Seeking Worthy Pursuits: A Dark Romantic Suspense Novel (Alace Sweets Book 2)

by MariaLisa deMora

  His demand was an echo of her words, spoken so many times against the skin of his neck, his chest, his cock. Her way of confirming consent, even when it was known, a way to check in with him and make sure they were on the same page. He wasn’t sure she’d accept him now, in this moment, and the idea of Eric not knowing she’d want him struck her as absurd.

  “I want you to love me.” His scent rolled over her, known, familiar, cherished. Dark with sugary undertones, he smelled just like he always tasted, and Alace turned. She lifted her chin higher, making up for their height difference. “Love me, Eric.”

  Voice low, vibrating with emotion, he told her, “I do.”

  His words doubled in her head to a recitation of the tender vows she’d never expected to earn, and her breath hitched painfully in her chest. The ring on her finger sat heavily against her knuckle, a token of forever love she’d have to remove in a few minutes. Leaving it behind—not because it didn’t matter, but because it mattered too much to risk out in her shadowy world.

  Eric’s fingers slipped up her neck and around the back of her head, cupping the curve of her skull. His other hand landed on her side, a firm touch skimming along the bottom of her breasts from one stiffened thumb. “I will always love you. Forever, Alace. You’re mine.”

  His breaths caressed her lips an instant before his mouth covered hers. She opened, immersed immediately in the taste of him, whiskey dark and chocolate sweet, remembered tastes imprinted on her psyche until they were synonymous with… “Eric.”

  Blood pounded between her legs, a thumping throb she never tired of experiencing, drawn to life only by him and his expert handling of her body, her senses, her love of him.

  “Baby.” Fucking, fucking Eric. He knew what that word did to her, still. No matter how often he pulled it out of hiding, it tripped her up every time, a velvet snare deftly applied by a master trapper. His mouth slipped along her jaw, nipping and kissing each inch of flesh he touched. “Alace, baby. Tell me where you’re going.” Eric’s soft plea was sweetly cajoling, the subdued demand rubbing her nerves the wrong way, because they didn’t have a relationship where she hid anything from him, not these days. His voice carried hints of sadness lined with a trust she didn’t know she deserved.

  “I found a pattern.” Alace’s palms danced across his chest, mapping each dip and divot, the stacked rows of his muscles hot underneath her touch. She measured her words in the same way, lips careful of her secret, which if he’d known would have disrupted everything. Instead, she gave him a solid truth, immutable and sound. “None of the guys are right for this one.”

  With a groan, he took her mouth again, making love to it. Their breaths mingled as they parted in tiny instants to sip at the air, panting hard. “Beloved.” His murmur touched her like it did every time, carrying his love to her like a blanket, wrapping her in the safe knowledge that he was hers and she was his. Paired by fate, partnered by strength of will, and promised by vows. Not the ones spoken in front of his family and friends, but the ones muttered under the covers, cradled in each other’s arms. He held her now, tender care in each movement as he stripped her clothing from her, uncovering her like a prized treasure. She flew through the air carried by his steady arms and then was pressed deep into their bed by his chest as he stretched out over her. She let her hands roam, discarding his clothing with help, cherishing the intimacy of their soft laughter at the difficulties removing jeans with a rigid cock trying to tear through the zipper closure. Caressing his skin with fingertips and lips, she worshipped him in the ways she knew he loved best.

  When he pressed inside, head thrown back on a groan, she bit and tongued the underside of his jaw, finding the mapped and well-known sensitive spots that made him quiver and then drive deeper inside with every quaking movement. Each kiss pulled another groan, each groan tempted her to explore farther, and each new section of skin so abused earned her a rocking thrust and a vow of devotion and love.

  Then he got into the swing of things, and her husband’s dirty mouth came out to play.

  “So fuckin’ hot, baby. I don’t know how you don’t burn me right up. Hot and tight. Lord, God, so tight. Love to feel you wrapped around me like this. Love to feel you under me, feel me in you knowing you want this too.”

  “I do,” she promised, hips rising to meet each downward plunge he gave her, pelvis angled to take him deeper. She lifted her knees, cocking them alongside his hips, and folded her lower legs over his ass, ankles hooked so she could draw herself tight to him. This position initiated more rocking than thrusting, and he swiveled and twisted against her, grinding against her clit with every pass of his hips. “I do, always and forever, my Eric.”

  “You’re gonna come home to me, baby. Love you, love on you. God, how I love you. You’re gonna come home.” His mouth attacked the side of her neck between each breathy statement, the crisp scrape of his whiskers a brand on her skin as his hot lips and hotter tongue blazed a path up to her ear. “Love you so much, Alace. Mine. Always my Alace.”

  The end came in an unavoidable rush, the climb up the backside of the wave, paddling hard to reach the peak and then freefalling, rushing through the splashing whitewater along the face of the wave, tumbling into the churning wash at the end. Body thrown this way and that by the force of her orgasm tied to his, pounded into the mattress until his back arched as she writhed underneath him. My lover. My husband.

  “My Eric.”

  Chapter Six

  Alace

  She took a moment to settle the straps of her backpack into place, stroking up and underneath them with her thumbs, straightening out any last wrinkles in her shirt as she surveyed the parking area. Only two other cars shared the lot with her raggedy old beater, and she studied them closely. One was newer, a fresh covering of bugs on the headlights that spoke of regular washing and maintenance, marking this as a special trip. Not a speck of rust on fenders or wheels. Whoever owned this lived in a nice neighborhood with gated access, based on the tag she saw affixed to the inside of the windshield. Parked right next to the trailhead, the HOA-discreet, innocuous-in-color-and-form vehicle said a lot about the owner.

  The other occupant had parked farther away than she had, nearly the opposite corner to the road entrance and the beginning of the trail. Covered in dust, even that revealed details, because intermingled with the various layers were handprints on the rear fenders and trunk lid, dust aging the marks and telling her that while the vehicle did move, it didn’t go far or fast, because none of the sharp lines of fingers and palm were distorted by swirls that would be left behind with speed. The door handle on the driver side was shiny, the most frequently touched surface on the car. Unlike the other car, this one had few bugs scattered on lights or windshield, which reinforced her instincts this had to be a near-local resident. The sameness of the dirt and dust told of roads repeatedly traveled, probably between where they lived and here, time and again.

  Alace smoothed under the straps a final time, pulling tight and clipping the chest strap to anchor them in place. Her vehicle keys were hidden in a fake rock she’d brought for that purpose, a disposable key safe most people wouldn’t look at twice, tucked in next to her tire as it was. Mental map fixed, she set out on the trail, pacing herself. Even with taking frequent breaks she found herself huffing harder than she’d expected, and mentally put more frequent interval training on her list of things to change in her life once she got home.

  She was on one of these breaks, perched on a pile of rocks just off the trail, when she heard traffic coming. She had made it far enough into the woods there were no car noises, no nearby highways or roads curling along the edges of the tree line. A helicopter had flown over about an hour before, and she’d tracked it from horizon to horizon, noting the DNR symbol on the side.

  Whoever was approaching from the trailhead direction wasn’t trying to mask their travel. Steady footfalls were punctuated with quiet metallic clinks, most likely a water bottle swinging against a clasp.

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sp; Pack positioned between her feet, Alace stared up the trail as she set the snack of homemade trail mix to the side, freeing her hands. Just in case.

  Owen Marcus strolled into view.

  She blinked. When she’d left the car, she’d checked a final time and the system had shown a view of the information she’d sent him but no response, just a logged access that didn’t tell her anything other than he’d maybe, perhaps, seen the material. She didn’t have an identity set up for him, hadn’t shared hers, had given the barest skeleton of data intended to provide the foundation for a more detailed brief to be provided later, when and if he accepted the gig.

  Unlike her former handler, she’d opted to meet each of her hunters at least once, wanting to get to know them as more than images on a screen or names in a database. Her gut, which she still trusted more than anything else, hyper-heuristic algorithms aside, meant she’d made decisions about her associates based on those meetings. Eliminating several candidates along the way, but also creating solid relationships with the ones accepted.

  Owen had become one of her initial favorites, with that place in her estimation not changing through the months they’d worked together, albeit remotely. Trust was such a two-way street; she couldn’t be his handler without believing he’d tell her if something was right, or wrong. Him showing here, now, without directive or request, smacked of a disrespect and lack of trust she wouldn’t stomach. Not couldn’t, because as her various personas through the years proved, she could swallow a metric ton of shit when she had to. Like when it suited her needs, advanced her agenda, or was a tactic used to gain access to a mark. But not here, on a gig she didn’t want to be on. As if her body were scalding, she yanked her palm from her belly, where it had gone without her permission.

  Head held high, she didn’t verbalize any of the thoughts whizzing through her head, simply sat on the rocks and waited as he approached, pace slowing to a crawl as he neared. Owen stopped while still on the trail, framed by the two trees she’d stepped between to gain her perch, and didn’t say a word to her. Careful of her balance, she fluidly brought her legs up into a loose lotus position. Still without acknowledging him other than her relentless gaze.

  Finally, fucking fucking finally, he ducked his square chin, giving her a view of his tousled dark hair when he slipped off his cap, fingers raking through and causing strands to stand on end. It was such an aw-shucks move and fit his non-working personality so well she couldn’t help it, the laugh breaking free like a bark. Owen peeked at her from under his pronounced brow, gaze now worried instead of steady. It took another moment of silence between them before he risked a greeting. When it came, the single word was low and quiet, his throaty tones conveying hesitance. “Hey.”

  “Should I be pissed right now?” By asking the question, she was giving him a stated benefit of the doubt that he could choose to use or discard, depending on how much he valued the partnership they’d built so far. “Would you be, in my shoes?”

  Another aw-shucks duck of his head, full bottom lip gone white from the pressure as it was pulled between his teeth, then Owen nodded. “Yeah, you’ve every right to be pissed at me. I shoulda told you I was headed this way. Days ago, I shoulda told you. I got sucked into research, and when a new element came to light, all I could think about was getting here and seeing if I could fix it. It felt wrong and I needed to fix it.”

  That gut thing again. An instinctive reaction to something out of alignment in the universe. She had a feeling Owen was as sensitive to it as she was.

  During their interview, he hadn’t talked overmuch about his time in Central America, the government work he’d done in countries stretching from Colombia to Guatemala, with missions forced down his throat by a vow he still tried his best to honor. He just had gotten stuck on the fact that there could be domestic enemies who factored in foreign lands.

  She’d had to dig deep to find reports on his last assignment. They’d been hidden behind black-smeared redacted statements, file names referenced in other reports, with a final single word giving her the knowledge where to look next: Cosmic.

  It was a level of security clearance typically only associated with NATO briefings, so with that info in her pocket, she’d crafted a series of tiny queries. Set free on the darknet, the resulting ripples and threads identified deeper currents that had eventually led her to a full, complete rendition of the cataclysmic outcome of his final officially approved mission.

  Owen had inserted without issue, transported himself to the correct placement. The operation’s stated intent had been to take out a local threat. A foreign national who held too much power in that restrictive government and had enough closet skeletons on file for other persons of interest that the target had become a distinct liability.

  At the compound, lying on his belly atop a low building that gave him the correct height and angle to take the planned shot, Owen had allowed his gaze to stray. Had seen acts happening in an adjoining building she suspected still haunted his dreams. He’d expertly disassembled his weapon, found his way to the inner sanctum via a lone window facing where he’d previously been poised to strike, and instead of eliminating, had interrogated the target. At length. Thoroughly.

  Then Owen had razed the compound, leaving only dust and rubble in his wake. Personally escorting a group of more than forty children to a nearby village where fully half of them were greeted with upraised hands of thanks, parents’ knees hitting the dirt as they expressed gratitude for the out-of-the-blue salvation of their children rendered by one lone Norte Americano. The other half were welcomed home within days, as Owen had made his way through the region, returning each child to their family, ensuring that where he could, they were mourning no more.

  He’d been well aware of just how far he’d gone past what was sanctioned, and the report stated when he arrived at the extraction point two weeks late, he’d calmly laid his weapons on the ground, took a knee nearby, and patiently waited for his arrest.

  The authorities hadn’t known what to do with a warrior turned vigilante.

  They couldn’t praise him for the carried-out execution, even if he’d ultimately concluded that portion of his mission successfully. He’d caused a near-nuclear political incident, deviated from orders in ways he’d known were proscribed, and then expressed no remorse.

  His consistent response, recorded in page after page of testimony, was “I’d do it again. I couldn’t live with myself if I’d left those children behind.”

  The military might not have known what to do with Owen.

  But Alace did.

  “Yes, you should have told me.” Alace tipped her head to the side, indicating a nearby boulder that would make companion seat for her position. She adjusted to face it as Owen followed her wordless instructions and made his way through the brambles. He did a quick sweep, probably for snakes, as she had done before seating herself. “But you didn’t. If you had, I would have told you I got the same ping.”

  “The disappearance.” His eyes narrowed as he stared at her. “Claudia Amanda Nelson, sixteen, sophomore in the local high school, now considered a runaway.”

  Alace studied him. “Nyla Davison, twenty-eight, unskilled bakery assistant, missing person.”

  Owen’s nostrils flared, and the skin over his carotid jumped, trembling at a faster rate than before. Tension in every muscle, he leaned forwards. “Thirteen.”

  “When did your Nelson girl go missing?” Alace hauled her backpack up, dug through a side pocket to find her tablet. Retrieving that and a black rectangle, she placed the bag back on the ground. Turning both devices on, she arranged the satellite Wi-Fi hotspot, angling the built-in antenna towards the southern horizon. She glanced up at Owen, who was watching her with a grin. “What?”

  “Not often I get to see the boss lady in action. Just lockin’ this info away for future consideration.” He brought his phone out and entered a combination of pass phrase and his thumbprint to unlock it, then appeared to access a local file. By then Alac
e had connected to the satellite data and was engaging the security on her servers holding information for this gig. Owen continued, “Claudia Nelson was seen walking into school yesterday before school started and attended three of her morning classes. She ditched the fourth one, not for the first time. There were no eyes on her for lunch, or the afternoon. When she didn’t get home in time to babysit her little sister so Mom could go to work, her mom started calling friends. Early morning, life as usual. First three classes, no one noticed anything out of the norm. But then she just dropped out of sight. Nothing at all after a camera picked her up headed down a side hallway to a lesser used bathroom. Her books and backpack were stored in her locker, which wasn’t normal, according to her friends. That’s the only thing out of place, Alace. Her mom finally got the cops involved about midnight last night. That’s when I got my alert.”

  As he spoke, Alace scanned the information she’d already read through at least once. She’d left yesterday evening, the drive a solid ten hours from home in good weather. It had taken her twelve, so she’d been on the road when the report for the Nelsen girl—Claudia, she reminded herself it was okay to personalize the victims—would have hit her radar. Quickly reciting the details about Nyla Davison, she shook her head. “Why didn’t you pick up on this one, Owen?”

  “She’s older than any of the other missing. Means she’s outside my parameters for the search.” He shrugged. “That’ll teach me to believe a madman would stay with what’s expected.”

  “Thirteen,” she echoed his earlier statement. “Same number as Idaho.” She shivered, the wind having picked up slightly. The forest was alive around them, filled with the sounds of small animals, insects, and the constant scraping of wood against wood, branches moving with the breeze and rubbing across their neighbors. “I still don’t have a solid handle on why the killer abandoned their killing fields there.”