“Och, lass, fuck…”
He shoved deeper and held himself there, grunting a masculine shout that sparked against my clitoris and lit up my world. Together our bodies found their pleasure, and earthquake of joined throbbing that had us both sucking air and moaning for minutes.
He lay on top of me, placing kisses across my upper back and shoulders as we caught our breath. I felt bold and alive.
“Come with me to The Netherlands,” I whispered.
I thought I heard a grin in his voice when he responded, “Aye, then. You couldn’t keep me away.”
I smiled, keeping it partially hidden by my arm, but he took me by the shoulder and turned me to face him.
“I saw that,” he said. His thumb brushed over my lips. “You smiled.”
Feeling shy, but unbelievably happy, I let the smile return. He stared down at me, his eyes lighting, and then a grin graced his own lips, making mine stretch wider.
The smile transformed his face, turning him into a handsome younger man without a care. It made my soul take flight. I reached up and touched his face. I felt so many things. I couldn’t put it all into words, but I needed him to know.
“There was always something different about you,” I said. “I never understood why, but I couldn’t think of you as one of them. I think I felt you, the real you, all along.”
He closed his eyes and leaned into my hand. After a moment he leaned down, resting his elbows above my shoulders and his forehead against mine.
“I love you, Angela. And until you tell me to leave, I will be at your side.”
“Then you’ll be there forever.”
He kissed me, tender and sweet.
This is what Marco could never offer to his patrons. True paradise.
As he held me, I traced my fingers over the tattoo inside his left arm—a Celtic knot in the shape of a wicked tree, the roots branching out just below his elbow. The jagged lines curved and weaved, but all were connected—no beginning and no end. Then I looked at the beautiful Gaelic script up the inside of his right arm.
“It is better to try than to hope,” he whispered.
For some reason that phrase made me sad. “It’s okay to hope, though,” I said. “Hope is necessary. Without it, you feel dead.”
His eyes met mine, and my words seemed to cause him pain, as if he were imagining me without hope. I kissed the words inside his arm, and he kissed my bare shoulder.
“What about the one on your back?” I asked.
“Freedom.”
I smiled up at him and he grinned in return, making my tummy flop. “Now that one, I like.”
We lay together well into the night until an alarm blared, followed by the sound of an engine revving and gravel kicking up outside by the gate. Colin moved so fast. He leapt from the bed, tugging on his pants and shirt with serious eyes. My heart pounded. He held his gun in a trained arm by his side.
“Stay here,” he said.
I jumped down as he left and quickly got dressed. I pressed my ear to the door, listening to the sounds of Colin opening the door, then closing it again, the rustling of paper followed by a low curse. I couldn’t take the worry and suspense anymore. I slipped out of the room and tiptoed down the hall to the corner. What I saw made my stomach plummet as if I’d fallen from a cliff.
My world spun.
Ripped paper was on the floor, and in Colin’s hand was a painting of a girl bathed in gold, surrounded by hellish surroundings. The painting he’d done of me at the villa.
“Oh, my God,” I said. Colin’s head snapped up, terror swimming in his steel eyes.
“He’s alive,” Colin hissed, disbelief coloring each word.
I went to his side, shaking. The front of the painting had a loose paper taped on that simply said: You left something. ~M.
Fight or flight instincts kicked in. I wanted to run like hell.
“We have to get out of here!” I said.
Colin turned the painting over and there was an envelope. He ripped it off and set the painting down. Inside was a photograph, but I could only see the back. Colin’s face drained of blood. I’d never seen him look like that—defeated, at a total loss.“What is it?” I asked, but a horrible sinking feeling had already taken me over. Somehow, I knew.
He pulled off the note from the front of the picture and crumpled the photo in his hand. The note said: Now we are even.
Shit. What had Marco done? Dread ripped at me, shredding my soul.
Colin’s hand went to his head.
“Your parents,” he whispered, pain obvious in each word. “They’re gone, Angela.”
“No,” I whispered. His words cascaded over me like blazing acid, each word punctuating with a sickening burn. “No!”
I slid to the floor, swallowed by a fire of anguish.