RENEGADE'S REDEMPTION

by Lindsey Longford

  The kernel remaining of his conscience made him ask in that last moment, compelled him to ask, because he could still stop if she said no, “Are you sure about this, Elly? Please be sure.” He withdrew, aching and tight with control. “You may regret this.”

  “I may,” she said, and her breath shivered over his chin. “But this is what I want. I trust you, Royal.”

  “Sweetheart, don’t, don’t,” he muttered, moving up to kiss her mouth, wanting to stop the words she would hate herself for saying in the morning. “You shouldn’t trust me.”

  “But I do, damn you, I do,” she wailed, and surged upward, toward him, breaking the thin thread of his control.

  He’d done everything he could so far to protect her. He had one more thing to take care of.

  “Wait,” he muttered. “Wait, sweetheart,” he said, and reached over to the drawer, pulled hard. He barely heard the smack of the handcuffs on the floor. The pitter-patter of the falling condoms blended with the sound of the rain on the roof.

  “Bless Michael and Rhea,” she said with a sigh that feathered over him, tickling the hairs of his chest. “There’s a lot to be said for being prepared.” Her bare foot slid along his calf.

  “A lot,” he agreed, and reached down to lift her leg higher, fitting them together more tightly.

  She was smooth and warm and welcoming. She was heaven on earth after eons in hell, and he wanted to lose himself in her, remain linked with her in that sweetest of joinings, but she moved against him and his body answered her unspoken question.

  Yes, Elly, yes, you’re beautiful, and this is more than a game to me, and yes, you should have been treasured and loved, not left alone. Let me show you what you’ve missed, what I feel, and love me back a little, share all this warmth with me, give me everything inside you, your courage, your sass. Your love. Yes, yes, Elly.

  He plunged his hands into the mass of her hair and opened her mouth as he had her body and kissed her with all the passion and grief and remorse that filled him.

  Kissed her because her touch chased away the emptiness and made him hope, made him believe in happily-ever-after when he knew there was no such thing. He kissed her because he had to.

  He knew he should stop, knew he would regret this indulgence in the morning.

  Her hesitancy as she sat on the edge of her bed had speared through him like a streak of fire, and he’d wanted her so fiercely that it had been all he could do not to leap out of his bed and grab her before she could take her words back.

  He’d tried to resist.

  He’d tried to give her every chance he could to back out, to change her mind, because he couldn’t. The sight of her with the sheet clutched in her hands had torn him apart with longing, and he’d trembled even as he waited, even as he forced her to admit that she wanted him.

  He’d needed to know that, needed to make sure she was clear about her decision.

  Because she would hate him when he told her about his involvement with Scanlon. She would never forgive him.

  And he would be in hell again, this time forever.

  Hell was endless loneliness.

  There was no hope in hell, no redemption.

  *

  Chapter 15

  « ^ »

  To the sound of raindrops and the smell of loamy earth blowing through the window, Royal loved her. Her murmurs and hesitant moves filled him with tenderness, a tenderness that made him awkward and diffident in the face of the emotions swelling through him. He’d told her sex was buttons and bodies, but this … this tenderness was new to him. It left him unsure of himself and as clumsy as a boy. Rocked to the core by the need to show her that these moments with her were more than sex, he was awkward and unpolished when he most wanted polish and skill.

  He was as inexperienced in this new loving as if it were the first time for him.

  With every kiss and touch, he yearned to give her everything he knew how, to make her see what a wonder she was. And slowly, as she touched him shyly but with eagerness, he came to understand the truth of what he’d said. What they were doing had nothing to do with experience, but everything to do with the heart.

  He told her so in low, husky words that praised her, cherished her. “What a wonder you are, sweetheart. I wanted to turn you inside out with pleasure, but you make me tremble with every touch.”

  “Do I?” She blew gently into the line of hair on his abdomen.

  “Unlike you, I can’t hide what I feel.” Shuddering, he struggled to slow his responses, to ease the pace. It was too early.

  She smiled against his belly as long, rolling vibrations moved through him. “I like making you tremble. Do you know how powerful that makes me feel?” Reaching down, she touched him.

  He jerked. “Be my guest, Elly. I’ve always liked a woman who knew what she wanted,” he gasped. Deep tremors ran over him, down to his toes, as her fingers closed around him.

  “I remember.”

  Treasuring her, he used every ounce of his discipline, everything he’d learned about lovemaking, to take her into a place where she’d never been.

  And in taking her there, he found himself.

  With her in chose moments of exquisite pleasure as he rocked inside her, filling her and reaching higher, in those moments when her sighs and surprised cries rippled over him, he felt the emptiness in his soul dissolving and disappearing. With Elly, he was not alone. Her hands sliding along his thighs and his buttocks spoke of her desire.

  She was not a passive lover.

  She touched him as he touched her, learning the language of his body as he learned hers. Where she touched, he burned ice-hot. Where he touched her, her body flushed with heat under his fingertips.

  He edged Beau’s shirt up her stomach, over her breasts, using the soft fabric and sliding it against her in a new kind of teasing that left her breathless and laughing.

  “Ah, I said you were a wicked man, didn’t I?” Her soft laughter ended on a gasp. “I had no idea, none at all. Oh, Royal,” she whispered. “Please don’t stop. I love your wicked ways.”

  Wet from his kisses, her nipples shone in the dim light, and he skimmed the hem of the shirt over them, lightly. As they puckered and grew hard, he kissed them again, raking his teeth gently over them until she was twisting in agitation beneath him, and she gave a sharp, bewildered cry. Her shivers deepened, and he felt the clench of her inner muscles on him and he shuddered with her, their bodies moving slickly together toward some far shore he’d never seen, never known.

  “Yes,” she whispered, wrapping her legs around his hips as he reached between them, “yes.” She lifted her hips against his, curved up toward him, shaking. “I thought that was a myth.”

  “Do you like that, sweetheart?” He reached higher.

  She jolted, and the internal quakes of her response drew him deeper into her, deeper into loving that merged his self with hers until he couldn’t tell which trembles and shivers were hers, which his.

  And suddenly there was nothing except the furious pounding of his heart, hers, and her voice crying out his name. In time with that ancient rhythm of their hearts, their bodies merged, beat against each other until time and space and boundaries shattered and he no longer knew who he was.

  When he lay facing her, their bodies still joined, he swept her hair back from her face and kissed that line of courage that marked her forehead. A faint shine of perspiration dewed her body, and he tasted the sweet saltiness of her breasts.

  Her hair spread across the pillow, him, she was already asleep. He would tell her in the morning, he promised himself. But not tonight, not while she was wrapped in his arms and happy, not while the aching emptiness in him was filled with her.

  There would be time in the morning.

  *

  But in the morning, she was sleepy eyed and rumpled and plastered against him, laughing drowsily as he stroked the narrow length of her back, and it was still raining, that gray, cool downpour that veiled the world outside the window in my
stery and left them inside in a world where nothing mattered except the pleasure of touching.

  Of loving.

  “Good morning, Elly.” He shifted, bringing her on top of him, where she sprawled in delectable abandon.

  “Morning.” She stifled a tiny yawn. Creased and unruly, her hair fizzed and foamed around her sleepy cat face. Marked with his kisses, her breasts and belly showed pale blue spots. Gently, he brushed his fingers over those signs, the imprint of his passion. She stretched like a cat, too, unwinding. Her face scrunched and wrinkled with an enormous yawn, and then she opened her eyes and looked down at him.

  Her face burned with brilliant color that swept over her neck and breasts. “Mm-hmm.”

  Rising, he cradled her fanny in his hands and kissed her breasts, her mouth, in long, deep kisses that sent heat and hunger rocketing through him. “Say ‘hello,’ Elly.”

  “Hello, Elly,” she repeated obediently on another yawn that lifted her breasts and made them tremble in fine, distracting quavers.

  “Not much good at morning conversation without your coffee, sweetheart?” He concentrated on one pink, delicate nipple as she sighed and collapsed bonelessly over him.

  She was all languid, warm woman. Elly, sweet and yielding and so soft that he silenced the warning voices in his head. Tamping down the fierce hunger that whipped him, he took her slowly, carefully, in a gentle loving as they turned and murmured softly in the rain-drenched gray light.

  His last thought as he plummeted into sleep was that he would tell her in the afternoon. He slept, her arms loose around his neck, her legs entangled with his.

  Looking down at Royal as he lay sleeping beneath her, Elly brushed her fingers lightly over his golden head, down the strong column of his neck and into the springy gold of his chest hair. Wonder filled her. She’d taken a risk. She’d stepped off the edge of the world into this richness she’d never understood.

  Words were words, after all, pale ghosts to the reality. His chest hair prickled against her fingertips.

  From the first, she’d been attracted to him, drawn to him, in spite of every reason not to. But he’d stayed at her side, protecting her stubbornly every time she tried to send him away. What she felt for him now filled her to the brim, overwhelmed her.

  She was afraid she’d let herself fall in love with this difficult, complicated man.

  And if she had? What then?

  Skimming the bruises along his ribs, she decided she didn’t care. She’d never imagined that she could be such a sensual, wanton female, and the discovery delighted her. No matter what happened to her during the rest of her life, she couldn’t regret these moments.

  She’d known her life would change when she made the decision to trust Royal and his friends, and now she trembled on the brink of a life she’d never imagined.

  She wanted all the richness, all the complexity of the coming years. She wanted everything, and she wasn’t going to allow Blake to cheat her of even one of those days. Never again.

  Sliding quietly out of the bed, she picked up her clothes, dressed in one of Beau’s T-shirts and belts and headed toward the kitchen.

  She was starving. All her senses were hyperalert, more intense. The smell of the rain and damp earth coiled through her, the smell of cooking bacon made her mouth water and, as she turned the bacon, the cool metal fork was as sleek and smooth as Royal—

  She flushed and flipped the bacon.

  When the scents of coffee and bacon woke Royal, she heard his grunt as his feet hit the floor. “Elly?” Alarm crackled in his voice. In two strides, he was up and loping down the hall. “Elly!”

  “In here.”

  Naked, he stood in the doorway, his golden hair rumpled, his face beard bristled, every inch of him fierce and ready for battle.

  “Hey,” she said, shyness leaving her speechless.

  He took a deep breath and blew it out. The aura of danger vanished as he smiled at her and left her quivering inside. “I thought you’d left.”

  Tipping her head to the side, she waggled the bacon fork in his direction. “Now, why would I do that? You weren’t that bad, Royal. Really,” she consoled him, dodging his outstretched arms.

  “Golly, I know,” he said pitifully. “It’s a shame, isn’t it, sugar? But I think practice might help.” He hauled her up against him, and the fork skittered across the floor as she dropped it. “Want to practice, sweetheart?” His mouth swooped over hers. “I’m ready, willing and—”

  “I can tell,” she murmured, standing on tiptoe and curling her fingers into his hair. “You do a lot for the concept of advertising, buster, let me tell you.” She wiggled experimentally against him. “Oh, yes. That’s a great idea. I think practice would do us both a world of good.”

  The belt around her T-shirt clattered to the floor, slithered along the wooden planks to rest near the bacon fork.

  She welcomed Royal’s roughness, his wild hunger as he backed her up against the kitchen table and lifted her onto it. That she could leave him shaking and out of breath astonished her. For so long she’d known only Blake’s domination, and now to have power over Royal, over this man’s body and heart, moved her to tears.

  Letting her see the feminine power she had over him, Royal gave her a gift beyond price. He restored to her the self she’d lost

  All during the long, rainy day and into the early afternoon when the sun finally broke through the bank of low clouds, they practiced.

  In those final moments, Elly felt despair in Royal’s urgent touches, in his intense control that shattered only when he’d wrung a final, keening cry from her.

  “Elly, forgive me,” he said, and then, not leaving her there in the backwash of her climax, he drove her up again, taking her with his hands and mouth until she was incoherent with pleasure, the touch and scent of him burned permanently into her skin, her heart.

  They waited for Beau’s call in the bedroom to the sound of the dripping oaks and pines outside the window.

  And then Royal told her.

  “What?” Unbelieving, she faced him, waiting for the punch line. She saw the tiredness, heard his words, and none of it made sense, not now. “My ex-husband hired you to find me?”

  Crossing his arms, he nodded abruptly, his face closed and forbidding. “He offered three hundred thousand dollars if I would bring you to him. Not Tommy, you. To talk. About the custody arrangements.”

  “What are you saying?” she asked stupidly. “I don’t understand.”

  “I met Blake Scanlon at a private, high-stakes poker game. I lost everything I owned. He offered to pay my debts if I would make arrangements to get you to a neutral place where he could talk to you. He said you’d kidnapped Tommy, faked your death so you could run away with him. Scanlon said all he wanted was to discuss custody.”

  “That’s why you were at the beach? You’d followed me?”

  He nodded. His face was scoured of emotion. The lines around his mouth and eyes stood out in stark relief. The yellowing bruises and scrapes were ugly in the stern contours of his face.

  Elly could feel the blood draining from her head as she swayed in front of him. “I’m sorry, I can’t make sense of what you’re saying.” She shook her head. “You’re not making sense.”

  “I called him and told him I’d made contact with you. That I’d talked with you.”

  “You called him?” Her mouth was dry. “You told Blake where I was?”

  He hesitated, and she yearned for him to tell her she was misunderstanding, that she’d gotten the wrong message. But again he nodded, a silent executioner who held her life, her son’s life, in his hands.

  “You betrayed me.” Staring at him, she struggled to find the sanity in all the craziness. “You wouldn’t have agreed to what he asked.” She didn’t know whether she was begging him to deny what he’d told her or trying to convince herself. “I know you, Royal, you couldn’t have done that!”

  “I did.”

  “No,” she moaned, shaking her h
ead buck and forth. “No!”

  “Yes.” He shifted, moving away from her, and his back was to the window and the blaze of sunlight that washed the world outside the cabin. “I warned you not to trust me, Elly.”

  “There must be an explanation. Please! Tell me.” She grabbed his shirt.

  “I agreed to Scanlon’s terms.” All the angles and planes of his face were carved in pain. “I called him when I found you.”

  “Won’t you defend yourself?” she whispered, stricken with pain and loss.

  “I called Scanlon,” he repeated.

  She pounded his chest. “You betrayed my child! How could you do that? How?” Sobbing and screaming in terror and bewilderment, she beat against the hard muscles of his chest.

  “What am I going to do? You’ve set me up, haven’t you? You’ve made it easy for Blake to kill me this time, haven’t you? And what will you do? Watch? Oh, God,” she cried, drumming her fists into him. “Damn you, Royal, damn you.”

  Not once did he lift a hand to stop her. Not once. Solid, silent, he took every blow, every word she screamed at him. She longed for him to defend himself, to explain.

  He didn’t.

  On the nightstand with its spill of condoms, the cellular phone rang.

  Royal snared her wrist, held tight as he reached for the phone and punched the Send button. “Yeah, me. What the hell? How’d they disappear?” Narrowed and fierce, his eyes met hers. “Elly and I should leave here. Now.” He waited, his grip tight against her as she tugged against him, wanting to flee. “All right. Until tomorrow. No longer. I swear, Beau, heads will roll.” Royal tapped the End key and laid the phone down, studying her intently.

  “What happened?” She plucked at his fingers. Tears of fear and rage streaked her cheeks.

  “The goons vanished.”

  “What?” Frantically, she tugged against him, ready to bolt into the wilderness, prepared to hitchhike back to her son if she had to. “Turn me loose!”

  “I can’t.” Royal stooped and rummaged amid the clumps of wrappers and clothes. The click of the handcuff around her wrist was loud in the silence that fell between them. “I can’t do that, Elly. I can’t let you leave.”