Surrender in Silk

by Susan Mallery

  His erection throbbed in time with his heartbeat. One of her hands strayed down toward his thighs. He thrust his hips toward her. She held him gently, exploring him with delicate fingertips before grasping him and starting an up-and-down motion designed to drive him mad.

  The pleasure between his thighs was so intense, it took him a minute to figure out what she was doing with her mouth. She moved across his chest in a seemingly random pattern, kissing one spot before moving on to another. A splash of hot moisture hit his skin.

  “Jamie?”

  She didn’t respond. The hand between his legs slipped lower to cup him. He almost gave in to the pleasure and relaxed, but something teased at the back of his mind.

  She moved to another spot on his chest, and he felt another splash.

  He reached out and touched her under her chin. She ducked her head away. He raised himself into a sitting position and tugged on the end of her hair. She was finally forced to look at him.

  Her face was still flushed and her lips were parted, but this time it wasn’t from pleasure. Tears swam in her eyes. They slipped past her lower lashes and spilled onto her cheeks.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, confused by her reaction to their lovemaking. “Did I hurt you?”

  “No. Everything is fine. Really.”

  “Why are you crying?”

  She shook her head. “I can’t explain. You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Try me.”

  She bit her lower lip. “I can’t.” Her voice was a whisper.

  He stroked her cheek. He hated seeing her like this. “Please, Jamie. Tell me. I want to know what’s hurt you. I want to make it better.”

  She touched a mark on his chest. He glanced down. It was an old scar. Another tear slipped free. She brushed it away, then placed her damp finger against the scar.

  “I wish I could make that go away. I want to make them all go away. I know what they are. I know what they felt like. This one—” she pointed to a slender line by his ribs “—this is from a knife. There’s a burn mark on your back. This is a bullet wound.” She placed her hand on his thigh.

  He stared into her eyes and wondered what he’d done to deserve her in his life. Why did she think he was worth even one of her tears? Other women had commented on his scars. They’d asked where he got them, if they still hurt. Sometimes he told the truth, and sometimes he lied. But Jamie didn’t have to ask. She knew.

  She knew that a knife wound didn’t hurt at all. A sharp blade slipped through flesh as if it were thick cream. She knew how much blood there was, how the shock was the worst of it until you woke up in the hospital. Then it hurt like a son of a bitch. She knew that the pain of a bullet didn’t come from the metal piercing flesh, but from the powder burn. She knew that bleeding from the inside wasn’t especially frightening because you became disoriented quickly. She knew about staring at exposed flesh and watching the blood pump out in time with your heartbeat.

  She knew everything.

  He shifted her until she was straddling him. He pushed her hair back over her shoulders so he could stare at her body.

  A thin white line stretched from the center of her chest, just below her breasts, around to her side. “Knife wound,” he said. “Not very deep, but I bet it bled a bunch.”

  She nodded.

  He touched a puckered oval on her thigh. “Bullet.”

  “Just missed the bone.”

  “Good thing.” Flesh could survive a bullet; bone usually shattered.

  She sniffed.

  He cupped her face and brushed his thumbs under her eyes.

  “Don’t cry for me. I’m not worth it.”

  She bent forward and clung to him. “You are to me.”

  He swallowed hard. She knew too much. How was he supposed to hide from someone who could see into his very soul? The urge to run away was strong, but he forced himself to hug her close and murmur her name.

  She rocked against him, reminding him parts of his body were growing impatient. She shifted slightly, rising up, then coming down on him, taking all of him in one liquid movement. He arched toward her and swore violently. She smiled her pleasure.

  She rode him like a rodeo queen. Head back, hair flying, breasts bouncing, body alternately yielding and pushing him to completion as her paleness slipped up and down over his engorged organ.

  She reached forward and they locked hands, fingers squeezing tight. He could feel her collecting herself again. He held back, wanting to watch her, wanting to see the flush of pleasure rise from her breasts to her face.

  But at the first ripple of her climax, he found himself forced to follow with her. He thrust up and exploded, ripped apart by the pleasure, caught up in a moment of intimacy so intense, so purifying, he knew he would never be the same again.

  Jamie snuggled close to Zach and absorbed his heat. She didn’t know how long they’d been entwined together, sharing their bodies long after the lovemaking was complete.

  She inhaled the musky scent of him and smiled. She could pick him out of a lineup blindfolded. All she would have to do was sniff some exposed bit of skin and she would know where he was. The mental image of her wearing a blindfold in front of a line of men made her giggle.

  “What’s so funny?” he asked, his voice husky and sensual.

  “I was just thinking about how much I like the way you smell.”

  “That’s amusing?”

  “Sort of.”

  They lay on their sides, facing the window. Zach curled against her back, their legs tangled, his arm around her waist. She rested her hand on top of his.

  “I had a great time tonight,” she said. “Dinner was wonderful. Very romantic. I liked the dancing.”

  “Me, too.” His voice rumbled in his chest. She could feel it vibrating against her back. “You’re a pretty good dancer.”

  “I’m perfect if all we have to do is sway. Don’t test me on anything more complicated.”

  “What about the rest of it?” he asked. “You know—dessert.”

  She turned onto her back and stared up at him. “Gee, Zach, we didn’t have dessert. What are you talking about?”

  He raised his eyebrows and waited.

  She pretended confusion for a minute, even though she knew he wasn’t fooled. “Dessert? Hmm…oh, do you mean the sex? Well, I can’t possibly talk about it.”

  “But you can do it? Is that what you’re saying? What, good girls don’t actually discuss the act in polite company?”

  “You’re hardly polite.”

  He reached for her and started tickling. She shrieked and tried to scoot away, but he still had an arm around her waist. He hauled her hard against him and nibbled on her neck. One of his hands searched out tender spots on her tummy. She wiggled and squealed until he let her go.

  He released her and smoothed the hair from her face. Affection shone from his eyes. She understood this man. She knew what he wanted and what he feared.

  In his heart, he wanted to walk away from the agency as much as she did. He wanted desperately to put it all behind him, but he was afraid. Being like everyone else meant facing the demons he’d locked inside for fourteen years. He would have to deal with everything he’d done, all he’d seen.

  There were stories around the agency, of old-timers who retired somewhere quiet, as they’d always planned. Some were fine, but others lasted only a few months in the woods or by the shore. They either returned to the game and died in the field or took their own lives in that gray hour before dawn.

  Zach wouldn’t accept either fate. If he stayed in the game too long, he wouldn’t be the best, and that would destroy him. If he walked away, then he had to wrestle the past and win. She felt confident he would be the victor, but how did she convince him of that? How did she find that magic combination of words to give him the strength to move forward? How did she convince him she loved him?

  She stared up at his familiar, handsome face. She didn’t have those answers yet, and obviously he didn’t, either. So
he advanced and retreated. Played at being strangers, then lovers. Held her in his arms, all the while believing he was going to be the one to walk away when this was over.

  She smiled. “I really did have a good time today. Everything was great. Our run, the zoo. Even the shopping wasn’t so bad.”

  “Told you,” he said, then kissed her briefly and rolled onto his back. He pulled her along with him, settling her so her head rested on his shoulder.

  “Remember that family at the zoo?” she asked.

  “Hmm.” His voice rumbled in his chest.

  “They made it look so easy. That little girl was really cute. So much personality and so trusting.”

  “And all that leopard could think was snack time.”

  She brushed her hand over his chest, then tucked her fist under her chin. “Whenever I’ve thought about couples and children, I always thought it would be so complicated. But I’m beginning to see it doesn’t have to be. I’m making it complicated because I don’t understand the dynamics. Then I think of that old couple in the restaurant. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be married to someone for that long. Yet they looked really happy together. So it can be done, if you’re willing to work at it. There’s no magic, there’s just believing.”

  “What’s your point?”

  She ignored the slight stiffening of his body and snuggled closer. “I know why you’re afraid, Zach,” she whispered. “Despite that, it’s still worth the effort.”

  “I won’t pretend to know what you’re talking about.”

  She sat up and shifted so she was cross-legged. The sheet pooled around her waist, but she didn’t bother pulling it up. After all, he’d seen every part of her already. She had nothing to hide.

  “I finally figured it out,” she said. “I know what happened in the past. It took me this long to figure it out because I couldn’t get beyond my own hurt to look at the bigger picture. I was so angry, for years I didn’t care about your feelings.”

  He started to roll away. She placed her hand on his shoulder and held him in place. When he sagged back on the bed, she exhaled a sigh of relief. He could have defeated her physically. The fact that he didn’t gave her hope.

  “Seven years ago—”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” he said, cutting her off. “I don’t have any magic answers for you. I’m not interested in finding a way back to the world you so admire.” He glared at her but didn’t move away.

  “We have to talk about it,” she said. “It’s important.” She paused to gather her thoughts. “Seven years ago, you told me I had to make a choice. Do you remember?” She didn’t wait for an answer, but continued. “I could either be a good agent or I could have a normal life. I couldn’t do both.”

  He glanced away without saying anything.

  “You were right,” she continued. “The agency requires a hundred percent commitment. I couldn’t have done that kind of work if I’d been worried about a husband or a family. But no matter how much I used work to fill my life, I couldn’t help but feel empty inside. For a long time, I thought it was just anger at you. I thought you’d led me on—got me to believe in you and care about you, then dumped me. I thought it was about your ego rather than my feelings.”

  His hand clamped over her wrist. His dark eyes filled with the truth. “I never meant to hurt you, Jamie. You’ve got to believe that.”

  She nodded slowly. “I do. I also know I made a mistake seven years ago. Why didn’t you tell me the truth? Why did you let me walk away believing you were a jerk?”

  This time he did roll away. He walked naked to the window and stared out at the sleeping city. The light from the small lamp by the bed didn’t reach that far. Zach stood in shadow. A shiver of fear rippled through her, but she ignored it. She had to get it all out now. Something inside of her told her this might be her last chance.

  “The choice wasn’t between the agency and a real life,” she said. “You were the choice. That’s what I didn’t get. Because you didn’t ask me to stay with you, I thought you didn’t want me. But the opposite was true. You really cared about me. You wanted me to demand to stay with you. And I didn’t.”

  She drew her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs. “Of all the people in the world, you knew how important the agency was to me. You knew how hard I’d worked to achieve my goal. You knew what I was capable of. So you let me go, because you believed it was the right thing to do. I had a chance to be the best, and you wanted to make sure that happened. At the time, I might have agreed with you, but now I’m not so sure you made the right choice.”

  “Don’t do this, Jamie. You don’t know what you’re getting into,” he said.

  “Yeah, Zach, for once I do. For a long time, I thought I’d failed you in some way. I tried to figure out what I’d done that was so wrong. Then, when I started to realize what had really happened, I thought I’d been the one who had failed. Finally I got my answer.”

  She slipped off the bed and walked over toward the window. She stood behind him, close enough to feel his warmth, but not touching him. “Seven years ago, I wasn’t right for you. I wasn’t strong enough to deal with your demons, I didn’t understand what you’d been through. I wasn’t the right woman to love you.”

  She had to fight to keep her voice from shaking. This was harder than she’d thought. Continuing was the only option even though she really wanted to bolt for safety.

  “I’m the right woman now. I know what you’ve been through because I’ve been there myself. I can help with the past. Together we can find a future. I’m the one you’ve been waiting for, Zach. I’m your other half. And I love you.”

  The silence was deafening. It throbbed against her ears like falling cabin pressure. She held her breath and prayed for a miracle. As the silence stretched on, she remembered she was dealing with a man who had sold his soul to the devil a long time ago. There wasn’t going to be a miracle.

  But she had to keep trying. This was the most important moment of her life.

  “You asked me once what I would do if I could turn back time,” she said. “Would I still do everything the same? I have my answer now. I would have done everything the same. I couldn’t have stayed with you then. You wouldn’t have let me be a part of your work, and I couldn’t bear to have waited at home for you. I had to go out and make my own way. I had to use my skills, test myself. I had to grow enough to be your mate.”

  He spun on her with savage fury. “You’re not my goddamn mate. I’m not a wild animal to be captured and bred.”

  “Yes, you are,” she said softly. “You’re exactly like that leopard in the cage. I don’t know why I didn’t see it before. It’s more than your pacing at the cabin. It’s the way you view life.”

  He grabbed her shoulders and shook her. “Stop it,” he demanded. “Stop saying these things. I don’t want to hear them.”

  She stared at him, unafraid. “You can’t run away from this,” she said.

  “The hell I can’t.”

  He released her and stalked to the bed. The lamp there illuminated his body. As always, his male beauty took her breath away. Love filled her and made her strong. They’d survived worse; they would survive this.

  “I don’t want to hear this,” he repeated, and began pacing. “You can believe whatever you want, but that doesn’t make it true.”

  “You can pretend not to hear my words,” she said, “but that doesn’t change reality. I love you.”

  He shuddered as if she’d struck him. “I don’t want your love. Don’t care about me. Don’t you see? That’s what all this is about. It’s not that I don’t want to love you, Jamie. I don’t want you to love me.”

  He continued pacing, but she saw him from a great distance. It was as if she’d left her body and was floating above the room. His lips moved, but she couldn’t hear the words. All that she heard was the thundering of her heartbeat.

  He didn’t love her now and he would never love her. Worse, he didn’t w
ant her to love him.

  Something white cut through her. She identified it as intense, soul-burning pain. She’d been wrong about everything.

  Awareness returned with a rush. His words continued to tumble out.

  “Why do you have to make it more than it is?” he asked. “Isn’t this enough?” He motioned to the bed. “It’s a hell of a lot more than most people have.” He stopped and stared at her. “All I wanted was a few laughs, kid. I’m sorry you got emotionally involved.”

  “I don’t believe you,” she said, forcing the words past stiff lips. “You need me to find your way back.”

  “I’m not going back.”

  “What are you so afraid of?” she asked, close to tears. “How can you keep on living like this? It’s only half a life. There could be so much more.”

  He shook his head. “You seem to think I can’t find my way into this world you admire. That’s not it, Jamie. The truth is I don’t want to. I’m simply not interested in the journey or the destination.”

  Chapter 15

  The next morning, they drove back to the cabin in silence. Jamie was still in shock. She couldn’t believe everything had disintegrated so quickly. One minute they had been lovers; the next they weren’t even speaking. It would have been kinder if Zach had simply taken out a gun and shot her. At least that would have been quick. This way she was left to replay their conversation over and over in her mind. She could second-guess herself from now until the end of time, wondering what other words she could have said to make a difference. She could create other scenarios where she was able to make him see what was important. She could imagine a happy future that had turned out to be little more than a fantasy. But she couldn’t change what had really happened between them.

  She supposed the fatal flaw in her logic was her belief Zach would actually give a damn that she loved him. How naive. He’d never cared before. Why should this time be different?