by Anna Zaires, Pepper Winters, Skye Warren, Lynda Chance, Pam Godwin, Amber Lin
“Her delivery to the buyer is in two days. If Mom and Mattie are still alive, I have to deliver her.”
He slammed a hand on the steering wheel, and she didn’t even flinch. For the love of God, this was so jacked up. “How is delivering her better than not returning for her?”
The passing fields illuminated with the flickering lights of the emerging town. She slid out of his lap, dragged the cooler to the front, and perched in the passenger seat. “When I deliver her, I’ll kill the buyer.” She held a forkful of salad to his mouth and looked at him as if she were talking about football stats.
He accepted a few bites and tried to consider her suggestion with an open mind, but he couldn’t be moved from the conviction engrained him. Murder must always be a last resort. “You’re not killing anyone. Murder is a big sin, Liv.”
She stuffed another bite in his mouth with more force than necessary. “So if it had come down to leaving you with Traquero or pulling the trigger, you would’ve preferred the former.”
“Yes.” He would’ve found another way out, God willing.
“You’re an idiot.” Her tone was scolding, at odds with the weariness sagging her eyes.
“Repay no one evil for evil. We will overcome evil with good.”
“Ugh. Shut up.” She threw the salad container into the cooler. “I am evil. Destined for hell. What the fuck am I saying? I’m already there.”
“I’m not even going to respond to that.” Her self-perception punched him in the chest, but he wasn’t helping her, either. She needed a solution, not a bible study session. “Contact Traquero and request another meeting.”
“We only get one-time-use numbers. A number for initial contact. And a number to make the delivery. Outside of that, the buyers call Van. Mr. E’s rules. He prides himself on buyer confidentiality.” She leaned back in the seat and stared out the windshield. “Traquero will have a change of heart and call Van again.”
She seemed confident, and he wasn’t sure how to feel about that. His self-preservation objected to the notion of Traquero making that phone call, but his trust in her was unremitting. If it had come down to leaving him with Traquero, she would’ve pulled the trigger, damning herself to hell.
They passed through San Antonio and Austin, and the conversation circled around ideas that wouldn’t form into a plan. She put holes in every suggestion until there was only one option left. One he couldn’t accept. Premeditated murder was not a solution. Nor would it save her family and return him to his.
As he drove, he evaluated his feelings about resuming his old life. Returning home meant exchanging twelve requirements for a hundred more. Did he really want to go back to their rules? Mom and Dad’s restrictions were morally acceptable but no less confining.
When he exited the interstate at Temple, edginess stretched between them. Her mask fell in place, and her posture gathered into that unnerving stillness.
He pulled off into the same vacant lot she’d used ten hours earlier and climbed into the back. They were no closer to a solution, but they were together, bound by a connection that was deeper and stronger than keypads and shackles. He lowered his head, and the chains went back on.
Chapter Thirty-Two
The next twenty-four hours tested Josh’s faith in God’s presence in Temple. As Liv sank slowly and deeply inside herself, he questioned if maybe this was hell. Perhaps she was right. God had abandoned him on a threadbare mattress, locked in an attic, with his heart hemorrhaging in his hands.
He’d fed her the meals she’d retrieved from downstairs, showered with her, and tended his swollen knuckles and the small rip on her rectum. But his single-minded outpouring of questions, affection, and worry was a failed attempt in breaking through her steel-plated chest, which grew colder and more rigid with each passing minute.
She curled in a ball on the mattress and clutched her phone. Waiting for the videos that never came. Watching the blank screen as if, at any moment, it would stare back with lifeless eyes.
If Mr. E intended to kill her Mom and daughter, he would do it after she delivered Kate. Van had left Temple before they’d returned early that morning. Mr. E needed her and wouldn’t risk her dissent. Josh knew she knew that.
He dropped the tennis ball he’d been throwing for the past hour and stood over her, hands on the waistband of his jeans. “What time is it?”
Her thumb tapped on the phone’s screen. “11:48 PM.”
Only fifteen minutes had passed since the last time he’d asked. He was out of excuses to coax her out of the attic. Kate was free to roam the outer room, and Liv had brought up enough food to hold the three of them over until the delivery tomorrow.
He knew Liv intended to kill Kate’s buyer. Every time he counseled her against this decision, he was met with a litany of colorful words. Liv seemed completely unconcerned about her own safety.
Numerous times, he’d considered calling his parents to let them know he was okay. He would’ve had to trick her into unlocking her phone, but that wasn’t what quashed the idea. He didn’t know the outcome of their situation until she delivered Kate. Giving his parents false hope would be cruel.
“No more waiting.” He perched on the edge of the mattress. “We need to leave. Escape with Kate.”
“No.” Her answer was cold, final. She turned away and stared at her phone.
It hadn’t passed his notice that she was the only one going downstairs for food. With Van gone, there was no need for pretense. Beneath that icy mask, she still believed he would leave her.
He drew in a breath and matched her chilly tone. “If you haven’t heard from Mr. E before the delivery, then what?” She’d said Van would send her the address for the delivery when he received it. “Are you still going to deliver that girl?”
Her body turned to stone, her voice grinding. “I’m going to do what I have to do.”
He rubbed his temples. He couldn’t ask her to choose whose lives to protect. It was an impossible decision. One that would make the strongest person lose her bearing.
Laying on her side with her back to him, she folded in on herself, arms and bedding wrapped around her belly. She needed someone to hold her on the shore of decision, to cradle her fears, to contemplate what was best for her.
He leaned in and touched her bare shoulder with his fingertips, with his lips. “If you need a place to go, Liv, I’m right here.”
A shiver twitched down her arm. Her hair swept over the pillow in ripples of mahogany. The naked curve of her spine disappeared beneath the sheet that bunched at her waist. He was conscious of her lack of clothing under there, and while her nudity was no longer a mystery, it was no less alluring. Even in her misery, he wanted her, in every way possible.
He trailed a knuckle along the dip of her waist, over the rise of her hip, taking the bedding with it. He expected her to jerk away as she’d done all day, so he decided to surprise her. He yanked the sheets to the floor, exposing her slim lines and milky skin, stripping her bare.
She rolled to her back, her lips parting in disbelief, her phone seemingly forgotten at the edge of the mattress. What a gorgeous opportunity. He pinned her chest with his and captured her mouth before she could close it, swiping his tongue, finding hers on the second pass, warm, wet, and so damned promising.
She arched into him, the heated satin of her flesh molding to his hands as he caressed her backside. He was instantly hard, his balls tightening with an achy need. He palmed her breasts, his thumbs rolling over her nipples, his tongue licking and stroking the sensual reaches of her mouth.
The most private part of her body ground against his, her calves hooked around the back of his thighs, her fingers clutching his biceps. As their mouths moved together in synchronized surrender, he wished he’d had the foresight to remove his jeans. He wanted to feel her against his skin. He wanted in her.
Her hands twisted through his hair and tugged, breaking the kiss. Her lashes lifted, carrying her gaze from his mouth to his eyes, and held him, heart and breath, in
eternal suspension.
She licked her bottom lip, and he felt it pulse through his erection. She blinked and something shifted over her expression. Angling her chin to the side, the hands in his hair pulled his face to her chest, and her thighs tightened around his waist. “Please don’t give yourself to me.”
He broke the crush of her embrace and gripped her face with two hands, forcing her to look at him. “I already have. This—” he rocked his groin against hers “—is part of the deal.”
Her eyelids shuttered closed, and a breath spasmed through her chest, her lips in a flat line of rejection.
His hands fisted in the pillow. He couldn’t, wouldn’t, force her, beg her, or otherwise guilt her into it. He lowered his forehead to her shoulder, inhaling the clean scent of her skin, savoring the intimacy of her body against his.
A haunting melody strummed from her lips. He recognized it immediately. “Possession” by Sarah McLachlan was a sad but fitting choice, its tune reflecting the tragedies in Liv’s life. He shivered against the sweet breeze of her vocals, holding her tight as she expressed herself the one way she knew how.
She sang about trapped memories and solitude, but when the lyrics shifted to aching bodies, her huge brown eyes moistened, welling in the corners, staring up at him, piercing. Her conscience emerged through the words, her voice cracking, yearning. He realized she wasn’t rejecting him. She was beseeching him. Asking him to love her.
He sat back on his heels, curled her legs around him, and beheld the beauty of his world. Uncertainty misted her eyes. He drank in her fading hymns, her feminine allure. The parted seam of her mouth, gentle swells of breasts, flat expanse of belly, vulnerable spread of thighs. Her fearless heart.
His chest swelled, overcome and pounding frantically, as her love gathered before his eyes, twining her fingers around his, rolling tears down her cheeks, whispering a word he’d ached to hear in her angelic voice. “Josh.”
She stole his breath. He bent forward and collected a tear on his fingertip. His pulse beat in his throat as he lowered his finger and traced the slit between her legs with the teardrop, sliding deeper and deeper with each pass. His lungs panted. His finger breached her opening, and warm, slick flesh sucked him in.
Just thinking about putting his penis there sent a shock wave to his groin. He sank to the knuckle, her channel flexing and gripping. A moan tumbled out with his exhale, and he fell forward, catching his weight with his free arm beside her, laughing at himself, overwhelmed with desire.
He pressed in and out, and added a second finger. Her eyelids dipped to half-mast. Her lips freed a smile, her body glowing with life. He cherished every breathy gasp, marveled at how wet she was, and couldn’t let go. He wanted in, and given how violently his muscles shook, it would happen quickly and with a great amount of energy.
The naked light bared her arousal in all its curves and glistening flesh. His hand braced his larger frame over hers, his other exploring her sex with fumbling urgency. “Wish I had ten hands. I want to touch you everywhere while I’m doing this.”
“Just keep doing exactly what you’re doing.” She reached down, found the button on his jeans, released it, and lowered the zipper. “You’ll have me coming in no time.”
Oh, those words stroked him, made him harder. He concentrated on the depth of his touch, the velvet heat of her folds drenching his palm, and the sound of her exhales. When she pulled him from his pants and glided a fist up and down his length, he quickened the thrust of his fingers, wheezed on his laboring breaths, and felt his release barreling down.
He bucked out of her grip, pulling his fingers from her, squeezing the base of his erection and halting the orgasm. “I…uh…” A ragged laugh shook from him. “Wow. I’d like to get at least one thrust in before I embarrass myself.”
Stretching her arms above her head, legs spread in offering, she grinned. “I’ll keep my hands here.” She sucked on her bottom lip, her gaze sobering. “I’m all yours, Josh.”
Ahhh, his name on her lips. The arousal straining her face and the sultry caress of her voice accelerated the gallop of his heart and the throb between his legs. He lowered his face to her mound, slid his hands under her butt, and kissed a path down the line of her sex.
The sweet scent of her moisture infused his inhales. His mouth watered as he spread his lips over her, licking, sucking, imbibing the salty, sugary essence of her. He kissed her like he would her mouth. Deep, hungry pulls with his lips, burying his face, his tongue circling and lapping. The more he explored, the hotter her flesh grew, her entrance swelling, widening, wanting. He was doing that, tweaking her body, giving her pleasure.
Her legs flexed around his shoulders, her inner muscles pulsing against his tongue. Fingernails scraped the wall above her head. “Ohhh, fuck, fuck. Don’t stop.”
No way. He ground his hips against the mattress, working his jeans off with one hand, kicking them away. His heart raced toward implosion, his hard-on so hot and painful, he was consumed with the primal need to fill her, to make her his. He curled his fingers around her thighs, spreading her further, deepening his kiss.
Her curvaceous backside went tight in his hands and loosened with her full body sigh. “Ah, ahhh, I’m coming. Oh fuck, Josh, I’m coming.”
He devoured her through the twitches and pulses, the muscles inside of her beating against his tongue. Soon, she melted into the mattress, her breaths falling like lingering tears. She gazed down the length of her torso, eyes heavy-lidded and clinging to his.
One more tongue-delving kiss, and he crawled up her body, taking his time, dragging his mouth over her quivering belly, capturing every bead of sweat, following the dips of her ribs. He got sidetracked when he reached her nipples, flicking and biting until she pulled his hair and covered his mouth with swollen lips.
She drew in his tongue, humming, hands sweeping down his back. Her fingers burrowed into his butt crack and pressed against his rectum. Fire sparked in her eyes. “Take me.”
He shivered, his voice strangled. “Yes, ma’am.” He rolled his hips forward, cock in hand, and lined it up to her opening. They’d tied her tubes, but… “Condom?”
A smile shook the corner of her mouth. “Van doesn’t sleep around and has blood tests to prove it. I trust him on that.” Her eyes asked, Do you trust me?
He nodded, his heart hammered. This was it. He found her eyes, smoothed the hair from her face. She touched his lips then his chest, over his heart.
He thrust, a hard breathless slide, and they bled into one. Hot and wet. Soft and tight. Freedom. It was everything he’d wanted and nothing he’d expected. Her body stretched around him, gripping him, spinning stars through his brain. Buried to the root, he inhaled her breaths, sweating profusely, afraid to move.
She stared up at him with a yearning look, her dark eyes framed by wet lashes, the corner of her mouth shaking.
Connected inside her in a way he could’ve never imagined, he tasted her lips, a caress of soft, swollen bliss. “You okay?”
Her fingers speared his hair from his temples to his nape. “I never thought…” She drew in a deep breath, tightening her hold on the back of his head. “This tenderness…you and me…” She blinked rapidly, her inhale hitching. “This is an intimacy I never thought I’d experience.”
A deep level of satisfaction washed over him. He was able to give her something she’d never received from another man. Hope fluttered in his stomach. Maybe his love for her was big enough to heal her emotionally.
Her warm sex clenched, spurring him into motion. He withdrew, dragging his length along her walls, igniting a million sensations, and slammed back in. His hands scrambled for purchase on the mattress. Oh, God. His vision blacked, and his release tore from deep inside him, pummeling through his cock, shredding his throat. “Ah, ahhh, ughhh.” He shouted incoherent sounds over and over, his muscles jerking in spasmodic bliss, his heart tripping in his chest.
His head hit the pillow, the remnants of his climax thrumming throu
gh him, tingling his skin. When he regained his voice, he shifted his weight to his arms, bracketed her face, and searched her eyes. “I intended to last longer than two thrusts.” A smile pulled at his lips, and he let it loose with a laughing sigh. He circled his hips, still seated deep inside her, with no plans to pull out. Ever.
She shook her head, biting down on her own smile. “Just like a teenage boy.” She kissed him, gliding her tongue and heating his mouth. Then she pushed her hands through his hair and leaned back. “But you fuck with your heart.”
“Then my heart is aching to move.” He rocked his hips, relishing the connection. Grinding harder, he circled his pelvis, feeling her everywhere, and worked into a furious tempo.
She cupped his jaw and arched a brow. “Again?”
“As long as you’ll have me.”
Her legs and arms hooked around him, and she rolled them. With his back against the mattress, she straddled him, folding her arms behind her head. “My turn.”
What a glorious vision. With her body bared before him and a gleam in her eyes, she rotated her hips, breasts swaying, waves of dark brown hair cascading around her. “You gave me a gift, Joshua Carter. I’m keeping it. Always.”
He gripped the curves of her butt, holding her to him, lifting his hips, and sliding deeper. “Good. Because I’m yours. Always.”
When she came, she took him with her, milking him, crying his name. He would never forget that moment. The merging of their passion, peaking together. Two parts of a whole, lost together.
They curled up in silence, her back to his chest. She laced their fingers and brought them to her mouth, kissing the cuts on his knuckles.
A few moments later, her musical laugh tiptoed through the room. “You’re hard?”
He bit her shoulder, stroked his erection along the crease of her butt. “I’ll never get enough of you, Liv.”
She angled her hips, reached between her legs, and guided him inside. He was home.
Hours passed. Outside, the sun would’ve been climbing the sky, but he didn’t care. He had so much light in his arms, it was easy to pretend nothing else mattered. Just for a little longer. They made love incessantly and intensely, slow and fast, hard and soft. He was lost in her body. Lost in her.