Too Far Gone

by Marliss Melton

  Wow. Apparently she was.

  He watched in anticipation as she parted his fly, reached in and drew him, now fully aroused, toward her seeking mouth. He sure wasn’t one to turn down a blow job but . . . “Ellie, you don’t have to do this.”

  She opted not to hear him. He closed his eyes as she pulled him deep into her warm, wet mouth, rubbing her tongue along the underside, her lips applying suction.

  Oh, yeah. Oh, honey.

  His fingers slid into her hair. He couldn’t believe that Ellie was being so uninhibited—his proper, prickly Ellie Stuart. He opened his eyes to confirm that reality.

  The lamp put gold streaks in her light brown hair. Her stormy-gray eyes rose up at him, and the unguarded longing in them punched him right in the gut.

  He stepped back out of reach. For some reason, he felt more vulnerable than usual. Or maybe it was just Ellie’s emotional fragility scaring him. Either way, he wanted to turn out the lights. “Come on, Ellie. Let’s go to the bed.”

  She stood up, blocking his trajectory to the lamp, and started unbuttoning her pink blouse, then wriggling out of her jeans. He forgot about turning off the light and stared.

  Never had plain cotton undergarments, no doubt purchased at a discount store, looked so fucking sexy.

  Reaching around her for the latch on the bra, he freed her magnificent breasts and groaned. Holding them like mounds of buried treasure, he raised her nipples to his mouth and suckled ardently. She arched to him, crying out in soft encouragement as she clutched his head in her hands.

  She was so damn responsive, he was dying to see her face when she came. Intending to spill her across the surface of the bed, he tripped her intentionally, only to wind up sprawled on top of her. She’d grabbed him on the way down with a grip that was surprisingly strong.

  He had to laugh. No woman had ever managed that before.

  “Ellie,” he muttered, kissing her neck with deep appreciation. Delving under the elastic of her panties, he found her slick and hot and ready for penetration. With impatience, he dragged the cotton barrier down her hips, put his mouth where his hand had been, and buried his face.

  Over the plane of her clenching belly, he watched her as she rocked her hips and moaned. He wallowed in her lushness, saturating himself in her sweetness, her scent. He couldn’t say who enjoyed it more—she or he. A fine sheen of perspiration shone on the underside of her breasts, and he throbbed with enchantment. She was beautiful.

  Then he felt her convulse, heard her cry out with such abandon that he almost spilled himself prematurely. As she sighed and went limp, he lunged for the drawer, pulling out a condom and ripping it open with his teeth.

  “Smart man,” she breathed, watching him through her lashes. “You have no idea how fertile I am.”

  He sheathed himself ineptly, his hands actually trembling. “Yeah, I’m starting to get that,” he said thickly.

  She held out her arms to him, and he dove into her, forgetting the light yet again as he drove himself with a groan into her sweet gripping warmth.

  This was sex for sanity’s sake, he reminded himself, closing his eyes, aware that she was now watching him. The circumstances were desperate. That had to be the reason for these over-the-top sensations.

  But not for a second did he think there wouldn’t be a price to pay. He’d violated his personal code by sleeping with a single mother, not once but two nights in a row. He would have to pay the piper one day—at least he hoped he would. Because then it would mean that the boys had been found.

  He sought to slow the tempo, to give Ellie the reprieve he’d given her last night. But within ten minutes, they lay in a sweaty embrace, their breath still gusting with the ferocity of their mutual climax. Their gazes collided briefly.

  Holy shit, Sean thought, his heart still jumping in his chest. Holy, holy shit. I might never get enough of this.

  His cell phone rang, saving him from having to digest that disturbing realization. He jumped out of bed and found his phone clipped to his jeans, lying on the floor. “Harlan,” he answered breathlessly.

  His gaze slid involuntarily to the naked woman sprawled on the bed.

  “Butler here. Listen, I ran your conspiracy theory by my supervisor, and he thinks there might be something to it.”

  “Really?”

  Ellie came up on her elbows to regard Sean. His gaze slid to her breasts, and his cock twitched with renewed interest.

  “Instead of driving back tonight, why don’t you stay put? As soon as I wrap things up here, I’ll drive down there and join up with you. Where are you staying?”

  Sean hesitated. Maybe it was just the sniper in him, but announcing his location always made him feel like a sitting duck. “We’re, uh, we’re at the Hyatt,” he lied, naming the huge hotel across the street. Of course, if Butler really wanted to find him, he could just trace his credit card.

  “The Hyatt,” Butler repeated, the scratching of his pen audible through the phone. “I should be down there the day after tomorrow.”

  “So we’re not going to get subpoenaed for staying down here,” Sean clarified.

  “No, no. I’ve cleared this with the right people. Let me work on this more, and I’ll call you back,” he added, ending the call.

  Sean looked at Ellie and shrugged. “We’re staying,” he said.

  “Oh,” she answered. Then, to his intense gratification, she held her arms out to him, wordlessly inviting him to be her refuge, her port in the storm.

  Hours later, with her head pillowed on Sean’s shoulder, Ellie stared into the darkness, listening to the even cadence of his soft snores.

  Deep within her being, she was conscious of the fragile shell that held her heart together. She shied away from giving it a name, from facing the possibility that it might one day crack open, causing all the pieces to come tumbling out.

  She would only acknowledge this: that her connection with Sean, intensely physical and deeply gratifying, was the only thing keeping her sane right now.

  Chapter Nine

  “Look, Mama,” said Skyler, bending over her mother’s shoulder as Matilda Dulay stared sightlessly out the window of her room at Hospice House. “This is your garden journal. Do you remember writing all this?”

  Flipping through the pages, Skyler managed to capture her mother’s attention with the noise she made. Her mother’s deep blue eyes lowered to focus on her own dainty scrawl, and a frown creased her brow as she regarded the drawing of irises made by her own hand ten years ago.

  “My garden,” she murmured, and Skyler’s heart leapt.

  “Yes, Mama,” she cried, dropping to her knees so she could see the light of recognition in her mother’s eyes. “You wrote about every plant and shrub and tree. You loved your garden, didn’t you, Mama?”

  “Where . . . where did you get this?” Matilda asked, placing a veined hand on the open page.

  “You gave it to me,” she reminded her mother. “Along with the key to your heart.” She held her special pendant up for her mother to see. “Remember?”

  The expression on Matilda’s once-lovely face was nothing at all like the look of blank apathy she’d worn with increasing frequency over the years. To Skyler’s delight, her mother seemed to be having a lucid moment.

  “The key,” Matilda murmured, reaching out to rub it between her thumb and forefinger. “Skyler, this is the key to your future.”

  The sound of her name on her mother’s lips brought tears of joy flooding into Skyler’s eyes. “Oh, Mama, you remember me today!” she cried, throwing her arms around her mother’s frail shoulders. Joy morphed into relief followed by bottomless sorrow that, all too soon, her mother would forget her again. As her mother stroked her hair, murmuring, “There, there,” Skyler wept.

  Then, realizing she was wasting precious seconds, she dashed the tears from her cheeks to remind her mother, “Not my future, Mama. It’s the key to your heart, remember? You gave it to me when I turned sixteen.”

  A look of alarm
crossed Matilda’s face. “How old are you now?”

  “Twenty-three,” Skyler reminded her gently.

  Matilda reached for her daughter’s left hand, seizing it in a surprisingly firm grasp to examine the gaudy diamond solitaire. “Who are you going to marry?” she demanded with real fear.

  Confused by her mother’s horror, Skyler sought to soothe her. “It’s Ashton Jameson, Mama. You remember Daddy’s friend, don’t you?” It came as such a relief to share her burden with her mother and know that she was being heard.

  “No.” A pallor bleached Matilda’s face, and she gripped her hand harder. “No, Skyler. You have to save yourself. You cannot end up like me.”

  “It’s okay,” Skyler reassured her, frightened by her mother’s distress. Pinpricks of alarm stabbed her arms and legs. “I’ll be fine.”

  “Listen to me,” Matilda commanded, her quavering voice the first sign that her brief lucidity was beginning to fade. “Use the key,” she repeated anxiously.

  “I don’t understand, Mama,” Skyler whispered, certain her brain synapses were starting to misfire. The key was nothing but a pendant. It didn’t go to anything.

  “Father Joseph knows,” her mother added, confirming Skyler’s sad conclusions. Father Joseph was a priest at the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, a long-time friend of her mother’s. He made a point to drop by the Hospice House on a regular basis.

  “Did he come visit you today?” Skyler asked over the lump of disappointment swelling in her throat.

  Her mother didn’t answer. Lapsing into a long stare, her gaze strayed past Skyler’s shoulder toward the window again.

  A tap sounded on the privacy window. Carl, who guided the pompous silver Bentley up the interstate toward a rendezvous point halfway between Savannah and Charleston, spent a flustered moment searching the dashboard display for the switch that lowered the partition between the front and rear seats.

  Sweating in his new chauffeur’s uniform, he braced himself for a negative comment on his less-than-solid driving skills. Hell, he hadn’t even owned, let alone driven, a car this past year, and definitely not a luxury car like this one. He was lucky he still had a license. “Sir?” He craned his neck to see Dulay in the rearview mirror.

  The man had just put away his cell phone. His dark eyes snapped with anger as if he’d received some bad news. “Have you been approached by anyone about your sons, Carl?” he demanded peremptorily.

  Carl turned hot, then cold. Swallowing a sudden knot in his throat, he wondered how his employer could have discovered so quickly what had happened last night. How much should he say? Or was there any point to hiding the truth when the old man seemed to know everything?

  “Y-yes, sir,” he admitted, a river of sweat now trickling between his shoulder blades. “My ex-wife tracked me down,” he confessed, making no mention of Skyler tricking him. “She asked me if I had anything to do with her boys bein’ taken.”

  “How would your ex-wife know where you are?” Dulay demanded coldly.

  “I . . . I don’t know, sir,” Carl stammered. “Last time I saw her was near a year ago.” He’d been drinking at Turley’s Show Bar when Ellie had marched right in with all of her brats, demanding money to feed them.

  “Bates,” Dulay muttered to himself.

  “What’s that, sir?”

  “Never mind. What did you tell her?”

  “Nothing.” Carl’s denial came out on a squeak. “Honest, sir. I . . . I don’t know a thing about them.”

  Dulay’s faint smile relieved him immensely. “You just keep singing that tune, Carl,” he encouraged. “If you’re approached again, by anyone, your answer remains the same. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir,” Carl breathed. Was that it? Dulay must not have realized Skyler’s involvement, nor was Carl stupid enough to betray her and implicate himself in the process.

  “Once the fuss dies down, you may visit your sons,” Mr. Dulay added, implying that the boys were, in fact, in his possession, while not telling Carl exactly where. “Until then, I wouldn’t want you to have to lie.”

  “No, sir.” That suited Carl just fine. He wasn’t in any hurry to see them, anyway. Not that he could envision Ellie ever allowing the fuss to die down. She’d be on a crusade for life, a thorn in Carl’s side for years to come. “About my ex-wife, sir,” he hedged, wondering how to warn Dulay of her persistence.

  “Let your ex-wife be my concern,” his employer cut in smoothly, shaking out his newspaper.

  “Yes, sir.” It sounded like Dulay planned to get rid of Ellie once and for all. He wondered, with only a pinch of regret and a much larger dose of relief, if she was going to spend her life in jail for a crime she’d never dream of committing.

  “I’m going out for a while,” Sean announced as Ellie ventured from the bathroom, showered and dressed in one of her plain button-up blouses and faded jeans. “Why don’t you order some room service and watch TV till I get back?” he suggested.

  She drew up short, pinning him with an astute gray gaze. “And what would you be doing that I couldn’t go with you?” she demanded.

  He prudently skirted the question. “Just trust me, Ellie. You’ll be safer in here than you would with me out on the streets.”

  “Why, what are you planning?”

  “A party,” he answered grimly, “with Grimes and company.”

  Her eyes widened with concern. “What if they hurt you again?” she asked, humbling him unintentionally.

  “They won’t,” he insisted. “This time I’ll be ready for them. You, on the other hand, might get hurt—or worse, used as leverage against me. You can’t come with me, Ellie. I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

  Her mouth pursed into a stubborn knot. “Whose sons were taken?” she demanded. “Yours or mine?”

  “Come on, Ellie. You know those boys are like sons to me,” he muttered uncomfortably.

  “Oh, don’t give me that crap. They’re my boys, and I’m going to be with you when you find them.” She snatched up her card key and stuck it with intent into her back pocket.

  Sean blocked her trajectory toward the door. “Look,” he said, trying persuasion. “All I’m going to do is parade myself around town in the hopes of drawing out these guys, who obviously know something. Things could get ugly after that.”

  “I can handle it,” she retorted firmly.

  “No,” he repeated.

  She took a threatening step in his direction. It made him lean back, surprised. There weren’t many men willing to go nose-to-nose with him, but Ellie was right up in his face, her face flushed pink. “I have been dragged by a car because of these fucking assholes,” she said, making his ribs tickle at her use of profanity. “They took my boys from me. Now, what do you think they can do that’s worse than that?” she growled.

  Visions of carnage flashed through his mind. In his line of work, he’d seen unspeakable things men had done to women. “You’d be surprised,” he muttered grimly.

  “Then keep me safe,” she ordered with simple faith that rocked him. Since when had he earned that kind of trust from her?

  “That’s what I’m trying to do now, by not letting you come,” he pointed out.

  “If you leave without me, I’ll just head out on my own,” she threatened with an obstinate glitter in her eyes.

  She was maddening. He wanted to both throttle her and throw his arms around her to shield her from life. “Damn it!” he swore, wishing it didn’t have to come to this, and they could just lock themselves in their room and have sex all day. Not only did her tagging along add risk to a potentially dicey situation, but she also distracted the hell out of him. “This is not a good idea,” he informed her, conceding defeat. “If you want to come with me, we’re going to establish some ground rules.”

  “Okay,” she agreed, instantly amenable.

  “First,” he said with a meaningful glare, “if we run into our guys, my priority will be to put you somewhere safe. Once I put you there, you stay there.
No heroics. No coming to my rescue. I’m good at what I do, and I don’t need your help doing it.”

  Her eyes got a little wider as she presumably pictured him at work.

  “Second, if we get separated for any reason, you take public transportation and you get your ass back to this hotel. Then,” he said, fishing his wallet from his pocket and thrusting Reno’s card at her, “you call Reno.” He’d apprised Reno earlier this morning of his suspicions regarding the Centurions’ involvement in the kidnapping. Reno had been dubious at first, then thoughtful as Sean supplied his reasons for suspecting them.

  “Why not call the police?” Ellie asked, puzzled.

  “Because I suspect that half of the police here are Centurions,” Sean said shortly.

  That gave her pause. She looked at Reno’s card and stuck it in her pocket with her card key. “Okay, what else?”

  He heaved a sigh as he searched himself. “I guess that’s enough for now. Just listen to my directions and follow them, no questions asked. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir,” she quipped.

  “I’m not an officer,” he countered, pulling her into a fierce embrace. “And I sure as hell ain’t a gentleman,” he murmured, nuzzling her neck and squeezing her firm bottom, marveling that his body responded immediately to her scent. “Come on,” he growled, shepherding her toward the door. “We won’t find the boys any faster by foolin’ around.”

  Their first stop was the open-air shops overlooking Savannah River’s bustling port. Recalling the coveralls Grimes and his partner had been wearing the other night at the bar, Sean figured they were dock workers. Most of the boats were loaded and unloaded farther upriver, but if he sat right out in the open at a table by the coffee kiosk, wearing a bright yellow T-shirt, his bald head reflecting the sunlight, he just might be seen. Putting Ellie’s back to the kiosk, with the umbrella stand in front of her, he made certain she wasn’t so exposed.