by Marata Eros
“Uh-huh. Where? Did he say?”
Juliette smirks. “So patient.” Her face goes pensive for a moment, and she rolls her lower lip between her teeth. “Somewhere in the middle eastern part of the state.” She lifts one shoulder.
Thorn grabs her shoulders, and she gasps. He hugs her as tightly as someone can hug a nine-months-pregnant woman.
“Thorn!” She laughs, and her sudden joy breaks the solemn revelations.
“Thank you,” he says fiercely against her temple.
“Don't thank me yet. Shepard is dangerous. He will not respond well to a welcoming committee.”
He pulls away, looking down into the face of the woman he loves. One he'd give his life for. Has. “Oh”—his mouth quirks—“Thorn doesn't think there's going to be any welcoming where Shepard is involved.”
Juliette's tense expression tells Thorn that was exactly what she was afraid of.
*
Shepard
I stroke the long blond hair away from her flushed cheeks.
Mine.
The word springs unbidden inside my thick skull, and no matter how much I attempt to beat the unbidden ownership into submission, it whispers the truth of my growing attachment.
Our new hotel is in Wyoming. I am so close to the cabin located in Spearfish Canyon, I can taste the fragrance of pine trees.
My fingers trail a path from Marissa's shoulder to the valley where her hip swells. I cross the geography of her belly, teasing the tip of my finger inside the divot of the button.
The finger I use flows downward, and her smoky eyes open, a smile lighting on her features.
The lazy happiness she receives from the touch causes my chest to swell with an emotion I did not think I was capable of. Love?
Non. Surely it is too soon for that. Besides, Marissa and I share too many awful circumstances to complement each other.
She captures my finger just as I begin to pierce her entrance.
“Non?” My eyebrows rise.
She shakes her head. “If I make love to you one more time, I think my lady bits will tumble off.”
I grin. Her American slang is quite endearing. Fresh. Like her. My smile fades like a dying bloom.
“And where will they go?” I ask, bending over her.
“Somewhere,” she breathes, and I capture her lower lip in my own, sucking at the honey of her mouth.
“Shepard.” Her palms flatten against my chest, and I take her hands in one of mine and pin them above her body. Her eyes wide, she spreads her legs, and I seat my cock between them.
I feel her wetness with the tip of my dick. “You are ready. Again.”
She nods but bites the lip I was just kissing. “I'm sore.”
“You are wet—wet for me—ready. Non?”
Marissa smiles, and the expression seizes me in place. I do not rock forward into her warmth but freeze, waiting like a dog for her command. Wondering how it came to this.
She giggles, and still I wait. She is brevity while I am solemn. Ying and yang.
“Go slow.”
Merci Dieu.
Though I have never believed in God, I thank him now.
Inch by painful inch, I restrain myself inside her tightness, one made even tighter by the orgasm my tongue gave her pussy moments before. Finally, through sheer willpower, I finally come to the end of her, my one hand still wrapped around the wrists of both of hers.
I throb for release. Still, unmoving.
She hugs me inside her body, and I feel as if I have returned home. I press my forehead against hers and utter vulnerable words. “Do not leave me.”
Tears run sideways from the corners of her eyes as she looks deeply into mine. Her sadness dampens my biceps. Her smile is tremulous. “Never.”
I move then.
Deep, powerful, slow thrusts, meant to connect us, marry our bodies. I have always fucked before Marissa.
Now, I am free to make love. It is new, and I fear the novelty will not wear off—that it might prove to be something more powerful. Too powerful to bear, to hold on to.
“Look at me, Shepard.” She tries to squirm out of my hold.
I tighten my grip. I do not want to look into those eyes. The eyes that make me fall deeper with each glance. Each gaze.
Each moment.
“Please.” Her voice is a raw hush of breath.
And I look. Drown.
“Fuck me,” she says, forgetting her soreness.
I do not forget.
I shake my head, and for the first time, I feel tears threaten to fall. Instead of crying, I make love to her.
Marissa will not be fucked but be loved by my body. It's what I can do. I press deep, withdraw. Her fingers flex within the hold of my hand.
“Yes,” she says, arching into my chest.
I let go, my hands traveling to the small of her back. I lift her, and her legs wrap my torso, my cock embedded deep.
Our eyes are inches away from each other. The contact is more intimate than any I've ever had with another human being.
Even with my former wife, Juliette.
My hands palm her hips, and I lift her off. Slam her down, impaling her again, and she groans, her head thrown back. One finger moves between our bodies, and I find her clit, rubbing the erect greedy nub.
“Shepard,” Marissa moans, gripping my shoulders.
I pump my hips up, driving myself inside her in a controlled thrust at the same time I feel her pussy walls cinch around me.
I grit my teeth.
“I cannot. You undo me.” My release slams out, causing my vision to blacken at the edges, pleasure swamping my body as I grow minutely harder, pouring myself into her.
“Me, either,” she whispers, and then she's coming around me.
Our bodies pulse in synchronicity. Locked together, I wrap my larger body around her, still releasing inside this woman I sink into—body and soul.
After a few minutes, I say, “I believe I make sperm only for you.” My lips twitch.
She laughs, and I must admit, I adore the way her eyes twinkle when she looks at me.
“I think you'd make it, anyway.” A cloud passes over her face. “I'm not on birth control. No reason to be.”
Her eyes pass over mine then away.
I press a finger to her chin and force her to look at me. Slowly I extract my spent cock from her. “I do not have sex with a condom.”
“Oh my God.” Shock trenches her face. She moves to sit up, away from me, and she winces as her tender parts touch the sheet.
I grab her around the waist and haul her close to my body.
“Let me go!”
“Non.”
“French fucker!” she screams.
I wince from the loudness of her voice but hang on.
She bites me.
The urge to react in violence is a default I resist.
I can abide pain.
Her teeth release the flesh of my arm as warm blood cascades from the new wound.
“My name is Léo Dubois,” I say quietly, not bothering to stop the flow of blood.
I remove my hands from her.
Marissa bounces up, whirls, looks at what she did to my arm, and her face crumples. “I'm sorry, Shepard.” Her eyes flick to my face. “I mean—Léo.”
I incline my head, ignoring the apology. “I am clean. You do not have to worry.”
Her eyes flick to the bite again. “I don't want to be pregnant with your child.”
The air punches out of my lungs. I don't show the hurt. Not a flicker of emotion. No one will ever hold my emotions over me again. Raw pain makes my smile instant, false and harsh. A baring of teeth. “You want to have the child of another?”
Tears roll out of her eyes, and I think I've caused more tears from women than any other man ever born.
It is not something I am proud of. I stand.
Marissa's palms fly up in front of her. “I don't want someone else's baby, Shepard.”
I take a cautious step fo
rward, and she meets me.
The bite throbs with the beats of my heart. I take her in my arms.
Marissa sobs, but her words are clear and mean more to me than anything ever could. “I don't ever want a kid.”
I tighten my hold.
“Because kids get taken, Shepard.”
She is correct.
I tip her face up, meeting her eyes. “Not our child.”
Marissa's lip trembles. “I'm so afraid.”
I nod. I am too. However, fear will never rule me again.
Léo Dubois has not been careless in many years. Lovemaking without precaution is careless.
Unless one wishes for the result from his actions.
FIFTEEN
Thorn
Tag's finger runs over the map of a state I've never been to before. Not much happening in the Midwest. At least, I never thought so.
Shepard's happening.
Hopefully. If what Juliette told me is real, then the South Dakota cabin seems the most likely hiding spot.
“I'm thinking here,” Tag says, stabbing his finger at the Black Hills National Forest area that darkens that part of the map forest green.
“That's a big fucking area, Tag.” Thorn gazes at the sheer square footage.
“Yeah,” he agrees quietly, “needle in a haystack, definitely. But—it's logical. Juliette said central eastern. That's here.” His finger taps the area again, little upside down Vs springing up within the green.
Hills. Topography that's most likely rugged. Thorn's not an outdoorsy guy. He's a street-smart guy. He played with the wild animals in Yesler. Not the hills of South Dakota. Damn.
“You can come along, Thorn—you know it. But you don't have the same privileges anymore. You can't gun down fucking Shepard.”
Damn—again. Tag knows me too well.
“See”—he points a finger at me, studying my expressions—“told ya.”
Thorn plants his feet apart, crossing his arms and gripping his elbows. “I could nail him if I was in defense of my life.”
Tag spreads his hands away from the sides of his body. “Slippery slope, my man.”
Yeah.
A beat of time drums between us. “ʼKay, you've been cleared, and we're flying in. But it won't be easy to spot him. Maybe we'll get lucky and he'll be sloppy.” Tag pauses for a couple of seconds. “He's got an accent, right?”
Thorn remembers his manner, his accent. “He speaks English flawlessly, but he has the city-boy accent. Along with a taste for pricey duds.”
Tag smirks. “Can't blame him there. City boy, huh?”
Thorn scowls. He isn't feeling the humor. “This guy was married to Juliette. He farmed her ass out. He was the worst kind of trafficker. He made a woman he swore to protect his personal whore—and everyone else's who qualified. I want him caught, Tag.”
Tag gives him serious eyes, his laughter gone. “Dead—or caught?”
“Either—both,” Thorn replies, walking away toward the waiting plane. Mick, his rich-ass billionaire friend, has arranged private transport. And a bodyguard.
Thorn said no to the bodyguard.
Can't protect someone with a death wish.
*
Marissa
I told Shepard the truth. I am scared.
Scared of him. Of loving him in less than a week. He's all wrong for me. A man with a past that’s scarred.
Like the flesh of his body.
I clench my eyes shut. What have I become? In only a handful of days, I've lost sight of my goals and trusted a man who has committed horrible acts.
But... he's been honest only since the moment I met him. Who can I say that about?
No one.
I guess I always knew. That's why I said yes to giving him my virginity.
The one thing I kept for myself through the awful years in the orphanage. I shudder.
I can't say the same about sodomy. I was the victim of that—as was Shepard or Léo—from the sounds of it.
I'm not ready to hear all that he went through, not yet. Maybe when we can be somewhere safe, then I can listen.
Relive my own terror.
“Ma chérie?” he asks from behind me, and I jump. My hand flies to my chest.
“You startled me.”
Shepard only smiles.
“I can't think of you as Léo.”
“No one has called me that name since I was a boy.” He carefully folds our clothes inside the small suitcase with tiny wheels. I stare at the scars running over the smooth muscles of his back.
“No one?”
His dark eyes lift from his task. “Not even the one to whom I was married.”
“You were married?” I ask. He turns to face me, and the wounds of his past mimic the ones on his back.
His eyes move back to what he'd been doing, and he answers the open suitcase, “Yes. But no more. I have set her free.”
I slowly lower myself to the bed. “What do you mean, ʻfreeʼ?”
Shepard sighs, fisting his hands. He punches the soft contents once, his jaw hard. “Do you wish to know all of what occurred to make me who I am, Marissa? Because the time grows as thin as my patience.”
I shake my head. We will talk. “I want answers when we get to the cabin.”
He closes the suitcases, the latches loud in the grave silence I started with my questions. “And you shall have them.” He tosses on a clean shirt of deep green, taking his time with the buttons.
When he is through, Shepard holds out his hand, and I stand. Go to him.
“Come.”
I slip my palm inside his, and we move out of the last hotel. Toward the cabin in Spearfish Canyon. A place I've never been.
Home for now.
*
“I can't just not show for work.” I cross my arms.
Shepard shifts the car into reverse and deftly backs out of the parking lot of the hotel.
His hands are strong and supple as he spins the wheel of the sports car. “Where do you work?” His eyes flick to mine, and a trick of the morning light colors them whiskey.
He's so beautiful it causes me a sort of physical pain. So I gaze out the window instead. Wyoming is in the rearview mirror, but low valleys and rolling mountains flank us as we merge onto I-90 once again.
“I work at a restaurant downtown.”
“Seattle?” I hear the question within his exotic voice, and it strums the strings of my libido. I clench my thighs together, and that sore part of me throbs for more of what Shepard gives. God.
“Yes,” I reply to the view through the glass, sighing. “I have a great boss. He's put me in for a transfer to the French store. I just have to be fluent in French.” I give a soft, sad laugh.
“You are not?” he asks in French.
“Fluent enough, but it's not that easy—I have to pass a specific test of their making,” I reply, also in French. “But I don't know if I can do it,” I add in English.
“I can take you to France.”
I swear I hear wistfulness and turn to study him.
I nod. Sure. “With what assurances?” I watch his minutest expression. “I have three years left on my French degree, which would have automatically made me eligible for the transfer. I have a job that I love—albeit it hardly covers the bills. My other grandmother was from France.” I don't do the sign of the cross at the mention of her name, but it's hard not to. Once a Catholic...
“So you have familial history, oui?”
I nod, biting my lip against the emotions so bottled up inside me. I can't give all that up when I'm running with a criminal who is an admitted trafficker of underage girls.
What was I thinking?
Oh yeah—not thinking. Just me and my vagina taking turns fucking my life over.
And the French mob up my ass.
Gah. “Yes. My grand-mère was French. I guess”—I place my hand over my heart—“I always felt like I belonged there.”
The edges of his lips lift in the ghost of a smile. “You do
not like America?”
I shake my head and realize his eyes are on the road. “No,” I reply quietly and pull a stray indigo thread off my pants. “It's such a competitive nation, full of haters and negativity... I don't know. I feel like a gentler place might make me feel more alive.”
His chuckle is dark.
I swing my head in his direction. “What?”
Shepard's dark eyes find me, and the sunlight streaming into the car seems too dim for his expression. “France was never gentle.”
I cringe at what I said a moment ago, realizing I didn't think about his time in the orphanage. “What about when your parents were alive?” I dig around for some point of reference that's not violent, that's from before.
His expression goes from hard to nostalgic in a nanosecond. “Qui. My life was so much better when my parents were alive.”
“Do you think about them?”
His knuckles bleed to white, his grip's so tight on the wheel. A full minute passes. “Every day.” He says the words in French, and they pile on top of each other. As if he can't stand saying them.
As though he's been waiting his whole life to.
“Me too,” I say.
His hand reaches across the seat, his palm pointed at the roof. I slide my hand in his.
Shepard doesn't let go.
SIXTEEN
Shepard
I ask Marissa to wait inside the car. It was only a few hours’ drive from the hotel in Wyoming to Spearfish Canyon. From there, it was an additional half hour on a back road.
Marissa complained.
I smiled.
Safety comes at a cost, and maybe not being on a main, smoothly asphalted road is the price.
My eyes scan the area, always wary. The precaution is so much a part of who I am, it's second nature. I close my eyes and let my ears hear what would not fit within the expected noises of our secluded location.
Everything is as it should be. The cicadas are quiet this deep into a summer that ushers in autumn. But warm-season insects still buzz in the lull the quiet forest provides. In the far-off distance, I faintly hear a creek.
Opening my lids, I survey the homestead. Large pine logs, honed and heaved into place over a century ago for the cabin, keep vigil at the apex of a soft knoll. Square windows that have divided muntins fitted with antique glass appear to weep, the view through them distorted. The twin windows are like uninviting dark eyes looking arrogantly down at us.
