Daredevil’s Run

He’d always loved to be touched. Everywhere…she remembered that so well. The sheer pleasure of touching him. The way he’d close his eyes and seem to lose himself in her touch. It was the same now, except he didn’t close his eyes. And that made it even more intense for her. More scary. The same, and yet different.

She let her open palms rest lightly on his chest, at first, on those sculpted pecs that were-again-the same Matt, only different. She let her hands glide, oh so slowly, over his chest, his torso, his hard-muscled belly…then up to his shoulders…down his arms and over his hands, guiding them down to her hips and then to her thighs…while she leaned forward and brushed his mouth with hers, barely breathing.

“I’d like to get into bed now…” His words blew gently against her lips.

She whispered, “Yes,” and pulled shakily away from him to draw aside the covers.

And again, he didn’t hide anything from her, neither the awkwardness nor the unexpected grace, as he shifted himself from chair to bed. She hovered, and helped him when he asked her to, with pillows piled up for his back, and to dispose of the rest of his clothes. Then, when he lay naked and completely exposed to her, he raised himself on one elbow, glanced down at himself and smiled-not his warm, beautiful Mattie smile, but one so wry and vulnerable it made her heart turn over.

“See?” And his voice had a rasp in it she’d never heard before. “I told you…it’s still me.”

And suddenly, she wasn’t nervous or scared or uncertain anymore. She felt almost overwhelmed with strength and tenderness, and…Yes, love. Booker T’s right. I’ve always loved him. How could I not have known?

Smiling, with all the confidence in the world in her eyes, she leaned down to kiss him, kissed him long and deeply while she straddled his body. He pulled away to whisper, with a small laugh, “You always did like to be on top.”

“Hush up, Matthew,” she growled against his mouth as she lowered herself over him, touching his body from chest to thighs with her own. “I don’t care who’s on top, or what goes where. As long as we go together. You hear me?” She kissed him again, for a long, long time…and finally drew back enough to gasp. “And we do…go together. Don’t we? Can you feel that?”

“I don’t feel that. I feel you.” He closed his eyes and his arms came around her, vital and strong.

And as he held her, she felt him, too, felt him with every nerve and cell in her body, in a way she never had before. She felt him as though he were a part of her, as if they’d somehow become two parts of the same whole, and in that moment she knew that Booker T was right, that human beings weren’t meant to be alone. Holding the man she loved in her arms, melding her body with his, she felt herself fill with the most intense joy she’d ever known, or could ever have imagined. Because half of herself that had been missing for so long had finally come home.

“Oh, Mattie,” she whispered brokenly, “I love you. And I do need you.”

With tenderness and a smile in his voice, he replied, “I know.”

Epilogue

Several months later, in a motel room somewhere in west Texas…

Holt Kincaid sat on the edge of the unmade bed and punched a number on his cell phone speed dial. He listened to it ring, imagined it ringing in a room far away in South Carolina, on the shores of a small lake. It rang three times before a machine picked up.

“Hello, you’ve reached Sam and Cory’s place. We’re both away from home right now. Leave us a message and we’ll get back to you.”

He disconnected and sat for a moment with the phone in his hand, thinking. Then he pulled the laptop that lay open on the bed closer to him, found the page he was looking for, scrolled down the list of phone numbers on it until he came to the one he wanted. Dialed it.

Several minutes and several different numbers later, he’d learned several things. One: his employer was on assignment in Sudan, and there was no way in hell to reach him. Two: his employer’s wife was also on assignment, God-and the CIA-only knew where. Three: he was on his own.

Holt Kincaid didn’t often feel frustrated, but he did now. Here he’d finally managed to get a line on one of his client’s missing twin sisters, and there wasn’t anybody he could break the news to.

News that wasn’t good.

And he was very much afraid that if he waited, it might be too late.

What the hell was he going to do now?

KATHLEEN CREIGHTON

has roots deep in the California soil but has relocated to South Carolina. As a child, she enjoyed listening to old timers’ tales, and her fascination with the past only deepened as she grew older. Today she says she is interested in everything-art, music, gardening, zoology, anthropology and history, but people are at the top of her list. She also has a lifelong passion for writing, and now combines her two loves in romance novels.

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