Maddie nodded. “They kept wanting me to do more for them. They kept coming back for more, threatening me as well as my dad with going to jail if I didn’t do what they wanted. Then ... then my dad got into something way over his head. He ... he went out on a collection job that turned into a murder. He came home and broke down, just cried all over me and told me everything. The guy was someone he knew, a man named Ted Cicero, and he said he just had to stand there and watch the guy he was with whack him.”
“So, what did you do?” Sam asked.
“I was scared. I was scared for me, and I was scared for my dad. So I did what I thought was the one thing that might get us out of the whole thing for good. I went to Ken Welsh and Richard Shelton and told them everything.” She sucked in air. “Instead of helping me, though, they used what I told them for leverage. They wanted my dad to start wearing a wire for them. He wouldn’t do it. So they arrested me and charged me with all that stuff, and told my dad the charges would be dropped if he cooperated. So he did. He wore a wire on a couple of jobs. And they found it on him.”
“Oh, Jesus.” Sam closed his eyes, then opened them again and looked down at her. “Was it bad?”
Maddie nodded. There was a constriction in her chest now that made it hard to breathe. This was the part that hurt to remember. This was the stuff of the nightmare that had haunted her for seven years.
“They grabbed me in the parking lot, and tied me up and took me to this little shotgun house not that far from our apartment. Mr. Silva was there, and three men I didn’t know, and my dad. They had my dad tied to a kitchen chair. He was beaten up real bad. They took me over to stand in front of him and told him they were going to kill me in front of him and make him watch and then kill him. And my dad started crying.”
Maddie’s voice broke.
“Then they took me into a bedroom, and threw me on a bed, and tied me there. And ... and I had to listen while they beat up my dad some more. I could hear them talking, and one guy—this one guy with this really oily black hair and a big, swoopy mustache—kept coming to the bedroom door and l-looking at me. Oh, God, I was so scared he was going to come in and get me, because I knew when he did it would be because he was going to kill me, and then kill my dad. I kept praying he wouldn’t come in, but finally he did.” She paused, took a deep, shuddering breath, and continued, almost oblivious now to the tension in Sam’s body, or the hard arms around her, or his hand stroking her arm. “They untied my feet and took me into the living room. Ken Welsh was there. I was really surprised to see him. I was just so thankful, though, I thought we were saved, I thought it was all over, so I didn’t really think it through. But he just looked at me and kind of smirked as this guy dragged me on past him, and then I saw that Mr. Silva was showing him some money, a briefcase filled with money. Then Ken Welsh took the money and left. He just left us there, my dad and I. To die.”
“They paid him off,” Sam said softly, his hand stilled, his arms like steel bands around her now. “They paid him off to leave them alone.”
Maddie nodded. That was the conclusion she’d come to, too, over the years. God, she hated to remember. Her heart was racing. Her stomach was in knots. She was starting to tremble. Maybe she should just stop there. Maybe that was enough ...
“Okay.” Sam’s mouth was grim. “I know this is hard for you, but I need to hear it. What happened to you and your dad?”
Maddie took a deep breath. He wanted to know. She wanted him to know. She wanted him to hear the full, complete truth. So she gathered up every last scrap of inner strength she had, and went ahead.
“They stood me in front of him and the guy with the mustache put a gun to my head.” She spoke rapidly, trying to get it all out as quickly as she could. “I thought I was going to die right that minute. But this other guy said—I can still hear him saying it—‘Wait a minute. Why just shoot her? Hell, let’s have some fun with her first.’ And he dragged me back off toward the bedroom. I looked back over my shoulder and saw them put a gun to my dad’s head. Then I couldn’t see anymore because I was inside the bedroom, but I heard a shot. And a ... a kind of ... gurgle.”
Her eyes closed, and more tears leaked out. Sam cursed and turned onto his side, wrapping both arms around her. Her head was pillowed on his arm, and she clutched the front of his shirt and hung on for dear life.
“Tell me the rest, baby.” His voice was impossibly gentle.
She wanted to, but she could hardly speak. Her voice was a poor broken thing, but she managed to force the words out.
“I knew they shot him. I knew it. I just ... went crazy. The guy was trying to k-kiss me and I bit his tongue. Savagely. Just as hard as I could. He screamed and threw me away from him so hard that I crashed partway through the window. Then he started coming toward me and blood was pouring out of his mouth and I just kind of threw myself at the broken window, trying to smash through it, trying to get out. And the house blew up. Just like that. And somehow I was thrown out through the window, thrown clear. And ... and I lay there in that overgrown backyard, bleeding and crying and w-watching as that little one-story house turned into a blowtorch in about the blink of an eye. There was no way anyone who was in there lived. My dad—even if they didn’t shoot him, he was gone.”
Even after all these years, the scene was as vivid in her mind as if it were happening in front of her. Tears poured from her eyes.
“I’m sorry. So sorry, baby,” Sam whispered, rocking her against him.
The pain was so intense that she couldn’t speak. She closed her eyes, shaking, holding on to him as if he were the only solid thing in an insane world. She felt his mouth against her temple, then against her cheeks, which were wet with tears. Then he lifted her poor, injured hand and pressed first the palm and then, very gently, the injured pinkie to his mouth.
“Sam,” she whispered, opening her eyes to watch this touch of his mouth on her hand through a veil of tears. He put her hand back gently against his chest, then bent his head to kiss her mouth.
TWENTY-FIVE
His arms around her were warm and hard; his body was firm and muscular; his mouth was wet and hot. And he was Sam.
Sam. Sam. Sam. Sam.
She discovered that she was saying it aloud, that she was whispering his name against his skin as he lifted his mouth from hers to press comforting little kisses against her cheeks, against her ear, along the line of her jaw. His bristly cheek brushed over the softness of her skin, and she loved the prickly abrasion of it; his hands stroked her shoulders, her arms, her back, and she loved the size and warmth of them; she pressed her mouth to his neck, and loved the salt-tinged flavor of his skin.
“Don’t cry, baby; it’s all over. It was a long time ago. Everything’s going to be all right now.” He was murmuring to her between kisses—soft, disjointed phrases that she only partly heard—offering what comfort he could.
“Sam,” she whispered against his neck, because it seemed to be the only thing she could say.
“I’ve got you safe,” she heard, and that almost made her smile despite the tears that were still sliding down her face because they were so very far from safe, and she knew it, and he knew it, and still, with him holding her, she felt safe, which was stupid.
Stupid.
“I love you, Sam,” she said clearly, because she did and there was just no doing anything about it. He lifted his head and looked down at her, the dark, hard lines of his face faintly silvered, his eyes gleaming black and hot in the starlight, and her heart swelled and throbbed and ached, and she knew that what she’d just said was true, that she loved him, that somehow, amidst terror and danger and heartbreak, she’d found the man who was supposed to be hers.
And she didn’t care if it was stupid.
“I love you, too, whoever you are,” he whispered against her mouth, and because it was just exactly what she wanted to hear yet sounded so absurd, she was smiling a little when his lips slanted over hers. She noticed that he was smiling, too, with those dimples
just visible for an instant, and realized that he’d said it that way precisely to make her smile, before she closed her eyes and forgot everything except that he was kissing her.
Her hands slid up under his shirt and flattened on the warmth of his skin. She felt the softness of his chest hair, the wide firmness of the muscles beneath, the quick, hard beating of his heart. And she wanted him. Wanted him with a desperateness that was quite outside her experience, with a deep, primal need that tightened her loins and made her breasts swell against his chest, with a life-affirming urge that had her reaching for him, stroking over the hard bulge at the front of his jeans as his hand flattened hard over her breast. She needed this, she needed Sam. She needed to feel warm again. She needed to block out the memories. She needed to feel alive.
“Sam,” she breathed, her blood heating to scalding as she pressed close against that big, warm hand.
“Maddie,” he answered in a deep, guttural voice, and ran his lips down her neck. His hands went beneath her tank top, pushing it up out of his way, and his mouth was on her breast, burning her through the thin white lace of her bra, and she gasped at the goodness of it, the rightness of it, the wonder of it. Then he released the clasp of her bra and pushed the flimsy thing out of his way and opened his mouth over her nipple, stroking his tongue over it, making it quiver and tighten and ache.
“Make love to me,” she whispered, her fingers curling around his waistband and then quite forgetting their mission as his lips slid across her body. His tongue branded her, leaving a trail of fire as it licked its way up the slope of her other breast. Then she arched up into the heat of his mouth as it claimed her nipple, and cried out.
“You are so beautiful you take my breath away.” He lifted his head, pulled her tank top and bra off, and then, as she lay bared to the waist with the starlight playing over her, just looked down at her for a moment, devouring her with his eyes. “Let’s get you naked.”
“And you,” she said, her heart pounding, her body tightening and aching and burning. Then she remembered what she had been doing before and reached for his zipper again. “I want you naked, too.”
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “That was the plan.”
But she was naked first, because he peeled her pants and underwear off before she could even get a good grip on that damned hard-to-manipulate button that always seemed to fasten jeans. But that was okay, because he took care of the problem himself, stripping off his clothes like a man in a hurry to get down to business until, for an instant, he stood naked in the starlight.
His hair shone blacker than the night, and his face was hidden in shadow. But she could see the muscled breadth of his shoulders, the classic V of his torso, the lean hips, the long, powerful legs.
And what was between them.
She stared, and felt the urgent tightening in her loins pulse hotter and faster. She wanted him. God, she wanted him.
But first ...
She sat up, then curled up onto her knees and took him in her mouth, her hands sliding around to caress the tight, round curves of his butt. He froze for, perhaps, the space of a heartbeat. Then he groaned and buried his fingers in her hair, and said “Maddie” in a voice that sounded like it was killing him to talk at all.
Finally he said “damn” and pulled away. Before Maddie had time to do more than open her eyes, he was pushing her back and coming down on top of her and thrusting inside her and taking her so hard and fast and urgently that she could do nothing but wrap her arms and legs around him and hold on for the ride. He made love to her until the air around them turned to steam, until she was mindless with passion, writhing with it, needing ...
“Oh, God, Sam,” she gasped, unable to bear it any longer, her body peaking and breaking and going into hard, tight convulsions that he must have felt, because his arms clenched around her and he came into her with deep, fierce thrusts that carried her right over the edge, that carried her to some blissful nirvana that she had never before even imagined existed, that caused the starry night sky to burst in all its glorious profusion around her even though her eyes were firmly closed.
“Maddie,” he groaned, and held himself inside her, and came.
“I UNDERSTAND I’m your type,” Maddie said a long time later. Sam was lying flat on his back, listening to the dog snore and the creek run and the insects canoodle, and she was sprawled naked on top of him, playing with his chest hair.
“What type is that?” Sam asked, glancing down at her. He had been staring up at the star-sprinkled night sky, not really seeing it because there was too much else on his mind, from the firm, warm curves of the woman on top of him, to the possible whereabouts of the hunting party that was almost certainly still combing the woods for them, to the tantalizing knowledge that, thanks to Maddie’s story, he now had the key to the identity of the sick bastard he’d been chasing for the past month.
The problem was, he just didn’t know which door the key unlocked yet.
“Slim, pretty brunettes. Sweet little wholesome girls.” She sounded like she was quoting from memory. She also didn’t sound really happy about it.
Sam considered that for a moment. She had her chin resting on her hand now, looking at him seriously. As dark as it was, he couldn’t see the things that made his gut clench, like the small cut on her cheek or the red, swollen tip of her little finger. All he could see was the dark cloud of hair around her lovely, luminous face, and her eyes—those big, honey-colored eyes—gleaming at him.
“You’re kidding me, right?” he asked. Then, realizing where she must have heard it, he added in a resigned tone, “You’ve been talking to Gardner, haven’t you?”
Her eyes narrowed a little. “Maybe.” A beat. “So, am I your type?”
This, Sam felt, was a loaded question. One of those damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t conundrums beloved by women worldwide that, fortunately, he didn’t have to think his way out of on this occasion, because the truth was so irrefutably obvious.
“I hate to break this to you, but if that’s my type, you must be shit out of luck.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” She sounded all huffy now. For some kind of masochistic reason that he’d have to puzzle out at some other time, he loved it when she got huffy. Besides the obvious, of course, that’s what had attracted him to her from the very beginning, he realized. Forget “lie down and die.” When backed into a corner, this babe was full of fight.
“Okay, you’re a slim, pretty brunette, I’ll grant you that. A sweet little wholesome girl? You may be stretching it there, but that’s nothing I’d want to claim anyway. You leave it at that, and half the female population of the country’s probably my type. But you—you’re something special. You’re gorgeous and sexy and smart—and no matter how hairy things get, you never say die. You got balls, babe. You’re one of a kind.”
A beat passed.
“That’s a compliment, right?” Maddie asked, eyeing him with a trace of suspicion.
“Yeah,” Sam said. “It is.”
“Sort of a clumsy, masculine way of saying you love me, right?”
“Absolutely.” Sam grinned, and rolled with her so that she was on her back and he was looming over her. “Darlin’, in case you haven’t realized it yet, you pretty much had me the first time you scowled at me.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
She was smiling up at him, and her cool, smooth hands were sliding up his arms, and he remembered, suddenly, fiercely, the explosive spurt of murderous rage he’d felt when that thug had brought the hammer down on her delicate little finger. That’s when he’d first begun to suspect that, no matter how furious and betrayed and suspicious of her motives he’d felt, the feelings he had for her were not just going to go away. He’d known then that he was in love—for better, worse, good solid citizen or criminal—even if he didn’t much like it. He’d still been hooked, even when he’d thought the worst. When he heard her story, though, heard the hell she’d suffered through, and the abu
se and the pain, only to emerge triumphant on the other side, even if she might not quite be legally in the right, he’d been hit by a combination of tenderness and protectiveness and pride and fury on her behalf that had been like a lightning bolt striking deep into his soul.
His grandma had always told him that he would know it when it happened, and, as annoying as it was, she was once again proved absolutely right: He had recognized it right then. What he felt for Maddie was a forever kind of thing.
He wasn’t quite sappy enough to put all that into words, but the way he chose to express himself was more fun anyway.
He kissed her. Then he showed her.
MADDIE ONLY realized that she had fallen asleep when someone shook her awake. For a moment she was disoriented, not quite understanding who it could be or where she was.
“Maddie,” a voice said from somewhere not too far above her ear.
“Go away.” It couldn’t be time to get up yet, she didn’t have to be at work until eight, or, actually, since it was her company, whenever she wanted to get there, and ...
“Maddie.” The hand on her shoulder shook her again. Her eyes opened.
Sam was leaning over her, looking more disreputable than ever as he hunkered down, fully dressed, beside her. There was a swollen bump on the bridge of his nose that hadn’t been there before, he needed a shave badly, and he looked tired as hell. She blinked sleepily up at him, felt her heart swell with joy—and then saw the purplish-gray sky behind him, dotted with only a few stars now, and remembered with a flash of dismay where they were and what had happened. Dawn was at hand. In this case, that was definitely not good news.
“Oh, God,” she groaned, lifting a throbbing hand to her aching head, and sat up.
Sam grinned at her, or maybe smirked was a better word, in an annoying, masculine way that let her know that she was naked and he was enjoying the view. Beside him sat Zelda, looking just about as disheveled and full of get-up-and-go as Maddie felt.
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