Capital Risk (14 page)

“I won’t lie.” Nicholas hadn’t moved. “I want you, Sarah. I want to show you how much I’d cherish you. Love you. Protect you.”

“Just
one
taste.”

“For as long as you wish.”

Even infinite pleasure wouldn’t ease the ache in me. What I wanted wasn’t his strong touch or skillful tease.

I wanted him.

All of Nicholas Bennett.

And I could have it so easily if I just
asked
.

He waited as I tucked my fingers in my panties. I was so used to him stripping me, him overwhelming me, him
taking
me. I never understood how much of a thrill it gave
him
to watch as my body was revealed. Goosebumps raced over my curves. The cool air teased my hardened nipples, swollen from his suckling.

The panties slipped over my hips, dragged across the paleness of my legs, and kicked off at my toes.

Completely naked.

Completely exposed.

Completely vulnerable and endangered and at his will.

And yet, he looked upon me like I was a goddess, a vision of perfection, of everything pure I once was.

That I
still
was.

“Absolutely beautiful,” he whispered. “Christ, Sarah, I missed you so much.”

I didn’t answer or I would have screamed the truth. I missed him too.

I missed his touch, his lips, his body, the feel of him within me as I clung to a man stronger and fiercer than any other. It was wrong of me to encourage it. I teased us both with the possibilities of
us
and a
life
and a
baby
, but tonight wasn’t about a lost future.

It was about me. Fixing what was shattered.

I rested against the couch, taking the initiative and guiding Nicholas over me.

“Just one taste,” I said. “Just one, so I remember how it feels.”

Nicholas leaned down to kiss me, beginning low at my toes and drawing a ticklish line up the goose bumped skin twitching under his touch.

“One taste,” he promised. “And you’ll never forget again.”

This was a step beyond where I thought I’d go, but it was exactly the one I needed most. Every touch, every kiss layered me in a shuddered pain that only Nicholas could ease. I came alive under his stare, and the sheer adrenaline of presenting myself was exhilarating and freeing.

But it wasn’t
surrender.

So many times in so many ways, my body was given to Nicholas and taken as he wished. This was different. Not submission, but trust.

His lips caressed my legs, up, up, up, until I spread for him and presented the part of me craving his attention. Nicholas leaned, kissing my thighs, my mound, and then…

He kissed just below my navel.

Over the baby.

His baby. It
had
to be his baby.

I trembled as I took his hand, resting his palm over the softness. He cupped me, so gently and loving, as though the rub of his hands would somehow break me.

It didn’t.

It wouldn’t.

His delicate kisses lowered until the warmth of his breath along my slickening folds teased me. I arched. His tongue flicked against the swollen nub, and like an electric shock, I flinched against the powerful sensation. My body propelled forward, pressing harder against his mouth, sealing his lips over the part of me that I had forsaken.

I didn’t know how
sensitive
it was.

How it pulsed with heat and slickness.

I shuddered, too overwhelmed to even whisper my astonishment.

Pleasure.

Desire.

Passion.

I had forgotten them all, but Nicholas guided me through every shuddering wave. He showed me how the twist of his tongue, the press of his lips, and the flicking quickness of his attention could reignite the passion inside me.

My fingers curled into the couch. I squeezed the leather as words faded into quick gasps. My head dropped. My hips bucked.

And everything was perfect as I pressed into the heat of Nicholas’s offered mouth. The taste became a feast, and the feast an absolutely perfect exploration of me.

I wetted. I tensed. I clenched. I gasped breath after breath of cleansing heat. Sweat flushed my skin and prickled my sensitive body. The weight of his hand against my tummy rocked me, and the hot, flattened lick of his tongue vowed so much more.

I hadn’t felt like this since the last time I tangled in his arms. Our bodies had melded and our defenses dropped. Everything we ever wanted existed only within each other. We were together. We made more than love.

My hand fell to my belly, holding his palm over me.

It had to be his baby.

I meant for one touch. One kiss. One crest of pleasure. One night of memories to replace the nightmares. But I’d never have just
one
moment with Nicholas Bennett. If I let him, he’d offer me
every
moment, a life full of comfort, pleasures, and trust.

And I was so close to accepting it.

The crash of delight stunned me. I cried out his name between incomprehensible feelings and gratitude. My love for him captured with a gasp. A crushing wave silenced my thoughts and replaced them with the fuzzy, heavy agony of my body twisting itself in lust.

But even as the weight of passion rendered me weak and useless against his lapping tongue, I needed more.

Not a touch or a taste.

But all of him.

My words trembled the ache inside me, empty and wanting. He shuddered with me. Tension flexed his muscles. He might have taken me. Pinned me down. Ruined the trust as he gave into instinct.

But Nicholas was stronger than that. He told me he admired me, but I was lost without him. He wasn’t the man who imprisoned me. He was my greatest challenge. I opposed him. I conquered him. I surrendered to him.

I was meant for him.

And that’s why I couldn’t
stop
. We had to feel each other again.

“Just one night.” The words poured from me. I reached for him. “Just for tonight.”

“Sarah—”

I endured my blinding shudders and pulled him close, meeting his kiss with a furious intensity. I wanted him. Us. That closeness and intimacy, the understanding and the pleasure, the union and the invasion all blended into that moment of connection.

I eased him to the couch. He stretched his arms over the back of the sofa. Passive. Waiting.

This was my night to take the control I needed, explore the desire between us, and banish the last shadows clutching my heart.

I pulled the zipper on his trousers.

His cock pulsed within my hand. Thick. Hard. Amazingly warm to the touch.

I gripped him, and his ragged breath proved how much he needed to be touched as well.

Just like me.

I didn’t let his intensity frighten me. A man as strong and powerful as Nicholas Bennett allowed me to touch, savor, and explore. He controlled his urges and
respected
my boundaries and fears.

It was so easy to fall in love with this man. So easy to have my heart broken again and again.

So easy to let him fix me.

So hard to let him go.

I settled over his lap. He didn’t touch me, and I was grateful. His hardness strained in my hand, and a single pump of my fist drew a groan from his self-imposed silence.

“Just one night,” I whispered.

“I’d prevent the sun from rising to stay with you.”

And he could. Nicholas Bennett stretched a moment into eternity, a forever that comforted me in pleasure and need. The heat of his cock pulsed against my soft petals.

I allowed myself one hesitant breath.

I sunk upon him, gasping as the thickness pushed through me. Our bodies met, completely, bounded together in slick heat and tight possession.

Full, but not invaded.

Claimed, but not lost.

Taken in shared passion.

I gripped his shoulders. My shivers ground my hips harder against his. Deeper and harder, hotter and wetter. Everything within me twisted and exploded. The thrust stole my breath and captured me in a web of pleasure so silken, so inescapable, I thought of nothing but striking down again and again to fulfill that desire with pure intensity.

This was all the comfort I needed. I caressed his chest. I welcomed the warmth of his lips against my breasts as I cradled him to me. His thickness pulsed in me, aching with the same broken tenderness that drove me down upon him.

Just to feel
him
.

“Sarah—” Nicholas’s mocha voice rumbled against my skin like another touch. “You have no idea how much I love you.”

Yes, I did. Every inch of him inside me made a promise of love and futures we hadn’t dreamed might be ours. I leaned against him to tease my chest against his, to press my tummy against hard abs.

The pleasure dizzied me. The possibility that someday, when the danger faded, a place saved for us and the baby. Drunk on hope and enthralled by him, a heat built inside me once more.

Pure fantasy or a dream come true?

Again and again, we moved together. I drove myself upon him, groaning with excitement as his cock hardened within me, twitching with thick muscle. It was hard to breathe, hard to think, hard to do
anything
but sink against Nicholas and be filled.

“Nick—” My fingers dug into his shoulders.

His voice strained. He clenched his jaw as I impaled myself with his offered pleasure. “I gotta—”

“Just hold me.”

And he did. He wrapped his thick arms around me, pulled me to his chest, and kissed me. A feverish, uncompromising instinct seized me, and I bound harder onto his cock to earn the grunted gratitude. His grip tightened. So did mine.

I moaned for him to share the peak with me.

In me.

“Nick, come with me,” I whispered. “Please.”

I gave him the permission though I never meant to withhold his pleasure. He did that for me, only me. To prove that his touch, his kiss, his body was meant to help me heal. I arched, crying out as I took him as deeply as I could.

And the jetted heat felt so familiar and yet so
new
.

No longer did he try to take me or claim me. What we had, what we created, was so much more than the moments we spent stealing pleasure to conquer the other.

We loved each other. We ached for each other.

And the pleasure rewarded our survival.

Nicholas led me from the dark and returned me to a place of safety and warmth.

“Do you know when I first fell in love with you?”

Nicholas snuck behind me on the balcony.

“When?” I whispered.

He cradled me. He leaned, pinning me against the stone railing. I welcomed his arms, even if they weighed as heavily as the collar at my neck.

“Our parents’ wedding.”

“You’re such a liar.”

“And again when you rejected the offer to sell your company.”

“Right.”

“And each and every day since then.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“You should.” His words caressed me, capturing me in promise and captivity. “Every day I find a new reason to love you, Sarah Atwood.”

The injection site from the fertility drug ached. “Every day you give me reason to hate you.”

Nicholas held me tighter.

“Do you hate me now?”

I wished I hesitated. Wished I had any other answer. Wished us away from the estate, to a place where we could be free and happy and safe.

“I love you more than ever.”

I rested, panting, nuzzling against him in breathless amazement. His hands caressed me, rubbing my goose bumps and creating more. His touch grazed my tummy. I held him there, imbedded within me, sharing a moment of hope.

I
knew
the little life in me belonged to us.

I closed my eyes. “Just for tonight.”

“Tonight.” His voice deepened. “Tomorrow. The next day.”

“Just…tonight.” I could think of nothing beyond a heartbeat yet. “Just now, and we can lose ourselves.”

“I’m not lost, Sarah. Not with you.”

And neither was I.

But I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t risk it.

“Just for tonight.” I pressed my lips against his before I whispered any confessions that would tangle us deeper together.

But the words felt wrong.

The implication terrible and aching.

I didn’t want
tonight
.

I wanted it to be us.

Just for…
forever
.

Nothing good came from calls before sunrise.

My phone buzzed against the nightstand, but I tangled within Nicholas’s arms. The sheets caught my legs. I rolled with a groan.

Naked.

Of course I was naked. Naked, sticky, and completely and thoroughly humming with a newfound strength. Rejuvenated.

Loved.

Confused
.

One touch was impossible with Nicholas. One night a dangerous proposition. If I wasn’t careful, it’d become all mornings with him.

And maybe that’s what I wanted. What I needed. For both of us.

All three of us.

Bumper didn’t make mornings fun, but the call made me equally queasy. I bumbled for the phone. Hamlet rolled back over. Nick kissed my shoulder.

I wasn’t ready to confront him yet.

I answered, but Mom rambled before I greeted her.

“—I can’t tell, this bottle is empty—”

“Mom?”

“If your father were here, this never would have happened.”

It was too early to talk about Dad. Did she have any clue what time it was? Did I? I squinted at the windows, but Nicholas slept with blackout curtains in the peaceful dark.

He’d like sleeping on the farm.

Not the thought to have. Not now. Not yet. Not ever.

The bedside clock read 5:30 AM. I had no idea when we finally fell asleep.

“Mom, what’s wrong?”

Her voice shrilled in confusion. “I just can’t see what I took.”

“Took where?”

“These pills shouldn’t need to be refilled yet.”

My stomach flipped. I clutched the phone. “What pills?”

“I must have taken too many.”

And my stomach flopped. I slid from the bed and searched for anything to cover me. Of course my clothes from last night weren’t in the bedroom.

How did we even get into the bedroom?

“Mom, which medication did you take?” I asked. “Was it for blood pressure?”

“I don’t think so…”

“The anxiety meds?”

“No, of course not.” Her tone shifted, sharpened. “I’m not an idiot, Sarah.”

“Do you need to go to the hospital?”

Nicholas slipped from the bed and pulled on a pair of slacks. I rummaged through my bag to find a dress and forced it over my head. It caught over my breasts.

And then again on my waist.

Uh-oh.

I smoothed it as I raced to find a scrunchie. “Mom, are you okay?”

“I can’t remember when I took these pills.”

That was the most terrifying and frustrating answer she might have given, and it killed me that I didn’t know either. I didn’t just hide from the Bennetts for two months. I avoided my own mother, calling her from pre-paid cellphones to say I loved her.

She didn’t realize I was gone.

She hardly remembered I hadn’t lived at the farm for the past seven months.

I couldn’t risk it. I had to check on her. I rushed to the bathroom to brush my hair and teeth.

“Mom, I’m in San Jose. I’m hours from Cherrywood Valley. Do you need to call an ambulance?”

“What for?”

I dropped the brush and groaned. “Because you took the pills.”

“What pills?”

“
Mom
.”

“Sarah Meredith Atwood, I don’t know who raised you to take that tone with your mother, but it certainly wasn’t me.”

I lowered the phone for a cleansing breath. She sounded downright
mean.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Mom wasn’t sick before Dad died. At least, not that I noticed. She suffered through his chemo with the rest of us, but his death hit her hard. And then, once Josiah and Mike died, she became a completely different person. I hired chefs to cook, a maid to clean. She fired them all. I was the only one she let care for her, the only one to stop the bleeding when she tried to hurt herself.

Except for Darius.

“Call the doctor and go lay down,” I said. “I’ll be there as soon as I can, okay?”

“Fine, fine.”

She’d forget the instant she hung up. I called our physician for her, redialing twice before she picked up in a groggy haze. I explained the situation, and the doctor promised she’d be there within the hour.

Sooner than me. I bound my hair into a pony tail and turned to Nicholas.

He deserved an explanation. A moment of gratitude. A declaration of my love. Anything to explain how much the previous night meant to me, and how difficult it was to even consider what I was supposed to do now.

“There’s a plane waiting at the airport.” He skipped the complicated talk and offered me comfort instead. “We can be on the ground in Cherrywood Valley in an hour and a half.”

“We?”

“You aren’t going alone.”

“I’ll take my guard,” I said.

Robert, the beefy guy with a personality as scarred as the injuries he earned from a tour in Afghanistan, seemed solid enough to deal with my dementia-aggravated mother.

“You don’t have to come.”

“Yes, I do.”

Fine. I didn’t have time to argue. Bumper wasn’t the only thing unsettling me this morning. I slipped on a pair of shoes and burst from the bedroom.

Reed groggily rose from the sofa, tossing his blanket to the floor—over the pile of our clothes, wrinkled and discarded.

“Hey.” His wink was thoroughly inappropriate, and, at any other time, I might have giggled. “What have you two been doing?”

“Nothing.” I answered too quickly. “I gotta go home. My mom might be in trouble.”

Nicholas buttoned his suit jacket. “We’ll be back. Find Max. Tell him to keep his head down.”

Reed wandered into the kitchen, bare-chested and in no hurry to dress. He rubbed his neck. The wounds darkening his skin hadn’t yet healed. His eye looked scary red from the blown blood vessel.

I hated this. Darius knew I was pregnant. He couldn’t touch me. But my step-brothers?

He’d kill his own flesh and blood if it meant he’d have a chance to take me and the baby.

“Stay safe?” I hoped to sound more certain.

Reed grinned. “For you? Anything.”

My bodyguard met me at the airport, herding us into a chartered jet. I tried calling Mom before we took off, but she didn’t answer. Last time she lost her phone, we found it in the bathroom cabinet. I hoped that was all that happened. I sighed, head in my hands.

“Sarah.” Nicholas called to me. The cushy seats of the plane were separated by a decent amount of space. Dad never let the family buy a private plane. Mike and Josiah learned why the hard way. I let my hand dangle over the armrest. His fingers brushed mine. “She’s okay.”

“I just didn’t think I’d be taking care of both Mom and Bumper.”

“You won’t do it alone.”

“Not now, Nick.”

“You will never do it alone.”

Even if Nicholas wasn’t talking about him, even if he meant I could hire maids and nannies, private chefs and home care nurses, I wasn’t ready to think about Bumper in our life. Not until I was assured we’d be safe. Not until Darius was gone.

How much longer could I wait for that day?

The plane landed after an hour, and a limo waited for us off the tarmac. Anything was better than making a three hour drive, but my fingers beat a quick and unsteady rhythm against the seat belt as we rode. I didn’t wait for the driver to park once we reached the farm. I launched from the back, earning both Nicholas’s and Robert’s shout as they hurried to follow.

The front door was unlocked. I hoped that meant the doctor was already inside.

“
Mom
?” I shouted. “Mom, where are you?”

The Atwood farm was nothing like the Bennett Estate. Decently sized, but not the sprawling gluttony of money, stone, and power. I checked Mom’s bedroom first, but her bed was empty, perfectly made, even down to the cozy pillows stashed at the headboard.

But the boxes were new.

A half dozen boxes stacked against the wall. Her dresser and wall were cleared of our pictures, and her closet was emptied of clothing and hangers. I spun, calling her name.

“Mom!”

The kitchen light glowed fuzzy and warm. I crashed down the stairs and turned the corner.

“Sarah, what in the world are you doing?” Mom frowned, lowering a pot of coffee. I stilled as she patted Darius’s arm. “You scared us half to death.”

Us
.

She hadn’t said
us
on the phone.

She hadn’t said Darius was there, sitting with her, sharing breakfast like he was a normal husband and not the antichrist himself.

Like he hadn’t kidnapped, beaten, and raped her only daughter.

At least I took pride in the new stitches on his brow.

Nicholas passed to my side after dismissing Robert. He edged me behind his arm. I didn’t retreat.

I only wondered what Nicholas would do, face-to-face with the monster, now that he
knew
.

Darius’s smile widened with welcomed perversion. He didn’t bother acknowledging his son. His eyes never left my body.

“What are you doing here?” My voice rasped with breathless panic and threat.

“Good morning, my dear.”

“What are you
doing
here!”

“I’m enjoying a morning cup of coffee with my wife, of course.”

“Get out.”

Mom sighed. “Sarah, behave yourself. You’re making a scene in front of your brother. Hello, Nick. How did the soup recipe turn out?”

I didn’t let him answer. “Mom, you don’t understand.”

“Sarah, you’re being
rude
.”

“Let her be. Our Sarah is a bit emotional now.” Darius’s voice blackened, coarse and raw with a dark intent. “Isn’t that right, Nicholas?”

I held my aching breath, but Nicholas didn’t react.

“Mom, are you okay?” I asked.

“I’d be a lot better if all these people weren’t coming and going at all hours of the morning. Honestly, Sprout. Where is your head? You’ve tracked mud all through the house. Take those shoes off.”

She was
fine
.

Not sick. Not panicking. Not fluttering with too many medications.

What the hell happened?

“Mom, you called me two hours ago.”

“I did?”

“You said you took too much of your medication.”

“When?”

Darius curled his arm around her wait. “Darling, I think you’ve forgotten. Just a bit ago, when you woke up, you called Sprout. Before we opened the new prescriptions from the doctor.”

Mom laughed. “Oh, right, right. Gosh, I am not human before I have my coffee. Oh, well. Sprout, Nick. Join us for breakfast then. I have a quiche baking in the oven.”

The only thing that turned my stomach more than sharing a meal with Darius was the thought of gooey, parsley stuffed baked eggs.

I ignore Darius’s stare. “You said you took too many of your pills. Are you
sure
you’re okay?”

“I’m a grown woman, Sprout. I think I can manage my own medications.”

That sharp tone again. I hardly recognized it. Darius drew her hand to his lips, gently kissing her fingers. She seemed to calm down.

I’d murder him. Cold-blooded. Raging. Uncompromising murder.

“Your mother was a little confused.” His voice stalked me, slithering like a snake through the grass and enjoying every brazen moment of his hunt. “But Bethany, some of your medications are quite potent, and you know how easy it is to accidentally take one too many. Clumsy, really.” He paused. “Fortunately, I was here to protect you.”

It wasn’t fortune.

It was threat.

He couldn’t touch me, but he could target those closest to me. My mother. Nicholas. Reed and Max. He would murder his children and harm his own wife if it meant securing the future he desired.

A future with
my
son.