Her hand flattened at her lower stomach. There was a slight burning sensation, a warmth that had begun to become noticeable the day before and didn’t seem to be easing.
Of course, she and Tanner had been f**king like minks; that could explain it. Her body wasn’t used to the pounding it had taken. The pounding it loved. Craved. Needed.
A bitter smile touched her lips. She had never known pleasure as she had known it with Tanner—fierce, hot as hell, and all-consuming. She hadn’t had sex with him. She hadn’t f**ked him. She had made love to him, and she knew it.
Each touch, she memorized. Each taste, each of those growly little sounds he made, she loved. Like a cross between a snarl and a purr, sometimes when he was irritated with her, mostly when he found pleasure with her. And she knew he found pleasure with her.
Her suspicions that he could be in league with her father always faltered there. She knew he needed to be with her. She could feel it in him, see it in the hard, corded strength of his body each time he held back and let her touch as well.
God, what was she doing? She was convincing herself, even as freedom was so close, that maybe he loved her. Just a little bit?
She was willing to trade her life, and the lives of so many others, on a maybe.
Her taste in men sucked and she knew it. Her first lover, Chaz, had been an assassin. The second hadn’t been much better. The only difference was he wasn’t part of her father’s organization. He just wanted to be. The third. Oh, there was a real winner. The lover she had become acquainted with at one of the clubs she frequented had actually been an undercover federal agent. Actually, a married undercover federal agent.
Cyrus had really enjoyed punishing her for that one. At least he hadn’t killed the agent. Oh no, Cyrus Tallant didn’t murder useful talent right off. Nope, the married agent was still being blackmailed by Cyrus Tallant.
She’d had two other lovers, short affairs, men whose names she forced herself not to even remember. Nice, plain men whose saving grace had been their warmth. For a few short weeks she had let them keep her warm.
Rounding the curve in the tunnel, she moved into another. How f**king far did this damned underground path lead, anyway? She felt as though she had been walking forever.
And each step hurt more. The closer she came to escaping Tanner, the more it hurt. A physical, burning ache in the center of her chest.
Her common sense was screaming at whatever weakkneed little romantic was whispering that she turn back. Return to bed. Wait on Tanner. He was just checking on the soldiers surrounding his cabin, that unknown voice whispered in her head.
Stupid twit, shut the f**k up, her common sense screamed. He was probably reporting to her father even now.
But he had hasn’t hurt you. He was worried for you.
He wants answers, not your old-assed body.
She sighed. She felt old. So old that at times her soul felt shriveled, dry.
Until Tanner touched her.
Rounding another curve, she saw the way out. There, set in the stone, was a metal ladder leading to the ceiling and a light indention around what seemed to be a stone covering.
Freedom.
A tear slipped free of her eye.
Scheme brushed the dampness away slowly before rubbing her fingers together, absorbing the sign of weakness as she stared up at the exit. It was time to face destiny now. Fate. Karma. Whichever it was, it was time to pay for the lives her father had taken.
Wasn’t there a scripture in the Bible? Something about the son paying for the father’s sins? Well, she wasn’t a son, but she was the only child capable of paying.
She grabbed hold of the ladder and pulled herself up it, using the flat of her hand to push the stone above her aside.
Freedom.
So why did it feel more like a return to captivity?
“Tanner, son, we got problems.”
Tanner crouched just behind Jackal and Cabal, his narrowed eyes piercing the early morning mists rising from the cliff-shrouded valley to envelop the high ridge his cabin sat on.
“What are you two doing here?” he murmured, his eyes following the delicate dance between a half dozen Council soldiers and the four Breed Enforcers moving around the small building several miles from the caves.
“Checking a few things,” Jackal’s ruined voice murmured. “We expected the Council soldiers to watch the cabin. We didn’t expect Jonas’s men to be there too.”