Passionate Vengeance (7 page)

With a last look back to Kimber, Abigail sighed and picked up the next series of stapled sheets. A glance showed her it was Harper’s credit card statement for the month of October the previous year.

“Holy shit,” she grumbled, “I should have offered to help Kimber make those calls.”

“I think this certainly means we need some more tea,” Tristan agreed as he stood up. “Lucas?”

“Yeah, please. White with one sugar.”

“Abigail? Would you like a mug?” Tristan asked turning his head to include her. “I plan to boil a new kettle, so there will be plenty.”

“Please,” she replied with relief at the thought of anything to keep her awake and something to help keep her mind focused. “I take mine black. Thank you.”

Tristan stretched, then walked out of the conference room heading for the small kitchenette.

Abby placed the statement back onto the table, rubbed her eyes again and sighed while Lucas leaned over and gently rubbed her shoulders. The firm kneading motion eased knots of tension she hadn’t even realised were clustered around her neck and back.

“That feels blissful.” She sighed.

They were comfortably silent together for a moment while he massaged her aching muscles. Abigail closed her eyes and the relaxing, calming sensation of Lucas’ hands on her had her almost nodding off. She jerked reflexively upright when her head began to dip, jolting herself awake in her seat.

“You should go lie down,” Lucas whispered as he pressed a kiss to her temple.

She shook her head stubbornly. “No. I promised I’d not be a burden and I won’t go and rest while everyone else is here burning the midnight oil.”

“There’s a fine line between tenacious and hard-headed,” he warned her.

Abigail tilted her head up and back so she could grin at him. “I’m sure you’ll either carry me off to bed or I’ll fall asleep right here at the desk before I cross the line from one into the other.”

Lucas bent down and kissed her tenderly on the lips. Abigail’s heart fluttered and heat pooled between her thighs. Her knickers became hot, tight and damp.

“Mmm,” he muttered. “I might just throw you over my shoulder and carry you to bed anyway. There are a few discreet places with cot beds already set up. It’s not at all unusual for us to pull all-nighters and get a bit of sleep whenever it’s possible. I’m sure I could find a suitably private spot for us to…rest.”

Lucas knelt in front of her chair. Abigail opened her legs and he settled himself between them. He lifted his arms to wrap them around her and she raised her hands to pull him closer.

Their lips met in a litany of small kisses. Over and over they tasted each other as if for the very first time and they could not get enough. She knew she could never get tired of the way he kissed her, as if he not only enjoyed it but craved it too.

She felt safe in his arms, secure. Nothing in the outside world could possibly matter when he held her and their lips touched. Time slowed and soon had no meaning at all. Abigail could have stayed right in this moment forever and not held a single complaint. Lucas lifted a hand to stroke a few locks of her hair out of her eyes, mimicking the gesture that had elicited such a warm reception last time.

“Tristan will be back soon,” he murmured.

Abigail sighed, her eyes slowly fluttering open as if she were waking from a delicious dream.

“I guess we shouldn’t embarrass him too much, should we?”

Lucas chuckled.

“Personally I think we could show him a thing or two, but he’s my partner and I’d hate to offend his delicate sensibilities.”

Abigail laughed at this, but knowing they really did have to get back to it soon, she wrapped her arms around Lucas’ shoulders and drew him in for a warm hug. They were still pressed together when Tristan walked into the room bearing a steaming pot of fresh tea and a handful of mugs for them.

Tristan caught her eye first and winked. As he passed, Tristan stuck out his foot and nudged Lucas’ ass.

“Enough slacking, mate. Let’s get back to it or we’ll still be going cross-eyed over these papers when the sun rises.”

Lucas wordlessly flipped his middle finger at Tristan. Taking his time, Lucas slowly stood then poured them all a mug of tea, leaving Tristan’s in front of him and handing Abigail hers. Lucas pressed a light kiss on her forehead.

“Drink up, darling,” Lucas said. “Looks like it’s going to be a long night.”

Each of them sighing to varying degrees at the truth in those words. Drinking their tea, they continued to search.

* * * *

Dr Paul Harper stood just in front of her, clearly visible yet just inches out of her reach. They were surrounded by a laboratory, filled with clinical instruments and medical testing equipment. The sterile room reminded her of the clinic room they had strapped her down in when she had been taken against her will. It scared her, but she focused on the doctor and trying to reach him.

“I’m way too smart for you, little Abigail,” he taunted.

Refusing to be daunted by the truth in his words, Abby set her face into a scowl and struggled harder to reach out for him.

“You’re never going to catch me,” he jeered.

His words, the clear mocking in his tone coupled with his smug sense of superiority inflamed her anger—and simultaneously her sense of being inferior—further.

Struggling for breath, she tried harder. The more she tried, the more he seemed to slip from her reach.

He stepped back from her and she noticed now they were in his medical office, the rooms he had used to consult in where she had first met him before this nightmare had begun. His desk had papers piled all over it, reports and graphs, diagrams and journals scattered one on top of the other until a veritable mini-mountain had been created.

That struck her as strange, unlike how she recalled his desk, but the feeling passed fleetingly as she saw his degrees, diplomas and various accreditation certificates in their matching wooden frames. The only certificate in a different, plastic, frame appeared old and faded. It was a certificate of thanks for ‘continual support’ from a nursing home. That particular item had always struck her as odd. Continual support of any style seemed very unlike the cool, detached doctor she had seen at each of her appointments, as did his having placed it on his ego wall.

“I’m going to kill you, just as I killed all those other people,” Harper said, drawing her attention back to him once again.

Abigail tried to turn away, to ignore the words he’d spat at her, but she found herself helpless, unable to move yet again.

Panic flared in her anew. Confronting Paul Harper was scary. She had known that from the moment she’d decided to do so. With Lucas by her side, watching over her, touching her, casting that wicked, lovely smile at her she could ignore the fear that always seemed to bubble beneath the surface. She could rise above it.

Here, alone, she struggled with the darkness of doubt and worry as it slowly blossomed into terror.

The realisation she was trapped almost undid her.

“Don’t,” she pleaded as Harper came closer to her with a syringe filled with clear fluid.

“This is your iron injection, Abigail,” he crooned. “You don’t want to get sick, do you?”

“Please,” she cried out. “Don’t.”

“Now, now.” The doctor tutted. “If you don’t take this like a good girl I might give it to Lucas. I’d love to poison him. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”

“No!” she cried out, petrified.

“I thought not.” The doctor smirked as he continued to advance upon her.

Abigail twisted and turned desperately, but her arms and legs were held fast. There was no way out.

“I’ll kill Lucas slowly, just as I am killing you, even now. Then I can move onto Tristan and Kimber, everyone you know and care for will slowly be eaten away from the inside, just like what is happening to you, Abigail.”

“Stop it! Let me go! Help!” Abby screamed.

“Abby, Abby, Abby,” Harper repeated her name over and over and over until she wanted to block her ears. He didn’t let up, though, repeating her name until she finally managed somehow to break free of his hold.

She tripped on something—she had no idea what it was—then she fell and
continued to fall forever…

* * * *

Warm arms caught her, snapping her out of the dream and back into reality. For one wild, terrorising moment Abigail thought she was back in the clinic, restrained to the bed. She was reliving the nightmare.

“Abby, darling, wake up, please!” Lucas urged her, true fear in his tone.

Abby twisted around, turning into him to gaze in his eyes, needing to reassure herself he was there, real and she was awake and not still sleeping.

“Lucas?” Her voice trembled with her need for this to be true. She reached up and he let her shoulders go. Patiently, he allowed her to touch his jaw, to trace her fingers over his lips then stroke his cheek as she tried to catch her breath.

“I dreamt…Harper was saying… Oh Lucas, I’m not sure I’m strong enough for this after all,” she stammered, barely able to finish one thought before another came crashing over it.

“Give it time, Abby,” Lucas soothed. This time when he wrapped an arm around her shoulders she scooted closer to him on the tiny cot bed and huddled in the warmth of his embrace, relieved beyond measure he was here for her right now.

She didn’t recall falling asleep. The last thing she remembered was being at the desk, searching through so many papers and her eyes drooping. Lucas must have carried her there. Peeking out over his arms, she saw lockers at the far end of the room, a person-high privacy screen cordoning off this area and a handful of cot beds, all empty except for the one they currently used.

Her heart beating wildly, Abigail buried her head in Lucas’ shoulder and calmed her breathing, soaking up the warmth of his body. Never had she been so grateful for another person’s presence. He stroked her hair, the smooth motion acting like the most wonderful balm to her senses. His touch as much as the rhythm of his actions eased her back into reality and far away from her horrid remembrance of Harper.

“He said he was killing me slowly,” she mumbled against Lucas’ shoulder, moving closer to him until she sat between his spread legs. “He said he needed to inject me again, that if I didn’t let him he’d poison you. I couldn’t let him do it, I just couldn’t.”

“Hey”—Lucas hushed her with a kiss to her forehead—“Harper isn’t getting near you, with or without a syringe. And I dare the bastard to try to poison me. That would require him getting close enough for me to break every tooth in his mouth then ram them down his throat.”

Abigail smiled a little wanly at the mental image this brought up. She lifted her head to gaze adoringly at Lucas. She sighed, her heartbeat finally settling. Cupping his jaw in her hands she kissed him slowly, thoroughly.

Exploring his lips and mouth with her tongue, she parried an intimate duel with him, her eagerness growing as her pussy became damp. She sucked his tongue fully into her mouth. Lucas stroked her back. She shivered at the enticing sensation. After raising herself up, she moved her thighs so that she straddled him.

She lifted her fingers to the top button on his shirt and quickly unfastened it. Her breaths came faster as her heart pounded. Heat flooded her body and she couldn’t deny the intoxicating effect this man had on her every sense. Abby craved him more and more each moment. Lucas was like an exotic drug, addictive and going straight to her head.

“Abby, I don’t think—”

“I want to,” she interrupted him. “No one else is in this early, are they?”

“Only a few from the graveyard shift,” he replied. “Tristan and Kimber are bunked down in the main medical area. The beds there are way more comfortable. I didn’t think you’d want to wake up there, with the hospital smells and instruments after…well, I didn’t think you’d like that.”

“Then this is the perfect opportunity,” she responded, kissing him hard. The fact he’d been so thoughtful, even to the obvious detriment of his own comfort, had her chest heating with more love for him.

Lucas was her hero in every respect.

“I want you, right now.” She peppered kisses down his neck as they both tugged his shirt off. “I don’t want to wait for some mythical perfect time, or until we’ve had a chance to exchange all our secrets. I know everything I need to know about you already. You’re kind, you’re thoughtful and have a good soul.”

“You’re giving me a big head.” He chuckled while she set to work at his belt and waistband.

Abigail giggled and pressed her hand teasingly against the rock-hard length of his shaft.

“I’ll say it’s big,” she said with a wicked wink.

Lucas groaned.

Abigail eased herself down from the cot so that she knelt between his legs. She looked up at him, holding his hot blue gaze in her own. With his help she had him stripped naked in seconds. Licking and kissing his soft, exposed skin she meandered her way down his chest. They both laughed as he forced her to pause here and there while he tugged her T-shirt off up over her head.

Lucas exposed her dark green, lacy bra. He fondled her breasts through the scrap with evident relish. Tingles raced over her skin and her nipples beaded, scraping enticingly along the sheer material. Abby bent her head and licked the tip of his heated cock.

His bulbous head was slick with the juices of his pre-cum. When she intimately tasted his salty, musky flavour she mumbled with pleasure. Running her tongue over him repeatedly she sucked the length of his cock down her throat. The faster she moved the harsher his pants came. Lucas canted his hips up into her ministrations.

As he threaded his hand across the back of her scalp, tiny thrills of pleasure sparked along the line his touch had left. She shuddered in response, craving everything she could experience with him. He clasped his fingers in her long hair and guided her head farther down his long stalk.