by Sandra Brown
“Want me to stop?”
“Not on your life.”
Satisfied with her answer, he propped his chin on the top of her head and continued to massage her.
“I’m glad the operations on my leg have to be postponed until after the baby gets here,” she said. “That is, if you don’t mind looking at my unsightly scar.”
“I always close my eyes when we’re making love.”
“I know. So do I.”
“Then how do you know mine are closed?” he teased. They laughed again, because neither of them closed their eyes while they were making love; they were too busy looking at each other, looking at themselves together, and gauging each other’s level of passion.
As they watched a hawk lazily circling in downward spirals, Cooper asked, “Remember what you said to me the instant I opened the door that night?”
“I said, ‘You’re going to let me love you, Cooper Landry, if it kills you.’”
He chuckled at the memory and his heart grew warm, as it had that night, when he thought about the courage it had taken for her to come to him and make that bizarre announcement. “What would you have done if I had slammed the door in your face?”
“But you didn’t.”
“Assuming I had.”
She pondered that for a moment. “I’d have barged in anyway, stripped off all my clothes, pledged everlasting love and devotion, and threatened you with violence if you didn’t love me back.”
“That’s what you did.”
“Oh, yeah,” she said around a giggle. “Well, I’d have just kept on doing that until you stopped refusing.”
He planted his lips against her ear. “You went down on bended knee and asked me to marry you and give you a baby.”
“How well your memory serves you.”
“And that’s not all you did while you were on your knees.”
She turned in his arms and said sweetly, “I didn’t hear you complaining. Or were all those garbled phrases coming out of your mouth complaints?”
He laughed, throwing back his head and releasing a genuine burst of humor—something he did frequently now. There were times when he lapsed into the moody, withdrawn man he’d been. His mind carried him back to haunting phases of his life where she couldn’t go. Her reward lay in the fact that she could bring him out again. Patiently, lovingly, she was eradicating his disturbing memories and replacing them with happy ones.
Now she kissed his strong, tanned throat and said, “We’d better go in and get ready for our trip to L.A.” They made one round-trip a month to the city, during which they spent two or three days at Rusty’s house. While there, they ate in fine restaurants, went to concerts and movies, shopped, and even attended an occasional social gathering. Rusty stayed in touch with her old friends, but was delighted with the new friendships Cooper and she had cultivated as a couple. When he wanted to, he could ooze charm and engage in conversation on a wide range of subjects.
Also while they were there, she handled business matters that demanded her attention. Since her marriage, she’d been promoted to vice-president in her father’s real-estate company.
Cooper worked as a volunteer counselor in a veterans’ therapy group. He’d initiated several self-help programs that were being emulated in other parts of the country.
Now, with their arms around each other’s waist, they walked back toward the house that was nestled in a grove of pines. It overlooked a spectacular valley. Horses and cattle grazed in the mountain pastures below the timberline.
“You know,” he said as they entered their glass-walled bedroom, “talking about that night you arrived has gotten me all hot and bothered.” He peeled off his shirt.
“You’re always hot and bothered.” Rusty peeled her sweater over her head. She never wore a bra when they were at home alone.
Eyeing her enlarged breasts, he unsnapped his jeans and swaggered toward her. “And it’s always your fault.”
“Do you still desire me, even though I’m misshapen?” She gestured at her rounded tummy.
For an answer, he took her hand and pulled it into his open fly. She squeezed his full manhood. He groaned softly. “I desire you.” Bending his knees, he kissed one of her creamy breasts. “As long as you’re you, I’ll love you, Rusty.”
“I’m glad,” she sighed. “Because, just like after the plane crash, you’re stuck with me.”
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Sandra Brown is the author of sixty-eight New York Times bestsellers, including Sting, Friction, Mean Streak, Deadline, Low Pressure, Lethal, Rainwater, Tough Customer, Smash Cut, Smoke Screen, and Play Dirty.
Writing professionally since 1981, Brown has published over seventy novels and has upwards of eighty million copies of her books in print worldwide. Her work has been translated into thirty-four languages.
Her episode on truTV’s “Murder by the Book” premiered the series in 2008. She appeared in 2010 on Investigation Discovery’s series, “Hardcover Mysteries.” Television movies have been made of her novels French Silk, Smoke Screen, Ricochet, and White Hot.
Brown holds an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Texas Christian University, where she and her husband Michael Brown, have instituted the ELF, a scholarship awarded annually. She has served as president of Mystery Writers of America, and in 2008 she was named Thriller Master, the top award given by the International Thriller Writer’s Association. Other honors include the Texas Medal of Arts Award for Literature and the Romance Writers of America’s Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2011 she went on a USO tour to Afghanistan.
Love’s Encore
Love Beyond Reason
Eloquent Silence
A Treasure Worth Seeking
Not Even For Love
Hidden Fires
The Silken Web
Seduction By Design
Tomorrow’s Promise
Shadows Of Yesterday
Heaven’s Price
A Kiss Remembered
Prime Time
Temptation’s Kiss
A Secret Splendor
Breakfast In Bed
Tempest In Eden
Words Of Silk
Send No Flowers
In A Class By Itself
Bittersweet Rain
Thursday’s Child
Riley In The Morning
Sweet Anger
Sunset Embrace
Another Dawn
Led Astray
Above And Beyond
The Rana Look
Honor Bound
22 Indigo Place
The Devil’s Own
Sunny Chandler’s Return
Demon Rumm
Fanta C
Two Alone
Tidings Of Great Joy
Adam’s Fall
Slow Heat In Heaven
Hawk O’Toole’s Hostage
Long Time Coming
The Thrill Of Victory
Best Kept Secrets
Temperatures Rising
A Whole New Light
Mirror Image
Texas! Lucky
Texas! Chase
Texas! Sage
Breath Of Scandal
French Silk
Where There’s Smoke
Charade
The Witness
Exclusive
Fat Tuesday
Unspeakable
The Alibi
Standoff
The Switch
Envy
The Crush
Hello, Darkness
White Hot
Chill Factor
Ricochet
Play Dirty
Smoke Screen
Smash Cut
Rainwater
Tough Customer
No Rest For The Dead
Lethal
Low Pressure
Deadline
Mean Streak
Friction
Sting
Seeing Red
Continue reading to enjoy an excerpt from HONOR BOUND by Sandra Brown, on sale January 2, 2018
Honor Bound
Chapter One
The refrigerator door was open, projecting a pale, blue-white wedge of light into the dark kitchen. A carton of milk was standing on the countertop. Beside it was a loaf of bread, gaping open, two slices lying half in, half out.
But even without those peculiarities, she instinctively knew the moment she came through her back door that something was amiss. She sensed another presence, dangerous and motionless, waiting.
Automatically she reached for the light switch.
Before her hand made contact, it was manacled by iron-hard fingers, twisted behind her and painfully shoved up between her shoulder blades. She opened her mouth to scream, but another hand, callused and tasting slightly of salt, clamped over her mouth, so that her scream came out only as a frantic, guttural sound, that of an animal entrapped.
She had always wondered how she would react in such a situation. If assaulted, would she faint? If her life were imperiled by an attacker, would she plead to be spared?
It came as a mild surprise, now, that besides being frightened she was angry. She began to struggle, trying to twist her head away from the unyielding hand over her mouth. She wanted to see her assailant’s face. Get a description. Wasn’t that what the rape-prevention centers advised? Look at his face.
Easier said than done, she realized. Struggling proved to be futile because of her attacker’s strength. He was tall. That much she knew. She could feel his breath, ragged and hot, against the crown of her head. Occasionally her head bumped into his chin. So he must be well over six feet tall, she reasoned, and filed that bit of information away.
The body she was being held against was hard, but she wouldn’t use “bulky” or “muscle-bound” in her description to the police. Indeed, it seemed to her that he was whipcord lean. From the corner of her eye, his biceps looked as firm and round as a green apple.
Her struggles were only succeeding in wearing her out. Rationalizing that she should conserve her energy and strength, she suddenly ceased her efforts to escape his inescapable hold and became still. Her breasts rose and fell with every insufficient breath she tried to draw through her nostrils. Gradually the arms restraining her relaxed, but only a trifle.
“My name is Lucas Greywolf.”
A raspy voice, as soft and sandy as the wind that blew across the desert, spoke directly into her ear. It was a gentle sound, but Aislinn wasn’t deceived. Like the winds it reminded her of, she thought, it could be whipped into a fury with the slightest provocation.
And considering the source of that whispery voice, such a whimsical shift was probable. Frightfully so.
The name Lucas Greywolf had been repeated over television signals and radio frequencies throughout the day. Last night the Indian activist had escaped from the federal prison camp in Florence, about fifty miles away. Law-enforcement agencies were combing the state in search of the escaped convict.
And he was in her kitchen!
“I need food. Rest. I won’t hurt you if you cooperate,” he growled close to her ear. “If you even try to scream I’ll be forced to gag you. Do we have a bargain?”
She nodded once in agreement and the hand came away from her mouth cautiously. As soon as it was removed, she gasped for air. “How did you get here?”
“On foot, mostly,” he replied, without elaboration or apparent concern. “You know who I am?”
“Yes. They’re looking all over for you.”
“I know.”
Her initial anger had dissipated. She wasn’t a coward, but she wasn’t a fool either. Heroics had their place, but now wasn’t the time to start playing Wonder Woman. This intruder was no petty thief. Lucas Greywolf should be considered dangerous. All the news reports said so.
What was she to do? Overpowering him was unthinkable. He’d have no difficulty subduing her, and in the process she would probably get hurt. No, the only way she could possibly hope to outmaneuver him was by using her wits, while waiting for an opportunity to escape.
“Sit down.” He nudged her shoulder roughly.
Without argument, she went to the table in the center of the kitchen, laid her purse on it and pulled out a chair. She lowered herself into the seat carefully.
He moved as silently as smoke and as nimbly as a shadow. She hadn’t heard him cross the floor, and only knew that he had when his shadow stretched across the tabletop. Timorously lifting her eyes, she saw his silhouette looming in the eerie light of the open refrigerator door. Like a panther, he looked dark and lean and lethal when he crouched down and took a summer sausage from the meat drawer.
Apparently believing that she had capitulated, he negligently closed the refrigerator door. The kitchen went dark. She lunged from her chair, aiming for the back door. He caught up with her before she had taken two steps, bisecting her middle with a steely arm to anchor her against him.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“To...to turn on the light.”
“Sit down.”
“The neighbors will know—”
“I told you to sit down. And until I tell you otherwise, that’s what you’re going to do.” He hauled her across the kitchen and pushed her into the chair. It was so dark that she didn’t quite make the seat’s center and nearly toppled out of it before regaining her balance.
“I’m only trying to help you,” she said. “The neighbors will know something is wrong if they saw me come in and I don’t turn on any lights.”
Her threat was an empty one, and she rather imagined he knew it. She lived in a new condominium complex on the outskirts of Scottsdale. Fewer than half the units had been sold. No doubt he had selected her house for pilfering because of its remote location.
She heard a metallic whispering noise coming out of the darkness. The sinister sound filled her with dread. She knew the terror of a small jungle animal when rustling leaves alert it that an unseen predator is nearby. Lucas Greywolf had spotted the rack of butcher knives on the countertop near the sink and had slipped one from the wooden scabbard.
Expecting any moment to feel its cold metal edge slicing across her throat, she was stunned but at least grateful that she was still alive when the kitchen light came on, momentarily blinding her. She adjusted her eyes to the sudden brightness. He was still holding the long, gleaming silver blade of the knife to the light switch.
From that intimidating sight, her eyes tracked the length of a brown, sinewy arm up to a curved shoulder, over to a determined, square chin, along a straight, narrow nose, and into the most chilling pair of eyes she’d ever seen.
All her life she’d heard the expression “heart-stopping.” Countless times she had casually used the adjective herself, describing any number of inconsequential things. But she’d never actually experienced that graphically descriptive sensation. Until now.
Never had a pair of eyes conveyed such unmitigated contempt, such uncompromising hatred and undiluted bitterness.
Unlike the rest of his features, which were clearly American Indian, his eyes belonged to an Anglo. They were gray, so light a gray they were almost transparent, which only made the pupils in their centers look even deeper and blacker. They seemed to have no necessity to blink, because they stared at her without movement. Set in that dark, brooding face, those steadfast, gray eyes were a startling contrast that held her attention far too long.
She lowered her eyes, but when she saw the knife flash, she fearfully jerked them back up to him. He had merely sliced off a disk of summer sausage. As he raised it to his lips, the hard, set line lifted at one corner to form a smirking smile before straight, white teeth bit into the meat. He was enjoying her fear and that made her furious. By an act of will, she rid her face of any telltale expression and surveyed him coolly.
Which might have been a mistake.
Before tonight, if she had been asked to conjure up a picture of an escaped convict, it would never have resembled Lucas Greywolf. She vaguely remembered reading about his trial when it was making the news, but that had been several years ago. She recalled the prosecutors making him out to be a chronic troublemaker and rabble-rouser, a dissident who went around spreading malcontent among the Indians. But had the reports ever mentioned him being so handsome? If they had, she hadn’t been paying attention.
He was dressed in a blue chambray shirt that was no doubt prison issue. The sleeves had been ripped out, leaving ragged, stringy armholes. One of the sleeves had been fashioned into a headband, tied Apache-style around his head to hold back hair so unrelievedly black that it barely reflected the light shining directly on it. But then the dust clinging to it might have been partly responsible for that dull finish; his jeans and boots were covered with it.
Around his waist he wore a belt made of intricately worked silver set with chunks of turquoise. Dangling from a chain worn around his neck was a silver Christian cross. The charm nestled in a thatch of dark hair on his chest. He wasn’t pure Indian.
Again she let her eyes fall away. Under the circumstances, it disturbed her deeply that the sweat-stained shirt was open almost to his narrow waist. It was equally disturbing that the earring in his right ear didn’t repel her.
The tiny silver kachina mask represented a spirit of another religion and was incongruent with the cross worn around his neck. Yet if Greywolf had been born with that earring pierced into his earlobe, it couldn’t have looked more in keeping with the total aspect of the man he was.
“Won’t you join me?” he asked in a taunting voice, holding out a slice of sausage on the blade of the knife.
She lifted her head and thrust her chin out defiantly. “No thank you. I’ll wait to eat dinner with my husband.”
“Your husband?”
“Yes.”
“Where is he?”
“At work, but he’ll be home at any moment.”
He tore off a bite of bread from the slice he raised to his mouth and chewed it with an unconcerned leisure that made her want to slap him. “You’re a terrible liar.”