Forced Disappearance

by Marton, Dana

  But Miranda was more than a beautiful woman. She was somebody to him. Part of his past. She meant something, maybe more than he cared to admit.

  “I want you,” he whispered against her full lips.

  And she said, “Okay.”

  That was it. No games.

  His fingers moved up until her breast filled his hand. Need raced through him, pushing him to hurry. But he wanted the moment to last. He took his time and let his hand explore the perfect globes of her breasts, even as his tongue explored her mouth.

  She tasted like mint toothpaste, and felt like the very best memories of his youth.

  He unbuttoned her shirt, pulled her no-nonsense cotton bra down until those dusky nipples lay bare before him. They drew his lips like magnets.

  She moaned when he sucked on one while tugging on the other.

  More.

  He alternated the pressure between gentle and demanding, teasing the hard nubs until she arched her back. Then he rose above her, straddled her legs, and kissed his way down her belly.

  She snapped her hand over her belly button. She had an outie, which had always embarrassed her to no end. He loved it.

  He drew her hand away, kissed her where he pleased, all the way down to the waistline of her pants. She’d lost weight in the last couple of days, maybe just a pound or two, but it was enough so he could pull her pants down without unbuttoning them.

  He shoved them to her ankles, then went to work on her underwear, backing up so he could kiss her through the thin cotton. The gratifying sounds she made were enough for a moment or two, but then he wanted more.

  He tugged the panties down to just above her knees. Then he bent to blow on her soft curls.

  She writhed.

  Yes. This was the only power he was interested in.

  He looked up, over the flat planes of her stomach, her incredible breasts tipped with engorged nipples that strained toward the ceiling, and, beyond them, her graceful neck stretched, her head falling back.

  She would have made a hell of a painting.

  His body pounded with need.

  But her body was still closed to his, her pants around her ankles holding her legs together. He drew a line with his index finger between her hipbones, then outlined the soft swell of the top of her vulva. When he drew his finger along the line in the middle, she shivered. Then he parted her flesh, revealing pink, the nub of her clitoris open to his hungry gaze.

  He repositioned himself, bending so he could blow a puff of air over her. And when she squirmed again, he put one hand on her hip and held her down. Then he blew on her heated flesh one more time, this time from much closer, so she wouldn’t experience a cool breeze, but his hot breath.

  And then he licked her, because he wanted to, dammit.

  He ran his tongue over the sensitive nub over and over, his own cock straining against his pants so hard he had to pause to unbutton them to give himself some relief.

  He wanted to rip her pants and underwear from her legs so he could push her knees apart and bury himself deep inside her. He didn’t. He forced the constraint on himself to have nothing but her pink, engorged clit available, even if the anticipation was killing him.

  As he sucked her between his lips, she went still for a moment, then her back began to bow off the mattress. He slipped his hands under her bare buttocks to lift her to him. And then he feasted on her until she came with a helpless shudder, calling his name.

  He preferred using his ordered, logical brain, thoughtful actions in all areas of his life above animal instinct. But the caveman part was taking over now, the ancient impulses deep inside him that said: That’s. My. Woman.

  He ripped off his pants, then tugged off hers. At least the pink bag with the condoms was within reach. He took care of protection, then pushed her knees up until she was wide open to him at last. Gloriously his. She was wet and ready, her opening glistening for him, the after-tremors of her orgasm squeezing his cock as he pushed inside her.

  Slow.

  Right. He had a hell of a time hanging on to control, especially when she wrapped her long legs around his ass and pulled him in even deeper. All the way to paradise.

  She opened her eyes, held his gaze as she matched him thrust for thrust, her fingers splayed on his chest. She leaned up and bit his shoulder, a playful nibble that nearly sent him over the edge. “We still fit just right.”

  Not yet. Not yet, dammit. He wanted to prove to her that he had a little more staying power now than when he’d been twenty.

  He supported himself on his left elbow while he reached down to caress her with his right hand, his hips pistoning. The pleasure and need inside him overpowered his brain. No, no, no. Steady. Not yet . . .

  Oh, God. Yes, yes, yes.

  As the tight fist of her body convulsed, it kept him coming and coming.

  When he finally rolled off her, gasping for air on his back on the mattress next to her, he was an empty shell of a man. And yet, he felt more like himself than he had in a very long time.

  She laid her head on his shoulder, and he put his arm around her to anchor her to him. He wasn’t ready for her to move away, wanted to hold on to the sensation of them lying skin to skin, her breast pressed against him.

  “Do you know what the difference is between men and women when it comes to sex?” he asked when he could form thoughts again.

  “What?” she inquired weakly.

  “Women want romance, eye contact, tenderness, a true soul-to-soul collection, the earth to shake, sparks to fly.” He opened his eyes at last and looked at her beautiful, flushed face. “Men just want to last long enough not to embarrass themselves.”

  She laughed. “You have nothing to be embarrassed about. I swear.”

  “I aim to please.” He grinned.

  Once the rush of blood in his ears slowed, he could hear noises through the window, cars going by, people shouting. The morning traffic had started.

  He reached up and traced her eyebrows with his index finger, then her nose, her mouth. He slipped his finger under her chin and tilted her head up. Her soft eyes met his. Held.

  They were in their own little time bubble, but it wouldn’t last much longer. Just a few more seconds.

  Determined to make the most of it, he dipped his head and fit his lips against hers, took her mouth in a slow kiss. Neither of them knew what the day might bring, so he made the kiss count, made it last.

  Then he kissed the tip of her nose, and her eyelids too, before he pulled away. “Let’s clean up and get out of here.”

  They didn’t take long. In ten minutes, they were downstairs. Miranda walked out of the courtyard first. He stepped out the open doorway behind her.

  The little girl had left with her dog, for which he was grateful. He hated seeing Miranda in pain.

  They headed down the street. She walked briskly next to him, a couple hurrying off to work. He liked the idea of it. He liked the idea of her. She wasn’t tall and slim like the last couple of women he’d dated, or elflike and fragile, the type who brought out men’s protective instincts and made them feel manlier. She wasn’t lusciously curvaceous either, didn’t fall into any of the male fantasy archetypes.

  Yet her short-cropped hair fit her just as well as the long, tumbling locks of her college years. Her face reflected her no-nonsense attitude, her eyes always sharp, always working to make sure she didn’t miss anything. She had a well-built body, and she carried herself with strength. She was nobody’s damsel in distress. In fact, she looked like she could definitely kick a guy’s ass if he was stupid enough to give her trouble.

  He thought about it . . . giving her trouble. Or just letting her go when they got back to the States. She’d wreaked enough havoc in his life already.

  Thing was, he wasn’t the type to avoid trouble. He saw something he wanted, he went after it, both in his perso
nal life and in business. And right now, he wanted Miranda. Again. So to hell with going their separate ways when they reached safety. This time, he was going to figure out how to make things work between them, he decided.

  “I still wish you hadn’t left back then. It would have been no big deal for me to pay for your tuition,” he said as they crossed a side street.

  “Because my dream was always to be some rich guy’s charity case.”

  “I wasn’t some rich guy. I was the guy who loved you.”

  She slowed and stared at him. “You never said that.”

  “Was I some awkward nerd or a smooth Casanova to the best of your recollection?”

  “I wasn’t looking for a smooth Casanova.”

  “My mother really scared you at Thanksgiving, didn’t she?”

  “I don’t scare that easily.” She hesitated, wouldn’t look at him. “I missed my period.”

  He stopped in the middle of the sidewalk to stare at her.

  She looked away, then back again. “I thought I was pregnant.”

  Incredulity and a strong sense of betrayal washed away the postcoital glow with the efficiency of a tsunami. His blood cooled. “So you decided not to tell me and take off with the kid?”

  Her face twisted. “There was no kid.” She drew a deep breath. “But I didn’t know that for sure for a couple of days. And I did a lot of thinking during that time. I could see pretty clearly what would have happened if I had your baby. You would have proposed.”

  “What’s wrong with that?” How could she still make him feel like a twenty-year-old nerd, clueless about what women wanted? He shook his head as he began walking again so they wouldn’t draw attention. “The inner workings of a nuclear submarine are easier to figure out than the way a woman’s mind works, you know that?”

  “I didn’t want you to marry me just because I was pregnant.” She shoved her hands into her pockets. “Your mother would have demanded that I quit school and move to the family estate. I would have been installed in the east wing. The thought of living under her thumb . . .”

  She rolled her shoulders. “Okay, not even that. The idea of being pressed into a mold of what your family expected your future wife to be. It scared the crap out of me, okay? That and knowing that even if I had let people trim away every bit of me that didn’t fit what they wanted, if I let them twist me into the exact shape they wanted, I would still never belong in your world. Never.”

  He was fairly stiff with anger as he walked with that thought for a while. He and Gloria were going to have a talk when he got back home. He loved his family, loved his mother, but hurting Miranda wasn’t okay, and they needed to know that.

  “I so wanted to fit in someplace,” she said quietly as she walked next to him.

  He’d known that. His anger softened. Her father had left when she was young. Her mother remarried a minister and followed him to a mission post in Africa, leaving her stepsister to raise Miranda. But Miranda had always felt that she was the charity case her aunt’s family couldn’t really afford. She’d told him that during one of the many nights they’d lain in each other’s arms. They used to stay up all night just to talk. Okay, not just to talk.

  “You wanted a family where you felt you could fit in.”

  She nodded. “I did.” She stayed silent for a beat or two as they walked. “I found it in the army. I was just another recruit, the same as all the others. For the first time in a long time, I wasn’t some charity case like I’d been at home and at school.”

  “Going to college on a scholarship didn’t make you a charity case.”

  “Yeah. But some of the mean girls rubbed it in every chance they got.”

  Now that she said it, he remembered that too, not that she ever complained. But she was the one who couldn’t play tennis, or golf, the one who didn’t know the rules for polo, or the rules of high society in general.

  He’d tried to give her things that would have helped her fit in, but she refused anything expensive. She didn’t wear designer clothes and carry designer purses, she didn’t even know the brands, didn’t know enough to fuss and fawn over the other girls’ possessions, which they’d taken as an affront, snickering behind her back.

  In the back of his mind, he’d known that. But he’d deluded himself into thinking that it didn’t matter, since she had him, and he loved her, and that was all she needed.

  Anger sparked alive again, this time directed more at himself than her. “I wanted to give you everything. I didn’t understand why you couldn’t accept it. I wanted to support you.”

  “I know,” she said with a sad smile. “But I needed to create the kind of life where I could support myself.” She shook her head. “Anyway, on the way back to the dorm from the campus doctor who confirmed that there was no pregnancy, I ran into an army recruiting officer handing out pamphlets. He told me about the Army Corps of Engineers. And I thought I better make a choice while I still had choices.”

  The old sense of betrayal bubbled up inside him. “I hated that you left,” he admitted.

  “You probably hated me.” Her sad smile remained.

  “I tried.” But it was the one thing he could never succeed at.

  Chapter 12

  MIRANDA PULLED AWAY from Glenn a little, putting another inch or two between them as they walked. She wasn’t comfortable with the emotions that tried to elbow their way to the surface inside her. Probably just shadow remnants of an old love, but still.

  “Joining the army was the right thing for me. I grew up. I grew strong. I needed that.” That was what she needed. Not him. He would have always been out of her reach, out of her league. She needed dependable and real.

  Oh, but the new Glenn was tempting. Just as tempting as the old.

  She didn’t want to like him too much. She didn’t want to get attached. She’d loved and she’d lost. More than once. She never wanted to be that vulnerable to anyone again.

  “Or you could have given us a chance,” he said mildly.

  “I couldn’t.” Not the young girl, full of her insecurities about not belonging anywhere. She couldn’t give them a chance then, and she couldn’t give them a chance now. For different reasons.

  She didn’t have time for a relationship. And she had no use for love. You loved, and then the next thing you knew, your heart was broken into a thousand jagged pieces that sliced into you every way you moved.

  Better that Glenn was mad at her. They could not revive their relationship. For one, she didn’t want a relationship. With anyone. She wanted, needed, to lose herself in her new job. She wanted to find people and save them if possible, wanted the travel, the hard work, the long hours. She didn’t want to have enough time to think.

  She didn’t want safety, either. If she got hurt, she got hurt—it’d be penance. Because she’d never be formally charged, tried, and convicted for her sins.

  She couldn’t go back to a normal life. And Glenn Danning, in particular, seemed like an exceedingly bad idea.

  He raised an eyebrow, as if he could hear her thoughts.

  “You do know that this gaping gorge between us is not really real, right?” said Glenn.

  Ha! She was a murderer. He was a scion of industry.

  His relationships were news in Maryland. And someday they’d be news on the national level, when he followed his senator grandfather’s footsteps into politics. That was the family plan, the family path.

  She couldn’t be part of that, couldn’t chance that the media would dig up her past. Someone like Glenn couldn’t afford to associate with a murderer.

  She wasn’t a fan of politics or politicians, in general, but Glenn was a good guy. Maybe he could change things. If he could get into those circles, maybe he could make a difference for people. She wasn’t going to ruin that for him.

  “I’m not who you think I am.” Even if suddenly she wished she c
ould be. “I’ve done things.”

  “You were in a war.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “Then explain it to me. I’m quite capable of cognition.” He was beginning to sound a tad irate.

  She shook her head. She couldn’t bear him knowing what she’d done. Judgment from anybody else would have been fine. In fact, she craved judgment. She’d done something terrible. She wanted her punishment. If she paid the price, then maybe some of the terrible dark weight would lift from her chest.

  But she didn’t want Glenn to think badly of her. The thought of him judging her and turning away hurt.

  They walked in silence for a good while, going south. When they passed a souvenir shop, they stopped and looked at a map to figure out where they were, how far they had to go.

  Glenn folded the map after a few minutes and returned it to the shelf. They had no money to buy it, but they both had pretty good spatial memory. “All right, so the airport is not exactly on the south edge of the city.”

  “But it’s not far,” she said as they left the shop.

  According to the map, the airport was halfway between Santa Elena and the Brazilian border. Roughly half a dozen miles. Definitely doable.

  When a cop car rolled down the street, they stepped into a bakery.

  God, the bread smelled good.

  They looked around, keeping their heads down in case photos of them had been on the local news, then walked outside as soon as the cops were gone. They had to repeat that evasive maneuver three times before they reached the edge of the city.

  She didn’t bring up the past again, and neither did he. Better this way.

  She cast a longing glance at the bicycles lined up in front of what looked like a local dive.

  Glenn followed her gaze. “It’d be nice if we could borrow two of them.”

  “Not worth it,” she said. “If two bikes disappear, the owners will call the cops.” She scanned the forest that lined both sides of Route 10. “If we walk in the woods, we can stay out of sight until we reach the airport, but we’ll be dirty and muddy so we’ll stick out once we get there.”