His Every Desire (12 page)

He’d already ruined her life once.

Joel caught her face in his hand, lifting her chin and leaning down until the tip of his nose touched hers. “I am taking you away. I’ve got safe places all over this damn country and I’ll put you in one of them—hell, I’ll hand you over to the feds if I have to. You’ll keep that fine ass of yours safe.”

She swallowed and it was close to painful. Blood rushed in her ears as she jerked away.

“I am not leaving my home! How in the hell can he find me, anyway?”

“I did, smartass. Why couldn’t he?” Joel demanded.

Hands clenched into fists at her sides, she glared at him. Fury and fear danced an ugly tango inside her, turning her insides into a mess. Lowering her voice, she repeated harshly, “I am not leaving.”

His hand closed around her arm and she turned around swinging. Her hand just barely clipped him on the chin. He caught that hand—but she swung at him again with the other.

Joel caught it, too, and before she realized it, he had swung her around, and braced her back against an oak. Sunlight fell across his face in dappled slices, highlighting his eyes, the curve of his mouth, the line of his jaw. Struggling against him, she demanded, “Let me go! Don’t you understand? He’s already controlled too much of my life. I won’t let him do it again!”

“I won’t risk you, Tracy. Damn it, I have to keep you safe.”

“Emery!” she screamed at him. Struggling harder, she again screamed, “It’s Emery!”

He dropped her hands, but before she could go back to shoving at him, he jerked her against him, his hands closing around her upper arms. “Stop. Emery, listen to me. Damn it, I can’t stand the thought of you being near him.”

“Do you think I want to?” Unaware of the tears that filled her eyes, she shoved against him but he wouldn’t let her go. “The thought makes me sick. But I promised myself I’d never let anybody make me that afraid again. And I won’t. Damn it, I won’t. You can’t make me.”

“Tra…” his voice trailed off as he stared down at her. Closing his eyes, he said, “You don’t understand what you’re asking.

Her hair fell over her shoulder as she stared up at him. Slowly, she reached up and cupped his face in her hands. “Maybe you don’t either. I found something, Joel. Something I didn’t have before. Self-respect. And if you try to make me leave, I lose that.”

“He’s lost most of his power base—they are in jail, some of them are dead. And a lot of the money is frozen by the government. Aleisha did tell me some of that. He’s lost a lot of his power—including the power he held over me. I won’t let him take that back just because he used to terrorize me. I can’t.”

Joel stared down at her, his face as hard as stone. “What kind of man would it make me, letting you so close to the bastard who beat and raped you?”

She smiled then. “You act like I don’t have a clue what you’re planning.”

He arched a brow.

“You want him here. If he doesn’t know where I am…or where you are…you’re going to let him know. You want him here—because you want him dead. You plan on killing him.”

Leaning forward, she rose on her toes and pressed her lips to his. “I know you, Joel. Better than you think. Now tell me…am I wrong?”

Chapter Nine

Stupid…

Joel told himself that for the hundredth time as he watched Tracy settle down at her computer.

Then he told himself, Emery. Hell, even after he had loaded that son of a bitch full of lead, she wouldn’t go back to Tracy.

Tracy was dead. She wanted Tracy dead.

Maybe it was easier for her. Made it easier to handle what had happened to her.

“You writing?” he asked neutrally.

She cast him a look over her shoulder. “Is there anything you don’t know about my life?” she asked, her tone amused.

Damn it, why didn’t she look more worried. Joel was terrified. He’d called two people. He didn’t trust anybody, but there were two guys who had reason to hate Vincent and he wanted more eyes on this house.

But it would take them a few hours to get here.

And she was sitting there, working, as though there was nothing wrong.

“Carter Manning is missing.”

He watched her spine stiffen. Manning was one of Grainger’s favorite bastards—Joel had no doubt that Manning had witnessed some of the humiliations Grainger had dealt his wife.

As Emery slowly spun in her chair to face him, he saw nothing but blankness in her eyes. “Is that supposed to make me want to run away screaming in terror?”

Guilt riddled him but he shoved it down. Harshly, he snapped, “If you’re smart, it would.”

“Carter is a puppet, Joel. Nothing more. Cut his strings and he’s useless.”

“His puppet master has been lying comatose the past three years.”

An amused smile curved her lips. With a shrug, she just said, “Somebody was filling Vincent’s shoes. Not of all his companies collapsed. I’ve kept an eye on the business world. Somebody who knows those businesses has been running them. That’s who has been pulling Carter’s strings.”

Narrowing his eyes, Joel said, “You always let on like you didn’t know a damned thing about his business life.”

She shrugged. “His business life—I didn’t. Him, I knew plenty. I know the companies he owned. I don’t know what kind of laws he broke, although I can probably imagine.” With a smirk, she added, “Every one imaginable.”

“And then some.” Joel rubbed a hand over his eyes. “You aren’t going to leave, are you?”

“Nope.” With that, she spun around and faced her keyboard.

Staring at the long, mink brown hair cascading down her back, he blew out a tired breath.

They were coming here. Joel knew that as well as he knew his own reflection. They were coming here, coming after Tracy—but the plan had been for her to leave.

And now because he hadn’t planned on this streak of courageousness, she was going to be here.

I’ll keep her safe, he promised himself, unconsciously echoing his promise to Carly. Closing his eyes, he muttered, “It will be over soon. No matter what.”

It didn’t matter what it took. His life, his death. His everything, so long as Grainger died, and Emery was safe.

That sounds so final…

Jerking his head up, he saw the faint white outline of his sister’s form, hovering in the air near Emery. Clenching his jaw, he stalked out of the room, onto the porch where he braced his hands on the railing. “Damn it, don’t do that.”

Carly laughed. What…don’t talk to you when your girlfriend is around?

He glared at her, glanced through the window to see Emery’s head lowered over a book. Jerking his head back to Carly, he just stood there with a brow lifted, waiting to hear what she had to say.

My…you usually aren’t so patient, baby brother.

Joel sneered automatically. Damn it, he’d been after a killer for more than twenty years, if that wasn’t patience, what was?

There was a soft sighing sound, one that drifted through the air and seemed to chill everything around them. Joel felt the goose bumps break out over his skin, and when he breathed out, his breath formed a foggy little cloud. You aren’t going to die, Joel.

Joel shrugged. The thought had occurred to him, more than once, that one day, Vincent Grainger would kill him. He’d never really cared before, so long as he took the bastard with him, but Tracy had changed things. Emery had changed them even more. It was as though there were two women living inside that skin—soft, sweet Tracy who he had fought to protect, and Emery, the woman who’d been strong enough to run, strong enough to build a life of her own. He loved them both. And so long as his woman was fine, he could handle what came.

Don’t think like that. You want a life with her…reach for it.

Joel turned away, sighing. “She deserves better, Carly. Damn it, I’ve got almost as much blood on my hands as Grainger.”

The air around him chilled even more and Joel winced as Carly’s angry voice seemed to cut right through him, like a frigid wind. Don’t! The blood of murderers. Damn you, your soul isn’t as stained as you think. I know how many lives you took. I’ve been with you since the beginning. You killed the ones who killed me. And you’ve killed bastards who put drugs in the hands of babies, men who rape children. The lives you’ve taken saved the lives of countless others. Stop blaming yourself for that. Let it go.

Live for yourself. For once…you deserve to have something in life that you want…not just revenge.

“Revenge is all I ever needed.”

Until her…look at her, Marc…Joel, look at her and tell me that you don’t want to be with her as you both turn old and gray. That you don’t want to see her belly get big with a baby…that you don’t want lie beside her every night for the next hundred years. Can you tell me that?

Slowly, he turned and stared through the window at Emery, watching as she reached up and pressed a hand against her eyes, watching the way her shoulders rose and fell as she took a deep breath. “A hundred years isn’t enough,” he said thickly, feeling the foreign sting of tears in his eyes.

Then stop preparing yourself to die. You’ve been mentally doing just that for years… stop it. Prepare yourself to live…and you will.

Turning away from the woman he loved, he stared out into the night.

“It’s not that simple.”

In a soft husky voice, Carly murmured, It is. Just reach for what you want…stop searching for what you’ve always searched for. Revenge isn’t the most important thing anymore. Taking care of her is. Isn’t now more important than the past?

And with those obscure words, she faded away. The temperature returned to normal and Joel’s breath no longer came in foggy clouds. Slumping against the porch railing, he scrubbed a hand over his face and tried to figure out what in the hell Carly had been getting at.

* * * * *

Emery jumped at every sound.

Every shadow in her house had turned ominous and she felt cold, no matter how many blankets she piled on top of her, no matter how thick her sweater, or how high she turned up the heat.

Cold and terrified.

No matter how brave her words were, she was still scared. And part of her did want to run. There was a voice murmuring to her in the back of her mind like a mantra. She couldn’t tell Joel that.

If he knew she was afraid, he’d never let her stay.

She couldn’t focus on her work though, and none of the books she’d tried to read made sense. After a couple hours of pacing, she settled on the couch and tried to watch TV.

Nothing there held her interest.

Desperate for a distraction, she finally decided to ask Joel the one question that had plagued her for ages.

“Why did you get involved with Grainger?”

She’d surprised him. She saw it in the widening of his eyes, the subtle tightening of that carved, sensual mouth, the way his hands flexed on the paper he was reading.

“He had what I wanted.”

Emery snorted. “Not good enough. He didn’t have a damned thing you couldn’t have gotten on your own.”

A slow smile edged his lips up. “He had you. There wasn’t another you in the whole world.”

She flushed slightly, but she shook her head. “There’s more than that. You hate him. You always did—I’ve seen it in your eyes before. What did he do to you?”

Joel met her eyes, and she almost shivered at the flat black look in his. He seemed colder, somehow. A lot colder. Distant. When he shook his head and murmured, “It doesn’t matter,” Emery knew he was lying. Even though there had really been no change in his expression, the lie was so heavy in the air, it almost choked her.

“I want the truth.”

One straight black brow rose and he said quietly, “He abused you…hurt you…you’re terrified of him. Isn’t that reason enough?”

Shaking her head, she said, “No. It’s older than that. You hated him before you ever saw me.”

His lids drooped, shielding his eyes from hers.

Jerkily, she rose from her chair, and stalked past him. “Fine. Don’t tell me.” Under her breath, she muttered, “Trust me, he says.”

Just as she reached the foot of the stairs, he came up behind her, and laid a hand on her shoulder. Freezing under his touch, she continued to stare straight ahead as he lowered his head to murmur in her ear, “Don’t… Don’t walk away from me. This doesn’t have anything to do with trust.”

“Then why in the hell don’t you tell me?” she asked stiffly, refusing to relax back against his body, the way she wanted to.

He sighed. His breath brushed against her neck, exposed by the thick braid she’d woven her hair into. Her skin tingled, tightened, a chill raced down her spine. Her nipples tightened and she could feel the heat of his body reaching out to her. When he remained silent, she tried to tug away, but his hands shifted, clamping around her waist as he dragged her back against him.

“You don’t want to know this, Emery. Not really. There are things about me that you don’t want to know, things you don’t need to know. You think you know me. You claim you don’t need a knight in shining armor. But you deserve one. And I’m so far from a knight, it’s pathetic.”

As he turned her around, taking her chin, lifting her face until her eyes met his, Emery wondered if it was too late to say, “I take it back.” Staring into the bottomless depths of his tormented eyes, she decided he was right. She didn’t want to know. But then his hands tightened around her waist, lifting her against him. Automatically, she wrapped her legs around his waist. Staring into his eyes, helplessly, she found she couldn’t speak as he lowered them to the couch, keeping her astride him. His hands started to roam over her back, down her hips, over her legs, in constant, restless motion as he stared over her shoulder.

“I was twelve years old when she met him. She was nineteen…beautiful, smart. She wanted more than we could have. Carly liked money, liked pretty things. She was going to school, but at night, she stripped. She was pretty enough, exotic enough, that she landed a job at a very high-end gentlemen’s club. That was where she met Grainger.”

His lids lowered and when he looked back at her, for one brief second, the blank mask he always showed the world was gone.

Emery wanted to cry at the pain she saw exposed on his face.