by Anne Stuart
And then, at the last possible moment, he jerked the wheel. The car stopped its death slide, skidding around on the wet, deserted pavement and ending up against the bank on the far side, headlights spearing crazily into the black rain.
The car stalled out. He dropped his hands, closing his eyes, and in the dark of the silent car, he could hear her breathing, rapid, panicked; he could hear the pounding of her heart.
He wanted to feel her heart against his hand, he wanted to lick her skin, he wanted to taste her tears. He opened his eyes in the darkness, to meet hers.
She looked like a woman who had faced death, willingly. Her face was pale, her eyes huge, and her car was too goddamned small.
He stumbled out into the rain, dragging her with him. They tumbled down the hillside, slipping in the mud, her hand tight in his, and when they ended up beneath a twisted yew tree, it took less than a moment for him to find her, with his mouth, with his hand. She was wet and ready for him, she would do anything he wanted, and he knew it. She would go down on him in the rain, kneeling in the mud, if he wanted it. He could take her any way he wanted, and she asked for nothing in return. Nothing but his soul, which she’d stolen when he hadn’t been looking.
He wanted to push away from her, but he couldn’t. He was caught, just as she was, and her breasts were cool and damp in his mouth as he pushed her down in the mud, ripping her clothes open. She was slick and ready, but this time, in the cold, in the rain, he perversely wasn’t going to rush it. He was going to screw her, long and slow, in the mud, in the night, so that when he finished with her she would be beyond defenses, beyond help. She would be his, body and soul.
She thrashed beneath him, trying to hurry him, hot and eager, and his power over her made him feel both cruel and alive. He slid his fingers between her legs, testing the heat and dampness, then moved farther, between the dark cleft, so that she jerked beneath him.
He kissed her, hard, and she kissed him back, arching against him. He put his jeans-clad knee between her legs, pressing against her, rocking against her, and heard her faint whimpers, felt her fingers clutching against his shoulders, as the rain poured down around them.
He caught her hands and forced them back, into the mud, as he rocked against her. He hadn’t even unzipped his pants, and he could feel his cock pressing against the rough denim, a pleasure pain that equaled what he was doing to her. She was beyond coherent thought, her hair was wet with rain and mud, and he was so far gone he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to shuck off his pants and finish.
She was crying now, making small, helpless sounds of distress beneath him as she writhed, and he took pity on her. And on himself. Levering off her body, he unfastened his jeans, releasing himself into the cool night air.
“Tell me,” he whispered low, a dark, cruel force driving him. “Beg me.”
Her only response was a harsh, choking noise, as he put his cock against her, feeling the heat and dampness and need of her. He sank in, hard, filling her, and the sound she made would haunt him until the day they killed him. A low, keening wail of despair and completion, as her body tightened around him, waves and ripples of reaction as she climaxed.
He came immediately, not regretting it, shoving her down into the mud, exploding inside her with the pent up fury and obsession that had been simmering all day. He was only vaguely aware of the long, endless orgasm that shook her, clenching him tightly within the milking depth of her body, and when he finally collapsed on her, he could still feel the ripples caressing him.
He could do it again, he knew it. He was still hard, and he wanted to, he wanted to just keep fucking her until there wasn’t anything left of either of them.
And then he heard it. The faint sound of smothered tears.
He rolled off her, into the mud, shocked. Shocked at the guilt, the sorrow that swamped him.
“Cassie,” he whispered, his voice harsh. “Baby.”
The endearment was another shock, one he wouldn’t have thought he could utter. He pulled her into his arms, tight against him, as she shook, sobbing. He didn’t know why she cried. Because he’d screwed her in the mud, because he’d hurt her. Or something far more frightening.
“Did I hurt you?” he asked urgently, pushing her hair away from her tear-streaked face. Her eyes were tightly shut, but tears were streaming out, mixing with the rainwater and the mud from his hand. “Cassie, baby, tell me what’s wrong.”
She just kept crying. Diana had been a master of crying—he’d learned to hate women’s tears, and the various manipulations they hid. He’d learned to ignore it, to listen to a woman sob and wail and not feel anything at all. Cassie lay in his arms, weeping, and he couldn’t bear it.
“Cassie, love,” he said, and his own voice was breaking, his powerful control was breaking. “Don’t.” He kissed her, kissed her tear-streaked cheeks, her mud-streaked brow, her chin, her nose. “Don’t cry, baby. I won’t hurt you again, I promise. Just don’t leave me. Don’t run this time, Cassie, God, don’t run.”
He was scarcely aware of when the sobs halted. Her arms were tight around him, her eyes were open, swimming with tears. “I won’t run, Richard. I swear it.”
And fool that he was, he believed her.
Chapter 15
THEY CALLED IT a bed-and-breakfast, but as far as Cassie was concerned, it was the closest she’d come to an American motel since she’d set foot in England. The long low whitewashed structure was hidden behind the old coaching house, its newness artfully disguised by darkened timber and texture paint, but the beds were queen-sized and new, the flat-screen televisions in each room had satellite programming, and she could even work the shower.
She needed it. Mud plastered her hair, was ground into her skin. Richard had tugged her clothes back around her with impatient, yet gentle hands, then pulled her back up the slippery hillside to their abandoned car. It seemed as if they’d been down in the mud for hours, but during that time no one had driven by and noticed the car halfway off the road. Or at least, no one had bothered to investigate.
Once in the car she’d leaned back and closed her eyes, ignoring the mud that settled into the cloth seats. When Richard parked behind the old inn, she barely managed to rouse herself, and it wasn’t until she found herself standing beneath the shower in their room that her brain began to work once more.
The knowledge shattered her. Standing alone beneath the lukewarm stream of water, the mud pooled at her bare feet like blood. She felt battered, raw and aching, and she leaned against the wall of the fiberglass stall and closed her eyes, searching for a trace of pride, of self-control.
She had none. She’d rutted in the mud like a sow in heat, she’d lain beneath him in the rain and begged him. She’d done what she always swore she wouldn’t do. She’d given herself, body and soul, to someone who was worse than bad for her. He was death and disaster, and she’d welcomed his possession, no questions asked.
I don’t think he’s capable of loving anyone, Sally Norton had told her. I haven’t been in love with him since he told me what really happened that night.
Cassie knew she had two choices, and two choices only. She could go back into that bedroom, lie down on the bed, and let him do whatever he wanted to her. Let him take her heart and soul and mind, and most of all her body, over and over again, until she was completely helpless.
Or she could ask him what happened the night his wife was killed.
In the end, she had no choice at all. The survival instinct, one she’d nurtured all her life, came back to life. She’d survived her childhood, survived Sean and her mother, survived the careless lovers and the wrong choices, until she’d built a safe life for herself, where people couldn’t hurt her, use her. She couldn’t throw it away now, out of blind, misguided lust she kept wanting to call love.
He was sitting in a corner of the small room. He’d managed to find a shower
of his own, she couldn’t imagine where, but she could be glad he hadn’t chosen to join her. His hair was wet, slicked back from his dark face, and he was wearing a black T-shirt and jeans. Even so, he looked oddly British, as if he’d taken on protective coloring.
He had a glass of whiskey and ice in his hand, and he looked up at her with no expression whatsoever. She wanted to slap him.
She dressed hurriedly, pulling on a pair of jeans and an old sweater, and he watched her, his dark eyes never leaving her. “Going somewhere?” he asked pleasantly, when she started pulling on her shoes.
The very evenness of his tone startled her. She’d been so intent on her own confusion, her own needs, that she hadn’t noticed that somehow, at some point, Richard had disappeared. Slipped back into the dark, distant world of his, where no light entered. Where she was locked out as well.
“Would you try to stop me?” she countered.
“Ah,” he said, leaning back. “You are leaving. I should have known. The moment you promised never to run away, you began planning your escape.”
“Would you let me go?”
“Of course.” He took a sip of his whiskey, and he seemed no more than idly interested in her. “Just out of curiosity, where are you going?”
“I’m not necessarily going anywhere.”
“I see. I have another chance, apparently.” The very notion seemed to amuse him. He was distant and chilly, the manipulator who’d toyed with her in the apartment in New York. “How am I going to persuade you to stay? Get down on my knees and swear my undying love? That I’ll be faithful till the day I die? That’s not much of a promise in my case.”
“Stop it.”
“What do you want from me?” he asked, taking another sip, and she realized he was mildly, dangerously drunk. Just enough so that he was balancing on the edge. Now was the time for her to push.
“The truth. No more evasions, no more lies. Simply the truth.”
“You won’t like it.”
She felt a chill dance along her backbone. “I can take it.”
“I doubt it.”
“What happened that afternoon?” Her urgency was suddenly overwhelming, and she knelt next to him, her hands on his arm, beseeching him. “Tell me the truth, Richard.”
He turned his head slowly, and there was death and sorrow in his eyes. And Cass was very, very frightened.
“She was going to leave me,” he said, quite simply. “She was going to take the children and leave me. I couldn’t let her do that.”
The chill intensified, and unwittingly she tightened her clasp on his arm. “Tell me, Richard.”
“She was pregnant. My lovely, delicate, indisputably crazy wife hadn’t allowed me near her bed for more than a year, but she was two months pregnant by the man she’d always loved more than me. She was taking the children and going to him, and I wasn’t about to let that happen.
“I picked the children up at the day-care center early that day. Diana seldom bothered with the mundane details of motherhood—I rather think she was expecting me to bring them home to her before she left. I wouldn’t be surprised if she expected me to drive her there as well.”
“Drive her where?”
“To her lover’s. I didn’t realize quite how bad things were. I didn’t mind her going, but I was damned if she’d take my children. I took the children to Sally and asked her to hide them. No matter what happened, she wasn’t to do anything until I told her to. One of the few times in my life when my instincts were right.”
He took another sip of whiskey and glanced down at her hands clutching his arm tightly. “I went home, and Diana was there. She told me about the baby then—I hadn’t known she was pregnant, or even that she was sleeping with anyone. She told me there was no way I could keep custody of the children, that she was taking them with her and I’d never see them again. She’d been very clever, I realized that belatedly. The accidents, the trips to the emergency room for broken collarbones and cracked skulls weren’t accidents at all. She’d hurt the children. And she was ready to tell the authorities that I was responsible.”
Cassie knelt there, sick inside. His arm was like a band of steel beneath her fingers, the tension so strong that he hardly seemed human. “What happened next?”
“She told me to try to stop her.” His voice was slow, almost drugged. His eyes met hers. “I picked up a knife, and did just that.”
The night was very still. She could hear the distant sound of laughter from the pub, the noise of traffic as it rushed by outside, the gentle patter of rain against the windows. “You killed her?”
“I knelt beside her on the hall floor and watched as she bled to death,” he said simply. “It was very quick. Even if I’d tried to get help, it probably would have been too late. But I didn’t try. I just sat there and let her die.”
SHE FOUND HERSELF outside in the rain, and she couldn’t remember how she got there. She must have somehow risen to her feet and walked away from him, and he couldn’t have tried to stop her. If he had, she would have been no match for his strength, his determination, his lethal seductiveness. So he must have let her go.
It was late at night, but she could hear the noise of laughter from the pub, the raucous sounds echoing through the mist. She was leaning against the wall, and her face was cold and wet.
No more denial, and no more hope. It was just that simple. He’d warned her not to ask if she wasn’t able to hear the truth, but like a fool she’d gone ahead, praying there’d be some reason, some secret, some magic formula that would make it all right.
Why hadn’t he lied to her? Why hadn’t he kept up that enigmatic silence that had served him well enough in the time since Diana had been murdered? Why tell her?
She closed her eyes, leaning her head back against the plaster wall, and she wanted to howl out her misery and pain. Her body felt ripped apart—she wanted to run, as far and as fast as she could. She wanted to jump in the car and drive away, away from the cold-blooded killer who sat silently in the room, away from the self-destructive need that was tearing her to pieces.
She wanted to run, before she made the impossible, deadly mistake of running back to him.
He hadn’t come after her. He let her go. And she had no choice but to leave. While she still could.
HE FINISHED THE whiskey after she left. The final test, and she’d failed it, quite miserably. He should have known. He’d found the perfect woman, against all odds, and then he’d gone and blown it. Blown it by making the dire mistake of falling in love with her.
It was the most absurd thing, and he almost thought he could laugh. At this point in his life, facing death because of the dark, miserable soul of one woman, he jeopardized everything by falling for another.
He hadn’t even been in love with Diana, he’d known that fairly soon after their marriage. He’d been infatuated by her beauty, entranced by her frailty, manipulated by her world-class obsessions. He hadn’t been in love since he was in the third grade and planned to devote his life to Marcy Connors, with the fat blond pigtails and the freckles.
That was his problem. Since entering puberty he’d been chasing after short, skinny little girl/women. Cassidy was a throwback to Marcy, with her lovely curves and her good-hearted nature.
What a fool he was. What an absolute fucking idiot, to have gone and blown everything, the only hope he had for the future, because he couldn’t keep his mind and his body separate. Why the hell did it have to be Cassidy Roarke?
She was running home to Daddy as fast as her long, luscious legs could carry her. He should be used to that by now. She would go and tell Sean the hideous truth, as she thought she knew it, and Sean would send her someplace to keep her quiet. Cass’s version of the truth was too tame for the likes of Sean O’Rourke. The real truth would be even less appealing.
No, Sean could have
whatever truth he wanted, Richard wasn’t about to stop him. But he would have to stop Cassidy. Before she told the wrong person, trusted the wrong man. He had to be fully prepared to do anything necessary to protect his children. Including murder.
If he’d had any sense at all, he wouldn’t have let her escape in the first place. No one knew she was in England besides Mark and Sally, and he’d covered his own tracks very well. He could get away with it. People might suspect, but he could only be executed once.
He’d go after her, of course. But he wouldn’t do anything rash. He knew better than she did why she ran. She’d panicked, looking for an excuse, and he’d given it to her, giving her one final test. She’d failed it, which should have come as no surprise. He should feel liberated.
Instead, he felt consumed with a dull, angry ache. He’d have to make other plans. The last few months were for nothing.
Or perhaps not. When they finally managed to strap him down on the gurney for the last time, he’d think of fucking Cassidy Roarke in the mud, in the rain. Of doing her every way he could possibly think of, and her begging for more.
And he’d die smiling.
Chapter 16
THE 737 DEVELOPED engine trouble somewhere over the north Atlantic. Cassidy didn’t give a damn. She sat in her window seat, staring out into the billowing clouds, feeling the plane buck and shudder, and she didn’t even break out in a sweat. She doubted she’d ever be afraid of flying again.
She doubted she’d ever be afraid of anything. She’d gone beyond that—nothing had the power to hurt her, frighten her, humiliate her. She had looked into the face of love, and seen death and despair, sickness and betrayal. There was nowhere else to go.
She was almost disappointed when the plane landed safely at JFK. The other passengers let out cheers and whoops of relief. Cassie simply unfastened her seat belt and prepared to deplane.
