My knees are clenched together from arousal, and he bends down and pries them apart. You have to draw the line. I need you to do that. Then his mouth is between my legs, my black pleated skirt up around my waist. His tongue strokes my clit over and over again, endless, relentless, and I beg. “No, please, wait.”
He doesn’t stop. He doesn’t wait. He only licks me until tears stream down my cheeks. I push myself backwards to get away, but the bars imprison me. Even now, in this intimate moment, he conspires to kidnap me. I’m going to cross the line. Again and again. I want him to cross it. He forces two fingers inside me, and I sob from the hard invasion. He rubs in a cruel, cruel pattern. One designed to push me over the edge. This time when I come it’s a quick flash in the dark, an explosion that leaves my ears ringing.
We both collapse onto the hard, dusty floor, panting, our breaths loud in the hollow room. Reality returns to me in cold, shocking flashes: the disarray of my clothes, the cell door open that crucial inch, the fact that Adam is no longer here.
“Hi,” he says.
It makes me smile. “Hi back.”
“What the hell did the lieutenant colonel say to you?”
“Nothing.”
He gives me a dark look. “I can imagine him coming in with all his self-righteous bluster, his arguments and his threats. What I can’t understand is why you listened to him.”
“He said he was going to try you for treason.”
“Fuck treason. That’s not why you left before I could even say goodbye.”
“Would you have said goodbye if I’d waited?”
“Hell no.”
“Then that’s why I left.”
“Something he said spooked you.”
“I was worried, all right? I was worried that I would crush the life out of you. We come from such different worlds. I go to brunch and you kidnap me. I could never survive in your world, and what if…” A tear trickles down my cheek. “What if you can’t survive in mine, either?”
His jaw works. “I don’t know, Holly.”
“That’s why I left without seeing you. He said it would crush the life out of you, trying to fit with me, and I didn’t want to be responsible for that.”
“Hell. I love you.”
Another woman might have been moved to happiness by hearing the confession. I burst into tears. “Don’t. Don’t. You don’t love me.”
“Do you think I chose this? Do you think it matters what I want? My love for you is irrational. It defies logic and reason and common sense, but that’s what makes it love. We aren’t convenient, Holly. We don’t fit, but I can’t live without you. That’s what makes it love.”
“What if love isn’t enough?”
“Enough for what? I’m going to be with you if I have to tear down every goddamn door in my path, if I have to abduct you from a hundred street corners.”
“He said he’ll charge you with treason, Elijah.”
“Every relationship has problems.”
“This is serious.”
He scrubs a hand over his face. “I know. I don’t give a shit that he’s going to smear my name through the mud, but it means you can’t live in your loft with your sad-looking succulents.”
“You were inside my loft?”
“And worse, it means I can’t involve my brothers. Even knowing me will taint them, but I can’t make it worse by asking for their help. When I go on the run, I do it without them.” His expression turns grave. “The only question left is whether I do it alone.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Elijah
We leave the church in the same black SUV that we arrived in.
Except this time there’s no dark hood over Holly’s head. No duct tape on her wrists. We’re both in the front this time, me on the driver’s side, her in the passenger seat. My hand plays with her fingers, linking them together, stroking the sensitive places on her palm.
Maybe this is what she meant by dating.
It’s a foreign idea.
Not an entirely unpleasant one.
Her head’s turned away from me. She watches the city go by.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
She shakes her head, which just confirms my suspicion.
I squeeze her hand gently. “Tell me, sweetheart. Or I’ll force the answer out of you. You probably won’t enjoy that process, but I definitely will.”
A pretty pink blush covers her cheeks. “He told me he would have the charges of treason dropped if I left you alone.” She glares at me, but it’s overshadowed by her worry. “But he said our deal was off if you found me again.”
Loving someone is hell. I want to slay dragons for her. Instead there’s only one dragon, and he’s a bastard with the weight of the US government behind him. “I’m thinking.”
Panic darkens her brown eyes. “You can drop me off at my loft. You don’t have to come in. We can pretend like you never found me again.”
“Pretend like I never fucked you against the bars beneath a New York City church? Pretend like you didn’t scream and beg and cry when you came? No fucking way.”
“There are more important things than sex.”
“I can’t think of any.”
“Your life.”
“He’s not going to kill me. I’m too valuable.” Unfortunately Holly is the leverage he needs, which means she’s in more danger than ever before. It seems he already suspected that when he visited her in Italy. Following her to New York City confirms it for him.
That’s a problem, but it’s not going to keep me from her. Nothing will.
“There’s something else,” she says, then looks away again. “Another reason we can’t be together. A more important one.”
I wish I wasn’t driving, so I could take her chin between my thumb and forefinger, so I could make her look at me. Instead I grip the steering wheel until it creaks in protest. “What?”
“He said he understands you better than I ever will.”
“The man can’t understand a basic requisition form.”
“He said you need the work he’s offering you.”
Hell. The man actually had found my sore spot, my constant need for danger. The adrenaline rush, the violence. It’s the only thing I know. “I can do that work with my brothers.”
“Not if you’re wanted for treason.”
No, not if I’m wanted for treason. I’m useless to my brothers like this. And my hands are tied. The best thing I can do is stay under the radar. Any sort of exposure would only draw attention to me. Even a bar fight could lead to death and discovery. “I’ll take up knitting.”
“He said I’d only strangle the life out of you.” Her voice becomes a whisper. “And he’s right. That’s why I left Italy. A person should have a line, you said, and you’re right. That’s my line. I refuse to strangle the life out of you. Because I love you too much to do that.”
I swerve the SUV and pull over in an alley. That way I can grasp her face on either side and look her in the eye. That way I can snarl at her, a lion being denied his mate. “Then love me more than that. Love me enough to ruin my fucking life.”