by Jill Shalvis
what kind of men they were dealing with. “On our sixteenth birthday, he brought her wildflowers, and she liked that, so she kissed him. On the cheek. Thinking that was a come-on, he kissed her back. She liked that, too, and that night, she left her bedroom door unlocked so he could come up. She just wanted more kisses, not thinking about the fact that he’d expect more than that.”
Brody let out a breath. “I’m not going to like the rest of this story, am I?”
“When Leena said no more, Manny didn’t want to stop.”
“Yeah, I was right,” he said tightly. “I’m not going to like this story at all.”
“He got a little rough, so she ran out of her bedroom to the top of the stairs, looking for me. She was crying, and her nightgown was ripped, and I—” Maddie shook her head, remembering it so clearly she could still taste the tropical rain that had been on the air that night, still smell the scent of blood.
Manny’s blood.
“He was going to rape her.” She remembered the feel of the kitchen knife in her hand, how easily she’d gripped it, how it had felt watching Manny turn to her when she’d called his name. “I’m not sorry. In fact, I’d do it again if I had to; I’d kill him all over again—”
“Shh,” Brody said and yanked her close, hugging her tight. “Don’t say it. Not here.”
In his voice was fear, for her, and she nearly broke right then. “I have to get proof, Brody.”
“Yeah, we do. Would Leena have kept a laptop in her workshop?”
“Maybe. I didn’t think to look before.”
“Let’s look now.”
Let’s.
That was a word she hadn’t used often, or accepted, but the sound of it right now was like a balm to her bruised soul. “You should wait here. You don’t have to—” She broke off at the look on his face, fierce yet solid.
No, he didn’t have to do anything, but he was coming with her regardless.
“We’ll need a cover in case we’re caught,” she said.
“We’re on our honeymoon. Honeymooners like to do it in every room.” He accompanied this with an extremely husband-to-wife look that made her knees wobble.
Pretend. They were pretending to be on their honeymoon.
They didn’t run into anyone, for which she was grateful, but they did find the workroom locked.
Maddie pulled a set of keys from her pocket.
Brody just stared at her. “How did—”
“Stole them from Rick’s office. I know. I’m going straight to hell.”
“Are you kidding?” He pressed his mouth to her temple. “You’re an angel.”
Well, that was a new one. She’d been called many things, but an angel? Never, and it seemed that every minute that they were together was only making it all the harder to remember that they had a good-bye coming, a big one.
The far wall of the workshop housed a floor-to-ceiling shelving unit filled with things that had given Leena inspiration over the years: books, boxes of cosmetic jewelry, stacks of pictures . . .
“Your sister’s a pack rat.” Brody came up behind her, his hands settling on her waist. “You doing okay?”
She nodded even though she wasn’t, not by a long shot.
He rubbed his jaw to hers. “You’re not breathing again.”
No. Not breathing. There wasn’t time for breathing. Knowing it, she dropped her forehead to a shelf and absorbed the feeling of him pressing up against her from behind.
That was nice, very nice, but she still wasn’t going to breathe easy until she got them both out of here—
A sound came from the other side of the door, and she jerked upright. “Did you hear that?”
Behind her, Brody went still as stone. “Shh,” he breathed softly.
It came again.
Oh, God.
There was no lock on their side of that door, so they hadn’t been able to generate privacy for this little B&E mission, but Maddie had her own wits for protection, not to mention the knife in her boot and the gun she’d taken from her purse and stuck in her waistband.
They were a second away from being discovered, which was a hell of a time to realize that Brody’s brilliant idea of saying that they’d taken the honeymoon mobile didn’t seem too brilliant.
Not when they were both still fully dressed. “Your shirt,” she hissed. “Give me your shirt!”
While he tugged it over his head, she yanked on the sleeve of her own shirt, revealing a bare shoulder and nearly a breast in her haste to make it look like they were in the throes of passion.
That was as far as she got before the door handle slowly turned.
Chapter 23
Too late for panic, Maddie knew, painfully aware of the door creaking open. With her life passing before her eyes, and Brody’s, too, with his hard thighs pressed to the backs of hers, she struggled to look turned on, completely in the moment, because that’s what honeymooners did, right? They had wild animal sex everywhere, never in a bed, so it should seem rational that they’d be down here at her workstation, jumping each other’s bones.
Or so she hoped.
All they had to do was make it look good, real good. Turning her head, she sought Brody’s mouth with hers, sliding her tongue into his open mouth, absorbing his murmur of surprise while arching back against him, rocking her bottom to his crotch.
As the door opened, Brody’s hands dropped from his waist to her hips, squeezing gently before one hand slid to her belly, his fingertips spread so wide they nearly touched the undersides of her breasts.
Not good enough, because someone was watching, maybe trying to decide if they should be brought to Rick . . .
“Here,” she panted, trying to sound sexy in her panic, but sounding more like a porno queen, and a bad one at that. She arched her throat so that the back of her head was cushioned in the meat of his shoulder. The movement arched her back, too, filling his hand with her breast as she ground her bottom into his crotch. “Yeah, oh yeah, just like that . . . Brody, baby, tell me you have a condom in your pocket.”
Voice low and husky, he nipped at her jaw. “For you, baby, I’ve got anything you want.”
Acting. They were acting. Trying to prove they were so hot for each other that they’d left her bedroom to make it somewhere else, maybe a whole bunch of somewhere elses, just because they could. She knew it, so why did her nipples harden? “This room makes what?” she asked breathlessly. “Room number three?”
“Don’t forget the bathroom.”
Where they hadn’t been acting . . . “Right. Four. You’re such a stud.”
The sound he made might have been a snort. Turning her head, she nipped his jaw. Don’t make me laugh.
His hands tightened on her. “Maybe the kitchen next,” he murmured. “There are utensils in there for all sorts of things, especially bad girls like yourself.”
Funny. Wasn’t he so funny?
Were they still being watched? She didn’t dare look. “You don’t need utensils. You’ve got all I need, baby.”
“Do I now?”
“Yeah.” And he had all she could ever need now.
His gaze slid briefly to the door, then back to her, filled with such fierce protection and anger that she knew that yeah, they were still being watched. Worse, she knew that if anyone caught that look on his face, they’d know he was capable of being a huge threat, so she hooked an arm around his neck and tugged his face down to hers, taking his mouth with hers to keep his expression hidden.
Anything to keep him safe, even if it meant kissing him, and kissing him . . . which of course, was no sacrifice at all because man, the guy could kiss . . . long and deep and hot, and the feel of his tongue dancing to hers was making her wish they were alone, back at her place or anywhere other than here.
How long could they do this? And what would happen if they stopped? Not willing to take the chance, she let the show go on. The Brody and Leena Show. “Here,” she whispered huskily—a tone she didn’t have to fake—and bent fo
rward over the desk, shooting him a come-get-me smile over her shoulder, using the excuse to peek at the door.
Yeah. Still a big, beefy shadow standing there.
Eyes smoldering with temper, and also a heat that stirred her up pretty good, Brody wrapped himself around her, using his free hand to swipe the desk free of the tools in front of her. They clattered to the floor, and as a gesture, even a pretend gesture, it made her knees weak. If only they didn’t have an audience. If only he could unzip his pants, pull down hers, and push into her—
God. It definitely was no hardship pretending to be lost in the throes. Brody had kept her completely covered, but opening his mouth over hers, he let his thumb come up and over her nipple, back and forth.
God, she wanted this to be real. Needed it to be real. “Brody—I can’t stand.” To prove it, her knees buckled.
He slid down to the floor with her, out of sight of the door. Heart pounding in her ears from adrenaline, fear, and a lot more, she gripped onto him and put her mouth to his. “Are we alone?”
He took a peek. “Yeah.” Sinking all the way to the ground, he leaned against a leg of the desk. “Jesus,” he breathed and then again, more softly, shoving his hair back with hands that weren’t quite steady. “Stud?”
“Utensils?”
He managed a smile, but it was fleeting.
Her hands weren’t any steadier than his as she righted her clothes, her body still hot and sweaty and definitely on overdrive. “That was close. And I’m all hot and bothered. I need another shower.”
“Too bad. You’re not taking one until we’re out of this fucking Alice in Wonderland nightmare.”
And once they were, she’d be busy finding her sister. Following the grand Plan.
He was watching her carefully. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Oh, there’s something. Spill it. You don’t see us taking this thing back with us to Sky High?”
Yeah. Yeah, she did. That was the problem. But it wasn’t going to happen, unfortunately.
“What was your original plan, before you and your sister got your signals crossed?”
“Brody—”
“Ah, Christ. Tell me you weren’t going to just run away.” He stared at her. “You were.” He pushed to his feet, staring down at her. “You were just going to leave your place, your job, the people in your life. Shayne, Noah . . .”
Him.
But he didn’t say that; he just shook his head in disbelief. “Come on.” Turning back to the room, he began searching again.
She got to her feet and joined him. They worked in silence, and as they decided a few minutes later, in vain.
Defeated, they left the workroom. Not stopping at the kitchen, utensils or otherwise, they headed straight for Leena’s room.
Maddie had no idea if the surveillance cameras were back up and running, but knowing it was a possibility, she didn’t say a word. Didn’t have any words to say anyway.
But it was nearly dawn now. They could go to meet their charter boat for their ride to Nassau.
“Get your things,” Brody said. “We’re getting out of here.”
When she didn’t respond, he tugged her close, bending a little to look directly into her eyes, his own a little hot, undoubtedly because she’d failed to tell him about her plan. “We’re leaving,” he repeated very softly but with unbendable steel in his voice. “We’ll find another way to deal with what we need to deal with.”
“Brody—”
“No, I mean it. I’ll help you find another way; you’re just going to have to try something new and trust me.”
Trust him. A promise that just might be even more terrifying than anything she’d faced so far, and that was saying something.
Brody didn’t take a deep breath until they’d set foot down on Nassau’s shores. He took Maddie directly to a huge, luxurious five-star resort, not even wincing when he handed over his credit card to be abused because he wanted that look of failure off of her face yesterday.
Then, and only then, could he deal with how furious he was at what she and Leena had planned to do.
Maddie stood in the center of the lobby, looking out the huge windows toward the ocean as he waited for their room key, and when he got it, he walked up to her.
“I can’t believe Rick actually let us go,” she said.
Brody either. “At least you’ve given your sister a head start. Rick won’t need her again for a while.”
“Hmm,” she said noncommittally and followed him to the elevator. “Why are we staying here?”
“You said you wanted to take a shower.”
She stared at him. “Are you telling me you just paid nearly a thousand dollars for a five-star suite so that I could take a shower?”
“Yeah.”
She just stared at him some more as if maybe he was the best thing since sliced bread, so he moved in close, lifting a hand to her jaw. With his thumb, he stroked her skin, not liking how pale she seemed or the purple bruises beneath her eyes. “Let’s call it a present. From me to you. Okay?”
“I want to give you a present, too.”
“Yeah? Then abandon your plan. That could be a great present. The best present. The king of all presents ever.”
They got off the elevator to walk to their spacious, gorgeous room. Maddie checked her cell phone for at least the hundredth time, waiting fruitlessly for a call from Leena. Then she looked at Brody.
The despair in her gaze killed him, and he discovered standing there, exhausted himself, feeling more than a little raw and unsettled, he needed to touch more than her face, so he pulled her into his arms.
“I could have gotten you killed,” she whispered.
“But you didn’t. I’m still very much alive and well.”
That she even allowed his hug told him more about her mental state than anything she might have said. She simply wrapped her arms around his waist and set her head against his chest with a long, shuddery sigh. “Brody.” It did something to him, her holding on to him. It cut through all the uncertainty of his feelings for her, the ones he’d simply set aside rather than face, and told him the truth.
He had it bad for her. Caressing her back, he felt her willowy body curl into his like a heat-seeking missile as she let out another long breath.
How could she walk away from this?
“I’m afraid it’s not over,” she whispered.
Yeah. Him, too. He was afraid it’d never be over between them. And he was afraid that was okay. Really okay.
“Rick isn’t going to ever let it go.”
Right. Rick. Not him. Got it. Staring grimly over her head out the picture window that revealed the gorgeous day in the making, the ocean dotted with whitecaps and sailboats, he waited until he could speak evenly. “It’ll be over soon enough.”
He’d see to it.
“I didn’t want you to come here with me.”
“Yeah. You’ve mentioned that a time or two.”
“I didn’t want you to see any of my past.”
He understood that, too. What he didn’t understand was how such an amazing woman had come out of those circumstances, and at age sixteen. She hadn’t said; she’d been careful not to say, but he could only imagine what it had been like for her growing up under the care of Rick Stone.
It had to have been pure hell. Knowing it, picturing it, made him want to go back there and do something about it. Even thinking about doing it gave him a rush of satisfaction that faded when