Chapter Ten
Emma
“Where have you been?” Lucas demanded. He was standing in the center of the living room. His suit jacket hung open, exposing the hard expanse of his chest beneath the crisp white business shirt and a tie that must have been tugged on multiple times. His dark, thick hair was mussed, as though he’d been running his hands through it.
But it was the look in his eyes that made my breath catch. The scorching mix of fury and fear radiating from him shocked me. Before its impact, I felt stripped bare. How could I possibly hope to hide anything from him?
Somehow, I had to find away. If I didn’t, he would walk into deadly danger. Hell, being Lucas, he’d run.
Turning to shut the doors behind me, I tried to compose myself. When I looked back at him, he had calmed somewhat but his gaze was still intense.
Deliberately keeping my voice low, I said, “I had lunch with Caroline and Imogene, remember?”
“You should have been back here long before now,” he snapped. “Why weren’t you?”
My back stiffened. I’d understood virtually from the moment we met that Lucas was a true alpha male. While I didn’t doubt for a moment that he genuinely respected women as fully competent, equal human beings, he was unapologetically driven to command and protect. To my great surprise, a part of me responded to that. Powerfully.
And another part didn’t. Firmly, I said, “What could possibly make you think that I should account to you for every moment of my time?”
I held my ground as he advanced toward me from across the room, but only barely. The quiver that started low down in my belly spread quickly. I could feel my nipples hardening even as my breath became shallower and more urgent.
Close enough to touch me, he stopped. His hands rested on his lean hips, pushing the suit jacket further apart. Glancing down, I couldn’t help seeing that, like me, he was becoming aroused.
“Something spooked you yesterday,” he said. His tone was unrelenting. He wasn’t giving an inch. On the contrary, by all evidence, he intended for us to have it out there and then.
“You wouldn’t tell me what it was,” he continued, “and now you disappear for several hours. I couldn’t even reach you. How do you think that makes me feel?”
For a moment, I was at a loss for words. The flip side of being so unused to anyone caring about me was that I had no practice in being responsible to another person. But I couldn’t pretend not to see his point of view.
“I’m sorry you were worried,” I said sincerely. “I turned my phone off before lunch. I’ll have to remember to keep it on.”
My regret was real but the rest wasn’t. If my father was serious about my going with him, I didn’t imagine for a moment that I’d be allowed to keep my cell phone. Later, once I’d gained his trust and learned where he’d moved the money that he’d come back for, I’d find a way to get in touch with the authorities. Whether Lucas would still want to talk to me at that point remained to be seen.
I hated lying to him even more than I hated him not realizing that I was doing so. The fear that I might be as skilled at deception as my father was made me feel ill.
Despite the tightness in my throat, I couldn’t look away from him. The taut set of his mouth and the jagged pulse that had leaped to life in his jaw suggested a measure of concern far beyond any I could account for.
Without really thinking through what I was inviting, I said, “You weren’t so tense this morning.”
A snort of disbelief escaped him. Bluntly, he said, “I’ve got news for you, baby. No guy can manage to be tense that soon after coming as many times as I did in you last night. Or have you forgotten about that?”
My cheeks flamed. After the kitchen, after the shower, after tender lovemaking and bagels in bed had come…more. So much more.
My body arching under his, my hands reaching down to grip his hair as he teased my clit with light, tormenting strokes of his tongue. The harshness of my voice crying out to him, begging for release. The hard, deep thrust of his cock, stretching and filling me, obliterating all sense of separation between us.
I swallowed the sudden flood of salvia in my mouth, all too aware of how wet I was becoming elsewhere. I had never felt as close to anyone as I did to Lucas and I never wanted to with anyone else. But not at the cost of his own well-being.
For three years, I had survived essentially by being selfish. Thrust solely on my own resources, I’d concentrated on meeting my own needs to the exclusion of everything else. Being with Lucas had changed all that. Among everything else he had given me, I had discovered the ability to put another person first even when doing so brought wrenching pain and loss.
Someday, I’d be grateful for that. But just then, all I could think of was that time was rushing away from us. Soon none would be left.
My hand shook as gently stroked the curve of his jaw where the pulse beat. Softly, I said, “Please don’t try to tell me that you’re not more worried now than you were yesterday or this morning. I’d like to know why.”
It took nerve to ask that given what I was hiding from him. But I wasn’t about to let that stop me. To keep him safe, I’d be as shameless as I needed to be.
He hesitated and for a moment, I thought that he wasn’t going to answer. But finally, to my great relief, he relented.
Covering my hand with his own, he said, “Let’s sit down.”
As he drew me over to the couch, I tried not to remember how it had felt to lie there that first day with my wrists bound, waiting to discover what he intended to do with me. Steering clear of such thoughts became more difficult when Lucas entwined his fingers with mine and gently brushed his lips across my knuckles. The touch, light as it, sent curls of pleasure through me and made me almost miss what he said next.
“I talked with a guy at the F.B.I. today.”
My whole body stiffened but instead of trying to jerk away from him, my fingers tightened on his. “W-what? Why?”
“Because you told me that the Feds still reach out to you from time to time. I thought they might have done so yesterday and that was why you were spooked.”
“They didn’t.” I spoke automatically, my mind grabbling with the fact that he had a contact at the F.B.I.
Maybe I should have anticipated that, given what he’d told me about them keeping tabs on him, too. But I hadn’t. The discovery that such a person existed sent a flare of panic through me.
What had Lucas been able to learn? Did he already know that my father was in New York? If so, all my efforts to keep him safe could be for nothing
“Then what did happen?” he asked.
Relief flooded through me. He wouldn’t be pressing me in any such way if he already knew the answer.
Instead, he was waiting, giving me every possible chance to open up to him and tell him the truth. The words twisted in me, desperate to get out. Only my determination to protect him gave me the strength to remain silent.
“All right…” he said at length.
I could still sense his anger and frustration but they were more restrained. The control that he was so very good at exercising over himself and--if I was being honest--over me as well was once more in evidence.
“If you won’t talk to me, at least listen,” he said. “There are things you need to know.”
I nodded. Listening was definitely safer than talking. “What things?”
His expression softened. Beneath the hard silver glint of his gaze, I saw compassion and genuine concern.
Quietly, he said, “I found out why the F.B.I. has believed all these years that your father is still alive.”
“Did you?” Even to my own ears, my voice sounded high and weak. I did want to move away then, to put some distance between us. But Lucas wouldn’t let me go.
Still holding my hand gently but firmly, he said, “Six months before his apparent suicide, your father went to Vegas. He met there with a man named Hiram Walker…”
I listened as he explained how my fathe
r had hired the magician to create the illusion of his own death. I’d realized that he must have done something since contrary to all evidence, he was very much alive. But the details of exactly how he had managed to fool almost everyone, including me, were still shocking.
Even after I’d accepted the truth of my father’s guilt, I’d consoled myself that whatever his crimes, he’d been as unprepared as everyone else when his massive fraud collapsed. But now I had to confront the ugly truth.
He’d anticipated that it couldn’t last and he’d planned accordingly. While he set up other people to suffer devastating losses, he’d been meticulous about creating an exit plan for himself, even to the extent of arranging an elaborate illusion to make it appear as though he was dead.
How many times had I watched that the video of his ‘suicide’ before I finally forced myself to stop? The moment when my father’s blood and brains exploded from his skull was indelibly etched into my consciousness. In the aftermath, I’d cried until I was sick from tears, vomiting up my grief and horror.
Now that I knew it had all been an elaborate trick, my revulsion was even greater.
Lucas gave me a few moments before he said, “The agent I spoke with is named Sean Feeney. He’s a good guy, smart and very professional. I’d like to put you in touch with him.”
Because he hoped that I might tell Feeney what I wouldn’t tell him? The thought made my heart clench. I didn’t trust anyone as much as I did Lucas, even if I hadn’t let him know it.
He was waiting for an answer that I couldn’t give. Faced with it, I grabbed for a distraction. “How do you know Feeney?”
I actually was curious about that but far more importantly, I wanted Lucas to think that I was at least considering talking with the agent. Yet more deception. I fought to conceal how sick that made me feel inside.
“We met in the aftermath of my father’s death,” he said quietly. I got the sense that he had anticipated my question and was prepared to answer it honestly.
“As you know,” he went on, “I was in a battle against a group of investors, your father among them, who were looking to take over my family’s company. To stop them, I needed money, a lot of it. I borrowed it from a man named Yuri Volkov. He’s what’s politely known as an ‘oligarch’ but some people have less kind words to describe him.”
I could only begin to imagine what it cost Lucas to tell me that. My father had called Volkov a mobster. If he really was, anyone who did business with him was at risk of being seen as equally immoral.
But the fact was that I simply didn’t care. While I wasn’t generally an ends-justify-the-means sort of person, in this case I was more than willing to make an exception.
Quickly, I said “You did what you had to. No one could blame you for that.”
No one except my father. He’d made it clear that he held Lucas responsible for what were strictly his own crimes. His inability to accept the blame for what he had done or show any remorse made me fear that he wasn’t entirely sane.
And made me dread all the more what he might do.
Lucas was studying me carefully. Belatedly, I realized that as much as my willingness to exonerate him so readily must come as a relief, it also puzzled him. I held my breath, afraid he might ask why I was being so forgiving.
But finally he said, “Sean Feeney would have disagreed. He was new in the agency and looking to make his mark. He found out who I’d gotten the money from and he reached out.”
“To threaten you?”
The idea seemed to amuse him. “More like to warn me. There was no need. Yuri and I had agreed in advance that the money had to be clean. So was what I did with it.”
He hesitated, then said, “I want you to know that I paid Volkov back quickly and in full. He’s a valued client but I’m not beholden to him in any way.”
Since I had trouble imagining Lucas allowing himself to be indebted to any man, this hardly came as a surprise. As for the rest… “What about Feeney? Did you stay in touch after that?”
Lucas nodded. “Sean’s a good guy. Whenever I get down to Washington, we find time for a game of handball or a little sparring. He’s got a mean left hook.”
Slowly, I came to terms with what he was really telling me. Lucas was more than merely acquainted with an F.B.I. agent; he was friends with one. And now he wanted me to talk to him.
No, not just wanted. More likely, he was prepared to insist. The man could be damn persuasive when he set his mind to it.
With very little effort, he could turn me into a writhing mass of sexual arousal incapable of holding a single thought in my head beyond the need to come. Right before he sent me straight off the cliff into a soul-exploding orgasm that melted every iota of resistance in my body and left me unable to refuse him anything.
Battling the carnal direction of my thoughts, I glanced over toward the windows. The light angling through them cast golden shadows across the living room. The effect was really quite lovely but it opened a well of sadness in me.
I had a sense not merely of time passing but of it passing through me, a quicksilver kind of energy, precious but fleeting. No matter how desperately I wanted to hold onto it, nothing I could do would change its swift, remorseless flow.
Tomorrow would come.
And when it did, I would go with my father. I’d play the loving daughter and pretend to enjoy my new life while I did my utmost to discover the whereabouts of the money that he had come to New York to reclaim. Not just so that it could be used to help his victims but so that it wouldn’t be available to him to buy large men with guns willing to do his bidding.
I wouldn’t stop until I was certain that he was no longer a danger to Lucas or anyone else. No matter how long that took or what I had to do.
The cost might be very high. I might never see Lucas again. The thought stabbed through me, so agonizing that I could scarcely breathe.
Rather than surrender to that pain, I opened myself to it, forcing myself to experience it fully. Only then could I hope to turn it into the strength that I so desperately needed for what would come next.
Chapter Eleven
Lucas
Feeney had warned me that Emma might know more about what her father had done than she’d ever let on. I didn’t want to believe him but now I had to confront the possibility that he was right.
As grateful as I was that she’d barely blinked an eye when I told her about Yuri, I couldn’t help thinking that the big revelation I’d been so worried could turn her against me hadn’t come as news to her. On the contrary, I’d have given serious odds that she was well aware of the true lengths that I’d gone to in order to save my company.
There was only one person she could have learned that from--her father. While he was still riding high as the head of what appeared to be one of the world’s most successful investment funds, John Whittaker had made it his business to discover the source of the money that I’d used to best him.
He’d even challenged me about it--once. My response had been sufficient to assure that he never brought the subject up again, at least publicly. Confiding it to his loving, sympathetic and ever-loyal daughter was another matter entirely.
But as much as the evidence seemed to indicate that she was in league with him, it pointed just as strongly in the opposite direction.
I didn’t doubt for a moment that the shock and horror she showed when I told her about the magician were real. Yet something was lacking even there. She hadn’t said a word about the news that her father hadn’t taken his own life. I had a sinking feeling that the omission meant only one thing: She was already well aware of that.
For all that I’d explored every inch of her delectable body, made her come screaming my name over and over, and spent myself in her with a fury I’d never experienced or even imagined, Miss Emma Whittaker remained in some ways impenetrable.
Damn her.
And damn the way she was looking at me right then. All huge blue eyes and moist, parted lips. So exquisite, so
tempting. She’d turned my world upside down. I didn’t regret that, not in the least. But I still had to right the balance somehow.
A plan exploded fully formed in my mind, a good indication that my subconscious had been working on it for a while. It wasn’t a very nice plan but then I wasn’t feeling remotely nice. More like a guy in a knockdown, no-holds-bared fight for what mattered most.
On that score, I had no doubt whatsoever. She needed to trust me. Totally and irrevocably.
Why was it so maddeningly hard to get her there?
I knew all the obvious reasons having to do with her past. But just then I didn’t give a flying fuck about any of them. I was rock hard, on a razor sharp edge, and way past desperate.
I’d spilled my guts to this woman. Opened myself up in a way that I’d never come close to doing before. I didn’t kid myself; Emma had changed me irrevocably. There was no going back from her.
So how did we go forward?
The answer presented itself all too readily. I would never hurt her but I would go to any lengths short of that to break through the walls she’d erected around herself. Even if that meant taking her apart piece by piece until she forgot any reason she thought she’d had for withholding any part of herself from me.
I was totally up for that, in every possible way.
“Sweetheart,” I said and it was as though I was standing apart, listening to myself, all smooth and seductive like butter wouldn’t melt in my mouth. “You seem so tense. What can I do to make you feel better?”
Seriously, that was the line I was going with? I was a little embarrassed, to tell the truth. Maybe it really was time to let the caveman loose.
“I need you,” Emma said. Her voice was thready, little more than a whisper. She was flushed, her breathing shallow. Glancing down, I saw that her nipples were hard.
Okay, maybe Mister Twenty-first Century did know a thing or two.
Caress Part Three (Arcadia Book 3) Page 6
