Dead Reckoning (38 page)

She looked into his eyes, and for the first time she realized this moment was as profound for him as it was for her. She saw the deep well of emotions in the depths of his gaze. The taut set of his jaw. The muscles corded at his neck. His arms quivered with restraint. He looked fierce, but his kiss was so gentle it brought tears to her eyes.

“Don’t you dare cry,” he whispered.

“I’m not.”

He gave her a small smile. “Has anyone ever told you you’re argumentative?”

“All the time.”

They laughed together. A tension releasing laugh that Kate desperately needed at that moment. Frank leaned close, rested his weight on his elbows and kissed her forehead.

“Are you okay?” he whispered.

“Better than okay.” She smiled.

“Nervous?”

“Terrified.”

He looked at her as if she were a puzzle he hadn’t quite figured out.

“I’ve never done this before,” she blurted. “I mean . . . what happened . . . it just . . . ruined it for me.”

He raised his hand and smoothed the hair back from her face. “It’s okay.” He kissed her gently, then started to ease away.

Realizing he thought she wanted to stop, she reached out and touched the side of his face. “Don’t stop,” she said. “I want this. With you. I’m ready.”

She loved the way he was looking at her. As if she were the only person in the world. The only thing in his life that mattered. As if she were precious and rare and he would never get enough of her.

“Tell me what you want,” he whispered.

“I want to feel,” she said. “I want to feel you.”

He kissed her hard on the mouth. When his tongue probed she accepted him. Vaguely she was aware of him easing his legs between hers. Her knees opening as he settled on top of her. She could feel the tip of his penis against her thigh. Her skin felt feverish, hot where he touched her. She couldn’t seem to hold still.

Then his hands were on either side of her face, and he was staring down at her with an intensity that took her breath. She could feel him at her opening. The intimacy of the moment devastated her. She could feel her entire body shaking. Her heart bucking against her ribs.

He entered her with shattering slowness. Kate felt herself go rigid. She saw his expression go taut. He went into her deeply. Her body responded of its own volition and rose up to meet him. He began to move within her. Kate could feel the layers of control peeling away. Her body was not her own. She could feel herself thrusting up to meet him. She could hear herself crying out his name. Tidal waves of pleasure built higher and higher with every long stroke.

It was as if he became a part of her, as vital and life giving as her heart. And she found herself wondering how she had survived so many years without this. Without Frank.

The orgasm crashed over her with a power that stunned. Her control left her in a rush. It was as if every nerve ending in her body exploded. Every emotion she’d ever felt burst from her heart. She closed her eyes against the intensity. She could feel herself contracting around him. His name on her lips. The pleasure going on and on until she thought she would burst.

Frank didn’t give her a reprieve. He brought her to peak a second time. No time to catch her breath. No time to think or regroup or gather her senses.

“Don’t fight it,” he whispered as he moved within her. “Let go.”

Kate didn’t know what he meant. The intensity of the sensations coursing through her was too much and brought tears to her eyes. She felt out of control. Physically. Emotionally. But for the first time in her life she didn’t care. She trusted Frank, she trusted her own heart, and she let physical sensations sweep her away.

TWENTY-SIX

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 12:38 A.M.

Bruton Ellis hadn’t slept for six days, and he was feeling every minute of it. He was exhausted, but every time he closed his eyes he saw that needle sinking into his arm, pumping death into his veins. He imagined his lungs freezing, his heart giving a final surge. And he woke with his stomach in knots, his body bathed in cold sweat.

The jail was quiet at this hour, but he’d long since grown used to the silence. What he hadn’t grown accustomed to was the fear. It crawled inside him like maggots on roadkill, burgeoning and festering until he thought he would scream.

He was lying in his bunk staring at the ceiling when the jangle of keys drew his attention. His heart leapt in his chest because he’d never given up hope that Mr. Corporate Executive would come for him and straighten things out. But when the door swung open Mr. Corporate Executive wasn’t there. Just one of the jailers. A mean son of a bitch by the name of Skye.

“What’s going on?” Ellis asked.

Without speaking the man entered his cell and closed and locked the door behind him. Ellis knew immediately something wasn’t right. No corrections officer or jailer entered a cell alone. Especially not in the middle of the night. The hairs on the back of his neck began to crawl.

“What the fuck is this?” Ellis asked.

“Put your hands up,” the jailer said.

Ellis raised his hands. He noticed the small device in the other man’s hand. It was about the size of a garage door opener, only it had two metal prongs on one end. His heart began to pound. “What the fuck is that?”

“Turn around.”

Uneasiness trickled into fear. For an instant he considered not obeying the command. But the guy was big. Ellis had had his ass kicked by enough corrections officers to know what would happen if he got belligerent. Slowly he turned. “It’s one o’clock in the fuckin’ morning. What the hell are you—”

Five hundred thousand bolts of electricity hit him in the back like a baseball bat slamming in a homerun. Ellis heard an animalistic sound echo inside the cell. Then the floor rushed up and slammed into him.

For several seconds he lay on the cold tile floor, his thoughts disjointed, his body paralyzed. Vaguely he was aware of movement around him. The jailer placing something around his neck—some sort of soft fabric—and he wondered why he would do that.

Somewhere in the backwaters of his mind, it registered that this was not procedure. That whatever was being done to him was not supposed to happen. Convicts had rights, after all. You didn’t just walk into a cell and hit someone with a fucking stun gun no matter what they’d done.

That was when he realized he was in very big trouble.

“What are you . . . doing?” he said in a voice that was much too weak to be his own.

“Shutting you up, I guess.”

The fabric was jerked taut on the last word. On instinct, Ellis reached up to put his fingers around the noose to keep it from choking him. A second loud
crack!
split the air. Another five hundred thousand volts of electricity screamed through his body.

Ellis felt his body go rigid. He tried to get his fingers between his neck and the noose, but his arms refused the command. The next thing he knew he was being pulled upright by his neck. His feet left the floor. The pressure on his windpipe cut off his oxygen. A terrible sound ripped from his throat. He kicked his feet, and his body began to swing. He could feel his eyes bulging in their sockets. A freight train running through his head. At some point he’d wet himself.

He lifted his hands, dug his fingers between the noose and his throat, but his strength was waning. He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Oh, God, why were they doing this to him?

He looked at the man standing in the cell. At first he couldn’t figure out why he had to look down to make eye contact. Then he realized the man had used a length of fabric to hoist him up and over the rail of the top bunk.

Ellis’s face felt as if it would burst. He kicked but his feet found only air. He tried to scream, but when he opened his mouth no sound came. His tongue felt huge and dry and useless. His vision went black and white.

The cell began to spin.

His bowels let loose in a rush.

I’m dying,
he thought.

And darkness closed over him like death.

 
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 12:59 A.M.

Frank lay in the darkness and listened to the whisper of Kate’s breathing, trying not to think too much about what he’d done. They’d made love twice. The first time it had been awkward and fast and desperate. The second time had been slow and intimate. Eye contact had never been broken, and the experience had moved him in a way he’d never been moved before. Not even with Gittel, and that scared the hell out of him.

Even now, he couldn’t get the sound of Kate’s cries out of his head. The way she’d looked at him when he’d brought her to peak. The shock and joy and wonder he’d seen in her eyes. He couldn’t quite get his mind around the fact that this was the first time she’d had intercourse.

Jesus.

He’d never thought of her as vulnerable. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Kate Megason was one of the strongest, most headstrong, and maddening people he’d ever met. But she hadn’t been any of those things tonight. They’d been intimate in a way that went beyond sex. He’d looked into her eyes and he’d seen the secrets of her soul.

Frank had liked what he saw. Too much, if he wanted to be honest about it. There was a part of him that wanted to help heal her. A part of him that wanted to protect her. From the pain of her past. From whomever was stalking her. From himself, maybe.

But he was in no position to protect anyone, let alone a woman as complicated as Kate. He suffered from chronic pain. There were days when he wasn’t fit to be around another human being. There was a good possibility that he was addicted to narcotic painkillers. Not the kinds of problems he wanted to lay on her when she already had so much to deal with.

He was still hung up on Gittel. Beautiful. Laughing. Kind Gittel. He’d loved her more than his own life. He would have pulled his own heart from his chest if it would have kept her from dying. But Gittel had been intractable and reckless. She’d felt passionately about her cause. In the end, those things had killed her. Killed a part of him, too. A part he wasn’t sure he wanted back. He couldn’t bear the thought of caring for another woman and losing her.

He glanced at Kate, and the parallels between the two women struck him. Made a cold sweat break out on the back of his neck. Something akin to panic rose in his chest. He could hear his breathing quicken. His hands begin to shake.

Throwing off the comforter, he rose and walked naked to the bathroom. Closing the door, he flipped on the light and turned to the sink. The man staring back at him looked pale and shell-shocked, his eyes filled with a terrible realization.

He’d fallen in love with Kate.

He’d done the one thing he’d sworn he would not.

“Jesus.”

Feeling the churn of nausea in his gut, Frank turned on the tap and bent to splash cold water on his face. He did it again and again until the shaking and nausea subsided. Then, with water dripping off his face, he looked into the mirror and whispered, “What the hell are you doing?”

Kate was awake when he walked back to the bedroom. He wanted to slide back into bed with her, but he didn’t. He didn’t want to dig this hole any deeper than it already was. But she looked incredibly lovely with her hair mussed and the comforter pulled up just high enough to cover her breasts. She looked happy and sated and slightly embarrassed. His response to that was instantaneous and instinctive. Standing there naked, he could no more hide it than he could hide one of his arms.

“Next time I want to know what you’re thinking, I’ll just take off your pants,” she said.

Frank couldn’t help it. He laughed. Leave it to Kate to say just the right thing at the wrong time. His heart was beating heavily in his chest when he crossed to the bed and slid beneath the comforter. For an instant they were both lying on their sides, facing each other. He could feel his need for her crawling inside him, but he couldn’t make himself reach for her.

After a moment she slid toward him, just close enough to brush her mouth across his. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing.” He hadn’t meant for his voice to come out so rough.

She pulled back and studied his face for a moment. “You look . . . troubled.”

It was difficult to have a conversation when he was hard and wanting her. That was the problem with women. Sex got in the way of doing the right thing most of the time.

Only this time, Frank didn’t know what the right thing was. The sex had been good. It had been a hell of a lot more than just sex, even though he wouldn’t dare admit it. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt Kate. But she was touching him in a place he didn’t want touched. How the hell did he convey that to a woman who’d opened her heart and soul to him and not hurt her?

Sighing, he pulled her to him. She snuggled against him and put her head on his shoulder. “What’s wrong, Frank?”

“I’m overthinking this.”

Her expression went wary. “Overthinking what?”

He turned to face her. “Us. Kate, it was erotic and intense and . . . incredible.” The words didn’t begin to convey what he felt, but Frank had never been very good at putting his feelings into words. For Kate, he was going to try.

“I think there was a
but
in there somewhere,” she said.

Reaching out, he put his hands on either side of her face. She was so lovely, it took every ounce of control he could muster not to pull her to him to devour her mouth. But while her gaze was level and direct, he sensed the fragility just beneath the surface.

“You know I suffer from chronic pain,” he said. “I sustained an injury when I was overseas. I’ve been taking narcotic painkillers for the last year. I’m a functioning addict. That’s why I’ve been late for work so much.”

“I know,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It happened. I’m dealing with it.”
Yeah, right.
“I have a lot of pain, Kate, and I’m a son of a bitch when I’m hurting. I need the painkillers often. Almost every day. Sometimes it’s bad. But even when I’m not hurting, I find myself wanting a pill. I find myself wanting to use these meds as a crutch. When something goes wrong. When life gets tough. I’m not proud of it, but I’ve done it. More than once.” He sighed. “You saw it the night you came over to my place.”