by Lora Leigh
“I would have done something.” His voice was thick with emotion, with regret.
Risa ignored it. Her gaze was captured by the pictures spread out on the table.
Pictures of her.
She remembered the flash of lights as someone had taken pictures in the plane. She also remembered something about video. They always took pictures and video of their victims, she remembered distantly. Diego Fuentes had insisted on it. He’d had a very small supply of Whore’s Dust, so it was only used on victims who could benefit him. The sons and daughters of powerful men. Women who worked in sensitive or classified areas. They were predominantly the victims he’d chosen himself.
Sometimes, his associates had bought the Whore’s Dust from him and used it in other ways. But always there had been pictures and videos.
“It wasn’t exactly my best pose,” she said, staring at the top picture.
Her face was red, her eyes wild and filled with tears. There were more under that one. Vivid, shocking, explicit pictures.
She heard Micah behind her; it sounded as though he were ready to kill, but her gaze was held by the pictures.
“Riss,” Mac’s protest was swallowed by the roaring in her ears.
She hadn’t seen the pictures. She’d had no idea Jordan had them.
“They made you look at these,” she said as she gestured to the pictures, feeling the numbness in her lips before it moved through her body. “I guess you were being berated for telling on Micah.”
She slid a few more pictures free. They were grainy but explicit. Nothing was hid from the eye of the camera that night. It was all there in glaring detail. At least it wasn’t in color, she thought faintly.
She had to put her hand over her mouth to hold back her screams, to hold back the need to gag as she was greeted with the sight of her own nude body. Bruised, filthy. The canvas beneath her was smeared with her blood.
“How tacky, showing these to you.” She couldn’t breathe. She could feel the need to draw oxygen into her lungs, but she couldn’t seem to get enough inside her. “You should have shredded them for me.”
She could hear herself screaming. In the back of her head, she was screaming and begging Jansen. Daddy, please. Please make it stop.
You damned crybaby. Big girls don’t cry, you little bitch, he had accused her.
And she could hear his laughter. It raked through her mind like diseased talons and left her feeling feverish, weak.
She could hear voices behind her. She could hear Micah cursing Jordan, Ian, Mac, and anyone else he could curse. She didn’t see the tears Kira had to hide, or the redhead who had turned her face to the wall as her own tears began to fall from her eyes.
Risa lifted her gaze to Mac. “How sad,” she whispered. “Definitely the ugly duckling, aren’t I?”
Her expression was twisted in those photos. She was ugly, blemished, dirty. She had been a creature, an enraged animal, and it showed in the grainy photos that had been printed out.
“Stop this.” Micah jerked her around.
Risa stared up at him in shock. His black eyes were primal, sparking with bits of white light that almost held her entranced.
“Did Jordan show him the video as well?” She told herself she was merely curious. It wasn’t as though the video could be any worse than the pictures.
“Risa, stop.” Micah’s hand framed her face, his long fingers pushing into her hair as he stared back at her, his gaze tormented. “Knight refused to listen to Jordan’s explanations. He wanted proof. He wasn’t backing down without it, honey. It was give him proof or kill him.”
A smile curved her lips. She felt it. An automated response as something began to tear loose inside her soul.
“I think I would have preferred that you kill me,” she stated. “Have you seen them?”
“Risa,” he objected roughly. “Let’s go back home; we’ll talk about this there.”
She jerked her head from his grip and stared around the room. Ian and Kira; there was the agent John who stayed in the apartment. How interesting, the chauffeur who had driven them earlier stood in the doorway to a bedroom. Nik watched her with icy Nordic blue eyes. There was the redhead from the elevator. And lo and behold, why, there was Risa’s good friend Emily’s husband stepping into the room, Kell.
“Have all of them seen those pictures?” Risa turned back to Micah. “Did you have like a meeting? What do you call it? A mission objective where you looked at the gory evidence first? Did you get to see the video? I can’t imagine it was very interesting.”
She was talking too fast. Risa felt cut off, disconnected with herself, as voices echoed in the back of her head.
“No, Risa,” he bit out roughly. “The pictures were part of the file we had. I didn’t look at the pictures and neither did the others. We knew what had happened to you.”
“And you’re not a SEAL.” She knew he wasn’t. She leaned forward almost playfully; she felt like a wooden doll with no soul. “I bet that was Emily’s idea, huh? She knew I used to dream of a SEAL slipping into my bedroom and rescuing me when I was a child. Did she tell you that?”
“Risa. Baby.” Micah’s voice lowered, and she wondered if that was his hand that shook as he touched her cheek or if she was simply shaking that hard.
“No answer?” She felt weak. She felt as though she were being ripped apart inside and she couldn’t even let the rage escape. She couldn’t hit him; she couldn’t hate him. She stared up at him, and in that second of agony she actually realized she loved him.
She almost laughed at that thought. Poor ugly Risa. She thought she’d found a SEAL, and now she didn’t even know what stood in its place.
“Micah is former Israeli Mossad, Risa.” That was Jordan’s voice. It was low; it was wicked dark. Funny, she shouldn’t even care that he sounded as though he was in pain.
“Mossad,” she said faintly. “Yeah, it fits. Jewish. No bacon.”
“Risa, stop this.” His expression was worried, filled with pain. Tormented.
She turned her head and stared at Mac. His eyes were darker than she had ever seen them. “We were friends,” she whispered.
“We’re still friends.” He swallowed heavily. “We’ll always be friends, Risa. Do you think I’d blame you?”
She shook her head. “No friends, Mac. Don’t have friends, they just lie to you, don’t you know that?”
She heard someone sob and thought maybe it was the redhead.
“Micah, get her the hell out of here,” Jordan cursed. “I’ll call her psychologist and get her over here.”
Risa wanted to laugh at that.
She whirled on Jordan instead. “Don’t worry, Mr. Malone, I have medication, and I know how to take it if I need it.” She stared at him with cold, brutal anger. “Do you know, every time I’ve seen you you’ve been like the Grim Reaper of goodwill and cheer. You should find another profession.”
Surprise glittered in his eyes.
Risa shrugged off Micah’s hold and moved carefully, deliberately, across the room. She wasn’t going to cry here. As she reached the door, she turned and looked across the room to Kell. His green eyes were filled with regret.
“Tell Emily I love her anyway,” Risa whispered, as she had to clamp her lips together to keep from sobbing. “She lied to me, Kell. Both of you lied to me.”
She felt loss, and she felt alone. She stared around the room, realizing that everyone she loved had lied to her as though she were a child who couldn’t handle the truth, who couldn’t handle reality.
“All you had to do was tell me the truth.” She stared at Micah, her heart breaking as her first tear fell. “Just the truth.”
She opened the door. Micah was behind her, silent, as icy as death, as he walked her across the hall and back into her apartment.
The door closed behind them and she kept walking. She moved through the living room and into the bedroom before closing and locking the door behind her.
She moved through the bedroom and int
o the bathroom and closed the door there.
She looked different.
She stared into the full-length mirror.
She didn’t see the ugly duckling.
She didn’t see the woman enraged by Whore’s Dust or the desperate child who used to sit in front of her bedroom window and dream of a SEAL to rescue her.
She saw a young woman. She wasn’t ugly, but she wasn’t beautiful.
She wiped at her tears, but they refused to stop falling. She was a little plain maybe, but Micah didn’t need to put a bag over her face to fuck her.
He just needed to lie to her.
Her mascara was running, though. And the tip of her nose was red.
She reached out, touched the mirror that had followed her through her childhood into adulthood. The same mirror on its heavy dark stand.
She reached out, gripped a bottle from the cabinet, and with an enraged cry, threw it into the mirror.
She watched it shatter. Glass rained around her as she heard the bedroom door crash. A second later the bathroom door slammed into the wall behind it.
“There.” She turned on him.
Shaking in rage, the tears falling from her eyes, she faced him. “There’s your damned mirror. There’s your ugly duckling. I need you just about as much as I need that fucking mirror.”
Her fists slammed into his chest as she began to sob. She struck out at him. There was nothing else to strike out at. All the pain and rage of six years rose inside her until she was screaming with it, her head buried in his chest as he picked her up, holding her close to him, and carried her to the easy chair that sat in the corner of her bedroom.
He held her. One hand against her head to hold her screams against his heart. The other wrapped around her upper body as he tucked her close to his chest and rocked her gently.
She couldn’t hold it in. She couldn’t fight it. She’d fought for six years. She hadn’t cried; she hadn’t lost control. She had made certain she wasn’t the crybaby Jansen Clay had accused her of being over and over that night.
“Risa, baby.” Micah’s hand stroked down her back. “I have you, love. Right here against my heart. I have you, Risa.”
She felt his heart beating against her cheek, strong and sure, a heavy throb that had soothed her the only night she had allowed herself to sleep against him.
Into his chest she poured eight years of rage, grief, and pain. She poured the child she had been against his chest, and the woman who didn’t know how to be free. She held on to him with desperate hands, and she let herself be weak.
She let herself accept.
Friends would lie.
Sometimes, there was going to be pity.
She couldn’t always be strong.
And one day soon, Micah would leave.
She never saw the tears Micah shed as she sobbed against him. And she never saw the pain that burned in his soul for the woman he couldn’t have. The woman who was strong enough to cry, and strong enough to survive.
CHAPTER 19
SHE SHOULD HAVE slept the night and the morning away. By the time Micah stripped the beautiful silk dress from her and tucked her beneath the blankets, she was exhausted from her weeping.
She was aware of him undressing, and when he slid naked into the bed, she couldn’t help but curl against him.
“My mother once told me that when a woman sheds tears, the angels bring her strength,” he whispered into the darkness as he held Risa against him. “You’re not weak, Risa. And I have never pitied you. Not even once. I have always been in awe of your courage and your tenacity to survive.”
“I’ve hidden,” she whispered hoarsely.
“Yes, you hid.” He sighed. “From yourself. From the beauty that shines from inside you and fills the gentle curves of your face. You’ve hidden from a past that no one can blame you for not wanting to remember. And you’ve hidden from yourself, Risa. But you didn’t hide from life, and you didn’t hide from the knowledge of events you wanted to forget. You’ve always handled that with grace.”
“I’m tired.” She let her eyes close. “I just want to forget for a little while, Micah.”
His hand smoothed down her back before he tucked the sheet and comforter closer to her neck.
“Sleep, love. I’ll be right here.”
She was silent for long moments, staring into the darkness.
“I didn’t want you to see those pictures,” she said then. “I wanted to forget they existed.”
She felt his arms tighten around her and realized in that moment that she had never been held when she had cried. She had never been held, period, other than the few times her grandmother had hugged her.
“They won’t exist much longer,” he promised her. “The video was destroyed, though, years before. Jordan made certain that all the videos that were confiscated were destroyed. There’s no video out there, Risa. And I promise you, there won’t be any pictures much longer.”
She nodded, her lashes drifting over her eyes.
Sleep came over her swiftly. She should have slept for hours. She slept dreamlessly at least. There were no nightmares plaguing her as they had in the past nights. She slept, warm and comfortable against Micah’s chest, and came awake as morning light filtered through the bedroom curtains.
She was warm, cuddled close against his chest, her leg thrown over one of his as he wrapped himself around her.
Protecting her.
Her hand rested against his heart, just below her cheek. The slow, steady beat soothed her, relaxed her.
She had always wondered what it would be like to have someone to awaken to every morning. It should have cut at her, knowing he wouldn’t be there any longer than it took to catch a killer, and the pain was there. But it resided with weary acceptance.
Yes, he would be gone, but she knew now what it meant to love. She might not know what it meant to be loved, but loving was almost as good.
And loving meant wanting.
She could feel her body, each nerve ending awake and pulsing for his touch. Hunger gnawed at her senses, the memory of his possession heating her until her clit became swollen, her pussy wet and aching.
“You’re awake.” Micah’s voice wasn’t in the least drowsy. It was dark and hot with need. His cock was a thick wedge of flesh pressed against her stomach, throbbing with the same heady pace as his heartbeat.
Was that what had awakened her? The knowledge that he was waiting for her, hard and ready to pleasure her?
“I broke the mirror,” she whispered, horrified that she had done such a thing. “Grandmother is going to cry. She gave me that mirror when I was a little girl.”
As she spoke, she couldn’t help but rub her fingertips against his flexing abs, to feel the strength and the power that resided there.
“We don’t need the mirror.”
The sheet shimmied over her flesh, dragged carelessly from her body. A shudder rushed through her.
She couldn’t resist his touch, not when she needed it so desperately. When the pain and humiliation, the lies and the fears, twisted in her stomach like a feverish fist.
“Ahuvati,” he whispered, the desert-dark heat of his voice stroking over her as his palm caressed her stomach to her swollen breast. “My Risa. How I hunger for you.”
He rose over her, his head tilting, his lips settling over hers in a butterfly kiss that sent waves of heat shuttling through her body.
“Kiss me, Risa,” he crooned against her lips. “Take me.”
A whimper left her lips. Her arms circled his neck, her fingers burying in the short length of his hair to pull his head to her.
Her tongue stroked over his lips as an earthy male groan met the caress. He tasted of male heat and dark desire, an ambrosia she craved.
As she moved closer to the warmth of his body, her breath jerked in her lungs at the feel of his cock, heavy and hard against her thigh.
“My beautiful Risa,” he groaned against her lips as his head lifted from their kiss. “Sweet love
. At yafa. You’re beautiful.”
She shivered beneath the midnight cadence of his voice, and the feel of his palm curling around her breast, his fingers moving to the distended peak of her nipple.
“The taste of you heats me.” His head lowered, his tongue stroking over the opposite nipple as his fingers plucked at its mate. “You make my blood heat with my hunger for you.”
She arched, the sound of his voice almost a physical caress over her senses before his lips parted farther and he drew the tight bud into his mouth.
As she pressed her head back into the pillow, her eyes flared wide at the feel of his teeth raking the tip, then closing on it, tugging it gently.
Little flares of pleasure that bordered pain tore through her and raced to her sex. Her vagina pulsed and spilled its slick dampness, while her clit swelled and throbbed with imperative need.
The feel of him, his lips drawing at her nipple, his hands stroking over her body, was life. It was the essence of pleasure. He touched more than her flesh, and she wondered if he knew. Did he know that when he touched her, he touched her soul?
“Micah,” she whispered his name, desperate to give voice to the sensations as they washed over her like a warm, silken wave. “Touch me. Let me feel, Micah. Just for now, let me feel.” Feel his body, his heart, his soul.
Just for this moment she wanted as much of him as she was giving him. She’d return it, she promised silently. She wouldn’t hold him prisoner to the needs or the emotions rising inside her. She’d give him the freedom he needed to walk away from her.
“Please.” Her head lowered until her lips could caress the hard muscle of his shoulder as his lips drew at her breast. “Let me feel you.”
“Ahuvati.” My love. The words slipped from Micah’s lips again as the throb of her need speared through his senses. He could feel the power of her desire, not just her sexual desire, but the bond he’d always sensed, even before he’d touched her. The desire to feel it, to touch it, even as they touched physically.
He was reminded of those visits to Atlanta when he would only glimpse her coming or going from one of the Durango team’s homes over the years. Her head had always been down, her hair shielding her face. But he’d felt her. He’d felt the glow of her spirit, a part of her reaching out to him even as he’d held back from her.