Living on the Edge

by Shannon K. Butcher

  Right now, what he knew was how to drive her to the brink of a screaming orgasm only to stop her short and pet her until she quieted.

  “You’re killing me,” she panted.

  He looked up at her, wiped his mouth, and crawled up her body. “You’ll thank me later.”

  Sloane was done waiting. She wanted him, and she wanted him now.

  She grabbed his erection in a firm grip and wriggled her body until they lined up just right. He looked down at her with a challenge in his dark blue eyes.

  “Why are you teasing me?”

  “I don’t want you to forget me too soon,” he said.

  As if she could. The man was imprinted on her so deeply she worried she’d never be free of her memories of him. Part of her was relieved by that, but the rest of her feared the consequences of keeping even memories of him inside her. It would only make her want things she couldn’t have.

  “I won’t,” she promised, looking right into his eyes.

  “I won’t forget you, either.” Then he surged forward, sliding slow and deep.

  He kissed her as he moved, never closing his eyes. His stare should have been unsettling, but instead, it drew her in, made her feel everything—the powerful glide of his body, the soft brush of his chest hair across her breasts. She could hear the steadily speeding rhythm of her heart and smell the growing warmth of his skin. He was inside her, surrounding her, filling her like no other man had ever done before. It was more than just sex. It was tender, almost loving. She could feel the care he took with every move he made, gauging her reactions and changing his tempo to please her most.

  And he did. He pleased her in ways she hadn’t known were possible. The firestorm inside of her was growing, swelling. He pushed her higher, demanding she take what he had to give.

  He eased her leg up so her calf rode along his ribs, and the change of angle was enough to release the tension that he’d built inside her. It exploded in a wash of color and light, bursting behind her eyes and sent rioting shivers racing out from her womb. A noise of pleasure she couldn’t control ripped from her chest as her back arched against the force of so much pleasure.

  Lucas’s body tightened around hers. He held her hard as he climaxed inside her, whispering her name over and over as he filled her.

  The last quivering pulses of her orgasm eased, leaving her limp and sated.

  Lucas kissed her slack mouth and cheek, eased away from her, and ran his hand down her flank. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the feeling of his hands on her as she drifted off into a much-needed sleep.

  When she woke a couple of hours later, Lucas was gone. The only signs of his presence were the languid warmth in her body, the slickness of his semen on her skin, and a hollow, empty feeling in her chest.

  Sloane pushed herself from the bed, showered the proof of their union from her body, and checked out of the hotel. She compartmentalized, forcing herself to do what she needed to do without thinking about it. Move, wash, dry, dress—all on autopilot.

  As soon as she slid the shoulder strap of her bag on, her composure faltered. She gripped the handle of the hotel room door hard enough to leave marks in her skin. She turned and looked at the rumpled bed, knowing it would be the last place she ever shared with Lucas.

  He’d said he would go, and he was a man of his word. Honorable. Trustworthy.

  She wished like hell that she wasn’t too fucked up to allow herself to be with him. It would have been nice to have someone around to lean on—someone she knew she could trust. But then what? After they crashed and burned—because they would—then what would she do? It had taken her a long time to find her way in the world. To learn to respect herself. If leaning on Lucas weakened her, she knew that respect would disappear. For both of them. And she’d rather die than lose his respect. Maybe that made her shallow or warped, but she couldn’t help the way she felt. She was, after all, her father’s daughter.

  Sloane shoved back the tears and turned the knob. Gina still needed her. Bella still needed her. She had a great job and didn’t need to lean on anyone. It was everything she’d ever wanted. Everything she’d worked for.

  The fact that it was no longer enough was just something she was going to have to learn to accept. It was time to move on.

  Chapter 26

  Riley stood over Sophie’s hospital bed, watching her sleep. She’d been through hell, but she was tougher than she looked. Thank God.

  The light over her head put the sprinkling of freckles across her cheeks on display. They’d let her shower, and her hair lay in a thick, damp braid over her shoulder. She looked small in the midst of the white sheets. Pale and fragile.

  Riley’s hands tightened on the bed railing. The urge to touch her skin and make sure she was warm enough was digging at him, making him edgy and irrational.

  The doctor had assured them she was fine and would recover, but Riley wasn’t going to believe it until he saw her walk out of here. In fact, he’d fully intended to escort her home, wherever that was, and see to it that she was settled.

  After all she’d been through, it seemed the least he could do.

  Her eyes opened and he was caught by her pale green gaze. Her face was so stoic, and there was a tension about her as if she was expecting the other shoe to drop.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  “Fine.”

  He accepted the lie rather than pry. He knew she was suffering, and he hated that he couldn’t do anything to fix it.

  “You don’t have to stay,” she said.

  “I don’t mind. I could call someone for you. Family. Friends.”

  She shook her head. “No, thanks.”

  “I don’t want you to be alone. Let me take you home.”

  “I’m not sure where that is yet.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “I mean I’ve been gone for a long time. I’m sure they’ve cleaned out my apartment by now after a couple months of not paying rent. I was doing temp work, which I’m sure is no longer available. I may stick around here for a while—at least until I can get some ID and access to my bank account.”

  Houston was too far from Dallas for his tastes. If she stayed here, he was going to have a hard time checking up on both her and Mom when he was in town. And he needed to check up on her. “I’m flying back to Dallas. You could come with me.”

  “Why?”

  “Why not? It’s as good a place as any if you’re not tied to a specific spot.”

  “I lived in Dallas once. The people there are nice. They drive like maniacs.”

  Riley laughed. “That they do.”

  “Let me think about it?” she asked. “I’m tired. I don’t want to make any bad decisions.”

  He forced himself to back down. The fastest way to drive her away was going to be to push and seem all desperate and needy. “Fair enough. I’m going to grab something from the cafeteria. I’ll be back in a minute. Want anything?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “You can call my cell if you change your mind.” He pulled out his wallet and handed her one of his business cards.

  He’d almost made it to the door when she said, “You really don’t have to come back.”

  He turned. “I’ve gotten you this far. I’m not going to abandon you now. Let me see you settled, okay? It’ll ease my mind.”

  She nodded, but said nothing.

  Riley left, giving her some space to think about his offer. If he was lucky, he’d convince her to stay with his mom for a while. They could watch out for each other when he was out of town, so Sophie wouldn’t have to think of it as a handout. Mom did fine on her own, but Riley worried. Besides, she might enjoy having another woman around to chat with and do . . . woman stuff.

  He got a sandwich and hurried back to her room, excited to see what she thought of his idea.

  She was gone. Her hospital gown was lying on the bed. The bag of sweats he’d bought for her to change into was empty, the tags discarded across the bed. />
  Riley tried not to panic. He went to the guard posted outside her room. He was just a kid—too young for Riley’s comfort.

  “Where did she go?”

  “A nurse came to get her for some test. She didn’t want me to go with her.”

  “And you accepted that?”

  “Well, yeah. It’s not like she’s a prisoner.”

  He went to the nurses’ station and all they would tell him was that she checked out AMA. They wouldn’t give him any details. He wasn’t family.

  Anger and fear were clawing their way up his throat, but there was nothing he could do. She was a grown woman. If she wanted to leave, it was her right. He had no control—no say in where she went or when.

  Riley was sick of not having any control. Here he’d thought Sophie was a sweet girl in need of his help. Obviously, he’d been wrong. She’d taken off without a word as if what they’d gone through hadn’t mattered. As if he hadn’t mattered.

  Fine. If that was the way she wanted to play it, that was fine with him. He had better things to do. That diamond job wasn’t going to plan itself, and with Bella out of the country, the job fell to him.

  He’d throw himself into his work and not spend another second thinking about the vulnerable, sweet Sophie Devane. She clearly didn’t need him, and he sure as hell didn’t need her.

  Gage and Bella hadn’t caught a single glimpse of Lorenzo Soma since they’d returned to the villa. Through his scope, he’d watched all day, looking for signs of the man. All he’d seen was a steady stream of trucks coming in with building materials and leaving again with bodies of the dead. The broken windows were mostly boarded over now, making it even harder to see what was going on.

  “Still no sighting,” said Bella through the headset. “You?”

  “Negative.”

  “It’s nearly dark now. I think we should go in and have a look around.”

  Bella was one hell of an ass-kicking woman, but she was still a woman, which Gage had a hard time overlooking. It’s not that he didn’t trust her ability; it’s just that he knew all the bad shit that could come down on her if she happened to get caught. He wouldn’t wish that on anyone, not even that asshole Soma himself.

  “I’ll go,” he told her.

  “Gage,” she said, making his name a warning. “We’ve talked about this. I’m not a weakling you need to protect.”

  Actually, they’d never talked about it. She’d talked. He’d listened. “I know.”

  “Besides, we’re not going inside. I just want to check out the garage and see if we can tell if his car is missing.”

  “I’ll take the garage. You take the hangar.” It was farther away from the house, which made it safer. Plus, it was closer to her location, making it seem like a reasonable strategy. One she’d accept.

  “We’ll sit tight another hour before we go so it’ll be completely dark.”

  Gage saw another group of women and children leaving. There had been two more to leave earlier that day. So far they hadn’t come back. He didn’t know if they were relocating while the repairs were going on, or if the mothers had finally had enough of the violence surrounding them.

  It took a hell of a lot of violence to make a person uproot their family.

  He moved as close as he dared and snapped a few photos with his phone. The quality sucked, but he hoped they’d be good enough for Gina to tell if any of the kids were Julia. It seemed the least he could do while he was sitting around, doing nothing to kill the fucker who’d dared threaten a child.

  Patience. He needed to be patient a while longer. Sooner or later Soma had to leave, and when he did, Gage was going to treat the man to a nice, graphic display of justice.

  Night closed in. He checked his watch. Almost an hour had passed.

  “Are you ready?” asked Bella.

  “Yes.”

  “This is just a sneak-and-peek. Don’t engage unless you have to. If Soma knows we’re here, he’ll only stay in his hidey-hole longer.”

  “Understood.”

  Gage slipped over the ground toward the detached garage. It was large enough to hold a dozen cars at least. Maybe more. Five overhead doors ran along two opposite walls. There was a walk-in entrance on the east side, which also housed a window.

  He made slow progress over the ground, keeping out of line of sight of the motion detectors on the main villa. It took about twenty minutes to move a few hundred yards, but no lights flipped on and no sirens screamed, so what he and Bella were doing was working. Or maybe the motion sensors had been a casualty of the firefight.

  Gage peered into the window. It was black inside. He couldn’t see a thing.

  He’d just pulled out his flashlight to shine through the glass when he heard Bella’s voice. “He’s gone, Gage. His plane is gone. He must have left between the time we attacked and when the two of us came back.”

  “Sloane,” whispered Gage. “We have to warn her.”

  It was nearing midnight by the time Sloane got Gina back to her house and settled in the guest bedroom. Gina had chosen using herself as bait over going into protective custody, and Sloane knew no amount of arguing was going to change that.

  With Bella and Gage watching Lorenzo’s villa, the chances of him escaping alive were slim, but at least this way, Sloane knew that Gina was safe.

  The hospital had given Gina some pain meds to hold her over for a couple of days. The drive and all the moving had been enough to force her to pop a couple once they’d reached the outskirts of Dallas.

  They were both exhausted, both physically and mentally wrung out. They’d hardly said a dozen words to each other during the drive, though mostly because Gina had slept it away.

  Sloane tucked her groggy friend in, double-checked all the locks on the windows in the room. There had been no word from Bella yet, and until Soma was found and dealt with, Sloane wasn’t willing to let up her guard.

  She checked her phone messages. There was only one, and whoever had called had left only static before hanging up. She didn’t recognize the number.

  Sloane went to put on a pot of coffee to keep her awake while she waited for the feds to arrive and back her up in a couple of hours. Gina wasn’t going to like having the FBI involved, but that was too bad. Sloane had to sleep sometime.

  She flipped on the light in the kitchen and Lorenzo Soma was sitting at her kitchen table, pointing a suppressed 9mm right at her chest.

  Chapter 27

  Lucas stared at the ceiling of his hotel room. He’d been too tired to drive home tonight, but lying here, wideawake, thinking about Sloane wasn’t doing much in the way of getting him rested for tomorrow morning, either.

  He was stalling. He didn’t want to go back. Or, rather, he didn’t want to leave Sloane. He’d even stopped in Dallas for the night, knowing she was somewhere nearby. It was a stupid, sappy thing to do, and he was paying for it now in sleeplessness. He kept thinking that she couldn’t be that far away. He could hop over to her place and they could talk.

  And maybe somehow, all that talking would magically change reality and his knee would work right, he’d have no family obligations that kept him from her, and she could realize that not every man was as controlling as her father.

  Lucas cursed the Old Man silently for not telling her everything. Maybe if he had, Sloane would understand why he’d done the things he had. Maybe then she could get over her disdain for the men of the world and give him a shot.

  But the general had refused Lucas’s pleas, telling him it was best to leave old wounds alone.

  It had taken every ounce of control Lucas had to not call the man a coward. The general wasn’t willing to take a risk that Sloane might not forgive him, and Sloane wasn’t willing to take a risk that Lucas might not be a mindless zombie slave to her father.

  Anger burned deep in his gut, driving sleep away with its bright glow. He wasn’t getting any rest tonight. Might as well hit the road and head home.

  At least his folks would be happy to see him
. Making his mom smile was worth a serious case of red eye.

  Lucas slid his pants on just as his phone rang. “Hello?”

  The connection was bad, but he could make out a faint female voice. For a second he thought it was Sloane and his heart leaped. And then he heard, “It’s Bella. We’re . . . villa. Soma’s . . .”

  “What? I didn’t quite get that.”

  “Soma’s gone.”

  He got that loud and clear. “Where?”

  “He ... His plane . . . could be anywhere.”

  He could be, but he wasn’t. Gina had called Sloane while in his custody. He could have easily found out where Sloane lived through her phone number.

  Gina was staying with Sloane until they could make more permanent arrangements.

  Holy fuck. Lucas had to get there. Now.

  He hung up and dialed the general. “I need Sloane’s address. Soma’s missing.”

  To the general’s credit, he didn’t waste time asking questions. He rattled off the address, giving Lucas an idea of which highway to take to get there fastest.

  “I’ll send help. How fast can you be there?”

  Lucas was already out of the hotel and sprinting toward his car. “Five minutes.” He hoped.

  Grief and anger roughened the Old Man’s voice. “Don’t you let that bastard hurt my baby.”

  “I won’t, sir.”

  Lucas tossed the phone onto the seat and screeched out of the parking lot.

  Shock slammed into Sloane, rocking her back on her heels. She was stunned for a second, but recovered and reached for the weapon she’d had strapped to her for the past few days. Of course, now that she was back in civilization, she was no longer carrying a weapon around with her. Her handgun was in the top of her overnight bag, cleaned and ready to fire.

  And completely out of reach.