by J. R. Ward
They both remembered the same thing at the same time.
“Do you have a—”
“I have a condom—”
Thank you, God, she thought as he went to his wallet and took out one of those Tiffany blue Trojan packets. She was on the Pill, courtesy of her regularly visiting a doc-in-the-box in town, and she’d just had a checkup, but no matter how attracted she was to Vin, she wasn’t going to be reckless with her own body with anyone.
Safe sex was the only way.
And watching him protect them both was sexy as hell. When he was done, they resumed the position they’d been in before, her back against the duvet, him half on top of her, half to the side. The condom was chilly against her thigh, leaving a quickly cooling trail, and she wished she’d had a moment to feel his sex for real somewhere on her. But then he was fully on top of her and between her legs, the head of him nudging at the heart of her.
She stared into his eyes as she guided him in.
How right it was. How filling and spectacular the joining. How wondrous to meet his stare and see reflected in it the same things she was feeling—the glorious shock at how well they fit, the coiling need to go even further…
And there was another surprise for her: For once it didn’t hurt because her body actually wanted this.
“Are you okay?” he asked in a guttural voice.
“More than okay.”
Marie-Terese wrapped her arms around his shoulders and held him close as they began to move together. Her last sight before she squeezed her lids shut was of them in the mirror, their bodies wrapped around each other, her legs split wide, his hips doing the driving. As she met her own eyes, her reflection was a shock. Her cheeks were flushed and her hair tangled around his heavy arm and her lips parted. She looked very much like a woman with a good partner.
Which made sense. This was sex the good old-fashioned way—between two people who wanted to be together for no other reason than that it was the right thing at the right time for both of them.
When what the mirror was showing grew wavy from tears that sprang to her eyes, she closed the sight of them off and turned her face into his shoulder.
Somehow, he managed to hug her and still keep up the rhythm.
As Marie-Terese pitched over the edge of pleasure and went into the kind of free fall she had only a vague memory of, she held on to the man responsible for the way she felt and let herself go. Her climax milked another one out of his sex and she felt utter satisfaction as he shuddered and kicked—
Except then everything went wrong. For a split second, she thought of what she had been doing for money, and that was all it took to ruin it: A cold gust blew into her chest and spread out from there until all her veins were frozen and her muscles drew tight against bones of ice.
Vin stilled as if he had sensed the change in her and he lifted his head from her hair. “Talk to me.”
She opened her mouth. But nothing would come out.
“It’s okay,” he said softly, catching her tears with his fingertips. “This has to be hard for you. Even if it felt right, it has to be hard.”
She struggled to catch her breath, not from exertion, but from the effort of not flying apart. “What if it all comes back every time I’m…”
With you, she wanted to finish, but that seemed a bit much. For God’s sake, she didn’t know whether she was still going to be in this town next week.
He kissed her. “Other memories will take the place of all that. It’s going to take time, but it will happen.”
She glanced at the mirror and thought of the way he moved. As she recalled the feel and sight of him, the cold retreated some, ushered out of her by a wave of warmth.
“I hope you’re right,” she said, running her hands through his hair. “I really do.”
CHAPTER
24
As they lay together, Vin covered Marie-Terese up with the best blanket he had: his own body. Damn, it felt good to be all crammed on his little bed with her, although he had to be careful with his hands and where they went. With so much exposed deliciously soft female skin so close to him…
After two orgasms, only one of which had been on time, he was still hard. And hungry. But he was not going to pressure her in any way.
So yeah, he watched where his palms went as he stroked her slowly, and he kept his hips out of the way, and he trained his eyes across the room instead of on, say, her perfect pink nipples.
“I’m sorry about the crying,” she said, as if she knew he was worried.
“Is there anything I can do for you?”
She pressed her lips to his pec. “You did plenty.”
Well, if that didn’t make him go all big dog in his chest. “I’d like to do it again sometime.”
“Would you?”
“Soon.”
The smile she gave him was bright as a rainbow. “Too bad you had only the one condom.”
“Talk about tragic.”
They stayed side by side until the cold breeze coming in through the window over took the hot drift from the vent above the bed.
“You’re cold,” he said, rubbing the goose bumps on her arm.
“I’m comfortable, though.”
He reached over her and picked up her shirt off the floor. As he helped her into it, he paused to watch her breasts sway.
“You should never wear a bra. Ever.”
She laughed as she did up her buttons, and after he handed her the fleece she’d worn, he picked up her panties.
Oh, for God’s sakes…he wanted to keep them. Which made him a perv and a jerk, but that was the caveman for you: He wanted something of his woman’s with him.
Except she wasn’t his, was she. For fuck’s sake, what woman in her right mind would sign on for a guy who’d just dumped his would-be fiancée? Yeah, real stable right there.
“I believe these are yours,” he murmured, handing over the slip of black with care.
“Yes, they would be.” She took them and treated him to one hell of a show as she put the things on—not because she was being deliberately erotic, but because to him she was pretty frickin’ edible any way she came and no matter what she did.
The whole thing made him think about when he’d taken her jeans off. He’d stopped at that point and stared at her for so long because he’d wanted to go down on her right then and there: He’d been struck motionless by visions of moving her hips to the edge of the mattress and kneeling on the floor in front of her and taking his damn time with her.
In some ways, though, oral sex was more intimate than the whole penetration thing, and he’d been concerned that being with him would bring up bad memories for her. Which was exactly what had happened.
But hopefully there would be other times. Shortly. And a lot of them.
When he was dressed, and her bra was tucked in her pocket, they walked out of his old room, arm in arm, and as he passed the mirror, he took the picture of the Madonna with him, slipping it into his jacket.
Downstairs, he turned off the lights and lowered the heat, and when they got to the front door, he paused and looked around. “I should clean this place up.”
He had a feeling he wouldn’t act on the impulse, however. Even though he had a crew of men he could send over to rip out all of the old crap and demo the baths and kitchen, he had a terrible inertia problem when it came to the house.
In a lot of ways, it sucked the will to live right out of him.
On the way back to the Iron Mask, he held Marie-Terese’s hand the whole time, except for when he had to shift.
Pulling into the club’s parking lot, he glanced over. As she stared out her window, the line of her chin and the way her hair fell over her shoulder were incredibly beautiful.
And then he realized what she was looking at. The alley on the far side that was cordoned off with crime scene tape.
“You want me to follow you home?” he said.
She nodded, her eyes still locked on where those kids had been killed. “W
ould you mind?”
“I would love to.” Man, trust from a woman could make a guy feel tall as a mountain.
Marie-Terese turned to face him. “Thank you…for everything.”
He leaned in slowly, in case kissing so close to where she had worked was going to be too much. She didn’t move out of the way, though, and as their lips met briefly, he inhaled deep.
Clean laundry and fresh woman. That was what she smelled like.
Better than any perfume ever made.
“Can I see you again?” he asked.
Ducking her head, she picked her purse up from the floor. “I hope so.”
With a last, too-quick smile, she sprang the door, got out, and went over to her car. Instead of using a security fob, she unlocked the thing using the actual key, and it took forever for the fucking thing to start.
He didn’t like that Camry of hers. Way too unreliable.
And while he was at it, he didn’t like how she’d avoided his eyes just now.
When her car finally decided to get with the program, she took off and he rode her bumper out of downtown and into another section of suburban houses. He knew immediately which one was hers: the little Cape Cod with the bars over every window, even those on the second floor. The car parked parallel to the curb right in front was no doubt the babysitter’s.
Vin waited at the foot of the driveway while the garage door went up and she drove inside. As the panels trundled shut, he hoped he would catch another glimpse of her, but she stayed in the car.
Which was no doubt safer, and therefore a very good thing.
He waited some more.
And then there she was at the window in the kitchen, lifting her hand in a wave. Returning the good-bye, he waved and put his hand over the horn to give a little beep…but then stopped, figuring she wouldn’t appreciate any attention being drawn to her.
He headed off with a frown cranking his eyebrows together, her situation chillingly obvious. She was still running from that ex-husband of hers…running not just scared, but terrified, and expecting at some point to be found. For God’s sake, she wasn’t even chancing it by opening her car door until she was locked in the garage.
His first thought was that he wanted to build her a fortress and arm the fucking place with a platoon of soldiers like Jim.
His next was of the way she’d answered his question before she’d left his car:
Can I see you again?
I hope so.
She was going to bolt. Whether or not those two deaths last night had anything to do with her, she was going to pull a runner. And the idea of never seeing her again, of not knowing what happened to her, of not doing anything to help, panicked the shit out of him.
About fifteen minutes later, he pulled into the Commodore’s garage and parked next to his black Range Rover. For some reason, as he got into the elevator, echoes of the nightmare he’d had about Devina came back and he heard that voice again:
You’re mine, Vin. And I always take what is mine.
On the twenty-eighth floor, he stepped out into the corridor—
Vin stopped. The door to his duplex was open and voices were coming out of his place. A number of them.
It was hard to believe Devina had gotten movers to come over this late—it was past midnight, for fuck’s sake. So what the hell was going on?
Striding over, ready to give whoever was in his digs a hard time and then some, Vin burst inside with all proverbial guns blazing.
Cops.
There were four cops standing in his front hall, and they all looked over at him at the same time.
Holy shit, it had finally happened. All those bribes to city officials, all the misrepresentations, all the tax evasions…it had finally caught up with him.
“Can I help you, Officers?” he said, going total poker face.
“He’s here,” one of them called out.
As he wondered how many were in his study, his eyes shifted to the living room—
With a whispered curse, he took halting steps forward and gripped the carved jamb of the archway. The place looked like it had been hit with gale-force winds, furniture tipped out of place, paintings hanging cockeyed, liquor bottles smashed.
“Where’s Devina?” he asked.
“In the hospital,” someone answered.
“She’s what?”
“Hospital.”
He turned to the cop who had spoken. The guy was built like a bulldog, and with the hard expression he had on his face, he looked like one, too.
“Is she okay? What happened?” Vin eyed the handcuffs that were being unclipped from the man’s belt. “What do you need those for?”
“You’re under arrest for assault and battery. Please show me your hands.”
“Excuse me?”
“You are under arrest for assault and battery.” The cop didn’t wait for compliance, but grabbed Vin’s right wrist and slapped the cuff over it. A quick wrench and Vin was locked in. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to have an attorney present during questioning. If you cannot afford an attorney”—now the guy’s voice grew wry—“one will be appointed to you. Do you understand these rights as I’ve stated them?”
“I haven’t been here since this afternoon! And the last time I saw Devina, she was leaving—”
“Do you understand your rights?”
“I didn’t do any of this!”
“Do you understand your rights?”
Vin hadn’t been arrested for years, but it was like riding a fucking bicycle; it all came back to him. Except for one salient part—back then, he’d known precisely why he was being taken into custody because he’d actually commited the crime.
“Answer me something,” he demanded as he wheeled around to confront the badge. “Why do you think I hurt her?”
“Because she said you did, and going by the busted knuckles on your right hand, I’d say you were in an altercation very recently.”
Devina…had lied. Big time.
“I didn’t hit her. Ever. I had no reason to.”
“Oh, really? You mean when she told you she’d been with your buddy, that didn’t tick you off? Hard to believe.”
“My buddy?”
“Let’s get you booked. And then you can call your lawyer.” The cop glanced around the ruined living room—which still managed to look expensive, even as trashed as it was. “Something tells me you won’t be needing a public defender.”
CHAPTER
25
Jim woke up on Sunday lying on his side, with Dog tucked into his chest, and the television on mute in the background.
The on-the-side part and the soundless TV were standard operating procedure. Dog, however, was a nice addition: Warm, friendly, and he smelled like summer air for some reason. The only time it got a little disorientating was when Dog dreamed, his paws twitching, his jaw working, muffled growls or woofs coming every once in a while.
You had to wonder what he dreamed about. Clearly, there was running involved, given all that footwork, but hopefully it was because he was doing the chasing.
Jim arched his neck and checked out what was on the television. The local news was featuring that almost beautiful but very blond newscaster, who evidently covered weekend mornings. As she ran through her reports, images appeared to the left of her head and taped footage replaced her every now and again. School board vote. Pothole problem. At-risk youth program.
And then a familiar picture flashed: Vin’s face.
Jim shot up, grabbed the remote, and hit the volume…and could not believe what he heard:
Vin arrested for beating his girlfriend. Bail to be set shortly. Devina in the hospital for overnight observation.
“And in other news,” the anchorwoman continued, “there has been a second brutal attack downtown. Robert Belthower, thirty-six, was found after midnight in an alley not far from where Friday night’s two victims were shot. He is n
ow at St. Francis Hospital in critical condition. No suspects have been identified yet in the crime, and Police Chief Sal Funuccio issued a statement urging caution….”
Jim stroked Dog’s back. Holy shit…Vin diPietro was a lot of things, but a woman beater? Hard to believe that, given the way he’d gone after those two college kids for harassing Marie-Terese.
And another guy found in an alley? Although maybe that wasn’t related to the—
As if on cue, because this shit storm clearly needed another tornado in the mix, his cell phone went off.
Jim picked the thing up from the bedside table without looking where it was—a little trick he’d taught himself thanks to having worked in the pitch-black a lot. Amazing how sound made up for sight.
“Good morning, sunshine,” he said without looking to see who it was.
His old boss’s voice was about as cheerful as he felt. “She doesn’t exist.”
Jim’s hand tightened its hold, even though this was not a surprise. “You couldn’t find anything?”
“Didn’t say that. But your Marie-Terese Boudreau is an identity cooked up by a guy in Las Vegas. As far as I can tell, it was created about five years ago and first used by some lady who ended up in Venezuela. Then your girl bought the documents the year before last, traveled east and settled in Caldwell, New York. Address is One Eighty-nine Fern Avenue. Has a cell phone.” The digits rolled off his boss’s tongue and went right into Jim’s razor-sharp memory. “On her income taxes, her W-twos are from a place called ZeroSum, and then at the end of last year, for about a month, the Iron Mask. Occupation listed as dancer in both places. Dependent is one.”
“Who is she really?”
There was a pause. “Well, now, isn’t that the question.”
The satisfaction in that deep voice was not the kind of thing you ever wanted to hear: It meant your balls were in a vise grip and someone with a sadistic stretch a mile long had his hand on the crank.
Jim closed his eyes. “I’m not coming back. I told you when I left, I’m out.”
“Come on, Zacharias, you know the drill. A toe tag is the only way you’re truly done with us. The only reason I let you have a little vacation was because you were too close to the edge. But what do you know, you sound soooo much better now.”