by Nika Dixon
“And if you can’t?”
Her shoulder lifted then dropped. “Alan wondered that, once. He had Victor tie me to a chair so I couldn’t draw. My hands felt like they were melting, it hurt so much.”
Marshall flexed his fingers, unlocking his clenched fists. She sounded so calm, as if her tale was about a trip to the store, not being tied down against her will.
“The crazy thing about it was the blisters.”
“Blisters?”
“Yeah. All over my hands and up my arms. It was like I’d fallen into a fire. The doctors said I manifested them—like magic or something. I don’t know. You can still see the scars.” She held her palm toward him and pointed out a series of small pinkish dots in the palm of her hand. “At least he never tried it again. I guess he figured if I couldn’t use my hands, then I wouldn’t be useful anymore.”
“Jesus. I’m so sorry, Em.”
She turned into his side and placed her hand on his chest. She curled her fingers into his shirt, twisting a lump of cloth up into her fist. “It’s like I’m possessed, or something. God. The devil. Something is burning the images into me, and the only way to make it stop is to draw. And then once they’re out, once the pictures are free, everything’s okay again.”
He gently flipped her hand over and reexamined the small scars on her palm. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what that must be like. To break out in blisters just because she couldn’t draw something?
He pressed her hand firmly against his chest. “I don’t even know what to say.”
“It’s not always like that. I mean, I can draw regular pictures. Landscapes. Sunsets. People. Animals. Sometimes I just draw to draw, and it doesn’t bother me at all. But every once in a while, I see something that just wants…out.”
Gazing into the hypnotizing snap and crack of the fire, he let her words work their way around in his mind. He wasn’t one to question the existence of a higher power, having had multiple choices, growing up, of what and whom he could choose to believe in. His mother had been a God-fearing woman who believed the Lord had a plan for everyone. His father always told him there were greater forces at work in the world than what they could see. Sam’s grandmother entertained them with stories of the Great Spirits, insisting they talked to those who were willing to listen. Even Danny’s predecessor, Sheriff Copley, had been open to alternate resources after working with a psychic when he was stationed in Seattle who’d helped track down a missing kid. And even though they were all completely different beliefs, not one of them ever questioned the idea that there was more to the world than what they could physically put their hands on.
He really wished he hadn’t destroyed those pictures. If he could look at them again, maybe he would find more answers.
Or maybe there wouldn’t be anything new if he studied them for a year and a day, because the answers were already in front of his face.
She’d drawn him a sunset that could only have happened if time had turned exactly as it had. She’d drawn a picture for Danny of a boy only Sam had seen, and the picture she’d done of Jones—well, there was no way in hell she’d gotten that from anywhere but Marshall’s mind.
Which meant she had to somehow be in his head to get it.
Was she some kind of psychic? He doubted it. Even the word sounded stupid. It made him think of the crazy old ladies who rooked gullible folks out of their hard-earned money at the fall fair.
“I know. I sound crazy, don’t I,” she said with a sad laugh.
“Completely insane,” he admitted. “But hell, you drew me a picture of something you couldn’t possibly have known. Maybe I’m the crazy one for believing you.”
Her head jerked up. “You do?”
“Believe you? Yes. Why? You didn’t think I would?”
“No.”
“Then why did you tell me how it works?”
She looked away.
“Is what you told me true?” he prodded.
She bobbed her head.
“Then I believe you. I may not be able to explain this ability of yours, or understand it, but I know what I saw. What you did with Danny. With me. And what I heard you say about Grandpa Glen. You have something, Em. Do I know what it is? No. But do I believe you have a gift that lets you see things other people can’t? Yes.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
Thankfully, she blinked them back before his panic could set in at having to face a crying woman.
She slumped back into his side. “I never imagined anyone would ever believe me.”
He tightened his arm around her shoulder. “Maybe you’ve been telling the wrong people.”
She picked at one of the buttons on his shirt. “Want to hear something funny? You’re the first person I’ve ever told how it works.”
He looked down at her upturned face. “Not even Alexander?”
She lowered her head to his shoulder. “He doesn’t care how, so long as I do it.”
Marshall digested her words. “If you never told him, how did he even know you could do it to begin with?”
She let out a soft sigh. “I won an art contest.”
“An art contest?”
“After Mom died, I was pushed from one foster home to another. Different family. Different house. Different school. The only thing I had that didn’t give up on me was my art. One time a teacher mentioned that the newspaper was holding a drawing contest. There was a category for nature, one for buildings, and one for people. It sounded like fun, and it wasn’t as if I had anything else to do. I skipped class and spent the entire day wandering around downtown to find the right inspiration. I couldn’t decide which category to choose, so I went for them all.”
“Let me guess. You won?”
Her head bobbed. “All three categories. They printed them in the paper with my name and everything. I was really proud of that, you know? It made me feel like I was really somebody.”
“And Alexander saw the paper?”
“He sure did. And lucky me. Not only did I draw the winning pictures, I drew a person he’d just had Victor kill, the building where they murdered him, and the spot along the river where they disposed of the body. Only, all that happened the morning after the paper came out.” She let out a sad sigh. “He told me once that the whole adoption thing was just a fun way to find out if it was only his secrets I could draw, or if I could do it to someone else, too.”
“So, that’s what he has you do? You draw his secrets?”
“No. Not his. Never his. But anyone who wants to do business with him. I have to meet them. Draw their darkness. Their secrets. Then he blackmails them with my pictures.”
“Blackmail?” That surprised Marshall. He’d expected something more…bloody. Blackmail seemed so casual.
“He uses their secrets against them. They would be angry, and Alan would feed off that. Use it to get them to make mistakes. To admit things they wouldn’t normally have told him because they weren’t in full control. I don’t ever understand the pictures, but they always do. He threatens them. They offer him money to keep quiet. Some of them turn on their business partners. Even become criminals themselves to keep him from exposing them. And if they don’t do what he wants…” She paused and scrunched her shoulders up into a shrug, then finished with a whispered, “Victor kills them.”
Each new piece of her story stabbed Marshall’s heart, and he knew he was only getting the tip of what she had endured. With all the horrors she had to be carrying around in her mind, how could she still have such an obvious light and innocence within her? He was so proud of her. Of her strength. Her courage to keep fighting. To break free and live.
“Tell me about the night you left,” he prompted.
She inhaled slowly, then sighed. “It’s not as if I had some big, crazy plan. It just…happened. Alan always lets me pick out my own art supplies. We were supposed to be going to the art store, which itself was strange, because we usually only went in the mornings, but this time it was late at night. I gue
ss he wanted me to see the fireworks.”
“Fireworks?”
“He blew up some poor man’s car.”
Right. The fed who had been trying to talk to her.
She made a face. “You know something funny? I mean, not funny, but—whoever he had do it used too much explosive. The car didn’t just blow up, it disintegrated. Store windows blew out, cars flipped over. It knocked everyone down. Victor and Vincent ran over to check on Alan and help him up, and, well, for a tiny second, they forgot all about me. People were running in all kinds of directions, screaming and crying, and then this woman grabbed my arm—or maybe I grabbed hers—I don’t know. But I just started running…and haven’t stopped.”
He tightened his arm around her. “You look pretty stopped to me.”
She shook her head. “No. I can’t ever stop. There isn’t enough space in the world to get far enough away from him. I should never have stopped here. Two people are already dead because—”
“No. Nothing that has happened is your fault,” Marshall said firmly. “Nothing. You get me? The man is a psychopath. If it wasn’t you, it would be someone else. And no matter who he sends, whoever comes looking, you’re never going back there. Never. Ever. Again.”
Burrowing closer into his side, she whispered, “The way you say that makes me want to hate you.”
“Why?”
“Because when you say it…I almost believe it.”
Chapter Forty-Four
The log on the fire was pulsing and glowing as it slowly turned to embers. Emma was unsure whether she was still awake or was on the verge of a dream. She wanted to stay here forever. It was every romantic dream, thought, or escape she’d ever had or wanted, all rolled into one. To be someplace safe with a man she could love, where nothing and no one could keep her from that life.
For the first time in years, her future was more than just marks on a page.
It was real.
She tipped her head back and gazed up into the face of the man she was snuggled against. The rough scruff of beard growing against his jaw, the slate-blue eyes that were now locked on hers, the lips she wanted to have kissing her again. Inches away. Less. If she was brave enough, she could lift her chin a tiny bit, and she could be the one to kiss him.
She wasn’t brave. She was a coward.
But a coward who couldn’t stop herself.
She pressed her mouth to his before she chickened out.
His lips were warm and soft, but unlike when he kissed her, this time he wasn’t moving.
She pulled back and sucked in a breath. The light of the fire reflected like liquid gold in his eyes. She tried to sense something, anything, in their depths, but he just gazed at her in shocked silence.
Warmth shot up her neck and into her cheeks. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “I don’t know why I did that.” She tried to push herself away, but his arm remained firmly around her shoulders.
Before she could blink, he captured her mouth with his. He took everything from her—thought, breath, all gone save for a sense that her entire body was burning like the fire in the hearth. She flattened her palm against his cheek, lifting her face higher. Closer. The tickling prick of the stubble along the side of his jaw teased her fingers.
The second he broke free, she wanted him back.
“Do it again,” she begged.
The corner of his mouth twitched into the start of a smile he wasn’t able to finish before he was kissing her once more. Whether she moved, or he moved, she would never be able to say. No longer sitting beside him, she was now sitting astride him, his legs between hers. She closed her eyes and memorized every spark of the wondrous and overwhelming sensations overrunning her body.
It filled her heart with emotions she’d never dreamed she would ever call her own.
Even through layers of clothing, the heat radiating off his chest made her nipples sting as though it were the coldest night of winter. The muscles of his shoulders flexed, filling her with a desire to have his bare skin beneath her hands. To touch him without being blocked by his shirt. Between her thighs, an unknown and excruciating ache grew stronger.
His callused fingertips teased over the sensitive skin along the side of her neck while he kissed her, sending a wash of goose bumps down her shoulders. She couldn’t stop the resulting shiver as it arched down her spine.
She opened her eyes, overcome and embarrassed, yet wanting more. She’d never believed she would ever have the opportunity to be normal. To live the kind of life where she could meet a man who might want her the way real men did.
In Marshall’s eyes, she saw her chance.
Heat and moisture pooled between her legs.
His thumb brushed over her bottom lip, renewing the attacking goose bumps. She shifted closer into his warmth, pressing down against the rock-hard erection straining against the front of his jeans.
There was no need for art or paper or a cursed gift to know he wanted more, but she sensed he was fighting it, his desire reined in by something she couldn’t read…or maybe didn’t want to.
His hands dropped to her hips, holding her in place. She wanted to rock her hips. To give in to the pressure her body was craving. She watched movies. She read books. She knew what the deal was. How their bodies were supposed to fit together. Just because she’d never personally experienced it didn’t mean she couldn’t make it work.
“Make love to me,” she pleaded.
Between her legs the hardness pulsed. “Em,” he answered with a groan. “I…we can’t.”
“Because I’m a virgin?”
This time it was his voice that was shaky. “You—” He swallowed. “Yes.”
The awareness in his eyes made her curse her admission. But while his face held a grim determination to reject her offer, the erection between her legs throbbed.
“Why?” she asked.
He blinked. “What?”
“Why? Why does it matter?”
“Jeez, Em. Because it does.”
When he didn’t give her any more of an explanation, she begged him for clarification. “I don’t understand.”
It was just sex. That’s what all men wanted, wasn’t it? Sex with no attachments. That was what Alan always said. Why he only ever traveled with women who took to his bed then left with cash in hand. That way he never had to deal with their fallout, as he called it.
Was that why Marshall was turning her down? He was afraid of fallout?
He wanted her. He couldn’t deny his physical reaction. But maybe…maybe he didn’t want to want her. His body may need the release, but maybe his mind wasn’t willing to let go.
Or maybe his heart was in the way.
Of course. How stupid could she be?
He was still in love with Michelle.
She tried to scramble away, but her awkward position made a graceful escape impossible.
He wrapped one arm around her waist, slipped the other behind her head, and pulled her back against his chest. This time his kiss wasn’t soft and warm and sweet, but hard and fast, with a force that left her unable to do anything else but hang on for dear life.
When he finally pulled back, they were both breathing heavily.
“Obviously, it’s not that I don’t want you,” he admitted, his breath teasing her lips. He rested his forehead against hers and closed his eyes.
She twisted her fingers into the material of his shirt. “Then have me.”
“Em.” He groaned. “This isn’t right. Not now. Not like this.”
“Why not?”
He opened his eyes. “Because your first time should be special. You deserve—” The muscles in his neck pulsed as he swallowed. “You deserve more.”
“I don’t want more. I want you.” She relaxed her legs, slowly lowering her weight back down onto his lap, seating herself directly against his erection. “And you want me.”
Indecision flickered across his face.
She took the tiny victory and plunged onward. “I’m not asking for for
ever.”
She had a pretty good idea of the horror tomorrow was going to bring. Victor was here, which meant Alan was coming. It was only a matter of time. This moment, tonight, was all she had. All she would ever have.
“I just want tonight,” she explained, pleading with him to understand. To believe her. “No demands. No regrets. And I know—I mean, I’m not going to be good, or…or know what I’m doing, because I won’t…don’t. But I’m not stupid. Just because I haven’t done it before doesn’t mean I can’t figure—”
He cut off her stammering with another kiss. “Em,” he said with a groan.
Unable to think of any more words to use to convince him she was serious, she opted for a show-and-tell. She struggled to get the hoodie off, then picked up the hem of her shirt and yanked it over her head.
His gaze lowered, drawing her attention to the plain white material of her simple white bra. For the first time, she actually longed for the drawers of expensive lingerie in her penthouse. She should be wearing silk and lace, not the cheap dollar-store underwear.
The longer he gazed at her, the more self-conscious she grew. She started to cover herself, but he gripped her hands, pulling them down.
“Look at me,” he ordered.
She slowly lifted her eyes to his.
“You’re beautiful, Em. Never doubt that.”
Between the heat of the fire at her back and the hot directness of his gaze, her skin burned. His words charged her with a brazen confidence. She unhooked the clasp of her bra and let it fall away.
“So beautiful,” he whispered.
His hands slowly traveled up her sides. When his thumbs grazed her breasts, she gasped and arched her back, wanting him to touch more of her, yet at the same time afraid of what her body was going to do if he did. Her head dropped back and he took advantage of her exposed throat, teasing the base of her neck with the tip of his tongue.
The contact of his fingers against her nipple sent her abdomen into a panicked flutter. She wanted to be in multiple places at once. She tried to lean back so he could keep kissing her throat, lean forward so his hand could take ownership of her breast, and sit down so she could ride the delicious press of his erection through her jeans.