Page 22 of The Survivor (Silhoutte Romantic Suspense)
B lake stepped inside and kicked off his boots, then drifted into the living room. Sam was on the couch, her knees lifted up to her chest with her slender arms wrapped around them. Her face was still ashen, and she barely glanced up as he came in.
He hated seeing her like this. She’d gone from being serene and laid-back from an afternoon in the snow, to sad and scared, thanks to a psychopath who was apparently determined to terrorize her.
He watched as she shifted on the sofa. She reached for the red afghan resting on the arm of the couch, gathered the blanket around her legs and met his gaze at last.
Silence stretched between them.
“I’m going to catch him, Sam,” he finally said. He didn’t know why, but he felt he needed to make things right. To bring the light back into her gorgeous eyes.
She fixed him with a heartbreakingly grim look. “I know you will,” she murmured.
After a moment of hesitation, he joined her on the couch. “I know the flowers upset you.”
She replied with a humorless laugh. The reaction was so unexpected he didn’t know how to respond. Fortunately, he didn’t have to, because her next words clarified it all.
“I’m not upset—I’m angry!” she burst out. “He’s playing games with me, Blake. He waltzed right into your neighborhood and suckered some poor kid into delivering those disgusting roses!” Her eyes flashed with rage and horror. “What if he’d hurt that boy?”
“But he didn’t, thankfully.”
“No, of course not.” She made a bitter sound. “It’s me he wants to hurt.”
“I won’t let him,” he said with conviction.
She released a heavy sigh, the anger in her eyes beginning to dim. Rubbing her forehead, she cast a resigned look in his direction. “It’s always there with you, isn’t it? This case?”
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Earlier, when we were out in the yard…for a moment I was…having fun, I guess.” Her chest rose softly as she drew in a long breath then exhaled. “But you didn’t forget, did you? The entire time we were outside, the Rose Killer was on your mind, wasn’t he?”
He faltered, not sure what to say.
“Tell me why you took this case, Blake.”
“I’m not sure what you’re getting at,” he said roughly.
She leaned into him, moving the blanket so that it covered them both. “Why did you take this case?” she repeated.
“It’s my job, Sam.”
“It’s more than that. You’re pushing yourself to the point of exhaustion. You’re stressed, you’re getting headaches.”
“Comes with my line of work,” he said flippantly.
“Bull. You’re using this case as an excuse. You’re hell-bent on finding this guy because it helps you not think about Kate.”
His lips tightened. “That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it? Melanie told me Kate died because of a case you were working on.”
Shards of stinging pain sliced through him. Why the hell would Melanie have done that?
“You blame yourself for her death, don’t you?”
He felt her warm hand move under the blanket. She rested it on his thigh, and he was amazed how her touch could still arouse him when his brain was screaming vile things at him.
“I blame myself because I was at fault,” he muttered.
“I don’t believe that.”
He shrugged her hand away as a violent jolt of fury seared up his spine.
Gulping back the acrid taste in his mouth, he curled his hands into tight fists and spoke briskly, as if reciting from a textbook.
“Kate was profiling a killer for me. A lead came in and I went after it. She wanted to come along, I let her.” “So?”
Blake twisted around so they were face-to-face. Unwelcome memories swarmed his brain like street litter blowing on the sidewalk. “So I let her,” he repeated.
Even now, he couldn’t fathom how he’d made such an incomprehensible error.
Kate had been a desk agent, for God’s sake.
She’d undergone field training, of course, but she’d never worked outside FBI headquarters in Quantico before.
She’d never had to fire a gun at a suspect or don a bulletproof vest or tackle an enraged killer and throw him to the ground.
What the hell had he been thinking, letting her tag along for an arrest?
He said all this to Sam, nearly choking on each word, and the rest of the story wasn’t any easier to get out.
“We tracked the perp to an abandoned warehouse outside of Richmond. He popped out of the shadows with a gun. Kate had her back turned to him. I saw him there, raised my own weapon, but I hesitated.”
Sam reached for his hand, and this time Blake welcomed her touch.
“I had a clear shot of him, but Kate was standing right there and I didn’t want her caught in the cross fire.
I shouted for her to get down, but she was two seconds too late.
He shot her in the back. Twice. He got off his third shot just as my bullet connected with his forehead. ”
“Blake…I’m sorry.”
He closed his eyes, trying to banish the memories to that place in his gut where for more than a year he’d kept them hidden. “I acted like a lover when I should’ve been a cop,” he squeezed out.
“You’re human, Blake. And humans make mistakes.” She paused. “And who knows, maybe your hesitation wasn’t a mistake. Maybe the guy would have shot her anyway.”
“And maybe he wouldn’t have.”
“And maybe if my parents hadn’t been workaholics, they wouldn’t have been killed by a drunk driver when they’d decided to go into the office on New Year’s Eve. There’s no point talking about ‘ifs’ and ‘maybes.’ Bad things happen.”
He drew in a long breath as Sam shifted over and climbed onto his lap. She placed a hand on each of his cheeks and forced him to look at her. He did, and saw the unmistakable compassion swimming in her silvery gaze.
“But good things happen, too, Blake.” Her voice was barely a whisper. “Look at what’s happening between us. A week ago I would never have imagined that I could feel anything but fear toward a man. And look at this room—it’s dark.”
He shot her a questioning look.
“I haven’t been in a dark room for six months. At the farmhouse I slept with three lights on, for God’s sake. Don’t you understand? You’ve made me stronger, Blake.”
“I haven’t done a thing,” he said quietly. “You’re a survivor, right down to the core. You were born strong, Sam.”
He tangled his fingers in her silky brown hair and pulled her head down so that their lips were inches apart.
“Hell, you’re probably stronger than I am,” he whispered before pressing his mouth to hers.
She melted into his kiss. Still cupping his face, she angled his chin to deepen the contact.
Sitting there, with Sam’s lush body straddling him, with her firm breasts pressed against his chest and her wet tongue flicking against his, Blake’s entire body hardened.
Whether or not they had a future together, he still couldn’t fight the attraction he felt for her. That overwhelming need that sucked the oxygen from his lungs and made him weak with arousal.
He deepened the kiss, drove his tongue into her mouth and savored the sweet taste of her.
A soft whimper slipped from her throat, making his desire soar like a kite on a windy day.
He pushed his hands underneath her sweater and caressed her breasts, while she unzipped his pants and freed him from his boxers.
She stroked him gently, and suddenly he couldn’t think, couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe.
He tugged at her jeans and underwear, pulled them down her legs and tossed them onto the floor.
Heart thumping, he rolled her onto her back and parted her smooth thighs with his hands.
He wanted to touch and explore and drive her as wild as she drove him, but she didn’t let him.
Instead, she grasped his erection and guided it inside her.
He nearly came right then and there, just from the feel of her wet heat surrounding him and her sighs of pleasure filling his ears.
She moaned. He barely heard it, his blood drumming too loudly in his head. She was so slick, tight, eager. She was exactly what he needed. She was all he needed. Swallowing hard, he cupped the soft flesh of her bottom with his hands and lifted her hips, thrusting deeper into her.
Then he withdrew, slightly, aching to go slow but at the same time knowing he was fighting a losing battle. His skin was on fire, his body taut with the desperate need to let go.
“Sam,” he started, wanting to apologize, wanting to slow the climax building in his groin. He never got to finish that sentence as he heard her sexy cry, felt her body clench and watched her come apart in his arms.
It was the most incredible sight he’d ever witnessed. The erotic glaze of her eyes, the way she bit down on her bottom lip, her flushed cheeks. She looked wild and wanton and so unbelievably satisfied he felt himself topple right over the edge after her.
With a cry of his own, he let himself go. Succumbed to the intense wave of pleasure that coursed through him, white-hot pleasure as powerful as a category-five hurricane.
He held her tightly, breathing in her intoxicating feminine scent, wanting the moment to last forever.
Forever.
His pleasure wavered at the word. Because forever wasn’t an option, was it?
The life she’d described to him, the one she wanted to lead when all this was over, was so colossally different from the one he lived.
He chased sadistic killers for a living, made himself and those around him a target each time he investigated a new serial homicide.
His heart began to pound. Sam didn’t deserve to be surrounded by danger.
She was only now starting to put her pain behind her, to gather the shattered pieces of her life.
How could he ever ask her to live with the constant threats, the knowledge that the man in her bed might get shot down by a psychopath every time he left the house to do his job?