Revenge (7 page)

Keeping secrets is harder than facing the truth. At least when you face the truth you deal with the consequences.

When you have to hide your truth, all you get is a big dose of isolation.

“Hey,” Mark says in a voice that sounds like the purr of a big lion. He’s carrying two mugs of coffee and hands me one. I sit up and try to keep my breasts covered with the sheet.

He gives me a wide grin. “You know I’ve seen those before. And I’m happy to see them again.”

I
n that moment I realize he’s naked, too.

Oh, my. The view is extraordinary. His body is like carved marble and forged steel. Each muscle bulges or rolls, curving along slopes as skin str
e
tches over so much power. He has a body honed by athleticism and precision. All that work in the military, with the DEA, has made his body close to perfect.

And then there are the scars.

Last night I touched a few. In the morning light I see so many. Light hair covers his strong thighs and the chiseled contours of his chest and abs. Underneath, though, I see criss-crossed scars from scratches. The jagged edge of a thicker wound. The flesh-toned scarring that looks like an amoeba.

A
s
he crawls under the sheets he presses his legs against my soft thigh. The contrast makes me smile.

And heat up.

“What’s that?” I ask, pointing to the amoeba-shaped scar. It’s under his hip. As I point, he moves slightly, and my finger lands somewhere other than his thigh.

“That?” he says with a throaty laugh. “You need me to tell you what
that
i
s called?” He hardens against my fingertips and I join him in his chuckle.

“No, I know
that
perfectly fine. In fact, let me show you how well I know
that
,” I whisper, threading my fingers around his shaft. Mark inhales sharply, the air whistling between his teeth and soon, my question about the scar fades as I watch him descend into ecstasy.
Ecstasy caused by me and only me.
 

He may be the big federal agent undercover trying to protect me, but in this moment I have
all
the power.

His body tenses, every muscle corded and taut as my hand takes him right where expected. Suddenly, his palm wraps around my wrist. I’m in an iron grip and can’t move. He flips me, so fast and powerfully I’m on my back in less than a second, his hot chest covering mine, his mouth slanting and claiming. His tongue speaks in nine different languages without saying a word. Our breath comes in fits and starts as I open my legs.

Desire pools in me, unquenched and insatiable. How can I want more when last night was so much more than enough? He kisses a trail down to my collarbone and reaches down with one hand.

“You’re so wet,” he murmurs. I moan at his touch. He takes this as encouragement and he should. This feels so good.

This feels so
right
.

Nothing is between us now. No secrets. No lies. No cover-ups. No misunderstandings. No clothing. No pretense.

Nothing is between us but our own respect and hope and love and mutual desire to be together in every way possible.

As his abs slide against my belly and his mouth takes one nipple in, his tongue frenzied against my sensitive skin, I arch my back and sigh.
I
t’s a sound of longing and contentment. Of need and want. Of relief and pleasure.

He reaches for the nightstand drawer and I stop him.

“I’m on the pill.”

He gives me a look of such unfiltered joy that I laugh.

“You didn’t say anything last night,” he asks in a voice filled with questions.

“I’m saying it now,” I whisper, reaching between us and guiding him in.

And as he enters me once again, his
eyes intense and smoky as he looks at me, I welcome him in. I welcome him home. I welcome our future with the joining of our bodies.
 

We’re together.

Finally, together.

“I
have missed you so much
, Carrie,” he murmurs, eyes full of love and something more than passion. “You’re mine and I’m yours.”

Tears of joy well in the folds of my eyes. My fingers seek out his chest, palms eager to know every inch of him. I thread my fingers through the hair at the back of his neck and pull him down for a kiss. He tastes like coffee and sweetness. Like reunion and resolution.

I’m home, too. When he’s in me, I’m finally home.

A deep, sultry sense of something bigger than us both begins to build inside me, growing with each stroke as he makes love with me. I can’t stop kissing him. I wrap myself tightly around him, as if I could turn us into one person. One soul. One heart.

One spirit.

The mingled flesh
makes my pulse race as Mark kisses me with abandon. His thrusts feel like breaths, as if his very life depended on each stroke, each push, each slow beat. My blood rushes through me like it needs to be as close as possible to the surface of my flushed skin. It needs Mark as much as I do.
 

We c
o
me in a rush of throaty cries and moans, my own voice an echo as he call
s
out my name.
I am
drowning in love and connection.
I am
bathed in the pure essence of being with him. I
am
surrounded and cocooned, completely entangled in him.

At one point I stop knowing where he end
s
and where I beg
i
n.

I wish I could bottle th
is
moment and live it forever for a thousand years.

He brushes my sweaty hair from my face.
I see m
irth and contentment etched into his
features
. This
i
s the Mark I remember. Playful and sexy, hot and protective. Worry lines that filled his face when I returned to town seem a thing of the past. The weight of the world had pressed hard against his chest all these years.

Telling me everything ha
s
lifted that weight. He looks so young and carefree. Mark looks like he could do anything right now.
Be
anything.

And he can.

“You’re amazing,” he whispers to me, placing a kiss o
n
each cheek as I le
t
my legs unwind from around his hips. My toes take in the fine muscles of his ass as I let my knees drop.
E
very inch of skin between our torsos is touching. I’ve never been so close to another person before.

This feels
so
good.

“No. You are,” I murmur back, the smile in my eyes radiating up.

He laughs. “I guess we just have to be amazing together, then.”

“I think we just were.”

Mark rolls off and reaches for his mug of coffee. He drinks some, then makes a face. “Tepid.”

“What?” I tease. “You expect great sex
and
hot coffee? You can’t have it all, you selfish beast.”

“Well,” he says, pretending to be put in his place. “If I have to pick just one...” He sets his cup of coffee on the end table and reaches for me.

“I didn’t mean
now
,” I stress.
I pretend to be a prude.
 

His face falls. He looks so dejected that I can’t help but laugh.

“Don’t you need some, uh...down time?” I arch one eyebrow and look pointedly at his not-so-throbbing member.

“What,
that
?” He points to his groin. “That needs ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes?”

He frowns. “I know. I’m getting old. When I was eighteen it was five minutes, tops.”

I snort with laughter
just as both our phones begin to buzz.
 

“Damn,” we say in unison. He climbs out of bed, giving me a fine view of his ass as he rummages in his pants pockets to find his phone. I jump out of bed to find my backpack, but by the time I get to my phone the buzzing’s over.

It’s my morning alarm, but it’s S
a
turday. No work.

Mark, on the other hand...

“Shit,” he mutters.

“What is it?” I ask.

Secrecy flashes in his eyes before he can hide it. He gets that blank look I’ve come to realize is a mask.
I
t’s a way to protect who he really is
on the
inside from who he has to pretend to be on the outside.

“Don’t,” I say in a voice filled with warning. “Don’t go into lock-down mode.”

His eyes widen,
nostrils flaring, lips drawn
. He gives me a raw look.

“You’re right,” he says with a ragged breath. “Habit.”

“W
e
have a lot of habits we need to break.” My words are so true I feel tears fill my eyes. “It’s not just you. It’s me, too.”

He sets his phone down on his dresser and is in bed in seconds, cradling me in his arms.

“
I’m not on duty today, but this case with Amy is so big that we’re all pretty much on standby. I don’t want to turn on the television, but if I do, you’ll see that some hikers found a body in a canyon.”
 

My whole being goes tense.

“Oh, God,” I whisper.

“It’s not Amy,” he reassures me. I let out a huge breath, not realizing I’d held it. “But it’s a woman who looks a lot like her, and who looks just like one of the suspected kidnapping victims.”

“
N
o.
Oh, that poor woman.
”

I feel him swallow, hard, his neck against my back. Something about his body, his voice, sets me on edge.

“There’s more,” he says reluctantly.

I’m right.

“More?”

“The body. It was found—” He interrupts himself and makes a strange sort of groaning sound, like he can’t say what he needs to say next.

I just wait him out.

He inhales, his shoulders tense.
T
ime is frozen. Whatever he’s about to tell me has something to do with Amy. I almost don’t want to hear it. As long as it’s not her body they found, I still have hope.

“The body was found mangled.”

“Mangled? Like an animal got to it?” Out in the canyons, there are plenty of predators. Wild cats, for one. It wouldn’t surprise me if a dead body got chewed on by an animal. I shudder at the thought, though.

“No. Someone mangled her very deliberately.
A human did...this.
”

A cold chi
l
l radiates up my back. “Mangled her...how?”

Mark takes a deep breath and says, “She’s missing both arms and legs.”

I jump up, separating my skin from hi
s. M
y horror mak
es
me instinctively move away from him for no reason I can understand.

“She’s WHAT?”

He grimaces. The pain of humanity is etched into his face.

“I know. It’s disgusting. Her kidnappers did t
h
is.”

“How do you know?”

“The arms and legs were removed with surgical precision.”

“And she wasn’t like this before?”

He shakes his head.

“No. She wasn’t.”

Oh, God.

Amy.

I close my eyes and will myself to be logical. Rational. To think my way through this. I can’t be of any help to anyone, much less Amy, if I freak out.

“Any leads on who did this?”

Agony fills his face. “No. I wish. We’ve made it a federal case now. One of the women who was kidnapped is a confirmed Mexican citizen. Another is from Nevada, so it’s
crossed state lines. Except I’m deep undercover, so the chief here doesn’t know that.”
 

“He doesn’t know it’s a federal case?”

A bitter grin takes over Mark’s expression. “Oh, he knows
that
. He’s pissed about it, too. Most small-town cops are. No one with any local power likes to have it taken away, but in this case, I can’t be outed. I’m still just Mark Paulson, the local cop. They have no idea I’m really DEA.”

I nod, absorbing all this. Then I realize we’re talking about it all naked
and
in bed.
T
he sun
is
streaming in and highlighting our bodies. It’s like we do this all the time. No big deal. Just having our morning coffee in bed, stripped down to nothing but our bare selves.

Oh, and I lost my virginity last night.

And my best friend’s been kidnapped by someone who cuts women’s arms and legs off.

The room begins to spin.

“
Carrie? Carrie?” Mark’s voice sounds like it’s coming from the end of a very long hallway. He sits up and grabs me as I slide down, then gets me on my back, a pillow under my feet. I’m staring up at the ceiling fan. It’s spinning.
 

Wait. No, it’s not.

I
am.

A cool washcloth appears and Mark gently lifts my head. The shock of cold against the back of my neck feels so good. My heart isn’t pounding in my chest, for once. I’m not panicked. I’m not anxious. In fact, my blood feels like it’s as thick as cake frosting.
It’s
just clumped here and there in my body and barely moving.

I catch a few words from Mark as he jumps around the room, moving w
i
th precision and speed. A warm blanket covers me.
He shoves a straw
in my face.

“Drink,” he insists. “I think you’re in shock.” His voice isn’t tender. It’s clipped and all business.

“In shock,” I murmur, then begin to giggle. This isn’t funny. Why am I laughing? I take a sip.
I
t’s just water, but it feels good going down. I drink more, then close my eyes.

Still spinning.

I’ve been spinning for three years. Really. I think I’m only feeling it now because I
can
. Connecting with Mark, cleaving with him, gave me enough emotional space to see what my inner world is really like.

I’m hopelessly in love with him. Heart, mind, body and soul.

I’ve given him everything.

And my life is such a mess.

I’m
a mess.

I begin to weep. It’s a soft sound, the tears filling my eyes with a sense of relief. My throat tightens and the salty, tangy taste is like a kind of cleansing. Mark sets the glass of water on the nightstand and climbs under the blanket with me, wrapping me in his strong, warm arms.
I cry slowly, as if I have a set amount of sorrow inside me and I need to spread it out. As if it’s too pressured, too much, and if I just let go without any control, it could flood the world.