Safe in His Arms (16 page)

Zac drew a gun and moved with a feline stealth, shielding both her and Parker’s bodies with his own as he corralled them alongside a house, then across the street. “Stay here,” he mouthed, or maybe he said it and she just couldn’t hear him. He crept up the stairs of the house. He was saying something again. She looked at his lips to decipher his words. “Hide in the bushes there. I’ll be back for you.”

She turned to comply and then realized Parker had slipped past her and followed his father in.
Shit
. She, too, crept inside the house. Zac turned briefly and took in their presence, then continued on.

“Don’t shoot.” His voice sounded muffled from the ringing in her ears, but even so, she could hear the perfect calm in it.

“I already did, but he’s wearing Kevlar.” The voice that answered was equally unemotional.

She sucked in her breath. Their captor lay dead in a pool of blood and next to him lay her father, who was bleeding from his ear, but still alive. Zac’s boss was standing over him with a gun pointed at his head.

She pushed past Zac and dropped to her knees next to her father, picking up his hand and holding it her lap.

“Lower your gun.” There was a threat in Zac’s voice that time and she looked up to see his gun pointing at his boss.

Surprisingly, the boss complied, though he didn’t holster it. “Disarm him,” he ordered Zac.

Zac crouched beside her and removed the guns strapped to her father’s torso. Parker appeared on the other side of her father and touched his shoulder. He turned to gaze at his grandson. “Hello, Parker,” he said, as if they were being introduced.

“Hi,” Parker shouted, because he couldn’t hear well. “Are you going to die?”

Her father shook his head. “No.” He lifted his shirt to reveal his Kevlar vest. “Not this time.” His gaze swiveled to the boss, as if challenging him to disagree.

The flash of lights alerted her to the arrival of the fire trucks and only then did she detect their sirens through the ringing in her ears.

“In my car, all of you,” the boss barked, flicking open his phone and dialing a number. “I need cleanup immediately,” he said into the receiver, giving the address as he shepherded them out a side door and holstered his gun. “We’re FBI,” he said to Zac, and the two of them pulled out FBI identification badges, which they showed to the police as they made their way through. Ninety minutes later they were all sitting in Becca’s living room, giving Beatty, the boss, each of their stories. Zac had Parker on his lap and an arm around her waist. Her father pressed a washcloth to his ear, which had been shot, but was apparently nothing more than a flesh wound. The ringing was still present in her ears, but she could hear over the background noise, if she concentrated. It was like listening to someone in a crowded restaurant.

Her father’s story moved her to tears—his crimes were not as horrible as her imagination had created if he was to be believed. He’d committed them only to help Marcus recover his kidnapped family.

“And then you disappeared—why?”

Her father shrugged. “I was ready to be done with all of it, anyway. I’d already been forced to give up my family. I was tired of it. I didn’t mind taking the fall for Marcus and disappearing.”

“Why was the Dark Angel out for you?” Zac asked. When she looked puzzled, he explained, “The nanny.”

“I killed her partner when they stiffed me on a private job.”

Becca felt sickened by the idea of her father as a hitman. But then, Zac was too, wasn’t he? He just did it for his country.

Beatty considered her father with a shrewd expression. “I can remove the order on your head, but you’ll still stand trial for treason.”

Becca’s mouth went dry. It didn’t seem right she should discover her father was alive, only to lose him so quickly to imprisonment.

“However, if you happen to escape while under Agent Casper’s watch, I can’t help that, and I don’t have resources to hunt you.”

His flinty eyes turned to Zac. “I tracked you today to find out why you walked off your mission. I thought we’d discussed this unapproved relationship.”

Zac’s gaze was equally cold. “I want Marcus’s job.”

Beatty raised an eyebrow. “Negative. You are one of our best weapons. Your position is not negotiable.”

“Bullshit.”

Silence stretched between them as they eyed each other like two wolves fighting for the alpha position.

“You think I can’t ghost out as easily as he did?” he asked, jerking his thumb at her father.

“With a wife and kid?”

Becca felt a strange surge of pleasure at being called Zac’s wife and the thought of going on the run with him was more exciting than she cared to admit.

“Wouldn’t you rather know where I am and what I’m up to? Have me working for you, instead of someone else?”

“The organization has made a significant investment in you. You’re too valuable as a field agent to give up.”

“You’ll lose me either way. At least this way, you’ll still have me on your side.”

A muscle jumped in Beatty’s neck as the two men eyed each other. Becca held her breath.

“Finish the job you fucked up in Serbia.”

Zac nodded, once.

Another silence.

“You’ll be bored to death as an analyst.”

Becca sat up taller. Had he just conceded?

Zac gave her a sidelong glance and winked. “I’ll find other things to occupy me.”

Beatty fixed his dark gaze on her father. “I can’t hire you back,” he said, surprising them all with the news that he’d just considered it. “But I’d probably never think of looking for you right here in San Diego.”

Becca smiled. “Thank you, sir.”

He looked at her, his face a stony mask, and made her laugh when he, too, winked.

* * *

Becca looked radiant in her strapless wedding gown, hair falling in soft waves down her back, a wreath of white and peach roses on her crown. Parker wore a beige linen suit that matched Zac’s, with the pants cuffed so they didn’t catch sand. They stood on Silver Stand State Beach in the presence of Becca’s parents, who were on tenuous but increasingly warm terms with each other, Becca’s sister and her sister’s husband, and a justice of the peace.

“Friends, we have been invited here today to share with Zachary Casper and Rebecca Cavanah a very important moment in their lives. They have decided to live their lives together as husband and wife. They have written their own vows, which they will now share with each other. Zac?”

He swallowed and pulled a piece of paper from his pocket, surprised to see that fingers normally steady enough to pick the tiniest lock, or disarm the wiring on a bomb, shook slightly. Though he’d spent a lifetime rejecting emotion, he relished the feeling now—the overwhelming love healing him as it coursed through his body in waves. He took a deep breath, hoping his voice would be steady.

“Becca, until I met you, life wasn’t real to me. I was like the walking dead. You woke me up.” He grinned, looking up from his paper to meet her eye, “I guess I was Sleeping Beauty, and you were the huntsman. Your kiss brought me back to life.”

She smiled back at him, tenderness etched in her face.

He glanced back at his sheet. “Thirty-five years never prepared me for the power of your love. I didn’t know my purpose in life until I met you—and now I’m sure. It’s to be your man, your husband. Today I commit to that role, knowing it is the finest honor of my life. There can be no greater privilege than to hold you in my arms, or sleep beside you at night. You’ve already given me the greatest gift possible in the form of our son, Parker, and I promise you, I will be the best father I can be to him, and to the rest of our children, if we should have more.”

He winked at Parker, who beamed with surprised delight.

“I love you. I dedicate my whole life’s journey to loving you, no matter what path it may take. I give you my heart, my body, my soul. I’ll be your man, forever.”

He gave her a solemn nod, reaching his hand out and she placed her palm in his, smiling and blinking back tears.

“Becca, you may now read your vows,” the officiant instructed.

Her sister handed her a piece of paper on which he could see her neat, loopy scrawl. “Zac, no one has ever understood me the way you do. I don’t think I even understand myself as well as you do.” She looked up and gave him a watery smile. “I am so grateful for your presence in my life and to have you—” she broke off, her voice choking with emotion, “—for real, for keeps, is a dream come true. I feel cherished when I’m with you and I know you would do anything for me. Already you’ve helped me grow and release my fears. I look forward to following your lead and discovering who I really am and who I can be.” She’d peeked at him when she said “following your lead”—acknowledging their own private meaning to the phrase.

His heart swelled even further.

“Do you have a ring for the bride?”

“I do,” he said, pulling out the giant black Sea of Cortez pearl he’d had made into a ring.

Her eyes shone as he placed it on her finger, repeating the vows the officiant offered.

“Becca, do you have a ring for Zac?”

Becca took the ring from her sister, but her fingers trembled so badly, she dropped it into the sand. Everyone laughed as Parker scrambled to snatch it up.

“Here, Mom,” he said with a grin.

“Thanks, baby,” she said, ruffling his hair.

She placed the ring on Zac’s finger, repeating the vows.

“By the power vested in me by the State of California, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss each other.”

Zac cupped Becca’s face and lowered his lips to meet hers, which parted in welcome, her hands coming to rest on his chest. Feeling the eyes of her family upon them, he pulled away, but instantly missed the contact, and pulled her back in for a lingering kiss, causing their guests to laugh. When he reluctantly broke away, he leaned down and picked up Parker, kissing one cheek at the same time as Becca kissed the other.

“Look!” Parker yelled, pointing out to the ocean. A pod of dolphins were flashing their graceful arcs, just a few hundred feet from shore.

Becca caught her breath, and he put his arm around her waist, as they all stood watching the magic together.

Epilogue

Six months later

Zac lifted her off his knee and turned her to sit on his lap, looking into her face. She set her jaw in defiance, refusing to allow the tears stinging her eyes to escape. As always, his face was an inscrutable mask, but she thought she heard a slight sigh as he tilted her torso back down to the bed, and rolled her back over.

Her panties were around her thighs, her bare ass glowing from the long hand spanking he’d just given her. They had quarreled over Kung Fu lessons for Parker. Or rather, she had quarreled while he remained steadfastly calm. His calm had irritated her, and she’d ended up stomping around the house like a child, slamming cabinets and finally, the bedroom door.

Which had earned her this spanking.

She tensed, listening to detect what implement Zac selected. The sound wasn’t a clue, but the loud slap of the leather tawse struck a jolt of fear into her. She clenched her buttocks and surged forward, as if she might squirm right off his lap. He held her easily with an arm around her waist and brought the tawse down across her cheeks again. She gasped with the pain of it.

“Ow!” she complained.

He ignored her and brought it down again, this time on her right cheek, the next on her left. Then he caught the backs of her thighs, which flooded her with rage. She kicked her feet and howled. “Owwww!”

He paused for a moment to let her settle, but didn’t say a word. The entire warm-up with his hand had been silent, as well. They both knew why she was being spanked and that she wasn’t ready to talk.

She caught her breath, a much easier feat these days. She hadn’t had an asthma attack since they’d married as a result of Zac’s patient tutelage of stress relief techniques.

The tawse bit into her flesh again, just as the second wave of pain from the stripes kicked in. She bucked on his lap. Another lash. As the cruel leather instrument stung her flinching ass again and again, she squeezed her eyes closed and grit her teeth. She was sweating with the endurance, fighting the sensations, fighting Zac in a silent, futile battle of wills.

As the pain was met in equal measure by endorphins, her panic receded, and with it her resistance, until her natural submission began to surface. She tried to hold onto her anger, but as he continued to stripe her raw cheeks, it became impossible to keep. She lost her focus, forgot why she was angry as all sensation exploded into the pain of his punishment and the helplessness of her situation. Nothing she could do or say would stop the spanking before Zac decided it was over.

The first sob came out quickly, like a bark, and then she knew nothing but the sensation of the leather biting her skin five more times before the second sob overtook her.

“No more,” she sobbed. “No more.”

He gave her exactly three more, harder than the rest and then stopped, the pliant strap resting across the cleft of her cheeks.

“Sorry,” she croaked.

He slid the heel of his hand inside her shirt, stroking up the length of her back. The gesture completed her surrender, and she sank into the bed, into his touch, weeping with the release of it all.

“Sorry.”

He removed the threat of the strap from her bottom and pulled up her panties, then rolled her up to cradle in his arms.

“I’m still mad at you,” she wept, pouting like a child.

He leaned his forehead against hers, rocking her gently. “Okay,” he said.

Okay.
It was so easy for him to accept her emotions without any triggered response of his own. Sometimes it infuriated her, but she saw the blessing of it.

“Why is it every time we fight,
I
end up getting spanked?” she sulked, sniffing.

The corners of his mouth turned up as he gazed at her tenderly. “Because that’s the way we do things.”