He looked at her over his shoulder, a slow grin spreading over his face. “The things you remember…”
She grinned as he stretched across the bed to the other nightstand and returned, triumphant, with a box. He shook it, and the foil packets inside rattled. “So far so good. Let’s check the expiration date?”
“Should I hold my breath?” she asked, sliding her hand up the inside of his thigh. “Cross my fingers?”
He sucked in a deep breath as her fingers reached their goal. “Lucky for us, these are good for another year.”
Darting her a look so full of naughty promise that her own breath caught, he pulled out a condom and ripped open the foil. With his other hand, he caught her roving fingers, stilling their movements. He turned her hand over and placed the condom in her palm. “Here. Since you’re so eager to make yourself…useful.”
Chuckling softly, she pushed herself up on her knees and straddled his lap, her tongue sliding over his as she sheathed him with the condom. “The things I remember,” she murmured against his lips.
Then she lowered herself onto him, taking him deep.
Her whole body seemed to contract into one quivering, fiery nerve ending. She drew her head back and gazed into his eyes, her heart pounding so hard she was certain he could hear it.
“I remember you,” she said, needing him to understand it was true. She didn’t remember every detail of what they’d shared, or much of what had brought her to him in the first place, but she remembered how he’d made her feel. Safe. Special. Beautiful.
He brushed his thumb against her lips. “I see that,” he said softly, pulling her down for another kiss.
Wrapping her arms around his neck, she rocked her hips forward until he filled her completely. His soft intake of breath filled her with a sense of power. Cradling his face between her hands, she made him look up at her so she could see the shift of his expression when she slowly withdrew.
“I missed you,” he whispered.
Tears stung her eyes and she rocked forward again, lowering her mouth to his. She kissed him deeply, settling into a steady, escalating rhythm. Beneath her, his body grew taut with hunger. He was being patient, letting her set the pace, but she felt his muscles bunching as his need grew into something fierce and out of control.
Now, she thought, knowing what was about to happen more surely than she even knew her own name. She needed to feel him surge and take control, to remind her of his power as much as his patience had reminded her of his tenderness.
Memory intertwined with desire until she wasn’t sure what was recollection and what was anticipation. She wasn’t sure it mattered anymore.
Wrapping his arms tightly around her waist, he rolled her onto her back, pinning her beneath him. He threaded his fingers through hers, holding them above her head as he rose over her, gazing at her with hunger and a single- minded determination that thrilled her to her core. Dipping his mouth to hers to drink her kisses like a dying man, he drove into her, branding her with his desire.
As she clung to him, answering kiss for kiss, she began to unravel, swept into a maelstrom of pleasure that stole her breath and rocked her body. He plunged after her, his body shaking with release, urging her past sanity into a sweet madness as familiar as her own breath.
SHE WOKE suddenly, as if startled awake by a noise, but the room was dark and silent. Only the faint metallic ticking of the clock on the fireplace mantel disturbed the quiet. For a moment, she wanted nothing more than to dive back under the silk coverlet, as if it could protect her from the fear she lived with every second.
But she couldn’t go back into hiding. She’d wasted the first few weeks back in Clint’s control curled up like a scared child. That’s not who she was. Not anymore. It was time to prove it.
She slipped on her house shoes and wrapped herself in the Chinese silk robe Clint had given her the first day back. He’d presented it as a gift, but she knew it was just a fancy sort of prison garb. She’d give anything to be back in her favorite fluffy green terry-cloth robe. Joe had teased her about it-“Sexy!” was his favorite comment when he caught her wrapped up in the thing-but he’d never let it stop him from stripping her out of it…
The thought of Joe made her smile all too briefly, before sorrow and longing overtook her. But she shook it off, pushed aside the memory of death and separation. Grief was weakness. She could no longer afford to be weak. She pressed her hand low against her belly, remembering why she had to keep fighting.
She tested the bedroom door. It was unlocked, though she’d half expected otherwise, given how easily Clint seemed to read her thoughts since he’d brought her back with him. Still, she knew the outer doors would be guarded, and the gates beyond locked and unbreachable. It had taken her almost two months to figure out a way to escape the fortress Clint had built to keep her with him this time.
Now she just had to decide when to make her move.
It had to be soon. Clint was beginning to notice that she’d stopped cowering, even if he didn’t yet know what was driving her to fight this time around. But within a month or two, he’d know exactly what was fueling her need to get away. She had to get out of here before that happened.
Every night for the past few nights, she’d tested the limits of her prison. Tonight, Miguel had promised he’d leave the code for the back gate in the plant by the kitchen window. She’d retrieve it tonight, memorize the code and destroy the paper it was written on.
As soon as she found a chance, she’d escape the house and grounds. Then she’d get word to Joe somehow.
He’d come for her if she needed him.
In the corridor outside her bedroom, dim wall lights lit the path to the stairs. She padded quietly down the curving stairway to the first floor, where she heard the faint murmur of voices. She looked around for any of the house staff, but they’d apparently retired for the night. Taking a deep breath, she moved silently toward the room at the end of the hallway, where a door was barely cracked open.
She peered through the narrow opening and saw the back of Clint’s head. He sat in a large leather chair, looking at the screen of a notebook computer. On the screen, a video was playing-the source of the voices she’d heard.
The picture was grainy but she could discern enough of what she was seeing to recognize Tommy Blake’s horse barn. Her heart clenched at the sight of her friend walking into the picture, a feed bucket in one hand and a couple of blankets tossed over his shoulder. This must be from the surveillance system Joe had helped his brother set up in the horse barns to deter the rustlers who’d been creating havoc in the area that summer.
Behind Tommy, Clint stepped into view. Tommy must have heard something, for he turned to face the other man, his expression wary but not yet afraid.
“Can I help you?” Tommy said.
Without saying a word, Clint took out a gun and pulled the trigger. Tommy’s body jerked and he flew backward onto the hay-strewn floor of the barn.
She pressed her hand over her mouth to keep from crying out. Clint must not have heard her behind him, because he punched a button and the picture reset to that same moment when Tommy walked into the barn, oblivious to the fact that he would be dead in just a few more seconds.
With escalating horror, she watched Clint replay the murder again and again on the computer screen. Part of her wanted to run back to her bedroom and hide again, but another, stronger part of her realized that for the first time since Clint Holbrook walked into her life, she had proof that he was the bastard she knew him to be. She just had to find out where he kept the recording of the murder, get it to Joe and she’d finally be free.
Jane woke in a rush, panic icing her veins until she realized she wasn’t back in that bedroom prison but lying curled up in Joe’s strong arms. The dream she’d awakened from was already starting to drift into the ether, but she struggled to hang on to it, forced herself to separate the misty threads of dream from memory.
Was it real? Had she seen a video of Tommy’s murder?
She eased herself out of Joe’s arms, soothing him with a whisper when he stirred, and slipped from beneath the covers. Frigid air washed over her naked body, making her gasp. She grabbed a thick thermal blanket from the armoire to wrap around her and crossed the hard plank floor to the cabin’s front window.
Outside, the first faint gray of sunrise peeked over the top of the pines and aspens between the cabin and the bluff beyond. Beyond the bluff, where Tommy’s ranch sprawled across 250 acres of grazing land, sunrise came a
