by Robyn Roze
He inhaled deeply, then stepped indifferently to the edge, looking down as a nearby lightning strike lit up the three-hundred and fifty foot drop to the sharp rocks and crashing waves below. He then moved systematically back to the Mercedes, kicked the pistol over the edge, reached in with his gloved hand and shifted the car into neutral before pushing it over the cliff to its final destination. Along with its owner, he reflected, unrepentantly.
Then he casually strode back to the waiting car, duffel bag hanging loosely from one hand, the other holding out and angling the knife, the downpour washing away the warm blood.
CHAPTER 28
Shayna was jolted awake by the sound of her own raspy, labored breath. She felt the pounding of her racing heart and the trickle of tears down her heated skin. Just one of many nightmares she had, now mostly centered on Danielle and never finding her. Shayna concentrated on controlling her ragged breathing and reminded herself that the real nightmare was over—sort of. Now she didn’t know where Sean or Frank were. They both seemed to have vanished. The FBI had taken over the case, since a kidnapping was involved. They had discovered Frank’s money trail and the nasty cartel to which he had unwittingly become indebted.
She had recited to the police and the FBI exactly what Sean told her to say. It was mostly the truth. She had gone away for an extended weekend, had left her phone behind so she wouldn’t be interrupted. Why wasn’t the man she had spent the weekend with at her side now? Easy. He had received a call about a family member on his deathbed in Florida. That’s why they had come back to Mt. Pleasant early. He would be back as soon as possible. The staff at Gaetano’s confirmed her story, as did a nurse at Mercy Hospital, in Miami. Apparently, Agent Kepler had even spoken to Sean. Shayna closed her eyes, shaking her head disbelievingly. Somehow, someone had crossed all the t’s and dotted all the i’s.
Who was Sean Parker?
Did it even matter now?
It had almost been a week since she had last seen Sean, since he had instructed her like a demanding drill sergeant. He promised to do everything possible to get her daughter back and he delivered. He always did. But why hadn’t he come back? The possible list of reasons made her sick to her stomach.
She shifted her focus to Danielle, who had gone back to her condo a couple of days ago, when Harper arrived from San Diego. She knew Harper wouldn’t let Dani out of his sight, but she still missed having her here, seeing with her own eyes that her little girl was okay. Dani didn’t want to talk much about what happened, not yet anyway. She cried a lot—they both had. They had spent time watching favorite movies and looking through old photo albums. It was obvious that Danielle desperately needed to see Frank, needed to know he was okay, too.
Danielle would forgive him anything—even this. Shayna wasn’t so sure that she could do the same.
A charge in the air skipped across her skin, and she stiffened, trying to hone all of her senses on the subtle change in her surroundings. She held her breath, unsure if her heart was even beating. A soft sigh of relief passed her lips.
“Sean,” she whispered knowingly, before sitting up and throwing the covers off her body. Throwing her legs over the side of the bed, she saw his silhouette. He sat silently, unmoving, arms fanned casually across the back of the loveseat angled near the floor-to-ceiling windows. With the sheer fabric draped behind him, the late night glow cast him in changing shadows as clouds dragged across the moon. She didn’t need to ask how he had gotten in without tripping the alarm. He had explained her new system to her, showed her how to use it, and knew her code. Somehow, she understood that he would’ve gotten in here, undetected, even without knowing any of that.
Shayna stood cautiously, fighting her instinct to run and wrap herself around him, thanking this man for everything he had done for her. Whatever it was that he had done.
As she stepped closer, his stiff body language pushed her back, as if in warning not to get too close. He wouldn’t make eye contact, either. Swallowing her emotions, Shayna stopped and knelt in front of him, begging him with her eyes to look at her, but he refused. She eased her bottom back onto her heels. He was still wearing the steely guard, the same cold armor he had donned that night on the Tuscan Dream. She had so many questions bubbling up inside, but squelched them all and said the only thing that mattered, the only thing that would ever matter.
“Thank you, Sean.” She felt a tear slip down her cheek and quickly swiped it away. He remained quiet, immovable, not acknowledging her gratitude in the slightest. “Danielle is safe.” He must know that, right? “She’s with Harper now, and in time she’ll be just fine...thanks to you,” she paused, “and your friends.” She chewed nervously at her lip. Why wouldn’t he talk to her, look at her, touch her? “I’ve been so worried about you, what might’ve happened to you. I did everything you told me to, said exactly what you told me to say.”
She waited and still heard nothing from the statue posed before her. “They’re searching for Frank now. He’s missing.” She watched him carefully in the shadows and noticed his body tense even further, the flexing in his jaw and the narrowing of his eyes. At that moment, she knew Frank wasn’t coming back—not alive anyway. Their life together flashed in her memories and the bile rose in her throat. She swallowed it back down. Dani would survive the loss. She would make sure of it.
Shayna pushed to her feet and moved closer to Sean, his eyes now downcast. She rubbed at her eyes and wiped away the remaining tears, blotting them on the hem of her short nightgown. Cautiously straddling him on the sofa, she placed her palms on his chest. It felt so good to touch him again, smell his scent, and feel his heat. She needed him to remove the shield, the wall he had put between them since that night.
She inhaled deeply, exhaling through her nose. Shaking her head softly and reaching up to barely stroke his square, unshaven jaw, she murmured, “I’m not going to ask, Sean.” She felt him relax briefly and then he tensed again. She leaned in closer so that he could feel her breath against his skin. “Not because I can’t handle the answer,” she waited and moved closer, whispering next to his ear, “but because it doesn’t matter, not anymore, not after everything.”
His arms greedily caged her against his body and Shayna thought she might never again get air back into her lungs. Sean nuzzled, kissed, and buried his face against her neck, just below her ear, inhaling deeply, squeezing her even tighter. His shield was finally falling away.
“I know you were a SEAL, Sean. A SEAL officer.” His movements abruptly halted. “Although, I suppose you never really stop being a SEAL, do you?” He pulled back and cupped her face in his large hands, holding her a safe distance from him. She answered the question obvious in his eyes. “The pictures on the wall in your office, I saw the trident on your uniform. Some of the faces in those pictures were in other photos, too, older but the same.” He slid down, resting his head on the back of the cushions, still holding Shayna above him. Then his hands smoothed down her bare arms and gripped her small hands in his, scraping his stubble across her knuckles and exhaling resignedly. “Just tell me which side you work for,” she asked without judgment. A stunned expression colored his face and then he laughed, shaking his head in apparent disbelief. She knew he was laughing at her naïveté.
His hands reached for her face, thumbs caressing her high cheekbones, his expression now stony serious. “Good or bad? Right or wrong? That’s what you’re asking me?” They were the first words he had spoken, and the deep rumble of his voice expertly plucked the strings wound tight in her body since this nightmare had begun. “You’d be surprised how often you can’t tell the difference. How often they want the same thing,” he said quietly in the dark, pushing her further away.
Shayna felt the cold armor reassembling around him. “I was done with all of this a few years ago. I’d paid my dues and left it all behind, with my ledger in the black. People owed me and I never intended on cashing in. Yes, I have skills that many people—good and bad—want to use, and I know others like me.
We’re scattered around and come together when the situation requires it or when it suits us.” He waited, assessing her thoughtfully. “I have contacts higher up than you can imagine and lower than I would ever want you to know about.”
She processed his words as the pieces of the puzzle began to snap into place, and then she suddenly felt awash with guilt.
“I messed everything up for you, didn’t I? If it wasn’t for me, you’d still be in the black right now, but you’re not, are you? You owe someone now, or some people, don’t you?”
Sean huffed indignantly. “First of all, none of this was your fault. Second, if it wasn’t for our paths crossing, I can promise you, you never would’ve seen Danielle again.” Shayna gasped at the harshness of his words and the haunting memory of that same visceral nightmare she experienced nightly. “I need to leave, Shayna. This was a bad idea. I knew I should’ve left, not come here first. I just wanted to see you for myself again.”
Her legs and arms gripped him tightly. “No! You can’t leave. Why would you? I don’t want you to, Sean,” she pleaded. He was back to not looking at her. Then the understanding rocked her and the bile bubbled again. “You’re going to pay your debt, aren’t you?” He turned his eyes away. “Look at me!” she screamed, but he refused, sitting stoically.
From what Agent Kepler had confided to her, she knew that Frank owed his gambling debts ultimately to the infamous Hector Morales. The bookie and subsequent loan shark he had used in Vegas had links back to the wanted syndicate leader. The Morales cartel had been around for a long time. Shayna had done her homework, scouring the internet for information on the notorious worldwide Morales network. Various publications, documentaries, and news stories told of his humble origins and subsequent rise to power as one the most wanted men in the world. Sean had already known all of this, of course, and once he’d learned who’d come to collect from Frank he’d had her and Danielle discretely surveilled. He understood that Morales’ people wouldn’t hesitate to use them as pawns.
His ring was involved in the usual loan sharking, arms dealing and drug smuggling, but also the oldest business of all—human trafficking for the sex trade. She shivered involuntarily at the chilling thought of what almost happened to her own daughter. Over the years, various rogue organizations and governments attempted to rid the world of Morales, and he had only narrowly survived on a few occasions.
“You and your friends are going after Hector Morales,” she stated impassively. Sean’s widening eyes were his answer. Before he could speak she blurted, “That’s suicide and you know it! You can’t do that!” Suddenly she found her arms manacled behind her back by one strong hand. She was panting, chest heaving, realizing she had been beating against his chest like a crazy woman. “You can’t, Sean,” she squeaked. “We’re supposed to get married, start our lives, and have adventures.” He just stared at her as if he had already given up—on them. Her heart almost shattered.
Wriggling her wrists from his vice like grip, she grabbed his whiskered face in her hands. She had to break through his defenses. Sweeping her thumb gently over his soft lips, she chewed at her own, thinking back over their history. She sighed resolutely, pushing away the panic.
“That very first time we met. Do you remember it?” she murmured, her lips curving in a coy smile. She knew damn well he did. It had made a lasting impression on both of them. “I had left my attorney’s office and decided to walk around the Wharf District, just happening across Gaetano’s. The lunch crowd had already long disappeared, so when I walked in—or did I strut?” She grinned with narrowed eyes and a tilted head, looking for any recognition in his beautiful green ones.
Bingo. He was right there back in time with her. “I looked around for the hostess to seat me, but no one was there. I glanced around at the leather booths, linen-covered tables, heard the hypnotic call of that old fountain near the back,” she paused closing her eyes, remembering, feeling, “all wrapped like a gift in the smooth jazz filtering through the sound system.” Shayna opened her eyes, trailed her finger along Sean’s jaw line, across his lips, down the cleft in his chin, and then cupped her warm hand at his throat. She could feel the quickening in his pulse.
“I was about to leave, and when I turned I saw the lounge and a couple of people talking to the bartender. Instead of interrupting their conversation, I figured I’d just go.” She leaned closer so he could feel her breath, running her fingers through his thick hair and looking directly into his eyes. “That’s when I saw you.” Her warm breath caressed his cheek, his eyes closed for a moment and he wetted his lips. Shayna’s voice became husky with desire. “I immediately knew you’d been watching me the whole time. I could see it on your face, read it in your body. You standing there, trying to look casual, with your hands tucked in your front pockets, but I knew. I knew, Sean. I knew I’d affected you...just like you did me in that very moment.” She nuzzled against his cheek, kissed him softly and felt his arousal growing. She smiled against him so he could feel it and ground her hips slowly against him. He moaned, and she could feel the fight leaving his body.
“And trust me; I did know what you were thinking, because I was thinking the very same thing,” she whispered hotly next to his ear. Punctuating each word with kisses on his face and neck, she teased seductively, “What would it feel like underneath you.” Sean groaned and Shayna sealed her lips to his, taking the opportunity to sweep her tongue into his mouth, so hungry for a taste of him.
His mouth devoured hers, their bodies and moans melding together as he pressed her hungrily to him. Sean quickly stripped her of the flimsy nightgown, sucking her breast into his mouth, licking, squeezing, and biting until Shayna felt like a firecracker with a short fuse. In the frenzy of hot mouths and greedy hands, Sean managed to pull off his t-shirt, and Shayna had his jeans undone, his thick length grinding in and out of her hand.
She felt dizzy with lust, as his fingers scissored her engorged clit. She screamed his name as the powerful release crashed over her in hard, unrelenting waves. Sliding up and forward she pulled her flimsy panties to the side and dropped down onto him, her slick heat, clenching and pulling him deeper inside her hungry core. They groaned, kissed, and writhed as she rode him feverishly.
“No, no, no!” Sean growled as he pulled Shayna up and off him. He quickly stood taking her with him. He gripped her face, pulling her up to him and pressing his forehead to hers, his face a mask of agony. “You don’t know, Shayna. You don’t know what I’ve done.”
Her heart raced and her stomach churned at what she suspected he meant. “Whatever you’ve done, you did for me, Sean. That’s all I need to know. You did it for me and now I have my daughter back.” She framed his face in her hands and forced him to look at her. “If you need my forgiveness, you have it. You don’t even need to ask. It’s already yours. Everything I have is already yours.”
She agilely dropped down, taking his jeans and briefs with her to the floor. Before he could stop her, she had him in her mouth, gripping him and sucking him deep into her throat. His hands in her hair and his guttural moans excited her even more; spurring her on until he tensed in what she thought would be his release. Instead, he pulled her off and tossed her on the bed, landing on top of her, holding her head in his hands and searching her eyes in the dim moonlight. She could see desire tangled with regret on his face, and her heart ached.
“You don’t know what you’re saying, Shay. You really don’t,” he warned sorrowfully.
Breathing in as deeply as she could with his weight on top of her, she braced herself for the words she was about to admit out loud. Speaking steadily and with confidence, she said, “I know he’s not coming back.” She paused deliberately, not wanting to break under his scrutiny. “And I’m pretty sure I know why.” She swallowed hard, not daring to flinch or look away from him.
Sean stared, slack-jawed, eventually closing his eyes and resting his forehead to hers, rolling it gently back and forth. “Fuck,” he whispered shamefully.
“I love you, Sean Parker. I refuse to judge you on this. Don’t force me to. Please,” she pleaded quietly, hoping he wouldn’t hear the tears in her voice.
He cocooned his body around hers and she felt him quake against her. She held him tightly. He surprised her, then, by quickly slipping off her and yanking her bottom to the edge of the bed. In one clean swipe, her panties flew away and she lay spread wide, his bites and suction along her inner thighs making her pant and beg for more. She knew there would be marks in the morning, and only wished they could last forever. She wanted him to leave his mark on her body, as he already had on her heart.
Shayna’s back arched and she clawed at the bedding as his lips and talented tongue gorged on her, made a meal out of her. She bucked and thrashed, pleaded and moaned, as he held her in place and did exactly what he wanted to do to her. And then, as she lay lifeless, almost fearful of another orgasm and how her brain might implode, he was mercifully on her, in her, thrusting deep and kissing her wildly as her legs wrapped greedily around his narrow waist. She kissed her sweet, salty flavor from his lips, pulling at his hair and clawing at his back as he sank into the end of her. She held him jealously with every part of her body, inside and out, determined never to let him go.