Taboo Daddy

by Crowne, K. C.

  Chapter 31

  Jenna

  It was hard to keep track of time reliably, stuck in the warehouse, but eventually the seams around the metal walls darkened and I knew night had fallen.

  Tess crawled into my arms and slept with her head on my shoulder, looking much younger than she was. I wondered how long it had been since she’d slept. I sat awake all night, my back against the wall, smoothing her hair, untangling it gently, whispering things I knew she couldn’t hear. I didn’t sleep at all, and eventually the building’s seams began to lighten again.

  I had been here for a full day.

  Breakfast came a few hours after daylight. A man—it wasn’t MacReady or Strauss—brought in a tray. One apple. Two pieces of bread. One cheese singlet.

  “Eat up,” he said. “You two have got a big day ahead of you.”

  “What kind of day do we have ahead of us?” I asked, hoping my mocking tone was plain.

  He just laughed ominously and retreated.

  I gave Tess one of the pieces of bread and kept the other. I tried to give her the whole piece of cheese, but she insisted on ripping it in half and giving a piece to me. We had no means of cutting the apple, so we passed it back and forth, each taking a bite before passing it. I was still hungry when all the food was gone, but I was encouraged by the fact that they’d brought it. They were keeping us alive for something.

  For Noah. It had to be. Noah was the only thing Tess and I had in common. We’d both been taken to hurt him, and my kidnappers had said they wanted him to do something. I couldn’t imagine him refusing to do anything if it meant getting his daughter back.

  Tess signed something.

  What?

  F-i-n-d. Find.

  Find, I imitated.

  She nodded, then tried again. Daddy find us?

  My heart wrenched. It was the syntax of sign language, coupled with the fact that she had to compensate for my not being fluent, that made her sound so young. Knowing that didn’t make her sound any less achingly child-like. She was a terrified little girl, and she wanted her father.

  He find us, I said.

  She curled up against me and I resumed picking the tangles from her hair.

  Time seemed to crawl, but it was impossible to be sure how much time was actually passing. Inside the warehouse, I couldn’t track the sun’s movement across the sky or notice the shortening or elongating of shadows. The light didn’t even seem to increase in brightness. We were just there, and time was inscrutable.

  Occasionally, I noticed Tess’s body shaking as she cried silently. I tightened my grip on her. Okay, I signed, one of the few signs I could do one handed. Okay. Okay. Okay. Over and over, trying to reassure her. Maybe I was just trying to reassure myself.

  And as the day wore on, nothing changed. Nothing at all happened.

  So much time went by that when the door finally did open again, I thought at first that I must be imagining it. Maybe I’d drifted off to sleep at last and was dreaming.

  The man who stepped in was the same man who’d brought our breakfast. But he didn’t have a tray. He had a gun.

  I jumped to my feet, pulling Tess with me, jolting her out of sleep. She clung to my waist like a frightened animal.

  “Enough waiting,” the man announced. “We’ve given Clark plenty of time to respond to our demands. It’s time to show him we mean business.”

  So this was what he’d meant when he’d said we had a big day ahead of us. My muscles felt like noodles. “What do you want?”

  “One of you. Either one. You can decide.” He grinned. This was a game to him. He wanted to see what we’d do.

  “One of us for what?” I asked.

  “To send a message.” He cocked the gun. “To show Clark what’s going to happen to the other one if he keeps defying us.”

  I swallowed hard. I felt remarkably cold now that I knew what I had to do. The nausea and the feeling that I might cry were gone. “Me, then,” I said. “Take me.” I stepped out of Tess’s embrace and held up a hand to her, indicating that she should stay where she was. She stared at me, wild-eyed, confused and afraid.

  The man grabbed me by the arm, pulled me to him, and pressed his gun into my temple painfully. It was cold and hard and I understood this was it for me. There was no escape.

  Tess was hyperventilating and sobbing. I held out a hand to her, trying to indicate that she ought to stay where she was. Okay, I signed. Okay. Okay.

  “What are you doing with your hand?” the man asked, shaking me roughly. “Some kind of signal?”

  “Yes, it’s sign language. Or did you not notice she’s deaf?”

  “Well, here’s a sign for Noah Clark,” he said. “He shouldn’t have tested our patience.”

  I closed my eyes.

  A gunshot rang out.

  For a moment that seemed to go on forever, I thought I was dead. Everything had slowed down. The pounding of my heart filled my ears as I waited for the pain and the darkness. Each inhale seemed precious. Miraculous. Magical.

  But I was still breathing.

  That gun had been right up against my head. I should not have been breathing. Was this death, then? I opened my eyes.

  Tess was staring at me, hands clapped to her mouth. No, I realized suddenly. She isn’t staring at me. She’s staring past me.

  Then I heard several more gunshots in quick succession. “Down here!” a voice shouted. “They’re in here! Go after them!”

  The barrel of the gun had disappeared from my temple. I ran back to Tess and flung my arms around her, pulling her down to the ground, covering her body with mine as the gunfire continued. She was gasping in terror. I couldn’t sign anything to her, not pressed against the ground as we were, and I wouldn’t have known what to say anyway. How could I explain what was happening when I didn’t know myself?

  What I did know was that these men would kill us the moment they got a chance.

  What I knew was that we had been granted a reprieve, however temporary, and we needed to take advantage of it. We might not get a second chance.

  I looked over my shoulder. The man who had been menacing me was peering out into the hallway, clearly trying to get a handle on what was going on out there. He wasn’t watching us.

  I got to my feet and pulled Tess up with me. I pressed a finger to my lips and she nodded. Her face was tear streaked, but she looked determined, and I felt so proud of her I could hardly believe it.

  I crept up behind the man at the door, reaching back every few seconds to touch Tess’s shoulder and reassure myself that she was still behind me. She was so quiet that I needed those reassurances. When I was about a foot away from the man, I waved her back with my hand, then looked over my shoulder to see her retreating quickly.

  Here goes nothing.

  I grabbed the man by the shoulders and brought my knee up hard between his legs.

  He let out an oof and went down hard, like a sack of flour. The gun dropped and skittered across the floor and I grabbed it. Gritting my teeth, I held the gun to his knee and pulled the trigger. The man and Tess screamed in unison. I turned and reached for Tess, and she rushed to my side.

  I peeked into the hall and then hustled us out of the room.

  Exit, I thought frantically. Where’s the exit? I wished I hadn’t been unconscious when they’d brought me in. But this place couldn’t be all that big. Based on the size of the room we’d been in—it had been massive—I was pretty sure this building existed mostly in service of that one space. If we followed this hall, we should find an exit.

  Clutching Tess’s hand, I ran around the corner and skidded to a halt. Three more men were standing there, and one of them held a pistol.

  Before I could move, before I could even think about what needed to be done next, one of the men had pulled Tess out of my arms and propelled her toward the man with the gun. “Trying to get away?” he asked conversationally.

  “Let her go,” I said, raising my gun to point at them, my hand shaking.

>   The man holding Tess pressed his gun to her head. “I don’t think you want to do that,” he said quietly. Tess was frozen, not even crying, her face a rictus of terror. “Put the gun down.”

  But I couldn’t move. The gun was the only power I had left. If I held it on them, they might not hurt her. If I turned it over, they definitely would.

  “I said, put it down!” the man yelled, shaking Tess hard and cocking his gun. Tess made a high keening sound. I felt like I was going to throw up.

  Then, with a loud crack, one of the men fell to the ground.

  I looked past him and saw the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen in my life. A squad of police officers stood in the hall. The man with the gun was quickly disarmed, and soon all of them were in cuffs. Noah rushed in a moment later, once the all clear had been sounded, and ran straight to his daughter’s side and swept her into his arms. She was sobbing uncontrollably, her head on his shoulder as he slowly stroked her hair.

  He looked up at me. “Thank you,” he said hoarsely. “Thank you for keeping her safe.”

  Tears sprang to my eyes, and I whimpered, “You’re welcome.”

  He walked over to me, still carrying Tess, and pulled me into an embrace. “Are you all right?” he asked quietly. “Are you hurt at all?”

  “I’m okay now.”

  “Good. Then let’s go home.”

  Chapter 32

  Noah

  With LM and his goons behind bars, I no longer felt any need to distance myself from Jenna. She was safe with me now. The only thing that might have kept us apart was a worry that Tess might not bond with her. But the two of them had been through a survival situation together. The bond was there. There was nothing I could do about that now. Jenna was going to be in our lives forever one way or another.

  When the three of us arrived at my house, I told Jenna, “You can take a shower, if you’d like and just relax a bit.”

  “Thanks,” she said. “A shower would be perfect, actually.” She gave my hand a squeeze, then disappeared upstairs.

  I rested my hand on Tess’s shoulder and guided her up to her bedroom. She was still crying quietly, overwhelmed by what she’d been through. I waited outside her bathroom while she showered on her own, offering to brush out her hair when she returned to her room. She sat on her bed docilely as I ran a brush through her tangled hair, and by the time I was done her eyelids were drooping.

  I wrapped my arms around her to sign in front of her face. Sleep, I signed. Go to sleep. You’re safe tonight.

  She nodded, head bowing forward. I eased myself off the bed, pulled back the blankets, and tucked her in gently, bending to kiss her forehead. I knelt beside her bed and stayed by her side until she was fully asleep. It only took a couple of minutes. She was completely worn out.

  But she was home. It was enough to make me want to break down.

  I couldn’t bring myself to leave her room. I lay on the floor between her bed and the door, my eyes on her. I heard the door to the guest room close and knew Jenna had gone to bed too. As much as I wanted to see her and make sure she was all right, it would have to wait. I couldn’t stand to leave Tess.

  When the sun came up the next morning, she was sound asleep, still in her bed. Still safe. I hadn’t slept a wink, but I felt better close to her.

  With a yawn I had to tame, I headed to my own room. The shower was running. I knocked on the bathroom door. “Jenna?”

  “Yeah?” Her voice was a little watery, and I wondered whether she’d been crying too.

  “Can I come in?” There was a moment of silence, a moment during which I wondered whether I’d overstepped myself.

  “Yes,” Jenna said.

  I peeled off my clothes, stepped into the bathroom, and opened the shower door. Jenna reached for me and drew me into her arms. For a moment we just stood there and held each other as the warm, comforting spray washed over us, easing our nerves, chasing away the horror of the past few days.

  Eventually we became aware of each other’s bodies. I slipped a knee between her thighs, and she began to rock her hips against me, her head coming to rest on my chest. My cock was pinned between us, and every time she moved friction and pressure forced my cock to harden further. I wrapped my arms around her, pleasure mounting, feeling somehow comforted in a way I never had by sex before.

  Jenna came with a soft cry, her body shuddering and going limp in my arms. I turned her around, wrapping my arms around her torso and cupping one soft breast, and entered her slowly, pulling her back onto me, trying to pace myself. Water cascaded down her back as we made love, and at one point she arched around to press her lips softly to mine.

  Our lovemaking was gentler and more impassioned than it had ever been. Somehow, without discussing, we both understood we’d moved to a new stage in our relationship. It felt like she was telling me with her body that she didn’t blame me for what had happened to her, that she didn’t think it was my fault and she wasn’t going to hold it against me. For my part, I tried to communicate that from now on I would always keep her safe, that being with me wouldn’t be a risk for her and that I would never, ever allow anyone to hurt her again.

  We took our time. We spent long stretches of time looking into each other’s eyes and longer stretches kissing passionately. We didn’t speak. No words were necessary. I understood her better than I ever had. I felt closer to her than I ever had. I’d never expected to feel this kind of intimacy with a woman again after my wife died. But here it was. The warm water running down my body seemed to wash away the years of anger and pain, and for the first time in a long time, I felt like myself again.

  We came at the same time, Jenna reaching behind me to grip my thighs and hold me close to her, our lips locked in a frantic kiss. When it was over and we were finally separated, I wrapped her up in the softest towel I owned and carried her to my bed.

  “I love you,” I told her quietly. “Do you know that? I’m in love with you.”

  She nodded, scooting close to me and huddling in the circle of my arms.

  “I’m never going to let anything bad happen to you again.”

  “It wasn’t your fault, Noah. I know it wasn’t your fault.”

  “I should have done something. They’d been stalking me for weeks. I should have told someone.”

  “If you’d gone to the police, they might have hurt you.”

  “Better me than you or Tess. I thought they might do something to her if I told.” I took a deep breath. “I guess I didn’t do a great job of avoiding that.”

  She kissed me gently. “You saved us,” she said. “We both know that. We’d still be in that awful place if it weren’t for you. Or worse. You got there in time. You saved our lives.”

  “They were going to kill you both.”

  “But they didn’t.”

  It was such a relief to have someone to talk to, after all this time. It felt like drawing poison from a wound. “I want you to move in here,” I told her. “I want you to live with me.”

  “In the guest room?”

  “No,” I said. “Not the guest room. I want you to move in here.” I gestured around my own room. “I want a relationship with you. I want us to live together. I want a future together.” Words seemed to keep pouring out of my mouth unbidden. I had never made myself emotionally vulnerable like this before. But if it meant she would stay, I would do it a hundred times. “You can keep your apartment,” I said. “I own this place, so it will cost you nothing to live here. But I want you to be a part of our family, Jenna.”

  Her eyes filled with tears. “I want that too,” she said quietly.

  “Are you saying yes?”

  She nodded frantically and threw her arms around me. We kissed, sealing the deal, and the she pulled away to look at me.

  “What are you going to tell Tess?”

  “We’ll tell her together.”

  * * *

  I wasn’t expecting Tess to be ready for a meal out of the house after everything that had happened. I
thought we’d want to stay home for a while. But when I asked her about the three of us having breakfast, she bounced up and down on the balls of her feet. Can we go out for crepes?

  That’s what you want? I signed. She nodded vigorously. Okay, then crepes it is. I didn’t think I could refuse my daughter anything today. She could have asked me for a car and I would have given in, despite the fact that she wouldn’t be driving for years and we lived in Manhattan.

  Jenna was on board with the crepes idea, but she seemed nervous. “What if she gets upset?” she asked as we dressed. “What if you tell her and it bothers her?” She paused and exclaimed, “Oh, hell, Noah, I can’t wear this!”

  I looked at her. She was holding the clothes she’d been wearing yesterday. The clothes she’d been kidnapped in. “Of course you can’t,” I said. “I’m sorry, I was being stupid. Let me make a call.”

  “What kind of call?”

  I held up a hand as I put the phone to my ear. “This is Noah Clark,” I said. “I have an account. I need a couple of sundresses sent over ASAP. Nothing fancy. Size...eight?”

  Jenna nodded, seeming mystified.

  “Twenty minutes. Great. Thank you.” I hung up.

  She was staring at me. “Who was that?”

  “Bergdorf’s.”

  “They deliver clothes to your house?”

  “Of course,” I said with a shrug. “They’ll deliver clothes anywhere if you pay for it. Tess and I don’t usually shop like that because she likes to pick out her own clothes, but I have a standing account in case I forget to plan ahead and need some shirts or something. Why don’t you put on my robe so you can come downstairs until the dresses arrive? We’ll make coffee.”

  Jenna seemed speechless as I helped her into the robe. “Is this what it’s going to be like living with you?” she asked finally.

  “Hmm?”

  “You know most people don’t live like this, right? Most people can’t just call one of the fanciest department stores in the city and have a random pile of clothes sent over because they don’t have anything to wear.”