Stockholm Surrender (3 page)

“That should do,” he said, showing me a big clump of my pale-blonde hair. “And he’ll definitely know it’s your hair when he sees that.” He nodded at my head.

I raised my hand to my hairline. There was at least a two-inch square patch of soft stubble. “Oh crap,” I said with a frown.

He poked the lock of hair into a small, clear plastic bag and shoved it in his front jean pocket, then re-sheathed the knife before tucking it away. All the time his body kept pressed into mine, and as much as I was monumentally pissed about having a bald patch, the feel of him, his closeness, the sound of his breathing and the scent of his skin were like a drug to me—all I could feel was lust.

Am I crazy?

Probably.

“So what now?” I asked.

His gaze harnessed mine and he cupped my cheek with his gloved palms, the wool scratchy against my skin. “Now I send that to your father, just to let him know I can still get to his precious little girl even on the other side of the world. He needs to listen to me. He needs to give James’ case attention, soon.”

“How is James?”

He frowned. “I stopped over on my way here and after a lot of paperwork and hanging around I saw him. He’s thin, thin and scared, but typical James he’s trying to be positive. Although how he’s managing it I don’t know. The place is hell on earth.”

“It must be awful.”

Ty narrowed his eyes and nibbled at his full bottom lip. “Yeah, it is. I’ve got to get him out, there’s going to be a retrial but it could go against him, there’s talk of the death sentence.”

“Shit, really? God, that’s awful. I want to help.”

He tipped his head a little nearer to mine and I traced my fingertips over the rise of his collarbones to the hollow of his throat.

“Do you really?” he asked.

“Yes, of course. I’ve brought it up with my father several times.”

“So bring it up again.” His voice was steely.

“I will, I have. Trouble is, he’s so pissed that you kidnapped me back in Oz that he flips into a blind rage whenever the subject is raised.”

“Well, he’s going to have to get over that. Maybe when he gets the message that you’re going to be taken again he’ll come to his senses.”

“Aren’t you taking me now?”

He shook his head.

I shifted against him.

He didn’t budge.

“So when are you going to let me go?”

He curled his lips into a devilish smile. “In a minute.”

I swallowed and wondered what it was about that smile that sent hot fiery fingers of need speeding to every erogenous zone in my body.

“Right after I’ve done this,” he murmured.

In a sudden rush, he claimed my mouth in a hot, hungry kiss. I opened up and let him in, releasing a small moan of pleasure as his arms circled my body and pulled me close. Damn, the man could kiss. His mouth communicated desire and strength, passion and danger and I lapped it up like the starving, reckless woman I was.

He chased for my tongue and we began a wild, slippery tango. As if we couldn’t get enough of each other.

I slotted my fingers into his thick hair and urged him closer.

“Ah, fuck, Penny,” he gasped, trailing supercharged kisses over my cheek. “If only…”

I tipped my neck as he explored behind my ear with his mouth, making me shiver in bliss. “If only what?” I asked breathlessly, barely controlling the delicious shudders rippling up my spine.

“If only circumstances were different.” He was exploring with his hands too, the thin material of the gloves sliding beneath my sweater, over the base of my ribs to my breasts.

I trembled as he cupped me through my bra and tweaked my nipple. “Different?” I managed. My brain was struggling to work. He did this to me, Ty, made me forget everything and all sense.

“Yeah, if only we’d met like two ordinary people.” His voice was low and husky. “Instead of this crazy situation. We could have been so hot together.”

“We
are
hot together.”

“Fuck, I know, but there’s nothing we can do about it.”

He was spooning my other breast now, holding it in his palm. The urge to pull off my top and let him have full access was overwhelming. “We did something about it last time.”

“I know, and I still feel terrible about it.”

I pushed at his shoulders and captured his gaze. “Don’t feel terrible, it was amazing.”

He stared down at me. “But it was wrong. I was holding you captive, against your will, and I ended up fucking you.”

“Only because I asked. It was hardly rape, was it?” Sweeping my hands over his shoulders, I pulled him closer again. Beneath my sweater he smoothed his hands around my back. Suddenly I was aware of a hardness jabbing into my belly—a long, thick hardness that I remembered only too well.

His nostrils flared and he sucked in a breath. He ground his erection forward.

“It was sexy and steamy,” I whispered onto his lips. “And bloody hell, I had one incredible orgasm.”

His eyes sparkled. “Yeah, I remember the cute little squeal you made when you came.” He poked out his tongue and traced the seam of my lips. “I’d quite like to hear it again sometime.”

“Here?” I curled my leg around one of his and trapped him to me, shifted against his cock. “Now?”

“Tempting, but no, not here, not now.”

“When, where?”

He mashed his lips to mine, hard and fretful. Shoved his steely length into my belly even more firmly.

I whimpered, a combination of lust and shock. Being pinned in his embrace sent my heart rate to dangerous levels and my head went giddy. I loved the way he kissed me. No man had ever kissed me with such desperation, such urgent intensity.

“Soon,” he said, pulling away and forcing me to unfurl my limbs from his body. “Soon, Penny, but I’ve got to get some results from your father first.”

He stepped back and I stared up at him. I was panting and my skin prickled with a heated flush that had turned me feverish.

He was breathing fast too. His fists were balled at his sides, his lips shiny from our kisses. The package in his jeans was impressive and I was more than a little irritated that I wasn’t about to get up close and personal with it again.

“I’ll do my best to persuade my father,” I said breathlessly.

“Do more than your best. Make it happen, or I will be forced to take drastic action, baby.”

Then, as fast as he’d appeared he was gone, slipping around the end of the aisle so quickly I could almost have believed he’d evaporated.

My heart knocked and my pussy buzzed. The feel of his arms around me and his hard cock had reawakened so many emotions and desires. My gut clenched and my body felt weak. I clutched the side of the shelf for support and fought the urge to crumple into a heap on the floor.

Ty was the worst man in the world for me to want. He was dangerous, unpredictable and desperate. Skilled in a whole host of things that could get me into very deep trouble, not just with the law but in the broken-heart department too.

But one thing was for sure.

I wanted him more than I’d ever wanted anything else in my life.

Chapter Two

My body didn’t feel like my own as I raced through the back streets of Oxford, clutching my rucksack. My feet floated over the cobbles and my breaths were short and sharp, echoing around the sandstone walls. I slowed only briefly to dispose of the note Ty had left in the library, throwing it in a trash bin outside the Red Lion pub.

Dodging evening revelers, I dashed into the grounds of my residency complex. My emotions collided in my chest as I sped along the tree-lined pathway that ran parallel to the halls. I was elated, turned-on, but also hugely frustrated. After all of this time waiting for Ty to take me again nothing had happened. There’d been no relief for my confusing, darkly twisted desires and barely a few minutes talking to him, finding out more about him, what was going on in that head of his.

I was thankful there was no one around when I let myself into the four-bedroomed corridor I shared with Jane, Tara and Nat. They were still out partying and not likely to roll home until the early hours. That was usually the way.

After letting myself into my room, locking the door and dropping my bag on the small dresser-cum-study desk, I glanced in the mirror.

Fuck!

I stooped and leaned forward for a closer inspection.

There was going to be no hiding that.

My hair was only ever a few inches long on the top and I either spiked it in a bed-head style or let it lie soft and feathered, depending on my mood. But no matter which I opted for, over the next few months there would be no disguising the big patch of stubble above the left side of my forehead. It was so short I could see the paleness of my scalp and the outline of my skull beneath.

Why did he go for such a conspicuous spot?

Frowning, I reached for a bottle of merlot and poured a generous glass. I would be wearing hats—a lot. After gulping back the rich liquid as though it was juice, I toed off my sneakers and kicked them under my chair.

I flicked on my iPod and a melancholy tune of lost love sang out. With a sigh I flopped onto the bed. Ty wasn’t exactly a lost love, he was just a lost opportunity—well, tonight at least.

In the outback we’d been so crazy for each other. I’d never in all my life wanted a man to penetrate me and make me come the way I had him. He was raw and masculine, big and unpredictable, everything opposite to my small, ordered, very feminine self. The attraction had been magnetic, like yin and yang coming together. It had also been inappropriate and wrong. He knew it and so did I. But we hadn’t been able to help ourselves. Our bodies had taken control and we’d given in to the very primitive needs that had consumed us.

Reaching up, I pulled my brown-and-orange-striped curtains shut, blocking out the amber glow of a streetlamp directly outside. After wriggling out of my jeans, I tugged off my sweater. The room was so small that I could reach the window, my desk and a shelf holding a mix of heavy law books and chick lit without getting off my bed. Six paces and I was at the door, another fifteen and I was in our communal kitchen, five farther and it was the bathroom. This is where I would live for the first year of my studies. Dad had offered to buy me a flat of my own, but I wanted the whole student experience. I wanted to live the life. He’d frowned and said he couldn’t understand my stubbornness when it came to accepting the finer things he could offer me. I guess I just couldn’t help what I wanted.

A siren in the distance grabbed my attention. Was it the police after Ty? No, impossible. He wasn’t being looked for here. Not yet anyway. He would be once he sent my hair to Dad, then he would be on the UK’s top most-wanted list. He’d be hunted and sought out. Or at least an older, graying guy named Peter would be.

I hoped my red herring would protect Ty, because the thought of him being caught created a well of nausea in my gut. He had to play it right and I had to help him when I could. Not just for his sake but also for James’.

He’d said James was thin. Thin and living in hell but trying to be positive. I remembered the picture of him, smiling broadly and clutching his surfboard, his eyes sparkling, aglow with a vibrancy that came from a carefree existence and living life to the full.

What had happened to James was desperately wrong. Okay, so accidently having a bit of marijuana in his possession wasn’t sensible, but it was hardly a crime that should be paid for with his life.

I flicked the clasp on my bra and slid it down my arms.

I wanted to see Ty smile again too, and I wanted James to have the chance to enjoy his life once more. Be the vibrant man he obviously once was. I had no idea how to make that happen, but one thing was for sure, I was going to have to go along with the wild ride Ty had planned. He was dragging me with him whether I liked it or not.

I shucked away my knickers, clicked off the bedside lamp and slipped beneath my duvet.

It was some time before sleep enveloped me. My thoughts were full of the two men who had barged into my life without invitation. But finally I drifted into a world where I could be with Ty, where his smell and his taste and his gritty determination filled my mind and flooded my senses.

Bliss.

* * * * *

Bangs and heavy footsteps woke me in the dead of the night as the girls stumbled back into their rooms. There were guys’ voices too, mixed in with their giggles. Deep and gruff, laughing like booming drums.

I groaned and turned over, annoyed at being disturbed from my dreams.

Just as I was drifting back to sleep, something began knocking at the wall. Tara’s room was next to mine and she’d clearly gotten lucky, and not just with one guy but two, both giving her a wonderful time from the groans and calls of delight rumbling through to my room.

“Oh god, yes, like that.”

“Harder, fuck me harder.”

“Ah, babes, your tongue, ah, ah, ah.”

I tried not to listen but it was impossible not to. Soon my frustrated mind wandered to fantasies, the fantasy of having Ty in my bed again, the fantasy of having “two” Tys in my bed. That wasn’t possible, but hearing Tara enjoying a ménage added to the pit of despair I was wallowing in and further served to remind me that I hadn’t gotten lucky in any shape or form.

“Please, stop, ah, no, no, give me more, both of you.” Tara’s voice.

I buried my head beneath my pillow. Images of what she was asking to stop and then continue flooded my mind. Was she giving one guy oral sex while the other fucked her? Was she taking them both at the same time, one in her pussy, one in her ass?

A tremble of excitement shimmied over me at the thought of anal sex. I’d never tried it, never been comfortable enough with any of my past boyfriends. But the thought of what I’d always considered the most private part of my body being invaded, used as entry and not just exit, was a real turn-on.

Would I ever do that with Ty? Could I ever trust him enough?

I didn’t know.

It was a long time before Tara went quiet and even longer until I fell back to sleep.

* * * * *

“Fuck, Penny, what the hell have you done?” Nat froze and widened her eyes, her knife hovering above a slice of burned toast.

Self-consciously, I rubbed my stubbled patch and berated myself for not pulling on a hat before I stumbled from my room into the kitchen. But I was not at my best in the morning, not until I’d guzzled at least two mugs of coffee. And the fact that I’d had considerably less sleep than I needed because of Tara’s antics hadn’t helped.

“I, er, had a bit of an accident,” I said.

“No kidding.” She dropped the knife onto the breadboard, stepped up and stroked the tip of her finger over the bristles. “How did you do it?”

“Um, it was the straighteners. They must have had a short circuit or something, overheated.”

“What and burned your hair?”

“Yes, it was terrible—smoke, sizzling, even a flame at one point.”

“Bloody hell, did it burn your skin?”

“No, no, just my hair, thank goodness. But I had to chop off the scalded bit, it was black and crispy.”

“You poor thing, that’s awful. It will take weeks to grow back.” She frowned. “I didn’t think you used straighteners.”

“I don’t, not really. I was just trying a new style. You know, for next time I go out.”

“You should have come with us last night. Thirst was heaving with hot guys. Tara pulled two.” She giggled. “She couldn’t choose between them so took them both, greedy cow.”

“Mmm, I heard.”

“Oh, sorry, did we wake you?”

“No, I was up anyway, you know, trying to sort this out.” I pointed to my hair.

“I’ve got just the thing,” she said, giving a sympathetic smile.

She dashed into her room and by the time I’d used the bathroom she was back in the kitchen holding out a small, purple beret. “This will go with your style and if you sit it like this,” she rested it on my head at a jaunty angle, “no one will be any the wiser.”

I studied my reflection in a windowpane, my face crisscrossed by the strips of lead. The hat was cute and it was kind of my style. “Er, thanks, that’s great. Do you mind if I borrow it then?”

“Go ahead, your needs are greater than mine.” She glanced at her watch. “Oh shit, is that the time? I have to dash. Catch you later. I have to hand in that nutrition assignment by eight or Professor Darlington will have a stroke.”

I flicked on the kettle. “Good luck.”

“Yeah, I need it.” She scooped up a large bag bulging with folders, grabbed her toast and dashed off. The door at the end of the corridor slammed.

* * * * *

The first lecture of the morning was a discussion on criminal liability and within five minutes I knew it would give me brain ache. The lecturer’s voice didn’t help. She had a whiny, high-pitched squeaking tone and adjusted the round glasses on the bridge of her nose every thirty seconds.

Yawning, I copied down the details of
actus reus
. My focus was blurred and even my writing looked tired.

The professor started to drone on about “beyond reasonable doubt” and I fingered my beret, hoping it was still in position. It was. I glanced around the lecture theater. There must have been over sixty students all sitting at the tiered benches, but I didn’t know any of them. The girls on my corridor were doing different courses than me.

Everyone around me had their heads down and their pens scratching furiously across paper. The air of concentration was palpable. The silent, studied focus that I normally found soothing was oppressive today.

Perhaps I would just Google “reasonable doubt” later. That way I could drop my head in my hands and get a bit of sneaky shuteye. Catch up on some of the sleep I’d missed because of what Ty had stirred up in me and the sound of Tara’s conquests. I couldn’t walk out. I had another hour of this before there would be any chance of release. I was trapped in this lecture, held hostage—unfortunately not in a good way.

There was a sudden bang and the old oak door in the corner of the lecture room swung open. All pens stopped as everyone’s attention was directed toward the two policemen striding in. They wore stiff, dark uniforms and peaked hats. Each had an expression of grim determination.

“Er, can I help you?” the professor asked, poking at her glasses then twisting her hands around each other.

“I hope so,” the taller of the two policemen said, strolling toward the professor’s desk. His heavy black boots clicked on the wooden floor and the set of his shoulders oozed purpose. He took off his hat and sent his keen gaze over the sea of faces staring his way. “We’re looking for Penelope Tipping.”

My heart pounded.

Shit!

Ty must have delivered the lock of hair to my father already. Fast work. I was planning on calling Dad later and letting him know I was okay and not to panic if a piece of me was delivered. I’d wanted to keep a lid on his anxieties about my safety, not least because it would ease the way for a conversation about James’ case.

But it seemed Ty had beaten me to it. It wouldn’t go in his favor and now I felt like a truly terrible daughter.

The policeman folded his arms and widened his stance. “Miss Penelope Tipping,” he said again, more firmly this time.

“Yes, over here.” I flipped shut my notebook and stood. What choice did I have?

“Miss Tipping?” he asked, tilting his chin.

Nodding resignedly, I packed up my belongings, threw my rucksack over my shoulder and made my way down the central column of steps. Everyone was staring. I bet they were all wondering what criminal offense I’d committed. Was it certain beyond “reasonable doubt”? Would I be sent to jail? Could they follow my case? A murmuring hum of conversation began to build.

“Miss Tipping,” the policeman said when I reached him. “Your father sent us to ensure your safety and deliver you to him. I hope it’s not too inconvenient.”

“Well, it’s not terribly convenient. As you can see I am in the middle of a lecture.” I knew I should feel grateful that my father cared so much that he sent in the cavalry, all guns blazing, but I couldn’t help but feel embarrassed, and in turn angry.