Behind Closed Doors

Chapter 22

He had to assume that the car had been compromised. Time to ditch it and get a clean one. His bag hadn't been out of his sight since the day before, likewise his clothing. Raine had to get rid of every stitch of clothing that Lazar had provided, and they could look for someplace to hide and rest. He stared at highway signs, trying to orient himself. He saw signs for a mall, and flicked on the turn signal.

“Seth, how did you know that guy was in my house?”

He'd been dreading that question. He shook his head, considering and abandoning various lies and prevarications.

She waited. “You planted your spy stuff in my house, didn't you?”

Her still, quiet voice revealed nothing. That made him extremely nervous. He let his breath out slowly. “Yes,” he admitted.

“Why?”

He turned off onto the strip mall that led to the neon signs for the mall, noting with relief that there was a car dealership right down the road. “It had nothing to do with you at first,” he said reluctantly. “Victor's mistress was the previous occupant of your house. We were watching her. Then she disappeared, and you showed up.”

“And you watched me,” she finished.

“Yeah.” He pulled into a parking space and cut the motor. “I watched you. After a while, I couldn't stop watching you. Not if you'd put a gun to my head. I don't regret it, and I won't apologize for it.”

He braced himself to withstand fury and outrage, but none was forthcoming. When he dared to peek, she was gazing out at the Home Depot across the parking lot, her face misty and perplexed. She turned to him with worried eyes. “Have other people seen us make love?”

“No way,” he said emphatically. “I saw to it.”

She looked down. “That's good I wouldn't like that at all.”

“Me neither.” He reached for her hand “What's mine is mine.”

She looked down at her slender wrist, engulfed in his big hand. A laugh exploded out of her. “Conan the Conqueror,” she murmured.

He shrugged and just sat there, holding her hand in the dark for forty or so precious seconds that they could not afford to waste.

Her fingers wiggled inside his. “I've told you everything, Seth. It's time for you to lay your cards on the table, too.”

'Truth time has to wait. We've got to shake off your ghosts.”

Her eyes widened. “You think we're being pursued?”

“Let's just say we should definitely cover our asses.”

She bit her lip and stared down at their clasped hands. “Do you promise me that once we get somewhere safe, you'll tell me what's going on?”

“I promise,” he said rashly, popping the locks open. “Let's go.”

They ran hand in hand through the rain to the nearest clothing store. He flagged down the first salesgirl he saw. “We're in a serious hurry. Bring us a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, a wool sweater, underwear, socks, hiking boots, and a winter coat. Size six. Quick.”

The girl took one look at Seth's blazing eyes and Raine's gory, bloodstained sweater. Her jaw went slack with alarm. “Don't you, uh, wanna pick the stuff out yourselves?” she faltered. “Colors, and stuff?”

“No time!” he barked. “Move it!”

She backed away. “Um... lemme call the manager.”

“Never mind.” Raine cast an irritated look at Seth. “I'll pick them out, but stick close so you can ring them up right away, OK?”

A flurry ensued, of grabbing things off the rack, checking labels in breathless haste. Then he spotted the underwear bin. He grabbed a random handful of thong panties. See-through lace, in awesome, lurid colors. Black, hot pink, purple, lime green, lipstick red. He flung them on the counter. “Put these on the tab.”

“Those are thongs,” Raine said, blushing.

He leered at her. “Yum.”

Raine was busy struggling into a navy blue parka when he spotted the nightie. It was a peachy color in a clingy knit that would hit her just above mid-thigh and show off every curve and hollow. And it would peel off. Stretchy, just like he'd always wanted.

He yanked it off the hanger and flung it onto the pile in the salesgirl’s arms. “Ring that up, too. Hurry up.”

“Yes, before he finds something else he likes,” Raine snapped.

He paid out of his thick wad of emergency cash. As soon as they were back inside the Toyota, he was yanking clothes out of the bags and biting off the plastic label tabs. “Off with your clothes, babe. Quick.”

Raine looked at the cars driving past, and back at him, appalled. “Right here?”

“Every stitch. I can feel them breathing down our necks.”

She hesitated, looking bewildered. He grunted and yanked open the sash of her trench coat.

That jolted her into action. “No, no, I'll do it.” She tugged her boots off with a wistful sigh. “These boots were so beautiful.”

He pulled his knife out of his pocket while she was peeling off her jeans and underwear and slid his knife beneath the sole of one of her discarded boots, managing at the same time to keep an eye on the tantalizing nest of ringlets at her crotch. She pulled on one of the thong undies. The hot pink one, he noted with unquenchable interest.

“These things are not comfortable, Seth,” she grumbled.

He gave her a wolfish, unrepentant grin. “Sorry, sweetheart.”

He peeled back the upper. Bingo. He pulled out the tiny chip with its dangling antenna. “Check this out.”

She stopped in mid-shimmy, her new jeans halfway up her thighs. Her jaw sagged in horror. “Victor?”

“Hurry, Raine,” he said grimly.

She needed no further encouragement. In moments, she was freshly clothed and ready.

“Leave it all there on the floor,” he instructed. “Let's go.”

“We're just leaving the car?”

“We'll get it later, if we can,” he said indifferently.

He grabbed the bag that held his laptop and his X-Ray Specs gear, and pulled her through the pelting rain at a dead run, expecting every set of headlights to veer towards them, for someone to lean out and open fire. They darted across the highway, to Schultz's New And Used Cars. Fifteen minutes later his emergency cash wad was a hell of a lot slimmer, and Samuel Hudson, one of his alternate identities, was the proud owner of an only slightly dented bronze '94 Mercury Sable. Not what he would have chosen, but it was the best of the lot for the cash he had on hand.

After forty minutes of winding torturously through streets and back roads, Seth was reasonably sure they weren't being followed. He got onto a small highway that began to climb into the hills. The rain got heavier, verging on slush. On the outskirts of a little town called Alden Pines, there was a neon sign that read “Lofty Pines Motel-Cabins-Cable-Vacancy.” He pulled into the long, forested driveway and parked.

The desk clerk was a fugitive's wet dream, deeply involved in an old Clint Eastwood movie that flickered on his twelve-inch screen. He was completely unperturbed by Semis preference for paying in cash, and barely glanced at the fake driver's license before shoving a key attached to a cedar shingle across the scarred counter.

“Cabin number seven,” he said, eyes riveted on the screen. “Check-out time, eleven-thirty.”

The room itself was musty and cold. Seth fiddled with the antiquated heating device and Raine dragged the extra wool blankets out of the closet. The radiator hummed and clanked The cracked, brownish lampshade cast a dim light onto the fake wool paneling, the threadbare furniture. The stark reality of the past twenty-four hours rendered them speechless. They stared at each other across the bed.

Raine shrugged out of her new coat and walked over to him. She pushed gently on his chest until he understood that she wanted him to sit down. He did so. The lumpy bed sagged under his weight.

She crossed her arms, adorably cute in her new, raspberry red wool sweater. It clung to her soft, braless tits. “So?” she prompted.

The pink swelling on her face would ripen tomorrow into bruises. It made him clench up inside, to think of how close to the edge she'd come tonight. “Let's get into bed,” he suggested.

A half-smile curved her solemn, sexy mouth. “If you think you can distract me from this conversation with sex, think again.”

“No way,” he protested. “I just want us to get warm.” He rummaged through the bags until he found the nightie. “Put this on.”

She took the tiny scrap of a thing, and regarded it with deep suspicion. “This is supposed to keep me warm?”

“No,” he said curtly. “I'm the one that's going to keep you warm.”

She disappeared into the bathroom. He stripped, laid the SIG on the bedstand, got the condoms out of his bag and slid naked into the bed with a harsh gasp. It was like a wintertime leap into Puget Sound.

After a ridiculously long time, the bathroom door squeaked open. She stood, silhouetted against the light for a moment before she stepped out into the room.

She did it to him every damn time. He just couldn't get used to how beautiful she was. The peach thing clung tenderly to her body, showing off the sway of her breasts, the curve of her belly, the soft indentation of her navel. Her eyes had that soft, shining look that made his throat tighten up until it hurt. “Come here,” he said, scooting over to the icy side. “I warmed it up for you.”

She smiled her thanks and slid under the covers, signing with pleasure when he pulled her close against his heat. He ran his hands all over her body, needing to reassure himself that she was real, and safe. Warm and soft and right here in his arms. He pressed his aching erection against her thigh and pulled up the brief skirt. She was naked beneath it, her soft downy curls open to his teasing fingers.

She stiffened. “Wait. You promised!, Seth. I need to know—”

“Please, Raine,” he pleaded. “The adrenaline got me so jacked up. I have to touch you. I was so scared of losing you tonight.”

She gave his chest a little push. “You're not getting away with it this time, my love. Adrenaline is no excuse. I had an adrenaline rush, too, you know. I don't know why you're so afraid to talk to me, but you have got to get over it. Right now.”

He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. At least she had called him “my love.” He would cling to that when it all went to shit. “It's true,” he said tightly. “I don't want to talk. Talking is where I get into trouble. At least when it comes to ... relationships.”

“Trouble? What trouble?”

He rubbed his face with a grimace of discomfort. “You've seen how I am. You saw it tonight I open my mouth, and things just come out. And I ruin everything. Every time.”

“Oh, Seth,” she whispered.

“I'm so flicking scared of wrecking this.” His voice came out rough and raw. It embarrassed him. He covered his face with his hand.

Raine cuddled closer. “I'm not afraid of the truth,” she soothed, stroking his hair. “And even if I get mad at you, it's not the end of the world, I've gotten mad at you lots of times, remember? And here I am.”

“Right. I have a hit man to thank for that,” he said sourly.

She kissed his nose. “Don't be silly.”

He closed his eyes and cautiously allowed himself to enjoy the little butterfly kisses, her fingers stroking his hair. “Easy to say right now,” he said. “Wait till one of my moods comes over me. Then you'll see.”

“I've already seen you at your worst, Seth Mackey. More than once. And it's true. You can be just awful. Despicable.”

He opened his eyes. She wasn't exactly laughing, but he distrusted that bright sparkle in her eyes. “I don't see what's so goddamn funny” he growled.

She pulled his hand up to her lips and kissed his knuckles. “It's so simple, Seth,” she said “You're being sweet to me, and everything works beautifully. It's easy. Just... keep on being sweet to me.”

He stared down at her pink, amazingly soft lips as they brushed against his big knuckles, covering them with tender little kisses. “I can't always be sweet,” he said starkly.

“Why not?”

He pulled her closer, almost angrily. As if someone were trying to drag her away from him. “Because the world's not like that.”

Her smile was so beautiful it made his chest burn. Her fingers were so cool and soft, stroking his hot cheek. “Then let's change the world,” she whispered.

Breath jerked into his lungs in sobbing heaves. She did not protest when he rolled on top of her, settling his hard weight into the cradle of her hips. Her body softened, clasping him. Accepting him.

Seth was a millimeter away from losing it. The only way to hold his emotions together was to kiss her, with all of himself. All his desperate hunger. Need pounded through his body, but he held it back, trying to express with his kiss everything that was so impossible to say. His anger and grief and confusion, his growing awareness of how important she was to him. How much that awed and terrified him.

If a kiss could communicate that, this kiss would. He would tell her with his lips and his tongue, with every caress, every nuzzle and licking, swirling kiss. He peeled down me thin straps of the nightgown, pulling it down to her waist, and lost himself in the magic landscape of her body, all the secret hollows and hillocks and hidden places.

Her breath fluttered through her, sweet and light, like the sudden flight of surprised birds. He caressed and suckled her until she was just the way he wanted her, flushed and dazed and desperate. He would learn any language she wanted, if she would only give him time, but for now, this was the only language he had. He would be as eloquent in it as he knew how to be.

He touched her between her legs, a love poem of circles and spirals, until she opened up and pressed herself against him in mute pleading, and he slid down beneath her thighs to continue the love poem with his mouth. Her sweet taste was ecstasy, the baby-smooth skin of her thighs clenched and trembling against his face, the folds of her sex drenched and pulsing, crying out in the throes of climax.

She reached down and pulled until he slid back up on top of her. “This is the way I always want you to be before we make love,” he told her, grabbing a condom. “Wide open from coming like crazy. Both sets of lips pink and soft from being licked and kissed.”

Raine clutched his shoulders and pushed her hips against him eagerly as he entered her. She rested her chin against his shoulder, and he felt the exact moment when something deep inside her body and heart and mind let go, giving herself up to him. He followed her, diving into a new world, a shining place beyond all words. They melted, fused. Her pleasure and his were one single rocking, sighing blur of light and heat.

This time, he wasn't alarmed at all when she melted into tears. He finally felt the lightness of it. Like soft rain in the springtime, rustling on the leaves. A fragrant, healing balm. He vibrated with her, cradling her head against his chest and making sure her precious sore nose was turned to the side.

He stroked her hair and the words just rolled out of him. Halting, and breathless, but he didn't choke on them at all. “I love you, Raine.”

She was so startled she stopped crying. When she breathed again, she shuddered and hitched. “I knew that,” she whispered. “But I didn't know that you knew it. And I certainly didn't expect...”

“Expect what?”

“For you to be the first one of us to say it,” she said bashfully.

He waited, squeezing her tightly against him. He could feel the hot wet tears against his chest. She sniffled, her breath hitching. “So?” he said expectantly.

She sniffed, more aggressively. “Hmm?”

“You got something to say to me?” he prompted.

She shoved him over onto his back and rolled on top of him, wiping her face and laughing through her tears. “You want a formal declaration? I love you, Seth Mackey,” she announced. “I always have. From the very start.”

He tightened his arms around her waist, afraid of the hugeness of the joy rushing through him. “Really?”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “Oh, God, yes.”

He wound himself around her and stared at her, amazed and humbled. Words had deserted him again, but he didn't care. He didn't need them anymore. It was enough for him, just to touch her hair, feel her body fitting against his, to stare into her eyes. Two halves of a perfect whole. The wonder of it made him tremble.

He slid into sleep with the thought that he would do anything to protect this. Anything.

Seth was fast asleep, but Raine was still flying. She was so high, she was terrified to look down now and see how far there was to fall.

Her mind raced. So much information to process. Was it possible that Victor had sent someone to hurt her? It didn't make sense, didn't fit her perceptions and memories of him. Could he have been so affronted by her reproof that he was punishing her? She was sure he hadn't seen her plant the transmitter. She would have felt the change in his energy.

Maybe she just didn't want to believe that her own father—how odd it was to think of Victor that way—could order someone to hurt her. What a sentimental idiot she was. He had ordered someone to murder his own brother, after all. And she felt hurt, of all things. She really was a Lazar, as crazy as they come. Someone sends a hit man after her, and her reaction was hurt feelings.

Seth murmured in his sleep and snuggled closer to her. She nudged his muscular chest until his long, curling black eyelashes fluttered up. She poked again, pitiless. Sleep could come later, after he had fulfilled his promise. “Talk,” she said succinctly.

He groaned and stretched. “What do you want to know?”

Raine sat up cross-legged, and pulled one of the wool blankets up over her shoulders. “Begin at the beginning. And don't make me pry it out of you, please.”

He picked at the satin blanket trimming, staring up at the ceiling. “I had a brother,” he said finally. His voice was hard and flat.

She nodded. “Yes?”

“A half-brother, actually. I pretty much raised him. He was six years younger than me. His name was Jesse.”

She patted his chest and waited for him to go on.

He stared up at the ceiling, shaking his head. “So Jesse grows up to become a cop, see. Big joke for both of us, considering our upbringing, but Jesse was a romantic. He wanted to save the world. Rescue kittens stuck in trees, babies from burning buildings, that kind of thing. I personally think he watched too much cop TV”

She could already feel what was coming. She braced herself for it. “What happened to Jesse, Seth?” she asked.

He closed his eyes. “He was undercover, investigating your uncle.”

“Oh, no,” she whispered.

“Oh, yeah. Victor got bored with being fabulously successful in the legitimate business world. In the past few years, he's started dabbling in the dangerous stuff again. Mostly stolen weapons and antiquities, I think. But what got Jesse and his partner all excited was one of Victor's clients, Kurt Novak. Another collector of stolen goodies. Novak is a serious bad-ass. Makes Victor look like a pussy cat. More money than God, no conscience whatsoever. His daddy is a big man in the Eastern European mafia. Novak was the real prize they were after. They almost nailed him, but somebody tipped Lazar off. I don't know who... yet. And Jesse was out on the limb when it got sawed off. Novak killed him. Slowly.”

“Oh, Seth,” she whispered. She laid her hand on his chest, but he was too far away to feel her.

“I should have been there to help him,” he said. “I might have been able to change things. But I was too late.”

She wanted to soothe and comfort, but she knew that words would be useless and empty. She pressed her lips together and waited.

Minutes passed. He opened his eyes and looked at her.

“So that’s the story. I've spent months watching Victor. Waiting for him to make contact with Novak. And when he does, I'm bringing those guys down. Lazar, Novak and the traitor. I've been living for that. Just that. I sure as hell didn't plan on... something like you happening to me.”

She settled against his chest, letting her hair drape over him. “So you and I have more in common than I thought.”

He played with a lock of her hair. “I guess so,” he said doubtfully.

She stretched out next to him and propped herself on her elbow. “Tell me about Jesse “ she asked gently.

He looked startled. “Like what?”

“What was he like?”

He looked clouded for a minute, and then he gave a hard little shrug. “He was nuts,” he muttered. “A clown. Incredibly smart. He had these weird green eyes that were kind of too big. Huge feet. Mad scientist hair. When he was too busy to cut it, it just knotted into dreads. And he was a tender-hearted sap. Always in love, always giving away the shirt on his back. He never learned. Never.”

She smiled at the image he was creating. “Go on.”

His eyes grew distant, and he fell silent. She was about to ask what was wrong when he started up again, in a halting voice. “One time, it was Halloween. He was about eight, I think. Mitch, my stepdad, had locked me in the closet for some reason—”

She stiffened. “Oh, God.”

“Oh, it was no big deal, I probably deserved it,” he said, his expression faraway. “Anyway, Mitch got blind drunk and forgot about me for about twelve hours. Jesse couldn't find the key, so he got his blanket and pillow and curled up on the other side of the door. He didn't want me to be all alone in the dark. He passed me all of his Halloween candy that would fit under the door. All the flat stuff. Mini Hersheys, mini Nestles Crunch, all of it. He even squashed his peanut butter cups. I tried to make him go to bed, but he just had to keep me company.” Raine's throat tightened. “Oh, Seth.”

He smiled at the memory. “I think I was off chocolate for years after that. But if you're sitting in the dark on top of a pile of stinking gym shoes, and somebody gives you chocolate, you eat it.”

He paused. His fleeting smile faded, replaced by bleakness. His eyes flicked up to hers. “So there you go. That was Jesse for you. Satisfied?”

Raine pressed her cheek against his chest to hide her tears. “Oh, Seth. I think I would have loved your brother.”

“Yeah, well... I sure did.” His face contracted. He jerked away from her, rolled over onto his stomach and pressed his face into the pillow.

Raine draped herself over his broad back and absorbed the racking tremors into herself. Covering and protecting him. She had no idea how long they stayed like that. They slipped loose of linear time. She would have stayed years if it could have healed him. Centuries.

He finally stirred, and she lifted herself up. “Seth—”

“No more stories about Jesse. He's dead now. Let him stay dead.”

She did not flinch away when he grabbed her and rolled on top of her. “Gently,” she said, cupping his face. I don't want you lost in some tornado in your mind a million miles away. Come back to me.”

His body was rigid, his eyes so lost and dark with pain that her throat burned for him. 'Think island sunset,” she urged, covering his face with soft kisses. “Think garlands of tropical flowers.”

He rolled over and pulled her on top of him, gripping her hips painfully hard. “You run it,” he said roughly. “I can't control anything. I don't know how to give you what you want”

She kissed away the tears that had trickled out of the corners of his eyes, rubbing her wet cheek against his hot, scratchy one. “Sure you do,” she told him. “You always have, from the beginning. You're brilliant at it. You're inspired.”

She smoothed the condom over him with a slow, lingering caress, and guided him into herself, sinking down over him, enveloping his burning heat with a sobbing sigh of pleasure. He grasped her waist with a groan as she rose up onto her knees and sank down again, taking more of him. Deeper, bolder. Soothing him with her silken softness.

Raine pried his hands away from her waist and held them out, spreading them wide. She swayed over him in a divine dance of love and acceptance, rejoicing that he finally trusted her enough to be vulnerable; to ask, with arms and mind and heart wide open, for her love and healing. And she could not help but give him what he needed. It would have destroyed her to withhold it.

She wanted to heal all his wounds, fulfill all his dreams.

She wanted to love him forever.