by Leah Braemel
“You either trust me.” His fingers parted her folds and unerringly found her clit, toying with it until she was ready to agree to anything. Then he withdrew. “Or you don’t.”
If he’d wanted to seek revenge from her, wouldn’t he have done that back at the farm?
“Lauren?”
You either trust me or you don’t. It was a test. She closed her eyes and nodded. “I trust you, Chad.”
She’d barely finished speaking when the crop whistled across her left butt cheek. A second stroke followed the first, this one over the right buttock. While it initially stung, it didn’t hurt. He struck each cheek twice more, then smoothed the sting with his hand. Once she realized it wouldn’t hurt, he continued until her ass was on fire and her pussy dripped with her arousal.
He settled beneath her thighs, using his tongue on her clit, his fingers scissoring into her tight passage. Alternating between licking her clit and tugging on it with his lips, he took her to the brink of orgasm. She couldn’t stop herself from crying out when he let her fly, her body clenching around his fingers and the plug, pulsing in ecstasy.
Her pussy hadn’t stopped pulsing when he withdrew the plug leaving her feeling emptier than she could ever remember. Without giving her any warning, he thrust in hard, stretching her, the burning pain mixing with an unending pleasure of the remains of her last orgasm. Only he’d known what she liked, how she liked.
He tangled his fingers in her hair, pulling it until her head arched back. He withdrew and slammed back in again until she shuddered around him. “Do you feel how much I want you?”
“Yessss…” As much as she wanted him.
“Do you know I’ve never taken another woman here? That I’ve never wanted to?”
Realizing it was important to him, she found the breath to speak. “No one else has been there either.”
At her confession, he slowed his thrusts with a groan. Moving ever so slowly he withdrew then returned.
She pressed her hips back against him, tightening her muscles, holding him in. His fingers dug into her hips as he gave into the pleasure. When he began a series of frenzied thrusts that pushed her closer and closer to the edge of her third orgasm, she buried her face in the sheets. God, how bland the last decade had been without the fire he’d brought to her, the strength of her orgasm rippled through her.
Moments later, Chad’s cock pulsed deep inside her, his come heating her passage until every inch of her felt aflame. The sensation paled to the heat of his breath on her shoulder or his gasped “love you”.
As soon as he fell on the mattress beside her, Lauren attempted to roll to him, to hold him only to be stopped by the bonds holding her in place.
Still breathing heavily, Chad cracked open an eye at her curses. “Hang on a sec.”
He reached up and loosened the bindings, but not before he’d taken her breath away again with another deep kiss. Once she was free, he gathered her in his arms. Lauren would have been content to lie there for the rest of the night, to hold him and be held. Instead Chad slipped a hand beneath her knees and lifted her. “Come on, let’s get cleaned up.”
The ensuite bathroom he’d had designed was a work of art. Where he’d taken charge in the bedroom, she pressed him against the tiles and picked up a bar of soap. The room filled with steam from the multiple showerheads and the occasional soft murmur as they cleaned up. They both seemed to sense there was no need for words, simply being in the same room together again was enough. The last of the lather swirling down the drain, Lauren wrapped her arms around Chad’s waist and rested her head on his shoulder. “I love you too.”
His “hmm” of satisfaction turned into a chuckle when her stomach growled loudly enough to be heard over the water. “Do you want to go out for dinner tonight or order in?”
“In.” Preferably something they could eat while sprawled naked on the bed.
He grabbed a towel from the rack and wrapped it around her, and tucked the end into her cleavage. Before he could wrap his towel around his hip, Lauren took it from him. She lingered over her task, patting every single part of him dry. The sun had long since set when they finally walked back into the bedroom. Chad flicked on the light. Before she could step around him, he’d shoved her behind him but she hit the doorframe with an oomph.
“Stay where you are, Mr. Miller.” Shit, there was a man in their bedroom.
Chad held out his hands and adopted the reasonable tone they’d been taught during their hostage negotiation training at Quantico. “Tom? Put the gun down and let’s talk about what you’re doing here.”
Gun. Her empty holster lay on the bed. Aw fuck. It was her own gun that Tom Whoever was using.
“I don’t think so. I know you’re hiding a whore behind you. You tell her to come out where I can see her.” Lauren didn’t recognize the voice, but being called a whore had her balling her fists.
“Tom, the woman behind me isn’t a whore. It’s my wife. You remember Lauren, don’t you?”
It was someone they knew? Lauren peered over his shoulder. It startled her to recognize their intruder. The man she’d last seen as a fourteen-year-old boy now stood at least two inches taller than Chad. “Tommy Jenkins?”
“What are you doing here, Mrs. Miller?” From the way her Sig Sauer shook he was likely to shoot one of them accidentally. “You shouldn’t be here.”
His gaze dropped to the bed, his forehead wrinkling. “You guys had sex? Didn’t you?” The gun steadied and returned to point at Chad. “Did you rape her? The way you did last time?”
“He’s never raped me!” Lauren couldn’t stop her response.
“Yes, he has. I saw it.” Tom used both hands to steady his grip. The shaking stopped only marginally. “It was on all the websites, on all the news reports. He’d tied you up and blindfolded you. He made you,” his voice dropped to a whisper, “do things. Bad things.”
“Chad never raped me,” she repeated, keeping her voice steady. How the hell could she get him to understand that she’d asked Chad to do that to her? That she enjoyed being bound and blindfolded. “He’s never hurt me, Tommy. I promise.”
“You’re just saying that to protect him. You shouldn’t do that. He’s a bad man. You need to stay away from him. You hate him, remember? He killed your baby. He killed Emily.”
“No. No, he didn’t.” She sidled away from Chad, attempting to draw Tom’s attention away so Chad could get to the drawer where he’d stashed his gun. If they were lucky, Tom hadn’t already found it.
She took another step toward him but also to the left, drawing his attention further away from Chad. “Chad didn’t kill Emily. Neither of us did.” She took a deep breath but didn’t dare close her eyes the way she wanted. “She just stopped breathing. There was nothing either of us could have done.”
“No! He killed her.” With a roar of anger, Tom swung the gun back toward Chad, who dived to the floor at the same time the gun went off.
Chapter Fourteen
Pain seared Chad’s shoulder like someone had stabbed him with a red-hot poker. Even as he fell, he saw Lauren kicked Tom in the back of the knees and grapple for the gun.
His right arm not working properly, Chad dragged himself across the floor, the six feet between him and his weapon a chasm wider than the Grand Canyon. Using his left hand, he opened the drawer and felt around inside until his fingers closed around the barrel of his Glock. He rolled over just in time to see Lauren’s head snap back. Blood spurted across the room, splattering over the sheets. Lauren’s body toppled sideways.
FUCK! Chad aimed his gun but Tom dragged Lauren to her feet and used her as a shield. “Stay back! I didn’t want to hurt her but I had to. You saw—she was fighting me.”
Lauren’s head lolled onto her chest and he couldn’t see her face properly, but from the blood trailing down her shirt, the bastard had probably broken her nose. Hopefully that’s all he’d done. “Set her down, Tom. Please. Let me look after her. Let me make sure she’s all right.”
Chad held his own gun steady but couldn’t fire without risking Lauren’s life. At least the gun was aimed at him, not at Lauren’s head. Though the rest of Lauren didn’t move, the fingers on Lauren’s right hand made the “OK” sign. It was all he could do not to heave a sigh of relief. She was all right. If they kept their heads, if he could get control of this situation, they could still get out of this. Maybe. Tom still had that fucking gun.
Tom’s eyes went unfocused, dreamy, his voice soft and distant. The arm holding the gun dropped a few inches but not enough. If Chad moved now, he’d still be gut-shot. “I loved you so much, Mrs. Miller. You were such a good mother to Emily.”
“She was; you’re right.” Come on, Lauren, move. Drop to the floor. Something that’ll get you out of the line of sight and give me a clean shot at him.
Tom’s gaze cleared and the black barrel of the gun stared at Chad again. From this distance, a two-fingered monkey couldn’t miss hitting him. “Don’t you talk to her. You’re not good enough for her. That’s why I had to keep her away from you. Keep her safe.”
Chad held up the hand he could move, spreading his fingers wide. “All right. Let’s just calm down.”
“I kept her safe from you. I checked your mail box every day so you couldn’t get any of the letters she sent you. I deleted all her messages from your answering machine. You didn’t even know I was there. You thought you were so good with your security system. But you couldn’t stop me.”
Shit, he’d given Tom the security code and asked him to check his mail and water the plants when he was away. The whole time the little shit was the reason Lauren hadn’t come home?
With a move so fast it startled even Chad who had been looking for a sign, Lauren dropped to the ground, taking Tom with her. As Tom swung around with a curse, aiming Lauren’s own gun at her, Chad aimed and squeezed the trigger.
Chapter Fifteen
“They’ve charged Jenkins with attempted murder and aggravated assault.” Sam glanced at Lauren as she settled onto the arm of the couch beside Chad. “He’s lawyered up, and isn’t talking, but from what Andy’s been able to find out through his sources his lawyers are seeking a psychiatric review while he’s still in the hospital.”
“They’re looking for an insanity plea,” Lauren surmised. “Or at least diminished capacity.”
“They’ll get it.” Chad covered her knee with his left hand. His right was bound to his side, the bandage where they’d operated on the bullet not as thick as it had been the day before.
“What I don’t get is why he waited this long to go after Chad.”
“I talked to his mom.” The petite woman who Chad had introduced as Rosalinda Ramos, Sam’s fiancée answered Lauren’s question. “She said he’d had a breakdown at school, enough that the counselors there suggested he come home for the semester.”
Sam scowled. “Except he came home and found his mom with a black eye.” He held up a hand when Chad cursed under his breath. “Don’t worry, her rat-bastard ex didn’t give it to her this time. I checked. Patsy had been in a car accident and she got it from that. She’s fine, by the way.”
“We’re guessing that he saw the article in the Post on the weekend and that made him want to check up on you.”
“From there,” Sam picked up where Rosie left off, “we’re not sure if it was seeing you two together again that set him off. Or if he’d planned to go after Chad all along.”
Lauren suppressed a smile. The duo were completing each other’s sentences as if they’d been married for years.
“Almost forgot. Hey, Rosebud, you got those photocopies?”
Rosie reached into a voluminous purse and pulled out a manila file folder. “The police found these when they went through Tom’s apartment. I got Andy to use his connections to make some copies since they have to keep the originals as evidence.”
Lauren took the folder and handed it to Chad who placed it on his lap and opened it. Her breath caught in her throat when she recognized her own handwriting. “My letters.”
After a glance at her, Sam nodded and returned his attention to Chad. “Looks like Tom had been going through your mail for years.”
“I’d asked him to pick it up for me whenever I was travelling. I had no idea he’d been holding things back.”
The room was silent except for the sound of rustling paper as Chad flipped through the letters. He stopped at the final one, written two years after she’d left. The one pleading with him to phone her, to give her some sign that he’d give her another chance.
He stared up at her, his heart in his eyes. “I’m sorry, babe. I would have replied if I’d known.”
“It wasn’t your fault.” She covered his hand with hers and squeezed it. “But we’ve got a second chance now.”
Sam stood, holding a hand out to help Rosie to her feet. “Well, Rosebud, I think that’s our cue to leave these two alone.”
Leaving Chad to rest on the couch, Lauren showed them to the front door. “Sam, I owe you an apology. I know I blamed you for Jill’s death all these years. I was wrong. I’m sorry.”
He quirked his eyebrows up. “I know. I’d say we both owe each other some apologies. I’ve been blaming you for walkin’ out on Chad. I had no idea why you’d gone or what you were going through. If I’d known…” He nodded. “Yeah, we both had our demons to fight, didn’t we?”
“So…are we friends again?”
“Yup.” He grinned. “I heard you quit your other job. If you ever feel the itch to get back in the field, I know a good firm that’s lookin’ for people with your background.”
“I may just take you up on that offer.” Once she’d figured out the rest of her life.
“You do that.” His grin faded and his gaze drifted to the room behind her. “It damned near killed him when you left. He stopped going home, started sleeping in the office for months at a time. I was afraid I was going to come in one day and find he’d eaten his gun.”
“I didn’t know. I thought…I got some bad intel and thought he’d remarried within a year.”
“Mmm. Now I wonder where you heard that?” One dark eyebrow arched up, but when she didn’t answer, Sam sighed. “Don’t leave him again without telling him exactly why, you hear? Don’t disappear the way you did last time. Or I’ll come after you.”
Without waiting for a reply, he headed for his car. Lauren stood in the doorway, until the Jag disappeared from sight.
Once she’d shut the door and rearmed the security system, Lauren returned to find Chad with his head against the back of the couch, his eyes closed. “You should go upstairs and have a nap.”
He roused and smiled at her. The look he gave her was all heat. “You coming up with me?”
“Men! Even hurt and exhausted, all you can think about is sex.” She folded her arms over her chest and tried not to smile. And failed.
“The problem with that is…?”
“As tempting as your offer is, if I lie down with you, you’ll do anything but nap.” She helped him to his feet and followed him upstairs.
Once they got to the bedroom, he started to undo his shirt left-handed. “Damn it, I’m all thumbs.”
“Here, let me.” She flicked open the buttons of his shirt, loving the familiarity of the task. Her smile dimmed when she caught sight of the bandage over his shoulder. It was smaller than the one the doctors had originally placed there, but it still looked obscene.
Chad rested his forehead on hers. “Hey, it’ll heal, babe. I’ll be fine.”
“I could have lost you again,” she whispered. “I shouldn’t have left my gun out in plain sight. I should have locked it up so he
couldn’t get it.”
“And I should have remembered to re-arm the security system so we would have had a warning. Hell, I should have locked the front door, but I had other things on my mind and I let myself get distracted.” He stroked his thumb over her nipple until it beaded. “Stop blaming yourself. It’s over. Harris is dead, and Tom’s not a threat anymore either. We’ve got a second chance, babe. Let’s not waste it.”
“You’re right,” she decided.
“Of course I am. Now why don’t you get undressed and join me? I’ll let you be on top.”
She had to laugh at the exaggerated leer he gave her. “You’re incorrigible. All right, I’ll lie down with you, but we’re not going to do anything more than sleep.”
She hovered over him while he took his pain pills and lay on the bed with him. Within five minutes, he was asleep and she found herself staring at the ceiling. Two weeks ago she’d only dreamt that she’d be lying here beside Chad again, and now her dreams had come true.
Yet there were still so many things unsettled between them.
Chad rolled over, his arm instinctively seeking Lauren only to find…nothing. “Lauren?”
Had it all been a dream? He opened his eyes. The dent her head had left in the pillow was still there, the side of her bed messed. No, it hadn’t been a dream. So why wasn’t she still here?
Maybe she’d gone to the bathroom? Nope, the door was open and the light off. Where the hell had she gone?
His heart clogging his throat, he jogged downstairs, half afraid he’d find her bags missing. He pulled up short when he heard her talking in the kitchen.
“I meant what I said, Coop. I’m not coming back. I’m through with the Brigade.”
Cooper was here? What the hell else did that bastard want? He’d already visited Chad at the hospital and threatened him until he’d signed a secrecy agreement similar to the one that bound Lauren.
