by Lora Leigh
“I don’t understand.” She shook her head jerkily. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I couldn’t tell myself, Emily.” He pushed his fingers through his hair as he kept a careful distance between them. “I couldn’t admit to myself that I was so desperate for you that I was worse than any stalker could have been. Because I was so damned scared of losing you. Then Fuentes took you.” A grimace contorted his face as his fists clenched at his sides for long seconds. “When he took you I went insane. When I crashed inside that dirty little shack and saw you, pumped on that damned Whore’s Dust and trying so hard to keep the other girls calm, a part of me knew I couldn’t run any longer.”
She didn’t remember it. Over the past months, there had been vague memories, shifts in the darkness of her mind about that time, but never anything solid.
“I knew when the limo was forced off the road that you would come for me,” she told him then. “I remember that much. Something inside me said that you would save me.”
“I saved you.” His eyes were so dark they were like gems glittering in his face as he came to her then, his hands framing her face, his thumbs smoothing over her lips. “But you were fighting to save yourself as well. You didn’t cower, and when I saw that, you stole the rest of my heart, Emily. My little fox, you made me burn for you until I thought I’d turn to ash.”
Emily felt her lips tremble, felt the emotion surging through her soul at his revelations.
“Then why are you so angry?”
“I’m not angry, chère,” he whispered. “I have to protect you. Soon it will all be over. I have to keep my head clear. I have to keep enough distance to make certain there are no mistakes made. I survived Tansy’s death and the death of the child she carried. But Emily, if I lost you, I don’t know if I could survive.”
She saw that in his eyes now. Saw it in his earlier actions. He had been distancing himself from his emotions, not from her. Always watching. Tense. Ready.
Dear God, what she had done in forcing him to return here, in refusing to hide?
“I’ll hide,” she cried brokenly. “We’ll go to the safe house.” She could feel her lips trembling, feel the fear for him suddenly overwhelming her. “Whatever you want to do.”
There was no ice in those green eyes now. They were darker, somber, filled with hunger and torment.
He shook his head as his arm closed around her hips and tightened, jerking her up to him, while the fingers of the other slid into her hair and gripped the strands with sensual force.
“No fear,” he growled, his head lowering until his lips were nearly, almost but not quite, touching hers. “Show no fear, Emily. I’ll get us through this.”
“Don’t.” She shook her head at the dark confidence she saw in him now. “You don’t have to go to the Andover mansion. We’ll go to the safe house. I’ll hide. I promise, Kell.” Her nails dug into his shoulders in desperation. “I’ll hide.”
For him. She would do anything, even forget her own freedom, to protect him.
He didn’t answer her. His lips touched hers, his gaze held hers. Like rough velvet stroking over her lips, he caressed and tormented, refusing to deepen the contact despite the parting of her lips.
“I’ll protect you, Emily.” A hint of Cajun spice entered his voice. “There’s no hiding. We both know that.”
Because he had tried to hide his wife years ago, she knew. He had tried and his enemies had found her.
“Tell me what to do.” Her breath hitched brokenly. “Tell me how to keep you safe.”
He froze, staring down at her as his pupils dilated and something akin to shock entered his gaze.
“Little fox.” His fingers slid from her hair to cup her cheek, his thumb brushing over her lips. “Just be you. Stubborn. Wild. Alive. I’ll do the rest.”
She tried to shake her head again, tried to deny that it would take so little to protect him.
“Come, chère.” His lips touched hers again, embraced the lower curve before moving to the top one. “Be wild with me for now. Later. Later is for taking care, eh?”
Before she could do more than whimper he was gripping her hair again, pulling her head back, and his lips were taking what he needed as he lifted her into his arms and carried her to the bedroom.
Taking and giving. Passion, hunger, heat, and need. And love. She could feel the love, hot and desperate, binding them now, though unspoken and guarded.
It filled each touch. It drew her muscles tight with pleasure and sensitized each cell of flesh covering her body. Like whipping lashes of sensation the pleasure snaked around her, through her, sinking past her clothing and her skin to her very soul.
She twisted against him, her fingers sliding into his hair, gripping it, trying to pull him closer as their lips and tongues interlocked, tangled.
Desperate moans filled the room as clothing was shed. His boots, her shoes. Her jeans and panties in one smooth stroke of his hands. His jeans and underwear, her movements jerky and desperate.
He tore her shirt from her shoulders. He was going to have to start replacing her clothes soon. In turn, she ripped the buttons from his shirt and pushed it over his powerful shoulders.
Flesh to flesh now. She cried out into his kiss, nipped at his lips as her nipples raked over his chest. Sizzling sensation tore across her nerve endings. Burned them. She twisted closer, desperate for more as she pushed him toward the bed.
“Mine,” she moaned ruthlessly as they fell to the mattress and she fought to roll from beneath him. “My turn.”
She rose above him, panting for air, straddling his hard thighs as her head lowered for more of his drugging kisses. To taste his lust and his need.
Her pussy was wet. So wet she could feel the damp warmth coating the folds as it rubbed against his cock head. The thick crest was velvety soft, steel hard, throbbing. Hot. It slid through the slit of her pussy, caressed her clit, and had her gasping for breath as she knelt above him.
She thought she had things well in hand, so to speak. She thought she could control the need spiraling inside her. She was convinced she could. Until he filled his hands with her breasts, lifted his head, and captured one hard, straining nipple.
Emily’s back arched, her head falling back on her shoulders as her hips rolled, and in a single hard thrust, she impaled herself on the straining length of his cock.
A frantic mewling cry left her throat as bursts of pleasure and fire stretched her inner muscles to their limit and exposed the ultrasensitive nerve endings to the fierce heat of his erection.
“Prends-le. Take it,” he snarled, his head pushing back into the pillow as he ground his hips upward, stroking her clit, pushing deeper inside her. “Is this what you want?”
He pulled back then plunged deep, impaling her with a ferocity that had her shaking on the edge of orgasm. “Take it, chère, take all of me.”
“Yes. Yes. I want that.” She twisted in his grip, writhed above him as she pressed her hands into his chest for purchase and rolled her hips against him.
He held her still, pulled back, and slammed inside her again before retreating completely.
“Oh God. Kell. No.” Her nails dug into his chest as he fumbled for the condom he had laid on the bedside table and quickly sheathed his raging erection.
“Easy there, chère,” he groaned hoarsely. “Hold for me, jolie, eh. I’ll give us both more, bébé.”
He fit the wide crest against the entrance to her pussy, paused, then began to push inside her with a slow, agonizingly rapturous thrust. He impaled her by degrees, ignoring her cries, ignoring his own violent need.
His expression was consumed with lust. Emily forced herself to watch him, forced her eyes open. She didn’t want to forget a moment of it. She wanted the memory with her forever.
This was the part of Kell he kept so carefully hidden. His large body flexing, his thrusts driving deep inside her, his eyes gazing back at her in a surfeit of emotion and hunger. His eyes glittered, deep, dark, an emerald gree
n so intense they glowed within his sun-darkened face and the midnight shadow of a beard.
As she gazed down at him, her breathing came sharp and irregular from the pleasure of the thrusts inside her. The burning pleasure, the building tension in her womb, the rake of his pelvis against the tight knot of her clit. The sensations inflamed her, consumed her.
“So silky and hot,” he whispered, staring up at her, his voice guttural. “I can feel your pussy stroking me, Emily. Tightening on me. So tight and liquid hot I could burn inside you.”
His rough tone had her womb clenching.
“You like this, eh?” he asked her with a tight smile. “Hearing what you do to me. Knowing you can burn my soul to ashes.”
His voice. Oh God, his voice destroyed her even as the hard thrusts inside her stroked her closer to orgasm.
“Feel this, Emily.” He surged inside her, paused, held still as his cock throbbed within the clenching heat of her pussy. “Feel what you do to me, bébé. Even sheathed in a condom I feel your sweet heat, chère. The clench of your pussy—” He groaned then, jerked and thrust deeper inside her. “Sweet heaven. Save me.”
Before she could stop him he rolled her to her back, his arms coming beneath her shoulders as he held her to him, his hard body surrounding her, securing her before he began pounding inside her. Desperately. Working his cock in quick, hard strokes as she felt the explosions begin to tear through her.
She was taken. Overwhelmed. She was lost within the inferno of his possession and within seconds arching against his thrusts as her orgasm unraveled inside her.
Radiant heat poured through her veins as she screamed his name, her arms wrapped around his back, her thighs clasping his as he stiffened above her and began to shudder with his own release.
“Love you, Emily.” The declaration was no more than a breath amid her wails of ecstasy, whispered at her ear, tearing into her soul.
They were dragged from him unbidden, pushing from within his soul, and all the more precious for the fact that she could feel his control weakening even as she felt his cock jerking in release inside her.
He wasn’t ready to give her his emotions freely. Not yet. As she held him to her, feeling his sweat-slick flesh rippling beneath the tension in his shoulders, she knew he wasn’t ready to face the emotions.
He was so strong. So sure. Always so certain, but she was learning that Kell didn’t deal well with a perceived weakness. And he perceived his emotions for her as a weakness. A risk.
“I love you, Kell,” she whispered tearfully against his chest, knowing he owned not just her heart but her soul. He filled her. He completed her. “I love you so much.”
Emily tried to catch her breath as her legs slid from Kell’s thighs and her arms loosened their death grip. Her heart was racing out of control, her own emotions in chaos, as he slowly eased from her and rolled to her side.
“You’re going to kill me,” he growled as he fought to catch his own breath. But his arm still came around her as she moved to drape herself across his chest. And that took effort, because her muscles were still mush.
Instantly, his warmth, his vitality, wrapped around her. Strength. Determination. He was such a powerful force that she wondered how he managed to maintain the control over himself that he did.
Or perhaps it was his control, the very essence of who he was, that created that vitality. Some men were naturally restrained. Strong, arrogant, determined men. Men who knew their strength and understood their own limits.
Kell had known the horrifying realization that he wasn’t Superman. That sometimes the odds were against him, and he had learned at a very young age the fatal results of being on the wrong side of the odds.
The odds had to be with them, she prayed as he pulled her against his chest and surrounded her with the warmth and strength of his body. They had to be, because God help her if she lost him.
Twenty-two
IT WAS LATE WHEN KELL and Emily left the bed to head to the kitchen for a late dinner. As Emily turned on the low living room lights and moved into the kitchen, AC/DC’s “Hells Bells” sounded from Kell’s cell phone, drawing a smile from her lips.
She should have guessed the dark, hard lyrics and music of that particular group would appeal to Kell. Though she knew his music tastes were eclectic, simply because of the CDs he carried in the Bronco parked in the driveway.
“Come on over then. Use the patio entrance and try not to create a damned traffic jam,” she heard Kell mutter. “This is insane.”
She turned as he disconnected and stared back at her with offended male irritation.
“Who’s creating the traffic jam?” she asked as she glanced down at the clothes she wore. Loose cotton pants and Kell’s T-shirt—because she wanted to keep his scent wrapped around her.
“Your father.” His voice simmered with frustration. “Admiral Holloran and Captain Malone.”
“Captain Malone?” She frowned as she pulled the deli-wrapped sandwich meat from the refrigerator before reaching in for the rest of the sandwich fixings. “That’s Nathan Malone’s uncle. He was with Dad and Uncle Sam before he left the SEALs.”
The three men had been part of an elite strike force, along with two others. One had died several years back, but Jansen Clay, one of her father’s best friends, and the father of one of the girls kidnapped with Emily, was still close to him as well.
As she laid out the sandwich ingredients a frown flitted between her brows at the thought of the men. Why would Jordan Malone be with her father and the admiral?
She dreaded seeing him. She still felt vaguely responsible for the SEAL who had died rescuing her. When she had learned that SEAL was Nathan Malone, her grief had been nearly unbearable.
He was Kell’s age, but she had known him all her life, just as she had known Risa Clay all her life. Risa was still in the hospital, her young mind damaged by the effects of the Whore’s Dust she had been given during her kidnapping.
Jansen hadn’t contacted her since the rescue, and she hadn’t seen him or Risa. The doctors were allowing only supervised visits by family members.
“. . . reports that Nathan’s alive.”
Her head jerked up at the sound of his voice.
“What did you say?” She had been so involved with her memories of Risa that she hadn’t caught his last sentence.
He stared back at her, his gaze somber.
“We received a report that Nathan’s still alive and being held by Fuentes’s spy. Pictures were sent to Macey, and it’s definitely Nathan.”
She stilled, the lettuce she had been tearing apart forgotten as shock resounded through her.
“It’s been almost two years,” she whispered.
“Nineteen months, and from the looks of those pictures, Nathan has suffered every day of it.” Fury flashed in Kell’s eyes, and Emily knew that if he ever managed to get his hands on whoever was spying for Fuentes, the man would die. Painfully.
“How could a spy hold Nathan that long?” She shook her head in confusion. Nathan wasn’t a weak man. He was one of the strongest she knew. “And where?”
“Where, we don’t know.” He pushed his fingers restlessly through his long hair as a tight, feral grimace twisted his features. “We’ll find him though.”
Her lips parted in surprise at the violence that gleamed in his eyes before her head jerked to the patio doors and the soft knock on the outside glass.
Kell turned out the living room lights before checking outside then opening the panel wide enough for the men to slip through.
Her father was first, followed by the admiral, Captain Malone, and then the rest of the SEAL team Kell was working with.
They all looked at the bar where Emily was laying out the food.
“Help yourselves to sandwiches.” She waved her hand at the mounds of lunch meat and vegetables before setting out two loaves of bread from the cabinet and pulling a gallon of sweet tea from the inside of the refrigerator. It was a good thing she’d gone grocery s
hopping before heading to D.C.
She hadn’t seen Jordan Malone in years. He was several years younger than her father; he would be forty-five or so. He had just signed on to her father’s team the year her father had been wounded and forced into a training position.
His hair was still mostly black, though there was more gray than she had noticed last time. He stood a little over six feet, with dark grayish-blue eyes and a hawklike expression. Texas born and raised, he had a rough-and-ready demeanor, even now.
He was a childless widower and she knew he had loved his nephew as though he were his own child. The report of Nathan’s death had hit him hard.
As Emily set out the paper plates and large plastic cups she kept for the rare instances that she had company, she watched the men who filled her living room, along with Kira. They were hard, dangerous men, but they were men whose expressions were also tempered with compassion and friendship.
Helping themselves to sandwiches and sweet tea, they pulled the available kitchen chairs into the living room, arranged them around the living room, and sat down to go over the details of the information they had on Fuentes, his spy, and the missing SEAL they had all grieved for.
The pictures Macey’s contact had sent were horrifying. It was Nathan, but if wasn’t the Nathan Emily had once known. His large powerful body was rangy and thin now, his ribs standing out beneath the flesh of his abdomen. His face was swollen, bruised. Fresh wounds were cut into his legs, arms, and chest. His face was barely recognizable, and his eyes, deep, deep sapphire-blue eyes, were glazed and bright with violence.
“We’ve received a little more information from Judas,” Macey muttered as the pictures were spread over the coffee table. “The last transmission was several hours ago. We tracked it here, to Atlanta, but that’s as far as I’ve managed to get. He’s been pumped up with Whore’s Dust during his captivity. The spy, who we’ve only been able to identify as Mr. White, is determined to break him. He thinks if he can make Nathan break his marriage vows by screwing another woman, even under the influence of drugs, then Nathan will break and give him the information he wants.”