Blood and Bone (Blood and Bone Series Book 1), page 8
I can’t fault Derek for any of it, especially not while I’m trespassing in a foreigner’s yard trying to prove his innocence. I now understand how far he would go for me.
Rory opens the door to the basement, leading us into a billiards room with a massive bar and a large sitting area with leather couches and chairs. It’s quite the room, considering it’s the basement.
Our basement has boxes and old things Derek refuses to junk out.
Antoine and Rory have their guns out as we climb the stairs. In the house above, it sounds like people are being woken by the police. A woman is speaking quickly, flooding the silent air with emotional words in Arabic. She speaks, and slowly my mind filters the words through something. “She says they woke up and he was gone.”
Rory glances back at me. “I know. Who do you think taught you Arabic?” I swallow hard, making him laugh. “You didn’t know you could speak it?” I shake my head.
Antoine rolls his eyes, taking the steps until he meets a police officer. He flashes a badge. “Is the ambassador in the house?”
The young cop shakes his head, confused at how we are here already.
“Any sign of a struggle?”
“No,” he answers, glancing back up the stairs. “We searched everything. Looks like he walked out the front door. Didn’t take a car.”
I cock an eyebrow smugly. “Well, we know he wasn’t with Derek then. His car is still parked.”
The cop’s confused look worsens. Rory points at me. “Ignore her, it’s her first rodeo.”
They all laugh, but I miss the joke. The Arabic woman speaking has my attention again. “She says he wasn’t feeling well at dinner. He was thinking about going to the doctor.”
Rory grabs my hand, dragging me up the stairs, past the cop. We hurry back to the road where the van is parked.
The ride to the hospital is silent. I don’t know what to add to the awkwardness of the empty air, other than more awkwardness, so I don’t speak. Instead, I gaze out the window as we cross Evergreen Point Bridge, heading back into the city.
Antoine parks the van in front of the emergency entrance of the hospital Derek works at. My stomach tightens. Did they know he worked here?
As we climb out, I abandon my gun again, watching them pocket theirs. It seems weird to take a gun into a hospital.
Rory storms to the emergency nurses’ station, asking them things in a near whisper and flashing his badge. The nurse at the front desk looks confused for a moment, but her computer gives them an answer. Her face lights up as she points, smiling at him in a way that makes me want to warn her. He speaks to Antoine for a moment before he places his hand at the base of my spine, controlling the direction and speed of my gait.
I wish for a half second I had brought the gun. When the elevator doors close and we are alone, I shove Rory back, sticking a thin finger in his face. “Touch me again and I break whatever is making contact with me.”
It doesn’t make him angry to be threatened. It makes him do the opposite of everything I want. He steps into me, pressing his chest against mine. “Ya might not remember how much ya like it when I touch you, but I remember. Just because ya lost your memory and forgot how much ya love me doesn’t mean I have to forget how much I love ya.” He dips his face, banking on the fact his words have stunned me still, and presses his face against mine.
My knee comes up, but he anticipates it, so I bite. He cries out as a rusty taste fills my mouth. I shove him back, shaking my head. “I mean it.”
He nods, licking his lip and grinning like a psycho. “Me too, Sam. I love you. Always have, always will.”
I turn, looking back at the door as it opens. “You don’t even know me. And stop calling me Sam. My name is Jane.”
He leans against the doorway, blocking me in. “Trust me, Jane, you are not who you think you are!”
I shake my head. “You don’t know me.”
His face changes into a grim smirk. “Baby, if I don’t know you, you’re fucked.”
There is a horrible feeling inside me that he’s telling the truth. There’s a familiarity between us that screams of a history of intimacy.
He turns and stalks off the elevator, walking with swag that almost forces me to check his ass out. For a cheeky Irishman, he’s fine. But that just adds more conflict over the whole backstory he’s given me. I’m susceptible to advertising. I think I always have been, and I don’t want to believe him because he’s attractive. I want proof.
Imagining the two of us together makes me think I must have fallen for his body, because his charms are lacking in every way.
I shudder at the image of his foul mouth touching mine again.
There’s no way we were ever in love. Whatever we had must have been based on sexual chemistry alone.
When he gets to the large nurses’ station for the floor, he leans across the desk to talk to the ladies. I am nearly there when I notice one I’ve met before. I spin before she sees me, running back to the elevator. I don’t want Derek’s coworkers to tell him I was here. I press my back against the wall and wait. When all this is over I’m going to wear my red dress and come to the Christmas party. I want everything to go back to the way it was.
Rory comes back moments later. “The ambassador is in a coma. He’s gone into organ failure and is on life support.”
I scoff. “That could be from anything.”
“And I’m psychic enough to predict it?”
I don’t have an argument for that. He has a point. “I want to go home.”
“He hasn’t gone back to his car yet. He’s not home. We need to apprehend him before you can leave our custody.”
“That means nothing. I want to go home because I need to be asleep for real when he gets there. Not dressed in all black and roaming the streets with you two idiots. He isn’t your man. I’m telling you.”
He rolls his eyes, pressing the button for down. When we get back downstairs, the hallway is filled with men in suits and police. We walk through them all, not briefing any of them on the situation. I assume they all know the details.
At the end of the dimly lit hallway we find Antoine talking to a tall man with an angry face. He scowls when he sees me. “I didn’t believe it. You have to be on your last life.”
This has quickly become my least favorite thing ever, the whole they remember me and I remember nothing.
“Randall, she’s back. No questions about before. It doesn’t matter—she doesn’t remember anyway.”
His steely eyes narrow. “I have some testing scheduled for her first. Take her to a safe house until we can test her.”
Rory nods. “The ambassador is dying, you should know.”
He sighs, glaring at me viciously. “You should have brought him in, Sam. I’m not happy about this shit.”
Antoine shakes his dark head. “We had nothing. We still have nothing.”
Randall sighs a second time. “Well, we’ve been told he’s no longer of interest to us anyway.”
“He just killed a dignitary from another country.”
Randall laughs bitterly. “Oh, you don’t have to tell me. We’ve run this op for seven years. He’s killed a hundred people. He’s vanished like a ghost with one of ours and erased her mind. He’s playing with us, and the higher-ups feel that he’s one of two things. He’s either a spook assassin we aren’t being told about because his pay grade is so high that even the president doesn’t need to know, or he’s more dangerous with us to torment. They think he kills more frequently when we actively pursue him.”
“You’re fucking with me, right?”
Randall shoots Rory a look. “I want you on the next flight back to DC, where we will all regroup.”
I can feel panic starting to build in me. “What if I don’t want back in? I don’t remember anything anyway.”
“Sam, we haven’t wanted you back. Rory said you were eager to catch Dash in action. He said you wanted revenge.” Randall snorts.
I cock an eyebrow. “He told me I would be charged with treason if I didn’t play along.”
Randall shakes his head. “You’re free if you want out, but this is it for you. The end of the line.”
“Done.”
Rory grabs my arm. “Wait. You wouldn’t want this. The real you—she wouldn’t want you to stay trapped in there with him. You wanted him behind bars.”
I jerk free, shoving him back. “I want you all out of my life. That’s what I want. Sam Barnes is dead. Let’s leave her there.”
Randall nods at the door. “I have a car; I’ll give you a ride. You two go to the airport. The jet is there. I’ll meet you.”
Rory looks like he might argue again, but he doesn’t. I don’t look back to see the angry stare he’s trying to kill me with. I push out into the night air and climb into the black car with Randall. A man drives but doesn’t look back at us.
Randall speaks softly, “You can’t blame him, Sa— Jane. He’s been devastated and searching for you for six years. Everyone figured you would be in Europe, so he’s been there working but looking for you the entire time. Every time a politician or figurehead even coughs or farts, he blames Benjamin Dash. He’s been searching for you high and low.”
“Maybe I didn’t want to be found.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have let Rory fall in love with you.”
I turn and nod. “You’re right. I never should have let him love me, but I don’t remember being that girl. I don’t care who Benjamin Dash is. I care that I am Jane Spears. I am a shopgirl. I am happy and stress free. Since all of this started washing back up in my life, I’ve been stressed. I feel funny in my skin for the first time in years. I don’t think Sam was a good person, and I don’t want to be her. I don’t want her baggage or her bullshit.”
The car stops at a red light, and I see my store. “I’ll get out here.” I open the door and walk out into the night. I take my usual route home. My cell phone rings in my pocket, making me nervous Derek is home, but when I answer, it isn’t his voice screaming in my ear. It’s Rory.
“He’s not with that car in Bellevue. It wasn’t his car we were tracking. He must have known you put the tracker on and dumped it on another silver Mercedes. The guy just got back—he’s a rower. That means—”
“He’s home and waiting for me.” I finish his sentence. Dread and guilt battle for the top spot in my emotions.
“Where are you? I’ll come get you.”
“No. Go to the airport. He won’t hurt me.” I hang up the phone and walk behind the building to the street where our house is. Seeing his car makes me gag a little, but I keep walking. I force my steps. Every inch of me wants to run except my heart. My heart drags my feet across the street and up the driveway.
I open the unlocked door, peeking into the darkness. The silent house is still. Even Binx stays hidden. My stomach is in my throat as I close the door, pressing my back against it. Images of him rampaging with a knife in his hand flicker through my mind. I turn the lock on the door, slipping my shoes off. I walk into the kitchen first. It’s dark, with the pale-blue glow of the appliances the only light. I walk into the dining room, but he isn’t in there.
So I turn to the living room, but again it’s empty.
This isn’t me. I have been drawn into their madness, locked away in their fears, and let them rule me. I believe I am safe in my home with my boyfriend. But strangers have me scared by all the what-ifs.
I swallow hard, tiptoeing past the French doors that face the backyard to the hallway where the bedrooms are.
When I open the door to our room, I notice the sweat on my palms as I turn the handle. In the glow of the moonlight and streetlights, I see him sitting in the chair like Norman Bates. His silhouette and the shadow he casts are more frightening than a single thing I have done in the past couple of days.
I close the door, leaning against it and trapping us both in the dark.
“Did you come to kill me?” His voice is soft and yet strong, not defeated as his shadow on the floor might suggest.
“No.” Shit. My heart is breaking as the silence and simple words become all the proof I ever needed.
He lifts his face, showing me his eyes as they reflect the light from the window. “You must know their version of everything.”
“No.” The words are a lie, but I want nothing like I do our peace and to return to our life.
He stands, making every hair on my body stand on edge, and crosses the floor slowly. His steps are soft and deliberate. When he reaches me I swear I see him hesitate. “Do you know my name?”
My stomach sinks as I nod, feeling a single tear slip down my cheek. There is a terrible feeling inside me that facing him is like facing a wild animal.
“Say it.”
Glancing up into his beautiful face I say the name I want to say. “Dr. Derek Russo.”
A smile crosses his lips, but it’s not the one I love. It’s bitter and filled with what I fear is the end of us. “Say it.” He doesn’t specify. He doesn’t have to.
I swallow hard, letting the words fall out of my lips. “Benjamin Dash.”
“And who are you?”
A sound leaves my lips. It’s defeat in its simplest form. “Jane Spears.”
“Liar.” He lifts his hand, running it through my hair and then cupping my cheek. He leans forward, I assume to kiss me, but he whispers in my ear instead: “Who are we?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know.” My response is a whisper to match his.
“We are the hunter and the prey.” He kisses my cheek softly. “Which one are you, Samantha Barnes?”
I close my eyes, no longer fearing him, regardless of the fact I am certain he is every bit the man Rory said he was. “My name is Jane.”
“What are you doing here? Why didn’t you leave?”
“I told you earlier, I love you. I have always loved you. I don’t want us to be this way. I don’t believe you are anything but my sweet Derek.” I know it’s wrong, but I don’t care that he’s an assassin. He might have killed a man tonight—he’s all but admitting to it all, and I don’t care.
His lips find mine in the dark. There is something desperate in the kiss. There is no control and no method to his madness; it is just pure and crazed.
His fingers tear at my clothes, where his lips press to heal the reddened flesh. He kisses away every bit of roughness but never softens in his touch. My clothes are ripped away completely as my lips are kissed as though they may never be again. I don’t move with him but allow myself to be ravaged. I am unsure of his mood or movements. Everything is foreign and frightening in a sensual way.
He lifts me into the air, lowering me onto his erection. His jeans rub the bottoms of my legs as he enters me roughly. His hands lift me by the hips and ass, working me on his cock but at the same time moving with abandon on the reins normally holding him back. Warm grunts fill my ears as my head and back drag up and down the door. His fingers bite into my flesh, holding me too tightly and treating me too roughly. But I love every second of the assault.
Our lips crash as our faces melt into one another. My tongue slips into his mouth, only to be met with caresses and soft sucks, contradicting the thrusting and slamming of my body.
My naked breasts squish into his shirt in rhythm to the jerking of our bodies as my climax starts to build. I grip him, clutching and clawing as his cock brings me to a blissful release. He cries out, groaning into my hair as my orgasm milks his cock until he too releases inside me. Our movements slow but the disparity of it all doesn’t.
He doesn’t hesitate. He moves our still-trembling bodies, carrying me to the shower. He strips off his clothes, pulling me into the shower. He turns it on, as always, protecting me from the cold water.
He cups my face as if it were the most delicate thing in the world. His eyes are almost completely gray, no green at all, but his smile is the one I love the most. “I don’t want to lose you.”
I nod. “Can we just be who we are, right now? These people in this shower?”
His eyes glisten, and I know it’s not the shower. “I don’t know.” He kisses me softly, just lightly feathering his lips against mine. “I have never been more scared in all my life than I was today.”
I nod again. “Me too.”
He wraps around me, holding me tightly to his chest.
When we go to bed there are a thousand questions roaming my head, but choosing which one to start with feels impossible. Each one leads down a path I’m not certain I want to detour down. Not when he’s here and he’s mine.
I hate myself in some ways. I hate that I needed to know. I hate that I followed the bread crumbs to Samantha Barnes and the bullshit that was her life. I wish I’d left it alone. I wish for so many other options instead of the one that led me to the moment I am in. It is too filled with regret, so filled that I’m certain if I break the top off this can of worms I will drown in the sea of things I could have lived without knowing.
“Do you want me to sedate you?” His question is so random I don’t answer at first. I lie perfectly still, perplexed as to why he would ask it.
“No.” I almost answer as if I’m asking a question.
He turns, facing me. I can hardly make out his face in the dark. “You might sleepwalk.”
“I thought you made that up.”
He shakes his head, rustling it against the pillow. “No. You really killed a cat in front of me. You really sleepwalk. You really wake covered in blood—not often, but you do.”
“You didn’t do that to me?”
It’s his turn to sit in silent contemplation. I regret asking it, even more so when he answers.
“I have done everything I can to make you safe. I have told you a thousand times that I love you. You have always been my priority, even when you didn’t know me. The first chance you are given something that could make you doubt me, and you believe that, over the years of love and sacrifice? How did it take such a small thing to make you doubt me when it was so hard to make you love me?”
My insides clench. “I don’t know what to believe. I don’t know what to think about the sleepwalking. I don’t think I did it when I was a kid.”
