by Carole Howey
Her words choked off as if there were hands closing about her throat. You can go to Madeleine was what she was going to say; he had no doubt of it.
His hands were cold, and he realized it was because Missy was walking away from him.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
If he laughed, the resulting pain in his ribs would be the least of his problems. Nevertheless, it was a struggle not to.
"You can't know how glad I am," he said as she reached the door, "to discover that my wife isn't above a little cunning, especially in the matter of keeping her man."
"I deserve every word of cruel sarcasm you can think of," she replied in a subdued voice. "Only I wish you wouldn't"
"Sarcasm? Sar Missy, come back here. Please."
"But I"
"I can't make it across the room again; I'm too tired, and my side hurts like a son of a bitch. Come here."
She gave him a piteous, sidelong look that forced a gentle chuckle from his chest. The look became a scowl.
"No, don't," he pleaded, trying to temper his grin.
"God, I'll laugh, and I'll probably kill myself doing it. Do you know, I don't think I realized until just this minute that you love me? You really, truly love me?"
"Do you mean to say you would not think me capable of love unless I were also capable of"
"Deceit?" he finished for her, his side stinging with his sigh of relief. "But that's just it, Missy, don't you see? You're not capable of it. Oh, you're quite capable of performing an act of chicanery or two, thank God, but as for keeping it to yourself, well, isn't your 'confession' to me here tonight proof enough for you of your honesty? And how could I help but be flattered that you'd go to such lengths, confronting what you saw as your competition although believe me, Madeleine never fascinated me the way you do! to keep me for yourself?"
The cloud over Missy's brow fled and a wan, hopeful smile took its place.
"Then you forgive me?"
"Come here, sweetheart."
Because she was not a fool, and because she loved him so deeply that she felt it all the way down to her toes, Missy went to him. She wanted to laugh. She wanted to cry. She wanted to beat her fists against his chest for his laughing at her. She wanted to kill him, but she didn't want to hurt him, and that paradox troubled her not at all, especially when he kissed her soundly.
"Now help me finish what you started," Flynn said in a breathless chuckle, guiding her hands to his trousers again. "If I'm going to die tonight, I intend to die a happy man."
Missy giggled.
"Never stop teasing me, Flynn," she commanded him, finding his lips with her own as she awkwardly undid his buttons. "I think I love that best about you."
"Who's teasing?"
Undressing for Flynn was as natural to Missy as if they'd been wed for half their lives. He relaxed against the piled pillows of her bed watching her, magnificent and utterly serene in his nakedness, except for one rebellious part of him that was not, thank heaven, in the least unperturbed. Normally fastidious about the care of her nicer garments, Missy allowed one layer after the next to fall to the floor, neglected. At last, wearing only her shift, she began to crawl into the bed.
"This, too," he whispered, plucking at the soft, wrinkled batiste with two fingers.
She blushed. "All right."
She pulled the filmy garment over her head and cast it aside, exposing herself to his heavy-lidded gaze.
"Sweet lord," he intoned as she eased beside him at last. "Melissa Judith, if you ever utter a contrary word about your figure in my hearing, I swear I'll strip you naked right then and there and make love to you on the floor, no matter who's watching! You're not cold, are you?"
"In this heat?" Missy was referring to the warmth of the room, but the deeper meaning of her remark occurred to her a bit late, and she felt herself blush again as Flynn's impish grin widened. He reached out with a gentle hand and cupped her breast, allowing his thumb to stroke the tender, erect nipple. She shivered with want.
"You're either cold or interested," he drawled, slowing his caress to a torturous tempo. "So I guess if it's not the former I can assume it to be the latter?"
"You can always assume I'm 'interested' in you, Daniel Flynn," she murmured, undulating at his touch, feeling like the cat that ate the canary and didn't get caught. He made a face that didn't suggest a hint of pain and his hand traveled down along her side.
"I never use that name, and the truth is I'd all but forgotten it, or I'd have told you before," he said, leaning in to her until his chest was pressed full against her.
"God, you feel so good."
Indeed, Missy did feel good. Remarkable, in fact. Flynn's nearness and the activity of his hand inspired a host of sensations quite unlike anything she'd ever felt before. She experienced a shimmer of terror as his fingers found the thatch of hair at the joining of her legs, but it was a wondrous terror, brief and luminous, quickly giving way to avid curiosity and . . . delight.
Missy lay very still, concentrating on the utterly foreign, utterly wonderful response in her loins to Flynn's gentle but ardent strokes. She felt as if part of her had been sleeping all of her life, and that Flynn Muldaur was only now awakening it, introducing her to its presence and the pleasures it offered. Her legs relaxed indeed, her entire body and she found herself rubbing and thrusting against his blessedly persistent touch, increasingly aware of a deeper need, a greater, secret joy awaiting her, awaiting them both.
"Take it," Flynn encouraged her with a hot whisper in her ear. "It's for you, sweetheart, just for you. It's good, isn't it?" She could not answer. "I want it to be good, so good. . . .''
Missy did not know whether it was the gentle titillation of his hot breath in her ear, the heat of his long body pressed against hers, or the unrelenting throb of his fingers against her most private, womanly parts, but in the long, lovely moment of completion it did not matter. It was probably all of them, and she prayed, on a shuddering sigh, that she would have many, many more chances to try to discover the secret of this unparalleled phenomenon with Flynn.
The most shocking discovery of all, though, was to realize that even that bliss was not enough.
"I want to make love to you," Flynn told her in a gasp, lying flat on his back. "Oh, how I want to, but these damned ribs I can hardly breathe now."
She would have had to be blind to miss the fact that Flynn was, indeed, fully prepared to enter her. She rolled onto her side and slid her bare leg over his until her thigh pressed lightly against his heat.
"Lie still," she murmured, kissing his shoulder. "We can do this. I think I know a way. . . ." Nature, she knew from her years of breeding and training horses, always found a way, especially when there was a will. Flynn's will was obvious. Her own, thanks to his skillful ministrations, was indomitable.
Flynn was not certain what Missy meant to do as she got to her knees on the sagging mattress, but when she straddled his loins as if she were about to settle into a saddle, her intention became clear. He didn't need to feel her moist heat inviting the tip of his manhood. He didn't need it, but oh, how he wanted it!
She positioned herself above him.
"Sweet . . ." he uttered.
Slowly, slowly she impaled herself on him.
" . . . holy . . ."
She closed her eyes and bit her lip with a wince as he breached her barrier.
" . . . blue bleeding . . ."
Her jaw relaxed with a high, wordless cry as she settled her loins against his, and he was fully inside her.
" . . . Mother of God!"
That was a new one, and it surprised him. He figured he must have been saving it just for her. It reminded him, uncomfortably, of something else he'd been saving for her.
"Ohhh . . ."
She moved. Dear God, she moved, and it was nearly over before it began. He felt like a boy of 17 with his first woman, and it required every shred of concentration he possessed to hold himself in.
"Flynn, it's so . . . good," she r
asped as she came down on him again, her amazement ringing like a sweet silver bell in his ear.
He was compelled to agree. It was good. Too good. He lay perfectly still and tried not to think of the glorious spectacle of womanhood above him and around him, drawing him in, taking him in a deliciously wanton manner. He found it impossible to think of anything else.
Her movement became harder. More urgent. It started a tiny, dull pain in his side, and he blessed that pain, concentrating only on that as Missy continued to torture other parts of him with her increasingly unrestrained want.
That worked for about a minute. His loins, too long unused, would not be denied their full measure of satisfaction, pain or no. He was about to lose his control in a most appallingly wonderful manner, and he was very close to not caring in the least for anything but his own gratification when he heard a low groan of bliss start in the depths of Missy's taut throat. Laying his hands on her smooth, white thighs, Flynn paid silent homage to a variety of saints as he broke the mighty chains of his restraint at last and spilled forth into her with a teeming rush.
If he'd doubted it in the past, this one act more than any other convinced him of the truth of it: Man must surely have been created in God's image, for man did, indeed, need to rely upon divine resources at certain occasions of his life.
If he was very, very lucky, that is. And if he meant to enjoy the sounds of a satisfied woman by his side.
Pride made him ask what sense told him was completely unnecessary.
"Are you all right, sweetheart?"
"Mmmm." The breathless quality of her reply persuaded him that she was more than all right, and it made that tiny pain in his side worth every twinge. Hell, it even made him think of courting danger and inviting the twinge again.
"Flynn?"
"What?" He kissed her brow.
"I love you."
Maybe he'd start attending church with Missy and Gideon on Sundays.
"I love you, too, sweetheart."
Missy fished for the light coverlet and pulled it up around them. She nestled closer to Flynn again, laying her head on his shoulder, careful not to disturb his side. She felt lithe and fluid and entirely transformed. She was Flynn's now, and he was hers. Neither of them was alone anymore. Perhaps that was the difference.
"Missy?"
"What?"
"I want to put a water closet in the house next year."
Missy giggled. "Whatever made you think of that just now? Ohh . . ."
"No, not that," he quipped with a single, snorting laugh. "I don't know. I guess I was thinking about the day you came back to the C-Bar-C. I was fixing the roof of the privy, and Bill Boland rode up to criticize my work. I told him I meant to put in a water closet next year, and he looked at me as if he doubted I'd be around until the first frost. He was an ornery son of a bitch, even then. But I guess I ought to be grateful to him."
"For breaking your ribs and rearranging your face?" She dared to tease him. It felt deliciously wicked.
He pulled a lock of her hair with a wry grimace. "No, for rearranging my head. I think he's more than a little responsible for me falling in love with you, you know."
"Oh? Perhaps we should invite him for supper sometime to thank him." This time Flynn smacked her fanny beneath the covers and she let out a yelp.
"Not that grateful," he amended, rubbing his jaw with his free hand. "Unless you want to invite Madeleine, as well."
"Hmph. Now, there's a match."
"Mmm," he agreed. "A match made in hell."
Missy allowed herself to enjoy Flynn's nearness in the agreeable silence that followed while he traced lazy trails along her arm with his fingertips. She felt closer to him than she'd ever felt to another human being. Close enough to ask him one more question.
"What was is Madeleine, Flynn?" she ventured, fingering his collarbone. "Aside from being Antoinette's mother, what is her true position in your life?"
It was altogether possible, she knew, that Flynn would refuse to answer her. If he did, she would have to resign herself to continued ignorance, for she could not give him up. She prayed he wouldn't deny her, though, for she found that, having gotten so close to him at last, she needed to be privy to even his darkest secrets. And where Madeleine Deauville was concerned, she had the awful feeling that those secrets were dark indeed.
Flynn drew in a breath that caused his side to tighten, then let it out. His caress ceased, but he kept his hand on her arm.
"I wanted to tell you two days ago, but you didn't want to hear it."
There was no reproach in his voice, but Missy felt ashamed nevertheless.
"I was wrong," she admitted with a hard swallow. "I should have let you speak. I was I just didn't have the heart to listen then. And now I don't have the heart not to. II gave it away, you see."
Flynn pressed his cheek against her forehead, and Missy knew she was forgiven. The knowledge made her feel lighter than one of Mrs. Fedderman's biscuits.
"Well, you already know Madeleine is Antoinette's mother." Flynn's voice was breathless, yet heavy. With the weight of past sins? she wondered.
"And Seamus is her father?" Missy had been certain of it before, but faced with the unvarnished truth, she was assailed by sudden dread.
"Yes, Seamus is her father. Although you may as well know that had our positions been reversed, it could just as easily have been the other way around. Madeleine had certain allure that we both Seamus and I found irresistible when we were younger. Looking back, I find that I can't explain it to myself except that she may have been the first woman to look at us and see men rather than money. Or at least I thought so when I was eighteen."
Years seemed to peel away from Flynn's baritone, leaving the energy of youth in his voice. Missy did not move.
"I know now, if course, that it was part of her training. And I learned the lesson far sooner than Seamus. Or he learned it and didn't care; I don't know which. I fell out of Madeleine's web after a short time, but Seamus remained despite my warnings, even after he began his political career."
Flynn shifted his pose but seemed to try to keep his back rigid. Missy suspected that he was still in pain.
"I saw Madeleine very little after I joined the Secret Service. I knew what she was, and I had an inkling about the depth and variety of illegal activities she and her mother were running out of their establishment, but I didn't want to be a party to her downfall, so I stayed away. I urged Seamus to do the same, but Seamus . . ." Flynn shook his head with a sad little laugh. "Seamus goes his own way. Always. And apparently he wanted to go straight to hell, because that's where it eventually led him."
Missy allowed a long while to pass before she posed her next hushed question.
"The smuggling ring that Joshua Manners told me about: Seamus was involved with it?"
"Yes."
Another interminable silence.
"Were you?" She had to ask.
He sighed.
"No," he told her. "But it didn't matter. By the time I realized Seamus was, it was too late for me to head off the investigation. I doubt I even could have: I wasn't in charge. I was only a subordinate. I followed orders. I didn't make them. Seamus was a bright young politician with staggering debts behind him from his campaigning; that was how he justified himself. I was furious when I found out that he was embroiled with Madeleine in . . .
Missy waited. It was pain that made Flynn pause; she knew it. But she suspected it was a pain that had nothing to do with his injuries.
"They were white slavers, Missy." His whisper grated. "They entrapped young women and exported them like so much cattle to a life so horrible you can't even imagine it. It made me sick even before I knew Seamus was involved. Then afterward . . ."
Flynn dragged the back of his hand across his mouth as if to rid himself of some foul taste. Missy saw him blink hard as he stared at the ceiling. His throat bobbed.
"Seamus had a brilliant career ahead of him. I was the black sheep, of no consequence to anyone
but myself. He cried. He said he was sorry, that he knew he had made an awful mistake. He pleaded with me to get him out of the mess with his reputation intact. Part of me wanted to see him burn, but . . . he's my brother, Missy. We'd only ever had each other."
Flynn cleared his throat and squeezed the bridge of his nose. Missy felt the swell of tears behind her eyes.
"It seemed logical that I should take the blame to shield him." He sounded detached, void of anything but coolheaded logic. "I deliberately blinded myself to the fact that Seamus didn't deserve my sacrifice. By the time I admitted it to myself, the deed was done. If I wanted to make any sense out of my life at all from that day on, I had no choice but to keep pouring my life's blood into the pretense and hope that Seamus would one day prove worthy of my sacrifices. After all, once I'd chosen to go against the law and my own ethics to save Seamus's reputation, I gave up my chance of a career with the Secret Service, or with any other reputable business."