by Cynthia Eden
It was a dream. No, a memory. Macey knew that, but she couldn’t make herself wake up.
When he leaned forward once more, Macey realized that something was wrong with Daniel’s eyes.
There were nails in them.
“You never see the monster coming... You can’t see him, not until it’s too late.”
She shot up in bed, sucking in a deep breath.
“Macey?” Bowen’s arms wrapped around her. His touch was warm. “You okay?”
No, she was so incredibly far from okay. A glance at the clock on the bedside showed she’d been sleeping for three hours.
“Bad dream?” Bowen rasped.
“I was on his table again. But this time, I remembered something he’d said to me.” God. “He said he was going to take my eyes.”
“Macey...”
“I didn’t tell the cops that part.” There’d been so much else to tell them. “My eyes... God, when I was a kid, I hated that they were different. That I was so different. I wore contacts when I was a teenager, just like Gale Collins did, because I wanted to fit in with everyone else.”
“I think your eyes are beautiful.”
Her gaze jerked toward him, but she couldn’t see him clearly, not in the dark.
“To be honest, though, I’ve always thought everything about you was beautiful.”
Her heart warmed. “You never said anything. You made me come to you—”
“Because I knew you weren’t ready, and I would have rather been your friend, your partner, than fucking nothing at all.”
She could feel tears stinging her eyes. “Why? Why, Bowen? Why me?”
“Because you’re strong and you’re smart and when you got dealt one of the worst hands life can give you...Macey, you went out and tried to help other people. You didn’t run. You didn’t hide. You didn’t let the need for vengeance destroy you. You just—you got even stronger. Fuck, but I admired that.”
She hadn’t felt strong. She’d felt like a ghost, just trying to be alive again.
But Bowen had reminded her of all the things that were waiting in life. There wasn’t just pain out there.
Pleasure.
Hope.
Second chances.
Love?
She found her hands rising, curling around his jaw and she put her lips against his. She’d gone to his room not for sex, just for...for his touch. For his comfort. But right then, things were different.
And still...
It’s not about sex. We’re not just having sex.
She’d told him once that it was just fucking, and now Macey realized what a liar she’d been. It had never been that, had it?
Not for her...
Not for him?
Her tongue slid into his mouth. She kissed him slowly, and she savored him. His hands settled along her hips and he pulled her against him. He was still sitting up, and she straddled his legs. She could feel his cock growing against her as they kissed. The kiss became harder, stronger, and his hands rose up to stroke her breasts.
“Make love to me.” She’d whispered those words and she wouldn’t take them back. Love, not fucking. Love, not sex.
“Always, Mace,” he promised her, the nickname sounded like an endearment rolling from his tongue, and she had to blink away the tears that wanted to fill her eyes. The eyes he’d called beautiful.
His hands caressed her breasts, and her nipples were tight and aching for his touch. He kissed his way down her throat, stopping in those spots that he knew she liked. Down, down...and her breath panted out. Her nails dug into his shoulders as she held on tight.
Her panties were getting wet. His cock—it was rock hard. She arched her hips and slid her sex over him, loving the friction but wanting so much more. Wanting him in her.
Wanting everything.
Wanting him.
His right hand trailed down her body. He slid his fingers beneath the hem of her panties and then he was thrusting them inside of her. Macey lifted up onto her knees, sucking in a sharp breath, as his fingers slid in and out of her. Her eyes squeezed shut. “I want you. All of you.”
His fingers slid out. She bit her bottom lip. Her body was bow tight, already on the edge and they’d just begun. But then...
She heard a rip in the darkness. He’d torn her panties and Macey almost wanted to laugh. But she couldn’t. The desire she felt was too intense. The need too raw.
She pushed his sweats out of the way and his cock surged toward her. Her fist closed around him, and Macey stroked his erect length. Once, twice, again and again, she pumped him.
“You’re driving me...out of my...mind...”
Good. That was how she wanted him. How she wanted to be.
“Need to get...protection,” Bowen growled.
“I’m clean. And there’s...no risk of pregnancy.” She couldn’t believe she was even saying those words. Couldn’t believe she was suggesting that they—
“Macey.”
“This one time, I want you.” She needed this connection. Needed him.
“I’m clean,” he told her, his voice nearly guttural. “There is no risk with me.”
No, there wasn’t.
She eased higher onto her knees. His cock pushed against her, and then Macey arched down, taking him in deep. He filled her completely, and she moaned because he felt so good.
She wanted to savor him. To drive him wild.
Then she wanted the pleasure to rip through them both, destroying what had been. Leaving something new.
His hands were tight and hard on her waist as he lifted her up, then surged deep into her core. Again and again, he plunged into her, and the angle of his thrusts had his cock sliding right over her clit. Macey wanted to go slow. She wanted that savoring—
But the pleasure wasn’t stopping. She couldn’t hold back the maelstrom of release. She came around him, her whole body shaking as her sex spasmed. She cried out his name and her body shuddered.
Then she felt him come inside of her, a hot splash that just made her own pleasure so much more intense.
She kissed him, and this time, the kiss was different. Something...softer.
Something sweeter.
A connection was there, she could feel it between them.
A link that had bonded them.
Her heartbeat stopped thundering in her ears. She eased back down, moving to lay beside him. His arms curled around her.
And she knew, with utter certainty...
This is where I belong. With him.
* * *
HIS PHONE WAS RINGING. Bowen slowly turned his head and saw the phone vibrating as it slid across the top of the nightstand. His hand flew out and he grabbed the phone.
Four a.m. No way this call is good.
“Murphy,” he said, voice gruff. Beside him, Macey stirred in the bed.
“I need...help...”
Bowen sat up, fast.
“I’m...” A rough rasp of breath. “At the ranger station...only one here with me is Zack...D-Douglas...”
“Jonah?” Bowen snapped. “Is that you?”
“N-need help,” he rasped again. “Bastard...held me...tied up...no food...”
Macey jumped out of bed and flashed on the lights.
“Jonah, I’ll call the rest of the team.” He didn’t mention anything about the team’s growing suspicions or what they’d found at Jonah’s home. “You’re at the ranger station with Zack Douglas, right? That’s what you said?”
“Y-yes...”
“Stay there. We’re coming to get you.”
Macey was at the foot of the bed.
Jonah had hung up.
“What’s happening?” she demanded.
“Jonah’s at Ranger Douglas’s station. He wants help.” He dialed Samantha and, despite the ins
ane hour, she answered on the second ring. “Samantha, Jonah just called.” And he rattled off the details as fast as he could.
His gut was clenched, his hand too tight around the phone, and he still wondered...
What the fuck is really going on here?
“Tucker and I will get a team from the PD and get en route,” Samantha said, her voice sharp. “You and Macey get there, too. I want all hands on deck for this one.” Her words were grim. Tight. “I don’t like this... Be on guard...every moment, got me?”
He understood exactly what she meant.
He and Macey had mistaken Curtis Zale for a victim. But he hadn’t been. As for Jonah...
“Understood,” Bowen replied quietly. Then he was jumping from the bed and grabbing his clothes as quickly as he could. Macey had already dressed and gotten her gun from the other room. They hauled ass out of that lodge and jumped into the SUV. It was dark outside, but a thousand stars seemed to glitter overhead.
They rushed down the winding roads, heading for the mountains, easing toward the ranger station, and Bowen’s hands were fisted around the wheel as he tried to navigate those tight, twisting roads in the dark.
“Victim or killer?” The words burst from him.
Macey had gone dead silent.
“He called for help,” Bowen said, “but everything we’ve learned since Jonah’s disappearance... Damn it! Damn it!” Everything makes him look like a suspect and not one of our own.
“We go in and we treat him as both.” Macey’s voice was soft. “Victim and killer, that’s what we have to do, until we learn more.”
The road branched up ahead. It was so dark that he almost missed the right turn. He slammed on the brake and jerked the wheel, and then they started heading up, up the mountain. Reflectors were on the side of the road, warning of a steep drop-off as they glinted on an old guardrail. It was barely a two-lane road. More like just one, and he was damn glad no other cars were headed his way. His headlights cut through the darkness.
Higher, higher they went. He could feel his ears popping.
The earth seemed to have fallen away on the right...on Macey’s side of the car.
It was the only path to take in order to reach the ranger’s station. It was—
He heard the growl of an engine, and then bright lights were suddenly right in front of him. He could see the frame of an oversize truck, one with tires that were too big and headlights mounted on the roof of the vehicle. That truck came right for him, swerving to hit him.
“Bowen!” Macey screamed.
But there wasn’t any time to stop. There was nowhere to turn, the road was too narrow, and that truck...it was as if it had been waiting for them.
The truck slammed into him, as hard as it could, and Bowen’s SUV flew toward the reflectors—the reflectors that had warned of danger, the weak guardrail that wouldn’t keep them safe.
The SUV crashed right through that flimsy old railing.
His head turned, not toward that fucking truck, but toward Macey. She’d screamed his name. She’d sounded so afraid. He tried to reach for her.
But the SUV was rolling, tumbling down that mountain, over and over and the screams he heard then...they were the screams of metal as the SUV crashed.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE LIGHT WAS in her eyes, blinding her. Macey couldn’t see past that too bright light. She squinted, trying to see the man behind the light, because she knew he was there.
The monster was always there.
She was trapped, strapped onto the operating room table—
No, no, I’m not fucking on that table.
Macey blinked, but the bright light didn’t vanish. She was trapped, all right, but not on Daniel Haddox’s table of torture. She was pinned in the SUV, still held in place by her seat belt. Her door had twisted inward and metal seemed to surround her. Broken glass was on her clothes, in her hair, and she could feel blood sliding down her cheek.
The light was still in her eyes. She squinted, trying to see past it.
“Macey, you’re going to be all right!”
She knew that voice.
“Oh, God, Douglas, hurry the hell up!” that familiar voice shouted. “She’s still alive but, God, he isn’t.”
That was Jonah’s voice. High and desperate. Shouting out for help from—Ranger Douglas?
But then his words registered.
She’s still alive but, God, he isn’t.
Her head turned to the left. The light pouring into the car let her see Bowen. Bowen—with blood all over him. Bowen, with a deployed air bag slowly sagging beneath him. A giant chunk of metal hung from his chest.
“Bowen?” Macey whispered.
He didn’t move. She wasn’t even sure he was breathing.
“Bowen!” Frantic, she began clawing at her seat belt. It wouldn’t give. She was trapped, strapped down. Her arms were bleeding from a dozen cuts, the metal from her bent door dug into her side and she couldn’t get free to help Bowen. He was right there, inches away, and all she could do was put her hands on his face. “Look at me!”
But he didn’t. His eyes didn’t open. And he felt...cold.
“Macey!” Jonah’s voice snapped like a whip. “I’ve got to get you out of that vehicle. It’s not stable. The fucking thing could keep rolling any moment.”
What? Weren’t they already at the bottom of the mountain? She wasn’t sure. Her temple ached, and she knew she’d hit her head. A deployed air bag was near her, too, but it had slit open in several spots.
“A tree stopped your free fall, but the trunk is already cracking. You have to get out!” Then a knife was reaching through her broken window.
Macey screamed.
But the knife just cut through her seat belt.
Had he used the knife to cut into the air bag, too? Was that why it was flat now? Or had the chunks of sharp metal done that?
“I’m pulling her out!” Jonah suddenly yelled. “Douglas, get your ass over here! We’ll haul her to safety, then we’ll get Bowen.”
Yes, yes, they had to get Bowen. She was still touching Bowen. Now that her seat belt was gone, she could move more and her fumbling fingers slid down his throat. She felt his pulse—
Beating. Slowly, but still beating.
Bowen was alive!
“Got you,” Jonah said. His arms curled around her and he hauled her from the wreckage. The metal scraped over her hip and she felt the rise of more blood soak her clothes. His hold was tight as he got her out, and then he still held her in his arms, hurrying for safety as he called out to Douglas for help.
Only... Douglas wasn’t there.
It took a few moments for that unsettling truth to set in.
“I saved you,” Jonah said. He lowered Macey to her feet. The bright light was gone. He must have dropped it or shoved it into his pocket when he’d pulled her out. “You’re going to be okay.”
She didn’t speak for a moment, straining to hear—to hear some small sound that would tell her that Zack Douglas was actually there.
“You left your weapon in the car, Macey.”
Her hand flew to her side.
“Or rather, I cut the holster off you. Didn’t even see that coming, did you?” He backed up a step and the light was shining on her again. Bright. Right in her eyes.
She lifted her hand and turned her face away. “Douglas isn’t here.”
“No...” He laughed. “Zack Douglas isn’t here. No one is here but me and you.”
And Bowen. He’s still here.
“I’m glad you survived the crash, Mace.”
Mace. He was using Bowen’s nickname for her, and her skin crawled.
“Wasn’t sure you would, but that was a chance I had to take. I mean, how else was I going to get close enough to take out Bowen? There he was, rushing so fast to find
me, and I knew it was perfect.”
She tried to see into the darkness around her. He’d been telling the truth when he said that the SUV hadn’t fallen all the way down the mountain. It was perched halfway against a tree, and if that tree snapped, Bowen would keep falling.
I have to get him out.
“The feds know, don’t they, Mace?”
“Know what?” Her voice was trembling. She wanted him to think that she was afraid. That she was weak. Then he’d never see her attack coming.
But he sighed. “They know about me. That dick Tucker gave the game away back at the museum. I mean, shit, I’d just proven myself. I’d shot the bad guy—and believe me, Peter Carter was bad. Did you see that shit he did to his girlfriend? He kept her skull at his museum. Obviously, he was psychotic.” He paused. “And that’s why I don’t get it. You had the chance to put him out of his misery, but you choked. Again. Tucker didn’t want me on the team but you—the woman who couldn’t carry out a kill when it was deserved? He and Samantha both waved you in with open arms.”
She took a step toward the SUV. The light followed her.
“Tucker tipped his hand. The guy had always ridden my ass, but that day he just came out and said he thought I was a killer. He said that shit.”
She stared at him and took another slow step toward the SUV. You are a fucking killer.
“Knew trouble was coming,” Jonah muttered, “when he said I couldn’t empathize with the victims. Fuck, fuck, fuck. That was the one word. Shrinks always use that word. Empathize. No, I can’t empathize. I don’t feel shit for them. But I still do the job, don’t I? I still get the work done.”
Macey’s breath slid out. “That’s why you hacked the files at the FBI. You...you mimic, don’t you?” Oh, hell. That was a coping mechanism that psychopaths often used. They didn’t feel the way normal individuals did, so they just mimicked the behavior. They acted as if they got angry, as if they were hurt, as if they loved. But it was all just acting.
He hadn’t known how to act like the other agents in the team, so he’d cracked into their files so that his responses would become like theirs. She could see now. Finally.
“Asshole said I wasn’t acting right because my hands weren’t shaking. I mean, hello! I was doing what good agents do, you know? Standing calm in the face of danger. That’s how Bowen always acts!”
