Payback (11 page)

She wet her lips and nodded, but didn’t open her eyes. She wanted this to be all about physical sensation. She didn’t think she could handle any more deeply tender emotional moments.

She dug her fingers into his firm buttocks and urged him forward. With a guttural moan, he took her mouth in another bruising kiss, then began to slowly move in and out of her.

“Mmm…faster.”

His tempo barely speeded up. “Like this?”

Her eyes flew open. “Are you kidding me? You’re going to tease me now?” She hissed in frustration and scored him lightly with her nails. “Either speed up and make me come, or I’ll finish the job myself.”

To prove her point, she slipped her hand in between their bodies and squeezed her clit.

“Oh no, you don’t,” Mark growled. He jerked her hand away and pinned it over her head, then pinned her other hand up as well. “You want to be fucked, I’ll fuck you. But you damn well won’t need any help to come.”

Faith tipped her head to one side and raised her eyebrow. “I’m hearing a lot of talk, Mr. Tonelli. Can you—” Mark slammed into her then withdrew quickly. “Oh!” He set a new, faster rhythm that had her hips rising to meet his and her head thrashing against the bed.

She struggled to pull her hands free, but Mark’s grip was unbreakable.

“Want to…touch…you,” she gasped. “Please!” She couldn’t bear the pressure any longer. She needed release. Now. Or she was going to die.

“No. Wanted a…slow…seduction.” Each word was punctuated by a thrust of his hips. “Wanted…to prove…not…just lust. Now…you’ve got…to pay…the consequences.” He lowered his mouth to her throat and nipped.

The stinging pain sent her over the edge. Her body bowed off the bed and she screamed. Mark pressed harder on her wrists and captured her mouth in another fierce kiss and the sense of being restrained only ratcheted the pleasure higher.

Then Mark went rigid and cried out and another orgasm hit her.

The world pulsed behind her eyelids in a display of brilliant colors, until the pleasure ebbed on an outgoing wave, leaving her limp and satiated.

“Oh…my…God…” she murmured, stroking her hand down Mark’s back as he sprawled on top of her. “That was…”

“Amazing,” he breathed.

She managed a weak laugh, surprised she had the energy for even that. “Yeah.” She pressed a kiss to the damp skin of his neck.

He grunted, then rolled off her. Faith opened her mouth to protest the loss of his heat, but he snaked his arm around her waist and pulled her snug against his side. They lay in peaceful silence, something she hadn’t expected to find, particularly not with a man so closely tied to Jamieson.

Thankful she wasn’t alone and marveling that in the midst of her frantic hunt for Toby she’d found someone to trust, she listened to Mark’s heartbeat slow until sleep dragged her under.

Chapter Seven

F
aith woke slowly, wrapped in Mark’s arms, the comforter tucked under her chin. After their first bout of lovemaking she’d slept, only to be awakened by Mark’s kisses. He’d proceeded to do things to her with his lips and tongue that even now sent heat spiraling into her belly. She didn’t think she’d ever clicked sexually with a man the way she did with Mark. She smiled drowsily.

“You’re thinking too much,” he murmured against her ear.

Faith laughed. “Once upon a time I would have said I’m thinking too little. Here I am, in bed with a man I barely know. One who works with the man I believe may have kidnapped my brother. On the surface, that doesn’t seem very smart.” Yet her little voice of reason was quiet, lulled into contentment after hours of lovemaking. Her head felt clearer. Her heart…well, it wasn’t lighter, not with Toby in trouble, but she didn’t feel on the verge of hopelessness.

Or maybe it was just that her instincts continued to insist that Mark was a true ally.

“Hmm.” Mark nuzzled her neck. “One might say that becoming involved with a reporter—”

“Former reporter.”

“No. From the few journalists I’ve known, one is born a newshound and stays a newshound until death.” He nipped her chin. “As I was saying, my getting involved with a reporter is not exactly a wise move. How do I know you’re not going to spill all my secrets in an exposé?”

Faith leaned back so she could look him in the eye. “Do you really think that?”

He shook his head and gave her a soft kiss on her forehead. “No. For some indescribable reason, my instincts tell me that my secrets are safe with you.”

She smiled and kissed him. Which led to roving hands and deeper, more urgent kisses. A long while later, after the sweat had cooled from their skin and Faith was once again nestled against Mark, he cleared his throat.

“I’ve read the news reports, but I want to hear your version of what happened with your sister. Why did you give up your career?”

Panic shot through her. Faith jerked away from him and sat up.

“Faith.” Mark’s soothing voice calmed her. The warmth and understanding in his eyes relaxed her even further. He wasn’t asking about her story so he could judge her, but because he cared and wanted to know her better.

She had to admit that if they were going to move forward into a relationship then he deserved to know. She lay back down and let Mark gather her close to his body. Somehow it was easier to talk without having to watch his expression. Yet she found she couldn’t find the words to start.

“Go back to the beginning and tell your story as if I don’t know the basics,” Mark finally prompted. “I want your interpretation, not the impersonal words from a report.”

Okay. She could do this.

“I used to be an investigative journalist,” she began. “I traveled all over the world covering humanitarian issues and political events. I spent probably ninety percent of my time away from my tiny apartment in Washington, D.C. ”

Mark stroked his hand down her back. “You’re originally from Ohio?”

“Yes. Dalioma, Ohio. Dad was a cop. Mom taught music at the high school and led the marching band. I’m the middle child. Toby is the oldest and Lyndi was the baby, ten years younger than me.”

Even just saying her sister’s name made her throat tighten. How was she supposed to get through the entire story? But Mark didn’t pressure her to continue, so she swallowed the pain and forced herself to go on.

“Lyndi started sending me letters while I was in college and continued writing after my newspaper assignments kept me overseas. Once she hit middle school her letters changed. She stopped writing pages about her friends and what happened at school, and instead wrote long, rambling paragraphs describing how much she missed me, how unhappy she was, and begging me to visit her.”

Faith sighed. “Most of the time her letters arrived weeks after she’d mailed them, finding me in whatever city I’d made my temporary base. The few times I went home, Lyndi was so happy to see me I felt guilty for having being away so long.” She still dreamed of Lyndi’s face, radiant with joy when she’d met her plane that last time.

“But…” Guilt clogged her throat. She coughed, then continued. “The hard truth was that after a few days, Lyndi’s constant attention started to smother me and I’d be itching to leave.”

“Sounds natural,” Mark commented.

“I thought so.” Now, she wondered whether she’d sensed the storm brewing in her sister and had just been too much of a coward to deal with it.

“Anyway, time passed and Lyndi entered high school. Her letters became very infrequent, but when she did write she talked of not fitting in at home or at school. How she was never good enough for my parents. In more than one letter she accused me of not loving her, because if I loved her I’d stop traveling and stay home with her.”

Even now, Faith questioned her decision to put career before family. If she’d stayed home, could she have stopped what happened? The psychologists told her it wasn’t her fault. That Lyndi had been responsible for her own actions. But Faith was the big sister. It was her job to protect her little sister and she’d failed miserably.

“The letters from my parents mentioned that they were having trouble with Lyndi. A few of her relationships were abusive. One boyfriend even put her in the hospital with a broken rib. She’d gotten into fights several times at school and once got picked up for drunk driving, but their letters made it sound like nothing more than immaturity. A way for Lyndi to assert her independence after being the baby of the family for so long.”

In hindsight, Faith understood that Lyndi’s acting out had been an attempt to convince herself that her parents loved her, no matter what she did.

“Then Toby unexpectedly showed up at a refugee camp in Jordan where I was interviewing women who’d fled the Syrian civil war.” The heat had been relentless that day. She could still remember the sun-baked tightness of the skin on her face and the prickle of sweat meandering down her spine.

“Toby dragged me to an isolated section of the camp and told me that Lyndi had gotten hold of a gun, waited for our parents to come home, then shot them before turning the gun on herself. All three were dead when the police arrived.”

The sun had glared down out of a brilliant blue sky as if judging Faith for not saving her sister. As Toby’s words had sunk in, goose bumps had sprouted on her arms despite the temperature.

“I’m so sorry.” Mark’s arm tightened around her and she realized that this was the first time she’d told the story to someone who was a complete outsider. His concern soothed some of the pain of telling the story.

“You blamed yourself,” he said. “For not being home.”

“Yeah.” She liked the way Mark didn’t try and pass judgment on her self-condemnation.

“And that’s why you hate guns.”

“Right again. I used to carry a gun on assignments, depending on what part of the world I was in. More often than not I had at least one knife on my body in addition to a gun. But after Lyndi’s death, I haven’t wanted to be near a gun.”

“Until you decided to hold one on me.”

Faith could hear the amusement in his tone. “Yes. I was desperate, so I picked up one of Toby’s emergency weapons.” Her lips kicked up in a smile. “That’s something you have in common. You’ve both planned ahead, assuming there will come a day when you need to go on the run.”

She laughed at the frozen look on Mark’s face. “Maybe that’s why we get along so well,” she teased. “You remind me of my brother.”

“I am
not
your brother.” Mark’s arm shot out and snagged her around the waist, pulling her flush against him. His mouth plundered hers in a thoroughly carnal kiss, and his intensely possessive grip left no doubt that he considered her to be his woman. A walled off section of Faith’s heart cracked open. Despite the danger, despite coming from two different worlds—he lived in the shadows and she exposed those shadows to the light—she’d never felt so cherished or protected.

When Mark finally let her go, Faith couldn’t stop the broad grin of feminine satisfaction that stretched her cheeks. Giving him a peck on the lips, she snuggled against him.

“What I don’t understand,” Mark said, running his hand down her hair, “is why you gave up journalism. I’ve read some of your pieces. You’re a talented writer. Skilled at bringing the subject alive in a way that makes an emotional connection with the reader. Your compassion leaps off the page.”

Damn, how did he always know the right thing to say? Did they teach him that during CIA agent training?

“The local press tore our family apart,” Faith replied once she’d swallowed down the lump of emotion in her throat. “Every aspect of our lives was sifted through and made public, no matter how irrelevant. Someone even broke in and stole Lyndi’s diaries, then published entries in such a way as to make them seem like indictments based on fact, rather than the emotional outpourings of a distressed teen. The majority of articles painted all of us as guilty of the crime. Even my parents came under attack. The press decided that our treatment of Lyndi had fed her depression, even though there had never been any emotional or physical abuse. In fact, as the baby of the family, Lyndi was given more leniency than either Toby or me. We all loved her and tended to spoil her. So I don’t understand why she started to believe that no one loved her. When the police finally tracked down the diaries and returned them to us, I read the entire four books.”

Faith’s eyes grew damp. “In the diaries you could see the progression. See how Lyndi’s insecurities grew like a cancer, twisting even the most innocent exchange into an attack against her by an uncaring world. But that’s not how the media portrayed her. They portrayed her as a victim whose pleas for help had been ignored.”

Her old anger bubbled up. “That was bullshit. My parents did everything they could to help Lyndi. They talked to her. Got other adults Lyndi respected to speak to her. They even took her to counseling. But Lyndi…” Faith’s voice cracked. “She didn’t want to be helped. She enjoyed playing the martyr too much. Of course, the media ran with the martyr idea, ignoring the complexity of the situation. Because the truth didn’t fit neatly into the allotted sound bite.”

She shivered. “I wasn’t naïve. While I always tried to treat the people involved in my stories with the dignity and respect they deserved, particularly if I was interacting with them during a period of grief, I knew not all of my colleagues acted with compassion. I fully understood that false or unfair reporting by some unscrupulous journalists created additional victims. Still, it was a shock when my family and I became the target of hostile and sensational reporting.”

“I’m sorry.” Mark placed a kiss on her hair and Faith let the warmth of his concern wash through her, blunting the lingering pain of the memory.

“Toby had taken leave from the army in order to attend the funerals, but all too soon he had to return to duty. Leaving me and my grandma to deal with the harassment. Maybe because I was a colleague, the reporters were hardest on me. They made my life hell for three months. It left a sour taste in my mouth regarding the entire profession. Made me question whether there was any honor left in journalism. For the first time in my life I was ashamed to admit that I was a reporter.”