by Jenna Mills
He needed no more urging than that. He let his fingers play over the soft swell of a breast, let them skim across the hard tip of her nipple. All the while he kissed away her tears, using his body to make promises he knew he wasn’t capable of keeping.
But wished desperately that he was.
There hadn’t been many women in the past three years, none at all for the past two. And with the few there had been, in those dark months following the fire, his senses had been too dulled to take in what was happening. Too dulled to savor or enjoy. Too dulled to care about anything beyond the moment.
There was nothing dull now. Every sensation was razor sharp, every desire, every need, every sigh. He kissed her deeply, losing himself in the way she kissed him back with the same urgency that burned through him. He wanted to leave his mouth on hers forever but even more, he wanted to slide it along her jaw and her throat, keep on going, never stop.
She cried out when he abandoned her breast and reached down to help when his hand found the hem of her shirt and he yanked it over her head. With her eyes on his, she rid herself of her bra, baring herself to his eyes.
The sight knocked the breath from his lungs. She was beautiful. Her breasts were full and ripe, her nipples wide and dark, pebbled. His hands wanted to touch, but his mouth found them first, bestowing on them a soft little kiss, then a long, slow swirl of his tongue, and then he opened his mouth and began to suckle.
A kaleidoscope of color and sensation assaulted him, some dark, some swirling, a few tinged with the unfamiliar glow of pastels. She writhed beneath him, held a hand to the back of his head while he suckled harder, deeper.
“Yes,” she whispered, and then her thighs fell open and he settled between them. In the same instant she had her legs wrapped around his and her hips tilted up to him.
He wasn’t going to last. The thought stunned him. He was a grown man. He was no novice or stranger to sex. But the need he felt for this woman surpassed anything’d ever felt.
“Hang on, honey,” he muttered, kissing his way to her other breast.
She found his zipper and slowly slid it down, then reached for his waistband and pushed, leaving the length of him to spring free.
On a moan, he lifted his hips and helped her, kicked off the jeans once they passed his knees. And then he was easing the soft knit pants from her body. He reached for her panties, found they were already gone. There was just Danielle, warm and wet and completely ready for him.
“Now.” She tilted up toward his hand. “Please.”
He slid a finger inside, then another, matching her rhythm with his own. Sensation blanked his mind. He had his mouth on her breast and his hand between her legs, but it wasn’t enough. Wasn’t anywhere near enough.
“You’re alive,” he said again, lifting his head to look at her, drink her in. Her eyes were crystalline green and languid, and in them he knew a man could drown.
Knew he’d already done so.
Knew he should try to end this, that this was a barrier he should never cross. But he could no more stop what was happening between them than he could rip out his own heart.
With a violent movement, he yanked the comforter back and pulled her with him up to the pillow, then dragged her hand above her head. “Very, very alive,” he murmured, linking her fingers with his.
She reached for him, guided him to her. “Prove it,” she whispered, arching her hips.
And he could hold back no longer, not with Danielle slick and naked beneath him, arching, urging, wanting. Because he wanted, too. He wanted to feel her close around him. He wanted to feel himself inside of her. He wanted to feel alive.
“Maybe this will help,” he said, returning his mouth to hers as he pushed inside. She cried out against his open mouth, tilted up to accept him. She was small and amazingly tight, but warm and wet, and after only a brief hesitation she opened for him, allowing him deep. He wanted to stay there, buried inside of her heat, her warmth, but the urge to pull back and drive in again was too strong. He did, over and over and over, while her fingers dug into his back and her body welcomed him.
“Yes,” she whispered, and he felt her tighten, felt her tense, felt her fall apart. Little spasms shook her and allowed him deeper, and then he was the one whispering, “Yes.” Except it wasn’t a whisper. It was a shout.
He was alive.
She was alive.
They were alive.
And there in the shadows of his hotel room, for the first time in three years, light cut through the darkness.
Nothing mattered in the darkness of Liam’s bed. Time lost meaning. Consequences held no relevancy. There was only the heat of his body moving over and under hers, the gentleness of his hands, the promise of his kiss. She moved with him in forgotten poetry, welcomed him, gloried in the sensation that drenched her.
During the long months and years since Tydied, she’d not allowed herself to feel. Not allowed herself to want. And in doing so, over time, the absence had become the norm, and she’d forgotten. She’d stopped wanting.
Until Liam.
With Liam she remembered and she wanted. Even more, even worse, she needed. She needed to feel his touch. His possession. She needed to feel his hard mouth slant across hers, his callused hands cruise along her body. But nothing had prepared her for the deliriously erotic sensation of his mouth closing around her nipple. Her mind went blank at the sensation, and there was only a swirling need, a greed, a blinding desire for him to never, ever stop.
Because as long as he touched her, as long he kissed and fondled and needed, she didn’t have to think. And if she didn’t think, she didn’t have to remember. And if she didn’t remember, she didn’t have to bleed.
And if she didn’t bleed, then she could keep right on pretending the dark beauty of the night was real and that it wasn’t wrong. That it could last forever.
He awoke to the lingering scent of smoke and the muted sound of running water. He lay sprawled on his back, blinking against the intrusion of early-morning sunlight. It poured through the curtains and illuminated the twisted sheets on the big bed.
His body still burned. They’d made love countless times during the night, but the more he’d touched, tasted, the more he’d wanted. If he closed his eyes, he could still see Danielle writhing beneath him or straddled over him.
But she was gone now, the mattress beside him empty.
The loss cut more deeply than he’d imagined possible.
Frowning, he rolled from bed and crossed to the bathroom, quietly pulled open the door. And saw her. Not standing naked and languid beneath the spray of the shower, but sitting on the closed lid of the toilet, crying.
For a moment, he couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. He’d ambled to the bathroom, half planning to join her in the shower, to pick up where they’d left off shortly before dawn. But she was just sitting there. His tough, fiery Gypsy was just sitting there, naked except for the towel wrapped around her.
Slowly she looked up at him, exposed him to eyes darkened by horror and rimmed with regret. Tears streaked her face, and her mouth swollen from the roughness of his passion.
The sight almost sent him to his knees.
He’d done this to her. He’d taken what he had no right to take. He’d known it at the time, had known it all along, but he hadn’t been strong enough to walk away. Now the truth blasted him. In trying to help, in trying to heal, he’d only succeeded in hurting her more.
“Liam,” she whispered, but he barely recognized her voice. It wasn’t strong and vibrant, but small and vulnerable. Unsure. He wanted to go to her, touch her, fold her in his arms and hold her, promise her everything would be okay. That they were both alive and that he would never hurt her again.
But the way she was looking at him, lost and alone and broken, stood as an invisible barrier between them.
Frowning, he did the only thing he could. He turned from the bathroom and closed the door behind him.
The call came exactly an hour later. He’d
just stepped out of the shower and finished drying when his cell phone started to ring. Through the foggy bathroom he reached for it and pushed the small button to answer. “Brooks, here.”
“Lee, thank God,” came Mariah’s grim voice. “There’s been another murder.”
It was a med student this time. Constance Turner. She’d been on the fast track at Cornell Medical School, a young woman with an inquisitive mind and a bright future. Her professors had adored her, said she was the most promising researcher they’d seen in years.
Until last August when she’d vanished without a trace.
Her family, a hardworking couple from Queens whose world had been defined by their only child, had sworn they didn’t know where she was. Her boyfriend had been investigated, but there were no signs of foul play. No history of arguments. Nothing stolen from her apartment. No body. Her credit cards had never been used again. It was as though she’d never even existed.
Until last night, when her body was found in upstate New York, at the scene of a single car accident.
The police reports made it sound simple. Constance had been driving too fast along a narrow, winding road, and she’d lost control of her car. There were skid marks leading up to the tree she’d wrapped around. She hadn’t stood a chance.
Simple, routine, except for the postcard found on her body. Of a pastoral German farmhouse. Addressed to Liam.
Jerking on his jeans, he swore softly. Questions twisted through him. Who was Constance Turner and why was she dead? Why had she been driving so fast? Why had she had a postcard with her? What had she been trying to tell him?
The message was too smeared to know, Mariah had explained. His name and address were discernable, but the car had exploded, and the water used to put out the fire had smeared the scribbled note. Only three letters survived intact: ANT.
It meant nothing, Liam thought savagely, pulling a dark knit shirt over his head. Nothing.
But in truth, he feared it could mean everything.
He threw open the bathroom door and strode into his hotel room. He had to get to the local field office immediately and do some checking. Figure out what the hell ANT meant. That was all he could do for Danielle now. Find her son. Bring him home safely. Make sure Titan never touched either of them again.
The sight of her sitting in the wing chair by the window stopped him cold. He’d been staring out over the lake when she emerged from the bathroom thirty minutes before, and when he’d turned, he’d found her fumbling with the clothing he’d stripped from her body the night before.
He’d wanted to say something, do something, but knew he’d done enough. So he’d headed for the bathroom, sure that by the time he emerged, she would be gone.
But there she was, dressed now, but still sitting in the chair.
“I have to go.” He slid his sss feet into his loafers and reached for his gun and holster.
“I know.” The words were simple, benign.
He turned and walked to the door, pulled it open but couldn’t make himself walk out on her. Not without saying what had to be said.
Bracing himself, he twisted back toward her. “Don’t blame yourself for last night.”
She lifted her chin, the first sign of fire he’d seen since he’d extinguished it the night before, with a simple, dangerous question. What do you need?
“Who would you like me to blame? You?”
He winced, felt his jaw go tight. “This isn’t what I wanted, Danielle.” The words broke from deep inside. “Christ…none of this is what I wanted.” To need and feel, to want. For so many years he’d kept the lines of his life pristinely clean and separate. When he’d gotten off the plane in Chicago, he’d never expected this would be the time he mangled everything. “I would walk out this door right now and never come back, if I could.” Walk away, walk far. “But I can’t do that, not until Alex is home safe and sound.”
Her eyes went dark. “But then you will,” she said, and the words lashed at his heart like a thin leather strip.
“Yes,” he said. “Then I will.”
Not wanting to look at her one second longer, not wanting to see the bed where they’d come together and come alive, where light had pushed aside the darkness, he did what he should have done last night. He turned from her and stepped into the long corridor lined by antique portraits of aristocrats long gone from this world, and closed the door behind him.
Danielle stared at the closed door for a long, long time.
The gravity of what she’d let happen stunned her. She didn’t want to think of last night as a mistake, not when for the first time in years she’d felt alive, really alive. But the bright light of morning drove home everything she’d not let herself consider the night before. There’d been only the mindless need, the blinding desire to let down her guard and lean.
But she’d done far more than lean. She’d fallen.
And now regret slashed at her. What kind of mother was she? What kind of woman? Her son was missing, but there she’d been, in Liam’s bed, giving herself to him in ways she hadn’t even known possible.
She’d had sex before. Just with Ty, but they had been lovers. They’d shared laughter and pleasure. They’d created a son. But nothing that had passed between them compared to the force that had driven her into Liam’s arms. She’d never known something as simple as a man’s touch could cancel out every logical, rational thought. She’d never known a kiss could blind her to caution. She’d never known passion could be that urgent, as though if he hadn’t touched her, hadn’t loved her, she just might shatter.
Love her?
No. Not love. That wasn’t what this was about. Need, that was all. Raw, primal, incessant.
Blinking back tears she refused to shed, Danielle glanced toward the window. Beyond, Lake Michigan sprawled as far as the eye could see. The hollowness inside of her was much the same, except it wasn’t bright and blue and glistening beneath the sun. It was dark and dull and colder by the second.
And she hated it. She hated the stabbing sensation in her throat, the dull ache in her chest. Standing, she crossed to the bed and yanked at the covers, ripped them from the mattress. She wanted no evidence, no reminders. Not for her, not for Liam. After wadding the fine cotton sheets into a tight ball, she tossed them across the room and grabbed the key card to the room Mr. Mansfield had assigned to her, then abandoned the scene of the crime.
The phone rang fifteen minutes later. “Hello, Danielle.”
It was a smooth voice, low and cultured, with the faintest trace of a continental accent. “Who is this?”
The man hesitated only a moment before answering. “You don’t remember me?”
The hairs along the back of her neck bristled, and the chill inside, the dull chill left by Liam, turned sharp and punishing. Because she did remember. “The lobby,” she said on a low breath. The elegant man with the salt-and-pepper hair. “You offered me a drink.”
“And you should have accepted it,” he said mildly. “Everything would have been so much simpler if you had.” Laughter then, equally mild. “So tell me. What did you think of my little demonstration yesterday? Do I finally have your attention?”
Bastard! she wanted to shout. Give me back my son! But instinct told her to keep her cards close to her chest. “What do you want?”
“The same thing Brooks wants.”
She stiffened. “Brooks?”
“You, my dear. I want you.”
Horror flooded the gaping emptiness. It was hot and corrosive, boiling. Rage shouted through her. She wanted to crawl through the phone lines and hurt this man, hurt him bad. Hurt him as he’d hurt her. Instead, she forced her voice to remain calm and unaffected. “Tell me how, tell me when.”
“Tonight,” he answered politely, as though they were discussing dinner plans. “At the beach, just after sundown. You know the spot.”
A cold resolve snaked in from the darkness. “I’ll be there.”
He let out another laugh, this one pleased. “And
I will be eagerly waiting, my dear.” A pause, this one short, charged by a blast of sinister energy. “Alone, Danielle. You’re to come alone this time, or your son dies.”
Or your son dies.
The insidious words stayed with Danielle long after the man’s deceptive voice died from her ears. She hung up the phone and paced the small room, let her mind race with possibilities.
She would do anything. No price was too high. No risk was too great. She would do anything to make sure her son was safe. What happened to her in the process did not matter.
Staring out over the lake, she drew her hands to her stomach, much as she’d done during the nine months she’d carried Alex. From the moment she’d learned of his conception, love for the child growing within her had consumed her. She’d treasured every kick, every swish, every hiccup. She’d even treasured the pain of birth. She’d never forget her first sight of him, his red skin all shriveled and covered by a white paste, his body seemingly frail, his cry strong and hardy. The doctor had placed him on her chest, and he’d taken to her breast immediately and begun to suckle.
From that moment on, he’d owned her.
Emotion crowded her throat, and she let her fingers spread wider against her abdomen. She and Liam had not used protection last night. She hadn’t gone to his room with the intention of making love, and instinctively she knew he was not one of those men who carried condoms in his shaving kit, just in case. Everything between them had happened so fast, that even though she’d had the fleeting thought of birth control, she hadn’t cared. The need to feel him inside of her had been too strong.
And now the thought of carrying his child almost made her double over. She would love the child, just as she loved—
No.
There was only one choice left to her now, and no matter how badly the thought of saying goodbye to Liam stung, she really had no option. Not anymore.