Freefall (29 page)

She stood up and went over to him. When he turned around, she took his hands in hers, uncurled the tight fists and lifted them to brush soft kisses against his knuckles.

"As tragic as his death is, at least, thanks to you and the others, he didn't die without comfort."

"I hadn't thought of it that way."

"Well, you should. What about the pilot?" she dared ask, dreading the answer. "Shane?"

When a shadow moved across Zach's eyes, she remembered what he'd said about those bomber pilots reporting the enemy moving down the mountain toward them and braced herself for another personalized tale of tragedy.

"He's back in Washington," he answered after a pause. "In D.C., not the state. In fact, Quinn talked to him last week. He's thinking of taking a teaching job at ASMA."

He'd told her, during the early part of the story, about how he'd dropped out of the military academy after his father's accident.

He'd also told her about Quinn McKade's book, which she'd decided she was going to put on tomorrow's shopping list. Military novels weren't her usual choice in reading. In fact, she'd never read one in her life. Had never intended to.

But she wanted to read Quinn's because she hoped it would give her more insight into Zach.

"That would be nice. For the three of you to be living near each other again."

"Yeah. I guess."

There was something else there. Something he wasn't telling her.

Another story, Sabrina thought. For another day.

Hadn't they relived enough sorrow for one evening?

Zach would continue to grieve. As would she.

In their own fashion and individual time. Overcoming a deep personal loss wasn't anything that could be rushed.

Meanwhile, she realized, sometimes a woman had to be the strong one.

Leaning her head against his shoulder, Sabrina breathed in the scent of soap and warm skin and was engulfed with tenderness. Along with the need to soothe the rawness she sensed was still aching so painfully inside him.

She lifted her palms, framing his face. His beautiful, tortured face.

"Come with me," she murmured. "I want to take you somewhere."

He covered her hands with his. "Where?"

She smiled as she kissed him lightly. With sweetness. And promise.

"Somewhere wonderful."

Sabrina took him up the
Gone with the Wind
staircase Lucie had always talked about her someday walking down as a bride.

Undressed him with a tenderness born of the love she could no longer deny. At least to herself.

She eased him down on the bed. Then, after lighting a fat beeswax candle, she slipped out of the robe, lay down beside him, and skimmed kisses—soft as feathers, warm as a summer sun—over his face.

His jaw.

His brow.

Down his throat.

Across his broad, knotted shoulders, which had carried more burdens than any man she'd ever known.

His chest.

Her hands followed the gentle trail her lips had blazed, stroking, comforting, soothing his tension away. Banishing the shadows, if only for this shimmering, suspended time.

Yesterday spun away, the future was light-years from now.

There was only the present.

Only Zach.

When he reached for her, she shifted away, not to tease but to give her time, to give them
both
time, to banish whatever ghosts and demons were haunting him.

It had begun to rain. She could hear the patter of it on the terrace outside the French doors of the bedroom. Fog drifted in from the sea, and rose from the marsh, swathing Swannsea in a gauzy white blanket that clung to the windows and added to the intimacy.

She glided her palms up taut, muscled thighs, drawing a rough sound from deep in his throat. When she skimmed her tongue against a raised white appendectomy scar, he shuddered.

But still, even as he surrendered to her soft seduction, she could feel his steely control beneath the surface. He never entirely let it go, Sabrina realized. It was as much a part of him as that sexy cleft in his broad chin, his remarkable bluish-gray kaleidoscopic eyes, his wavy dark hair that instinctively drew a woman's fingers to it.

"Do you know what you do to me when you touch me like that?" he groaned as she dipped the tip of her tongue into his navel.

"No." Her fingernail stroked the hot flesh right above dark curls and beneath the scar. She may have relaxed him a bit, but that didn't stop him from being fully, magnificently aroused. "Tell me."

Expecting something along the lines of she made him so hot he was going to explode, or he wanted to fuck her brains out, his next words caught Sabrina totally off guard.

"You make me feel as if you've lit a lamp inside me." He brushed her long slide of hair over her shoulder, his hand now steady and sure. "As if, so long as you're by my side, I'll never be in the dark again."

Sabrina's hands paused. Tears sprang to her eyes; her breath hitched. A lump rose in her throat, blocking any words, even if she had known how to respond to such a profound statement. Which she didn't.

"Damn." His eyes, swirling with myriad emotions, met hers. And held. "There I go. Making you cry again."

"It's okay," she said on an unsteady laugh. "They're good tears."

She sniffled, lowered her cheek to his chest, and realized that their hearts, like their minds, were, at this moment, in perfect harmony. "That's the most amazing thing anyone's ever said to me."

"Then I'm glad I said it." He took her in his arms and rolled over onto his side, facing her, settling her so her leg was over his. "Because I've never felt as amazing as I feel with you."

He slid into her, a smooth, silky glide, as if they'd been created solely, perfectly, for one another.

The shared climax rose, slowly, a long, lingering swell.

And as the candle burned down and the soft Southern rain continued to fall, with arms and legs entwined, they rode the wave together.

He was going to have to kill her. He'd known that from the beginning, of course. All of them eventually had to die. Not only because they became more high-maintenance as they weakened but because he possessed a low boredom threshold. Once a slave was broken, her fear, which he'd always found so exciting was replaced by her weary acceptance of her fate.

And what fun was that?

He'd always preferred to have two, or even three, slaves at a time. Once, he'd been up to half a dozen, which had proven a mistake, as they'd gotten together and attempted a rebellion. Which, of course, he'd immediately quashed, and the mutinous bitches had paid for their behavior.

In the end, each had begged him to put her out of her misery.

He'd killed five of them, one at a time, forcing the others to watch.

But he'd left one alive to warn the new acquisitions.

That experience had taught him not to be greedy. After all, two was, a more manageable number. It also ensured that his needs were well satisfied, which kept him from behaving impulsively, the way he had with that damn ER nurse.

Killing Cleo Gibson at her house, in broad daylight, had been a risk. Which, at the time, had admittedly added to the rush. But it was also unreasonably dangerous.

Unfortunately, he'd allowed himself to get sidetracked by other life issues. But the obvious solution was to acquire additional property before he rid himself of the whiny, weepy Mannington bitch.

Better yet, he could force his new slave to kill his current one. Wouldn't that be fun?

As he lay there in the dark and began making plans, erotic images of the two naked female slaves fighting to the death sent blood flooding from his brain to pool hotly in his groin.

The day burned bright and sunny and filled with promise. As she sat across the table from Zach in the breakfast nook, Sabrina felt as lighthearted as if she'd swallowed a tankful of helium. In fact, she wouldn't have been at all surprised if she suddenly went floating up into the bright blue sky.

"You realize," he said, as he held out a bright red strawberry, "this is the first time you haven't kicked me out of your bed in the middle of the night."

"Hmm." Her teeth closed around the berry, taking it from his hand. She'd been eating strawberries all her life; she'd even spent many hours of her childhood picking them in Lucie's kitchen garden. But never had she appreciated what an aphrodisiac they could be. "Perhaps that's because I was otherwise occupied."

The hazel ring around his eyes gleamed like the morning sun. "You and me both, sugar."

He glanced out the window at the trucks that were beginning to arrive onsite. "You do realize that people will talk?"

"They're already talking."

She scooped some whipped cream from the bowl in the center of the table, held out her finger and felt the vibrations through her entire body as he sucked it off.

"Might as well give them something to talk about," Sabrina said, uncurling her toes. She sighed. "I suppose we'd better get to work."

"Or, I could declare a holiday, give everyone the day off, and we could go out in my boat."

"You have a boat?"

"A cruiser I brought from San Diego. I usually use it for fishing, but we could go down to Key West, drink some margaritas, make mad passionate love, and see if I can make you scream again."

"I did not scream." She felt the color rise in her cheeks.

"Well, not technically," he said, as he took his mug and bowl and put them in the dishwasher. "It was more of a long, ragged wail. And you called out my name. At least three, maybe four times."

"I seem to recall you shouting
my
name a lot louder."

Heaven help her, she was even feeling sappy putting her cup next to his in the dishwasher rack. It almost made them seem like… well, a couple.

"Got me on that one," he said with a quick, easy grin. "So, what do you say?" He looped the dish towel around her neck and pulled her close for a quick kiss. "Run away to Margaritaville? Or be grown-ups and go to work?"

There'd been a time, only a few weeks go, when that would have been a no-brainer. But that was before she'd returned to the island.

Before Zach Tremayne had captured her heart.

"If we don't stay on schedule, we'll end up owing Swarm Island Bank and Trust a hefty late penalty. And why do I think Jeremy Macon would love any opportunity to foreclose?"

"And wow, just happen to sell to Sumner?" he asked.

"Great minds." She skimmed a fingernail along his jaw. "I suppose it wouldn't hurt to take a short lunch break later."

"Gotta keep our stamina up," he agreed.

"Absolutely." She laughed, nipping playfully at his lips while the driver whose skills she'd admired backed his bulldozer off the trailer.

Although Zach's invitation to escape to Florida had been so, so tempting, it was time to get back to business.

Richard "Gunney" Cunningham, Sr., watched as they came out of the house together. Although they weren't touching, it was obvious they'd spent the night fucking.

Something Richie was never going to experience again.

Why should Zachariah Tremayne, whose fault it was that clusterfuck on the Kush had gone so fatally wrong, be alive?

While his only son, who, dammit, had been continuing an honorable family tradition, was lying dead in the cold dark ground beneath a white cross in Arlington Cemetery.

From that memorable November day in 1775, when John Jacob Cunningham had gotten together at the Tun Tavern in Philadelphia with a group of other patriots with long rifles and humongous balls to form the Marine Corps, Cunningham males had fought in "every clime and place" from the shores of Tripoli to the halls of Montezuma, to Khe Sanh to Beirut, finally ending up in Baghdad and Afghanistan.

John Jacob had been killed in an assault at Fort George on Penobscot Bay, Maine, in 1779. His son, Samuel, had helped defend Washington in the Battle of Bladensburg in 1814, and
his
twin sons—Jeremiah and Daniel—had fought in the Second Seminole War and waded ashore with the army in Veracruz, Mexico.

He himself had spent six long, unforgettable months in the Saigon Hilton before a deal had been cut with Hanoi to release POWs.

Whenever America needed a U.S. Marine, anywhere in the world, a Cunningham male had always been there to answer the call.

"The Marines have landed and have the situation well in hand" was not a cliche in his family. It was a Cunningham fact of life.

And now, thanks to that fucking SEAL, their long, proud line had come to a screeching halt.

Richie would never get to spend some hot summer night in a pretty girl's arms.

He'd never get married, never have those sons he'd always talked about. Boys who, since they'd never be born, would never get to go squirrel and possum hunting with their dogs, the way Richie had always loved to do.

He'd been Deadeye Dick with a rifle, which was how he got picked, his first day at boot camp, to be the deadliest weapon on earth: a Marine and his rifle.

Those overrated navy frogmen only went back to WW Two. While the Marines were fucking older than the U.S. of A.

"In a face-off, there's no contest," Gunney muttered to himself as he started up the big yellow Cat. Tremayne may be younger, but hell, he was a Marine.

Want to win your war?

Tell it to the Marines!

Oo-rah!

So intent was he on planning what, exactly, he was going to say to Tremayne,
do
to him, before he killed him, that at first he didn't notice the commotion.

It was only when one of the Mexicans, who'd been wheeling away the excess dirt, jumped up onto the bulldozer, grabbed hold of the cage and shouted in Spanish for him to stop, that Gunney finally noticed the skeleton his bulldozer blade had uncovered.