Liam's Witness Protection (Man On A Mission 4) (15 page)

Cate was constantly on his mind, but she wasn’t the
only
thing on his mind. His conscience was troubling him, too.

He’d never killed a man with vengeance in his heart. Although he hadn’t felt exactly the same way since, it bothered him—a lot—that he’d had those thoughts about Aleksandrov Vishenko the other night. He wanted to believe he was a better man than that. But he kept hearing Cody’s voice in his head as he confessed what he’d done when Keira was shot. And he heard himself telling Cate,
“...we’re only human...when someone we love is hurt, we want to hurt back...”

All he could do was pray he’d never be put to the test. Pray he’d never come face-to-face with the man who’d hurt Cate so grievously. Because he didn’t know what he’d do.

* * *

Cate sat on the cabin’s front porch steps, watching as Liam and Callahan walked the clearing’s perimeter. She could have gone with them—neither man would have objected—but she wouldn’t have known what she was looking for the way the two men did, and she would probably have slowed them down.

Nick D’Arcy was right,
she thought now.
Ryan Callahan’s the best at this sort of thing.
Liam had shown her the traps Callahan had rigged, admiration evident in his voice and on his face as he explained what each item was for.
But Liam’s the best, too. No one could be more protective. No one could keep me safe the way he can.

She sighed softly. More than a week was gone. Liam had less than two weeks of his vacation left, and though he’d repeatedly assured her he wasn’t leaving, they couldn’t stay here forever, even if he didn’t have a job to go back to. She’d already heard from D’Arcy via Callahan that the new trial date had been set. In a little less than three weeks she would be in a courtroom in Washington, DC. Face-to-face with Aleksandrov Vishenko and the other conspirators. And the new prosecutors wanted to meet with her ahead of time, so they could prep her testimony. Which meant heading back to DC two weeks from now.

She was terrified of testifying. Not because of Vishenko, but because Liam would know—as the whole world would know—the kind of woman she really was. Angelina had warned her—Alec, too—that the defense attorneys would do everything they could to discredit her. That they would rip her character to shreds if they could. So of course they’d try to make something out of the fact she hadn’t literally been a prisoner the entire two years she’d been with Vishenko. They’d do their best to convince the jury she’d been Vishenko’s willing mistress. That he’d dumped her. And that she was trying to get revenge on him by lying in court.

She rested her head against her knees.
You have to tell Liam,
her conscience told her sternly.
You can’t let him find out when everyone else does.

Two more weeks,
she begged her conscience.
Just two more weeks. Is that too much to ask? Two weeks to be happy for once. Two weeks with the man I—

Even in her thoughts she couldn’t use the word. But it was there. And it hurt. Because even though she’d sworn she wouldn’t risk one more thing, she had. She’d risked the only thing she had left to lose. And when she told Liam the truth, when he walked away, he’d take her heart with him. Leaving her with nothing.

* * *

Nick D’Arcy leaned back in his leather seat in the cabin of Vishenko’s Learjet and shook his head. “No. I don’t think so. It’s not foolproof.”

Vishenko cursed in Russian, then said in English, “It is not your call to make.”

D’Arcy smiled coldly. “It is when I haven’t told you where she is.”

Vishenko clenched his jaw. “You
will
tell me. I will pay you the ten million you want, and you will tell me where she is. My men will take it from there.”

“Not a chance. You want Caterina Mateja dead—and I don’t blame you. If you don’t kill her, if she lives to testify, you’re going down. For life. But she’s guarded. There’s no way your men will get past her protectors—I know these men, and I’m telling you, no way. The only way for this to work is for me to arrange it. For the ten million you offered, I’ll take you to her, and I’ll get her alone. After that, it’s up to you.”

Vishenko considered this for a moment, weighing the pros and cons. Then he realized this was the perfect solution to his plan to kill both Caterina
and
Nick D’Arcy. And do it so quickly the chances of recovering his money were improved.

He hid his glee and returned the other man’s cold smile. “Fine. I will pay you when you take me to her.”

A deep belly laugh rumbled out of D’Arcy. “You must think I’m as stupid as the police and FBI agents you’ve bribed over the years,” he said. “No, no, my friend.” Sarcasm dripped from his words. “You will pay me up front, or the deal is off.”

Vishenko shook his head. “Pay you ten million dollars for nothing but your word that you will disclose Caterina’s location? I think not.”

“Of the two of us,” D’Arcy said softly, “whose word can be believed?” He waited a moment, but when Vishenko didn’t respond, he stood up. “Ah well,” he said as he turned to go. “I guess you will just have to take your chances with the jury.”

“Half,” Vishenko said quickly, as he realized D’Arcy meant it—he would walk and take his information with him. “I will pay you half up front—a good faith payment. The other half I will pay when she is dead.”

D’Arcy smiled again. “Good faith?” He laughed softly. “That’s funny, coming from you.” Then his smile faded, leaving nothing but cold, hard determination. “Deal,” he said. “I won’t offer you my hand to shake on it. Neither of us can be trusted that far.”

“Deal,” Vishenko said. “When will you take me to Caterina?”

“When I have the money safely in my possession, and not a moment before.” He held up a cautionary hand. “But don’t wait too long. I have arrangements to make if I’m going to get Ms. Mateja’s protectors out of the way. It won’t be easy doing it in such a way that her death isn’t traced back to me. And I don’t want to wait until just before the trial. Too many other factors could come into play, like the US Marshals Service and the FBI. So long as the agency has sole custody, I can make it happen. So let’s get this done sooner rather than later.”

Chapter 15

A
fter lunch Cate asked Liam, “Dessert? There’s still one piece of that apple pie left.”

He patted his flat stomach and shook his head. “Better not,” he said with a rueful smile. “I’m not getting much exercise here at the cabin—not like usual—so I have to be careful how much I eat.”

“We’ve hiked every day,” she protested.

“Yeah, but I usually jog five miles or so before breakfast in addition to my other activities. I can’t jog up here. You eat it if you want.”

She gazed at the covered pan with longing. “It’s really good. Sheriff Callahan’s wife is a great baker.” Liam had told her who’d baked the bread, pie and cookies Callahan had supplied them with.

“I wish I—” She didn’t finish her sentence. Cooking and baking were things she hadn’t had the chance to do since she’d left Zakhar. Her mother had already been teaching her for several years when she died, so Cate knew much more than the basics. In fact, her father—traditional Zakharian father that he was—had praised Cate’s skills in the kitchen, although she hadn’t really thought that important at the time. She’d wanted to escape the traditional “home and hearth” role most Zakharians assigned to women and
be
someone. Accomplish something that would set her apart from everyone else.

She didn’t feel quite the same way now. Not that she wanted to be a traditional Zakharian housewife, but she would have cherished the opportunity to cook and bake. Renting a furnished room in a boardinghouse though, rarely came with kitchen privileges. Heating things up over a hot plate was about the extent of her cooking nowadays.

“If you like pie, you’ll like my mother’s,” Liam said. “I can’t remember a time when she didn’t bake every chance she got. There wasn’t a holiday or a special occasion—Christmas, Thanksgiving, birthdays, stuff like that—where my mom didn’t bake a special treat for the family or the entire neighborhood. Everyone says her pecan pie is to die for—and it is. You’d think she was Southern-born and raised, instead of a native Coloradan.”

Cate couldn’t keep the wistfulness out of her voice. “She sounds nice. The way you talk about her... I can tell she’s special to you.”

“Tell you what. After the trial is over, I’ll take you home to meet her. You’ll love her, and I know she’ll love you. She can teach you to bake, too, if you want. She can teach just about anyone any—” He broke off and started chuckling. “Well, not Keira. My sister refused to learn how to cook, so my mom gave up on her. But if you
want
to learn...”

She wasn’t going to tell Liam that with a little practice there probably wasn’t a lot his mother could teach her, because her own mother had already taught her well. But she yearned to meet Liam’s mother. Not for what she could learn, but for what it meant. Meeting a man’s mother in Zakhar was almost a sure sign a proposal was imminent. But even here in the US meeting a man’s mother was a serious step—Cate knew that much about her adopted country. And for the first time she realized Liam
was
serious. He really meant it when he said he loved her.

If only she could believe he would still love her...if he knew the truth.

* * *

Five million dollars in cash—nothing larger than a hundred—was too much for a briefcase. The money had been delivered via licensed couriers to Vishenko in varying increments from different banks where his money was stashed, so as not to arouse too much suspicion. It now lay neatly stacked in a wheeled suitcase lying near the edge of the massive bed in the master bedroom of his Long Island estate. The same room where he’d first taken his pleasure of Caterina Mateja’s body all those years ago—the same bed.

Caterina thought she’d escaped. She thought she could bring him down. She would know soon just how wrong she was—no one got the better of Aleksandrov Vishenko. And no one testified against him. No one.

Five million. The first—and only—installment. Two hours from now he would be in Virginia again, and the money would exchange hands in the privacy of his plane, which was swept daily for audio and video devices that might have been planted by law enforcement. Which meant complete privacy was assured. No surveillance would record the exchange. And tomorrow...tomorrow his Learjet would take Nick D’Arcy and him to wherever Caterina was. He would teach her a lesson she would never forget. She would beg him one more time—then he would kill her. She would not live long enough to appreciate the lesson, but that could not be helped.

And when she died the sword of Damocles would finally be removed, once and for all, from above Vishenko’s head.

* * *

Liam and Cate sat on the back porch, watching the sunset. His arm was around her waist, and she was resting her head against his shoulder. “It never gets old,” she said as the last dying rays of the sun vanished behind the mountain, the amber sky fading into purple. One by one the stars began to appear, silver dots against the cloudless blue.

“Yeah,” Liam said. “It never gets old.” But he wasn’t looking at the sky, he was looking down at Cate, and his expression was unmistakable.

When she realized where his attention was focused, she turned her face to hide it against his neck, unable to meet the question in his eyes. “Please don’t,” she whispered.

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t look at me that way.”

He lifted her chin with one firm but gentle finger, forcing her to face him. “You might as well ask me to stop breathing.” He brushed his lips against her forehead. “I love you, Cate. And until you tell me you don’t love me...until you tell me you’ll
never
love me... I can’t look at you and not want you. Fifty years from now I’ll still look at you and want you.”

“You can’t know that.”

“Yes, I can.” His lips touched hers lightly, then he drew back. “What do you think love is, Cate? It’s not just desire. It’s not just here and now. It’s a choice. A commitment. It’s telling yourself ‘I want to share everything with this person, now and in the future. Every joy. Every sorrow.’”

He breathed deeply. “But it’s more than that. It’s sharing the little things, too. Like a sunset. Like a waterfall. Laughing together over nothing—things that wouldn’t be funny to anyone else, but are funny to the two of you. Love is going to sleep at night and waking up in the morning next to a woman who is all women to you. It’s wanting to shield her from pain—knowing in your heart of hearts you can’t—but wanting it all the same. It’s giving her children you’ll both love and cherish the way you love and cherish each other. It’s watching the years take their toll, but still seeing in your mind’s eye the beautiful woman she is inside, the woman you first fell in love with. It’s wanting to be with her when you draw your last breath...or when she draws hers.”

Tears filled her eyes, and she blinked rapidly to hold them back, but two tears escaped and trickled down her cheeks. Liam brushed them away with a gentle hand. “It’s knowing she’ll cry when you’re not there...and that you’ll cry when she’s gone. But that’s okay, Cate, because that’s what love is. Needing someone to the exclusion of all others. I haven’t just fallen in love with you. I
choose
to love you. That’s how I know.”

“Oh, Liam...” She was crying in earnest now, her cheeks wet with tears she couldn’t suppress. And Liam was kissing her—eyes, cheeks, lips. Soft kisses. Gentle kisses. But when she kissed him back his kisses changed.

“Cate. Oh God, Cate,” he breathed in between kisses that stole her breath and made her body ache in secret places. His hands were everywhere. Strong, sure, touching her everyplace that needed his touch.

Soon it wasn’t enough. She wanted his hands on her bare skin, wanted to feel his warm body next to hers with nothing between them. She wanted to feel him moving inside her, joining their bodies together so they’d never be apart again. “Please...” she whispered against his lips. “Please love me...oh please...”

* * *

They undressed each other in the darkness. Cate wanted to see Liam, but she didn’t want him to see her scars again, just in case, so she stopped him from turning on the bedside lamp when he placed something he’d retrieved from his overnight case on the nightstand. But the moonlight was enough for her to see his body—smooth, tanned skin over hard, rippling muscles. And that part of him she was going to take into her body was ready for her. Her breath came a little faster when she touched him and he swelled against her fingers, but she knew in her soul he would never hurt her. She just had to convince her body’s reflexes.

He sat her down on the edge of the bed to remove her socks and shoes. Then, “Lift up,” he told her, and when she did he slid her jeans down her hips, then off. When they were both completely naked, he knelt at her feet, gazed into her eyes and said, “You trust me, don’t you?”

“Yes.” She couldn’t help that the word came out a little breathless.

“Then before we do anything else, let me do something for you.” He placed his hands on her shoulders and exerted just enough pressure so she knew he wanted her to lie back.

“Okay.” Again that breathless sound.

His hands moved to the inside of her knees, and again he exerted gentle pressure that told her exactly what he wanted of her. He settled between her parted legs, stroking her thighs with his warm hands, up and down, up and down. Each time coming ever closer to the apex of her thighs, sending tingling chills of excitement all through her. “Trust me, Cate,” he said as he lowered his head.

She arched up and caught her breath on a sobbing moan when pleasure unlike anything she’d ever known coursed through her. Liam’s tongue touched and teased, his hands held her firm as she writhed beneath him, and his breath was warm, sending shock waves through her as he loved her with his mouth again and again. Cate’s hands grasped the sheet beside her, trying to find purchase as every sense concentrated in one location, as every muscle tightened ever tighter. Part of her wanted to beg Liam to stop, but she’d sworn she’d never beg for anything again—and besides, she’d die if he stopped. So she let him lead her higher and higher—up, up, up—until she couldn’t take any more and she simply exploded.

She wasn’t crying, but the physical and emotional release felt as if she had, and she reveled in it. She floated for a few seconds, just letting the little aftershocks control her, blissful peace permeating her entire being. Then Liam stood.

She heard a tearing sound and was vaguely aware of his movements. Suddenly he was there beside her on the bed, lying on his back and pulling her unresisting body on top of him. His breathing was as ragged as hers when he said, “Spread your legs, sweetheart.” When she complied, she felt him nudging at the portal of her womanhood. “Guide me in, Cate,” he pleaded. “Show me you want me as much as I want you.”

Then and only then did she realize Liam had planned it this way from the beginning. He’d made sure he wouldn’t hurt her with his entry, had made her come first so she would be exquisitely ready for him. And he was letting her be on top so she wouldn’t feel forced in any way.

Love for him washed through her, an intense emotion she finally acknowledged in her consciousness as love. She grasped his erection—sheathed in the condom he’d donned for her protection—and seated him securely inside her. Then she flexed her muscles and pushed down, throwing her head back and catching her breath in wonder as he filled her completely...without pain. She rocked a little, but it didn’t hurt at all. It felt...incredible. It felt...transcendent. It felt...like love.

His big body was trembling, as if his muscles were screaming at him to move...but he wouldn’t. And she knew he was waiting for a sign from her that it was okay, that
she
was okay. She rocked again, pushing him even deeper, loving the feel of him so hot and hard and deep within her—the
rightness
of it. “Oh, Liam,” she breathed as she braced her hands against his chest and continued rocking. Her nipples tightened until they ached, and she wanted his hands on her. Wanted him to caress her there. Everywhere. But he wouldn’t...unless she asked. Because he loved her.

It was all up to her. Her choice.
Choose me,
he was saying.
Choose this. Choose love.
“Please,” she whispered. “Please touch me. Please make love to me. Oh please, Liam, please.”

She’d released a whirlwind. That was all she could think of as he guided her hips, showing her how to ride him like a wild stallion. Each time he left her body she ached to have him back, moving on him faster and faster, slick and smooth and so hot and tight the friction was sending her toward oblivion again, but it didn’t hurt. She moaned his name, not wanting to go anywhere without him, wanting to know she’d pleased him as much as he was pleasing her. Then his hips grew frenzied, thrusting upward as he pulled her down onto him. He cried out her name, his body bucking beneath hers as hers milked his, and they came together.

Cate collapsed onto Liam’s chest, boneless. Floating again, but this time was even better because he was inside her. Because she could hear his heart pounding in his chest as if he’d just run ten miles—just as hers was doing. Because his arms were holding her so close it was as if they were one.

When her pulse finally slowed, when she could finally breathe enough to speak, she touched her fingers to his cheek and murmured, “Thank you.”

He made a sound as if he was suppressing a laugh, and she could feel him twitching inside her as his body shook. Then said, “You’re very welcome.” Just like a boy who’d been taught to be polite no matter what, and it made her gurgle with laughter. She sighed dreamily and rubbed her cheek against his chest, loving how it made her feel so warm and contented. Loving
him.

“You planned it,” she said an eternity later, after he’d discarded the condom and they’d settled back into each other’s arms.

He seemed uncomfortable with that assessment. “Not exactly.”

“Yes, exactly.” She let one fingertip circle a flat male nipple. “That’s when I knew I loved you,” she added quietly.

His hand, which had been slowly stroking her back, stilled. “Say that again.”

“That’s when I knew I loved you,” she dutifully repeated.