Into the Fire (New York Syndicate Book 2)

by Michelle St. James

  The door to the bathroom opened and she stepped into the cabin wearing the soft velvet pants and a long-sleeve gray T-shirt from the red shopping bag he’d stuffed into his duffel a lifetime ago in New York.

  She hesitated, then slipped past him to sit on the bed. When he turned to look at her, she patted the space next to her.

  “Sit next to me.”

  Her voice was soft and a little rough. He wondered how often she’d spoken in the past two months.

  He lowered himself carefully next to her and was surprised when she took his hand, leaned her head on his shoulder. She reached up with her free hand and touched his face.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “Am I… Am I all right?” He turned toward her, held her face in his hands. “Are you all right?”

  “I am now.”

  He had to swallow around the question lodged in his throat. “Did they hurt you?”

  “Not much,” she said.

  “Not much?” Rage threatened to strangle him.

  “Let’s not talk about that now,” she said. “Could you just… could you just hold me for awhile?”

  I can hold you for the rest of your life. I can hold you forever.

  He nodded and scooted back on the bed, pulling her with him until she was nestled in the crook of his arm. She sighed against him, her head falling against his chest.

  “Tell me something good,” she said. “Something that doesn’t have anything to do with all of this.”

  He hesitated. There were few good things in his life, and she was at the top of the very short list. He still read the monthly reports from the shelter, but he’d avoided his offices in Tribeca, conducting most of his work from the estate in Westchester.

  “I’ve been working on my family’s estate in New York while we made plans to come get you,” he said.

  “What have you been doing?” she asked.

  “Well, before I met you, I was restoring the molding in the front living room and the banister on the main staircase,” he said.

  “And now?”

  “I’ve been working on the greenhouse.” He saw her again the way he had in his imagination the past two months; her smile, her hands in the soil, life blooming all around her just the way she liked it. “I’ve been replacing the broken panes of glass, fixing the broken pipes in the irrigation system so you can water properly.”

  “Hmmmm… That sounds nice,” she said against his chest.

  They’d never talked about her coming to live — or even stay — with him. They hadn’t gotten that far before Anastos had taken her from him. He tried not to be encouraged by the fact that she didn’t object. It was possible she was still too shaken by everything that had happened to know what she was saying.

  He didn’t care. He would take his fairytales where he could find them.

  “It will be,” he murmured. “You can garden year round there. It smells like summer even when there’s snow on the ground in every direction beyond the glass. You can grow anything you like even in the dead of winter.”

  “Anything?”

  “Anything.”

  She grew quiet, her breathing more regular. He thought she’d fallen asleep when she murmured once more. “I knew you would come.”

  6

  Sun was just beginning to lighten the sky when they turned up the long road outside of Florence. She could make out a tower of trees on either side of the long drive, sunlight silhouetting the branches against the indigo sky.

  Beyond that there was nothing.

  She’d slept most of the way to Italy, disembarking the plane with Damian and the big man — she’d learned his name was Farrell — who had rescued her in Greece.

  She’d only had her location confirmed after exiting the apartment in Athens. She’d thought she might be in Greece, thanks to the food they brought her, the lettering on the pager bags, the language spoken in short bursts outside the door of her room.

  But it wasn’t until Damian had shuffled her around the dead body on the stairs and out the back door into an alley that she knew for sure. He’d told her they were going to Italy. She was too exhausted and relieved to ask for details.

  She was with him and that meant she was safe.

  Now they emerged into a courtyard with a bubbling fountain at its center, a massive stucco house looming behind it. When they pulled up to the front door, she noticed a woman standing on the porch next to a small man.

  Farrell stopped the car and made his way to the porch — to the woman — without a backward glance.

  “Come on,” Damian said as he helped Aria out of the car. “You can rest here.”

  “Where are we?” she asked, stepping onto the crushed gravel.

  “It’s Farrell’s compound in Tuscany,” he said. “It’s the closest place we could find to Athens. The safest place.”

  She didn’t need to know more. Thoughts had occasionally tried to push themselves to the surface of her consciousness — thoughts about Primo and Malcolm and the men who had kidnapped her — but she’d pushed them resolutely back under water.

  She couldn’t deal with any of it yet. She just wanted to get clean and sleep for days.

  Damian held her arm as they made their way up the wide front steps to Farrell and the brown-haired woman next to him. His arm was draped over her shoulders, a possessive glint in his eyes. He looked ready to stage an assault on anyone who looked at her the wrong way despite the fact that the only people in the vicinity were Damian, Aria, and the small man who had gone to the car to get Farrell and Damian’s bags.

  The woman reached out and took Aria’s hand as soon as they reached the top steps. Her palm was warm and dry.

  “I’m Jenna.” The woman’s voice was low and throaty, the voice of a screen siren from the 1940s. Add in the British accent and the glossy dark hair, the fierce green eyes, and Aria could see how she might tame a man like Farrell. “Let me show you to your room. You must be exhausted.”

  Aria was glad the woman hadn’t gone through the motions of making small talk. She couldn’t talk about weather she hadn’t seen or about the journey from Athens. She felt like she’d been wrapped in a cocoon for the last few hours — for the last two months, which was how long Damian said she’d been missing.

  Jenna touched Aria’s shoulder to guide her into the house and Aria followed her into an expansive triple-height foyer. She looked back at Damian as they crossed over the marble flooring and started up a sweeping staircase to the second floor.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” he said, his dark eyes meeting hers.

  She turned around and continued up the stairs with Jenna.

  “I’m afraid my daughter, Lily, will be up in a couple hours,” Jenna said. “She’s a bit of a pistol, but I’ll try to keep her quiet so you can rest.”

  “That’s not necessary.” Aria was surprised to hear her voice emerge from her throat. It sounded strangely unfamiliar to her own ears. “I have a feeling nothing will wake me once I finally get to sleep.”

  “Nevertheless,” Jenna said with a smile, “it won’t kill her to keep it down — for my sake if not yours.”

  They continued down a long hall and turned left down another. Aria was beginning to feel like she’d entered a labyrinth crafted of marble and plaster, antique furnishings and fine art, when Jenna finally stopped at a closed door.

  “I’ve put you here at the end of the east wing where it’s quietest,” she said. “But there’s an intercom if you need anything. I’ve left you a list with extensions for the kitchen and some of the other parts of the house you might want to contact.”

  “What about Damian?” she asked as Jenna opened the door.

  “He requested to be put in the room next to yours.” Jenna hesitated. “I think maybe he wanted you to have privacy. The number to his room is on the list, too.”

  They stepped into a room that somehow managed to be both luxurious and homey. There was an imposing canopy bed lined with crisp draperies, a rustic wardro
be, a writing desk set against a window.

  “There’s a private bathroom,” Jenna said, opening a door on one side of the room. “There are fresh towels and everything you should need for tonight. Make a list of anything else you need and we’ll send someone for it.”

  Aria pulled the sweater Damian had given her on the plane tighter around her body. “Thank you.”

  It didn’t seem like enough for all these people — these strangers — were doing for her, but they were the only words she could find in the moment.

  Jenna smiled. “Of course. Please make yourself at home and get some rest. In my experience, there are few things that aren’t improved by a good night’s sleep.”

  Aria nodded and watched as Jenna stepped into the hall and closed the door quietly behind her.

  She stood for a few moments, looking around the room, wondering what to do next. Her eyes found the phone next to the bed, a small piece of paper tucked under it.

  She crossed the room and picked up the directory Jenna had mentioned. There were several phone numbers: kitchen, laundry, housekeeping. It was like being in a hotel.

  Her gaze came to rest on the last entry on the list, added by hand — Damian.

  She picked up the phone and dialed, was surprised when he picked up on the first ring.

  “Aria?”

  “Can you… Can you come?” she asked. “To my room?”

  “I’ll be there in less than a minute.”

  The phone went dead and twenty seconds later a knock sounded at the door. When she opened it, Damian was standing in the hall, his face drawn with worry.

  “Are you all right?”

  Was she all right? Why had she called Damian? He couldn’t undo the last two months. He couldn’t change anything that had happened.

  “I don’t know what to do,” she finally said.

  His expression softened and he pulled her into his arms. She slumped against him, let herself find refuge in the strong expanse of his chest against her cheek.

  Maybe he couldn’t change anything, but this was the next best thing.

  “Let’s start with a bath,” he said into her hair. “Sound good?”

  She nodded and stepped back to let him in the room. He walked in like he owned the place, looked around to get his bearings, and headed straight for the bathroom. A few seconds later, she heard the sound of running water.

  The bathroom was already filling with steam when she got there. She stood near the tub while he got the temperature right and poured something that looked like oil into the water. Lavender filled the air, carried to her nose on the steam swirling through the room.

  He stood. “Would you like some privacy?”

  She shook her head.

  He walked slowly toward her, lifted a hand to her face, let it trail down one of her arms. When he reached for the hem of her T-shirt, she lifted her arms and let him slide it off her body.

  He tossed it aside and let his hands travel gently over the slope of her shoulders. When he reached around her body to unhook the bra — one of many things he’d handed her in a red shopping bag when she’d boarded the plane outside Athens — she leaned into him and let him slide it from her shoulders.

  Kneeling at her feet, he slid off the soft velvet pants, pulling the simple black panties along with them until she was standing in front of him as naked as the day she was born.

  She didn’t mind. Damian knew all of her.

  He stood, took her hand, and helped her into the tub.

  The water was hot at first, but it only took a moment to become a warm embrace around her body, tight and coiled from all the weeks inside the room in Greece. She sank up to her chin and lay her head back, closed her eyes as Damian smoothed her hair.

  “I’m going to leave you to rest now,” he said.

  She opened her eyes, lifted her hand out of the water to clutch his. “Don’t go.”

  “Are you sure?”

  She nodded and closed her eyes again. “I’m sure.”

  She wasn’t sure of much. Didn’t know the details surrounding her kidnapping or what was happening with Primo or what would happen next.

  But she wanted Damian by her side. That much, at least, was true.

  7

  Damian sat on the edge of the tub, watching Aria’s face as it slowly relaxed. It felt almost voyeuristic to be here. He’d asked Farrell to give her a private room in an effort not to pressure her. He had no idea what she’d been through, didn’t want to assume they would pick up where they left off with everything that had happened.

  But she’d asked him to stay, and there was nothing he wouldn’t do for her. He took advantage of the long moments she had her eyes closed to drink in her face. He’d held it in his mind for the last two months, had begun to wonder if it would be as dear to him when he finally saw it again. He’d worried that he’d romanticized Aria in her absence. That he’d made her out to be more than she was out of guilt for the fact that he’d let someone take her from him.

  He’d been wrong.

  She was more than he remembered. Stronger, more beautiful, more fierce.

  She touched him more deeply now than ever. His desire to protect her rose like a hurricane.

  Her eyes flickered open and rested on his face before she spoke.

  “I think I’m ready to wash now.”

  He nodded and reached for the shampoo, then moved his hands through her hair. She tipped her head back, eyes open as his fingers worked her scalp. When he used the sprayer attached to the faucet to rinse the shampoo from her hair, her eyes fluttered open. She looked up at him, her eyes dark and unknowable while he worked.

  When he was done he repeated the motions with conditioner that left her hair as soft as satin. Then he reached hesitantly for the sponge on the side of the tub. He was lathering it with the soap from the side of the tub when she stood.

  Water dripped off her body, and he forced himself to concentrate on the scent of lavender and rosemary rising in the bathroom. Of course, he wanted to protect and comfort her, but god help him, he also wanted her with a passion that took his breath away.

  He stood. “Turn around.”

  He hoped she didn’t notice that his voice was hoarse.

  She turned around, showing him the long expanse of her back, the perfect swell of her ass, the strong legs that had once wrapped around his hips while he’d driven into her.

  He started with her shoulders, soaping her with the sponge, working his way to the small of her back, around each magnificent curve of her hips. He continued down her thighs to her calves, then stood, forcing his voice steady as he avoided her eyes.

  “All done.”

  She turned to the front, and jesus fucking christ that didn’t help at all.

  He felt like an animal as he started soaping her arms, her chest, her soft, flat belly. Lust raged through him, a strange companion to the protectiveness still lurking there. He concentrated on washing her gently, over the mound of her pubis, down her silken thighs, over her shapely calves.

  When he was done he told her to sit. She obeyed without a word and he used the sprayer to wash the suds from her skin.

  “Want me to run you clean water so you can soak awhile longer?” he asked.

  He wanted to give her as much time as she needed, but the truth was he also wanted some time to collect his own thoughts, get his rogue urges under control.

  She shook her head and stood. “I’m ready to get out.”

  He turned away from her, his hunt for a towel giving him a merciful few seconds to try and tamp down the hard-on straining his jeans.

  He removed one of the thick towels from a shelf against the wall and held it open. She climbed from the tub and stepped into it. He wrapped the towel around her body, tucking the end inside the folds to keep it up. Then he grabbed another towel and worked it carefully through her hair, starting at the ends.

  It had grown longer while she’d been in Greece, grazing her shoulder blades where before it had barely reached her co
llarbone. It was still dark and lustrous, although the hints of burgundy that used to shine through it were less noticeable.

  He used a soft bristled brush to comb through it and then headed for the bedroom. “Let’s see if we can find you something comfortable to sleep in.”

  He spotted the red bag on the floor and bent to it, sorting through the things Cole had bought for her in New York. There was a pair of jeans and the red blouse, a dress, a skirt, a couple different T-shirts, a sweater, several pairs of underwear. He was about to give up when he spotted a pair of silky pants at the bottom of the bag.

  Bingo.

  With one of the T-shirts, the pants would work well enough as pajamas until he could get her a new wardrobe.

  He turned to face her, the clothes in his hand, and was surprised to see her standing naked before him, the towel on the floor.

  “I don’t want something to sleep in,” she said. “I want you to take me to bed.”

  The mundane search for clothes had tamped down the desire he’d fought in the bathroom, but it was back in full force now.

  Her skin was flushed from the bath, her back still straight and proud in spite of what she’d been through. Her dusty rose nipples were rigid, beads of water clinging like dew on the hair between her legs.

  He resisted the urge to groan aloud as his cock lurched back to attention.

  “Why don’t you put these on and then we can sleep?”

  He tried not to sound like he was begging, but the truth was, he was begging, because there was no way he could lay next to her naked body and not want to be inside her.

  “I don’t want to sleep yet,” she said.

  He was getting ready to protest when she crossed the distance between them. She took the clothes from his hands and tossed them gently back into the bag on the floor. Then she took his hands and placed them on her bare breasts. Her skin was like a brand against his palms.

  “I need you, Damian. I need you to make me forget.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He didn’t want to take advantage of the situation. Didn’t want to push her.