First You Run (24 page)

“Are you distracted yet, luv?” There was a little tease in his voice, but just enough concern to twist her heart.

“Mmmm.” The back of the plane felt like it was falling, and at the same time the front shot up, tearing another tiny gasp from her at the very instant he unclipped her bra, lowered his head, and suckled her nipple to a painful point. Pleasure battled terror, both sensations ripping through her body so furiously she had to bury her fingers into his hair and press him harder against her.

A loud knock shook the floor under her, and she let out a cry, pulling his hair. “What was that?”

“Landing gear up.” He took her hand and placed it on his erection, which was full and hard and straining his pants. “Mine, too.”

She couldn’t help it—she let out a laugh.

He winked, pointing a finger at her. “Looky there, I made you smile during takeoff.”

She squeezed him and nodded ferociously. “Can you distract me some more?”

He obliged with a long, juicy kiss, pushing her blouse out of his way to squeeze and fondle her nipple. She arched into the sensation, but then the plane thunked and dropped, and oh, the whole freaking thing tilted
sideways
.

She visualized the wings tipping toward the ground, the inescapable spin, the fall to earth.

“We’re banking into a turn,” he said as he reached below her seatbelt and cleverly unsnapped her jeans. “Might make you dizzy.” Hot, strong fingers slid against her stomach and rolled over the nub of her womanhood. “Or this will.”

“Oh.” She sucked in a breath, definitely dizzy. He entered her with one finger just as the plane righted itself, but everything seemed to slow down, suspended in the air.

His finger curled over her flesh, making her wet.

Everything was eerily, suddenly quiet. “Did we lose an engine?”

A soft bell dinged.

“No, but we can lose our seatbelts.” He flipped hers open and laid her down on the sofa, easing himself on top of her. “We are alone in this cabin for the duration of the flight, and I promise you will be safe, distracted, and blissfully relaxed. Because right now, Miranda Lang, I’m about to make you forget you’re flying. You’ll forget you’re scared. You’ll forget you’re in the air. You’ll forget everything but me inside you.”

She opened her legs enough for him to settle against her. “Good onya, mate.”

He rolled his eyes at her accent, chuckling as he shimmied her jeans down and knelt above her to open his pants. “Next you’ll be talking dirty strine.”

He freed his erection, and she closed a hand over it with a sexy smile.

He lowered himself so that their skin touched below the waist, but her blouse was still hanging from her arms, and his T-shirt was on. With them half dressed, the act seemed so maddeningly sexy and desperate and sensuous that all Miranda could do was writhe against his heat and enjoy the sensation.

He kissed her mouth, her neck, her ears, then lifted himself, and she took him in her hands to guide him inside just as the plane banked again. She sighed, and he entered her, sliding straight into her body, filling her, taking her over.

“There now,” he breathed in her ear. “Don’t be scared.”

She rocked once, and he plunged in again. Squeezing his steely biceps, she dug her fingers into the cotton T-shirt and wrapped her legs around his hips. Deep inside her, he mirrored the act with a slow, silky French kiss, his hands all over her body, his hips driving a crazy, heated rhythm.

They hit a bump. Then again. The plane pitched up and down, and Miranda yanked away from their kiss.

“No worries,” he assured her, riding her steady and slow and holding tight until the turbulence stopped. “We’re fine. Let me love you.” He slid all the way in, holding her gaze with such intensity she almost couldn’t bear it. Arousal coiled through her, blinding her, melting her, torturing her as she got closer and closer to a climax.

“Come with me, Miranda,” he urged, the tendons in his neck tightening, his eyes narrowing with each furious thrust. “Now.”

Her body clenched, and the plane bounced on another wave of turbulence. He rose and thrust again, the force of another jolt shocking her, thrilling her. She closed her eyes, held him tight, and let her whole body simply move the way nature intended.

The plane dipped, hanging in the air, suspended somewhere between earth and heaven. The climax started deep inside her, a biting, irresistible need for release and satisfaction.

The lights dimmed. Adrien grew harder, wilder, mightier. Sweat prickled, and blood boiled, and pleasure stole all control and all fear until she just…flew.

He ground into her, murmuring her name, digging for his own release, exploding inside her with a roar as loud as the engines that carried them.

When all the noises and the breathing and the heart pumping stopped, Miranda closed her eyes and miraculously, unbelievably,
relaxed
. At twenty thousand feet above the ground, filled body and soul by a man she…

A man she…

She fingered a lock of his hair, stroked his cheek, fiddled with his earring.

A man she could love
.

“You’re not scared anymore, are you, luv?”

She put a finger on his lips and smiled. “Not of flying.”

When Miranda and Adrien walked into the cozy entryway of the two-story brick Colonial where she’d lived most of her life, she saw that worry had etched a line deep between Dee Lang’s hazel eyes. Or maybe that was due to the man who had answered the door, a six-foot-two, muscle-bound Bullet Catcher named Nico.

An hour later, they were still gathered around the oval table in the white kitchen that felt as comforting to Miranda as the sweet tea her mother had made for them all. Her parents had accepted Adrien’s presence and his role in keeping Miranda safe, as she explained exactly what had happened on her book tour and why she felt they needed protection.

But with each passing second, Miranda fought the need to say what was pressing on her heart and head.

Several times, Adrien’s cell phone rang, and he excused himself to take the call. Then she heard him talking softly with Nico in the living room. She knew he was giving her time to broach the subject of her adoption with her parents.

When he left the third time, she plucked a paper napkin from the holder on the table and began to fold it neatly into squares. She opened her mouth to initiate the conversation, but her mother interrupted her.

“Exactly how did you meet this man again?” Miranda’s mother stood polishing glasses as she took them out of the dishwasher. She was a slightly over-weight blond woman with round eyes and a rounder face who didn’t share a single physical trait with her. Across from her at the table, her father, well under six feet, with dark brown eyes and faded blond hair so unlike Miranda’s, stirred his tea.

She was about to wreck this normal, everyday, routine moment with an accusation of monumental proportions. But she had no choice. Even though she only knew she was a name on a list…she still knew. She
knew
.

And now that she did, the urge to find out more had become burning.

“She said she met him at a book signing, Dee,” her father said, in that tone that told her he was ready, always, to fly to her defense or be the voice of reason.

“That’s true,” Miranda said slowly. She’d practiced a thousand possible responses to their expected questions about Adrien, from the truth that they were lovers to some parent-friendly version of that.

But she couldn’t lie or color the truth or put off what had to be said for one more minute. She took a breath, rolled the napkin into a ball in her fist, and stared at her father.

“He’s an investigator who is searching for children given up in black-market adoptions.”

A spoon clanged into the sink, the echo reverberating through the kitchen. Dee spun around, her mouth hanging open, her speechlessness confirming everything.

So it was true. She was adopted, and they’d hidden it from her for her whole life. Her father reached across the table and closed his hand over Miranda’s. Slowly, her heart thumping harder with each passing second, Miranda looked from one to the other.

“Miranda,” her father said softly, “it shouldn’t change anything.”

Always, reason and sanity.

“I know, Daddy.” She managed to squeeze his hand and turn back to her mother. “But why didn’t you tell me?”

Tears already streamed from her mother’s eyes, and her body tensed with the heave of the first sob. “I couldn’t. I didn’t know how. I’m sorry, honey…I should have…” She just dissolved, and Miranda leaped up on reflex to hold her.

“Please forgive me,” her mother said, her arms limp at her sides as if she didn’t feel right hugging her daughter. “I just never knew what to say. And I was so scared you’d…you’d leave.”

Always fear. Always terror. Always dreading the worst. “Mom, where would I have gone?”

“To…your family.”

“You
are
my family.”

Her father had risen and awkwardly circled his arms around both of them. “We’re only guilty of wanting you more than you can ever imagine, Miranda, and the truth was a mighty big thing for a child to understand.”

“But I haven’t been a child for a long time. And you know I love you both enough to understand anything.”

They shared an odd, quick eye contact that made Miranda’s heart flip.

“We know that,” her mother said. “But I’ve always been so scared that—”

“Stop.” Miranda held her hand up. “Stop being scared. I have, and I’ve never been so free or happy in my life. That man out there”—she notched her head toward the hall—“has taught me how to face fears, and I think it’s time for you to learn as well, Mom.” She looked from one to the other. “I know you’ve been afraid of losing me, but that’s crazy. We love each other, and you’ll be my parents and my family forever.”

Through tears, her mother nodded. “Do you forgive me?”

“For loving me and choosing to hide the truth from me? There’s nothing to forgive. It’s past, and no one will ever replace you.” Miranda squeezed them both. “No matter what.”

“Of course not,” Dad said.

“But…” Miranda lifted her chin and looked directly at her mother as she made her announcement. “I want to find her.”

Her mother’s mouth quivered. “You do?”

“I’d like to meet her, if she’s alive. I’d like to know her. Know her name and my genetic history. Like Daddy said, it won’t change anything. You are my parents, and I am your child. I just have to meet her.” Miranda searched their faces. “It won’t be easy. I understand the paper trail is sketchy. Do you know anything about her? Anything that might help me?”

Her mother’s gaze settled on her husband, in obvious warning.

Seconds ticked by, and her father’s face grew miserable.

Miranda stiffened. “You know who she is, don’t you?”

They said nothing.

“Daddy?”

He looked defiantly at his wife. Tension zinged between them.

“Yes, honey,” he said softly to Miranda. “We do know who she is.”

Miranda jerked backward. “You do? You know her name?”

Her mother gave a tiny whimper.

“Tell
me,” Miranda insisted, frustration burning. “After all these years of keeping the truth from me, you have to tell me if you know her name.”

“No!” Dee reached out to her husband to stop him. “She doesn’t want to know the truth.”

Fury boiled up. “Yes. I. Do.” Miranda gripped her mother’s arms. “I’m not afraid of anything. I can take it. I can handle it.” Hadn’t she proved that in the past week? “Just tell me.”

“Randy,” her father said, slipping into the old childhood nickname, “you might not be proud to find out who she is.”

An eerie apprehension curled around her heart. “Is she…in South Carolina, by any chance?”

The look flashed again, but her father nodded.

Could Adrien have been right the first time? Or could Jack Culver’s document, claiming that someone named Whitaker had adopted Eileen Stafford’s baby, be wrong? “Is her name Eileen Stafford?”

A slow exhale of defeat from her mother confirmed it.

Miranda covered her mouth with her hand, holding back another soft cry. Taliña had been right. Her mother was dying. And she might be able to save her life.

“It’s okay,” she said to her parents. “I know who and what she is.”

From the doorway, Adrien cleared his throat, and Miranda turned from her parents. “Adrien, that adoption document that Jack saw is wrong. Eileen Stafford
is
my birth mother.”

He held up his cell phone. “I just spoke to Jack. He’s with her. She’s slipped into a coma, and they don’t know if she’s going to come out.”

Miranda felt a sudden, inexplicable ache. She wanted to meet her, if only for a moment. It would somehow complete her.

“But Miranda, she talked to him before she became unconscious. He told her about you and the paper Rebecca Aubry gave him, and she told him Rebecca’s document is accurate. And your parents are also right about who your birth mother is.”

She frowned at him, totally confused. “I don’t understand.”

“It appears, Miranda, that you were part of a multiple birth.”

“A multiple…” It was like being punched in the gut. “I have a sibling?”

Her mother dipped as if she were going to faint dead away, but Miranda spun to her, unable to contain her fury. “Do I?” she shouted. “Do I have a sibling?”

How could they
keep
that from her?

“You have two,” Adrien said. “You were a triplet, and you have two sisters.”

Two sisters
.

“Has he found them? Does he know who they are?”

He shook his head. “But we will, Miranda. If we have to move the earth, we’ll find them for you, and for Eileen Stafford.”

Feeling lightheaded, she stepped forward into his embrace. “I know you will.”

Over her shoulder, she met her father’s sad gaze.

“I’m sorry, Randy,” he said. “I’ll do whatever I can to help you.”

She had no doubt which of her parents had driven the decision to hide the truth, and someday she’d make her mother see how wrong that was.

“Will Lucy help?” she asked Adrien.