”
“Did you tell Sheridan you knew he’d lied?”
Janey looked up at Ruben and shook her head. “I thought it would be safer for me just to play dumb. But God, I hated myself for doubting my father, for even a second. I really, really hated myself for that.”
Ruben dropped to his knees by the bed, but Janey rolled on to her stomach and turned away from him, crying again. The blanket fell low on her hips, and Ruben stared at the strong, straight back that glowed in the firelight.
Was she strong enough for this?
“That’s when I decided to go for it,” she said, turning to face him once more. “I went at night, when Brad was out of town, and found all these strange papers in code. I found blueprints of government buildings—the IRS, the Treasury Department, the Department of Agriculture, the Justice Department, you name it, it was a target for these monsters.
“I found the names of people I’d known as Brad’s clients—some of whom I even liked, if you can believe it—and they were the ones giving him the weapon components. Paris. Cairo. Bonn. Hong Kong. All those trips I went on with him were smuggling runs!”
Janey’s voice fell to a whisper. “I was right there by his side, blind. Stupid. He must have stashed it inside the antique weapons themselves, that’s the only thing I can come up with. Everything was always packed so carefully.
“He had the perfect cover, I guess. Brad was exactly what he said he was, an importer of collectible antique weapons. He just picked up a few modern ones on the way.”
Ruben frowned. “How did he got involved in this? It seems so bizarre that a Philadelphia society guy is doing something this whacked out.”
Janey sighed and rubbed her eyes. “He never talked much about growing up. I knew he was from North Dakota originally and moved to New Hampshire when he was sixteen. I found out the rest in his files, Ruby, because his story was apparently one of the defining moments in Liberty Path’s history. Brad is kind of like a living hero to them.”
“What do you mean?”
“His father was a founding member of the group in North Dakota, and ran some kind of clearinghouse for weapons. In 1980, he sold a couple automatic rifles to an undercover agent and they came with a warrant for his arrest. There was a standoff and Brad’s parents and baby sister were killed. Brad was at school at the time. He got adopted by his aunt and uncle, and he moved out East and took their last name.”
“So it’s personal.” Ruben said.
“Definitely.” Janey stopped for a moment and tried to calm herself. “Ruby, there’s something else I need to tell you.”
He watched her face go hard with pain.
“Right when I started putting all this together, when I began to see what kind of monster Brad was, I found out I was pregnant with his baby.”
Ruben went still.
“I was eight weeks along. I’d already started preparing to disappear–the false IDs, closing my bank accounts, renting this house, sending the documents and stuff out here ahead of time. But when I found out about the baby, I almost didn’t make it, Ruby. I didn’t think I could keep going.”
She reached out for his hand. Ruben grabbed it.
Janey suddenly let loose with an hysterical laugh. “And get this – all the while I’m supposed to be planning my wedding! I had catering appointments and dress fittings. I had to meet with the string quartet to discuss music! I had to deal with the women who were supposed to be my bridesmaids—all so it looked like there was nothing out of the ordinary going on with me. Can believe the insanity of that?”
Janey bent her forehead to their joined hands. “And we’d started rehearsals for Sleeping Beauty. I was dancing the role of Aurora, the role I’d been waiting for, wanting, for years. It was mine.
“I was like a zombie, Ruby – just going through the motions, knowing I probably would never get to dance the part, that I’d either be gone or dead.”
“Janey…”
“Listen to me!” She suddenly sat up in the bed, knocking Ruben to the floor. She tugged the blankets close to her and leaned down toward him. “Do you understand now why I asked you—begged you—to let me go? Do you understand why I didn’t want you with me? It’s not too late. You can walk away.”
“Tell me about the baby, Janey.” Ruby looked up into her blue eyes, which he saw glaze over in grief. “Please tell me.”
Janey took
in a jagged gulp of air. “I think I was such a physical and emotional wreck that the baby didn’t have a chance. After rehearsal one day, I had awful shooting pains through my back and shoulders. By the time I got to the locker room, I started bleeding. I took a cab to a walk-in clinic—I didn’t want to go to my regular doctor for fear Brad would somehow find out. I had a miscarriage.”
“I’m so sorry.”
She nodded slowly and set her jaw. “I ran away the night of the 10th Anniversary Gala for Brad’s gallery, a masquerade ball, a big social event. My plan was to leave during the party so if he noticed I was gone, he’d have to stick around and put on a public face. I thought it would give me some extra time.
“That morning, Brad was out and I went back to his gallery office one last time. I was still looking for something— anything—that would crack their code and reveal a where or a when. I’d pulled out a bunch of files when I heard Lawrence, and I shoved everything away as fast as I could and hid in the back storeroom until he left.
“I’d decided it was safe to come out just when I heard Brad talking downstairs. Ruben, I ended up hiding in that storage room for over three hours!”
“What happened later that night?”
“My God, it was awful. Brad made me wear this ball gown he’d bought me and this matching frou-frou feather mask. And he’d made a hair appointment for me. There I was, just the happy hostess!
“During the party, I tried one last time to get into his office. It was pitch dark and I could hear the music and laughter downstairs. I put Brad’s desk lamp on the floor next to me so I could read.
“Ruben, I found something. I found a piece of scrap paper with a small part of the code deciphered. It wasn’t much, but it was a start. I was about to copy it when I thought I heard footsteps.”
“Upstairs?”
She nodded. “Next to Brad’s office and the storeroom is a huge workshop where they restore swords and guns, and the whole floor was covered with a drop cloth. That’s what I heard – footsteps on the tarp.”
Collision Course: A Romantic Thriller Page 21