“I confused Huey,” Laura’d continued. “I was supposed to be his wife. I was a woman. But I clearly didn’t want him. He couldn’t compute that. He tried flattery. He tried to buy me off by giving me what he implied was expensive jewelry, but in reality were fakes. He forced me into sex several times, but I suppose because of his history of paying women for it, he couldn’t become aroused without having a woman who—”
“Praised his bedroom skills to the high heavens and every friend he possessed, besides?”
“Yes,” Laura agreed tremulously.
When he’d seen the look in Laura’s eyes he’d tightened his hold around her.
Everything had been fine between Laura and him until later that morning when Mavis had called and requested that Laura come down to FBI headquarters to clear up some unanswered questions. She and Shane had given their statements already in regard to Moody’s attack on Laura, but Laura hadn’t yet given testimony about the coercion she’d endured for the past thirteen and a half years.
After she’d made her statement to Mavis yesterday, Laura had sat down with Shane, who’d told her about Joey being on the tapes. To say she’d been decimated would have been the understatement of the century, especially since she’d been the one to hand over the evidence against her brother. Shane’s insistence that Joey had already confessed, and that the tapes hardly mattered in his case, had bounced right off the hard surface of Laura’s dismay.
“Where’s Laura right now?” Mavis asked Shane, bringing him back to the present.
He rubbed his eyelids, feeling the familiar burn. “She said she wanted to go back to her house yesterday. I couldn’t talk her into going to my place but I was able to finally get her to agree to stay at my parents’ house.”
Mavis checked her watch. “It’s going on six. Why don’t you go on over to your folks’ house and see her? I’m sure she’s had time to think things through by now. It wouldn’t be rational for her to blame you for any of this. You saved her life, for God’s sake—”
“No. I’m staying to hear the rest of the tape.”
“Dom, no,” Mavis protested. “That’s not healthy for you. I’ll give you a report on whatever’s important—”
“Laura went through it. It was hardly healthy for her,” Shane grated out. “I’m not going to shove my head in the sand, Mavis.”
“I never said you were. More like engaging in self-flagellation, I’d say. I think it’d do both you and Laura a hell of a lot more good if you were together instead of torturing yourselves apart. Haven’t these assholes kept you two separated long enough?”
“Laura’s the one keeping us apart at present. Now, are you going to get the others so we can continue? Or should I?”
Mavis rolled her eyes and shook her head in disgust.
“Men,” she muttered under her breath as she headed for the conference room door.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Laura stilled in the process of raising her teacup to her mouth when Elizabeth joyfully called out her son’s name. For a moment she remained frozen as Shane’s stare pierced straight through her from across Elizabeth’s large, cozy kitchen.
Even though she’d last seen him twenty-four hours ago, it struck her how awesome he looked to her . . . so new and exotic, as though she hadn’t seen him in years. A five-o’clock shadow darkened his jaw. His tie hung loose and limp around his neck. He’d removed the sling on the night of Moody’s shooting and stubbornly refused to put it back on again. His dark hair looked mussed. For some reason Laura was reminded of the way he’d looked when he awoke in the morning at the cabin, rumpled and naked and deliciously sexy. She’d been restrained to the bed at the time, both furious and lusting for him at the same time.
Her cheeks burned at the turn of her thoughts. A dull ache of need spread between her thighs, making her shift uneasily on the couch. She saw Shane’s gaze narrow on her and wondered if he’d noticed.
“Would you like some dinner heated up, Shane?” Elizabeth asked. Shane’s mother had incorporated a warm, comfortable sitting area at the far end of her kitchen, which is where she and Laura had been drinking tea and chatting.
“Spinach lasagna,” Alex Dominic said, patting his belly as he followed his son into the kitchen. “Laura made it. Delicious, even with the low-fat cheese.”
“No, I’m not hungry,” Shane responded, his gaze never leaving Laura’s blushing cheeks. “I’ve come to take Laura home.”
Laura noticed Alex’s salt-and-pepper eyebrows go up at Shane’s firm proclamation. Elizabeth, on the other hand, took note of Laura’s bemused expression and responded with more aplomb.
“It’s been so wonderful having you here, Laura. Promise me you’ll come to visit again soon, won’t you?”
Laura cleared her throat and stood. For a split second she’d considered acting offended at Shane’s caveman tactics. But the fact of the matter was, she’d treated him unfairly yesterday and she knew it. It still hurt, like rubbing sandpaper on an open wound, every time she considered Joey conspiring with Huey and Randall Moody.
But her brother’s treachery hadn’t been Shane’s fault. A full night of sleep and the cold, clear light of day had reminded her of that. Nor had Laura been at fault for locating those tapes. Joey had dug his own grave, and it would be stubborn and petulant on her part to lie in it with him for the sake of principle.
She leaned down and kissed Elizabeth’s cheek. Fate worked in such strange ways. Just as she’d been forced to face the fact that her entire family had been taken from her by death or treachery, another family had been given to her: Alex, Elizabeth . . . and Shane.
Shane above all else. She felt as if she stood on the very edge of a fantasy, her foot poised to step into it. Her eyes unexpectedly filled with tears and she ducked her head to hide them. For a few seconds she thought she wouldn’t be able to contain the tight feeling in her chest that threatened to burst free.
“I’ll help you,” Shane said gruffly as she walked past him.
“No.” She saw his eyes widen when she gave him a fleeting smile. “It’ll just take me a moment.”
Neither one of them spoke on the short car ride over to Shane’s condominium. To Shane, the interior of the car felt just as gravid and electric as on the night he’d taken Laura captive.
“Shane—”
“Laura,” Shane said at the same moment once they’d entered his condominium and hung up their coats. He watched, spell-bound, as her throat convulsed in a swallow. A part of him felt like weeping when he saw the white bandage next to her gold-tinted skin. Another part—a much more insistent part—just wanted to take her up to his bed and prove to her once and for all that she belonged there . . . with him.
He’d almost lost her. This time for good.
“I want you to know that I’m sorry,” she murmured huskily.
Shane dragged his eyes from the regal column of her throat to meet her gaze.
“It was wrong of me to accuse you the other evening of using Joey as an excuse to get the truth out of me. For blaming you in any way for his mistakes.”
“I know how you are about family. You’re as fierce as a lioness protecting her cubs.”
She gave a sharp bark of laughter that struck him as anything but funny. “If that were true, I’d be a pretty pitiful lioness.” Her smile faded slowly. “My den is empty, Shane.”
He shook his head and went to her, his hand cradling her jaw. “No. It’s not empty. You have Shelly and Carlotta and Joey, too. He’s not going to be in prison forever, Laura. I know your feelings about what he’s done are even more complicated than mine are, but I’m not going to abandon him. I doubt you will either.”
“You’re right. I won’t,” she whispered. She moved closer to him, her jeans brushing against his pants, the edges of his opened suit jacket bumping against her breasts. She tilted her head back and watched him with those exotically tilted green eyes—the same green eyes he’d once prayed would stop haunting his dreams.
He
knew now those prayers had been useless because a much more crucial aspect of himself never wanted to forget Laura. Never wanted to let go. His hand fell and he palmed the muscle of her shoulder.
Never would let her go.
“You have my mother and father. They love you. Surely you know that.”
A bewitching smile flickered across her lips. “And?”
He leaned down and brushed his smile across her temple, inhaling her singular scent. “Ahh, you need to hear it, is that it?”
“Yes. I’ve been waiting to hear it since I was six years old,” she murmured in that low, husky voice that always had the effect of nails softly scraping down his spine.
“Okay. Here it is, then. You have me, Laura. From this moment on, I’m your family. And you’re mine.” He nuzzled her nose with his own before he brushed his lips against her parted ones. “And I’m not ever going to let you forget it . . . deny it . . . or tell me differently. So don’t even think about it.”
“I’d just as soon say the sky was yellow.”
“Good,” he muttered before he turned his head and seized her lips, molding and shaping them with his own. He kissed her ravenously, staking his claim and glorying in the richness of it all at once. When he lifted his head a moment later Laura’s skin looked flushed and her eyes had grown limpid.
“I want you to recognize the absolute craziness of the mere idea of me letting you go. The sky can turn chartreuse, for all I care, and you’re still not going anywhere except to admire a green sunset while you’re in my arms. Understood?”
A small, intoxicating smile twitched her lips. “I remember that tone. I’d be a fool to say anything but ‘yes.’ ”
“You’d be a fool to do anything but mean it.” His finger brushed against the exquisite line of her angular jaw. His cock throbbed sharply, his need for her incredibly powerful. “Now I’d go full out caveman for you here, because I know how much you’d love it, but I can’t sling you over my shoulder and take you to bed like I want to right now because of my damn arm. But if you could get your lovely butt upstairs and get out of these annoying clothes, I’ll make it up to you.”
Laura looked over her shoulder seductively as she led him toward the stairs. “Just how do you plan on making up for it?”
He released her hand and swatted her luscious jean-clad fanny, hiding his grin when she hopped slightly in surprise. “Did you forget what I said I was going to do to you if you ever defied me again when I asked you to do something for your safety and you agreed to it?”
His cock strained furiously against his boxer briefs when he saw her wide-eyed trepidation and the way her already pink cheeks deepened in color to a dusky rose shade.
“Go on up to the bedroom, Laura,” he said softly. “Surely you’ve learned by now it’s best just to take your punishment.”
When they got up to his bedroom he closed the door and leaned against it, watching Laura as she stood at the foot of the bed.
“You know what to do,” he muttered, completely enraptured by her beauty and the anxious, yet clearly seductive glance she gave him over her shoulder. He remained rigid—a fixed, hungry flame—as he watched her remove her clothing. Once she’d removed her panties she stood before him wearing nothing but the emerald.
“I never told you about how I gave that to you,” he said gruffly, his gaze glued to the vision of her firm, lush breasts and the gem lying between them. He continued, sensing her curiosity even though he couldn’t remove his eyes from the erotic vision of her. “I broke into your house one night over a dozen years ago. By that point, Peter and Derrick had been killed. You refused to speak to me. I was angry at you. Furious. But when I learned accidentally that Huey was giving you fake jewelry, more than likely trying to pass if off as genuine, and that one of the pieces he’d given you had been based off my mother’s design for the emerald, I knew I had to do something. Even if it was stupid and useless.”
Her breasts heaved as she inhaled deeply. His eyes rose to her face as she said, “It wasn’t stupid or useless, Shane. Who knows why I always chose to wear what I thought was a pretty piece of glass? Maybe it was God’s subtle way of connecting us even when all hope seemed lost.”
“I was stunned when I saw you wearing it that night at the cabin.”
Laura nodded, clearly as amazed by the poignant strangeness of it as he was.
“The night I broke into your house to leave you the real emerald, I saw the sculpture of me as a boy—the one you keep in your studio,” Shane said after a pregnant pause.
“You were right about that. I kept it near to me always—a reminder of that beautiful, perfect boy I’d always loved,” she whispered.
He levered his body away from the door and took two steps toward her, unbuttoning his shirt as he did but never breaking their weighty stare. When he reached her he opened his palm along her waist and lightly dug his fingertips into the soft, firm feminine flesh of her hip.
“I watched you while you took a shower that night. I wanted you so bad it was like the pain from a bone-deep wound . . .” His voice faded as he thought of that cruel memory of seeing her naked as water ran in rivulets down her honey-hued skin, so much more separating them than a distance of ten feet and a pane of glass. When Laura whispered his name feelingly and placed her hand on his cheek he realized how lost he must have looked for a few seconds.
He rallied with a grin.
“It’s okay, baby. Circumstances may have kept us apart for fourteen years, but we’re going to make up for it. That’s a promise.”
He unbuttoned his cuffs and removed his shirt, hiding a wince at the dull ache the motion caused in his shoulder. He sat on the edge of the bed.
“Come here.”
She glided toward him, her eyes a little wary.
“Lie across my lap,” he directed.
For a second he thought she was going to refuse, but then he saw her studying his naked torso hungrily. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her to forget it, to lay her down on the bed and bury his cock in her sweet pussy with no further ado, but he persevered. There was a point he wanted to make.
There was a point he would make.
“Randall Moody nearly killed you the other night, Laura. He would have if we hadn’t been there to stop him. I nearly lost you, and all because you were too stubborn just to tell me the truth. Even after what had happened between us earlier that night . . . even after you’d promised you’d stay here behind a locked door.”
“I only wanted to—”
“I know what you wanted,” he interrupted softly. “But I didn’t ask it of you lightly and you knew that. I didn’t request it lightly at the cabin, either, when I asked you to stay in the bedroom. If I ask and you agree, that’s got to be a sacred trust between us. You broke your promise to me the other night because you wanted to protect Joey. You wanted to protect me. I love you for that, Laura. I do. But I’m not going to let anything keep us apart in the future. Not even your stubbornness. Now lie down,” he repeated, glancing down at his lap.
She inhaled deeply and knelt on the bed next to him. He arranged her how he wanted her with slight nudges on her shoulders and hips. When she finally settled, the lower curve of her breasts pressed to his outer thigh, her belly pressed against his thick erection and her round, lush bottom curved around his other thigh. He’d turned on only a single lamp when they entered the room. Her smooth, flawless skin glowed in the ambient light.
He ran his hand over her back, hips, ass, and thighs. He cupped a round buttock from below and squeezed at the same rhythmic rate that his pulse pounded in his cock.
Laura turned her face into the mattress and moaned.
Shane reached back and gave her a satisfying spank on the lush lower curve of a cheek. His cock surged painfully at the arousing sound of flesh smacking against flesh. He gritted his teeth when she wiggled her body along the length of his aching erection.
“Keep still,” he ordered quietly. When she froze and moaned as she anticipated t
he next spanking, he gave it to her, lingering to soothe and massage the warming buttock with a caress. “You’ve had too much experience with looking out for everyone in your life, baby. From now on, I’m going to look out for you. I’m going to be the one doing the protecting.” He lifted his hand and smacked a tight cheek, staring in fascination as his blow quivered in her firm flesh. He liked what he saw and touched so well he repeated the spanking on the opposite cheek.
“Do you understand, Laura?” When she didn’t immediately respond he smacked her ass again.
“Yes,” she moaned.
“Good,” he murmured. He grimaced slightly as he lifted his left hand and pain throbbed in his shoulder. The sensation nowhere near approximated the ache of his cock as he lay with Laura naked in his lap, his spankings starting to turn her plump ass pink.
So he endured.
“Spread your legs some,” he ordered. When she opened her thighs several inches he used both hands to part her cheeks. Her chest and belly began to expand more rapidly next to his straining cock when he silently inspected the treasures he’d uncovered: her glossy pink pussy and the tiny, puckered rosette of her asshole.
“That’s a pretty sight,” he murmured.
“Shane, please,” Laura pleaded, and he knew she wasn’t begging for him to stop. She moaned gutturally when he smacked her ass twice in a row, this time both luscious cheeks at once. She writhed in his lap, pressing her clit to his thigh as she became more aroused.
“Keep still,” he muttered before he landed several more crisp spanks, the smacking noise going off like gunfire in the still room.
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