Blaine, Destiny - Breakfast by the Sea (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 16

  “I was checking to see if you wore underwear.”

  “I would’ve never guessed.”

  For the first time in his life, Jeff felt like he was one part of a happy couple. He enjoyed Paige’s company and found the new experience quite comfortable, almost soothing.

  “Thong?” he asked, rebuking the notion of anything more than a casual relationship, regardless of confessions he’d expressed earlier while she slept in his arms.

  “A lady never tells,” she replied, giggling when he twirled her around.

  In the middle of spinning and laughter, Paige’s fingertips slipped from his, and when he gathered her in his arms again, she was pale. “Where is he?” he asked knowingly.

  “Behind me,” she gasped. “He’s in the soft pink shirt with the navy dinner jacket. Three tables away from the entrance.”

  Jeff stared over the top of her head, surveying the room. He touched his ear then, remembering for the first time since before dinner began that he had big brothers covering his back. “We’ve got company, boys.”

  A few seconds later, Adam’s voice tickled his ear. “How’s Paige holding up?”

  Jeff kept Paige close, noting her heartbeat never slowed regardless of the way he held her. “Fine,” he finally reported, quite uncertain he supplied an accurate reply.

  “Get her out of there in ten,” Adam ordered. “Connor and Miles are in the room. Callan will meet you in the bar.”

  “Gotcha,” Jeff whispered, nipping at her earlobe. “And I have you, Paige. Relax. He won’t get to you unless he goes through me.”

  Her arms latched around his neck. “Jeff?”

  “It’s all right.”

  “I need you,” she whispered.

  “You have me.” Her request stunned him. A strong woman like Paige probably didn’t admit that she needed anything at all, but there she was in his arms, holding onto him like he was her lifeline. How could he let her down? What extreme measures would he take in order to protect her?

  God only knew. But Jeff had a pretty good idea, too.

  “Remember, all eyes are on us. Make this believable.” His lips met hers for a split second, and he broke the instant seal with a sly smile. “Do your thing, gorgeous.”

  He twirled her around the room once again. She tossed her head back and acted like she was having the time of her life, but everything about her made him think she was scared out of her mind—clammy hands, the first bead of sweat dampening her brow, and the way her heart continually knocked against his when their bodies came together. “Easy, Paige. Remember, we’re together. As long as you’re in my arms, you’re okay.”

  She held her breath, and when she finally decided she needed to breathe again, the short, heavy sighs came in spurts. She was falling apart.

  The music stopped. Jeff took her hand and led her back to their table. Reaching for his wallet inside his dinner jacket, he took a look at their bill, slid a credit card in the leather pocket folder, and settled his tab with their waiter.

  Her gaze darted around the room. “Do you see him?”

  “He’s still behind you. He’s been joined by three men.”

  “One of them must be Trony.”

  “What does he look like?”

  “Big, burly, and ugly. That’s the only way to describe him.”

  “I see him. He’s our Jack of Spades.”

  He scraped a crumb off the white linen tablecloth then looked up all at once. “May I help you?” Damn! He’d only glanced away from Ramone for a split second, and Ramone had taken the opportunity. He must’ve made a mad dash for their table.

  Ramone glared at Paige, and she seemed to wilt under his hot gaze. “Jillian—oh, wait, you’re going by Paige now, aren’t you? If you know what’s good for you and your friend, you’ll leave with me now. You’ve had a nice dinner, some wine, a little dancing…” his voice trailed and he stared at Jeff. “If you’ll excuse us, my wife and I need a few moments alone.”

  Jeff stood. “Your wife?”

  Ramone’s head tilted to the left. The arrogance of a man used to getting his way emerged. “She didn’t tell you?”

  “You must have her mixed up with someone else,” Jeff said, extending his hand to Paige and accepting his credit card from the waiter when he returned.

  “You think I wouldn’t know my own wife?” Ramone asked angrily.

  “Darling, let’s go. This man is obviously inebriated.”

  “Paige, I meant what I said.”

  “Are you threatening my wife?” Jeff asked.

  “Your wife?”

  “Yes,” Jeff said, thick arrogance lacing his tongue. “We married yesterday. We’re on our honeymoon. As I said, you must have her mixed up with someone else.”

  Jeff ushered her forward, leaving a stunned Ramone behind them. He’d just about made his way through the lobby when he heard someone yell, “Jillian Carpasia! You’ll never get away with this! Do you hear me? I’ll die first, Jillian!”

  “Keep walking,” Jeff said, pushing through a large crowd. He placed his hand to his ear. “I’ve got three at my back. Where are you guys?”

  “We’ve gotcha, buddy,” Adam assured him. “They aren’t pursuing you. Take Paige to the room and wait for further instructions. We didn’t expect Ramone to approach you in the restaurant where there were witnesses. I think someone—you, perhaps—lured him closer. The way you two danced together was more than any man could stand.”

  * * * *

  Once they returned to their suite, Paige could breathe again, at least for a minute.

  “What the hell happened down there?” Jeff demanded, acknowledging his fellow operatives with only a tilt of his head.

  “I don’t know,” she said quickly, pouring herself a glass of water.

  “You can do better than that. I need more of an explanation. You froze. How the hell are you going to get inside his head if you clam up in his presence?”

  “I’m sorry, Jeff. It won’t happen again,” she said, rushing toward the bedroom and tugging her large luggage from the closet. “I wasn’t prepared to see him. I thought I was, but I was mistaken.”

  Connor and Miles followed them. “You surely knew you’d come face to face with him,” Miles pointed out.

  Paige unzipped her luggage, and Miles gasped. “Holy hell.” His gaze met Jeff’s. “Did you know she had all this?”

  He didn’t respond. Instead, he watched Paige with burning eyes.

  She wondered often what Jeff must be thinking, and sometimes she felt like Jeff was simply intrigued by her. He was surprised by the way she’d responded when she saw Ramone, maybe a little disappointed, but he was still there waiting for her to explain things. He was willing to listen.

  “I want to know exactly what he did to you,” Jeff whispered all at once.

  She quickly shook her head and pushed a clip in the butt of a gun. Jeff’s hand locked around her wrist. “Paige, you have to tell me. My mind is full of possibilities, but I need to know the truth. You need to come forward and lay it all on the line. Tell me the horror of it. Give me a glimpse so I can understand and so I can make this right for you.”

  She stared at his hand resting on hers. “You can’t make this right. No one can.”

  “I need to hear anyway.”

  Her eyes filled with tears.

  “Talk to me,” he pleaded.

  Connor and Miles stood nearby. “Give us a minute,” Jeff demanded. “Shut the door on your way out.”

  Connor clenched his fists. He started to object.

  “I said give us a damn minute!” Jeff snapped.

  Connor and Miles vacated the room. Paige slapped her hands over her face, and she wept. She hadn’t planned on this. “Why do I feel so vulnerable now?”

  Jeff squatted next to her. “Paige, please, baby, tell me everything. Show me his weaknesses. Tell me how we can get to him. We should anticipate what’s next. In order to do that, I need to be told every vile thing he ever did to you.”

  “Y
ou don’t understand, Jeff. He isn’t like anyone else you’ll ever meet. He’s vicious, cruel, and loves extreme torture.”

  “Sounds like my kind of man.”

  “This isn’t a game!” she shouted, pushing away from her suitcase and storming across the room.

  “You think I can’t see that?” he asked, following her. “I realize what’s at stake. What I don’t understand is how a woman like you could be armed with so many weapons and then freeze the moment she sees the man who inspired her to take up arms and fight in the first place!”

  She walked in the bathroom and gripped the vanity. Jeff stood behind her. “What did he do to you?”

  “I don’t want to talk about this.”

  “I don’t give a damn if you want to or not,” he said, twirling her around. “You’ll tell me right now, or so help me, I’ll…”

  “You’ll what?” she grated out in a raw voice she didn’t recognize as her own. “You’ll fuck me until I do what you tell me to do? You’ll hold my head to your cock until I’m choking on cum? You’ll spank me until my ass is blistered, and then, when I don’t tell you everything you want to know or I simply don’t agree with you, you’ll leave me strapped to a bed for days upon days?”

  Jeff looked stunned. His face washed white as snow. “Is that what he did to you?”

  “That was child’s play!”

  Jeff wrapped his arms around her and let her rest her head on his shoulder while she sobbed. He buried his hand in her hair, and his fingers locked around one curl and then another. The other hand joined the first. He bunched her hair at her nape and forced her to look at him.

  “Paige, he’s never going to hurt you again. I’m going to take care of you.” He nodded slightly and added, “Tell me you believe me.”

  “I can’t. I saw that look in Ramone’s eye, that cold stare I’ve only seen when Ramone has killing on his mind.” She shook her head. “I can’t do this, Jeff.”

  “Paige, if you’re afraid of Ramone, and you should be, then let us surround you. We can get you out of here. Take you to a safe house. Would you like that?”

  “I’m not going anywhere. I’m tired of running from him. I’ve been running all of my life, and I’m always headed the wrong way. I finally found where I belong, a real home, a place I enjoy. He’s not taking that away from me. He doesn’t belong in this country. He’s committed crimes against this country’s citizens. He should be the one to leave. Not me!”

  “You’re right, but we can’t have you freezing up when you spot him, and we can’t risk you slinging guns you probably don’t even know how to use.”

  “Are you crazy?” she asked, snubbing. “You…you think…I can’t use those guns?”

  “Can you?”

  She stared at him blankly. “You’re arrogant enough to believe that, aren’t you?”

  “Call me a chauvinist. I take one look at you in this sexy little number and I can’t see you whirling a knife or tossing grenades. I sure as hell don’t picture you putting a bullet in someone’s head or slicing someone’s throat.”

  Paige grabbed a tissue from the wall and dabbed her eyes. “Then what do you see when you look at me, Jeff?”

  He saw his future. And he damn sure didn’t want her to know that.

  Jeff stepped into her. His hands propelled down her arms, and he took hold of her hips, grinding against her because he couldn’t help himself. “I see a lot of things.”

  “Like?”

  His lips met hers for a brief kiss. “We can talk later,” he said, hiking her dress up, finding her ass bare, like she’d promised. He cupped her globes and pressed against her, feeling her warm center against his pants.

  Paige framed his face and kissed him. He kissed her back because he couldn’t entertain the thought of not kissing her and because he couldn’t make it through the night if he didn’t possess her one last time.

  Her tiny fingers unhooked his belt. His locked inside her pussy.

  She worked to free him, pulling him away from his pants. He worked to pleasure her, wedging four fingers as high as they would go.

  “Jeff,” she whispered against his mouth, grinding against his hand, bucking against the manual stimulation and moistening his fingers with her desire.

  He couldn’t wait. He didn’t have time for foreplay. He grabbed her at once, forcing her to leave the vanity and let him have his way.

  Jeff fucked her against the cold, hard wall. He should’ve been ashamed. After her confession, he should’ve made love to her slow and easy. But he was hungry, so damn famished. And as long as he was buried inside her, he knew where she was and who she belonged to.

  His cock slammed inside her pussy. His body pressed against hers until she cried out, moaning like she was in pain. Her smile told a different tale. She craved the pleasure she’d find in his body, fucking him against that slick tile wall.

  Hard thrusts—he couldn’t help but give her long, indulgent jolts. “God almighty,” he choked out.

  Deeper, he pumped inside her. Faster, he stroked her.

  Her long legs wrapped around his hips, and he plunged into her core, taking her as hard and as deliberately as he’d ever taken anyone, clutching her hips and ass like he couldn’t hold her close enough, like he’d never quench his thirst for her—and that’s where he found the truth. Jeff would never tire of Paige. Worse than his obsession for her, he discovered another fact. Jeff wasn’t sure he could survive a life without her.

  “Jeff!” she exclaimed. “Oh, God, Jeff!”

  “Come!” he ordered, slamming against her again, feeling the burn striking at his balls. His release shot through his slit and he pumped his seed inside her, filling her with his pleasure and collapsing against her when she’d drained him.

  Her body milked his as she held him. A soft whimper fell from her lips and she jerked against him several times, taking her orgasm and riding his nearly flaccid cock.

  Jeff kissed her head when she finished and withdrew. “We’re going to have to watch this unprotected sex thing, or you’ll end up pregnant.”

  He stuffed his cock inside his pants and tried regaining some measure of presentable appearance. “You aren’t on the pill, are you?”

  Jeff watched her facial expression change. She shook her head. “I doubt I can have children,” she finally said, sadness in her voice.

  “Why?”

  “I’ve never been on birth control, and Ramone never used protection. I…well, it’s a long story.” And one she apparently didn’t want to discuss.

  “I see,” Jeff said, refusing to delve into her past sex life with Ramone. The sorry bastard was probably sterile. He didn’t deserve children. He’d taken the lives of too many youngsters.

  “Jeff,” she said in a small voice when he turned to the mirror. “I want you to live through this.”

  He framed her face, and kissed the tip of her nose. “We’re all going to be all right. You’ll see.”

  She looked down at her hands. “There’s something I need to tell you. Something important you need to know.”

  “Okay,” he said, pulling her from the floor and carrying her to the bedroom.

  Jeff wasn’t sure why he loved her or why he could admit it now, even if only to himself, but he loved her. If he believed in soul mates, love at first sight—and maybe he bought into that jazz now—Paige belonged to him. He sat beside her and held her hand. “I’m listening.”

  “I was twenty-nine when I met Ramone. Ramona, his first wife, picked me out for him. Did you know that?” A beat later, she said, “Of course you wouldn’t. No one knew except Trony, Ramone, and Ramona. I was chosen after they discovered me at a…a…”

  “What, honey?” he asked, touching her cheek.

  “This is hard.” She shook her head. “I’ve never told anyone this before.”

  Her hands trembled and Jeff brought them to his lips, forcing her to look at him. “You can tell me anything, Paige.”

  “I don’t remember much about that day,” she
began. “I’d been in Florence. I had a layover in New York. We were supposed to fly into Atlanta, but for some reason, something the airline spokesperson later declined to address in public, our plane stopped in Charlotte. All the passengers were directed to different gates. Several of us couldn’t get a flight out that night, and we were separated into separate suites—you know, the private member clubs there have rooms they use for meetings—and…”

  Her voice trailed, and Jeff’s mind had already started to drift. Charlotte, North Carolina. The airport in Charlotte, North Carolina—a catastrophe, that’s what reporters in the media had called it, an unexplainable chain of events. A family devastated.

  Paige flinched. He released her hands, unaware he’d stood until he started pacing.

  “I went to the bathroom. There were two little girls playing a board game in the corner of the room. An older man and his frail wife took seats in the opposite corner. Ramone, Ramona, Trony, and a man they called Teeter because he drank a lot were having a heated conversation in the center of the room.

  “The little girls were traveling with their parents. They were probably around…”

  “Ten years old,” he said, his heart shattering in his chest.

  “Yes,” she said, without questioning how he knew. “And they were so beautiful. Both girls had natural curls and blonde hair, big brown eyes, and, well, they looked like fragile little dolls.”

  And they were the two greatest loves of his life—his little sisters. Kelly and Shelly, the twin girls he doted upon almost as much as his parents. He clenched his fists and listened.

  Had Paige stood by and let Ramone kill his family? Had he gone to bed with a woman who had watched his little sisters and parents take their last breaths?

  His anger threatened to rear its ugly head, but he somehow managed to listen, to wait for the damning words by ignoring the ever-present sorrow. He had to hear from the only eyewitness left behind other than those who’d orchestrated his family’s death—or had she been part of the plot to kill them?

  Jeff bent his ear—and it was a stretch to pay attention then. He waited, knowing if he heard a confession he’d be forced to retaliate. He couldn’t live with himself if he didn’t avenge the deaths of his family members.