Conquer the Memories (2 page)

“I was never very good at math. What is the
equivalent
of eight hours of sleep?” Sonia wondered aloud.

“I may,” Craig remarked, “develop a fetish for spanking. Soon.” She slipped into the car. Automatically, his thumb punched down the lock button before he closed her door. Just as automatically, when he got in on his side his arm immediately strapped her in at shoulder and waist; then, when he had her pinned like a moth, he proceeded to kiss her thoroughly. As he released her and started the engine, Sonia thought idly that Craig’s protectiveness was instinctive, something he probably wasn’t even aware of. She was.

The moment they pulled out onto the street, a small dark blue car appeared right behind them. Sonia knew Craig saw it, because he checked the rearview mirror. “Shadow” had come with the conference, and their unasked-for bodyguard thoroughly irritated her.

Emotions ran high on anything remotely connected to energy and the Middle East; she knew that, just as she knew Craig had joined the ranks of wealthy and influential men in the past few years. The conference organizers routinely provided protection for important participants, but Sonia knew Craig wouldn’t have put up with Shadow if she hadn’t been along.

When they’d been in Washington, she’d had more than a moment or two of worry when she realized how volatile certain groups could be. Mention oil and the ecologists cocked their panic guns at the same time that people with vested interests in fossil fuels got touchy. So a little prudence was called for, but Sonia certainly had no intention of living her life in a perpetual state of paranoia. She resented Shadow as she resented toothaches, and glancing back at their tail, she felt a damper clamp down on her ebullient mood.

“The conference is over. We don’t have to have him with us if we’re just going out for a few hours, do we?” she pleaded.

For a moment, she thought Craig hadn’t heard her. His foot pressed down on the accelerator as the light turned green. He adjusted the car’s ventilation to let in some fresh air, loosened his tie and weaved promptly around a driver who was straddling two lanes.

“Of course we don’t,” he said finally.

And immediately regretted that decision. He knew Sonia hated their tail, and he knew she’d guessed that Shadow was there primarily to protect her. Craig would never have put up with Shadow for himself alone, regardless of the knife someone had tried to poke at him in Sheridan, Wyoming, two years before. Sonia didn’t know about that, and never would. At the time, he’d hadn’t known whether his attacker was after his wallet or angry over his work with shale oil. It didn’t matter. Sonia did.

He couldn’t stand the thought of something happening to her.

For the past three days, though, whenever he spotted Shadow’s car in his rearview mirror, he felt like a pretentious fool. He might have a little money, and for a short while maybe he was in a modest limelight. He was still just a man, and a man who’d known how to defend himself from the time he was nine.

In protecting Sonia, however, it was unlike him to let his better judgment be swayed by impulse. He didn’t like big cities and knew the conference had received national publicity, so he had no regrets about taking on Shadow—but dammit, at the moment he just wanted to be with his wife. He wanted the freedom to make her laugh, to talk nonsense and simply
play
without an audience. To make love later, yes, but first to cherish a few stolen hours of privacy with her. It wasn’t as though Shadow had spent the past three days staring at them, but the few minutes they’d had alone together just hadn’t been enough.

After he parked the car in the hotel garage, Craig stalked back to have a word with the other man. Sonia waited by the car until he returned. “What’d you say to him?” she asked.

“That we were retiring for the night.”

Her chuckle was delighted; her bright eyes were sparkling. “So we get to escape from the big bad wolf?”

“Sonia—”

“Oh, Lord, what if he decides to read the paper in the lobby? We’d better sneak down to the back door.”

He shook his head ruefully, loving her bubble excitement, knowing exactly how much they both valued their privacy. “You’ve been reading too many spy stories. But if we’re going to take off like thieves in the night, we’d better change clothes.” His finger just touched her nose. “Think you could manage to look mousy and inconspicuous for a little while?”

“I’ll fade right into the shadows,” Sonia promised. Craig had so many responsibilities, particularly this past year, that she was delighted to see him shed those cares in favor of sheer mischievous fun. By the time they reached the twelfth floor, he was laughing.

He stabbed the key in the lock, opened the door to their room and relocked it after they entered. “Strip,” he ordered promptly.

“Oh, Lord. Is this one of those your-virtue-or-your-money capers?”

“You have to be joking,” Craig retorted. “I’ve never seen you travel with more than thirty-seven cents in your pocket. Skin is all I’m interested in, lady.”

She slipped out of her emerald dress and tossed it to him; he tossed her his jacket. They hung up each other’s clothes, laughing. Watching her play half naked, Craig forgot ninety percent of his good intentions, particularly once they’d exchanged his shirt and her coral satin half slip. Sonia
was
all leg. Perfect legs, firm, slim thighs and spectacular calves, her fanny close to irresistible…and deliberately swaying in his direction, he noticed.

Her small, pert breasts were the same ivory color as her complexion, the rosy nipples sassily pointed up at him. And after knowing her for almost five years and being married for better than four, Craig’s reaction to the look of her was as instantly, blatantly physical as when he’d first met her.

Sonia’s original reaction to Craig had been markedly different. Her mother, who was generally inclined to pick up loners around the holidays, had been the one who’d found him and dragged him home for Thanksgiving. At the time, Sonia wasn’t part of the ranching community anymore; for the past few years, she’d had an apartment in Boulder and was working as a buyer for a women’s boutique there. She had a distinctly different definition of “innocent loner” than her mother did. Craig didn’t qualify. Nor had he acquired that considerable expertise of his anywhere near an oil field. Sonia knew trouble when she saw it, and had every intention of spending that particular Thanksgiving in the kitchen. It didn’t quite work out that way.

Though flamboyant in dress and gregarious with people, at twenty-five Sonia still had been reserved at the thought of real intimacy. Her mother used to tell her that she’d already worked through more men than the county had fence posts, but appearances were deceiving. Sonia appreciated a well-cast line, but she was not so naive as to let herself be taken in by one. When she’d met Craig, she could have fit her previous sexual experience in a teacup.

But he’d certainly taken care of that problem since, she thought wickedly. Poor man, now he suffered the consequences. The longer she wandered around bare-topped, the more trouble he was having getting into his jeans. Her own denims snapped, but just, designed to fit her shapely bottom snugly, molding the legs Craig was so fond of. She donned a red silk blouse without bra, left a button or two open, and vigorously took a brush to her curls…which, actually, never helped her stubborn hairstyle anyway. A quick slash of lipstick and a pair of elegant walking boots, and she turned around with a sassy grin.

“Inconspicuous enough?” she demanded.

He shook his head in sheer despair.

“What’s wrong?”

He was afraid if he gave her the list they would never leave the hotel room. His kitten looked ready to prowl, and instinctively he wanted to set off the first purrs. In the meantime, she could have worn a sign on her smile that said Vulnerable as far as walking Chicago’s streets at night went. “For starters, the opal,” he began.

She glanced at the mirror. She never took off the black opal that dangled from a gold chain on her neck; he’d given it to her on their honeymoon. The oval stone was a myriad of green-blues that matched her eyes, just as its onyx setting matched her hair. Only reluctantly did Sonia tie a scarlet-and-white scarf at her throat to cover it. “Better?” she questioned, already knowing his opinion.

Her husband didn’t approve of the fit of her jeans any more than he approved of the scarlet blouse…or the emerald dress she’d worn earlier. He approved of her naked, preferably locked in a room alone with him.

Deep inside, Craig harbored a dreadfully medieval male protectiveness and jealousy. Sonia adored him all the more because of it. It took a very special kind of man to control those intense feelings and encourage his lady to live her own life in her own way, not just follow along in his shadow. It was tough for a strong, dominant man to make a marriage of equals; Sonia was well aware that Craig worked at it.

It was absolutely necessary to give him a long, lingering kiss before they headed out into the hall, ready and eager for a few hours of privacy together in a town of some three million people. That they would find it, neither had any doubt. They only needed each other.

Lake Michigan lay black and smooth, its still surface glazed with stars. At two in the morning, the city’s traffic was finally settling down. They might almost have been home, Sonia reflected—the park was that serene and restful. Huge shade trees nestled the two of them in privacy, and the smell of new green leaves and damp, sweet grass was intoxicating, so fresh with new life that it was impossible to get enough of the scent of it. Sonia simply inhaled, loving all the aromas of spring.

“Did you like the music?” Craig murmured.

“Mmm.” She’d loved the nightclub and the music. And the three glasses of champagne. And being alone with her husband. And now, that special quiet of an early, early morning in late May.

Waves of contentment just kept coming. Everything felt special—the dew-drenched grass beneath her walking boots, the feel of the cool, silky blouse against her bare skin, the touch of a breeze fingering through her hair. Happiness flooded through her like a roller coaster; the rush just wouldn’t stop. Sonia felt high like rainbows—a phrase in her head that made no particular sense. She told it to Craig. “Explain it to me,” she suggested whimsically.

Always, her husband had had an uncanny understanding of even her most obscure thoughts. He tugged her into the shadow of a sheltering maple, leaned back against the bark and experimented with explaining “high like rainbows.”

He captured the basic idea when his lips whispered across her temples, then her nose, then her cheeks. He caught even more of the concept when his fingers languidly sifted through her hair. As he leaned back against the tree, his legs were slightly parted, encouraging her to fit just so in that inviting spread of his thighs.

She forgot all about rainbows. His lips touched base with hers, and neither wanted to let go. Through his dark sweatshirt, through her thin silk blouse, she could feel her breasts suddenly aching, rubbing against him, and his heartbeat throbbed in response.

Her lips parted and closed on the lower curve of his, her kisses deliberately tempting, invitingly feminine. She courted the dramatic response of his body…the low groan from the back of his throat as he gathered her closer, the tightening of his thighs, the way his arms turned possessive. It would have been so easy to have rushed into bed earlier. Those few hours alone together and all the laughter they had shared made the waiting so much sweeter, like a long, lazy seduction that refused to end. They were still miles from their hotel, and her teasing was the more provocative because of it. She wanted this night to last forever…

From somewhere in the distance she heard a vague sound. The lovers they’d passed on the way in? No matter—she and Craig were hidden in shadows. His tongue stole between her lips and started a slow, gradual exploration—the inside of her cheek, the back of her teeth, the roof of her mouth.

Her hands splayed, running down his sides to his hips. Her fingertips could just reach the middle of his thighs, hard thighs encased in rough denim. Her fingers were enjoying the long, leisurely walk up again, stealing under his sweatshirt, needing the feel of his bare skin. When the flat of her palms covered his taut male breasts, she could feel his temperature rise three degrees. He had a delightfully feverish look in his eyes…

“It’s time to go home,” he said gruffly.

“Yes.”

He buried his face in her throat, pulling her even closer to himself. Her skin was so supple, so soft; she smelled so sweetly of Sonia. The need to possess her had become a driving hunger. “When we get back,” he whispered to her, “I’m going to take off your blouse, Sonia. Then your jeans. I’m going to place you on the bed…”

She shivered, a delicious wave of pure sensual anticipation sensitizing every nerve ending of her skin.

“I’m going to turn you over on your stomach,” he whispered, his lips very close to her ear. Then they nestled in her hair and finally in the hollow of her shoulder. “I’m going to kiss the backs of your knees, then the length of your spine, then that small fanny of yours. Then up to that tiny birthmark at the nape of your neck…”

“Craig—”

“Then I’m going to turn you over and just look at you. Just…watch you. The way your breasts swell, the way they ache with heat…I can feel it. I can feel them change in the palm of my hand. I can feel it when you want me…”

Her conservative, civilized businessman had turned into a pirate from another century. Long, drugging kisses backed up all the promise in his words, inflaming Sonia with a wild, haunting recklessness as she matched kiss for kiss, caress for caress.

“Take me home,” she murmured pleadingly. The teasing had been fun, the park romantic, the nightclub wonderful…and she’d always loved champagne, drank it as if it were soda pop. But it was sharing all these things with Craig that made them pleasures. Being with him was what mattered; the rest was just frosting on the cake. And she was no longer interested in frosting. He kissed her again, and then, unsmiling, drew back, gently smoothing her hair before tucking her into the hollow of his shoulder.

They were looking at each other as they started walking. The same message was in both of their expressions. Stark need, the lushness of anticipation and the irrepressible desire they both had to laugh at their own mutual craziness at wanting each other too damn much for married people in a public park. Craig, a man who never lost control, and Sonia, the lady who was once so sure that inhibitions and intimacy were a matched set…The corner of his mouth suddenly twitched, and she stood on tiptoe to kiss him hard.

“You think you can behave yourself long enough to get back to the hotel?” he whispered.

She shook her head, laughing. “Now, don’t go shifting the blame. I was just standing here, being a meek little submissive wife, tolerating my…er…conjugal responsibilities.”

“Tolerating, were you?”

“Good Lord, you didn’t think I was turned on?”

His arm tightened around her shoulder while hers wrapped around his waist. There was one fleeting moment when her heart felt full, when the lush brilliance of happiness seemed so tangible she could embrace it…

Then nightmare.

Talons clawed her arms, ripping her away from Craig. Shock registered before fear, until an alcohol-crazed pair of eyes loomed in front of her face, leering and laughing. Sonia staggered back, but not fast enough. The man snatched her again, his fingers biting into her arms, dragging her farther away from Craig, farther into the black shadows of trees, slamming her spine into rough bark.

“Craig!”

Her desperate cry came out more whisper than scream. Terror knotted her throat, so instantaneous and bone-chilling that her mind could not grasp what was happening. That man with the terrifying light eyes…but he wasn’t alone. “Now you just shut up and take it easy, lady,” he hissed to her.

Through a frantic blur, she saw three more men surrounding Craig, and yet another standing behind her tormentor. Horror bubbled over. They were all young and filthy and reeking of liquor, their eyes all similarly glazed. The one who’d taken her on was the worst, with his long, stringy blond hair and acid smile…
evil,
her mind hissed. She tried to lurch up and felt the heel of his hand slam into her chest.

“Sonia! Run—!”

Through the tangle of limbs, she caught Craig’s eyes; for an instant he looked insane with panic for her. His shouted curse brought the pack on him. She heard the terrible sound of fist connecting with bone, and desperately tried to run to him. Her arm was wrenched from its socket, bent back and behind her, and she was forced to stumble into the blond man’s chest.

“Let her
go,
you—”

Pain stabbed her shoulder as the blond twisted her arm yet more tightly, cursing. “Keep him
quiet,
I said!” Craig was being pulled to his feet, two men holding his arms. One was trying to rifle through his pockets. Craig kicked out, and there was a confused rush of motion as he tried to wrench free from his captors. “
Let her go, you—
” he bellowed again.

A fist connected with his face.

Sonia screamed. Before the sound was halfway from her mouth, a filthy hand clamped over it, and her arm was again yanked so roughly that she knew the blond man was more than willing to break it. She cringed—inside, outside, all over.

“Fifty bucks,” one of Craig’s tormentors called out disgustedly to the man who was holding her.

“What the hell. Get his watch.”

“Sonia—”

The blond laughed. The sound made Sonia swallow with revulsion. “The man sure don’t seem to like it much when we touch his lady, now, does he?
Hold him,
I told you,” he snapped roughly to the others. His voice changed from command to insinuating drawl. “Maybe the lady’s got a little something of value.”

A flush of nausea heated Sonia’s face as rough fingers tried to burrow into the pockets of her jeans. She carried no purse; there had been no need to bring one. In the first pocket, all the blond found was a quarter, and for one insane instant Sonia felt the hysterical urge to laugh. Never go anywhere without a coin to make a phone call in an emergency, her mother had told her a thousand times. Sonia wasn’t aware she’d never broken the habit.

The blond kept glancing at Craig as he checked the other three pockets. “Man, look at him go,” he chortled to the others.
God, stay still,
she wanted to beg Craig;
stay
still,
they just want money.
But her husband hadn’t stopped struggling from the instant he’d seen the blond grab her.

One rough hand dug into her waist; the other again wrenched her arm behind her until tears blinded her eyes. Nausea clogged her throat; the terror was so acute she was losing her breath, sobbing without even being aware of it. So dark, so black a night, and the smile on the stringy blond’s face…He wanted to hurt…someone. He was angry they didn’t have more money, and he was crazy and he was loaded to the gills.

His free hand crept over her stomach. “Hey, man, she keep anything worth hiding in her blouse?”

He was talking to Craig.

“Don’t,” Sonia whispered desperately. “Please.
Please
…”

The next second took years. That filthy hand deliberately crawled slowly up from her waist. She saw Craig’s eyes just those few yards distant from her, insane with rage, brilliant with fury…
No!
her mind screamed to him.
No, Craig, don’t! Don’t
…but before the hand could touch her breast, Craig had broken free from the others and launched himself at the blond.

“Get him!”

A keening moan escaped from Sonia’s throat. In a tangle of limbs and fists, Craig was buried beneath the other three. The blond laughed, and Sonia felt terror for herself shoved aside in her brain, an insidious horror taking its place. They were going to kill Craig. She could already see the wet, shiny red liquid on his face. Blood. If some instinct of self-preservation had kept her still before, that instinct died, replaced by another. Desperately, she began to kick the blond; her nails became deadly claws; her teeth snapped at the arm of her tormentor like the fangs of a wounded animal. He grunted, his arms loosening long enough for her to jerk free.

For an instant. She didn’t make it to Craig’s side. Her face connected with the damp, hard earth, the breath knocked out of her, as the blond tackled her and tossed her hard and flat on the ground. Then he flipped her on her back. Her scarf had disappeared; her opal must have glinted in the moonlight, because she felt the chain being ripped off, slicing a quick, sharp pain at her neck.

“Hell. Split,” the leader ordered. “They haven’t got a damn thing worth all this hassle anyway.”

Like creatures of the night, they took off at a dead run, silent, part of the shadows, and then gone, disappearing as if they had never been. Only one sound pierced the lonely night, the choking whimpers that came out of Sonia’s throat, sobs very close to hysteria.

Soaked from the dew-drenched grass, she was freezing, shaking like a mad thing. Sharp, darting pains shot up the arm the blond mugger had wrenched so badly. She
had
to move,
had
to get to Craig, yet nausea still gripped her, and she felt a terrible need to curl up in a ball, to hide. Human beings—they were actually human beings, she thought dazedly. She knew violence only as a statistic in the newspapers—it had never touched her life before.

Tears streaming from her eyes, Sonia jerked herself up to a sitting position. A razor-sharp pain promptly sliced through the back of her head, and an unexpected dizziness overwhelmed her with potent waves of nausea. Her shoulder…She saw Craig lying not five feet from her and forgot her own pain. He was still. There was blood on his face and his legs were sprawled and his skin looked ghost-gray in the moonlight. Damn her tears! She couldn’t see through the blur…

Stumbling to her feet, she staggered over to her husband and knelt down, roughly brushing her eyes with the sleeve of her blouse, refusing to let any more tears fall. They didn’t. She no longer had time for them.

She put her ear to Craig’s chest and her hand on the pulse in his wrist at the same time. That terrible knot loosened its hold on her heart. He was alive. But he was so terrifyingly still…His heartbeat seemed shallow, unsteady. Gently probing with her fingers, Sonia found a swelling mound at the back of his head. The blood on his face was from his nose—had they broken it? He made a low, guttural sound when her fingers gently tested his ribs, then a small spot beneath them. The bastards! The total bastards…

“Craig?”

But his eyelids didn’t even flutter. Frantically, she glanced around. Neither blankets nor bandages miraculously appeared. There was no one, not a hint of sound indicating another person might be near. Well, she was
not
going to leave him. Nothing could make her leave him; she
couldn’t
leave him…any more than she could continue to let him lie there motionless on the damp, wet grass, unconscious.

“Craig?” Gentle fingers smoothed the hair back from his forehead, gentle, calm fingers. Reassuring. “You’re going to be fine. I won’t be gone a minute. Just long enough to get help. You’ll be fine, darling…”