by Rebecca York
He grew hard as he remembered the first time he’d made her come, his finger stroking into her hot, wet folds as she rocked her hips to increase the friction. After that, she’d asked how to do the same for him. He’d wrapped her hand around his cock, showing her how to pump up and down to bring him off. They’d pleasured each other like that for a few weeks, until she’d let him take her virginity. His mind leaped from the past to the present. From the way she’d responded to his kiss earlier this evening, he was pretty sure that she’d let him do what he wanted now. Did it really make a difference that this was eight years later, and she was a married woman?
“Cut it out,” he muttered to himself. Making himself hot with thoughts about Leah in the next room wasn’t doing him any good, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to bring himself off with her practically lying next to him. He closed his eyes, willing himself to catch some sleep so he’d be ready to get her out of here in the morning. And then what? He still wasn’t sure.
He must have drifted off because the next thing he knew, every cell in his body was on alert. He’d heard a scream from down the hall—from the room where Leah was sleeping.
Still angry with himself for not coming armed, he leaped out of bed and pounded down the hall. The door to her room was open, and he rushed in without stopping to see if he might be barreling into a trap.
Chapter Five
Steve saw Leah lying on the mattress. Like him, she was wearing the clothes she’d had on earlier. Her head was whipping back and forth on a pillow. She was sleeping, and he was sure that she was caught in a nightmare.
A muffled moan escaped her lips as he moved closer, then came down beside her on the mattress, calling her name.
When she didn’t respond, he laid a hand on her shoulder trying to gently wake her.
“Leah, it’s okay,” he soothed. “It’s Steve. You’re having a nightmare.”
But the effort to calm her was wasted. Her eyes were still closed when she lashed out an arm and flailed at him, slapping him across the face.
He reared back, and she came after him, still swinging.
His only option to protect himself without hurting her was to fold her close, clamping her arms to her side as he held her down.
“Leah, it’s Steve,” he repeated, trying to get through to her. “You’re with me. You’re safe.”
For long moments she kept fighting him, kicking him, making his bad leg throb. Then she finally went still.
“Steve?”
“Yeah.” He rolled to his side so that his weight was no longer on top of her.
“Oh God, did I hurt you?” she asked, the question coming out on a sob.
“No. I’m fine,” he answered, stifling the impulse to make sure he hadn’t cut his mouth when she hit his teeth.
“I’m sorry.”
“No problem.”
He could feel her struggling for control and heard the tears in her voice as she continued.
“I was back at home. He was coming at me again, but I ducked around him. I was running. Down a long hall. I was trying to get to the door, but the hall was endless. The farther I ran, the farther I had to go. I was trapped.
He reached to soothe his hand across her shoulders, feeling the knots of tension.
“It’s okay. He can’t get you here.”
“I wish I knew that for sure.”
He stayed where he was, cradling her in his arms. She rolled to her side, burying her face against his chest.
“I should let you get back to sleep,” he whispered.
She grasped his arms, her fingers digging painfully into his flesh. “I don’t want to be alone.”
There was only one answer he could give. “Okay.”
He eased to his back, and she came with him, reversing their original positions.
“You remember when we used to come here?” she asked in a low voice.
“You were thinking about that?”
“Yes. Before I went to sleep. Were you?”
He wanted to lie. Instead, he said, “Yes.”
“You taught me about making love.”
“This is going in the wrong direction.” When he tried to shift away, her hand tightened on his arm.
“Is it?”
She moved up so that she could press her lips over his, and he was instantly transported back in time.
As her mouth stroked persuasively against his, he opened for her, enjoying the hot invasion of her tongue and the pressure of her breasts against his chest when she molded herself to him.
He knew he should disentangle himself before things got out of control, but he couldn’t do it. Then she shifted fully on top of him, positioning his erection in the cleft between her upper thighs, making heat shoot through him.
The rocking of her hips against him was like striking a match against tinder. His cock swelled painfully inside his jeans. And when she raised up so that he could reach her breasts, he accepted the invitation, cupping the soft mounds in his hands as he glided his thumbs across the hardened tips.
“Do what you used to do,” she whispered against his mouth. “Squeeze my nipples between your thumbs and fingers. Lord, that used to feel so good.”
He heard desperation in her voice and felt his own desperation rising.
“Leah, we can’t,” he managed to say as he dropped his hands to his sides.
“Why not?” she asked, emphasizing the question by torturing him some more with her lower body.
“You’re married to someone else.”
She raised her head, staring down at him. “It hasn’t been a real marriage for a long time.”
“It’s a legal marriage,” he said, still struggling with the meaning of right and wrong. Gently he lifted her off of himself, and they both lay on the mattress, dragging in air.
“You’re too much of a gentleman,” she whispered.
“And you’re trying to forget the nightmare.”
“I’m trying to forget a lot of things.”
He reached for her hand and clasped her fingers with his. “We’ll get you out of this.”
“Maybe you can’t. Maybe nobody can,” she answered, her tone bleak.
Words of reassurance leaped to his lips, but he stopped himself from making promises he might not be able to keep.
“Stay here,” she murmured.
He wanted to agree immediately. Instead he asked, “Is that a good idea?”
“I’ll behave myself.”
“Okay,” he answered in the darkness.
“I married the wrong guy,” she whispered.
The simple statement tingled against his nerve endings. “Don’t say that.”
“Teenagers have stupid values.”
“Yeah. And I didn’t look like marriage material.”
“Are you now?” she asked, and he wished she wasn’t being so direct.
“I don’t know.” He gave the only answer he should. He’d wondered for years what would have happened if she’d come back that fall. By then he’d gotten into a program at the local community college for disadvantaged youths who wanted to study criminal justice. If you did well, you could finish at the University of Maryland. He wanted one of those slots, and he was loving the challenge of getting good grades.
Now he said, “Go to sleep, and we’ll figure things out in the morning.”
“If I can.”
He had the same thought. Sexual need still zinged through him, and he knew what would make him relaxed enough to sleep. Instead he tried to focus on his breathing.
oOo
A sound from outside woke him early in the morning. When he got up to investigate, Leah stirred beside him.
“What?”
“I hear someone out there.”
He saw her whole body go rigid. “It’s Warren.”
“We don’t know that. Stay out of sight.” He walked toward the front of the house. Before he got to the living room, someone pounded on the door and shouted, “Police. Open up.”
Steve ran h
is fingers through his hair, then walked to the front door and looked out. Two uniformed state troopers stood on the front porch. They were both young guys, and Steve didn’t recognize either one of them. They wore brass nametags on their uniform shirts. One said Winston and the other said Campbell.
When they saw him through the window, the one named Campbell shouted, “Open up.”
He put the chain on the door and opened it the few inches that the security device would allow.
“What’s this about?” he asked.
“We’re looking for Leah Pendelton.”
“Why?”
“She’s wanted for robbing and assaulting her husband.”
Chapter Six
Clever move, Steve though. If you wanted the cops to help find your runaway wife, accuse her of a crime. Hoping he was keeping any emotion out of his face. “What makes you think she’s here?”
“Her husband thought she might be.”
“Why?”
“You used to know her, right?”
“Yeah, but I haven’t seen her in years.”
Campbell, who was doing all the talking asked, “What are you doing here?”
“The last tenant who rented the house trashed the place. Before I put the property on the market, I have to evaluate the damage.”
“Mind if we come in?”
“Yes, I do mind.”
“You’re not being cooperative.”
“I’m a former Baltimore City cop and now work for Decorah Security. I know when I have to cooperate and when I don’t.”
Both men looked disgruntled when they realized their status wasn’t enough of an intimidation tactic, but they knew Steve was within his rights to deny them access to the interior.
Campbell gave him a curt nod and backed away. Steve shut the door and watched them through the window. As soon as they’d stepped off the porch, he started for the back of the house.
Leah was already in the hall, looking scared.
“Did you hear that?” he asked.
“Yes. It’s a lie. I never assaulted Warren. But I guess he made it sound plausible.” She gulped. “What am I going to do now?”
“We’re getting the hell out of here. Grab your stuff.”
“I don’t have much.”
She zipped up her bag and he took it from her. When he glanced out the window again, he saw the two officers heading for the garage—where they were going to find a car with a license plate that belonged to Warren Pendelton.
Outside, Steve pulled his keys from his pocket and reached for Leah with his free hand.
“Hurry.”
He hustled her across the weedy lawn toward his SUV, which was parked at the curb—thankfully in front of the police cruiser.
Leah slid into the front seat and closed her door. He had just closed the driver’s side door when Campbell shouted, “Hold up.”
Were they going to shoot, he wondered as he jammed the car into gear and took off.
In the rearview mirror, he saw the two officers pelting for their cruiser. Too bad he hadn’t had time to let the air out of their tires.
He drove straight down the street, then took the second right, hoping he remembered his way around the area.
Beside him, Leah was hunched down with her arms wrapped around her shoulders.
“Tell me how far behind they are.”
She swiveled in her seat. “They haven’t taken the turn yet.”
“Good.”
He made a left, just missing a car at the next cross street.
“Warren’s lying,” Leah repeated what she’d said in the house.
“I know.”
“How?”
“Because I know you’re trustworthy.”
“I could have changed.”
“Are you trying to get me to stop and wait for the cops to catch up?”
“It would be better for you. This way you’re—what do they call it—an accessory after the fact.”
“We’ll prove you didn’t do anything besides escape from an abusive marriage.”
“How?”
“I don’t know yet.”
He made it out of town and slowed down a little after turning onto one of the country roads that crisscrossed the area. Hopefully the state cops would have a much less intimate knowledge of the immediate surroundings.
Leah gave him a doubtful look. “You’re getting yourself in trouble.”
He shrugged and kept driving, taking a twisting route through the corn and alfalfa fields, making sure that the patrol car hadn’t picked up his trail. When he got to a familiar section of the county, he drove off the blacktop onto a dirt road.
“Where are we going?”
“Out of here.”
He pulled up in back of a gray weathered house that was next to one of the many rivers in the area.
A stoop-shouldered gray-haired man wearing faded jeans and a tee shirt that said Rehoboth Beach came out when he heard the vehicle. He was holding a shotgun.
“He’s armed,” Leah gasped.
“He’s cautious. Wait here,” Steve answered.
He got out, watching the old guy watch him as he approached.
“Jerry,” he called out.
“Steve Outlaw?”
“The same.”
“What you doin’ back here?” he asked, shifting the barrel of the weapon downward.
“I need to rent a boat, and I need to stow my car,” he said, gesturing toward the SUV.
“You in trouble?”
“You could say that. I’ll pay cash for the rental.”
He pulled out his wallet and extracted two fifties. “Will this do?”
“Yeah.”
Turning back to the SUV, Steve motioned to Leah, who got out of the vehicle and waited while he drove it into a barn out back and closed the doors.
“Jerry, this is my friend Leah,” he said. “Leah, Jerry.”
“Nice to meet you,” they both said, each of them eyeing the other with curiosity.
“Leah ran into a little trouble. If two state cops come looking for her, it’s better if you never saw us.”
The old man didn’t ask what kind of trouble. He simply led them down to a small but well-kept wooden boat dock where several craft were moored.
“Where are you goin’?”
“Better if I don’t say.”
“How do I get my boat back?”
“I’ll phone you after we tie up.”
Jerry considered the arrangement, then said, “Only for you,”
“Appreciate it.”
The old man led them to a sleek model with an inboard motor, a long back deck and a small enclosed area at the front. Steve helped Leah onto the deck, then directed her under the canopy. Jerry and Steve talked for a few minutes about the craft’s operation before he started the engine. Then the older man climbed back onto the dock and cast off the line.
Steve motored slowly down river until they were well clear of the dock, then throttled up the engine.
“Where are we going?” Leah asked.
“Baltimore. Decorah Security has a couple of slips in Fells Point,” he said, naming an older part of the city on the Inner Harbor. It was where the police station in the TV show, Homicide, had been filmed.
“How do you know Jerry?”
“He and my father used to fish crab together. After dad passed, Jerry kept in touch with me. He’d take me out fishing, and sometimes we’d spend the night on one of his boats.”
“I never met your father.”
“He died of lung cancer when I was ten. I figure he got it from the asbestos floating around where he worked in a shipbuilding factory.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“He was a good dad. I always wonder if I would have turned out differently if he’d lived.” He turned toward her. “I never met your parents, either.”
“I kept you away from them because they would have considered you way below their social level—and hanging out with the right people was importan
t to them.”
“And they approved of Warren.”
“Yes, but after his initial charm campaign, he kept us away from them. I think now that he didn’t want me running back home if I needed help.”
“Nice.”
“And like I told you, Dad’s dead now, and Mom’s in a nursing home.”
“Yeah.”
“I didn’t say thanks for getting me out of there.”
“I wasn’t going to turn you over to those guys, and of course, they might not even be cops.”
She gave him a startled look. “How could they not be cops?”
“Well, either Warren lied to the police, or he hired actors to play the parts.”
“And put them in a cop car?”
“Or one from a movie company. I don’t really know which.”
“You said you trusted me. I want everything out in the open. I told you I was squirreling away some money.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “And before I left, I did take some money from his wallet—but since I was married to him, I think it’s my money, too.”
“Yeah.”
She dragged in a breath and let it out. “But I didn’t assault him. It was the other way around. And I didn’t steal anything from the house—which is how I think he was making it sound.”
“Right.”
“I mean what would I do with any of his stuff?”
“Sell it?”
She laughed. “Don’t you have to give ID at a pawn shop?”
“Uh huh.”
“Well, that leaves me to sell on a street corner.”
He nodded, believing her and thinking that Pendelton had made her departure seem as bad as possible.
As they approached the Baltimore Harbor, Steve said, “Go below. It’s better if people only see a guy on this boat—not a couple.”
“Right.”
Leah went down to the lower level, and Steve motored toward one of the Fells Point piers. After one of the nearby boat owners attached the line for him, Steve went down and called Decorah Security on the company’s secure line.
Frank answered, and before Steve could say anything, his boss warned, “The cops came here. They’ll looking for you and Leah.”