The Care and Feeding of Unmarried Men (24 page)

The next thing she'd known she'd been blinking against the dazzling light, and the hand had softened. “Look what we have here. A blonde this time. And such a pretty one.”

“What a pretty girl,” he'd whispered in her ear, his mouth too close. “I'd never hurt you.”

When no one was looking, the federal agent who'd been holding her had grabbed a fistful of bills from the laundry basket the FBI was using to contain the money they'd found stashed around the house. He'd shoved them into the front pocket of her hot pink jeans. “You keep these, pretty girl. It'll be our secret.”

Fast learner that she was, Eve had smiled at him.

And he'd given her another fistful of bills.

She'd turned them all over to Bianca after the agents had left—leaving holes in their walls and their floors and their box springs—and been proud of what she'd accomplished. Four hundred dollars just for being pretty. Another five hundred for the smile.

Ever since, she'd been getting what she'd wanted from men just for being pretty. Just for her smile.

But not now. Now all those smiles and prettiness and need for financial security had backfired. Vince had used her greed against her.

He'd said if she hadn't lost her values, she wouldn't have lost her money. But her values had always been of the easy-come, easy-go variety, right? There was that genetic excuse she had. She was a Caruso, after all.

But a Caruso wouldn't just lie here on the floor like a dead body, she reminded herself. A Caruso wouldn't be beaten down by her own phobias.

“Get up, Eve,” she whispered.

She sucked in a shallow breath, forcing the air past her tight throat and rose once again to her hands and knees. Then she turned over to sit on the carpet. Her panting sounded loud in the cramped space.

“Get up and find some way out of here.”

But the darkness and the sound of her panting were swirling around her and holding her down again. Her heart was six inches too high in her chest and beating sixty times too fast, and there were yellow dots darting about her vision.

Like those butterflies Nash had talked about.

Nash.
Nash.
She remembered that night in that other darkness, and she could hear his voice in her head, his slow drawl calming the frantic beat of her heart.

“Imagine a wide-open field with tall grass. There are dandelions. Butterflies. Take a long breath of the warm air and let it out slow.”

With that full breath of air in her lungs, her panic subsided, and she could think more clearly. She had to get out of here.

Even if Nash didn't miss her, her sisters would. Though they were used to her making the rounds at social functions, they knew she wouldn't leave for the evening without saying good-bye. And her purse was on the table! They'd know she wouldn't leave without that.

So they'd ask around about her. Not just Joey and Téa, but Johnny too. Her almost brother-in-law took his familial responsibilities seriously.

The parking valet would likely remember her leaving with Vince. She hadn't been trying to hide it. And if Joey or Téa or Johnny called here or came by, what would Vince say? Certainly not that he'd locked her in his coat closet.

But he was so unpredictable, he just might.

Or he might tell them about the SEC and all the trouble she was in.

A new rush of panic swept over her. She didn't want anyone, especially the family, to know about that!

She had to get out of here.

If only Nash…Tears seeped out to run down her chin, those emotional, useless tears that Nash wrung out of her. Biting her bottom lip, she dashed them away.

She didn't need a man to rescue her. She could only rely on herself.

Stand,
she commanded herself.
Move
. But she didn't, she couldn't, not with the cloying blackness around her and the dry-cotton taste of panic on her tongue. Her arms hugged her knees and she pulled herself into a tight little ball as the dark squeezed her, squeezed her, squeezed her to nothing. To insignificance.

Then, through the thick walls, she heard the doorbell sound. Someone was pounding on the entry door, then the deep bellow of Nash's voice vibrated through the wood and plaster and into her heart.

“Eve? Are you in there? Eve?”

Oh, God. Those stupid tears overflowed again. He'd come to the rescue! He'd come to rescue her after all.

She tightened her hands on her knees as relief
washed more tears down her cheeks. Nash. Nash would bring the sunlight and the fresh air and the butterflies. He'd find her here and—

Then do what to Vince?

And what would that do to Nash?

Galvanized by a new kind of distress, she found herself on her feet, at the closet door. She tried the knob, tried it again, her clammy-sweat hands sliding off. As more noise sounded from outside, she kicked out in frustration and panic.

Nash couldn't find out what Vince had done. Glad for her rubber-toed sneakers, she kicked again. Wood cracked. Heart pumping harder, she kicked once more, higher, and the wood cracked again.

“Eve? Eve!”

To the note of urgency in Nash's voice, she kicked out one more time. The door splintered away from the lock, and light and air rushed in as she swung it open. She shot into the entryway just as a heavy thump hit the front door and it burst open too, Nash and Johnny right behind it.

“I'm all right,” she quickly assured them. In the enormous foyer mirror, she saw herself as they did, her hair in sweaty clumps, mascara raccooning her eyes, her lipstick smudged.

Maybe they wouldn't guess what happened.

Maybe they'd believe they'd gotten her and Vince out of bed.

Except Nash was already snarling at the older man, who stood frozen in the living room. “What the fuck were you doing to Eve?”

It didn't sound like “What were you doing fucking Eve?”

Movement in the mirror shifted her gaze. Her sisters, Téa and Joey, hovered in the doorway. Of course they were here, too. And upset.

Eve watched Nash's reflection glance at her, then at the splintered closet door, then back at Vince. “You bastard.” His huge hands fisted, and he surged forward.

She swung around to catch his elbows, feeling the coiled tension in his arms. “No, Nash. Not for me. I'm okay. I'm all right.”

Frowning, he paused.

Joey pushed Téa aside to leap over the threshold. “Why'd you leave?” Her gaze transferred to Vince. “What are you doing here with Eve?”

Vince lifted his palms. There was a smirk playing at the corners of his mouth. “Relax. There's no need to overreact. Your sister and I, we left the party because we had some things to discuss. You see, I have some information—”

“No.” Eve's heart jerked in her chest, and she clutched Nash tighter. “Not that!”

“No,” Vince agreed, turning to Eve. She didn't understand that odd look in his eyes. He had to know she wasn't going to marry him now, so why did he look so smug? “It's not that, Eve. It's something else.”

What?

“What?” Nash demanded, echoing her thought. “Spit it out.” He stepped forward again, and Eve had to use all her strength to haul him back.

“Yeah,” Joey chimed in. “Why does my sister look like something the cat dragged in?”

Eve almost smiled. Count on Joey to always cut to the chase.

But then Vince was smiling too, and Eve felt another cold shiver roll down her spine. She'd thwarted his plans—as crazed as they'd been—and he wouldn't take that well.

“I have friends in all sorts of places,” he said. “And one of them recently told me the most interesting piece of information. I was saving it for a special occasion.”

Joey rolled her eyes. “What?” she demanded.

Téa walked inside the house, her gaze on the older man. “No, Joe. Shh.”

“Oh, please,” Joey started. “What's he—”

“My friend told me about the results of the DNA testing on your father's remains, Joey.” He didn't take his gaze off Eve's face. “That's when the something fascinating came to light.”

The DNA test? Eve's stomach clenched. Something fascinating? In October, Eve and Téa and Joey had given samples in order to positively identify the remains. Her heartbeat revved higher, and her head went dizzy.

Were the remains they'd found
not
their father? Could it be?…Oh, God, could it be that he was still alive somewhere, as she'd always hoped? “It wasn't him,” she heard herself say aloud, her hands squeezing Nash's muscled arms. “It wasn't Salvatore.”

“Oh, no,” Vince said, his gaze on her face, his voice pleasant. “It was Salvatore Caruso's remains, all right. But you, Eve, this was about you.”

“Me?”

Joey made a noise, and Téa grabbed on to their little sister's shoulder.

“Yes, Eve, you,” Vince confirmed. “The tests prove that you're not Salvatore's daughter.”

Cold flashed over Eve's flesh. What?
What?
She
stared at Vince, recognizing the sick pleasure and the absolute truth in his eyes.

He smiled as he delivered the ultimate revenge. “You're not a Caruso after all.”

T
hat's it.
Now Nash was going to kill the smug, skinny son of a bitch. His mood, simmering since the ballroom and all the way to this ostentatious quasi-villa, had not been quieted by the sight of that broken door and Eve's bedraggled appearance. But now, now Nash could feel rage rocketing upward from the soles of his feet and radiating out from his chest, all ready to turn his fists into steel and Vince Standish's face into pulp.

Why would the bastard say such a thing?

He jerked his arms from Eve's grip, then took her shoulders in his hot hands, trying not to squeeze too tight. “You stay out of the way, honey,” he said, holding his breath to check his anger as he propelled her backward to place her shoulders against the wall. “He's going to pay now.”

His gaze took in that broken closet door beside her, as well as the tracks of dried tears on her face. “He's going to pay, big.”

“No,” Eve whispered. Under his hands he could feel her body begin to tremble. Her blue eyes stared into his face. “Don't. Don't do it.”

“Darlin'.” He tried to keep his voice patient though vengeful heat pumped through his blood with every pound of his heart. “I just can't let him lie to you like that. I can't let him try to hurt you like that.”

“I'm not lying,” Vince called out. Then he showed off the cell phone in his hand. “And the minute you come near me, I'm calling the police. You'll be up on assault charges before you can blink.”

Nash spun toward him. “Before
you
can blink you'll be flat on your back with your head up your ass.”

“Forget that.” Joey threw herself forward. “
I'm
going to hurt him.”

Johnny caught her around the waist, pinning her arms at her sides and holding her feet off the ground. The wildcat continued to thrash. “Little sister, calm down.”

“Jesus Christ, Magee,” Nash said. “Keep a hold of her. I don't want her in the way.”

“I tell you.” Joey thrashed harder. “I'm going to hurt him.”

Nash threw Vince another furious glance. “Look what you've done now, you petty little shit.”

“The truth isn't petty,” he replied, a sneer on his face. “Salvatore Caruso probably did only one decent deed in his life and that was when he took in his
goumada
's bastard and claimed she was his own. But do you know who she really is? Nobody. She's nobody.”

Nash surged forward, instincts set on Destroy.

“Nash.”
Téa's voice was sharp. “Eve.”

He whipped his head her way. Eve was staring straight ahead, her blue eyes wide and dark, her body visibly shaking as silent tears ran down her cheeks. As he looked, her knees gave out and she started sinking down the wall to the floor. He leaped toward her, catching her when she was only inches from the ground. Breathing hard, he set her gently onto the floor, then hunkered beside her.

“Darlin'.” He palmed the tears away with his hands. The rage redoubled, pumping adrenaline through his blood and coloring the edges of his vision black. He was having a hard time talking over that thick knot of rage in his throat. “You wait outside with your sisters.”

“No!” Her fingers blindly clutched at him again, seeming to find his hands by accident. “Don't leave me.”

Shit
. He was in no mood to help her at the moment, except with his fists.

“Eve—”

“Please.” Her fingers tightened on him. “Please don't leave me.”

He'd never seen her like this. Tearful. Almost lost. But he had to leave her because he needed to crack the asshole's head. And he
did
have to; nothing else would satisfy the bloodlust that was clanging like a fireman's bell inside of him.

He could almost thank his daddy for giving him the size and the experience to make the weasel feel the error of his ways. His rage barely restrained now, he shot the other man a searing look. He was going to teach him not to mess with his woman.

“I need you, Nash.”

His gaze jerked back to Eve's face, and the bell inside his head paused midring. “What?”

“I need you to take me away. I need you.”

No! She couldn't. She couldn't need him. She couldn't ask that. Not now, when he had to give his boiling emotions an outlet. Right now Eve was needing quiet and tenderness, and right now he had only violence and fury to offer her. “In a little while…later…” When he had Vince laid out and Mr. Hyde locked away again, then he could give her what she asked for.

Her mouth moved, the plea soundless this time. I need you.

I need you.

And those three little words finally, fully penetrated.

Eve Caruso needed him. It was a confession of the highest order, he realized. A biggie. A first.

Nash swallowed, hard. His heart was thumping, his blood was bubbling in his veins, his fists were primed for that gratifying connection to someone's flesh. He couldn't just give that up!

And yet…

…he had to try. Whether it was because of maturity or love or just that damn desperate look on her face, Nash knew he had to find a release valve that wasn't broken glass or his fist on someone else's face.

Blowing out a long breath, he made his fingers relax as he shook his shoulders loose. “Okay, darlin'.” His voice was croaky with the effort, but he found a way to make it relaxed too. “Okay. I'll take you away from here.”

He cuddled her close in his arms. She buried her face in his neck and didn't look at anyone, didn't say anything, as he walked her out of Vince's house.
Glancing back, Nash saw Johnny set down a subdued Joey, even as big sister Téa started toward Vince.

“Now you and I have a few things to discuss,” she said to him.

Nash ghosted a grin at the lethal sound of the words and wondered if he'd left the other man with the most dangerous of them all.

But the smile died as he settled Eve into the passenger seat of her car. She let him buckle her in as her head dropped to the back of the seat and her eyes closed.

His heart jolted, not with anger this time but with worry. “What is it? Did he hurt you after all? Should I take you to the hospital?”

“No. No hospital. Just take me away.”

The junkmobile took three tries before it started, but Nash swallowed his curses and pulled away from the curb. “We've got to get you a better ride,” he said.

She didn't answer. As a matter of fact, she remained silent until he took a familiar turn. “Not the Kona Kai,” she said sharply. “Not there.”

He glanced over at her. “Okay. Where?…”

“There.” Her finger pointed out the windshield to a neon sign blinking
M TEL
and then
VACAN Y
.

Eyebrows raised, he turned in. It was one of those kitschy leftovers from the 1950s, with a cement pool in the center of the parking lot and drive-up to the doors. He stopped in at the office, where he was given a regular key on a ring with a plastic tag that read Swinger's Hideaway and an insulated ice container.

“Thirty bucks on your credit card if you steal the bucket,” their friendly host said.

Nash considered asking him to make change for the Magic Fingers machine certain to be part of the bed,
but the manager was already walking back to his recliner and rabbit-eared TV set. Eve, on the other hand, was right where he'd left her. Silent, on her side of the car.

“Look, we're number 1,” he told her. She didn't even blink.

At their door, he helped her out of her seat. He wasn't certain she wouldn't have sat there all night if he hadn't. Inside the room, he grimaced, but after a quick inspection decided it looked clean enough. There was one of those paper strips across the toilet seat.

Eve stood in the middle of the barf-brown carpet like she didn't know what to do with herself. So Nash guided her to the bed and helped her out of her shoes, kneesocks, plaid skirt, and white blouse. Her plain white cotton panties and lacy bra should have given him carnal thoughts, but instead he could only focus on the frozen expression on her beautiful face.

His shirt and the white collar came off next, then he stripped his black T-shirt off and dropped it over her head. With the fabric hanging down her front for modesty, he unfastened her bra from underneath, then slipped it off her. She let him push her arms through the sleeves of the shirt as if she were a child.

Inside of him, fury sparked once more to life. He should have done something more! He should have made the bastard pay!

But he took a deep breath and tucked her into the bed with that same kind of parental care.

With the covers up to her chin, Eve spoke. “I figure he was right about the test.”

Nash turned away. There was a slice of open window showing between the curtains, and he stared at it, watching
M TEL
change to
VACAN Y
, then back again. So
she believed Vince was right about the DNA results. There had been something about the expression on his face and then on Johnny's, Téa's, and Joey's that made Nash believe it too.

He tried to sound neutral. “Do you think he has that kind of access?”

“I said I wouldn't marry him, so he paid for that kind of access. Oh, and he sent that fax to you. He was driving the car that almost hit Jemima and me, too.”

Nash froze, the rage rising to fill him again. How could he have walked away from Vince? There was nothing to do but return to the villa. He spun back around, his gaze landing on Eve's golden hair spread across the pillow, her blue eyes, looking bruised from the mascara she'd cried off her lashes.

Eve, vulnerable. Eve needing him. There was no way he would leave her.

So instead of running out of the motel room, he strode to the bathroom instead. There, he wet a washrag with warm water and squeezed it several times, imagining it was Vince's neck, until he had himself under control again. Then, though it was so rough that it would likely take off a layer of skin, he went back into the other room and sat on the side of the bed. To remove makeup and lipstick and tears, he drew the damp cloth over her with long, slow strokes.

The tension growing inside of him eased once more. As he followed the contours of Eve's incredible face, the fire inside him sputtered out. He refolded the cloth and again drew it across her forehead, her eyes, her lips, with the gentle bath feeling as if he were cleansing himself.

Nash Cargill, finally erasing the violent streak on his soul.

Tonight he'd been tested, but he'd proven himself stronger than his past. Bigger than his father's memory. He might always be the sort of man who wanted to use his fists first, but now he trusted that he wouldn't use them without thinking.

When he tossed the rag on the bedside table, he felt clean for the first time in a decade.

The bedside light went out next, though he left the one in the bathroom burning. As he crossed to the window to draw the curtains more fully across the glass, he considered where he should sleep. On the stained carpet or the uncomfortable chair cushioned with wipeable plastic?

“Nash?”

“I'm here, darlin'.” He seated himself beside her again and brushed back her hair. “I'm right here.”

Her hands slid up his bare arms. “Take me away,” she whispered.

“Eve…” He leaned over her with an elbow on each side of her head. He could guess what she meant, but this wasn't the time. “Darlin'—”

“Take me away.” She lifted up and bit the pad of his bare pectoral.

He jumped, a new kind of fire immediately springing to life. “Eve.”

“Now, Nash.
Now
.”

This was distraction sex and—

She nipped at his chest muscle again, and all his misgivings fled.

The residuals of the emotions of the past few hours poured into their first kiss. He could taste the heat of passion on his tongue and the sad flavor of confusion on hers. But he didn't want that. He didn't want her thinking of anything but him, of them, of how far
away he could take her with the rub of his flesh against hers.

He shed his boots, socks, and pants, then crawled under the covers. She threw herself against him, twisting her upper body along his. He shoved his hands underneath her panties to cup her ass and keep her pressed close to his already-aching cock. Her mouth opened wide under the onslaught of his, and she let out a near-sob as he pushed his tongue deeper.

The vulnerable sound made him hotter. He took one hand and slid it under the T-shirt she wore. But that wasn't enough for her. She broke away to strip off the shirt, and as she threw it off the bed, her nipple brushed his lips.

He didn't decline the accidental invitation. The tip hardened against the roof of his mouth as he pressed it there. She moaned, her hand plumping the soft part of her breast to offer it up for his feast. Sucking harder, he drew in a breath through his nose, breathing in Eve's soap bubble scent and the unmistakable fragrance of aroused female. He shifted around the hand beneath her panties in order to smooth his fingers against her sweet, pretty pussy. Following the bare curve, he found the source of that wet, delicious heat.

His long finger slid easily inside her, making them both groan.

“Eve, sweetheart, baby.” He moved to the other breast and circled it with his other palm to feed himself her nipple. This one was already hard, already distended, and he welcomed it with a tiny bite.

Eve jerked, her pussy taking more of his finger. They both moaned as he filled her with another.

“Nash. Please. Please.”

He
was pleased. He was effing ecstatic as he felt the
tension taking over her body. She wasn't thinking of anything but this.

“Do it now,” she urged him. “Do it now.”

He laughed, letting her breast go with a little pop. “To do it now is to do it too quick.” He had more that he wanted. More of
her
that he wanted.