Heaven Sent (19 page)

He waited for her to return from the kitchen. It was only after she reclaimed her chair that he sat down. Both of them ate in complete silence, lost in their private thoughts.

David drank three glasses of a premium red wine while Serena toyed with the stem of her wineglass before she drank one. The wine helped relax him. He soon forgot Vega’s virulent exchange with Serena, and he looked forward to taking her into his arms to calm and soothe her fears. He wanted her to know that she didn’t have to solicit her stepfather’s love, because he loved her. His love was all she would ever need from a man—any man.

S
erena retreated to her bedroom after eating dinner, stripped off her clothes, and spent the next hour soaking in the bathtub. The scented candles, perfumed bath oil, and the softly playing, all-music radio station worked their magic as she willed her mind and body to relax.

She forgot the confrontation at the dinner table, the fact that she could not confide in her mother, and even the knowledge that Gabe was locked away in a Florida prison.

She forgot all of the madness affecting her family as the realization that she had fallen in love transported her to a place where she languished in the comforting arms of serenity.

Picking up a bath sponge, she trickled water over her shoulders and down her breasts, her flesh shimmering from the scented oil. It was only when she stood up to step out of the tub that she saw him.

David stood in the shadows of the candle-lit bathroom, watching her. Her breath caught in her chest before it started up again in an erratic rhythm that left her feeling lightheaded.

“How long have you been here?”

Pushing off the wall, David closed the space between them. “Long enough to see everything I like.” His hands circled her waist and he effortlessly lifted her from the bathtub. Holding her water-slick body aloft, her feet dangling in the air, he pressed his mouth to hers. He molded her flesh to his, fusing their naked bodies and making them one.

Serena gloried in the feel of the crisp hair on his chest grazing her sensitive nipples. She curved her arms around his neck and deepened the kiss, her tongue easing slowly, deliberately, into his mouth.

David gasped at the heated invasion of her tongue, opening his mouth wider until she branded him with her soul-searching kiss. He felt her trembling, the quickening of her respiration, and knew her passions were soaring as quickly as his own. He carried her into her own darkened bedroom and placed her on the bed, his body following.

After dinner he’d returned to his bedroom to shave and shower, then come to her, as promised. He’d turned off her bedside lamp and drawn the drapes before he walked silently into her bathroom. He’d stood in a corner, watching her as she lay in the bathtub, eyes closed, listening to the soft music coming from a radio, while ignoring the slight twinge of pain in his right foot. He saw the peace that settled into the features of the woman he’d fallen in love with. She had found solace in a tub filled with scented water, while he needed the
scented softness of her body before he found his own peace.

David pulled back to catch his breath before his head dipped again. He drank from her honeyed mouth like a man dying of thirst, and she did quench his thirst, but not the gnawing hunger for the rest of her body.

Serena reveled in the scent of his smooth shaven jaw, the tip of her tongue tracing the length of the healing scar transforming his beautiful male face. Her fingers swept through the short, silken strands covering his well-shaped head before they cupped his ears, then moved still lower to cradle his face between her palms.

“
Te amo
,” she whispered reverently between nibbling kisses. And she did love him. She loved him with a reverent passion that unlocked her heart and soul to offer him all that she possessed.

Her declaration of love battered down the last resistance he’d erected to keep women at a distance. The iron-will control he maintained when taking a woman to his bed fled, leaving him completely vulnerable for the first time in his adult life.

A violent shudder shook his large body when he buried his face in her fragrant, unbound hair. “And I love you,” he confessed hoarsely. He repeated it over and over, it becoming a litany. Her slender arms tightened around his neck. Heart to heart, skin to skin, they became one.

“Love me, David.” Her husky whisper broke the silence.

He wanted to do more than love her; he wanted to be inside her; he wanted to become one with her.

His lips brushed her lush, soft mouth before he moved lower to taste the silken flesh covering her throat. The soft moans coming from her parted lips impelled him
to take her quickly; he ignored the twin emotions of lust and desire becoming one and the same, because he no longer feared not being in control of his passions.

His tongue continued its exploration of her moist body, sweeping over her flat belly. She arched off the mattress at the same time his hot mouth searched and claimed her moist, throbbing femininity. A strangled cry filled the darkened space when he cradled her hips in his hands and lifted her higher. He feasted, his rapacious tongue relentless. Serena could not believe that he’d awakened a dormant carnality that threatened to consume all of her.

He had taken her to such heights that she feared if she didn’t jump she would die from the pleasure building in the hidden place where he’d buried his face. His hands shifted from her hips to her thighs, raising her legs until they lay over his shoulders.

Her head thrashed back and forth on the pillow and Serena lost herself in the violent explosion that shook every part of her body. The explosions persisted, one following the other. She opened her mouth to scream out the last cry of ecstasy, only to find her breath captured again by his mouth. David paused to protect her, then entered her pulsing body with a powerful thrust that rekindled her desire all over again. They rode out the violent storm of passion together, losing themselves in a love predestined from the beginning of time.

David strained valiantly to keep from exploding. He wanted the lustful delirium to continue, but knew it couldn’t. He had to release his passion or his heart would explode. Quickening his powerful thrusts, he lowered his head and gave into the eruptions hurtling him toward heaven. The moment before he gave into the force sweeping him beyond himself he surrendered all
that he was to the woman who lay beneath him, their hearts beating in unison.

His body shuddered once, twice, and then a third time. He collapsed heavily on Serena’s slight frame, laboring to slow his runaway pulse. He did not remember rolling off her and pulling her to lie atop his chest, nor did he remember when they fell asleep.

Streaks of the rising sun had just begun to pierce the cover of the fading nighttime sky when they did wake in each other’s arm. Serena felt more relaxed than she had ever been in her life. Moaning sensuously, she rubbed her nose against David’s cheek, inhaling the familiar scent of his aftershave.

“Good morning, Lover.”

Opening his large eyes, he smiled down at her. “Good morning, Sweetheart. Did you sleep well?”

She stretched, raising a well-shaped leg in the air. “I slept wonderfully.”

“I take it you like using me as a mattress,” he teased.

“You could’ve pushed me off if I was too heavy.”

David combed his fingers through her curling hair. “You don’t weigh enough to be considered too heavy.”

“How much do you weigh?”

“An even two hundred,” he admitted.

“You don’t look as if you weigh that much.”

“Muscle weighs a lot more than fat.”

Turning over on her side, she faced him, trying to make out his features in the darkened bedroom. The drawn drapes filtered out most of the light from the rising sun.

“How do you keep fit?”

“Swimming.”

“How often do you swim?”

“Weather permitting—every day.”

“Do you have a pool at your house in Boca Raton?”

“Yes. But I haven’t had the chance to swim in it.”

“Why not?”

“Because it was just built and I haven’t moved in. I’d planned to have my sister-in-law decorate it when I return to the States. But that’s going to change now.”

“Why?”

He pressed his lips against her hair. “The house will be yours, to decorate in any style you want.”

“We’ll decide together.”

“So, you’re going to be a compromising little wife.”

“Only this one time, David Claridge Cole.”

“What about children?”

“What about them?”

“Do you want any?”

Raising her head, she stared up at him. “I want your babies.”

“How many babies do you want?”

“Three.”

David laughed softly, pulling her closer to his chest. “I’ve heard people say baby-making love is very different from regular lovemaking.”

“I’ve never heard that. Besides, I don’t believe it.”

He shifted his eyebrows. “How would you know if you haven’t tried it?”

“I’m not much of a risk-taker, David. Sleeping with you without protection is not something I’m willing to try again.”

“How long an engagement do you want?”

“Not long,” she confessed, dropping light kisses on his shoulder.

“Good.”

“David!” she gasped when his hand eased up between her thighs.

“I need some regular lovemaking, Baby,” he crooned against her moist lips.

“I can make it special if you let me get on top.”

“Climb on,” he urged, settling her body over his. And she did make it special. She took him to heaven with a burning sweetness that shattered him into a million tiny pieces before he lay shaking, spent from the passion she’d aroused in him.

He lingered in her bed until the sun broke the horizon to signal the beginning of another day of his captivity.

Day One had come and gone, and he refused to think of the other fifty-nine that lay ahead.

July 17

West Palm Beach, Florida

M
artin Cole, Joshua Kirkland, and Samuel Cole left the large gathering of the Cole family in the dining room, retreating to the library. Children, in-laws, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren had come to the large West Palm Beach mansion to celebrate the seventieth birthday of the family matriarch. Marguerite Josefina Diaz Cole’s stunning beauty had not faded with age. Her silver, stylishly coiffed hair framed a smooth, tanned face that claimed a few laugh lines at the corners of her large, dark eyes. She had passed along her delicate features and dimpled smile to several of her offspring, and her superior genes were repeated in several of her grandchildren.

Joshua Kirkland waited for Martin to settle Samuel
Cole on a large recliner that had been designed expressly for the elderly man, then sat down opposite his father and brother.

“Everything is set. Vega has agreed to meet with me.”

Joshua’s penetrating green gaze registered his father’s and brother’s reaction to his announcement that he was to leave for Costa Rica. Samuel nodded slowly, while Martin smiled.

“Do you think Vega will believe what you’re selling?” Martin questioned.

“The man’s a botanist,” Joshua argued. “I’m told he has a greenhouse filled with several varieties of the tree I’m going to pitch to him. I intend to put his paranoid mind at ease when I tell him that Markham Pharmaceutical will not set up a plant in his country, that our scientists want the bark and needles from the Anneda pine tree.” It had taken him a month to set up his cover as a salesman for a pharmaceutical company that was interested in a plant indigenous only to Costa Rica.

“When are you going to bring my boy back?” Samuel asked, his wavering voice breaking with emotion.

Martin reached out and covered his father’s hand in a comforting gesture. “Patience, Dad. It’s only been thirty days.”

“That’s thirty days too long,” Samuel countered angrily.

Joshua rose to his feet, nodded to Martin, then walked out of the room. He would give his brother time to calm their father’s fear that David Cole’s life would be forfeited in an act of deadly revenge; legal attempts to solicit support of granting bail for Gabriel Vega had failed. No elected official wanted to take responsibility
for securing the release of a murderer and drug trafficker.

Joshua and Samuel Cole had reconciled, both acknowledging the bond which made them father and son. But Joshua was always aware that he would never experience the affinity Martin and David shared with Samuel. However, at forty-three he was mature enough to accept what he could not control. He realized that he had to put the circumstances surrounding his illegitimacy to rest. His wife and daughter had become the most important people in his life.

“How is he taking it?” Joshua asked when Martin met him on the loggia.

Martin slipped his hands into the pockets of his slacks. “Not well. I don’t know if he’s going to make it.”

“It’s wearing on all of us. I think it’s time we tell the family.”

Martin’s coal black eyes met his half-brother’s pale gaze, a flash of fear sweeping over his deeply tanned face. “We can’t.”

Folding his arms over his chest, Joshua leaned against a coral column. “I told Vanessa last night. I had to,” he continued when Martin stared at him as if he’d never seen him before. “How do I explain bringing her and Emily to Florida for M.J.’s birthday, and then take off for Costa Rica?”

Covering his face with his hands, Martin shook his head. “Why didn’t you tell her that you were going on ColeDiz business?”

“Have you forgotten that Vanessa oversees every investment I’ve acquired? And nowhere in my portfolio does the name ColeDiz appear.” As Samuel Cole’s illegitimate
son he had not been granted a share in the family business.

Martin lowered his hands. “How did she take the news?”

“Not well at first. It’s hell living with a woman who won’t respond when you talk to her. It was only when I began packing this morning that she realized that I was going to go through with it.”

Martin muttered a savage curse under his breath. He felt so powerless. He had earned the reputation as the consummate risk taker and deal maker, responsible for a billion-dollar family-owned enterprise, yet he could not negotiate for his brother’s life.

Combing his fingers through his gray, curly hair, he nodded. “Okay. We tell them.”

Joshua smiled and let out his breath. “I’ll tell Nancy and Josephine. I’ll leave you to tell M.J.” He knew it would be easier for him to disclose the news of David’s captivity to his half-sisters than to his father’s wife.

Martin returned to the dining room, winking at his wife Parris as she sat with their six-year-old daughter on her lap, offering her small portions of cake. Making his way over to her, he hunkered down beside her chair. “I need to talk to you in the library.”

Parris Cole’s eyes widened slightly. A hint of green sparkled in their clear-brown depths. “What’s up?”

“Family business,” he whispered.

“What family business, Daddy?” Arianna chimed in her clear, childlike voice.

Running a forefinger down the length of his daughter’s nose, he placed a kiss on the tiny tip. She giggled as he pulled her from her mother’s lap and handed her to one of his teenage nieces.

“Take care of this chatterbox for me.” His sister’s daughter tickled Arianna, and the child dissolved into peals of laughter.

Martin walked over to where his mother sat at the head of the table. Cupping her elbow, he helped her to stand. “I have to talk to you in the library.”

Her large, dark gaze seemed to race over her son’s face. “What’s going on?” She arched a sweeping eyebrow when Martin did not respond. “It’s about David, isn’t it?”

Martin nodded once. “Yes, Mother. It concerns David.” He’d told his mother that David couldn’t make her birthday celebration because he hadn’t concluded his sale of the banana plantation in Costa Rica.

M.J. closed her eyes and placed a slender, manicured hand over her breast. “Is he alive, Martin?”

“Yes, Mother. He’s alive.”

Pulling herself erect, M.J. tilted her chin and walked out of the dining room. Martin was always amazed at how his mother was able to compose herself so quickly. He had never seen her resort to hysterics during a family crisis. She’d always chosen to grieve in private.

He whispered to his sisters that Joshua wanted to talk to them on the loggia, then informed Vanessa Kirkland that she should join him in the library.

Joshua straightened from his leaning position with Nancy and Josephine’s approach. He took their hands and escorted them to several white, twisted rattan chairs with plump coral and white cushions, seating them. Pulling up a chair, he sat down and stared at the expectant expressions on their faces.

Nancy Cole-Thomas, the elder sister, returned her half-brother’s stare. “What’s going on, Joshua?”

He decided to be direct. He would handle their reactions later. “David couldn’t be here today because he’s being held hostage in Costa Rica.”

“What!” Nancy screamed.

Josephine’s eyes widened in shock. Then she broke down, sobbing uncontrollably. Joshua stood up, pulling Josephine up with him. He held her gently while she sobbed out her grief. When her crying quieted he related the terms of David’s release to his sisters.

Josephine glared at her half-brother, anger replacing her anguish. “Why have you waited so long to tell us about this?”

“We had hoped to resolve it before now.”

“Resolve it how, Joshua?”

“Using legal means.”

“Whose decision was it not to tell us about David?” Josephine continued with her questioning.

“We all agreed.”

Josephine arched a sculpted eyebrow. “We?”

“Sammy, Martin, and I.”

The women stared at each another. Their father and brothers had decided among themselves not to tell them that their youngest brother had been taken hostage by a deranged foreign official, and threatened with death if his son was not released from a Florida prison.

“How dare you! You had no right to make that decision without consulting us,” Josephine said accusingly. “After all, he is our brother.”

Joshua stared at her, chilling her with his icy gaze. “As he is also
my
brother.”

She nodded, blinking back tears that threatened to flow again. Verbally attacking Joshua would not change things. As a family they needed to pull together, not fight one another. “I’m sorry, Joshua. Forgive me.”

He inclined his head, his gaze softening. “This hasn’t been easy on any of us.”

Nancy wiped away her tears with her fingertips. “What are
you
going to do, Joshua?”

“I’m flying to Costa Rica in the morning.”

She rose to her feet and wrapped her arms around her sister and brother. The three stood silently, feeding on each other’s strength, then turned and walked back into the large house.

Martin examined the women sitting in the library. They were similar, yet very different. All were tall, slender women who affirmed their own personal strengths, but not without pain and sacrifice.

His wife Parris at forty-one had entered middle-age with a sensuality that left him gasping whenever she offered him her love. Having given him three children, her ripened body was still slim. She’d acquired an abundance of gray hairs in her dark brown, blunt-cut hair that she refused to color. She joked often that she’d earned them.

And she had. A failed first marriage, an abduction and blackmail that separated them for ten years, and subsequent murder attempts had given Parris Simmons-Cole more than her share of pain. But what Martin could not understand was that it was Parris, not he, who offered Samuel Cole forgiveness for what he had done to her and their daughter Regina. She confessed that she had prayed for strength to find the mercy to forgive her father-in-law. She forgave Samuel before he did.

His gaze moved to Vanessa Blanchard-Kirkland. His half-brother’s wife was truly Joshua’s soulmate. Her gentle love had helped him let go the bitterness he
carried for years, and he’d become a loving husband, father, brother, and uncle.

He looked at his father. “David couldn’t be here today because he couldn’t get out of Costa Rica.”

“What do you mean he couldn’t get out?” Parris asked.

“He’s being held hostage.”

There was a chorus of gasps from Parris and M.J. Martin disclosed the telephone call David had made to Samuel with Cordero-Vega’s demands. He left nothing out, deciding on complete honesty.

M.J. glanced from her husband to her son. “What are
we
going to do?”

“Joshua’s leaving for Costa Rica in the morning,” Samuel explained.

All gazes shifted to Vanessa. There was nothing in her expression to indicate the inner turmoil she felt when she realized her husband was going back into the shadowy world of intelligence he’d left behind four years before.

M.J. rose to her feet, throwing her husband an angry glare. “I don’t care what you do, but I want my baby back.”

Samuel lifted a hand. “M.J.—”

“Dammit! Don’t M.J. me, Sammy,” she ranted. “Get him back!” Turning on her heel, she stalked out of the library.

Samuel attempted to rise from his chair, but Martin moved quickly and pushed him down. “Let her go.”

Shaking his head, Samuel slumped weakly back to the chair. It was all his fault. He was being paid back for his sins.
The sins of the father will fall on the sons
. The words attacked him until he sat sobbing uncontrollably.

Parris and Vanessa left together, leaving Martin to console his father.

Both of them were familiar with waiting—it had happened at another time in their lives, and it was to begin again.