Chapter Twelve
Micah had no idea what to say. Anger had him by the throat, and he didn’t fully understand why. When Darcy continued to stare into her own rotten turn of luck, his mood dissolved, replaced by the desire to return her sweet smile to those perfect lips.
“And I thought I was a giant asshole,” he said with forced levity. “I bet he never knew what he had until you were gone, and I’m sure you’ll find your nightingale one day.”
Her lips quirked but never quite made it to a smile. “I’m not looking for fairy tales anymore. I’m stronger than that. If I can help even one person through my writing, then my life will have been worth something, at least to me.”
You’re worth something to me. The loud thought caught him off guard, and he was eternally grateful he hadn’t said it out loud and confused them both.
“Well, then, let’s see just how strong you are,” he said, chasing that randomness from his mind. “Race you back to the cottage. The winner decides what we do this afternoon.”
There was that smile, though this one had a hint of mischief to it. Even better. “What’s the finish line?” She came to her feet. “Knowing how driven you are to win, I wouldn’t put it past you to cheat somehow.”
Excitement thrilled through his chest, threatening to propel him across the distance so he could claim her mouth again. “The pool. Whoever touches the side first wins.”
“No sex, if you win.” She circled a finger at him, narrowing her eyes that sparkled with eagerness.
“Deal. Eat my waves.” They both scrambled back into their kayaks, their laughter rippling over the lake as their paddles dug deep into the water.
Her strength and determination showed with each of her paddle strokes. Although he wasn’t giving it his all, he still sliced through the glass surface at a fair clip, and she kept pace with him the entire way back. Still, he needed to win, so when the dock came into view, he poured on the heat, loving the burn in his shoulders.
And in his groin. The ache from last night hadn’t left him, now joined by a pleasant and unfamiliar tightness in his chest. Maybe he had heartburn from wolfing down his breakfast when he realized he’d spent the entire time they’d sat at the kitchen counter watching her eat instead of feeding himself.
Part of him hated that he wanted her so badly, even while she poured her heart out to him, but he couldn’t help it. That thought hit him like a hammer. She’d slipped behind his walls again, and his instincts led him to believe the last half hour had been genuine and not an act, but could it have been? Had he given anything away?
“Hey, how are you going so fast?” she yelled after him, her splashing growing louder.
“You’re all mine now,” he called, overshooting the dock more than he meant to. By the time he’d come back around, she was scrambling out of her kayak on the other side, her face and body alive with good humor.
They pushed and shoved playfully at each other as they raced up the rock steps. He made it up to the wrap-around deck first, leaping up the remaining stairs in two giant strides.
A shout and a curse rang out behind him. He turned in time to see Darcy roll onto her back, gripping her leg.
“What happened?” One thrust of his legs hurtled him to the bottom, and he let his knees bend to absorb the motion and take him down to the ground.
Tears leaked out of her eyes. “I tripped on your stupid, slippery stairs. Who makes stairs out of flagstone, anyway? I’m sure it feels worse than it is. Gah, that freakin’ hurts!”
His throat tightened as he peeled her fingers away. Blood flowed freely from a gash under her knee, sliding down her leg in a wavy ribbon.
White ate the edge of the world.
Vivid flashes of blades and blood and terrified faces filled his vision, blocking out the landscape. He lurched back. “I’ll get… I’ll… Stay here.”
Familiar tightness coiled his ribcage, threatening to choke him out. By the time he made it into the kitchen, his breathing had degraded to wheezing.
“Come with us, Fernando,” Micah said, remembering how fragile the boy’s tiny shoulders had felt under his hands. Fernando’s terrified brown eyes pleaded with him not to go, and the other prisoners tugged him toward the tent’s unguarded opening. “I can take you away from this. You can be the good boy you want to be.”
“No, he kill me, and he kill you. Please!”
“Micah, Micah, you’re all right.” Warm hands peeled his arms away from his head. Somehow, he’d ended up on his ass on the tile with his back against the kitchen cupboards. Inhuman sounds squeaked in his throat. “It’s me, Darcy. Just you and me, at your cottage. You’re home. You’re safe. Whatever you’re seeing is over now. Come on, Micah, open your eyes and see me.”
Her calm voice worked like magic to peel away the layers of his nightmare. No humidity, only dry Muskoka air. No copper scents filled his nose. No sound other than her. As his lungs came out of their spasm, he lifted his lids and found her eyes so close they were all he could see. Clear and blue and free of judgment, pity, and everything else that usually stared back at him when he’d lost his grip.
His lifeline, an anchor to the present. He reached out, sweeping her bangs away from her face, not resisting when she threaded her fingers into either side of his hair and rested their foreheads together.
“There you are,” she whispered. Her knees were between his. They stayed that way until Micah’s mind quieted, and so did his body. He wanted to wrap himself around her and sleep for a month, to touch her everywhere and listen to her sigh in pleasure and comfort.
“You’d better not be staring down my shirt,” she said lightly.
He managed a smile, lost in her touch.
“I see him in there, that warrior of yours.” Her warm breaths sent a parade of tingles right down to his feet. “He’s a bit of a badass when he isn’t being a dick, but I’m not afraid of him.”
Without a clue how to respond to that, he moved his hand absently in her hair, lightly massaging her slender neck.
“Mmm, that feels nice.” She cleared her throat and scrambled out of his lap, backing up against the doors of the kitchen island across from him. Gritting her teeth, she inspected her wounded leg that was now a mess from when she’d knelt on it. “I’ll need a first-aid kit, if you have one, and some paper towels. Sorry about the mess on your floor.”
As the calm she’d induced faded, a sickening realization settled over him. He’d lost his shit in front of a reporter. If he hadn’t left Manny with instructions to leave her luggage in the car upon arrival so he could search it for cameras when he went back to get it, he might have worried she’d filmed the whole pathetic episode.
Now that he thought about it, why would she run from him like most others did? He was her ticket to the big time, the entire reason she was here, despite her insistence that she wanted to help him, too. She sounded too calm, too prepared. How would she portray him in her writing?
He needed to know if anything she’d told him so far had been the truth. If not, she’d be lucky if he took her all the way back to the mainland before throwing her ass out of the boat. For now, he needed away from here, away from her. She wasn’t supposed to see him like that. Nobody was. He had to be stronger.
“I’ll get it,” he said with more flint than he meant to, rising to his feet. Dizziness and echoes of the past continued to wreak havoc in his body. Holding himself together by sheer will, he retrieved the med kit from under the bathroom sink and returned to her, setting the white box on the tile beside her toes. They flexed and relaxed as she dabbed at the blood with a tissue. “Here, let me,” he said.
“No, you don’t have—”
“I have to.” He lowered his voice. “I want to.” From the kit, he retrieved some alcohol wipes, gauze, tape, and some antiseptic ointment.
She winced as he cleaned her up and only cussed him out once. “You remind me of my gramps in a lot of ways,” she said. “One of which is seeing yourself through a jaded lens. And the same thing happens to me with storms, and apparently also when I topple out of a kayak. I know it’s completely irrational, but the thunder seemed so loud and large as I lay there, half drowning in the torrential rain. I was so sure Gramps was right and that hand of God was going to reach down and fry me up like a piece of sinful bacon.”
It seemed awfully convenient that she had a story of her own to relate to his. The scar could have been from anything. Add that to her supposed desire to be allies in a fight to save children from horrible lives, and her manipulation attempts became clear.
They almost worked, too.
He’d start his investigation with the grandfather and her accident. “I have to leave for a while.” He turned to go, leaving the kit on the floor.
“Oh.”
Although he was certain the disappointment in her tone came from the loss of opportunity to grill him further, a spear of guilt slid through his chest. “Help yourself to anything you want.”
Silence lingered for a while before she said, “You don’t have to be alone right now, unless that’s really what you want. We could go for a swim or watch a movie. We don’t have to talk about anything, and I hope you know this stays between us.”
Goddammit, he wanted to believe she was real. For the briefest of moments, her presence and touch had stopped his mind from crashing against the walls of his skull, but he’d given up pinning wishes on reality a long time ago. “I won’t be long.”
Micah rushed from the cottage, sprinting down the path to his speed boat on the far side of the island. At the dock, he stopped and threw his fist into the nearest tree with a roar. The pain radiating up his arm gave him a singular focus. One pain to drown out the rest. It was one suggestion Maggie gave him that actually worked. Though she wouldn’t have approved of the force he’d used. He unhooked the lines, jumping into the boat when it was free.
Clear of the dock, he shoved the throttle forward. The rush of the wind cleared his head a little. Instead of finding relief in the solitude as usual, there seemed to be a tether connecting him to Darcy, which grew tighter the farther he went from her.
There had been so much in her voice, only now registering in his thoughts. He shook it off and headed for the mainland, where his cell sat in the glove box of his car. It seemed to take forever before the marina came into view. After docking the boat, he retrieved his phone and returned to the water’s edge. Staring over the gentle waves, he dialed Manny.
“Whatup, boss man?” Manny asked. “That little beauty outstay her welcome already?”
“No, I need you to look into something for me.” Manny was first and foremost a private investigator, but now that he had a child on the way with his wife, he liked to stay closer to home. Since few cases came up in Canada, he’d offered to become Micah’s personal security chief.
“You know I’m here for you, man. Whatever you need, just say the word.”
Micah walked up the path toward the back deck at shortly after 8:00 p.m. He hadn’t meant to be gone for so long, but Manny was thorough, which took time, and Micah didn’t want to face Darcy again before having answers.
She’d laid a towel on one of the lounge chairs, along with a notebook and an old silver voice recorder. No Darcy, though—she must have been inside, probably pissed at being abandoned. He should have kept walking. It was wrong, an invasion of her privacy, but hadn’t he just done worse by sending a PI into her past? Glancing around to make sure she wasn’t watching him from any of the windows, he picked up the recorder, hit the reverse button to get back to the start of her last entry, then pressed play.
“I think I embarrassed him today.” Her sultry voice sounded tinny through the small speaker. “My blood was a trigger for his PTSD, but I couldn’t bear to leave him alone. I was just trying to help, but maybe he doesn’t want me to, the same way I didn’t want him to help me out of the lake this morning. He still doesn’t trust me, and I get it. Sometimes the man inside comes out through the odd smile. The warrior who’s still trying to survive sees me as the enemy. This is much bigger than I imagined, more violent both on his body and psyche than I can comprehend right now. I wanted this interview so badly, I didn’t consider what telling his story would do to him.”
Micah pressed pause, holding the recorder to his chest. God, he was such a fucking asshole. Unable to resist, he pressed play again.
“He’s been gone so long; I’m getting worried. I think he must have taken off in his secret boat, and I’m stuck here with a bloody kayak. What if he’s lying dead somewhere? God, Darcy, get a freaking grip. He survived psychos with guns and a jungle full of stuff that can kill in an instant. His inner warrior is taking care of him, and he doesn’t need you. I have no idea how to write this story yet, but I promised to get the paparazzi off his back, and I don’t break my promises. Do you hear that, you stupid brain? And now I’m talking to myself instead of working. You see, this is why you’re stuck in the basement.”
He laughed, couldn’t help it. It was so Darcy. She hadn’t said anything into the recorder she wouldn’t have said to him if he’d stuck around to listen.
Instead of going through the back and possibly stirring suspicion about the violation he’d just committed, he went around to the front of the cottage. The heavenly scent of tomatoes, onions, and spices flicked across his nose as he entered, and humming came from his kitchen. It struck him with a feeling of home, not something he’d thought about for a long time. Perhaps it was the lengthy tour he’d taken around the lake before coming back, hitting a few spots he hadn’t been since childhood.
He still had no idea what to make of the woman clanking a spoon against a pot as she stirred, but she hadn’t lied to him yet. Manny had come through with several articles, as well as hospital and police records on both her grandfather’s house fire and her own accident. After listening to her tell those stories, he should have known raw truth when he heard it. Emotion spilled out of her every time he demanded his price, and she seemed no more able to control it than she could sit still.
“What’s that divine smell?” He erected a smile to cover the guilt kicking him in the nuts.
Her answering smile was instantaneous and appeared genuine, without reserve, and filled with a giant helping of relief. “You’re back.” Lifting the spoon from the pot, she offered it to him. “Gran’s famous spaghetti sauce. I found all of the ingredients, so I hope you don’t mind that I spread chaos through your kitchen.”
“I told you all I have is yours, and I meant it.” Physically speaking, anyway. He tasted the thick, red sauce, moaning as the spices hit him one by one, finally mingling together into a startling flavor. “You really made this from scratch? It’s delicious.” He realized he was waiting for her to bring up his episode, but she seemed completely unaffected by it. If she’d pushed, they’d have been finished. He almost wished she would.
“I’ll put the pasta on now that you’re home—it’ll be ready in about six minutes. Shall we eat outside again? It looks beautiful out there tonight.” She’d changed into a cute blue sundress he recognized from Cynthia’s closet. It suited Darcy perfectly, the sleeves split to bare her shoulders. The skirt hit just above her knees, leaving her sculpted calves exposed.
“So,” she began, dropping her gaze. “Did my story check out?”
He flinched. “Why do you think I was checking you out?”
“If the media was in my business all the time, I’d want to know for sure who I was talking to, especially for something so important. Maybe you didn’t want me to overhear you on your satellite phone. I figured that’s why you left in such a hurry, probably to get the mainland to find out if I was full of shit or not. This was the reason I didn’t tell you about my scars, by the way, because I knew it might look like I was using the few similarities we share to get close to you. I hope you know I’m not. I care about you—the foundation, I mean—and I’ll do everything I can to give it the attention it deserves.”
“So you’re not angry that I had Manny check out your story?” No point in denying it now.
“He better not have been in my underwear drawer.” She grinned and gathered up some cutlery. “Those are for my eyes only.”
“Noted.” He chuckled, but it died away. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be silly; be handy and help me move all this stuff outside so I can feed you heaven in a dish.”
They spent the next while moving plates and such out to the table. Micah allowed the last of his suspicion to slip into the background as he watched the way she moved in that dress, as if it made her feel as beautiful as she was. She chattered on endlessly about harmless topics. The books he had in his small library in the living room. The photo of him with the prime minister. How marvelous the pool had been when she’d taken a dip earlier. She was being careful, not as though she was aware of how closely Micah was watching her, but because she seemed…happy. Relieved to have him back safe and sound.
If they’d met a year ago, before his ordeal had altered him irrevocably, would she have come to Colombia looking for him when he’d gone missing? No, he couldn’t afford to think that way.
After Micah had his fill of spaghetti and garlic bread, he took her by the hand and led her down to the pool, twirling her once as she smiled. “You almost look like the woman in your blog picture tonight. It’s the dress, I think. You’ve given up dressing in pretty things, hoping men won’t notice you, so you won’t have to make a choice when they try to get closer.”
Her smile fell, and she took her hand from him. “Since Dickface left, I’ve always told myself I like my comfortable, safe clothes, but I do miss wearing nice clothes like this.”
They walked in silence for a long time, taking the trail that led around the perimeter of the island. By the time they reached the cottage again, the sun had started to fade, and Micah gave in to his need to break down the barrier he’d somehow erected between them again.
“You know,” he said, opening the sliding glass door for her, “it just occurred to me that you kissed me earlier today, right here.” He pushed a few strands aside and pointed to his temple. “The scrumptious meal and the stunning dress weren’t meant as a distraction from that little fact, were they?”
Her lashes lifted. “What? I—no, that so doesn’t count, I was just—”
“Kissing me, I know. And I think we can both agree that I won our race, or would have if you hadn’t taken a dive. Maybe it was on purpose, so I’d turn back.”
“Ah, I did not!” She shoved at him, but not like she was angry. “You really are an asshole.”
If you only knew. “At least you’re smiling when you say it now.” His wonder and guilt spilled words out of his mouth before he thought better of it. “Why would you give a shit if I was lying dead somewhere?”
A deep crease formed in her brow. “Those are my words.” She patted her pockets, glanced around the room, then back at him, her lids falling dangerously low. “Did you listen to my recorder? Those are my private thoughts. That’s like reading someone’s diary.”
He raised his hands in surrender. “Listen, it was—”
“And why’s it a shocker that I’d worry when you disappear for hours on end? You’re a human being, and I’m not the heartless dirtbag you think I am. Do you have no faith left in the goodness of people?” Her expression blanked, and she frowned harder, probably realizing it was a fault they shared.
Micah moved in, close but not touching, half expecting a slap in the face. “I’m not used to anyone caring if I live or die, and I assume anyone who does is trying to get something from me.”
Her chin lifted, and her sad blue stare melted the steel in his spine. Reaching up, she swept his hair over his ear. Her touch sent an electrical current down his neck. “I’ll never lie to you—it’s not who I am. I’ll prove it to you, even if it takes months.” She kissed the scar at the corner of his mouth.
Lost to the moment, he shifted in search of her mouth, brushing her soft lips that hesitated for only a moment before opening in welcome. During the last kiss, he’d taken his time, but his hunger had grown exponentially since his return to the island, and he delved deep into her wet warmth. Her initial resistance disintegrated spectacularly when she thrust her hands into his hair and climbed his body to get closer.
Micah picked her up at the waist and set her on the counter, not having to pry too hard to wedge his body between her slender legs that opened in welcome. Maybe he just needed a solid hit of Darcy ambrosia, and he could get her out of his system.
The heat of her core sank into his arousal, increasing the already-southern flow of his blood. While their tongues played hide-and-seek, one of his hands swept up her back to her nape, the other pulling her ass forward to him. If he’d had a pair of scissors, her satin panties would have been a shredded mess on the floor.
She wanted him, and the thought acted like an aphrodisiac. Only him, not his money or power or his once-handsome face. She wanted the damaged jerk who was suddenly fumbling like a teenager having his first time with his lifelong crush in the back seat of a car.
He hadn’t been expecting her to accept his seduction so easily, so eagerly, and his mind raced to keep up with her demands. As she kept coming back for more, the deep, sultry moans she made completely undid him. No man had ever given her an orgasm, she’d confessed in the kayak. It made him almost giddy that he would be the first.
Lost in her sweet taste, he slipped his fingers along her inner thigh, underneath her skirt, finding soaked silk when he reached the apex of her thighs. When she didn’t stop him, only opened her knees wider and moved to nip at his ear, he shoved away his own need and concentrated on hers. She’d been neglected for too long. He’d make sure she wanted for nothing.
Her panties slid aside to reveal skin as smooth as satin, and wet. So fucking wet. The angle made his thumb the best tool for her pleasure. As he brushed her plump lower lips, feeling only a hint of the already stiffening nub between them, she moved her hips against him. Once he’d broken the barrier between them again, she’d given way like a bursting dam.
“Micah, please!” she rasped into his ear, one of her hands still fisted in his hair. “I need…I need you.”
“Yes.” A distant corner of his mind whispered all the ways he needed her.
After teasing her for minutes, he finally let his thumb circle lightly over her delicate center. She cried out and bit down lightly on his shoulder, writhing against his hand with such abandon he couldn’t control her, couldn’t slow her down the way he wanted to. He’d never known anyone who’d surrendered so completely to her own pleasure. No inhibitions, no hesitations, she’d trusted him to make her body sing. How had anyone been able to resist her? To walk away?
Like he’d have to at the end of the week.
His stomach clenched, but he forgot it shortly when her body melted against him, her face buried against his throat as she nipped and kissed. Hot and wild, her breaths washed over his skin, and his groin was pretty sure it felt the breeze, too. Her muscles coiled tight under his other hand and against his chest. Delicious sounds came faster from her lips, and finally, her entire body went into spasm as she moaned and gasped against his throat.
He could have held her that way all night, and it wouldn’t have been enough. Too long from touch, from uninhibited desire, it thrust him into a quiet, glowing calm. Her soft sighing and utter surrender had been all he’d needed. All he wanted, and it set his chest glowing to know he’d done that for her, given her the release she clearly needed.
He’d made her happy.
When she relaxed her grip on him, he lifted his thumb to his mouth, sucking her sweet and salty taste from it. “You’re incredible,” he said, nuzzling her ear. “Let’s get these clothes off and get into the Jacuzzi.”
“Clothes off? What…?” Darcy’s lazy expression made a slow turn from post-ecstasy glow to surprise, as if she’d woken from a dream she was guilty of having. Pushing at him, she clambered off the counter and pressed her thighs together. “Oh my God, what are we doing?”
As she stood there, the color draining out of her face, Micah’s heart plummeted to the bottom of his feet. “You didn’t stop me.”
“This is so far over the professional line, I can’t even…”
“You’re writing an editorial piece for the foundation, not covering Watergate. Nobody would care if we enjoy each other’s company while we’re here, and it isn’t like someone’s going to secretly photograph us and splash our tryst across the headlines. What happens here, stays here.”
“I can’t.” She escaped down the hall and through her bedroom door.
She couldn’t what? Was sex the problem, or was it him?
Was this all part of her ingenious play to unlock his secrets? Even the lingering possibility of that didn’t deter him from his growing need to understand her.
Before he could figure out what to do, he needed to relieve the sexual pressure riding him so he could think straight. Throwing himself at her wouldn’t win any points with Darcy Delacorte.