Unleashed (25 page)

“Caroline’s still looking, thanks to the idiots you hired to take her out.”

“They were Gates’s guys. I gave them the location, that’s it.”

“Well now she and Taggart are more suspicious than ever. They’re not going to stop until they figure out what happened to James.”

“We have nothing to worry about. No one knows anything, except for Gates, and you think he’s going to rat us out?”

Patrick wouldn’t put it past Gates to let it slip with an anonymous tip to the police before disappearing into the ether. Gates was a wily, scary fucker who had a knack for getting rid of any complications.

Except for one gigantic complication named Caroline Medford.

“All we have to do is sit back and let Taggart and Caroline come to their own conclusions, that James killed them both. I don’t understand why it’s so complicated.”

For a guy who went to Harvard, Marshall could be a complete idiot. “If they keep digging around, it’s possible they’ll find a connection to me.” He’d always worn a surgical mask when he delivered the babies, so he wasn’t worried about any of the girls recognizing him. But Caroline and Taggart had managed to connect the dots this far, far enough to prove to Patrick that after eighteen years of thinking they’d gotten away with it, no one was safe from the truth.

“I didn’t—”

Patrick knew what Marshall was going to say before he uttered the words. “I know you weren’t around back then, but if you think I’m going to quietly take the fall while you and Gates go on your merry way, you’re even stupider than I thought.”

Marshall was quiet except for an audible swallow. “So what do we do?”

“We take out Caroline and Taggart before they can do any more damage.”

“What about our deal with Gates? We have two deliveries pending in the next two days. Money has already changed hands.”

And Mel had already spent a substantial portion on new furniture for the formal dining room. “That will all happen as planned. And there’s that new girl Gates has scheduled for a shoot day after tomorrow.”

“The blonde?” There was no mistaking the lustful undertone in Marshall’s voice.

“Yes. As long as we take care of Caroline and Taggart, we’ll be able to keep anyone from finding out James’s connection to us or to Gates,” he said with more conviction than he felt.

“We’ll have to find them first,” Marshall said. “You couldn’t get to her at the house and Taggart shook your tail after they left.”

“They’ll have to surface eventually, and when they do Gates’s guys will take them out. No fancy shit, but they need to disappear. Make it look like Caroline ran off with her lover to avoid going on trial for James’s murder.” So much easier said than done, he knew. How were they supposed to pull that off, when they’d failed so many times already? Patrick felt like the little Dutch boy, sticking his finger in the crack in the dike, only to have another bigger one form in its place. He’d feel so much better if he could just find the evidence James alluded to. He’d known his friend well enough to know when he was lying, and he knew James had been telling the truth about that.

Even with Caroline and her pit bull out of the way, as long as that evidence existed, waiting to be discovered, he, Marshall, Gates—the whole operation would never be safe.

Before he hung up Marshall said he’d call Gates. Patrick slipped his prepaid, untraceable cell phone in his pocket as Melody poked her head in the door.

“Everything okay, honey?” she asked, her perfectly groomed brows knit into a concerned frown. “Who on earth are you talking to at this hour?”

Patrick forced the stress from his face and voice and answered, “Everything’s fine. I needed to clear up a few loose ends for my seminar the day after tomorrow, but everything’s going to be just fine.”

He looped his arm around Mel’s shoulders and guided her upstairs to the master bedroom.
Everything’s going to be just fine
. As he stretched out next to his beautiful, pampered wife he willed it to be true.

This is so good. Dangerously good
, Caroline thought as she lay in Danny’s bed, staring out his window into the moonlit night. He spooned her from behind, his chest pressed against her back, his thighs tucked up under hers and his pelvis cradled the curve of her butt. Against one cheek she could feel the hard weight of his cock, not completely hard but far from soft. She knew all she had to do was turn and give him one hot open mouth kiss and he’d be rock hard and ready to go.

But then she’d have to give up the blissful comfort of lying quietly in his arms, in an embrace that was somehow more intimate than sex. They hadn’t slept together much back when they’d been together, mostly because they’d lived with their parents, precluding sleepovers. They stole every moment alone that they could, but beds for them had been about sex, not sleep. Only on the rare occasions when Caroline went to visit Danny at school or later, when he could get a weekend away from base were they able to actually spend the night together in the same bed.

She’d always loved the way it felt to drift off to sleep with Danny’s big, warm body beside her.

Warm. Safe. Cared for.

It was the same now as then.

Danny’s warm protective presence wrapped around her like a thick quilt, and for the first time in a long time she felt like she had someone to lean on. Someone to share her burden and help her clean up the mess her life had become.

She’d never imagined feeling that way ever again, and certainly not with Danny. But it was like the impenetrable wall between them had crumbled, for the moment at least. She wasn’t naïve enough to think it wouldn’t spring right back up in the harsh light of the morning.

Even before, when things had been good between them, Danny had hated to show any hint of vulnerability. On the rare occasions he did let his guard down he always pretended it never happened.

Except for that one night. The night that was excruciatingly similar to this night, when they’d had sex for the first time. After his mother’s disappearance, when the darkness threatened to consume him. He hadn’t been able to hold her like this after—she’d had to be home by curfew.

The next day, Danny had pulled her into his arms, kissed her so sweetly she’d nearly melted into a puddle at his feet, and told her he loved her for the first time.

She had no illusions of a repeat performance.

He must have felt her stiffen because he shifted, pulled her tighter against him and pressed a soft kiss to her bare shoulder.

She closed her eyes and savored the warmth that coursed through her. The man was so dangerous to her equilibrium he should wear a hazard sign.

His warm breath tickled her ear as he spoke. “You would have married me, right? Like we’d planned”

Caroline’s eyes flew open. She definitely hadn’t seen that one coming. “You mean if the baby had—” she didn’t want to finish.

“Yeah.”

“Yes, I would have married you.”

She heard him swallow hard as his fingers tightened on her hip. He didn’t say anything for a long time. Finally Caroline broke the silence. “Did you ever think about marrying anyone else?” It was easier to ask those questions in the dark, turned away so she couldn’t see his face. Those questions she wasn’t sure she wanted the answers to.

“No. You were the only woman I ever wanted to marry.”

She wanted to kick herself for the burst of relief that exploded in her chest. “Do you think you will someday?”

He was quiet for so long she thought maybe he’d fallen asleep. “I don’t know that I’m cut out to be anybody’s husband,” he finally whispered. “Considering the piss-poor job I did as a fiancé, I don’t think I’ve earned the promotion.”

Something in his voice made her throat tighten and her chest ache. There was a sadness there, almost a wistfulness, not at all in keeping with his character. She turned in his arms so she faced him and lifted her hand to rest against the side of his face. His stubble scraped against her fingers and she could feel the hard lines of his jaw and cheekbone under her palm. He was so tough, so hard, keeping himself locked in a granite hard shell.

But tonight he was giving her a rare look at the soft spot underneath. So small it was a pinprick, so easy for him to hide. And yet he was showing it to her. She kissed him, tasting her own salty tears as she ached for everything they’d lost, the pain they’d caused each other. And the pain that was still to come.

He rolled her to her back and swept his tongue into her mouth. Though his touch was gentler, slower since they’d taken the edge off, she could still feel the raw need emanating from him, bordering on desperation. It was in the trembling of his hands, the hitch of his breath, the almost tortured sounding groans ripping from his throat as his hands cupped her breasts and pinched her nipples.

He rolled her to her side so they lay breast to breast, belly to belly, while he took her mouth over and over in those deep, drugging kisses. He hooked her leg over his hip and she could feel his cock, thick and hard as a club pressing against the curve of her stomach.

“Carrie.” The sound of her name on his lips sent a hot shiver down her spine. “I never stopped wanting you,” he whispered as his lips traced a hot path across her cheek before settling on the wildly sensitive skin of her neck.

Wet heat flooded between her thighs as he slipped on a condom. He rubbed the broad head around the knot of her clit, spreading her juice before sliding inside.

One slow glide and he was buried to the hilt. Deeper inside her than any man had ever been. As close to her as anyone could possibly be. He didn’t move, simply held himself inside her, kissing her, touching her, like he was in no hurry to ever have it end. She was lost in a haze of sensation, where the only things that existed were his lips on her mouth, his hands on her skin, and his cock buried high and hard inside her.

His fingers tweaked her nipples and she felt an answering pull inside her. He let out a groan as her muscles clenched around him.

“Oh do that again,” he whispered, his muscles pulling tight as she squeezed around him. She did it again and he sucked her tongue into his mouth. “You feel so good, squeezing my cock like a tight little fist.”

He slid his hand between their bodies and rested his thumb on her clit. He stroked it in slow, gentle circles, while with the other hand he held her still to keep her from moving. “Like this,” he said, tracing another circle. “Every time I do this, your hot little pussy squeezes me,” he let out a groan as she clamped down around him. “So tight and hot, you’re going to make me come and I don’t even have to move.”

Another pass at her clit, and he seemed to swell even bigger and harder inside her. Oh, God, she wanted him to move, needed him to move. But he kept his firm grip on her hips as his thumb slipped and slid around the apex of her sex.

“Jesus, Caroline. You drive me crazy. There’s never been anyone like you.” His thumb was moving faster, firmer, but he still wouldn’t let her move like her body craved.

A sob ripped from her throat. “Please,” she moaned, not caring that she was begging. “I need you, need you to move.”

He flexed his hips, pumping inside her in short strokes that kept him buried deep but gave her the friction she craved. “Like this, baby, is this what you need?”

Her only answer was a muffled moan as he increased his pace. “Whatever you want baby,” he panted between hot kisses, “whatever you need. I want to give you everything.”

He swiveled his hips, twisting inside her, touching places that had never been touched as his thumb kept a firm steady pressure on her sex. Inside, outside, he touched her everywhere from mouth to toes and everywhere in between.

“Anything baby,” he repeated, his voice strained now. She could feel him struggling to hold back his release. “Anything you want.”

“You,” she whispered before she could stop herself. “All I ever wanted was you.”

“All yours,” he said, locking his sex hazed gray stare to hers. “Always all yours.” Then he stiffened and cried out, his muscles jerking and trembling beneath her hands as his release rumbled through him.

She followed him headlong into the abyss, arching and straining against him as she trembled and pulsed around his cock.

Always all yours
.

She knew better than to give any weight to careless words spoken during the heat of sex. But she wanted to.

Through the pleasure, a pit of dread formed in her stomach at how badly she wanted this all to mean…something. But she’d been slammed by Danny Taggart before, and no matter how much he needed her tonight, there was no telling how he’d act tomorrow. Just because they’d cleared up some misunderstandings about the past didn’t mean she should start hoping for a future.

But that couldn’t stop her from indulging in the bliss of cuddling up against Danny’s broad, muscular chest as she slipped into a restless sleep.

Her dreams were frenetic and disjointed. Full of images of the white walled rooms and bright lights of a hospital. Somewhere in the distance a baby cried and Caroline felt an answering sob. Her baby. Her baby was crying somewhere.

In her dream she turned and saw another girl. Blond, her heavily pregnant stomach rounding the sheet as James stood next to her. Emily Parrish. Emily Parrish delivering her baby while a nameless, faceless doctor stood at the foot of the bed in a white doctor’s coat. The only splash of color was the bright red insignia embroidered over the left breast.

In her dream Caroline turned to see Lauren Schiffer in a hospital gown, cradling an infant to her shoulder.

A baby cried in a high thin wail and Caroline put her hand to her own flat stomach. She felt the sobs heaving in her chest but they made no sound as hot tears leaked down her cheeks.

Masculine hands closed over her shoulders and a deep voice called her name.

She awoke, startled at first to see a huge male form hovering over her in the dim morning light. She relaxed a degree when she saw it was Danny, but she couldn’t calm her frantically beating heart or shake off the raw edge of grief.

“You were crying in your sleep,” he said as he pulled her against him. “What were you dreaming about?”