Safe and Sound (The Safe House Series Book 3) (7 page)

He threaded his fingers into Lola’s wet hair, cupped her scalp, and kissed her.

Rather like kissing a stone statue. Of a goddess, maybe, but stone, nevertheless.

She stiffened against his embrace. For a moment, he considered all the fight had drained out of her, but one breath—one gravelly moan trapped in the depths of her throat—later, he knew his mistake. If Lola Reyes was a firecracker before, she lit up like a fucking Roman candle now.

Her lips were so cherubic, she couldn't have kissed poorly if she wanted to—and Lola
did
want to kiss him. Had she dusted his lips with a light peck, he would have lost himself in their pillowy fullness, but they passed light pecks the moment she squirmed up next to his dick on the bed and strained the limits of the black lace with her hard-candy nipples. She met the intensity of his kiss with an equally hungry pressure. He pushed his tongue past her teeth, her last line of defense should she choose to use them.

She didn't.

Lola’s tongue jockeyed for equal position in their union, their impatient exhales co-mingling until it was impossible to have this teasing bit of her inside him without claiming more. His hands cupped her rounded ass from beneath. He hoisted her up and against his erection, straining to break free of the five fly buttons, the unyielding denim. She encircled his hips with her bare legs and linked her ankles at the small of his back. His fingertips grazed the silken crotch of her panties, blast-furnace hot, already damp. The knowledge that she was slick for him detonated him like a pin pulled from a grenade.

No longer enough counter pressure to the sweet agony pulsing through his cock, he flattened every vertebrae in her spine against the nearest wall. His immediate reward was the apex of her legs shrink-wrapping his erection and a heady pant enveloping his name.

“Max…”

She was as much a prisoner of the moment as he. They had different reasons for fighting the pull of attraction, but their attempts to suppress desire had only made the craving stronger. As a seductress she had been wooden, false, wired with ulterior motives. But as Lola, she was pliant and passionate and—

“Max, wait...”

He pulled back immediately, but he couldn't resist kissing her protesting lips again and again and again. Her cheeks were feverish.

“You’re still…holding me,” she said, accepting the momentary punctuation, “against… my will.” She gave him an extended, chaste kiss on the forehead, leaden with some bleak emotion she buried deep inside. Regret, maybe. Regret they couldn’t continue. Regret they had ever begun.

Her words ushered back a callous reality, an ice bucket of situational truth that would not change with intimacy.

“You’re right. We shouldn’t do this.”

He eased her down the length of his front and deposited her feet soundlessly into the plush pile of carpet.

The room’s silence deafened him.

His eyelids, still drugged with want, slid closed in defeat. He extracted himself from where his spent but still diamond-hard body sagged against the wall, a wall he had pinned her against not one moment earlier, but something tugged him back.

Lola.

He opened his eyes and really wished he hadn’t. She looked too good to be real.

A handful of his shirt in her grip, she made him stay.

“I believe you are who you say you are, Max. I trust you."

“Then you can trust that I won't touch you again."

"I… that's…" Lola's brows hitched together, an ever-changing jumble of emotion. Max wouldn't have been surprised to find that his expression mirrored hers. He wasn't certain if either of them knew what they wanted, and that was enough to bring their proceedings to a halt. They had succumbed, in a heated moment, to the base desire that had been building between them since they met—that was all. She was nursery rhymes and rescue cats, a martyr in floral-print dresses; he was detached, controlling, a man who had probably taken as many lives as Baudin but decorated in his duty to country. The adrenaline of their charged stand-off had been momentarily redirected and arguably put to a better use, but the moment was gone now, and need not be repeated.

Max retrieved the gun off the bed and locked it in the bedside drawer. He swept up Lola's discarded robe and tossed it to her.

“Stay with me tonight. In the bed."

"Sounds like a dangerous proposition," Max replied, but he had been thinking the same thing. He could explain the arrangement away through paperwork, but at the end of the day, all he really wanted was to be close to the woman with whom he had finally managed to make a tentative peace.

Lola flashed a jaunty grin at his response. "What's the matter, Mr. Sterling? Did my seduction work a little
too
well?"

"I would say your seduction had the opposite effect you intended, Miss Reyes."

Max dropped back down onto the bed and kicked his legs up. Lola redressed herself in the bathrobe and burrowed beneath the covers. He clicked off the lamp.

The sheers at the window glowed from the waning light beyond. It was barely evening, but Max was certain he could sleep a decade.

"You failed in your escape yet again," he added, when their bodies had settled into shadows.

“What if I told you that escape was never my motive?”

“I’d call you a liar.”

“Well, it wasn’t my
primary
motive.”

“Dare I ask?”

She shifted, rolled over—something. He couldn’t tell in the dark. Along with the movement, her scent returned to him—lavender and powdery softness and everything he shouldn’t crave.

“I guess I just wanted a truce.”

“And a handshake wouldn’t do?”

A low, throaty chuckle vibrated through the mattress and penetrated his rib cage, straight to his heart. Her laugher was such a departure for them, in this newfound peace, he found it intoxicating.

“Not when most of your nights are spent watching
Wheel of Fortune
and listening to Eugenia shout, “Buy a vowel, ya dumb bitch!”

An unabashed peal of laughter left Max’s lips. “Who wouldn’t want to escape back to
that
?”

“I know, right? Eugenia’s a good person. She just needs to get out of her own way sometimes to show it.”

Her words drove over his chest like an infantry tank.

“How do you always see the good in people?

“I play a game in my head. Take Baudin, for instance. I imagine the worst possible scenario for him.”

“Death penalty?”

“A woman who insults his manhood.”

Another ripple of amusement surfaced in Max’s chest. “So true.”

“Then I find something authentic about him that can overcome what I imagined.”

“Baudin? Authentic?”

“He’s a lover, not a fighter.”

“He’s a killer, Lola. Don’t convince yourself otherwise.”

“He values relationships more than you know. He’s been hurt by a woman he loved very much.”

“How did you get all that?”

“There’s a sadness in his eyes when he makes jokes about us together. Like he had it once and the only way to get through the pain is to make light of it in others.”

Max flipped through his mental file on the guy. He didn’t have the heart to reveal any of the grizzly details to Lola.

“You think I’m naïve.”

“I think the world needs more people like you.” Just not
his
world.

Minutes passed. Baudin’s loud television filled the void. Women’s exaggerated moans and a rollicking bad jazz number. Yeah, the guy was a fucking saint. Max buried his head beneath his pillow. He already had a reservoir of charged hormones he’d have to work off in his morning shower. The last thing he needed was an auditory reminder of his worst case scenario.

Lola.

And never.

Max stumbled out into the suite’s common area to find Baudin sucking on a cigarette for breakfast. He sat on the sofa in white, old-man briefs. In
only
white, old-man briefs.

“Show your dick some respect, Baudin.”

“All night,
Monsieur
.” Baudin blew out a festive ring of smoke and gripped his package for show.

Max threw up a little in his mouth. How on earth could Lola see Baudin for anything other than what he was—a waste of space?

“Put some clothes on before Lola sees you.”

Max had spent the night in a perpetual hard-on state beside the warm and absently accommodating Lola, who thought nothing of reaching for him in half-slumber and spooning up like they were already in the throes of post-coital afterglow. In his mind, they were. His sex organ hadn’t yet gotten the message. A good ten minutes in hand under a scalding rush of water hadn’t smoothed the edges any.

“Afraid she might defect to the French side of the suite?”

“Not unless there’s a charity over there for shriveled up old pricks.”

Baudin’s appreciative laugh slipped loose on a puff of smoke. He was nothing if not a sportsman. They had been vying for a gold medal in the insult Olympics since day one of Max’s assignment.

“I trust you slept well,
Oui
?”

Max paused from his one-cup coffee prep to level a stare Baudin’s direction.

“I’ve seen greater looks of satisfaction on informants who have been water-boarded. And all night, you have a stunning woman beside you. Let me guess—your overblown code of honor? Your tireless dedication to my plight? Quite a lofty excuse.”

“Fuck off.”

Max dumped two sugar packets and a pod of creamer into the foamy dark roast. He punished himself for entering into this inane conversation with a robust pull of too-hot liquid past his tongue.

“Rewards in this life are fleeting,
Monsieur
. One must seize them when they come.” 

“A mantra that, no doubt, put you in the position of being hunted like an animal.”

“We are not so different.”

“How do you figure that?”

“Our loyalty is admirable, if extreme. We have each built a life reliant on nothing but the tasks we are given.”

Baudin smashed his cigarette butt into a glass ashtray, moved to the window, and opened the drapes to a gray morning. God help anyone on the fourteenth green who looked up to check the clouds and got an eyeful.

“But someday, your obligations to
Monsieur
Rockwell, to me, and others like me, will be gone. As assuredly as your duty to your country is no more. I am left with stale cigarettes and regrets of a life in Paris at eighteen, a life I wanted for myself but believed I didn’t deserve.”

Max remembered Lola’s words.
There’s a sadness in his eyes, like he had it once.

“When duty is gone,” said Baudin, “something must take its place.”

Baudin reached into the pocket of his hotel robe he’d slung over a nearby chair and withdrew something. He tossed it to Max, challenging the potency of Max’s recent caffeine rush.

Max snagged the projectile against his hip. The red and black packet lauded a stallion’s head with a flowing mane of gold on the package.

“A condom?”

“No excuses,
Monsieur
.”

The door to Max’s room clicked open. Lola emerged with a hearty yawn and a nest of wild, unapologetic hair. This time, she had cinched her bathrobe beneath her chin.

“No excuses for what?” she asked.

Max slipped the condom in his pocket.

Baudin beamed. “For staying in on the final day before trial. One of us should be the lucky prisoner.”

He donned his robe and returned to his side of the suite, stopping long enough to add, “I intend for it to be me. The
femme de chambre
who brought up cigarettes last night is from
Auvergne
.”

Max rolled his eyes. “No more deliveries. I mean it, Baudin.”

Baudin shot him the bird then closed his door behind him.

Max glanced at Lola. Her eyes creased to half-moons, her natural lips stretched to a comfortable smile.

Lola or Baudin?

No contest. No way he was staying put for Baudin’s sexcapade, round
deux.

#

Even after setting up a portable motion detector outside Baudin’s room that would send alerts via text message if his door was breached
and
stopping at the resort’s main desk to impress upon the manager how, under no circumstances, was their suite to be serviced or disturbed, Max had not relaxed. Lola was beginning to understand he was like a bottled-up carbonated drink, shaken and stirred, always on edge. Last night, his cork had been popped. Not exactly healthy for him, but earth-shattering for her. The stuff of
Mcfantasies.

Long about the time she had brushed her teeth and turned human again, she realized she wasn't used to having all this excitement in her life. Clearly, it had made her a little nuts last night. She needed to get her level head back and think. The gun had been a stupid, last-ditch effort to assert some control over the situation, but she realized she
did
have control over the situation. She meant it when she told Max she trusted him and was surprised by the light of day to find the words still rang true. Now that she had decided to trust Max, how did she move forward?

“Might rain,” she said lamely, looking up at the sky outside the resort’s lobby.

“Change your mind?”

His eye contact stripped away her resolve. She felt certain he wasn’t talking weather.

“No.” Lola set out on a garden path that hugged the building, thinking it would put Max’s mind at ease to stay close. He fell into step beside her. Odd, that last night she had felt so comfortable chatting beside him in the dark and this morning they had forgotten how to speak.

“So how do you know about this place?”

“Eugenia collects brochures from everywhere. Her husband died ten years ago. She has trouble making ends meet, but she rents me a room I can afford. She doesn’t leave the house much. Lives vicariously through the glossy photos.”

“Are we still talking about Eugenia?”

“I leave the house.” Lola’s words came out defensive. So much that he must have seen through them. She tucked a piece of hair behind her ear.

“To look after others. What about
your
life?”

It wasn’t as if she
resented
being involved in the lives of others. On the contrary, Lola thrived on it. What was there to be really excited about when you were a twenty-four year old single school teacher? She didn't think she had given up living her life, she had just… put it on pause for the moment.

Being in the company of a man like Max Sterling, her life definitely didn't feel like it was on pause anymore.

They stopped at a bakery on the property, bought two lemon poppy-seed muffins and settled at a café table beneath a striped awning. Sometimes his eyes crinkled when he looked at her; sometimes they cast downward, to her lips, as she spoke. Both kept him present in the moment. She supposed attentiveness was a necessity in his job.

“What would you do without any responsibilities?” asked Max.

“No students? No job?”

“No Eugenia. No overbearing brother. For one day.”

This. Right here. With you.

“Jump out of a plane.”

Max choked on a bite of muffin.  “What?
”

Immediately, she regretted her confession. Good thing she hadn’t articulated her burlesque dancing fantasy like her Nona.

“It’s silly. I know.”

“No—no, it’s not. It’s great. I just never would have guessed.”

“Have you done it? In the Army?”

“A handful of times.”

“What’s it like?”

“Oh, no. You won’t live this one vicariously through me. This one you’ll do for yourself.”

“In a world with no responsibilities. Which isn’t going to happen.”

“Responsible doesn’t mean lifeless, Lola.”

“One detail. Pleeeease? Something to hold onto.”

“It’s loud. Time stands still in those final breaths when you’re leaning out and the cold wind rushes your face. Those first few seconds of free fall? Sensory overload.”

“Like sex?”

He toppled the remainder of his muffin on the table. A smirk raced a flush for advantage on his handsome features. “Not exactly.”

“Like
mind-blowing
sex?”

“Close, I suppose.”

“I’m going to do it.”

“Mind-blowing sex?”

Her turn to blush. Max had just picked the remainder of his muffin off the table when she punched his firm bicep, sending the pastry toppling again, this time on the ground. An opportunistic gray wren carried the bulk of it away.

Max’s good-natured laugh eased the discomfort of their earlier steps.

She pushed her barely-touched muffin toward him. “Here. Eat this one. I don’t need it.”

“You’ve barely eaten anything since the safe house.”

“My first-graders count blocks. I count calories.”

Max’s expression sobered. He reached for her hand and tapped it twice on the iron table until she raised her eyes to meet his.

“You’re exquisite, Lola. Everything about you.
Everything
. Don’t believe anyone who tells you different.”

Her throat went dry, from the cake, from her father’s words that played like broken reels in her mind—
no man will ever want Lola with that body.
Where was this tender man yesterday? Where was he nine years and two ill-advised relationships ago?

“Let’s walk.” Max cleared the debris from the table and held his hand out for her to take.

As much as she wanted to hold onto his hand long after she stood, she respected the boundaries he had set.
You can trust that I won't touch you again.

The lush, flower-lined walkway leading away from the bakery took a turn toward the coastal waters and the guest docks. Blue Moon had been built on a private, five hundred-acre peninsula that catered exclusively to the social engagements of the top one percent. Every jog in the path offered a picturesque backdrop of waterfalls or gazebos or English gardens trimmed with military precision. They gravitated down the property’s natural slope to the water, the effortlessness of their earlier banter still present.

“Why don’t you like Baudin?”

"He's a trained killer. There's nothing else to know."

His response made her feel a little ridiculous for asking.

"He seems to be a religious man."

"Yeah." Max's eyes narrowed, almost a squint, nothing at all to do with the non-existent sun. In fact, the sky rolled as turbulent as the subject matter. He glanced back toward the resort but made no move to return. "Yeah, I don't like that either."

"Can you tell me anything about him?"

"He worked almost exclusively for a man named Miller Freeman, a mob boss with deep ties to a drug cartel out of Nicaragua, until recently he decided he didn't. Freeman got himself arrested. Baudin turned himself in a day later. Said he wanted to atone for his sins by helping take Freeman down."

"Miller Freeman…" Lola tried to remember back through past news cycles. "Should I know him? The name sounds familiar."

"Not likely," said Max. "High-profile crimes are usually committed by low-profile people. Baudin, for instance."

“What’s the charge against Freeman?”

“What
isn’t
the charge against Freeman? You name it, he’s done it. Our friend back at the hotel isn't the only one testifying. There are other witnesses in the case: a police officer, couple ex-wives, a federal marshal."

Thunder rumbled low. Sprinkles splashed cold on her bare forearms. She glanced up. A greenish-gray hue dominated the sky. “Shoot.”

“Just once, I’d like to hear you swear.”

“I spend most of my day around six year olds. Their parents would run me out of town if I sent them home with anything more indecent than a hand turkey.”

“We’re not with six year olds now. Go on. One good f-bomb.”

“No.” Her voice pitched high, incredulous. Lola smiled and pretended the request affronted her sensibilities. In reality, it was Nona’s fault.
A songbird is known for her notes, so too is a lady by her words.

At her weak protest, the sky opened. Max’s posture hunched against the onslaught of rain. He scanned their surroundings then grabbed her hand.

“Come on.”

They ran toward the closest structure—a boathouse at the far end of the dock. Had her students been here to sing-song a very shaky count to ten, they would have made it only to a jumbled seven and six before Lola was soaked, crown to feet, dress to underwear. Max tugged on the boathouse’s entrance handle. The weathered door refused to budge.