Prisoner Mine (16 page)

As ordered, he moved with extreme caution. When Z nodded at the small silver device, her father threw it in a low arch. Z snagged it out of the air and shoved it in the cargo pocket of his pants. “I didn’t think you’d explode your own daughter. Me,” he shrugged, “you probably wouldn’t have any qualms about incinerating. If this is a tracer, I’ll have it disabled before we leave the grounds.”

Her dad shook his finger at Z as though speaking to a child. “It’s not a bomb and it’s not equipped with a tracking chip. It’s probably the only thing that’s kept me alive all these years.”

“Does your brother know you have it?” Z asked.

“No, but he knows it’s possible, and that’s been enough.” He wiped beads of sweat from his forehead.

“That, and your shared skeletons.” She couldn’t keep the accusation from her voice.

“And that.” His head hung in a downcast nod.

The muscles in Z’s shoulders rolled.

Greer looked at the man who’d protected her life and at the same time neglected to nurture it. The love and loyalty she’d lived by all her years, through trial and terror, faded under the harsh light of reality. She wanted to tell her dad to come with them, that they’d get through this together, but her mouth refused to form the words.

Z shifted toward the door, but stopped. His shoulders rolled. The barrel of his gun lowered ever so slightly. “Senator, you breathe a hint of this to the president, US Elite, Stas, anyone, and you’ll beg me to take you to prison.” He tugged down the collar of his shirt until the top of his gnarled skin appeared. “I’ll make the shit the Stas did to me look like pre-school finger painting.”

He took another step toward the door. His left hand wrapped around Greer’s forearm and tugged. “It’s time to go.”

She met her father’s tear soaked eyes. “If there’s a way to make this right, we’ll find it.”

When he blinked a fresh wave of lament wet his cheek. “I didn’t do a very good job being a father or a man, but you loved me through all my faults. You are the best daughter. I didn’t deserve you, but I do love you.”

Again her mouth hardened, making a response futile. Even if she could speak, she didn’t know what to say. Anger, betrayal, and disappointment clouded her conscience.

“Let’s move,” Z ordered.

Greer tipped her head to her father, and then followed Z from the room. They hustled down the long hallway.

The crack of an exploding bullet split the cultured air.

Their weapons snapped toward the sound, ready for battle. Z used his chest and thrust her backward until her shoulder blades hit the wall. A statue shielded her from the other side and blocked her aim. Seconds passed. The thud of metal hitting hardwood forced bile into Greer’s nose. Tears clouded her vision.

“He…” A sob filled in the gap. The gap she couldn’t cross. Her father loved himself too much to… He would never take his own life.

“I have to check. Stay here,” Z barked close to her ear.

A quake started in her knees, working its way up her thighs. Greer sagged to the side. Only an arm on the statue stopped her complete collapse. The rolls of white wig of the head and shoulder statue dug into her arm. She sucked choppy breaths through her open mouth. Too soon for the outcome to be anything other than suicide, Z hooked her arm around his shoulders, snugged her to him, and walked her down the hallway.

“Did he…” Another shiver rocked her to the marrow.

“Yes.”

The soles of her shoes shuffled along the oriental carpet of the master bedroom and squeaked across the bathroom tile. At the window he grabbed the sides of her face. “Sixty yards and we’re clear. I need you on point, Britton.”

Her name on his lips shook away the fog. There was nothing to be done about her dad now. Training took hold. She checked the horizon, climbed through the window, and dropped to the ground. Seconds later Z followed. They hit their stride, running full tilt toward the new car.

“
Y
ou work for the CIA
.” Several nearly translucent fly-aways flitted about Greer’s brows. She smacked them from her face and glared at him.

He tried his damnedest not to grin. The anger in her voice and red in her cheeks beat the hell out of her shocked, chalky silence of the last three hours. “Why on earth would you think that? I have a British accent, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” Greer said, using an atrocious British accent. Her palm struck the large metal door to the ten-by-seven steel and concrete-reinforced vault in the basement of a small cabin in the middle of the forest off Highway 28. “I’d think that,” she added sans the Brit emphasis, “because you have skills only someone trained outside the boundaries of the law would possess. Because you have safe houses, guns, and cars stashed across the entire country it seems.” Each reason earned another smack on the wall. “Because no one knows who you work for or who the hell you are. And last, but absolutely not least, because I’ve known you for nearly eight months—the last of those rather intimately—and I still don’t know your name.” Her wild hands turned to fists, and she shook them in his direction.

“Call me Zeke.”

Her jaw grazed the floor for a full eight count before she snapped it up. “What? Call you Zeke or is that your actual name?” Again her hands flailed about.

“My name is Zachariah Slaughter. Most people, who know who I am,” he qualified, “call me Zeke.” He rubbed at the scar on his chest, weighted his words, and then forged ahead. In for a penny, in for a pound. “My sister calls me Z. So, really you’ve been calling me by the truest name I’ve ever possessed.”

Since they’d left the house of horrors she’d drawn inside herself, only answering direct questions with one word responses. The outburst proved she wasn’t conquered. He dragged his knuckles down her cheek and wished she’d soften enough to walk into his arms. Her arms petrified by her side. She stepped away from his touch, turned, and ran up the steps. The act knocked his heart against his spine. It also shored his resolve.

He followed her up the steps, through the trap door that blended into the floor boards and required a special tool to pry open. To keep either of them from falling through to their death, he stopped long enough to close the hatch and kick the rolled rug into place with his heel.

Greer clipped along in a tight circle, her arms knotted across her chest. All the rose tint he’d coaxed into her cheeks before the mission, and the bit he’d seen return, drained onto the hardwood floor like the blood from the hole in her father’s head. More than anything in the world, Zeke hated the bonds of helplessness. He hadn’t a clue how to help her through the tirade of emotion she refused to set free.

“Talk to me,” he prodded.

She whirled around as though only now noticing his presence. “How are we going to go after the president of the United States, with or without all this evidence? Evidence is destroyed. People disappear with this kind of stuff.”

They’d just secured the loaded drive in a vault even Houdini couldn’t escape, but he had a hunch her frantic ramblings had little to do with vanishing evidence.

“I wondered why your father blamed you for the assault. Most parents deny it ever happened. He didn’t deny your assault took place because he knew the bastard had done it. Like father like son. The man deserved a bullet for that alone.” Zeke reeled himself in, tried to anyway. It took Herculean effort. “He was your father, Greer.”

Her gaze dropped. He stepped in front of her, bracketed her face in his hands, pulled her chin up, and waited. Those blue orbs slid from one side to the other refusing to rise. “Talk to me,” he begged.

“It sucks being locked out, doesn’t it?” she snapped.

Yeah, it hurt in a way he’d not experienced—and he’d experienced the full spectrum of pain the world had to offer, emotional and physical.

“Worse than any torture the Stas dreamed up, and they were damn creative. I’m sorry for putting you through it for so long. I took an oath to keep these secrets and I will not jeopardize your safety with them.” She met his gaze and then pinched her eyes shut. A small stream leaked out their corners. “Talk to me,” he prodded.

“He was my father, and I’m glad I don't ever have to see his face again.” Her lids opened, her sad gaze centering his. “I’m mad at myself for feeling that way. I’m sad for what should have been, but he made horrible decision on top of horrible decision. Then he lacked the guts to face them. He wasn’t a good person, but I’ll miss the potential he had to change, what could have been. I hate him for that, and then I hate myself.”

“It's not your fault.”

She dropped his gaze.

Zeke released her face, grabbed her hand, and pressed it against his beating heart as she had what seemed a lifetime ago, but in reality was only days past. “Until this very moment, I never understood that it wasn't my fault. It’s not your fault, Greer. Don’t waste your life thinking it is.”

Her head crashed into his chest. He wrapped her in his arms, and dropped to his knees to better hold her. She felt smaller and more fragile in his arms than she had when she’d been drugged out of her mind. But he hadn’t cared for her then like he…like he… No. He didn’t. He couldn’t love. Sobs wracked her body. Tears soaked through his shirt. He pulled her legs into his lap and held her fast against his chest. God, how he cherished her.

The sun fell past the tree tops and still he held tight. He would hold her as long as she’d let him. Her tears dwindled. She stayed in his embrace.

“What wasn't your fault?”

When the dam shoring his darkest secret broke it gave way under Greer’s simple touch. The words flowed like they’d never been locked away. “My father beat me every day of my life. Every day I saw him, anyway. Some nights he drank himself into a stupor and couldn’t make it home. Those were the only good nights. He hit my mother, my sister. My mother stayed through it all.”

Greer’s arm banded around his torso, encouraging the surrender.

“My sister, Khani, got us out when I was twelve. I was just a kid, but I never forgave myself for not protecting her.”

Soft, wet lips grazed his cheek, and then his lips. He let her comfort seep into the depths of his soul, because after she heard the entire story she might never kiss him this way again. Maybe she sensed something in his demeanor. She sealed a desperate kiss on his mouth, and then eased back in his arms.

“I let the disappointment destroy me, corrupt me.”

“You're not corrupt, you’re hurt.” Her head shook, caressing his fingers with her silky hair.

“I killed my father.”

Zeke blurted the words, tired of her misplaced worship. The moment they slipped from his lips dread knotted his intestines, but the boulder he’d shouldered for so many years rolled onto the floor. The buoyancy lifting him contradicted the hitch in his breath as he waited for Greer to shrink away, to eye him like the murderer he was, to flee.

After an eternity, she pushed off his chest. He let her go. On her knees in front of him, she spread her arms wide, corded them around his neck, and crashed into him with a ferocity that left him gasping.

“Why would you hug me after I told you that?”

She kissed his temple. “Why would you think I’d do anything else?”

“Because I’m a murderer.”

Her fingers knotted into the strands of hair behind his ears. “The world doesn’t mourn women and child beaters, but you have for a long time. I can feel it pouring off you in waves. A murderer would have no remorse. You do.”

He’d never talked about that night, though he relived it every day. He’d killed men in battle, but never anyone he hated. He’d hated his father. He still did.

“Tell me about it,” she coaxed without breaking her hold or her intent gaze.

He thought to deny her, but with the earnestness of her wide, pleading blue eyes the words tumbled out. “I went into the Royal Marines for the steady meals and a place to sleep. Turned out, I was a good soldier. The Commandos recruited me. I traveled for missions, killed men in the cover of night with my bare hands, trained harder than most military forces, and I still woke with nightmares. A grown warrior clutching his sheets like a scared kid was no warrior at all. I decided to face the past before it ruined me.

“On leave, I tracked my father to a dive bar in a seedy part of London. I didn't plan to kill him. The son of a bitch didn't even recognize me. When I told him who I was he asked for money. I told him to fuck himself six ways to Sunday.”

Greer smoothed her hand over his cheek.

“He did what he’d done so many times before. He pulled off his belt. Coming out of the last loop, the leather snapped like it did in all those dreams. In all those memories. He said, ‘Talk to your old man that way, just like your whoring sister, and you get the buckle.’ His boots stomped, splashing swill off the asphalt. He lunged. A part of me shrank inside myself like I had so many times before. The other part reacted.

“Just one punch. It connected to the center of his sternum. The crunch of his ribs echoed in the alley. He hit the piss-soaked pavement and never made another sound. I walked away. I left everything behind, my marines, my country, my sister, everything I'd thought I stood for without a word.”

T
he people designed
to love them above all others had failed so miserably at the task that they fostered children who locked out the world. And yet, they both just breeched massive barriers. She’d known something haunted Z. It always lurked in the edges of his gun-powder eyes. He’d killed his father. She only regretted the fact because she couldn’t snuff out the man’s life, and because guilt stalked Z for so long.

When she first met this stalwart man she’d been lost in a deep and winding hate crush. His distant bearing and stinging regard earned her abhorrence. At the same time the brutal perfection of his body and the mystery in his eyes towed her under. Slowly, painfully, his true nature revealed itself one steadfast act at a time.

Now, he bared his soul.

Greer had thought herself incapable of love until she realized, if she could, she’d take away all Z’s pain and add it to the shattered pieces of her own heart. Foolishly, she’d thought love a healing potion for all her problems. In truth, it compounded them. She loved a man she had no future with. She loved a man who would leave her when all the answers were revealed. She loved a man unwilling to love her in return.

And there it was all the same. Love. A gut-rending, traitorous emotion.

The veneer flecked off, leaving them both exposed.

Z sat on his heels. His narrow gaze awaited her reaction. From the set of his jaw, he still expected her to push him away.

Each segment of her broken heart beat in a frenzied race. It stole the blood from her extremities, numbing her toes and fingertips. She released the hold on his hair and let her hands fall to the side, completely unsure of what to do or say. A confession of her own chanced his retreat. Pushing him away would save her future sorrow.

She moved on instinct only Z coaxed from her, bending at the waist and pressing her lips to his. He held himself in invisible restraints with his hands fisted at his sides. Her mouth glided over the hard line. Simple kisses marked his skin with the barest hint of moisture.

The rigidity challenged Greer to tempt a reaction. One hot edge at a time she covered his lips with her tongue. His breathing doubled, fanning against her face, but it wasn’t enough. She dropped her hands to the hem of her shirt, peeled it off, and then reached for his.

Z’s wide hands encircled her wrists, squeezed, and yanked them wide. “You have to stop. I can’t—”

“You already said you can’t fuck me and you can’t make love to me.” She gnashed at his lips and rubbed her face against his prickly scruff. His hold stopped pushing her away and slackened a little. The leeway allowed her to rub the very tips of her lace covered nipples across his chest in shameless taunting. “How about something in between those two?”

“Greer.” He said her name like a man dangling off the ledge of a building.

“I know you want me.” A stupid tear slipped down her cheek. “I’m not conceited, Z. But I’m not blind, deaf, or void of any other sensory perception either.” Her lips slid down the side of his neck and found his violent pulse. “Your heart is beating as fast as mine, your breathing is as rough.”

“You’re hurt. You want something to take that away for a while.”

“You’re scared and pulling back.”

“You’re not mine to have.” The sharp tone echoed in her ears.

Greer jerked her hands toward his thumbs and broke his hold with bruising effort. She stood over him, not backing away one inch. Her hands flew to her pants. While she unfastened them she toed off the boots she’d loosened in the car. He didn’t move, except to track the progress of her hands. The hook at the back of the bra unfastened with a flick of her wrists. She stepped out of every stitch of clothing and kicked and tossed them to the side. The damp cabin air cooled her skin, sending a parade of goosebumps marching across her body.

“I am mine to give.” She knelt in front of him and kept her hands at her side. “I’m yours to deny.”

The muscles in his neck strained against his tanned skin. His mouth puckered, and then frowned. Greer braced herself for his rejection. She’d taken so many of them over the past several days. This one though, trumped all the others.

“I can’t deny you or myself, not anymore.”

He lunged forward, attacking like a wild animal. His chest collided with her breasts. The force knocked the breath from her lungs. Unforgiving lips plundered her parted ones. Harsh breaths siphoned into her mouth, kick-starting her own pants. One arm encircled her ribs. Fingers sank into the meat of her bottom. He yanked her against his hips.

Greer cinched her legs around his abdomen. The stinging cold of his matte black belt buckle abraded her clitoris. She bucked. His unmoving hand on her ass redirected her escape into a grinding roll of the hips. The large flat of metal licked her slick flesh like an icy tongue. A gasp gurgled in her throat. Z devoured it along with her mouth.

She clawed at his shirt, grabbing handfuls from his back and working it to the tops of his shoulders. The heat of his bare abs connected with her lean belly. Discord between cold on her clit and hot on her middle sparked an explosion of kaleidoscope colors behind her eyes, forcing them closed.

His mouth broke away and nipped a trail down her neck. The same time his teeth sank into her sensitive skin of her trap, he spread her cheeks wide and slipped a hand between her taut globes.

“Z.” Her moans reverberated off the low cabin ceiling and uncovered windows.

The rough tips of his fingers teased her puckered rosette. Using the fistfuls of his shirt, she arched into his hand and brushed her breasts against his pecs. He didn’t invade her body, but if he’d tried she would have let him. That surprised her, given the past.

Zeke Slaughter was nothing like her past. He was nothing like anything she’d dared to dream.

He released his hold on her back and his teeth slipped off her shoulder. She didn’t move, locked around his body. His hand snagged the top collar of his T-shirt. Greer helped tear the thing from his head and arm. Z shoved it to the side, dangling off his occupied arm. The palm of his calloused hand smoothed up her abs to the swell of her breasts. His thumb taunted her nipples in turn while his other hand explored her slick folds. He smeared her arousal from front to back in maddening strokes.

Her hands latched around his nape. Their gazes met in a kinetic storm of lust and emotion—emotion on her part at least.

That was okay.

Greer lied to herself. She didn’t believe it though.

Z rose to his knees, hefted her higher on his hips, and used the finger that had tormented her breasts to release his buckle and shoved his pants down his legs. He wrestled the elastic of his boxer briefs over his swollen cock. The full length of it smacked against her fevered bottom. She met the touch with carnality, shifting in his hold, seeking his wide crown with her aching flesh. When the silk head glided across her clit to the opening of her eager channel he lifted her cheeks with one hand.

“No you don’t.”

Shock dropped her jaw. “You’re not going to—”

“I’m going to when I’m good and ready.”

“You’re not ready?” She scoffed.

He bombarded her with a savage kiss. “I’ve been ready since you strutted onto my training field. You’re not ready.”

“I am.” Need pulsed through her veins like an illicit drug. It prodded her heart beat and dampened her skin. “Z, I’m ready for you.”

“Tell me what took you away from me.”

“What?”

Striations flexed and rolled in his chest. “One second you were with me, so in sync it hurt, and next your fiery eyes cooled.”

“No.” She used her body to protest, undulating against him.

“Don’t lie to me, Greer. I know sorrow when I see it.”

“Not sorrow.”

“Then what?”

She clamped her lips together and glared in challenge.

A hint of a smile kindled in his eyes. He reached between them, fisted his length, and stroked twice. Hefty beads of pre-cum formed at his pretty pink slit. Z pressed the wide head at the base of her clit and dragged it over the live wire of her sex, caressing all the way to the back. She sank into his touch. The grip on her cheeks held firm, barring her hips from the promised ecstasy.

Greer whimpered. He only reversed his stroke. She grabbed a handful of his hair and pulled him forward into a merciless kiss. Of the two he was more heartless. On the next rub, he levered her down until the barest of an inch spread her lips wide.

“Yes. Oh, Z. I’m with you. I’m so ready.” Her insides wept for his intrusion and still he held back.

“If it wasn’t sorrow, then what?” His hoarse voice gritted through clenched teeth. He started to pull out.

“Regret,” she moaned.

His forehead dropped to her shoulder.

“Not how you think.” She yanked his head with serious effort. Sorrow clouded his gaze. Another piece of her heart broke away. What more did she have to lose?

Greer melted her gaze to his and swallowed her fear. “I love you, Z.”

Everything suspended for a heap of seconds. She watched his face for a reaction, but found none. No horror. No shock. No reciprocation. Only unfettered desire.

She pushed herself onto his throbbing cock at the same time his hands locked around her hips and he scored her onto his length. Z’s roar muffled inside her mouth fusing with her cry. He filled her to the point of pain. Tears welled in her eyes. His arms grabbed at her back and shoulders, pulling her closer. Pain marbled with pleasure. His hips receded, and then plowed forward once more.

He unfastened the clasp of her feet, adjusted her legs lower on his hips. His grip levered her up, and then drove her down to meet his thrusts. She tugged him ever closer. Her hips rolled in time with his demands. Sweat slicked their bodies. The air around them charged. Pressure rose inside.

Her pants filled the air, fusing with his low rasps that stumbled toward the tattered edge of growls. The harder he pushed the shorter her breaths became. Tension coiled the tips of her fingers and curled her toes. Z lowered his head, clasped his teeth onto her lower lip, and popped the tender flesh through the unforgiving points. He jerked her hips back and drove the head of his dick into a place she never knew existed.

Once. Twice. Three times.

The ache she wrestled with ballooned to a fine point, and then disintegrated. She clung to Z’s shoulder to keep from flying apart with it. Shrapnel ricocheted through her insides, pinging and thrilling everything it touched. No words formed on her lips. Only shattered moans declared her rapture.

Z tightened his already crushing hold, sealing her torso to his hard front. His hand tangled in her hair. A firm tug exposed her neck. Stuttered breath and molten kisses caressed her as his hips jacked frantically. The width inside her swelled. He barked a hearty string of curses, mixed with, “so tight, so beautiful.” Spasms rocked her body from inside. Spurts of liquid heat filled her.

When the cursing stopped he stood with her in his arms, toed off his boots, and shook off his pants and briefs. She buried her face against his neck, unready to face him. The prospect of being pushed away burned more acutely than the first thrusts of his girth. Not that she could hold her boneless neck up if she wanted to. His heavy steps told her he’d expended an ample amount of energy as well.

Old floorboards creaked under their combined weight. He moved through the kitchen and living area down a short hallway to the first door. Every step shifted his still pulsing cock, stroking her to maddening need. Like she hadn’t just taken her fill. They entered a stuffy bedroom. Z shuffled between the wall and the queen sized bed. He jerked back the hideous rose and white checked quilt.

Her back hit the sheet. His body followed, covering her front. A pinch gathered at the center of her scalp. Z used her hair to pull her face from his safe scent. He leaned over her, the hard ridges of his body visible for the first time since they’d come together. Droplets of sweat collected in the grooves of his abdomen. Veins bulged along his forearm scant inches from her gaze.

“You can’t hide from me. So, don’t try.”

Totally at his mercy, Greer stared into the torrent.

She waited for a lecture or his denial of her feelings.

He moved his hips slowly, almost imperceptibly, pressing his hard length in an inch, and then almost leaving her body. His free hand braced on her hip, while the V of his flexed and contracted with his steady seduction.

Greer’s legs splayed wide, allowing him better access. Distended, red lips clasped his shaft. Each slow stroke brought him both deeper, and then farther from her core. His tempo never sped. The tattoo on his oblique danced with the tension of his abdomen.

Her hips jerked, trying to rev things, but his hands held her in place. “What are you doing?” she panted.

“I fucked you.” His voice rasped with the barely hinged barbs of lust. “Now, I’m trying to make love to you.”

The hold on her hair loosened. His rough palm abraded her cheek. His thumb rubbed across her lower lip. She turned into his touch and his eyes closed for the briefest of seconds. He urged her through pleasure to the untenable precipice of orgasm with the tenderness of his love making.

She covered both his hands with hers, and then pressed her lips to his palm. Her breath cascaded over his skin with choppy exhales. Their gazes tangled. The tension in his jaw broke.

Z grabbed both her hands. He spread them wide, holding her palm to palm. His heart covered hers. He thrust hard and deep, binding them like forged metal. They came together, losing themselves in each other's souls.