KIDNAPPED, A Romantic Suspense Novel (11 page)

Sami's whole world focused on the need to have this man inside her. She’d known him less than three days, however she knew one thing, at this moment her whole being depended on having this man—not just any man—but this particular man buried in the deepest part of her.

As his hands worked her jeans open, she thrust his jeans down his hips. She slid her hands up the firm muscles of his back, pulling him closer. Cool air touched her hot skin as his hands pushed and pulled her own jeans downwards.

His hand cupped her mound.

"Yes, please yes.” She heard the woman moaning again.

He parted her thighs, pushing her jeans off one leg. She drew him nearer.

Yes. Just another minute. He’ll be inside
.

"Nyet! Nyet! I won't tell you where Jake is. He is my friend."

They froze.

Sami's eyes popped open. They met his crystal blue ones. "Is he awake?” she whispered. "What if he heard us.” Cold reason flooded her senses. She tried to push him off her.

"Wait. Don't.” He gripped her arms, and held her in place. "I can't move just yet. Wait one second."

"We can't do this. Not here.” She felt like crying. "Get off me!"

"Just one minute, Sami.” He peeked over the couch. "He's thrashing in bed. I think he’s asleep."

"His fever could be up.” She lay beneath him, his chest rubbing her nipples with each labored breath they took. The tip of his erection teased her with its heat. "I need to get up. I need to go to him."

“Okay, okay.” He rested his forehead against hers, his eyes closed. The muscles in his arms quivered from the effort to keep his upper body pushed away from hers. For a moment she feared he meant to push the issue.

He dragged in a deep breath. "God, how do married people do this?” Slowly, he released her hands, sliding backward. Gripping his pants in one hand, he eased himself back into them.

Sami struggled to sit with her back to the couch. He handed her T-shirt to her. A blush filled her cheeks as she slipped it on. Her eyes didn’t meeting his as she mumbled, "Thank you."

Without another word to her, he stumbled to the door, letting himself out. He wasn't about to embarrass them both further by coming in his jeans in the house.

Outside, he took a deep breath, letting the cold air fill his lungs and cool his need. He couldn't believe what had almost happened! For the first time since he'd been a boy looking at his first playboy centerfold, he’d almost lost control.

Who was he kidding? If Nicky hadn't called out, he would have buried himself, unsheathed into Samantha's hot body.

Never had he been with a woman without protection. It was one of his personal rules. Wear a condom, no matter what. But with Samantha, a woman he respected greatly even though he’d known her for such a short time, he’d almost broken that rule.

Jake ran his hand over his face, then through his hair. His body still hummed with desire.

The door behind him opened.

"Jake?”

"Go to bed, Samantha."

"Are you okay?”

The hesitation in her voice, the concern it showed almost undid him. His manhood hardened further. "Find a bed behind a door and lock it," he growled out between clenched teeth. "Now!"

Silence filled the icy night air for several moments.

"Don't stay out in the cold too long. I don't need to nurse you with pneumonia, as well as Nicky.” The hurt in her voice cut through him sharper than the Kreshnins’ bullet had.

The door slammed behind him.

He leaned his head against the cold wooden porch beam.

This was not good!

* * *

Sami read the thermometer, one hundred degrees, even. The medicine seemed to be doing its job. Replacing the thermometer in the holder, she put it in her purse. Still shaking from her reactions both to Jake’s touch and his rejection, she pulled off her shoes. Grabbing her quilt, she crawled into bed with Nicky, curling around him, like she had so many times with Aimee.

Go find a bed behind a locked door.

Well, she didn't need a locked door to protect her from him. A sick child could always be a barrier between a man and woman. She’d learned that from personal experience.

A few minutes passed. Her anger slowly eased. As her eyes started to drift shut, the front door opened again. Sami's body and mind came instantly alert. She watched Jake bank the fire and turn all the lights down low. He stood by the bed, looking at her and Nicky.

"How is he?” Jake’s deep voice re-ignited shivers of desire throughout her body.

"His fever is down, but not quite gone."

For another few minutes he stood looking intently at her. Passion still smoldered in his eyes, but just like the fire, he’d banked it well. If he held out his hand, Sami knew she’d go with him without question or thought. Instead, he closed his eyes and backed away from the bed. Turning, he walked to the back bedroom.

He opened the door, gripping it so tightly his knuckles blanched. With his back to her he hesitated.

"Samantha, hiding behind a child, will not keep you safe from me. This thing is too strong between us. I can’t promise to keep my hands off of you while we’re here.” He turned to gaze at her again in the dim moonlit cabin. “But I will promise to protect you.”

Sami hugged Nicky’s sleeping form close to her in the night as she watched the door close behind Jake. His words made her body hum as much as his hands had earlier. He promised to protect her, and she was sure he meant physically and sexually. But who was going to protect her heart from him?

Long after the bedroom door clicked close behind Jake, Sami finally relaxed. She pulled the quilt up and snuggled around Nicky. Instinctively she felt his head. Warm, but not feverish.

"My grandmother used to do that," Nicky murmured sleepily beside her.

Startled, Sami looked into his blue eyes. Oh God! How much had he heard? "Where is your grandmother, Nicky?”

"Boosha, died last winter. We just came here on train. She was housekeeper for Khazyaeen Kreshnin. But she got sick.” He wiggled around to face Sami. "I think she missed our
sello, villiage, in Russia. She was sick for homeland."

"Oh! You mean she was homesick?”

"Da!"

"Where are your parents?”

"Mama died having me. That is what grandmother said."

Sami smoothed the hair from his forehead. "And your father?”

"Grandmother said he was truce, coward. He ran far away from us."

Sami nodded. "Lots of truce fathers live in America, too. So there hasn't been anyone to protect you since your grandmother died?”

Nicky grinned. "Jake protects me. I am little partner."

“Oh? And what exactly does little partner do?”

“I watch. Sometimes I watch when I am working. I see the men coming and going away.”

“What men, Nicky?”

“Lots of men. They come to the restaurant. Khaztaeen Kreshnin, he is big man mafioso. They bring bags of money to him. Then it goes in the trunks of the cars out behind the restaurant.”

“That sounds dangerous for you to be watching that, Nicky. Did Jake really ask you to do this?”

A frown settled on the boy’s face. “No, he find me doing this. He very mad. He told me he was politzia, police. He told me I no watch anymore. Jake promised to get me away from Khazyaeen Kreshnin.” His voice lowered to a whisper. “I don’t like working for him.”

“In America, little boys aren’t supposed to work, Nicky. They’re supposed to be in school.”

“That what Jake say. He say he was going to send me away to school and Boss Kreshnin not be able to box my ears no more.”

Sami pulled Nicky closer, wrapping her arms tightly around him. The cold winter wind rattled the windowpane above the bed they shared. Her heart ached for the little boy who had no family left to care about him.

She glanced at the closed bedroom door once more. By Nicky’s admission Jake had tried to warn the boy away from the danger of helping him. Despite the cop’s tough guy act, Nicky had known to trust him. A soft smile played on her lips. So had she.

“Sami?”

“Yes, Nicky?”

“Do you want to know secret?”

“Is it a secret you should be telling?”

Nicky shook his head. “Jake told me not to tell no one. Especially not Khazyaeen Kreshnin.”

“Is that why they hurt you, Nicky? Because of the secret?”

He nodded.

“Then I think this once it would be a very good thing if you told it to me.” She held her breath, waiting for Nicky’s revelation.

“Khazyaeen Kreshnin hit a man on back of his head. Then he put man in his trunk, just like bags of money.”

Sami’s heart slammed into her stomach, beating double time. That was why Jake so desperately wanted to get the boy into protective custody. And why the Kreshnins wanted to find him.

Nicky was a material witness to a murder.

“Wow, that’s some secret, Nicky.”

When he didn’t answer, she leaned closer. His steady breathing greeted her ears. His secret revealed, Nicky slept. However, her mind kicked into over-drive.

Somehow there had to be a way to protect Nicky. Jake’s hands were pretty much tied after the shooting in the parking lot. Hugging Nicky close she had to admit she wanted to help both the boy and the man.

Her brothers had pounded it into her brain her whole life. You always trust the police. But they never told her what to do when the police were the ones chasing you.

She sighed with frustration. Her brothers weren’t going to be happy with her. Dave, the oldest, was going to tell her she should’ve tried harder to get away. He would say she should’ve gotten the police to come help.

Matt would get just as angry with her. He’d say if she was driving, she should’ve gone straight to the Highway Patrol. After all, he worked for them. They’d protect her.

Even Luke would put in his two cents.

Luke.

She sat straight up in the bed and gently pushed away from Nicky’s body. The younger of her three big brothers might just be the answer. If he had his cell phone on. If he wasn’t away on a case. Sami glanced at the clock. Two a.m. If he wasn’t in bed with someone.

Padding over to the couch, she pulled the wool afghan off it. To ward off the chill of the cold cabin, she wrapped it around her shoulders like a giant shawl. She silently went to the bedroom door and listened. A light snoring sounded on the other side.

She smothered a giggle with her hand over her mouth. Jake snores.

Now, if only she remembered to charge her cell phone recently. She suppressed another giggle. Her inability to keep her phone charged drove her brothers nuts. Each one told her that the safety of having a cell phone lay in its constant readiness.

A board creaked under her foot.

She froze.

Every nerve fiber hummed with electricity. Her whole being focused on her hearing. Her breathing sounded like a tornado in the quiet room. Her heart beat thundered in her ears.

She listened for the door to open, expecting Jake to grab her from behind like he had so many times before. Surely he would come storming out, enraged that she would be sneaking around the cabin at night.

No sound came, but the crackling of the wood on the banked fired behind her. She inhaled and exhaled hard, forcing every ounce of air out of her lungs before filling them once more. Relaxed, she took another sock-covered step. No further creaks sounded beneath her feet as she inched her way to the kitchen area.

Kneeling, she pulled her backpack purse to her. In all the drama of the past twenty-four hours, she’d completely forgotten about her cell phone. She only carried it to appease her family, leaving it turned off almost all the time. Something about people calling her while she stood in the produce section feeling oranges really irked her.

In the dark she had to feel around in the depths of her pack. Her fingers came in contact with a pad of folded papers. She pulled them out and studied them a minute.

Three prescriptions. All for sleeping pills. All from different doctors.

She stared at them a moment, remembering she’d had a different plan for when she’d left work early. Ending her pain. A long sleep.

Funny how that hadn’t entered her mind since Jake kidnapped her.

She thrust the papers back into the pack and hunted again until her fingers found the silky carrying case she kept the phone in. Flipping up the top, she covered the back to muffle the metallic sounding beep that filled the silence like a jumbo jet to her ears.

Her eyes darted to the door.

No movement.

Whew.

The messages light flashed in front of her eyes. Twenty-three messages. She just bet her family sent them all in the past twelve hours. You would think if she didn’t answer them the first time, they’d get the idea she couldn’t answer them at all.

Frustrated, she shook her head. She knew they were worried. Her parents must be frantic. But she couldn’t risk more than one call, so she would just trust Luke to let the others know she was alive and okay.

Pressing the number four button, she auto-dialed Luke’s cell phone number. This was one feature she liked about the phone. Her family swore she couldn’t remember a phone number even if her life depended upon it. This time it might.

“Come on, Luke, pick up,” she muttered quietly, her eyes riveted on the bedroom door. Out of everyone in the family, Luke slept the heaviest. Because of his job, he rarely slept in the same bed two nights in a row, so he always kept his cell phone right by the bed, in case someone at work or the family needed him.

“Hello?” His groggy voice rasped in Sami’s ear.

“Luke?” she whispered.

“Sami? Is that you? I can hardly hear you.” His voice sounded instantly awake. “Where are you, sis? The family is worried sick. The feds are reporting you’re helping a kidnapper. They’re parked in front of Mom and Dad’s house, hoping you’ll show up.”

That news didn’t surprise her. Jake had been right. The moment she’d pulled out of that lot, whoever was behind this marked her as his accomplice. “Luke, listen, I don’t have much time. Jake didn’t kidnap, Nicky.”