Saffron Nights (22 page)

W
hen Maeve opened her apartment door, she felt like something wasn’t quite right. Her apartment was empty—and it was the first time she’d been alone in days. Maybe she was just not used to the quiet. Maybe she was completely and utterly freaked out. Damn, she deserved to be. She flopped down on the couch. Oh, God forbid she should ever turn into one of the women who hated to be alone—but for some reason, she was creeped out.

The light was on over the stove, providing a soft light in the room. Kitchen and living room combined: how she had loved the idea when she moved here from Virginia. It was so “New York.”

A stack of mail sat on the table next to her—she reached up and yanked the chain on the lamp so she could check out the mail quickly. As exhausted as she was, she was sure she wouldn’t be able to sleep for a while.

She reached over and grabbed a handful of envelopes and saw the shoes.

Mark’s brown oxfords.

She clutched her chest and searched her brain—had he left those the last time he was here?

The shoes.

Surely she would’ve set them aside, remembered they were here. Something. But, she was a sloppy housekeeper. They could have been there for months and she didn’t realize. The weirdness of her slovenly housekeeping providing a comforting thought was not lost on her.

The shoes.

The open window.

She was sure she closed it before she left. If she hadn’t, Jennifer would have.

Something was definitely not right.

Had Mark been here?

She stood and walked toward the kitchen part of the room—nothing amiss.

Maeve took a deep breath as she moved into her bedroom.

Mark was sitting on the edge of her bed, champagne bottle in his hand and a big grin on his face. “Welcome home, dahling.”

“Jesus! You scared me, Mark,” she managed to say. “Wh-what are you doing here? How . . . ?”

“Remember? You gave me your key, love,” he said.

That accent of his. Now it sounded so fake. How could she have fallen for it?

“Oh yes, yes, I remember,” she said, her heart pounding wildly in her chest.

He patted the bed for her to sit next to him. “Come, let us celebrate.”

“Mark, I—” Her stomach heaved.

“Now, Maeve. I know you said you didn’t want to see me again, but now you’ve had time to think about it. I mean, you were so distraught from losing Alice and Chef. I’m sure it was the stress talking,” he said.

She needed to keep him calm—and had to keep herself calm first. She just wanted to tell him to fuck off. But she remembered the officers talking about how he had tortured Alice, raped her, left her to die—and she remembered the way he pawed at her in Italy.
If ever you needed those relaxation techniques, now is the time. Take a deep breath.

“Yes,” she willed herself to say. “I have been thinking about us, Mark. I just don’t know what to say. I’m a bit confused. I suppose I need a little time.”

“We’ve always gotten on so well,” he said and raised an eyebrow.

Was she going to have to sleep with him in order to pull this off? To be safe? The thought was dizzying. Her stomach twisted as he handed her a full champagne glass. The smell made her rush for the bathroom, where she threw up everything she’d eaten for the past twenty-four hours.

“Are you okay?” he said coming up behind her.

She turned around, grabbed a towel, and wiped her face in front of him.
Attractive. But it couldn’t have happened at a better moment.
She nodded. “I’m afraid I’ve gotten a bug or something. I really need to get some rest, Mark. Do you mind?”

He looked crestfallen. “Should I leave?”

“You don’t have to,” she said, thinking maybe getting sick was the best thing that could have happened. “I would hate to see you come down with this.”

Within moments, he was on the phone with a nearby hotel.

She nearly breathed a sigh of relief. And then the phone rang.

She was lying down on the bed and told Mark just to let it go—the machine could get it. But it was Jackson.

“Hey!” he said “Are you there? Pick up if you’re there. I’m kind of worried about you. I wonder if crazy Mark is around. Call me.”

“Crazy, hey?” His face was beet red.

Maeve shrugged. “Jealousy.”

His eyes squinted and hard lines appeared on a fleshy face. “I hate that bastard. He’s fucking you, isn’t he?”

“No, no, no,” Maeve said, tears unwittingly splashing on her face. Goddamn, get ahold of your emotions.
You don’t want him to know you know.
She began to tremble.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m cold,” she said, getting under the covers. “I told you I’m sick. Why don’t you just leave?”

“Should I get a doctor?” he said, as he started digging in a bag of his. “Did you pick up something in Morocco—besides a nasty prostitute?”

When she turned to face him, he pinned her arms down with his legs, whipped out handcuffs, and attached her wrists to her bedpost.

“Nice, Mark, you going to fuck a sick woman who might puke on you?”

“Who said anything about fucking you? You don’t deserve me, whore!”

She whipped her legs up and caught his head between them and squeezed. “Don’t call me a whore!”

He wrangled his way from out between her legs. “You think I’m not prepared for this? I am.” He pulled out some ropes and duct tape. She tried to fight him off with her legs, her body, but he taped her mouth shut and pulled out a gun, which stilled her.

He tied her legs up and she began to whimper with pain. The handcuffs were tearing into her skin. The tape was pulling at the flesh around her lips. He placed the gun along her cheek—she felt as if she’d be sick again and tried to will it away. She’d die gagging on her own puke. She felt her body take over and shake from head to toe.

“You like my gun, whore?’

She felt fuzzy, not sick, but the room began to melt. The curtains her mother made her. The finger painting she had framed—made by Carly. The family pictures. All seemed to fade, melt, as she gasped for air and sweat poured out of every pore of her body.

“Answer me!”

She nodded.

“You like it enough to fuck it, whore?”

What did he say? Was he going to . . . ? He started pawing at her jeans, rolling them down over her. Her knees pressed tightly together.

“Now you’re going to get it,” he was mumbling.

He pushed at her thighs—tense, trembling—she felt the cool metal of the gun, then heard a pounding, a blast. Mark turned around to face whomever was in the room and laughed maniacally as he pointed his gun.

“It really couldn’t get any better than this,” he said.

“Where’s your British accent, dude?” the voice said. Jackson! It was Jackson.

“Right here,” he said, before he pulled the trigger on Jackson, then turned around, faced Maeve, and turned his gun on himself.

T
he house at Cape Cod was the most perfect, storybook, stone house with a lovely red roof and shutters. It sat right on a bluff overlooking the ocean. A perfect place for healing. Sanj, Jennifer, and Maeve sat together drinking their morning coffee and looking out over the sea, a lighthouse in the distance.

If Jackson ever remembered anything in his puny life, it would be Maeve, now, here, healthy, glowing with sea light and shadow. She smiled at him, her hair blowing a little in the breeze, as he opened the door and walked out onto the deck.

“Your cocky swagger is gone, my friend,” Sanj said, smiling.

“I think his limp is cute,” Maeve said.

Jennifer shrugged and rolled her eyes. Sanj waved Maeve off. “You know what I always say,” Jackson said. “A limp is better than being dead. Like Mark.”

“Good riddance,” Jennifer said. “I hated the man. I won’t pretend otherwise because he killed himself. I thank God every night he turned the gun on himself after he shot you. Good riddance to bad trash.”

“So scary to know you almost died,” Sanj said, suddenly serious. He took a sip of his coffee.

“Scary as shit, dude,”

“Did you see anything? Have any experiences? You know, weird dreams . . .”

“Oh yeah, man, later . . . we’ll talk later,” he said and smiled. “I probably would have died if the cops weren’t on my ass. The first time I’ve ever been grateful for that.”

They all laughed.

Maeve suddenly started to cry. She still wasn’t herself. Two weeks since the incident with Mark. She was suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome. She was a little easier to get along with—but Jackson missed the feisty Maeve. The doctors sentenced her to time off from work—but the plan was to work a bit at the house. At a leisurely pace. The book was almost done, and they still had deadlines to meet.

“Oh man,” Jackson said. “Don’t start crying. I am fine, a little weaker, but I am getting stronger every day.”

“Thank you,” she said with her eyes meeting his, which pulled to him like a magnet. He reached over and kissed her.
Did the air suddenly become charged with light and heat?

Sanj yawned loudly. “Well, my friend, I’m going for a walk. Care to join me, Jennifer?”

“Yeah, sure,” she said.

Jackson looked at Maeve, who was smiling and winked at him.

“Sanj and Jennifer? Really?”

She nodded. “We’ve all been together a lot in hospital lounges, here. They’ve gotten to know each other pretty well.”

After they left, Jackson pulled Maeve close to him, embracing her, kissing her, and wild heat shot through him.

Then he held her face in her hands. “I’m fine, you know? The worst part of all this for me is I thought I’d never see you again.”

“Here I am,” she breathed, glassy eyed.

“Here I am,” he said, reaching in to pull her closer, remembering their time in India all too clearly. All of his travels, and the women, all seemed to melt away as he looked closely at Maeve.

What did she see when she looked back at him? He was still pale, thinner, dark circles under his dulled eyes. But it had been a couple of weeks since he’d been shot and only his second day home from the hospital.

She pulled away from him. “We have some catching up to do,” she said and smiled. “And a lot of work.”

“The work will be here. It’s always here,” he said. “I am not sure how much I can do today. The pain medicine is keeping me, um, groggy.”

“It’s okay. We have plenty of time,” she said, leaning back into her chair. “But you know Sherri from the agency is stopping by today. Steel yourself for that.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” he smiled. “I can handle Sherri.”

“You need to rest,” she said.

“Let me be the judge of that. And right now, I’m thinking of bed, but not rest,” he grinned at her.

J
ackson grew dizzy on the way to his room. He swayed and leaned on Maeve. “I just need to sit for a few minutes. I’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure?” Maeve said. “This can all wait. I’m in no hurry.” That was the truth of it—at least in her heart and mind. But her body was already responding to him wrapping his arms around her. A mellow wave overcame her. She rubbed his chest, his shoulders, his neck, after she pushed him gently to his bed.

“Take off your shirt,” she told him. Skin on skin. She rubbed him, seeing for the first time exactly how much weight he had lost. His ribs rippled too clearly beneath his skin. Still, his arms were muscled—especially his forearms. “Oh, Jackson, we need to fatten you up,” she whispered, gently biting the crevice between his shoulder blades, licking there. His familiar flavor delighted her tongue.

He sighed a gentle, heaving noise. She felt the taut tendons in his neck and upper back relax. He reached up for her, tugging at her shirt, which slipped off easily. His hands unhooked her bra, and he gasped when he saw the jewels in her nipples, with henna designs blazing around them. “Maeve, what did you do?”

“Just a little henna. Jen and I both got it done the other day,” she said.

Jackson lay her on his bed, slipped off her pants, with a smoothness she marveled at. Two weeks ago, he lay in a hospital bed, fighting for his life, yet here he was, and still so strong.

He sucked in air between his teeth. “God, you . . . are so beautiful. . .” The red jewels glittered on her nipples and circular patterns of henna decorated her body. Flowers? Spirals? She loved watching his eyes trail all the way down her stomach, following its path—and the way his gaze made her feel. Just a gaze of utter appreciation. He rubbed his hands across her smooth skin, she felt something in her give way, melt and erupt at once. He traced the patterns with his fingers, down her thighs, saw she was shaved. “Smooth,” he said, barely touching her.

Saw the red dots on her sex. “It’s everywhere . . .”

Oh, he still had not touched her. A harsh need rose in her.

“Jackson . . .” she breathed, her mouth barely able to form his name, her body barely able to find its breath. Where had her mind gone? It was sinking into nothing more than the biology of the rest of her. She wanted to submit to him completely. Profoundly. No. She wanted him to submit to her. Damn him.

“What do you want?”

“I . . .”

“Tell me,” he said, finally with his fingers on her, spreading her apart, seeing the pattern inside her lips, as she writhed under him. “Oh God . . .” he whispered. “What you do to me . . .”

Finally, he licked her gently—almost too gently—it was driving her mad. He traced the lines of the henna with his tongue.

“What do you want?”

She pushed his head into her. “I want you, Jackson, you.”

He continued to trace the line with his tongue. Back to her breasts, circling them.

“They hurt?”

“A little.”

He kissed them delicately, goose bumps spreading across her body, gently biting at them, then pulling harder. He found his way into her. Rhythms of pain and pleasure pulled at her as he tugged at her nipples and hit her G-spot and she found herself screaming into one final fit of ecstasy.

As she lay in his arms, she dozed off, then fell into a deep morning nap. Every muscle, every fiber, of her body relaxed. At last.