“Reason for what?” Mason flexed his muscles, testing them while he tried to draw information from his jailer. Anything that would help him figure out who he was up against while he assessed what his body would be able to do.
“You son of a bitch. It wasn’t him. It was you.” The stranger’s voice turned lethal, deadly, and Mason knew the man was going to kill him.
There was no other outlet for that kind of deranged fury.
Bring it on.
But the man didn’t make a move toward him. Instead, he seemed fixated on something else in the wallet.
The man turned a photo toward Mason. “Tell me everything about this woman. She looks exactly like Alice.” His voice had gone dangerously soft. Obsessive. On the edge.
Violent aggression, Mason could take. This creepy lust was something else entirely.
Mason squinted at the picture of his sister, who did indeed look like their mother had when she was in her twenties. Even with thirty years between them, they still looked very similar. And Mason didn’t like the way this crazed bastard was looking at his sister’s picture. “Underwear model,” he said. “Cut it out of a magazine.”
The man’s fist snapped out, cracking him in the ribs again. Mason’s breath came tighter, and he gasped for air, the pain too intense now. Had his lung just been punctured? Holy fuck.
Holding his side, Mason saw his captor was reading the back of the photo now, and Mason remembered Kaylie had written him a note on the back, along with her address and phone number. They barely kept in touch, but Mason carried that picture as a reminder of his sister, and of his resolution that someday he would find time to reconnect with her.
The man raised his eyes to Mason’s, something dark flickering in them. “Kaylie.” He traced his finger over the photo. “She’s coming for me.”
Adrenaline surged at the thought of Kaylie at the hands of this psychopath. “She’d never set foot in this state.”
“No?” The monster smiled. “I already called her. She’s coming for her mother. No girl can stay away when her mama needs her. And will she come for you as well? Her brother? Is that what you are? You’re my bait, in case I need it.”
Sweet Jesus. Kaylie at the hands of this madman? “No!” Mason lunged at the bastard, knocked him over, and sent him sprawling to the ground. The man slammed his flashlight into Mason’s shoulder, and then his broken ribs. Mason fell, unable to move.
Panting with the agony, Mason could do nothing but lay there as his captor turned on the light and grabbed something from the corner. Metal. Heavy. Chained to the wall.
Shackles.
Struggling to stay conscious, Mason was unable to fight as the son of a bitch grabbed his injured leg. The shackle snapped shut on his ankle with enough force to bring him off the ground, grabbing for his leg.
Motherfucker.
The metal was digging in, pressing against the damaged tissue.
His captor stood just out of Mason’s reach. “Kaylie’s already in Alaska, and she’s going to be mine.”
“No. Whatever your problem is with me, leave her out of it.” Mason clenched his jaw against the pain as he struggled to sit up. “It’s you and me.”
“No. It’s not complete until she is here. Once I know I don’t need you anymore, it’ll be payback time.”
“Goddamn you!” Mason lurched to his feet and the psychopath yanked on the chain.
The shackle ground into Mason’s leg and he screamed, falling back down, grabbing for his leg. “You son of a bitch.”
His captor held up the photo of Kaylie and pressed his lips to it. “I have work to do. Try not to die. If your sister proves difficult, I might have need of you to provide leverage.” He rubbed his hands together. “She is mine.”
“She’s not yours!”
But he was gone, leaving Mason alone in the darkness.
With a shackled leg and a sister who was about to deliver herself into the hands of a sick bastard.
Kaylie’s hands were shaking as she rifled through her bag, searching for her yoga pants. They were the low-slung black ones with a light pink stripe down the side. The cuffs were frayed from too many trips to the grocery store late at night for comfort food, and they were her go-to clothes when she couldn’t cope.
But she couldn’t find them.
“Dammit!” Kaylie grabbed her other suitcase and dug through it, but they weren’t there. “Stupid pants! I can’t—” A sob caught at her throat and she pressed her palms to her eyes, trying to stifle the swell of grief. “Sara…”
Her voice was a raw moan of pain, and she sank to the thick shag carpet. She bent over as waves of pain, of loneliness, of utter loss shackled her. For her parents, her brother—her family—and now Sara.
Dear God, she was all alone.
“Dammit, Kaylie! Get up!” she chided herself. She wrenched herself to her feet. “I can do this.” She grabbed a pair of jeans and a silk blouse off the top of her bag and turned toward the bathroom. One step at a time. A shower would make her feel better.
She walked into the tiny bathroom, barely noticing the heavy wood door as she stepped inside and flicked the light switch. Two bare light bulbs flared over her head, showing a rustic bathroom with an ancient footed tub and a raw wood vanity with a battered porcelain sink. A tiny round window was on her right. It was small enough to keep out the worst of the cold, but big enough to let in some light and breeze in the summer.
In Alaska, for sure. God, what was she doing here?
Kaylie tossed the clean clothes on the sink and unzipped her jacket, dropping it on the floor. She tugged all her layers off, including the light blue sweater that had felt so safe this morning when she’d put it on. She stared grimly at her black lace bra, so utterly feminine, exactly the kind of bra that her mother had always thought frivolous and completely impractical. Which it was. Which is why that was the only style Kaylie ever wore.
She should never have come. She didn’t belong here. Couldn’t handle this. Kaylie gripped the edge of the sink. Her hands dug into the wood as she fought against the urge to curl into a ball and cry.
After a minute, she lifted her head and looked at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were wide and scared. There were dark circles under her eyes. Her hair was tangled and flattened from her wool hat. There was dirt caked on her cheeks.
Kaylie rubbed her hand over her chin, and the streaks of mud didn’t come off.
She tried again, then realized she had smudges all over her neck. She turned on the water and wet her hands…and saw her hands were covered as well.
Stunned, Kaylie stared as the water ran over her hands, turning pink as it swirled in the basin.
Not dirt.
Sara’s blood.
“Oh, God.” Kaylie grabbed a bar of soap and began to scrub her hands. But the blood was dried, stuck to her skin. "Get off!” She rubbed frantically, but the blackened crust wouldn’t come off. Her lungs constricted, and she couldn’t breathe. “I can’t—”
The door slammed open, and Cort stood behind her, wearing a T-shirt and jeans.
The tears burst free at the sight of Cort, and Kaylie held up her hands to him. “I can’t get it off!”
“I got it.” Cort took her hands and held them under the water, his grip warm and strong. “Take a deep breath, Kaylie. It’s okay.”
“It’s not. It won’t be.” She leaned her head against his shoulder, closing her eyes as he washed her hands roughly and efficiently. His muscles flexed beneath her cheek, his skin hot through his shirt. Warm. Alive. “Sara’s dead,” she whispered. “My parents. My brother. They’re all gone. The blood—” Sobs broke free again, and she couldn’t stop the trembling.
“I know. I know, babe.” He pulled her hands out from under the water and grabbed a washcloth. He turned toward her and began to wash her face and neck.
His eyes were troubled, his mouth grim. But his hands were gentle where he touched her, one hand holding her face still while he scrubbed. His gaze flicked toward h
ers, and he held contact for a moment, making her want to fall into those brown depths and forget everything. To simply disappear into the energy that was him. “You have to let them go," he said. “There’s nothing you can do to bring them ba—”
“No.” A deep ache pounded at Kaylie’s chest, and her legs felt as if they were too weak to support her. “I can’t. Did you see Sara? And Jackson? His throat—” She bent over, clutching her stomach. “I—”
Cort’s arms were suddenly around her, warm and strong, pulling her against his solid body. Kaylie fell into him, the sobs coming hard, the memories…
“I know.” Cort’s whisper was soft, his hand in her hair, crushing her against him. “It sucks. Goddamn, it sucks.”
Kaylie heard his grief in the raw tone of his voice, realized his body was shaking as well, and she looked up. There was a rim of red around his eyes, shadows in the hollows of his whiskered cheeks. “You know,” she whispered, knowing with absolute certainty that he did. He understood the grief consuming her.
“Yeah.” He cupped her face, staring down at her, his grip so tight with desperation that mirrored her own. She could feel his heart beating against her nearly bare breasts, the rise of his chest as he breathed, the heat of his body warming the deathly chill from hers.
And suddenly, for the first time in forever, she didn’t feel quite as alone.
In her suffering, she had company. Someone who knew. Who understood. Who shared her pain. It had been so long since she hadn’t felt consumed by the loneliness, but with Cort holding her…there was a flicker of light in that hell trying to take her. “Cort—”
He cleared his throat. “I gotta go check on the chili.” He dropped his hands from her face and stood up to go, pulling away from her.
Without his touch, the air felt cold and the anguish returned full force. Kaylie caught his arm. “Don’t go—” She stopped, not sure what to say, what to ask for. All she knew was that she didn’t want him to leave, and she didn’t want him to stop holding her. Just for a minute.
Cort turned back to her, and something ticked in his cheek.
For a moment, they simply stared at each other. She raised her arms. “Hold me,” she whispered. “Please.”
He hesitated for a second, and then his hand snaked out and he shackled her wrist. He yanked once, and she tumbled into him. Their bodies smacked hard as he caught her around the waist, his hands hot on her bare back.
She threw her arms around his neck and sagged into him. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her tightly against him. With only her bra and his T-shirt between them, the heat of his body was like a furnace, numbing her pain. His name slipped out in a whisper, and she pressed her cheek against his chest. She focused on his masculine scent. She took solace in the feel of another human’s touch, in the safety of being held in arms powerful enough to ward off the grief trying to overtake her.
His hand tunneled in her hair, and he buried his face in the curve of her neck.
“Cort…” She started to lift her head to look at him, to see if he was crying, but he tightened his grip on her head, forcing her face back to his chest, refusing to allow her to look at him.
Keeping her out.
Isolating her.
She realized he wasn’t a partner in her grief. She was alone, still alone, always alone.
All the anguish came cascading back. Raw loneliness surged again, and she shoved away from him as sobs tore at her throat. She couldn’t deal with being held by him when the sense of intimacy was nothing but an illusion. “Leave me alone.”
Kaylie whirled away from him, keeping her head ducked. She didn’t want to look at him. She needed space to find her equilibrium again and rebuild her foundation.
“Damn it, Kaylie.” Cort grabbed her arm and spun her back toward him.
She held up her hands to block him, her vision blurred by the tears streaming down her face. “Don’t—”
His arms snapped around her and he hauled her against him, even as she fought his grip. “No! Leave me alone!”
His mouth descended on hers.
Not a gentle kiss.
A kiss of desperation and grief and need. Of the need to control something. Of raw human passion for life, for death, for the touch of another human being.
And it broke her.
Kaylie’s lips were like a breath of life in the black abyss trying to consume him.
Cort growled as her arms circled his neck and her mouth parted for him. She leaned into his chest, her kiss mirroring the desperation driving him.
As if she needed the touch of a human being as badly as he did.
Her spine was a seductive curve, down to those fancy slacks that screamed indoor parties with champagne and candlelight. But she was fire and passion, her skin soft as the fur on a newborn husky pup.
Jesus.
Cort deepened the kiss, thrusting his tongue into the moist heat of her mouth. His erection went into overdrive when she kissed him back just as fiercely, tangling her tongue around his with a need grinding down to the very marrow of his bones.
He wrapped his hands about the lush curves of her bottom and lifted her against him. She locked her legs around his waist, kissing him frantically, as if afraid he’d let her go before she’d gotten all she needed.
No chance in hell of that.
Not breaking the kiss, he shoved them through the doorway into the bedroom. He raked his hands over her back, her shoulders, her ass. He needed to touch more, to lose himself in the depths of her kiss, in the sensation of her body entwined with his.
Cort tossed her bags aside, then dumped her on his bed, collapsing onto her as the mattress groaned in protest. He braced himself over her, kissing her until their teeth hit, until he felt like he was going to drown in the kiss. She grabbed his hair and tugged him closer, kissing him even more fiercely.
There was an urgency in her kiss, a passion that shanghaied him with the force of her life energy.
So different from Jackson, who was dead.
Dead.
Suddenly Cort was back to that moment seventeen years ago. Climbing out of the wreckage, trying to pull his mother free of the flames, his panic when the fire grew. Cort could still see his dad’s eyes glazed in death, as if disgusted by Cort’s inability to get his mother free. So much blood, her screams—
Goddammit! Cort tore his mouth from Kaylie’s and dropped his head to her breast, cupping the soft flesh as he sucked her nipple into his mouth, desperate to escape the memories.
Kaylie gasped and arched into his kiss, pulling at his T-shirt.
Cort reared back and ripped the fabric out of his way. His gaze fixated on Kaylie’s tearstained face as she quickly unbuttoned her fly. Her eyes didn’t leave his as she kicked off her pants. He unfastened his jeans, ditching them across the room.
And then he was back on top of Kaylie, unable to suppress a groan as her soft skin slid against his. Jesus. It had been so long, and she was so alive….
He kissed her so fiercely, so deeply, and it still wasn’t enough to wipe the screams of his parents from his mind. It didn’t spare him the memory of Jackson’s body sprawled on the ground, Jackson’s hand across Sara’s as if he’d been trying to protect her even in death.
Kaylie anchored her legs around Cort’s hips, and he reached between them. A low sound reverberated in his chest when he found her drenched. He whispered her name, and then plunged deep into her.
A small noise of surprise came from Kaylie, and then she lifted her hips for him. She twisted her hands in the comforter and threw her head back, delivering herself over to his mercy.
Cort thrust again. She was so tight around him, so hot, so pulsing with life. His muscles quivered, and he bent his head to her throat. He breathed deeply, inhaling her scent. She smelled like spring and sweat—fragile and female, but so hot, as if her soul were burning through her skin.
Cort drove deep again, and again, until his body was screaming for release, until all he could think of was Kaylie,
of her body, of the way her fingernails were digging into his shoulders, fighting to keep him close. Cort kept driving her to the edge and bringing her back, not willing to let the moment end.
He wanted to be here forever, deep inside her body, his body shaking with need for her, only for her. He wanted to stay in this place where nothing mattered except them, except sex, except the heat roaring through his veins.
“Cort.”
Kaylie’s throaty plea was the most seductive sound Cort had heard in his life, and it snapped the last threads of his control. He threw her legs over his shoulders and slammed himself to her very core.
Kaylie shouted his name as her body convulsed beneath him. The orgasm hit him so hard, his muscles ripped out of his control. He was suddenly thrusting again and again, and she was writhing beneath him, tears streaming down her cheeks as she clung to him, hanging on until the final tremors shook him to his soul.
CHAPTER SIX
Kaylie awoke to a heavy weight across her chest.
She opened her eyes and saw an unfinished wooden ceiling: rough-hewn beams crossing above the bed in an architectural style she hadn’t seen since she was sixteen, the last time she’d set foot in the mountains—
And then Kaylie remembered.
Alaska.
The call about her mother.
Sara.
Cort.
Her cheeks flaming, Kaylie turned her head to see Cort passed out next to her. It was his arm pinning her to the bed. They were both on top of the covers, still naked. His muscles were bunched even in sleep, a tattoo of a bald eagle in flight on his upper right arm. His face was hard, a muscle twitching in his cheek as if he was having a bad dream.
Unable to resist touching him, Kaylie traced his face with her fingertips, and his tic stopped. Whiskers covered his jaw, and there was a small scar on his hairline, just above his right temple. She recalled the amazing sensation of being in his arms, of his enormous strength coupled with his gentleness. Cort was everything she didn’t want, but at the same time…he was sexy and strong and he made her feel safe.
Cort muttered something in his sleep and rolled away from her, exposing his back.
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