Her Forgotten Betrayal (14 page)

“Show me you want me,” she said. “Show me you remember it, too.”

“I’ve never forgotten.” He stopped what would have been her next words with a kiss. He covered her body with his own, easing her to the bed’s down pillows and ancient quilt. “No matter how much it hurt to know I’d never touch you again. I swear, I never forgot, not for a moment.”

…

Lying in Cole’s arms was a dream Shaw would be happy to stay in forever. The two of them loving each other was a reality she’d fight anyone and anything to keep. Cole, focused on her, needing her and letting her fill the emptiness she’d sensed in him from the start.

“You feel so good.” His weight pressed her deeper into the mattress.

She arched into him. His teeth raked the sensitive line of her neck, finding nerve endings that fired to life. He explored, tasted, branded her.

“God, Cole, what are you doing to me?”

“Wanting you. Every place I remember loving you. Every damn inch of you.”

She was shaking in his arms and reveling in it. This was the strength his desire called from her, helping her conquer the uncertainty she felt everywhere except in his embrace. Her hands slid up his chest, clenching around his shoulders. She was certain that never in her life had she felt safer. Freer.

His lips found her ear. “Are your nipples still sensitive, Shaw? Sexy little points of sensation that make you scream when I play with them?”

Chill bumps of anticipation raged through her at the graphic picture his words painted, igniting a fire that raced to her center. She shook her head, feeling her feminine muscles clench, then soften, growing damp.

“I don’t know,” she said, her hips molding into his.

“Want to find out?” He kissed the corner of her mouth in an innocent caress. Then his hands covered her breasts, his fingers plumping her nipples, closing around them, tweaking, torturing her.

“Yes.” She gasped, taking control of their kiss, her tongue swirling around his.

She cried into his mouth as he continued to play. She inhaled his groan. She gave herself over to the new, the familiar, the perfect feel of him overwhelming her senses. He made her need, and he made her believe she could take.

She pulled his T-shirt over his shoulders and tossed it away. He unbuttoned her blouse and laid the two halves back. He’d touched her already. He’d had to have known she wasn’t wearing a bra. But watching his pupils dilate, his jaw tighten at the sight of her, had her lifting off the bed until her breasts met the heat of his chest. His hands gripped her hips, thrilling her with his greed.

She sank her teeth into the muscles of his shoulder. Sparks flew behind her closed eyelids at the indulgence of it. The sounds he made, the pleasure rumbling through him, told Shaw her instincts had been right on target.

This
. His palms smoothed down her back, beneath the loose waistband of her sweatpants, then her panties. This felt so real. She could remember this. She could remember Cole and the way they’d once been, simply by kissing his chest and clutching his hair when he kissed her tender breasts, sending stronger and stronger sensations flaming through her.

She grappled with his belt buckle. She winced. Her still-sensitive fingers jerked back.

“Please,” she begged, panting.

His gaze was hooded, intense, when he looked up. In it, she saw the reflection of everything she was feeling. Hunger. Reverence. Want. Need.

“Please what, darlin’?” He pecked a chaste kiss on the tip of her nose, then drugged her with another endless mating of their mouths.

“Please don’t let this end. Don’t let it go away like the rest.”

“Your dreams?”

“The nightmares.” Her eyes teared up. Then he was distracting her again, sweeping away the last of her clothes, then his, never completely leaving her. “They’re horrible. But they’re all I’ve had to hold onto. Before you came back, I thought they were the only things that would help me connect with my past. And every time I wake up, they’re gone. All I’ve been left with is pieces. Pieces of me. None of the truth I need ever stays.”

Cole stroked her hair, his hand coming to rest between her head and the pillow.

“I’m staying, Shaw. This time, no one’s going to convince me to leave. I’ll be here every time you wake up from now on, until the nightmares are gone, and as long after that as you’ll have me. Tell me what you want, and I’ll make sure you have it. Whatever you need, it’s yours.”

“You. I need you.”

She wound her arms around his shoulders, her legs around his waist. She’d thought she wanted to be free and independent. And maybe the old Shaw had been. Apparently she’d believed she would only be safe if she were alone. Now she knew that the real courage she needed to muster was the strength to simply reach for what she wanted most.

“You’re what I’ve always needed,” she said. “I’m certain of it. I can remember feeling completely alone when I was attacked. There was no one I trusted to run to for help, even if I escaped.” She gasped. He was pressing his erection to her throbbing core. “Now, here you are.”

“Here I am.”

His fingers massaged down her back. He licked up her sigh, then nipped her breast with his teeth until her nipple popped into his mouth. He sucked the pebble-hard tip, caught the arch of her spine, and held her suspended off the mattress while he drew on her breast, then its twin.

“Please, Cole.”

Her sore hand was a problem. But evidently her problem-solving abilities were not to be underestimated. Feeling liberated and loose and alive with what Cole was doing to her, she cupped him with her good hand, gliding up the satiny, hard length of him, her fingers caressing the head, finding the moisture there that promised he was as out of control as he was making her.

Who needed her old life back, when what she had now could feel this perfect?

“Don’t tease me,” she half warned, half begged. “Please don’t make me wait.”

His chest rumbled with erotic laughter. “Who’s teasing whom?”

He throbbed in her grasp, then slipped away. His palms swooped to her butt and lifted her to him while he slid down her body, kissing her navel, then lower.

His mouth was a demon between her thighs, nibbling, sucking, shooting stars off behind her closed eyelids.

“Cole!” It was too much.

She grabbed his hair and tugged until he inched away, the tip of his tongue still tormenting her.

“My beautiful Shaw.” He kissed his way back up her body, rose over her, and lifted her arms above her head. He placed her wrists to either side of the pillow. “Let me love you, darlin’. It will make me the happiest man on the planet.”

She nodded, enchanted by his revelation of how much she pleased him. The words she wanted to say in return refused to release. Because his mouth was already stroking fire down her body again, worshipping every inch of her. He pressed her thighs wider, then his fingers and lips finished destroying her, taking her backward and forward between who she’d once been and who she was now, until there was no more confusion or pain or fear.

There was just Cole and her.

There was safety and demand. There was trust and need, giving and taking. There was every part of her she’d missed before him, before
them
.

She felt herself climbing, surging, her body weeping for him, peaking into wave after wave that took her higher. And when she thought she would fall, taking her even higher.

“I can’t…” She reached for him again. She couldn’t take any more.

“You can do anything.” He rose over her body, covering her as he had at the very start. He shuddered as her legs wrapped around him. “I’m right here with you, darlin’.”

“I’m flying apart.” She felt him pressing into her, past her defenses, but not nearly deep enough.

“We’ll fly together. From now on, Shaw. It’s you and me, together.”

Their gazes connected as he pushed all the way home, locking his body deep inside hers until they were completely one. And she knew. This exact moment, this weightless exhilaration of feeling the world miles below them as they soared in each other’s arms, it had all been theirs before.

“Perfect,” he said. “You feel perfect.”

They moved with the precision of lifelong lovers. She lifted into the magic of each stroke. She fought to hold him inside her, knowing he’d love the friction. They both gasped each time he pulled back, then filled her again, driving them to the brink.

“Stay with me,” she begged, desperate.

“Always.” He held her gaze, waited an endless moment, then moved even deeper.

“Forever.”

The wave of pure, unfiltered need that transformed his expression sent her screaming blind into her release. He rode her hard through the peak of it, his head dropping to her shoulder. He kissed her there, then softly groaned her name as she felt him explode.

Minutes, possibly hours, later, they were still moving, skin against skin, neither wanting to leave the amazing place they’d rediscovered. Her feet smoothed up the backs of his thighs, her hands found the muscles of his ass and squeezed. He was softer inside her. But she was so sensitive, each brush of his body back and forth set off series after series of aftershocks.

“Perfect,” he was whispering against the skin of her neck.

And it was. For the first time in forever, no part of her was running from her trauma, searching for answers, wracked with fear.

In Cole’s arms, feeling his total commitment to her, to them, she was finally, blissfully, at peace.

Chapter Thirteen

“Open it,” Cole said beside Shaw. He was next to her in the conference room closet, warming her, loving her.

“Are you crazy?” she whispered. “They’ll kill me.”

Voices raged on the other side of the door. Was she finally ready to see the faceless man? She was remembering differently. Images and sounds were more vibrant, more detailed. Her dream was changing, because Cole was in it now.

“You have to open it.” His powerful body wrapped around her, his arm encircling her waist. He was solid, confident, determined. “You have to remember who he is. What he’s doing here. Facing him is the only way to go back.”

Go back to what?

Back to her empty life? Back into the danger she’d been too blind to see hurtling toward her? There was nothing to go back to except disaster. Disappointment. The worst kind of failure she could imagine. Her life would return to the cold existence she’d made for herself if she went back.

She wanted to go forward. She wanted Cole.

“I want to stay here with you.” She shrank into him, closing her eyes. “I want this perfect place we’ve found again to last forever.”

Except it wasn’t perfect.

The dream shimmered in and out of focus.

They were in her nightmare’s closet. Together. Something was still terribly wrong, not perfect at all.

The muscles in her body cramped with panic. She was suddenly trembling, not from her position, but from the certainty that she was in even more danger than before. Cole had said he’d be there for her forever. Why couldn’t she just trust that? Why did having him here with her feel as threatening as the faceless man on the other side of the door? She shifted her balance, the truth pressing closer. She looked over her shoulder at Cole.

Pain seared through her at the guilt and anger spreading across his face, as if he’d hated her all along and could no longer hide his true feelings.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

The confrontation beyond them erupted into a frenzy of shouting. But the growing silence within the closet, Cole’s silence, was even more disturbing. His hand caressed her cheek, then he pulled his touch away, leaving behind a chilling emptiness.

“Don’t go.” She tried to kiss him, to love him with her mouth and her body, but she couldn’t get close enough. He wouldn’t let her. “Please…”

“No. You don’t understand.” His emotionless whisper was a harsh blast of reality. He jerked her away from him, shoving her against the closet door with a crash. “This isn’t real. I can’t trust you, and you shouldn’t trust me. Not until you finish this.”

“Cole!”

The noise they’d made had given away their hiding place. She held her breath, her hands plastered against his chest, hoping. Praying. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. He wouldn’t betray her like this.

“Please…,” she begged him. “Don’t let him find me.”

“He already has, Shaw.” Cole’s features tightened with exasperation. “Why do you think I’m here?”

“To help me hide.”

“Am I?” The cruelty of his smile made her sick. “Are you sure?”

What was happening? Why was he doing this? He turned her to face the door, refusing to let her shrink back. Footsteps approached. Her nightmare was waiting for her. Cole had chained her to it instead of saving her. He’d never really been there for her at all.

“I trusted you.” Now her heart was breaking. She was just as alone, facing this horrible moment, as she’d ever been.

Smoke from a raging fire rose around them. Blinking wouldn’t clear her vision. Her hands clenched around Cole’s wrist. Even while he was terrifying her, she couldn’t help but reach for him.

“I’ll hate you forever for this,” she said, almost sobbing the words.

“If that’s what it takes,” he whispered into her ear. Goose bumps swept her body—from panic this time, not passion. “If you want your life back, if you want my help, face your fears and remember what your mind doesn’t want you to know. Open the door. See who’s there, so we can get you out of this.”

“I just want you.” More than freedom and life and safety.

She wanted to hear him say again that she was enough. Just her. Just them. And that he’d never leave her. Not this time.

“You can’t have me. Not until you do this for us.” He gently shook her. “Do this, Shaw, and it will all be over.”

The doorknob turned. She grabbed it, trying to prevent her dream from racing forward.

“What if it’s you I see?” It was the secret fear she’d told herself wasn’t there. Hidden deep inside, through one accident piling on top of another after he’d shown up. And through all the half truths he’d been telling her, the evasions…a part of her had continued to wonder if Cole was somehow involved or even causing the danger she was sensing. Now there he was, destroying her hiding place. “What if it’s you I should have been afraid of all along? What if you’re the threat I should be running from?”

“There’s only one way to find out, darlin’.”

He reached for her hand, pulling it from the knob and trapping it in his larger grasp. The door was wrenched open. A slash of light pierced her eyes. The revolver appeared. She and Cole crumpled in a heap at the man’s feet, Cole’s body wrapped protectively around her. The man stared down at her. His face was a blur, but she could make out enough of it this time to realize he was horribly disfigured. Hard hands grabbed her hair.

“Help me,” she cried.

“Stop him yourself,” Cole said, shaking her again. “Tell me who he is.”

The man jerked her face up. The gun’s muzzle bit into her temple.

“No, no, I won’t!” she promised, feeling the same panic as before, as she gazed into his featureless face. “I won’t remember.”

“Tell anyone about me,” the man threatened, his voice an eerie echo from her childhood, “and you’re dead.”

Shaw struggled to get away as fire billowed around them. “I said I wouldn’t tell. Stop it. Stop hurting me.”

“Make him stop.” Cole’s lips nuzzled against her neck. He kissed her, terrifying her with how much she still wanted him, even now. “Don’t give up, Shaw. I won’t let you.”

“Even if he kills me?” She heard a click. The sound of the revolver’s hammer being cocked.

“Even if he kills us both.” Cole released her, his image fading into the flame until she was once more facing her nightmare alone.

“No!” she screamed. She was never what Cole had really wanted. She hadn’t been enough to keep him with her.

The blast of the gunshot roared through her mind, hurtling her into darkness, ripping at the memory of all she’d seen. Leaving nothing for certain except the knowledge that she was in more danger than ever before—only this time, it was because of Cole.

…

“Shaw!” Cole had the woman he loved pinned to the bed. Her eyes were open but seeing nothing.

They’d been asleep for hours when her dream had struck. The endless night before, the adrenaline of her attacks, and then the absolute perfection of the release they’d found together had converged into the type of exhaustion that could suck a man in for days.

God. How long had he been out of it? Darkness once more muted the world outside the bedroom window. He’d let his guard down, drowning himself in the touch, taste, and feel of the woman of his dreams. He hadn’t briefed Shaw on the reality of Cassidy Global’s problems, her precarious standing with the U.S. Attorney, or the joint task force she’d had no idea he was fronting for. He’d made love with her, instead of putting every ounce of energy and experience he possessed into convincing her to do the only thing that would get her safely out of this mess: continuing to work with him and remembering, regardless of how shocked she’d be over his revelations.

And he may have already missed his check-in with Dawson.

Fuck
.

But he could do nothing about any of it while Shaw was in crisis, trapped within another nightmare, screaming and lost in a place where he couldn’t reach her.

“Wake up, darlin’,” he urged.

He’d been gently shaking her for several minutes, not sure how to break her away from the dream without terrifying her even more.

“I’m right here,” he said.

“You left me.” Tears streamed from the corners of her now-closed eyes. “It was never me you wanted. You made me face him, then you left me. Now he’ll kill me. He’ll kill us both. Because you had to have your answers.”

Cole froze. His fingers tightened on her arms. He pulled back as if she’d burned him. Had her mind figured out the truth before he’d had a chance to tell her? The uncharacteristic panic rushing through him made him acutely aware of how ill-prepared he was for the possibility of losing her all over again.

She was so beautiful, even in the midst of the nightmare, her body glowing, open and vulnerable, sated from them taking each other to heights he’d found only with Shaw. He could see the evidence of his beard, where he’d lovingly marked her body in the hollow of her neck, the curve of her breasts, and the softness of her thighs. And every touch she’d accepted with abandon, she’d given back tenfold, binding him to her. Until he’d been unable to protect himself or his heart. With Shaw, he’d never been able to.

Curling her into his body now, sitting her up and rocking her as she cried, he felt his chest squeeze so tightly, he knew he wouldn’t survive letting her go.

“Come back to me.” His fingers bunched in the soft silk of her hair, her face only inches from his. “Wake up, Shaw. It’s just a nightmare. It can’t hurt you.”

“You let him shoot me!” There was a steely edge to her voice. God, she believed every word she was saying.

“Wake up, darlin’. You know I’d never let him hurt you.” Cole gritted his teeth. Because hadn’t he, by doing his job and what he’d thought would protect her, already allowed her stalker too many chances? Her body continued to fight him, lost to the trauma of whatever she’d seen. “Damn it, Shaw. Will you fucking trust me this once? Wake up!”

She jerked as if he’d slapped her. Her incoherent cry ruined him. Her eyes ripped open.

“You’re with them.” Accusation narrowed her soft brown gaze. “Get away from me.”

“With who? It’s Cole. I’m not going to hurt you. You have to—”

“Trust you? Like I did in the closet?” She wasn’t fully conscious, but she was spitting mad and strong as hell. “Who are you, really, and what are you doing to me? You don’t want me. That’s just a lie, or you wouldn’t have left.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Cole asked, his blood freezing in his veins. “When did I leave you?”

“Be…” Shaw shook her head and swallowed. Her gaze was crazed still. Confused. Far away, the same as every other time she’d started to remember. “Before…”

All these years, it had never occurred to him how she must have suffered, too. He’d only seen the damage her betrayal had done to his life. But in her own way, Shaw had lived just as lonely and isolated an existence as he had since Sebastian’s death, allowing her career to eclipse everything else in her life. She had no family left. No long-term relationships. There was no chance she’d let anyone get close enough again for her to care whether or not she lost them. Exactly as Cole had lived for far too long.

“Shaw…” Everything she’d said and remembered so far replayed in his mind, the fears and broken dreams of a woman who’d been as emotionally devastated by their past as he had.

“Why did you leave me, Cole?” she demanded, her anger roaring back. Her nails bit into the tender flesh of his back.

“Damn it.” He recoiled, loosening his grip on her for only a second. But that was all it took. She was off the bed, running from him, slippery as a cool breeze. He grabbed for her, but she was already gone.

“Shaw!”

“Leave me alone. I’ll never trust you again.”

She grappled with the door. She flipped the lock and raced down the hallway. He was at her heels but afraid to put too much force behind catching her. They were both stark naked.

“Darlin’, stop before you hurt yourself. For God’s sake, you’re acting crazy, letting a dream rile you up when you know I’m here to protect you. We just made love, because we both wanted it just as badly. I’d protect you with my life. You know that. Settle down. You’ve got to be freezing. Let me get you something to wrap yourself in, and we can talk. I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”

She did stop then. Her expression when she turned to him at the foot of the stairs was more aware, if still suspicious.

“You’ve been lying to me,” she said with absolute conviction. “You forced me to open the door in my dream, to face that horrible man. You let him shoot me. Why did I dream that? What aren’t you telling me, Cole?”

Her beautiful breasts rose and fell with each frantic breath. Any other time, the sight would have aroused him beyond bearing. Instead, his soul was bleeding at her words.

“You know me better than that.” He prayed some part of her still did. “What exactly were you dreaming? I’ll do my best to help you understand.”

She shivered. Her eyes grew vague, and he wanted to kick his own ass for all the ways he was hurting her.

“You.” She folded her arms around her body and glanced up the stairs to her room, as if calculating the distance he could sense her once more needing from him. She shook her head, as if to dislodge more memories. Her chin came up, flashing him a glimpse of the unflinching courage that had seen her through so much. “You were in the closet with me. It felt so safe. I was stronger, and I wanted you there, and it was going to be okay. For a minute it
was
okay.”

In her eyes he saw hope and her desperation to hold onto it. Then she shrank farther away from him.