by Mallory Kane
He raised his head, frowning down at her, about to speak, but she lifted her face to his and he took her mouth in another breath-stealing kiss.
His kiss had always had the power to melt her, the way his hard lips became gentle and teasing, the way his tongue tasted her as if she were offering him sweet wine, the way the stubble on his cheeks scraped against her sensitive skin.
He moved away from her mouth to nibble at the underside of her chin, and his fingers, still tangled in the long strands of her hair, pushed at the edges of the terry-cloth robe.
Paige arched when his fingers touched her breast, cupping it, his thumb caressing the sensitive tip. It had been so long. No hands had ever touched her but Johnny’s. No mouth. She had almost forgotten the ecstasy he could coax from her with just a touch.
He leaned back and slowly spread the robe open, gazing on her body as if he’d never seen it before. He glanced at her face, searching it, then shook his head as if he were arguing with himself.
Bending over her, he touched his tongue to the tip of her breast and Paige almost went over the edge. She gasped and pulled his head closer. His warm mouth sucked the entire areola in, then slowly let it go. Then he did it again, this time running his tongue around it and nipping the distended tip with his teeth.
Paige nearly screamed in exquisite pleasure. He stopped, leaving her panting and about to beg. But then he turned his attention to her other breast and started all over again, until he’d raised her senses back to fever pitch.
She ran her hands over his muscled shoulders and up to caress the nape of his neck, where sun-tipped brown hair slid through her fingers like finest silk. She tried to urge him back up so she could kiss him, but he resisted her. He was in control.
He moved down her belly, touching her here and there with his tongue, tasting her, as his fingers played with her breasts, cupping them, caressing them, teasing them until their tips sprang up achingly. Then he slid his fingers over her abdomen and farther, until he cupped his palm between her thighs and slowly stroked her.
His touch was like an electric shock, singing through her with the bright hot fury of lightning across a dark summer sky.
He dipped into her with one long finger. He slid slowly in and out, his head resting against her gently rounded belly.
“Johnny, please,” Paige gasped, squeezing her thighs together. If he didn’t stop, she wouldn’t be able to control herself.
He stopped.
Absurdly, she wanted to cry No!
His moist finger trailed upward over her abdomen to the little stretch marks that lined her belly. Those maps that defined where she had carried their child.
“What are these?” he asked softly. She felt his stubble scrape against her skin as he spoke.
Her heart almost stopped at his question. Her child. Their child. Didn’t he remember?
Before her mind could travel further down that path, before she could find breath to answer, he began kissing each little mark, one by one, crouching over her, examining every inch of her abdomen, running his tongue over every millimeter, until she squirmed in frustration and the agony of remaining unfulfilled. Her body was writhing by the time she could speak.
“Come to me, Johnny,” she begged. “Now.”
He gave her that unfathomable look again, then shed his clothes and lay back down, his warm length stretched out against her.
She’d gotten a glimpse of his body after he’d showered at his apartment. She’d felt his strength under her touch. Now she devoured it with her eyes and her hands, relearning every inch of it. Where he had been slender and sinewy, he was now muscled. His leanness had turned hard, his shoulders were more defined, his abdomen rippled with muscle, his thighs flexed powerfully.
She ran her hands over him, marveling at the differences, exulting in the familiarity. Her fingers brushed the scar at his hip. It was long since healed, like an old surgical scar. For an instant, curiosity about how he’d gotten it pulled her out of her erotic haze.
But he dipped into her again, deeper this time, and the sensation of his intimate touch sent all rational thought out of her head. She arched against him, more than ready. As he lifted himself above her she moved to accommodate him.
Johnny let out a shuddering breath when Paige’s fingers closed around him. He watched her face as he sank into her, afraid of what he would see in her eyes, afraid he wouldn’t be able to last.
Her warmth enveloped him. She was so tight, so ready. And yet a shadow of pain crossed her face.
He stopped, ashamed of his selfish and abrupt disregard for her delicacy. “I’m sorry. I hurt you.”
He started to withdraw, but her hands held him. She smiled, her eyes shining. “It’s just been a long time,” she whispered, pulling his face down to kiss him.
A thrill of wonder coursed through him as he realized just how long it had been for him, and just how much he had missed the perfection of her.
He made love to her like he always had, with reverence and care, because she was now and had always been the most precious thing he’d ever known.
PAIGE LAY QUIETLY IN Johnny’s arms, listening to his even breaths. Little aftershocks of passion still echoed through her, slowly fading into a hazy, supple relaxation. Being in his arms again was like traveling back in time.
In Johnny’s arms, she’d always felt safe and loved. She felt invincible, as if she could bear anything, face any foe, as long as he was there beside her.
She hadn’t felt that way since he’d walked away from her all those years ago. She’d struggled so hard alone, making sure Katie never experienced the fears she had lived with all her life. Her mother had been too self-absorbed, too wrapped up in her own heartbreak, to adequately care for Paige. Maxine Reynolds had wasted her life and neglected her daughter because she was mourning for a man.
Snuggling into Johnny’s side, Paige thought about her own life. She’d devoted all her energy to giving her daughter the security and safety she herself had never had. She’d made sure every single day that Katie knew how much she loved her.
Katie. She stiffened. A knife blade couldn’t have cut any deeper. Her daughter was in danger.
The fragile cloak of love and safety that Johnny had wrapped her in shattered like rotten silk.
She slid out of his arms and got up, grabbing the robe as she headed for the bathroom. She wrapped the robe around her suddenly chilled body and held herself as the awful significance of what she’d done washed over her.
She’d indulged herself while her child was lost. She had forgotten about her baby, let precious minutes go by that should have been used to come closer to finding her. The hole in her heart left by Katie’s disappearance threatened to open up and swallow her.
Glancing in the mirror, she was surprised to see her eyes brimming over with tears. Blinking, she dashed away the droplets that wouldn’t stop running down her cheeks, and lifted her chin. This was why she never cried. She’d discovered a long time ago that crying did nothing but sap her strength and waste her time. She had to be strong for Katie’s sake.
She splashed water on her face, and buried it in a towel. But when she looked back up into the mirror, the tears hadn’t stopped at all.
A shadow appeared behind her. She met Johnny’s worried gaze.
“Paige?” Johnny whispered. “Are you okay?”
His brain was still jumbled like a partially completed jigsaw puzzle, but in all the memories he could dredge up, he never remembered seeing Paige cry. The two lone tears that had spilled over from her eyes when he’d broken the cell phone were the closest she’d ever come.
To see her now, eyes wide and filled with distress, tears falling down her cheeks, broke his heart. She’d always been the most courageous person he’d ever met. That stubborn little chin, those flashing green eyes were what he’d fallen in love with. He knew what she was crying about, because the same regret and fear were eating at him.
“I forgot about her.” She swallowed and he saw her j
aw work as she tried to stop her lips from trembling.
He reached out carefully and turned her around, taking her hand. “Paige, don’t do this to yourself. You’ve been through a lot. I was scared and confused and you held me and helped me through. We comforted each other.” He rubbed his thumb over the ring she wore. “Nothing we did hurt Katie at all. You’re helping me get back my memories, and that’s going to help Katie. Now come out of the bathroom and let’s get dressed.”
She shook her head. “She’s all I’ve got.”
Her words struck him like stones.
He understood the depth of her love for her child. He understood the horror of not knowing where Katie was or if she was okay. But still the words hurt him.
He ignored the pain and tugged gently on her hand. “Come on. We have to make plans. I think we need to leave here.”
“Let go of me!” she snapped, jerking her hand away. “This is all your fault anyway. You promised me you’d be back. Wait for me, you said. Never take off the ring. It’ll bring me back to you. Nice words, Johnny, but you never showed up.” Her eyes glinted like liquid emeralds.
“You didn’t keep your promise, so my daughter ended up without a father, just like me.”
“Paige, I—”
“Since you’re remembering things, remember this. Why didn’t you come back?” She stood rigid, her arms hugging her middle. “Were you like my father? Married? Or did you just think better of your summer fling once you got back to your fancy house and life?”
He held out a hand to her, but she stepped backward, until she bumped up against the bathroom sink.
“I don’t know.” He shook his head, rubbing his temple. “I wish I could tell you. But some things are still kind of mixed up.”
She uttered a short laugh. “I’d say that’s an understatement.” Stepping around him, she went into the bedroom.
He followed her. She moved stiffly, as if she were afraid to let go of her rigid control. He wanted to take her in his arms and comfort her, but she didn’t want that.
She dropped the robe and began dressing with jerky movements.
“I don’t know what happened to keep me from coming back for you,” he said. “I can’t even tell you what kind of person I was back then, although I must not have been much of a man. Right now, I can’t think of anything important enough or strong enough to keep me from you.”
She turned around, and he saw her lips tremble just barely. “I can think of one reason you didn’t come back.”
He waited, seeing the sadness in her eyes, knowing it was his fault it was there.
“You didn’t want to.” She bit her lip to keep it from trembling and wiped her face with both hands.
“Did I know you were pregnant?”
She turned around and stared at him. “No, why? Does that make it better?”
He didn’t know what to say, but a part of him felt a wary relief that he hadn’t known she was carrying his child. Was he just grasping at ways to assuage a little bit of his guilt?
“This is getting us nowhere,” she cried, picking up her jacket. “I’ve got to find my daughter. I need to hear her voice. I need to—”
She stopped, her jacket in her hand. With an odd expression on her face, she held it up, feeling in the pockets.
“The tape recorder,” she muttered as she pulled it out. “I need to hear Katie’s voice.”
Johnny stopped buttoning his shirt. The tape recorder. Of course. The background sounds on the tape recorder. He knew those sounds.
“Paige, let me see it.”
She clutched the little metal box to her chest just like she had the phone, and eyed him suspiciously. “No. You’re not going to destroy my tape recorder. I have to hear my baby’s voice.” Her eyes flashed like green lasers, ready to cut him in two if he so much as moved.
“I promise I won’t hurt it.”
She lifted her chin.
He knew what that meant. She didn’t trust him, and he couldn’t blame her. He held his hand up, palm out. “Okay. But play it for me. Let’s listen to it together. I won’t touch it. But hurry. We’re running out of time.”
Stepping over toward the door as if planning an escape, Paige took out the little minirecorder without taking her eyes off him.
If he could just touch her, wrap her in his arms and promise her they’d find Katie…but he had to be careful, because he didn’t want to break any more promises. He didn’t want to break her heart.
She pressed Play, and her desperate taped voice echoed in the air between them.
Johnny closed his eyes. He felt disjointed, dizzy. The raspy voice of the caller, the metallic creak of the steel rails, the whistle of a train, all were familiar to him. His head throbbed in rhythm with his pounding heart. He knew those sounds. He’d been there before.
“Johnny, are you all right?” Paige asked, turning the recorder off.
“Play it again,” he said harshly, his eyes closed.
She rewound the tape and pressed Play.
The sounds echoed around him like they had during the long, dark weeks of his captivity. He swayed.
“Johnny?”
He wiped his face and met her gaze.
She looked frightened by his expression. He knew why. Inside him anger was building. Like a stoked fire, it had lain dormant, hidden behind the barrier his brain had built to protect him from the truth. But now it flared. Fed by his returning memories as a fire is fed by oxygen, his anger grew.
He struggled to contain it, to channel it into strength and resolve.
“Paige, look at me.” His voice was harsh. He had to force himself to lower it. He needed her to trust him, and he’d given her so many reasons not to.
“We are going to find Katie,” he whispered, hoping she understood that this time he was offering her more than a promise.
Her green eyes widened, and color came back into her face.
He nodded. “I think I know where she is.”
“WHY HASN’T HE FIGURED out where she is?” Serena muttered, staring at the wooden crate.
“Hell, Sue Ann, he was blindfolded when we brought him here, and you never let him out in the light.”
Serena sent her brother a disdainful glance as she stepped carefully around the desiccated shrimp shells, nails and other trash that littered the floor of the abandoned warehouse.
“Johnny may have been in that crate in the dark, but he knew where he was.” Serena smiled, remembering. “That was part of his torment. He’s the one that told me about this place and how he’d played here as a child. He’ll realize eventually that this is where his daughter is. But I want Paige and him eliminated as far from here as possible.”
She lit a cigarette to mask the rotten fish smell. “Why haven’t you cleaned this place up?” she snapped.
Her brother sat on a folding chair, chewing. He still had that disgusting habit. He spat, then wiped his mouth.
“Hardly seems necessary. It’s not like you’re entertaining your bridge club.”
“I don’t belong to a bridge club, you nitwit. How’s she doing?”
Leonard laughed. “The brat’s doing fine. She had pizza again. I reckon that’s all she eats. And she’s tired of the movies. Oh, and she’s still complaining about how dark it is at night.” His voice mocked the child’s whine.
“Didn’t you get her that night-light?”
“Yep, Martin did. She’s just a spoiled brat.”
“Bring her out here. I want to talk to her.”
Leonard spat again, then stepped up to the boxcar and turned the crank that unlocked the heavy door. He slid it open.
“Katie?” Serena called sweetly. “Come on out, honey.”
The child stepped reluctantly through the opening, wrapped in the afghan they’d covered her with when they kidnapped her.
Serena eyed the thing distastefully. The child never let go of it. “Katie, I don’t think your parents are going to come. What do you think?”
Katie rubbed her s
leepy eyes, then glared at Serena. “My mom will find me,” she said, jutting her chin up.
Her disturbing Yarbrough eyes glinted in the dim moonlight that slipped in through the high windows of the warehouse.
Serena shook her head. “I don’t know. We keep looking for them, but we can’t find them anywhere. Can you remember where your mom and dad go when they want to be together?”
Katie sighed, glanced at Leonard, then back at Serena. The look on her smudged little face reminded Serena of her stepson. Johnny used to look at her with the same expression of superiority. Serena suppressed the urge to grab the child and shake her.
“I told you I don’t have a dad. My mom doesn’t go anywhere with men.”
Leonard grabbed the girl’s arm. “Look, kid, you better cough up some information—”
“Leonard!” Serena snapped. “Get away from her. You’re scaring her to death.”
Katie rubbed her arm and glared defiantly. “I’m not—scared.”
“Now, Katie, I know your mom told you never to tell, but this is important. We have to find your dad, so he can come and get you. We want to help you.”
“No, you don’t,” Katie said. “You’re mean. You don’t want to help anybody.”
Serena had to laugh. “Mean am I? Well then, since I’m so mean, suppose I send you back inside.” She glanced at Leonard. “I hate to tell you this, Katie, but it is so important that we find your mom and dad, that unless you tell me where they are, you won’t get any more pizza, or anything else to eat. Little girls who don’t do what they’re told must be sent to bed without their supper.”
Katie shrugged, but her lips quivered and her eyes shone with tears. “I don’t care. My mom will come. You’ll see.”
Serena nodded at Leonard and turned away as he pushed the child back inside the car and slid the metal door closed.
“Why don’t you just go ahead and get rid of her? She ain’t nothing but a liability now that they ditched the phone.”
“No. You never think things through, Leonard. She’s still our best bet. As long as we have their child, they won’t dare go to the police.”
