Enigma, Maine, Bundle 2

by Iris Abbott

  If he could transfer some of his strength to her, he would. The overwhelming need he felt to protect her was more than the duty he upheld to protect all around him. It was much more. He was going to have to mark her soon, or his cat was going to go feral.

  He led her to the couch. He sat down and pulled her into his lap. He was pleased when she didn’t resist. Instead, she buried her face in the side of his neck. That caused another problem.

  His body reacted to the nearness of hers. Her curvy backside pushed against his groin, and his erection steadily grew. He never had trouble focusing before, but she was making things mighty difficult for him right now.

  He gritted his teeth. He had to find out why Jessica was in danger. He used a finger to lift her chin and stared into her sapphire blue eyes. “I need to know what I’m dealing with here, Jessica. Who are you running from and why?”

  Jessica just crossed her arms and tightened her lips.

  “I’m not leaving until I have an answer.” He waited. Still, there was no response from Jessica. “I can sit here all night. What about you?”

  Jessica uncrossed her arms and scooted off his lap and to the far end of the sofa. She glanced at him from beneath lowered lashes. “The less you know, the better off you’ll be.” She lowered her head and looked at the hands resting in her lap.

  “I’ll pack my things tonight, and I promise I’ll be on the next bus out of town.” She glanced at him with pain-filled eyes. She grabbed both of his hands in her own and squeezed them as tight as she could. “Please don’t tell anyone I was here, no matter who asks. That’s for your safety as well as mine.”

  Unless all the demons of hell had escaped and were hot on her trail, Lucian could handle anything or anyone that came his way. “Not acceptable. Trust me when I say your days of running are over. You’re making a stand here, and it will not be your last. Now why don’t you tell me exactly what we’re up against, so we can plan the best strategy.”

  Jessica jumped up from the sofa and paced in front of Lucian. “Knew you were stubborn,” she muttered. “Why can’t you leave well enough alone?

  “Stubborn as a cat,” he agreed with a smirk.

  She threw her hands up in the air. “Fine! Death is what you’re facing. Mine and possibly your own if you don’t let me go and forget you ever saw me.”

  Lucian snorted. “I doubt it.”

  ****

  Jessica paced faster. His blasé attitude was almost the last straw. Why did she get stuck with the one man who thought he was invincible? Maybe she should tell him the whole horrific tale and see how far and fast he ran then. She took a deep breath, walked over to the sofa, and sat back down.

  “I came by my fascination with the Russo castle honestly. I am an architect, or at least I used to be.” Lucian reached out and gently rubbed her shoulder. She soaked up the soothing contact. It gave her the courage to continue.

  “Almost two years ago I started my first job with an architectural firm outside of Houston.” She closed her eyes lost in thought. Lucian didn’t interrupt her, and she kept talking. “I was so excited. I’d been working toward this one goal for years. I love planning, designing, building, and anything else about creating a building from start to finish. I thought my dreams were about to come true, instead, I walked into a nightmare worse than anything you could imagine.”

  “I doubt that.” Lucian’s sober words made her shiver. He slid closer and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. She didn’t resist the comforting touch.

  Jessica was thankful for Lucian’s quiet support. She sucked in a deep breath of air and continued. “The first couple of months went smoothly. I finished employee orientation and began working on a project with one of the firm’s newest partners. The project was in the last phase, the building phase of a large business park.”

  She rubbed her hands over her face. “I was overworked and getting by on about five hours of sleep a night, but I was having the time of my life. I was trying to learn as much as I could. I was already working toward my next goal. Eventually, I wanted to head my own projects, and I wanted a partnership with the firm.”

  Lucian turned sideways and pulled Jessica firmly in front of him. She snuggled against his broad chest. He wrapped his arms around her. “I bet you were great at your job.”

  “I don’t know about that. I wasn’t really there long enough to move out of the gopher phase.” She pressed into the solid comfort of Lucian’s body. Her memories were coming hard and fast now. She tried to find words, but nothing came. A shudder ripped through her body.

  Lucian lifted her hair and placed a light kiss right where neck and shoulder meet. “We’ve got all night. Take as much time as you need.”

  Jessica took a deep breath and then another. Lucian surrounded her with warmth and light that helped her fight the fear and darkness that bubbled inside. She hadn’t talked about her ordeal since the trial ended months ago.

  It was festering inside her, and she had to get it out. She needed to talk to someone about what happened to her, instead of being grilled for information. Even though she just met him, her intuition told her that Lucian was important to her. Deep down she knew she could trust him.

  “About three months into the job, I was working late as usual. I noticed that the head architect forgot a set of blueprints that were due to the general contractor first thing in the morning.” She let out a bitter laugh. “Silly me, I just couldn’t help myself. Instead of calling it a night and going home as I should have done, I drove out to the construction site for the business park.”

  She gave a delicate little shrug that belied the inner turmoil of her emotions. “I thought I was so smart. I thought I could just slip into the trailer the contractor used as an office and leave the blueprints. We had a key at the firm,” she explained. “It was supposed to be a quick in and out. I had it all figured out.”

  Jessica shivered from head to toe, but she continued. “I got a bad feeling as soon as I drove into the gravel parking lot. Ambition outweighed common sense, and I got out anyway. At first, I thought the place was deserted. My car was the only one in the lot.”

  She shuddered and grabbed Lucian’s hand for extra support. “But when I started paying attention to my surroundings, I heard the low rumble of machinery. That’s when I realized I wasn’t alone. At first, I thought it might be someone testing or repairing a piece of equipment in preparation for the next day of work. This contractor had an excellent reputation for finishing on time, you see.”

  Lucian leaned over, picked up the glass of rum and soda, and placed it in front of her. “Here take a sip of this. I think it’ll calm your nerves.”

  Jessica cradled the glass in her hand before taking a sip. “Thanks for that.” She handed the glass back to him.

  “I picked my way through the site. I still had every intention of dropping off the blueprints and leaving before anyone saw me. Fate had other plans, however. The glint of metal under the lights caught my attention.”

  She turned into Lucian and rested her head against his chest. The firm, steady beat of his heart beneath her ear was more comforting than all the rum in the world.

  “A man screamed, and I heard a loud popping sound! I immediately knew it was gunfire and slipped behind a stack of construction materials. There was another scream and another bang, and then another. I peeked around my hiding place. I saw a well-dressed man I didn’t recognize, the owner of the construction company, the general contractor, and a couple of well-muscled men. The men with all the muscles were the ones holding the guns, hired thugs I guessed. I saw them roll the three men that were shot into a pit. Then someone tilted the drum of a cement mixer, and covered the bodies with wet cement.”

  She took a deep breath. “I was so scared. I knew if they saw me I was dead too. I waited a few seconds. The suits went into the contractor’s office, and the thugs stayed with the cement mixer. Their backs were to me, so I made a run for my car. I jog a lot, so it only took me a minute or two to reach the saf
ety of my car. After that, I didn’t care if they knew I was there or not. I started the engine and raced out of that parking lot. Gravel flew out behind my vehicle, but I didn’t care. I had to get out of there. I kept glancing in my rearview mirror expecting to see headlights coming up behind me, but there was nothing. I think the cement mixer must have drowned out the sound of my car.”

  ****

  “Thank the gods for that,” Lucian whispered into her ear. He had almost seen it all in his lifetime, and he fought too many battles to count. But this was the first time he ever felt helpless. Knowing that the flame of the woman he now held in his arms could have been cruelly and carelessly extinguished without them ever having met was enough to bring him to his knees if he’d been standing.

  “So you’re running from these murderers?”

  “Something like that,” she agreed. “It’s a little more complicated. “I joined traffic on the highway and thought about going back home. In the end, I didn’t dare in case they followed me after all. I really wanted someone to talk to, but I didn’t know who I could trust at work, and I didn’t want to endanger any of my friends.”

  “What about your family?” Lucian asked this question hoping for some insight on whether she could be Brianna’s long lost great niece.

  Jessica shrugged. “I don’t have any family, at least none that I’m aware of.” She sniffed, and a lone tear fell onto Lucian’s shirt. “When I was little, I used to dream I had a family out there waiting for me, but that was a long time ago.”

  Lucian wanted to tell her about Brianna and Brittany but didn’t dare. First of all, he didn’t have proof. He didn’t believe in raising false hopes. Jessica had been through enough. Secondly, no matter how much he wanted to be the one to share the good news, it should be Brianna who got the honor.

  “What happened to your family?” He rubbed comforting circles on her back and waited for her answer. She stiffened against him but didn’t move away. Several minutes ticked by. Lucian continued to hold her and waited. He hated waiting, but really what else could he do.

  Finally, Jessica cleared her throat. “I don’t know. I was found in the desert near Sedona, Arizona. My parents couldn’t be located, and no one came forward to claim me. I was put in the foster care system. The couple that found me petitioned the state and later adopted me. They were killed in a house fire when I was eight. I was put back in the system. No one wanted me on a permanent basis.”

  She sniffed again. “I excelled at school even with the moving and the turmoil. I decided early on that I wanted to be an architect. I set my sites on the University of Texas. I worked my butt off to earn a scholarship because I knew I couldn’t afford the out of state tuition. I succeeded and left Arizona without a backward glance.”

  Several witches lived in and around Sedona. It could be a coincidence, but Lucian didn’t really believe in those. He was pretty sure Brianna was going to get a match when the DNA results came back. “I’m sorry your childhood was so traumatic.”

  “Me too, but so far my childhood was a piece of cake compared to the reality of my adulthood.” She leaned up and jutted out her chin in a determined angle. “I don’t want you to think I’m a coward, Luc.”

  He squeezed her tight, and for the first time, he brushed his lips across the luscious, pink, petal soft lips of the woman in his lap. She tasted like strawberries sprinkled with the tart sweetness of magic. He wanted to deepen the kiss but reluctantly pulled away. “I’d never consider you to be anything but a fiery redheaded enchantress. Now tell me the rest.”

  Jessica entwined her fingers in the hem of his T-shirt. “I thought about pretending I was never there for just a second. I couldn’t do it. Instead of going home, I drove to the closest police station. I demanded to see whoever was in charge.”

  She sucked in a gulp of air. “Luckily for me, I got a captain who wasn’t in the pocket of the invading drug cartel or local drug dealers. He took several men to the construction site, and they found the bodies exactly where I said they would be. They swept me away to a safe house under protective custody. Then they arrested the owner of the construction company and the general contractor.”

  She shook her head. “Faced with a detailed description of how the murders occurred and the existence of an eyewitness, they made a deal with prosecutors. The two men in custody agreed to testify against the leader of a drug cartel who was trying to establish itself on this side of the border.”

  She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself as if to ward off the cold. “Law enforcement set up a sting operation and caught the leader of the cartel. He had dual citizenship and was able to slip across the border anytime he wanted. The prosecutors wanted a slam-dunk. Even though they made a deal with both the construction company owner and the contractor, they insisted that I testify too.”

  She gave him a weak smile. “I received several death threats, so the Houston Police Department kept me in protective custody. My townhouse was vandalized and later set on fire. I knew the drug lord meant business, and so did the police. They contacted the Federal Witness Protection Program. Someone in the program created a new identity and life for me.”

  She looked at him again, but this time she didn’t smile. “They moved me to Kansas. I couldn’t be an architect anymore. That hurt more than anything else did. The program set me up as the manager of a large art and craft store. I lived that life for about three months.”

  She shuddered. “And hated every second of it.”

  His heart ached for her. His bloodthirsty cat, though, it howled for revenge. He held her tighter in an attempt to appease the restless feline.

  “I got a strange feeling. I knew something bad was going to happen. My intuition’s always been spot on,” she admitted.

  Lucian didn’t doubt it. He could feel the magic in her. She might know it was there, but he certainly did.

  “I started making plans. A week later, someone broke into my house with bullets flying. I ducked just in time and barely missed taking a direct hit to the head. Only a trained killer could have made that shot”.

  “How’d you get away?”

  “I slipped out a back window, climbed a fence, and crossed over a couple of my neighbors’ backyards. The only thing I had time to grab was my backpack. It had all the cash I managed to save, my real identification, and an extra change of clothes. I ran five miles to the bus station. I bought a ticket for the next bus out of town, and I rode all over the country until I found myself here in Enigma. Something about this town called to me. I got off the bus, and I’m still here, at least for now.”

  More and likely it was someone, not something. Most witches could sense other witches. Lucian was willing to bet that what she felt was a familial connection to Brianna and Brittany. The magic inside her recognized home and family even if she didn’t. “You’re safe here, Jessica. You have to believe that. You don’t need to run anymore.”

  “I want to believe you, Luc. I really do, but how can small-town law enforcement keep me safe when the United States government couldn’t?”

  He could answer that, but he knew she wasn’t ready to hear what he had to say. “I can give you another reason to stay.”

  FOUR

  Jessica’s gut clenched in answer to that statement. She knew what he meant. It seemed they’d been building toward this all night. She moved so that her knees were on either side of his hips. She wrapped her arms around his neck and slowly lowered her lips to his.

  “I need this. I want you,” Jessica whispered. She slid her hands under his T-shirt and lightly ran them over his chest.

  “I need you too,” Lucian promised. He nibbled on her earlobe. Jessica sighed. One more nibble, then he ran the tip of his tongue along the shell and outer rim of her ear.

  Jessica could hear and feel his hot breath. She never thought of her ear as being an erogenous zone, but she tensed, and a sudden shudder ripped through her upper body. Jessica arched her back and moved away. “I want to see you,” she grabbed the
hem of his T-shirt and yanked it over his head.

  It seemed to be all the encouragement Lucian needed. He turned her so that she was cradled in his arms and stood in one swift movement. He walked them to the small bedroom so fast, he was almost running.

  Jessica didn’t dare tell him to slow down.

  He sat her on the edge of the bed, and clothes starting flying, his and hers.

  Jessica didn’t have pesky hiking boots to deal with and was done first. She flung back the covers and crawled into the center of the bed. She wasn’t usually so brazen, but tonight was about new things, and she wanted Lucian far too much to act or feel like a prude. She leaned back on her elbows, which thrust her breasts forward. And she parted her legs to offer Lucian a good look at she offered him for the night.

  When Lucian was naked, he joined her on the bed. “Beautiful,” was all he managed to get out between his clenched teeth. “I’m trying not to pounce, but I think it’s a lost cause.”

  Her feminine core clenched with need. “Pounce!” she hissed out.

  He straddled her knees and stared down at her body. He circled her nipples and the outline of her breasts with shaking fingers.

  She arched her back, pushing against his hands. “More,” she begged in a hoarse voice she didn’t recognize.

  He lowered his head and flicked his tongue in and out of her belly button a few times. He slowly lifted his head and kissed the inside of both her parted thighs. She shivered, and her muscles tightened even though he didn’t touch her main erogenous zones. He knew exactly how to tease her into a wanton frenzy.

  Jessica’s whole body was taut with anticipation. She bucked her hips, urging him to take her. She was close to release, but every time he got near where she wanted him to touch the most, he backed off. She thrashed her head from side to side. Her fingers clenched the cotton sheets.