Paint It Black (35 page)

“About half an hour, I suppose.”

“Can I—”

She gestured to the closed door of Angel’s bedroom. “Sure.”

I knocked, and Angel yelled, “Come in!”

Cougar sighed when I let myself in and gently shut the door behind me. He leaned back in the chair, looking wild and more than a little angry. “Which one of those sons of bitches called you?” he asked.

“They were worried.” When I drew closer, I noted both his and Angel’s red-rimmed eyes and felt a sense of relief. If he couldn’t talk to me, I was glad he could talk to someone.

“It pissed me off.” Cougar pushed a hand through his hair. “I kept telling them to let me up, then that woman wouldn’t stop crawling on me … I told them no strippers. Hey, when I asked you to marry me, that
meant you were the only woman I wanted to be with.”

“I know,” I said lightly, and moved around the bed to sit in his lap.

He held himself rigid for a moment, then relaxed. He draped an arm across my knees and kissed my forehead.

I glanced at Angel, and he gave me a reassuring wink, though his handsome face was creased with worry. “Besides, no fair having strippers there when I can’t be there,” he joked.

Cougar laughed and drew me up closer. “But the doc cleared you for the wedding. That’s the important thing. I don’t know what I’d do without my best man.”

“Yeah, it’s a good thing you didn’t ask me to give Necie away,” he said with a grin. “Because I’d just keep her.” He cleared his throat. “It’s good that you’re marrying a friend, Coug. Somebody you can talk to. Somebody you can tell anything.”

Cougar dropped his head. “I-I know.”

We sat in awkward silence for a moment, then Cougar gently slapped my knee. “Well, we’d better get going, babe. Let this guy get some beauty sleep. God knows, he needs it.”

I stood and hugged Angel, then Cougar did the same. Angel held him for a moment too long, and whispered something.

It’ll be okay. Just talk to her, man
.

Back at the apartment, I hoped he would, but he
had other things on his mind. He was kissing me before I ever got the keys out of the door. Everything felt off, however, as if he were being so aggressive merely to prove to me that nothing was wrong. The wildness I felt in his kiss … the distress … frightened me. I didn’t want to go back to the way we were following the attack. It was as if all the progress we’d made had been wiped away by this one stupid incident. An idea occurred to me, but I was hesitant to speak it aloud because—although I knew it had the potential to make things better—it also might make things a thousand times worse. Still, as Cougar ravaged my throat, I decided to trust my instincts.

“I want to tie you up,” I whispered huskily.

He froze, absolutely froze. When he looked at me, I saw a flash of anger. Fear.

“What?” he asked thickly. “Why the hell would you want to do that?”

“Because …” I stroked his cheek, “… when you go to sleep tonight, I don’t want you dreaming about some stripper. I want you dreaming about me.”

We both knew I wasn’t worried about “some stripper” invading his dreams. There were worse things that came for him when he slept, and I thought maybe—just maybe—we could banish them by recreating another memory. A good one.

“I don’t know,” he said, looking pale and shaken.

I kissed his neck. “If you decide you don’t like it, I’ll
untie you. You just have to say the word.”

He stared at me for a long moment, then walked to the bedroom.

Wordlessly, we undressed, and he allowed me to tie his wrists to the headboard. For an instant, I saw the terror in his eyes, bright and stark.

“Leave the light on,” he commanded.

For a long time, I simply kissed him, touched him … murmured a thousand I love yous. He finally relaxed, the fear in his eyes turning to desire. I made love to him slowly, gently, praying that somehow all the love we had for each other would prove stronger than the memories that haunted him.

EPILOGUE

W
ake up, lazy bones.” I leaned over the side of the bed to kiss Cougar’s neck. He smiled and mumbled something incomprehensible before covering his face with a pillow.

Putting my hands on my hips, I said, “Are you going to get up and run with me or not?”

He tossed the pillow and seized me, pulling me on top of him and regarding me with one sleepy blue eye.

“With all due respect, Mrs. Stratton … I am still recovering from the workout you gave me last night.”

“But it’s the ocean … the sun, the salt …”

“I like the ocean better after dark. See, I have this idea, for later on tonight…”

Rolling my eyes, I crawled off him. “You can tell me all about it when I get back. Call and check on Abby. They might try to call us at the other hotel. I’ll order us
some breakfast when I get back.”

He gave me a sleepy salute and rolled on his side.

I was still smiling when I made my way past the vendors and tourists and ran down the sandy white beach. We were taking a short honeymoon. Neither of us wanted to leave Abby for very long, though we’d left her in the capable and loving hands of Cougar’s mother, who seemed quite determined to spoil her new granddaughter. She’d volunteered to stay in Philly to babysit until we got back.

I tried to estimate three miles on my run, then headed back to the hotel. A bike messenger intercepted me under the sprawling red awning.

“Mrs. Stratton?” he asked.

When I said that I was, he presented me with a bouquet of flowers and a card.

Oh, Jason
, I thought, pressing my face to the wild-flowers. I patted my pockets, realizing I had no money with me to tip him.

“That’s okay, ma’am,” he said with a smile. “Have a nice day.”

I waved good-bye, then gave the flowers another appreciative sniff before opening the envelope. Extracting the card, I frowned when I saw the silver script on the front of it.

Congratulations to Both of You on Your Wedding
.

Only a handful of people knew where we were going and—due to a hotel mix-up—none of them even knew where we were staying. I opened the card and nearly
dropped the photo and plastic sleeve that was inside.

My heart stalled when I examined the picture.

Maria smiled at me, one side of her lovely face marred by burn scars. In her arms, she held a dark-haired baby. In the plastic sleeve, I found a lock of hair tied with a baby blue ribbon. The graceful handwriting inside the card read simply, “He has his father’s eyes, doesn’t he?”

With a lump in my throat, I realized he did, indeed.

Numbly, I shoved it back in the envelope, caught the elevator back to our room, and let myself in.

Cougar emerged from the bathroom with a towel swathed around his narrow hips. He grinned. “Hey, I was about to come looking for you.”

Wordlessly, I handed him the card. His smile faded when he glanced from me to it. He opened it, then dropped it like it had burned him.

He sat heavily on the bed and buried his face in his hands. When he finally looked at me, his eyes were dark with anguish and fury.

“I am not like Grady,” he said vehemently. “I didn’t give her anything. She took it.”

He paused, as if waiting on me to say something, but I couldn’t. I could barely breathe.

Apparently, he mistook my silence for condemnation. He jumped to his feet. Agitated, he paced beside the bed. “Her goons were punching me. The last thing I heard before I blacked out was her telling them to take off my clothes. When I came to, I was naked, and she was …”
He grimaced, and wiped his hand down his face, unwilling or unable to say it even now.

“Granger?” I whispered.

I felt dizzy, sick. Still, I needed to hear everything.

“No.” Cougar shook his head violently. “No. He and the others … they held me down. Laughed. Taunted me. Granger told me he was next, but they ran out of time, or she called him off, or … hell, I don’t know.” He raked his hand through his hair, then glanced at me, his face stark.

I was crying now, and my tears only seemed to stoke his desperation.

“You have to believe me, Necie. I didn’t want her. I was scared to death. She was …” He squeezed his eyes shut. “She was stimulating me with a knife. I thought she was going to castrate me, or cut my throat, but still my body … my own body …”

“An erection, and even ejaculation are involuntary, physiological reactions. You couldn’t help it. It doesn’t imply consent.” Words from my training spilled out of my mouth, but they felt hollow, useless, as I stared into the tormented face of the man I loved.

He waved his hand and scowled. “Yeah, yeah, and rape isn’t about sex, it’s about power …” He froze, then gave a mortified laugh. “Rape,” he repeated. Then he cursed.

Not knowing what else to do, I wrapped my arms around him and held on tight.

I don’t know how long we stood there like that,
but finally he pulled away. He stooped to retrieve the photograph from the floor, then sat on the edge of the bed, studying it.

“Maybe it’s not mine. Maybe she’s only doing this to hurt us.”

I stood beside him, laying my hand on the back of his neck. “There’s a … a lock of hair. I don’t know if you saw it, but I’m sure she did that knowing we’d take a DNA sample.”

His shoulders slumped in defeat. “So, what do we do now?”

I knelt in front of him and met his gaze. “The only thing we can do. We’re going to get your son.”

“My son,” he repeated, sounding weary. Resigned. His blue eyes were troubled when he said, “But what if I can’t … what if I can’t love him? How can I look at him and not…”

“You will love him, for the same reason I will. Because he’s yours.”

I held up my hand, palm facing him. He laced his fingers in mine.

We were going to be okay. We would make it through this.

Maria Barnes was going to pay with her life.

How hard could it be to kidnap a pampered little rich girl?

Especially if you’re bounty hunter extraordinaire Dante Giovanni, who normally prowls the underworld in search of the most vicious criminals. Piece of cake, Dante thinks, when reclusive businessman Gary Vandergriff offers him a cool half million to bring home his estranged daughter, Nadia.

Enter Nadia.

His first meeting with her is stunning; both literally and figuratively. He foils an attempt on her life, and falls immediately under her spell. It’s not gonna be hard duty, Dante thinks, keeping her safe from the Mexican drug lord infuriated by her stepfather’s expanding meth operation. He’ll take her out of harm’s way, no problem, get her back to her father, and enjoy the ride along the way. Everything is great.

Until he delivers her into Enemy Hands.

ISBN# 9781932815474
Jewel Imprint: Emerald
US $6.99 / CDN $9.99
Available Now
www.michelleperry.com

The small town of Coalmont, Tennessee is shattered when a car crash on graduation night leaves three of its teenagers dead and another three fighting for their lives. Four years later, the aftershocks still ripple through the town, and no one feels them more than Natasha Hawthorne, the young driver.

When someone targets the survivors of the horrific crash for murder, the obvious motive is revenge. But things aren’t always what they seem, and the notion of revenge served cold doesn’t ring true with Brady Simms, newly appointed police chief. To make things even more difficult, Brady ultimately finds himself standing squarely between the killer and his next victim, the woman who broke his heart four years ago.