The Legacy Collection Box Set

by Ruth Cardello

  She glared at him.

  When she didn’t say anything, he said, “If you really want me to take off the cuffs, I will. All you have to do is say it.” He ran a lazy finger over her collarbone and down the side of one breast. “Or you can trust me to take care of you. That’s what the cuffs are about. Trust. Yes, they leave you vulnerable, but everything that matters in life leaves you vulnerable. And sometimes you win by not fighting.”

  His words washed over her, filling her with a warmth she couldn’t deny.

  All I have to do is tell him to remove the cuffs and this is over.

  No man controls me, not even for the sake of sexual experimentation.

  I don’t do restraints.

  So why am I not demanding my freedom?

  He didn’t gloat as she would have expected a man to. Instead, he quietly waited for her decision.

  An unexpected tear came to her eye and in a thick voice she said, “If you hurt me, I’ll kill you. Literally. Slowly. In the most painful way I can think of.”

  Real shock showed on his face and he touched her cheek with a gentle hand. “Hey, it’s okay to be scared. Trusting anyone is always scary.”

  He leaned down, took one of her breasts between his teeth, and pulled ever so gently on her nipple, sending a rush of heat straight through her. There was no denying how his touch affected her. She gasped with pleasure when he ran a hand down her stomach and cupped her sex possessively.

  Tempting her.

  Teasing her.

  Waiting for her to say the words she didn’t want to say: “I hate you right now.”

  He raised his head. “I can’t tell if that means, ‘Yes, keep going,’ or ‘No, get the hell off me, you pervert.’”

  She rubbed her pelvis against him and moaned. To hell with being in control. Just this once, she wanted to be taken.

  Her eyes flew open and met his.

  I do trust him.

  He trailed his kisses down her side, over her quivering stomach, and continued moving until his face was above her lower, throbbing lips. He put her legs over his shoulders and arched her upward so her sex was spread open and ready for his mouth. His breath was hot on her, but still he waited. “Tell me what you want, Alethea.”

  She arched further on the bed, bringing his mouth in light contact with her mound. “You know what I want.”

  He rubbed his chin lightly on the outside of her. “That’s the fun of being on this side of the handcuffs—I don’t have to give it to you until you give me what I want. Tell me how you like it, Alethea.”

  Her legs clenched around his neck and she hated the truth, but she admitted it to him anyway. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t really enjoy it. Not like other women do.”

  He met her eyes and a line creased his forehead. “Not this time. Tell me, do like this?” He delved his tongue deeply inside her, and the heat of it seared through her. With one hand, he parted her so he had unobstructed access to her most sensitive spot. He blew lightly on it, then flicked his tongue back and forth across her excited nub.

  She tried to relax, but she couldn’t. Her mind raced to justify why. I don’t have a problem with trust. Would you leave a five-dollar bill on a public counter and expect it to be there later when you return? That’s not paranoia, that’s being realistic.

  “Or do you like this better?” He took her nub between his teeth and gently tugged, sending wild sensations through her. She gripped the chains of her handcuffs and arched with pleasure, but couldn’t turn off her inner voice long enough to fully enjoy it. Maybe I should fake an orgasm so he’ll move on to something else.

  “Or maybe you prefer this?” He plunged two fingers inside her and worked them rhythmically while suckling on her and using the stubble on his chin to roughly caress the surrounding area.

  Oh, that’s nice.

  That’s really nice.

  She closed her eyes and pushed herself against his mouth. He rewarded the move by alternating his lapping with his fingers and chin. Each time he withdrew to switch, she felt the separation profoundly. Each time his mouth returned, the fire beneath his touch grew more intense, until it was almost painful and she cried out.

  “That’s it,” he said against her inner thigh, as his fingers pumped in and out of her dripping sex, and the heat of his breath caressed her exposed clit. “Come for me, Alethea.”

  She was powerless to resist his command. Her body was already tightening around his fingers. She thrashed back and forth, clinging to the cuffs as the most intense orgasm she’d ever experienced rocked her body.

  He kissed her thigh and said, “I’d say you enjoy that just fine.”

  He lowered her onto the bed and rolled away for a moment. When he rolled back, he was sheathed in a condom. He settled himself above her, keeping his weight off her. He slid a leg between hers. She opened them wide and cried out with need when he slipped only his tip inside her. She wanted him deep within her. Wanted to be filled with him.

  He licked the curve of her neck hungrily and thrust into her roughly. He pulled out, teased her with his tip, and thrust roughly inside her again. This time when he withdrew she was grasping for him with her legs. His strong fingers bit into the soft flesh of her ass as he lifted her off the bed and changed his position, then pounded into her. Pleasure and pain mixed and heightened each other.

  As their rhythm increased, she felt herself near orgasm again and gave herself over to it. She trusted Marc to take her where she wanted to go and bring her back to earth safely.

  They came in unison and collapsed together back onto the soft bed. She felt him release her hands from the handcuffs and marveled that she didn’t feel relieved at the freedom from them. He took her mouth hungrily in his and she opened herself to him. In that moment there was no fear. No walls. They were one.

  When the kiss ended, she opened her mouth to say something, but he gently laid a finger over it to silence her and said, “Just enjoy this for a moment longer.”

  She spoke despite his finger. “How do you know I wasn’t going to say something nice?”

  He dropped his hand, smiled across at her lazily, and reached down to pull a blanket over both of them. Then he lay back and tucked her against his side. “Okay, I’m ready. Say it.”

  Alethea laid her head on his chest. “I don’t hate you.”

  He chuckled against her hair. “I know you don’t.”

  In the quiet seclusion of their bunker, in this place outside of time, Alethea felt closer to him than anyone else, and felt compelled to explain herself. “You were right. I was afraid.” She waited for him to make a joke out of her admission, but he didn’t. He rubbed her back with one of his strong hands, and that comforting move encouraged her to open up more to him. “I barely sleep. I wake up terrified. I go to bed terrified. I never feel safe. Not in friendships or relationships. I’m always waiting for an ugly truth to be revealed.”

  “Those are some deep scars, Alethea. What happened to you?”

  She shook her head and closed her eyes. There had been a time, long ago, when she’d tried to get people to believe her, but she’d learned the hard way to keep some things to herself. “Nothing.”

  He took her chin in his hand and raised her face. She reluctantly met his intense blue eyes. “You can trust me with more than your body, Alethea. I don’t care who has let you down in the past. I’m not them.”

  What if he doesn’t believe me? What if, like everyone else, he dismisses it as something I came up with for attention? With a shaky breath, Alethea said, “My father was murdered.”

  Rubbing a thumb almost absently across her jaw, Marc said, “The police records said he had a heart attack at work.”

  “They were doctored. And how do you know that?” Duh, because it’s his job to have anyone associated with the Corisis investigated. And I’m part of that job. “Did you enjoy sifting through my personal life?”

  “Absolutely,” he said lightly, then became serious again. “So, you think the police lied?”
<
br />   “Yes. The day he died, a man came to our home and said my father had left important papers on his desk. I let him go into his office. I didn’t know my father was involved in anything dangerous. My father was dead by that night.”

  “No chance it was a coincidence?”

  “That’s what my therapist said. Mother hired her to convince me that those two events were completely unrelated, but I have always gotten this nauseous, anxious feeling when something is not quite right. Like when we never saw his body. They said the morgue had to do an autopsy and then accidentally had him cremated before his funeral. A slipup my mother didn’t protest. Why? Because she must have known we couldn’t see him without discovering the truth.”

  “What truth?”

  “I don’t know. She would never admit it and I’ve only collected crumbs of proof. Not enough to prove anything. Someone had my father killed. Someone powerful enough to be able to cover it up and have fake police reports written.”

  “Do you think he was involved in something illegal?”

  He believes me.

  “I’ve spent most of my life trying to find that out.”

  “Have you told anyone about this?”

  “Not since middle school. Even Lil doesn’t know. I involved her in some of my attempts to dig up proof but never told her why. I let her believe they were just crazy stunts I did for attention. I love Lil, but she’s not exactly a vault when it comes to keeping a secret.”

  Letting out a deep breath, Marc held her closer. “You can trust me with your secret, Alethea.”

  She looked up into his eyes. “I believe you, Marc. I don’t know why, but I do.”

  “We all have secrets,” he said softly. He ran a hand gently through her hair, then said, “I understand fear, Alethea. I know what it’s like to not be able to sleep at night because your mind won’t turn off and exhaustion is preferable to the images you’ll see in your dreams. I’m not a hero. I’m just a man who thought enlisting would pay for the education my parents couldn’t afford to give me. A man who ended up in the wrong place at a bad time.”

  “You went back for five men who had been shot. That’s heroic in my book.”

  “I barely remember that part of the day.” He looked up at the ceiling as the memories took him far away from her. “We were doing a routine patrol in what was supposed to be a friendly village. A roadside bomb went off that took out the lead Humvee. Sniper fire split our unit in two sections. I knew I was a dead man. No one was getting out alive. Men were dropping beside me. I don’t remember doing the acts they say I did. I remember being scared. I wanted to run for cover, but I couldn’t leave everyone. I knew those men. I knew their families. I knew they wouldn’t leave. I vaguely remember the Apache helicopters arriving and then nothing else. I woke up in a hospital and they called me a hero, but they’re wrong. Those men died anyway. I didn’t actually save anyone. I should have died with them.” He took her hand and laid it on the scar he had on one side of his abdomen. “They sent me home to heal, but you don’t heal. You never heal. And you never forget.” He tucked her head beneath his chin and said, “All I can do is get out of bed every day, go on, and try not to hate myself.”

  “You did the best you could in what was a horrific situation. It’s not your fault they died.”

  “And if your father was going to be murdered for what he knew, there was nothing you could have done, even if you had known.” He hugged her closer to him. “But knowing that doesn’t make sleeping easier, does it?”

  “No, it’s doesn’t,” she said sadly into his chest.

  He reached over for a remote and dimmed the lighting in the room. “You’re the first woman I’ve told about that day. The women I’ve dated couldn’t handle it. They want the hero. They don’t want to know the truth.”

  Deep in her chest her heart soared, even as she warned it not to. Real panic set in soon afterward. She would have bolted if there were a way out of the bunker, but, since that was impossible, she retreated into her mind and pretended to fall asleep.

  Marc watched her and wondered if he was right to push her. He knew she wasn’t sleeping. “What is going on in that beautiful head of yours?” he asked in her ear, and felt her tense against him.

  She met his eyes angrily. “Do we have to do this?”

  He played with one of her long tendrils. “You’re not going to threaten to kill me again, are you?”

  She pushed ineffectively at the arm he still had wrapped around her waist. “Stop.”

  “What?”

  She waved a hand around them. “This. The after-sex pillow-talk flirt. Why bother? If I wasn’t locked in here with you, I’d be long gone.”

  He sat up and pulled her to him until she was pressed against his chest, looking down at him. “What is this about?”

  She opened her mouth to deny it, but closed it again with a click. She just glared at him, anger warring with another emotion in those beautiful green eyes. “We end the moment that door opens. Why pretend that’s not what’s going to happen?” When she shifted away from him, he pulled her back.

  “You want the truth? I like you. You’re borderline paranoid and abrasive as all hell, but I don’t care. I can’t get enough of you. I love to watch you work a room. You can talk your way around most people with an ease that should be logged in the Guinness Book of World Records. And the way you find flaws in security plans—it’s like magic. A real gift. I’ve never been with a woman who excited me on so many levels. This isn’t just about sex. I’m not going anywhere. Not tonight. Not after we leave here.” Settling himself back down on the bed, he wrapped both arms around her again. “What would happen if you let yourself believe in us?”

  She tensed against him and said, “Us?”

  “Yes, us. Go to sleep, Alethea.”

  He expected an argument but didn’t get one. It took her almost an hour, but her breath finally deepened, and she turned and buried her face in his chest. He hugged her closer, his heart beating wildly in his chest.

  Not with desire as it had earlier, but with something he’d never felt before.

  He wanted to be her haven—her hero.

  Chapter Twelve

  Alethea woke up alone and padded into the main part of the house. Sunlight streamed through the window, but since it was simulated, she wasn’t sure what it meant, time-wise. She found her dress hanging beside a change of clothing in the bathroom. Linen pants and a simple silk blouse. Yesterday she’d dressed for a battle. Today she chose the tamer option. She showered and readied herself the best she could.

  Returning to the living room, she hugged her arms around her and took a moment to savor the memories of the night before. Her cheeks warmed at the memory of how she’d woken in his arms, how they’d made love tenderly, wordlessly, and then fallen back to sleep wrapped around each other. A deep, refreshing sleep she’d thought impossible to achieve in adulthood.

  As she stood smiling, she acknowledged that she felt at peace with what they’d done. She was filled with a calm that had little to do with the orgasms she’d had and everything to do with how it had felt to sleep in Marc’s arms. To hear the steady beat of his heart in her ear, and for the first time in nearly a decade, feel safe.

  Safety is an illusion, she reminded herself harshly.

  Just like allowing herself to believe that Marc is here because he wants to be. This is his job, and last night was no doubt an entertaining way for him to pass what would otherwise have been a tedious amount of time locked away from the world.

  He’d said all the right things to her.

  But that’s what men do. They say whatever they think a woman wants to hear.

  She spotted him on his phone, walking up and down the path near the lazy river. Who was he talking to? Dominic? Had Jeremy cleared or convicted Stephan?

  Either way, their time in the bunker was likely over.

  I should be happy.

  I can get back to my life now.

  She thought of her empty apartment a
nd her schedule that, although full of work-related appointments, lacked a social component. No need to rush home, since no one is waiting for me. Not even a cat.

  Oh, my God, I’m losing my mind. Is this what happens when everyone around you gets engaged or married? You start to think you need that for yourself? I don’t. I’ve done perfectly fine on my own.

  Marc spotted her in the window and started toward her. Sauntered, really. Practically whistling. He was perfectly groomed in one of his charcoal suits. His short brown hair was perfectly styled and he had the look of a man who had spent the night doing exactly what they’d done.

  When he sprinted in the door, smiling, she asked harshly, “Did you get the go-ahead to let me out of here?”

  His smile didn’t waver. “Morning, sunshine. I wanted to be there when you woke up, but you were sleeping so peacefully, I decided to get some work done instead. I see you found the clothes I left you.”

  “Did you have them delivered or were they here already?”

  “I like to call it being optimistically prepared.” He winked. “And it worked out well last night.”

  Her cheeks warmed a bit at his reference to the handcuffs. Distance. I need to distance myself if I’m going to be able to regain my balance here. “So what is the plan for today?”

  He studied her expression for a moment, then said, “Jake wants to see both of us.”

  “Did Jeremy find out anything?”

  “He didn’t say, but he told me to bring you up to see him as soon as you were ready.”

  She’d never been one to avoid confrontation. Better to go up and get it over with. Without hesitation, Alethea said, “I’m ready.”

  Marc tossed her cell phone to her.

  Alethea caught it easily and held it up between them. “You trust me with this now?”

  He closed the distance between them with two large strides and took her face in his hands. “Yes,” he said, and claimed her mouth hungrily.

  It took everything in her to not throw her arms around his neck and give in to the waves of desire that rocked her. She kept her hands clenched at her sides, but moaned with pleasure when his tongue swept over hers in an intimate greeting.