Paradise Found

by Sarah O'Rourke

  “I want her to rely on me. Up there, she won’t have a choice. She’ll have to listen.”

  “And if she doesn’t?” Ax grunted.

  “Nobody will be around to hear her scream when I handcuff her gorgeous ass to my side,” Ben returned determinedly.

  “Sounds like you have your mind made up,” Axton noted dryly.

  “That’s because I do, Ax. I can’t lose her again. I won’t survive it,” Ben confessed huskily, glancing over his shoulder to check on Sami again. Seeing her sulking in her seat, he grinned. This plan would work, damn it! It had to. “Listen, I also need you to call Vivian over at Abel’s office and tell her my plan. Have her get Sami some clothes and female crap together. Remind her it’ll be cooler up there and to pack accordingly. Then, have her bring it to you. Then if you could box me up some food supplies and such and bring everything up the mountain before we get there, I’d appreciate it.”

  “What about you? Want me to grab you some shit from your place? I’m assuming that you’ll want me to bring up your beast, too?” Axton asked.

  Running a hand down his face, Ben groaned. How the hell had he forgotten his dog? Jellybean had been keeping him warm at night since he’d found him as a puppy, wandering down the side of the road at the edge of the woods, half-starved and alone. Now over eighty pounds of solid muscle, his puppy was fully grown and a real handful. One that would not appreciate being left behind.

  Smiling, Ben nodded. “Yeah, Ax, that sounds good. Please bring him. Samantha should probably meet him sooner rather than later.”

  “Alright. I’ll go get started on this list. I should have everything in place within a couple of hours. I’ll even go ahead and get a fire started in the wood-burning stove.”

  Glancing at his wrist watch, Ben nodded. “I’ll make sure to drive slowly on the way up. Thanks for this, Axton. It goes without saying that I seriously owe you.”

  “Hell, I’m just glad that one of us finally has the chance to get their girl. Don’t screw it up, Ben,” Axton cautioned. “And I’ll expect a nice size discount on my next promotional photo shoot.”

  “Fuck that. Consider it on the house, man. And thanks again. I’ll give you a call from the satellite phone in a day or so to check in,” Ben returned as he ran a hand over the soft hair of his beard as he racked his mind for anything he’d forgot.

  “Make sure you do. We’re supposed to get some weather over the next day or so. Could be the first snowfall of the season.”

  “Oh, she’ll love that,” he smirked with another stolen look at Samantha. Her blond hair had begun to slip from the messy makeshift bun she’d pulled her golden locks into in an effort to tame the heavy mane on her head. She still look pissed, but her fury had settled into a kind of resolved anger on her pretty face. Mostly, she looked wrinkled and tired, and after the drive she’d had this morning, that made sense. He needed to get her up the mountain and settled into the cabin, preferably before night fully fell and made the rough gravel path almost impassable. “We’ll talk soon. See you later, Ax,” he said before disconnecting the phone and climbing back into the vehicle. Directing a smile toward his fuming passenger, he amiably asked, “So, how are we doing in here? Feeling calmer?”

  “Absolutely,” Samantha returned with a scary smile of her own. “I always like to achieve a very zen state of mind before I begin plotting murder. You make less mistakes that way,” she shared, her cool jade eyes sparkling with malice.

  God, he’d missed this. The spark…the sass… the inner fire that made her temper burn so bright. Everything that made Samantha who she was. There was nothing insipid or bland about his vixen. Nope, when he was with her, he felt alive in ways he hadn’t realized he’d been missing until now. “I can see I’ll need to be on my toes with you until we get things settled between us,” he remarked as he started the truck and pulled away from the curb.

  Making a sound somewhere between a groan and a growl, Sami twisted in her seat to glare at him. “Listen to me you, dimwitted jackass! There’s nothing left to settle between us, Ben. Everything has been settled. We’re over. And we’ve been that way for a long time now.”

  Shrugging his broad shoulders, Ben grinned. “I disagree.”

  “You disagree?” Sami echoed sharply, cocking her head as her body stiffened. “How the hell do you disagree.”

  “I choose to look at things like we were on a break. Break’s over now,” he returned easily. “Now, it’s time for us to get together and work shit out.”

  He would have laughed at the expression on her face if he wasn’t fairly certain that she’d try to maim him, handcuffs or not, if he uttered a single word at this point. With her mouth soundlessly opening and closing while her eyes bugged out of her head, Sami looked as if she might begin hyperventilating at any moment. “Sami, breathe,” he ordered, reaching for her cold hand as he kept one eye on the road and the other on her. “C’mon. Don’t pass out on me now. It would be too hard explaining the handcuffs to EMS,” he teased, stroking his thumb across her palm soothingly. “I know this is all a lot to take in, but all you need to understand right now is that I’m not letting you go. Not again. I made that mistake once and nearly lost you. I’ve got a second chance now and I’m not going to waste it.”

  “You don’t get a flippin’ choice in that because there’s no second chance here,” Sami finally screeched, finding her voice again as she yanked her still shackled hands from his. “And we were not on a break! You and I are finished. Kaput. Stick a fork in us because we’re done!”

  Glancing pointedly at her cuffed hands, Ben smirked. “Like hell. You’re still mine, Sami. You proved that when I had my tongue down your throat less than an hour ago. I just have to remind you again how good we are when we’re together.”

  “It’s like talking to a brick wall,” she mumbled, turning her head to glance out the window at the passing scenery as they began to drive out of town, Sami looked over her shoulder. “Wait a second. Where the hell are we going, Ben? This is the way we came into town. Why are we leaving Paradise and where are you taking me?” she asked, her alarm mounting as she bounced beside him in her seat.

  “I’m simply avoiding any potential complications and taking you on a little unscheduled trip,” he explained easily.

  “Bullshit,” Sami snapped. “This is called kidnapping!”

  “Well, if you wanna split hairs about it,” he muttered under his breath as he dropped his eyes to his gas gauge. Luckily, he had enough and wouldn’t need to make any stops.

  “Right now, I wanna split your skull with a frickin’ ax!” Sami yelled, collapsing back against the leather bucket seat as she continued to stare hatefully at him. “I can’t believe you’re doing this, Ben.”

  “Believe it, beautiful. I want your undivided attention and the only way I know to make sure I get that is to take you where you won’t have a choice but to deal with me. Alone with no distractions. Get comfortable, baby. We’ve got a little drive ahead of us, but in the end, I promise it will be worth it,” he vowed, reaching out to pat her leg. “Just give me a chance, Sami.”

  He chose to take her sullen silence as a positive sign.

  Chapter Seven

  Sami

  Sami continued to fume for the next hour, choosing to ignore Ben’s incessant, but surprisingly endearing chatter to focus on the passing scenery. As one tree bled into another, it slowly became obvious they were going off the grid - especially when he turned onto a gravel road a half hour later. For a split second, she’d become slightly optimistic, her eagle eye spotting a rather elegant looking brick lodge set slightly back from the road, but when they’d simply driven past without even hitting the brake once, her hopes had been dashed. And for the last forty minutes, they hadn’t passed anything that remotely resembled civilization.

  Growing more nervous by the moment, Sami could almost feel the air getting thinner as the road became steeper and narrower the further up the side of the mountain he drove. It also didn’t help that twil
ight had descended over them, casting spooky shadows alongside the road (if somebody actually wanted to get wild and call the gravel trail they were on a road). Holding her breath as it continued to get darker and harder to see, Sami offered Ben a sidelong look, silently wondering what his ultimate plan was. Biting her lip, as the truck struck a particularly nasty bump, pitching their vehicle awkwardly to the side, her eyes darted from him to the road. The good news was that he looked unworried by the road conditions, but then again, how stable could a guy be that decided kidnapping his ex-fiance was a sane choice to make? These definitely weren’t the actions of a rational person, were they?

  The thing was, at the moment, she was remarkably unconcerned about her safety. Because the thing about Ben was that she knew he’d die before he ever allowed her a single second of harm. Even though they’d had a terrible break-up. Even though they hadn’t seen each other in years. She still instinctively felt that she was never more secure than when she was with him.

  Shit, she’d contracted Stockholm Syndrome early on in this abduction, hadn’t she?

  “I wish you’d say something over there, because the silent treatment from you still gives me the fucking willies. Makes me think you’re debating where to dump my bloody, lifeless body once you get around to killin’ me,” he teased, shooting her another grin.

  Sami rolled her eyes and shook her head at his droll statement and decided it was time to remind him of a few simple truths where she was concerned. “First of all, Benjamin, you know damn well that I’d never risk getting blood on these clothes. Designer wear doesn’t come cheap and there’s only so much damage control a dry cleaner can do. So when I do finally decide to off you, it will be a nice, clean kill without any muss or fuss. I can promise you that. Second, I’d never risk breaking a nail dragging your useless carcass around. I’d just let the buzzards feast wherever I drop you.”

  “Ah, there’s my sweet, savage Samantha,” Ben drawled with twinkling eyes. “I’ve missed you.”

  “Too bad the feeling hasn’t been mutual, huh?” Sami asked in a tone dripping with fake sympathy.

  “Oh, I’m not sure about that, sweetheart. That lovely body of yours seemed pretty homesick for my special brand of attention when I had you between me and the brick wall earlier. Or are you gonna tell me that was all a figment of my imagination?” he asked with a low laugh as he navigated his truck over a particularly bumpy rut in the road.

  Sami felt her cheeks heating and was grateful that the sunset had cast the interior of Ben’s vehicle in shadows. Because what he said was true… she had gotten excited when he’d gotten her in his arms again. She couldn’t help it. Ben had always been an excellent lover and after the last few years of voluntary celibacy, feeling his hands and lips on her again had been absolute heaven. Not that she’d be sharing that with him. Not only would the information go straight to his head and feed his already oversized ego where she was concerned, but she also didn’t want to feed any of the crazy hopes he had for them.

  Because no matter how much her heart wished otherwise, a reconciliation simply wasn’t possible for them. “No, you didn’t imagine my response. You know how to handle a woman, and you were able to get me hot for you. I was horny, and you were handy. You caught me in a weak moment, and I responded accordingly,” she admitted bluntly. “Congratulations,” she offered dryly.

  “It was more than that, and you know it,” she heard him growl, his face clouding with a mixture of anger and hurt. Her stomach twisted even as she forced herself to laugh. “Jesus, Ben. You didn’t actually think getting me a little wet meant anything, do you?” she questioned coolly, her feet pressing into the floorboard as Ben began to slow the truck.

  A muscle flexed in Ben’s jaw as he turned off the gravel road into a hidden dirt driveway. “Vixen, we both know that you weren’t a little anything. You were drenched. And by the feel of it, that pussy hasn’t been touched in a good long time,” he probed gently as he parked his truck outside the old cabin he’d borrowed from Ax.

  Sami pressed her lips together as her nervous hands began to grow damp. God, if he knew the truth… that the last person to ever have their hands on that part of her body had been him… she wouldn’t stand a chance against him. “Don’t flatter yourself,” she snarled, jerking her face away when he lifted a hand to stroke her cheek.

  “I’m not flattering myself. The truth is shining bright and clear in those hypnotic green eyes of yours, baby. There’s been no one since me, has there? You kept this amazing body all for me, didn’t you?”

  “As if!” she hissed irately. “You really are off your nut, you know that, you condescending prick?” Sami hissed, turning her face away to stare out her window before he could see the lie shining in her eyes. Focusing on the darkened cabin in front of them, she could tell it was old and shabby, the faded log beams rotted in places. “Oh, my God! This place looks like something out of a horror movie! Or Deliverance! Although really, considering where I’m at, I suppose it’s the same difference. Just where the hell have you brought me, you rat bastard?” she bit out as the weight of his warm palm settled around her neck, his thumb kneading a tense knot of muscles in her neck.

  “Welcome to our home for the foreseeable future, Samantha,” Ben announced proudly, gesturing toward the rundown shack with a flourish.

  “No. Nuh uh. Absolutely not,” Sami denied as she eyed the so-called cabin in horror, shaking her head as Ben continued to rub her neck. Eyeing the cabin, she noted a steady stream of smoke coming out of the chimney. “Look! It’s already rented. Somebody’s already got a fire going in there. I guess your kidnapping plot is foiled. You’ll just have to take me back to town.”

  Ben laughed. “I hate to disappoint you, beauty, but I had a buddy come up and drop some stuff off for us. He went ahead and started the fire since it gets cold up here at night and he knew it would be late once we got in,” he explained as he reached in his pocket for the keys to her handcuffs. “

  “What’s this co-conspirator’s name? I’d like to be able to give the authorities as many details as possible when they arrest you for abducting me,” she grumbled as she continued shaking her head at the place ahead of them. “Seriously, this place looks like it needs to be condemned, Ben! There’s no way it could possibly be safe to stay here,” she muttered as she noted the gaping hole in the steps leading up to the porch. Hell, rickety would be a kind description for the wraparound deck. It looked like a strong enough wind would level the entire building to rubble.

  “We’ll be fine, Your Highness,” Ben assured her calmly as he focused on unfastening her the cuffs encircling her wrist.

  “I’m not going in there,” Sami declared stubbornly as the metal shackles fell away from her wrists. Rubbing at her chafed skin, she glared at her captor. “I refuse to try and sleep in a shack that could double as Freddy Krueger’s mountain chalet! It’s not happening. E-ver!”

  “Vixen, it’s no secret I’m a man that loves feisty. Can’t get enough of it. But there’s a difference between bein’ feisty and bein’ a fuckin’ pain in the ass. Make sure you don’t confuse the two,” Ben warned patiently as he took one wrist in his hand, carefully examining the skin for injury.

  “Yeah, or you’ll do what exactly?” Sami blustered, yanking her arm away from him and crossing her arms tightly over her chest as she fought a shiver. She wasn’t sure it was the sexual tension or the falling temperature that was making her shake, but either way, they needed to get the hell out of here.

  “Maybe I’ll decide I don’t need either a cabin or a bed to refresh your memory on exactly what it is we mean to each other.”

  “Oh, please,” Sami huffed, shooting him an impatient look. “So I let you cop a little feel back there on the street. I let my gardener get further than that when he remembers to prune the roses,“ she scoffed.

  “That’s it. Just keep running that sassy mouth. Maybe the next time you open it, I’ll fill it with something that’ll make us both happy,” he threatened in a
tone so rich and smooth that it gave her chills. “Tell me, sweetheart, would you prefer my tongue or my cock? It’s lady’s choice tonight.”

  Sami’s eyes widened as her nostrils flared. A part of her recognized that she ought to be outraged by his crude offer, but she couldn’t help how much her body craved what he promised. One look in his stormy eyes confirmed that she was pushing him too far, but being meek and mild had never been her style. Leaning toward him until her lips ghosted his, she smiled slowly as she slid a hand down the middle of his chest, enjoying the feel of his hard pecs jumping beneath her fingertips. “I’d rather suck on a moldy lemon than have any part of you inside me.”

  Reaching up to curl a hand around the side of her neck, Ben stared into her hooded eyes as he forced one of her hands to cover the hardened bulge of his cock. “You’re a fuckin’ liar, vixen. I guarantee by the time this night is over, you’ll be begging to feel this dick underneath that pretty hand. Because my momma raised a gentleman, however, I won’t make you beg for it too awfully long. Just until you admit who the hell you belong to… who you will always belonged to, Samantha.”

  Enraged at his audacity and aroused by his raw masculinity, Sami snatched her hand from his crotch. “Asshole!” she bit out. “How the hell can you still be so cocky when I’m rejecting you at every turn?”

  “It’s easy, beauty. I just close my eyes and remember how much you once adored my dick. How you’d do anything I wanted for the promise of a long, hard ride.”

  “Those days are long gone, Ben,” Sami retorted. “You must be the last person on earth to know it, but that Samantha died three years ago.”

  “Then, I’m going to use every moment of the time we have here together trying to resurrect that gorgeous, sensual woman from the ashes of our past. Because the one thing I’ve learned the hard way is that I don’t wanna live the rest of my life without her in it,” Ben shared solemnly.

  Terrified by the sincerity she heard in his voice, Sami became desperate for escape. Shoving open the door with one arm, she bolted from the cab of the truck, her feet landing on the mossy ground with a thud, her sky high heels slowly sinking into the dirt. “Shit,” she cursed as she yanked one foot from the earth, the heel of her strappy shoe encased in mud.