Safe and Sound (The Safe House Series Book 3) (9 page)

“Yes,
Damn it, yes
.” Her voice was a mixture of ache and ecstasy, confinement and liberation. Lola arched her back, all the invitation Max needed to plummet deeper and tougher and wilder, over and over, until the circulation pumping their muscles together threatened to unravel them both.

Pressure gathered low behind his cock, damned near pain. He wasn’t going to last, but there was no way Lola wouldn’t reach her peak. Not on his watch.

Her flushed skin rippling in tiny tremors from the force with which he hammered her from behind. He reached his free hand around her beautiful ass and thumbed the sensitive crux of her clit, encouraging a frictional bliss that sent a gratified cry of rapture, encapsulating his name, ripping from Lola’s throat. Muscles surrounding him clenched and released, severing all control he had over the moment. His gaze lifted and captured her eyes-closed, mouth wide, perspiration-drenched euphoria in the mirror. As he sank to his hilt in her pulsating warmth one final time, a knot of fire gathered in his balls, seared up his cock and exploded.

The jagged peaks of his orgasm crashed through him, over and over, seemingly forever, until a rip current of nirvana pulled him under, beneath duty and responsibility, beneath grief and loss, beneath his never-sated need for justice, beneath who and what he had become under the command of others, to a quiet place within where he could linger and simply be.

Max couldn’t remember much of what happened next—he was too far gone, too perilously close to the tears that come with total surrender. He remembered Lola holding his cheeks reverently and planting a tender kiss on his lips. He remembered her taking him in hand to the bed he had made for her because he had forgotten how to stand. She curled against his chest and gathered the blanket at their chins. And he remembered the nurturing reverence in Lola’s eyes before her lids grew heavy.

He drew in a soul-shuddering breath and listened to the only thing he would allow between them, maybe ever again—the sibilance of the rain against the tin roof.

If skydiving was anything like sex with Max Sterling, Lola was going.

Like, three weeks ago going.

Though her body was sated, again and again, she barely slept. Freeman’s trial had started opening arguments yesterday. Today, Baudin would testify. Max would deliver the state’s star witness to the Federal courthouse. What happened after that was anyone’s guess. She supposed Baudin would enter into another phase of his life under an assumed name, but he would no longer be Max’s burden.

He wasn’t the only one.

Lola curled her arm under her pillow and gently shifted to watch the curtain of morning lift at the water’s horizon, careful not to wake a slumbering Max beside her. She imagined her sleepy students stumbling around their Friday breakfasts—the ones whose parents could afford the luxury. Devon would still come to school with an aching belly; Lola would still arrive with two apples—one for Devon and one to put on her desk so the other kids would believe he had a bounty at home and just wanted to share. She imagined her co-teacher, Meg, sick with worry, doing her best to reassure parents the police—including Lola’s brother, Jack—were doing all they could. And Eugena. Who would have made sure she didn’t throw away an entire bottle of medication because she believed it to be a baby rattle she no longer needed?

Yesterday had been one of the most magical days of her life. Not because Max had made love to her—in the boathouse, in a hot shower upon their return, in a myriad of ways on a soft, warm bed where he told her she deserved to be cherished. And not because he had gift-wrapped her a fantasy day, filled with vivid memories instead of worry and preoccupation about others, where she could reconnect with herself and the things that made her happy. Yesterday had been magical because simply having gone through it made her appreciate all the days that had come before.

Today, she would no longer be Max Sterling’s burden. But she could not—would not—become anyone different than who she had been all along.

Well, maybe the skydiving…

Max stirred beside her. His strong arm wrapped around her, heavy and protective. He kissed a spot behind her ear that sent awakening shivers straight to her abdomen.

“Got any curse words for me this morning?”

A shiver of laughter percolated deep within, but the prevailing sadness of the day buried it before it had a chance to surface. She would miss Max’s sense of humor, the way he tugged her gently out of her comfort zone, the way he seemed to know her better than herself. She told herself it was impossible—that there was no way she could be falling for someone whom she had known less than forty-eight hours—but if Nona’s fanciful tales of a gentleman in her audience and love at first sight proved true—sixty years together wasn’t unheard of.

Unless he was a duty-bound Max Sterling and she was Lola. Just Lola.

“Enough to shame a truck driver.”

His low, throaty chuckle shook the mattress.

She rolled over in his embrace. The sight of him made her smile. She may not have today—all of today—but she had now. And if Max had taught her anything, life sometimes had to be lived in the now.

#

"It's almost over."

Max didn't know why he felt the need to reassure Baudin. He suspected it had something to do with Lola's influence. Maybe, in the end, she was right about the hitman wanting to right his wrongs. Rockwell had given Max another chance, once, to turn his life around when the after-effects of battle threatened to send him back to the bad choices of his youth. Was it possible that a man like Baudin deserved the same chance?

Still, Max couldn't shake his suspicion that people were, fundamentally, incapable of change.

He brewed two mugs of coffee, placed one on the table beside Baudin, and settled opposite him in the suite’s common room. The man’s incessant stringing of beads and litany of prayers once bothered him, but today Max was hard-pressed to muster any animosity at witnessing Baudin’s ritual. Not after yesterday. Not after Lola.

Max worried about the future. Not just the immediate future—Freeman's trial had been looming over them for a while, and he would be glad when it was all over. He worried that he was falling in love with Lola Reyes. She was the whole package: intelligent, funny, beautiful, the kindest heart of anyone he had ever met—all the qualities any man would want in a woman. He counted himself lucky to find that his feelings had been reciprocated, especially given the circumstances that brought them together.

But by the light of day, he couldn’t see how they would ever reconcile their lives.

He lived danger, and Lola… Lola was nurturing and warm and loving. She was the epitome of what it was to be
safe.
Max knew that if he really cared about her, he couldn't endanger that. His job entailed protecting those who deserved protecting. Lola was the most deserving person he had ever known.

Baudin worked his way past his final rosary bead. He kissed the ornate silver cross and curled the string beside the steaming mug.

“
Mademoiselle
still sleeping?”

Max nodded.

“No doubt the many amorous activities throughout the night. I thought I might have to request alternate accommodations.”

“Have some class, Baudin. Mention anything to her, and I’ll dump you in the river on the way to the courthouse. I doubt anyone would miss you.”

“Do not mistake my observation for judgement.” Baudin fished a cigarette and lighter from his pocket and married the two around his unsolicited advice. “And do not believe, for one moment, that your excuses will vanish once I have moved on. For you,
Monsieur
, there will always be another. And another. Such a shame.
Mademoiselle
is a rare heart. I have met only one other like her.”

“At eighteen? In Paris?”

“How did you know?”

“Lucky guess.”

“She was a novice at the
Abbay-aux-Bois
, six months from her vows. I had already committed my first crime.”

“
You
fell in love with a nun?”

“Renèe Marie. She wanted to leave the church. For me. I had nothing to offer her but heartache. We were to meet at the
Square Tino Rossi
along the Seine on Ash Wednesday. I did not go.”

“Why not?”

“Had I asked her to become anything but who she was, her light would have dimmed.”

Baudin stood and moved to the window. The hand holding his cigarette trembled. His ashen face took on the pallor of an ill man in the glass’s reflection. He seemed to have aged decades in the weeks Max knew him.

Baudin’s story wrapped Max’s shoulders like a lead apron. Baudin was normally up to his eyeballs in bullshit, but Max knew, without a doubt, there had once been a Renèe Marie, a young, innocent woman who waited for a man on the banks of the Seine who never came, and that, quite possibly, such a pure heart found something in Baudin to love.

A sharp rap at the suite door shattered the morning quiet.

Max cringed. The knock had been loud enough to rouse the dead, and he had hoped to give Lola a few more minutes of sleep to make up for the hour he stole in her arms at dawn. Baudin had probably called down for more cigarettes against orders not to make any more calls to room service. The guy stared out the window, unmoving.

“In your room, Baudin.”

Baudin took one more extended drag, smashed out the butt, and returned to his room.

Max waited for Baudin’s door to close then crossed to the suite door and opened it a crack.

A police officer waited on the other side of the door. The guy stood several inches shorter than Max, but he was built almost as wide. He was young and dark-haired and vaguely familiar. Max couldn't pinpoint what it was, but he felt as if they had met before.

"Can I help you, officer—?"

The cop's eyes flickered past him. His expression went from routine questioning to shots fired in the span it took Max’s eyes to track behind him. Max turned to see Lola emerging from the bedroom, loose robe and fuck-me hair.

"Jack!" Lola shrieked, now fully awake.

The police officer's glare shifted back Max. His jaw set like a steel cage.

Shit.
Lola’s brother.

Max eased into the moment with a calm tenor. "Easy—"

"On the ground!"

The door blasted open beneath the heel of Jack Reyes' boot as he drew his gun. Max raised his hands in surrender and dropped to his knees obediently. He gave the appearance of complete calm on the outside, but his pulse throbbed in his neck, and he had to remind himself to breathe.

This was not good.

Thankfully, Lola rushed to his rescue in an instant, leaving Jack unable to deliver the pistol-whip they both knew he had in him. Max guessed there were very few things, including police protocol, that could keep a vengeful brother from delivering immense amounts of pain, the interference of his sister being one of them.

"Jack, stop!" Lola placed herself between them and held her arms out. Unfortunately, this caused the robe she wore to slip low past one shoulder.

Jack's dark eyes widened until Max thought they would pop out of the other man's skull.

“Out of the way, Lola.”

“No.”

"Did he touch you?" Jack demanded. He trained his gun at a sharper angle to Max’s face. "I'll kill you, motherfucker."

"Jack, you're not going to
kill
him," Lola argued. "Put the gun away. This man is Max Sterling. He works for the government."

"More of an offshoot," Max muttered. He could tell by Jack's coloring that the other man still nursed a healthy fury at having found his sister in such a compromising position, but the immediate danger seemed to have passed for the moment. Jack stalled a little longer, before lowering his gun and taking a step back.

Max rose to his feet gratefully.

"I don't get it," Jack said to Lola. "I get a call from you telling me you're in danger then I don't hear from you for days. Will someone please tell me what the fuck’s going on here?"

Clearly the Reyes no-cursing thing began and ended at Lola.

"How did you find us?" Lola countered with a question of her own. She looked genuinely impressed by Jack's detective work.

Jack holstered his gun. "I put out word you went missing. Security spotted you yesterday on the grounds of the resort and notified me. They tried to talk me out of coming." Jack's hostile gaze returned to Max. "Said it looked like you were someone on your honeymoon, not some woman held against her will."

"Jack, Max is with witness protection," Lola said slowly. "When I left you that message saying I had been kidnapped, I didn't have the full story.”

“What about your car? Someone on routine patrol found it wrapped around a tree.”

“Distracted driving. I crashed it outside Max’s safe house. He had no choice but to take me with him when I compromised the safety of his client—a witness in a big case. The trial’s today, and then I’m free to go. Right?" Lola turned to Max eagerly. Too eagerly.

The question was a bullet to his chest. He gave a curt nod in agreement.

"Trial? What trial?" Jack demanded.

“Miller Freeman,” said Max.

The door to Baudin’s room opened. Typical of the sonofabitch’s timing. He walked in carrying his suit on a hanger, spouting in a charged blend of English and French about its wrinkled state. As if realizing he had a captive audience, Baudin raised his head. His words stalled as his gaze collided with Jack.

"You!" both men exclaimed at once.

"You’ve got to be kidding me." The words were out of Max's mouth before he could stop them. "You two know each other?"

"Know each other?"
Jack's expression twisted in a rage beyond recognition. Max lost all sight of the family resemblance to Lola. "I helped bring this asshole in. He's
also
testifying against Miller today?"

“
That’s
why that name was so familiar,” said Lola to Max. “Jack is set to testify against Miller, too.”

"You see? I am in witness protection now," Baudin smoothed the lapels of the suit, as if his preoccupation with appearances would elevate him beyond the veneer of asshole. "We are in league together. We are
copains,
Monsieur
Reyes."

"I hate to interrupt this feel-good moment,” said Lola. “but the trial starts in one hour.”

Leave it to Lola to be the most level headed peacekeeper in the room. She was right. They had to get moving. Max had a million things racing through his head—not the least of which was a niggling notion that Baudin had plenty of dirty cops on his side. Max didn’t want to think Jack would be among them, but he couldn’t allow his feelings for Lola to interfere with his job.

First the trial, and then…

Then what? For the first time in a very long time, Max had no idea what his future might hold. As he watched Lola turn to gather her things for the last time, the decay of impending goodbyes settled in his lungs, right alongside Baudin’s toxic side stream and his words of warning:
had I asked her to become anything but who she was, her light would have dimmed.