Release (38 page)

Sean paused in the action of going after her, surprised by her words. He noticed that Franklin watched the unfolding scene with an expression of sadness and compassion on his face. Rook went entirely still, his eyes pinned to Genny, his expression taut . . . incredulous. A man and a woman pounded down the stairs carrying medical bags in their hands.

“He’d discovered he had an inoperable brain tumor. He was dying. He goaded you into murdering him,” Genny told Rook. Sean saw a tear skitter down her cheek. The EMTs hastened over to Rook’s side.

“You were as much a victim of Max’s machinations as Sean and I were,” Genny finished softly.

Rook let out a howl of pure suffering as the female EMT began to attend to him. Sean realized, with a distant sense of pity, that Rook’s misery at that moment had nothing to do with his bullet wound.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-NINE

T
he last thing Genny wanted to do was sleep, but that’s what she did almost immediately upon returning to the penthouse with Sean. She lay on the velvet couch with her head in Sean’s lap, the only source of light in the living room coming from the gas fireplace. Sean ran his fingers through her hair, very careful to avoid her bandaged forehead. A heavy, profound sense of exhaustion and relaxation overcame her.

She wanted to glory in her newfound freedom. She’d been released from a prison of sorts that evening, and so had Sean. But even though she wanted more than anything to celebrate the fact that she no longer had to avoid the one person that her soul craved like her body did air or water, her woozy head would not cooperate. She found herself drifting off as she stared up at Sean’s ruggedly handsome face.

He smiled when she started, forcing herself back into wakefulness. He’d been unusually quiet ever since they’d made their statements at a Chicago police station located on Racine. Earlier, in her aunt’s basement, Sean’d seemed hell-bent on making sure that everything was said that needed to be said . . . determined that every last ounce of toxin be expelled from the wound.

Now he seemed subdued and thoughtful.

“Are you all right, Sean?”

“I’m great.” He brushed a fingertip over her eyebrow and caressed her eyelid. Genny shivered at the featherlight touch.

“You’re not . . . you’re not upset with me for leaving here today?”

“No. Not anymore. I know how much seeing that video must have brought it all back to you while your defenses were down . . . made you remember the reason you thought you should avoid me for all of those years.” He met her gaze. “You were trying to protect me. Because you thought I killed Max.”

A heavy sensation settled on her chest. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for believing him and not trusting you enough just to ask you. Please forgive me.”

He grimaced before he resumed stroking her hair. “I’m just as much to blame, Genny. I suspected Rook was lying about you shooting Max, but a small doubt in me remained.”

“But when I came here last Friday, you seemed so set and determined about us being together,” she whispered. “How could you have been so sure we should be together, even suspecting there was a chance I was a murderer?”

He shrugged slightly and his expression hardened. “I’m not like you, girl. I’ve seen a lot in my life . . . done a lot. If you had killed Max, I figured you hadn’t done it without good cause. Like I told you in the emergency room today, I might not have shot Max, but I won’t kid you that I hadn’t thought about it—especially on that New Year’s Eve night . . . after you’d gone to sleep.”

“I know.”

Sean’s eyebrows quirked up. She told him about the portion of the tape Max had insisted she watch in his study on the day that he’d died. She felt Sean’s muscles tense beneath her cheek.

“That
bastard
,” he hissed. His blue eyes blazed with anger. “He must have done a nice editing job on the tape, because what he didn’t show you, apparently, was him grabbing my dick and telling me that the price of having you was to become his play toy in bed.”

Genevieve closed her eyes. How could one man have spread such a great degree of pain that it lingered for years after his death?

“I was such a fool. Why couldn’t I see what he was?”

Sean smoothed his fingertip over her eyelid, as though bidding her to open her eyes. When she did, she saw what was perhaps Sean’s defining characteristic stamped clear on his rugged features; she saw his stubborn, fierce determination.

“You couldn’t see it because what Max Sauren was is completely alien to your nature, Genny. I saw it, but even
I
underestimated the degree of his narcissism and ruthlessness. Everything was a game to him; every person in his life was just a tool in one of his manipulations or a plaything for his pleasure. Albert Rook is scum, but even
he
wasn’t capable of understanding what Max Sauren really was.”

“How long did you know that Max and Rook were lovers?” She felt like such a fool for not realizing Max’s bisexual nature. The clues were there, if only she hadn’t been so naive.

“I guessed it for certain when Max made a point of telling me he had evidence of Rook’s treason. It was Max’s way of keeping Rook in check, so I figured Rook had some kind of inside position with Max that made Max feel vulnerable.”

Genny just shook her head. She knew someday she would come to terms with what Max had done . . . with who the man she’d married had
been
, but for now it just felt too overwhelming to try to make sense of the intricacies and darkness of his character.

The fire had warmed the room comfortably. Sean’s fingers in her hair both soothed and stirred her. Her weighted eyelids fell slowly before she started herself into wakefulness once again.

“Why are you struggling not to fall asleep, girl?”

She stared into his gleaming, firelit eyes. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m afraid if I fall asleep, when I wake up tomorrow, it’ll all be gone.”

He leaned down and pressed his mouth softly to hers. She could smell the remnants of his spicy cologne mixing with the singular scent of his skin and the fragrance of the peppermint gum he’d been chewing while they waited at the police station. Heat swelled in her belly and genitals. Even though she could hardly keep her eyelids open, he created a havoc of sensual need in her body.

“You believed I’d murdered Max in cold blood, but part of you always trusted me despite all the evidence. You trusted me at your core. Isn’t that right, Genny?”

Her throat knotted. She thought of what it had been like seeing him again that first night in this penthouse, all the emotion that had come crashing down on her in a tidal wave. She thought of his fierce lovemaking. Would she really have allowed him to restrain her during sex, have given herself to him so wholly if she believed there was something elementally missing inside him . . . something that had made him a killer?

“That’s right,” she whispered.

“Then I want you to listen to me now. I’m going to be here with you tomorrow. And the next day, and for as many days and nights after as you want me to be around. Nothing is keeping us from each other anymore. I won’t allow it.”

A feeling of happiness unlike anything she’d ever known swelled in her chest upon hearing his words. “I suppose you plan on keeping me tied up here in this penthouse.”

“Whatever it takes.” His blue eyes gleamed in the firelight. “Now go to sleep, girl.”

He must be part magician, because Genevieve found herself doing precisely that.

Her eyelids opened heavily the next morning at the sound of the shower being turned on in the master bathroom. She sat up on her elbow in the king-sized bed and looked around sleepily. Sean had carried her to bed last night, and she’d never awakened even slightly. She still wore the velvet lounging pants and knit top she’d had on since yesterday.

Her head didn’t pain her when she rose from the mussed bed, and no dizziness struck her while she took a quick shower and rebandaged her head with the supplies she and Sean had picked up last night at a twenty-four-hour pharmacy.

She was walking back into the master bedroom wearing a towel secured at her breasts when the bathroom door opened and Sean walked out in a cloud of steam.

She paused just inside the threshold of the door as sensual desire flooded through her flesh. The sight of him took her breath away. His short, wet hair spiked up at odd angles. Her gaze trailed over his naked, golden body. A powerful hunger grew in her. It seemed like a carnal decadence to be allowed to look her fill at all those delineated, gleaming muscles. She stared at the white scar on his hip and sent up a prayer of thanks for his life.

Her eyes lowered to the sight of his genitals resting between muscular, powerful thighs and another fervent prayer of thanks went up for being gifted with such a marvelously beautiful man. His penis was flaccid at the moment, but still long and firm where it rested along his left thigh. His round testicles were the image of masculine potency.

As she studied him, his cock stirred.

She glanced up into his face. Her vagina tightened and ached when she saw the familiar, feral gleam in his steel blue eyes.

“You know something?” he asked in a low, husky voice.

“What?”

“I used to wonder if your eyes alone could make me come. Back then—before we ever touched each other—I swear I could feel your stare on my skin.”

“I felt the same way,” she whispered as her gaze traveled back down over his body. “Sean? Would you do something for me?”

“Anything.”

Her gaze darted up to his face when she heard the complete, unconditional truth behind the single word.

“I know how you like to be in control when we make love.” She walked farther into the bedroom and dropped her towel to the floor. She gloried at seeing the spark that flew into his eyes. Her nipples tightened as he stared at her bare breasts. “But for right now, would it be too much to ask for me to touch you . . . to make love to you?”

He stepped toward her slowly, his manner reminding her of a stalking panther about to pounce.

“You mean you want to restrain me?” he asked.

Genevieve nodded, not sure how to interpret his rigid expression. She relaxed a little when he gave her his small, sexy smile.

“I suppose I could endure it.”

“Will it really be that difficult?” she asked in a hushed voice when he neared her. He reached out and caressed her shoulder softly. Her breath caught in her throat when she saw that his cock had grown hard, and that he’d paused so that the shapely, tapered crown came within a half an inch of brushing against her naked hip.

Liquid heat surged between her thighs.

“Difficult? No, not too much,” Sean mused thoughtfully as he continued to stroke her shoulder and upper arm while he stared hotly at her breasts. His light, elusive touch drove Genevieve to distraction. Her nipples pinched in pleasure as she inevitably thought of his fingertips on them instead of on her shoulder. He pulled his gaze off her breasts and met her stare. “But only because it’s you. I wouldn’t trust anyone else in the world enough to do it.”

“Sean,” she whispered feelingly.

He leaned down and she strained upward. They shared a lingering, carnal kiss that stirred both her heart and flesh.

“Come sit on the edge of the bed,” she whispered next to his lips when he sealed the soulful kiss moments later. When he’d done what she asked, she opened the bedside table and drew out the leather cuffs. Her glance at him was a little uncertain, but he merely raised his eyebrows jauntily and stuck out his hands.

She laughed as she put them around his wrists. “Now put them behind your back.” When he followed her instructions, she got onto the bed and fastened the hooks, restraining his arms. His impressive back, shoulder, and arm muscles flexed. Genevieve realized with a trace of trepidation and excitement that he could probably rip the hooks from the leather if he tried hard enough.

She eyed him cautiously as she stood next to the bed. “You’re not going to try to break loose, are you?”

His expression was worthy of a choirboy. “Now, would I ruin your little experiment, girl?”

She smiled. She’d liked his answer. It warmed her to know that he did this willingly. He seemed to understand she wanted to glory and cherish without constraint everything that had been denied her for so long.

She was in the process of molding his dense deltoid muscles in her palm, scattering hungry, tiny kisses on his neck, jaw, and cheeks and drowning in his delicious, clean male scent when he spoke.

“You know I’m going to have to pay you back for taking such liberties with me,” he murmured as she brushed her lips next to his mouth.

“Is that a promise or a threat?” she asked as her hands moved to his chest and her fingertips explored crisp, curly hair and smooth skin tightly gloving muscle. He made a hissing noise when she circled her forefinger over a flat nipple and he beaded tight for her and groaned roughly.