RENEGADE'S REDEMPTION

by Lindsey Longford

  And in the quiet between the rain, she heard Royal’s breathing, slow and steady, reassuring, lulling her to sleep.

  She couldn’t sleep, though. Every time she shut her eyes, she thought of Tommy and came alert with the rush of panic. She made herself think of that spill of foil, tried to let her mind drift where it had gone so effortlessly as Michael and Rhea’s stash fell to the floor. Better to think of that than the other images striding into her mind and terrifying her.

  But sleep eluded her, leaving her alone with her melancholy thoughts. She remembered the wasted years with Blake. All those years when she’d had nothing.

  No, not wasted. She had Tommy. Tommy was worth those years in the sterile prison of Blake’s house.

  She turned, easing the sheet over her so that she wouldn’t wake Royal. Turning again, restless, she thought of all she’d missed in life. She’d made her choices. But she’d never imagined the cost.

  Rain whipped on the windowpanes.

  And what would she change? She stuffed the edge of her pillow into her mouth to keep from crying out with loneliness and fear, with regret. What would she change? Everything, everything except Tommy. For him, she’d endure those loveless, lonely years again.

  The sheet scratched against her thighs like the caress of a lover’s hand. She went still. She didn’t have to be lonely. Unless she chose to be. That part of her life was ended. Blake didn’t control her life any longer. Startled by the realization, she opened her eyes. She’d walked away from that life into a new one, one with different choices.

  She might have only days, hours, left of this new life. But she could choose how she spent the rest of it. Was she going to let the past with all its ugliness, its sadness, keep her bound to it? She pleated the sheet between her fingers, thinking.

  In a sudden, fierce gust, rain rattled the window, and she turned toward it, toward Royal. With her dark-adjusted eyes, she watched the rise and fall of his chest. He was sleeping.

  “I’m awake, Elly.” He rolled on his side to face her. “I haven’t slept, either.” The rich roughness of his voice brushed over her skin in the darkness, tightening it.

  If the light had been on, she would never have had the courage.

  Sitting up, the sheet clutched in one hand, she slid her feet to the floor, indecisive still, her heart pounding under the T-shirt. The strap of her bra, pale in the dark, lay across the wooden floor. “Royal?” She cleared her throat, reaching inside her for the second time in her life for the courage to take an enormous, unbelievable step forward.

  Days ago, a lifetime ago, teasing, he’d told her the choice would be hers. But he wouldn’t ask. She would have to take the risk of going to him, of trusting him. She hesitated. She couldn’t do it. She’d been crazy even to think she could. She lifted her foot, ready to slide back into her own bed in humiliation.

  If she did, would she regret this act of cowardice for the rest of her life, however long that might be?

  “Royal?” she whispered again, trying to frame the words.

  “What do you want, Elly?” Something guarded in his voice kept her foot hovering over the floor.

  “Will you sleep with me?” Asking him was harder than she’d guessed.

  “Why?” he said bluntly. “To thank me for my help?”

  “You think I’m offering myself to you out of some convoluted sense of gratitude for your help?” she asked in amazement. “That I’m offering myself up like some sacrificial lamb?”

  “Are you? Isn’t that what’s going on?”

  “No.”

  “Then what is?”

  Rain thrummed hard against the roof, echoing the beat of her heart.

  “Why, Elly?”

  Like her son, she retreated, unable to spell out what she needed from him. “Because.”

  “Because of that lack of experience?”

  “No,” she said in a small voice. “Not that.” She put her foot on the warm wood of the floor. “Well, maybe, a little,” she admitted, trying to be as honest as she knew how.

  “I see.” The sheet rustled with his movement.

  “I doubt it,” she muttered, embarrassed and uncomfortable.

  “Because you want to forget what’s happening?”

  “Yes. I’m so scared. And worried. I can’t sleep.” She twisted the sheet in her fist.

  “And I’m the analgesic of choice?” In the gap between window and shade, a shaft of watery moonlight gleamed gold in his hair, disappeared behind clouds, leaving the room dark again. Private. “You want me to be your sleeping pill, Elly?” he inquired politely.

  “No.” Her answer was so quiet she didn’t think he heard. She cleared her throat awkwardly. “Just … because.”

  “Because.” There was a long silence, a silence filled with possibilities, with the sound of rain and hesitancy. “A one-night stand, Elly? Is that all you want? Will that be enough for you?”

  “I don’t know what I want.” Wishing she could see his expression, decipher what he was asking, she stared at him through the darkness. “I’m so tired, Royal, so tired of being alone. I want … to forget. For a while.”

  “Sounds impersonal, Elly, whether you realize it or not. Kind of … mechanical. I’d like to have the sense that you knew who was making love to you. When you shut your eyes, when I touch you, I’d like to be sure you knew it was me touching you, nobody else. But to be blunt about it, the way you put it, anybody would do. Where’s the heart in that, Elly?”

  “I don’t know. But it’s not mechanical. I’m scared, Royal. I want to be held, to hold. To feel something besides this numbing terror. Is that enough for you? Two lonely people comforting each other?”

  “Comfort.” His disembodied voice was flat.

  She waited, her heart drumming sickeningly. Yes. No. But she couldn’t cross that expanse of floor between them, couldn’t take the step that would take her to his side. She wasn’t that sophisticated. She wasn’t that confident. Afraid he would accept, half-sick with regret that he wouldn’t, she was paralyzed. She couldn’t make herself move.

  The space between the two beds seemed to shimmer in the darkness, seemed to grow impossibly wide.

  And then he spoke, his voice so husky and low that she shivered.

  “It’s not the Grand Canyon, Elly.” Propped on his elbow, he was leaning up in bed. “There’s a bridge across.” Still half reclining, half sitting up, he reached across the gap. “It’s only two baby steps and you’re home, home free, Elly.”

  Underneath the careful invitation, she heard his longing, heard the urgency and something else she couldn’t name in the slow, terse words, and that made all the difference. She flew across the distance, the longest distance she’d ever crossed, flew into his waiting arms, breathless with longing and apprehension and anticipation.

  “Brave woman,” he whispered into her ear, pulling back the sheet and wrapping her in his arms. His legs tangled with hers in a private dance. “But I always knew you were. You’re the bravest person I’ve ever had the privilege of knowing, Elly Malloy.”

  “I’m not Elly Malloy,” she muttered, her heart fluttering and drumming inside her so fast she couldn’t think. “That’s not me.” Amazed at what she’d done, she was incoherent. Restlessly, she shifted her legs, and his thigh slipped between hers, bumping intimately against her and sending sharp convulsions rippling over her. “That’s not who I am. You don’t know me.”

  “Oh, yes, I do. You’re the woman who walked away from a nightmare and into my life. You’re the woman who took care of her son and protected him at the risk of her own life.” He touched her scar with his finger, with his mouth, trailing his lips down her neck. “You’re the woman who makes my heart shake me apart when I’m within sight of you. I know you, sweetheart, no matter what name you’re using.”

  As close as they were in the narrow bed, she moved closer and took his lean face between her palms. “I’m Abigail Eleanor MacGuire, Royal.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Abby
,” he said, and took her mouth with his in a fierce kiss that shuddered through her with urgency and passion. “I’d be honored to make love with you.” He ran his hand down her back to her rear, familiarly, as if he’d known her before, as if they’d joined this way a hundred times, and her fear ebbed, leaving only sparkles of anticipation behind. “Aw, Elly, you have no idea how sweet you are.” He took the kiss deeper, his hands cupping her buttocks and lifting her on top of him as he rolled onto his back. “You’re a miracle, you are, sweetheart. You make me tremble like a sixteen-year-old boy, learning about love for the first time.”

  “Shh,” she whispered against his mouth, cherishing his words that soothed her fears, eased her spirit like a balm. But she couldn’t let him think she needed promises, false words. She wouldn’t let him talk of love when that was the cruelest illusion of all. Between them tonight, she wanted only a kind of honesty they could live with on the morning after. “It’s all right, Royal.”

  Still on his back he chuckled and slid his palms up along her sides, tickling lightly along her rib cage and making her move fitfully against him. “Only all right? Elly, feel what you do to me.” He placed her hand over his heart. “Believe me, this is better than all right.”

  Under her open palm, his heart thundered, shuddered. She looked at him in amazement. Such power, such strength, and it was in her control. “So strong,” she murmured, stroking his hot skin, twining her fingers in the thick nest of his hair. “I can do that to you?”

  “Sugar, that’s not the half of what you do to me.” He covered her hand with his and moved her hand downward over the silky fabric of his boxers. “See?” he murmured into her ear.

  And under that silk, the hard column of flesh that trembled, moved, to the sheath of her hand, responsive to the curl of her fingers. Power there, too, under her control, enchanting her. “I might have known you’d wear silk,” she whispered, stroking that living barometer of his response to her.

  “And you wear cotton.” He slid his hands down to the elastic waistband, edged one finger under the narrow band. “I never knew cotton could be so sexy. May I?”

  She buried her face in his neck. His question forced her to participate, to admit she burned in the same way, needed the same touches she gave him. She didn’t think she could speak the words out loud. She didn’t have the courage, the experience, to tell him she ached to have him touch her, too. She nodded once into the crook of his neck.

  “What’s that, Elly? I didn’t hear you.” He circled his finger around the rim of her navel, not moving lower, teasing now in a different way. “Was there something you wanted, sweetheart? Speak up, sugar.” Laughter, warm and affectionate, bubbled up from his chest, bouncing her where she lay against him.

  “Devil,” she gasped, surging against him as the tip of his finger teased the dip of her belly button. Her pelvis rocked into him, and the lift of his hips moved in response.

  “Come on, sweetheart,” he urged. “Say the words. Tell me you want me, too. I can’t hide the way I feel. You have me at a disadvantage, you know.” He twisted, and the proof of his words nudged hard against her belly, pulsed at the V of her thighs. “Let me hear you say you’re burning to ashes with me, Elly. Play fair.” He rocked gently at the entrance, and her body followed that one-step, two-step rhythm he set.

  “Is this a game, then?” she asked forlornly, the delicious rocking sending electrical sparks all over her. She hadn’t wanted anything more, but she couldn’t bear the thought that to him what they were doing was no more than a game.

  “Not a game, Elly.” He went still. “Whatever we’re doing, it’s not a game. I don’t know what to call this—” he took her mouth in a hard, fierce kiss that left her trembling “—but it’s the most real moment of my life, believe me. I don’t want to hurt you, sweetheart. I want to give you pleasure. I want to make you forget everything except what I can make you feel, what we can feel together.” Gripping her chin, he made her look at him. “But, Elly, you have to make a decision. I don’t want a passive lover in my bed tonight. Lovemaking should be mutual. I want you to take a risk, too.”

  “I did.” Resentment stirred in her. He was complicating what should have been so simple. “I asked you to make love with me.”

  “No, sweetheart, you didn’t,” he clarified. “You said you wanted to be held. To hold. To be comforted. Well, Elly, that’s what we’re doing. I’m holding you. You’re holding me. Nothing more. You have to decide.”

  She thought she had. He was asking for something else, and she couldn’t decipher what he meant. She’d admitted she wanted him, she’d taken that huge leap, and yet he wanted still more, and she was confused. “I don’t understand.”

  “Because if this is all you want, Elly, just to be held and comforted, I can stop now. I can stop any time you want me to. But stopping wouldn’t be my choice. I want to turn you inside out with ecstasy. I want you shaking and trembling and calling my name.” He stopped and slid his hands down her neck, over her collarbone. “But I can hold you like this all night. If that’s what you want. I need to know, though, exactly what you want. I don’t want to misunderstand. Tomorrow, I don’t want you to say I overwhelmed you or took the choice out of your hands. I want much more. But it’s your choice. So, Elly-Abby, tell me what you want, sweetheart. Give me that, at least.”

  She didn’t understand his last words, but she thought she’d figured out the rest of it. That child who’d been left on his own all his life needed to know he was more than a boy-toy. Because of his own loneliness and pain, the man wanted her to commit something more than her body. He needed more from her than an easing of his male impulses.

  She needed him tonight, but she had something she could give him, too. The encounter wouldn’t be one-sided, him giving, her taking. That realization worked through her, easing her doubts, her insecurity, and gave her confidence where she’d had none.

  “Is this—” he ran his palms down her sides, and her skin prickled in the wake of that touch “—all you want?” His hands stopped again just under the edge of her panties.

  “No.” One hand braced carefully on his shoulder, she lifted her head and faced him. “I want you to make love with me, Royal.” Her voice was steady, clear. Determined. “Whatever we call it, whatever it means, I want to be with you tonight. Not with just anybody, and not just to make me forget.” She took his hand and slipped it under the elastic band and down to the curve of her hip. “I want to make love with you, Royal.”

  “Thank you, Elly.”

  She smiled against the slick skin where his neck ended and his chest began. “You’re welcome, Royal.” Delicately, tentatively, she touched her tongue to the dip under his Adam’s apple. “Salty,” she whispered, and then shivered as his warm palm moved over her bare skin, the edge of his fingernails scraping lightly, lightly against her.

  “Sweet,” he murmured. Clasping her hips, he held her securely, his thumbs at the edge of her navel, his fingers curving to her back, to the swell of her fanny, where they moved in a mesmerizing tracery of arcs and circles. “You feel like satin, Elly. Did you know that?”

  “No,” she said, captivated by his image. She’d been Tommy’s mother for so long that she’d lost all sense of this side of her nature. And then Blake had never— Royal’s thumb swooped into her navel, stroked the bead there in slow, tantalizing circles.

  “Oh!” Startled, she jerked up as his thumb slid downward. With one quick movement, Royal flicked her panties off with one hand, all the while moving his thumb beguilingly closer.

  Stopping, his thumb caressing the edge of her nest of cloudy curls, Royal watched her eyes widen, grow dazed. Even in the fitful light, he could see her face soften with astonishment as he stroked her. “It’s been a long time for you, hasn’t it, Elly?”

  “Yes,” she sighed, her head falling back, the cloud of her hair spilling in a nimbus around her face.

  In the too-big neck of Beau’s T-shirt, her throat was a long, lovely invita
tion to kisses, and he nibbled leisurely, sucking gently and tasting her.

  “Ah, that’s—”

  “Nice?” he teased.

  Her breasts lifted with her movement, and bending at the waist, he lifted to take one peaked nipple into his mouth. Her shivers under his hands, his mouth, spread to him and made him clumsy where he’d never been clumsy before. His hands shook as he traced the delicate ridges of her ribs, her spine, his fingers reading the language of her body, her skin, her.

  The tiny murmurs of surprise she gave thrilled him. Moved him because they told him she’d never been touched like this. “How long has it been, Elly?” He trailed kisses down the center of her body, from her neck to her belly button, lingering there.

  “Forever,” she sighed. “Years. Not since Tommy was born.”

  “Oh, sweetheart, what a waste.” His heart broke for her, for what she’d admitted. For Elly to have lived untouched, unloved, during those long years tore him apart. “You’re a treasure, Elly. You should have been cherished.”

  “You make me feel cherished, Royal.” She slipped her arms around his neck, curling her hands into his hair. “You make me feel alive for the first time in years. You make my body sing and hum, and I never knew it could be like this between two people.”

  “It’s only beginning, sweetheart.” Cupping her rear, he lifted her, bringing her to his mouth. And then, because he delighted in her, because he wanted her to remember these moments later, he opened her to the touch of his lips and tongue and kissed her intimately.

  “Royal, don’t— Ah, yes, yes.” She stiffened against him, shudders moving under her skin, in the deep muscles of her thighs and belly. She reached out to hold him, push him away—he didn’t know.

  With a quick, rolling motion, keeping her in his arms, he turned them until she was on her back looking up at him with wide, stunned eyes. Easing himself up her body, he parted her and entered in one smooth stroke on the last of her shudders.