Forsaken

by Sarah Ballance

  Shivering, she looked around the small bathroom for a dry towel. It was an ambitious thought under the circumstances, but it was either that or use the one Gage left on the floor. Remembering how wet he’d been, she had to wonder whether he’d used it at all.

  Short on alternatives, she opened the tiny linen closet and was surprised to find a trio of crisp white towels and the kind of bathrobe she’d expect to find in a luxury hotel. Eyeing her filthy clothes, she opted for the robe. She’d just have to deal with being naked underneath—at least until she found out if they were spending the night in the RV. After what her life had spiraled into over the last few hours, clean clothes seemed an unattainable luxury.

  A momentary loss of modesty was a fair price.

  Riley dried off and slipped into the plush robe, then swabbed the wet floor with the towel Gage left. She ran her fingers through her damp hair and gathered the laundry. Then, out of stall tactics, she opened the door.

  Gage sat at the small table, his long legs sprawled halfway across the kitchenette. He looked up from a folded piece of paper, his expression dark.

  An envelope sat on the table next to his revolver and her purse. He must have gone outside to get them. “Is that my note?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Schmuck.”

  With a slight shake of his head, he tucked the note back in the envelope, the emptiness in his expression melting into a mischievous grin. “You naked under there?”

  She gestured with her dirty clothes, as much of an answer as she intended to give. “I don’t suppose there’s a washing machine on board this thing?”

  “Behind you.”

  “Can I use it? I can’t believe how filthy my floor is.” She glanced at her cream-colored top, now covered with dust bunnies. “Or was.”

  He snorted. “You should have seen my shirt. I went first.”

  Riley turned before he could see her blush. Housekeeping was not her forte; fortunately, living alone didn’t pose much of a challenge to her limited skill set. She opened the door Gage referenced and found a stacked, apartment-style washer and dryer. She tossed her dry-clean only top in with the rest of her clothes, added a cupful of detergent, and started the machine.

  When she turned around, she found herself nose-to-nose with Gage, save for the couple of inches of height he had on her. The proximity took her breath, sending hot flames of anticipation in a reckless tumble through her, making her ache with desire.

  And she knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that she was his. Always had been.

  Boxing away her feelings hadn’t changed a thing.

  He lifted his hand to graze her cheek and whispered, “I know you don’t want to talk about laundry. What I don’t know is what you want to do about it.”

  Good question—and an admission she wasn’t sure she was ready for. “I…we…we can’t go back.”

  He worked his hands through her hair, tugging and lifting one tendril and then the next. Within seconds he’d threaded his fingers through the wet locks, his thumbs gently stroking the lines of her jaw. The intensity in his expression weakened her knees, sending traitorous coils of yearnings to every inch of skin he’d ever touched. “Can we move forward, Riley? Because I didn’t plan this—I damn sure didn’t ask for it—but…”

  He paused, and she looked up at him.

  “This is not something I can walk away from. Not until you tell me to,” he said. “But tell me you don’t want me, and that’s the last word you’ll ever have to say on the subject. I just don’t want to wonder. I don’t want to lose you if—”

  “No.”

  Riley didn’t think. She’d spent too long thinking, too much time dreaming, too many nights filled with regret. If she was going to spend the rest of her life wallowing in self-pity, she was going to do it with the taste of him on her lips, with the feel of him parting her thighs stamped on her soul.

  She wasn’t telling him to walk away from anything.

  “No?” The word fell flat. He retreated a step, his hands falling from her face.

  Riley dropped the robe. “And by that, I meant yes.”

  For the entire two seconds Gage stood there with shock on his face, Riley’s heart seized in her chest. Then his expression turned to something animalistic and his mouth was on hers. Lost in frantic kisses, she barely noticed the backward steps or the cold wall at her back. The world consisted of nothing more than the exploration of his hands over her skin, the taste of him in her mouth, and the knowledge that everything that had been so wrong in the last year was suddenly very, very right.

  There was just one problem: she hadn’t a clue who he’d become.

  “Gage?” She pulled from his kiss and found herself off the floor, legs wrapped around his waist, her need pressed against the bulging denim of his jeans.

  He dragged his lips from her ear to her collarbone. “Yes?” He nuzzled under her chin, tender kisses working in delicious tandem with the light stubble on his jaw, sending her world swirling.

  “I want to know what this is about. What are you mixed up in?”

  Gage pulled away just enough to give her a full view of his face. Breathing hard, still cradling her thighs against his hips in an intimate embrace, he looked her in the eye. “I’m a bodyguard for Maverick’s agency. His clients are mostly high-profile and in deep trouble. By the time he gets a case, someone is trying to make good on a death threat. That’s why he’s got this setup—and many more like it—and why he won’t let me drive a piece of shit truck.”

  A bodyguard? “Isn’t that dangerous?”

  “Could be,” he said. “You’ve got to be willing to die for it.”

  She stiffened. She didn’t mean to, but the words penetrated a part of her she’d long since closed off and it all landed in a jumble in her gut. “You’re willing to die?”

  He buried his lips against her neck, somehow managing to hit the lights and walk the small distance to the bed in the dark without a hitch. When she landed on the soft coverlet, his hands drifted lower. She shivered when a finger trailed down her side to stroke her inner thighs, a feather-light touch that left her arching against him in unspoken surrender. His mouth closed on hers in a sweltering kiss—sweet, deep, and profoundly intimate.

  “Riley,” he whispered against her lips. “Until about five minutes ago, I was already gone.”

  The words left her reeling, caught in a surge of emotion, but she didn’t have time to examine what they meant to her. Not with his fingers nestled between her legs, curling rhythmically, coaxing her to the edge, and daring her to go there.

  With him.

  Breathing hard, she fumbled for his zipper. “I want to feel you inside of me.”

  “Hey,” he said, dragging his mouth from her skin. “Can’t do that. I don’t have any protection.”

  “You don’t need it. I’m on birth control. As long as you’re—”

  He pulled away and climbed out of his jeans. “There hasn’t been anyone else.”

  He didn’t give her time to process this information or what it meant, because in the next second he’d crawled over her. Her breath caught, and she was rewarded with the sensation of him nudging inside her, slowly, almost hesitantly. She trembled at the feel of him filling her, causing her breath to come in short, hard gasps.

  His hair fell forward, tickling her nose, and she gave in to the urge to rake it from his face. His head in her hands, she pulled him into a kiss, hooking her ankles over his legs and laughing when her foot tangled in the pants he’d left caught on one foot. “Impatient much?”

  He caught one of her nipples between his thumb and forefinger and twisted, a small laugh tickling her ear. “For you? Always.”

  Then he made a slow, teasing retreat. Riley groaned her objection as he slid out of her. He grinned at her protests, evading all of the squirming she did in an attempt to keep him bur
ied between her legs.

  Riley lingered, caught between the bliss and the hell of it—a growing awareness of this being exactly where she needed to be and the fear it wouldn’t translate out of this dark, confusing world she’d been tossed into when he’d pointed his revolver at her head and accused her of murder. But her heart wouldn’t hear of logic, and any attempts at rationalizing things melted into liquid desire when he finally gave in and plunged deep inside of her, unleashing a shockwave of pleasure. And this time he didn’t tease, and he didn’t linger. He drove into her again and again, leaving her unable to do more than hang on, her fingers clawing at his back, the flesh of his neck and shoulder muffling the sound of her calling his name.

  The climax started as a tremor and ended in cataclysm. Gage managed to plummet so deep inside her that she felt the throb of his release from her heart to her toes, which had somehow ended up in the vicinity of his neck.

  He turned to press a kiss to her ankle, then shifted his weight to his good arm, laughing.

  Riley found his gaze in the dark and summoned a glare. “What’s so funny?”

  “You’re not going to kick me across the room again, are you?”

  She smiled, hoping he wouldn’t notice. “I bet you’d like it if I did.”

  “You think so?” He laced his fingers through hers and guided her arms over her head, pinning her to the mattress. The shift in position set a current of new electricity coursing through her veins, and she wasn’t the only one affected. Gage went from languishing in the heated, wet aftermath to an erection that stretched her with exquisite pressure and left her squirming.

  Grinning, he rocked against her in a way that suggested he’d spent the last year memorizing the coordinates of her G spot. Bending his head, he traced his tongue over one nipple, then the other, toying with her, raking her flesh with his teeth and his lips until she trembled beneath him. “Try it,” he suggested, “but don’t think there won’t be consequences.”

  Reduced to writhing through another orgasm, helpless except to reach for him and hang on, she didn’t bother with a response.

  He knew he’d won.

  If only she knew how she’d survive the ride.

  Chapter Five

  I’m on birth control.

  Riley’s words hadn’t hit Gage at the time—he’d been far too distracted to comprehend anything beyond “yes”—but they struck him now.

  Hard.

  He drummed his fingers on the wheel of the old truck. Riley sat next to him, her hair whipping in the wind, giving him the occasional—and much needed—smack in the face. She’d never been on birth control before, and there was no good time to ask about that. And even if he came up with a way to ask that didn’t make him sound like a possessive ass, the last thing he really wanted was for her to sit there thinking about anyone else.

  He sighed. He was jealous of a dead man.

  Gage wasn’t proud of it. The admission had no place in the fragile state of his relationship with Riley, whatever it was. The RV, wedged in the shed, lacked a sunrise, so he had no idea how many hours they’d made love, or how many times. He only knew he’d spent every moment with her in his arms—some dozing, most in utter disbelief she was actually his again. Was being the operative word, because for all he knew she’d turned to him out of fear or a longing for something familiar. Self-preservation wouldn’t let him believe she could still want him in the bright light of day.

  Not even the wide, open Oklahoma prairie held that much promise.

  By the time they left the RV behind and hit the road in the beat-up pickup, the sun threatened the western horizon. He had a half-dozen missed calls from Maverick on his cell phone, and neither he nor Riley had eaten in over twenty-four hours—at least not anything with substance. Worse, they’d forgotten to dry her clothes, and his were covered in blood and grime. They’d worn them anyway, though—until they were a couple of hours out of Barefoot, where they found a nondescript thrift store just off the highway, on the outskirts of a city large enough to ignore unfamiliar faces. Against Gage’s better judgment, he let Riley go inside to buy clothes for them both. He didn’t want to let her out of his sight, but the odds of them crossing paths with the shooter at a Podunk thrift shop hours from home were pretty low. It was much more likely he’d rouse attention around the store wearing a blood-stained shirt, so he sat in the truck with his heart beating double time until she returned.

  Glancing at the tiny tank top she wore, he reconsidered the logic behind that decision. He’d have probably chosen something for her that wouldn’t leave him with a cumbersome bulge in his jeans, but after the hours they’d spent in bed, he doubted any such garment existed.

  Next to him, in the middle of the bench seat, Riley gathered her wind-whipped hair and held it with one hand. The other made tracks across his inner thigh. He shifted, managing to land in a position more uncomfortable than the last.

  She offered a demure smile, but he’d known her far too long to buy into the innocent act. She knew exactly what she was doing to him, and it was a matter of injustice he couldn’t return the favor—that, and a bullet wound. He was pushing seventy miles an hour in the old truck…a sense of civic duty dictated he not attempt that speed with a wounded limb at the helm just so he could maul her with the other.

  The sign for their exit loomed. “We’re almost to Maverick’s place,” he said. “Hopefully he’ll have something for us on how this all went down.”

  It was half truth, half excuse. They could have gone straight to Tehcotah to pay Colt a visit—a much shorter trip that would have ended hours ago—but Gage needed to take a breather on familiar territory. More important, he needed Maverick to weigh in on a situation in which Gage found himself far too emotionally entangled to fully trust his own judgment.

  He’d save Riley from this, even if it meant letting her go.

  “You okay?” he asked, noting her expressionless stare.

  Riley frowned. “I almost forgot about everything. I feel awful saying that—about Billy, and Dawson—but after last night…”

  “I know.” Did he ever. He’d lost his only brother—a sick twist of fate, considering what he’d done to Riley—and he still sat there battling an erection.

  “Do you think they’ve found them yet?” she asked, her voice quiet.

  She never knew his brother, so all of that wistfulness had to be about Dawson.

  I’m on birth control.

  Damn. The wall of jealousy he kept slamming into was no less substantial given the fact that the man was dead.

  His jaw tight, he took the exit, checking his mirrors for other cars. They were alone. “Yeah, they found them.” He didn’t bother telling her she was probably on Barefoot’s most wanted list by now. Maverick would break that news soon enough.

  Maverick’s hideout, as Gage often called it, was just off the interstate, well-obscured in a stand of trees. It was disguised on the surface as an old hunting cabin. The basement, however, was another story—one few folks knew about. Full of computers and gadgetry, it served as headquarters for all kinds of ill-gotten information—information that gave him the ability to do his job.

  And Riley had just become Gage’s number one priority.

  He turned into the driveway and drove until the trees hid the road, then stopped to call in.

  Maverick’s voice hit the line before the first ring played out. “Dammit, Gage. Where the hell—”

  Gage stifled a laugh. He found far too much pleasure in rankling Maverick. “I’m coming in. Open up.” He disconnected and dropped the phone in the front pocket of his shirt before Maverick could reply. For Riley’s benefit, he added, “Maybe he won’t shoot.”

  “Good to know,” she said, edging away from him across the bench seat until the door stopped her progress. “But just in case, I’ll be over here.”

  “Likewise good to know,” he said in a wry to
ne. But feigning insult wasn’t easy to do with his heart flip-flopping at the sight of her sitting next to him. And unlike yesterday, she wasn’t trying to glare a hole through his skull.

  Progress was good.

  He parked the truck in a thick collaboration of trees so it wouldn’t be visible, not that it much mattered. Maverick’s cabin looked as if it would fall with the next stiff breeze, and the truck fit right in. The sagging roofline of the cabin had worked itself into a bit of a drooping grin over the years, and the rusted out ’48 Ford sitting beside it served to confirm the first impression, not improve upon it. They weren’t apt to draw attention.

  He grabbed the gun and Riley’s note—two things that never left his side—and stuffed them in their respective spots in his jeans. Then he met Riley behind the truck.

  She slung her bag over her shoulder with a groan. Gripping the handles with both fists, she said, “Tell me there’s an RV in there.”

  He laughed. “No such luck. Come on.”

  Maverick waited at the door. His short dark hair looked as if he’d run his fingers through it a time or ten. At thirty, he had about five years on Gage.

  Today it looked more like twenty.

  Gage had that effect on some people.

  “Maverick, this is Riley,” he said, suddenly wishing he could erase some of the details he’d shared about her. Never in Gage’s wildest dreams would he have expected to bring Riley here. “Riley, this is Maverick Nevarra, the boss man.”

  While Riley and Maverick exchanged pleasantries, Gage watched Maverick, who didn’t so much as glance at the spectacular sight of Riley’s breasts cupped by the thin tank top. Good man.

  Maverick turned to Gage and glared. “You need to return my phone calls.”

  Gage shrugged. “I’m on vacation.”

  Maverick glared in return. “Want to make it permanent?”

  “Yeah, right. I’m your best guy. I’m the first one you send out.”

  Maverick snorted. “You’re damn right you are. Otherwise, you’d be hanging around here where I’ve got to look at you.” Turning, he held open the door for Riley, who looked none too excited about entering the shack. “I should have reminded you of your vacation when you asked me for another truck,” he grumbled, the words barely audible.