Hidden Currents (23 page)

In the distance Elle heard the scream of a siren and knew the ambulance was on the way. Hannah wouldn’t like it any more than Elle would have, but she was pregnant and no one, least of all Jonas, would ever take a chance with either of their lives. She made an effort to push herself to her feet, but was physically drained after the use of psychic energy, her arms and legs like lead. She forced herself to crawl across the floor out of the kitchen, not wanting anyone to see her so bloody and ravaged. The paramedics would insist on checking her out and she couldn’t bear that.

Jackson caught her ankle and held her. His fingers were icy cold and he was shaking nearly uncontrollably. She halted, not because he was stronger—his hands were gentle—but because he didn’t want her out of his sight. One big advantage of having him wrapped so tightly in her mind was that she could feel his emotions as if they were her own.

“Stay with me, baby. Get under the blanket and get me warm.”

He was so cold. Icy cold. Deep inside where his soul should be, he was icy. She rolled beneath the blanket and over the top of his body, aware of Jonas and Ilya bringing in Abbey and Libby. Jackson’s arms went around her and held her tight against his naked form. “I didn’t mean it, Elle. I’m sorry I said it.”

“I need you,” she whispered against his ear, ashamed, aware of the ice cold of the wide expanse of skin covering hard muscle. “I’ve never needed anyone. I should choose you because I want to be with you, not because of a legacy, or because I was raped and beaten. I shouldn’t need you so desperately.”

His arms tightened around her so hard he nearly drove the air from her lungs. “Do you think I don’t know need? I need you, Elle, just to survive intact. You’ve known that from the beginning and it’s part of what made you run. You knew I’d hold you too tight and the thought of a short leash was something you couldn’t live with. I know need. Just let it be. Whatever it is between us, for now, let it be.”

The uncontrollable shaking was lessening and he was beginning to be more aware of his surroundings, of Bomber alerting to strangers outside in the yard, of Ilya depositing Sarah on the couch and covering her with a blanket.

“Ilya,” he called. “Get us into the other room before the circus starts.”

Ilya hesitated, glanced toward the paramedics rushing up the path and leaned down to help Elle and Jackson to their feet. He simply lifted Elle off her feet and half carried Jackson with his other arm, taking them to the bedroom.

“You should let them examine you,” Ilya cautioned Jackson. “Both of you. Elle’s covered in blood.”

“You know it’s a psychic bleed,” Elle said. “What could they do other than give me a brain scan and tell us what we already know?”

Ilya swore and put her on the bed, steadying Jackson with one arm. “You certain you’re all right?”

“Get us some tea,” Jackson said, and collapsed next to Elle.

Ilya covered him with blankets. “Your body heat will warm him faster than anything, Elle,” he said. “I’ll bring in hot water bottles as soon as possible as well as tea. Give me a minute.”

“Shut the door,” Jackson called after him, signaling his dog to the bed. Bomber climbed up and lay against his side while Elle lay on top of him.

“Thank you for saving Hannah.”

“There’s never been a rip current there, Elle. Never.”

“I know.” She nuzzled his throat. He smelled of the sea, a comforting scent in spite of the near tragic incident. “It was
him
. Stavros.”

His hand slid over her back to the nape of her neck, his fingers doing a slow massage as he turned her conclusions over in his mind. She was grateful he didn’t just dismiss them as paranoid hysteria. She kept rubbing his arms and chest trying to warm him. Between her, the dog and the blankets, he was coming back fast. His mind had gone from sluggish to sharp almost before his body responded. She found she could breathe easier, some of the tension leaving her.

“You think he attacked Hannah? How would he have found you so fast? It’s possible, even probable, that he will find you, but not this fast. How could he?”

“Bribe someone maybe?”

“One of our team? I doubt it. It could happen, but it’s doubtful.”

There was speculation in his voice and she could feel his mind working quickly, processing and discarding names of the men who’d aided them. All good friends. All men he’d gone into combat with. Men he had risked his life for many times. “Maybe,” he repeated, but this time she felt the doubt in his mind.

Elle didn’t say anything, but her body shuddered, just once. She doubted if he could feel it with all the shivering his body was doing, but his fingers continued that soothing, rhythmic massage.

“Maybe it was something else altogether, Elle. Maybe we’re giving him too much credit.”

“Maybe.” She knew better, but whatever. She wasn’t going to argue with him. She’d felt Stavros’s fingers on her throat again, heard his voice, that soft monotone that never changed, not when he was hitting her with his fist, or carving up her body with a whip, beating her with a cane, and not when he was being gentle, his hands and mouth roaming over her as if he owned her. A sob escaped before she could suppress it.

“Kiss me.”

“I can’t.”

“Look at me, Elle.” He waited until her gaze met his. There was shame. Pain. Humiliation. Panic. Most of all a deep sorrow for everything she’d lost.

“Kiss
me.
Feel
me.
He’s not here with us. I won’t let him be. He’s a monster that took you and you had no choice but to give in to him . . .”

“No! I should have fought more. I should have done something. I’m trained, damn it. I’ve been trained in martial arts, in weapons. I have a hell of a psychic talent. It shouldn’t have happened to me. How could I let him do those things to me?”

“You tell me, baby. You tell me how, with all my training, with my psychic talent, with my strength and my ability with weapons, I fell into enemy hands and allowed them to do those things to me. Explain it then, because I don’t understand.”

“You’re such a bastard, Jackson. Why do you have to talk like that?” She tried to lay her head on his chest, wanting to hide.

“You’re fucking going to kiss me first, Elle. He’s not standing between us. You understand me? I won’t have him standing between us. You fought a good fight. You survived. That’s what you were supposed to do. You survived.”

Her teeth sank into his shoulder and her tears burned against his skin. “I shouldn’t have,” she whispered. “I should have had the courage to end it and maybe him.”

His fingers tightened on her neck and he pulled her head back so he could stare into her tear-drenched eyes. “Don’t you ever fucking think that, let alone say it. Would you want me to have died? Or Hannah? Or Abbey?”

She shook her head. “But this is my fault—what happened today. I heard him. I heard his voice. He said he’d kill everyone I love if I don’t come back to him.”

“You listen to me, Elle. He’s the one who needs to be afraid, not you. You’re not locked in by his psychic energy field. He doesn’t have you trapped. You’re strong and you’re lethal. Your sisters are as well. Don’t you dare sell any of them short. Hell, baby, your house makes people disappear. And we’re not going to talk about me, but if that son of a bitch thinks he can take you from me, let him come and try. You’re down, but you’re not out. Do you understand me? Do you, Elle? Look at me. Don’t turn away from me and pay lip service to what I’m saying. I’ll kill the bastard for you right now. Say the word and I leave and go to work. It’s what I’m best at anyway. There’s nowhere he’ll be safe and if you think I don’t want to, you’re very wrong. I dream about it, I think about it, day and night and none of what I do to him is pleasant or civilized. If you want to be scared of someone, you’re scared of the wrong fucking man.”

She stared down into his black, glittering eyes knowing every word he said he believed. She leaned forward and brushed her mouth across his. “Stop saying ‘fuck.’ ”

Jackson had been furious at the thought of Stavros possibly reaching across the ocean and frightening Elle. Could he do that? Could the son of a bitch really come at her psychically? He and Elle had first touched mind to mind across an ocean. He wanted to wrap her in bubble wrap, put her somewhere no one could find her, hire an army to guard her, get ten dogs. He wanted the bastard dead. And then she’d kissed him. Not a real kiss, just a brush of her lips against his. And scolded him in that prissy little lecture tone of hers he loved.

“It’s just a word, Elle.” It was deliberate provocation, but he couldn’t help it.

“It’s not a nice word, Jackson and you don’t need to say it.”

“You think I don’t know you were born into a high class, elegant family and I came from the biker camp from hell?”

“It doesn’t matter where anyone comes from, Jackson. Once you’re grown up, you still have a choice about who you want to be and how you want to live.”

Now she really sounded prissy and he couldn’t stop the small grin that welled up from inside him.

His hand curled around the back of her head. “I love you, Elle Drake. In case I haven’t told you lately.”

Elle blinked. She looked startled, like a panicked deer caught in the headlights of a hunter’s truck. “You’ve never said that before.”

“I’m sure I have.”

“I’m sure you haven’t. Believe me, I would have remembered.”

“You probably weren’t listening. I especially love your nasty little temper. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a lot warmer and I’m completely naked under here. Things are beginning to perk up and I wouldn’t want you to get all scared on me.” His hand slid down her back in a slow glide that didn’t ask for anything at all, simply took her in.

“I’m not afraid of you, Jackson,” she whispered. “I’m not going to let him do that to me. I won’t.” But maybe she was. A little. A lot. What if she couldn’t do with him the things that she’d done with Stavros?

He spat out an ugly curse. “You’re not going to do anything with me you did with him, Elle. When we come together, we’ll be making love, not fucking. Hell, what he did wasn’t even fucking. What he did to you was rape. Control. Power. That is never going to happen between us, honey. When I look at you, when I want to touch you, it’s because I love you and I want to show you that.”

She pressed her forehead against his, closing her eyes. “What if I can’t do the same back, no matter how much I want to? What if he keeps coming between us? I’ve heard that happens, Jackson. Before I went on the assignment, of course we thought if I was captured they’d kill me, but in my research on human trafficking I read about long-term effects on women who are subjected to physical and emotional abuse over long periods of time. The trauma affects them their entire life, even with counseling.”

Jackson noticed she’d said “them,” not “us” or “we.” She still could not identify herself as a victim. “Of course it would, Elle. Do you think I’m not affected every damn day of my life? I wake up in a sweat, my heart pounding and adrenaline rushing. I have a gun in my fist tracking the room before I’m fully awake. I have a room full of weapons and I practice shooting nearly every day. I work out with weights and run to stay in shape, not because I want to look good, but because I want to be prepared. I worry that I’ll be a paranoid husband and father and drive you insane. And don’t tell me you haven’t worried about it either, because we both know you have.”

“But you can make love, Jackson. I can see it in your eyes, feel desire in your mind and hunger in your body. What if I can’t satisfy that?”

He rolled over, gently putting her aside. His face was smeared with her blood. “We’ve got to clean up before anyone sees us and freaks out. Let’s take a shower.”

Elle sighed. Still weak, Jackson, who had already gone through so much, had to carry her into the bathroom and set her in the shower. She managed to remove her clothes while he turned on the water, blasting them both with heat.

“That feels so fu—er . . . good,” Jackson said and wiped the blood from her face with a washcloth, his touch tender. “I’m going to wash and condition your hair, Elle.”

She swallowed hard, unsure which would win, the rising panic, or her wish to please him. He hadn’t asked her, but she knew if she put up her hand and stopped him, he wouldn’t protest or question, he’d let her be. Her hair had been so important to her. Blazing red. Thick and long and feminine. It was her only feature she thought truly astounding and Stavros had made her hate it.

She braced herself, waiting for bile to rise in her stomach, but Jackson’s hands felt soothing in the mass of tangles, the pads of his fingers massaging her scalp as the fragrance mixed with the hot water.

“Lean against me, Elle, you’re swaying.”

His body was hard, his erection unashamed and he was a big man, intimidating to her. She held her breath and hesitated before easing her body closer to his, until they were skin to skin, her back to him, the small of her back resting against his thick groin. She felt his heat radiating through her, his hunger, deep and strong, but just as equally his control, his need to love her as gently and tenderly as he knew how.

Jackson didn’t think of himself as gentle or tender, she knew he worried about that in himself. His mind was only on her, on healing her body and mind, on finding a way to make her love her hair again, on accepting if she wanted to go through with dreading her hair when he loved the long silk of it shining in the sun. To him, her hair was as much a part of her as her temper, her intelligence, her tenacity, all traits he loved and admired in her.

“I won’t dread it,” she said, wanting to give him something back, “but you’ll have to try to get the tangles out. It might take hours.”

“I don’t mind, baby, but do me a favor and stop thinking of me as a saint. I want you. Know that I want you. Get used to it. That’s just reality and yes, I think you’re sexy as hell. I always have.”

Elle frowned, glad he couldn’t see her face. She used to feel sexy and special and worth something, but Stavros had taken that away from her. She didn’t want to think about anything but Jackson’s fingers rubbing the conditioner into the tangles and the way his body made her feel safe instead of terrified.