by Amelia Autin
He sat her down on the edge of the bed to remove her socks and shoes. Then, “Lift up,” he told her, and when she did he slid her jeans down her hips, then off. When they were both completely naked, he knelt at her feet, gazed into her eyes and said, “You trust me, don’t you?”
“Yes.” She couldn’t help that the word came out a little breathless.
“Then before we do anything else, let me do something for you.” He placed his hands on her shoulders and exerted just enough pressure so she knew he wanted her to lie back.
“Okay.” Again that breathless sound.
His hands moved to the inside of her knees, and again he exerted gentle pressure that told her exactly what he wanted of her. He settled between her parted legs, stroking her thighs with his warm hands, up and down, up and down. Each time coming ever closer to the apex of her thighs, sending tingling chills of excitement all through her. “Trust me, Cate,” he said as he lowered his head.
She arched up and caught her breath on a sobbing moan when pleasure unlike anything she’d ever known coursed through her. Liam’s tongue touched and teased, his hands held her firm as she writhed beneath him, and his breath was warm, sending shock waves through her as he loved her with his mouth again and again. Cate’s hands grasped the sheet beside her, trying to find purchase as every sense concentrated in one location, as every muscle tightened ever tighter. Part of her wanted to beg Liam to stop, but she’d sworn she’d never beg for anything again—and besides, she’d die if he stopped. So she let him lead her higher and higher—up, up, up—until she couldn’t take any more and she simply exploded.
She wasn’t crying, but the physical and emotional release felt as if she had, and she reveled in it. She floated for a few seconds, just letting the little aftershocks control her, blissful peace permeating her entire being. Then Liam stood.
She heard a tearing sound and was vaguely aware of his movements. Suddenly he was there beside her on the bed, lying on his back and pulling her unresisting body on top of him. His breathing was as ragged as hers when he said, “Spread your legs, sweetheart.” When she complied, she felt him nudging at the portal of her womanhood. “Guide me in, Cate,” he pleaded. “Show me you want me as much as I want you.”
Then and only then did she realize Liam had planned it this way from the beginning. He’d made sure he wouldn’t hurt her with his entry, had made her come first so she would be exquisitely ready for him. And he was letting her be on top so she wouldn’t feel forced in any way.
Love for him washed through her, an intense emotion she finally acknowledged in her consciousness as love. She grasped his erection—sheathed in the condom he’d donned for her protection—and seated him securely inside her. Then she flexed her muscles and pushed down, throwing her head back and catching her breath in wonder as he filled her completely...without pain. She rocked a little, but it didn’t hurt at all. It felt...incredible. It felt...transcendent. It felt...like love.
His big body was trembling, as if his muscles were screaming at him to move...but he wouldn’t. And she knew he was waiting for a sign from her that it was okay, that she was okay. She rocked again, pushing him even deeper, loving the feel of him so hot and hard and deep within her—the rightness of it. “Oh, Liam,” she breathed as she braced her hands against his chest and continued rocking. Her nipples tightened until they ached, and she wanted his hands on her. Wanted him to caress her there. Everywhere. But he wouldn’t...unless she asked. Because he loved her.
It was all up to her. Her choice. Choose me, he was saying. Choose this. Choose love. “Please,” she whispered. “Please touch me. Please make love to me. Oh please, Liam, please.”
She’d released a whirlwind. That was all she could think of as he guided her hips, showing her how to ride him like a wild stallion. Each time he left her body she ached to have him back, moving on him faster and faster, slick and smooth and so hot and tight the friction was sending her toward oblivion again, but it didn’t hurt. She moaned his name, not wanting to go anywhere without him, wanting to know she’d pleased him as much as he was pleasing her. Then his hips grew frenzied, thrusting upward as he pulled her down onto him. He cried out her name, his body bucking beneath hers as hers milked his, and they came together.
Cate collapsed onto Liam’s chest, boneless. Floating again, but this time was even better because he was inside her. Because she could hear his heart pounding in his chest as if he’d just run ten miles—just as hers was doing. Because his arms were holding her so close it was as if they were one.
When her pulse finally slowed, when she could finally breathe enough to speak, she touched her fingers to his cheek and murmured, “Thank you.”
He made a sound as if he was suppressing a laugh, and she could feel him twitching inside her as his body shook. Then said, “You’re very welcome.” Just like a boy who’d been taught to be polite no matter what, and it made her gurgle with laughter. She sighed dreamily and rubbed her cheek against his chest, loving how it made her feel so warm and contented. Loving him.
“You planned it,” she said an eternity later, after he’d discarded the condom and they’d settled back into each other’s arms.
He seemed uncomfortable with that assessment. “Not exactly.”
“Yes, exactly.” She let one fingertip circle a flat male nipple. “That’s when I knew I loved you,” she added quietly.
His hand, which had been slowly stroking her back, stilled. “Say that again.”
“That’s when I knew I loved you,” she dutifully repeated.
He sat up abruptly, bringing her with him. “Cate, are you sure?” He grasped her arms and held her away from him, as if he needed to see her face in the moonlight. “Don’t say it because you’re grateful and you think you have to.”
“I’m not.” She didn’t care anymore that she was gambling her heart in one reckless move. “When I realized how careful you were to make everything so perfect for me, I knew there could never be another man in the whole world as perfect for me as you. And that’s when I finally admitted to myself that I loved you.” She smiled tremulously. “I think I loved you almost from the beginning, but I wouldn’t let myself.” She suddenly realized just how absurd that contradiction sounded, and she laughed softly. “I wouldn’t let myself acknowledge it,” she clarified.
Liam smiled, but then his smile faded. “So where do we go from here, Cate? D’Arcy told me the original plan was for you to disappear after you testify. That the Witness Security Program would provide you with a new identity, a new life somewhere. I want that for you. I want you to be safe. But I...”
After you testify...after you testify...
Those were the only words she could hear. It wasn’t the plan for her to disappear that drove a stake in her heart without any warning at all. It was the reminder that once she testified, Liam would know the truth about her. “I don’t know,” she said, all lightheartedness gone. “I don’t even know if I will live to testify.”
Liam shook her once, as if to shock her out of the negative mind-set. “Don’t say that. Don’t even think it. You are not going to die.”
“You can’t know that.” Suddenly she remembered saying the same thing to him earlier in the evening, about something completely different.
“Yes, I can.” In his eyes was the memory that he’d said those same words to her, too. “I won’t let anything happen to you, Cate. You hear me? I won’t. Even if I die for it.”
“Don’t.” She placed her hand over his mouth. “You think that makes it better for me? Imagining you sacrificing your life for mine?” Her breath was coming fast and ragged. “You really think if you died I would want to go on living?” She threw her arms around him and held him tight, laying her head against his shoulder. “I just found you,” she whispered, as if that said it all.
His arms were just as tight around her, and his voice was
husky. “I feel the same way. I just found you, Cate. I’m not going to lose you. I won’t let it happen.”
* * *
D’Arcy hefted the suitcase. “I won’t bother counting it here,” he told Vishenko. “But if it’s short by so much as a dollar...”
“That is not a concern,” Vishenko assured him. “So where is she? My pilot must file a flight plan.”
“Tomorrow,” D’Arcy said. “Assuming there is indeed five million dollars in here, I’ll tell your pilot what he needs to know.” He smiled coldly. “This plane can make the flight without refueling if you start with full tanks. I’ll be here at seven. Plenty of time.” With that he was gone.
Aleksandrov Vishenko watched D’Arcy walk across the tarmac, carrying the suitcase instead of rolling it. Five million, he reminded himself. It wasn’t the first time he’d paid a bribe. And he was sure it wouldn’t be the last. But he had never paid so much at one time to one man. He had every intention of recovering the down payment after D’Arcy’s death tomorrow. His men were already working on a home invasion scheme that would, if necessary, force the location of the money out of D’Arcy’s wife if it wasn’t found in his house. There was still the slight possibility the money would be unrecoverable—in which case he would have paid five million dollars for his freedom. Expensive, but worth it. And he had the added incentive of making Caterina pay. Not to mention throwing the agency into turmoil once their highest-ranking official was eliminated in a gruesome fashion.
He walked over to a cabinet and removed the semiautomatic pistol it contained. The gun was new to him, but completely untraceable. He checked the action and the clip, even though he’d checked them several times before he left Long Island—he couldn’t afford to have the pistol fail when he killed Caterina and the man who had sold her out.
Once they were dead that would leave only the extradition to Zakhar to worry about. And Vishenko wasn’t particularly worried about extradition. He had money secreted in bank accounts around the world. If worse came to worst and his high-priced attorneys failed, he would buy himself a safe haven in some country with no extradition treaties. Not with the US, and not with Zakhar.
* * *
The cell phone chirped once, then stopped. Liam was out of bed in a flash and picked it up, but it didn’t ring again. He tried to see if a missed call had registered, but it hadn’t. And when he attempted to check voice mail it wouldn’t go through. “Guess I’ll have to go outside,” he told Cate, who was awake now and watching him from the bed. He tugged yesterday’s jeans on, not bothering with his boxers, zipped up but left the button undone and pulled on his T-shirt inside out. When he saw what he’d done he didn’t bother changing it. He grabbed his shoulder holster from where he’d left it on the nightstand and shrugged it on, then picked up the cell phone again and went out on the front porch.
The air was early-morning cool, despite being late August. It would warm up later in the day, but right now, with the sun not yet over the horizon, Liam could have done with more than a T-shirt. He didn’t worry about it—he didn’t plan to be out here very long. Just long enough to check voice mail, and if nothing was recorded there, call Callahan to see if he was trying to contact them for some reason. Voice mail yielded nothing, so Liam punched in the number of Callahan’s cell, which was answered almost immediately.
“Callahan.”
“It’s Liam Jones. Were you trying to reach us?”
“Yeah. I wanted to let you know two things. First, I’ve got an emergency here—a school bus hit a guardrail. Nobody hurt, but I’m not going to be able to make it out there this morning.”
“No problem. Cate and I don’t need—”
“Which brings me to the second thing,” Callahan said, interrupting him. “D’Arcy called and there’s a change of plan.”
“Oh yeah? What?”
“The new prosecutors want to interview Cate now, not wait until the week before the trial. D’Arcy’s not about to let her go to DC at this point—too dangerous. And he doesn’t want the prosecutors to know where this place is—they don’t have a need to know, you know?”
“Yeah, I know.”
“He never gives away an edge if he can help it.” Admiration—not something easily earned where Callahan was concerned, Liam knew—was evident in his voice. “So he doesn’t want the prosecutors coming here. He wants Cate to meet them at the agency’s safe house in Casper. It’s not that far—if you take the other road and don’t go through Black Rock it’s only a couple of hours away.”
“How long will the interview take?”
“He didn’t say. Just that he needs her at the safe house this afternoon. He’ll meet you there. Knowing him, he wants to make sure security is airtight before the prosecutors arrive.”
“Okay,” Liam said slowly. “What time?”
“Around two. If you get on the road by noon that should do it. It’s not like you have to worry about traffic, even when you get to Casper. I don’t have the address or the GPS coordinates of the safe house with me—I’ll call you later, once I get back to the office.”
“Okay,” Liam said again. “Will we be coming back here tonight?”
“D’Arcy wasn’t sure, but if I were you, I’d take everything you brought with you. In case there’s another change of plan.”
“What about the generator? If I turn it off the food in the refrigerator will spoil. But if we’re not coming back here it’ll go to waste anyway.”
“Don’t worry about it. Leave the generator on. If you come back tonight there’s no problem. If you’re gone more than a day, I’ll swing by, empty the fridge and turn off the generator.”
“Sounds good.” He thought for a moment, then voiced his major concern. “You’re sure the safe house is secure?”
Callahan chuckled. “Funny you should ask that. I asked Walker the same thing a few years ago when Mandy and my children were brought there for safekeeping. He told me there are no guarantees in this world, but that he’d stayed there himself on an operation, and he knew the people who ran it. Far as I know, the same people are still running it.”
“And?”
Callahan’s voice went deadly soft. “And I trusted them to keep my wife and children safe. They did.”
And that’s the end of that conversation, Liam thought to himself with sudden amusement.
Chapter 16
Cate had already taken a quick shower and dressed for the day in jeans and a white cotton top with a blue eyelet ribbon around the neck by the time Liam returned. When he told her they were going to the safe house in Casper to meet with the prosecutors, she didn’t object until he added, “Callahan said we should take everything with us, just in case.”
“We’re not coming back here?”
“It’s one possibility. Something we should plan for, just in case. I think we’ll come back here after you meet with the prosecutors. No matter how safe that safe house is, this cabin is safer. Especially since only D’Arcy and Callahan know we’re here. But Callahan wasn’t positive, so...”
“I see.” She considered this for a moment. “What about the laundry?”
He stared at her blankly. “Laundry?”
“The sheets, pillowcases, towels, washcloths—all the things we used,” she answered patiently. “This isn’t a hotel. We can’t just leave these dirty things behind for someone else to take care of.”
It hadn’t even occurred to him. There was no washer or dryer in the cabin, of course, so they’d been hand-washing their few clothes and hanging them to dry on the back porch in order to have clean clothes to wear every day—even their jeans dried in one day in the warm late summer sun. Now he wondered what Keira and Cody did about laundry. Everything had been clean when they arrived, so the Walkers had to do something. He just wasn’t sure what.
Cate raised her eyebrows at him exactly
the way his mom used to do when something should be obvious. “You think maybe there’s a Laundromat in town?”
Duh, he thought. “Maybe. Black Rock’s kind of small, but we can check. We don’t need to be in Casper until two. We have time.”
She didn’t say anything, just began stripping the bed. Liam went into the bathroom and gathered up all the towels and washcloths, then swung into the kitchen and added the dishrag and kitchen towels to his pile. “Here,” he said as he dumped his armful in the middle of the sheets she’d removed from the bed. Cate had already fetched the sheets and pillowcase Liam had used when he was sleeping on the cot, which he’d folded neatly and stacked on top of the collapsed cot he’d stored in the closet so it would be out of the way.
Cate said, “We can wash our dirty clothes at the same time.” She quickly added her pajamas and the clothes she’d been wearing yesterday to the pile, then glanced expectantly his way. “Strip.”
Liam grinned at her as he shrugged out of his shoulder holster and one-fisted his inside-out T-shirt off. “Why, darlin’, I thought you’d never ask.”
Her cheeks reddened, and Liam realized Cate was as much a novice at sexual banter as she was at sex. He was naked beneath his jeans, but he had no false modesty, so it took him only a couple of seconds to comply. He hadn’t counted on his reaction to her watching him strip, though—which she did...in little sideways glances she thought were covert. Her pretending not to look was more arousing than if she’d openly stared. Stand down, he told his body as he tugged on boxers and clean jeans, but it wasn’t very obedient, so the jeans were a tight fit.
He dropped his dirty clothes on top of the pile, then slid his arms around her and pulled her flush with his body. “I forgot something.”
