Red Noon (11 page)

Takahiro closed his eyes, willing himself to go to sleep. He had a long day ahead of him in the morning and he wanted to make sure he was functional enough to deal with it. Being on duty while sleepy wasn’t a good road to travel down and he knew that. He would sleep now and process everything else later.

“In the clear,” Dick finished cleaning his gun. The cops were so stupid it wasn’t even funny, but at least it helped him out of a bind. Now that they didn’t suspect him he could stalk her some more. Sure, he missed the chance with that cop the first few times, but he knew he would find out where she was staying soon. If it weren’t for traffic he could have made it work, but with things being the way they were he had to tail farther back as not to be spotted. Stupid drivers with chaotic traffic had mucked up his plan several days in a row. But he was a patient man and that patience was going to get him victory. She would pay for his brother’s death.

Fortunately for Ike, they hadn’t connected the two of them yet so at least he didn’t have to deal with the press cramping his style. Dick had given a blanket statement when the reporter called asking and that seemed to silence them a little at the time, but more than that, the media had moved on to another big story and now there was silence on his front. Had they connected him with Ike then things could have gotten sticky. Ike needed to stay completely clear because he was the inside man. They had plans. They were going to do this together this time. They were going to make sure it hurt like hell. And the great thing about Ike being employed at the same company was the simple fact that he heard things that could tell Dick where this woman would be even if he lost the tail. While he didn’t know where she was staying since the cop had been driving in an unmarked car he did know some new things getting ready to happen at work, new things that she would be involved with and that might just give him the chance to find her alone, unguarded, and easy to take again. He wouldn’t underestimate her fighting skills like he had before. While she wasn’t better than he was he certainly didn’t want to give her time to yell or run. This time would be perfect. This time would be the end of her.

Chapter Seven

S
heila looked at her back in the mirror over the basin. The bruising was gone and most of the scabs had already rubbed off, but there was still some evidence of the damage in the spots that had lost skin down a bit deep in the flesh. She wouldn’t call it brutally ugly, but it was a constant reminder of what she had gone through. She couldn’t shake that no matter how hard she wanted to.

The scar running diagonal down her back, that one was from after she begged him to stop. She knew that much because that was the exact spot he had hit her so hard she felt as if he were beating raw flesh to the bone. She wasn’t sorry the guy was dead. She just wished this hadn’t happened to her. She wished she hadn’t gone back out to the car. She wished the cops could have found her sooner. She wished somebody had come out of their home to help her. She wished she had never been strung up and beaten like she wasn’t human, like she wasn’t even breathing, like she was a rug being beaten clean. She wished she knew the why, and she wished they had caught the other guy.

Her fear wasn’t just about the fact that the other guy was still out there and could come back for her. Her fear was that he would do this again to somebody else. As much as she wished this had never happened to her she wouldn’t ever wish it on somebody else. If they didn’t get this guy he would probably just grab another woman. But then again, maybe without his partner in crime he would stop.

A tear rolled down her cheek as she looked at her back. No, he probably wouldn’t stop. He would probably just find somebody else to do the same type of damage before he got off on whatever he liked to do to the woman they had stolen. She wanted justice. She wanted him caught. And if she were being one thousand percent honest, she wanted him dead. She wanted him to die and she couldn’t lie and say she didn’t. She didn’t just want him in prison where her, and everybody else’s tax money could pay for him to have housing, food and free education. She wanted him dead.

She had been so lost in her thoughts that she hadn’t noticed Takahiro had come home until she caught sight of him at the doorway to the bathroom via the reflection in the mirror. She quickly pulled her robe closed. While she had shut the bedroom door she hadn’t shut his bathroom door because she hadn’t been expecting him to come home yet. Why was she trying to cover herself when he had seen all of these marks while rubbing her down with the creams and oils? Why? Because she found them to be an ugly reminder of hell and she didn’t want him to see her that way.

He sauntered toward her with a slow, steady, determined pace. She held her robe closed, clutching it in tightly closed fists as she looked at him.

“I didn’t know you were home.”

He grunted.

“That is I didn’t hear you come in. And the deputy usually tells me you’re back. And I thought you had to work late.” She felt herself rambling. She had a few different deputies watching over her, Deputy Sharron was probably her favorite because he seemed to love to talk about his family, the changes to the San Tan area and his duties as a deputy. The others were nice but a couple looked at her with pity in their eyes and she couldn’t bear it so she, while not working, stayed hidden in the room or the kitchen. She tried to stay out of sight as much as possible. Fortunately once she started working Deputy Sharron was the one they seemed to keep on her, except for today. Today there was a nearly silver haired Deputy Richards. He was all business, but she supposed that’s how it should have been. He needed to focus on his job, not just for her safety, but for his own safety too. The other guy who had taken her had a gun so it’s not as if they didn’t know he would be armed and dangerous if he showed up again.

Takahiro put his hands over hers and she clutched her robe tighter. He looked at her with a look she couldn’t explain; it wasn’t pity, it wasn’t sorrow, it was something more complicated.

One hand left hers so that the back of his fingers could brush another fallen tear from her cheek. He lowered his head and his mouth softly brushed against her upturned lips. His touch was so soft, so calming that she felt herself letting go of her rigid line of defense. Her fingers uncurled and it was as if he knew it at first instinct because he had his fingers already brushing the robe aside. She tried to close it back but his hands were already anchored to her waist as his tongue delved deeper into her mouth exploring every crevice as if it were searching for treasure.

She found herself getting lost in the moment so much that she hadn’t realized when his hands moved from her waist to work their way up the outside of her silk robe. Now would have been a good time to pull it closed again but she was so enraptured by the feelings his kiss had coursing through her that she hadn’t thought for even a second about the complexity of what his hands were doing until he had her robe off her shoulders, her arms out of the casing, and the delicate fabric pooling now around her ankles.

“You’re beautiful,” he told her as he looked in her eyes. “Every centimeter of you; don’t you ever doubt that.” He kissed her shoulder and then, slowly, methodically hypnotizing lips kissed every spot that had been injured as if he had ingrained the now healed bruises in his mind. She should be worried about that, but on another level it felt good knowing he had learned her body that much. Even the areas that were no longer bruised he kissed along with those where the scars were still evident. She felt something more than just happiness with his care for her; she felt aroused. Her hands braced on the ledge of the counter and she held on tight, finding her eyes following his motion, watching him kiss her stomach as he knelt before her. She was near on fire, but in a good way. And when he turned her to face the mirror all the while kissing the back of her body just the same she couldn’t stop watching him.

His lips softly touched her shoulder, then his eyes slowly drifted up to hers and she held his gaze through the looking glass as he placed another soft kiss on her shoulder. And then, as if on a map, he kissed his way down her back, paying special attention to the still scarred area that brought tears to her eyes the first time. Her eyes closed as she held on to the sink and got lost in his kisses. Down her body he went and then back up again, kissing her, soothing her, arousing her.

And when he stopped this time, turned her to face him and lifted her into his arms she knew where this was going, she knew this was that moment she had hoped for with him. She was ready, and now he was too.

He laid her down on the bed and stripped of his own clothes in such a slow pace that she couldn’t help but watch as if she were watching a master paint a canvas, unveiling the work section by section until the beautiful work of art was drawn, revealed, and ready to explore.

He came to the bed, and straddled her body. Slow kisses calmed her nerves, excited her senses and made her desire more. As he slowly kissed his way to her neck and sunk into her just the same. The intrusion startled her. Despite his own obvious need he didn’t rush her; instead, he looked into her eyes and remained still as he supported himself on one forearm while his fingers slowly brushed through her hair.

Her eyes closed and then opened as if signaling to him that she was ready. His lips curled into a slight smile, and as if never a man rushed, he slowly began to move inside her. Each stroke felt so sweet, so loving, so complete that she wondered if it were always like this. She wondered if a man could truly love a body as slowly, as perfectly, as he was loving hers. But then she knew the answer to that was no. No man could ever love a body, especially not her body, as wonderfully perfect as he was loving hers.

She felt the pressure of need increasing within her. Her breath seized her lungs and she reached back to the headboard rails and held on as he moved in and out of her. Each motion pushing her closer to heaven until she came on a stifled yell of pleasure. His release came swiftly. She felt the warmth of him spewing into her and she cried. This, this moment, this touch, this love, was everything she wanted, everything she needed.

He kissed the tears away from her cheek. “Did I hurt you?”

“No. You are so wonderful, Takahiro. You just…you feel like you were always meant to be in my life. Like there was this space waiting for you. And now that you’re here I don’t want to ever have to let you go.”

He smiled down at her. “Good to know, because I don’t want to let you go either. In case you hadn’t noticed I’ve been trying to keep you here.” He chuckled and she laughed a little herself. “And I’m not just keeping you here because of what happened to you. You could have asked to go home and a cop up in Scottsdale would have been assigned to protect you, but I was hoping I could do enough to make you want to stay here.”

She smiled up at him. “I’m here. Very comfortably so I might add,” she reached her arms up and wrapped them around his shoulders.

“If I put all my weight on you it will be too much, Sheila. Trust me on that.”

“Hmm,” she pouted a little because she wanted his body completely connected to hers. “Then maybe we should reverse our positions so I can sleep on you tonight.”

“Babe, if you stay on top of me after what we just did believe me when I say that sleeping is not exactly what we’ll be doing.”

Despite his words he reversed their position with ease and she rested on top of him in a near sphinx position as she looked down into his eyes. “I liked it a lot when you were inside of me though,” she shrugged. “But this is good too. Oh, I um…I’m not on the pill. I’m not ovulating and I’m almost sure of that, but I’m not on the pill either.”

“And we didn’t use anything.” Those words rolled off his tongue as if he didn’t care about their lack of protection. “I’m clean. Recently tested due to work, so I know I’m clean. You’re a virgin,” he looked down at the bed and she saw the tinge of red. She gasped “So I know you’re clean too.”

“I’m so sorry about your sheets. We should clean that.”

“You should stay on top of me for a couple minutes. I’ll draw you a bath to ease the muscles that will ache after what we’ve just done—love making. Don’t mistake it for anything else. I could take you down to the courthouse and marry you right now.”

She laughed because she knew he could. Pinal County was much like Vegas in that marriage license and wedding could happen swiftly if people wanted it to.

“Now see I’m going to have to hold you to that.”

“Hold me to it, babe. And while you’re at it, keep holding me to you.”

She snuggled on top of him getting lost in the scent of man and spice connected to her. This man was her perfect match, and there was no other place she wanted to call home than right here with him. Whenever he formed the words to ask for her hand in marriage she was going to say yes and she knew that without doubt.

“Two weeks and counting,” Sheila looked in her rearview mirror as she drove toward the High Noon café. When Eddie and Justin said they wanted her to do more than just the layout she had no idea they wanted her to start scouting out places they planned to feature and shoot in too. She should have known there was a shoe waiting to drop.

Now here she was heading out to High Noon on a day when they were closed just so she could see if it would be a good place to do the shooting for their December winter solstice issue. Thankfully, she wouldn’t have to be there too long. The owner had told her a small crew would be in to get everything prepped for the evening meat delivery but she could still tour the areas including the kitchen. They were actually really nice, but why wouldn’t they be? If Eddie liked what he saw and heard then High Noon was about to get a boat load of free publicity in a major upscale, highly circulated magazine. There was absolutely no way this wouldn’t be good for them.

She felt less safe without her personal security guard, but he didn’t have a choice in not staying with her. He didn’t look comfortable with it, and she knew Takahiro wasn’t happy about the lack of security detail, but they both seemed to know it was coming. If she really thought about it then she knew it too. The media attention had died down. There was something else dominating the headlines, something that took the spotlight off the politicians who wanted to use her attack to further their ambitious careers. She wasn’t oblivious to what they were doing, but despite their motives she appreciated their requests because it helped with her safe recovery.

Now she was on her own, other than still occupying space in Takahiro’s house. He didn’t seem to be pushing her out the door and she wasn’t running for it. He had gone back to her place with her so she could check on the house and pick up a few more things to take back to his place, but other than that her home wasn’t the house with her name on the note; her home seemed to be with him instead.

It had been two weeks now and she was trying to get comfortable with going it alone to work. But this was the first outside of work activity she had to go to on her own since her guard had been taken away from her. She was nervous to say the least, but it had to be done. She could not continue to live her life in fear of the unknown.

She pulled into a spot in the front of the café. Paul Tisdale, the owner she had spoken with on the phone, greeted her at the door. The older man looked like a very distinguished and slightly skinnier version of Sean Connery.

“I can’t tell you how excited we are about this possibility,” he said as he walked her into the dining area.

“I’m glad you all agreed to showing me around, and to letting us do the shoot and expo on this place for our winter magazine. I really think, from the little I have seen now, and the research I have already done, that this could be a good upscale meets economical dating spot. And as always, fashionable and chic is a criteria for us.” She looked at the slate colored stone on the floors, the mahogany square tables with the matching chairs. Those chairs had a gorgeous ivory cushion to them that looked plush and clean. She had to say that they took a chance on the light color with food because a drop of any sauce could be difficult to clean. But from what she could see from the stone floors to the crystal chandeliers hanging overhead, this place would be great for both a fashion shoot and a review on the style of the place. The food, well, that would take some investigation, but fortunately they weren’t asking her to do food tasting. They were hiring a woman who could do that if they wanted to do a separate article in the spring magazine they could use her.