Daring Time (35 page)

The wail of sirens approaching distracted him from the unsettling thought of having anything remotely in common with Jim Donahue. A moment later an emergency medical technician rushed over to the Lexus. DiMarco and the EMT helped a grimacing Donahue to stand.

His longtime foe glared at him as they led him toward the ambulance, but Ryan turned away, all too glad to put Jim Donahue and his alternate identity in the past—where he belonged.

Hope paused in speaking to Ramiro when Ryan approached. She looked up with that solemn, big-eyed stare that always got to him. He grabbed her hand and dropped the silver locket into her palm.

"I guess Donahue's luck just ran out," he said quietly. He ran his gaze over her, looking for cuts and bruises. He saw nothing, but'' recalling some of the strange parallels between the past and the present, Ryan asked, "Were you hit in the head?"

She lightly touched her temple. "Oh. Yes, that man—Gutierrez punched me in the ladies'

lounge. How did you know?"

Ryan shook his head distractedly as he turned her head with his hand on her chin. "I don't see any mark. Do you need the EMTs to check you out?"

"No, I'm fine."

"Then come on. I'll take you over to the van. You can wait there until all this is settled. It might take a while."

"Ryan, Ramiro was telling me that those poor women that were in the van are very upset.

He's going over to try and calm them. I think I should go, too. Ramiro said it would be helpful to have a woman with him."

He just stared down at her as some strange, potent mix of emotions brewed in his gut.

Some of the color had returned to her face, but she was still alarmingly pale. She'd just been hit over the head and abducted for the second time in days and she wanted to run off and play trauma worker to other people. Even though he was usually so controlled, Ryan abruptly felt like he was going to erupt.

He flashed an annoyed look at Ramiro.

"They speak Spanish, Hope," Ramiro said, obviously trying to minimize the damage he'd done.

"I'm fluent in French, but I do speak some Spanish. You'll be able to help me, won't you, Ramiro?"

"No,"
Ryan said.

The sound of a woman crying behind him pierced his awareness. Hope peered around his chest, her lovely face the very image of compassion and concern. He hesitantly looked over his shoulder and saw a group of females huddled together. An EMT checked the cut and bleeding face of a girl who looked no older than sixteen or seventeen. Even Ryan had to admit the medical technician's manner was brisk and businesslike . .. hardly reassuring to the weeping girl.

"Please, Ryan?"

He shut his eyes briefly in mounting frustration. When he opened them he pinned Ramiro with his stare. "Don't let her out of your sight." He switched his gaze to Hope. "If Crenshaw or anyone on the squad tells you to get out of the way, do it. I'm serious, Hope."

She nodded soberly. She smoothed her hair out of her face and straightened her gown as though girding herself for battle. Ryan sighed and shrugged out of his CPD coat.

"Put this on."

She accepted the coat with a radiant smile.

Jesus. His mother had been right. Hope had conquered him with her fierce, vibrant spirit, her courage and her sweetness. Her attack had been so quick and all-consuming that Ryan really never did have the chance to shout for mercy.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Hope jumped in nervous tension when Ryan slammed the door shut behind them. The chandelier in the entry hall blazed with light even though it hadn't been turned on when they'd left for the Field Museum hours ago. Ryan said there was an electrical short, but Hope didn't think he really believed that. Like her, he undoubtedly recalled her father's words.

We'll leave on the entry hall chandelier until my daughter returns home.

She turned and faced Ryan hesitantly. He'd hardly said ten words to her since he'd picked her up at his mother's and drove them home.

She'd spoken to the abducted women, doing her best with Ramiro's help to soothe, reassure and provide whatever information was available. After a half hour or so, Ryan had come over and grasped her shoulder. When he'd told her he'd arranged for transportation for her over to his mother's, Hope had gone without protest. She could tell by the tense lines around his mouth that she'd tried his patience enough for one night.

It was now two thirty in the morning, but she was the polar opposite of tired. She felt anxious about Ryan's formidable silence ... about the tension she felt coiling in him just beneath the surface. She pulled the lapels of Ryan's huge police jacket more firmly around herself as she studied his cold visage.

"I want you to know that I was very careful while we were at the Field Museum."

Ryan regarded her silently as he leaned against the door. He looked handsome as the devil with the top two buttons of his dress shirt unfastened and his bow tie falling loosely from the collar. He pinned her with his singular, intense stare. Hope shivered in a strange mix of anxiety and excitement.

"You told me you wouldn't wander off by yourself." "Well... I know I did, but Jim Donahue and all of his men had left by that time—"

"Did somebody
tell
you that all of his men had left?" Ryan asked as he straightened. He slowly started to come toward her. "No, but—"

"Because they clearly hadn't."

"I realize that now," Hope admitted sheepishly. "But—" "Do you remember what happened the last time I told you not to wander off by yourself because you were in danger?"

She froze with her mouth gaping open. The powerful, carnal memory of him paddling her bottom crashed into awareness as though she were experiencing it right at that very moment. Her cheeks flooded with heat. Ryan's nostrils flared slightly as he stared down at her. For the first time she realized that at least part of his rigid tension was sexual in nature—the savage lust of a warrior following battle.

I think I might have to give you a punishment.

"I see you do recall," he said softly, obviously referring to her flaming cheeks. He grasped her elbow and turned her toward the grand staircase. "Time to face the music, honey."

Hope's heart pounded so loudly in her ears by the time Ryan shut the door to the bedroom that she wondered if she might burst a blood vessel. Her excitement was like nothing she'd ever experienced. The scandalously tiny underpants Eve had given her to wear felt damp at the crotch. She heard him crossing the large, dark room. The dim bedside lamp switched on and he turned to face her.

"Take off the jacket and your dress."

Hope stood unmoving.

"I told you I'd never harm you. You
are
going to get it harder than you did at the Sweet Lash, though," he said grimly. He jerked the bow tie off his neck and unfastened several more buttons on his shirt. Hope considered protesting, but he looked so hard at that moment she knew arguing would be pointless. He paused in unbuttoning his shirt.

"Well?" he asked darkly.

She shrugged out of Ryan's jacket and draped it over a box. Her trembling fingers found the zipper just below her armpit and she drew it down. "I want you to know I protest at the unfairness of your treatment," she told him a tad haughtily when she'd removed the dress and placed it carefully alongside Ryan's jacket. It was really shocking how quickly a modern-day woman could strip to nudity.

Or at least near nudity, Hope conceded breathlessly as Ryan's hot eyes dropped over her body. She still wore the scrap of silk panties that Eve had given her, along with her shoes and the ingenuous stockings that required no garter because they merely clung to her thighs with an elastic band. She held her breath when Ryan slowly walked around the footboard of the bed.

"Don't all impulsive, headstrong individuals say something similar when they've been caught?" he asked as he sat down on the edge of the bed.

"I can't believe you want to ... do whatever it is you want to do right now because some criminal kidnapped me!"

He surprised her by merely shaking his head silently at her outburst. "I'm not going to spank you right now for Jim Donahue's or Manny Gutierrez's crimes. I'm going to because you deserve it for being so damned reckless with your safety. And I'm going to spank you because I want to, Hope. Got it?"

She swallowed in the face of his potent intensity and nodded.

"Good. Come over here."

Hope approached him warily, but then he did something that banished all her doubts. He spread his big hand across her waist and hip and pulled her toward him. He lowered his dark head and pressed his face to her belly. Her hands tangled in his thick hair because there for a split second—ever so briefly before he'd buried his face in her flesh—she'd seen naked anguish on his handsome face.

A moment later he raised his head and looked up at her.

"Lie down across my lap," he ordered gruffly.

The wild beating of her heart when she came into the room was nothing in comparison to what she experienced as Ryan guided her down over his thighs. The sensitive undersides of her breasts pressed against the wool material of his pants, abrading her slightly . . .

exciting her greatly. She made a small squeaking noise when he spread his hand over her bottom as though he tested the dynamics of the arrangement. He shifted her slightly in his lap, making her all that much more aware of the long, stiffened column of his penis lying along his left thigh.

When he drew down her panties, exposing her bottom to the cool air, Hope squirmed.

He responded by smacking her bottom with his palm.

"Oooh," she cried out. He soothed her right buttock with his hand, but at the same time he pressed gently on her neck.

"Put your forehead down on the mattress. That's a girl, keep it there."

She'd been resting on her elbows. Ryan's gentle, firm insistence that she fully submit to her punishment by lowering her head and blinding her eyes from the proceedings caused a forbidden vein of hot desire to flood her genitals. She tensed when he raised his hand, knowing what was to come.

Crack. Crack. Crack.

Hope tried not to squirm beneath Ryan's stinging palm but she couldn't stop herself. It felt exciting . .. almost unbearably so. Heat emanated from his thighs and groin. She became hyper aware of his hard cock pressing against her. He cracked her bottom again and she felt it lurch in his pants. She pushed down and rubbed against him.

"Why, you little—"

Hope yelped when he spanked her hard enough to make her hop in his lap. He used his left hand to fix her more firmly in place and paused, his palm rotating over the flesh of her stinging bottom. She shivered in excitement when he leaned down and spoke near her ear.

"Had enough?"

"Yes," Hope assured him as she nodded into the mattress.

He palmed one of her stinging buttocks, molding the flesh in his hand in a gesture of bold possession. "That's too bad. Because I'm not so sure I have yet."

He sat up and Hope waited, so tense with anticipation she could hardly breathe. But instead of spanking her more he merely continued to shape her buttocks in his palm, squeezing her in a lewd manner that shouldn't have excited her . . . but did. He finally released her. Hope tensed.

She cried out in broken excitement when he suddenly sent a long forefinger between her thighs. He rubbed the ridge against her wet, swollen sex and grunted in primitive male gratification. He was gone too quickly, however, and Hope once again struggled not to twist in excitement as he cracked her bottom with his palm. Her flesh grew hot and tingly beneath his spanking hand. She supposed it hurt a little, but overwhelmingly what she experienced was sexual excitement.

That and the feeling of trembling anticipation as she waited for Ryan's descending palm.

"Enough," Ryan finally grated out. He smoothed his palm over her burning flesh while Hope tried her best to suppress her moans of arousal. "I want you to get up and kneel on the floor now."

Hope's eyes widened at not only the content of what he said but also the hard edge of urgency in his voice. She didn't think she'd ever heard that tone before. Knowing how aroused he was, how close to losing control made her clamber off him quickly. Her panties fell down over her knees and she quickly kicked them off.

Her cheeks burned in intense arousal and embarrassment as she went down on her knees in front of him. Even though she suspected what he planned to do—she had all those lewd references from her drunken neighbor Colin Mason, after all—she still whimpered when he stood up. He towered over her. His cerulean blue eyes glowed like the white-hot center of a flame as he stared down at her.

He rapidly unfastened his pants and shoved them and his white underwear down to his thighs. She found herself staring fixedly at his long, firm erection just inches from her face. He encircled it with his fist and stroked it surely. His other hand rose to the back of her head, garnering her attention.

"You're being punished so I want you to put your hands behind your back." Hope complied, although she was a little surprised by his request. "Now keep them there until I say otherwise. Understood?"

Hope looked up at him soberly. "Yes, Ryan."

For some reason his upper lip curled slightly in a snarl. His eyes felt like they could burn holes straight down to her very soul.

"I swear, you
are
a witch," he muttered as he took a step closer and lifted his heavy penis to her mouth. Her lips parted hungrily when she felt the smooth, warm surface of the head brush against them. Her mouth stretched to accommodate his girth. He gave a guttural groan as he slid along her tongue.

Hope closed her eyes and focused exclusively on the sensation of his turgid flesh filling her straining mouth. He pushed further back. Her eyes opened in panic when she felt him near her throat, but he gripped her hair in his hand and backed out of her clamping lips.

She sighed in relief, eagerly rubbing his cock with her tongue when he slid his weight off it. When she batted at it briskly, his fingers clenched in her hair and he thrust back into her again. Hope accepted him hungrily, her cheeks hollowing out as she tightened around him. His growl was her reward.