The Rescue Of Jenna West Page 22

  He stopped suddenly, dragging his lips from hers. “Am I going too fast?”

  “No.” She reached for his mouth again. “Do it, Linc. Do anything. I trust you.”

  Her words caused his chest to tighten painfully and his throat burned. Her belly met his, soft and warm and bare. Then her hand wrapped around his throbbing arousal.

  She molded him like perfection, as if she’d been carved from silk and smoke specifically for his body. He couldn’t get close enough, couldn’t touch her the way his heart needed.

  One arm anchored around her bottom. His other hand moved between their bodies and his finger slid deftly between her legs.

  She melted around him, silken rain and heat. “Yes, yes, yes,” she whispered, moving against his hand, her hip stroking his arousal with each movement.

  She nibbled at his lips, his jaw, his cheekbone, kissed his eyes before she said in a throaty moan, “I want you inside me, Linc. Now.”

  He very nearly lost it right then. He shook so hard he didn’t know if he could move without falling down, but somehow he managed to get them to the blankets.

  The music echoed around them, dimmed by the demanding storm of their bodies. Taking her lips in a deep kiss, he settled over her, savoring the feel of her beneath him, her hand on his back, then his face, her thighs cradling him.

  Power surged through him, unbridled desire. He wanted to drive into her hard and fast and—

  He tore his lips from hers, realizing that he’d probably frightened her.

  “Linc?” Confusion flashed through her passion-clouded eyes.

  He started to roll to his back, move her atop him. “I’m sorry.”

  “No.” With shaking hands, she held him in place. “Here. Like this.”

  His weight settled on her, and he couldn’t decide if it was pain or pleasure that creased her features.

  “I’m not afraid. Not of you. Or your strength.”

  He bent his forehead to hers for a brief moment, relieved and amazed. How could he ever give her up? When he braced his elbows on either side of her, she opened her legs to him. At her total surrender, her stark vulnerability, his throat burned.

  He kissed her long and deep and hard. His hand skimmed over the curve of her waist, the flare of her hip, then slid beneath her. He lifted her to him, settling himself fully between her legs.

  His gaze locked with hers. No doubt shadowed her eyes, only acute need, possession.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “It’s all right.”

  He pushed inside her gently and her body arched to meet him. Her breasts nudged his chest. Her good hand went around his waist, splayed low on his back, urging, inviting.

  “Oh,” she breathed, closing her eyes. Pleasure tightened her features and Linc thought she’d never looked more beautiful.

  Then she opened her eyes, locking her gaze on his. She shifted, pulling him deeper into her body. His breath jammed in his lungs and he began to move. Slow, steady strokes, staring into her eyes, not wanting to miss a beat of her reaction.

  Tenderness welled up inside him. With every thrust, every stroke of his body inside hers, he silently gave what he had of himself.

  She kissed him, letting her desperation, her need speak through the fervor of her kiss, the abandoned response of her body. Her inner muscles clenched around him and he trembled with the effort not to anticipate her.

  Then she climaxed and sweet, hot silk flowed over him. He threw back his head and drove into her, faster, stronger, deeper.

  She called out, his name ragged on her lips, and held on to him fiercely. When he finally shuddered his last, she wrapped her arm around his neck, kissing his cheek, his ear, his forehead.

  “Thank you, Linc. Thank you.”

  He raised his head, tenderness and desperation crowning inside him. Tears welled in her eyes and she kissed him again.

  He rolled to his back then, bringing her with him. She settled her head in the crook of his neck and he stared up at the barn ceiling, the shadows of night now culling away the amber light of sunset.

  She sighed contentedly against him, her breath misting his skin. The sweet scent of sex tickled the air and her belly was slick against his. He still pulsed inside her.

  When this was all over, what would he do without her? Linc ached to declare his love, bare his soul, but he couldn’t. Despite caring about Jenna, he didn’t know if he was capable of love again, of giving all of himself to a woman. He hoped that, after tomorrow, he would have a chance to find out.

  Jenna lay atop him, refusing to think past this moment.

  She savored the supple feel of his skin next to hers, his heat wrapping around her, his fullness ebbing inside her.

  She was grateful that Linc hadn’t insisted on voicing his feelings. She was too raw, too edgy to handle declarations. Showing her faith in this most elemental, primal way had been the only way to tell Linc how she felt. So much more powerful than words could ever convey.

  He had given her back a sense of femininity, a sexual drive, and now, in this bid to have a future with him, she could lose it all.

  But she’d had almost two weeks with him and they had changed her life. He had changed her life, the deepest core of her, her perception of herself. Linc had imbued her spartan, staid existence with texture and color and sensation.

  He left her in no doubt that she’d thoroughly satisfied him as well and he made her feel more a woman than she ever had, a sexual, vibrant, responsive woman. He had given her a precious gift, helping her at last to conquer the cripple she had become after the rape.

  Linc made her feel beautiful and sensual, but above all, he made her feel. And Jenna didn’t want to lose that part of herself again.

  Her feelings for Linc were about more than her sexuality. They seemed to key into a core part of her, fleshing out a vague shadow that had existed only to remind her that she was less a woman.

  She was sick of Ramsey, sick of his games, sick of his hold over her past. With Linc’s help, she could beat him. She believed that, and yet Ramsey’s nightmarish legacy haunted her, flashing images through her mind—of the rape, Wilbur’s death, Steve’s battered face, her home burned to cinders.

  Old doubts rose up, nicking at her determination, her new confidence. But she refused to back down. No matter what the risk, she was breaking free of Ramsey’s hold tomorrow.

  “Get to your office at eight sharp,” Mace said the next morning just after sunrise. “We checked it out last night. It’s all clear.”

  He stood just outside the kitchen with Linc, his back turned as a policewoman taped a body wire to Jenna’s naked torso.

  “All right.”

  Linc heard the uncertainty in Jenna’s quiet voice, the shaky thread of anxiety.

  He glanced over his shoulder at her, his heart clenching at her wide, troubled eyes. The policewoman helped her slip on another of his shirts and Jenna met his gaze over the woman’s head, her beautiful eyes holding the secrets of their time together.

  She pressed her lips together, but otherwise gave no sign of the apprehension he knew she felt, that same apprehension that sawed through him.

  He wanted to protest, to whisk her out of there and drive out of the country. But he knew she had to go, had to do this.

  She was right. Running from Ramsey, looking over her shoulder was no kind of life. Linc just didn’t know if he could outlast this tension that blistered his insides like burning coals.

  The policewoman straightened Jenna’s collar and turned toward the doorway. “All right, Detective. She’s ready.”

  Linc pivoted, his gaze fastening on Jenna’s, offering silent reassurance.

  Mace nodded and stepped into the kitchen, his voice brisk and efficient. “There will be a county truck just up the road from your clinic and several ditch diggers working on a trench just feet from your office. We’ll position ourselves so that we’ll be able to see you and hear everything from that distance.”

  “We?”

  “Yeah.” He grinn
ed. “Captain Price said if I don’t catch Ramsey today, I can just keep that ditch-digging job.”

  At his attempt to ease the suffocating anxiety, Jenna smiled slightly.

  He sobered. “We’ll be able to see him when he comes in and we’ll be on him.”

  She nodded, her injured arm pressed close to her side as she slid her other palm down her jeans.

  Sweat slicked Linc’s palms, too. Tension arced in the room, plucking at his need to do something, the impatience to end this thing.

  He watched Jenna, seeing the same dread in the rigid set of her shoulders, the shadows in her eyes. Regret rose up in him for what he hadn’t been able to say to her, but he was grateful for the memory of last night. For always, the image of her trusting abandon would brand his soul.

  He wasn’t about to lose her. If today was the end, they would go together.

  She swallowed hard, her gaze steady on him.

  Linc turned to Mace. “We’re ready. I’m taking the .38.”

  “Good.” Mace turned to Jenna. “Do you know how to use a gun?”

  “Yes—”

  “Ask Sam.” Linc looked at Jenna, sharing a small secret smile with her.

  Mace glanced from one to the other of them, then shrugged. He picked up the phone and called Captain Price, telling her they were ready to move.

  Linc didn’t remember much about the ride there, only that Jenna’s hand gripped his with desperate fervor.

  He pulled into the parking lot of her clinic, gravel crunching beneath his tires, and killed the engine. For a long second, they stared at the brick building in front of them.

  Jenna looked at him. “I’m ready.”

  He bit back a protest and squeezed her hand. Together, they climbed out of the truck. At the front door, her hand trembled on the handle. The keys shook, clanging against the glass, rubbing metal against metal, scraping across raw nerves.

  Linc covered her hand with his. There was nothing he could say, nothing he could promise, but he was here.

  She looked at him, took a deep breath, and her trembling eased somewhat.

  His gaze traced her features, taking in the strong cheekbones, the full lips, the fear-fringed courage in those gorgeous eyes. He brushed a quick kiss across her lips.

  Her eyes glowed at him, then she squared her shoulders and turned the key. The lock clicked. She pushed the door open, allowing him to enter first.

  Despite the flow of sunlight through the partially open blinds, Linc flipped on the overhead light. The files were as they’d left them. Even the chairs appeared slightly out of alignment with each other, just as they had when he and Jenna had sat here after finding the death certificate.

  Everything appeared undisturbed since their last visit and Linc was relieved to see that no signs of Steve’s blood remained on the floor. He silently thanked whoever had cleaned it up. In the back room, the dogs stirred, a couple of them baying in welcome. The cages creaked as the animals moved about.

  He glanced at her, noting how she bit her lip, the white of her knuckles as her fist closed tightly over the keys.

  “I guess we just wait for him?” she asked in a thin voice.

  “I guess.” Tension closed over the room like a giant fist, cutting the air, suffocating him, knotting his shoulders.

  Linc wanted to pull Jenna to him, protect her from what was about to happen, but he knew she didn’t want that.

  “If I just sit here, I’ll go crazy. We can feed and water the dogs.”

  “Good idea. Why don’t you let me—”

  “Linc, I need to do something,” she said sharply, then gentled her voice, an apology in her eyes. “I can’t just sit around here.”

  He nodded, wishing he could protect her from all of this and knowing he couldn’t. Just being with her would have to be enough, no matter how he hated the feeling of helplessness.

  He stepped toward the steel door that led to the exam room. “You get the water. I’ll get the food—”

  A noise clattered beyond the door, loud enough to excite the dogs even further.

  His gaze snapped to Jenna’s. Dread pinched her features. Her lips flattened in a grim line.

  Linc stepped toward the door. “Stay here. Let me check it out.”

  “It was probably one of the dogs. Mace said he’d already checked out the place.”

  “Right. I’ll just take a look.”

  Foreboding stabbed at her. “I don’t think you should go back there by yourself.”

  “Mace is right outside,” Linc reminded. “If something happens, get the hell out of here.”

  “I won’t leave you.” Despite the misgiving in her eyes, her voice was firm, stubborn.

  “Jenna, please.”

  “I won’t.”

  He knew there was no sense arguing with her and hoped it was a moot point. “I’ll be right back.”

  She stepped toward him, as if she might go.

  “Please, stay here.” He leveled a look at her until she nodded reluctantly.

  He opened the door, his gaze taking in the pristine exam tables, the dull silver gleam of the refrigerator on the far wall.

  Looking into the shadows beyond, he saw the sheen of metal cages. The stringent odor of antiseptic cleanser hung in the room, underlaid by the faint scents of animals and urine.

  Something else, something vile and rotten, floated beneath the surface of the other scents, something Linc couldn’t identify.

  He stepped further into the room. “See, it was just the dogs—”

  Pain exploded in his head and he registered that he had been hit. Jenna spoke, her voice faint, drifting away. He staggered forward, tried to turn, tried to see who had hit him.

  Another vicious blow slammed against his head. He looked back and this time his gaze connected with the man standing behind the door.

  A warning screamed in his head. Horror clawed through him as Linc saw the raised bat, the cold rage gathered on broad, handsome features. It was Ramsey. Ramsey was already inside.

  “Jenna, run—” Linc pitched forward, the words strangled in his throat Darkness devoured him.

  Chapter 14

  Linc’s choked warning stabbed straight through Jenna.

  Reflexively, she moved forward, his name on her lips, but before she could speak, a wide-shouldered silhouette filled the doorway.

  “I knew you’d come.”

  The nightmare of the rape, of the last assault crashed in on her. Ramsey.

  The windowless front room pressed in on her. Mace’s photo had captured the familiar features, the short, dark hair, the cold soulless eyes, and the raw scar that slashed from his ear to his collarbone. But once again face-to-face with him, she shuddered in the wake of uncontained fury that girdled him like poisonous fog.

  The dogs whimpered, the sound playing through her mind like a distant echo. The rancid stench of fear burned the air. Her heart hammered against her ribs. Nausea climbed up her throat.

  She backed toward the front door, trying in a split second to gauge his moves, to determine which way to run. Her gaze skipped around the room, searching for something, anything to use as a weapon.

  She saw only files, chairs, a phone, a pen.

  The dull smack smack smack of a wooden baseball bat against Ramsey’s palm filled her head. The overdeveloped muscles of his shoulders and arms strained the seams of a light blue T-shirt. Thick thighs rippled as he stepped toward her. Dark scarlet stains streaked the light, polished wood of the bat and Jenna knew those stains must be Linc’s blood.

  Dread knotted her stomach. “Wh-what have you done to Linc?”

  “If I were you, I’d be more concerned about myself than lover boy.” He stepped toward her, heavy work boots squeaking on the tile. Twisted desire gleamed in his eyes. “Oh, I’ve waited a long time for this, you slut. A long time.”

  Talons of panic ripped at her and she fought to keep her wits. The dogs barked in an uneven, agitated staccato. Try to talk to him, she told herself. She was wearing the wire.
Mace would hear. He was on his way. She attempted to speak past the knot in her throat, but she couldn’t.

  “Now, it’s just you and me.” He edged toward her, moving with unusual grace for such a muscle-bound man. “I’ve thought about this for eight long years. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”

  “You’re sick.” Her voice shook. Maybe she shouldn’t antagonize him, but her nerves were talking now. Fury at his stalking of her, at the way he’d harmed her loved ones rose up in her, battling with the fear. She edged around the desk, trying to keep space between them.

  She thought she heard the rush of footsteps on the gravel and prayed it was Mace with his men.

  Ramsey advanced, miming her steps. He drew even with the front door and reached out, flipping the lock.

  The heavy click knifed through her. She would have to get to the back door. If she could make it into the exam room, she could lock the thick steel door between them.

  His eyes narrowed as he advanced, copying her steps with his own careful, precise ones as he followed her around the desk. “Remember what I told you that night in the parking lot?”

  She remembered every frightening word, but she wasn’t about to admit it.

  He snarled, baring his teeth at her. “I’m going to kill you. But before I do, I’m going to rip those clothes off, tear some of that delicious flesh off your body.”

  Nausea roiled through her and she shuddered. Think, she ordered. Think. Where was Mace? How was Linc? With shaking, slippery hands, she groped her way around the desk, feeling its edge, using it to guide her steps.

  Ramsey tracked her and she rounded the corner, backing toward the exam room door, careful not to look at it. Cold sweat slicked her palms, between her breasts. Her legs trembled so badly she could barely stand.

  “You won’t get away this time, bitch. You’re going to pay for everything you did to me, everything you took!”

  “You deserved every day you spent in prison!” The sound of her shrill voice, spewing such hate and fear, shocked her.