“It’s not your fault.” She tried to pull him back to her, even though she was now aware that nothing could stop the emotion glistening in his eyes at whatever visions—probably horrific—were filling his brain.
A lump moved down his throat. “It’s my fault she’s dead.”
“That’s not true.”
“I should’ve been with her.”
“How could you have known, Linc? Bad things happen to good people all the time. If we could be with our loved ones every second of the day to ensure nothing bad never happened to them…” She struggled for the right words feeling like everything she was saying was sounded wrong. “I guess the world would probably be a better place. But… we can’t, Linc. We just can’t. And we can’t blame ourselves for something like that. Something that’s completely out of our control.”
His eyes flew to her. “She booked the tickets damn near a year in advance. All I had to do was put in the goddamn vacation request paperwork at the precinct. That’s all I had to do. Give them enough notice to ensure I got the time off. But I didn’t. I waited until the last minute, and my request was denied because of it. My wife climbed onto that cruise ship, pregnant and alone, because of it. And whatever… whatever lowlife animal laid eyes on her, and immediately knew she was alone—that lowlife saw their chance. A beautiful woman with no one to protect her. A prime target. And that lowlife didn’t squander his chance. Kidnapped her from her suite in the dead of night, and I didn’t see her for again five years. It is my fault.”
Exhaling heavily, she shook her head, digging her nails into his chest with trembling hands. She tried to further refute his words. To convince him that his wife’s kidnapping wasn’t his fault. But the lump in her throat wouldn’t let her.
“And what happened after you killed your dad? And all the others?”
He ran a hand down his darkened his face while swallowing thickly. Then his hand was back on her head. His quaking fingers sinking into her hair.
Her eyes fluttered shut as he stroked her strands, the beds of his fingers softly massaging her scalp. She was thankful for his touch. For his silent reassurance that he wasn’t angry with her, but himself.
“I caught the first plane to London. Days before the FBI and Homeland Security nearly shut down the entire country in an attempt to stop me from leaving. And then I spent the next year looking for my daughter.”
“So you’re a fugitive back home in America?”
“Top ten.”
She couldn’t help a grin at the hint of humor in his voice—thankful that her incessant questioning hadn’t buried him in a place so dark it was impossible for him to climb out of.
“You choose a good one,” he continued, his voice lighter with each word. A playful smile back in his eyes.
“You miss your mom?” she whispered.
“Very much.”
“Think you’ll see her again?”
“Hope so.”
“What’s her name?”
“Grace.”
“And your brother?”
He grinned. “Gage. Gage Blackwater.”
“You said you and him were sworn enemies before you found out he was actually your brother. How did that happen?”
Linc took a deep breath. “After Lisa went missing during that cruise, I wanted answers. I wanted to search the ship. I wanted to question everyone. I became obsessed with finding her. Finding the truth. The Blackwaters did everything they could to stop me. They were the richest family on the island—billionaires several times over—so their claws were in deep. The port police, the DA, damn near every judge in the city. All of them were in that family’s back pocket. In the beginning, Gage was on his father’s side. He was convinced I was the crazy one—that I was tormented and delusional. Mentally disturbed in the wake of losing my wife. As time went on, though, the truth hit him too. Hit him like a ton of bricks. Hard and fast. He could’ve crumbled to pieces, like a typical trust fund kid, but instead…” He sighed. “He helped me find the truth. He used his name to get to the bottom of the same cruise ship my wife went missing on, and he found a shipping can full of trafficked kids inside. Gave the testimony that single-handedly shut the entire operation down.”
“God, the drama.”
“Not even the half of it.”
“How did you find out he was your brother?”
“I don’t even know where to begin telling that story.” He smiled. “Maybe after I have a cup of coffee and wake up a little more.”
“Wow.” She drank in his smile like water, thankful that she was able to draw it back out of him. “Thank you for telling me.”
He brushed his callused fingers down her face slowly, back and forth, eyes following his every move. “At this point? Honestly? I think I’d tell you anything.”
“Power of the pussy.”
“You said it.”
His deep chuckle tickled her chin from where her hands were still stacked on his chest. “I wondered why it had been so long since you’d made love.”
“What made you think it had been?”
“It was obvious. The way you reacted whenever I was naked—”
“Which was constantly.”
“The way you looked at me when my boobs fell out of that gold evening gown.”
He chuckled.
“I knew you hadn’t touched a woman in a long time. Probably in years. What I didn’t know was why. How a man as gorgeous as you could go so long when he could get it so easily. Like, how?” she cried. “I was stumped.”
His smile eased but didn’t disappear completely.
“You never cheated on Lisa.” She spoke the truth he hadn’t said out loud but that she’d figured out herself, feeling her own eyes growing soft in his. “And she was gone for five years. Man, five years is a long time, Linc. Six, if you count London. Am I the first in London?”
“You’re the first since Lisa.”
“God, your self-control is astounding. You should be in a record book somewhere.”
His voice grew defensive, somewhat defused by the shy smile on his lips. “Listen, I had plenty of opportunities, a’ight? In the time she was gone, I had plenty of offers.”
“I have no doubt.”
“But…” His smile petered away, and he shook his head softly. “It always felt like I’d be cheating on my wife.”
She nodded.
“Even when I met someone… Someone I could actually see myself with… I just couldn’t. The guilt would eat me alive. Like any woman I touched would be a betrayal. That if, by some miracle, Lisa came home, I’d have to see the look in her eyes when she realized I’d found someone else. Loved someone else. Even though I had no idea if she was dead or alive. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do that to her.”
“But there was someone? Before she came back? Someone that you could see yourself with?”
“There was one. The only one, besides Lisa. But she knew just as well as I did—”
“That you were still in love with your wife.”
“Madly in love.” He nodded. “Veda knew I couldn’t give her what she needed—that I couldn’t give any woman what she needed—until I had closure with Lisa. She knew.”
Mia couldn’t help the sharp twinge that cut her from within, fighting to reel in the irrational jealousy tightening her stomach. “Does Veda still live in California?”
“Yes. She’s engaged to my brother.”
“Oh, the drama.” She breathed, every inch of her body secretly screaming with relief that this ‘Veda’ was taken. Her bones visibly collapsing atop him.
“Like I said,” he grinned. “You don’t know the half.”
“Does it—” Her voice broke, and she realized it had broken because she was terrified of the answer to the question on the tip of her tongue. “Does it still feel like you’re betraying Lisa? Being with me?”
He ran the backs of his fingers across her cheek, his voice lowering to a barely discernible whisper. “No.”
They shared a gentle smile.
He drew in a deep breath, making her body rise high along with it before slowly sinking back down.
“What about you? Where will you go?” she asked. “Once you get Emma back? Obviously, you can’t go back home. What’s freedom to you?”
“For me, it isn’t a place. It’s holding my daughter in my arms for the first time, and a million times more after that. As long as I have that… I’m free.”
Mia couldn’t help her eyes filling with tears. The bed of his thumb tickled her cheeks as he went to swipe them away, even though they hadn’t yet fallen.
“She’s really lucky to have a father like you.” Her eyes fell from his, and soon, she was drowning in her own distant place. A place where she secretly wished her own father had been so fiercely dedicated. Stopping at nothing to bring her back into the warm safety of his arms. Even if it meant risking his own life—his own well-being—by doing something as crazy as kidnapping the mayor’s wife. Traversing countries, questioning everyone, shooting dead any asshole who dared get in his way. But her father was a simple man. An accountant in Florida who was good with numbers, not guns. She knew very few men in the world existed with the kind of bravery Linc possessed.
She’d told Linc the night before that he was a once in a lifetime man, and those words were truer to her at that moment than ever before. She knew they’d grow truer with each passing day. Even though he was her captor, he was the man she’d always wished her father had been. The man Malik would never be. The best man she’d ever known.
A man she’d have to say goodbye to.
Lost in her thoughts—thoughts that had carried her so far away that she didn’t even hear him whispering her name repeatedly—Mia was only snapped back to the present when Linc cupped her cheeks and shook her.
“Hm?” she breathed, blinking rapidly before meeting his eyes.
“Jesus, where the hell did you just go?” he teased, sinking his fingers into her hair on either side of her head and stroking her jaw with his thumbs.
“I was just thinking…” That I’ll be heartbroken if you let me go. She bit her tongue, stopping those words in the nick of time. “I was just thinking about last night…”
His eyes grew hooded as her words apparently sent him spiraling back to last night too. “I haven’t stopped thinking about it for one second.”
“You’re the best lover I’ve ever had. I don’t think you’ll ever understand… what last night meant to me.”
“It meant a lot to me too, Mia.”
Then don’t give me up. She swallowed the plea.
“If I’m being completely honest…” he continued. “From the moment I saw you, up in that window? It was all I could think about. Tasting you. Making you wet. Being inside you. Watching you cum. Showing you that you deserve someone who cares about your pleasure too.”
“In the window…?” Her face pulled in confusion, but in the next instant, her voice ebbed away, and her face fell. “Me and Malik…” She smiled sheepishly. “You were watching us?”
“I was watching you.” His cheeks heated again. “It was impossible not to.”
It was her turn to blush.
“The way your face fell the moment he wasn’t looking. It sent a chill down my spine. Like I was watching a horror movie.”
“Life with him is a horror movie.” So please don’t make me go back. Her eyes searched his, desperately begging for him to come to the same conclusions that her beseeching heart already had. To refuse to give her up so they could have many more nights like last night to look forward to. So they could take care of Emma together. Raise her together. She knew her heart’s deepest desire was foolish. Not just foolish, but selfish. The simple fact was that Linc couldn’t have them both. Keeping Mia would mean losing Emma, and she could never ask him to choose. So instead she spoke her deepest truth, knowing that, soon, she wouldn’t be able to speak to him at all. “My body was never his the way it was yours last night. I didn’t even think it was possible for me to be so turned on. To finish so… so hard. I used to think it was cheesy when woman would talk about how a man made her ‘see stars’ but… it all made sense with you.”
With a deep, heaving breath, he removed his hands from her hair and took his warm, gentle touch down her arms, lingering just above her elbows. He squeezed, whispering, “Come here.”
Mia heeded his hushed demand, letting him pull her body farther up his, his biceps flexing as he hauled her in close with ease, stopping only when their lips met in a soft kiss. They lingered in the embrace like two people without a care in the world, pulling away only long enough to draw in a breath before he claimed her bottom lip between his again, wetting it softly with the tip of his tongue before moving to the top lip and capturing that one too. His fingers traveled down her arms as they took their time savoring each other, and when he made it to her waist, he clawed at it, tickling her.
She squealed into his mouth, his deep belly laughter trembling against her stomach. She squirmed when he continued the torturous tickling, stopping only when her frantic wriggling made his hardness grown more insistent against her belly. Showing her mercy, he removed his hands from her waist, using one to clutch the back of her neck as they continued kissing, slow and soft, and the other to squeeze her ass.
Mia was the first to break the kiss, nuzzling the tips of their noses, her eyes feeling as heavy and hooded as his. “I’ve never been happier than I am at this moment.”
He breathed deeply. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” She seared another long kiss on his lips, whispering softly after she pulled away. “Let me show you how much.”
She moved her searing kisses from his lips to his chin. His chin to his neck. His neck to his chest. She bathed the skin of his pecs with her lips and tongue, sucking softly, leaving a glistening trail of her attentions gleaming on his skin. Coaxing a new gasp from him with each enticing kiss she feathered over his heaving chest.
She bit random patches of his taut skin every so softly, and their eyes remained locked as she moved down his body. The heat in his unrelenting gaze made her clit tighten so much she was sure the friction from her tightly clenched thighs would be enough to make her come all on their own. She continued kissing down his stomach as moisture surged to her center, taking her time savoring every inch of him. Loving the way his abs rippled every time her tongue glided over his heaving, tanned skin. The way his muscles flexed under the brush of her dark brown nipples—the buds stroking his skin as she moved lower.
He clawed at her hair, pulling it a little harder—a little rougher—the closer she got to the deep V in his hips. His stomach heaved as she neared the hardness that was pressing against her stomach. Awaiting the same love and attention from her lips that she’d placed all over his chest. Her pussy swelled the rougher his hands got, growing slippery with her own need, loving the soft shot of pain mixed with pleasure that zoomed through her body when he tugged at her strands even harder. Knowing he was only doing it because he was losing all control.
She wanted him out of control. Just as much as she had been since the moment she’d learned who he really was. An inferno heated her skin, intoxicated by the choked groans rumbling in his chest. The wanton, baritone growls and the wispy hisses that left his lips as her mouth grew closer to where he really needed it.
When she made it to the deep V at his lips, kissing each long, hard muscle that pointed the way to the feathery patch of hair between his legs, she purposely ignored the long, swollen column that was shooting out of that patch, the tip dotted with precum, desperate to be buried in the warmth of her mouth. Bathed in the soft wetness of her tongue.
His dick twitched when she bypassed it completely, making the smile spread on her lips as she took her kisses to his upper thighs instead. Teasing him. His fingers tightened around her strands, almost in warning, but it only made her devious grin go even wider. The rapid pound of his heartbeat pummeled in her ears. She could hear it through his wrists, pressed u
p against her earlobes since his hands were buried in his hair. Proving just how crazy she was really driving him.
After looking up at him and seeing the naked agony in his eyes, Mia finally stopped tormenting him and seized his manhood in her hand, clutching the base so the monster stood tall, the glistening head pointed at the ceiling. The undulation that rolled through his body was instant, causing his dick to thrust into the tight sleeve of her hand and another hiss to blaze from his parted lips. As she stroked his manhood with one hand, she seized his balls with the other, making his body writhe even more.
Leaning in, never breaking her eyes from his, she licked his hardness from the base to the tip, feeling the shaft expand in her hand. The wet softness of her tongue caused the engorged column to fill with even more of his tension—tension begging to be released.
Unable to tease him any further, needing to see him come almost as badly as he needed to feel it, she engulfed the swollen head between her lips. His body rolled, along with his relieved moan, like an earthquake quivering across his bones. Tightening every muscle as it moved until it hit his hips, causing them to involuntarily flex and drive his hardness deeper into her mouth. His hips left the bed, forcing his dick to the back of her throat, his trembling fingers tangling her hair in two violent fists to hold her still. The crown of his skull banged against the headboard when his dick hit the back of her throat, making the whole bed shake, and his shadowed green orbs fall tightly closed.
“Yes.” His head flew back up and, still buried deep in her mouth, he bent down to pinch her nipples between his fingers, meeting her eyes once more, a frown creasing his face as she deep throated him, sending a blaze of pleasure zooming through him that was indescribable. “God, Mia, you know just what to do.”
She lashed her tongue around his cock, so big that, even with the tip tapping at her throat, she was able to fully fist the base. Every bone in her body wished she could swallow him whole. Consume him. If she could, she would. But he was far too big. So she took him as far back as she could before drawing her tightly sealed lips back up, swirling her fisted hand around the base as she did.
Captive Page 21