HardWind (9 page)

“What’s happened to you?” she asked. “Have you lost what little mind you had before

you left here?”

“What’s happened?” he growled. “Oh, nothing much. Nothing of any consequence.

I just spent eleven months in a vermin-infested cell being beaten, starved and losing

hope with every passing minute I was chained in that stinking rat hole. The only thing

that kept me alive was the thought of being with you again, seeing you again, holding

you again, Star. And what do I find when I come home? I find you have a yuppie

boyfriend with a bad weave, a piss-poor nose job and a mouthful of shoddily applied

veneers!”

Star put a hand over her mouth, tempted to burst out laughing at his assessment of

Brighton Boyd, but too angry and too hurt to give in to the compulsion. His words

thundered through her head to add compassion to her feelings. The thought of him

being beaten and starved, tortured, made her heart ache.

“Go on, Star,” he said, flinging his hand out again, dismissing her. “Get the hell out

of here before I say something I shouldn’t.”

“Like you haven’t already?” she threw at him.

He turned away from her and walked out of the room, going into his bedroom and

slamming the door shut.

“Oh no, you don’t!” she snarled, stomping after him. “You aren’t just going to walk

away from me this time!”

Star went after him, sending the bedroom door crashing against the sheetrock and

putting a nice, deep, round hole in the wall where the doorknob struck the surface.

Walking up to him, she drew back her hand and slapped him as hard as she could,

staggering him with the force of the blow.

“Don’t you ever walk away from me again, Dáire Cronin!” she yelled at him.

His cheek stinging from the slap, he reached out and grabbed her, jerking her to

him with such power, he heard her grunt as their bodies made contact. Reaching up to

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bury his splayed hand in the hair at the nape of her neck, he yanked her head up,

anchored it and then slashed his mouth across her lips, claiming her mouth with a hot,

searing kiss that made her sag against him.

There was nothing gentle about his kiss. It was a savage, heated branding that left

no doubt in Star’s mind that he was the only man who would ever make her womb

twist and fire pool in her lower body. It was the mastery of that kiss, the sheer potency

of it that turned her to mush in his arms. Her hands came up and she locked her arms

around his neck, molding herself to him as tightly as their clothing would allow. His

tongue was stabbing into her mouth and swirling over her teeth, flicking at her lips as

he worked his black magic on her.

He slid his hands to her ass and lifted her. The short skirt she was wearing bunched

up at her hips as she wrapped her legs around his hips, her toes pushing off first one

sandal and then the other, never once breaking that soul-shattering kiss. Carrying her to

the bed, he fell with her under him, scooting her across the mattress, dragging the

covers up, gathering them beneath their straining bodies as he forced a hand between

them.

She plucked at his shirt, ripping it away from his heaving chest. He tore at her

panties, jerking the delicate lace material away from her body. He fumbled between

them until he had freed himself from his jeans, yet still their mouths were locked in

heated duel.

Star grunted when he rammed his cock into her cunt and tightened her legs around

him, scooting forward on the bed under the force of his thrust. Like a madman he was

pounding into her, sweat wept from his pores. His fingers were digging into her naked

bottom—lifting her, positioning her, so that every powerful drive into her slippery

channel went deep.

For seven years they had been lovers. Each knew the other’s body as well as their

own. Every push against Star, every grip of her vaginal muscles upon his straining staff

was more than the act of sex. It was a sensually choreographed dance of a master

danseur noble and his equally impressive ballerina locked in an erotic
pas de deux
. Lips

drew greedily. Tongues stroked and flicked and stabbed. Limbs tightened. Bodies grew

slick with perspiration. Juices flowed copiously, and when the frantic lovemaking

reached its penultimate conclusion, two voices sounded in tandem—his, a growl of

possession and hers, a triumph of exacting pleasure. The frantic meeting of their bodies

stopped, stilled, held, until the last spurt of semen left him, and she willingly took it

deep into her as the last ripple of orgasm throbbed.

Exhausted from the ferocity of their coming together, Dáire collapsed atop her, her

legs slid from his hips to bracket his thighs, and he rolled them over so she was lying

atop him, her head on his chest, his arms wrapped securely around her.

For nearly ten minutes they lay like that—silent, willing their breaths to return to

normal, their hearts to cease racing. Her palm was splayed in the center of his thickly

matted chest, her index finger twirling the crisp hair. Beneath her flesh, the steady,

comforting beat of his heart relaxed her. The strength of his arms made her feel

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protected, cherished, and his warm breath washing over her forehead made her

drowsy.

“This is right,” he said. “I had forgotten how intense it could be.”

She rolled out of his arms. “I’m thirsty,” she announced, and slid off the bed.

Sated, feeling more alive than he had in a long, long time, Dáire laced his fingers

beneath his head and stared up at the creamy white ceiling overhead. He was lying

across the bed, ankles crossed when Star came back carrying two cans of soda. She

stopped at the side of the bed, staring at his feet.

“What happened to your feet?” she asked. Her attention was on the bottoms of his

feet.

He uncrossed his ankles and drew his knees up, hiding the soles of his feet on the

covers. “Don’t worry about it,” he mumbled.

“Dáire?” she questioned, her gaze lifting to his. “Tell me.”

“You really don’t want to know, Star.”

“Yes, I do,” she said, tears hovering in her eyes. “What caused those scars?”

“Canes with split ends vigorously applied once a week,” he replied as though the

matter was of no consequence. “Hurts like hell.”

Star’s face paled and the hand she held out to give him the soda trembled. “What

else did they do to you?” she asked in a tiny voice.

Levering himself up so his feet were now flat on the floor, he took the soda. “It’s not

worth discussing,” he told her as he popped the top on the can.

She sat down beside him, unable to tear her attention from his feet. There were faint

white lines on the tops of his arches and red, raised ridges on his ankles and heels.

“Stop looking at them,” he ordered.

Star turned her face away, squeezing her eyelids together for her heart was

breaking, her soul burning for the man beside her. Every unkind, mean and heartless

thought she had had of him during the last fourteen months came back to haunt her.

He knew she was crying but he couldn’t reach out to her. A part of him was still

locked in the sweltering four-by-six cell that had been his prison for nearly a year and

he really didn’t want to talk about it. He feared that once the torrent of agonies he’d

suffered were out in the open between them, it would be pity, guilt—and not love—that

might bring her back to him.

“Did I ever tell you about Jackson and the Thai whore?” he asked.

Star put the back of her hand to her mouth and looked around at him. She knew

him all too well and the matter of his imprisonment, the torture that had turned the

soles of his feet into a mass of scars was—for him—a dead issue. “No,” she answered.

She sucked up her tears. “When was this?”

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Charlotte Boyett-Compo

His forehead creased. “About three years ago, I think,” he answered. He took a long

pull on the soda. “We were over there to pick up a very high-profile American senator

who liked to vacation in the sex clubs in Bangkok.”

“Can you tell me which senator?” she asked, knowing he couldn’t and wouldn’t.

“Let’s just say he’s from a small Eastern state,” he answered.

“I take it he’s married?”

“Not anymore, but he was back then,” he answered.

“Ah,” she said, recognizing who it must be then.

“We were told to go in, extract him and bring him back before the paparazzi got

wind of his sojourns into those dens of iniquity,” Daire explained. “I was feeling a bit

under the weather—”

“Was this when you had that bad case of the flu?” she interrupted.

“I think it was.”

“Go on,” she said, arming away the wetness on her cheeks.

“Well, Jack Off goes strolling in there, pretending to be a customer. We didn’t think

he’d have a hard time finding the senator.” He chuckled. “What we didn’t know was

that particular club was an S/M smorgasbord.”

“Oh, God,” she said.

“Here’s Jackson with a bevy of beauties lined up by the madam and she’s ticking

off the specialties of each girl and Jack Off swears he’s starting to sweat because all the

girls are looking at him and licking their lips.”

Star giggled despite the pain still raging in her heart.

“He said he just pointed at one, not even remembering what the madam said was

the girl’s area of expertise. She takes his hand and leads him down this long, dim

corridor and he’s hearing grunts and groans, moans and shrieks, and what he could

only describe as men talking in little-boy voices.”

“Oh please, mistress!” Star said in a squeaky voice. “May I have another spank?”

“Exactly,” Dáire asserted. “Well, he hears the senator’s voice as they pass this one

door and he tells me later that the things the man was saying made him blush.”

“Jackson?” she questioned.

“Yeah, well, I found it hard to believe too,” Dáire stated. “At any rate, he can’t very

well rush in and snatch the senator in the throes of whatever the hell he’s in the middle

of, so Jackson figures he’ll wait until he hears the door open then jump up and grab the

good senator and hustle him out.”

“But it didn’t happen that way.”

“No, it surely did not.” He took another sip from the can, licked his lips then leaned

back on the bed, propping himself up on his elbows, making it necessary for her to twist

around to look at him.

“You’re killing me here, Cronin,” she urged.

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“According to Jackson, he turned to explain to the prostitute that he wasn’t there to

do the nasty with her, but before he could she’d slapped a handcuff on his wrist and

yanked him toward her bed. He says he tried to get away but she picked him up—”

“Our Jackson?” she asked, her eyes wide with incredulity.

“Uh-huh,” Daire acknowledged. “He swears she picked him up, threw him on the

bed, locked one of his wrists to the headboard, and while he’s struggling and yelling,

grabs the other, yanks his arms apart and spread-eagles him to the bed.”

Star had to slap a hand over her mouth to keep from hooting with laughter. The

sight of Jackson so incapacitated was rich.

“Then she spreads his legs and chains his ankles too,” Daire told her. “He’s

shouting at her and she produces a ball gag and proceeds to silence his cries for help.”

“He was calling for you?” Star asked.

“He said he was, but I was right outside and I didn’t hear a damned thing from

him.”

“Did you hear all the groaning and shrieking?”

“Some of it,” he said with a grin.

“What happened then?”

“Well, she commenced to cut his trousers and shirt off, laying him open to her

wicked intentions—or so he says—then began working him over with all kinds of

interesting things I don’t think I should tell you about.”

“Why not?” she asked.

“I don’t want to give you any ideas,” he replied.

Star rolled her eyes. “Did you guys get the senator or not?”

“Oh I got him,” Daire answered. “I caught him trying to sneak out the back door,

popped him full of this sweet little syringe I was carrying, slung him over my

shoulder—”

“Like Jackson did you the other night,” she said, missing the surprised look he gave

her.

“After I got back to the car and got the senator to the plane standing by to take him

to Guam, I went back for Jackson. Three hours later, he comes strolling out of the

place—walking none too steadily I might add—and swears to me the senator isn’t

anywhere to be found in the club.”

“Did you tell him you already had the senator?”

“Not right then. I was too busy laughing at what he was wearing.”

“Oh that’s right!” Star said, now really invested in the tale. “She’d cut his clothes

off.”

Dáire nodded, trying to keep a straight face. “Here he comes sidling up to me with

only a green-and-pink-plaid cloth wrapped around his waist and tucked up between

his legs. He’s barefoot and he reminds me of Yul Brynner from
The King and I
. His legs,

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chest and arms are covered with bright blue permanent ink drawings of all kinds of

animals—tigers, elephants—you name it. He is literally covered from neck to ankle with

these drawings and he is pissed. Man oh man, was he pissed!”