Tate took his time, then shrugged and returned to Otto.
“It’s just a good-bye,” Blake said. “I might be able to make your relationship with her a little easier, if you’ll give us a private moment. Three minutes, alone and behind a closed door.”
Otto scowled at Blake, then took his own tour of the office. He searched the drawers, under the desk, and ran his hand against the walls. Then he waved the bodyguards toward the door.
“You have one minute. And it began thirty seconds ago.” Otto and the other two men stepped just outside the door and closed it behind them.
I rushed toward Blake for what I thought might be our final embrace, at least for a long while. “Blake—”
Blake laid a finger across his lips, grabbed my hand, and we scrambled to the rear of his office. The door in the back right corner of the room was unobtrusive to the eye, hidden behind the full and gathered end piece of tapestry window coverings, as if it didn’t exist.
There was no doorknob. Only a button on Blake’s key fob that released the latch and popped the door open. We had to turn sideways and duck to fit through the narrow corner opening and into the hidden hallway. Blake reached through the opening, fluffed the thick curtains behind us to hide the door again, then quickly punched a code on the noiseless, digital keypad on the interior wall. The door sealed again.
We took a collective breath in the solid quiet.
“Shoes off,” Blake mouthed and pointed to my feet.
I put my hand through the shoe straps, left them dangling around my wrist, and we tiptoed to the end of the hallway to another door. Like something out of a movie, Blake tapped a code on the soundless keypad then placed his hand on the scanner.
A neon green light slid across the screen from left to right. The door popped open to a spiral staircase that showed as a recent addition to the building. While the interior walls were ancient, exposed brick, the staircase was made from shiny, black iron. New iron. No dust in sight. The stair steps were padded with linoleum, which kept our presence secret. It also kept me from slipping, for which I was grateful. Nerves made me rattle from bone to skin.
Blake texted nonstop while we descended floor after floor, winding in a dizzying circle. We reached the bottom and he sent another text while we held up just inside of a vaulted door. He tapped a code to the keypad, and the door popped ajar.
“Jump in!” He said and we ran at a breakneck pace toward a moving limo.
Tires screeched from another level in the parking lot and I forced myself not to look in its direction.
Chapter 15
Streetlights that shone through the car’s filtered glass windows dimmed when we passed through the double gated entryway. We drove several levels down, and finally stopped in an ill-lighted corner at the back left of the garage.
Blake had called Anya to warn her, then he’d called William to let him know that Otto tried to kill him and kidnap me. William said we should go to Blake’s, since his apartment had the most security. Then he said he would send agents to stand guard outside until we had our next move organized.
Blake took a paranoiac glance out all of the windows of the car before opening the door. “Let’s get inside.”
He checked the camera perched inconspicuously in the eaves. I crawled out of the limo, trying to do so elegantly. But for as much as the scotch had quelled my nerves, it also made me feel like an elephant crawling out of a clown car.
Two men in black FBI jackets stood on either side of a low-profile black door. They met us halfway when we approached and escorted us to the door. The keypad next to the external door required a five-digit code and a handprint scan for entry.
“Does every resident have to give a handprint scan to get into their home?” I asked.
“Only if you’re using this door, which would mean you were trying to get to my apartment,” Blake answered.
He placed his hand on the scanner. As before at the gallery, a green light scanned his palm and a latch released. He searched the area one last time and then opened the door, shutting it promptly behind us.
A silver elevator stood open on the right of the short hallway. Once inside, Blake entered another code, then placed his thumb on the scanner until a signal beeped from the device. There was but one button on the panel: PH. And it illuminated immediately after the tone.
“Security’s a little light in the elevator don’t you think? I mean, only a thumb? Not a full hand or an eyeball?” I joked inappropriately as the elevator started to rise. As a general rule, nerves either rendered me teary, silent or infected me with foot-in-mouth disease.
“No,” Blake said. “I don’t.” He let out a deep exhale, the first time I’d really seen him breathe since just before Otto appeared at the gallery. Silence weighed heavily in the tiny elevator. It pounded at my eardrums and I felt that Blake was using the quiet ride to lower his heart rate.
“Was this security here when you bought your apartment?”
“Mostly.” Blake took his eyes away from the rising numbers on the illuminated display and glared at me. When I saw the emotion in his eyes, my stomach dropped back to the bottom floor.
“Don’t ever hand yourself over to Otto like that,” Blake said, his voice hemmed in anger.
I wriggled my hand loose from his for the first time since we left the gallery and crossed my arms protectively in front of me. I had never been on the receiving end of his anger before, and it was vicious. “You were about to be killed—”
“He would have backed down,” he said and bobbed his head with unspoken arrogance.
I scoffed and turned a circle in the tiny silver box that still lifted us to the top.
“Otto was in control in that moment, he had us outplayed—”
“I had him outplayed.” Blake’s features turned hard.
“Yes, in the end. But not without my willingness to sacrifice my life for you.” I said. “Without that you wouldn’t have had a move.”
Blake’s blue eyes glowed with a searing heat. “Did you offer yourself to Otto because you believed he could help you with your father and grandfather?”
My heart tap-danced hard against my rib cage. “I didn’t offer myself to him. I did what I thought I needed to do to save you from being shot.”
When the elevator door opened, I was grateful to walk away. I stood in a service hallway with a nondescript door on the right, and another at the end. Both had a keypad and a scanner. Blake passed me then stopped at the closest door, punched a seven-digit code, then placed his chin in the groove for the eyeball scan.
The handleless door released and we stepped inside. I threw my purse on the kitchen counter and it landed with a heavy thud. I shoved the swinging door and entered the main salon with its light cream walls, large, carved mantel, and rich, upholstered seating. Glints of gold could be found at every turn.
“You have a funny way of showing gratitude when someone helps you,” I said to Blake’s back when he stormed past me. Anger lifted off his body and pricked at the sensitive places in my heart.
He paused against the windowed wall, the last of the evening light poured in behind him from along the loggia. I was struck by the resemblance between him and Jack. Not their appearance—eyes excluded. Their pose. Their energy. He was nearly the exact replica of the man who had made regular, life-long visits to my dreams.
Memories of the past life we shared together were as present between us as they’d ever been. Despite time, that hidden consciousness had never left, binding us in the love and the pain they were born from.
Frustration pushed his chest up and down more rapidly than normal, its outline exaggerated in the edge of the light.
“I did the only thing I could to protect you,” I said. “And I’d do it again.”
Blake walked toward me, slow and fierce. He drew me close in an instant. So close against him I thought he might meld us together through sheer force. My mind pushed against the rage of his fury, but my body traitorously craved to be claimed by
him, to declare a boundary around us and a bond between us that couldn’t be broken, no matter the opponent.
“Don’t ever…hand yourself over to Otto.” He forced his mouth to mine, kissed me hard to make his point clear. I gasped and pushed away, my own fury matching what shone in his eyes. Then I kissed him with the same passion.
“I would if it meant saving your life,” I said, my arms and legs wrapping fast around him in response. He was half-possessed, and I tasted blood on my lip—mine or his, I wasn’t sure.
We fought and fumbled with the constraints of our clothing. Fabric ripped against my thigh. He pressed hard, the weight of him carrying the same familiarity from his body that I’d come to know of him. But his fiery demand was new, near violent, and matched my own need to make him mine. I raised my hips to him with invitation and need but he hesitated, waited until my eyes met the conquering depths of his own.
“You’re mine, Sassy,” he said. He joined us together to the hilt in one powerful thrust, taking my breath with him as he moved. He stilled and exhaled, my wrists fragile in his outstretched grasp.
I struggled with the strength of his hold, arched to bring him closer until there was no space left between us. Nothing but the fever and the love that had begun in the time of its own. Its possessiveness ruled our hearts and bodies, and left us only with the unending need for each other.
We couldn’t have been any closer, the lengths of our bodies pressed and tangled, joined in intimate wrath. Still, I needed him closer, unable to satisfy the craving and the desire for him. I pushed against his shackling grip for leverage, and curved into the deep rhythmic stroke of his flesh inside of mine.
The repeated impact of his body into my own ignited a spark, like a call to the pitch of my soul that left my body no choice but to answer him. My muscles tensed with a cry when a dizzying blaze of pleasure rocked along every nerve of my body. Blake’s movement shuddered with me into the fade of sweet release. The earlier ferocity of our demand lost in our togetherness.
“Nothing can happen to you,” he said, his hand caressing the outline of my face. Something danced behind the crystal blue of his eyes in a way that mimicked the fear I’d occasionally seen in Jack’s eyes. In a way that ran furious beneath his composed surface and made me wonder at its source. If it was the reason he’d come back for me in this life, maybe this was the reason I felt too frightened to lose him as well.
“Never let me go, Blake.” I curled and buried myself into him, and the sweet vineyard scent of his skin deepened itself into a far-seated layer of my being.
I awoke to the sound of Blake’s heart beneath my ear, fluid and powerful. Perhaps it was the strongest part of him, when I considered just how indescribably much this man loved me. His arms wrapped tightly around me, his hips stirred beneath my thigh, and I decided his heart might be in a tie with another part of him, instead.
He opened his eyes as I raised my head.
“Come on, my sweet Sassy,” he said and lifted us from the couch.
We stood half-naked in the middle of his salon. He gently unfastened the last two pieces of clothing askew on my body, my silk blouse and bra, and sent them meandering to the floor.
“This way,” he said, and held my hand in his.
I bit my lower lip at the sight of his perfectly beautiful backside parading ahead of me. “Where are we going?”
He tossed a thick robe to me from a bench in the loggia and placed his hand on a door that led to the rooftop deck. His cockeyed smile tempted me to follow.
“There’s snow on the ground,” I said.
“The water will warm you.” Blake guided us out through glass-paned doors, where the air was cold but tranquil. He dropped his robe and lowered himself into a large, square hot tub, separate from the frame of the pool. He sighed and coasted back a few feet between us. His eyes drifted down my body when I descended the steps.
“I added it when I bought the apartment.” He put his hand out when I took the last step, the bubbling water currents gliding between us. I wrapped my body around his and we floated together, an entire unspoken conversation, rich with hard-won intimacy, streaming between us.
True to his promise, the water warmed my skin, and comforted me enough to tear at any remnants of fear that clung to me from the events of the day. Memories of Otto and his band of thugs dropped from my mind and splashed into the shallow water. Knowing I was behind the presence of the FBI and so many different security systems left me feeling safe for the moment. Though, like a teenager who escaped parental view, I knew my haven had an expiration date.
Because we still needed a plan. Blake had no interest in supporting mine, which was a problem because I believed that Otto knew where my father and grandfather were, and how to get them back. I didn’t have any proof—just the reading I’d done, and my gut. Which was rarely wrong.
“The idea of losing you, of losing us, drives me to the brink,” he said. He stroked the length of my hair. His voice was tender, but weary.
I rubbed my hands along his neck and broad shoulders, and his muscles relaxed.
“I only agreed to go with Otto because I thought if I didn’t he would kill you. I mean, I’ve never seen you shoot before, but…it was two guns against one.” I laughed a little in spite of myself.
Blake finally gave in to a reluctant laugh and a wink of agreement. “Though Otto wouldn’t have allowed himself to be shot. He wouldn’t take that risk. Too much pride.”
The sacred femininity of the full moon bathed our bare skin and silence fell between us. For a moment, or maybe longer. “Maybe. But as it ended I’d say we’re better as a team than we are on our own.”
“Agreed,” he finally said, and gathered me close.
The muscled warmth of his body called to mine and felt like the joy of dreams come true. I tilted my head and gazed at the star-scattered sky. All the while, Blake, my anchor in a world of fear and chaos, held tight.
The expression on Otto’s face when he sat across from us in Blake’s office reappeared. Confident, cocky, calculating.
“I don’t think anything will stop him from hunting me down,” I said.
“You’re probably right. He’s always been that way with Carolena. He’d do anything to get his hands on her.”
“Then I think we need to find a way to stop him.”
Blake cocked an eyebrow at me in warning. “Not by working with him.”
I opened my mouth to respond. Blake’s tongue caressed the places on my neck that I was sure were marked by his teeth. I lost track of my thought.
“We’re safe here, for a while,” he said. His lips dragged honey-slow to a new place on my neck. “We’ll plan our escape tomorrow. Now and what’s next belongs to us, not him.”
“Okay,” I said. My mind followed the dance his tongue twisted along my skin.
Blake picked up a remote and dimmed the wall lamps until they blended into the freshly inked shadows. The sun set too early these days, yet another sign that summer had traveled elsewhere. The full moon cast its dreamlike glow, lassoed me in a way that left me feeling connected to the world around us. I was alone in the dark with Blake, the man my soul loved with all that it had. We were away from predators and loved ones alike, and with Blake beside me, I felt complete. Settled. My secret searching had ceased, and life had begun.
My nipples strained hard against his bare chest, and I ached, still, to simply join with him in the way that would bring our souls closer together once more. Blake forced my hips closer to his, the length of him pressed against my abdomen and I knew he felt the same way.
He moved me against the higher wall with the arced fountain, and the water gently splashed over and around us like a secret cloak that shielded us from the outside world. One arm unyielding around my waist, the other against the wall, Blake angled my hips and groaned when he glided inside, his pace and his touch decidedly more gentle than before. The fierceness was still there, the part of him who would fight to the death to keep me safe from harm,
and especially from Otto. Though only in the ways that he felt best. He would never change his mind about that.
My hands searched along the lines and curves of his body for an answer to erase the differences that stood between us. Water sloshed against the tiled sides in dulcet waves when he thrust beneath me, slow, deliberate. As was his search for connection. Our eyes locked—he probed for reassurance, to know that I was onboard with his direction. He would have it no other way.
He spun us around until I straddled him. I moaned as he pressed me onto him, sped our tempo with his hands on my hips, and drove himself deeper inside. His movements were strong and solid, and the center of my attention in the midst of the threats of our world until a surge swelled from the depths of our togetherness. The roughness of his sandpaper cheek brushed against my skin, his breath melodically faster until he rocked my hips against him in a final crash that sent us both gasping for air.
We clung tightly to one another in those final sweet moments, my forehead resting against his. His lips unfolded into a grin when I tightened myself around him, then I dove into the depths of his eyes, which I’d known for longer than I could remember. And loved him.
“I’ve never stopped loving you,” I said breathlessly. “Not even when I couldn’t remember you, the love was still there.”
“Past life hangover,” he said with a widening smile. “They’re impossible to cure.”
“Thank God,” I said just before he pressed his lips slowly to mine in a kiss that was suitable to the promise of forever.
Chapter 16
Both of us clothed in one of Blake’s thick, white robes, we laid on the couch, surrounded by the warm flicker of candlelight. We curled into each other and sipped brandy—cognac that had been aging longer than I had.
I stared at the door off to the left end of the room, felt the pulse that emanated from that room, the place in his home where Blake had obviously spent most of his time. My hand traveled along the woven grooves of the upholstery and checked to see if Blake had placed a sealant on these furnishings as well.
Somewhere in Time Page 8
