She was shaken like a rag doll as she fought against the pain ripping through her shoulders and her scalp. She was dragged through the dimly lit garage and brought to a stop next to the man she had met in her home, introduced as Juan Martinez. This was Jose Fuentes, not Martinez, and he was just as frightening now as he had been the year before, when he met with Grant.
“She’s very pretty, my friend.” Jose gripped her jaw in his hand, twisting her face around until she was forced to stare up at him. “I warned Grant when he married her that he had chosen one he could not tame. I was correct in this assessment, was I not?”
She fought his hold, tears filling her eyes from the burning pain tearing through her shoulders as her captor twisted her arm more forcibly behind her back.
“Let her go, Fuentes,” Joe snapped. “She doesn’t have what you want.”
Jose Fuentes held her head in place, refusing to allow her to look over to Joe as he glanced to his side.
“Ah, there you are, Agent Merino.” His smile was sickly evil, a twisted parody of humor. “It is very kind of you to join us.”
“Jose, get the package from him and we will leave,” Santiago snapped. “We have no time for these games.”
“We have time for whatever I wish, boy. Diego is not here to listen to your sniveling. You follow my orders.”
Jose tightened his grip on Maggie’s face as she finally whimpered with the pain.
His teeth flashed within the expanse of scarred, dark flesh as he chuckled at the sound.
“She’s a strong woman. Women such as this, they fight the drug Diego created. They are the enjoyable little tramps once they succumb, both fighting and pleading for the agony to come.”
Maggie shuddered at the threat as Jose released her face and stared back at her sneeringly.
“I think I will let our Agent Merino live,” he sighed. “After I relieve him of the package it would appear he has dropped.”
Breathing harshly, Maggie turned her head to the side, seeing the shadowed form of Joe standing tall, his hands raised behind his head as one of Jose’s men stood behind him. The package was no place to be found.
“Let her go.” He nodded to Maggie. “She has nothing to do with this.”
“She has much to do with this.” Jose ran the backs of his fingers over her cheek as she jerked back in response. He chuckled a second before backhanding her. “Grant made certain he teased us often with tales of what a cold little wife he had. I do so enjoy breaking in such women. Frigid little bitches who think their bodies are too good for a little rough, sweaty sex.”
The pain ripped through her mind as the blow blinded her, nearly tearing her neck from her shoulders with the force of it. Sagging against the man holding her, Maggie fought to catch her breath as she heard the rough laughter that echoed around her.
“I will take Señora Samuels with me,” Jose stated then. “The videos make us much money. She will bring quite a price from those viewers who enjoy watching the battle between the needs of the flesh and the denials of the mind. I will take her in payment for my trouble.”
“Then you can forget the package.”
Maggie’s eyes widened as Jose’s gun came up to her head.
“I can kill her now.”
“Same deal. I know where the package is, you don’t.”
“I will find it once you are both dead,” Jose snarled furiously. “I do not need you to find the package.”
Joe glanced around the shadowed garage before turning back to Jose, his lips kicking into a grin. “Good luck.”
A tense silence filled the garage as Jose’s and Joe’s eyes met in a battle of wills. Moments later, Jose bent, the hiss of a knife sliding from an ankle sheath sliding over Maggie’s nerve endings like a serpent’s warning.
As he rose he turned to Maggie once again, his hand lifting until the blade touched her skin. “How long would you last, my friend, as I begin slicing her open, inch by inch. Her beautiful face.” The knife slid down her jaw. “Or these pretty breasts.” It moved to her breasts as Maggie fought to shrink back. “It would be a shame to destroy such beauty, Agent Merino.”
Maggie fought to make out Joe’s expression, to see through the dim light provided by the flashlight Jose had aimed more at the floor rather than Joe. It left Joe’s expression in shadow to her, though she was certain Jose had the required light to watch it closely.
She shook her head slowly as Joe watched her. It wasn’t worth it. The Fuentes gang would continue to kill, to rape, and to maim if they were allowed to go free. But could she bear the pain Jose could deal her? She was horribly afraid she couldn’t.
“Decide now, Merino.” The blade pressed into the upper portion of her breasts, pricking the flesh. “There is no time left.”
In more ways than one.
As Maggie’s gasp tore from her throat, light flared in the garage, brilliant and intense as sirens began to blast through the interior. Maggie felt someone’s rough hands jerking her away to the side as the feel of the blade biting into her flesh had her crying out in shock.
“Stay down.”
She heard Joe’s fierce order at her ear as she was dragged to the other side of his precious car, the sound of bullets pinging around it sending a flash of dread through her chest.
“Sons of bitches,” Joe yelled. “Be careful of my fucking car!”
The garage doors flew open as Maggie’s eyes adjusted to the light, the sight of black-clad figures pouring into the interior, sending jubilation rushing through her.
Within seconds it was over. Maggie rolled to her back, staring up at Joe as he leaned over her, his lips curving into a smile as she watched him in surprise.
“Looks like Craig knew me better than I thought he did,” he grunted with a short laugh. “I’d have pulled that one over easy on Grant, Maggie. He would have never known I was gone until I didn’t return.”
“Craig did this?” Joe helped her to her feet, his arm curving around her waist as they watched the SWAT team gather up Jose, Roberto, and their henchmen, under the close supervision of Craig Allen, the district attorney, Mark Johnson, and the federal prosecutor, Andrew Johnson.
Craig turned to them slowly, his eyes watching them for long assessing moments before he lifted his hand, touched his fingers to his forehead, and nodded slowly.
“My car is ruined,” Joe sighed.
Maggie jerked her gaze to the car. It was scarred with bullet holes from one end to the other.
“You can fix it.” She was still breathing harshly, hardly daring to believe that it was all over. The information they needed was found, the Fuentes group was back in custody, and she was free.
“How about ‘we’ fix it?” He turned to her, staring down at her with sudden sobriety, his brown eyes almost black with emotion. “We could redecorate the house while we’re at it.”
“We?” she whispered.
“We.” He nodded slowly, his fingers lifting to the bloody scratch on her chest before his gaze came back to hers. “I won’t let you go again, Maggie. Ever. So for your sake, I hope you love me as much I love you, because if not, we’re in for a hell of a battle.”
“We’re in for a hell of a battle anyway.” She couldn’t stop smiling. Couldn’t stop crying as she threw her arms around his neck, felt his surround her and knew, in that moment, that her dreams had come true.
She was in Joe’s arms, and he was talking forever. And forever was a good thing.
Epilogue
Three weeks later
Joe found the little plastic stick with the line running through the result window when he dragged himself out of the bed and stumbled into the bathroom.
Sleep wasn’t something he had gotten a lot of the night before. Maggie, on the other hand—he had gotten a lot of her. He had taken her until he was certain sex would be the furthest thing from his mind for days. Only to reach for her again, impossibly hard, desperate to feel her coming around him.
He stared down at the home pregnancy tes
t, hardly daring to believe what it meant. That in the weeks since he had her back in his bed, that a child had developed. The child he had dreamed of having with her every fucking night she had been married to Grant.
He had lived in fear of the other man announcing pending fatherhood. Certain that the moment he heard the news, life would crumble around him. Two years he had spent in hell, aching, tormented by memories of Maggie and a hunger that never slept. A hunger that still didn’t sleep.
How had one tiny woman buried herself so deeply within his heart without his knowledge of it? Yet Maggie had. He loved her in ways he had never loved his first wife. In ways that still defied his own understanding. He would die for her. Without thought. Without regret. He would die for Maggie. And now for their child.
He reached out and picked up the stick, feeling his chest clench as emotion threatened to overwhelm him. And amazingly, he felt the erection between his thighs, his cock thickening, straining as arousal began to tear through him.
Maggie was pregnant.
Joe blinked back the moisture that filled his eyes as the knowledge overwhelmed him, weakened his knees, and made him feel like whimpering in excitement and fear. Damn, he felt like a fucking teenager with his first woman now. His flesh prickled with awareness of the bond he was suddenly aware of, and his chest felt too tight as his heart seemed to swell with the overabundance of emotion flooding through him.
He backed slowly from the bathroom, his eyes on that small line of color in the result box of the test stick.
“There’s still time to escape.”
He swung around, meeting the brilliance of Maggie’s uncertain gaze. Her gaze moved from his face to his cock, her expression flickering with surprise before her eyes returned to his.
“Escape?” He winced at the sound of his own voice, hoarse, ragged. “Maggie…” He shook his head.
Son of a bitch, there were words he should be saying right now. Something poetic or romantic, something that would alleviate the uncertainty in her gaze. But his throat was locked with emotion, his chest heaving from it as he fought to breathe.
But he could still move, and he did so without conscious effort. He dropped the result stick, strode to her, and within seconds he had her in his arms. She wore nothing but his shirt and he could feel the heat of her body searing him through it. Emotion threatened to overwhelm him as he stared into her eyes, saw the hope, the fears and the love. Maggie had always stared at him with such love. Then slowly, desperate to feel her, to feel the life within her, Joe went to his knees as his arms wrapped around her hips, pulling her to him. He jerked her shirt over her abdomen, his face pressing against the soft flesh as he felt the moisture that refused to evaporate from his eyes.
Fuck, he was a grown man. Grown men didn’t cry.
“Joe?” Her voice was low, a sweet little cry filled with hope and love, joy and innocence.
He pressed his lips to her stomach, his hands moving around to grip her hips and hold her close as he imagined he felt the life growing beneath his lips, inside her precious body.
“I love you.” He couldn’t say the words enough as he felt a tremor rushing through him, through her. “I love you, Maggie.”
Then he was pulling her to him, dragging her down to face him, staring into those beautiful green eyes and the tears that washed over her cheeks.
“I love you, Joe.” Her hands touched his cheeks as his smoothed back the fiery strands of hair that had fallen across her cheeks. “I guess this means you’re happy about the baby?”
Her tremulous smile had his lips quirking as he fought the shudders racing through his body.
“I want you again,” he whispered, dragging the material of her shirt to her neck as he fought to remove the hated clothing she had donned.
She didn’t need to wear clothes. He wanted to see her body, wanted to watch it change, to become heavy with their child. He wanted to see the pearly sheen of her skin and feel every inch of the warm satin flesh against him.
“We’re going to kill each other like this.” Her laughter was thick with arousal, with the same hungers that drove him as he laid her back on the carpet and came slowly over her.
Her thighs parted for him, knees bending as he settled between them, his cock lodging at the entrance to the fiery, sweetly aroused flesh awaiting him. Soft nether lips enfolded the head of his cock as he pressed against the entrance of her pussy, they caressed his sensitive flesh, the damp friction causing his teeth to grit at the subtle, torturous pleasure as he began to take her.
* * *
Maggie stared up at Joe, seeing the track of the tears he had shed on his lean cheeks, the intensity of emotion that darkened his eyes. Dark blond hair fell over his forehead, softening the savage cast of his features, and his lips appeared softer, hungry, as he stared at her.
He filled her slowly, tenderly, as though aware of the sensitivity her inner flesh held after the hunger that had raged through them the night before.
As he pressed inside her, filling her, stretching her, his fingers brushed over her cheeks, her lips, feathering over her skin as though memorizing her by touch, even as his eyes traced each feature.
“I died when I lost you.” The sound of his voice shocked her. It was guttural, thick with remembered pain.
“Joe.” She tried to shake her head, to halt the flow of pain she could see in his eyes.
“No. Hear me out. Now.” He pressed deeper inside her and suddenly the joining of their bodies was more than just pleasure, or bonding. As though the embrace had become elemental, a fusion of body and soul. “I don’t want to ever be that stupid again, Maggie. I don’t want to ever forget the agony I felt every day that you lived under his roof, that I thought he lived in your heart. Because I don’t want to ever be that stupid again, Maggie. Ever.”
“As though I would let you, ever again,” she whispered, a smile trembling over her lips as tears fell from her eyes. “I love you, too, Joe. And walking away isn’t something I’ll do again. I’m here. For always.”
He moved then, as though he couldn’t help himself, his hips shifting, moving against her as his erection began to thrust slow and deep inside her.
Her back arched with pleasure as a whimpering cry escaped her chest. God, she loved this, feeling him inside her, touching her, loving her in a way she knew she would never know with another man. Only Joe.
“Ah, Maggie,” he groaned as his hands lowered from her face, his fingers sinking into her hair as he bent to her.
Gentle lips nipped at hers as he gazed into her eyes. She could see her reflection in the dark gaze, as well as the emotion that poured from him.
“Sweetheart, you fill my soul,” he groaned as he began to thrust harder, his cock spearing into her, stroking tender nerve endings, sensitive flesh, and creating a blaze of lust as the friction increased.
Her legs lifted, wrapping around his hips as she fought to deepen the kiss, to hold him tighter to her as she felt a part of her soul lifting, lightening, melding with his as he took her with a gentleness she wouldn’t have believed possible.
It seemed never-ending. He kissed her with devouring hunger, though his thrusts were tender, stretching her vagina with easy strokes as his fingers caressed her scalp. She could feel him from her lips to her ankles, his harder, stronger body moving, flexing against hers as the building pleasure began to tighten through her body.
“Joe. Oh God, it feels so good…” Her head thrashed against the carpet as his lips moved to her neck, his tongue licking over her flesh as he moved lower.
“Hmm. Damned good, baby. But only with you. Sweet heaven, Maggie, only with you.”
Maggie fought to breathe as his lips moved to her breast, his tongue painting her tight nipple with liquid fire a second before the heat of his mouth enveloped it. The firm suckling of his mouth heralded a harsh groan from his lips before he began thrusting inside her harder, faster, fucking into her with a depth and intensity that sent her spiraling into an orgasm that swept through
her soul.
Maggie was barely aware of her own cries as release raced through her, but she clearly heard Joe’s. Harsh, a guttural male cry, almost animalistic, that preceded the harsh shudders that tore through his body and the feel of his release pulsing inside her.
Exhausted. Ravished. Maggie lay bonelessly on the floor as Joe collapsed to her side, breathing harshly.
“Well, that’s the first time we did it on the bedroom floor.” It was all she could do to form coherent words, but that thought struck her as funny.
“It was ’bout time then,” he panted beside her.
His hand moved lazily to her stomach, his fingers splaying across her flesh as he turned to her then.
“I love you, Joe.” There was no containing that love, or the happiness blooming inside her.
“I worship you, Maggie,” he whispered. “For your sake, I hope you can live with it.”
“Always, Joe.” She smiled back at him tearfully. “Always.”
Siren’s Call
by
Lori Wilde
1
Duncan Stewart sauntered into Annie Graves’s dive shop trailing groupies like chum.
Annie dug her fingernails into her palms and resisted the urge to duck under the counter and hide out until he went away. It had been five years since she’d seen Duncan face-to-face, and she’d convinced herself she was over him. But the double punch of jubilance and jealousy kicking her stomach took her completely by surprise.
Oh, God, he’s the last person on earth I want to see.
But that was a big, fat lie, and Annie’s heart knew it.
Secretly, she’d been wishing and hoping and praying that she and Duncan might run into each other while they were both back in St. Augustine. She just hadn’t expected him to show up at the shop. Truth was, she missed him and mourned the loss of the friendship they’d once shared.
A friendship destroyed by one passionate, regrettable night.
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